Seekers after God

by F. W. Farrar

THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.

On the death of Hadrian in A. D. 138, Antoninus Pius succeeded to the throne, and, in accordance with the late Emperor's conditions, adopted Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the age of fifteen to the sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new Emperor broke off the engagement, and betrothed him instead to his daughter Faustina. The marriage, however, was not celebrated till seven years afterwards, A.D. 146.

The long reign of Antoninus Pius is one of those happy periods that have no history. An almost unbroken peace reigned at home and abroad. Taxes were lightened, calamities relieved, informers discouraged; confiscation were rare, plots and executions were almost unknown. Throughout the whole extent of his vast domain the people loved and valued their Emperor, and the Emperor's one aim was to further, the happiness of his people. He, too, like Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the bee was good for the hive. He strove to live as the civil administrator, of an unaggressive and united republic; he disliked war, did not value the military title of Imperator, and never deigned to accept a triumph.

With this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable in his private relations as he was admirable in the discharge of his public duties, Marcus Aurelius spent the next twenty-three years of his life. So close and intimate was their union, so completely did they regard each other as father and son, that during all that period Aurelius never slept more than twice away from the house of Antoninus. There was not a shade of jealousy between them; each was the friend and adviser of the other, and, so far from regarding his destined heir with suspicion, the Emperor gave him the designation "Caesar," and heaped upon him all the honours of the Roman Commonwealth. It was in vain that the whisper of malignant tongues attempted to shake this mutual confidence. Antoninus once saw the mother of Aurelius in earnest prayer before the statue of Apollo. "What do you think she is praying for so intently?" asked a wretched mischief-maker of the name of Valerius Omulus: "it is that you may die, and her son reign." This wicked suggestion might have driven a prince of meaner character into violence and disgust, but Antoninus passed it over with the silence of contempt.

It was the main delight of Antoninus to enjoy the quiet of his country villa. Unlike Hadrian, who traversed immense regions of his vast dominion, Antoninus lived entirely either at Rome, or in his beautiful villa at Lorium, a little seacoast village about twelve miles from the capital. In this villa he had been born, and here he died, surrounded by the reminiscences of his childhood. In this his real home it was his special pleasure to lay aside the pomp and burden of his imperial rank. "He did not," says Marcus, "take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he eat, nor about the texture and colour of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his slaves." Even the dress he wore was the work of the provincial artist in his little native place. So far from checking the philosophic tastes of his adopted son he fostered them, and sent for Apollonius of Chalcis to be his teacher in the doctrines of Stoicism. In one of his notes to Fronto, Marcus draws the picture of their simple country occupations and amusements. Hunting, fishing, boxing, wrestling, occupied the leisure of the two princes, and they shared the rustic festivities of the vintage. "I have dined," he writes, "on a little bread.... We perspired a great deal, shouted a great deal, and left some gleanings of the vintage hanging on the trellis work.... When I got home I studied a little, but not to much advantage I had a long talk with my mother, who was lying on her couch." Who knows how much Aurelius and how much the world may have gained from such conversation as this with a mother from whom he had learnt to hate even the thought of evil? Nor will any one despise the simplicity of heart which made him mingle with the peasants as an amateur vintager, unless he is so tasteless and so morose as to think with scorn of Scipio and Laelius as they gathered shells on the seashore, or of Henry IV. as he played at horses with his little boys on all-fours. The capability of unbending thus, the genuine cheerfulness which enters at due times into simple amusements, has been found not rarely in the highest and purest minds.

For many years no incident of importance broke the even tenor of Aurelius's life. He lived peaceful, happy, prosperous, and beloved, watching without envy the increasing years of his adopted father. But in the year 161, when Marcus was now forty years old, Antoninus Pius, who had reached the age of seventy-five, caught a fever at Lorium. Feeling that his end was near, he summoned his friends and the chief men of Rome to his bedside, and there (without saying a word about his other adopted son, who is generally known by the name of Lucius Verus) solemnly recommended Marcus to them as his successor; and then, giving to the captain of the guard the watchword of "Equanimity," as though his earthly task was over he ordered to be transferred to the bedroom of Marcus the little golden statue of Fortune, which was kept in the private chamber of the Emperors as an omen of public prosperity.

The very first public act of the new Emperor was one of splendid generosity, namely, the admission of his adoptive brother Lucius Verus into the fullest participation of imperial honours, the Tribunitian and proconsular powers, and the titles Caesar and Augustus. The admission of Lucius Verus to a share of the empire was due to the innate modesty of Marcus. As he was a devoted student, and cared less for manly exercises, in which Verus excelled, he thought that his adoptive brother would be a better and more useful general than himself, and that he could best serve the State by retaining the civil administration, and entrusting to his brother the management of war. Verus, however, as soon as he got away from the immediate influence and ennobling society of Marcus, broke loose from all decency, and showed himself to be a weak and worthless personage, as unfit for war as he was for all the nobler duties of peace, and capable of nothing but enormous gluttony and disgraceful self-indulence. Two things only can be said in his favour; the one, that, though depraved, he was wholly free from cruelty; and the other, that he had the good sense to submit himself entirely to his brother, and to treat him with the gratitude and deference which were his due.

Marcus had a large family by Faustina, and in the first year of his reign his wife bore twins, of whom the one who survived became the wicked and detested Emperor Commodus. As though the birth of such a child were in itself an omen of ruin, a storm of calamity began at once to burst over the long tranquil State. An inundation of the Tiber flung down houses and streets over a great part of Rome, swept away multitudes of cattle, spoiled the harvests, devastated the fields, and caused a distress which ended in wide-spread famine. Men's minds were terrified by earthquakes, by the burning of cities, and by plagues or noxious insects. To these miseries, which the Emperors did their best to alleviate, was added the horrors of wars and rumours of wars. The Partians, under their king Vologeses, defeated and all but destroyed a Roman army, and devastated with impunity the Roman province of Syria. The wild tribes of the Catti burst over Germany with fire and sword; and the news from Britain was full of insurrection and tumult. Such were the elements of trouble and discord which overshadowed the reign of Marcus Aurelius from its very beginning down to its weary close.

As the Partian war was the most important of the three, Verus was sent to quell it, and but for the ability of his generals--the greatest of whom was Avidius Cassius--would have ruined irretrievably the fortunes of the Empire. These generals, however, vindicated the majesty of the Roman name, and Verus returned in triumph, bringing back with him from the East the seeds of a terrible pestilence which devastated the whole Empire and by which, on the outbreak of fresh wars, Verus himself was carried off at Aquileia.

Worthless as he was, Marcus, who in his lifetime had so often pardoned and concealed his faults, paid him the highest honours of sepulcre, and interred his ashes in the mausoleum of Hadrian. There were not wanting some who charged him with the guilt of fratricide, asserting that the death of Verus had been hastened by his means!