"Asia, Europe, are corners of the universe; all the sea is a drop in the universe; Athos a little clod of the universe; all the present time is a point in eternity. All things are little, changeable, perishable" (vi. 36.)
And to Marcus too, no less than to Shakespeare, it seemed that--
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;"
for he writes these remarkable words:--
"The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread in fishponds, labourings of ants, and burden-carrying runnings about of frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings--this is what life resembles. It is thy duty then in the midst of such things to show good humour, and not a proud air; to understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself."
In fact, the Court was to Marcus a burden; he tells us himself that Philosophy was his mother, Empire only his stepmother; it was only his repose in the one that rendered even tolerable to him the burdens of the other. Emperor as he was, he thanked the gods for having enabled him to enter into the souls of a Thrasea, an Helvidius, a Cato, a Brutus. Above all, he seems to have had a horror of ever becoming like some of his predecessors; he writes:--
"Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar;[68] take care thou art not dyed with this dye. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Reverence the gods and help men. Short is life. There is only one fruit of this terrene life; a pious disposition and social acts." (iv. 19,)
[68] Marcus here invents what M. Martha justly calls "an admirable barbarism" to express his disgust towards such men--[Greek: ora mae apukaidaoosaes]--"take care not to be Caesarised."
It is the same conclusion as that which sorrow forced from another weary and less admirable king: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man."
But it is time for us to continue the meagre record of the life of Marcus, so far as the bare and gossiping compilations of Dion Cassius,[69] and Capitolinus, and the scattered allusions of other writers can enable us to do so.