[Titus Antoninus Pius, born 86 A.D., mounted the throne 138, died 161; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, adopted son and successor of the preceding, born 121 A.D., mounted the throne 161, died 180. The first of the Antonines was born of a respectable family, settled in Gaul, became pro-consul of Asia under Hadrian, afterward of a division of Italy, and was selected by Hadrian as his successor on account of his ability and virtues. Marcus Aurelius was distinguished not only as general and administrator, as a ruler of the most exemplary and noble character, but his name has descended to modern ages as that of the royal philosopher. His “Meditations” constitute one of the Roman classics.]
Under Hadrian’s reign the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, assisted military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His vast and active genius was equally suited to the most enlarged views and the minute details of civil policy. But the ruling passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As they prevailed and as they were attracted by different objects, Hadrian was by turns an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist, and a jealous tyrant. The general tenor of his conduct deserved praise for its equity and moderation. Yet in the first days of his reign he put to death four consular senators, his personal enemies, and men who had been deemed worthy of empire; and the tediousness of a painful illness at last made him peevish and cruel.
The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a god or a tyrant, and the honors decreed to his memory were granted to the prayers of the pious Antonines. The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor. After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Ælius Verus, a gay and voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty. But while Hadrian was delighting himself with his own applause and the acclamations of the soldiers, whose consent had been secured by an immense donative, the new Cæsar was reft from imperial friendship by an untimely death.
He left only one son. Hadrian recommended the boy to the gratitude of the Antonines. He was adopted by Pius, and on the accession of Marcus was invested with an equal share of sovereign power. Among the many vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one virtue—a dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he willingly abandoned the ruder cares of empire. The philosophic emperor dissembled his follies, lamented his early death, and cast a decent veil over his memory.
As soon as Hadrian’s caprice in friendship had been gratified or disappointed, he resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity by placing the most exalted merit on the Roman throne. His discerning eye easily discovered a senator about fifty years of age, blameless in all the offices of life, and a youth about seventeen, whose riper years opened the fair prospect of every virtue. The elder of these was declared the son and successor of Hadrian, on condition, however, that he himself should immediately adopt the younger. The two Antonines (for it is of them we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue.
Although Pius had two sons, he preferred the welfare of Rome to the interests of his family; gave his daughter Faustina in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate the tribunitial and consular powers and pro-consular powers, and with a noble disdain, or rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to all the labors of government.
Marcus, on the other hand, revered the character of his benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as his sovereign, and, after he was no more, regulated his own administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor. Their united reigns are possibly the only period in history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.
Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa. The same love of religion, justice, and peace was the distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the situation of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of these virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighboring villages from plundering each other’s harvests. Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greater part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
In private life he was an amiable as well as a good man. The native simplicity of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He enjoyed with moderation the conveniences of his fortune and the innocent pleasures of society; and the benevolence of his soul displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.
The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years he embraced the rigid doctrines of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as things indifferent. His “Meditations,” composed in the tumult of a camp, are still extant; and he even condescended to give lessons on philosophy in a more public manner than was perhaps consistent with the modesty of a sage or the dignity of an emperor. But his life was the noblest commentary on the philosophy of Zeno.