Of this fresh war on the Danube few records have come down to us. From the outset it was more successful than the former campaign. One of the most brilliant episodes was a great victory gained over the Germans, after fearful carnage, at the end of the year 179, by Tarruntenus Paternus, a notable jurist and scientific tactician, who was now in command as præfectus prætorio. Fortune seemed to smile ever more brightly on the Roman arms, when, as the evil genius of the empire would have it, the admirable emperor died of the plague in the camp at Vindobona, rightly appreciated and deeply mourned in death; deified and vainly desired as the fortunes of the declining empire became more and more gloomily overcast.[m]
“It seemed,” said the sympathetic Goldsmith,[b] “as if the whole glory and prosperity of the Roman Empire died with Aurelius. From thenceforward we are to behold a train of emperors either vicious or impotent, either wilfully guilty or unable to assert the dignity of their station. We are to behold an empire, grown too great, sinking by its own weight, surrounded by barbarous and successful enemies without and torn by ambitious and cruel factions within; the principles of the times wholly corrupted; philosophy attempting to regulate the minds of men without the aid of religion; and the warmth of patriotism entirely evaporated, by being diffused in too wide a circle.” But a certain allowance must be made for eulogistic exaggeration in such an estimate as this. It must never be forgotten that a great empire changes slowly. All was not well with the empire before Marcus Aurelius, and all was not ill with it afterwards.[a]
The despondency which had seized on the gentle emperor’s spirits is strongly marked in the circumstances of his last hours. While anticipating his own decease with satisfaction, and even with eagerness, he regarded himself as only a fellow-traveller on the common road of life with all around him, and took leave of his friends as one who was but just preceding them. If he regarded the condition of public affairs, the prospect of his son succeeding him was not such as to console him; for he could not hide from himself that Commodus was vicious, cruel, and illiterate. The indulgence he had shown to his consort’s irregularities might be pardoned by the state, to which they were of little moment; but his weakness in leaving to his graceless offspring the command of a world-wide empire must reflect more strongly on his memory.
He may have judged, indeed, that the danger to the state from a bad prince was less than the danger from a disputed succession, especially in the face of the disasters accumulating around it. On his death-bed he warned his son not to underrate the peril from the barbarians, who, if at the moment worsted and discouraged, would soon revive, and return again to the assault with increasing vigour. And so he left the laws of inheritance, as now ordinarily received, to take their course, indicating his will that Commodus should succeed him by the simple form of recommending him to the care of his officers and to the favour of the immortal gods. On the seventh day of his illness he admitted none but his unworthy son to his chamber, and after a few words dismissed him, covered his head for sleep, and passed away alone and untended.
Born on the 20th of April, 121, and dying on the 17th of March, 180, he had almost completed his fifty-ninth year. His career had been divided into three nearly equal portions: the first, to his association in the empire with Antoninus; the second, to his accession to complete sovereignty; the third, from thence to his decease. The first was the season of his general education, the second that of his training for empire, in the last he exercised power uncontrolled. In each he had acquitted himself well, in each he had gained himself love and admiration; but the earlier periods were eminently prosperous and happy; the crowning period was a time of trial, of peril, fatigue, distress, and apprehension.
MERIVALE COMPARES AURELIUS AND ALFRED THE GREAT
Historical parallels between men of different times and circumstances are very apt to mislead us, yet I cannot refrain from indicating the comparison, which might be drawn with unusual precision, between the wise, the virtuous, the much-suffering Aurelius, and England’s great and good king Alfred. Both arrived early and unexpectedly to power; both found their people harassed by the attacks of importunate enemies; they assumed with firmness the attitude of resistance and defence, and gained many victories in the field, though neither could fail to acknowledge the unequal conditions of the struggle. Both found themselves at the head of a weak and degenerate society whose hour of dissolution had well-nigh struck. Nevertheless, they contended manfully in its behalf, and strove to infuse their own gallant spirit into a people little worthy of their championship.
But Aurelius and Alfred were not warriors only. They were men of letters by natural predilection and early habit; they were legislators, administrators, and philosophers, with this difference, that the first came at the end of a long course of civilised government, the second almost at its beginning; the first at the mournful close of one period of mental speculation, the second at the fresh and hopeful commencement of another. The one strove to elevate the character of his subjects by the example of his own scrupulous self-examination; the other by precepts of obedience to an external revelation. But both were, from their early days, weak in body, and little fit to cope with the appalling fatigues of their position; both, if I mistake not, were sick at heart, and felt that their task was beyond their power, and quitted life prematurely, with little reluctance.
In one respect, however, their lot was different. The fortunes of the people of the English Alfred, after a brief and distant period of obscuration, have ever increased in power and brightness, like the sun ascending to its meridian. The decline of which Aurelius was the melancholy witness was irremediable and final, and his pale solitary star was the last apparent in the Roman firmament.[l]