It is remarkable that this philosophic emperor should have permitted a cruel persecution of the Christians in A.D. 177, perhaps at the instigation of the Stoic philosophers—the only blot upon his general humanity and benevolence. Among the victims of this persecution was Justin Martyr, the author of the Apologies for Christianity, addressed to Antoninus, as well as to Aurelius himself. Toward the close of his reign, having become convinced of the falseness of the charges made against the Christians, Aurelius became once more tolerant and philosophic.
In A.D. 176 the emperor triumphed at Rome for his various successes. He gave a donation of eight pieces of gold to every citizen, and made his son Commodus his colleague. In the mean time the barbarians in the interior of Europe, moved by a general impulse, began to press upon the frontiers of the empire, and from this time seem never to have ceased their inroads until the final destruction of the Roman power. Aurelius marched, A.D. 177, to the frontier, defeated the barbarians in various engagements, and had perhaps proved the savior and second founder of Rome, when he was seized with a fever at Vindobona (Vienna), A.D. 180, and died after a few days' illness. He was the last of the Roman emperors who labored for the welfare of his people. He was, no doubt, the greatest and wisest of them all, and he united the different talents of a man of learning, a fine writer, a skillful soldier, and a benevolent, judicious ruler. His "Meditations," which have made him known to posterity, are among the most delightful productions of the human intellect, while his private character seems to have been no less attractive than his writings.
REIGN OF M. COMMODUS ANTONINUS, A.D. 180-192.
The depraved Commodus succeeded his virtuous father at the age of twenty. He had been educated with singular care, but was wholly given up to coarse sensuality. The people, however, still hoped that he might be worthy of his father, and received him, upon his accession, with loud expressions of joy. For a short time he concealed his true disposition; but his sister Lucilla, jealous of her brother's wife Crispina, formed a conspiracy against him in A.D. 182, and he escaped with difficulty from the hand of the assassin. From this moment he threw off all disguise, and indulged his natural vices without restraint. He put to death the most illustrious men of the time, encouraged informers and false accusations, and filled Rome with terror. In the midst of these cruelties he often sang, danced, or played the buffoon in public, fought as a gladiator in the circus, and ordered the people to worship him as a second Hercules. His lieutenant Marcellus, in A.D. 184, defeated the Caledonians, after they had passed the long wall of Hadrian, and had ravaged the northern part of Britain; and in A.D. 191 an invasion of the Frisians was repelled. Commodus, however, paid no attention to the affairs of the empire. In A.D. 189 Italy suffered from a pestilence and famine, when the people of Rome rose against the emperor's præfect, Cleander, and tore him to pieces. Commodus still continued his murders, and was at last assassinated by the directions of his mistress, Marcia, whose death he had resolved upon. He died December 31st, A.D. 192. The Senate ordered his memory to be held infamous, and his body to be dragged by iron hooks through the streets, and then to be thrown into the Tiber; but his successor Pertinax prevailed that it should be placed in the mausoleum of Hadrian. Such was the son of Marcus Aurelius.
