Antoninus

“ There is much that is most excellent and Christian in its tone of feeling, beautiful and attractive in form, lofty in conception and ideal, as were the meditations of Antoninus. He and his friends reveal the potent influence, the pungent leaven, the grain of mustard seed, that has been cast into the Oriental mind. They are feeling after God and finding Him. God has given them by His Spirit some faith. May it daily grow to more and more! ”

“ Surely, that God was not animated by so great and magnanimous a spirit as was Antoninus, a Roman emperor, who declared that, "he had rather keep a single Roman citizen alive than slay a thousand enemies." ”

“ Only the free thinker can be absolutely tolerant, and Antoninus observed and scrupulously maintained the ceremonies of the Roman religion. The policy of his predecessors in this respect had been unswerving. They had seen in the Christians a secret and anti-social sect, which was dreaming of the overthrow of the empire; and, like all those attached to the ancient Roman principles, they thought it necessary to suppress it. ”

“ An exception must be made of one of her sons; his name was Antoninus, and I mentioned him just now; he crossed to Alexandria, and then so greatly admired and preferred the mouth of the Nile at Canobus, that he wholly dedicated and applied himself to the worship of the gods there, and to their secret rites. He made rapid progress towards affinity with the divine, despised his body, freed himself from its pleasures, and embraced a wisdom that was hidden from the crowd. ”

“ Now, though there is great difficulty in understanding all the passages of Antoninus, in which he speaks of Nature, of the changes of things and of the economy of the universe, I am convinced that his sense of Nature and Natural is the same as that which I have stated; and as he was a man who knew how to use words in a clear way and with strict consistency, we ought to assume, even if his meaning in some passages is doubtful, that his view of Nature was in harmony with his fixed belief in the all-pervading, ever present, and ever active energy of God. ”

“ But Antoninus his son was also a man of great ability, and possessed qualities that rendered him admirable in the sight of the people and also made him popular with the soldiers, for he was a military man, capable of enduring the most extreme hardships, disdainful of delicate food, and every other luxury, which made him loved by all the armies. ”

“ Towards the end of this period Marcus was drawn away from Fronto into the influence of Junius Rusticus, a public man whom Antoninus made Prefect of Rome. He was a follower of the Stoic philosophy and introduced his friend and pupil to the teaching of Epictetus. The breach which ensued between Rhetoric and Philosophy is plainly marked in the correspondence, and Fronto rallies his pupil on the subject. ”

“ These writings of Antoninus may be accepted in a similar sense as proof positive in regard to the good type of an imperial Roman. The ideas could not have grown in an isolated way on uncongenial soil; there must have been other good, imperial Romans, and many of them. He is a noble exemplar of his own age, and we learn through him to respect his contemporaries. He is also interesting as a representative man in a more extended sense. ”

“ This remarkable portrait of Antoninus Pius is to be compared with the shorter sketch in vi. 30. 2. Together they make one of the noblest tributes that a great man has paid to another. Without them and the familiar letters of Fronto we would know almost nothing of Antoninus, since this part of the history of Dio Cassius is absent even from the epitome of his work, and the biography is a slight thing. The method which Marcus follows is to enumerate particular traits, beginning with his public and ending with his private life. ”

“ There is a tradition that before his adoption by his grandfather Marcus bore the names Catilius Severus.
Ch. 5. The name of this good man, who was probably a slave, is not known. We learn from the biographer [2] that Marcus was moved to tears at his death, and was rebuked by the court attendants for his display of feeling, but that Antoninus said: 'Allow him to be human: for neither philosophy nor a throne are bars to affection.'
Ch. ”

“ Save what the wicked through their folly do."
Antoninus' conviction of the existence of a divine power and government was founded on his perception of the order of the universe. Like Socrates (Xen. Mem., iv. 3, 13, etc.) he says that though we cannot see the forms of divine powers, we know that they exist because we see their works.
"To those who ask, Where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou comprehend that they exist and so worshipest them? I answer, in the first place, that they may be seen even with the eyes; in the second place, neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I honor it. ”

“ Antoninus was greatly influenced evidently by his associations with Toscanelli and formed one of a group of men containing the Florentine physician astronomer, Cardinal Cusanus and Regiomontanus, himself afterwards a bishop, who were on terms of intimate relationship at least in scholarly matters at this period. ”

“ The senators were not unaware of what had actually happened (for it is impossible to conceal an emperor's acts) ; nevertheless, fear and the desire to flatter led them to vote the emperor all the triumphal honors. Thereafter, Antoninus spent some time in Mesopotamia, where he devoted himself to chariot-driving and to fighting all kinds of wild animals.
XII 1. Antoninus had two generals in his army: Adventus, an old man, who had some skill in military matters but was a layman in other fields and unacquainted with civil administration ”

“ Similarly Marcus says, in what is the central chapter (ch. 30) : 'Wrestle to abide such as philosophy would have made you. Reverence the gods, save mankind.' The last two words imply the third aspect of his creed; man s reason binds him to his fellow men, as both they and he are members of one whole. This duty to, and love of, neighbours, put first in vii. 55, is in this Book rarely stressed, except in sayings like: 'As Antoninus, my city and my fatherland is Rome; as a man, the Universe' (vi. 44) ”

“ Arrius Antoninus, the maternal grandfather of the Emperor Antoninus Pius,940 had twice borne the consulship with antique dignity, and shown himself a model governor as proconsul of Asia.941 He was devoted to Greek literature, and seems to have preferred to compose in that language. We need not accept literally Pliny’s praises of his Atticism, and of the grace and sweetness of his Greek epigrams. ”

“ During the first century of the Empire, chiefly under the influence of the Stoic philosophy, as later on under that of Christianity, there had been growing up a feeling that a slave was, after all, a human being, and had some claim to be treated as such under the Roman law, beneficent in its dealings with all other human beings. Antoninus followed out this new idea both in legislation and in his private life, as did his successor also, who adored his memory. ”

“ They were called the Antonines, though this name properly belongs only to the last two. They were not descended from the old families of Rome; Trajan and Hadrian were Spaniards, Antoninus was born at Nîmes in Gaul. They were not princes of imperial family, destined from their birth to rule. Four emperors came to the throne without sons and so the empire could not be transmitted by inheritance. On each occasion the prince chose among his generals and his governors the man most capable [Pg 296] of succeeding him; he adopted him as his son and sought his confirmation by the Senate. ”

“ X These two were connected both by relationship [9] and affinity; for Verus Antoninus had married the daughter of Marcus Antoninus; and Marcus Antoninus was the son-in-law of Antoninus Pius, having married Galeria Faustina the younger, his own cousin. They carried on a war against the Parthians, who then rebelled for the first time since their subjugation by Trajan. Verus Antoninus went out to conduct that war, and, remaining at Antioch and about Armenia, effected many important achievements by the agency of his generals ”

“ Those who could afford it had his statue or bust; and when Capitolinus wrote, many people still had statues of Antoninus among the Dei Penates or household deities. He was in a manner made a saint. Commodus erected to the memory of his father the Antonine column which is now in the Piazza Colonna at Rome. The bassi rilievi which are placed in a spiral line round the shaft commemorate the victories of Antoninus over the Marcomanni and the Quadi, and the miraculous shower of rain which refreshed the Roman soldiers and discomfited their enemies. ”

“ The historical evidence for the times of Antoninus is very defective, and some of that which remains is not credible. The most curious is the story about the miracle which happened in A.D. 174, during the war with the Quadi. ”

“ The object of the Stoic profession was to cover all sides of a man's life by its principles.
Ch. 8. Apollonius of Chalcedon, a Stoic philosopher, was summoned to Rome by Antoninus to instruct Marcus. The enthusiasm of the pupil is in curious contrast with the unfavourable impression of Apollonius which we get from Lucian and from the biographer. Lucian says that he saw him on his way to Rome, like a new Jason, sailing in quest of the Golden Fleece. ”

“ The old man bestowed marked distinctions upon him, nicknaming him playfully Verissimus, 'most truthful'. When he came of age at 15, he was betrothed to Fabia, the daughter of L. Ceionius Commodus, Hadrian's adopted son and intended successor. These arrangements collapsed on the death of Lucius Aelius Caesar, as Commodus was now named, and Hadrian then adopted Titus Aurelius Antoninus, the husband of the elder Galeria Faustina, Marcus' paternal aunt. Antoninus was, in his turn, to adopt Marcus, then a youth of 17, and the young son of L. Aelius Caesar, afterwards the Emperor L. Aurelius Verus. ”

“ But death certainly and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things equally happen to good and bad men, being things which make us neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil."
The Ethical part of Antoninus' Philosophy follows from his general principles. The end of all his philosophy is to live conformably to Nature, both a man's own nature and the nature of the universe. ”

“ Thus Marcus begins with his paternal grandfather, Annius Verus, and his own father, passes to childhood's discipline, the Greek training adopted in Rome, introduces next his earlier and later tutors, thus leading up to his instruction by his adoptive father, the Emperor Titus Aurelius Antoninus Pius, for public life. Finally, he remembers his debt to the immortal gods for the many good persons, in his own family and kinsfolk, who had assisted him. ”

“ Marcus Antoninus, who succeeded Antoninus Pius, was far from enjoying the tranquillity which the northern rampart was expected to give. He was obliged to carry on very troublesome wars with the Britons, and with much difficulty kept them in check. ”

“ There is no direct answer in Antoninus to the objections which may be made to the existence and providence of God because of the moral disorder and suffering which are in the world, except this answer which he makes in reply to the supposition that even the best men may be extinguished by death. ”

“ A certain man named Antoninus, who from having been a wealthy merchant had become superintendent of the accounts of the duke of Mesopotamia, and after that entered the corps of the protectores, a man of experience and wisdom, and very well known in all that country. ”

“ Andrew at Paris there happened a very important quarrel. The point was to decide whether Marcus Antoninus was an honest man and whether he was in hell or in purgatory, or in limbo, waiting till the day of resurrection. All the men of sense took the part of Marcus Antoninus. They said: "Antoninus has been always just, temperate, chaste, and beneficent. It is true, he has not so good a place in paradise as St. ”

“ Antoninus speaks of a man’s condemnation of himself when the diviner part within him has been overpowered and yields to the less honorable and to the perishable part, the body, and its gross pleasures. ”

“ We have bodies like animals, but we have reason, intelligence, as the gods. Animals have life (ψυχή) and what we call instincts or natural principles of action: but the rational animal man alone has a rational, intelligent soul (ψυχὴ λοική, υοερά) . Antoninus insists on this continually: God is in man, [A] and so we must constantly attend to the divinity within us, for it is only in this way that we can have any knowledge of the nature of God. The human soul is in a sense a portion of the divinity, and the soul alone has any communication with the Deity ”

“ Among his teachers of philosophy was Sextus of Chaeroneia, a grandson of Plutarch. What he learned from this excellent man is told by himself (i. 9) . His favorite teacher was Q. Junius Rusticus (i. 7) , a philosopher, and also a man of practical good sense in public affairs. Rusticus was the adviser of Antoninus after he became emperor. Young men who are destined for high places are not often fortunate in those who are about them, their companions and teachers; and I do not know any example of a young prince having had an education which can be compared with that of M. Antoninus. ”