Marcus Aurelius Atticus

“ It should be remembered that Epictetus was almost a contemporary of St. Paul, and the accurate students of early Christianity will be able to estimate how far it was likely, at that time, to have influenced the philosophers of Rome.
Marcus Aurelius was one of the wisest and best of men. Emperor of the civilised world, he lived a life of great simplicity, bearing all the burdens of his high office, and drawing philosophy from the depths of his own contemplation. ”

“ Men came to the throne without seeking it, but also without the right of birth, or in any sense the divine right: men came there understanding themselves, experienced, having been long prepared. The empire was a civil burden which each accepted in his turn, without dreaming of hastening the hour. Marcus Aurelius was made emperor so young, that the idea of ruling had scarcely occurred to him, and had not for a moment exercised its charm upon his mind. ”

“ Balbus) , 8 Aurelius, 426 Aurelius, legate of Hirtius, 232 Aurelius Cotta (C.) , 42, 138, 140, 196 Aurelius Cotta (L.) , 42, 50, 56 Aurelius Cotta (M.) , 48, 196 Aventinum, 68 Avius, 10, 114 Axianus (M.) , 364 Axius (Q.) , 2 Babullius, 206 Bacchus, 362 Baebius, 198 Baiae, 84, 214, 332 Baiana negotia, 228 Balbilius, 330 Balbinus, 146 Balbus, see Cornelius Balbus Baliares, 4 Barba, see Cassius Barba Barea, 382 Barnaeus, 274 Bassus, see Caecilius Bassus and Lucilius Bassus Bibulus, see Calpurnius Bibulus Blesamius, 380 Brinniana auctio, 130 ”

“ I. A CENTURY OF DISGRACE One of the strangest facts in history is the rapid decline of Roman power that set in immediately after the Empire had enjoyed such a succession of good rulers as had never before fallen to its lot. The period of eighty-four years which began with the accession of Nerva and ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius has always been regarded, and rightly regarded, as the golden age of Rome. Trajan was, it is true, a warlike Emperor by choice, and Marcus Aurelius the same by necessity, but Rome had never had since its founding any but the briefest intervals of peace. ”

“ But the sphere of the Roman emperor was far greater than that of the Mediaeval kings. Marcus Aurelius ruled over one hundred and twenty millions of people, without check or hindrance or Constitutional restraint. He could do what he pleased with their persons and their property. Most sovereigns, exalted to such lofty dignity and power, have been either cruel, or vindictive, or self-indulgent, or selfish, or proud, or hard, or ambitious,--men who have been stained by crimes, whatever may have been their services to civilization. Most of them have yielded to their great temptations. ”

“ However, your father will be delighted to have you make such a friend—a man of thirty whose idea of a debauch is to make a syllogism, who is a favourite student of great teachers and can introduce you to Herodes Atticus and to all the best life of Athens. Nor, indeed, do I marvel at Aurelius for trusting him. As a scholar or a jurist he will always be negligible, but as a man he is naïvely sincere and candid and with all the strength of his Roman will he is determined that both his work and his pleasures shall be such as befit a gentleman of honour and refinement. ”

“ Long after his death, his bust was to be seen in the houses of private men through the wide Roman Empire. It may be the vulgar part of human nature which busies itself with the semblance and doings of living sovereigns; it is its nobler part which busies itself with those of the dead. These busts of Marcus Aurelius, in the homes of Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bore witness, not to the inmates’ frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces, but to their reverential memory of the passage of a great man upon the earth. ”

“ Truly a rare opportunity was given to Marcus Aurelius of showing what the mind can do in despite of circumstances. Most peaceful of warriors, a magnificent monarch whose ideal was quiet happiness in home life, bent to obscurity yet born to greatness, the loving father of children who died young or turned out hateful, his life was one paradox. ”

“ We touch here upon one of the most delicate points in the biography of Marcus Aurelius. It is unhappily certain, that, under his reign, Christians were condemned to death, and executed. The policy of his predecessors had been firm in this particular. Trajan, Antonine, Hadrian himself, saw in the Christians a secret sect, anti-social, dreaming of overturning the empire. Like all men true to the old Roman principles, they believed in the necessity of repressing them. ”

“ He says that the emperor has and will have as the successor to Augustus' power the good wishes of men, if he will protect that philosophy which grew up with the empire and began with Augustus, which philosophy the predecessors of Antoninus honored in addition to the other religions. He further says that the Christian religion had suffered no harm since the time of Augustus, but on the contrary had enjoyed all honor and respect that any man could desire. ”

“ But if they determine about nothing—which it is wicked to believe, or if we do believe it, let us neither sacrifice nor pray nor swear by them, nor do anything else which we do as if the gods were present and lived with us; but if however the gods determine about none of the things which concern us, I am able to determine about myself, and I can inquire about that which is useful; and that is useful to every man which is conformable to his own constitution and nature. But my nature is rational and social; and my city and country, so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome ”

“ The great inconvenience of practical life, and that which renders it insupportable to a superior man, is, that, if one carries into it the principles of the ideal, talents become defects; so that very often the accomplished man is less successful in it than one who is fitted by egotism or ordinary routine. Three or four times the virtue of Marcus Aurelius came near being his ruin. The first fault into which it led him was that of sharing the empire with Lucius Verus, to whom he was under no obligation. ”

“ It is believed that the senate urged Aurelius to take the sole administration. But he showed the magnanimity of his nature by at once admitting Verus as his partner, giving him the tribunician and proconsular powers, and the titles Caesar and Augustus. This was the first time that Rome had two emperors as colleagues. Verus, a weak, self-indulgent man, had a high respect for his adoptive brother, and deferred uniformly to his judgment. In the first year of his reign Faustina gave birth to twins, one of whom became the emperor Commodus. ”

“ Both alike realise that man is one of a great community. 'No man is sufficient to himself,' says the Christian; 'we must bear together, help together, comfort together.' But while he sees a chief importance in zeal, in exalted emotion that is, and avoidance of lukewarmness, the Roman thought mainly of the duty to be done as well as might be, and less of the feeling which should go with the doing of it. To the saint as to the emperor, the world is a poor thing at best. 'Verily it is a misery to live upon the earth,' says the Christian ”

“ But although Marcus Aurelius may have held intellectually that his soul was destined to be absorbed, and to lose consciousness of itself, there were times when he felt, as all who hold it must sometimes feel, how unsatisfying is such a creed. Then he gropes blindly after something less empty and vain. 'Thou hast taken ship,' he says, 'thou hast sailed, thou art come to land, go out, if to another life, there also shalt thou find gods, who are everywhere.' There is more in this than the assumption of a rival theory for argument's sake. ”

“ Nevertheless it is better to set oneself a high standard than a low one, and a Roman who endeavoured to control himself by reason, and to place himself above fear and pain, was thereby on the way to be brave, patient, truthful, and just. Those who would see what high character could be associated with Stoicism—whether as the result or as the motive of the choice of the school—should read Epictetus, whose text, written early in the next century, was "sustain and abstain," and also the great-minded gentle Emperor Marcus Aurelius. ”

“ He who thus obeys it will attain tranquillity of mind; nothing can irritate him, for everything is according to nature, and death itself “is such as generation is, a mystery of nature, a composition out of the same elements, and a decomposition into the same, and altogether not a thing of which any man should be ashamed, for it is not contrary to the nature of a reasonable animal, and not contrary to the reason of our constitution.”
The morality of Marcus Aurelius cannot be said to have been new when it was given to the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When he speaks of the shortness of time and the value of fame, riches and power, for which men strive in this world, he speaks not from the standpoint of one who would wish to obtain these things, but as a Roman emperor enjoying the highest honors that man might expect to attain in this world. ”

“ Augustus, knowing of no divine law, elevated sentimental admiration for the simplicity of the ancients into a principle—only to discover that it was inadequate to bear the strain put on it; that the young failed to comprehend why they should control their passions and deny themselves pleasures out of antiquarian pedantry. Marcus Aurelius had sought in philosophy a law that would keep life pure and noble, but his son Commodus cast philosophy to the winds as a bubble blown by the breath of man, and became a monster of vice. ”

“ He gave large sums of money for the endowment of chairs in philosophy and rhetoric, with a view to making the schools the resort of students from all parts of the empire. Along with his son Commodus he entered Rome in 176, and obtained a triumph for victories in Germany. In 177 occurred that persecution of Christians, the share of Aurelius in which has been the subject of so much controversy. Meanwhile the German War continued, and the two Quintilii, who had been left in command, begged Aurelius once more to take the field. ”

“ In the midst of war, pestilence, conspiracy, general corruption, and with the weight of so unwieldy an empire upon him, we may easily comprehend that Antoninus often had need of all his fortitude to support him. The best and the bravest men have moments of doubt and of weakness; but if they are the best and the bravest, they rise again from their depression by recurring to first principles, as Antoninus does. The emperor says that life is smoke, a vapor, and St. ”

“ This letter is one of the most stupid forgeries of the many which exist, and it cannot be possibly founded even on the genuine report of Antoninus to the Senate. If it were genuine, it would free the emperor from the charge of persecuting men because they were Christians, for he says in this false letter that if a man accuse another only of being a Christian, and the accused confess, and there is nothing else against him, he must be set free; with this monstrous addition, made by a man inconceivably ignorant, that the informer must be burnt alive. ”

“ Never esteem aught of advantage which will oblige you to break your faith, or to desert your honour; to hate, to suspect, or to execrate any man; to play a part; or to set your mind on anything that needs to be hidden by wall or curtain. He who to all things prefers the soul, the divinity within him, and the sacred cult of its virtues, makes no tragic groan or gesture. He needs neither solitude nor a crowd of spectators; and, best of all, he will live neither seeking nor shunning death. Whether the soul shall use its surrounding body for a longer or shorter space is to him indifferent. ”

“ The early part of the reign of Aurelius was clouded by national misfortunes. An inundation of the Tiber swept away a large part of Rome, destroying fields, drowning cattle, and causing a famine (162) ; then came earthquakes, fires and plagues of insects; the soldiers in Britain tried to induce their general Statius Priscus to proclaim himself emperor; finally, the Parthians under Vologaeses III. resumed hostilities, annihilated the Roman forces under Severianus at Elegia in Cappadocia, and devastated Syria. ”

“ Epictetus, and that most royal of royal emperors, Marcus Aurelius, had been his masters: their words were ever present with him. "It is not possible that the nature of the universe, either through want of power or want of skill, has made a mistake;" "nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear,"—were hourly watchwords of thought with him. ”

“ Under Antoninus the “pursuit” of Christians was unknown; under Trajan and Hadrian it was forbidden (cf. Keim, Aus dem Urchrist, p. 99) . But Aurelius was an eager patriot and a man of logical mind. From his earliest youth he had learned to identify the ritual of the Roman religion with the very essence of the imperial idea. He became a Salian priest at the age of eight, and soon knew by heart all the forms and liturgical order of the official worship, and even the sacred music. In the earliest statue we have he is a youth offering incense ”