Marcus

“ Marcus looked at him curiously. “Are you a Christian, sir?” he asked. “Nay, do not fear to answer; I have friends who are Christians,” and he sighed, “nor could I harm you if I would, who wish to harm none, least of all a Christian.”
“My lord Marcus, I fear hurt at no man’s hand; also the days of Nero have gone by and Vespasian reigns, who molests us not. I am Cyril, a bishop of the Christians in Rome, and if you will hear me I am come to preach to you my faith, which, I trust, may yet be yours.” ”

“ The fortunate discovery by Cardinal Mai of large fragments of Fronto's correspondence has given us a lively picture of this stage of Marcus' life. They present a full and happy life, a temper, serious indeed but relieved by delicate tact and humour, a character still immature and self-distrustful and overflowing with affection to his tutor, his mother Lucilla, his wife Faustina, and their children. ”

“ The merit and charm of Marcus is that, wherever you take him up and whenever you lay him down, you have had communion with a wise and chastened temper, faithful to its prescribed limits, always consistent in itself. ”

“ By his consistent and deliberate imitation of Marcus' reign, he delighted the older people, and won the good will of the others without difficulty, released as they were from savage and oppressive tyranny to lead a well-ordered life, free from care. When the mildness of his rule became known everywhere, all nations subject to Roman rule or friendly to the Romans, and all the armies in the field as well, came to regard his reign as that of a god. ”

“ All virtues have vanished; in their stead the awakened man is saluted by impiety, perfidy, lewdness, as new denizens. "Alas for thee, Marcus, with such a sleep and such an awakening!"— The sketch resembles the Catilinarian epoch, shortly after which (about 697) the old man must have written it, and there lay a truth in the bitter turn at the close; where Marcus, properly reproved for his unseasonable accusations and antiquarian reminiscences, is— with a mock application of a primitive Roman custom—dragged as a useless old man to the bridge and thrown into the Tiber. ”

“ Not so much fool after all, perhaps, but better fool than—" He checked himself on the word. "Who is the man?" Again his face grew distorted; on the hands that gripped his chair the veins stood out dark and swollen. Pain made him brutal; he glared at Marcus with the bloodshot eyes of a goaded beast. Marcus, with a hoarse cry, bowed himself to the ground, his hands before his face. Eudemius brought his fist down on the arm of his chair.
"Who is the man? Answer, slave, if thou wouldst keep the flesh on thy living bones! Who is the man, and what hath been his work?" ”

“ Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb.
ALL. [Kneeling] No man shed tears for noble Mutius;
He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.
MARCUS. My lord- to step out of these dreary dumps-
How comes it that the subtle Queen of Goths
Is of a sudden thus advanc'd in Rome?
TITUS. I know not, Marcus, but I know it is-
Whether by device or no, the heavens can tell.
Is she not, then, beholding to the man
That brought her for this high good turn so far?
MARCUS. Yes, and will nobly him remunerate.
Flourish. Re-enter the EMPEROR, TAMORA
and her two SONS, with the MOOR, at one door ”

“ Marcus, his adopted son and successor, who, if possible, held a yet more exalted place in the estimation of men of his own generation, and who has handed down to posterity a yet higher reputation for virtue and wisdom, tells us in his own glowing and striking words that he owed everything to the noble example and teaching of his adopted father Antoninus Pius. ”

“ In the evening, when the people’s patience was all but at an end, Marcus, one of the prætors, mounted the public platform and cried in a loud voice, ‘We are beaten, O Romans, in a great battle, our army is destroyed, and Flaminius the Consul is slain.’
At the words of Marcus the city became a scene of wild despair. Many men and women who had lost their husbands and sons called down the curses of the gods upon their enemy, others wept and prayed in the temples and forbore to curse, for all the bitterness of their loss. ”

“ After living another night and day, Marcus died, [4] leaving to men of his own time a legacy of regret; to future ages, an eternal memorial of excellence. 8. When the news of his death was made public, the whole army in Pannonia and the common people as well were grief-stricken; indeed, no one in the Roman empire received the report without weeping. All cried out in a swelling chorus, calling him "Kind Father," "Noble Emperor," "Brave General," and "Wise, Moderate Ruler," and every man spoke the truth. ”

“ On this occasion also, Marcus the son of Cato,571 fighting among the noblest and bravest of the youth, though hard pressed, did not yield nor flee, but laying about him and calling out who he was, and his father’s name, he fell on a heap of the enemy’s slain. There fell, too, the bravest of the men, exposing themselves in defence of Brutus. ”

“ Marcus has satisfied himself as to the very room which he occupied as his study and library, and where he prepared himself for the morning courts; and in the same apartment—hoping as he says to catch something from the genius of the place—does he apply himself to the same professional labors. His name and repute are now second to none in Rome. Yet, young as he is, he begins to weary of the bar, and woo the more quiet pursuits of letters and philosophy. Nay, at the present moment, agriculture claims all his leisure, and steals time that can ill be spared from his clients. ”

“ Many thanks, but I will not leave you to go hunting the wolves of Spartacus alone.”
“My dear Marcus! Well, I think it will be amusing!”
“Oh, I suppose you will talk philosophy to the gentleman.”
“I should be delighted. He would give us some living thoughts, our—what is he, Marcus? Will you wager? Thracian or Gaul?”
“More likely a mongrel Roman. You are a dreamer, Caius. I will make you a wager. Either the fellow will lurk in his hole till we are tired of beating the mountain, or he will out upon us and cut our throats.”
“I permit no man to cut my throat till I am ready. ”

“ The world did not accept Marcus as a teacher. Men readily recognized his high character, but for a thousand years and more nobody dreamed of taking him as a guide—nobody, that is, outside the schools. For the world it was faith or unbelief, and the two contemporaries already mentioned represent the two poles to which the thoughts of men gravitated, who were not yet ready for a cleavage with the past. ”

“ So fierce was the onslaught that though the Roman ranks remained comparatively unbroken, they were pressed back by the sheer weight of their enemies, but only to recoil, and as they advanced to recover their lost ground, it was over the bodies of some of their wounded men, and to Marcus’ horror he found himself once more called upon to dash forward to another’s help. ”

“ For who would not detest one who is the wretched contriver of such audacious falsehoods, when he perceives the truth turned by Marcus into a mere image, and that punctured all over with the letters of the alphabet? ”

“ For I cannot by any means pass over in silence such great humanity, such unprecedented and unheard-of clemency, such moderation in the exercise of supreme and universal power, such incredible and almost godlike wisdom. For now that Marcus Marcellus, O conscript fathers, has been restored to you and the republic, I think that not only his voice and authority are preserved and restored to you and to the republic, but my own also. ”

“ And here Marcus, the son of Cato, and son- in-law of Aemilius, whilst he showed all possible courage, let fall his sword. Being a young man, carefully brought up and disciplined, and, as son of so renowned a father, bound to give proof of more than ordinary virtue, he thought his life but a burden, should he live and permit his enemies to enjoy this spoil. ”

“ Wretched empire, miserable state, which endures these hungry blood-suckers battening on her vitals!—A worthy man, doubtless, is Marcus; who, in his eagerness to be reputed clement, suffers those to live whose conduct he himself abhors. Where is that L. Cassius, whose name I vainly inherit? Where is that Marcus,—not Aurelius, mark you, but Cato Censorius? Where the good old discipline of ancestral times, long since indeed disused, but now not so much as looked after in our aspirations? Marcus Antoninus is a scholar; he enacts the philosopher ”

“ The mildness of Marcus, which the rigid discipline of the Stoics was unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most amiable, and the only defective part of his character. His excellent understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his heart. Artful men, who study the passions of princes, and conceal their own, approached his person in the disguise of philosophic sanctity, and acquired riches and honors by affecting to despise them. ”

“ Without any aid from Christianity, which, indeed, he could not understand and occasionally persecuted, Marcus learnt not only how to make his own life pure, but how to live and work for the world of his day. ”

“ Marcus Junius, the uncle of the youth, a most frugal and temperate man, came to her; a man who shows his regard for his high rank by the greatest honour, and modesty, and attention to his duties. Publius Potitius, his guardian, came to her. Oh that praetorship of yours, bitter to many, miserable, scandalous? To say nothing of other points, with what shame, with what indignation, do you think that such men as these went to the house of a prostitute? ”

“ There followed in Marcus' life a momentous breach with mere rhetoric. He had been reading Aristo, the Stoic philosopher. He tells Fronto that he cannot argue on both sides of a question any longer; he is indeed turning from his old tutor to follow Rusticus and philosophy. Fronto rallies him upon the contorted and crabbed stock-in-trade of his new Stoic models, warns him shrewdly of the danger he runs in deserting Latin eloquence, but to no purpose. ”

“ Lucius our Emperor; for well I know
The common voice do cry it shall be so.
ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal Emperor!
MARCUS. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,
And hither hale that misbelieving Moor
To be adjudg'd some direful slaught'ring death,
As punishment for his most wicked life. Exeunt some
attendants. LUCIUS, MARCUS, and the others descend
ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!
LUCIUS. Thanks, gentle Romans! May I govern so
To heal Rome's harms and wipe away her woe!
But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,
For nature puts me to a heavy task. ”

“ Marcus, in his train of thought, combines two arguments. One is from the goodness of the gods (or of Nature) . Material blessings and sufferings would not be permitted by Heaven, if they were real goods and evils, to fall equally upon the just and the unjust. ”

“ And he often used to say, "Listen to me, to whom the Allemanni and Franks have listened;" imitating in this an expression of the ancient emperor Marcus Aurelius. But he omitted to notice that there was a great difference between himself and his predecessor.
5. For when Marcus was passing through Palestine, on his road to Egypt, he is said, when wearied by the dirt and rebellious spirit of the Jews, to have often exclaimed with sorrow, "O Marcomanni, O Quadi, O Sarmatians, I have at last found others worse than you!" ”

“ What Marcus here says about the Roman aristocrats' lack of true human affection, as it appeared to his tutor, is exactly illustrated by a letter of Fronto, in which he uses the same Greek word: 'Affection is not, I think, a Roman quality: in my whole life in Rome I have found anything rather than a sincerely affectionate man, so that I believe that it is because no one in Rome is in fact affectionate that there is no Roman name for this human excellence.'
Ch. ”

“ For more than a century after his death, and so long as Rome retained a remnant of her old vitality, a grateful people adored him as a saint, and he who "had no bust, picture, or statue of Marcus in his house was looked upon as a profane and irreligious man." ”

“ As a matter of fact, Marcus has been condemned as a persecutor of the Christians on purely circumstantial and quite insufficient grounds. The general testimony of contemporary Christian writers is against the supposition. So is the known character of Marcus. His distinguishing characteristic, in which he excelled all recorded rulers, was humanity. ”

“ But the crowd pressed about him and I saw him no more, for he retraced his steps, followed by the multitude, while I pursued my way, filled with curiosity as to the result. As I neared the house of Marcus I heard sounds of thanksgiving, and what was my surprise to hear, and in a moment after see, the man who had been ill, perfectly restored, and fairly dancing and laughing with joy.
Marcus is a man of probity and considerable influence, as you well know, and his faith in the power of Jesus is very great, which can hardly be counted singular. ”

“ Marcus observes that only reasonable creatures have forgotten this urgent law of common sympathy; but he continues, conforming his language to the teaching of Heraclitus, man cannot escape the principle of unity which controls the whole, Nature overtakes and masters him. [16]
This view of evolution is interesting because there is no trace, such as we find in some Stoical writers, of the age of gold. Marcus recognizes in the animal world a tendency to permanency of union in the social insects, in gregarious animals and in birds, but in man both unity and strife. ”