He spoke to them of the vanity of life,” 98- 
 
The Emperor Marcus 
 Aurelius 
 
 A STUDY IN IDEALS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN C. JOY, SJ. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
 B. HERDER 
 
 T7 SOUTH BROADWAY, ST. LOUIS, MO- 
 CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY OF IRELAND 
 
 24 UPPER O'CONNELL STREET, DUBLIN 
 
 1913 
 
20621 
 
 Printed by Browne and Nolan, Ltd., Dublin. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pbbludb ..... 
 
 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Boy Stoic .... 
 
 11 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A Philosophbe on the Throne 
 
 . 30 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Life in the Palace 
 
 44 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 On the Danube .... 
 
 66 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Book of Meditations 
 
 68 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 :.»AST Days in Rome 
 
 8] 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ‘ The End of the Old World ’* . 
 
 96 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 'he Martyrs of Christ . 
 
 . 106 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HE Pagan 1 Kempis 
 
 128 
 
Even in a palace, life may be led well ! 
 
 So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, 
 Marcus Aurelius, But the stifling den 
 Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell. 
 
 Our freedom for a little bread we sell, | 
 
 And drudge under some foolish master's ken \ 
 Who rates us if we peer outside our pen — 
 Matched with a palace, is not this a hell? 
 
 Even in a palace! On his truth sincere 
 Who spake these words, no shadow ever came 
 And when my ill-schooled spirit is aflame 
 
 Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win. 
 
 I'll stop and say, “ There were no succour here, 
 The aids to noble life are all within," 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
The Emperor Marcus Aurelius 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 “ Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the most 
 beautiful figure in history. He is one of 
 those consoling and hope-inspiring marks 
 which stand for ever to remind our weak 
 and easily discouraged race how high 
 human goodness and perseverance have 
 once been carried and may be carried again. 
 The interest of mankind is peculiarly 
 attracted by examples of signal goodness 
 in high places ; for that testimony to the 
 worth of goodness is the most striking which 
 is borne by those to whom all the means of 
 pleasure and self-indulgence lay open, by 
 those who had at their command the king- 
 doms of the world and the glory of them. 
 Marcus Aurelius was the ruler of the grandest 
 of Empires and he was one of the best of 
 men. Besides him history presents one 
 or two other sovereigns eminent for their 
 goodness, such as Saint Louis and Alfred. 
 But Marcus Aurelius has for us Moderns 
 2 
 
2 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 this great superiority of interest over Saint 
 Louis or Alfred, that he lived and acted in 
 a state of society modern by its essential 
 characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, 
 in a brilliant centre of civilisation. Trajan 
 talks of ‘ our enlightened age ’ just as 
 glibly as The Times talks of it. Marcus 
 Aurelius thus becomes for us a man like 
 ourselves, a man in all things tempted as 
 we are. Saint Louis inhabits an atmo- 
 sphere of medieval Catholicism which the 
 man of the nineteenth century may admire, 
 indeed, and passionately wish to inhabit, 
 but which, strive as he will, he cannot 
 really inhabit. Alfred belongs to a state 
 of society half barbarous. Neither Alfred 
 nor Saint Louis can be morally and intellec- 
 tually as near to us as Marcus Aurelius.” 
 
 These are the words of a writer in the 
 highest degree representative of modern 
 thought — Matthew Arnold. As such they 
 will serve as a text for this study, and, I 
 hope, as a justification for including it 
 amongst the publications of the Catholic 
 Truth Society. They will be a text since 
 they touch on the points of greatest interest 
 in the life of Marcus Aurelius ; his high 
 natural ideals ; his fidelity in great part to 
 those ideals ; the contrast thus presented 
 between him and his surroundings. This 
 quotation from such a writer will also 
 
PRELUDE 
 
 8 
 
 perhaps justify the appearance of this study 
 in the good company of the C.T.S. cata- 
 logue, since it proves the interest which this 
 pagan Emperor of Rome has for the men 
 of our own time, whatever their opinions. 
 For Christians there is the additional interest 
 afforded by the contrast between his ideals 
 and those of the martyrs — ^the ideals of 
 nature and those of grace. Incidentally, a 
 study of his life and age shows, as Mr. F. 
 H. Myers well points out, how futile are the 
 neo-pagan theories, so much in fashion in 
 our own times, of the self-sufficiency of 
 nature ; and also, as Mr. Myers does not 
 point out, how essential for heroic virtue is 
 the indwelling of the Spirit of God, the 
 supernatural aid of grace. 
 
 The life of Marcus Aurelius has had a 
 fascination for those in all ages who are 
 interested in the strivings of human nature 
 after the ideal — and these are, I suppose, 
 most men of culture {humani the Romans 
 rightly called them). The early Christians 
 took the same interest in him which they 
 took in all the nobler pagans, in Plato and 
 in Socrates, in Vergil, Seneca, and Epictetus ; 
 they praised his virtue and found in it a 
 spur to higher things. If unregenerate 
 nature could do so much, how ought not the 
 regenerate blush for their tepidity ? This 
 was the sentiment also of that Cardinal 
 
4 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 Barberini who translated the Meditations 
 which Marcus has left us. He dedicated 
 the translation to his own soul “ in order 
 to make it redder than his purple at the 
 sight of the virtues of this gentile.” Mar- 
 cus’ contemporaries of all shades of opinion 
 — Christians no less than pagans — bore 
 testimony to the integrity of his life and, on 
 the whole, the wisdom and justice of his 
 rule. Long after his death his bust might 
 be found amongst the household gods all 
 over the Empire. In our own age when men 
 are losing hold of the supernatural and trying 
 to live without it, the high attainments of 
 a mere pagan are held up for admiration. 
 Dilettanti are in love with a moral code 
 which brings with it no shocking sanctions ; 
 a generation sick unto death with scepticism 
 seeks peace in an undogmatic philosophy of 
 life : but it is all oil and no wine ; therefore 
 it heals not. 
 
 Yet honour where honour is due ; we 
 have no wish to detract from the greatness 
 of the good Emperor — a greatness which is 
 only realised by contrast with the surround- 
 ings in which he lived. 
 
 Rome, when Marcus came to rule over it, 
 was the centre of a vast Empire and no 
 capital has ever surpassed it in immorality. 
 It had all the viciousness of Paris without 
 its grace, the gross materialism of London 
 
PEELUDE 
 
 5 
 
 enhanced by a system of slavery which 
 brutalised master as well as slave, and all 
 this joined to the superstition of Pekin. It 
 had not improved, but rather the reverse, 
 since St. Paul saw it delivered over to a 
 reprobate sense. It was the spoiled child 
 of its Empire. All Europe exeept Germany 
 and Russia owned its sway and ministered 
 to its desires ; so did Asia Minor and Syria 
 as far East as the Euphrates ; so too did 
 Egypt and the whole northern part of 
 Africa. The wealth of all these provinces 
 was borne by fleets of merchantmen to its 
 port of Ostia ; and not of these alone but 
 the wealth also of India and China. But 
 besides wealth they gave her something 
 which she needed more : they gave her life. 
 She must long ago have perished of corrup- 
 tion, did not the fresh pure blood of Britain, 
 Gaul and Spain come throbbing through 
 the Empire to give health to its diseased 
 heart. Only when the heart itself became 
 surcharged with corruption and poured its 
 foulness back into the system did the 
 Empire decay. But this was not yet. 
 More than two centuries had to pass after 
 the reign of Marcus Aurelius (a.d. 160 - 181 ) 
 before the final rot set in : such was the 
 strange vitality of that Empire, the greatest 
 the world has ever seen. 
 
 From time to time the Emperors made 
 
6 THK EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 desperate efforts to stem the rising tide of 
 immorality. As practical men they recog- 
 nised what Napoleon and even Voltaire 
 recognised, that there could be no morality 
 for the masses without religion ; but they 
 did not realise so clearly that there could be 
 religion, especially pagan religion, without 
 morality. This was indeed what came about 
 in the second century, especially during the 
 reigns of Marcus Aurelius and his pre- 
 decessor. There was a great revival in 
 religion but no corresponding improvement 
 in morals. Nor was this strange. The gods 
 themselves were represented as grossly 
 immoral beings ; religion was merely a 
 business transaction with them — a quid 
 pro quo — and under the code of honour 
 which too often marks such transactions. 
 Hence, if you safely could, it was quite the 
 thing to cheat the gods ; you took your 
 chance, but the probability was that you 
 would get the worst of it, since the gods 
 were the more dexterous sharpers. 
 
 Such were the old Graeco-Roman gods ; 
 but just at this time there was new and 
 better blood introduced into the Pantheon. 
 The gods of Egypt and the East — Mithra 
 and Isis — strange mystic deities, began to 
 be in high honour all over the Empire. In 
 these new cults there was much that was 
 higher and nobler than the old Roman re- 
 
PRELUDE 
 
 7 
 
 ligion — in every religion, as St. Augustine 
 says, there is something good and true — 
 but mixed with this good there was gross 
 immorality officially sanctioned. 
 
 It is strange to think of Marcus as a 
 devotee of all these superstitions ; yet such 
 he was. The intellectual and the cultured 
 usually were sceptical about the tales of 
 the gods ; but few of them forbore paying 
 them the customary homage. They looked 
 on religion as a political and social duty 
 and went through its functions as such. 
 Marcus took the ceremonies more seriously 
 than did the usual Roman of high rank ; 
 but even his faith in the old myths wavered. 
 He was content, however, not to pry into 
 high matters, and adopted the Stoic attitude 
 towards them. These philosophers inter- 
 preted the legends, often by Procrustean 
 methods, to suit their own doctrine, but in 
 reality thought their truth or falsehood 
 of little practical importance. For them 
 the chief thing was to live a life of virtue, 
 relying on one’s own strength. He who 
 lived such a life they held to be better than 
 the gods ; and in fact many of them did 
 lead admirable lives, as far as we can judge. 
 Their virtue, if mingled most frequently 
 with an unlovely and repellant pride, was 
 at all events a relief amidst the universal 
 corruption of pagan Rome. 
 
8 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 When we consider his pagan surroundings 
 we marvel at the virtue of Marcus Aurelius ; 
 but, great as this was, Rome had now 
 something greater far. There were at this 
 time many silent figures who passed with 
 downcast eyes and modest mien through 
 her polluted streets ; they met in strange 
 places and celebrated strange rites ; they 
 did good to all ; and all about them breathed 
 a purer air, a fragrance of Heaven unknown 
 before. These were they beside whose 
 God-given strength of soul the strugglings 
 of the Stoic Emperor were but the feeble 
 gropings of an infant. Christianity was fast 
 spreading over the Empire. Already the 
 Catacombs were extending in a maze of 
 net-work beside Rome. All was ready for 
 the greatest persecution the Church had 
 yet endured ; this time it was to come from 
 the hands of the well-meaning but narrow 
 and unfortunate Marcus. In Rome itself 
 the Christians were multiplying fast ; con- 
 verts were made amongst the nobility ; 
 long before they had penetrated even into 
 “ Caesar’s household.” It was about this 
 time that Tertullian wrote his well-known 
 words : “We are but of yesterday and yet 
 we fill every place — your cities, your houses, 
 your fortresses, your municipia, councils, 
 camps, tribes, decurias, palace, senate, 
 forum ; we leave you your temples.” And 
 
PRELUDE 
 
 9 
 
 he adds, in words in which we must allow 
 for rhetorical exaggeration : “ Were we 
 
 to detach ourselves from you, you would be 
 scared by your solitude and by the silence, 
 which would be like that of a dead world.” 
 
 Though Marcus must have known from 
 the police authorities the great numbers of 
 the Christians, he understood little of their 
 ideals. It is the tragedy of his noble life. 
 To quote Arnold again : “ What an affinity 
 for Christianity had this persecutor of the 
 Christians ! The effusion of Christianity, its 
 relieving tears, its happy self-sacrifice, were 
 the very element one feels for which his 
 spirit longed ; they were near him, he touched 
 them, he passed them by. . . . What 
 
 would he have said to the Sermon on the 
 Mount ? . . . What would have become 
 of his notions of the exitiabilis superstitio 
 (the deadly superstition), of ‘ the obstinacy 
 of the Christians ’ ? Vain question ! Yet 
 the greatest charm of Marcus Aurelius is 
 that he makes us ask it. We see him wise, 
 just, self-governed, tender, thankful, blame- 
 less ; yet with all this agitated, stretching 
 out his arms for something beyond, tenden- 
 temque manm ripae ulterioris amore." 
 
 Of the details of the external life of Marcus 
 Aurelius we know very little. It is his 
 internal life which interests us most, and 
 that is recorded for us by his own hand in 
 
10 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 his book of Meditations. They are notes, 
 meant probably for no eyes but his own, 
 of his efforts after virtue — the record of his 
 soul. That the ruler of the Roman Empire 
 should have thought such thoughts and, 
 in great part, lived up to them ; that at the 
 same time he, who represented the best 
 that paganism could produce, should have 
 fallen far short of the heroism shown by 
 Christian slave-girls ; that his life and 
 meditations prove in the concrete how vast 
 is the gulf between the natural and the 
 supernatural : in these facts lie the various 
 fascinations which the Emperor Marcus 
 Aurelius has had for Pagan and Christian, 
 for Atheist and Theist, for the Positivist, 
 who would fain be rid of the supernatural, 
 and the Mystic for whom the supernatural 
 is everything. 
 
 The aiithor desires once for all to acknowledge his debt 
 to numerous writers dealing with the life and period of 
 Marcus Aurelius. It is hardly necessary to mention the 
 names of Dill, Pater, and Renan, 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BOY STOIC 
 
 Annius Verus, known to the world by his 
 adopted name as the Emperor Marcus 
 Aurelius, was born at Rome in a.d. 121. 
 His father, also Annius Verus, was descended 
 from a Spanish family which a few genera- 
 tions before had settled in Rome. Of him 
 we know little ; but what we do know is 
 favourable. Marcus tells us that “ from 
 his reputation and remembrance ” he 
 learned “ modesty and a manly character.” 
 His mother’s memory he always recalled 
 with veneration and love. She it was that 
 taught him “ piety and beneficence and 
 abstinence not only from evil deeds but 
 even from evil thoughts ; and, further, sim- 
 plicity in my way of living far removed 
 from the habits of the rich.” 
 
 When Marcus was born the reigning 
 Emperor was Hadrian. Hadrian was him- 
 self a Spaniard and inclined to favour those 
 of Spanish descent. Thus the family of 
 Annius Verus came into prominence ; and 
 before Marcus was yet more than eight 
 11 
 
12 THE EMPEROE MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 years of age the Emperor took a special 
 interest in him. 
 
 The boy even at this early age was not 
 quite as the other children who passed to 
 and fro in the Imperial palace. All through 
 life his health was imperfect ; yet even as 
 a child he had begun to practise the Stoic 
 austerities. He slept on a plank bed and 
 was abstemious at table, and only at his 
 mother’s request did he relax these practices. 
 His biographer tells us that “ he was grave 
 from his first infancy.” In later years he 
 himself thanked the gods “ that he had 
 never been hurried into any offence against 
 them,” though, with his wonted candour, 
 he adds, that he “ had the disposition, 
 which, if opportunity had offered, might 
 have led him to do something of the kind ; 
 but, through their favour, there never was 
 such a concurrence of circumstances as put 
 me to the trial.” The candour of the child 
 was so transparent that Hadrian used to 
 call him not Vents (true) but Verissimus 
 (exceedingly true). 
 
 It w’as not strange that Hadrian should 
 have been interested in this grave, pensive, 
 unworldly child. He was a keen observer 
 of human nature, and regarded with curi- 
 osity and a certain reverence a character 
 so superior to its surroundings and withal 
 the very antithesis of his own. He himself 
 
THE BOY STOIC 
 
 18 
 
 was a strange mixture of the Greek and the 
 Roman. Roman in his legislative and 
 administrative ability, he was Greek and 
 modern in his love of novelty, his eager 
 curiosity, his frivolous attitude towards 
 life’s greatest problems — the problems of 
 God and the soul. This last aspect of his 
 character is enshrined for ever in his dying 
 address to his soul : — 
 
 Animula, vagula, blandula, 
 
 Hospes comesque corporis. 
 
 Quae nunc abibis in loca ; 
 
 Pallidula, rigida, nudula — 
 
 Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos ? 
 
 which Merivale thus translates, 
 
 “ Soul of mine, pretty one, flitting one. 
 Guest and partner of my clay. 
 Whither wilt thou hie away ; 
 
 Pallid one, rigid one, naked one — 
 Never to play again, never to play.” 
 
 Candour, simplicity, purity, gravity : 
 these were the old Roman virtues of the 
 days of Cato ; but they were little in fashion 
 in the heyday of the Empire. However, they 
 were interesting as antiquities ; and Hadrian 
 loved everything old because he was so 
 modern himself : they had the charm of the 
 rus in urbe, of innocence in high life, and were 
 grateful to one who loved freshness ; and 
 so, while he was in Rome, Hadrian always 
 
14 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 had the boy near him. Hadrian and Marcus ; 
 the agnostic and the devotee ; the lover 
 of life and the boy Stoic ; Greek frivolity 
 and Roman gravitas : it is an interesting 
 contrast. 
 
 Already Marcus had the ritual instinct 
 which marked him in later life and at the 
 age of eight Hadrian appointed him chief of 
 the College of Salii ; a boy bishop of boy 
 priests devoted to Mars, the god of War. 
 In this office, in the early days of March, 
 he led the patrician youth in their religious 
 dances through the streets and presided at 
 the Saliarian banquets. He was scrupu- 
 lously exact in the fulfilment of these duties. 
 He already knew by heart the antiquated 
 formulas, couched in barbarous Latin, 
 whose meaning most men had forgotten. 
 In the complex ceremonies he never needed 
 a prompter ; such was his knowledge of their 
 rubrics. In one of these rites the boys 
 threw chaplets at the head of a reclining 
 statue of Mars ; but Marcus alone succeeded 
 in crowning the god. It was an omen of 
 the wars which later were to break in upon 
 his peace. 
 
 At the age of eleven Marcus adopted the 
 pallium or cloak of the Stoics — ^thus conse- 
 crating his life to divine philosophy. 
 Hadrian knew Greek and loved Greek 
 thoughts and Greek ways ; he knew Plato 
 
THE BOY STOIC 
 
 15 
 
 and Plato’s ideal — the Philosopher-King. 
 Here was an opportunity of realising the 
 ideal ; why not make Marcus Emperor ? 
 His fanciful mind would have a keen delight 
 in speculating on the future of the Empire 
 under such a rule. After me the deluge ; 
 and he resolved to let posterity have the 
 benefit of the experiment, and lay the blame 
 or merit of the result not on him but on 
 Plato. 
 
 He at first had adopted as his successor 
 Lucius Verus, the handsome and dissolute 
 father of the equally handsome and dis- 
 solute Lucius Verus, who was afterwards 
 Marcus’ colleague as Emperor. But Lucius 
 died before Hadrian, and he then chose a 
 worthier successor. This was the best of 
 Senators — a Roman of Cato’s school but 
 free from the absurdities of that school — 
 Antoninus Pius. 
 
 In making this second choice Hadrian pro- 
 vided for the succession of the boy Marcus 
 in due time. He ordered Antoninus to 
 adopt as his sons and successors Marcus 
 and the younger Lucius Verus. Thus began 
 the lifelong attachment between Antoninus 
 and Marcus — the rulers of the Golden Age — 
 the most admirably virtuous, though far 
 from being the ablest of the Roman Em- 
 perors. 
 
 Beyond these few facts about his early 
 
16 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 boyhood searcely anything has been handed 
 down to us of his doings till his seventeenth 
 year. What little we do know we owe to 
 the famous first book of his Meditations. 
 This he wrote one evening in his tent 
 “ among the Quadi, at the Granua,” a 
 tributary of the Danube, during a lull in 
 the war against the barbarians of the North. 
 The troubles of his reign had made his later 
 years a martyrdom that sorely tried his 
 Stoic spirit, and on that evening his mind 
 sought rest in thinking of his childhood and 
 early youth. The book was written by 
 an invalid amidst strife and hate and hard- 
 ship ; yet its ever-recurring note is the note 
 of gratitude struck on the chords of love. 
 He recalls with affection all who had been 
 good to him — good in the truest sense ; 
 for they had moulded his soul to virtue. 
 
 “ To the gods,” he says, “ I am indebted 
 for having good grandfathers, good parents, 
 "'a good sister, good teachers, good associates, 
 good kinsmen, and friends, nearly every- 
 thing good.” From the example or precept 
 of each he learned some special virtue : 
 from his grandfather Verus “ good morals 
 and the government of my temper ” ; from 
 his director “ to be neither of the green nor 
 of the blue party at the games in the circus, 
 not a partisan either of the Palmularius or 
 the Scutarius at the gladiators’ fights ; to 
 
THE BOY STOIC 
 
 17 
 
 endure labour and to want little ; to work 
 with my own hands, and not to meddle with 
 other people’s affairs, and not to be ready to 
 listen to slander.” Luxury, divoi’ce, and 
 slavery by this time had brought Roman 
 family life to its lowest ebb of morality, and 
 it is pleasing to find the harder and purer 
 ideals of older times still honoured in at least 
 some of the nobler households. 
 
 Marcus was educated altogether by 
 private teachers in his own home ; he 
 did not attend the public schools — a fact 
 which he recalls with gratitude ; and he had 
 reason to be grateful. These schools had 
 multiplied under the generous patronage of 
 the Emperors; no expense was spared in 
 securing for them the best possible teachers ; 
 but in them the theory of virtue was ac- 
 quired, if acquired at all, at the cost of its 
 practice. The pcedagogus or slave who 
 accompanied each boy to and from school 
 usually taught him a more insinuating and 
 acceptable code of morality than the Stoic 
 asceticism taught at times in the schools ; 
 though some even of the teachers seem to 
 have vied with the slaves in the inculcation 
 of immorality ; hence these schools were 
 hotbeds of vice and in ill-repute amongst 
 parents who had a care for their children’s 
 virtue. It is scarcely possible that the keen 
 edge of Marcus’ moral nature should not 
 3 
 
18 THE EMPEROK MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 have been blunted in such surroundings ; 
 even his passion for perfection could scarcely 
 have kept him unscathed. As it was, he 
 had the best teachers that could be procured, 
 mostly belonging to the Stoic School, and 
 in the first book of the Meditations he traces 
 his development under their direction : — 
 
 “ From Diognetus I learned not to busy 
 myself about trifling things, and not to give 
 credit to what was said by miracle-workers 
 and jugglers about incantations and the 
 driving away of demons and such things ” 
 — perhaps an allusion to the Christians — 
 “ and to have desired a plank bed and 
 whatever else of this kind belongs to the 
 Grecian discipline.” Rusticus, a famous 
 Stoic philosopher — ^the same who after- 
 wards as Prefect of Rome condemned St. 
 Justin to death, — taught him to avoid 
 sophistry, rhetoric, poetry, and fine writing, 
 then much in fashion ; “ not to walkabout 
 the house in my outdoor dress, nor to do 
 other things of that kind ” ; to shun vin- 
 dictiveness ; to read deeply, not superfici- 
 ally ; and, greatest benefit of all, he made 
 him acquainted with the discourses of 
 Epictetus. These discourses henceforth 
 became his a Kempis and suggested the 
 writing of his own Meditations. Apollonius 
 — ^the most rigid of Stoics — impressed on 
 him the great Stoic virtue “ to look at 
 
THE BOY STOIC 
 
 19 
 
 nothing else, not even for a moment, except 
 to reason ; and to be always the same, in 
 sharp pains, on the occasion of the loss of a 
 child and in long illness.” This last sentenee 
 is full of suppressed pathos in view of his 
 long life of ill-health and the early death of 
 most of his children. He seems to struggle 
 against the sense of the tears of things and 
 the mortal woes that touch even the Stoic 
 heart ; but he is conscious that here at 
 least he is too much a man to be a sage ; 
 for in his letters to Fronto we see the most 
 tender solicitude for his delicate children, 
 a mother’s anxiety as to every sign of their 
 declining or returning health. 
 
 As Diognetus had taught him austerity ; 
 Rusticus, sincerity ; Apollonius, self-suppres- 
 sion ; so it was a grandson of Plutarch’s, 
 Sextus of Chaeronea, who taught him 
 affection. From Alexander the gram- 
 marian, Fronto his tutor and intimate 
 friend, and Alexander the Platonic he learned 
 other graces of thought and manner out of 
 which was woven that inexplicable thing, 
 the character of the perfect gentleman. 
 Nature’s saint. Catulus, though a Stoic, 
 urged him “ to love his children truly ” ; 
 Severus, “to love my kin, to love truth and 
 to love justice ” ; to know and honour the 
 Stoic heroes and martyrs, Thrasea, Helvi- 
 dius, Cato, Dion, Brutus ; to have as his ideal 
 
20 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 “ a polity administered with equal rights 
 and equal freedom of speech, and a kingly 
 government, which respects most of all the 
 freedom of the governed.” But of all 
 his teachers none can have had so beneficial 
 an effect on his too rigid nature as Maximus. 
 His character is that of the natural man at 
 his best. 
 
 With Maximus he closes the list of his 
 teachers. His minute observation of their 
 characteristics, remembered through a 
 troubled life, paralleled only by the minute- 
 ness of his self-analysis, testifies to his in- 
 tense desire for virtue. So intense indeed 
 was this desire that it became a moral disease 
 which to some extent paralysed his power 
 for action. But, despite its excess, we 
 must pay homage to this thirst of the soul, 
 this torture of the spirit, those 
 
 “ High instincts, before which our mortal 
 nature 
 
 Did tremble, like a guilty thing sur- 
 prised.” 
 
 Fully to slake that thirst, to alleviate that 
 tortm’e, Marcus should have shared the 
 love-feasts of the Christians, the morning 
 sacrifices, the homilies and the ceremonies 
 of the Catacombs. But he knew not the 
 sublime secrets, the treasure, hidden be- 
 neath the earth he daily trod. 
 
THE BOY STOIC 
 
 21 
 
 Hadrian died in a.d. 138, when Mareus 
 was seventeen years of age. Antoninus 
 Verus, better known as Antoninus Pius, 
 succeeded as Emperor, betrothed Marcus 
 to his beautiful daughter Faustina, and had 
 them both to live with him during the rest 
 of his life in the Imperial household. Hence- 
 forth Marcus and Antoninus were bound by 
 the closest ties of friendship. Marcus revered 
 Antoninus with an almost superstitious 
 reverence. Antoninus’ word was law for 
 him, and afterwards in the rule of the 
 Empire he sought to avoid the least devia- 
 tion from his predecessor’s rule of action. 
 In this he was wise, if we are to judge by the 
 picture he himself has left us of Antoninus. 
 He says : — “ In him I observed mildness of 
 temper, constancy and contempt of honours ; 
 a love of labour and readiness to listen to 
 the advice of others ; strict justice ; a know- 
 ledge of the time for vigorous action and for 
 remissness. He considered himself no more 
 than a citizen. His disposition was to keep 
 his friends, and not to be soon tired of them, 
 nor yet to be extravagant in his affection ; 
 to be contented, cheerful and provident ; 
 to shun flattery and display ; to be watchful 
 over the affairs of the Empire and to be 
 economic in expenditure. In regard to the 
 gods, he avoided superstition ; as to philo- 
 sophy, he was not a sophist or a pedant, but 
 
22 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 honoured true philosophers ; not however 
 reproaching pretended philosophers nor yet 
 being their dupe. In society he was easy 
 and agreeable and free from all petty 
 jealousy. After his paroxysms of headaches 
 he came immediately fresh and vigorous 
 to his usual occupations. His secrets were 
 not many but very few and very rare, and 
 these only about public matters. He was a 
 man who looked to what ought to be done, 
 not to the reputation which is got by a man’s 
 acts. That saying might be applied to him 
 which is recorded of Socrates, that he was 
 able both to abstain from and to enjoy those 
 things which many are too weak to abstain 
 from and cannot enjoy without excess. To 
 be strong both to bear the one and to be 
 sober in the other is the mark of a man who 
 has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he 
 showed in the illness of Maximus.” 
 
 In many respects the character of Anto- 
 ninus was more admirable than that of his 
 successor, whose glory has eclipsed his. 
 He was an abler ruler because he was not 
 so good a Stoic. He had more of human 
 sympathy and a more varied interest in life 
 because he was not so much engrossed in 
 the study of his own soul. He was simple, 
 kind, and genial, whereas Marcus was cold, 
 reserved, self-conscious. As Renan says : 
 “ Antoninus was a philosopher without 
 
THE BOY STOIC 
 
 28 
 
 boasting of it, almost without knowing it. 
 Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher of admir- 
 able temperament and sincerity, but he was 
 a philosopher by reflection.” Of the two, 
 the more attractive is the philosopher by 
 nature, who knows not that he is so. The 
 philosopher by reflection is always a difficult 
 person and on occasion may be terrible. 
 Had Antoninus written a book of Medita- 
 tions they would probably have shown a 
 less thorough analysis of the human soul in 
 all its varying moods, a less gnawing desire 
 for perfection, but they would present a 
 character more pleasing to and imitable by 
 those whose ways are the ways of men and 
 not of the abstraction of a man — which is 
 what the Stoic “ wise man ” would be. 
 
 Antoninus loved all the innocent pleasures 
 of life. But most of all he loved the joys of 
 rural life — the joys of sea and air and wood 
 and blue Italian sky, the ardour of the chase 
 and the mirth of the harvest home. He 
 lived most of his life in this simple way at 
 his villa at Lorium with his own household 
 and Marcus Aurelius. The letters of Marcus 
 to his tutor Fronto give us a vivid picture 
 of this life. When the correspondence 
 begins, Marcus was about eighteen years of 
 age. He writes during the vintage season : — 
 
 “ My Dearest Master, — I am well. To- 
 day I studied from three till eight in the 
 
24 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 morning after taking food. I then put on 
 my slippers, and from eight till nine had a 
 most enjoyable walk up and down before 
 my chamber. Then, booted and cloaked — 
 for so we were commanded to appear — I 
 went to wait upon my lord the Emperor. 
 We went a-hunting, did doughty deeds, 
 heard a rumour that boars had been caught, 
 but there was nothing to be seen. However, 
 we climbed a pretty steep hill and in the 
 afternoon returned home. I went straight 
 to my books. Off with my boots, down with 
 my cloak ! I spent a couple of hours in bed. 
 I read Cato’s speech on the property of 
 Pulchra and another in which he impeaches 
 a tribune. Ho, ho ! I hear you cry to your 
 man, off with you as fast as you can and 
 bring me those speeches from the library 
 of Apollo. No use to send ; I have these 
 books with me too. You must get round the 
 Tiberian librarian ; you will have to spend 
 something on the matter ; and when I 
 return to town I shall expect to go shares 
 with him. Well, after reading those speeches, 
 I wrote a wretched trifle destined for drown- 
 ing or burning. No, indeed, my attempt at 
 writing did not come off at all to-day ; the 
 composition of a hunter or a vintager whose 
 shouts are echoing through my chamber, 
 hateful and wearisome as the law-courts. 
 What have I said ? Yes, it was rightly said. 
 
THE BOY STOIC 
 
 25 
 
 for my master is an orator. I think I have 
 caught a cold, whether from walking in 
 slippers or from writing badly, I do not 
 know. I am always annoyed with phlegm, 
 but to-day more than usual. Well, I will 
 pour oil on my head and go off to sleep. 
 I don’t mean to put one drop in my lamp 
 to-day, so weary am I from riding and 
 sneezing. Farewell, dearest and most 
 beloved master, whom I miss, I may say, 
 more than Rome itself.” 
 
 I shall have so much to say of the virtue 
 of Marcus Aurelius, and it is such a rare 
 thing to get a saint or an emperor off his 
 guard, putting on his slippers, grumbling 
 at the noise outside his windows or catching 
 a cold and sneezing — ^though I am sure they 
 do those things — ^that I cannot refrain from 
 quoting another letter; it tells us more 
 about this cold, and is the only place in 
 literature, as far as I know, where it is 
 recorded that a philosopher, a saint, or an 
 emperor took a bath and snored. He 
 writes to Fronto : — 
 
 “My Beloved Master, — I am well. I 
 slept a little more than usual on account 
 of my slight cold, which seems to be well 
 again. So I spent my time from five till 
 nine in the morning partly in reading 
 Cato’s agriculture, partly in writing, not 
 quite so badly as yesterday indeed. Then 
 
26 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 after waiting upon my father I soothed my 
 throat with honey- water, ejecting it without 
 swallowing. Then I attended my father as 
 he offered sacrifice. Then to breakfast. 
 What do you think I ate ? Only a little 
 bread, though I saw others devouring 
 beans, onions, and sardines ! Then we went 
 out to the vintage and got hot and merry, 
 but left a few grapes still hanging, as the 
 old poet says, ‘ atop on the topmost 
 bough.’ At noon we got home again ; I 
 worked a little but it was not much good. 
 Then I chatted a long time with my mother 
 as she sat on her bed. My conversation 
 consisted of, ‘ What do you suppose my 
 Fronto is doing at this moment ? ’ to which 
 she answered, ‘ and my Gratia, what is 
 she doing ? ’ and then I, ‘ and our little 
 darling, the younger Gratia ? ’ And while 
 we were talking and quarrelling as to which 
 of us loved all of you best, the gong sounded, 
 which meant that father had gone across 
 to the bath. So we bathed, and dined in 
 the oilpress room. I don’t mean that we 
 bathed in the press room ; but we bathed 
 and then dined and amused ourselves with 
 listening to the peasants’ banter. And 
 now that I am in my own room again, 
 before I roll over and snore, I am fulfilling 
 my promise and giving an account of my 
 day to my dear tutor ; and if I could love 
 
THE BOY STOIC 
 
 27 
 
 him bettei’ than I do, I would consent to 
 miss him even more than I miss him now. 
 Take care of yourself, my best and dearest 
 Fronto, wherever you are. The fact is that 
 I love you, and you are far away.” 
 
 So far we have seen only the edifying — 
 almost priggish — side of Marcus’ character. 
 The monotony of his perfection is relieved 
 by the following incident, which shows that 
 at this time he had just enough mischief in 
 him — though it be but little — to make him 
 amiable. He writes : — “ When my father 
 returned home from the vineyards, f 
 mounted my horse as usual, and rode on 
 ahead some little way. On the road was 
 a herd of sheep, standing crowded together 
 as though the place were a desert, with 
 four dogs and two shepherds but nothing 
 else. Then one shepherd said to another 
 on seeing the horsemen : ‘ I say, look at 
 these horsemen ; they do a deal of robbery.’ 
 On hearing this, I clap spurs to my horse and 
 ride straight for the sheep. They scatter 
 in consternation — hither and thither they 
 are fleeting and bleating. A shepherd 
 throws his fork and the fork falls on the 
 horseman who came next to me. We make 
 our escape.” 
 
 Thus the days went happily at Lorium 
 in the companionship of Pius, itself “ a 
 school of all the virtues.” For twenty-three 
 
28 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 years Marcus studied in this school, but 
 like all good things this sweet discipleship 
 too had an end. In a.d. 161 Antoninus 
 died a death as peaceful as his life had been. 
 Feeling the end nigh he put his affairs in 
 order and commanded that the golden 
 statue of Fortune, the symbol of Empire, 
 which had ever to stand in the Emperor’s 
 state apartments, should be borne to 
 Marcus’ chamber. To the tribune on duty 
 he gave the password JEquanimitas (peace 
 of soul) as the watchword of the night, — 
 the night of his own soul ; then turning 
 about, he seemed to fall asleep : his own 
 peaceful spirit had passed away ; “ Karta-ov 
 virvm fiakaKaTaro) as if in gentlest sleep.” 
 
 The sceptre passed into the hands of 
 Marcus, then forty years of age. For him 
 it was the beginning of sorrows. JEschylus 
 would have said that the gods were jealous 
 of his too great prosperity. In his private 
 life they were good to him on account of 
 his virtues, but it were unmeet that with 
 such virtues mortal man should join the 
 sovereignty of the world ; for such a one 
 might justly claim more homage than the 
 questionable individuals who inhabited 
 Olympus with the title of “ gods.” The 
 lot of men also had been too happy in the 
 Golden Age of the Antonines : it would 
 exceed all measure were Marcus, the ideal 
 
THE BOY STOIC 
 
 29 
 
 philosopher-king, to rule with such favour 
 from above as his predecessors had enjoyed. 
 So might iEschylus have prophesied truly 
 after the event, as is the way with moralists. 
 Thenceforth the glory of that age waned. 
 To the philosopher by nature had succeeded 
 the philosopher by reflection. We shall see 
 the result of the change. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 A PHILOSOPHER ON THE THRONE 
 
 Plato had said that the world would never 
 enjoy happiness until a philosopher should 
 become king or until a king should become 
 a philosopher. With the accession of Mar- 
 cus the rule of the philosopher-king was an 
 accomplished fact ; according to Gibbon, 
 “ the happiness of the subject was the one 
 object of government,” and all the good 
 effects anticipated by Plato were brought 
 about. “ If a man were called on,” says he, 
 “ to fix the period in the history of the world 
 during which the condition of the human 
 race was most happy and prosperous, he 
 would, without hesitation, name that 
 which elapsed from the death of Domitian 
 to the accession of Commodus ” (thus in- 
 cluding the reigns of Nerva, Trajan, Had- 
 rian, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius). 
 But later historians have reversed this 
 verdict on the Golden Age. They have 
 shown that the reign of Marcus Aurelius 
 was one of singular disasters to the State. 
 And indeed Marcus himself had no such 
 faith in the magical power of philosophy 
 30 
 
A PHILOSOPHER ON THE THRONE 81 
 
 on the throne ; he did not believe in the 
 possibility of realising the Ideal State. “ Do 
 not,” he says, “ expect Plato’s Republic : 
 but be content if the smallest thing goes on 
 well, and consider such an event to be no 
 small matter. For who can change men’s 
 principles ? and without a change of prin- 
 ciples what else is there than the slavery of 
 men who groan while they pretend to obey ? 
 Simple and modest is the work of philosophy. 
 Draw me not aside to insolence and pride.” 
 
 But if Marcus despaired of establishing 
 the reign of Philosophy as the Queen of 
 Men, he, at any rate, secured the rule of the 
 Philosophers. Already under Antoninus 
 they had been in high honour; but under 
 Marcus they filled all the great offices of 
 State. Sophists and rhetoricians were 
 elevated to the senate, and became consuls 
 and proconsuls merely because they 
 preached renunciation and had been Mar- 
 cus’ tutors. He placed their images amongst 
 his household gods and their statues in the 
 forum and the senate-house. They were 
 rulers in the provinces, judges in the law- 
 courts, leaders in the senate. And on the 
 whole they acquitted themselves well ; 
 though amongst their number there were 
 not a few impostors, long beards, asceticism 
 and rough cloaks became the fashion and 
 profitable. “ His beard is worth ten 
 
32 THE EMPEROH MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 thousand sesterces to him,” was the remark 
 passed on one of them ; “ come, we shall 
 have to pay goats a salary next ! ” Marcus 
 distinguished between “ true philosophers ” 
 and “ pretended philosophers,” and learnt 
 from Antoninus to esteem the former and 
 to show indulgence to the latter, yet “ with- 
 out permitting himself to be their dupe.” 
 
 When it got to court. Stoicism put away 
 its primitive roughness. “ Plain living and 
 high thinking ” became the accepted creed 
 among the brilliant society of which Faus- 
 tina was the centre and the exemplar ; just 
 as now in England ritualism and “ the Home- 
 ward movement ” become from time to 
 time the tone amongst elegant blue-stock- 
 ings of both sexes. But of course in Rome, 
 as in London, it would have been bad taste 
 to take seriously what was, with them, at 
 least, merely an interesting sentiment. 
 Society now turns out to hear the newest 
 preacher on the newest theology, or the 
 fashionable and good-looking preacher on 
 any or no theology. So, too, then ; Faustina 
 and the Roman ladies came in all the glory 
 of flowered silk and rare jewels to the Temple 
 of Peace, there to hear Rusticus or Fronto, 
 or the Emperor Aurelius himself, lecturing 
 on the vanity of vanities, the shortness of 
 life, the blessedness of renunciation. Great 
 families had each its philosopher — a kind 
 
A PHILOSOPHER ON THE THRONE 33 
 
 of family chaplain ; and the great ladies 
 came in their sedan chairs to consult their 
 philosophical director on the latest freaks 
 of their fancy. 
 
 This interest in philosophy was partly the 
 cause, partly the effect, of a general move- 
 ment towards more humane views. The hard 
 pagan world was beginning to soften ; and 
 this humanity was the greatest glory of the 
 Golden Age. The Stoics preached the bro- 
 therhood of man, and sympathy with men, as 
 men. Hence charity too became part of the 
 Time-Spirit and showed itself in milder legis- 
 lation and in beneficent institutions. The 
 great ones of the world at last took notice 
 of the weak and the outcast ; the stern rule 
 of might and the pitiless destruction of the 
 “unfit” at last yielded to altruistic senti- 
 ments. The slave, the orphan, and woman 
 were no longer to be the prey of society. 
 
 In his legislation in favour of the op- 
 pressed Marcus Aurelius did but carry on 
 the work begun by Antoninus and his 
 excellent council of jurists. Their first care 
 was to make easier the lot of the slave. 
 Seneca had said ; “ All men, if you only go 
 back to their beginnings, have the gods for 
 their fathers” ; and Epictetus : “ The slave 
 like you is the son of Zeus ” ; and it was in 
 this spirit of reverence for his fellow-man as 
 his brother and his equal that Marcus 
 
 Bue.. 4 
 
34 THE EMPEEOR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 sought to confer on him, in addition to a 
 theoretical fraternity and equality, the 
 third of the trinity — freedom. The master 
 was no longer allowed absolute power of life 
 and death over his slaves ; the slave was 
 recognised as having rights ; and enfran- 
 chisement was encouraged. As the condi- 
 tion of the slave, so too that of women and 
 orphans was improved. The inhuman 
 position of woman under old Roman law, 
 by which she was practically excluded from 
 recognition as a member of the family, was 
 altered by laws conferring on her rights of 
 property ; while orphans were provided for 
 by numerous charitable institutions. 
 
 The first of these institutions endowed 
 by public funds had been founded by the 
 Emperors Nerva and Trajan. They were 
 multiplied and developed by Antoninus and 
 still further by Marcus. On the death of 
 the elder Faustina, Antoninus had founded 
 an institution for orphan girls — called the 
 puellae Faustinianae (the little maidens of 
 Faustina) ; and on the death of the younger 
 Faustina, Marcus, faithful in this as in all 
 else to the example of Antoninus, founded a 
 similar orphanage. These charitable works 
 and many others he was enabled to carry 
 out by the large fortune, amounting to 
 twenty-two million pounds, which Anto- 
 ninus had bequeathed to him. 
 
A PHILOSOPHER ON THE THRONE 86 
 
 Yet all his financial policy was not so 
 wise. His good nature and easy-going 
 attitude towards money matters may have 
 been good Stoicism, but it was bad states- 
 manship. On his accession he gave each 
 of the soldiers of the Praetorian guard a 
 largess of £160 and to the other soldiers a 
 proportional sum. He frequently distri- 
 buted free corn to the mob, and, towards 
 the end of his reign, remitted large debts 
 due to the Treasury ; and ordered that in all 
 cases of prosecution on behalf of the trea- 
 sury, the benefit of the doubt was to be given 
 in favour of the defendant. This was all 
 very well while Antoninus’ legacy lasted ; 
 but the season of leanness soon came, and 
 war and the plague left the public finances 
 in so desperate a condition that he had to 
 sell his own personal property and debase 
 the coinage. 
 
 The result of this generosity had been to 
 make him the idol of the unthinking mob, 
 though we have every reason to believe 
 that this popularity was not sought for. 
 Of the wise man he says : “ As to what any 
 man shall say or think about him or do 
 against him, he never even thinks of it, 
 being himself contented with these two 
 things ; with acting justly in what he now 
 does, and being satisfied with what is now 
 assigned to him ; and he lays aside all 
 
S6 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 distracting and busy pursuits, and desires 
 nothing else than the straight course 
 through the law, and, by accomplishing the 
 straight course, to follow God.” He showed 
 his indifference to the praise of the ground- 
 lings in a practical way in his legislation as 
 regards the games. He put restrictions 
 on the gladiatorial contests, and limited the 
 rates of allowance to the stage performers. 
 
 In the eyes of the Roman people the 
 magnificence of the games and public shows 
 was the one test of munificence. Hence it 
 was something to have checked those de- 
 grading spectacles, but here, as afterwards 
 in his persecution of the martyrs, he yielded 
 complaisance to conventional views. He 
 lacked the strength of will to enforce his 
 own ideals ; and perhaps it was as well that 
 he recognised his deficiency and did not 
 attempt what was, for one of his calibre, 
 the impossible. On great occasions, to 
 please his colleague Lucius or his wife 
 Faustina, or in deference to the popular 
 wishes, he used to attend these shows in 
 state. But when he was present there was 
 to be no shedding of human blood, at any 
 rate by a fellow-man, though he seems to 
 have allowed the fights with the beasts. 
 Dion Cassius records this fact : “ The 
 Emperor Marcus was so far from taking 
 delight in spectacles of bloodshed, that 
 
A PHILOSOPHER ON THE THRONE 87 
 
 even the gladiators in Rome could not 
 obtain his inspection of their contests, 
 unless, like the wrestlers, they contended 
 without imminent risk ; for he never allowed 
 the use of sharpened weapons, but univer- 
 sally they fought before him with weapons 
 blunted.” 
 
 He himself, even when presiding, took 
 little interest in the contests. He spent his 
 time in reading or writing or transacting 
 official business, giving audiences or signing 
 State papers, much to the disgust of the 
 populace. They hated such superior refine- 
 ment and would have preferred a sportsman 
 to a philosopher as their ruler. They looked 
 on the Emperor as a milksop, not altogether 
 without reason, though the right reason 
 was not their reason. He showed his con- 
 tempt for their opinions on one occasion 
 in a most emphatic manner. A lion, 
 trained by a slave to devour human beings, 
 acquitted himself so well in one of these 
 spectaeles in the Emperor’s presence that 
 the whole amphitheatre rang with applause, 
 and on every side a shout was raised that 
 a slave who had served the people’s pleasures 
 so well, deserved freedom. The Emperor, 
 angered at the brutality which he could not 
 prevent, had averted his eyes, and now 
 replied, “ The man has done nothing worthy 
 of liberty.” Another anecdote shows his 
 
38 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 care for even the most outcast of his subjects 
 — those whom the ordinary Roman valued 
 and heeded less than the beasts of burden. 
 He was present one day at an exhibition of 
 rope-dancing, when suddenly one of the 
 performers — a boy — missed his footing, fell 
 into the arena and was hurt. Thereupon 
 the Emperor ordered that nets and 
 mattresses should always be spread beneath 
 the rope-walkers. 
 
 Despite these attempts — ^feeble they seem 
 and few — at amelioration and at instilling 
 a higher view of human nature, the amphi- 
 theatre still remained “ the great slaughter- 
 house.” When we look at Marcus’ statue 
 high in the Pantheon of the Positivists, we 
 must I’emember another figure, cold and 
 abstracted indeed, but thus all the more 
 convicted of feebleness, under the awning 
 and the perfume sprays and flowers of the 
 Roman amphitheatre looking on with im- 
 passive toleranoe at the spectacle of human 
 and animal suffering, the daily bread of the 
 most brutal of all populaces. True, he could 
 soothe his soul by a Stoic aphorism on the 
 nothingness of pain, or some other such 
 mockery of human misery — ^the necessary 
 refuge of those who had no certainty of a 
 larger hope. For mockery truly must any 
 solution of the problem of evil be, and vain 
 comfort, which was not written on Calvary. 
 
A PHILOSOPHER ON THE THRONE 89 
 
 That Marcus could look on such suffering 
 unmoved ; that he could order it for his 
 fellow-man when the turn of the Christians 
 came ; this removes him from what Chris- 
 tians look for in their leaders to the land of 
 Promise. It mattered little that he did not 
 take the delight and interest which Faustina, 
 seated by strange irony among the Vestal 
 Virgins, robed in all the magnificence which 
 the Via Nova could produce, took in her 
 favourite gladiators ; or which Commodus, 
 the centre of the fastest group of young 
 Roman nobles, manifested at every thrust, 
 eager for the day when he himself could 
 enter the arena as Emperor and fight with 
 the beasts. The mere fact that he could 
 countenance such brutality condemns him 
 to the level of conventional mediocrity. 
 
 As Pater says : “ Those cruel amuse- 
 ments were, certainly, the sin of blindness, 
 of deadness and stupidity. . . . Yes 1 
 
 what was needed was the heart that would 
 make it impossible to witness all this ; and 
 the future would be with the forces that 
 could beget a heart like that. . . . Surely 
 evil was a real thing, and the wise man 
 wanting in the sense of it, where not to have 
 been, by instinctive election, on the right 
 side was to have failed in life.” 
 
 The humanity of the age, though unable 
 to effect any appreciable reform of the 
 
40 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 amphitheatre, did much for the relief of the 
 sick. The great plague brought back from 
 the East by Lucius Verus and his troops 
 was ravaging the Empire. It has been com- 
 pared to the great plague of Athens, which 
 will live for ever in Thucydides’ vivid 
 phrases, and to the Black Death of the 
 14th century. Niebuhr says that it was a 
 disaster from which the old world never 
 recovered. Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and 
 Gaul were darkened by its passing ; and in 
 Rome itself, so Dio, a Roman senator, tells 
 us, two thousand men were buried every 
 day. A Golden Age ! An age of peace and 
 happiness indeed ! Rather an age whose 
 glory is that it was an age of hospitals, of 
 funeral clubs and orphanages ; of relief of 
 suffering rather than freedom therefrom. 
 
 The temples of iEsculapius, the god of 
 healing, had long been used as a kind of 
 hospital for the sick, but never before to 
 such an extent as in the Antonine age. 
 The priests of this god were initiated into a 
 secret medical lore. His temples could vie 
 with the great medieval monasteries in the 
 scenic beauty and salubrity of their sur- 
 roundings. The excellence of the climate, 
 the traditional lore, the healthy diet and more 
 healthy abstinence, the careful nursing and 
 the freshness and brightness of the surround- 
 ings, were really efficacious remedies. Thus, 
 
A PHILOSOPHER ON THE THRONE 41 
 
 those who laboured under any illness came 
 far and near to the most famous shrines, 
 such as that of Epidaurus, whose ruins still 
 remain as a silent witness of its whilom 
 greatness. Their hope was that they 
 would be favoured with a dream or vision 
 from the kindly god as to the remedy for 
 their disease. The career of Aristeides, 
 wandering for thirteen years with fanatical 
 enthusiasm from shrine to shrine till finally 
 he was cured, shows to what extremes 
 superstition carried some of those devotees. 
 On one occasion while suffering from a fever, 
 he thought he had a vision of the god bidding 
 him bathe in the ice-cold water, and then 
 run a mile, and he carried out this and many 
 other such assuredly unearthly remedies 
 despite the dissuasions of the priests. 
 These priests, the neocoroi, used to inter- 
 pret the dream, and the prescriptions were 
 carried out by medical men and attendants. 
 The belief in the efficacy of these dream-sent 
 prescriptions was not confined to the vulgar. 
 Marcus Aurelius believed that he himself 
 had been cured thus ; and his wise physician, 
 Galen, trusted them. Readers of Marius, 
 the Epicurean, will not easily forget Pater’s 
 description of Marius’ stay in the Temple, 
 nor the words of thanksgiving addressed 
 to the heaven-sent dreams which he puts 
 on his lips at parting ; they are from the 
 
42 THE EMPEEOR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 Asclepiadae of Aristeides : “ O ye children 
 of Apollo ! who in time past have stilled 
 the waves of sorrow from many people, 
 lighting up a lamp of safety before those 
 who travel by sea and land, be pleased, in 
 your great condescension, though ye be 
 equal in glory with your elder brethren, the 
 Dioscuri, and your lot in immortal youth 
 be as theirs, to accept the prayer, which 
 in sleep and vision ye have inspired. Order 
 it aright, I pray you, according to your 
 loving kindness to men. Preserve me from 
 sickness, and endue my body with such a 
 measure of health as may suffice it for the 
 obeying of the spirit, that I may pass my 
 days unhindered and in quietness.” 
 
 Thus charity and culture progressed 
 under the Antonines. So, too, did industry 
 and trade, which brought with them pros- 
 perity and its attendant luxury until the 
 advent of plague and famine. We are told 
 that each year the treasures of the East 
 were brought by a fleet of one hundred and 
 twenty vessels to the ports of the Red Sea, 
 to be transferred thence through Alexandria 
 to Rome. The silks of China, the spices 
 and perfumes of India and Arabia, pearls 
 and diamonds, which were to glitter on the 
 togas of young nobles or round the necks 
 of fair ladies in the Vicus Tuscus, formed 
 the precious cargo. In return for these 
 
A PHILOSOPHER ON THE THRONE 48 
 
 Rome sent annually three-quarters of a 
 million pounds — worth several times that 
 amount now. “ The coast of Malabar and 
 the island of Ceylon grew rich as trade 
 emporia for the luxuries of Rome and Roman 
 merchants penetrated the East as consuls 
 of sensuality for the senators and the 
 ‘ friends ’ of Caesar.” 
 
 All this led to softening and decadence 
 in the army and in the nation. With the 
 blessings of peace there came also its vices ; 
 the advances in prosperity and humanity, 
 such as it was, was not accompanied by 
 any improvement in morals, but perhaps 
 the reverse. The results of Marcus’ reign 
 did not justify Plato’s expectation from 
 the philosopher-king. What Marcus might 
 have accomplished under less unfavourable 
 circumstances we cannot surmise ; he 
 certainly had not the strength of mind or 
 body necessary for carrying out far-reaching 
 reforms in such an Empire. As it was, he 
 was singularly unfortunate in his public 
 life : war, plague and famine — a trinity 
 which no State could resist — rendered him 
 powerless. His reign left little outward 
 impress on the Roman State ; his greatest 
 legacy to Rome and to the world was the 
 development of humane legislation, the 
 reverence for mind above matter, and the 
 example of a disinterested and noble ruler. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 LIFE IN THE PALACE 
 
 There is much truth in the saying, “ No 
 man is a hero to his valet ” — be his reputed 
 heroism either of the physical or the moral 
 type. Humanity, even at its best, is an 
 imperfect thing, much in need of the 
 kindly haze which mostly veils its withered 
 ruggedness ; and many an angel of sweet- 
 ness and light reveals the serpent’s tail on 
 too close inspection ; but I have no such 
 revelation to offer in this chapter. Indeed, 
 it is in his intimate domestic life that Marcus 
 appears to best advantage. His presence 
 in the palace brought with it a sense of 
 restfulness, of serenity and calm, of mutual 
 forbearance and love. It was as if some 
 pale glimmer of the Christian love-light 
 played about him and diffused itself over 
 all that came within the charmed round. 
 His household was known as the Sacra 
 Domus — “the sacred house.” Thus the Pax 
 Romana — ^the peace that was the gift of 
 the Antonines — though lost to the Empire, 
 was never interrupted in the Emperor’s 
 home ; and to Marcus is due the credit. 
 
 44 
 
LIFE IN THE PALACE 
 
 45 
 
 All through life it was his lot to consort 
 with persons having sadly different views 
 from his own on the meaning of existence,^ 
 the value of virtue ; yet he was kind and 
 sociable with all. In this he did but follow 
 the example of the gods : “ They are not 
 vexed because, during so long a time, they 
 must tolerate men, such as they are, and 
 so many of them bad ; and besides this they 
 also take care of them in all ways. But thou, 
 who art destined to end so soon, art thou 
 wearied of enduring the bad, and this, too, 
 when thou art one of them ? ” This toler- 
 ance towards the failings of others had its 
 source in his peculiar gospel of resignation : 
 — or should we say, fatalism ? “ That is good 
 for each thing which the universal nature 
 brings to each. And it is for its good at 
 the time when nature brings it. ‘ The earth 
 loves the shower,’ and ‘ the solemn aether 
 loves,’ and the Universe loves to make 
 whatever is about to be. I say then to the 
 Universe : ‘ I love as thou lovest.’ ” In 
 this spirit he bore the trials of his domestic, 
 as of his public, life ; keen griefs coming 
 from without and from within ; and the 
 keenest of all for one of his affectionate 
 nature were those of his own household. 
 
 Apollonius had taught him “ to be always 
 the same in sharp pains, and on the occasion 
 of the loss of a child and in long illness.” 
 
46 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 He learnt the theory of indifference to 
 natural affection ; but, fortunately, never 
 the practice. The severe light of Stoicism 
 was softened and suffused in passing through 
 the medium of his gentle nature ; he trusted 
 the reasons of the heaxi;, more than those 
 of the pure intellect. If Stoic cosmopolitan- 
 ism would have him care for men in inverse 
 proportion to their nearness to him, he 
 must depart from type in this. To his wife 
 Faustina, to his children, to his tutor 
 Fronto and to Fronto’s children, especially 
 “ little Gratia,” he was genuinely devoted. 
 
 The correspondence with Fronto, if too 
 effusive for our taste, yet shows both in 
 their best light. It is full of tender refer- 
 ences to the “ little ones,” their joys and 
 their ailments. Fronto wxites to the Em- 
 peror : “I have seen the little ones — ^the 
 pleasantest sight of my life ; for they are as 
 like yourself as could possibly be. It has 
 well repaid me for my journey over that 
 slippery road and up those steep rocks : 
 for I behold you, not simply face to face 
 before me, but, more generously, whichever 
 way I turned, to my right and to my left. 
 For the rest, I found them. Heaven be 
 thanked, with healthy cheeks and lusty 
 voices. One was holding a slice of white 
 bread, like a king’s son ; the other a crust 
 of brown bread, as becomes the offspring 
 
LIFE IN THE PALACE 
 
 47 
 
 of a philosopher. I pray the gods to have 
 both the sower and the seed in their keeping, 
 to watch over this field wherein the ears of 
 com are so kindly alike. Ah ! I heard, too, 
 their pretty voices, so sweet that in the 
 childish prattle of one and the other I 
 seemed to be listening — yes ! in that chirping 
 of your pretty chickens — to the limpid and 
 harmonious notes of your own oratory. 
 Take care ! You will find me growing inde- 
 pendent having those I could love in your 
 place ; — ^love, on the surety of my eyes and 
 ears.” The Emperor replies with equal 
 affection : “ I, too, have seen my little ones 
 in your sight of them : as also I saw yourself 
 in reading your letter. It is that charming 
 letter which forces me to write thus.” Alas ! 
 Apollonius ; what has become of the Stoic 
 airadua which you inculcated with such 
 great pains ? The spirit indeed was willing, 
 but the fiesh was weak ; and so the good 
 Emperor cared more for the slender breath 
 of life that kept soul and body together in 
 his little Annius Verus than for all the sub- 
 lime mysticity of the Weltseele — ^the world- 
 soul of the Stoic creed. All the sadder was 
 the early death of his children, one after 
 another ; one son alone being left to him — 
 Commodus, his successor in the Empire — 
 assuredly not the fittest to survive. ‘ ‘ Better 
 that he had never been bom,” anyone had 
 
48 THE EMPEEOR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 said, except he who had most right of all to 
 say it. But for Marcus, whatever was, was 
 right ; the gods, if gods there were, deter- 
 mined all things, and they could do no 
 wrong. Commodus, bright, handsome, im- 
 pulsive, wayward, fond of gladiators and 
 low life, found the teaching of Fronto and 
 his father little to his taste. He was more 
 at home in the circus and the amphitheatre 
 than in the lecture-room ; with the actors, 
 the archers and the gladiators and the 
 “ smart set,” which Faustina gathered round 
 her, than with the bearded and hooded 
 sophists and rhetoricians who talked 
 iyKpaTeia (self-restraint) and avrdpKeia (self- 
 sufficiency) in the palace gardens. 
 
 Bitter as must have been his disappoint- 
 ment at his ill-success with Commodus, there 
 was another which thrust home deeper. 
 Ill-fame had long been gathering round 
 the name of his wife Faustina — ^the most 
 beautiful woman in the Empire. One of her 
 vivacious temperament, more Parisian than 
 Roman, was assuredly ill-mated with the 
 Stoic Emperor, whose days were spent in 
 introspection ; their union was “ the great 
 paradox of the age.” She knew no law but 
 the law of the senses : while he was ever 
 guided by the admirable but unamiable call 
 of duty, cold as the beckoning of a star, not 
 soft and warm as the sunlight of devotion. 
 
LIFE IN THE PALACE 
 
 49 
 
 No modem belle of the season had more zest 
 in the life of the moment than she had ; 
 whilst he lived always in the shadow of the 
 wings of Death. “ Since it is possible that 
 thou mayest depart from life this very 
 moment, regulate every act and thought 
 accordingly.” Every act was to be done 
 “ with forethought, as if it were the last of 
 thy life.” Yet, different as they were, by 
 a whole heaven’s breadth in character, it 
 is to the credit of both that they loved one 
 another. The rumours that assailed her 
 name were probably in great part the 
 exaggerations of prurient gossips, though 
 with sufficient foundation to make them 
 credible. Whatever their truth, the Em- 
 peror did not hearken to them. Even when 
 they became the property of the stage and 
 he himself was ridiculed in connexion with 
 them, he paid no heed. In the first book of 
 the Meditations, written a few years before 
 the death of Faustina, he thanks the gods 
 that he had such a wife, “ so obedient, so 
 affectionate, so simple.” He, too, must have 
 felt at times that Caesar’s wife should be 
 above suspicion, but his kindly nature was 
 ever disposed to take the most charitable 
 view of things, and he minded little the 
 slanderous tongues of men. 
 
 “ Does a man gather figs from thistles, or 
 grapes from thorns ? ” — this was the key- 
 6 
 
50 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 note to his philosophy of life — a strange 
 fatalist philosophy it too often was ; but it 
 served to lay the gibbering spectres that 
 haunted the palace of the Caesars. After 
 all, Faustina, associating with sailors and 
 gladiators (even if the worst were true), 
 and Commodus, already giving free reign to 
 his passions over all the paths of license, 
 were but acting in accordance with nature, 
 “ just as the fruit trees ” or the beasts of 
 the forest. Thus, in the loneliness of his 
 spirit, would Aurelius reason, with an in- 
 dulgence to the shortcomings (or worse) of 
 others, which we must condemn as weak- 
 ness. But perhaps it was owing to his tact 
 and consideration that her untamed restless- 
 ness carried her to no greater excesses, and 
 that Pater’s words are true, “ the one thing 
 quite certain about her, besides her extraor- 
 dinary beauty, is her sweetness to himself.” 
 
 One of his biographers, writing under the 
 Emperor Diocletian, has this pious reflec- 
 tion on the story : “ Such is the force of 
 daily life in a good ruler, so great the power 
 of his sanctity, gentleness, and piety, that 
 no breath of slander or invidious suggestion 
 from an acquaintance can avail to sully his 
 memory. In short, to Antonine, immutable 
 as the heavens in the tenor of his own life, 
 and in the manifestations of his own moral 
 temper, and who was not by possibility 
 
LIFE IN THE PALACE 
 
 51 
 
 liable to any impulse or movement of change, 
 on any alien suggestion, it was not eventu- 
 ally an injury that he was dishonoured by 
 some of his connexions ; on him, invulner- 
 able in his oAvn character, neither a harlot 
 for his wife, nor a gladiator for his son, could 
 inflict a wound. Then as now, O sacred 
 lord Diocletian ! he was reputed a god ; 
 not as others are reputed but specially and 
 in a separate sense, and with a privilege to 
 such worship from all men as is addressed 
 to his memory by yourself, who often breathe 
 a wish to heaven that you were or could 
 be such in life and merciful disposition as 
 was Marcus Aurelius.” 
 
 We saw that even Marcus’ integrity could 
 not shield his household from the taint of 
 scandal, ever mingling with the divinity 
 that doth hedge a king ; yet the life of that 
 household was of the simplest kind. The 
 Emperor’s tastes were mostly domestic — 
 philosophy, the flne arts and intercourse 
 with the learned world around him. The 
 palace was a museum of all the curious and 
 choice things of every land gathered to- 
 gether by Hadrian and preceding Emperors ; 
 the precious and luxurious were strewn all 
 around in Oriental magnificence; but not 
 for long. The Emperor had learnt from 
 Antoninus to be a king without the trap- 
 pings ; and in his later life he set an example 
 
 boston college library 
 
 CHLC; 'JiJT hill, MASS. 
 
52 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 truly Platonic to all future monarchs of 
 private detachment for the sake of the 
 public good. At that time distress became 
 universal ; the treasury was exhausted ; 
 and yet money was wanted for the wars in 
 the North. In these circumstances, in order 
 to avoid all further taxation, Marcus put 
 all the treasures of his Roman palaces and 
 country villas into the public market. 
 Jewels, pictures, furniture of rare workman- 
 ship ; dinner-services of gold and crystal ; 
 murrhine vases ; the rich hangings and 
 sumptuous apparel of the imperial house- 
 hold, including even the wardrobe of silken 
 robes, interwoven with gold, which had been 
 his wife’s before her death : all these objects, 
 made sacred by long use in the home of the 
 divine Caesars, were put under the hammer 
 and fetched fabulous prices. The auction 
 lasted two months. The novi homines — the 
 Roman equivalent for our nouveaux riches — 
 were as keen as would be a group of Ameri- 
 cans at an auction of the Vatican contents. 
 Thus the historic palace of the Caesars was 
 despoiled ; but Marcus was content while 
 the neighbouring library in the temple of 
 Apollo remained intact, with Fronto and 
 Rusticus to come at morning and evening 
 and walk with him amidst the shrubberies 
 of the Palatine discoursing on the great 
 Greek schools of Ionia, of Athens, and of 
 
LIFE IN TSE palace 
 
 S3 
 
 Elea ; of Democrites, of Plato, Zeno and 
 Pythagoras and his favourite Epictetus. 
 
 In his home, as in public, he was devoted 
 to the old religious practices. The lararium 
 — or family shrine — contained statues of his 
 favourite gods, one of his own Genius (or 
 spiritual counterpart) and those of his 
 favourite philosophers and teachers. Here 
 he would offer the morning sacrifice with 
 flowers and lights and incense, and beg the 
 favour of the gods for himself and for the 
 Empire, There he would utter a prayer for 
 the wayward Commodus and Faustina, and 
 for the courage to persevere to the end on 
 his own steep path. “ Every morning I 
 pray for Faustina,” he writes ; and again : 
 “ My mother’s illness leaves me not a 
 moment’s rest ; and now Faustina’s confine- 
 ment is approaching. Well, we must trust 
 in the gods,” In all this, how strange the 
 mixture of truth and falsehood ; of crude 
 superstition and a higher light breaking 
 through ; of matter and spirit ; perhaps even 
 of nature and grace ; for it is hard not to see 
 the special handiwork of God in these fair 
 works of the spirit world — who will set limits 
 to His mercy and power ? or who will nicely 
 disentangle the strands of that strange 
 mesh-work, a human soul ? St, Clement 
 of Alexandria and St. Augustine saw 
 in those pagan heroes those who were 
 
54 THE EMPEEOR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 to prepare the way of the Lord and make 
 straight His paths. “ Paganism saw at 
 least the road from its hill-top,” said 
 Augustine. We too may say that they were 
 not far from the Kingdom of God. 
 
 Christo iam turn venienti, 
 
 Crede, parata via est. 
 
 “ Believe me even then the path was made 
 straight for Christ already on His way.” 
 So sang the Christian Prudentius ; and we 
 sing, Amen ! Even so. Lord Jesus. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 
 ON THE DANUBE 
 
 A PRINCE of peace, Marcus Aurelius was 
 destined by the irony of fate to live most of 
 his days as a leader of battles. The low 
 rumbling of war from the provinces mingled 
 discordantly with the acclamations which 
 proclaimed him Princeps, Rome’s chief 
 citizen and lord. The disturbances in Bri- 
 tain and on the Rhine were easily quelled ; 
 but not so in Parthia or on the Danube. 
 
 Parthia was Rome’s great rival in the old 
 world. More than once had the captains 
 of that mysterious Eastern kingdom plucked 
 the laurels from Roman brows ; the Roman 
 eagle had brooded in captivity in Parthian 
 dungeons ; and had been released not by 
 steel but by gold. On the succession of 
 Marcus, King Vologeses, a man with all the 
 spirit and ambition of his race, determined 
 to secure for himself the neighbouring king- 
 dom of Armenia. The Romans resisted and 
 their first army was annihilated. This 
 defeat was quickly followed by another ; 
 the Eastern legions were demoralised, and 
 things looked grave for Rome. 
 
 65 
 
56 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 It was at this crisis that Marcus entrusted 
 to his consort, Lucius Verus, the command 
 in the East : a foolish choice, scarcely less 
 foolish than the first folly of making him 
 his consort. For Lucius had neither ability 
 nor morality ; he spent his days amidst the 
 pleasant groves, the flowers and the per- 
 fumes and the sensuous society of Antioch. 
 He committed the campaign to the care of 
 his generals, the chief of them, Avidius 
 Cassius, a soldier tried and true ; whilst he 
 himself frittered away his hours in soft 
 dalliance amidst the ill-famed groves of 
 Daphne, which made Antioch the lodestone 
 of voluptuaries from all parts of the world. 
 Avidius Cassius with Priscus and Martius 
 Verus ended the war within a few years ; 
 and Lucius Verus with a heavy heart turned 
 his face towards the West, to celebrate a 
 triumph and receive high titles in Rome for 
 his great achievements. But Rome paid 
 dearly for the conquest ; for with the army 
 came the plague which devastated the 
 capital and Italy. 
 
 In the desolation which surrounded him 
 the Stoic Emperor recognised the need for 
 something more inspiring than the maxims 
 of his masters, Zeno and Chrysippus. The 
 futility of such chamber philosophy and 
 religion was borne home to him with fearful 
 intensity by the human misery he saw on 
 
ON THE DANUBE 
 
 57 
 
 every side, the stench of the unburied dead, 
 the haggard looks and demoniacal cries of 
 the living. He recognised, then, that a 
 syllogism never soothed an aching heart ; 
 that for life’s tragic moments we need a 
 living, breathing, throbbing, thrilling, re- 
 ligion, a religion of the whole man. Hence 
 he called on all the gods, old and new, 
 Roman, Grecian, Eastern and Egyptian, to 
 aid the suffering State. Every altar reeked 
 with the incense of sacrifice ; great nobles 
 marched in procession bearing the statues 
 of the gods ; noble ladies might be seen, half- 
 naked, standing beneath the platform from 
 which the hot blood of the slain bull poured 
 down upon them, enduring this baptism 
 of the Great Mother, by which they were to 
 be “ reborn for eternity ” ; at eventide a 
 wanderer in the Campus Martius might 
 hear the vesper song of Isis, and entering 
 her shrine might see dark Egyptians holding 
 up the water of the Nile for adoration ; or, 
 descending into a subterranean chapel, he 
 might see the slave, the soldier, and the 
 senator, side by side, attending at the 
 strange mystic initiations of Mithra, the 
 Unconquered One, the god of light, the 
 strong young god in Phrygian cap and loose 
 flowing mantle caught by the sculptor 
 in the symbolic slaying of the bull. No 
 extravagance of superstition, however 
 
S8 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 fantastic, was omitted, not even the greatest 
 extravaganee of all, the cry of “ the Chris- 
 tians to the lions.” If Aurelius had but 
 known ; if Rome in its desolation could 
 have seen ; if modern Europe and its rulers 
 could but realise the secret healing of Christ’s 
 religion of sorrow, how much the world, 
 laboured and heavy-burdened, would be 
 refreshed ! But Marcus did not know this 
 healing. He prayed and he sacrificed : but 
 the plague did not pass, nor were his people 
 comforted. The ancient world never re- 
 covered from the blow, Niebuhr says. 
 While it yet raged, another call to arms 
 came, this time from the Danube. 
 
 It was the severest onset of the bar- 
 barians which the Roman Empire had yet 
 endured. All the tribes from the Rhine to 
 the Don, Teutonic and Slavonic, seemed in 
 league against it. These wild Northmen, 
 chaste and strong of limb, had hurled them- 
 selves on the Danube frontier and broken 
 into the sacred precincts of the Pax Romana. 
 The Danube passed, Pannonia, Dacia, 
 Greece were overrun. The prints of North- 
 ern hoofs were on the plains of Rhsetia and 
 Noricum ; and the wild Marcomanni were 
 seen in the streets of Venice and Padua. 
 Well might the Romans fear that it would 
 be with them now as it was in the days of 
 Hannibal. Aye, and even worse ; for the 
 
ON THE DANUBE 
 
 59 
 
 Romans of the second century of the Empire 
 were not the Romans of the second or third 
 century before the fall of the Republic ; 
 and to replace a Scipio and a Marcellus, 
 they had for leader not a Vespasian or a 
 Trajan, but a sickly “ Greekling,” “ a 
 philosophical old woman,” as Avidius 
 Cassius used to call him. This was their 
 Emperor Aurelius, and in these wars on the 
 Danube he was amply to refute these 
 taunts of the men of rougher mould. His 
 was the great task of stemming the first 
 inflow of those nomadic tribes which, two 
 centuries later, swept in full flood-tide over 
 the Empire ; and he performed it well if not 
 greatly. 
 
 The heralds of the revolt found him at his 
 work of peace and legislation, of charity and 
 self-culture in the capital. Now came the 
 test of his principles of devotion to duty. 
 Would he face the loneliness, spiritual and 
 intellectual, the barbarity, the long-drawn 
 desolation of a campaign in the dull plains 
 of Hungary ? Would he be a leader to his 
 people ? or would he, like certain selfish 
 souls, wrap himself in himself and seek his 
 own advancement towards the sapiency of 
 the perfect Stoic at the cost of his people ? 
 It was the test of a man ; and he answered 
 well to it. He elected to lead the troops in 
 person. 
 
60 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 This was in the year a.d. 167. The 
 Romans were just then busy burying their 
 plague-stricken, but the call to arms would 
 brook no delay ; and to arms they went. 
 War, the plague, and the Emperor’s 
 charities had exhausted the treasury ; hence 
 the difficulty in raising supplies and a force. 
 It was then that he sold by auction the 
 treasures of the palace and his villas and 
 thus secured the required funds. To swell 
 the numbers of his troops he compelled the 
 gladiators to serve. This was the most 
 unpopular act of his reign as it was one of 
 the most creditable. “ He wants to steal 
 our amusements from us,” cried one; “Aye, 
 to compel us to be philosophers,” cried 
 another of the mob, who cared for nothing 
 but the panem et circenses, the public dole 
 of food and the public games. The sporting 
 set, the loungers, the fast young men about 
 town, the brutalised rabble, almost created 
 a revolt against the act. They cared little 
 for the Empire, if they could but get their 
 meed of blood ; the gladiators were better 
 spent in glutting their evil eyes than in 
 checking the onrush of those Wandering 
 Nations, who were one day to sit in those 
 amphitheatres and exult over fallen Rome, 
 having changed the history of Europe and 
 the world. 
 
 The two Emperors led the troops in all 
 
ON THE DANUBE 
 
 61 
 
 the glory of warlike array through the 
 streets of Rome to the Northern gates. 
 Aurelius, as he rode in all the Imperial 
 adornment, yet with sad, wistful look and 
 countenance sickled o’er with the pale cast 
 of thought, contrasted ominously with the 
 splendour of the pageant of which he was 
 the centre. He seemed to be far away from 
 it all — far away, yes, in the depths of his 
 own soul. On one side of him rode Lucius 
 Verus, resplendent and gay, the hero of 
 levees and banquets ; on the other, Faustina, 
 now as ever outshining all in the great 
 functions of state, her beauty making her 
 the darling of the mob. Throughout the 
 war she abode with Marcus faithfully and 
 was called by the army the Mater castrorum, 
 the mother of the camp ; and the Emperor 
 thanked the gods for the solace her fidelity 
 brought to him. 
 
 The army reached Venice in a.d. 168 . 
 Such had been the energy of their prepara- 
 tions that a panic seized the barbarian 
 invaders. They begged for peace ; but 
 Marcus had determined that there should 
 be no peace or a lasting one ; the barbarians 
 must be taught a lesson ; and he set about 
 subjugating the tribes one by one. In this 
 he was for a time successful, thanks mainly 
 to his able generals Pompeianus and 
 Pertinax. The Quadi were compelled to 
 
62 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 restore the 60,000 Roman prisoners they 
 had taken ; and in a.d. 169 the Emperors 
 felt justified in returning to Rome, leaving 
 the completion of the war to their generals. 
 On the way Verus died and this left Marcus 
 sole ruler. At Rome he paid the highest 
 honours, civil and religious, to his colleague’s 
 questionable memory. 
 
 His stay there was, however, abruptly cut 
 short as, owing to the acuteness of the war 
 with the Marcomanni and Jazyges, he 
 had to return again to the fighting line. 
 The Romans once more met with severe 
 defeats. Two commanders fell ; and it was 
 not till A.D. 172 that the tide of victory 
 turned. In that year the Marcomanni 
 suffered an overwhelming defeat and the 
 Emperor assumed the title Germanicus. 
 But in the meantime the Quadi had re- 
 belled and driven out their king, who was 
 a friend of the Romans, and elected one 
 opposed to Rome. Marcus then turned his 
 attention to these : he set a price of 1,000 
 pieces of gold on the head of the rebel king ; 
 and on his being betrayed sent him to 
 Alexandria. 
 
 During one of these campaigns against 
 the Quadi occurred the incident of the 
 “ thundering legion ” — a story famous in 
 the early Church and much controverted. 
 It is interesting as bringing Marcus and 
 
ON THE DANUBE 
 
 63 
 
 the Christians face to face for the first 
 time. 
 
 It was during the hot summer months 
 that a legion containing many Christians 
 was surrounded by the Quadi in a wooded 
 and hilly country. They were cut off from 
 all means of getting water, and suffered 
 terribly from the heat and thirst. In these 
 straits, the story goes on to say, the 
 Christians in the legion knelt and prayed for 
 release ; and lo ! suddenly the whole heavens 
 became overcast ; a storm gathered and 
 broke over the opposing forces ; rain fell 
 abundantly and the Romans gathered it in 
 their helmets and in the hollows of their 
 shields, and drank eagerly and gave to drink 
 to their horses. The barbarians saw that 
 they must now attack before the Romans 
 recovered strength. But the rain which 
 had refreshed the Romans turned to blinding 
 hail against their foes ; and the rain and the 
 lightning “ burnt them like oil insomuch as 
 they wounded one another to extinguish 
 the fire with blood.” Many, seeing such 
 evident favour from heaven for the Roman 
 cause, went over to their side ; and Marcus 
 Aurelius received them mercifully. 
 
 There are many controverted points in 
 connexion with the details of this story, 
 and the use made of it by the Christian 
 apologists, into which this is not the place 
 
64 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 to enter. Certain it is that this Danube 
 legion got the title of Fulminata, at least for 
 some time ; even though the twelfth legion, 
 to whom it properly belonged since the time 
 of Augustus, were at this time at the 
 Euphrates. It is certain, too, that everyone, 
 pagan and Christian, regarded the incident 
 as a miracle. Some attributed it to the 
 prayers of the Emperor himself, and this 
 view was commemorated in bas-reliefs of 
 the Antonine column, erected after death 
 to his memory and to be seen to this day. 
 There one sees represented in the air the 
 winged figure of an old man with streaming 
 hair and beard, the god of rain, Jupiter 
 Pluvius ; while the Romans with helmets 
 and shields receive the torrents of rain, and 
 their enemies lie transfixed to the ground 
 by the hail and lightning. Marcus Aurelius 
 himself was represented in pictures with 
 hands uplifted and praying, with strange 
 forgetfulness of his barbarities against the 
 Christians, “ Jove to thee do I lift this 
 hand, which hath never shed blood.” Others 
 attributed this miracle to the Egyptian 
 magician Amouphis, who accompanied the 
 army. 
 
 That there were Christians “ in Caesar’s 
 household ” and round Marcus Aurelius is 
 certain. That there were many Christians 
 in this legion cannot reasonably be denied. 
 
ON THE DANUBE 
 
 65 
 
 But the great import of the event for Ter- 
 tullian and other Christian apologists, before 
 and after him, was based on a letter 
 undoubtedly apocryphal, which Marcus 
 Aurelius was supposed to have written to 
 the Senate, acknowledging that he had been 
 saved by Christian prayers and forbidding 
 their further persecution. 
 
 The truth is that Marcus’ attitude to the 
 Christians was in no way changed for the 
 better by this incident, but rather for the 
 worse. As Renan says : In three or four 
 years the persecution reached the highest 
 pitch of fury it knew before Decius.” In 
 Africa persecution was widespread and 
 furious ; Sardinia was crowded with Chris- 
 tian exiles ; in Byzantium nearly the whole 
 population was put to death with torture ; 
 while in Asia, where the Christians were 
 especially numerous, officials vented all their 
 fury on them, interpreting the laws in a way 
 in which they had never been intended to 
 be applied. ‘‘ Truly,” to quote Renan again, 
 “ these repeated persecutions were a bloody 
 contradiction to a century of humanity.” 
 Marcus was not directly responsible for all 
 this cruelty ; he was probably for the most 
 part passive and indifferent. Some of the 
 Christian apologists certainly looked on him 
 as friendly, as, for instance, Melito, who 
 wrote to him : “As for y’ourself, who 
 6 
 
66 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 cherish the same kind of feeling for us [as 
 the other good Emperors], with a heightened 
 degree of philanthropy and philosophy, we 
 rest assured that you will do what we ask 
 you.” But the confidence of the Christians 
 in Marcus’ humanity and friendship for 
 them and in his ability to restrain the pagan 
 mob or his own more brutal officials was 
 ill-founded. This passing incident in the 
 Danube campaign was of little importance 
 in the history of the Empire, but its interest 
 will never die as a picturesque detail in the 
 great world-battle of the spirit then in its 
 a cutest stage. 
 
 In A.D. 175 Marcus followed up his 
 reduction of the Quadi by that of the 
 Jazyges. This practically ended the war. 
 Marcus intended securing the fruit of his 
 conquest by establishing two more Roman 
 provinces ; but a new danger had appeared 
 in the East, and he had to conclude a hasty 
 peace with the barbarians and to hurry 
 with all speed to Syria. 
 
 These victories in the North stirred in 
 him no pride. Here is his sadly disillusioned 
 comment on the whole campaign : “A 
 spider is proud when it has caught a fly, 
 and a hunter when he has caught a poor 
 hare, and another when he has taken a little 
 fish in a net, and another when he has taken 
 wild boars, and another when he has taken 
 
ON THE DANUBE 
 
 67 
 
 Sarmatians. Are not these robbers, if thou 
 examinest their principles?” 
 
 He can scarcely have been an inspiring 
 general who took this view of war ; and such 
 sentiments have caused many active spirits 
 to find him a very dull person indeed. After 
 this we can scarcely wonder at the remark 
 of one of his generals : “ The soldiers don’t 
 understand you ; they don’t know Greek.” 
 In the frieze on the Antonine column which 
 represents him on horseback, surrounded 
 by banners and triumphant soldiers, re- 
 ceiving the submission of the kneeling 
 Germans, there is the same disenchantment 
 in his eyes, the same firm lines of duty on 
 the lips ; there is no flash of enthusiasm, 
 no gloating over the fallen. He seems ab- 
 sorbed in the thought that all is vanity, and 
 the vanquished look at him with a puzzled, 
 interested look which has something of 
 affection in it. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE BOOK OF MEDITATIONS 
 
 It was in the midst of this active strife that 
 Marcus wrote one of the most introspec- 
 tive and peaceful of books — his Thoughts 
 About Himself (t^ eh eavrov — the 
 
 twelve books of his Meditations. Few 
 books have had such influence over men’s 
 lives, and its influence still abides ; and for 
 all students of humanity it will ever be a 
 priceless document illustrative of one great 
 phase of human thought, and one great 
 thinker. Surely Stevenson, testifying to 
 the moulding force of this little book on his 
 own life, did not exaggerate in saying : 
 “ The dispassionate gravity, the noble forget- 
 fulness of self, the tenderness of others that 
 are there expressed, and were practised on 
 so large a scale in the life of its writer, 
 make this book a book quite by itself. No 
 man can read it and not be moved. . . . 
 When you have read, you carry away with 
 you a memory of the man himself ; it is as 
 though you had touched a loyal heart, 
 looked into brave eyes and made a noble 
 friend ; there is another bond on you 
 68 
 
THE BOOK OF MEDITATIONS 
 
 69 
 
 thenceforward, binding you to life and to 
 the love of virtue.” 
 
 The secret of this charm and influence is 
 in the candour and utter absence of self- 
 consciousness of the book. It reveals the 
 author as he wished himself to live, a sincere 
 and open life, “lived on the mountain top — 
 a naked soul more visible than the body 
 which clothed it,” a soul whose thoughts 
 may be read “ as the beloved one reads all 
 things in the lover’s eyes.” These jottings 
 were the fruit of his frequent searchings of 
 the heart, the outward expression of the 
 inner life of one who seemed to live all 
 within, with now and then some golden 
 gleanings from his favourite moralists. 
 These thoughts he meant to be his strength 
 against the beggarly elements in his weaker 
 moments. They, with the Discourse of 
 Epictetus, were to be his mainstay. This 
 latter book — a noble book too — ^was his 
 a Kempis, and to it he owed the suggestion 
 of gathering together his own thoughts. 
 Having these he bore his cloister always 
 with him. 
 
 “ Men seek retreats for themselves, houses 
 in the country, sea-shores and mountains ; 
 and thou too art wont to desire such 
 things very much. But this is altogether a 
 mark of the most common sort of men, for 
 it is in thy power, whenever thou shalt 
 
70 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 choose, to retire into thyself. For nowhere 
 either with more quiet or more freedom from 
 trouble does a man retire than into his own 
 soul, particularly when he has within him 
 such thoughts that, by looking into them, 
 he is immediately in perfect tranquillity ; 
 and I affirm that tranquillity is nothing else 
 than the good ordering of the mind. Con- 
 stantly then give to thyself this retreat and 
 renew thyself ; and let thy principles be 
 brief and fundamental, which, as soon as 
 thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient 
 to cleanse the soul completely, and to send 
 thee back free from all discontent with the 
 things to which thou returnest.” 
 
 “ For with what art thou discontented ? ” 
 he asks himself. The badness of men ? 
 The lot that is assigned to thee out of the 
 universe ? The clinging of corporal things 
 still to thee ? The desire of the thing called 
 fame ? Thou hast maxims that will 
 alleviate all these. “ This then remains. 
 Remember to retire into this little territory 
 of thine own, and above all do not distract 
 or strain thyself, but be free and look at 
 things as a man, as a human being, as a 
 citizen, as a mortal. But amongst the things 
 readiest to thy hand to which thou shalt 
 return, let there be these, which are two : 
 One is that things do not touch the soul, for 
 they are external and immovable ; but our 
 
THE BOOK OF MEDITATIONS 
 
 71 
 
 perturbations come only from the opinion 
 which is within. The other is that all these 
 things which thou seest change immediately 
 and will no longer be ; and constantly bear 
 in mind how many of these changes thou 
 hast already witnessed. The Universe is 
 transformation ; life is opinion.” 
 
 In these last sentences we have the kernel 
 of the Stoic doctrine of resignation. 
 
 “ The mind is its own place, and in itself 
 Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of 
 heaven.” 
 
 The mind can weave its own Universe ; and 
 with it it rests to weave it a fairyland of 
 ordered goodness and beauty. All things 
 without are fleeting and unstable, shadows 
 that will pass, mists that disappear at dawn. 
 “ There is nothing either good or bad but 
 thinking makes it so.” “ The aids to nobler 
 life are all within.” Man is but part of the 
 Universe, and his best wisdom is to live in 
 accord with its beautiful harmony, which 
 disposes all things sweetly for the good of 
 all. It would be contrary to the Divine 
 Kosmos, the ordering of the great world- 
 spirit, if what were for the good of all were 
 not for the good of each : 
 
 “ If the gods have determined about me 
 and about the things which must happen 
 to me, they have determined well, for it is 
 
72 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 not easy even to imagine a deity without 
 forethought ; and as to doing me any harm, 
 why should they have any desire towards 
 that ? For what advantage would result 
 to them from this, or to the whole, which is 
 the special object of their providence ? 
 But if they have not deter m ined about me 
 individually, they have certainly deter- 
 mined about the whole at least, and the 
 things which happen by way of sequence in 
 this general arrangement I ought to accept 
 with pleasure and to be content with them. 
 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 those 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 each man 
 which is conformable to his own constitution 
 and nature. But my nature is rational and 
 social ; my city and country so far as I am 
 Antoninus is Rome, but so far as I am a man 
 it is the world. The things then that are 
 useful to these eities are alone useful to me.” 
 
 All this is very beautiful ; it is admirable ; 
 but it is not human. An abstract idea never 
 ministered to a mind diseased or healed a 
 
THE BOOK OF MEDITATIONS 
 
 73 
 
 broken heart ; and when all is said the 
 Stoic Weltanschauung is a sad one. As 
 Arnold felt many have felt : “It is impos- 
 sible to rise from reading Epictetus or 
 Marcus Aurelius without a sense of con- 
 straint and melancholy, without feeling 
 that the burden laid upon man is well-nigh 
 greater than he can bear.” But we must 
 add with him : “ Honour to the sages who 
 have felt this, and yet have borne it.” For 
 ourselves we feel a need of something more 
 personal, something with more love and 
 sympathy and appeal. How chilling are the 
 maxims of the Porch beside the glowing 
 verses of the Apostle of Love, which express 
 the essence of Christianity — an intense 
 personal love for God, an acceptance of all 
 trials from a motive of love, and a love 
 of our neighbour like unto the love God 
 bears them. 
 
 This was the Christian answer to all the 
 ancient philosophies — the solution of the 
 world-problem by love ; and neither in 
 Marcus Aurelius nor Plotinus nor any of the 
 great pagans do we find anything at once 
 so human and divine, anything which so 
 responds to the noblest aspirations of the 
 human soul without losing sight of its 
 weakness. 
 
 But it is not the formal doctrine of the 
 book of the Meditations which gives it its 
 
74 THE EMPEROE MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 attraction ; it is the spirit of the author it 
 reveals so intimately. Rarely do we get 
 from philosophers such familiar self-revela- 
 tion as this from the beginning of the fifth 
 book : interesting, even though it suggests 
 a lack of humour and sense of proportion : 
 
 “ In the morning when thou risest un- 
 willingly, let this thought be present — I 
 am rising to the work of a human being. 
 Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to 
 do the things for which I exist and for 
 which I was brought into this world ? Or have 
 I been made for this, to lie in the bed-clothes 
 and keep myself warm ? But this is more 
 pleasant — Dost thou exist then to take 
 thy pleasure and not at all for action or 
 exertion ? Dost thou not see the little plants, 
 the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the 
 bees, working together to put in order their 
 several parts of the Universe ? And art thou 
 unwilling to do the work of a human being, 
 and dost thou not make haste to do that 
 which is according to thy nature ?” Imagine 
 the sight of a spider rousing a sluggard ! 
 
 And again in the same book : 
 
 “ Thou sayest. Men cannot admire the 
 sharpness of thy wits. Be it so ; but there 
 are many other things of which thou canst 
 not say, I am not formed for them by nature. 
 Show those qualities then which are al- 
 together in thy power, sincerity, gravity, 
 
THE BOOK OF MEDITATIONS 
 
 75 
 
 endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, 
 contentment with thy portion and with few 
 things, benevolence, frankness, no love of 
 superfluity, freedom from trifling magnan- 
 imity. Dost thou not see how many quali- 
 ties thou art immediately able to exhibit, 
 in which there is no excuse of natural in- 
 capacity and unfitness, and yet thou still 
 remainest voluntarily below the mark ? or 
 art thou compelled through being defectively 
 furnished by nature to murmur, and to be 
 stingy, and to flatter and to find fault with 
 thy poor body, and to try to please men, 
 and to make great display, and to be restless 
 in thy mind ? No, by the gods ; but thou 
 mightest have been delivered from these 
 things long ago. Only if in truth thou canst 
 be charged with being rather slow and dull 
 of comprehension, thou must exert thyself 
 about this also, not neglecting it nor yet 
 taking pleasure in thy dullness.” 
 
 Stoic optimism can scarcely be said to 
 have solved the mysteries of evil and the 
 unrest of the soul, or satisfied the craving 
 for happiness, for guidance and support 
 which is deep down in every heart. Yet 
 the followers of that school were a good 
 influence on a corrupt world. We feel in all 
 the book of the Meditations a calm strength, 
 a forbearance, a perseverance despite 
 failure in good resolutions, which does all 
 
76 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 honour to its author living in the most 
 sensual surroundings. And in Marcus this 
 stem character is relieved by touches of 
 tender affection and gratitude constantly 
 recurring. They reveal a character far 
 inferior to that of the Christian Saint ; no- 
 body except some of our neo-pagan para- 
 doxists will look for such perfection in him ; 
 the marvel is that he so often reminds us of 
 them and approaches them even afar. In 
 none of those pagan heroes do we find that 
 blending of strength and humility, of 
 austerity and gentlest love, that touch of 
 the Light Divine and that reflex of Christ, 
 which remove a St. Francis de Sales or a 
 St. Vincent de Paul a whole heaven’s breadth 
 from them and make it an irreverence to 
 compare the one to the other. 
 
 But we do find wonderful things in them. 
 Take, for instance, the nine considerations 
 which Marcus proposed for himself as an 
 aid to bearing with those who had offended 
 him ; they are given in the eleventh book, 
 and the second of them well shows the 
 imperfection inseparable from pagan virtue, 
 even the highest : (1) All men are bom for 
 one another. (2) Consider the private vices 
 of those that have offended thee. (3) If 
 they do wrong it is involuntarily and in 
 ignorance. (4) Thou also doest many things 
 wrong, and thou art a man like others ; and 
 
THE BOOK OF MEDITATIONS 
 
 77 
 
 even if thou dost abstain from certain 
 faults still thou hast the disposition to 
 commit them, though either through 
 cowardice or concern about reputation or 
 some sueh mean motive thou dost abstain 
 from sueh faults. (5) You may be judging 
 them rashly. (6) “ Man’s life is only a 
 moment, and after a short time we are all 
 laid out dead.” (7) Your annoyanee is due 
 not to those aets but to your own impres- 
 sions. (He says elsewhere : “ How easy it 
 is to repel and to wipe away every impres- 
 sion which is troublesome or unsuitable, and 
 immediately to be in all tranquillity.”) 
 (8) Anger and vexation are a greater evil 
 than the thing which causes them. (9) One 
 of the most amiable passages in the Medita- 
 tions : “ Consider that benevolence is in- 
 vincible if it be genuine, and not an affected 
 smile and acting a part. For what will the 
 most violent man do to thee if thou con- 
 tinuest to be of a benevolent disposition 
 towards him, and if, as opportunity offers, 
 thou gently admonishest him and calmly 
 correctest his errors at the very time when 
 he is trying to do thee harm, saying. Not so, 
 my child : we are constituted by nature for 
 something else : I shall certainly not be 
 injured, but thou art injuring thyself, my 
 child — and show him with gentle tact and by 
 general principles that this is so, and that 
 
78 THE EMPEROE MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 even bees do not do as he does, nor any 
 animals, which are formed by nature to be 
 gregarious. And thou must do this neither 
 with any double meaning nor in way of 
 reproach, but affectionately and without 
 any rancour in thy soul ; and not as if thou 
 wert lecturing him, nor yet that any by- 
 stander may admire, but when he is alone.” 
 Again he asks himself what have the evil 
 deeds of others to do with the intellect’s 
 abiding pure, self-possessed, temperate, and 
 just. Nothing at all : “ Even as if one 
 standing by a sweet and transparent 
 fountain were to utter abuse against it, and 
 it ceased not to pour forth its salutary 
 waters. And if one cast mud or filth therein, 
 it would speedily dissipate and wash it 
 away, and would in no wise be stained by it. 
 How shalt thou be an ever-flowing spring, 
 and not a cistern ? Grow every hour into 
 freedom, united with gentleness, simplicity 
 and modesty.” 
 
 The view of his fellow-men which Marcus 
 expresses is a curious mixture of charity, pity, 
 and contempt. He frequently strengthened 
 himself against human respect by consider- 
 ing that the evil lives of other men made 
 their opinion contemptible. These passages 
 seem to reveal a nature tinged with spiritual 
 pride and aloofness. He insists time and 
 again on the fellowship of men, as fellow- 
 
THE BOOK OF MEDITATIONS 
 
 79 
 
 citizens of one great polity : but he has a 
 profound sense of their folly and baseness 
 too. Yet his lonely nature craved for friend- 
 ship with kindred souls, though seemingly 
 fastidious in its friendship. With his de- 
 tached attitude towards his fellow-men it is 
 little wonder that he had but few friends; 
 and he was conscious of it. In a letter to 
 Fronto he mentions this and also in a passage 
 from the Meditations : “ Solace your de- 
 parture with the reflection : I am leaving a 
 life in which my own associates, for whom I 
 have so strived, prayed, and thought, them- 
 selves wish for my removal, their hope being 
 that they will perchance gain in freedom 
 thereby.” 
 
 This note of world- weariness and disillusion 
 as regards everything men prize recurs again 
 and again in the course of the Meditations : 
 it runs through his doctrines of resignation, 
 of charity and forbearance, of self-restraint 
 and peace. Its recurrence in the many — 
 perhaps too many — quotations in this 
 chapter may have wearied the reader : yet 
 I do not regret that I have made it prominent, 
 for it was the most intense idea in the 
 Emperor’s mind, and surely strange enough 
 to be interesting when found in the ruler of 
 the greatest of Empires at the height of its 
 civilisation. I hope, too, that these quota- 
 tions will initiate the reader into the spirit 
 
80 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 of the great Stoic. There was no question 
 of giving an exact account of the system 
 expounded in the Meditations : for there is 
 no such system ; Marcus Aurelius was more 
 interested in virtue than in learning ; he 
 would rather feel compunction than know 
 its definition. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LAST DAYS IN ROME 
 
 The hasty summons to the East which 
 interrupted Marcus’ northern campaign 
 was due to the revolt of one of his best 
 generals, Avidius Cassius. 
 
 Cassius until now had been loyal to the 
 Emperor and had served him well in the 
 war against the Parthians. In that war the 
 woi-thless debauchee Lucius Verus, Marcus’ 
 colleague, had been nominally in command, 
 but really confined his campaigns to the 
 voluptuous groves of Daphne, while Cassius 
 bore the brunt of the fight. Further, Cassius 
 had by iron discipline restored the efficiency 
 of the Eastern legions. At first, like all 
 reformers, he was cordially hated ; this 
 hatred found expression in mutiny ; but, on 
 this being suppressed, gave place to respect 
 and even to popularity. It were well for 
 Cassius had he confined his zeal for reform 
 to the army ; but he wished to reform the 
 Emperor and the court also. His murmur- 
 ings became public property, and Lucius 
 Verus wrote to Marcus warning him against 
 him : “I would you had him closely 
 7 81 
 
82 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 watched. For he is a general disliker of us 
 and of our doings ; he is gathering together 
 an enormous treasure, and he makes an open 
 jest of our literary pursuits. You, for 
 instance, he calls a philosophising old 
 woman, and me a dissolute buffoon and a 
 scamp. Consider what you would have 
 done. For my part I bear the fellow no 
 ill-will ; but again I say take care that he 
 does not do mischief to you and to your 
 children.” 
 
 The answer of Marcus gives a most search- 
 ing insight into his character. Steeped in 
 the most obstinately logical fatalism, it is 
 yet generous and noble and “ breathes the 
 very soul of careless magnanimity reposing 
 upon conscious innocence”: — 
 
 “ I have read your letter, and I will 
 confess to you I think it more scrupulously 
 timid than becomes an Emperor, and timid 
 in a way unsuitable to the spirit of our 
 times. Consider this — if the Empire is 
 destined to Cassius by the decrees of Provi- 
 dence, in that case it will not be in our 
 power to put him to death, however much 
 we may desire to do so. You know your 
 great-grandfather’s saying, ‘ No prince ever 
 killed his own heir ’ ; no man, that is, ever 
 yet prevailed against one whom Providence 
 had marked out as his successor. On the 
 other hand, if Providence opposes him, then, 
 
LAST DAYS IN ROME 
 
 83 
 
 without any cruelty on our part, he will fall 
 spontaneously into some snare prepared for 
 him by destiny. . . . For Cassius, then, 
 let him keep his present temper and inclina- 
 tions, and the more so, being (as he is) a 
 good general, austere in discipline, brave, 
 and one whom the State cannot afford to lose. 
 For as to what you insinuate, that I ought 
 to provide for my children’s interests, by 
 putting this man judiciously out of the way, 
 very frankly I say to you, ‘ Perish, my 
 children, if Avidius shall deserve more 
 attachment than they, and if it shall prove 
 salutaiy to the State that Cassius should 
 triumph rather than that the children of 
 Marcus should survive.’” 
 
 Gradually Cassius had been strengthening 
 his forces ; and at length in a.d. 175 openly 
 raised the standard of revolt against the 
 reign of the philosophers. His manifesto 
 shows how deeply the military party re- 
 sented the ascendancy of men who seemed 
 to have no qualification for office except 
 their long beards and eccentric life. Jibes 
 such as this were common : “ His beard is 
 worth ten thousand sesterces to him ; come, 
 we shall have to pay goats a salary next ! ” 
 Avidius admits that Marcus is a worthy man, 
 but he is letting the State go to ruin, while 
 “ hungry blood-suckers batten on her vitals.” 
 He longs for the old strict regime of Cato. 
 
84 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 “ Marcus Antoninus is a scholar ; he enacts 
 the philosopher ; and he tries conclusions 
 concerning the four elements and upon the 
 nature of the soul ; and he discourses 
 learnedly upon the Honestum ; and concern- 
 ing the Summum Bonum he is unanswerable. 
 Meanwhile, is he learned in the interests of 
 the State ? Can he argue a point upon the 
 public economy ? ” And he adds : “You 
 see what a host of sabres is required, what 
 a host of impeachments, sentences, execu- 
 tions, before the commonwealth can resume 
 its ancient integrity ! ” 
 
 A rumour that Marcus was dead hastened 
 the outbreak of the revolt and won support 
 for Cassius. But it was quickly contra- 
 dicted ; and this caused the collapse of his 
 forces. Officers and men deserted him, 
 and he was at length assassinated by one of 
 his own followers. 
 
 Meanwhile Marcus was coming with all 
 haste from the Danube, accompanied by 
 Faustina. When they reached Cappadocia, 
 at the foot of Mount Taurus, Faustina 
 died, to his great grief, and the tongues of 
 the slanderers were silent at length. The 
 last accusation against her was that she 
 had been privy to this very revolt, and had 
 promised to marry Cassius in the event of 
 its success. But to all these charges we 
 must give a verdict of “ not proven ” ; they 
 
LAST DAYS IN ROME 
 
 85 
 
 are for the most part unreliable gossip of 
 the most gossiping of historians. But even 
 though she was not guilty of all that was 
 laid to her charge, yet she seems to have 
 wearied of the over-wisdom of Marcus and 
 his friends : she lived a different life and 
 had different tastes from his. Yet even 
 after her death Marcus cherished her mem- 
 ory. He had a temple built to her honour 
 on the spot where she died, and at his 
 request the Senate decreed her deification. 
 The visitor to Rome may still see in the 
 Capitoline Museum a bas-relief in which 
 she is represented being borne up to heaven 
 by Fame, while Marcus follows her from 
 the earth with that look of tender, wistful 
 pathos which characterises most of the 
 representations of him. In decreeing these 
 honours, as also in establishing an institute 
 for orphans to be called Faustiniance, after 
 her name, he was but following step by 
 step the action of his father Antoninus on 
 the death of the elder Faustina. 
 
 When Marcus reached Antioch the revolt 
 was already ended. One of the assassins, 
 hoping for reward, brought the head of 
 Cassius to the Emperor ; but he put him 
 from him with indignation and loathing. 
 His one regret was that he had been deprived 
 of the pleasure of pardoning his enemy. 
 
 But the good deed was done, if not to 
 
86 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 Cassius, at any rate to his wife and relatives. 
 Many urged him to wreak his vengeance on 
 them. Faustina, before her death, had 
 insisted that he “ should show no mercy to 
 men that showed none to you, nor would 
 have shown any to me or my sons in case 
 they had gained the victory ” ; she would 
 have had him punish the army also severely 
 as accomplices. Marcus replied that he 
 admired her zeal for their family, but said 
 that he would spare Cassius’ wife and 
 children and son-in-law and commend them 
 to the mercy of the Senate. As to his other 
 relatives : “ Why should I speak of pardon 
 to them, who indeed have done no wrong, 
 and are blameless even in purpose.” The 
 Senate granted his requests, and the house- 
 hold of Cassius was amply provided for by 
 the generosity of the Emperor. 
 
 We are wont to think of the forgiving to 
 seventy times seven times as the peculiar 
 and most characteristic virtue of Christianity 
 as it assuredly is the most beautiful of the 
 natural virtues. Yet it was a virtue familiar 
 to the wise ones of the Stoics, and perhaps 
 not a difficult virtue to those who adopted 
 their philosophy of life. If nothing matters 
 and all is in very truth but vanity of vanities 
 and the soul is steeped in this conviction, 
 the disposition to look on life’s worries, 
 whatever their sources, as but petty and 
 
LAST DAYS IN ROME 
 
 87 
 
 trifling, is natural and spontaneous. For 
 one with the Stoic temperament hard things 
 are but the whetstone of the will, and herein 
 precisely lies the danger of that tempera- 
 ment from the Christian point of view. 
 The Stoic will, if not well-ordered, is a harsh 
 grinding thing which sucks in and crushes 
 the beautiful things of -life as grist beneath 
 its wheels. It exults in its strength with a 
 forbidding and unlovely pride, so different 
 from the beautiful diffidence of Christian 
 strength, which loves not the beauty of the 
 creatures less, but the beauty of the Creator 
 more, and with a kind of supernatural 
 Epicureanism renounces the beauty of the 
 fleeting for the sake of the beauty of which 
 it is but an image far removed, the beauty 
 of Him whose beauty is older than the hills 
 and will abide when they have crumbled 
 away. 
 
 It is to the credit of Marcus Aurelius 
 that even in this he avoided to a great 
 extent the faults of his virtues ; it is the 
 touch of emotion in his writings and in those 
 of the other later Stoics of the Empire 
 which gives them their charm beyond the 
 earlier members of the sehool. We have 
 many indications that his soul was open to 
 the airoppoT] Tov KaX\ov<i, the inflow of 
 beauty from sensible things, while his corres- 
 pondence with Fronto shows that his nature 
 
88 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 was affectionate. Throughout the Medita- 
 tions also we see the reflection of the constant 
 struggle which he had with his own nature. 
 One who did not feel deeply would never 
 have insisted so much on the necessity for 
 control of the feelings. It is a fallacy to 
 think that the Stoic is necessarily dead to 
 humanity. In a sense, and in theory at 
 least, he is the truest lover of man and the 
 human. His sole vocation in life is the 
 good of the whole ; the caritas generis 
 humani (love for his fellow-men), if not the 
 central point of their system and far from 
 the Christian ideal of charity in beauty and 
 efficacy, yet was present and active in 
 them. The Stoic must check his feelings 
 but not suppress them. It suffices that 
 the barrier of the will be raised and strength- 
 ened day by day and then the feelings may 
 surge up behind it, ready for right use ; 
 but as servants not as masters. Thus the 
 paradox is true that those have often the 
 strongest emotions whose emotions are 
 most in check. 
 
 On his way back from the East the Em- 
 peror passed through Athens. There he 
 found much that attracted him and much 
 that repelled. The schools of philosophy 
 were his chief interest, but he liked not their 
 sophisms and disputations, and the irrespon- 
 sibility which seemed irreverent towards 
 
LAST DAYS IN ROME 
 
 89 
 
 the true philosophy whose end was life. 
 When he thinks of the dialecticians of his 
 day he thanks the gods that he did not 
 make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, 
 and the other studies “ in which I should 
 perhaps have been completely engaged, if 
 I had seen that I was making progress in 
 them.” He thinks with gratitude of 
 Rusticus as having taught him “ not to be 
 led astray to sophistic emulation, nor to 
 writing on speculative matters, nor to 
 delivering little hortatory orations, nor to 
 showing myself off as a man who practises 
 much discipline or does benevolent acts 
 in order to make a display ; and to abstain 
 from rhetoric and fine-writing.” “ Quid tibi 
 de generibus et speciebus?” said a Kempis. 
 
 But though the spirit of the schools was 
 repugnant to his sincerity, yet, true to his 
 leading principle of fostering culture, he 
 founded several chairs in what we may call 
 the University of Athens. 
 
 While at Athens he was also initiated into 
 the Eleusinian Mysteries. This act was 
 not with him merely an act of State-policy, 
 an act of condescension to an alien religion 
 such as other Emperors often showed ; 
 nor was it, as it was with Hadrian, the out- 
 come of a restless desire to pry into the novel 
 and the mysterious. With Marcus Aurelius 
 it was probably a sincere act of religion, 
 
90 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 There was much in the symbolism and 
 ritual of the mysteries, its hymns and proces- 
 sions and dramatic representations re- 
 sembling the mystery plays of the Middle 
 Ages, in its fasting and nightly torchlight 
 processions by the sea-shore and through 
 the plain, which would appeal to his 
 ritualistic nature. The doctrines of expia- 
 tion and a future life, the koKui iXirlSes — the 
 fair hopes of Eleusis, must have had an 
 especial attraction for him. 
 
 As to his own religious views, he certainly 
 was not the Agnostic which Renan would 
 have him be. “ In every time and place,” 
 he says, “ it rests with thyself to use the 
 event of the hour religiously : at all seasons 
 worship the gods.” He asserts that it is 
 impious to deny the existence of the gods, 
 and he rests his theories of right and wrong 
 on the supposition of their existence. True, 
 as Renan points out, he often holds out to 
 himself the alternative of their non-existence, 
 but even then it is only to assert the exist- 
 ence of the Divinity in another form. He 
 says that if they did not exist, yet truth to 
 our own nature would be a sufficient motive 
 for right action ; but our nature is for him 
 but a part of the nature which is Divine, 
 and derives its sanction from its participa- 
 tion in this supreme nature. His religion 
 was a strange mixture of monotheism. 
 
LAST DAYS IN ROME 
 
 91 
 
 polytheism, and pantheism ; but to atheism 
 he never really consents. Strictly speaking, 
 he had no philosophy or theology ; for he 
 was not interested in systems as such. 
 Yet he never wavered in his loyalty to the 
 national religion, however much or little 
 of it he really believed when he stood at 
 the sacrificial altar in pontifical robes and 
 chanted the ancient hymns and formularies, 
 all of which he knew by heart. 
 
 Indeed, he was more deeply interested 
 in the practical than in the pure reason ; 
 and conduct was more for him than dogma : 
 hence it is that his thoughts are so intensely 
 human and universal in their appeal. His 
 nature, however, had little in common 
 with the light and frivolous agnosticism of 
 Renan and the dilettanti ; and only a very 
 subjective interpretation of the Meditations 
 can eliminate from them the “ supernatural ” 
 element. Renan recognises this element 
 to a certain extent, and accounts it a 
 blemish “ which, however, does not affect 
 the marvellous beauty of the work as a 
 whole.” It is for him, as for Matthew 
 Arnold, the gospel of those who walk by 
 sight and not by faith, “ who have no faith 
 in the supernatural ” ; and it “ will never 
 grow old because it affirms no dogma.” 
 
 It is useless to inquire further into the 
 nature of his religious beliefs. He would 
 
92 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 have been at a loss to define them himself. 
 The great salient feature is here as elsewhere 
 the tragedy of a great moral nature in the 
 throes of superstition, of a beautiful life 
 deprived of its fit setting : a tragedy too 
 common in our own days filling wide spaces 
 with spiritual waste and hopeless sighs, and 
 making hearts desolate for that their light 
 is gone out or flickers low. 
 
 On his return to Rome, Marcus celebrated 
 a splendid triumph, shared in by Commodus, 
 over the conquered German peoples. It 
 was against his own better feelings and in 
 concession to Roman vulgarity that he 
 endured this ordeal. He often expresses 
 his disgust for these functions and, as we 
 have seen, regarded conquerors as no better 
 than robbers. The shouts of the mob, the 
 long train of captives, the reeking public 
 banquets were little to his taste ; and for 
 him there was no need of the attendant 
 who usually stood behind the conqueror on 
 the triumphal car to remind him that he was 
 a man lest he should perhaps bring down 
 on himself the wrath of the gods by an 
 unseemly arrogance. 
 
 There was less need than ever on this day ; 
 for with Commodus by his side a great sorrow 
 overshadowed him. He had nominated 
 Commodus as his successor to avoid a worse 
 evil — the evil of civil war, which would 
 
LAST DAYS IN ROME 
 
 98 
 
 certainly have arisen had he chosen one 
 more worthy from his own philosophic 
 circle. Yet Commodus, though still a youth, 
 had already given full reign to his passions ; 
 and Marcus can scarcely have failed to 
 foresee the disaster which he was to bring 
 upon the Empire. The shadow of this sorrow 
 and of the great loneliness which was his 
 during his later years, grows darker and 
 darker over the last books of the Medita- 
 tions. 
 
 As Renan has remarked, they have but 
 one thought, that of passing as gently as 
 may be from the world. In the earlier 
 books he gathers strength for the struggle 
 of life ; now all is preparation for death. 
 
 The evil plight of public affairs also justi- 
 fied this world- weariness. The signs of 
 decay were already visible in Rome : the 
 handwriting had been seen on the walls of 
 the Capitol. Even Renan has to admit 
 that “ in reality the progress effected 
 during the reigns of Antoninus and Marcus 
 Aurelius had been merely superficial. It 
 had been limited to a varnish of hypocrisy 
 and external professions, which people 
 assumed in order to be in harmony with the 
 two wise Emperors. The masses were grossly 
 materialistic ; the army was decaying ; the 
 laws alone had been changed for the better.” 
 Plague, famine, and war had done their 
 
94 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 , work of death. Marcus did all he could to 
 alleviate the misery ; but bad finance had 
 left him helpless to cope with such universal 
 disaster. And to fill his cup of bitterness 
 news was brought that his old enemies on 
 the Danube were in arms again. He must 
 needs, ill and heartsick though he was, gird 
 himself once more and prepare to leave 
 Rome for the wild North — this time never 
 to return. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 “ THE END OF THE OLD WORLD.” 
 
 The peace hastily made in a.d. 175 was 
 broken two years later. The local com- 
 manders again proved incompetent to drive 
 back the barbarian hordes, and Marcus had 
 once more to assume the command in per- 
 son. This time he decided to take with him 
 Commodus, in the hope perhaps that, like 
 so many of the Roman nobles, worthless at 
 home, he might develop in the provinces 
 those powers for government and war which 
 were innate in that race of rulers ; or, at the 
 very least, in the hope of strengthening him 
 against effeminate influences by the hard 
 northern winters and the privations of 
 camp life. 
 
 Before leaving Rome the Emperor gave a 
 pitiful exhibition of his powerlessness to 
 diffuse the light of his own philosophy 
 amongst his subjects ; or else of the strange 
 grip, growing stronger as the shades drew 
 round him, which the pagan superstitions 
 had upon his soul. For seven days before his 
 departure the city was the scene of the 
 wildest religious extravagances. The older 
 95 
 
96 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 gods of the West shared the honours with 
 their lighter brethren from the East and 
 South. The number of white steers sacri- 
 ficed was so great that some of the wits 
 circulated an epigrammatical petition from 
 them to the Emperor : “ The white oxen to 
 the Emperor Marcus Aurelius : If you 
 return as conqueror, that will be the end of 
 us.” Sumptuous feasts were prepared before 
 every temple at which the statues of the 
 gods reclined : and Rome reeled in mad revel. 
 Quacks from all parts of the Empire gathered 
 in Rome and flourished during those days. 
 
 Lucian has left us a vivid picture of one 
 of these. This was Alexander of Abono- 
 teichos, the prince of impostors. He had 
 started a new religion in Paphlagonia with 
 mysteries and rites based on those of 
 Eleusis. This had quickly spread over the 
 East ; and with the other Eastern impostures 
 found a welcome at Rome. Rutilianus, a 
 Roman senator of consular rank, became its 
 patron and zealous advocate. The new 
 mysteries were celebrated during three 
 days with scenes of wild excitement and 
 immorality. Even the friends of Marcus 
 and Marcus himself were deceived. During 
 the Northern wars, at a word from Alex- 
 ander’s sacred serpent, Marcus had solemnly 
 presided in the robes of the Pontifex 
 Maximus over a most ridiculous ceremony. 
 
THE END OF THE OLD WORLD 
 
 97 
 
 
 
 The Romans were assured that if they cast 
 two lions alive into the Danube they would 
 be victorious over the enemy arrayed against 
 them on the opposite bank. The lions were 
 cast in with all ceremony ; but, unfortu- 
 nately for Alexander’s reputation and Mar- 
 cus’ credulity, they were beaten to death on 
 reaching the other bank, and the Romans, 
 when they crossed, fared no better. 
 
 The Emperor went through a ceremony 
 at this time which must have been no less 
 revolting to him than it is to us. This was 
 the ancient ceremony of the casting of the 
 dart, a ceremony almost as old as Rome 
 itself. The Emperor went in procession to 
 the temple of Bellona, surrounded by a mob 
 of fanatics, who cut into their living flesh 
 with knives and whips and then lapped the 
 streaming blood — to honour and placate 
 their Goddess of War ! Arrived at the 
 Temple he hurled the dart towards the 
 North — ^where his enemies were already 
 pressing his armies hard. 
 
 When he had done all that he considered 
 necessary to appease the gods or to soothe 
 the superstitious fears of his subjects, 
 Marcus at length set out for the scene of 
 war in a.d. 178. Of this war very little is 
 known. The dream of Augustus and many 
 of the other Emperors, given up as hopeless 
 by them — ^the extension of the Roman 
 8 
 
98 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 frontier to the Elbe and the consolidation 
 of Roman power in the North — was almost 
 realised. But the Dark Shadow which had 
 crossed Marcus’ path so often before 
 drew nigh once more and for the last time. 
 On the eve of a great and, it would seem, 
 a final conquest, illness and death conquered 
 the Conqueror. 
 
 It was in the spring of a.d. 180 that the 
 plague which had taken off half the popula- 
 tion of the Empire came to claim the life 
 of the Emperor. He fell ill, probably at 
 Vienna, on the 10th of March. His con- 
 stitution had never been robust and the 
 hardships of the last years had still further 
 weakened it. Hence he recognised im- 
 mediately that this illness was to be unto 
 death ; and is said to have at once welcomed 
 its approach. Continual disappointment 
 had killed all hope within him, and with 
 hope the pain of hope unfulfilled ; and so he 
 had no regrets now that that strange spirit 
 which had ever dogged him once more 
 passed by at midnight over the dreary 
 northern plains and entering into his tent 
 dashed the cup of victory from his lips. 
 He asked Commodus as a last request to 
 complete the war and then prepared for the 
 end. For seven days the illness lasted. On 
 the sixth he bade farewell to his friends. 
 He spoke to them of the vanity of life and 
 
“ THE END OF THE OLD WORLD ” 99 
 
 the easiness of death ; commended to them 
 the interests of the State and Commodus, 
 “ if he should prove worthy ” ; and all this 
 with a great calm. On the seventh day he 
 would see nobody except Commodus, and 
 him only for a short time, with a last de- 
 spairing hope perhaps of inspiring at least 
 one noble sentiment into that monster of 
 brutality. Then he seemed to sleep ; and 
 his sleep deepened into death. 
 
 It was a death free from pomp, lonely 
 and detached as his life had been. But 
 death, in whatever form it came, seems to 
 have had no terrors for him. He had often 
 faced the thought of it and always to per- 
 suade himself that in it there was nothing 
 to fear, but perhaps much to hope for. 
 
 His confidence in facing death sprang 
 from no sure hope of personal immortality. 
 He believed in an immortality for both 
 soul and body and that the gods would 
 care for both ; but whether the life beyond 
 would be a continuance of the personal 
 life of time, or whether this human soul 
 should be swallowed up in the great world- 
 soul he knew not. “ You have embarked 
 upon life : when you have made your voyage 
 debark without more ado. If you happen 
 to land in another world there will be gods 
 to take care of you there ; but if it be your 
 fortune to drop into nothingness, why then 
 
100 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 you will be no more solicited with pleasure 
 and pain. Then you will have done drudg- 
 ing for your outer covering, which is the 
 more unworthy in proportion as that which 
 serves it is worthy : for the one is all soul, 
 intelligence and divinity, whereas the other 
 is dirt and corruption,” 
 
 Yet elsewhere, though admitting the 
 possibility of the absorption of the human 
 soul into the world-soul he rejects the possi- 
 bility of utter annihilation. “ What is 
 sprung from earth dissolves to earth again 
 and heaven-bom things fly to their native 
 seat.” But again he adds : “ When a man 
 dies, and the spirit is let loose into the air, 
 it holds out for some time, after which it is 
 changed, diffused, or knotted into flame, or 
 else absorbed into the generative principle 
 of the Universe.” This is the best he can 
 promise us : yet how miserable a mockery 
 of human aspirations it is ! how unsatisfying 
 to the longings of the soul, which seeks in 
 the spiritual for the most truly and intensely 
 real and in the spiritual and the spiritualised, 
 thus truly real, for the truest beauty ! 
 
 A philosophy which takes the brightness 
 out of both lives, here and beyond, reducing 
 both to a dull grey mist, can never be a 
 spiritual force, and, if it prevailed, must 
 result in the reversal of all ordinary judg- 
 ments of value. This was a conclusion 
 
THE END OF THE OLD WORLD 
 
 101 
 
 tt 
 
 »> 
 
 frankly accepted by the Stoics, and they 
 carried it even to the extent of the abnega- 
 tion of man’s most absorbing desire — the 
 will to live. A man may even deny this : 
 for adequate eause he may, nay, even should, 
 take away his own life. In ordinary circum- 
 stances man should stand at his post till 
 dismissed by his commander ; he should 
 play out the tragedy of life to the end as 
 arranged by the dramatist : for just cause 
 he may quit the stage before his part is 
 played out. The reason is that between 
 life and death there is nothing to choose ; 
 they are but suceessive stages of one and 
 the same natural process. Marcus held 
 that man may quit life if he finds it intoler- 
 able. True, he says that life ought not to 
 be intolerable : it is our own fault if it is. 
 But supposing that through weakness we 
 cannot bear it, then “ we may give it the 
 slip ” ; and again because death is not the 
 serious thing men imagine it to be : “ What 
 great matter is this business of dying ? If 
 the gods exist, you ean suffer nothing, for 
 they will do you no harm ; and if they do 
 not, or if they take no care of us mortals — 
 why, then a world without gods or provi- 
 dence is not a world worth a man’s while 
 to live in. But in truth the being of the 
 gods and their concern in human affairs is 
 beyond dispute.” If a man is of such a 
 
102 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 character or placed in such circumstances 
 that for him a virtuous life is morally im- 
 possible, then Marcus says he has just cause 
 for suicide, “for reason would rather that 
 you were nothing than that you were a 
 knave.” “ You may live now, if you please, 
 as you would choose to do if you were near 
 to dying. But suppose people will not let 
 you — ^why, then, give life the slip, but by 
 no means make a misfortune of it. If the 
 room smokes, I leave it, and there is an 
 end ; for why should one be concerned at 
 the matter ? ” 
 
 Thus did he try by force of argument, 
 often the merest sophistry, to conjure away 
 the dread realities of human existence. But 
 when death called for one after another of his 
 children, he realised how futile his doctrine 
 was. Yet it was the best he could adhere 
 to, and he did but share in the cruel dis- 
 enchantment that comes sooner or later to 
 all who follow a false philosophy of life. 
 The self-deception which makes these 
 systems plausible in the abstract vanishes 
 at the cold touch of death or at a thrill of 
 love from a kindred heart. All that is most 
 sacred in life, its morality and its ideals, 
 the foundations of society and the aspira- 
 tions of the individual ; the problems that 
 vex men as to the ultimate grounds of 
 obligation, beautj^ and love ; the problems 
 
THE END OF THE OLD WORLD 
 
 103 
 
 (( 
 
 >» 
 
 of freedom, of evil and of immortality ; the 
 need of the human heart for guidance and 
 support can receive no adequate explanation 
 except in the acceptance of integral Chris- 
 tianity — namely Catholicism. Hence the 
 folly of our neo-pagan revival. Paganism 
 was tried and is dead with the souls and the 
 hopes it slew ; the future lies with a vigorous 
 fighting Catholicity. It is vain to attempt 
 to resurrect the corpse which Constantine 
 prepared for burial. Wisdom and duty 
 bid us follow the system which our whole 
 nature cries out for : reason alone or senti- 
 ment alone is a blind guide ; truth lies in the 
 leading of the whole man. 
 
 Yet the moral greatness which Marcus 
 had attained in spite of all the limitations 
 of his system was made very clear by the 
 universal grief and reverence which was 
 expressed at his death. When his body was 
 brought to Rome the whole city went into 
 mourning. Henceforth we are told men 
 spoke of him no longer by his imperial 
 titles, but old men spoke of him as “Marcus, 
 my son ” ; young men, as “ Marcus, my 
 father ” ; and men of his own age, as 
 “ Marcus, my brother ” ; such was the affec- 
 tion of all for him. The decreeing of divine 
 honours was not in his case, as it was in 
 that of so many of the Emperors, a formality 
 or a burlesque : it was from the heart ; 
 
104 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 the VOX populi proclaimed him “ propitious 
 god ” before the Senate passed the formal 
 decree. And, truly, as St. Augustine said 
 of Plato, we might well pardon the pagans 
 if they raised a temple to him rather than 
 to the gods they honoured. For more than 
 a century after his death his statue was 
 to be seen amongst the household gods in 
 the hearth-shrines of the whole Western 
 Empire, and men looked askance at a 
 chance defaulter to this cult. He was the 
 model of succeeding Emperors, and Chris- 
 tian writers vied with pagans in their praises 
 of him. Even in our own time that strange, 
 melancholy figure is dear to all that know 
 him : there is a pathos and an interest in 
 his life and thoughts which is unique : 
 “ Everyone of us wears mourning in his 
 heart for Marcus Aurelius as though he 
 died but yesterday.” 
 
 Renan was right in this ; but we cannot 
 admit his further statement that “ the day 
 of the death of Marcus Aurelius can be 
 taken as the decisive moment at which the 
 ruin of ancient civilisation was decided.” 
 It was decided long before ; perhaps it 
 would be nearer the truth to say that the 
 day of Marcus’ accession was the first day 
 of decadence, as it was the last of the old 
 type of Roman rule. But in truth the fate 
 of empires never hangs on a single day or a 
 
“ THE END OF THE OLD WOELD ” 105 
 
 single ruler. They grow and they decay 
 over long centuries : the seed of life and the 
 rot of death is working long before its effects 
 appear without ; and in the reign of Marcus 
 the Empire was already doomed. The old 
 Roman virtues — those especially which 
 form the morale of an imperial race — strict 
 probity, sacrifice of individual interests to 
 the good of the State, initiative, enterprise 
 and the fighting qualties were all dissolving. 
 In their place was being developed the 
 citizen, who is ever the product of centralisa- 
 tion — the man without originality, devotion, 
 or virtue ; who is interested in subtlety 
 rather than in truth; wrapped up in his own 
 petty world, incapable of heroism or sacrifice. 
 
 In the midst of this death there was a 
 strange stirring of life in the North and in 
 the East — a life which was to feed on the 
 death of the Empire. The forbears of 
 Alaric and his Goths had already knocked 
 at the gate and announced his coming. The 
 eloquent pleadings of the Christian apolo- 
 gists addressed to Marcus himself told of a 
 new stirring in the spiritual and intellectual 
 world — of a new vision which he and his 
 friends could not or would not see ; and the 
 brave words and noble deeds of the martyrs 
 told that there was life in this new creed — 
 yes ! life and love to conquer Stoic apathy 
 and pagan death. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE MARTYRS OF CHRIST 
 
 In reading the Meditations of Marcus 
 Aurelius we frequently are struck by the 
 almost Christian spirit which permeates 
 them. Mr. F. H. Myers has well said : 
 “ Whatever winds of the Spirit may sweep 
 over the sea of souls the life of Marcus will 
 remain for ever the high-water mark of the 
 unassisted virtue of man.” So sublime 
 and seemingly preternatural is his spirit that 
 men in all ages have asked and answered in 
 various ways the questions : “ Has Christi- 
 anity anything better to offer us ? and if 
 so, in what precisely does it consist ? ” 
 It is as an answer to these questions that I 
 introduce this brief reference to the story 
 of the Martyrs, preferably a few of the many 
 that suffered under Marcus himself. 
 
 During his reign the Church endured a 
 persecution severer than any it had yet 
 known. How far he was personally respon- 
 sible for this we cannot tell. He was not 
 wholly guilty nor yet wholly innocent. He 
 certainly ordered the torture and execution 
 of the Martyrs of Lyons ; his most intimate 
 106 
 
THE MARTYRS OF CHRIST 
 
 107 
 
 friend sentenced St. Justin to death at 
 Rome ; and his most trusted lawyer con- 
 demned St. Felicitas and her sons ; but, on 
 the other hand, many of the persecutions 
 were due to the anger of the mob, and withal 
 he knew not what he did. The Christians 
 were to him merely an uncultured and 
 fanatical sect without a single redeeming 
 virtue. In the only passage in the Medita- 
 tions where he mentions them he attri- 
 butes their constancy in death to sheer 
 perverseness. After expressing his admi- 
 ration for a soul, “ which is ready, if 
 at any moment it must be separated 
 from the body, to be extinguished, or 
 dissolved, or to continue to exist,” he 
 adds, “ but this readiness must come 
 from a man’s own judgment, not from mere 
 obstinacy as with the Christians, but with 
 considerateness, with gravity, so as to be 
 persuasive without tragic show.” With 
 such a view of the Christian character it 
 is not strange that he felt no qualms in 
 sanctioning, though he did not instigate, 
 the first persecution that bore the semblance 
 of being universal and systematic. 
 
 Furthermore, Roman tradition was law 
 for him ; and Roman tradition was very 
 clear as to the treatment which Christians 
 deserved. The superstitious pagans attri- 
 buted all public calamities to the wrath of 
 
108 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 their gods, and this wrath to the contempt 
 which the Christians showed for the pagan 
 idols. As Tertullian puts it : “ The 
 
 Christians are the cause of all disasters, of 
 all public calamities. If the Tiber floods 
 Rome, if the Nile does not flood the plains, 
 if the heavens are closed, if the earth trem- 
 bles, if a famine takes place or a war or a 
 plague, immediately a cry is raised ‘ The 
 Christians to the lions ! to death with the 
 Christians !’ ” Now, the reign of Marcus 
 was one of singular calamities, all the more 
 aggravating because unforeseen and irre- 
 sistible and devastating the city and the 
 Empire at the culminating point of their 
 prosperity. The reign opened with wars 
 and rumours of wars on the frontiers ; the 
 Tiber overflowed Rome ; there had been a 
 plague and a famine. Here truly was the 
 anger of the gods against the Roman welfare 
 — the deorum ira in rem Romanam of Tacitus. 
 The mob howled for Christian blood ; and 
 Marcus was too weak or too little concerned 
 to resist. Antoninus, Hadrian, Trajan had 
 consented to the torture of the fanatics, 
 though they had not shared the popular 
 prejudices against them ; many of the 
 lawyers and philosophers had counselled it 
 for the good of the State ; why should he 
 say no ? His better nature probably re- 
 volted from such brutality, but it is the 
 
THE MAETYRS OF CHRIST 
 
 109 
 
 misfortune of diffident conventionalists, such 
 as he, that they sacrifice their better instincts 
 to the received views of ruder natures. 
 
 The first victims of the superstition of the 
 Romans and the conventionality of their 
 Emperor were St. Felicitas and her sons. 
 Their trial and death forms a celebrated 
 episode in the history of the martyrs. It 
 well illustrates the spirit of the martyrs* 
 and the great things which the Church 
 was doing for the weak ones of the world ; 
 how that out of the mouths of babes and 
 sucklings she was perfecting praise through 
 the strong love of Christ which was the 
 inheritance of her children. 
 
 The Act tells us that “ owing to indigna- 
 tion amongst the Pontiffs, Felicitas, a 
 woman of high rank, was struck down with 
 her seven most Christian sons.” Her life 
 had been a source of great edification to her 
 fellow-Christians, and the Pontiffs “ seeing 
 that, thanks to her, the good repute of the 
 Christian name was growing, spoke of her 
 to Augustus Antoninus (i.e., Marcus Aure- 
 lius), saying : ‘ This widow and her sons are 
 outraging our gods to our great peril. If 
 
 ♦ This is admitted even by those scholars who regard, 
 and rightly it would seem, these Acts as a historical 
 romance, hut founded on facts. Since the main facts 
 are true, and my concern is to illustrate the spirit of 
 the martyrs, this testimony seemed sufficient justifica- 
 tion for quoting the Acts. 
 
110 THE EMPEEOK MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 she does not pay homage to the gods, your 
 majesty must know that they will be so 
 angry that they cannot be appeased.’ Then 
 the Emperor ordered the Prefect of the City 
 to compel her and her sons to appease the 
 wrath of the gods by sacrifice.” 
 
 This Prefect of the City was Publius 
 Salvius Julianus, the most distinguished 
 and trusted of Roman lawyers ; and before 
 him Felicitas was now brought for trial. 
 He attempted first by blandishments, then 
 by threats, to persuade her to sacrifice. She 
 replied ; “You cannot entice me by bland- 
 ishments nor frighten me by threats, for I 
 have within me the Holy Spirit, Who keeps 
 me from being conquered by the devil : 
 this is my ground for assurance, that living 
 I shall overcome thee and when dead I shall 
 triumph still more.” “ At least let your 
 children live.” “ My children live if they 
 do not sacrifice to idols ; but if they commit 
 such a crime, they shall go to eternal death.” 
 Thus ended this first interview between 
 Publius, a Roman of the old school, with a 
 strong sense of justice as he understood it, 
 but understanding it only as identified with 
 Roman law, and this Roman matron of noble 
 birth, who had left the darkness for the 
 light. 
 
 Next day she and her sons were again 
 brought before the Prefect. “ Have pity 
 
THE MARTYRS OF CHRIST 
 
 111 
 
 on your sons,” said he, “ those fine young 
 fellows yet in the flower of their youth.” 
 Felicitas replied : “ Your pity is impious 
 and your advice cruel.” Turning to 
 her children she added : “ Lift up your- 
 eyes to heaven, my children, look aloft 
 where Christ awaits you with His saints. 
 Do battle for your souls and show your 
 selves faithful in the love of Christ.” At 
 this Publius ordered her to be buffeted. 
 “ Barest thou in my presence counsel con- 
 tempt for the Emperor’s orders ! ” 
 
 Then he called each of the seven sons in 
 turn. He cajoled ; he threatened ; but to 
 no avail. The first, Januarius, replied : 
 “ The wisdom of the Lord sustains me and 
 will enable me to overcome all.” He was 
 beaten and sent back to prison, but the 
 second was not cowed : “We adore one 
 only God,” he replied, "to Whom we offer 
 the sacrifice of a pious devotion. Think not 
 that you can separate me or any of my 
 brothers from the love of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Even under the threat of blows 
 and your unjust designs our faith cannot 
 be conquered or changed.” To the third 
 son, Philip, the Prefect said : “ Our Lord, 
 the Emperor, has ordered that you sacrifice 
 to the all-powerful gods.” The boy replied ; 
 “ They are neither gods nor all-powerful but 
 worthless, wretched, insensible images, and 
 
112 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 those who sacrifice to them will incur eternal 
 risk.” Silvanus made a similar reply and 
 then Alexander was sent forward. Him the 
 judge tried to win by kindness : “ Have pity 
 on thine age and on thy life, still in the 
 prime of its youth. Be not obstinate but 
 do what most will please our Sovereign : 
 sacrifice to the gods that you may become 
 one of the friends of Caesar and gain both 
 your life and the good-will of the Emperors.” 
 The privilege of being “ a friend of Caesar ” 
 was a great one. These amici Coesaris 
 formed a narrow circle round the Emperor, 
 and the honour was coveted even by the 
 highest in Rome. But it was no temptation 
 to the Christian youth ; he had a higher 
 title : “ I am the servant of Christ ; I 
 
 confess Him with my lips ; I remain 
 devoted to Him with my heart ; I adore 
 Him unceasingly. My years, so weak, as 
 you see, have yet the prudence of old age 
 and adore one only God. Thy gods and 
 their adorers shall perish.” The two re- 
 maining children were equally unyielding, 
 equally ardent in their love for Christ. 
 They were all sent back to prison and 
 Publius drew up a report of the process 
 and sent it to the Emperor. What were 
 Marcus’ thoughts on reading it, if he read 
 it at all. 
 
 Whatever his thoughts, he ordered the 
 
THE MARTYRS OP CHRIST 118 
 
 martyrs different tortures under various 
 officials in different parts of the city. The 
 first child died under the lash shod with 
 lead, the second and third under the blud- 
 geon ; the fourth was hurled from a preci- 
 pice, while the remaining three and Felicitas 
 herself were mercifully beheaded. The 
 reason for the severity and variety of the 
 sentences may have been, as Allard sug- 
 gests, the Emperor’s desire to strike the 
 imagination of the people and cause them 
 to believe that the gods had had enough of 
 victims. He must have abhorred such 
 cruelty, but he was too weak to resist the 
 clamour of the priests and mob of Rome as 
 Pilate had been in presence of other priests 
 and another mob. Interpret his conduct 
 as we will, mere natural virtue and the 
 maxims of the philosophers show ill beside 
 the folly of the Cross. Children and a weak 
 woman put to shame this paragon of 
 virtues ; but, if they did so, the glory was 
 not theirs but Christ’s ; it was His love that 
 nerved them to brave the lash, the bludgeon 
 and the axe ; He Who bade them be His 
 witnesses to the ends of the earth, was in 
 them, and suffered for them, because they 
 suffered for Him. It is mockery and 
 sophistry to think that such strength could 
 come from frail humanity. 
 
 >ii )(< >|t i(< * f 
 
 9 
 
114 THE EMPEKOR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 St. Felicitas and her sons fell victims 
 to the prejudices of the priests and the 
 mob. The martyrdom of St. Justin and his 
 companions was due to another force that 
 was strongly to resist the advance of 
 Christianity — namely, the opposition of the 
 philosophers. The priests and the mob 
 hated the Christians for the contempt with 
 which they treated the State religion. The 
 philosophers had an additional motive for 
 hatred in their jealousy of the influence of 
 the new teachers. “You see we profit 
 nothing ; the whole world is gone after 
 Him.” 
 
 St. Justin, like many of the great Christian 
 apologists, had come to the Church through 
 the Greek schools. He had searched for 
 truth in all the beaten paths of Greek 
 philosophy and found it not. “ Nobody 
 had such faith in Socrates as to die for his 
 doctrines,” he tells us ; and it was the 
 eloquence of the martyrs’ sufferings which 
 converted him. The voice of Christ said 
 “ Come,” and the heart of the pagan said 
 “ Come, Lord Jesus.” He became a Chris- 
 tian and devoted to the cause of making 
 Christ known the whole ardour of heart and 
 intellect with which he had sought and 
 found Him. This Christian Socrates would 
 walk in his philosopher’s dress, which he 
 still retained, through the public places of 
 
THE MARTYRS OF CHRIST 
 
 115 
 
 the city — the porches of the temples, the 
 colonnades, and porticoes and baths, where 
 the elite of Rome used to lounge each day 
 discussing the latest society scandal, the 
 news from the provinces, the elections or the 
 games, and in these places he would converse 
 and dispute with all comers. He had in 
 this way inflicted severe humiliations on 
 many of the pagan philosophers, who 
 went about denouncing the Christians, and 
 earned their thorough hatred. One espe- 
 cially was bitter against him. This was 
 Crescens, a Cynic, whom Justin long ex- 
 pected would denounce him and who did so 
 at length. 
 
 Justin and six of his disciples were 
 arrested and brought before the Prefect of 
 the City, Junius Rusticus, the Emperor’s 
 most trusted and intimate friend. The 
 dialogue between these two men, both 
 trained in the Greek schools of philosophy 
 but now completely alienated, is typical of 
 the conflict between old and new which 
 marks the age of the Antonines. 
 
 “ To begin,” said the Prefect, “obey the 
 gods and do what the Emperors command.” 
 Justin replied: “We cannot be accused or 
 blamed for obeying the precepts of Our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ.” “ What doctrines 
 do you profess ? ” “I have studied all 
 doctrines in turn and have settled in that 
 
116 THE EMTEROK MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 of the Christians, although it is disliked by 
 the advocates of error.” “ What dogma is 
 that ? ” “ The doctrine which we Christians 
 devotedly follow, the only true doctrine, is 
 the belief in one only God, Creator of all 
 things, visible and invisible, and the con- 
 fession of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, 
 Whom also the prophets announced. Who 
 is to judge the race of man, the Herald of 
 Salvation, and the Teacher of all those who 
 have good will to be taught by Him. And 
 I consider myself, being but man, incapable 
 of speaking worthily of His Infinite Deity. 
 That is the work of the prophets. They for 
 centuries, inspired from on high, announced 
 the coming amongst men of Him Whom I 
 have said is the Son of God.” Here was a 
 revelation to the devotee of Epictetus, one 
 of the best of pagans ; but he paid no heed. 
 “ Where do you Christians meet ? ” he 
 asked. “ The God of the Christians is not 
 confined to any place ; He fills Heaven and 
 earth with His invisible presence ; in every 
 place the faithful adore and praise Him.” 
 “ You are then a Christian ? ” “ Yes, I am 
 a Christian.” Turning to Justin’s com- 
 panions he asked the same question and 
 got the same reply. To the slave Euelpistus, 
 he said : “ And you, what are you ? ” “I 
 am a slave of Caesar, but also a Christian, 
 and I have got my freedom from Christ ; by 
 
THE MAETVRS OF CHRIST 117 
 
 His goodness, through His grace, I have one 
 hope with these.” 
 
 Here for the first time was realised the 
 equality of man in its truest sense. Rusticus 
 might well have recalled the words of his 
 master Epictetus : “ The slave, hke you, 
 derives his origin from Jupiter himself ; he 
 is his son like you ; he is bom of the same 
 divine seed.” But he gave no token of 
 sympathy. The winged word of Euel- 
 pistus : “ a slave of Caesar but a freedman 
 of Christ ” passed like an arrow through 
 his mind and left not a trace of its 
 passage. 
 
 Turning again to Justin he said : “ Listen 
 to me, you who are called learned, and 
 think that you have the true doctrine ; if 
 I get you scourged and beheaded, think you 
 that you must needs go up to Heaven ? ” 
 “ I hope,” answered Justin, “ to receive the 
 reward destined for those who keep the 
 commandments of Christ, if I suffer the 
 tortures you promise me. For I know that 
 those who have lived thus will keep the 
 Divine favour to the end of the world.” 
 “You think, then, that you will mount up 
 to Heaven, there to receive your reward,” 
 said the judge with a sneer. “ I do not 
 think it, I know it, I am certain of it without 
 a doubt.” This assurance of a future life 
 of happiness fell strangely on the ears of 
 
118 THE EMPEROB MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 the Stoic philosopher. His heart craved for 
 it but at best he could hope for immortality 
 only, “ if it were best for the whole Kosmos 
 that it should be so.” He gave his final 
 command to sacrifice to the idols and re- 
 ceived a final refusal ; and all were im- 
 mediately sent to execution. 
 
 Ijc 4c 4e He 4c 4c 
 
 More famous than either the martyrdom 
 of St. Felicitas or of St. Justin was the mar- 
 tyrdom at Lyons of forty-eight Christians, 
 afterwards known as the martyrdom of the 
 Maccabees. It is typical of the persecutions 
 in the provinces as the others were of those 
 in Rome, and fortunately we still possess 
 the beautiful letter of the churches of Lyons 
 and Vienne to the churches of Asia which 
 gives a full account of it. It took place in 
 A.D. 177, when Marcus Aurelius had already 
 reigned for sixteen years and within three 
 years of his death. He was then grappling 
 with the barbarians on the Danube frontier 
 and the plague was working havoc in the 
 provinces as in Rome and Italy. Supersti- 
 tion broke out on all sides with renewed 
 force and with especial intensity at Lyons, 
 the religious capital of the Three Gauls. 
 The old calumnies against the Christians 
 were revived. They were accused of 
 infanticide and incest, of treachery to 
 
THE MARTYRS OP CHRIST 
 
 119 
 
 the State, of secret conspiracy, and of 
 contempt for the gods and hatred of man- 
 kind. To them was due the anger of the 
 gods ; and by their blood alone could it be 
 satiated. 
 
 The persecution began by a social ostra- 
 cism of the Christians from all intercourse 
 with their fellow-citizens in the baths, 
 the forum and the other public places of the 
 city, and even in private houses. If they 
 violated this order they were beaten and 
 stoned in the streets. So violent did this 
 persecution become that the magistrates 
 had at last to arrest all known to be Chris- 
 tians and examine them before the people. 
 All confessed to the faith and were thrown 
 into prison to await the arrival of the 
 Imperial legate. 
 
 Immediately on his arrival the formal trial 
 began. By a strange travesty of justice 
 the prisoners were first cruelly tortured. 
 Stirred by this a young nobleman, Vettius 
 Epagathus, stood out from the crowd and 
 demanded to be allowed to plead their 
 cause. He was already a Christian of 
 ascetic life and loved by his brethren as “ a 
 gracious disciple of Christ following the 
 Lamb whithersoever He went.” “ Are 
 you a Christian ? ” the legate asked him. 
 “ I am a Christian,” in his boldest tones. 
 He was immediately put amongst the 
 
120 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 accused. “ Behold the Christian’s advo- 
 cate,” jeered the judge. 
 
 In this trial ten of the accused, weaker 
 and worse prepared than the rest, denied 
 Christ. This was a matter of far keener 
 anguish to the faithful than their own 
 sufferings. But the ranks thus broken were 
 soon filled up by others, amongst them 
 their aged Bishop, Pothinus. Meanwhile 
 the slaves of Christian masters had been 
 arrested, and tortured and bribed into 
 swearing to all the current charges. Their 
 evidence lashed the mob to still greater 
 fury. No torture was now to be spared. 
 A second time the Christians were placed 
 at the gentle mercies of the torturers ; this 
 repetition of the torture in such cases having 
 been legalised by Marcus. But nothing 
 could break the spirit of these warriors ; 
 they rejoiced to be accounted worthy to 
 suffer something for Him they loved. How 
 intense was the nerving power of love in 
 the souls of Sanctus the deacon and the 
 slave-girl Blandina ! 
 
 Sanctus when questioned again and again 
 did but answer : “ I am a Christian.” 
 
 Even when the white-hot plates of brass were 
 applied to his body and his flesh hissed and 
 seared beneath them, in all his agony, his one 
 relief was to proclaim again and again : “I 
 am a Christian.” “ Bathed and refreshed,” 
 
THE MARTYRS OF CHRIST 
 
 121 
 
 his brethren tell us, “in the heavenly 
 well of living water which flows from the 
 breasts of Christ,” every fresh torture was 
 to him “ a refreshment and a remedy rather 
 than a punishment.” 
 
 But his courage was as nothing to that 
 of Blandina. She was the bravest of the 
 brave in the bravest of all armies — the 
 “ witnesses ” of Christ. Her mistress and 
 her fellow-Christians dreaded lest from her 
 frail, sensitive frame she should give way, 
 as ten stronger had done before. They 
 misjudged, however, the power of love ; the 
 right hand of the Lord wrought strength in 
 her. She had no words of surrender, no 
 cry for mercy. From morning till evening 
 she wearied out several sets of torturers, 
 who retired baffled and amazed that she 
 still lived. “ I am a Christian and we do 
 nothing wrong,” was her cry again and 
 again amidst her pains ; and fresh and fresh 
 with each repetition came new strength and 
 courage. Renan rightly says of her : “As 
 to the maid-servant Blandina, she proved 
 that a revolution had been achieved. The 
 true emancipation of the slave, emancipa- 
 tion by heroism, was in great measure her 
 work. The pagan slave was supposed to be 
 essentially wicked and immoral. What 
 better way to rehabilitate and free him than 
 to show him capable of the same virtues, 
 
122 THE EMPEROE MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 the same sacrifices, as the freeman ? How 
 were these women to be treated with dis- 
 dain, who had been seen acting with even 
 more sublime heroism than their mistresses 
 in the amphitheatre ? The good Lyonese 
 maid-servant had heard it said that the 
 judgments of God are the overthrow of 
 human appearances, and that God is often 
 pleased to choose that which is humblest, 
 ugliest, and most despised to confound 
 that which seems beautiful and strong. 
 Inspired by her r&le she called for the tor- 
 ture and burned with eagerness to suffer.” 
 It is the glory of Christianity to have raised 
 the off-scourings of mankind to such sub- 
 limity. Galen acknowledged that the con- 
 duct of the ordinary Christian was as noble 
 as that of the most enlightened of the 
 philosophers. He wrote as one who had 
 been a contemporary of Epictetus and 
 physician to Marcus Aurelius and intimate 
 with the best lives which paganism produced. 
 We who read the lives of the martyrs whole 
 and appreciate the motives of their heroism 
 know that it is an irreverence to compare 
 with their virtue the virtue even of Epictetus 
 and Marcus Aurelius. Yet it is well to have 
 this testimony of an enlightened pagan 
 contemporary to the elevating power of 
 Christianity on the masses. 
 
 The final execution was spread over 
 
THE MARTYRS OF CHRIST 
 
 128 
 
 several days. The legate made the occasion 
 a public holiday ; and delegates from all 
 Gaul, then present at Lyons for adminis- 
 trative and religious purposes, witnessed 
 the spectacle. 
 
 Maturus, Sanctus, Attains and Blandina 
 were chosen to provide the first day’s enter- 
 tainment. Their tortures, we are told, 
 saved the town the expense of a gladiatorial 
 show. Christians were more novel game 
 and cheaper than hired soldiers, lions and 
 panthers. Blandina was bound all but 
 naked to a pole at the end of the amphi- 
 theatre. She was to be at the mercy of the 
 beasts ; and the beasts proved more merciful 
 than the yelling savage mob, who crowded 
 tier over tier all around. That day none of 
 them would touch the frail, delicate form 
 that, bound as it was, recalled to the martyrs 
 another form bound too by the Romans on 
 a hill outside Jerusalem. She was reserved 
 for another day, and meanwhile her forti- 
 tude gave courage to all. 
 
 Attalus was a Roman citizen well known 
 to the people. Hence they called for his 
 torture as for a favourite actor or gladiator. 
 He was forced to walk round the amphi- 
 theatre amid the jeers of the spectators, 
 preceded by a placard with the motto 
 “ This is Attalus, the Christian.” But the 
 rights of a Roman citizen were not to be 
 
124 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 outraged with impunity ; and so the legate 
 sent Attains back to prison without torture, 
 there to await the Emperor’s orders. 
 
 No such rights protected Maturus and 
 Sanctus ; their bodies were already each a 
 mass of wounds from their former tortures ; 
 and they would be well spent in making a 
 people’s holiday. A file of roughs lashed 
 their naked, lacerated bodies as they passed 
 into the arena. Their eyes fell on the 
 instruments of torture — a gruesome array — 
 along the centre ; and then the awful moment 
 came. A sullen growl and a roar from the 
 farther end, and already the beasts were 
 upon them. A thrill of mad excitement 
 ran through the throng above. The beasts 
 sank their teeth in the Christians’ flesh and 
 lapped the Christians’ blood, and many a 
 pagan envied them the feast. But, sure of 
 their prey, they did not devour them at 
 once ; they tossed them to and fro in cruel 
 sport and left them for the time. The mob 
 were impatient ; they wanted death ; and 
 called for the red-hot iron chair. Into this 
 the martyrs were placed and the foul smell 
 of the burnt flesh was incense to the nostrils 
 of the holiday makers. But the Christians 
 would not recant ; the beasts would have 
 no more of them ; and it was slow sport 
 watching this roasting process ; so at a 
 signal from the mob they received the 
 
THE MARTYKS OF CHRIST 
 
 125 
 
 coup de grace, the finale of all the people’s 
 pleasures. 
 
 Here as ever persecution did but beget 
 fresh victims. The whole Christian popula- 
 tion was aflame with desire to confess 
 Christ ; and even transgressed the wise 
 rule of the Church, which forbade them to 
 seek imprisonment. But in this moment 
 of spiritual intensity discretion were out of 
 place ; who can blame them for not standing 
 meekly by when their brethren were writh- 
 ing in torture and the name of Christ was 
 being blasphemed ? They can well afford 
 to concede superiority in this always some- 
 what suspicious virtue of discretion to their 
 arm-chair critics ; they will have enough 
 left to secure for themselves Heaven and 
 the homage of mankind. The number of 
 the accused increased day by day, especially 
 the number of Roman citizens. This 
 alarmed the legate, and he sent for instruc- 
 tions to the Emperor. After some weeks 
 the reply came : those who recanted were 
 to be released, the obstinate were to be 
 put to death with torture. After all allow- 
 ance has been made for the circumstances 
 of the time and his own inevitable ignorance, 
 this act remains a dark stain on the Stoic 
 saint. 
 
 The last act of this long-drawn tragedy 
 at last began. A final inquiry was held by 
 
126 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 the legate, this time chiefly in order to dis- 
 criminate the Roman citizens from the non- 
 citizens. The latter were to receive the 
 full measure of torture ; the former were to 
 be beheaded outright — ^all except Attalus, 
 who was reserved for the arena as a 
 favour to the mob. In this last trial despite 
 promises and threats not one, even of those 
 who had before fallen, wavered. The 
 executions continued for several days, 
 owing to the great numbers of the martyrs. 
 Each day4from early morning the pagans 
 thronged the amphitheatre. Attalus and 
 Alexander were the next victims. They 
 went through the whole gamut of pain 
 without a word or a groan, their souls 
 wrapped in prayer the while. Finally they 
 were finished off by the sword when the 
 mob tired of them. Blandina and Ponticus 
 were subjected again to yet fiercer tor- 
 ments, ending in death — torments so 
 cruel that the Gauls said one to another: 
 “ Never in our country has woman endured 
 so much.” 
 
 The whole proceedings are a terrible 
 commentary on the rule of the philosopher- 
 king and Gibbon’s picture of the Golden 
 Age, “ the happiest period of the world’s 
 history, when the good of the subject was 
 the one object of government.” Much may 
 be admitted to palliate Marcus’ connivance, 
 
THE MARTYRS OF CHRIST 
 
 127 
 
 but assuredly he cannot be wholly excused. 
 We can acquit him of monstrous brutality ; 
 but only at the cost of attributing to him 
 narrow prejudice or pusillanimity. We can 
 save his heart, but only at the expense of 
 his intellect and will. 
 
 I have dwelt on a few of the many 
 martyrdoms of his reign to show the con- 
 duct and the ideals of Christianity side by 
 side with the conduct of the pagan phil- 
 osophers. What reasonable being can read 
 aright the story of this struggle and yet 
 prefer the cold, negative, ineffectual ideals 
 of Marcus and his friends to the warm 
 throbbing life of love and the heroic death 
 of Ponticus and Blandina, of Justin and 
 Felicitas ? Yet, if we are to believe Renan 
 and Arnold, the Meditations of Marcus are 
 the force which will transform the world 
 when, to quote Renan, the Gospel and the 
 Imitation of Christ have passed away, and 
 on the hillside of Lyons where the martyrs 
 died “ a temple shall rise to the Supreme 
 Amnesty and contain a chapel for all causes, 
 all virtues, all martyrs.” Surely this is 
 dilettanteism and paradox run wild, as 
 untrue to psychology as it is to history and 
 all sane and effective religion ! 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PAGAN X KEMPIS. 
 
 The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius have 
 often beeii compared with the Imitation 
 of Christ. The comparison is interesting ; 
 and the analysis which it involves of one 
 of the noblest and purest of pagan ascetics 
 on the one hand, and of the great exponent 
 of Christian asceticism on the other, cannot 
 but strengthen belief in the divine origin 
 of Christianity, Unfortunately, we cannot 
 attempt anything like a complete analysis 
 of the two books ; and we must be content 
 to call attention to a few points of resem- 
 blance and difference in the two ascetics ; 
 and estimate their respective values as 
 salves to wounded souls. 
 
 The appraisers of “disinterested” and 
 “ undogmatic ” morality have professed to 
 find in the pagan book a surer guide to life. 
 They find it more human, less scholastic, 
 freer and fresher. Renan has voiced this 
 view with his usual brilliance and fickle 
 impressionism. 
 
 It is true of course that the Imitation of 
 Christ is built on Christian dogma and 
 
 128 
 
THE PAGAN X KEMPIS 
 
 129 
 
 steeped in Christian mysticism. But this 
 is not matter of discredit to the Imitation 
 but of glory to Christianity. It is because 
 the martyrs were strengthened by Christian 
 dogmas and ideals that they alone surpassed 
 Aurelius in that age. There is far less of 
 rigid adherence to the letter of formulae 
 and infinitely more of spirit, of unction, of 
 personal devotion in the Imitation. If 
 dogma did not hinder but rather inspired 
 a book which gives such freedom to the 
 spirit, it is time to revise some of the current 
 cant about the sterility of theology, its 
 fettering of the spirit, and the witty defini- 
 tion of dogmatism as ‘‘ puppyism grown big.’" 
 
 Those who have embraced Christianity 
 and walked its peaceful paths can have no 
 doubt as to the superiority of the Imitation 
 in all that is beautiful, good and true. 
 But even positivists, professing completely 
 to reject the supernatural, find in k Kempis 
 a unique charm. George Eliot, the best of 
 them, has told us in inspired words what 
 the Imitation was to her : — 
 
 “ I suppose that is the reason why the 
 small, old-fashioned book, for which you 
 need only pay sixpence at a bookstall, 
 works miracles to this day, turning bitter 
 waters into sweetness ; while expensive 
 sermons and treatises newly issued leave all 
 things as they were before. It was written 
 10 
 
130 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 down by a hand that waited for the heart’s 
 prompting ; it is the chronicle of a solitary 
 hidden anguish, struggle, trust and triumph 
 — ^not written on velvet cushions to teach 
 endurance to those who are treading with 
 bleeding feet on the stones. And so it 
 remains at all times a lasting record of 
 human needs and human consolations ; the 
 voice of a brother, who, ages ago, felt and 
 suffered and renounced — in the cloister, 
 perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured 
 head, with much chanting and long fasts, 
 and with a fashion of speech different from 
 ours — but under the same silent far-off 
 heavens, and Avith the same passionate 
 desires, the same strivings, the same failures, 
 the same weariness,” 
 
 This is the opinion of one who has de- 
 prived the Imitation of its supernatural 
 element. And even from the purely natural 
 point of view, what more beautiful than the 
 teachings of a Kempis on the true conduct 
 of life ? But this is not its characteristic 
 charm, and one suspects that it is not the 
 purely natural element in k Kempis that 
 fascinates the positivist humanitarians ; it 
 is the supernatural element ; and the attrac- 
 tion is but the strong cry of their spiritual 
 nature revolting against the materialism to 
 which their “ positive ” tenets lead ; just 
 as that same need for a religion led the best 
 
THE PAGAN A KEMPIS 
 
 131 
 
 of them, even at the cost of inconsistency, 
 to establish with much ritual and fantastic 
 aberrations the cult of Humanity. 
 
 But there is no need to settle the question 
 between the two books by authority. 
 Were it necessary to do so, one need but 
 recall the multitudes of all classes and creeds, 
 from St. Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius to 
 Leibnitz and Bossuet and thence to Wesley, 
 George Eliot, Gladstone, and Gordon, for 
 whom the Imitation has been a shining 
 light and a guide upon their path second 
 only to the Sacred Books themselves. To 
 join that number one has but to take and 
 read. The points of similarity between the 
 two books consist in many maxims common 
 to both, such as “ that we ought not to 
 regard the opinion of men ” ; “ that we 
 ought to keep the passions in restraint ” ; 
 “ that we ought to despise pleasures and 
 endure hardship with patience ” ; “ that 
 we are not to be too much attached to life 
 and to earthly things ” ; “ that we ought 
 to bear with the faults of others and return 
 good for evil.” This similarity is, however, 
 to a great extent merely verbal. The same 
 words do not express the same spiritual 
 attitude in the two writers. It is merely 
 the resemblance which prevails between 
 all the great ascetical writers, from Seneca 
 and Epictetus to St. Francis, St. Ignatius 
 
182 THE EMPEEOR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 and Bunyan, and thence to modem writers 
 such as William James. They all study by 
 introspection the same human soul with the 
 same natural faculties and tendencies, 
 strength and weakness, in all its varying 
 moods of joy and sadness, perplexity and 
 peace. Whereas the differences are measured 
 only by the distance between the natural 
 and the supernatural and show themselves 
 in the whole spirit and atmosphere, tone and 
 motive, of the two books. 
 
 I have already hinted in passing at the 
 sympathy there is between k Kempis and 
 Marcus Aurelius in their contempt of sophis- 
 try and vain learning. But this similarity 
 of view does but bring out all the more 
 strikingly the difference in motive and 
 the manifest superiority of the Christian. 
 Aurelius was glad that he had not made 
 more proficiency in the rhetorical and sophis- 
 tical training of the day ; and for the praise- 
 worthy motive that thus he might have 
 more leisure to attend to the main work of 
 life — his own perfection. But how cold is 
 his analysis beside the glowing words of 
 4 Kempis. The pagan seeks leisure for an 
 introspection too often morbid ; the Chris- 
 tian wishes for silence of the schools that 
 God Himself may speak within him, and in 
 the ecstasy of this holy discipleship cries 
 out : — 
 
THE PAGAN X KEMPIS 
 
 ISS 
 
 “ Happy is he whom Truth teacheth by 
 itself, not by figures and words that pass, 
 but as it is in itself. . . . It is a great folly 
 for us to neglect things profitable and 
 necessary and willingly to busy ourselves 
 about those which are curious and hurtful. 
 . . . He to whom the Eternal Word 
 
 speaketh is set at liberty from a multitude 
 of opinions. ... 0 Truth, my God, 
 
 make me one with Thee in everlasting love. 
 I am wearied with often reading and hearing 
 many things ; in Thee is all that I will or 
 desire. Let all teachers hold their peace ; 
 let all creatures be silent in Thy sight ; 
 speak Thou alone to me.” 
 
 In passing, we may compare this prayer 
 and the whole mystic rapture and personal 
 heart-cries of the Imitation with Aurelius’ 
 idea of a perfect prayer : “A prayer of the 
 Athenians : Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, down 
 on the ploughed fields of the Athenians and 
 on the plains. In truth we ought not to 
 pray at all or we ought to pray in this simple 
 and noble fashion.” This simplicity was a 
 great advance on the hypocrisy and verbiage 
 which often marked Roman prayers and 
 provided matter for satire to Horace and 
 Juvenal ; but, after all, it does not present 
 us with any very lofty ideal. So, too, when 
 he speaks of the objects which we ought 
 to pray for : “ Why dost thou not ask that 
 10 * 
 
184 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 the gods may give thee the faculty of not 
 fearing any of the things thou fearest, or 
 of not desiring any of the things thou 
 desirest, or not being pained at anything 
 rather than pray that any of these things 
 should not happen or happen ? One man 
 prays thus : How shall I not lose my little 
 son ? Do thou pray thus : How shall I not 
 be afraid to lose him. In fine, turn thy 
 prayers this way, and see what comes.” 
 All this does Aurelius credit, but it is far 
 from the outpouring of the soul to God, 
 which is the essence of the Christian book. 
 
 Both books teach that peace must come 
 through strife — strife without and strife 
 within. The Stoic like the Christian 
 teaehes that life is a warfare ; that safety 
 lies in continual vigilance ; in restraint over 
 our lower nature ; in retirement and self- 
 examination ; in regarding all the things 
 of time as of no account in themselves. 
 ‘‘ Look within,” says Aurelius, “ within is 
 the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble 
 up, if thou wilt ever dig ” ; ” the mind 
 maintains its own tranquillity by retiring 
 into itself ” ; “ retire into thyself. The 
 rational principle which rules has this 
 nature, that it is content with itself when it 
 does what is just and so secures tran- 
 quillity ” ; “ the mind which is free from 
 passions is a citadel, for man has nothing 
 
THE PAGAN A KEMPIS 
 
 135 
 
 more secure to which he can fly for refuge 
 and for the future be inexpugnable.” A 
 Kenxpis also bids us “ seek a proper time 
 to retire into thyself ” but this retirement 
 is not into solitude ; it is to the most sublime 
 communion : “ Shut the door upon thyself 
 and call to thee Jesus thy beloved. Stay 
 with Him in thy cell, for thou shalt not find 
 so great peace anywhere else ” ; for “ who- 
 soever aims at arriving at internal and 
 spiritual things must with Jesus go aside 
 from the crowd ” ; “in silence and quiet 
 the devout soul goes forward and learns the 
 secrets of the Scriptures”; “for God, with 
 His holy angels, will draw nigh to Him who 
 withdraws himself from his acquaintances 
 and friends.” 
 
 The ideal of A Kempis is by subjection of 
 the passions to reach the interior freedom 
 which begets all the Christian virtues until 
 these in turn are concentrated into one 
 strong glow of love by which the lover is 
 united to his Beloved, heart to heart, and 
 soul to soul. It is this love which makes 
 his short sentences quiver and glow and 
 pierce, especially in the beautiful chapter 
 on the effects of Divine love, where he prays 
 that he may cast off the human and put on 
 God 
 
 “ Free me from evil passions and heal my 
 mind of all disorderly affections, that being 
 
186 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 healed and well purified in my interior I 
 may become fit to love, courageous to suffer, 
 and constant to persevere. Love is an 
 excellent thing, a great good indeed, which 
 alone maketh light all that is burthensome 
 and beareth with even mind all that is 
 unequal. . . . The love of Jesus is noble 
 and it spurreth us on to do great things and 
 exciteth us to desire always that which is 
 most perfect. . . . Nothing is sweeter 
 
 than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, 
 nothing broader, nothing more pleasant, 
 nothing more generous, nothing fuller, or 
 better in heaven or earth ; for love is from 
 God and cannot rise but in God, above all 
 things created.” 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that the 
 Stoic had no such ideal as this ; for it is 
 essentially a Christian ideal. 
 
 A Kempis soars on the wings of love 
 through the spirit world at home amongst 
 the angels ; while the Stoic trudges drearily 
 along the hard, bleak road of logic ; and once 
 more logic is convicted of futility as a 
 complete guide to life. Follow reason, said 
 the Stoic : reason tells you that you can 
 guide your own destinies and mould your 
 own inner life : rely on yourself, since 
 you can rely on nobody else : be self- 
 sufficient. This self-sufficiency was the 
 parent of hardness and at times of an un- 
 
THE PAGAN 1 KEMPIS 
 
 13T 
 
 lovely spiritual pride. Aurelius seems to 
 thank God that he is not as the rest of men ; 
 he is better than the pharisee only in that 
 he pities the publican and acknowledges 
 that he himself has that within him which 
 could lead him to lower depths did he cease 
 to follow the Stoic ascesis ; but his pity has 
 frequently something of spiritual disdain 
 and contempt in it. Yet he is not wholly 
 proud ; there is in him a certain modesty 
 and self-suppression which often in its 
 expression reminds us of sayings of a 
 Kempis ; but he never learnt to think : 
 “ We are all frail ; but do thou think no 
 one more frail than thyself.” “ If thou 
 wouldst know and learn anything useful, love 
 to be unknown and esteemed as nothing; 
 this is the highest and most profitable 
 lesson, truly to know and despise oneself ” ; 
 or with St. Paul “ who is weak and I am 
 not weak.” But we should not expect 
 unaided I’eason to reach these heights. A 
 Kempis himself tells us that light comes to 
 the soul only when reason is transcended by 
 faith and love : “ If thou reliest more upon 
 thine own reason or industry than upon the 
 virtue that subjects to Jesus Christ, thou 
 wilt seldom and hardly be an enlightened 
 man ; for God will have us perfectly subject 
 to Himself, and to transcend all reason by 
 ardent love.” “ Reason transcended by 
 
138 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 ardent love ” : in this is expressed the whole 
 relation between Christianity and all 
 systems that rely on reason alone. The 
 soul itself in all its aspirations is, as Ter- 
 tullian said, naturally Christian, and it is 
 only by a Procrustean torture that it can 
 be forced into any other system. 
 
 The inadequacy of Aurelius’ teaching 
 is brought out most clearly in the shallow 
 optimism with which he tries to conjure 
 away all the sufferings of life. Nothing can 
 be more unreal than his attitude towards 
 evil. We turn to a Kempis and at once we 
 are struck by the contrast. Suffering and 
 evil are for a Kempis an intense reality. 
 He does not attempt to waive them away 
 with the magic formula “ Never mind.” 
 No ; it is because they are realities, often 
 terrible realities, that they are the most 
 precious things in life with the power to 
 transmute the human into the Divine. He 
 recognises that no ordinary motive can 
 reconcile frail humanity to the trials of life ; 
 that many are ready to follow Jesus to the 
 breaking of bread but few to the drinking 
 of the chalice of His passion ; that only an 
 ardent personal love and loyalty to Christ 
 can induce men to take up their cross and 
 follow Him, Who has gone before bearing 
 His cross. When suffering is borne in this 
 spirit it loses the unreasonableness which 
 
THE PAGAN A KEMPIS 
 
 139 
 
 besets all other explanations of it. It be- 
 comes the greatest of blessings ; it makes 
 us indeed like unto God. 
 
 How ineffectual beside this spirit of 
 suffering for love are the cold formularies 
 with which, as by magic spells, the Stoic 
 would benumb human pain. Take for 
 instance the much-quoted passage from 
 the end of the second book : “ Of human 
 life the duration is a point ; the substance 
 is fleeting ; the perception is dull ; and the 
 fabric of the whole body subject to rotten- 
 ness ; the soul is an idle whirling and fortune 
 hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of 
 judgment. In short, all that there is of the 
 body is a stream and all that there is of the 
 soul a dream and a vapour. Life is a warfare 
 and a sojourning in a strange country, and 
 after-fame is oblivion. What then is that 
 which can conduct a man ? One thing, 
 and only one, philosophy.” But he himself 
 found, as many have found, that sorrow is 
 not banished nor the riddle of life solved 
 by philosophy. 
 
 Thus we see the spirit of these two teachers 
 of men. Further comparison would but 
 illustrate more clearly that the Christian 
 book, because it is in a sense divine, is 
 intensely human, adequate to fulfil all that 
 is best in man ; while the pagan book, 
 because it is merely human, does not satisfy 
 
140 THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 the human soul, which always seeks for 
 something better than itself. The one is 
 centred in God and draws its inspiration 
 from the inspired books themselves, con- 
 centrating all its efforts on the reproduc- 
 tion of Christ in the Christian. The other, 
 though it bids us to “ love man and follow 
 God,” means something quite different by 
 this love of man and this following of what- 
 ever its author understood by “ God.” 
 For it is essentially centred in man, in self ; 
 and has no inspiration but the gropings of 
 the unaided intellect. Nor can it propose 
 to us any higher model for our imitation 
 than the blind subjection to law which 
 prevails in the inaninjvte and organic 
 universe ; the stones, a fig-tree, or the brutes. 
 It is true that in the spirit of the Medita- 
 tions there is something akin to the sayings 
 of d Kempis ; but the Christian time and 
 again feels in the pagan book the sense of 
 void, the vain strivings after ideals — ideals 
 fully realised and expressed by the lowly 
 brother of the Common Life. The humblest 
 Christian has as his birthright truths which 
 were the fruit of years of training and much 
 struggle in the noble pagan soul ; and he 
 has more. 
 
 THE END. 
 

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