in allowing the elevation of his son Commodus as his
successor, and his persecution of the Christians.
In regard to the first, it was a blunder rather than a
fault. Peter the Great caused his heir to be tried and
sentenced to death, because he was a sot, a liar, and a
fool. He dared not intrust the interests of his Empire
to so unworthy a son ; the welfare of Russia was
more to him than the interest of his family. In that
respect this stern and iron man was a greater prince
than Marcus Aurelius ; for the law of succession was
not established at Rome any more than in Russia.
There was no danger of civil war should the natural
succession be set aside, as might happen in the feudal
monarchies of Europe. The Emperor of Rome could
adopt or elect his successor. It would have been wise
for Aurelius to have selected one of the ablest of his
generals, or one of the wisest of his senators, as Hadrian
did, for so great and responsible a position, rather than
a wicked, cruel, dissolute sou. But Commodus was the
THE GLORY OF ROME. Ill
son of Faustina also, an intriguing and wicked wo-
man, whose influence over her husband was unfortu-
nately great ; and, what is common in this world, the
son was more like the mother than the father. (I think
the wife of EH the high-priest must have been a bad
woman.) All his teachings and virtues were lost on
such a reprobate. She, as an unscrupulous and ambi-
tious woman, had no idea of seeing her son supplanted
in the imperial dignity ; and, like Catherine de Medici
and Agrippina, probably she connived at and even en-
couraged the vices of her children, in order more easily
to bear rule. At any rate, the succession of Commodus
to the throne was the greatest calamity that could have
happened. For five reigns the Empire had enjoyed
peace and prosperity ; for five reigns the tide of corrup-
tion had been stayed : but the flood of corruption swept
all barriers away with the accession of Commodus, and
from that day the decline of the Empire was rapid and
fatal. Still, probably nothing could have long arrested
ruin. The Empire was doomed.
The other fact which obscured the glory of Marcus
Aurelius as a sovereign was his persecution of the
Christians, for which it is hard to account, when
the beneficent character of the emperor is considered.
His reign was signalized for an imperial persecution,
in which Justin at Rome, Polycarp at Smyrna, and
Ponthinus at Lyons, suffered martyrdom. It was not
112 MARCUS AURELIUS.
the first persecution. Under Nero the Christians had
been cruelly tortured, nor did the virtuous Trajan
change the policy of the government. Hadrian and
Antoninus Pius permitted the laws to be enforced
against the Christians, and Marcus Aurelius saw no
reason to alter them. But to the mind of the Stoic on
the throne, says Arnold, the Christians were "phi-
losophically contemptible, politically subversive, and
morally abominable." They were regarded as states-
men looked upon the Jesuits in the reign of Louis XV.,
as we look upon the Mormons, as dangerous to free
institutions. Moreover, the Christians were every-
where misunderstood and misrepresented. It was im-
possible for Marcus Aurelius to see the Christians except
through a mist of prejudices. " Christianity grew up
in the Catacombs, not on the Palatine." In allowing
the laws to take their course against a body of men
who were regarded with distrust and aversion as ene-
mies of the State, the Emperor was simply unfortunate.
So wise and good a man, perhaps, ought to have known
the Christians better ; but, not knowing them, he can-
not be stigmatized as a cruel man. How different the
fortunes of the Church had Aurelius been the first Chris-
tian emperor instead of Constantino ! Or, had his wife
Faustina known the Christians as well as Marcia the
mistress of Commodus, perhaps the persecution might
not have happened, and perhaps it might. Earnest
THE GLORY OF ROME. 113
and sincere men have often proved intolerant when
their peculiar doctrines have been assailed, like Atha-
nasius and St. Bernard. A Stoical philosopher was
trained, like a doctor of the Jewish Sandhedrim, in
a certain intellectual pride.
The fame of Marcus Aurelius rests, as it has been
said, on his philosophical reflections, as his "Medita-
tions" attest. This remarkable book has come down
to us, while most of the annals of the age have per-
ished ; so that even Niebuhr confesses that he knows
less of the reign of Marcus Aurelius than of the early-
kings of Eome. Perhaps that is one reason why Gibbon
begins his history with later emperors. But the "Medi-
tations" of the good emperor survive, like the writings
of Epictetus, St. Augustine, and Thomas a Kempis: one
of the few immortal books, immortal, in this case, not
for artistic excellence, like the writings of Thucydides
and Tacitus, but for the loftiness of thoughts alone ; so
precious that the saints of the Middle Ages secretly pre-
served them as in accord with their own experiences.
It is from these " Meditations " that we derive our best
knowledge of Marcus Aurelius. They reveal the man,
and a man of sorrows, as the truly great are apt to
be, when brought in contact with a world of wicked-
ness, as were Alfred and Dante.
In these " Meditations " there is a striking resem-
blance to the discourses of Epictetus, which alike reveal
8
114 MARCUS AURELIUS.
the lofty and yet sorrowful soul, and are among the most
valuable fragments which have come down from Pagan
antiquity ; and this is remarkable, since Epictetus was
a Phrygian slave, of the lowest parentage. He be-
longed to the secretary and companion of Nero, whose
name was Epaphroditus, and who treated this poor
Phrygian with great cruelty. And yet, what is very
singular, the master caused the slave to be indoctrinated
in the Stoical philosophy, on account of a rare intelli-
gence which commanded respect. He was finally manu-
mitted, but lived all his life in the deepest poverty, to
which he attached no more importance than Socrates
did at Athens. In his miserable cottage he had no other
furniture than a straw pallet and an iron lamp, which
last somebody stole. His sole remark on the loss of
the only property he possessed was, that when the thief
came again he would be disappointed to find only an
earthen lamp instead of an iron one. This earthen lamp
was subsequently purchased by a hero worshipper for
three thousand drachmas (S150). Epictetus, much as
he despised riches and display and luxury and hypocrisy
and pedantry and all phariseeism, living in the depths
of poverty, was yet admired by eminent men, among
whom was the Emperor Hadrian himself ; and he
found a disciple in Arrian, who was to him what Xeno-
phon was to Socrates, committing his precious thoughts
to writing ; and these thoughts were to antiquity
THE GLORY OF ROME. 115
what the " Imitation of Christ " was to the Middle
Ages, accepted by Christians as well as by pagans,
and even to-day regarded as one of the most beautiful
treatises on morals ever composed by man. The great
peculiarity of the "Manual "and the "Discourses" is
the elevation of the soul over external evils, the duty
of resignation to whatever God sends, and the obliga-
tion to do right because it is right. Epictetus did not
go into the dreary dialectics of the schools, but, like
Socrates, confined himself to practical life, to the
practice of virtue as the greatest good, and valued the
joys of true intellectual independence. To him his
mind was his fortune, and he desired no better. We
do not find in the stoicism of the Phrygian slave the
devout and lofty spiritualism of Plato, thirsting for
God and immortality ; it may be doubted whether he
believed in immortality at all: but he did recognize
what is most noble in human life, the subservience
of the passions to reason, the power of endurance,
patience, charity, and disinterested action. He did
recognize the necessity of divine aid in the struggles of
life, the glory of friendship, the tenderness of compas-
sion, the power of sympathy. His philosophy was
human, and it was cheerful ; since he did not believe in
misfortune, and exalted gentleness and philanthropy.
Above everything, he sought inward approval, not the
praises of the world, that happiness which lies within
116 r MARCUS A UR ELI US.
one's self, in the absence of all ignoble fears, in content-
ment, in that peace of the mind which can face poverty,
disease, exile, and death.
Such were the lofty views which, embodied in the
discourses of Epictetus, fell into the hands of Marcus
Aurelius in the progress of his education, and exer-
cised such a great influence on his whole subsequent
life. The slave became the teacher of the emperor,
which it is impossible to conceive of unless their
souls were in harmony. As a Stoic, the emperor
would not be less on his throne than the slave in his
cottage. The trappings and pomps of imperial state
became indifferent to him, since they were external,
and were of small moment compared with that high
spiritual life which he desired to lead. If poverty and
pain were nothing to Epictetus, so grandeur and power
and luxury should be nothing to him, both alike
being merely outward things, like the clothes which
cover a man. And the fewer the impediments in the
march after happiness and truth the better. Does a
really great and preoccupied man care what he wears ?
"A shocking bad hat" was perhaps as indifferent to Glad-
stone as a dirty old cloak was to Socrates. I suppose
if a man is known to be brainless, it is necessary for
him to wear a disguise, even as instinct prompts a
frivolous and empty woman to put on jewels. But
who expects a person recognized as a philosopher to
THE GLORY OF ROME. 117
use a mental crutch or wear a moral mask ? Who ex-
pects an old man, compelling attention by his wisdom,
to dress like a dandy? It is out of place; it is not even
artistic, it is ridiculous. That only is an evil which
shackles the soul. Aurelius aspired to its complete
emancipation. Not for the joys of a future heaven did
he long, but for the realities and certitudes of earth,
the placidity and harmony and peace of his soul, so long
as it was doomed to the trials and temptations of the
world, and a world, too, which he did not despise, but
which he sought to benefit.
So, what was contentment in the slave became phi-
lanthropy in the emperor. He would be a benefactor,
not by building baths and theatres, but by promoting
peace, prosperity, and virtue. He would endure cheer-
fully the fatigue of winter campaigns upon the frozen
Danube, if the Empire could be saved from violence. To
extend its boundaries, like Julius, he cared nothing ; but
to preserve what he had was a supreme duty. His
watchword was duty, to himself, his country, and
God. He lived only for the happiness of his subjects.
Benevolence became the law of his life. Self-abnegation
destroyed self-indulgence. For what was he placed by
Providence in the highest position in the world, except
to benefit the world ? The happiness of one hundred
and twenty millions was greater than the joys of any
individual existence. And what were any pleasures
118 MARCUS AURELIUS.
which ended in vanity to the sublime placidity of an
emancipated soul ? Stoicism, if it did not soar to God
and immortality, yet aspired to the freedom and tri-
umph of what is most precious in man. And it equally
despised, with haughty scorn, those things which cor-
rupted and degraded this higher nature, the glorious
dignity of unfettered intellect. The accidents of earth
were nothing in his eyes, neither the purple of kings
nor the rags of poverty. It was the soul, in its tran-
scendent dignity, which alone was to be preserved and
purified.
This was the exalted realism which appears in the
"Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius, and which he had
learned from the inspirations of a slave. Yet such
was the inborn, almost supernatural, loftiness of Au-
relius, that, had he been the slave and Epictetus the
emperor, the same moral wisdom would have shone in
the teachings and life of each ; for they both were God's
witnesses of truth in an age of wickedness and shame.
It was He who chose them both, and sent them out as
teachers of righteousness, the one from the humblest
cottage, the other from the most magnificent palace of
the capital of the world. In station they were immea-
surably apart ; in aim and similarity of ideas they were
kindred spirits, one of the phenomena of the moral
history of our race ; for the slave, in his physical degra-
dation, had all the freedom and grandeur of an aspiring
THE GLORY OF ROME. 119
soul, and the emperor, on his lofty throne, had all the
humility and simplicity of a peasant in the lowliest
state of poverty and suffering. Surely circumstances
had nothing to do with this marvellous exhibition. It
was either the mind and soul triumphant over and
superior to all outward circumstances, or it was God
imparting an extraordinary moral power.
I believe it was the inscrutable design of the Supreme
Governor of the universe to show, perhaps, what lessons
of moral wisdom could be taught by men under the
most diverse influences and under the greatest contrasts
of rank and power, and also to what heights the souls
of both slave and king could rise, with His aid, in the
most corrupt period of human history. Noah, Abra-
ham, and Moses did not stand more isolated amidst
universal wickedness than did the Phrygian slave and
the imperial master of the world. And as the piety
of Noah could not save the antediluvian empires,
as the faith of Abraham could not convert idolatrous
nations, as the wisdom of Moses could not prevent the
sensualism of emancipated slaves, so the lofty philoso-
phy of Aurelius could not save the Empire which he
ruled. And yet the piety of Noah, the faith of Abra-
ham, the wisdom of Moses, and the stoicism of Aurelius
have proved alike a spiritual power, the precious salt
which was to preserve humanity from the putrefaction
of almost universal selfishness and vice, until the new
120 MARCUS AURELIUS.
revelation should arouse the human soul to a more
serious contemplation of its immortal destiny.
The imperial "Meditations" are without art or ar-
rangement, a sort of diary, valuable solely for their
precious thoughts; not lofty soarings in philosophical
and religious contemplation, which tax the brain to com-
prehend, like the thoughts of Pascal, but plain maxims
for the daily intercourse of life, showing great purity of
character and extraordinary natural piety, blended with
pithy moral wisdom and a strong sense of duty. " Men
exist for each other : teach them or bear with them,"
said he. " Benevolence is invincible, if it be not an
affected smile." "When thou risest in the morning
unwillingly, say, ' I am rising to the work of a human
being; why, then, should I be dissatisfied if I am
going to do the things for which I was brought into
the world?" 1 "Since it is possible that thou mayest
depart from this life this very moment, regulate
every act and thought accordingly (. . . for death
hangs over thee whilst thou livest), while it is in
thy power to be good." "What has become of all
great and famous men, and all they desired and loved ?
They are smoke and ashes, and a tale." " If thou find-
est in human life anything better than justice, tempe-
rance, fortitude, turn to it with all thy soul ; but if
thou findest anything else smaller (and of no value)
than this, give place to nothing else." " Men seek ru-
THE GLORY OF ROME. 121
treats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-
shores, and mountains ; but it is always in thy power
to retire within thyself, for nowhere does a man retire
with more quiet or freedom than into his own soul."
Think of such sayings, written down in his diary on the
evenings of the very days of battle with the barbarians
on the Danube or in Hungarian marshes ! Think of a
man, ye Napoleons, ye conquerors, who can thus
muse and meditate in his silent tent, and by the light
of his solitary lamp, after a day of carnage and of vic-
tory ! Think of such a man, not master of a little
barbaric island or a half-established throne in a country
no bigger than a small province, but the supreme sov-
ereign of a vast empire, at the time of its greatest
splendor and prosperity, with no mortal power to keep
his will in check, nothing but the voice within him ;
nothing but the sense of duty ; nothing but the desire
of promoting the happiness of others : and this man a
Pagan !
But the state of that Empire, with all its prosperity,
needed such a man to arise. If anything or anybody
could save it, it was that succession of good emperors
of whom Marcus Aurelius was the last, in the latter
part of the second century. Let us glance, in closing,
at the real condition of the Empire at that time. I
take leave of the man, this " laurelled hero and
crowned philosopher," stretching out his hands to the
122 MARCUS AURELIUS.
God he but dimly saw, and yet enunciating moral
truths which for wisdom have been surpassed only by
the sacred writers of the Bible, to whom the Almighty
gave his special inspiration. I turn reluctantly from
him to the Empire he governed.
Gibbon says, in his immortal History, " If a man
were called 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."
This is the view that Gibbon takes of the prosperity
of the old Eoman world under such princes as the An-
tonines. Niebuhr, however, a greater critic, though not
so great an artist, takes a different view ; and both are
great authorities. If Gibbon meant simply that this
period was the happiest and most prosperous during
the imperial reigns, he may not have been far from the
truth, according to his standpoint of what human hap-
piness consists in, that external prosperity which
was the blessing of the Old Testament, and which Mac-
aulay exalts as proudly as Gibbon before him. There
was this external prosperity, so far as we know, and
we know but little aside from monuments and medals.
Even Tacitus shrank from writing contemporaneous
history, and the period he could have painted is to us
dark, mysterious, and unknown. Still, it is generally
THE GLORY OF ROME, 123
supposed and conceded that the Empire at this time
was outwardly splendid and prosperous. Certainly
there was a period of peace, when no wars troubled
the State but those which were distant, on the very
confines of the Empire, and that with rude barbarians,
no more formidable in the eyes of the luxurious citi-
zens of the capital than a revolt of the Sepoys to the
eyes of the citizens of London, or Indian raids among
the Eocky Mountains to the eyes of the people of New
York. And there was the reign of law and order, a
most grateful thing to those who had read of the con-
spiracy of Catiline and the tumults of Clodius, two
hundred and fifty years before. And there was doubt-
less a magnificent material civilization which promised
to be eternal, and of which every Eoman was proud.
There was a centralization of power in the Eternal
City such as had never been seen before and has never
been seen since, a solid Empire so large that the Medi-
terranean, which it enclosed, was a mere central lake,
around the vast circuit of whose shores were temples and
palaces and villas of unspeakable beauty, and where a
busy population pursued unmolested its various trades.
There was commerce on every river which empties itself
into this vast basin ; there were manufactures in every
town, and there were agricultural skill and abun-
dance in every province. The plains of Egypt and
Mesopotamia rejoiced in the richest harvests of wheat ;
124 MARCUS AURELIUS.
the hills of Syria and Gaul, and Spain and Italy, were
covered with grape-vines and olives. Italy boasted of
fifty kinds of wine, and Gaul produced the same vege-
tables that are known at the present day. All kinds
of fruit were plenty and luscious in every province.
There were game-preserves and fish-ponds and groves.
There were magnificent roads between all the great
cities, an uninterrupted highway, mostly paved, from
York to Jerusalem. The productions of the East were
consumed in the West, for ships whitened the sea,
bearing their precious gems, and ivory, and spices, and
perfumes, and silken fabrics, and carpets, and costly
vessels of gold and silver, and variegated marbles;
and all the provinces of an empire which extended
fifteen hundred miles from north to south and three
thousand from east to west were dotted with cities,
some of which almost rivalled the imperial capital in
size and magnificence. The little island of Rhodes
contained twenty-three thousand statues, and Antioch
had a street four miles in length, with double colon-
nades throughout its whole extent. The temple of Ephe-
sus covered as much ground as does the cathedral of
Cologne, and the library of Alexandria numbered seven
hundred thousand volumes. Rome, the proud metropolis,
had a diameter of eleven miles, and was forty-five miles
in circuit, with a population, according to Lipsius, larger
than modern London. It had seventeen thousand pal-
THE GLORY OF ROME. 125
aces, thirty theatres, nine thousand baths, and eleven
amphitheatres, one of which could seat eighty-seven
thousand spectators. The gilding of the roof of the
capitol cost fifteen millions of our money. The palace of
Nero was more extensive than Versailles. The mauso-
leum of Hadrian became the most formidable fortress of
Mediaeval times. And then, what gold and silver vessels
ornamented every palace, what pictures and statues en-
riched every room, what costly and gilded and carved
furniture was the admiration of every guest, what rich
dresses decorated the women who supped at gorgeous
tables of solid silver, whose very sandals were orna-
mented with precious stones, and whose necks were
hung with priceless pearls and rubies and diamonds !
Paulina wore a pearl which, it is said, cost two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars of our money. All the mas-
ter-pieces of antiquity were collected in this centre of
luxury and pride, all those arts which made Greece
immortal, and which we can only copy. What vast
structures, ornamented with pillars and marble statues,
were crowded together near the Forum and Capitoline
Hill! The museums of Italy contain to-day twenty
thousand specimens of ancient sculpture, which no
modern artist could improve. More than a million
of dollars were paid for a single picture for the im-
perial bed-chamber, for painting was carried to as
great perfection as sculpture.
126 MARCUS AURELIUS.
Such were the arts of the Pagan city, such the
material civilization in all the cities; and these cities
were guarded by soldiers who were trained to the
utmost perfection of military discipline, and presided
over by governors as elegant, as polished, and as in-
telligent as the courtiers of Louis XIV. The genius
for war was only equalled by genius for government.
How well administered were all the provinces ! The
Eomans spread their laws, their language, and their
institutions everywhere without serious opposition.
They were great civilizers, as the English have been.
"Law" became as great an idea as "glory;" and so
perfect was the mechanism of government that the
happiness of the people was scarcely affected by the
character of the emperors. Jurisprudence, the indige-
nous science of the Romans, is still studied and
adopted for its political wisdom.
Such was the civilization of the Roman world in the
time of Marcus Aurelius, that external grandeur,
that outward prosperity, to which Gibbon points with
such admiration and pride, and to which he ascribed
the highest happiness which the world has ever en-
joyed. Far different, probably, would have been the
verdict of the good and contemplative emperor who
then ruled the civilized world, when he saw the luxury,
the pride, the sensuality, the selfishness, the irreligion,
the worldliness, which marked all classes; producing
THE GLORY OF ROME. 127
vices too horrible to be even named, and undermining
the moral health, and secretly and surely preparing the
way for approaching violence and ruin.
What, then, is the reverse of the picture which Gib-
bon admired ? What established facts have we as an
offset to these gilded material glories ? What should
be the true judgment of mankind as to this lauded
period ?
The historian speaks of peace, and the prosperity