Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Roman Emperor, A.D. 161-180, born at Rome, 26 April, 121; died 17 March, 180.

HIS EARLY LIFE (121-161)

His father died while Marcus was yet a boy, and he was adopted by his

grandfather, Annius Verus. In the first pages of his "Meditations" (I, i-xvii) he has

left us an account, unique in antiquity, of his education by near relatives and by

tutors of distinction; diligence, gratitude and hardiness seem to have been its

chief characteristics. From his earliest years he enjoyed the friendship and

patronage on the Emperor Hadrian, who bestowed on him the honour of the

equestrian order when he was only six years old, made him a member of the

Salian priesthood at eight, and compelled Antoninus Pius immediately after his

own adoption to adopt as sons and heirs both the young Marcus and Ceionius

Commodus, known later as the Emperor Lucius Verus. In honour of his adopted

father he changed his name from M. Julius Aurelius Verus to M. Aurelius

Antoninus. By the will of Hadrian he espoused Faustina, the daughter of

Antoninus Pius. He was raised to the consularship in 140, and in 147 received

the "tribunician power".

HIS REIGN (161-180)

His co-reign with Lucius Verus (161-169). In all the later years of the life of

Antoninus Pius, Marcus was his constant companion and adviser. On the death

of the former (7 March, 161) Marcus was immediately acknowledged as emperor

by the Senate. Acting entirely on his own initiative he at once promoted his

adopted brother Lucius Verus to the position of colleague, with equal rights as

emperor.

With the accession of Marcus the great Pax Romana that made the era of the

Antonines the happiest in the annals of Rome, and perhaps of mankind, came to

an end, and with his reign the glory of the old Rome vanished. Younger peoples,

untainted by the vices of civilization, and knowing nothing of the inanition which

comes from overefinement and over-indulgence, were preparing to struggle for the

lead in the direction of human destiny. Marcus was scarcely seated on the

throne when the Picts commenced to threaten in Britain the recently erected

Wall of Antoninus. The Chatti and Chauci attempted to cross the Rhine and the

upper reaches of the Danube. These attacks were easily repelled.

Not so with the outbreak in the Orient, which commenced in 161 and did not

cease until 166. The destruction of an entire legion (XXII Deiotariana) at Elegeia

aroused the emperors to the gravity of the situation. Lucius Verus took the

command of the troops in 162 and, through the valor and skill of his lieutenants in

a war known officially as the Bellum Armeniacum el Parthicum, waged over the

wide area of Syria, Cappadocia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Media, was able to

celebrate a glorious trumph in 166. For a people so long accustomed to peace

as the Romans were, this war was wellnigh fatal. It taxed all their resources, and

the withdrawal of the legions from the Danubian frontier gave an opportunity to the

Teutonic tribes to penetrate into the rich and tempting territory. People with

strange-sounding names -- the Marcomanni, Varistae, Hermanduri, Quadis,

Suevi, Jazyges, Vandals -- collected along the Danube, crossed the frontiers,

and became the advance-guard of the great migration known as the "Wandering

of the Nations", which four centuries later culminated in the overthrow of the

Western Empire. The war against these invaders commenced in 167, and in a

short time had assumed such threatening proportions as to demand the

presence of both emperors at the front.

After the death of Lucius Verus (169-180). Lucius Verus died in 169, and

Marcus was left to carry on the war alone. His difficulties were immeasurably

increased by the devastation wrought by the plague carried westward by the

returning legions of Verus, by famine and earthquakes, and by inundations which

destroyed the vast granaries of Rome and their contents. In the panic and terror

caused by these events the people resorted to the extremes of superstition to

win back the favour of the deities through whose anger it was believed these

visitations were inflicted. Strange rites of expiation and sacrifice were resorted to,

victims were stain by thousands, and the assistance of the gods of the Orient

sought for as well as that of the gods of Rome.

The Thundering Legion incident (174). During the war with the Quadi in 174

there took place the famous incident of the Thundering Legion (Legio Fulminatrix,

Fulminea, Fulminata) which has been a cause of frequent controversy between

Christian and non-Christian writers. The Roman army was surrounded by

enemies with no chance of escape, when a storm burst. The rain poured down in

refreshing showers on the Romans, while the enemy were scattered with lighting

and hail. The parched and famishing Romans received the saving drops first on

their faces and parched throats, and afterwards in their helmets and shields, to

refresh their horses. Marcus obtained a glorious victory as a result of this

extraordinary event, and his enemies were hopelessly overthrown.

That such an event did really happen is attested both by pagan and Christian

writers. The former attribute the occurrence either to magic (Dion Cassius, LXXI,

8-10) or to the prayers of the emperor (Capitolinus, "Vita Marci", XXIV;

Themistius, "Orat. XV ad Theod"; Claudian, "De Sext. Cons. Hon.", V, 340 sqq.;

"Sibyl. Orac.", ed. Alezandre, XII, 196 sqq. Cf. Bellori, "La Colonne Antonine",

and Eckhel, "Doctrina Nummorum", III, 64). The Christian writers attributed the

fact to the prayers of the Christians who were in the army (Claudius Apollinaris in

Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.", V, 5; Tertullian, "Apol.", v; ad Seap. c. iv), and soon

there grew up a legend to the effect that in consequence of this miracle the

emperor put a stop to the persecution of the Christians (cf. Euseb. and Tert. opp

cit.). It must be conceded that the testimony of Claudius Apollinaris (see Smith

and Wace, "Dict. of Christ. Biogr.", I, 132-133) is the most valuable of all that we

possess, as he wrote within a few years of the event, and that all credit must be

given to the prayers of the Christians, though it does not necessarily follow that

we should accept the elaborate detail of the story as given by Tertullian and later

writers [Allard, op. cit. infra, pp. 377, 378; Renan, "Marc-Aurèle" (6th ed., Pari

1891), XVII, pp. 273-278; P. de Smedt, "Principes de la critique hist." (1883) p.

133].

His death (180). The last years of the reign of Marcus were saddened by the

appearance of a usurper, Avidius Cassius, in the Orient, and by the

consciousness that the empire was to fall into unworthy hands when his son

Commodus should come to the throne. Marcus died at Vindobona or Sirmium in

Pannonia. The chief authorities for his life are Julius Capitolinus, "Vita Marci

Antonini Philosophi" (SS. Hist. Aug. IV); Dion Cassius, "Epitome of Xiphilinos";

Herodian; Fronto, "Epistolae" and Aulus Gellius "Noctes Atticae".

ASSESSMENT

General assessment. Marcus Aurelius was one of the best men of heathen

antiquity. Apropos of the Antonines the judicious Montesquieu says that, if we

set aside for a moment the contemplation of the Christian verities, we can not

read the life of this emperor without a softening feeling of emotion. Niebuhr calls

him the noblest character of his time, and M. Martha, the historian of the Roman

moralists, says that in Marcus Aurelius "the philosophy of Heathendom grows

less proud, draws nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised,

and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the Unknown God." On the other hand,

the warm eulogies which many writers have heaped on Marcus Aurelius as a

ruler and as a man seem excessive and overdrawn. It is true that the most

marked trait in his character was his devotion to philosophy and letters, but it

was a curse to mankind that "he was a Stoic first and then a ruler". His

dilettanteism rendered him utterly unfitted for the practical affairs of a large

empire in a time of stress. He was more concerned with realizing in his own life

(to say the truth, a stainless one) the Stoic ideal of perfection, than he was with

the pressing duties of his office.

Philosophy became a disease in his mind and cut him off from the truths of

practical life. He was steeped in the grossest superstition; he surrounded himself

with charlatans and magicians, and took with seriousness even the knavery of

Alexander of Abonoteichos. The highest offices in the empire were sometimes

conferred on his philosophic teachers, whose lectures he attended even after he

became emperor. In the midst of the Parthian war he found time to keep a kind of

private diary, his famous "Meditations", or twelve short books of detached

thoughts and sentences in which he gave over to posterity the results of a

rigorous self-examination. With the exception of a few letters discovered among

the works of Fronto (M. Corn. Frontonis Reliquiae, Berlin, 1816) this history of his

inner life is the only work which we have from his pen. The style is utterly without

merit and distinction, apparently a matter of pride for he tells us he had learned

to abstain from rhetoric, and poetry, and fine writing. Though a Stoic deeply

rooted in the principles developed by Seneca and Epictetus, Aurelius cannot be

said to have any consistent system of philosophy. It might be said, perhaps, in

justice to this "seeker after righteousness", that his faults were the faults of his

philosophy rooted in the principle that human nature naturally inclined towards

evil and heeded to be constantly kept in check. Only once does he refer to

Christianity (Medit., XI, iii), a spiritual regenerative force that was visibiy

increasing its activity, and then only to brand the Christians with the reproach of

obstinacy (parataxis), the highest social crime in the eyes of Roman authority.

He seems also (ibid.) to look on Christian martyrdom as devoid of the serenity

and calm that should accompany the death of the wise man. For the possible

relations of the emperor with Christian bishops see ABERCIUS OF HIEROPOLIS, and

MELITO OF SARDES.

His dealings with the Christians. In his dealings with the Christians Marcus

Aurelius went a step farther than any of his predecessors. Throughout the reigns

of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius, the procedure followed by Roman

authorities in their treatment of the Christians has that outlined in Trajan's

rescript to Pliny, by which it was ordered that the Christians should not be

sought out; if brought before the courts, legal proof of their guilt should be

forthcoming. [For the much-disputed rescript "Ad conventum Asiae" (Eus., Hist.

Eccl., IV, xiii), see ANTONINUS PIUS]. It is clear that during the reign of Aurelius

the comparative leniency of the legislation of Trajan gave way to a more severe

temper. In Southern Gaul, at least, an imperial rescript inaugurated an entirely

new and much more violent era of persecution (Eus., Hist. Eccl., V, i, 45). In

Asia Minor and in Syria the blood of Christians flowed in torrents (Allard, op. cit.

infra. pp. 375, 376, 388, 389). In general the recrudescence of persecution

seems to have come immediately through the local action of the provincial

governors impelled by the insane outcries of terrified and demoralized city mobs.

If any general imperial edict was issued, it has not survived. It seems more

probable that the "new decrees" mentioned by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. IV, xx-i, 5)

were local ordinances of municipal authorities or provincial governors; as to the

emperor, he maintained against the Christians the existing legislation, though it

has been argued that the imperial edict (Digests XLVIII, xxix, 30) against those

who terrify by superstition "the fickle minds of men" was directed against the

Christian society. Duchesne says (Hist. Ancienne de l'Eglise, Paris, 1906 p.

210) that for such obscure sects the emperor would not condescend to interfere

with the laws of the empire. It is clear, however, from the scattered references in

contemporary writings (Celsus "In Origen. Contra Celsum", VIll, 169; Melito, in

Eus., "Hist. Eccl.", IV, xxvi; Athenagoras, "Legatio pro Christianis", i) that

throughout the empire an active pursuit of the Christians was now undertaken. In

order to encourage their numerous enemies, the ban was raised from the

delatores, or "denouncers", and they were promised rewards for all cases of

successful conviction. The impulse given by this legislation to an unrelenting

pursuit of the followers of Christ rendered their condition so precarious that many

changes in ecclesiastical organization and discipline date, at least in embryo,

from this reign.

Another significant fact, pointing to the growing numbers and influence of the

Christians, and the increasing distrust on the part of the imperial authorities and

the cultured classes, is that an active literary propaganda, emanating from the

imperial surrounding, was commenced at this period. The Cynic philosopher

Crescens took part in a public disputation with St. Justin in Rome. Fronto, the

precepter and bosom friend of Marcus Aurelius, denounced the followers of the

new religion in a formal discourse (Min. Felix, "Octavius", cc. ix, xxxi) and the

satirist Lucian of Samosata turned the shafts of his wit against them, as a party

of ignorant fanatics. No better proof the tone of the period and of the widespread

knowledge of Christian beliefs and practices which prevailed among the pagans

is needed than the contemporary "True Word" of Celsus (see ORIGEN), a work in

which were collected all the calumnies of pagan malice and all the arguments,

set forth with the skill of the trained rhetorician, which the philosophy and

experience of the pagan world could muster against the new creed. The

earnestness and frequency with which the Christians replied to these assaults by

the apologetic works (see ATHENAGORAS, MINUClUS FELIX, THEOPHILUS OF

ANTIOCH) addressed directly to the emperors themselves, or to the people at

large, show how keenly alive they were to the dangers arising from these literary

or academic foes.

From such and so many causes it is not surprising that Christian blood flowed

freely in all parts of the empire. The excited populace saw in the misery and

bloodshed of the period a proof that the gods were angered by the toleration

accorded to the Christians, consequently, they threw on the latter all blame for

the incredible public calamities. Whether it was famine or pestilence, drought or

floods, the cry was the same (Tertull., "Apologeticum", V, xli): Christianos ad

leonem (Throw the Christians to the lion). The pages of the Apologists show how

frequently the Christians were condemned and what penalties they had to

endure, and these vague and general references are confirmed by some

contemporary "Acta" of unquestionable authority, in which the harrowing scenes

are described in all their gruesome details. Among them are the "Acta" of Justin

and his companions who suffered at Rome (c. 165), of Carpus, Papylus, and

Agathonica, who were put to death in Asia Minor, of the Scillitan Martyrs in

Numidia, and the touching Letters of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne (Eus.,

Hist. Eccl., V, i-iv) in which is contained the description of the tortures inflicted

(177) on Blandina and her companions at Lyons. Incidentally, this document

throws much light on the character and extent of the persecution of the

Christians in Southern Gaul, and on the share of the emperor therein.

Patrick J. Healy

Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org