No More Learning

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[Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman emperor 161-180, was born at Rome, a. d. 121. He was the most nearly perfect character in history, his active ability and moral nobility being both of the first order. He was a brave, skillful, and successful general, a laborious and sagacious administrator and reformer, a
humane, and self-denying man. His "Meditations," which have comforted and strengthened thousands of the best minds for seventeen hundred years, were notes set down for his own guidance and spiritual comfort at odd times, in camp or court. ]
In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, 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 the world ? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bedclothes 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 ? — But it is necessary to take rest also. — It is necessary. However, nature has fixed bounds to this too : she has fixed bounds to eating and drinking, and yet thou goest beyond these bounds, beyond what is sufficient ; yet in thy acts it is not so, but thou stoppest short of what thou canst do. So thou lovest not thyself, for if thou didst, thou wouldst love thy nature and her will. But those who love their several arts exhaust them selves in working at them unwashed and without food; but thou valuest thy own nature less than the turner values the
turning art, or the dancer the dancing art, or the lover of money values his money, or the vainglorious man his little glory. And such men, when they have a violent affection to a thing, choose neither to eat nor to sleep rather than to perfect the thing which they care for. But are the acts which concern society more vile in thy eyes and less worthy of thy labor ?
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 altogether in thy power, — sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, contentment
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with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art immediately able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity 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 so 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.
One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season. — Must a man then be one of these, who in a manner act thus without observing it? — Yes. — But this very thing is necessary, the observation of what a man is doing: for, it may be said, it is characteristic of the social animal to perceive that he is working in a social manner, and indeed to wish that his social partner also should perceive it. — It is true what thou sayest, but thou dost not rightly under stand what is now said : and for this reason thou wilt become one of those of whom I spoke before, for even they are misled by a certain show of reason. But if thou wilt choose to under stand the meaning of what is said, do not fear that for this reason thou wilt omit any social act.
Accept everything which happens, even if it seem disagree able, because it leads to this, to the health of the universe and to the prosperity and felicity of Zeus [the universe]. For he would not have brought on any man what he has brought, if it were not useful for the whole. Neither does the nature
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of anything, whatever it may be, cause anything which is not suitable to that which is directed by it. For two reasons then it is right to be content with that which happens to thee ; the one, because it was done for thee and prescribed for thee, and in a manner had reference to thee, originally from the most ancient causes spun with thy destiny ; and the other, because even that which comes severally to every man is the power which administers the universe a cause of felicity and perfec tion, nay even of its very continuance. For the integrity of the whole is mutilated, if thou cuttest off anything whatever from the conjunction and the continuity either of the parts or of the causes. And thou dost cut off, as far as it is in thy power, when thou art dissatisfied, and in a manner triest to put anything out of the way.
Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not succeed in doing everything according to right prin ciples, but when thou hast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of what thou doest is consistent with man's nature, and love this to which thou returnest ; and do not return to philosophy as if she were a master, but act like those who have sore eyes and apply a bit of sponge and egg, or as another applies a plaster, or drenching with water. For thus thou wilt not fail to obey reason, and thou wilt repose in it. And remember that philosophy requires only the things which thy nature requires ; but thou wouldst have something else which is not according to nature. — It may be objected, Why, what is more agreeable than this [which I am doing] ? — But is not this the very reason why pleasure deceives us? And consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity, equanimity, piety, are not more agreeable. For what is more agreeable than wisdom itself, when thou thinkest of the security and the happy course of all things which depend on the faculty of understanding and knowledge ?
Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to philosophers, not a few nor those common philoso phers, altogether unintelligible ; nay even to the Stoics them selves they seem difficult to understand. And all our assent is changeable ; for where is the man who never changes ? Carry thy thoughts then to the objects themselves, and consider how short-lived they are and worthless, and that they may be in the possession of a filthy wretch or a whore or a robber. Then turn to the morals of those who live with thee, and it is hardly pos
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sible to endure even the most agreeable of them, to say nothing of a man being hardly able to endure himself. In such dark ness then and dirt, and in so constant a flux both of substance and of time, and of motion and of things moved, what there is worth being highly prized, or even an object of serious pursuit, I cannot imagine. But on the contrary it is a man's duty to comfort himself, and to wait for the natural dissolution, and not to be vexed at the delay, but to rest in these principles only : the one, that nothing will happen to me which is not conforma ble to the nature of the universe ; and the other, that it is in my power never to act contrary to my god and demon : for there is no man who will compel me to this.
About what am I now employing my own soul ? On every occasion I must ask myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me which they call the ruling prin ciple ? —and whose soul have Inow,—that of a child, or of a young man, or of a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, or of a domestic animal, or of a wild beast?
What kind of things those are which appear good to the many, we may learn even from this. For if any man should conceive certain things as being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to anything which should not be in harmony with what is really good. But if a man has first conceived as good the things which appear to the many to be good, he will listen and readily receive as very applicable that which was said by the comic writer. Thus even the many per ceive the difference. For were it not so, this saying would not offend and would not be rejected [in the first case], while we receive it when it is said of wealth, and of the means which further luxury and fame, as said fitly and wittily. Go on then and ask if we should value and think those things to be good, to which after their first conception in the mind the words of the comic writer might be aptly applied, — that he who has them, through pure abundance has not a place to ease him self in.
Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind ; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a continuous series of such thoughts as these : for instance, that where a man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a palace ; well then, he can also live well in a palace. And again, consider that for whatever purpose
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each thing has been constituted, for this it has been constituted, and towards this it is carried ; and its end is in that towards which it is carried ; and where the end is, there also is the advantage and the good of each thing. Now the good for the reasonable animal is society ; for that we are made for society has been shown above. Is it not plain that the inferior exist for the sake of the superior ? But the things which have life are superior to those which have not life, and of those which have life the superior are those which have reason.
To seek what is impossible is madness : and it is impossible that the bad should not do something of this kind.
Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear. The same things happen to another, and either because he does not see that they have happened, or because he would show a great spirit, he is firm and remains unharmed. It is a shame then that ignorance and conceit should be stronger than wisdom.
Reverence that which is best in the universe; and this is that which makes use of all things and directs all things. And in like manner also reverence that which is best in thyself ; and this is of the same kind as that. For in thyself also, that which makes use of everything else is this, and thy life is directed by this.
Often think of the rapidity with which things pass by and disappear, both the things which are and the things which are produced. For substance is like a river in a continual flow, and the activities of things are in constant change, and the causes work in infinite varieties ; and there is hardly anything which stands still. And consider this which is near to thee, this boundless abyss of the past and of the future in which all things disappear. How then is he not a fool who is puffed up with such things or plagued about them and makes himself miserable? for they vex him only for a time, and a short time.
Think of the universal substance, of which thou hast a very small portion ; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee ; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art.
Does another do me wrong ? Let him look to it. He has his own disposition, his own activity. I now have what the universal nature wills me to have ; and I do what my nature now wills me to do.
Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink? art thou
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angry with him whose mouth smells foul ? What good will this anger do thee ? He has such a mouth, he has such arm pits : it is necessary that such an emanation must come from such things ; but the man has reason, it will be said, and he is able, if he takes pains, to discover wherein he offends ;
I wish thee well of thy discovery. Well then, and thou hast reason : by thy rational faculty stir up his rational faculty ; show him his error, admonish him. For if he listens, thou wilt cure him,
and there is no need of anger.
The intelligence of the universe is social. Accordingly it
has made the inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the superior to one another. Thou seest how it has subordinated, coordinated, and assigned to everything its proper portion, and has brought together into concord with one another the things which are the best.
How hast thou behaved hitherto to the gods, thy parents, brethren, children, teachers, to those who looked after thy infancy, to thy friends, kinsfolk, to thy slaves? Consider if thou hast hitherto behaved to all in such a way that this may be said of thee, —
Never has wronged a man in deed or word.
And call to recollection both how many things thou hast passed through, and how many things thou hast been able to endure and that the history of thy life is now complete and thy service is ended ; and how many beautiful things thou hast seen ; and how many pleasures and pains thou hast despised ; and how many things called honorable thou hast spurned ; and to how many ill-minded folks thou hast shown a kind disposition.
Why do unskilled and ignorant souls disturb him who has skill and knowledge ? What soul then has skill and knowl edge ? That which knows beginning and end, and knows the reason which pervades all substance, and through all time by fixed periods [revolutions] administers the universe.
Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name or not even a name ; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are much valued in life are empty and rotten and trifling, and [like] little dogs biting one another, and little children quarreling, laughing, and then straightway weeping. But fidelity and modesty and justice and truth are fled
Up to Olympus from the widespread earth.
— Hesiod, " Works," etc. , v. 197.
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What then is there which still detains thee here, if the objects of sense are easily changed and never stand still, and the organs of perception are dull and easily receive false impressions, and the poor soul itself is an exhalation from blood ? But to have good repute amid such a world as this is an empty thing. Why then dost thou not wait in tranquillity for thy end, whether it is extinction or removal to another state ? And until that time comes, what is sufficient ? Why, what else than to venerate the gods and bless them, and to do good to men, and to practice tolerance and self-restraint ; but as to everything which is beyond the limits of the poor flesh and breath, to remember that this is neither thine nor in thy power.
Thou canst pass thy life in an equable flow of happiness, if thou canst go by the right way, and think and act in the right way. These two things are common both to the soul of God and to the soul of man, and to the soul of every rational being : not to be hindered by another ; and to hold good to consist in the disposition to justice and the practice of it, and in this to let thy desire find its termination.
It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having had any taste of lying and hypocrisy and luxury and pride. However, to breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of these things is the next best voyage, as the say ing is. Hast thou determined to abide with vice, and has not experience yet induced thee to fly from this pestilence ? For the destruction of the understanding is a pestilence, much more indeed than any such corruption and change of this atmosphere which surrounds us. For this corruption is a pestilence of animals so far as they are animals ; but the other is a pestilence of men so far as they are men.
Do not despise death, but be well content with since this too one of those things which nature wills. For such as
to be young and to grow old, and to increase and to reach maturity, and to have teeth and beard and gray hairs, and to beget and to be pregnant and to bring forth, and all the other natural operations which the seasons of thy life bring, such also
dissolution. This, then, consistent with the character of reflecting man, — to be neither careless nor impatient nor con temptuous with respect to death, but to wait for as one of the operations of nature. As thou now waitest for the time when the child shall come out of thy wife's womb, so be ready for the time when thy soul shall fall out of this envelope. But
it
it,
is is
is
is
if a it
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thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which shall reach thy heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by observing the objects from which thou art going to be removed, and the morals of those with whom thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is no way right to be offended with men, but it is thy duty to care for them and to bear with them gently ; and yet to remember that thy departure will not be from men who have the same principles as thyself. For this is the only thing, if there be any, which could draw us the contrary way and attach us to life, — to be permitted to live with those who have the same principles as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is the trouble arising from the discordance of those who live together, so that thou mayst say, Come quick, O death, lest per chance I, too, should forget myself.
He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad.
He often acts unjustly who does not do a certain thing ; not only he who does a certain thing.
Among the animals which have not reason one life is dis tributed ; but among reasonable animals one intelligent soul is distributed : just as there is one earth of all things which are of an earthy nature, and we see by one light, and breathe one air, all of us that have the faculty of vision and all that have life.
If thou art able, correct by teaching those who do wrong ; but if thou canst not, remember that indulgence is given to thee for this purpose. And the gods, too, are indulgent to such persons ; and for some purposes they even help them to get health, wealth, reputation ; so kind they are. And it is in thy power also ; or say, who hinders thee ?
Labor not as one who is wretched, nor yet as one who would be pitied or admired : but direct thy will to one thing only, — to put thyself in motion and to check thyself, as the social reason requires.
Not in passivity but in activity lie the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity but in activity.
For the stone which has been thrown up it is no evil to come down, nor indeed any good to have been carried up.
Penetrate inward into men's leading principles, and thou wilt see what judges thou art afraid of, and what kind of judges they are of themselves.
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Hasten [to examine] thy own ruling faculty and that of the universe and that of thy neighbor : thy own that thou mayst make it just : and that of the universe, that thou mayst remem ber of what thou art a part ; and that of thy neighbor, that thou mayst know whether he has acted ignorantly or with knowledge, and that thou mayst also consider that his ruling faculty is akin to thine.
As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. What ever act of thine then has no reference either immediately or remotely to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.
Quarrels of little children and their sports, and poor spirits carrying about dead bodies [such is everything] ; and so what is exhibited in the representation of the mansions of the dead strikes our eyes more clearly.
Thou hast endured infinite troubles through not being con tented with thy ruling faculty when it does the things which it is constituted by nature to do.
When another blames thee or hates thee, or when men say about thee anything injurious, approach their poor souls, pene trate within, and see what kind of men they are. Thou wilt discover that there is no reason to take any trouble that these men may have this or that opinion about thee. However, thou must be well disposed towards them, for by nature they are friends. And the gods too aid them in all ways, by dreams, by signs, towards the attainment of those things on which they set a value.
Soon will the earth cover us all : then the earth, too, will change, and the things also which result from change will con tinue to change forever, and these again forever. For if a man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable.
Look down from above on the countless herds of men and their countless solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, and the differences among those who are born, who live together, and die. And consider, too, the life lived by others in olden time, and the life of those who will live after thee, and the life now lived among barbarous nations, and
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how many know not even thy name, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are praising thee will very soon blame thee, and that neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else.
All that thou seest will quickly perish, and those who have been spectators of its dissolution will very soon perish too. And he who dies at the extremest old age will be brought into the same condition with him who died prematurely.
What are these men's leading principles, and about what kind of things are they busy, and for what kind of reasons do they love and honor ? Imagine that thou seest their poor souls laid bare. When they think that they do harm by their blame or good by their praise, what an idea !
Loss is nothing else than change. But the universal nature delights in change, and in obedience to her all things are now done well, and from eternity have been done in like form, and will be such to time without end. What, then, dost thou say, — that all things have been and all things always will be bad, and that no power has ever been found in so many gods to rectify these things, but the world has been condemned to be bound in never-ceasing evil ?
If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps he has not done wrong.
Either the gods have no power or they have power. If, then, they have no power, why dost thou pray to them ? But if they have power, why dost thou not pray for them to give thee the faculty of not fearing any of the things which thou fearest, or of not desiring any of the things which thou desirest, or not being pained at anything, rather than pray that any of these things should not happen or happen ? for certainly if they can cooperate with men, they can cooperate for these pur poses. But perhaps thou wilt say the gods have placed them in thy power. Well, then, is it not better to use what is in thy power like a free man than to desire in a slavish and abject way what is not in thy power ? And who has told thee that the gods do not aid us even in the things which are in our power ? Begin, then, to pray for such things, and thou wilt see. One man prays thus : How shall I be able to lie with that woman ? Do thou pray thus : How shall I not desire to lie with her ? Another prays thus : How shall I be released from this? Another prays : How shall I not desire to be re leased ? Another thus : How shall I not lose my little son ?
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Thou thus : How shall I not be afraid to lose him ? In fine, turn thy prayers this way, and see what comes.
When thou art offended with any man's shameless conduct, immediately ask thyself, Is it possible, then, that shameless men should not be in the world ? It is not possible. Do not, then, require what is impossible. For this man also is one of those shameless men who must of necessity be in the world. Let the same considerations be present to thy mind in the case of the knave, and the faithless man, and of every man who does wrong in any way. For at the same time that thou dost remind thy self that it is impossible that such kind of men should not exist, thou wilt become more kindly disposed towards every one individually. It is useful to perceive this, too, immediately when the occasion arises, what virtue nature has given to man to oppose to every wrongful act. For she has given to man, as an antidote against the stupid man, mildness, and against another kind of man some other power. And in all cases it is possible for thee to correct by teaching the man who is gone astray ; for every man who errs misses his object and is gone
Besides, wherein hast thou been injured? For thou wilt find that no one among those against whom thou art irritated has done anything by which thy mind could be made worse ; but that which is evil to thee and harmful has its foundation only in the mind. And what harm is done or what is there strange, if the man who has not been instructed does the acts of an uninstructed man ? Consider whether thou shouldst not rather blame thyself, because thou didst not ex pect such a man to err in such a way.
For thou hadst means given thee by thy reason to suppose that it was likely that he would commit this error, and yet thou hast forgotten and art amazed that he has erred. But most of all when thou blamest a man as faithless or ungrateful, turn to thyself. For the fault is manifestly thy own, whether thou didst trust that a man who had such a disposition would keep his promise, or when confer ring thy kindness thou didst not confer it absolutely, nor yet in such way as to have received from thy very act all the profit. For what more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service ? art thou not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and dost thou seek to be paid for it? just as if the eye demanded a recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking.
astray.
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MARCUS AURELIUS AT HOME. By WALTER PATER.
(From " Marius the Epicurean. ")
[Walter Horatio Pater : An English critic and author ; horn in London, August 4, 1839. Educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Queen's Col lege, Oxford, he became a Fellow of Brasenose College (1865), where he spent the greater portion of his life. He died in 1894. Among his works, which are distinguished for critical insight and exquisite style, may be mentioned : " Studies in the History of the Renaissance " (1873), " Marius the Epicurean,"
" Imaginary Portraits," "Appreciations," " Plato and Platonism. "]
Marius climbed the long flights of steps to be introduced to the emperor Aurelius. Attired in the newest mode, his legs wound in dainty fascice of white leather, with the heavy gold ring of the ingenuus, and in his toga of ceremony, he still retained all his country freshness of complexion. The eyes of the "golden youth" of Rome were upon him as the chosen friend of Cornelius and the destined servant of the emperor ; but not jealously. In spite of, perhaps partly because of, his habitual reserve of manner, he had become " the fashion," even among those who felt instinctively the irony which lay beneath that remarkable self-possession, as of one taking all things with a difference from other people, perceptible in voice, in expression, and even in his dress. It was, in truth, the air of one who, entering vividly into life, and relishing to the full the delicacies of its intercourse, yet feels all the while, from the point of view of an ideal philosophy, that he is but conced ing reality to suppositions, choosing of his own will to walk in a daydream, of the illusiveness of which he at least is aware.
In the house of the chief chamberlain Marius waited for the due moment of admission to the emperor's presence. The summons came ; and in a few minutes, the etiquette of the imperial household being still a simple matter, he had passed the curtains which divided the central hall of the palace into three parts — three degrees of approach to the sacred person — and was speaking to Aurelius himself ; not in Greek, in which the emperor oftenest conversed with the learned, but, more familiarly, in Latin, adorned however, or disfigured, by many a Greek phrase, as now and again French phrases have made the adornment of fashionable English. It was with real kindliness that Marcus Aurelius looked upon
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Marius, as a youth of great attainments in Greek letters and philosophy ; and he liked also his serious expression, being, as we know, a believer in the doctrine of physiognomy — that, as he puts it, not love only, but every other affection of man's soul, looks out very plainly from the window of the eyes.
The apartment in which Marius found himself was of ancient aspect, and richly decorated with the favorite toys of two or three generations of imperial collectors, now finally revised by the high connoisseurship of the Stoic emperor him self, though destined not much longer to remain together there. It is the repeated boast of Aurelius that he had learned from old Antoninus Pius to maintain authority without the constant use of guards, in a robe woven by the handmaids of his own consort, with no processional lights or images, and "that a prince may shrink himself almost into the figure of a private gentleman. " And yet, again as at his first sight of him, Marius was struck by the profound religiousness of the surroundings of the imperial presence. The effect might have been due in part to the very simplicity, the discreet and scrupulous sim plicity, of the central figure in this splendid abode ; but Marius could not forget that he saw before him not only the head of the Roman religion, but one who might actually have claimed something like divine worship, had he cared to do so. Though the fantastic pretensions of Caligula had brought some con tempt on that claim, which had become almost a jest under the ungainly Claudius, yet, from Augustus downwards, a vague divinity had seemed to surround the Caesars even in this life : and the peculiar character of Aurelius, at once a ceremonious polytheist never forgetful of his pontifical calling, and a phi losopher whose mystic speculation encircled him with a sort of saintly halo, had restored to his person, without his intending it, something of that divine prerogative, or prestige. Though he would never allow the immediate dedication of altars to himself, yet the image of his Genius — his spirituality or celes tial counterpart — was placed among those of the deified princes of the past ; and his family, including Faustina "and the young Commodus, was spoken of as the "holy or "divine" house. Many a Roman courtier agreed with the barbarian chief, who, after contemplating a predecessor of Aurelius, withdrew from his presence with the exclamation : " I have seen a god to-day ! " The very roof of his house,
rising into a pediment or gable, like that of the sanctuary of TOL. VtL—7
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a god, the laurels on either side its doorway, the chaplet of oak leaves above, seemed to designate the place for religious veneration. And notwithstanding all this, the household of Aurelius was singularly modest, with none of the wasteful expense of palaces after the fashion of Lewis the Fourteenth ; the palatial dignity being felt only in a peculiar sense of order, the absence of all that was casual, of vulgarity and discomfort. A merely official residence of his predecessors, the Palatine had become the favorite dwelling place of Aurelius ; its many- colored memories suiting, perhaps, his pensive character, and the crude splendors of Nero and Hadrian being now subdued by time. The windowless Roman abode must have had much of what to a modern would be gloom. How did the children, one wonders, endure houses with so little escape for the eye into the world outside ? Aurelius, who had altered little else, choosing to live there, in a genuine homeliness, had shifted and made the most of the level lights, and broken out a quite mediaeval window here and there, and the clear daylight, fully appreciated by his youthful visitor, made pleasant shadows among the objects of the imperial collection. Some of these, indeed, by reason of their Greek simplicity and grace, them selves shone out like spaces of a purer, early light, amid the splendors of the Roman manufacture.
Though he looked, thought Marius, like a man who did not sleep enough, he was abounding and bright to-day, after one of those pitiless headaches which since boyhood had been the "thorn in his side," challenging the pretensions of his philoso phy to fortify one in humble endurances. At the first moment, to Marius, remembering the spectacle of the emperor in cere mony, it was almost bewildering to be in private conversation with him. There was much in the philosophy of Aurelius — much consideration of mankind at large, of great bodies, aggregates and generalities, after the Stoic manner — which, on a nature less rich than his, might have acted as an induce ment to care for people in inverse proportion to their near ness to him. That has sometimes been the result of the Stoic cosmopolitanism. Aurelius, however, determined to beautify by all means, great or little, a doctrine which had in it some potential sourness, had brought all the quickness of his intelli gence, and long years of observation, to bear on the conditions of social intercourse. He had early determined " not to make business an excuse to decline the offices of humanity — not to
MARCUS AURELIUS AT HOME. 99
pretend to be too much occupied with important affairs to con cede what life with others may hourly demand ; " and with such success, that, in an age which made much of the finer points of that intercourse, it was felt that the mere honesty of his conversation was more pleasing than other men's flattery. His agreeableness to his young visitor to-day was, in truth, a blossom of the same wisdom which had made of Lucius Verus really a brother — the wisdom of not being exigent with men, any more than with fruit trees (it is his own favorite figure) beyond their nature. And there was another person, still nearer to him, regarding whom this wisdom became a marvel, of equity — of charity.
The center of a group of princely children, in the same apartment with Aurelius, amid all the refined intimacies of a modern home, sat the empress Faustina, warming her hands over a fire. With her long fingers lighted up red by the glow ing coals of the brazier, Marius looked close upon the most beautiful woman in the world, who was also the great paradox of the age, among her boys and girls. As has been truly said of the numerous representations of her in art, so in life, she had the air of one curious, restless, to enter into conversation with the first comer. She had certainly the power of stimu lating a very ambiguous sort of curiosity about herself. And Marius found this enigmatic point in her expression, that even after seeing her many times he could never precisely recall her features in absence. The lad of six years, looking older, who stood beside her, impatiently plucking a rose to pieces over the hearth, was, in outward appearance, his father — the young
Veristimus — over again; but with a certain feminine length
of feature, and with all his mother's alertness, or license, of
gaze.
Yet rumor knocked at every door and window of the
imperial house regarding the adulterers who knocked at them, or quietly left their lovers' garlands there. Was not that like ness of the husband, in the boy beside her, really the effect of a shameful magic, in which the blood of the murdered gladi ator, his true father, had been an ingredient ? Were the tricks for deceiving husbands which the Roman poet describes, really hers, and her household an efficient school of all the arts of furtive love ? Or, was the husband too aware, like every one beside? Were certain sudden deaths which happened there, really the work of apoplexy, or the plague ?
100 MARCUS AURELIUS AT HOME.
The man whose ears, whose soul, those rumors were meant to penetrate, was, however, faithful to his sanguine and optimist philosophy, to his determination that the world should be to him simply what the higher reason preferred to conceive it ; and the life's journey Aurelius had made so far, though in volving much moral and intellectual loneliness, had been ever in affectionate and helpful contact with other wayfarers, very unlike himself. Since his days of earliest childhood in the Lateran gardens, he seemed to himself, blessing the gods for it after deliberate survey, to have been always surrounded by kinsmen, friends, servants, of exceptional virtue. From the great Stoic idea, that we are all fellow-citizens of one city, he had derived a tenderer, a more equitable estimate than was common among Stoics, of the eternal shortcomings of men and women. Considerations that might tend to the sweetening of his temper it was his daily care to store away, with a kind of philosophic pride in the thought that no one took more good- naturedly than he the "oversights" of his neighbors. For had not Plato taught (it was not paradox, but simple truth of experience) that if people sin, it is because they know no better, and are " under the necessity of their own ignorance " ? Hard to himself, he seemed at times, doubtless, to decline too softly upon unworthy persons. Actually, he came thereby upon many a useful instrument. The empress Faustina he would seem at least to have kept, by a constraining affection, from becoming altogether what most people have believed her, and won in her (we must take him at his word in the " Thoughts," abundantly confirmed by letters, on both sides, in his correspondence with Cornelius Fronto) a consolation, the more secure, perhaps, because misknown of others. Was the secret of her actual blamelessness, after all, with him who has at least screened her name ? At all events, the one thing quite certain about her, besides her extraordinary beauty, is her sweetness to himself.
No ! The wise, who had made due observation on the trees of the garden, would not expect to gather grapes of thorns or fig trees : and he was the vine, putting forth his genial fruit, by natural law, again and again, after his kind, whatever use people might make of it. Certainly, his actual presence never lost its power, and Faustina was glad in it to-day, the birthday of one of her children, a boy who stood at her knee holding in his fingers tenderly a tiny silver trumpet, one of his birthday
MARCUS AURELIUS AT HOME. 101
gifts. — " For my part, unless I conceive my hurt to be such, I have no hurt at all," — boasts the would-be apathetic emperor : — "and how I care to conceive of the thing rests with me. " Yet when his children fall sick or die, this pretense breaks down, and he is broken-hearted : and one of the charms of certain of his letters still extant, is his reference to those childish sicknesses. — " On my return to Lorium," he writes, " I found my little lady — domnulam meam — in a fever ; " and again, in a letter to one of the most serious of men, " You will be glad to hear that our little one is better, and running about the room —parvolam nostram melius valere et intra cubi- culum discurrere. "
The young Commodus had departed from the chamber, anxious to witness the exercises of certain gladiators, having a native taste for such company, inherited, according to popular rumor, from his true father — anxious also to escape from the too impressive company of the gravest and sweetest specimen of old age Marius had ever seen, the tutor of the imperial children, who had arrived to offer his birthday congratulations, and now, very familiarly and affectionately, made a part of the group, falling on the shoulders of the emperor, kissing the empress Faustina on the face, the little ones on the face and hands. Marcus Cornelius Fronto, the "Orator," favorite teacher of the emperor's youth, afterwards his most trusted counselor, and now the undisputed occupant of the sophistic throne, whose equipage, elegantly mounted with silver, Marius had seen in the streets of Rome, had certainly turned his many personal gifts to account with a good fortune remarkable even in that age, so indulgent to professors or rhetoricians. The gratitude of the emperor Aurelius, always generous to his teachers, arranging their very quarrels sometimes, for they were not always fair to one another, had helped him to a really great place in the world. But his sumptuous appendages, including the villa and gardens of Maecenas, had been borne with an air perfectly becoming, by the professor of a philosophy which, even in its most accom plished and elegant phase, presupposed a gentle contempt for such things. With an intimate practical knowledge of manners, physiognomies, smiles, disguises, flatteries, and courtly tricks of every kind — a whole accomplished rhetoric of daily life — he applied them all to the promotion of humanity, and especially of men's family affection. Through a long life of now eighty years, he had been, as it were, surrounded by the gracious and
102 MARCUS AURELIUS AT HOME.
soothing air of his own eloquence — the fame, the echoes of it — like warbling birds, or murmuring bees. Setting forth in that fine medium the best ideas of matured pagan philosophy, he had become the favorite " director " of noble youth.
Yes ! it was the one instance Marius, always eagerly on the lookout for such, had yet seen of a perfectly tolerable, perfectly beautiful, old age — an old age in which there seemed, to one who perhaps habitually overvalued the expression of youth, nothing to be regretted, nothing really lost, in what years had taken away. The wise old man, whose blue eyes and fair skin were so delicate, uncontaminate, and clear, would seem to have replaced carefully and consciously each natural trait of youth, as it departed from him, by an equivalent grace of culture, and had the blitheness, the placid cheerfulness, as he had also the infirmity, the claim on stronger people, of a delightful child. And yet he seemed to be but awaiting his exit from life — that moment with which the Stoics were almost as much preoccupied as the Christians, however differently — and set Marius ponder ing on the contrast between a placidity like this, at eighty years, and the sort of desperateness he was aware of in his own manner of entertaining that thought. His infirmities never theless had been painful and long-continued, with losses of children, of pet grandchildren. What with the crowd, and the wretched streets, it was a sign of affection which had cost him something, for the old man to leave his own house at all that day ; and he was glad of the emperor's support, as he moved from place to place among the children he protests so often to have loved as his own.
For a strange piece of literary good fortune, at the beginning of the present century, has set free the long-buried fragrance of this famous friendship of the old world, from below a value less later manuscript, in a series of letters, wherein the two writers exchange, for the most part, their evening thoughts, especially at family anniversaries, and with entire intimacy, on their children, on the art of speech, on all the various subtleties of the " science of images," — rhetorical images, — above all, of course, on sleep and matters of health. They are full of mutual admiration of each other' ,3 eloquence, restless in absence till they see one another again, noting, characteristically, their very dreams of each other, expecting the day which will terminate the office, the business or duty which separates them — " as superstitious people watch for the star, at the rising of which
MARCUS AURELIUS AT HOME. 103
they may break their fast. " To one of the writers, to Aurelius, the correspondence was sincerely of value. We see him once reading his letters with genuine delight on going to rest. Fronto seeks to deter his pupil from writing in Greek. — Why buy, at great cost, a foreign wine, inferior to that from one's own vineyard ? Aurelius, on the other hand, with an extraor dinary innate susceptibility to words — la parole pour la parole, as the French say — despairs, in presence of Fronto's rhetorical perfection.
Like the modern visitor to the Capitoline and some other museums, Fronto had been struck, pleasantly struck, by the family likeness among the Antonines ; and it was part of his friendship to make much of it, in the case of the children of
I have seen the little ones," he writes to
Faustina. " Well !
Aurelius, then, apparently, absent from them : "
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 beheld you, not simply face to face before me, but, more generously, whichever way I turned, to my right and 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 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 corn are so kindly
I heard too their pretty voices, so sweet that, in the childish prattle of one and the other, I seemed somehow 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 independent, having those I could love in your place : — love, on the surety of my eyes and ears. '
alike. Ah !
" Magistro meo salutem ! " replies the emperor, " I too have seen my little ones in your sight of them ; as, also, I saw your self in reading your letter. It is that charming letter forces me to write thus : " with reiterations of affection, that is, which are continual in these letters, on both sides, and which may strike a modern reader perhaps as fulsome ; or, again, as having something in common with the old Judaic unction of friendship. They were certainly sincere.
To one of those children Fronto had now brought the birth day gift of the silver trumpet, upon which he ventured to blow
>
I have seen
104 MARCUS AURELIUS AT HOME.
softly now and again, turning away with eyes delighted at the sound, when he thought the old man was not listening. It was the well-worn, valetudinarian subject of sleep, on which Fronto and Aurelius were talking together ; Aurelius always feeling it a burden, Fronto a thing of magic capacities, so that he had written an encomium in its praise, and often by ingenious argu ments recommends his imperial pupil not to be sparing of it. To-day, with his younger listeners in mind, he had a story to tell about it : —
"They say that our father Jupiter, when he ordered the world at the beginning, divided time into two parts exactly equal : the one part he clothed with light, the other with dark ness : he called them Day and Night ; and he assigned rest to the night and to day the work of life. At that time Sleep was not yet born and men passed the whole of their lives awake : only, the quiet of the night was ordained for them, instead of sleep. But it came to pass, little by little, being that the minds of men are restless, that they carried on their business alike by night as by day, and gave no part at all to repose. And Jupiter, when he perceived that even in the nighttime they ceased not from trouble and disputation, and that even the courts of law remained open (it was the pride of Aurelius, as Fronto knew, to be assiduous in those courts till far into the night) resolved to appoint one of his brothers to be the overseer of the night and have authority over man's rest. But Neptune pleaded in excuse the gravity of his constant charge of the seas, and Father Dis the difficulty of keeping in subjection the spirits below ; and Jupiter, having taken counsel with the other gods, perceived that the practice of nightly vigils was somewhat in favor. It was then, for the most part, that Juno gave birth to her children : Minerva, the mistress of all art and craft, loved the midnight lamp : Mars delighted in the darkness for his plots and sallies ; and the favor of Venus and Bacchus was with those who roused by night. Then it was that Jupiter formed the design of creating Sleep ; and he added him to the number of the gods, and gave him the charge over night and rest, putting into his hands the keys of human eyes. With his own hands he mingled the juices wherewith Sleep should soothe the hearts of mortals — herb of Enjoyment and herb of Safety, gathered from a grove in Heaven ; and, from the meadows of Acheron, the herb of Death ; expressing from it one single drop only, no bigger than a tear one might hide. ' With this juice,' he said,
MARCUS AURELIUS AT HOME. 105
' pour slumber upon the eyelids of mortals. So soon as it hath touched them they will lay themselves down motionless, under thy power. But be not afraid : they shall revive, and in a while stand up again upon their feet. ' Thereafter, Jupiter gave wings to Sleep, attached, not, like Mercury's, to his heels, but to his shoulders, like the wings of Love. For he said, ' It becomes thee not to approach men's eyes as with the noise of chariots, and the rushing of a swift courser, but in placid and merciful flight, as upon the wings of a swallow — nay ! with not so much as the flutter of the dove. ' Besides all this, that he might be yet pleasanter to men, he committed to him also a multitude of blissful dreams, according to every man's desire. One watched his favorite actor; another listened to the flute, or guided a charioteer in the race : in his dream, the soldier was victorious, the general was borne in triumph, the wanderer returned home.
was drawn back ; and beyond it Marius gazed for a few mo ments into the Lararium, or imperial chapel. A patrician youth, in white habit, was in waiting, with a little chest in his hand containing incense for the use of the altar. On richly carved consoles, or sideboards, around this narrow chamber, were arranged the rich apparatus of worship and the golden or gilded images, adorned to-day with fresh flowers, among them that image of Fortune from the apartment of Antoninus Pius, and such of the emperor's own teachers as were gone to their rest. A dim fresco on the wall commemorated the ancient piety of Lucius Albinius, who in flight from Rome on the morrow of a great disaster, overtaking certain priests on foot with their sacred utensils, descended from the wagon in which he rode and yielded it to the ministers of the gods. As he ascended into the chapel the emperor paused, and with a grave but friendly look at his young visitor, delivered a parting sen tence, audible to him alone : Imitation is the most acceptable part of worship : the gods had much rather mankind should resemble than flatter them: — Make sure that those to whom you come nearest be the happier by your presence !
It was the very spirit of the scene and the hour — the hour Marius had spent in the imperial house. How temperate, how tranquilizing ! what humanity ! Yet, as he left the eminent company concerning whose ways of life at home he had been
Yes ! — and sometimes those dreams come true ! "
Just then Aurelius was summoned to make the birthday offerings to his household gods. A heavy curtain of tapestry
106 THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE.
so youthfully curious, and sought, after his manner, to deter mine the main trait in all this, he had to confess that it was a sentiment of mediocrity, though of a mediocrity for once really golden.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE. By CHARLES MERIVALE.
(From " History of the Romans under the Empire. ")
[Charlrs Merivale : An English historian and divine ; born at Barton Place, Devonshire, March 8, 1808. He was dean of Ely from 1869. His works are: " History of the Romans under the Empire " (latest ed. 1890), "General History of Rome" (1875), "Lectures on Early Church History" (1879), etc. He died at Ely, December 27, 1893. ]
The circumstances of the empire might indeed well inspire profound anxiety in the breast of one to whom its maintenance was confided. Hitherto we have seen the frontiers assailed in many quarters, and the energies of the bravest princes tasked in their defense. But these attacks have been local and desul tory. The Chatti on the Rhine, the Marcomanni on the Upper, the Samaritans on the Lower, Danube, the Roxalani on the shores of the Euxine, have often assailed and vexed the prov inces, but separately and at different times ; Aurelius had to make head against all these enemies at once. The unity of the empire imparted a germ of union to its assailants. Hence no champion of Rome had so hard a task ; hence Aurelius, far from making permanent conquests beyond his frontiers, stood everywhere on the defensive, and confronted the foe by his lieutenants in Gaul, Pannonia, Dacia, or Moesia, while he
planted himself commonly in the center of his line of stations, at Carnuntum, Vindobona, or Sirmium ; hence his wars were protracted through a period of twelve years, and though his partial victories gained him ten times the title of Imperator, none was sufficiently decisive to break the forces banded against him. The momentary submission of one tribe or an other led to no general result ; notwithstanding his own san guine hopes and the fond persuasion of his countrymen, his last campaign saw the subjugation of Scythia and the safety of the empire still distant and doubtful. The barbarians were stronger at this crisis than ever, — stronger in unity, stronger in arms and tactics, stronger possibly in numbers. Neither to Marius, we may believe, nor to Germanicus, nor to Trajan,
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107
would they now have yielded as heretofore. But the empire was at least as much weaker. The symptoms of decline, in deed, were as yet hardly manifest to common observation; under ordinary circumstances they might still have eluded the notice even of statesmen ; but in the stress of a great calamity they became manifest to all. The chief of the state was deeply impressed with them. Against anxiety and apprehension he struggled as a matter of duty, but the effort was sore and hope less ; and from the anticipation of disasters beyond his control he escaped, when possible, to pensive meditations on his own moral nature, which at least might lie within it.
The brilliancy of the city and the great provincial capitals, the magnificence of their shows and entertainments, still re mained, perhaps, undimmed. The dignity of the temples and palaces of Greece and Rome stood, even in their best days, in marked contrast with the discomfort and squalor of their lanes and cabins. The spacious avenues of Nero concealed perhaps more miserable habitations than might be seen in the narrow streets of Augustus ; but as yet we hear no distinct murmurs of poverty among the populace. The causes, indeed, were al ready at work which, in the second or third generation, reduced the people of the towns to pauperism, and made the public serv ice an intolerable burden : the decline, namely, of agriculture and commerce, the isolation of the towns, the disappearance of the precious metals, the return of society to a state of barter, in which every petty community strove to live on its own im mediate produce. Such, at a later period, was the condition of the empire, as revealed in the codes of the fourth century. These symptoms were doubtless strongly developed in the third, but we have at least no evidence of them in the second. We
indeed, that there was a gradual, though slow, diminution in the amount of gold and silver in circulation. The result would be felt first in the provinces, and latest in the cities and Rome itself, but assuredly it was already in progress. Two texts of Pliny assert the constant drain of specie to the East ; and the assertion is confirmed by the circumstances of the case ; for the Indians, and the nations beyond India, who transmitted to the West their silks and
spices, cared little for the wines and oils of Europe, still less for the manufactures in wool and leather which formed the staples of commerce in the Mediterranean. There was still a great, perhaps an increasing, demand for these metals in works
may reasonably suppose,
108 THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE.
of art and ornament, and much was consumed in daily use, much withdrawn from circulation and eventually lost by the thriftless habit of hoarding. But the supply from the mines of Thrace, Spain, and Germany was probably declining, for it was extracted by forced labor, the most expensive, the most harassing, and the most precarious. The difficulty of maintain ing the yield of the precious metals is marked in the severe regulations of the later emperors, and is further attested by the progressive debasement of the currency.
Not more precise is our information respecting the move ment of the population, which was also at this period on the verge of decline. To the partial complaints of such a decline in Italy, muttered, as they generally were, by the poets or satirists, I have hitherto paid little heed. In statements of this kind there is generally much false sentiment, some angry misrepre sentation. The substitution of slave for free labor in many parts of Italy may have had the appearance of a decline in population, while it actually indicated no more than a movement and trans fer. It was more important, however, in the future it fore shadowed than in the present reality. The slave population was not reproductive ; it was only kept at its level by fresh drafts from abroad. Whenever the supply should be cut off, the residue would rapidly dwindle. This supply was main tained partly by successful wars, but still more by a regular and organized traffic. The slaves from the North might be exchanged for Italian manufactures and produce ; but the venders from many parts, such as Arabia and Ethiopia, Central Africa, and even Cappadocia and other districts of Asia Minor, would take, I suppose, nothing but specie. With the contrac tion of the currency, the trade would languish, and under this depression a country like Italy, which was almost wholly stocked by importation, would become quickly depopulated. Still more, on the decline of the slave population, there would follow a decline of production, a decline of the means of the proprietors, a decline in the condition of the free classes, and consequently in their numbers also. That such a decline was actually felt under the Flavian emperors appears in the sudden adoption of the policy of alimentation, or public aid to impoverished freemen.
Nor was it in this way only that slavery tended to the de cline of population. Slavery in ancient, and doubtless in all times was a hotbed of vice and selfish indulgence, enervating the spirit and vital forces of mankind, discouraging legitimate
THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE. 109
marriage, and enticing to promiscuous and barren concubinage. The fruit of such hateful unions, if fruit there were, or could be, engaged little regard from their selfish fathers, and both law and usage continued to sanction the exposure of infants, from which the female sex undoubtedly suffered most.