THE BOY STOIC
Annius Verus, known to the world by his adopted name as the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius, was born at Rome in A.D. 121. His father, also Annius
Verus, was descended from a Spanish family which a few generations
before had settled in Rome. Of him we know little; but what we do
know is favourable. Marcus tells us that “from his reputation and
remembrance” he learned “modesty and a manly character.” His mother’s
memory he always recalled with veneration and love. She it was that
taught him “piety and beneficence and abstinence not only from evil
deeds but even from evil thoughts; and, further, simplicity in my way
of living far removed from the habits of the rich.”
When Marcus was born the reigning Emperor was Hadrian. Hadrian was
himself a Spaniard and inclined to favour those of Spanish descent.
Thus the family of Annius Verus came into prominence; and before Marcus
was yet more than eight years of age the Emperor took a special
interest in him.
The boy even at this early age was not quite as the other children
who passed to and fro in the Imperial palace. All through life his
health was imperfect; yet even as a child he had begun to practise
the Stoic austerities. He slept on a plank bed and was abstemious at
table, and only at his mother’s request did he relax these practices.
His biographer tells us that “he was grave from his first infancy.” In
later years he himself thanked the gods “that he had never been hurried
into any offence against them,” though, with his wonted candour, he
adds, that he “had the disposition, which, if opportunity had offered,
might have led him to do something of the kind; but, through their
favour, there never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me
to the trial.” The candour of the child was so transparent that Hadrian
used to call him not _Verus_ (true) but _Verissimus_ (exceedingly true).
It was not strange that Hadrian should have been interested in this
grave, pensive, unworldly child. He was a keen observer of human
nature, and regarded with curiosity and a certain reverence a character
so superior to its surroundings and withal the very antithesis of his
own. He himself was a strange mixture of the Greek and the Roman.
Roman in his legislative and administrative ability, he was Greek and
modern in his love of novelty, his eager curiosity, his frivolous
attitude towards life’s greatest problems--the problems of God and the
soul. This last aspect of his character is enshrined for ever in his
dying address to his soul:--
Animula, vagula, blandula,
Hospes comesque corporis,
Quae nunc abibis in loca;
Pallidula, rigida, nudula--
Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos?
which Merivale thus translates,
“Soul of mine, pretty one, flitting one,
Guest and partner of my clay,
Whither wilt thou hie away;
Pallid one, rigid one, naked one--
Never to play again, never to play.”
Candour, simplicity, purity, gravity: these were the old Roman virtues
of the days of Cato; but they were little in fashion in the heyday
of the Empire. However, they were interesting as antiquities; and
Hadrian loved everything old because he was so modern himself: they had
the charm of the _rus in urbe_, of innocence in high life, and were
grateful to one who loved freshness; and so, while he was in Rome,
Hadrian always had the boy near him. Hadrian and Marcus; the agnostic
and the devotee; the lover of life and the boy Stoic; Greek frivolity
and Roman _gravitas_: it is an interesting contrast.
Already Marcus had the ritual instinct which marked him in later life
and at the age of eight Hadrian appointed him chief of the College of
Salii; a boy bishop of boy priests devoted to Mars, the god of War. In
this office, in the early days of March, he led the patrician youth
in their religious dances through the streets and presided at the
Saliarian banquets. He was scrupulously exact in the fulfilment of
these duties. He already knew by heart the antiquated formulas, couched
in barbarous Latin, whose meaning most men had forgotten. In the
complex ceremonies he never needed a prompter; such was his knowledge
of their rubrics. In one of these rites the boys threw chaplets at
the head of a reclining statue of Mars; but Marcus alone succeeded in
crowning the god. It was an omen of the wars which later were to break
in upon his peace.
At the age of eleven Marcus adopted the _pallium_ or cloak of the
Stoics--thus consecrating his life to divine philosophy. Hadrian
knew Greek and loved Greek thoughts and Greek ways; he knew Plato
and Plato’s ideal--the Philosopher-King. Here was an opportunity
of realising the ideal; why not make Marcus Emperor? His fanciful
mind would have a keen delight in speculating on the future of the
Empire under such a rule. After me the deluge; and he resolved to let
posterity have the benefit of the experiment, and lay the blame or
merit of the result not on him but on Plato.
He at first had adopted as his successor Lucius Verus, the handsome and
dissolute father of the equally handsome and dissolute Lucius Verus,
who was afterwards Marcus’ colleague as Emperor. But Lucius died before
Hadrian, and he then chose a worthier successor. This was the best of
Senators--a Roman of Cato’s school but free from the absurdities of
that school--Antoninus Pius.
In making this second choice Hadrian provided for the succession of the
boy Marcus in due time. He ordered Antoninus to adopt as his sons and
successors Marcus and the younger Lucius Verus. Thus began the lifelong
attachment between Antoninus and Marcus--the rulers of the Golden
Age--the most admirably virtuous, though far from being the ablest of
the Roman Emperors.
Beyond these few facts about his early boyhood scarcely anything has
been handed down to us of his doings till his seventeenth year. What
little we do know we owe to the famous first book of his Meditations.
This he wrote one evening in his tent “among the Quadi, at the Granua,”
a tributary of the Danube, during a lull in the war against the
barbarians of the North. The troubles of his reign had made his later
years a martyrdom that sorely tried his Stoic spirit, and on that
evening his mind sought rest in thinking of his childhood and early
youth. The book was written by an invalid amidst strife and hate and
hardship; yet its ever-recurring note is the note of gratitude struck
on the chords of love. He recalls with affection all who had been good
to him--good in the truest sense; for they had moulded his soul to
virtue.
“To the gods,” he says, “I am indebted for having good grandfathers,
good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good
kinsmen, and friends, nearly everything good.” From the example or
precept of each he learned some special virtue: from his grandfather
Verus “good morals and the government of my temper”; from his director
“to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the
circus, not a partisan either of the Palmularius or the Scutarius at
the gladiators’ fights; to endure labour and to want little; to work
with my own hands, and not to meddle with other people’s affairs, and
not to be ready to listen to slander.” Luxury, divorce, and slavery by
this time had brought Roman family life to its lowest ebb of morality,
and it is pleasing to find the harder and purer ideals of older times
still honoured in at least some of the nobler households.
Marcus was educated altogether by private teachers in his own home;
he did not attend the public schools--a fact which he recalls with
gratitude; and he had reason to be grateful. These schools had
multiplied under the generous patronage of the Emperors; no expense
was spared in securing for them the best possible teachers; but in
them the theory of virtue was acquired, if acquired at all, at the
cost of its practice. The _pædagogus_ or slave who accompanied each
boy to and from school usually taught him a more insinuating and
acceptable code of morality than the Stoic asceticism taught at times
in the schools; though some even of the teachers seem to have vied
with the slaves in the inculcation of immorality; hence these schools
were hot-beds of vice and in ill-repute amongst parents who had a care
for their children’s virtue. It is scarcely possible that the keen
edge of Marcus’ moral nature should not have been blunted in such
surroundings; even his passion for perfection could scarcely have
kept him unscathed. As it was, he had the best teachers that could be
procured, mostly belonging to the Stoic School, and in the first book
of the Meditations he traces his development under their direction:--
“From Diognetus I learned not to busy myself about trifling things,
and not to give credit to what was said by miracle-workers and
jugglers about incantations and the driving away of demons and such
things”--perhaps an allusion to the Christians--“and to have desired
a plank bed and whatever else of this kind belongs to the Grecian
discipline.” Rusticus, a famous Stoic philosopher--the same who
afterwards as Prefect of Rome condemned St. Justin to death,--taught
him to avoid sophistry, rhetoric, poetry, and fine-writing, then much
in fashion; “not to walk about the house in my outdoor dress, nor to
do other things of that kind”; to shun vindictiveness; to read deeply,
not superficially; and, greatest benefit of all, he made him acquainted
with the discourses of Epictetus. These discourses henceforth became
his à Kempis and suggested the writing of his own Meditations.
Apollonius--the most rigid of Stoics--impressed on him the great Stoic
virtue “to look at nothing else, not even for a moment, except to
reason; and to be always the same, in sharp pains, on the occasion of
the loss of a child and in long illness.” This last sentence is full
of suppressed pathos in view of his long life of ill-health and the
early death of most of his children. He seems to struggle against the
sense of the tears of things and the mortal woes that touch even the
Stoic heart; but he is conscious that here at least he is too much a
man to be a sage; for in his letters to Fronto we see the most tender
solicitude for his delicate children, a mother’s anxiety as to every
sign of their declining or returning health.
As Diognetus had taught him austerity; Rusticus, sincerity; Apollonius,
self-suppression; so it was a grandson of Plutarch’s, Sextus of
Chaeronea, who taught him affection. From Alexander the grammarian,
Fronto his tutor and intimate friend, and Alexander the Platonic he
learned other graces of thought and manner out of which was woven that
inexplicable thing, the character of the perfect gentleman, Nature’s
saint. Catulus, though a Stoic, urged him “to love his children truly”;
Severus, “to love my kin, to love truth and to love justice”; to know
and honour the Stoic heroes and martyrs, Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato,
Dion, Brutus; to have as his ideal “a polity administered with equal
rights and equal freedom of speech, and a kingly government, which
respects most of all the freedom of the governed.” But of all his
teachers none can have had so beneficial an effect on his too rigid
nature as Maximus. His character is that of the natural man at his best.
With Maximus he closes the list of his teachers. His minute observation
of their characteristics, remembered through a troubled life,
paralleled only by the minuteness of his self-analysis, testifies to
his intense desire for virtue. So intense indeed was this desire that
it became a moral disease which to some extent paralysed his power for
action. But, despite its excess, we must pay homage to this thirst of
the soul, this torture of the spirit, those
“High instincts, before which our mortal nature
Did tremble, like a guilty thing surprised.”
Fully to slake that thirst, to alleviate that torture, Marcus should
have shared the love-feasts of the Christians, the morning sacrifices,
the homilies and the ceremonies of the Catacombs. But he knew not the
sublime secrets, the treasure, hidden beneath the earth he daily trod.
Hadrian died in A.D. 138, when Marcus was seventeen years of age.
Antoninus Verus, better known as Antoninus Pius, succeeded as Emperor,
betrothed Marcus to his beautiful daughter Faustina, and had them both
to live with him during the rest of his life in the Imperial household.
Henceforth Marcus and Antoninus were bound by the closest ties of
friendship. Marcus revered Antoninus with an almost superstitious
reverence. Antoninus’ word was law for him, and afterwards in the
rule of the Empire he sought to avoid the least deviation from his
predecessor’s rule of action. In this he was wise, if we are to judge
by the picture he himself has left us of Antoninus. He says:--“In him
I observed mildness of temper, constancy and contempt of honours;
a love of labour and readiness to listen to the advice of others;
strict justice; a knowledge of the time for vigorous action and
for remissness. He considered himself no more than a citizen. His
disposition was to keep his friends, and not to be soon tired of them,
nor yet to be extravagant in his affection; to be contented, cheerful
and provident; to shun flattery and display; to be watchful over the
affairs of the Empire and to be economic in expenditure. In regard
to the gods, he avoided superstition; as to philosophy, he was not
a sophist or a pedant, but honoured true philosophers; not however
reproaching pretended philosophers nor yet being their dupe. In society
he was easy and agreeable and free from all petty jealousy. After his
paroxysms of headaches he came immediately fresh and vigorous to his
usual occupations. His secrets were not many but very few and very
rare, and these only about public matters. He was a man who looked
to what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a
man’s acts. That saying might be applied to him which is recorded of
Socrates, that he was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those
things which many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without
excess. To be strong both to bear the one and to be sober in the other
is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he
showed in the illness of Maximus.”
In many respects the character of Antoninus was more admirable than
that of his successor, whose glory has eclipsed his. He was an abler
ruler because he was not so good a Stoic. He had more of human sympathy
and a more varied interest in life because he was not so much engrossed
in the study of his own soul. He was simple, kind, and genial, whereas
Marcus was cold, reserved, self-conscious. As Renan says: “Antoninus
was a philosopher without boasting of it, almost without knowing
it. Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher of admirable temperament and
sincerity, but he was a philosopher by reflection.” Of the two, the
more attractive is the philosopher by nature, who knows not that he is
so. The philosopher by reflection is always a difficult person and on
occasion may be terrible. Had Antoninus written a book of Meditations
they would probably have shown a less thorough analysis of the human
soul in all its varying moods, a less gnawing desire for perfection,
but they would present a character more pleasing to and imitable by
those whose ways are the ways of men and not of the abstraction of a
man--which is what the Stoic “wise man” would be.
Antoninus loved all the innocent pleasures of life. But most of all
he loved the joys of rural life--the joys of sea and air and wood and
blue Italian sky, the ardour of the chase and the mirth of the harvest
home. He lived most of his life in this simple way at his villa at
Lorium with his own household and Marcus Aurelius. The letters of
Marcus to his tutor Fronto give us a vivid picture of this life. When
the correspondence begins, Marcus was about eighteen years of age. He
writes during the vintage season:--
“MY DEAREST MASTER,--I am well. To-day I studied from three till
eight in the morning after taking food. I then put on my slippers,
and from eight till nine had a most enjoyable walk up and down before
my chamber. Then, booted and cloaked--for so we were commanded to
appear--I went to wait upon my lord the Emperor. We went a-hunting,
did doughty deeds, heard a rumour that boars had been caught, but
there was nothing to be seen. However, we climbed a pretty steep hill
and in the afternoon returned home. I went straight to my books. Off
with my boots, down with my cloak! I spent a couple of hours in bed.
I read Cato’s speech on the property of Pulchra and another in which
he impeaches a tribune. Ho, ho! I hear you cry to your man, off with
you as fast as you can and bring me those speeches from the library of
Apollo. No use to send; I have these books with me too. You must get
round the Tiberian librarian; you will have to spend something on the
matter; and when I return to town I shall expect to go shares with him.
Well, after reading those speeches, I wrote a wretched trifle destined
for drowning or burning. No, indeed, my attempt at writing did not come
off at all to-day; the composition of a hunter or a vintager whose
shouts are echoing through my chamber, hateful and wearisome as the
law-courts. What have I said? Yes, it was rightly said, for my master
is an orator. I think I have caught a cold, whether from walking in
slippers or from writing badly, I do not know. I am always annoyed with
phlegm, but to-day more than usual. Well, I will pour oil on my head
and go off to sleep. I don’t mean to put one drop in my lamp to-day, so
weary am I from riding and sneezing. Farewell, dearest and most beloved
master, whom I miss, I may say, more than Rome itself.”
I shall have so much to say of the virtue of Marcus Aurelius, and it is
such a rare thing to get a saint or an emperor off his guard, putting
on his slippers, grumbling at the noise outside his windows or catching
a cold and sneezing--though I am sure they do those things--that I
cannot refrain from quoting another letter; it tells us more about this
cold, and is the only place in literature, as far as I know, where it
is recorded that a philosopher, a saint, or an emperor took a bath and
snored. He writes to Fronto:--
“MY BELOVED MASTER,--I am well. I slept a little more than usual on
account of my slight cold, which seems to be well again. So I spent
my time from five till nine in the morning partly in reading Cato’s
agriculture, partly in writing, not quite so badly as yesterday
indeed. Then after waiting upon my father I soothed my throat with
honey-water, ejecting it without swallowing. Then I attended my father
as he offered sacrifice. Then to breakfast. What do you think I ate?
Only a little bread, though I saw others devouring beans, onions, and
sardines! Then we went out to the vintage and got hot and merry, but
left a few grapes still hanging, as the old poet says, ‘atop on the
topmost bough.’ At noon we got home again; I worked a little but it
was not much good. Then I chatted a long time with my mother as she
sat on her bed. My conversation consisted of, ‘What do you suppose my
Fronto is doing at this moment?’ to which she answered, ‘and my Gratia,
what is she doing?’ and then I, ‘and our little darling, the younger
Gratia?’ And while we were talking and quarrelling as to which of us
loved all of you best, the gong sounded, which meant that father had
gone across to the bath. So we bathed, and dined in the oilpress room.
I don’t mean that we bathed in the press room; but we bathed and then
dined and amused ourselves with listening to the peasants’ banter. And
now that I am in my own room again, before I roll over and snore, I am
fulfilling my promise and giving an account of my day to my dear tutor;
and if I could love him better than I do, I would consent to miss
him even more than I miss him now. Take care of yourself, my best and
dearest Fronto, wherever you are. The fact is that I love you, and you
are far away.”
So far we have seen only the edifying--almost priggish--side of Marcus’
character. The monotony of his perfection is relieved by the following
incident, which shows that at this time he had just enough mischief in
him--though it be but little--to make him amiable. He writes:--“When my
father returned home from the vineyards, I mounted my horse as usual,
and rode on ahead some little way. On the road was a herd of sheep,
standing crowded together as though the place were a desert, with four
dogs and two shepherds but nothing else. Then one shepherd said to
another on seeing the horsemen: ‘I say, look at these horsemen; they
do a deal of robbery.’ On hearing this, I clap spurs to my horse and
ride straight for the sheep. They scatter in consternation--hither and
thither they are fleeting and bleating. A shepherd throws his fork and
the fork falls on the horseman who came next to me. We make our escape.”
Thus the days went happily at Lorium in the companionship of Pius,
itself “a school of all the virtues.” For twenty-three years
Marcus studied in this school, but like all good things this sweet
discipleship too had an end. In A.D. 161 Antoninus died a death as
peaceful as his life had been. Feeling the end nigh he put his affairs
in order and commanded that the golden statue of Fortune, the symbol
of Empire, which had ever to stand in the Emperor’s state apartments,
should be borne to Marcus’ chamber. To the tribune on duty he gave
the password _Æquanimitas_ (peace of soul) as the watchword of the
night,--the night of his own soul; then turning about, he seemed to
fall asleep: his own peaceful spirit had passed away; “κατ’ἰσὸν ὑπνῷ
μαλακωτάτῳ as if in gentlest sleep.”
The sceptre passed into the hands of Marcus, then forty years of age.
For him it was the beginning of sorrows. Æschylus would have said that
the gods were jealous of his too great prosperity. In his private
life they were good to him on account of his virtues, but it were
unmeet that with such virtues mortal man should join the sovereignty
of the world; for such a one might justly claim more homage than
the questionable individuals who inhabited Olympus with the title
of “gods.” The lot of men also had been too happy in the Golden
Age of the Antonines: it would exceed all measure were Marcus, the
ideal philosopher-king, to rule with such favour from above as his
predecessors had enjoyed. So might Æschylus have prophesied truly after
the event, as is the way with moralists. Thenceforth the glory of that
age waned. To the philosopher by nature had succeeded the philosopher
by reflection. We shall see the result of the change.