every one who called himself a philosopher; and so also are
many modern princes by their Tartuffes. The fragments of
Fronto, too, throw much light upon this state of things, and
however small their value may be in a literary point of view,
they are of great importance for the history of that time. It
cannot be denied that M. Aurelius was weak, especially in his
relation of husband and father. One example is sufficient to
prove this. When Matidia had died and made a will, in which
she left large legacies to persons of her household, and did not
give to Faustina even her trinkets, Fronto allowed himself to
be used as a tool by Faustina. A costly string of pearls, which
Faustina had expected, had been given to a foster-child of Ma-
tidia, and Faustina induced Fronto to write to her husband to
say that Matidia’s will was a forgery¹³, etc. Marcus answered
him in a remarkable note to thank him for his advice. The
result is not expressly mentioned, but it is clear that Matidia’s
will was declared void. This excessive weakness of Marcus in
yielding to the wishes of Faustina, must have had its influence
upon many persons.

In short, the internal condition of the empire was not good,
and its external misfortunes were great. The population, which
had been at such a low ebb in the time of Augustus, might
have been restored in the course of two centuries, as was the
case in Germany after the Thirty-Years’ war; but the plague,
which must have remained in Italy and in the west, had pre-
vented this taking place. That the plague did not reach Africa,
is clear from the expressions of Tertullian. Itis the same pesti-
lence which recurs in the reign of Commodus ; there is no rea-
son for believing it to be an exaggeration, when we read that
2,000 persons were buried at Rome every day,—a statement
made by Dion Cassius, a Roman senator. In addition to this,
the government of M. Aurelius, however excellent in many
respects, was able neither to check the general dissolution, nor
to put a stop to the acts of injustice which were committed by
some of the governors of provinces. There can be no doubt
that some of his virtues, and his indulgence towards the senate,
were the cause of much evil. IIc died on the frontier of Mar-
comannia before the war against the barbarians was brought to
a close, in March, A.D. 180, after a reign of nineteen years.
His son, Commodus, then nineteen years old, was with him at

¹⁸ Corn. Eronto, p. 101, foil. ed. Niebuhr.

the time. There is one thing for which N. Aurelius has often
been censured, namely, the establishment of a regular court,
which had not existed under any of his predecessors, who had
appeared only as chief magistrates and chief commanders of the
armies. But the court, which was gradually formed in his
reign, cannot have been his work, for he judged of men accord-
ing to their internal worth : it must have been created by his
all-powerful wife, Faustina.

The age, however, was still one of considerable energy; for
there were several very excellent commanders in the armies,
such as Pescennius Niger in the East, L. Septimius Severus on
the Illyrian frontier, and P. Helvius Pertinax, who was en-
gaged in the internal administration, and afterwards became
emperor. Claudius Severus, too, appears to have been still
alive; an excellent man, if we may rely upon the opinion of
M. Aurelius himself, who cannot well have been mistaken in
this case.

Intellectual and literary pursuits were still carried on, espe-
cially in the East; but in the Latin parts of the empire, they
were on the decline. A. Gellius wrote his work in the reign
of M. Aurelius, and evidently not till after the death of Fronto,
who died of the plague; that is, in the interval between A.D.
169, and the death of the emperor: it is certainly erroneous to
place Gellius earlier. His^uNoctes Atticae’’are a complete
specimen of the grammatical and rhetorical tendency of the
age; and it is remarkable to see that existing institutions
exercised no influence at all upon him.

Had M. Aurelius not been extremely weak, he could not
have been deceived in the character of his son Commodus, and
would have seen that he was quite unworthy to be placed at
the head of the empire. Marcus ought to have known that
Commodus, from his early youth, wa's a person of the coarsest
vulgarity and without any virtue, and ought therefore to have
adopted one of his distinguished generals. He might have
done this the more easily, as the idea of an hereditary
monarchy had scarcely taken root among the Romans, and
became established only through him. This, however, he unfor-
tunately did not do.

During the first years of the reign of Commodus things are
said^ιy to have gone on tolerably well, as the arrangements
^ω Herodian, i. 8.

VOL. 1∏.                  S

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