Titans of History

As emperor, Marcus continued the benign policies of his predecessors. He made various legal reforms and provided relief to the less favored in society—slaves, widows and minors all felt the benefits of his rule. Although there was some concern over the gap between the legal rights and privileges enjoyed by honestiores and those enjoyed by humiliores (the better-off and worse-off in society), Marcus was generally committed to building a fairer, more prosperous empire for his subjects.

One thing that Marcus could not control was the caprice of fate in sending disease and war. While fighting the Parthians between 162 and 166, many soldiers contracted the plague, which spread throughout the empire. From 168 until around 172, Marcus (with Verus until his death in 169) was preoccupied with subduing the German tribes along the Danube, who were intent on marauding into the Roman Empire.

In spite of such engrossing problems, Marcus Aurelius remained a keen scholar of Stoicism, and in the last ten years of his life, in breaks between his campaigning and administrative duties, he wrote his Meditations. Written in Greek and randomly arranged just as they came to him, these are an eclectic selection of diary entries, fragments and epigrams in which he addresses the challenges of life at war, the fear of death, and the cares and injustices of everyday life.

The general sentiment of the Meditations is that overreaction and lingering bitterness are the most damaging responses to life’s iniquities. “If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs you, but your own judgment of it,” he writes. “And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.” Another typical injunction reads: “A cucumber is bitter; throw it away. There are briars in the road; turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add ‘And why were such things made in the world?’”

As the Meditations were written against the backdrop of war, mortality naturally features prominently in them. Marcus’ position is clear: “Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”

It is advice that Marcus followed throughout his life but he did not succeed as a father. Before he died on campaign in 180, he appointed as his successor his son Commodus, whose diabolical and demented tyranny ended in assassination. But in spite of all, Marcus Aurelius managed to articulate with greater compassion than any of his contemporaries a timeless vision of fortitude in the face of human injustice and mortality.

COMMODUS

AD 161–92

… even from his earliest years he was base and dishonorable, and cruel and lewd, defiled of mouth, moreover, and debauched.

Historia Augusta

Malevolent, scheming, cruel, depraved, murderous, megalomaniacal and corrupt, Commodus has recently re-entered popular consciousness in the Hollywood film Gladiator. Whatever its historical accuracy, that movie captured the essence of Commodus, whose reign, in the judgment of the English historian Edward Gibbon, marked the early decline of the Roman empire.

Born in Lanuvium near Rome, son of the philosophical Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Commodus was groomed from an early age to succeed to the throne, being declared Caesar (“junior emperor”) when he was just five years old. By AD 169, the death of his two brothers had left him as sole son and heir to the emperor, and he subsequently traveled with his father across the empire, seeing firsthand how the business of government was conducted.

In AD 176, Commodus (still only fourteen) was awarded the title of Imperator, and a year later, that of Augustus as he became de jure co-ruler and the emperor’s anointed heir. Other offices followed, including those of tribune and consul. The latter position, granted in AD 177, made him the youngest consul thus far in Rome’s history. Three years later, his father died and Commodus became sole emperor in AD 180.

On attaining exclusive power, Commodus immediately signed a peace deal to end his father’s military campaigns on the Danube, celebrating with a major triumph through the streets of Rome to commemorate his “achievements.” He showed little interest, however, in affairs of state, leaving the day-to-day business of government to a succession of personal favorites, the first of whom was Saoterus—a former slave. Others included the Praetorian prefects Tigidius Perennis and Marcus Aurelius Cleander.