The Story of the Romans (Yesterday's Classics) (26 page)

When Antoninus died, at the age of seventy-four, the people all mourned for him as for a father; and they erected a column in his honor, of which nothing but the base can now be seen. We are told that this monument bore the emperor's favorite maxim, which was: "I would rather save the life of one citizen, than put to death a thousand enemies."

M
ARCUS
A
URELIUS
was a worthy successor of the good Antoninus. He was one of the best and most remarkable men that ever lived. He traced his descent from the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, and he himself has said: "To the gods I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends,—nearly everything good."

The new emperor had been most carefully brought up and educated, and never did good teachers have so good a pupil. He was not a Christian, but a pagan who practiced all the virtues which the Christians taught. He belonged to a school of philosophers called the Stoics, who said that people ought to bear nobly all the ills of this life, and to seek to be good rather than happy.

He delighted in reading and hearing of the lives of great and noble men, and specially admired Epictetus the philosopher. This man, although only a lame slave, was one of the finest characters that ever lived; and the great emperor profited much by the teachings received from him. Marcus Aurelius thus learned to be simple, true, temperate, and good; and through the influence of Epictetus he became a model of pagan virtue.

During the course of his life, this emperor wrote down many of the beautiful thoughts which occurred to him, and many maxims for the education of his son. These writings have been preserved in a book called "Meditations of Marcus Aurelius," and are said to be the finest ever written, after the Bible.

Marcus Aurelius, although so fond of peace, did not enjoy much of it during his reign, for there was constant trouble with the barbarians in Germany and Britain. As soon as these disturbances began, the Parthians in the East revolted also; and Verus, whom Marcus Aurelius had made associate ruler of Rome, was sent out to fight them.

This Verus, unfortunately, was as bad as Aurelius was good. While he was in Rome he behaved very well, but when far away from his virtuous colleague, he began to live a very wicked life. Had not his generals fought bravely for him, the Parthians would never have been conquered; for he spent most of his time in idleness, or in eating and drinking to excess.

When Verus returned home, he claimed and received the honors of a triumph, although they belonged in reality to his generals. The joy of the Romans at his return, however, was soon changed to mourning, because the troops brought back from the East a horrible disease, which caused the death of hosts of people.

The Romans were almost wild with terror, owing to this disease and to the floods and famines which took place at about the same time; but Marcus Aurelius showed great courage, and went among them trying to relieve their sufferings, and exhorting them to be patient.

Hoping to put an end to such scourges, the people made great offerings to the gods; and when these failed to bring any relief, the pagan priests accused the Christians of causing all their woes. On the strength of such accusations, the Christians were again persecuted; and the only fault which can be found with Marcus Aurelius is that he allowed them to be tortured during his reign.

Many historians, however, say that the blame of the persecution does not really rest upon Aurelius, who knew nothing about the new religion, but upon the senators, who made him believe that the Christians were very wicked, and that they should be put down at any price.

Verus having died, Marcus Aurelius now became sole ruler. Meanwhile, a great rebellion had broken out among the barbarians in the north, and the emperor himself took command of the army that marched against them. We are told that once during this campaign the Roman legions were in great danger. Had it not been for a sudden thunderstorm, accompanied by much hail, which fell upon the enemy, the emperor and his troops would surely have perished.

This timely thunderstorm has been considered a miracle. The pagan Romans said that it was worked by their gods, whom they had called upon in their distress; but the Christians believed that it was owing to the prayers of some of their brothers who were in the imperial army.

However this may be, Aurelius put a stop to the persecutions of the Christians on his return to Rome. He died not long after, at Vienna, during another campaign, leaving the empire to Commodus, his young son, and imploring the senators to give the new emperor good advice.

The victories and life of Marcus Aurelius were commemorated by a column, still standing in Rome, where the miracle related above is also represented. A better monument, however, is the book he wrote, which has been translated into English, so that everybody can read it; and best of all is the record of his life, which had been wholly devoted to doing good.

M
ARCUS
A
URELIUS
,
as you have seen, was a model of every virtue, and fully deserved the title of the greatest of Roman emperors; but his son Commodus was one of the most vicious men that ever lived. In spite of his father's example, and of the careful training he had received, Commodus had already shown cruel traits in his childhood.

When he was only thirteen years of age, a slave once failed to heat his bath properly. In a rage because of this oversight, Commodus ordered that the man should be flung into the fire. Such was the passion he displayed that the people around him did not dare to disobey him openly. But, instead of the slave, a sheepskin was thrown into the flames; and Commodus, smelling the bad odor which arose from the furnace, went away satisfied, thinking that the slave was dead.

Commodus did not improve as he grew older, so you will not be surprised to hear that he paid no heed to his father's dying requests. Instead of listening to the senators' advice, he drove away from court all his father's friends, and surrounded himself with a number of flatterers. They applauded everything he did, and told him morning, noon, and night that he was the handsomest, wittiest, and wisest man that had ever been seen. At the end of three years they had managed to turn his head completely, and to help him undo much of the good his father had done.

Of course so cruel and bad a man as Commodus had many enemies, and could not expect to live long. Once, as he was coming from the games, a man sprang upon him with dagger raised, and cried: "The senate sends you this."

By a quick movement, Commodus dodged the blow, and the would-be murderer was seized by the guards. The man was then tortured to make him reveal the names of his accomplices; and among them was the emperor's own sister.

This attempt made Commodus both angry and suspicious. All those suspected of having taken part in the conspiracy were either exiled or slain, and it is said that the emperor never trusted any one again, and became a perfect monster of cruelty and vice.

Commodus was passionately fond of all kinds of gladiatorial shows, in which he liked to take part himself, as he was very vain. But he was as cowardly as vain; so he always used the best of weapons, while his opponents were armed with leaden swords which could do him no harm.

The emperor also delighted in fighting against wild beasts, from a very safe place, where they could not possibly come to him. When he had killed them all, he boastfully called himself the Roman Hercules, and insisted that his people should worship him.

Another pastime, of which Commodus is said to have been very fond, was playing barber to his servants. But, as he would accidentally cut off their ears, lips, or noses, his slaves were not eager for the honor of being thus served by their master.

Although the barbarians grew ever bolder, and finally made open war on the legions, Commodus did not go forth to fight them. Instead, he sent his generals to the front, while he remained in Rome, where he thought of nothing but his pleasures, and of killing as many people as possible.

Like Domitian, he had a tablet on which he daily wrote the names of his next victims. This tablet once fell into the hands of his wife, Marcia, who discovered her own name among those of several senators and officers who were to be slain.

Marcia showed the list to two of these proposed victims, and they resolved to murder the wicked emperor in order to save their own lives. They therefore began by poisoning his food; and, when they saw that the drug did not act quickly enough, they hired a slave to murder him.

Commodus was not quite thirty-two when he thus died, and his reign had lasted only twelve years. Instead of mourning for him as they had for his good father, all his subjects openly rejoiced; and throughout the empire people sighed with relief when they knew that he was dead.

T
HE
pretorian guard by this time fancied that they could have things all their own way. They now elected and killed two emperors, Pertinax and Julianus, and finally decided to obey a third, Septimius Severus, who entered Rome as a conqueror, at the head of the legions he had commanded in Illyria.

For the sake of the people, who had loved Pertinax, the new emperor ordered that he should be placed among the gods, and that a ceremony called an Apotheosis should take place for this purpose.

A waxen image of the dead Pertinax lay in state for a whole week upon a golden bed, and was then publicly burned on a huge pyre. When the flames rose up around it, an eagle, purposely hidden in the pyre, was set free, and flew up into the sky in terror. The ignorant spectators were then told that the eagle had carried the soul of Pertinax up to heaven, and that they must henceforth worship him.

Having become master of Rome, and secured the approval of the people, Severus turned all his energies against his two rivals; for both the legions of Britain and Gaul, and those of Syria, had elected emperors at the very time when the legions in Pannonia and Illyria named him for the same office.

Severus first went east to fight Niger, his most dreaded rival. Several battles were fought, ending with the defeat and death of the Syrian leader. Niger's head was then cut off, and flung over the walls of Byzantium, his principal stronghold on the Bosphorus.

When the people beheld this bloody token, they fought even harder than before to defend the city; but, although they made a glorious resistance, Severus at last forced them to surrender. By his order, the city was sacked, the walls razed, and the people reduced to slavery; but, as you will soon see, Byzantium rose again, and soon became the rival of Rome.

As one of his rivals had been killed, Severus now marched westward to meet Albinus, the other. The two armies met in Gaul, near Lyons, and a terrible battle was fought, in which Severus won the victory by his personal bravery in the face of great danger.

The emperor now went back to Rome, where twenty-nine senators were slain by his order, because they had dared to take sides with his rival. Then, to make sure that the empire would not pass out of his family, he made both his sons associate emperors.

Severus, the twentieth emperor of Rome, was very strict in making everybody obey him, and was a stern ruler. He also won much glory as a general, and fought many battles in many lands. His last campaign was in Britain, where he had gone to suppress an insurrection, and where his two sons accompanied him.

We are told that Caracalla, the eldest son, was so eager to be emperor in his turn that he made an attempt to murder his father during this campaign.

Grieved to the heart by such unnatural conduct, Severus privately reproved his son, and even offered him a sword, saying: "There, kill me if you dare!" Although Caracalla did not take advantage of the permission thus given him, he is suspected of having poisoned his father a little later.

Severus died in Britain, at York, and his last words are said to have been the following, addressed to his funeral urn: "Little urn, thou shalt soon contain him for whom the universe seemed too small."

S
EVERUS
was succeeded by his two sons Geta and Caracalla. Geta, the younger, was in his brother's way, and to get rid of him this monster pursued and murdered him in his mother's arms. Having thus become sole master of the empire, Caracalla surpassed all those who came before him in cruelty and vice.

He was so suspicious that he is said to have murdered twenty thousand persons, simply because he fancied that they were opposed to him. Then, too, hearing that the people at Alexandria had ventured to make jokes about him, he had all the inhabitants put to the sword, without any regard for either age or sex.

Caracalla visited all the different parts of his realm, merely for the sake of plundering his subjects. Part of the money he spent in building some famous public baths at Rome; but he committed so many crimes that the people all hated him. Macrinus, the commander of the pretorian guard, finally murdered and succeeded him; but his reign was soon brought to an end, too, by the election of Heliogabalus by the Syrian troops.