On 7th March 161 AD Marcus Aurelius became
Emperor of Rome on the death of his predecessor Antoninus Pius.
Marcus Aurelius was the last of the “five good emperors” who
ruled the empire during a period of relative stability, and without giving way
to greed or paranoia, for 84 years. (The three who preceded Antoninus were
Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian).
Antoninus chose his successor wisely and gave him every
opportunity to learn what the job entailed. Marcus was therefore able to take
over the reins of power smoothly – indeed, Antoninus had already delegated many
of them to Marcus before he died.
Marcus Aurelius is known to history as the “philosopher
emperor” thanks to the collection of sayings that he left behind him and which
are known as his “Meditations”. These were jottings made for his own benefit
and many were probably not original to him although he clearly agreed with
their general tone and meaning. They summarised the Stoic principles of
treating triumph and disaster with equal disdain, and of playing a constructive
role in public affairs.
However, the state of the empire did not allow Marcus to
spend much time thinking lofty thoughts. He had to campaign long and hard to
defend the empire against its enemies, most notably the Parthians who were
threatening Rome’s eastern provinces.
When the Roman legions returned from fighting off the
Parthian challenge they brought with them a deadly plague infection that swept
through the empire and killed possibly as much of 10% of the entire population.
Marcus consulted various oracles and prescribed anti-plague measures (mostly
concerned with making appropriate sacrifices to various gods) as dictated by
those oracles. Plague outbreaks tend to disappear as rapidly as they appear, so
Marcus Aurelius was probably lucky to have reaped the credit for saving the
empire from a terrible disease.
Although Marcus Aurelius ruled with wisdom and justice, he
made a huge mistake by declaring his son Commodus to be his nominated successor
and grooming him for the post in the same way that Antoninus Pius had groomed
him. When Marcus Aurelius died in 180 the era of the good emperors was well and
truly over.
© John Welford
No comments:
Post a Comment