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And in Gaul, especially at Vienne, there was a fearful persecution which fell on women of all ranks, and where Blandina the slave, under the most unspeakable torments, was specially noted for her brave patience. Aurelius was fighting hard with the German tribes on the Danube, who gave him no rest, and threatened to break into the empire.
It has been many centuries since Marcus Aurelius observed the fretful disquiet of Rome, which must have been strikingly like our fretful disquiet to-day, and proffered counsel, unheeded then as now: "Take pleasure in one thing and rest in it, passing from one social act to another, thinking of God." The Girl Graduate
As the three mingled with the thousands who were in a very leisurely manner wending their way down the steps to the ground, Aurelius Lucanus drew her frail hand through his arm and said, gently: "What hast thou, dearest? Art thou not well?"
It is well known that when Marcus Aurelius became emperor he inaugurated a new system of persecution. Instead of at once consigning to death those who boldly made a profession of Christianity, as had heretofore been customary in times of trial, he employed various expedients to extort from them a recantation.
In the spiral that winds about the column certain interpreters have found a symbol of the upward march of human achievement; but as this spiral decoration is found on the Column of Trajan and the Column of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman prototypes of the Column of Progress, there probably is no special significance in its use here.
The vehicles wait, and the tourists loiter for a while with their eyes raised to the admirable equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, in antique bronze, which occupies the centre of the piazza.
This Caesar, therefore, dying thus prematurely, never tasted of empire; and his name would have had but a doubtful title to a place in the imperatorial roll, had it not been recalled to a second chance for the sacred honors in the person of his son whom it was the pleasure of Hadrian, by way of testifying his affection for the father, to associate in the order of succession with the philosophic Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
Under whom it was, and under the first Antonine, that the empire stood in its perfect and final form: neither growing nor decreasing; neither on the offensive nor actively on the defensive. Now remember the cycles: sixty-five years of manvantara under Augustus and Tiberius, B.C. 29 to A. D. 36. But why stop at 166, you ask. Had not Marcus Aurelius, the best of them all, until 180 to reign?
How was Aurelius employed in the mean time? Did he do this solely by his own authority? Was he hasty in his decisions? Was he acquainted with the follies of his colleague? How did he attempt his reformation? Was this effectual? What farther hopes did Aurelius entertain? What was the state of the empire at this period? What were the means made use of to avert these calamities?
It is, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at the early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues which afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of mankind. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child.
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