MARCUS AURELIUS
read your letter again in the Formian Villa, in which you urge me to take vengeance on the accomplices of Cassius. But I intend to spare his children and son-in-law and wife,[1] and I shall write to the Senate not to permit any severer persecution or harsher penalty being inflicted on them. For there is nothing that can commend an emperor to the world more than clemency. It was clemency that made Caesar into a God, that deified Augustus, that honoured your father with the distinctive title of Pius.[2] Finally, if my wishes had been followed in respect to the war, not even Cassius would have been slain. So do not be troubled:
The Gods protect me, to the Gods my loyalty is dear.[3]
I have named our Pompeianus[4] consul for the ensuing year.
- ↑ See Vit. Avid. Cass. 12.
- ↑ The name Pius was given him either because of his benevolent and gracious disposition (as here and Capit. Vit. Hadr. ii. 7) or because of his dutiful loyalty to Hadrian. Pietas meant a conscientious sense of duty or loyalty to the Gods or country or relations or mankind in general.
- ↑ Hor. Od. i. 17, 13.
- ↑ Claud. Pompeianus Quintianus, not the son-in-law of Marcus, was consul suffectus in 176.
