give relief, while the Christians attributed it to the prayers of their brethren in a legion to which, they affirmed, the emperor then gave the name of “The Thundering.” Dacier, however, and others who adhere to the Christian view of the miracle, admit that the appellation of “Thundering” or “Lightning” (κεραυνοβόλος, or κεραυνοφόρος) was given to the legion because there was a figure of lightning on their shields. It has also been virtually proved that it had the title even in the reign of Augustus.
Aurelius next marched to Germany. There news reached him that Avidius Cassius, the commander of the Roman troops in Asia, had revolted and proclaimed himself emperor (175). But after three months Cassius was assassinated, and his head was brought to Aurelius, who with characteristic magnanimity, persuaded the senate to pardon all the family of Cassius. It is a proof of the wisdom of Aurelius’s clemency that he had little or no trouble in pacifying the provinces which had been the scene of rebellion. He treated them all with forbearance, and it is said that when the correspondence of Cassius was brought him he burnt it without reading it. During his journey of pacification, Faustina, who had borne him eleven children, died. Dio Cassius and Capitolinus charge Faustina with the most shameless infidelity to her husband, who is even blamed for not paying heed to her crimes. But none of these stories rests on trustworthy evidence; on the other hand, there can be no doubt that Aurelius trusted her while she lived, and mourned her loss.
After the death of Faustina and the pacification of Syria, Aurelius proceeded, on his return to Italy, through Athens, and was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, the reason assigned for his doing so being that it was his custom to conform to the established rites of the countries he visited. He gave large sums of money for the endowment of chairs in philosophy and rhetoric, with a view to making the schools the resort of students from all parts of the empire. Along with his son Commodus he entered Rome in 176, and obtained a triumph for victories in Germany. In 177 occurred that persecution of Christians, the share of Aurelius in which has been the subject of so much controversy. Meanwhile the German War continued, and the two Quintilii, who had been left in command, begged Aurelius once more to take the field. In this campaign Aurelius, after a series of successes, was attacked, according to some authorities, by an infectious disease, of which he died after a seven days’ illness, either in his camp at Sirmium (Mitrovitz), on the Save, in Lower Pannonia, or at Vindobona (Vienna), on the 17th of March 180, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. Other accounts are: (1) that he was poisoned in the interests of Commodus (Dio. Cass. lxxi. 33, 4), (2) that he died of a chronic stomachic disease; the latter is perhaps the most likely. His ashes (according to some authorities, his body) were taken to Rome. By common consent he was deified and all those who could afford the cost obtained his statue or bust; for a long time his statues held a place among the penates of the Romans. Commodus, who was with his father when he died, erected to his memory the Antonine column (now in the Piazza Colonna at Rome), round the shaft of which are sculptures in relief commemorating the miracle of the Thundering Legion and the various victories of Aurelius over the Quadi and the Marcomanni. A bronze equestrian statue was set up in the Forum, now on the Capitol.
Aurelius throughout his reign was hostile to Christianity. The Christians suffered from systematic persecution, and many historians, with a strange lack of historical insight, have poured denunciation upon him for an attitude which was the natural outcome of his convictions. During his reign the atmosphere of Roman society was heavily charged with the popular Greek philosophy to which, ethics apart, Christianity was diametrically opposed. Under Antoninus the “pursuit” of Christians was unknown; under Trajan and Hadrian it was forbidden (cf. Keim, Aus dem Urchrist, p. 99). But Aurelius was an eager patriot and a man of logical mind. From his earliest youth he had learned to identify the ritual of the Roman religion with the very essence of the imperial idea. He became a Salian priest at the age of eight, and soon knew by heart all the forms and liturgical order of the official worship, and even the sacred music. In the earliest statue we have he is a youth offering incense; he is a priest at the sacrificial altar in the latest triumphal reliefs. Naturally he felt that the prevalence of Christianity was incompatible with his ideal of Roman prosperity, and therefore that the policy of the Flavian emperors was the only logical solution of an important problem. Neumann argued that the recrudescence of active persecution was initiated by a deliberate ad hoc rescript issued probably in A.D. 176. Sir W. M. Ramsay, however, doubts this (The Church in the Roman Empire, London, 1893), and argues that it was due to a long series of instructions to provincial governors (mandata, not decreta) who interpreted their duty largely in conformity with the attitude of the reigning emperor. In other words the governors were ordered merely to punish sacrilege, and, under Aurelius, Christianity was regarded as such. In the second place, though it is true that the persecutions indicated by Celsus (Origen, Celsus, viii. 69), Justin, Melito (in Eusebius, H.E., iv. 26), Athenagoras (Libellus pro Christianis) and the Acts of Martyrs, were greatly in excess of those recorded in previous reigns, it must not be forgotten that it was only in this period that the Christians began to keep records. Thirdly, there can be no doubt that the Christians had recently assumed a much bolder attitude, and thus segregated themselves from the mass of those unorthodox sects which the Roman could afford to despise. Like the Druids in Gaul (cf. T. Mommsen, Prov. Rom. Emp., Eng. trans. i. 105, and V. Duruy, Rev. archéol., Apr. 1880), the Christians were particularly dangerous, inasmuch as they taught a unity which transcended that of the Roman Empire, and must, therefore, have been regarded as antagonistic to the existing political and social organism.
When, therefore, we remember that Aurelius knew little of the Christians, that the only mention of them in the Meditations is a contemptuous reference to certain fanatics of their number whom even Clement of Alexandria compares for their thirst for martyrdom to the Indian gymnosophists, and finally that the least worthy of them were doubtless the most prominent, we cannot doubt that Aurelius was acting unquestionably in the best interests of a perfectly intelligible ideal. He was “Roman in resolution and repression, Roman in civic nobility and pride, Roman in tenacity of imperial aim, Roman in respect for law, Roman in self-effacement for the service of the State” (G. H. Rendall).
Philosophy.—The book which contains the philosophy of Aurelius is known by the title of his Reflections, or Meditations, although that is not the name which he gave to it himself (Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν). Of the genuineness of the work no doubts are now entertained. It is believed that he wrote also an autobiography, which has perished. The Meditations were written, it is evident, as occasion offered—in the midst of public business, and on the eve of battles on which the fate of the empire depended—hence their fragmentary appearance, but hence also much of their practical value and even of their charm. It is believed by many critics that they were intended for the guidance of Aurelius’s son, Commodus (q.v.); at all events they are generally considered as one of the most precious of the legacies of antiquity. Renan even called them “the most human of all books,” and they are described by J. S. Mill in his Utility of Religion as almost equal in ethical elevation to the Sermon on the Mount.
Aurelius throughout his life adhered to the Stoical philosophy. But, as Tenneman says, he imparted to it “a character of gentleness and benevolence, by making it subordinate to a love of mankind, allied to religion.” His thoughts represent a transitional movement, and it is difficult to discover in them anything like a systematic philosophy. From the manner, however, in which he seeks to distinguish between matter and cause or reason, and from the earnestness with which he advises men to examine all the impressions on their minds, it may be inferred that he held the view of Anaxagoras—that God and matter exist independently, but that God governs matter. There can be no doubt that Aurelius believed in a deity, although Schultz is probably right in maintaining that all his theology amounts to this—the soul of man is most intimately united to his body, and together they make one animal which we call man; and so the deity is most intimately united to the world or the material universe, and together they form one whole. We find in the Meditations no speculations on the absolute nature of the deity, and no clear expressions of opinion as to a future state.
