LIFE
policy enjoined . . . the war secured the supremacy of Rome in these regions for the future, in spite of the fact that Commodus let slip the prize of victory. It was not by the tribes that had fought in this war that the blow was dealt to which the Roman world-power succumbed.'
Of the domestic government of Marcus Aurelius Bury says: 'That which above all things links together the reigns of Antoninus and Marcus . . . is the policy in legislation and administration of justice common to both. To come to the aid of the weaker, to protect the condition of wards were the objects of Marcus, as of his predecessor. . . . The emperor was himself untiring in hearing cases and his sentences were marked by leniency. Like Antoninus, he was anxious to defend the provinces against the oppression of procurators [i.e. the financial agents of the Treasury] and to come to the assistance of communities in the case of public disasters.'
Marcus has sometimes been censured for permitting the growth of centralization and bureaucratic control, instituted by Trajan and Hadrian, and for unwise and reckless abuse of public finances. These mistakes, which ultimately led to the deplorable state of affairs in the later Empire, have been put down, too hastily, to his mild nature and philosophic temper; they should rather be viewed as the outcome of causes beyond one man's control, however enlightened his view. Such causes led to similar results in the administration of France under Louis XIV and his ministers. Further, the criticism of his financial measures must be judged by remembering the insuperable effects upon the imperial treasury of nearly fourteen years of a great war, added to its other burdens.
For his character as a ruler and as an individual little, if anything, can be added to Gibbons's portrait, which is the more impressive as drawn by one who not only
