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Marcus Aurelius: Emperors
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Marcus Aurelius was brought face to face with the Christians during his campaign against the Quadi. The Roman army found itself at one time deprived of water, when a sudden storm broke out and rain fell in torrents. The conduct of Marcus Aurelius toward them was not modified; the number of the martyrs did not decrease, and, under the mildest of rulers, persecution became as terrible as it had ever been. Renan excuses the Emperor on the plea that he could not alter the law and interfere with the judges.
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Conquest and Clemency: dressed in a cuirass Marcus Aurelius appears on horseback. This clearly echoes the individual figure formula of the equestrian statue best represented by Marcus Aurelius's own statue. The trees in the background that this scene is set on the field of battle which the Emperor reviews after his victory. Barbarians surrender at his feet and appeal for clemency.
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At the age of 40, in 161 Marcus Aurelius ascended the throne and shared his imperial power with his adopted brother Lucius Aurelius Verus. Useless and lazy, Verus was regarded as a kind of junior emperor; he died in 169. After Verus's death he ruled alone, until he admitted his own son, Commodus, to full participation in the government in 177.
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Upon the death of Verus, Marcus Aurelius ruled alone for a number of years. One of his most well known and remembered acts as emperor was his charity and leniency towards the poor. If a town was in the midst of hard financial times and could not afford to pay it's taxes, Marcus Aurelius lowered the taxes for that town long enough to become financially stable again.
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During the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius the Roman empire was almost constantly at war with the peoples of the surrounding regions; ... he came very close to ending most of those conflicts before he died. Marcus Aurelius is at least as well known today as an important Stoic philosopher. His book Meditations continues to be popular even today.
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The famous Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (not his title; he simply calls them 'The matters addressed to himself') represents reflections written in periods of solitude during the emperor's military campaigns. Originally intended for his private guidance and self-admonition, the Meditations has endured as a potent expression of Stoic belief. It is a central text for students of Stoicism as well as a unique personal guide to the moral life.
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