The accession of Marcus was followed by a re-organization of some of the highest officials in the empire. These included Sextus Volusianus, promoted to ab epistulis responsible for the imperial correspondence , who hailed from the province of Pannonia, on the imperial frontiers. Despite the high regard in which the Roman emperors were held, the earliest years of their reign were marked by the indication that the wheel of fate was beginning to turn and the good fortune enjoyed by the Empire in the preceding six decades was beginning to waver.
A tremendous flood in late or early caused the Tiber to burst its banks and wreak considerable damage, resulting in the death of much livestock and famine in the city.
The historian Cassius Dio, who upheld Marcus Aurelius as the paradigm of imperial rule, was not so blinkered as to recognize the limitations of his imperial idol. Marcus was, by all accounts, rather frail, and accordingly devoted himself to matters of the mind. Lucius Verus, on the other hand, despite being the de facto junior partner in imperial rule, was better suited to military affairs.
It was a result of his youthful energy that saw him sent to conduct the Parthian War. However, on his deathbed, he reputedly lamented the way foreign kings had wronged him and Rome. In AD the King of Parthia, Vologases IV , invaded the Roman client-kingdom of Armenia, removing the king and establishing his son as monarch and setting the state on course for war with Rome.
Lacking military training of any kind — most other imperial heirs had spent extensive time in their youth on the military frontiers — Marcus was largely unprepared for the outbreak of war. As the situation deteriorated in the East with several substantial Roman setbacks, and threats of other uprisings stirred around the empire, Lucius was dispatched to lead the Parthian War in person in Following a meandering trip to the East — which included a culturally-enriching stay in Athens with Herodes Atticus — Lucius appears to have spent the majority of the Parthian campaign based in the city of Antioch.
Much of his time spent at Antioch between and appears to have been dedicated to drilling the troops who had grown soft on the previously settled imperial borders. The Roman counterattack had begun in earnest in , including the successful recapture of Artaxata, the capital of Armenia. The successes in Armenia prompted the Parthians to turn their attention to Mesopotamia , where they overthrew the leader of Osroene, another client kingdom of Rome.
By now, however, the initiative was with the Romans who marched south, crossing the Euphrates river. Although passed by largely without event — a year of preparations — saw the renewal of engagements, beginning with the Roman invasion of Mesopotamia.
The Parthian cities of Ctesiphon and Seleucia were both sacked, despite the latter opening its gates to the invaders. Vologases IV made peace with the Romans, with one of the terms of the settlement forcing the King to cede the territory of western Mesopotamia to the Romans. For his successes, Lucius was awarded the title Parthicus Maximus , whilst both he and Marcus were saluted once more as Imperatores the reality was that most of the fighting was done through their generals.
As a member of the Roman aristocracy and heir to the imperial throne, Marcus benefitted from the very best education on offer to a young Roman nobleman. This education was in effect training for the life at the heart of politics that awaited the young man.
Accordingly, rhetoric and oratory were two of the most important skills he would learn. In this, he was fortunate enough to benefit from the expertise and talents of Herodes Atticus and Fronto, the two most celebrated orators of the period. In the Roman Empire, a cultural movement known as the Second Sophistic was blossoming, in which writers — predominately Greek hence, Sophistic — reintroduced and reinvigorated literary culture in the empire.
In Marcus, this cultural flowering appears to have met a receptive mind, particularly with regard to the importance of education. Herodes was one of the richest men in the empire, and evidence of his architectural munificence in his native Athens still survives to this day; the most notable being the Odeon in Athens , built in in memory of his wife.
This enormous theatre dominates the southwest slope of the Athenian acropolis. What survives of Fronto is less ostentatious but no less significant. What was Marcus Aurelius greatest accomplishment? Besides his relative success as being Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius may be best known as a Stoic philosopher. He truly attempted to live his philosophy. Aurelius became famous for The Meditations, a collection of his thoughts, Stoic beliefs, and notes on his life. What is Marcus Aurelius remembered for?
Marcus Aurelius wrote the Meditations, his reflections in the middle of campaigning and administration. The extent to which he intended it to be seen by others is uncertain. It shows the strong influence of Stoicism on Marcus and has been held by generations as the thoughts of a philosopher-king. The Stoics elaborated a detailed taxonomy of virtue, dividing virtue into four main types: wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. Being stoic is being calm and almost without any emotion.
He is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presided over the greatest military expansion in Roman history, leading the empire to its maximum territorial extent by the time of his death. Nerva died in January of 98 CE, about 1. Nerva did manage to accomplish some things before his death. He instituted agrarian reforms, built and repaired infrastructure and granaries, helped balance the budget, and potentially created a social system that supported poor children in Italy.
After his death, various honours were voted to him, including, so Dio claims, a golden statue of the emperor which was set up in the senate house itself. He was also deified by the senate — that is, added to the pantheon of Roman gods — an event to which the coin shown above makes reference.
Verus died in early , and Marcus was left to face the war alone. The barbarians were driven back, but still the war dragged on in a mixture of victories and defeats, with Marcus living mainly at the front, sometimes on the Danube, sometimes on the Rhine as the focus of crisis shifted.
Gradually the Romans gained the upper hand, and by we are told that Marcus was intending to annex the lands of the tribes nearest the frontier when he was suddenly forced to call off the war because of the revolt of Avidius Cassius in the East.
After distinguished service in the Parthian War, Avidius Cassius, himself a Syrian, had been made governor of Syria and, with the deepening of the German crisis, had gradually been raised to the position almost of viceroy for the entire East.
In Marcus grew sick, and rumor went round that he was dying or dead; partly for this reason Avidius was hailed emperor and accepted by most of the East, including Egypt—Rome's granary—thus threatening Rome itself with famine. Marcus had to break off the war in Germany with less than total victory and hurry eastward.
Cassius was murdered after only 3 months, and the immediate danger passed; but Marcus could not avoid showing himself in the East and making a fairly extended sojourn there. He exhibited his customary leniency in dealing with Cassius's supporters and returned to Rome in late , where he celebrated a splendid triumph with his son Commodus, who was soon given the title Augustus and made an equal sharer of power.
Thus through his own act Marcus Aurelius ended his reign as he had begun it, with a partner his equal in power but not in virtue. In began a serious persecution of the Christians. Much ink has been spilled trying to reconcile Marcus's kindness and high principles with his evident hostility toward the Christians; but the fact remains that he considered the Christians to be dangerous fanatics, subversive alike of society and the state—and on the evidence available to him, how should he not?
Then, too, if his persecution was more severe than those that went before, this was partly because the Christians were more numerous and more visible than before. The German War erupted again in , and Marcus shortly returned to the front. Once again he had the war almost won; but his death, which occurred on March 17, , precluded final victory over the Germans. He was given a grand funeral and deified, and memorials of him are yet visible in Rome—the column celebrating his German victories in the Piazza Colonna and his equestrian statue where Michelangelo placed it on the Capitoline.
Marcus Aurelius's reign was marked by near, rather than complete, success and marred both by his fondness for sharing power with unworthy partners and by a willingness to forgive carried at times beyond the point of prudence in one responsible for the well-being of millions; but there can be no question of his personal goodness or of the greatness of his soul. The reason for which Marcus Aurelius deservedly is most remembered is the collection of his thoughts or reflections, usually entitled the Meditations.
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