Birthday Greetings #49

Happy birthday to Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor.  If you've seen the movie Gladiator then you have a rough idea who Marcus Aurelius is.  He's the old emperor who gets murdered by Joaquin Phoenix.  In actual fact Marcus Aurelius died of natural causes (probably stomache cancer) and his son, although deeply unsatisfactory in virtually every respect, was not seriously suspected of killing him.

Marcus Aurelius came to the throne in 161 AD and was a member of the Antonine dynasty which produced six emperors only two of whom were actually related.  While it was considered desirable for a coherent, violence free succession that an emperor be succeeded by his son the actual position of "son" was something that the upper echelons of Roman society were quite happy to subcontract out.  Thus Nerva adopted Trajan, Trajan adopted Hadrian (at least according to Hadrian) and Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius on condition that he in turn adopt Marcus Aurelius and another character called Lucius Verus.

Marcus was of high birth to start with.  His father was the brother of the emperor's wife and as Marcus grew and displayed his talents he came to the attention of the emperor Hadrian himself, and not just for the usual reason that well set up teenage boys came to the attention of Hadrian.  It would appear that Hadrian intended that Marcus succeed him but Hadrian's sands were rapidly running out.  With death touching his shoulder and Marcus still a very young man Hadrian realised his captain's pick needed a little more time to settle.  Turning to one of his most trusted advisers, Antoninus Pius, he offered adoption on the conditions noted above.  The motive was obvious.  Antoninus Pius although nobodies idea of a genius was a highly competent administrator and a man of absolute integrity.  If you needed things done after you weren't around to oversee them then Antoninus was your man.  Antoninus Pius would keep the empire running and the imperial throne warm while Marcus got some life experience and since he was already in his fifties it shouldn't be too long.  Actually it was over twenty years, apparently clean living does extend your life.

Marcus developed a rather unRoman interest in philosophy at an early age and studied it whenever he could, aligning himself with the Stoic school (which frankly sounds rather appealing) despite the protests of his favourite tutor.  He would follow Stoic principals as best he could his entire life and he is probably best known for his book of meditations which is a series of guidelines on how he could more appropriately live his life.  I have a copy which I read from time to time when I want to feel like an unworthy slob.

With Antoninus Pius in charge Marcus got the kind of jobs which would be considered nepotism if he had abused them but which we can call useful training since he approached them with application and dedication.  Although never a healthy man Marcus worked hard at his duties despite the fact that he apparently despised court life and wanted to go off and live in a cave or something.

At the age of 74 Antoninus finally died (apparently of an overdose of cheese) and Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus stepped up to the big job.  Remember Lucius Verus?  He was coemperor with Marcus and was utterly unlike him.  A sport loving party boy he possibly wasn't the best match for Marcus.  He tended to get into embarrassing situations a fair bit.  Fortunately war broke out with the Parthians and Marcus sent Lucius off to fight it.  Actually Lucius sat around gambling in Antioch while the legions fought the war but they were successful and Lucius returned in triumph until he conveniently died of the plague his troops brought back with them.  Less conveniently approximately five million other people died of the plague as well.

With the Parthians (and Lucius) off his back Marcus settled down to running the empire.  He revalued the denarius (actually increasing the silver content for a change) and sharpened up and improved both the legal system and the administration.  He did this simply by taking an interest and being good at it.  Its amazing how well a bureaucracy can run when the staff realise that the person in charge knows their jobs better than they do and incidentally can have them executed if they screw up.

But this being the Roman empire Marcus wasn't going to be able to spend the rest of his life terrifying his officials and getting beloved by the common folk.  The Parthians may have been thumped but various Germanic tribes were getting rather uppity, raiding across borders, torching border posts and the like and that damn plague just wouldn't go away. 

The war with the Germanic tribes (largely although not exclusively the Marcomanni) went on for most of the rest of Marcus's life.  These are the guys Russell Crowe was beating up in the opening scene of Gladiator.  The war was hard fought (largely because the Marcomanni had their own problems and were desperate) but ultimately victorious.  Problems arose because Marcus settled some of the defeated barbarians in Italy where they revolted a couple of times and had to be put down.  Settling barbarians on the fringes of the empire was established practice but Marcus was the first to bring them into the heartland and it can't be said to be a success.  One possible reason is the casualties caused by the plague had resulted in serious depopulation.

Still by the time he died things seemed more or less settled and there were plans to create a couple of new provinces from the captured territory but Marcus died before they could be realised.  Possibly the worst thing Marcus did was break with tradition and have sex with his wife.  This resulted in a natural born son who inherited the empire after he was gone.  This lad, Commodus by name, turned out to be a living example of the benefits of adoption.