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Readings – Week 3

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Readings – Week 3 Readings – Week 3 Anonymous, Epitome de caesaribus (Epitome of the Caesars), 16.1-20.10 [Epit. Caes. 16.1– 20.10] 16. Marcus Aurelius Antonius ruled eighteen years. 2. He showed himself to possess all virtues and a celestial character, and was thrust before public calamities like a defender. For indeed, if he had not been born to those times, surely, as if with one fall, all of the Roman state would have collapsed. 3. Since there was never rest from arms, and wars were raging through all Oriens, Il- lyricum, Italy, and Gallia, and there were earthquakes not without the destruction of cities, inun- dations of rivers, numerous plagues, species of locusts which infested fields, there is almost nothing by which mortals are accustomed to be vexed with the most serious difficulties that is able to be described which did not rage while he was ruling. 4. I believe that it has been be- stowed by divine providence that, when the law of the universe or nature produces or something else unknown to men, they are appeased by the counsels of honest men as by the remedies of medicine. 5. With a new kind of benevolence, he admitted his own relative, Lucius Annius Verus, to a share of power. This is the Verus who, while journeying between Altinum and Concordia, died, in the eleventh year of power, as a result of a surge of blood, a disorder which the Greeks call apoplexy. 6. He was a poet, mostly of tragedies, studious, of a rugged and lascivious character. 7. After Lucius’ demise, Marcus Antoninus controlled the state alone. From the beginning of his life, he was extremely placid, so much so that from infancy he changed his expression neither from joy nor sorrow. Of philosophy and Greek literature he was a student [most expert]. 8. He al- lowed more illustrious men and his ministers alike to host banquets in the same splendor as did he himself. 9. When, with the treasury exhausted, he did not have the funds which he applied to the soldiers and did not wish to inflict anything on the provincials or senate, he removed by a confiscation made in the Forum of Trajan material of regal splendor, golden vases, crystalline and murrine goblets, and his own wife's silken and golden apparel, numerous ornaments of gems, and through two continuous months an auction was held and much gold was collected. 10. After a victory, however, he refunded the purchase prices to buyers who wished to return what had been bought. 11. In his time, Cassius attempted a coup and was killed. 12. Marcus was consumed by disease at Bendobona in the fifty-ninth year of his life. 13. When the announcement about his death reached Rome, the city was convulsed with public lamenta- tion, and the senate gathered in the senate house, wrapped in mourning garb, weeping. 14. And although it is scarcely believable about Romulus, everybody agreed that Marcus had been re- ceived into heaven. In his honor temples, columns, and many other things were decreed. 17. Aurelius Commodus, son of Antoninus, and himself called Antoninus, ruled thirteen years. 2. What he was going to become, in the very beginning, he revealed. For when he was being ad- vised by his father in his will not to allow the barbarians, who were now exhausted, to regain strength, he had responded that, although negotiations could be completed over a period of time by a live man, nothing could be completed by a dead man. 3. He was quite fierce with sexual de- sire and greed, with cruelty, faithful to no one, and more savage toward those whom he had ex- alted with most splendid honors and enormous gifts. 4. So depraved was he that he often battled with gladiatorial weapons in the amphitheater. 5. Nevertheless, Marcia, of freedman stock, pre- vailed on this man by her beauty and meretricious arts, and, when she had thoroughly gained control of his mind, offered a drink of poison to him when he was emerging from the bath. Fi- nally, his throat crushed by a very strong wrestling instructor who had been let loose on him, he expired in the thirty-second year of his life. 18. Helvius Pertinax ruled eighty-five days. Forced to take power, he was given "Resister and Submitter" as nicknames. 2. Having risen from a humble origin, he advanced to the urban prefec- ture, was made emperor, and, by the viciousness of Julianus, was cut down with many wounds at the age of sixty-seven. His head was carried about the entire city. 3. By this death, there perished a man who is an example of human vicissitude, who, through all types of labor, reached the heights, to such a degree that he was called the "Pillar of Fortune." 4. For he was the product of a freedman father among the Ligurians on a humble estate of Lollius Getianus, in whose prefecture it was most happily fated that he become a client, and he became a teacher of the letters which are taught by grammarians. He was more pleasing than beneficial, hence men called him by the Greek name ["Smooth-talk"]. 5. Never was he drawn to vengeance by injuries he had received. He was a lover of simplicity, he presented himself as a common man by means of his speech, his dining, and his demeanor. 6. To him in death was decreed the name "Divine;" for his praise, there was acclaimed with repeated ovations until voices failed: "With Pertinax in control, we lived se- cure, we feared no one. To a dutiful father! To the father of the senate! To the father of all good men!" 19. Didius Julianus, by birth of Mediolanum, ruled seven months. He was a man of the nobility, very skilled in law, factious, reckless, eager to rule. 2. At this time, near Antioch, Niger Pescen- nius and, at Sabaria in Pannonia, Septimius Severus were made Augusti. 3. By this Severus, Ju- lianus was led to the secret baths of the palace and, with his neck stretched out in the fashion of the condemned, was decapitated and his head placed on the rostra. 20. Septimius Severus ruled eighteen years. 2. He eliminated Pescennius, a man of utter base- ness. Under him Albinus, too, who in Gallia had made himself Caesar, was slain near Lugdunum. 3. Severus left as successors his own sons, Bassianus and Geta. 4. In Britannia he extended a wall over a distance of thirty-two thousand paces, from sea to sea. 5. Of all the men who had lived before him, he was the most warlike. He was relentless in character, persevering to the end toward everything to which he had turned his attention. To whom he was well disposed, he ex- hibited a goodwill singular and abiding. He was thrifty when it came to his needs, lavish in largess. 6. Toward friends and enemies he was equally passionate, inasmuch as he enriched Lat- eranus, Cilo, Anullinus, Bassus, and several others -- and with buildings worthy of note, particu- lar examples of which we see which are called the "House of the Parthians" and the "House of Lateranus." 7. To no one, in his reign, did he permit offices to be sold. 8. He was sufficiently ed- ucated in Latin literature, erudite in the Greek language, more at ease with Punic eloquence, inas- much as he was born near Leptis in the province Africa. 9. When he was unable to endure the pain of all his limbs, especially of his feet, in place of a drug, which was being denied him, he too avidly fell upon a meal large and of very much meat; since he was unable to digest this, he was overcome by the indisposition and breathed his last. 10. He lived sixty-five years. Eutropius, Brevarium, 8.9–19 [Eutr. Brev. 8.9–19] 9. After him reigned MARCUS ANTONINUS VERUS, a man indisputably of noble birth; for his descent, on the father's side, was from Numa Pompilius, and on the mother's from a king of the Sallentines, and jointly with him reigned Lucius ANTONINUS VERUS. Then it was that the commonwealth of Rome was first subject to two sovereigns, ruling with equal power, when, till their days, it had always had but one emperor at a time. 10. These two were connected both by relationship and affinity; for Verus Antoninus had married the daughter of Marcus Antoninus; and Marcus Antoninus was the son-in-law of Antoninus Pius, having married Galeria Faustina the younger, his own cousin. They carried on a war against the Parthians, who then rebelled for the first time since their subjugation by Trajan. Verus Antoninus went out to conduct that war, and, remaining at Antioch and about Armenia, effected many im- portant achievements by the agency of his generals; he took Seleucia, the most eminent city of Assyria, with forty thousand prisoners; he brought off materials for a triumph over the Parthians, and celebrated it in conjunction with his brother, who was also his father-in-law. He died in Venetia, as he was going from the city of Concordia to Altinum. While he was sitting in his char- iot with his brother, he was suddenly struck with a rush of blood, a disease which the Greeks call apoplexis. He was a man who had little control over his passions, but who never ventured to do anything outrageous, from respect for his brother. After his death, which took place in the eleventh year of his reign, he was enrolled among the gods.
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