MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS “As the earth is a pinpoint in infinite space, so the life of man is a pinpoint in infinite time — a knife- edge between eternities.” — Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONES 50 BCE By this point the rise of Alexandria and the growth of Roman power had overshadowed the political and economic importance of the Greek city states. Athens was no longer the philosophical center of the Mediterranean world. The Stoics were still being attracted to their Stoa there, but were coming there from elsewhere. Zeno had come to the Stoa in Athens from Citium on Cyprus, and had been succeeded by Cleanthes from Assos in Asia Minor and Chrysippus from Soli in Asia Minor. The Late Stoa would be entirely Roman, featuring such names as Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The rich scholar Panaetius of Rhodes, who had studied under Crates the Stoic at the library of Pergamum, became a student of Diogenes of Sinope in Athens but then passed on to the capital city of the Mediterranean world, Rome, where he and Scipio the Younger were at the center of a circle of philosophical admirers. After the death of Scipio, he had assumed leadership of the Stoic school and had returned to the Stoa in Athens for the final two decades of his life. His most illustrious student had been Posidonius of Apamea, a city in northern Syria, who died during this year on the island of Rhodes near the southwestern tip of Turkey. HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS MARCUS AURELIUS 121 CE Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who would succeed the Emperor Antonius Pius, was born in Rome. The Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE) visited England and, to contain the Highlanders (Picts), ordered the construction of Hadrian’s Wall from the Firth of Forth to the mouth of the Clyde. 2 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 138 CE Hyginus (138?-142 CE), a Greek philosopher from Athens, is listed as a Papa of Rome. During his reign (140 CE) the Christian Gnostic Church leaders Valentinus of Egypt and Cerdo of Syria came to Rome. The Emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius and had Antonius Pius adopt Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (age 17) and Lucius Verus. The Emperor Hadrian died and was succeeded by Antoninus Pius. At this point (according to the tradition) Juvenal, who had been born (according to the tradition) in 55 CE, although aged, was still alive: “The precise details of the author’s life cannot be securely reconstructed based on presently available evidence.” The only actual evidence is a dedicatory inscription said to have been recovered in conjunction with the writings during the 19th Century at Aquinum: ...]RI·SACRVM CERE]RI·SACRVM To Ceres (this) sacred (thing) ...]NIVS·IVVENALIS D(ECIMVS) IV]NIVS·IVVENALIS (Decimus Junius?) Juvenalis ...] COH·[.]·DELMATARVM TRIB(VNVS)] COH(ORTIS)·[I]·DELMATARVM military tribune of the 1st cohort of the Dalmatian (legions) II·VIR·QVINQ·FLAMEN II·VIR·QVINQ(VENNALIS)·FLAMEN Duovir, Quinquennalis, Flamen DIVI·VESPASIANI DIVI·VESPASIANI of the Divine Vespasian VOVIT·DEDICAV[...]UE VOVIT·DEDICAV[ITQ]UE vowed and dedicated SVA PEC SVA PEC(VNIA) at his own expense The problem with the above is that since the Dalmatian legions had not existed prior to 166 CE, the Junius being spoken of would have been not the poet himself but another member of his family bearing that name. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3 HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS MARCUS AURELIUS 139 CE Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was betrothed to the Emperor Antoninus’s daughter Annia Galeria Faustina. 145 CE Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and the Emperor Antoninus’s daughter Annia Galeria Faustina got married. 4 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 146 CE Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was given the powers indicating his position as heir to the throne. At about this point he abandoned rhetoric philosophy for the Stoic philosophy. 161 CE The Emperor Antoninus Pius died and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus became Emperor. He requested that the Roman Senate appoint Lucius Aurelius Verus as his co-Emperor: From this point until 180 CE, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius would be recording MEDITATIONES, presumably as part of his own spiritual discipline rather than for any sort of audience. “As the earth is a pinpoint in infinite space, so the life of man is a pinpoint in infinite time — a knife- edge between eternities.” — Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONES “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 5 HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS MARCUS AURELIUS 166 CE The Parthians invaded Syria. Yet another battle involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Ctesiphon and Seleucia the legions of Gaius Avidius Cassius defeated the Parthians, creating the Pax Romana. During the Roman Triumph celebration after defeating the Parthians, Commodus (5-year-old son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius) was proclaimed a Caesar. Soter, an Italian from the Campania, was listed as Papa of Rome (until 174 CE). As a compromise, Easter would become firmly established during his reign as had been previously recommended by the Asia Minor Churches, albeit not on Nisan 14 during Passover as they had recommended per the Jewish tradition but on the Sunday following. Soter papa of Rome dispatched a letter with gifts to the Corinthian Church, Dionysius papa of Corinth agreed to read his letter at service. Roman merchants in search of a better price for spices and silk (then worth at least more than their weight in 6 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS gold) sailed east from Sri Lanka to reach south China and the Mekong Delta. Marcus Aurelius sent an embassy to China. Meanwhile, other Romans returning home from wars against the Sassanid Persians introduce smallpox into Italy and a quarter of the Imperial Roman population would die within the decade. As if that were not bad enough, Roman soldiers and merchants also spread rubella along the Mediterranean littoral during the 250s. Deaths from this disease in the city of Rome alone were credibly reported at 5,000 persons per day. These body counts are mentioned as a reminder that disease may have hurried the collapse of late Roman civilization more than the military invasions so gleefully described by eighteenth and nineteenth century historians. Speaking of invasions, however, hordes of Marcomanni and kindred tribes from Bohemia were crossing the Danube River and attacking in Austria, locally disrupting the Pax Romana. GERMANY What goes around keeps coming around and around and around... “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 7 HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS MARCUS AURELIUS 176 CE The Emperor Marcus Aurelius returned to Rome from his campaigns. 8 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 177 CE The Emperor Marcus Aurelius returned toward the Danube again to continue his fighting there. What goes around keeps coming around and around and around... “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 9 HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS MARCUS AURELIUS He granted his son Commodus tribunal power. Since it was from Lyon that Christianity was spreading to the West, Marcus Aurelius ordered torture of the Christians there. Irenaeus of Lyon visited Rome, speaking of Lyon suffering grievous persecution, and of the New Prophecy on Montanism started in Phrygia. 180 CE When the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died of the plague (small pox?), his son Commodus took over as Caesar of the Roman Empire. There was to be no more Pax Romana. For the following more than a century, until 284 CE, Rome would be enduring a series of soldier-emperors: • 180-192 CE — Commodus • 193-211 CE — Septimus Severus • 211-217 CE — Caracalla • 253-253 CE — Aemilian • 270-275 CE — Aurelian • 276-282 CE — Probus 10 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 1777 Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was to become the subject of James Boswell’s THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D., actually himself wrote a record of his own life, but in the presence of his servant Francis Barber he had destroyed this writing. When Boswell read to him an evaluation in the Critical Review in this year, placing Julius Caesar’s account of his actions in one category, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus’s reflections on his life in a second category, and Huetius’s contexture of the times of his life in a third category, in contradistinction to all these “journalists, temporal and spiritual: Elias Ashmole, William Lilly, George Whitefield, John Wesley, and a thousand other old women and fanatic writers of memoirs and meditations” in a quite derogatory separate category, Johnson commented that few writers have “gained any reputation by recording their own actions.” 1879 THE COMPLETE POETICAL WRITINGS OF J.G. HOLLAND. COMPLETE POETICAL WRITINGS Nobody ever reads this now. Frederic May Holland’s THE R EIGN OF THE S TOICS. HISTORY. RELIGION. MAXIMS OF SELF-CONTROL, SELF-CULTURE, BENEVOLENCE, JUSTICE. PHILOSOPHY (New York, C.P. Somerby). THE REIGN OF THE STOICS (I am pleased to bring you a seven part serialization of Frederic May Holland’s 1879 book entitled THE REIGN OF THE STOICS. HISTORY. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 11 HDT WHAT? INDEX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS MARCUS AURELIUS RELIGION. MAXIMS OF SELF-CONTROL, SELF-CULTURE, BENEVOLENCE, JUSTICE. PHILOSOPHY (New York, C.P. Somerby). This fascinating work focuses on the successive reigns of five Stoic-minded Roman Emperors: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonine Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. The first chapter looks at the history of each emperor’s reign, and the six remaining chapters feature Stoic maxims on a variety of topics, including: religion, self-control, self-culture, benevolence, justice, and philosophy.