Toward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease and weariness, Hadrian, being childless, had adopted as his son L. Ceionius Commodus, a man who had few recommendations but his personal beauty.  Upon his death, which took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, assembling the senators round his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as their future Emperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the surname of Pius, which he won by his gratitude to the memory of his predecessor.  Had Aurelius been older—­he was then but seventeen—­it is known that Hadrian would have chosen him, and not Antoninus, for his heir.  The latter, indeed, who was then fifty-two years old, was only selected on the express condition that he should in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and the son of the deceased Ceionius.  Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurelius, who, even from his infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw himself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world.

We are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give some sketch of the influences and the education which had formed him for this exalted station.

He was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a man who had been three times consul.  He makes it a matter of congratulation, and thankfulness to the gods, that he had not been sent to any public school, where he would have run the risk of being tainted by that frightful corruption into which, for many years, the Roman youth had fallen.  He expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for having supplied him with good teachers at home, and for the conviction that on such things a man should spend liberally.  There was nothing jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received.  He was fond of boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and he was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar.  Thus, his healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his public dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a beautiful and manly mould.  There are, however, three respects in which his education seems especially worthy of notice;—­I mean the diligence, the gratitude, and the hardiness in which he was encouraged by others, and which he practised with all the ardour of generous conviction.

1.  In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was diligent.  He alludes more than once in his Meditations to the inestimable value of time, and to his ardent desire to gain more leisure for intellectual pursuits.  He flung himself with his usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into every branch of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he toiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the administration of business, and at the difficult study of Roman jurisprudence.  One of the acquisitions for which he expresses gratitude to his tutor Rusticus, is that of reading carefully, and not being satisfied with the superficial understanding of a book.  In fact, so strenuous was his labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his health suffered by the combination of the two.