and rivalries.  Montesquieu declares, in speaking of Marcus Aurelius, “He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind.”  The great German historian Niebuhr says of the Emperor, as revealed in this work, “I know of no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, mildness, and humility with such conscientiousness and severity toward himself.”  Renan declares the book to be “a veritable gospel.  It will never grow old, for it asserts no dogma.  Though science were to destroy God and the soul, the ‘Meditations of Marcus Aurelius’ would remain forever young and immortally true.”  The eminent English critic Matthew Arnold was found on the morning after the death of his eldest son engaged in the perusal of his favorite Marcus Aurelius, wherein alone he found comfort and consolation.

The ‘Meditations of Marcus Aurelius’ embrace not only moral reflections; they include, as before remarked, speculations upon the origin and evolution of the universe and of man.  They rest upon a philosophy.  This philosophy is that of the Stoic school as broadly distinguished from the Epicurean.  Stoicism, at all times, inculcated the supreme virtues of moderation and resignation; the subjugation of corporeal desires; the faithful performance of duty; indifference to one’s own pain and suffering, and the disregard of material luxuries.  With these principles there was, originally, in the Stoic philosophy conjoined a considerable body of logic, cosmogony, and paradox.  But in Marcus Aurelius these doctrines no longer stain the pure current of eternal truth which ever flowed through the history of Stoicism.  It still speculated about the immortality of the soul and the government of the universe by a supernatural Intelligence, but on these subjects proposed no dogma and offered no final authoritative solution.  It did not forbid man to hope for a future life, but it emphasized the duties of the present life.  On purely rational grounds it sought to show men that they should always live nobly and heroicly, and how best to do so.  It recognized the significance of death, and attempted to teach how men could meet it under any and all circumstances with perfect equanimity.

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Marcus Aurelius was descended from an illustrious line which tradition declared extended to the good Numa, the second King of Rome.  In the descendant Marcus were certainly to be found, with a great increment of many centuries of noble life, all the virtues of his illustrious ancestor.  Doubtless the cruel persecutions of the infamous Emperors who preceded Hadrian account for the fact that the ancestors of Aurelius left the imperial city and found safety in Hispania Baetica, where in a town called Succubo—­not far from the present city of Cordova—­the Emperor’s great-grandfather, Annius Verus, was born.  From Spain also came the family of the Emperor Hadrian, who was an intimate friend of Annius Verus.  The death of the father of Marcus Aurelius when the lad was of tender years led to his adoption by his grandfather and subsequently by Antoninus Pius.  By Antoninus he was subsequently named as joint heir to the Imperial dignity with Commodus, the son of Aelius Caesar, who had previously been adopted by Hadrian.