For Vologæsus had begun war by assailing on all sides the Roman camp under Severianus, situated in Elegeia, a place in Armenia; and he had shot down and destroyed the whole force, leaders and all. He was not proceeding with numbers that inspired terror against the cities of Syria. Lucius, accordingly, on coming to Antioch collected a great many soldiers, and with the best commanders under his supervision took up a position in the city, spending his time ordering all arrangements and in gathering the contingent for the war. He entrusted the armies themselves to Cassius. The latter made a noble stand against the attack of Vologæsus, and finally the chieftain was deserted by his allies and began to retire; then Cassius pursued him as far as Seleucia and destroyed it and razed to the ground the palace of Vologæsus at Ctesiphon. . . . Lucius attained glory by these exploits and felt a just pride in them, yet his extreme good fortune did him no good. For he is said to have subsequently plotted against his father-in-law Marcus and to have perished by poison before he could accomplish anything.

The emperor, as often as he had leisure from war, held court and used to order that a most liberal supply of water be measured out for the speakers. He made inquiries and answers of greater length, so that exact justice was ensured by every possible expedient. When thus engaged he would often hold court to try the same case for eleven or even twelve days and sometimes at night. He was industrious and applied himself diligently to all the duties of his office; and there was nothing which he said or wrote or did that he regarded as a minor matter, but sometimes he would consume whole days on the finest point, putting into practice his belief that the emperor should do nothing hurriedly. For he thought that if he should slight even the smallest detail, it would bring him reproach that would overshadow all his other achievements.

Upon the revolt of Cassius in Syria, Marcus, in great alarm, summoned his son Commodus from Rome, since he was now able to enter the ranks of the iuvenes. Now Cassius, who was a Syrian from Cyrrhus, had shown himself an excellent man and the sort of person one would desire to have as emperor. . . . But in this uprising he made a terrible mistake, and it was all due to his having been deceived by Faustina. The latter, who was a daughter of Antonius Pius, seeing that her husband had fallen ill, and expecting that he might die at any moment, was afraid that the imperial office might revert to some outsider and she be left in private life; for Commodus was both young and rather callow, besides. So she secretly induced Cassius to make preparations to the end that if anything should happen to [Marcus Aurelius] Antonius he might take both her and the sovereignty. Now while he was in this frame of mind, a message came that Marcus was dead (in such circumstances reports always make matters worse than they really are) and immediately, without waiting to confirm the rumor, he laid claim to the empire on the ground that it had been bestowed upon him by the soldiers at this time quartered in Pannonia. And in spite of the fact that before long he learned the truth, nevertheless, since he had once made a move, he would not change his attitude but speedily won over the whole district bounded by the Taurus, and was making preparations to maintain his ascendency by war. Marcus, on being informed of his uprising by Verus, the governor of Cappadocia, for a time concealed it; but, as the soldiers were being mightily disturbed by the reports and were doing a deal of talking, he called them together and read an address of the following nature:

"Fellow-soldiers, I have not come before you to express indignation, nor yet in a spirit of lamentation. Why rage against fate, that is all-powerful? But perhaps it is needful to bewail the lot of those who are undeservedly unfortunate, a lot which is now mine. Is it not afflicting for us to meet war after war? Is it not absurd to be involved in civil conflict? Are not both these conditions surpassed in affliction and in absurdity by the proof before us that there is naught to be trusted among mankind, since I have been plotted against by my dearest friend and have been thrust into conflict against my will, though I have committed no crime nor even error? What virtue, what friendship shall henceforth be deemed secure after this experience of mine? Has not faith, has not hope perished? If the danger were mine alone, I should give the matter no heed--I was not born to be immortal, but since . . . war is fastening its clutches upon all of us alike, I should desire, were it possible, to invite Cassius here and argue the case with him in your presence or in the presence of the senate; and I would gladly, without a contest, withdraw from my office in his favor, if this seemd to be for the public advantage. For it is on behalf of the public that I continue to toil and undergo dangers and have spent so much time yonder outside of Italy, during mature manhood and now in old age and weakness, though I can not take food without pain nor get sleep free from anxiety.

"But since Cassius would never be willing to agree to this (for how could he trust me after having shown himself so untrustworthy towards me?), you, at least, fellow-soldiers, ought to be of good cheer. Cilicians, Syrians, Jews, and Egyptians have never proved your superiors nor shall so prove, even if they assemble in numbers ten times your own. . . . An eagle is not formidable at the head of an army of daws, nor a lion commanding fawns; and it was not Cassius, but you, that brought to an end the Arabian or the famous Parthian War. . . .

"There is only one thing I fear, fellow-soldiers (you shall be told the whole truth), and that is that he may either kill himself because ashamed to come into our presence, or some one else upon learning that I shall come and am setting out against him may do it. Then should I be deprived of a great prize . . . of a magnitude such as no human being ever yet obtained. What is this? Why, to forgive a man that has done you an injury, to remain a friend to one who has transgressed friendship, to continue faithful to one who has broken faith. Perhaps this may seem strange to you, but you ought not to disbelieve it. For all goodness has not yet perished from among mankind, but there is still in us a remnant of the ancient virtue. . . . That would be one profit I could derive from present ills, if I could settle the affair well and show to all mankind that there is a right way to handle even civil wars."

Marcus at the time he was preparing for the war against Cassius would accept no barbarian alliance although he found a concourse of foreign nations offering their services; for he said that the barbarians ought not to know about troubles arising between Romans.

While Marcus was making preparations for the civil war, many victories over various barbarians were reported at one and the same time with the death of Cassius. The latter while walking had encountered Antonius, a centurion, who gave him a sudden wound in the neck, though the blow was not entirely effective. And Antonius, borne away by the impetus of his horse, left the deed incomplete, so that his victim nearly escaped; but meantime the decurion had finished what was left to do. They cut off his head and set out to meet the emperor.

Marcus Antonius [was so much grieved at the destruction of Cassius that he would not even endure to see the severed head, but before the murderers drew near gave orders that it should be buried].

Thus was this pretender slain after a dream of sovereignty lasting three months and six days. . . . And Marcus upon reaching the provinces that had joined in Cassius' uprising treated them all very kindly and put no one, either obscure or prominent, to death.

A law was at this time passed that no one should be governor in the province from which he had originally come, because the revolt of Cassius had occurred during his administration of Syria, which included his native district. It was voted by the senate that silver images of Marcus and Faustina should be set up in the temple of Venus and Roma, and that an altar should be erected whereupon all the maidens married in the city and their bridegrooms should offer sacrifice; also that a golden image of Faustina should be carried in a chair to the theatre on each occasion that the emperor should be a spectator, and that it should be placed in the seat well forward, where she herself was wont to take her place when alive, and that the women of chief influence should all sit around it.

Marcus went to Athens, where, after being initiated into the mysteries, he bestowed honors upon the Athenians and gave teachers to all men in Athens, for every species of knowledge, these teachers to receive an annual salary. On his return to Rome he made an address to the people; and while he was saying, among other things, that he had been absent many years, they cried out: "Eight!" and indicated this also with their hands, in order that they might receive an equal number of gold pieces for a banquet. He smiled and himself uttered the word "eight." After that he distributed to them two hundred denarii apiece, more than they had ever received before. In addition to doing this, he forgave all persons all their debts to the imperial and to the public treasury for a space of forty-six years, outside of the sixteen granted by Hadrian. And all the documents relating to these debts he ordered burned in the Forum. He gave money to many cities, one of them being Smyrna, that had suffered terribly by an earthquake; he also assigned the duty of building up this place to an ex-prætor of senatorial rank. Therefore I am surprised at the censures even now passed upon him to the effect that he was not a man of large calibre. For, whereas in ordinary matters he was quite frugal, he never demurred at a single necessary expenditure (though . . . he hurt no one by levies), and he . . . laid out very large sums beyond the ordinary requirements.

Had he lived longer, he would have subdued the [barbarians of] the whole region: as it was, he passed away on the seventeenth of March, not from the effects of the sickness that he had at the time, but by the connivance of his physicians, as I have heard on good evidence, who wanted to do a favor to Commodus. When at the point of death he commended his son to the protection of the soldiers (for he did not wish his death to appear to be his fault); and to the military tribunes, who asked him for the watchword, he said: "Go to the rising sun; I am already setting." After he was dead he obtained many marks of honor and was set up in gold within the senate-house itself.

So this was the manner of Marcus's demise. . . . Most of his life he passed in the service of beneficence, and therefore he erected on the capitol a temple to that goddess and called her by a most peculiar name, which had never before been current. He himself refrained from all offenses . . . but the offenses of others, particularly those of his wife, he endured, and neither investigated nor punished them. . . . So truly he was a good man, without any pretence about him. He was vastly helped by his education, being an expert in rhetoric and in philosophical argument.

After all, however, he owed his great attainments chiefly to his natural disposition . . . he was unflinchingly set upon virtue. . . . This, most of all, led Hadrian to adopt him into his family, and Marcus, for his part, did not grow haughty.