Marcus Aurelius, surnamed Antoninus, originally Marcus Annius Verus AD121-80
Roman emperor and philosopher

Marcus Aurelius was born in Rome, the son of M Annius Verus, a member of a consular family, and Domita Calvilla. At the age of 17 he was adopted by Antoninus Pius, who had in turn been adopted by Hadrian; Marcus Aurelius married Antoninus's daughter Faustina in 145. From 140, when he was made consul, until the death of Antoninus in 161, he discharged his public duties conscientiously, and maintained good relations with the emperor. At the same time he devoted himself to the study of law and philosophy, especially Stoicism; one of his teachers was the Stoic Apollonius of Chalcedon.

On his accession, he voluntarily shared the throne with his brother by adoption, Lucius Aurelius Verus, who in 161 was sent to take command against the Parthians. Despite the self-indulgence and dilatoriness of Verus, the generals were victorious, but the army brought back from the East a plague that ravaged the empire. Peaceful by temperament, Marcus Aurelius was nevertheless destined to suffer from constant wars throughout his reign, and although in Asia, Britain, and on the Rhine the invaders were checked, permanent peace was never secured. Rome was suffering from pestilence, earthquakes and inundations when the imperial colleagues led the Roman armies against the northern barbarians on the Danube. Verus died in 169; the Marcommani were subdued in 168 and 173; and the Quadi in 174.

Marcus Aurelius was next called to the East by a rebellion of the governor, Avidius Cassius (175), who was assassinated before Aurelius arrived. On his way home, he visited lower Egypt and Greece. At Athens he founded chairs of philosophy for each of the chief schools: Platonic, Stoic, Peripatetic, and Epicurean. Towards the end of 176 he reached Italy, and the following autumn he departed for Germany, where fresh disturbances had broken out. He was victorious once more, but died in 180 in Pannonia.

One of the few Roman emperors whose writings have survived, Marcus Aurelius wrote 12 books of Meditationes which record his innermost thoughts and form a unique document. They show his loneliness, but also that he did not allow himself to be embittered by his experiences of life. They were written during the military campaigns of the last 10 years of his life, and were published unedited only after his death.

He was retrospectively idealized as the model of the perfect emperor, whose reign and style of rule contrasted with the disastrous period that began with the accession of his son Commodus, the disturbed age of the Severan emperors, and the imperial anarchy that followed in the 3rd century.

Bibliography: A R Birley, Marcus Aurelius (1987).