464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



wanting either guards or embroidered dresses, or torches and statues, 

 and such-like show. It is, in fact, in such a man's power to bring 

 himself very nearly to the fashion of a private person, without being 

 for this reason either meaner in thought or more remiss in action wilh 

 respect to the things which must be done for the public interest in a 

 manner that befits a ruler. He doubtless received a forcible influence 

 in this direction from his xincle, the emperor who preceded him, in 

 regard to Avhom he says : " The things which conduce in any way to 

 the commodity of life, and of which fortune gives an abundant sup- 

 ply, he used without annoyance, so that when he had them he enjoyed 

 them without afiectation, and, when he had them not, he did not want 

 them." 



He appears to have been himself at an early age a hard student, 

 to have adopted a plain, coarse dress, and to have lived a laborious, 

 abstemious life. He was of a winning nature, and had a great afifec- 

 tion for his teachers, who were numerous, and all eminent in their 

 several professions. His uncle and adoptive father, Antoninus Pius, 

 a truly noble man, gave by his example the key-note to many points 

 in the character and taste of Marcus. He studied law carefully to fit 

 himself for the high place he was destined to fill, and of course 

 learned the Roman discipline of arms. He abandoned the studies of 

 poetry and rhetoric advisedly ; not from any lack of appreciation, but 

 partly because he was made aware that his gift did not lie in that 

 direction, and partly because he found these studies too fascinating 

 for a young man with the responsibilities before him that he expected 

 to assume. 



Although he began his reign a century and a half after the birth of 

 Jesus, it is evident that he is unaware of any influence that has been 

 brought to bear on his own mind that may be traced to this source. 

 " A soul," he says, " should be ready at any moment to be separated 

 from the body, to be extinguished, or to continue to exist ; but this 

 readiness should come from a man's own judgment, not from mere 

 obstinacy, as with the Christians." 



There is, according to Leslie, sufficient evidence that he did not 

 prevent, as he might have done by direct edict, a persecution of 

 Attains and other Gallic Christians in the year 177. In his time the 

 opposition between the old and the new belief was continually grow- 

 ing stronger, and the adherents of the heathen religion urged those in 

 authority to a more regular resistance to the invasions of the Christian 

 faith. It must of course be remembered that the Christians them- 

 selves maintained that all heathen religions were false, and openl)' 

 opposed the heathen rites ; thus making a declaration of hostility 

 against the Roman Government, which tolerated all the various forms 

 of superstitious worship that existed in the empire, and that could 

 not consistently leave unrebuked an intolerant religion, which declared 

 that all the rest were false. The rules against the Christians were 



