The Death of Marcus Aurelius and the Consequences of His Worse Decision

 The Death of Marcus Aurelius and the Consequences of His Worst Decision 

Today marks the anniversary of the death in 180 of the great Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.  It is as well the date upon which his worst decision was inflicted upon the world.

      There is no question that Marcus was a great emperor.  In fact he is the only emperor to have written a book, namely the Meditations, that to this day remains in print (while Caesar's Gaelic Wars andCivil War remain staples of classes in both Latin and military history, Caesar was never emperor).  And Marcus was a member of a string of excellent emperors.  After the tragedy that was Nero and the tumult of the Flavians (Vespasian, Titus and Domitian), the emperors of the Nervan-Antonian dynasty had consistently been effective leaders.  This had been largely achieved by the sitting emperor adopting his heir.  This path avoided the deficiencies of restricting passage of control to only natural heirs, necessarily limiting the pool of possible successors; the example of Tiberius to Caligula was not lost. The Flavians had been lucky in this regard, but they were only two generations – the father Vespasian to his son Domitian and then upon Domitian’s death the throne went to his brother Titus.  That stability arose out of the confusions of the Year of Four Emperors. Hadrian was only a cousin to his predecessor Trajan. While Hadrian would in turn adopt Antoninus Pius, it does not appear they were related to one another.  It is reported that a condition imposed by Hadrian on Antoninius adoption was that he in turn adopt Marcus Aurelius.

      Marcus broke with this approach, appointing his natural son Commodus as his heir (Commodus was appointed co-emperor some three years before Marcus' death). He was a disaster on par with Caligula and Nero (we can argue as to whether he was better or worse than Elagabalus , assassinated in 222).  A man of apparently no character, he is described by Aelius Lampridius in the co-authoredHistoria Augusta,  “even from his earliest years he was base and dishonorable. and cruel and lewd, defiled of mouth, moreover, and debauched.”   A megalomanic, he styled himself as Hercules and took to fighting in the gladiatorial games.  Of course he always won;; it did not hurt that he secretly directed that his opponents be given dulled weapons.  Meantime he ignored the operation of the Empire, leaving decisions to his chamberlain and other officials.  He did, however, both order a devaluing of the currency and imposed excessive taxes.  Gibbons, in his monumental (although of well criticized for its historiographical methodology)  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire dated the decline of the Roman Empire from Commodus.

      Finally he was assassinated.  There was, however, no natural heir to the position of Emperor, and his death would be followed by the “Year of Five Emperors.”  

      Had Marcus Aurelius followed the path of the other Nervan-Antonian emperors and adopted as his heir a proven leader, the path of the Roman Empire would well have been substantially different.  But he did not. Such decisions are the stuff of history.

      In closing, contra the movie “Gladiator,” Marcus was not killed by Commodus.  Rather, he died of natural causes (it has been suggested that an unidentified plague was involved), possibly in what is now Vienna.  Commodus was not killed in the gladiatorial games, but rather was assassinated  in 192 by being strangled.

Beware the Ides of March, and Caesar Did Not Say "Et Tu Brute?"

Beware the Ides of March

“Et tu, Brute?”

Today, the Ides of March, marks the anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Caesar was famously assassinated at a meeting of the Roman Senate after having (almost certainly apocryphally) been warned to “Beware the Ides of March.” According to Seutonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, “When a note revealing the plot was handed him by some one on the way, he put it with others which he held in his left hand, intending to read them presently.”  Marc Antony, to whom the plot had been divulged, tried to intercept Caesar, but he was himself interrupted. As for the "Beware” warning, Seutonius wrote: “Again, when he [Caesar] was offering sacrifice, the soothsayer Spurinna warned him to beware of danger, which would come not later than the ides of March.  …. [H]e entered the House [the Theater of Pompey] in defiance of portents, laughing at Spurinna and calling him a false prophet, because the ides of March were come without bringing him harm. Spurinna replied that they had of a truth come, but they had not gone.”

Although stabbed twenty-three times by the various conspirators, only one wound was fatal. At the time of his death he was 56, and by some measures was among the richest men to have ever lived.

      Caesar rose to power out of the First Civil War that resulted from the dissolution of the First Triumvirate, it comprised of Caesar, Pompey (a/k/a Pompey Magnus) and Crassus. Crassus was killed when he invaded Parthia.  The relationship between Caesar and Pompey fell apart over personal differences, and Pompey was later killed in Egypt.  

      Caesar’s murder by members of the Senate (some 60 senators were part of the plot, but not Cicero – the conspirators were unsure he had the stomach for such an act) was premised upon the notion that they were somehow preserving liberty for Rome; after the deed they paraded through the streets shouting “liberty.”  This against the fear that Caesar sought to be king, an especially galling notion in light of Rome having been, at least as part of its foundational myth, ruled by kings and then thrown them off.  Still, at this stage Caesar had been appointed Dictator for Life (Dictator Perpetuo) by the Senate.  It seems this subset of the Senate sought to undo what the whole Senate had approved. 

      As set forth in Adrian Goldsworthy’s biography of Caesar titled (surprisingly) Caesar:

The conspirators spoke of liberty, and believed that this could only be restored by removing Caesar. Most, perhaps all, thought they were acting for the good of the entire Republic. With Caesar dead the normal institutions of the State ought to function properly again and Rome could be guided by the Senate and freely elected magistrates. To show that this was their sole aim they decided they would kill the dictator but no one else, including his fellow consul and close associate Antony. Brutus is said to have persuaded them to accept this, against the advice of some of the more pragmatic conspirators.

      The huddled masses of Rome were less worried about Republican principles than they were with the loss of Caesar’s largess and the interruption of public work programs that provided desperately needed employment. As recounted by Nicolaus of Damascus in his Life of Augustus, “Even their [the assassin’s] houses were besieged by the people, not under any leader, but the populace itself was enraged on account of the murder of Caesar, of whom they were fond, and especially when they had seen his bloody garment and newly slain body brought to burial when they had forced their way into the Forum and had there interred it.” 

      “Liberty” was not to be had. Caesar’s death unleashed upon the tottering Roman Republic the Second Civil War of Caesar’s heir Octavian (18 years old at the time of Caesar’s death and later to be Caesar Augustus) and Marc Antony (Lepidus, the third member of the Second Triumvirate, was a place holder) against the assassins and their various supporters. Octavian and Antony were not friends. Rather, applying the adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” they were joined in opposition to Caesar’s assassins and little else. Regardless, the decision of the night before the assignation to not as well target Marc Antony, in retrospect, was no doubt regretted.

      Assassins Brutus and Cassius (Gaius Cassius Longinus) would each commit suicide after losing a phase of the Battle of Philippi (notwithstanding the presentation in the HBO series “Rome,” they died on different days).  Cicero (who as noted above was not himself part of the conspiracy) would be executed as part of the proscriptions after the victory of the Second Triumvirate. 

      Still later Octavian and Antony would turn on one another, Antony’s forces being routed at Actium.  Octavian would go on to be the first Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus.

      But back to Caesar’s dying words. “Et tu Brute” is not recorded by any classical historian – it is a quote from Shakespeare. Plutarch, who was born exactly 100 years after the assassination, reports that Caesar said nothing after the attack began in earnest. Suetonius wrote that others reported his last words to be “καὶ σύ, τέκνον” (Greek still being the lingua franca of the Romans), transliterated as “Kai su, teknon” or “You also child,” addressed to Brutus (that is Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, not to be confused with Decimus Junius Brutus, another party to the assignation; it was the former whom Donte put in Satan's mouth in the lowest circle of the Hell described in his Comedy). There were rumors, later reported by Plutarch (Suetonius is silent on the topic) that Caesar was in fact Brutus’ father – it was known that Brutus’ mother Servilia was Caesar’s mistress.  Still that would appear to be something of a stretch; Caesar was 16 at the time of Brutus' conception; Servilla was at that time 28.  

      For anyone who watched the “Spartacus” series, while the sources do not exclude Caesar's participation in the war against Spartacus (i.e., the “Third Servile War”), they provide no details of that participation.  Ergo, that portrayal of Caesar's actions are pure fiction.