Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

cxviii INTRODUCTION SECT.
offer of abdication with which he met the rebellion of
Avidius Cassius.
/ His laws and rescripts aim chiefly at protecting
/ orphans, wards, and minors, at relieving debtors and the
\ destitute, at enlarging the rights of women, at curbing
the arbitrary privileges of '
fathers '
and '
masters,' at
emancipating and giving civil rights to slaves, in a word
at imbuing Roman jurisprudence with the principles
of Stoic justice, and so realising a world-citizenship in
'
an equal commonwealth based on equality of right and
equality of speech, and an imperial rule respecting first
and foremost the liberty of the subject.' \ He mitigated,
so far as a Caesar could, the ferocity of gladiatorial
shows; 2 he introduced buttons on the foils of the
fencers, and nets under the high -rope dancers. At
Rome he erected a temple, of new and unique dedica-
tion, to Beneficence. He upheld law and civic obligation,
and approved the sentence of Justin, and the execution
of the Christian confessors
3
of Lyons. Rigorous in
public economics and strict in the distribution of largess, 4
he craved permission of the Senate to sell Imperial
treasures to defray the needs of war, with the words,
'
Nothing we have is our own even the house we live
;
in is yours.' Each word and trait finds some echo or
counterpart in the Thoughts, and the reader makes
answer to himself, Of course he thus acted, or said, or
looked; how could he otherwise? Dio Cassius and
Capitolinus become, as it were, commentaries upon his
own soliloquies.
1 i. 14 ; cf. i. 16, 17 ; vi. 30.
4 i. 16, 17.
2 x. 8.
3 xi. 3.