and, further, simplicity of life far removed from the habits of
the rich.

The childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the reign of Hadrian.
The times were better than those which we have contemplated in the
reigns of the Caesars. After the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of
Galba and Otho, the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time
under the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philosophic virtue of
Titus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who succeeded his brother Titus,
was scarcely less terrible and infamous than that of Caius or of Nero;
but that prince, shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden
neck had grown out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate
that a better race of princes should follow him. The dream was
fulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, Nerva, Trajan,
Hadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers; Antoninus Pius and Marcus
Aurelius were among the very gentlest and noblest sovereigns whom the
world has ever seen.

Hadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, beneficial
Emperor, was a man whose character was stained with serious faults. It
is, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at
the early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues
which afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of
mankind. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when
he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Playing on the boy's
paternal name of _Verus_, he called him _Verissimus_, 'the most true.'"
It is interesting to find that this trait of character was so early
developed in one who thought that all men "should speak as they think,
with an accent of heroic verity."