In the life of Marcus Aurelius, as in so many lives, we are able to
trace the great law of compensation. His exalted station, during the
later years of his life, threw him among many who were false and
Pharisaical and base; but his youth had been spent under happier
conditions, and this saved him from falling into the sadness of those
whom neither man nor woman please. In his earlier years it had been his
lot to see the fairer side of humanity, and the recollection of those
pure and happy days was like a healing tree thrown into the bitter and
turbid waters of his reign.



CHAPTER III.

THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS _(continued)._

Marcus was now the undisputed lord of the Roman world. He was seated on
the dizziest and most splendid eminence which it was possible for human
grandeur to obtain.

But this imperial elevation kindled no glow of pride or
self-satisfaction in his meek and chastened nature. He regarded himself
as being in fact the servant of all. It was his duty, like that of the
bull in the herd, or the ram among the flocks, to confront every peril
in his own person, to be foremost in all the hardships of war and the
most deeply immersed in all the toils of peace. The registry of the
citizens, the suppression of litigation, the elevation of public morals,
the restraining of consanguineous marriages, the care of minors, the
retrenchment of public expenses, the limitation of gladitorial games and