men of Rome entreated him to address them his farewell admonitions, and
that for three days he discoursed to them on philosophical questions.
When he arrived at the seat of war, victory again crowned his arms. But
Marcus was now getting old, and he was worn out with the toils, trials,
and travels of his long and weary life. He sunk under mental anxieties
and bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died in Pannonia, either
at Vienna or Sirmium, on March 17, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of
his age and the twentieth of his reign.

Death to him was no calamity. He was sadly aware that "there is no man
so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who
are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and
wise man, will there not be at last some one to say of him, 'Let us at
last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster. It is true
that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns
us.'... Thou wilt consider this when thou art dying, and wilt depart
more contentedly by reflecting thus: 'I am going away _from a life in
which even my associates, on behalf of whom I have striven, and cared,
and prayed so much, themselves wish me to depart_, hoping perchance to
get some little advantage by it.' Why then should a man cling to a
longer stay here? _Do not, however, for this reason go away less kindly
disposed to them, but preserving thy own character, and continuing
friendly, and benevolent, and kind_" And dreading death far less than he
dreaded any departure from the laws of virtue, he exclaims, "Come
quickly, O Death, for fear that at last I should forget myself." This
utterance has been well compared to the language which Bossuet put into
the mouth of a Christian soul:--"O Death; thou dost not trouble my
designs, thou accomplishest them. Haste, then, O favourable Death!...
_Nunc Dimittis_."