THE WIVES OF THE STOICS  
ON the twenty-fifth of February, in the year 138, Hadrian had summoned the Senators to the palace. Verus was dead, and the whole world wondered on whom the erratic fancy of the ailing Emperor would rest next. Among the Senators was a distinguished, able, and amiable statesman and commander, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus, whose great merit had—as the long series of names implies—been richly rewarded by older relatives. He had been much consulted by Hadrian in his last years, and was respected by all. To the great relief of the Senate the wavering finger of the Emperor fell on this man, and he was acclaimed C?sar. He attended Hadrian devotedly, prolonged the useless life which lingered between him and the throne, and—it was rumoured—saved many a noble head from execution in the last frenzies of Hadrian. Early in July that great traveller set out on his last journey, and Aurelius Antoninus—a name to which the Senate soon added the appellation of Pius—ascended the throne.
 
The new Empress of Rome was Annia Galeria Faustina, a matron in her thirty-fourth year, of an ancient and distinguished Italian family. It is of some interest to regard the extraction of Faustina. Through her the Imperial throne is about to pass once more to one of its most ignoble occupants, and Rome will sink rapidly from the reign of Marcus Aurelius to the riot of Commodus. The two opposing tendencies of Roman life meet in her family, and164 the Stoic succumbs to the Epicurean—or, rather, to the Sybaritic or Cyrenaic, for the gospel of Epicurus was one of dignity and sobriety. Rome might have said, in the later language of Goethe, as he depicted himself passing through a similar phase:
Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust.
One soul leaned to sloth, sensual and selfish indulgence: one, with larger horizon, was for temperance, vigour, and Imperial duty. The curious feature of this critical stage in the fortunes of Rome is that the two tendencies are developed within the same family, and the Stoic yields to the Sybarite. Annia Galeria Faustina was born of the same parents as the father of Marcus Aurelius, and was reared in the same atmosphere of old Roman virtue, or manliness, as the word signifies. The great-grandfather of Marcus Aurelius was Annius Verus, a Senator of great merit and of Spanish extraction. His son Annius Verus was twice consul, and both his sons in turn—the father and uncle of Marcus Aurelius—were promoted to the consulate. Everything we know of the family suggests a fine and sober patrician type, and confirms the beautiful picture of it given us by Marcus Aurelius in his “Meditations.”
The one element of possible weakness in the ancestry of the Faustinas and of Commodus is in the mother of Annia Galeria Faustina. Annius Verus had married Rupilia Faustina. Her family is obscure, and, though one must hesitate to trace to her this strain of weakness and vice on such slender grounds, one is disposed to believe that she was married for her beauty, and brought into that strong family the tainted germ which ripened in more than one of her descendants. It may, however, very well be that the strength of the stock was decaying—Marcus Aurelius himself was delicate—and its later descendants succumbed to the evil influences about them. A genealogical table will show how the fate of Rome hung on this family for more than a generation:—
 
FAUSTINA THE ELDER
BUST IN THE LOUVRE
165
              Annius Verus (twice consul)
                 and Rupilia Faustina
                          |
     +--------------------+----------------------------+
     |                    |                            |
Annius Libo    Annius Verus (consul)       Annia Galeria Faustina
  (consul)  (marries Domitia Calvilla)    (marries Antoninus Pius)
                         |                             |
       +-----------------+                       ------+-------
       |                                               |
Annia Cornificia   Marcus Aurelius               Annia Faustina
               (marries Annia Faustina)                |
                        |                              |
                        +--------------+---------------+
                                       |
                                    Commodus
Faustina had inherited her mother’s beauty, and was reared in a very conscientious home. It was the home in which Marcus Aurelius learned his first lessons in virtue, as his father died early, and all the chroniclers speak of it with great respect. We know very little about her, however, until she becomes Empress, and, as she died three years afterwards, we have not much concern with her. She is believed to have married somewhat late for a Roman girl, in or about her sixteenth year (120). Titus Aurelius Antoninus was then in his thirty-fourth year, a tall, graceful, and handsome man, of quiet and captivating manners, good cultivation, fine character, and a face of great dignity and sweetness. He was of good family, and was advancing rapidly in the public service. Shortly after the marriage he became consul, and he remained in Rome in one or other civic capacity until 128 or 129. He was very wealthy and greatly esteemed.
One of the chroniclers has charged her with light behaviour, and, as this is the only period in which we can plausibly entertain it, we may regard the charge for a moment. The book of Dio’s history for the reign of Antoninus Pius is lost, so that neither he nor his commentators throw any light on Faustina. Aurelius Victor and Eutropius say nothing of her character. The one hostile witness is “Julius Capitolinus,” the anonymous writer of the fourth century who provides the sketch of the166 life of Antoninus Pius in the “Historia Augusta.” He says (c. 3): “Many things are said of his wife’s excessive freedom and looseness of life, which he had painfully to overlook.” Serviez enlarges on this with his usual license. But as he makes Faustina the sister of ?lius Verus, and says that she neglected the education of her children, which is also untrue, we may ignore him.
It is now more customary to reject this charge against the elder Faustina, on the ground that the single witness is a light anecdotist of the fourth century. Moreover, when the tutor Fronto wrote a glowing panegyric of Faustina after her death, Antoninus Pius answered that it was even more true than eloquent, and swore that he “would rather live with her at Gyaros [a barren island, to which criminals were deported] than in a palace without her.” Nevertheless, we must leave the question open. Antoninus Pius was not a puritan. When the Emperor Julian introduces him before the gods, in his charming contest of the Emperors for the highest praise (“The C?sars”), he calls him “a moderate man, not indeed in love-affairs, but in the administration of the Empire.” Faustina was probably charming enough to merit his sincere lament. But as Capitolinus mingles truth and untruth with a very light hand, and the relevant book of Dio is wanting, we cannot decide the issue.
In the year 128 or 129 Antoninus was appointed Proconsul of Asia, and he and Faustina went to Smyrna. The elder of their two daughters died about the same time. An amusing incident in connexion with their arrival is narrated by Philostratus in his “Lives of the Sophists.” The Proconsul at once occupied the finest house in Smyrna, the home of the teacher Polemo, who was absent. Polemo was the idol of Smyrna, and was proportionately conceited. He drew youths from all parts to his school, and had won much favour from Hadrian for the city. He travelled in a superb Phrygian chariot, and his mules had silver trappings; and when some grumblers had hinted that he had diverted to his own pocket some of Hadrian’s subsidies, he167 had pompously written to the Emperor: “Polemo has given me an account of money given by you to him.” This conceited sophist reached his house in the middle of the night, and found the Proconsul and Faustina abed there. He promptly turned them out, and roundly abused them. Years afterwards, when the genial Antoninus was Emperor, and Polemo came to the palace, he said laughingly to an attendant: “See that Polemo has a chamber in the palace, and that no one turns him out.” Later an actor came from Smyrna to complain that Polemo, the autocrat, had turned him out of the theatre. “At what hour?” asked the Emperor gravely. It was at midday. “That is nothing; he turned me out at midnight,” said the Emperor.
The amiability and solid work of Antoninus must have won Polemo, as Hadrian is reported to have said in his will that it was he who advised the adoption of Antoninus. But the East generally so much appreciated the Proconsul that, when he returned to Rome, he stood very high in the favour of Hadrian. We again lose sight of Faustina until he becomes Emperor, and then there are one or two brief references to her before she dies in 141. At his accession he refused the greater part of the money (aurum coronarium) which was due to him, by custom, from the provinces, and drew very liberally on his private fortune for paying the great expenses entailed. Faustina naturally demurred. “Foolish woman,” he is said to have answered, “when we obtained the Empire we lost what we previously possessed.” The only other reference is contained in a letter of the younger Faustina to Marcus Aurelius: “In the defection of Celsus my mother exhorted Antoninus to be concerned first about his own family.” We know nothing of this revolt. Apparently Antoninus, like Marcus Aurelius, was disposed to be dangerously lenient. The final reference to Faustina is that she died in the third year of his reign (141), and was deeply mourned by him. Nominated “Augusta” in life, she was deified at death, and Antoninus built in her honour the beautiful temple of which traces are still seen in Rome. He also instituted in her honour a168 fresh charity for orphans, the “Puell? Faustinian?,” and ordered that gold and silver statues of her should be borne in the processions.
This sincere tribute of the Emperor tells at least of a great affection and esteem, but the literary references to Faustina are too meagre and disputable to bring her clearly before us. The busts that are believed to represent her do not, unfortunately, assist us much. In the Capitoline Museum at Rome is one that may depict her in her twenties or earlier. It has a round and tranquil face, not devoid of strength, but more directly suggesting an even and sober character. Another bust, in the Vatican Museum, shows the same features at a later age; but a third, in the same Museum, has not so pleasant an expression. The oval face is hard and querulous. The loose lips droop at the ends; the large eyes, prominent cheekbones, and strong chin have an expression that is very far from tender or spiritual. The bust that is attributed to her in the British Museum is between the two. The elder Faustina remains in obscurity, and we pass to her more notorious daughter and successor.
For twenty years after the death of Faustina there was no Empress of Rome. Antoninus, who was in his fifty-fifth year, refused to marry again, and took a concubine—an arrangement recognized in Roman law and practice, in which marriage had several degrees. It was an era of general peace and great prosperity. The group of Stoic lawyers that the Emperor gathered about him humanely moderated the rigour of the laws, medical service was supplied to the poor in the towns, the school-system was further endowed, and works of mercy continued to multiply. The armies usually rested—and, it is to be feared, rusted—the treasury was again filled, the Empire was happy and prosperous. In the year 161 the cheerful, benevolent Antoninus passed away, and the two men whom Hadrian had compelled him to adopt came to their joint reign. With them are introduced two new Empresses of no little interest.
169 The two boys whom Hadrian had lightly designated as the heirs to the throne after Antoninus were Annius Verus, or Verissimus, as Hadrian genially called him on account of his precocious gravity and piety, and Lucius Verus, son of Hadrian’s dissolute companion. Annius was a great favourite of the Emperor. He received office in his sixth year, and donned the philosopher’s cloak in his twelfth. He was the pet of his grandfather’s palace, but so serious in his Stoicism that his mother had difficulty in persuading him to sleep in a bed instead of on the floor. In his sixteenth year Hadrian gave him the manly toga, and betrothed him to the daughter of Lucius Verus. In his eighteenth year he was “terrified” to hear that he had been chosen for the succession, and must go to live in the palace. Then Hadrian died, and Antoninus adopted him.
Gibbon has greatly praised Antoninus for preferring the welfare of the State to the interest of his family in this adoption. It is true that, as we know from coins, Antoninus and Faustina had had two sons, as well as two daughters, but they must have died before the year 138. Dio expressly says that Hadrian ordered Antoninus to adopt the two youths “because he had no male children at the time.” His boys, like his elder daughter, must have died before that time; and indeed we have no further mention of them. But if this particular grace cannot be allowed to Antoninus, we must admire his careful control of their education and his discriminating guidance of their fortunes. The best masters in Rome instructed each of them, and it was only the deep-rooted difference in their constitutions—the moral strength of the one and weakness of the other—that led them to diverge so widely. The vigilant eye of the Emperor observed the dissimilarity of promise. He left Lucius Verus out of the way of promotion, and destined Marcus for the great advancement.
No sooner was Antoninus on the throne than he approached Marcus, through Faustina, with a proposal of marriage with his daughter. She had been promised by Hadrian to young Lucius Verus, and Marcus was to170 marry Ceionia. The Emperor proposed to cancel these contracts, and marry the younger Faustina to the young Stoic. It would be extremely interesting if we could penetrate the feelings of the young princess at the time. The later busts of her suggest a pretty, round-faced girl, probably in her early teens, with small eyes and a lively temperament. The grim and austere young scholar would not attract her, and one can imagine her feelings when he asked time to consider whether he would accept the hand of the Emperor’s charming daughter. Marcus philosophically weighed the proposal in his mind until the time he asked had expired, and then he consented to betrothal. He was appointed C?sar and consul designate, and given the palace of Tiberius for a dwelling. A bust that we have of him, in the Capitol Mus............