MARCUS AURELIUS
vowed, when the war[1] was at its hottest, that I would be initiated, and I hope you will be my sponsor on the occasion."
Such was Marcus's plea for himself, at once so kindly and so manly.
Marcus to Euxenianus Publio
The Emperor Antoninus Augustus to Euxenianus Publio, greeting:
Having had experience of your sagacity in your works themselves, and especially in those which you carried out by order of our authority in respect to Smyrna in alleviating the calamity that befell the Smyrniotes owing to the earthquake[2] there, I have been pleased, as was natural, and praise you for your diligence in carrying out these duties. For I have been apprized of everything exactly as if I had been present. For everything has been clearly recounted to me by the report sent from you, and by him who presented it, and by Caecilius the procurator. But with respect to the present matter, it has come to the knowledge of our power that a certain Abercius,[3] bishop of Hieropolis, is living in your jurisdiction, a
- ↑ With Cassius, or more likely perhaps the Marcomannic war He may be referring to the so-called "miraculous victory" in 174.
- ↑ The great earthquake, when Marcus practically rebuilt the city, was probably in 178 A.D. See Aristides, Μονωδία ἐπὶ Σμύρνη and Παλινωδία ἐπι Σ.
- ↑ The Acta of Abercius (Migne's Patrol. Graec. cxv. p. 1211) state that the bishop reached Rome while Marcus was away fighting the barbarians. He was taken to the Praefectus Cornelianus and to Faustina, and cured Lucilla, who was then sixteen (which would be in 164 A.D.), by casting out a devil from her. As a reward he asked for a bath to be made for the hot-springs at Hieropolis, and that 3,000 bushels of corn should be given yearly to that his native city. The epitaph of the bishop has been recovered, and states that he visited Rome and saw βασιλῆα[ν] καὶ βασίλισσαν. He is said to have cured Publio's mother of blindness.
