THE SPEECHES OF MARCUS
too short for such an occasion. In any case it must have been delivered in Latin.
The last remark applies also to the dying speech of Marcus as given by Herodian, another contemporary authority, but one who was fond of composing suitable speeches for his characters when what they had actually said was not recoverable. The shortness of this speech may be said to be in its favour, as the Emperor was in the last stages of his illness. The opening words are perhaps too plaintive and personal, but the remainder is natural and appropriate. The last few words of such a ruler and friend must have impressed his hearers and may well have been taken down at the time. Still it is strange that there is no hint of this speech in the description of the last scene given by Capitolinus.[1]
The third speech, from the "Life of Avidius Cassius" by Gallicanus, is much less likely to be genuine. That particular piece of work is full of suspected material, and Marius Maximus, from whom this speech is probably taken, though a contemporary, is not a trustworthy authority, while the diction and absurd rhetoric of the missive, for it was a speech sent to the Senate and not delivered in it, are decidedly against its genuineness.
- ↑ Who here uses as his authority "The last great historian of Rome"; see Das Kaiserhaus der Antonine und der Letzte Historiker Roms, Otto Th. Schulz, p. 128, who thinks the anonymous writer may have been Lollius Urbicus. See Lampr. Vit. Diadum. ix. 2.
