THE SPEECHES OF MARCUS
let them be unmolested, let them be free to come and go as they please, and let them bear witness among all peoples everywhere to my humanity and yours. Nor is this any great clemency, O Conscript Fathers, that the children and wives of the proscribed should be pardoned: but what I ask of you is that you should shield all accomplices of Cassius among the Senators or Knights from death, proscription, apprehension, degradation, hatred, and in fact from all injury,[1] and grant this glory to my reign, that in a rebellion against the throne death should overtake only those who have fallen in the revolt."
The Last Words of Marcus.
Calling together his friends and as many of his relations as were at hand, and setting his child before them, when all had come together, he raised himself gently on his pallet-bed, and began to speak as follows:
"That you should be grieved at seeing me in this state is not surprising, for it is natural to mankind to pity[2] the misfortunes of their kinsfolk, and the calamities which fall under our own eyes call forth greater compassion. But I think that something even more will be forthcoming from you to me; for the consciousness of my feelings towards you has led me to hope for a recompense of goodwill from you. But now the time is well-timed both for me to learn that I have not lavished love and esteem upon you in vain for all these years, and for you by showing your gratitude to prove that you are not unmindful of the benefits you have received. You see here my son, whose bringing-up has been in your own hands, just embarking upon the age of manhood[3] and, like a ship amid storm and breakers, in need of those who shall guide the helm, lest in his want of experience[4] of the right course
- ↑ This frigid rhetoric does not savour of Marcus.
- ↑ Pity was scouted by the sterner Stoics; but see Medit. ii. 13.
- ↑ Commodus would be nineteen, but μειράκιον means a boy of fourteen or fifteen. Would ἀποβαίνοντα, unless it clashes with the metaphor that follows, meet the difficulty?
- ↑ Dio (72. 1. 1) says Commodus was by nature ἄkakos, but from too great ἁπλότης (cp. 71. 22. 3) and cowardice easily influenced by his entourage, and was thus by ignorance led into bad ways. See also Julian, Conviv. 429. 14.
