LIFE
which appeal at least to vulgar admiration. From the references in the Meditations to Lucius as well as from the correspondence of Fronto we can detect that Lucius at this date had a warm, if superficial, temper. In his defence we must also recognize, as Marcus did, that he was loyal to his older colleague. Marcus solved the problem by adopting a policy, familiar in later centuries, of instituting two Emperors. The experiment was not a striking success, but neither was it a complete failure. Lucius proved indolent, vain, and luxurious, but not wholly unworthy of his position. In the case of Commodus Marcus followed the same course. He made him Caesar, and designated him as successor, raising him at the time of the revolt of Avidius to be joint Emperor. He left him to the guidance of experienced men, but Commodus turned out to be unworthy of his office. The judgement of posterity is expressed by Ausonius:
'Hoc solo patriae, quod genuit, nocuit.'[1]
There is no good evidence that Commodus had, when his father died, betrayed an evil promise; he was young and foolish, spoilt like Nero by irresponsibility; even so the wisest of kings was the father of Rehoboam. The ill fame of Faustina is notorious, and nothing will now overcome what was so long believed about her. She has become a byword. Yet the evidence against her is late and suspect, and when it has been weighed, as by Boissier, Merivale, and others, the verdict has been at worst a not-proven. I should prefer to credit the happy picture in Fronto's letters, the saying of her father 'I had rather live with Faustina in Gyara than without her in Rome', and the express words of her truth-loving husband. The next best evidence is Julian. In his pasquinade, the Saturnia, where he does not spare his predecessors, all he says is that Marcus was wrong to
- ↑ 'Herein alone he harmed his country, that he had a son.
