One reason Marcus had appointed a co-emperor was that Lucius arguably had a claim on the throne: as we’ve seen, Lucius’s natural father died before he could succeed Hadrian. So it was wise of Marcus to persuade the Senate that he should share power with his brother in order to avoid the rise of opposing factions. The Senate feared nothing more than civil war tearing the empire apart, and this measure helped ensure political stability. The histories also imply that Marcus’s poor health influenced the decision. As Lucius was younger by nine years and in much better physical condition, he was primed to outlive Marcus and become his successor. Joint rule meant, of course, that if one emperor died suddenly the other would remain in power, reducing the risk of conflict over the succession.
Moreover, the historian Cassius Dio described Lucius as a younger and more vigorous man “better suited for military enterprises.” As far as we’re aware, Lucius never saw any military service as a young man, but at first he was perhaps more popular with the legions than Marcus. His father had at least served briefly as governor and military commander of Pannonia. As soon as Marcus and Lucius were acclaimed as co-emperors, Marcus sent Lucius to address the legions on his behalf and effectively began treating him as his representative with the military. Marcus and his advisors obviously had the impression that Lucius could be a general in the making. He turned out to be completely useless in this role because he lacked the sense of duty and self-discipline necessary for military life, preferring instead to spend his time drinking and entertaining his friends.
Indeed, Lucius was known for his love of extravagant parties, in marked contrast to his brother. The party that caused Marcus so much concern cost roughly the equivalent of an entire legion’s annual pay. The main expense seems to have been the extravagant gifts the Emperor Lucius showered on his guests. They first received exquisite carving knives and platters and live animals of the same type as they were eating during each course, a menagerie of birds and four-legged creatures. Then they were given fine goblets made from semiprecious stones and Alexandrine crystal. Next, silver, gold, and jeweled cups, garlands entwined with gold ribbons and out-of-season flowers, and golden vases containing rare ointments were handed out. The guests were entertained by private gladiatorial bouts and they drank and played dice until dawn. Finally, carriages with mules dressed in silver trappings carried them home; the carriages were theirs to keep, along with the handsome young slave boys who had been serving them. You can’t buy good friends, though, and the extravagance attracted a retinue of greedy and dissolute hangers-on who encouraged the worst aspects of Lucius’s character.
The Historia Augusta paints Lucius in a very negative light overall, as a vain and self-indulgent buffoon. The picture painted of Lucius contrasts dramatically with that of Marcus as a bona fide Stoic. Even if the stories exaggerate Lucius’s vices, there’s probably at least a grain of truth in them. For instance, despite ruling as Marcus’s co-emperor for nearly a decade, Lucius is virtually relegated to a footnote in The Meditations. Marcus says only that he’s grateful for having had a brother “who by his character was able to stimulate me to cultivate my own nature, and yet at the same time heartened me by his respect and affection,” perhaps damning Lucius with faint praise.2 Marcus speaks with artful vagueness here but perhaps meant that he became more determined to strengthen his own character after observing his brother’s vices spiraling out of control. However, Marcus was relieved that Lucius remained loyal to him, showing “respect and affection” rather than dividing the empire by siding with those who opposed his rule. We can tell that this was a very real danger from the civil war instigated against Marcus six years after Lucius’s death by his most celebrated general, Avidius Cassius.
In their youth, Marcus and Lucius both shared a love of hunting, wrestling, and other active pursuits, and both trained in Stoic philosophy. However, whereas Marcus increasingly dedicated himself to the study of rhetoric and philosophy and diligently worked his way up through ascending roles in public office, Lucius seems to have done very little except enjoy a life of leisure. While the younger brother was at the chariot races, gladiatorial games, or banquets with his friends, Marcus was poring over books, gaining crucial knowledge of Roman law and the bureaucracy of government. You could say Lucius chose pleasure before work; Marcus, work before pleasure.
My interpretation is that Lucius organized his whole life around the pursuit of empty pleasures as a form of emotional avoidance. Psychologists now know that people often engage in habits they consider pleasurable—from social media to crack cocaine—as a way of distracting themselves from or suppressing unpleasant feelings. In Lucius’s case, alcohol and other diversions perhaps offered him a way to escape worry about his responsibilities as emperor. As we’ll see, there’s nothing wrong with pleasure unless we begin craving it so much that we neglect our responsibilities in life or it replaces healthy and fulfilling activities with ones that are not.
Chasing empty, transient pleasures can never lead to true happiness in the long run. However, pleasure can be tricky—it can lure us in by posing as something it’s not. What we’re all really seeking in life is the sense of authentic happiness or fulfillment the Stoics called eudaimonia. Lucius, though, was looking for it in entirely the wrong places: cheering on the carnage of the arena, heaping lavish gifts on dubious friends, and drinking himself into oblivion. Of course, the banqueting habits of a decadent Roman emperor might seem an extreme example of someone allowing their hedonistic urges free rein. However, the basic psychology of desire isn’t much different today. People still confuse pleasure with happiness and often find it difficult to imagine another perspective on life. By contrast, the Stoics taught Marcus that we all seek a deeper and more lasting sense of fulfillment. They taught him that this could only be obtained by realizing our inner potential and living in accord with our core values, not being led astray by superficial feelings. Marcus’s and Lucius’s lives diverged in this regard until they were heading in quite opposite directions.
There’s something strangely familiar about this tale: the opposing paths our two young Caesars found themselves on as co-emperors could have been lifted from a moral fable. Indeed, while attending the lectures of Apollonius and other Stoics, Marcus must surely have thought of his brother as he listened attentively to their many exhortations to embrace philosophy as a way of life. One of the most famous of these was known as “The Choice of Hercules.” This ancient allegory about choosing our path in life plays a special role in the history of Stoicism. The story goes that by chance, shortly after his shipwreck, Zeno had picked up and read the second book of Xenophon’s Memorabilia. It portrays Socrates arguing that the virtue of self-control makes men noble and good, whereas pursuing a life of pleasure does not. Socrates begins by quoting a well-known verse from Hesiod:
Wickedness can be had in abundance easily: smooth is the road and very nigh she dwells. But in front of virtue the gods immortal have put sweat: long and steep is the path to her and rough at first; but when you reach the top, then at length the road is easy, hard though it was.
Socrates then goes on to recount “The Choice of Hercules,” which he had learned from Prodicus of Ceos, one of the most highly regarded Greek Sophists.
One day, as a young man, Hercules was walking along an unfamiliar path when he came upon a fork in the road, at which he sat down and began to contemplate his future. Unsure which path to take, he found himself suddenly confronted by two mysterious goddesses. The first appeared as a beautiful and alluring woman dressed in fine clothing. She was called Kakia, although she (falsely) claimed that her friends called her Eudaimonia, meaning happiness and fulfillment. She barged in front of her companion and pleaded very insistently with Hercules to follow her path. It led, she promised, to by far the easiest and most pleasant way of life, a shortcut to true happiness. She told him that he could live like a king, avoiding hardship and enjoying luxury beyond most men’s wildest dreams, all delivered to him through the labor of others.