On occasion, in your absence, I have criticized you in quite severe terms in front of a small circle of my most intimate friends. There was a time when I would do so, for instance, when you entered public gatherings with a more gloomy expression than was fitting, or pored over a book at the theatre or during a banquet (I am speaking of a time when I myself did not yet keep away from theatres and banquets). On such occasions, then, I would call you an insensitive man who failed to act as circumstances demanded, or sometimes even, in an impulse of anger, a disagreeable person.6
Fronto came around to Marcus’s way of thinking in the end. He gradually realized that there was more to life than socializing among the Roman patrician class, whom they both came to view as lacking any genuine warmth or friendliness. Marcus also faced criticism from the old guard for promoting men such as his future son-in-law Pompeianus based on merit rather than nobility of birth. He picked his friends carefully, based on the character traits he most admired rather than what seemed congenial to those of his social class. His friends’ company wasn’t always fun—sometimes they spoke plainly and criticized him—but he embraced them because they shared his values and helped to improve him as a person. He clearly preferred the company of his family and most trusted friends over socializing with the Roman elite. He admits in The Meditations that he craves the simpler but idyllic family life at his peaceful villas in the Italian countryside. Although this was undoubtedly a healthier and more modest way to spend his leisure time compared with Lucius’s riotous banqueting, it was nevertheless a yearning Marcus would soon have to set aside, when the Marcomannic Wars required him to leave Rome for the northern frontier.
Though Marcus shrewdly put away his papers at the amphitheater, he still insisted on working. While he discussed political decisions with his advisors, onlookers assumed he was chatting with them about the games like everyone else. He even found ways to glean life lessons from the games. In wild beast fights he observed gladiators, half eaten and covered with wounds, begging to be patched up so they could throw themselves back into the fight. This reminded Marcus of the way we continue to give in to unhealthy desires despite knowing the harm they do us. Perhaps it also reminded him of his brother, who had abandoned philosophy and embraced a life of debauchery that was clearly destroying him.
Marcus kept Lucius somewhat in check as long as they were together. However, shortly after the two brothers were acclaimed as co-emperors, the Parthian king Vologases IV invaded the Roman client-state of Armenia. The governor of nearby Cappadocia (in modern-day Turkey) rushed to engage the enemy, but his legion was surrounded and annihilated. He was forced to take his own life. This was a humiliating defeat for the Romans, and the conflict rapidly escalated into a major military crisis.
Marcus’s presence was still required at Rome, so he sent Lucius to Syria to take command of the troops massed in the East. However, a journey that should have taken a few weeks ended up taking nine months. The histories allege that Lucius wasted his time hunting and partying along the way. Marcus accompanied him as far as Capua, in southern Italy, before he had to turn back to Rome. As soon as his older brother was gone, Lucius “gorged himself in everyone’s villa” until he became so ill that Marcus had to rush to attend to him at nearby Canusium. Pleasures, as we’ve seen, can blind us to their consequences if we’re not careful. Lucius’s overindulgence would increasingly lead him to neglect both his own welfare and that of the empire.
The Historia Augusta deals harshly with the Emperor Lucius, complaining that when he finally reached Syria, and throughout the course of the Parthian War, away from Marcus’s supervision, the weaker and more degenerate features of his character prevailed.
For while a legate [a Roman general] was being slain, while legions were being slaughtered, while Syria meditated revolt, and the East was being devastated, [Lucius] Verus was hunting in Apulia, travelling about through Athens and Corinth accompanied by orchestras and singers, and dallying through all the cities of Asia that bordered on the sea, and those cities of Pamphylia and Cilicia that were particularly notorious for their pleasure-resorts.
When Lucius eventually reached Antioch, the capital of Syria, far from Marcus’s gaze, he gave himself over entirely to riotous living. He also shaved off his beard to humor his mistress, Panthea. This confirmed that he was turning his back on philosophy once and for all in order to pursue a more self-indulgent lifestyle. The philosopher’s beard had become a surprisingly politicized symbol after years of persecution under previous regimes; for some, at least, shaving it off implied abandoning one’s most cherished beliefs and values. A few generations earlier, presumably speaking of Emperor Domitian’s persecution of philosophers, Epictetus had defiantly exclaimed that if the authorities wanted to cut off his beard, they’d have to cut off his head first.
Marcus had already sent the Roman general Avidius Cassius, a notoriously strict disciplinarian, to take command of the troops in Syria, dragging the dissolute eastern legionaries out of the brothels and drinking houses and knocking the flowers from their hair. No sooner had Lucius arrived to take command, though, than his personal entourage took the place of soldiers in the fleshpots and resorts of the East. The gossip was that Lucius indulged in numerous adulterous love affairs with women and young men in Syria, even though he was married to Marcus’s young daughter, Lucilla. It was there that he picked up the habit of playing dice until dawn. He wandered through taverns and brothels late at night disguised as a commoner, it’s said, getting drunk, ending up in fights, and coming home black and blue. When he was out drinking he liked to smash the cups in the cookshops by throwing coins at them, which presumably started a few brawls. He’d get so inebriated after feasting through the night that he’d typically fall asleep at the banqueting table and have to be carried to his bedroom by the servants.
Indeed, Lucius was notorious for being a heavy drinker. Based on the available information, it seems possible he suffered from alcoholism, accompanied by symptoms of anxiety and depression. During the Parthian War, for example, he wrote to Fronto complaining in desperation of “the anxieties that have rendered me very miserable day and night, and almost made me think that everything was ruined.” He’s probably referring to problems negotiating with the hostile Parthians, but he was clearly overwhelmed by emotional distress. Binge drinking, casual sex, gambling, and partying became his way of coping, albeit badly, with the pressures of his role. The Stoics believed that entertainment, sex, food, and even alcohol have their place in life—they’re neither good nor bad in themselves. However, when pursued excessively, they can become unhealthy. So the wise man sets reasonable limits on his desires, and he exercises the virtue of moderation: “Nothing in excess.” When doing what feels pleasurable becomes more important than doing what’s actually good for us or our loved ones, though, that’s a recipe for disaster. There’s a world of difference between healthy pleasures and unhealthy ones. Lucius had definitely crossed that line.
After the Romans secured victory over the Parthians following six years of war, Lucius finally returned from Syria to celebrate his triumph with Marcus. However, once back at Rome, he paid even less regard to his older brother, and his behavior continued to degenerate. People scoffed that he must have been taking actors prisoner rather than Parthian soldiers because he proudly brought back so many from the East. Nevertheless, Lucius shamelessly invited Fronto, a great rhetorician, to write a history of the war giving Lucius credit for all Rome’s achievements. The truth was that Lucius had left Avidius Cassius and his other generals in command and stayed as far away from the action as possible, touring the region like a celebrity with his entourage of hangers-on. As we’ll see, this negligence was no small matter. Avidius Cassius was able to step into his shoes and gradually became almost as powerful as an emperor himself throughout the eastern provinces.