Now, precisely three months and six days after Cassius was acclaimed emperor, as Marcus’s main army marches toward Syria, another messenger arrives with startling news: While walking through his camp, Cassius was attacked by a centurion called Antonius, who charged him on horseback and thrust a blade into his neck as he rode past. Cassius was badly wounded, but nearly escaped. However, a junior cavalry officer joined the ambush, and together these two officers hacked off their newly acclaimed emperor’s head and are on their way to deliver it to Marcus in a bag.
Cassius’s revolt came to this sudden end after his legions discovered that Marcus was alive and marching against them. Now, several days have passed, and Antonius and his companion have arrived with the grisly evidence of the usurper’s demise. Marcus turns them away, refusing to look at the severed head of a man who was once his friend and ally. He instructs them to bury it. Although his troops are euphoric, Marcus does not celebrate. By forgiving the rebel legions, he had inadvertently signed Cassius’s death warrant. Cassius’s men simply had no more reason to fight the superior army approaching them from the north. The only thing between them and their pardon was Cassius, who refused to stand down, and so his fate was sealed.
Marcus was recognized as sole emperor again throughout the empire by July 175 AD. Cassius had earned a reputation for being cruel, changeable, and untrustworthy—and in the end his own men gave him the same callous treatment that he had shown them over the years. History proved that his authoritarian approach ultimately backfired. By contrast, Marcus was known for his constancy and sincerity, and when his legions in Cappadocia repaid him in kind with their steadfast loyalty, his victory was secured. Marcus rewarded the Twelfth, known as the Thunderbolt Legion, with the title Certa Constans (“Surely Constant”) and the Fifteenth, Apollo’s Legion, with the title Pia Fidelis (“Faithful and Loyal”). Cassius, by contrast, had tried to frighten and coerce his own men into risking their lives for him. At the first sign of danger they were bound to turn against him.
After the civil war in Syria had ended, Marcus did not take severe measures against Cassius’s family or allies. He only had a handful of men involved in the plot executed, those who had committed additional crimes. As agreed, he did not punish the legionaries under Cassius’s command but sent them back to their usual stations. He also pardoned the cities that had sided with Cassius. Indeed, Marcus wrote a letter to the “Conscript Fathers” of the Senate, pleading with them to act with clemency toward those involved in Cassius’s rebellion. He asked that no senator be punished, that no man of noble birth be executed, that the exiled should be allowed to come home, and that goods be returned to those from whom they had been seized. Accomplices of Cassius were to be protected from any type of punishment or harm. “Would that I could recall the condemned also from the grave,” he said. The children of Cassius were to be pardoned, along with Cassius’s son-in-law and wife, because they had done no wrong. Marcus went even further and ordered that they were to live under his protection, free to travel as they pleased, with Cassius’s wealth divided fairly among them. He wished to be able to say that only those slain during the rebellion had died as a result of it: there were to be no witch hunts or acts of revenge afterward. Commodus now accompanied him to Syria and Egypt, and Marcus commended him to the legions as his official heir before they finally made their way back to Rome.
Marcus doubtless wanted to restore peace quickly in Rome so that he could return to the northern frontier, where there was still much work to be done, so he wisely showed mercy toward those senators who had supported Cassius. First, though, he found it necessary to tour the eastern provinces to restore order there. Indeed, his popularity in the east grew considerably as a result, and we’re even told that the people were inspired to adopt aspects of his Stoic philosophy.
The Empress Faustina died in spring 176 AD, within half a year of the revolt’s suppression. There were rumors that she committed suicide because of her association with Avidius Cassius. She was held in high regard by Marcus, however, who had her deified after her death. She remained an immensely popular figure, despite all the loose talk about her alleged conspiracies. Not long after Faustina’s death, Commodus was appointed consul, and then in 177 AD, co-emperor with Marcus. Shortly after Marcus’s death, ignoring his father’s orders for clemency, Commodus would have the descendants of Cassius hunted down and burned alive as traitors.
8. DEATH AND THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
Vindobona, March 17, 180 AD. The emperor beckons his guard to come close and whispers: Go to the rising sun, for I am already setting. He barely has enough strength to pronounce these words. Marcus glimpses fear in the young officer’s eyes. The guard hesitates for a moment before nodding awkwardly and returning to his post at the entrance to the imperial quarters. Marcus pulls the sheet above his head and rolls over uncomfortably, as if to go to sleep for the last time. He can feel death beckoning him on all sides. How easy it would be to slip into oblivion and be free from the pain and discomfort once and for all. The pestilence is devouring his frail old body from within. He hasn’t eaten for days, weakening himself by fasting. Now, as the sun goes down, everything is very quiet. His eyelids flutter, although the pain keeps him awake. The emperor slips in and out of consciousness. But he doesn’t die.
He thinks to himself, “Your eyes feel so heavy now—it’s time to let them close.” The sweet sensation of consciousness dissolving begins to creep over him …
I must have fallen asleep, or lost consciousness again. I can’t tell if my eyes are open or closed. Everything is dark. Soon it will be daybreak and the sparrows will sing their morning song. Spring has broken and the streams have thawed. Their waters flow into the mighty river passing by the camp outside.
The soldiers picture the spirit of the Danube as an ancient river god. He silently offers us all a lesson if only we pause to listen: all things change, and before long they are gone. You cannot step into the same river twice, Heraclitus once said, because new waters are constantly flowing through it. Nature herself is a rushing torrent, just like the Danube, sweeping along all things in her stream. No sooner has something come into existence than the great river of time washes it away again, only to carry something else into view. The long-forgotten past lies upstream from me now, and downstream waits the immeasurable darkness of the future, vanishing from sight.
I won’t be needing my medicines or physicians again. I’m relieved the fuss is over. The time has come to let the river wash me away too. Change is both life and death. We can try to stall the inevitable, but we never escape it. It’s a fool’s game,
With meats and drinks and magic spells
To turn aside the stream and hold death at bay.1
Looking back, it seems more obvious to me now than ever before that the lives of most men are tragedies of their own making. Men let themselves either get puffed up with pride or tormented by grievances. Everything they concern themselves with is fragile, trivial, and fleeting. We’re left with nowhere to stand firm. Amid the torrent of things rushing past, there’s nothing secure in which we can invest our hopes.
You may as well lose your heart to one of the little sparrows who nest by the riverbank—that’s what I used to say. As soon as it’s charmed you, it will flit away, vanishing from sight. I once set my heart on my own little sparrows. I called them my chicks in their nest: thirteen boys and girls, given to me by Faustina. Now only Commodus and four of the girls are left, wearing grave faces and weeping for me. The rest were taken before their time, long ago now. At first I grieved terribly, but the Stoics taught me how to both love my children and endure when Nature reclaimed them. When I was mourning my little twin boys, Apollonius patiently consoled me and helped me slowly regain my composure. It’s natural to mourn—even some animals grieve the loss of their young. But there are those who go beyond the natural bounds of grief and let themselves be swept away entirely by melancholy thoughts and passions. The wise man accepts his pain, endures it, but does not add to it.