Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/351

 reminds one of Asser's tale of King Alfred, that when Marcus learned that he was to be thus adopted into the Aelian Aurelian family and to remove to the Tiberian palace on the Palatine, he left his mother's gardens on Mount Caelius with regret. Asked why he was sad, he discoursed upon 'the ills which a royal station brings in its train'.

To bear the golden yoke of sov'reignty Would you enforce me to a world of cares?

In 145 he was married to Faustina, and, after the birth of a daughter (circa June  146), he received the Tribunician Power and the Proconsular Imperium (10 December  146), thus becoming, in all except title, joint Emperor. From now on, until his adoptive father's death, he was constantly at his side, learning the lessons of government. In the Meditations he has left two character studies of his admired pattern and predecessor.

Marcus was not yet 17 at his adoption, and Antoninus Pius wisely determined to leave him, at first, time to develop his character and powers by study. Thus he was able to devote seven years partly to social and state duties, but principally to determined application to the theory and practice of public speaking, and to the elements of Roman law. In this period his two masters were M. Cornelius Fronto, leader of the Roman bar, and L. Volusius Maecianus, a pupil himself of P. Salvius Julianus, the celebrated legal minister of Hadrian and codifier of the Praetorian edict. The fortunate discovery by Cardinal Mai of large fragments of Fronto's correspondence has given us a lively picture of this stage of Marcus' life. They present a full and happy life, a temper, serious indeed but relieved by delicate tact and humour, a character still immature and self-distrustful and overflowing with affection to his tutor, his mother 259