verse without being
discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the
frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the ocean,
inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners
and unknown language, or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase
the emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive.
"Wherever you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, "remember that
you are equally within the power of the conqueror."

Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.--Part I.

The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus. Election Of
Pertinax--His Attempts To Reform The State--His Assassination
By The Praetorian Guards.

The mildness of Marcus, which the rigid discipline of the Stoics was
unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most amiable, and the
only defective part of his character. His excellent understanding was
often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his heart. Artful men,
who study the passions of princes, and conceal their own, approached his
person in the disguise of philosophic sanctity, and acquired riches and
honors by affecting to despise them. His excessive indulgence to his
brother, * his wife, and his son, exceeded the bounds of private virtue,
and became a public injury, by the example and consequences of their
vices.

Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been as much
celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The grave simplicity
of the philosopher was ill calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to
fix that unbounded passion for variety, which often discovered personal
merit in the meanest of mankind. The Cupid of the ancients was, in
general, a very sensual deity; and the amours of an empress, as they
exact on her side the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much
sentimental delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina; which,
according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace on the
injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to posts of honor
and profit, and during a connection of thirty years, invariably gave her
proofs of the most tender confidence, and of a respect which ended not
with her life. In his Meditations, he thanks the gods, who had bestowed
on him a wife so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity
of manners. The obsequious