as we say, of a bodily
gymnastic, by which, although it told pleasantly in the clear blue
humours of the eye, the flesh had scarcely been an equal gainer with
the spirit. It was hardly the expression of "the healthy mind in the
healthy body," but rather of a sacrifice of the body to the soul, its
needs and aspirations, that Marius seemed to divine in this assiduous
student of the Greek sages--a sacrifice, in truth, far beyond the
demands of their very saddest philosophy of life.

[192] Dignify thyself with modesty and simplicity for thine
ornaments!--had been ever a maxim with this dainty and high-bred Stoic,
who still thought manners a true part of morals, according to the old
sense of the term, and who regrets now and again that he cannot control
his thoughts equally well with his countenance. That outward composure
was deepened during the solemnities of this day by an air of pontifical
abstraction; which, though very far from being pride--nay, a sort of
humility rather--yet gave, to himself, an air of unapproachableness,
and to his whole proceeding, in which every minutest act was
considered, the character of a ritual. Certainly, there was no
haughtiness, social, moral, or even philosophic, in Aurelius, who had
realised, under more trying conditions perhaps than any one before,
that no element of humanity could be alien from him. Yet, as he walked
to-day, the centre of ten thousand observers, with eyes discreetly
fixed on the ground, veiling his head at times and muttering very
rapidly the words of the "supplications," there was something many
spectators may have noted as a thing new in their experience, for
Aurelius, unlike his predecessors, took all this with absolute
seriousness. The doctrine of the sanctity of kings, that, in the words
of Tacitus, Princes are as Gods--Principes instar deorum esse--seemed
to have taken a novel, because a literal, sense. For Aurelius, indeed,
the old legend of his descent from Numa, from [193] Numa who had talked
with the gods, meant much. Attached in very early years to the service
of the altars, like many another noble youth, he was "observed to
perform all his sacerdotal functions with a constancy and exactness
unusual at that age; was soon a master of the sacred music; and had all
the forms and ceremonies by heart." And now, as the emperor, who had
not only a vague divinity about his person, but was actually the chief
religious functionary of the state, recited from time