oming evil; we should expect
to find in them a dark compensation for the five bright years at
the tail of the old pralaya.--Well, cycles have sometimes a
pretty way of fulfilling expectations. For see what happened:--

Marcus Aurelius came to the throne in 161: a known man, not
untried; one, certalnly, to keep the Golden Age in being,--if
kept in being it might be. Greatly capable in action, saintly in
life and ideals: what could Rome ask better? Or what had she to
fear?--The king is the representative man: it must have been a
wonderful Rome, we may note in passing, that was ruled by and
went with and loved well those two saintly philosophic Antonines
enthroned.--Nothing, then, could seem more hopeful. Under the
circumstances it was rather a mean trick on the part of Father
Tiber (to whom the Romans pray), that before a year was out he
must needs be breeding trouble for his votaries: overflowing,
the ingrate, and sweeping away large parts of his city; wasting
fields and slaughtering men (to quote Macaulay again); drowning
cattle wholesale, and causing shortage of supplies. And he does
but give the hint to the other gods, it seems; who are not slow
to follow suit. Earthquakes are the next thing; then fires;
then comes in Beelzebub with a plague of insects. There is no
end to it. The legions in Britain,--after all this long
peace and good order,--grow frisky: mind them of ancient and
profitable times when you might catch big fish in troubled
waters;--and try to induce their general to revolt. Then
Parthian Vologaeses sees his chance; declares war, annihilates a
Roman army, and overruns Syria. Verus, co-emperor by a certain
too generous unwisdom that remains a kind of admirable fly in the
ointment of the character of Aurelius, shows his mettle against
the Parthians,--taking his command as a chance for having a
luxurious fling beyond the reach and supervision of his severe
colleague;--and things would go ill indeed in the East but for
Avidius Cassius, Verus' second in command. This Cassius returns
victorious in 165, and brings in his wake disaster worse than any
Parthians:--after battle, murder, and sudden death come plague,
pestilence, and famine. In 166 the first of these latter three
broke out, devastated Rome, Italy, the empire in general; famine
followed;--it was thought the end of all things was at hand. It
was the first stroke of the cataclysm that sent Rome down. . . .
Then came Quadi and Marcom