AUR authority without the gates. He observed a prudent distinction between his personal friends and those who were candidates for official employments. The former he enriched from his own purse, but never advanced them to posts of trust and emolument, merely on account of his predilections for them, although his recommendations were always received by Pius. To the latter, for three and twenty years of active employment in the most important functions of the administration, he paid the cheerful obedience of a son; and to his natural parents he displayed the same respect, and the same deference to their advice and authority, as when he was a member of the Annian family. Nor did his new engagements divert him from his philosophical studies, or the severe simplicity of his private life. After his adoption to the empire he was the scholar of Apollonius in ethics, and of Volusius Macianus in jurisprudence. To Cornelius Fronto and Junius Rusticus, his preceptors in Latin eloquence and philosophy, he erected statues, and advanced Julius Proculus to the consulship. To the latter he gave precedence in public over the prætorian prefects; and enabled him, from his private purse, to meet the expenditure of his office. The long intercourse of Pius and his adopted son, was never interrupted or embittered by the jealousy of power. Valerius Omulus, who united the opposite qualities of a courtier and a cynic, asked the elder Antoninus "for what he thought Calvilla, the mother of Marcus, was supplicating the statue of Apollo so earnestly yonder in the viridarium.” "Probably," he insinuated, "your speedy decease and his succession.' conduct and disposition of Marcus renBut the dered pointless the malice of the sophist. From the death of Antoninus Pius, A.D. 161 (see ANTONINUS PIUS), the biography of Marcus naturally falls under three heads-1. The military; 2. The civil affairs of the empire; and 3. The philosophical character and works of the emperor. Immediately on his accession, Marcus confirmed the adoption of Lucius Verus, admitted him as equal colleague in the empire, and bestowed upon him the hand of his daughter Lucilla. The reign of the two Cæsars, and subsequently that of Marcus alone, was marked by an unwonted succession of foreign wars, of epidemic disease, and of natural calamities and convulsion. The birth of Commodus, in the first year of Marcus, was 365 AUR followed by a serious inundation of the Tiber, by the Parthian war, an irruption Rhine, and of the Pictish tribes into the of the Catti beyond the left bank of the Roman province of Britain. Of the Parthian war little is known; and as Marcus deputed it to his colleague, and Avidius Cassius was the real author of the sucadd that it terminated in a triumph, which cesses obtained, it will be sufficient to on the return of L. Verus was solemnized by both emperors. The war on the Danube next required the presence of the emperors: they travelled together to Aquileia, and joined the legions on the other side of the Alps. Marcus, however, was soon left alone in command; since Verus, impatient of the rigour of the climate, the discipline of the camp, and the presence of his colleague, recrossed the mountains, and died on his journey to Rome. A pestilence, which the soldiers of Verus had probably brought with them from the east, thinned the ranks of the legions in Pannonia, Noricum, Dacia, and Mæsia. partial successes on the side of Rome, The campaign, after some But the faith of barbarians yields to the was ended by a treaty with the Quadi. first temptation; and the Quadi aided the Jazyges, a Sarmatian people, and the great confederation of the Marcomanni (Mark-mannen, March-men) in fresh inroads upon the empire from the Black Sea to the Pyrenees. Marcus was obliged to sanction the dangerous precedent of admitting barbarians into the legions, and repeopling with them the desolate provinces on the frontier. Before setting forth for his second campaign, he put up palace, all that had been amassed by the to sale the costly furniture of the imperial during the long and peaceful reign of the prodigality of Domitian and Verus, or elder Antoninus, who had received costly gifts from every part of the world. The auction lasted two months: if it were not indeed rather a politic method of obtaining voluntary loans by the deposit of pledges. For when the treasury was replenished at the close of the war in Africa and on the Danube, the buyers were allowed 'to return the articles purchased, and to receive back the purchase-money. Nor, it is added, did the emperor take it ill, if any one preferred retaining the pledge itself. This singular transaction led to a novel sumptuary law; for, in order that the purchasers might make use of their bargains, it was necessary to publish a rescript, by which senatorian families were permitted to have liveries of white and gold, like those of the imperial household, and to be served at their own tables from gold and silver plate. The second war with the nations on the Danube had much the same event as the former. The Quadi were chastized for their faithlessness; and some tribes, whom Marcus had settled within the Roman lines, but who had subsequently joined the invaders, were extirpated. The revolt of Avidius Cassius, in Syria, obliged Marcus again to trust to the barbarians. Cassius was, however, murdered by his own partizans, as soon as the intelligence of the emperor's death was known to be false; and the insurrection did not even require the presence of Marcus. (See AVIDIUS CASSIUS.) Marcus, some of whose correspondence with Faustina on the occasion is extant, regretted that the violent death of Cassius had deprived him of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend. He wrote to the senate, who urged the execution of the partizans of Cassius, in these words:" I entreat and beseech you to preserve my reign unstained by senatorian blood. None of your order must perish, either by your desire or mine." (See Mai. Fragm. Vatic. ii. p. 224.) After the death of Cassius, Marcus proceeded to Syria. On this journey he passed through Judæa to Egypt, and thence through Asia Minor to Athens. He assisted and encouraged in every province, without betraying the irritable vanity of Adrian, the professors of learning, philosophy, and the liberal arts. Public teachers, with fixed salaries, were appointed to the philosophical chairs of Athens; and the religious pride of his Greek subjects was gratified by the initiation of Marcus at Eleusis. He was recalled, however, to the Danube. The Quadi and Marcomanni violated the recent treaty; and leagued themselves with the Hermunduric and the Sarmatic tribes. In 179 A.D. the confederates were defeated, without, however, being subdued. But eight winter campaigns among the woods and morasses of the North-Danubian provinces, were at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution. History has, perhaps, been scarcely just to the military fame of Marcus. Dion is imperfect, Capitolinus vague and obscure, in his accounts of these wars. But to judge from the lasting impression they made on both the Parthians and the Germans, his victories on the Euphrates and the Danube were neither few nor unimportant. During the Parthian war, A. D. 162, Marcus superintended the civil administration at Rome. In the life-time of Verus, the temperate and active policy of the elder of the imperial colleagues was perpetually crossed by the careless and dissolute conduct of the younger. But Marcus, from his fifteenth year, when he was temporary prefect of the city during the absence of the regular magistrates at the Latin holidays, had served a strict apprenticeship to office. He improved, and extended to the provinces, the civic registration ;-prohibited any inquiries to be made into the title of estates after the last proprietor had been dead five years;added to the number of days on which business might be transacted ;-altered the law of guardians, and appointed a prætor, especially for wards-Prætor Tutelaris;-abridged the expenditure of the public games, particularly of the gladiatorial exhibitions; and the donations to favourite fencers and actors;added to or modified the laws of "dowry," of per centage on "legacies," of "banking," and "public sales;"--and improved the public roads and the streets of Rome. He emulated the policy of Augustus in veiling the imperial power behind the dignity of the senate; in doing honour to that body on all occasions, by frequent attendance at its meetings; by multiplying offices of police and jurisdiction, in which senators might be employed; and in supplying from his private purse the deficient fortunes of individual members. pestilence which afflicted the empire in this reign, made it necessary to impose severe laws of quarantine and sepulture; and the excesses and superstitious temper of the age, to restrain private expense, and the practice of the arts of astrology and divination. Lastly, he selected with the utmost care the provincial prefects; and introduced some salutary reforms in the general administration of the empire. It has been said in reproach of Marcus, that he was wont to immerse himself in philosophic contemplations, when every thing went wrong around him. But the meagre details we have of his life, show him rather practically active than philosophically absorbed; and the evils of his reign are more justly attributed to the various and unprecedented calamities that visited all parts of the Roman world in the latter half of the second century A. D. Faustina died at a village at the foot of Mount Taurus, A. D. 175. Without giving credence altogether to the rumours which Capitolinus indifferently The adopted, we may believe she was as ill-dited of Romulus, was believed by all of suited to Marcus as a wife, as Lucius Marcus, that he was received into heaven Verus as a colleague. Her letters, and when his appointed work on earth was the few facts recorded of her, indicate accomplished." On his way to Italy, from both energy and intelligence, and her in- his third expedition against the Germans, fluence over Marcus is unquestioned. A. D. 180, Marcus was seized at Vienna In his Meditations, I. 17, he thanks the with a mortal disease. He expired with gods, who had bestowed on him a wife so the same equanimity and constancy that faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonder- he had preserved through his life. In ful simplicity of manners. Perhaps he ecclesiastical history, the reign of Marcus was partly ignorant of her excesses, partly is noted as a season of persecution to the passive under them, and contented him- Christians. Not that the philosophic self with the remark, that "if he put her emperor, like Decius or Diocletian, issued away, he must restore her portion;" i. e. against the new communities furious and the empire he inherited from the elder sanguinary edicts, but he enforced the Antoninus. Before he departed on his existing laws, and subscribed to the sensecond campaign against the Marco- tences of his provincial prefects, whom manni, Marcus read lectures of philosophy their own zeal, or the reclamations of the to the Roman people during three days: multitude, incited against the Christians. he had already done the same in the Under such circumstances took place the cities of Greece and Asia. Since the remarkable martyrdom of Polycarp. Earaudience were certain to applaud, there nest, sincere, and self-denying, and deeply was perhaps more ostentation in this dis- impressed with reverence for the names play, than was quite consistent with the of Zeno and Epictetus, of Plato and modesty of a sage, or the dignity of an Speusippus, and for the truths they anemperor. His philosophical commenta- nounced, Marcus could not regard with ries, Twv ets avrov-addressed to him- complacency doctrines which reached him self, are meditations or soliloquies, written by report only, and which he was accusfor his own use. They were composed tomed to associate with the creed and in the tumult of a camp, and amid the practice of the most obscure and obstinate distractions of business. They do not portion of the Roman world. The mocontain a regular system of philosophy; tives of his hostility to Christianity were nor are they merely detached moral equally distinct from those which actuated aphorisms and reflections. They are Nero or Diocletian. He punished offenders rather the resonance of his feelings, the against the public peace as his prefects journal of his studies, and the rule of represented them, whose doctrines, if not life which, under the guidance of later timely restrained, would subvert the doStoicism, Marcus conceived most likely mestic life and the public security of the to establish in his mind the habit of vir- empire. The Apologies of Justin and tuous fortitude. Their proper title, their Athenagoras, the fragments of Melito in authenticity, their style and contents, and Eusebius, H. E. iv. c. 26, and the Epistle their general relation to the principles of of the Lyonnese Churches to the Brethren Stoicism, are fully treated in Nicholas in Asia, with the Acts of the Martyrs, in Bachs' Scriptio Philologica de M. Aurelio Ruinart's Acta Martyrum sincera et Antonino, and in L. Ripault's Marc Au- selecta, p. 325, contain the principal cirrèle, ou Histoire Philosophique de l'Em- cumstances of the Antonine persecution. pereur Marc-Antonine, in which an attempt is made to illustrate the Meditations by the light of the public and domestic history of their author. (Paris, 4 vols, 8vo, 1820.) The Epistles of Marcus Antoninus and Fronto, discovered by Mai, and, more recently, edited by Niebuhr, confirm the former impressions of the moral and intellectual character of Antoninus, such as history represents it. The observation of Eutropius is correct, that it is easier to admre than to commend him. Plato's idea of a philosophic monarch seemed realized: and the panegyric of Aurelius Victor is hardly excessive, that "what was scarcely cre He AURELIUS VICTOR, (Sextus,) lived from about the latter years of Constantine I., to about the middle of the reign of Theodosius I. The time of his birth and his death are, however, uncertain. was of humble origin; but that his native country was Africa, is rather a lax conjecture of Vossius, (De Hist. Lat. c. viii. p. 195,) founded upon the mention of a "Victor Afer," in the preface to the Origo Gentis Romanæ. The principal notes of time in the works of Victor are, De Cæsaribus, xv., where he speaks of the destruction of Nicomedia by an earthquake, in the consulship of Neratius Cerealis, 358 a. D. the twenty-first year of the reign of Constantius. In 28 De Cæsar. under the 1100th year, u. c., he mentions the omission of the secular games, which the emperor Philip, the Arabian, had celebrated with such magnificence in the year 1000, as an instance of the increasing disregard for Rome, after the seat of the government was transferred to the Bosphorus. (See the references in the viith chapter of the Decline and Fall, p. 326, and Gibbon's eloquent description); also, compare ch. xii. p. 99, for the games of Carinus. Aurelius speaks of Constantine as his contemporary, in ch. 40, De Cæsar. In 360 (I.) Aurelius was appointed prefect of the Second Pannonia, by Constantius, then at Sirmium, and was honoured by him with a statue of brass (see Ammianus, xxi. c. 18); and seventeen years afterward, Theodosius made him prefect of Rome, (377 A.D.) The Fasti Consulares make mention of Victor as the colleague of Valentinian, in the consulship, 370 A. D.; but there is no other reason for identifying him with Aurelius. Victor was probably a pagan, (see De Cæsar. xiv. Adrian.) The works of Aurelius Victor are the following: 1. De Viris Illustribus Urbis Romæ. Borghesi and Niebuhr believe that this work was compiled from the inscriptions at the base of the statues in the forum of Augustus. And if their conjecture be correct, it may be supposed to contain the prevailing opinions which the Romans, in the Augustan age, entertained of their earlier and republican history. This treatise is a series of short biographies of illustrious Romans, from the kingly age to that of the Dictator Cæsar. It contains also the lives of some distinguished opponents of Rome, e. g. Pyrrhus, Antiochus, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, Viriarathus, and others. It is attributed in the manuscripts, and by the editors of Aurelius, sometimes to Cornelius Nepos, sometimes to Suetonius, and sometimes to the younger Pliny. It is, perhaps, an abstract from the longer work, Libri Virorum Illustrium of Cornelius Nepos. The style, however, of the compendium of Aurelius shows it to belong to a declining age. 2. De Cæsaribus, a continuation of the De Viris Illustribus, from the close of Livy's historical books, to the tenth consulate of Constantius, i. e. A. D. 312. The style of this compendium is somewhat more compressed; the authorities are better, and the characters generally drawn with impartiality. 3. De Vita et Moribus Im peratorum Romanorum, excerpta ex Libris Sexti Aurelii Victoris, from the accession of Augustus to the death of Theodosius the Great. Its compiler is denominated Victor Junior, or Victorinus, and was contemporary with Orosius. It is not entirely an abridgement, but contains some insertions and some alterations. 4. Origo Gentis Romanæ. According to its title, an epitome of Roman history, from the mythical period of Janus and Saturn, to the tenth consulship, digested from the earliest annals and historians. Orellius and Niebuhr consider it as a forgery of the fifteenth century, and probably the work of Pomponius Lætus. In any case, the compiler of the Origo cannot be placed earlier than the fifth, or the beginning of the sixth century, A. D. It is chiefly made up of antiquarian passages from the Eneid; and if it were the work of an ancient grammarian, was probably intended as an introduction to the compendia of the genuine Victor. The Aurelius Victor noticed by Capitolinus in his life of Macrinus, 4, is a different person. AURELIUS, (Cornelius,) a friend of the celebrated Erasmus, and a monk in the Augustine convent of Stein, near Schoonhoven, was author of a great many productions, both in verse and prose. Among the latter is his work, De Situ et Laudibus Bataviæ, said to have been occasioned by a dispute between him and Neomagus, or Geldenhauer, whether Gelderland or Holland was the country of the ancient Batavi. He ranked so high as a poet among his contemporaries, that the emperor Maximilian sent him a laurel crown. An edition of his Latin poems was printed at Paris, 1497; and his discourse on the Saviour's Passion was printed first at Antwerp in 1562; and several times afterwards. According to Allard, he was the instructor of Erasmus; but this is somewhat doubtful. For a time he corresponded with the latter; but their epistolary intercourse appears to have suddenly dropped altogether, probably on account of the great freedom with which Erasmus animadverted on the religious orders. (Van Kampen.) AURENHAMMER, (Josepha,) one of the most celebrated pupils of Mozart, in Vienna. After having distinguished herself as a concert player on the piano, she was employed in passing through the press most of Mozart's Sonates and Ariettes. She published subsequently many works of her own, (in all 63,) which, as well as her play, especially the extempore phantasias, were distinguished by much delicate feeling and a vivid imagination. She held also an appointment at the imperial opera. Many of her works passed through several editions; as the VI. Variaz. per il Clav. upon the air, Nel cuor piu non mi sento; X. Variat. comp. et dedié à Mad. de Braun, &c. This was her last work. She died a few years ago. AUREOLUS, (Marcus Acilius,) of an obscure family in Dacia, and originally a shepherd. He was one of the officers whose personal merit recommended them to the emperor Valerian, by whom they were promoted to the most important commands in the empire. Aureolus was governor of Illyria under Gallienus. Until the vices and effeminacy of that emperor had lost all restraint, Aureolus served him faithfully and effectively against Ingenuus, in A.D. 261; in the revolt of the Macriani, in 262; and against Posthumus, in 267. Aureolus was proclaimed emperor in the same year, by the legions he commanded on the Upper Danube. He then passed the Alps, and occupied Milan. But his approach aroused Gallienus from his pleasures; and Pons Aureoli, now Pontiruolo, on the Adda, preserves the memory of the defeat of the rebel, and of the victory of Gallienus. Aureolus was besieged in Milan, and reduced to extremity. He found means, by scattering libels in the camp of the besiegers, to excite a conspiracy among the principal officers of Gallienus; and that emperor was slain in a nocturnal tumult by his own staff, headed by his chamberlain and prætorian-prefect. The accession of Claudius was, however, fatal to Aureolus. The siege was pressed with increased vigour; his attempts at negotiation were rejected; and Aureolus was obliged to yield the city and himself to the discretion of the conqueror. Claudius was at first inclined to leniency; but the army demanded his execution. There are, however, some slight differences in the historians of Aureolus. He is classed by the Augustan historian, Trebellius Pollio, among the "thirty tyrants;" but apparently, like many of the military emperors of that age, was a man of considerable merit and abilities. AURIA, (Joseph,) a Bavarian mathematician of the sixteenth century. He translated into Latin the well-known treatise of Hero Alexandrinus, Spiritualium Liber, the original manuscript of which is in the library of Trinity college, Cambridge, (MS. Gale, O. 4, 9.) He also VOL. II. 369 edited the treatise of Autolycus, On the Sphere, and that of Theodosius, De Habitationibus; both of which were published at Rome in the year 1587. AURIA, (Vincent,) a poet and historian, was born at Palermo, in 1625. He was chancellor of the kingdom of Sicily, and died in 1710. He was the author of a great many works, many of which relate to the history and antiquities of Sicily. Most of them are enumerated in the Biographie Universelle, Suppl. AURIFABER, (Johann,) a divine of the German reformed church, in its commencement, was born, as far as can be discovered, in the countship of Mannsfeld, about the year 1519, though both place and date are uncertain. His family name was Goldschmid, which he translated into Latin, according to the custom then prevailing among men of learning. In 1537 he entered the university of Wittenberg, under the auspices of Count Albert of Mannsfeld, where he attended the lectures of Luther, Melancthon, Jonas, Bugenhagen, and other distinguished reformers; was recalled in 1540, to take the place of tutor to the young count; and after four years' discharge of this office, was appointed, by his patron's influence, an army chaplain. In the following year he returned to Wittenberg, where he attached himself to Luther; accompanied him on his last journey to Eisleben, in 1546; and was with him at his death there. He shared the imprisonment of the elector John Frederic for half a year; was appointed court chaplain at Weimar in 1551; and there assisted in preparing the edition of Luther's works printing at Jena. He also subscribed the petition of the Lutheran theologians for a free synod, which was afterwards printed. He was dismissed from his pastoral office at Weimar, for what reason is not known, in 1562; and employed his leisure in editing those writings of Luther which had been omitted in the editions of Wittenberg and Jena. During this labour he was allowed a free maintenance by the counts of Mannsfeld, till, in 1566, he received a call as pastor to the church at Erfurt. Here, however, he was involved in long disputes with his clerical brethren, four of whom went so far as to read from their pulpits-borrowing the language of our Saviour to St. Peter--a declaration that they regarded their adversary as a "heathen man and a publican." This was followed by the deposition of all four by the municipal council, and Aurifaber enjoyed a freedom BB |