his Psalms, he yet rendered great military services to the Empire. He
put down a dangerous revolt under Avidius Cassius in Asia, and did not
punish the rebellious provinces. Not one person suffered death in
consequence of this rebellion. Even the papers of Cassius, who aimed to
be emperor, were burned, that a revelation of enemies might not be
made,--a signal instance of magnanimity. Cassius, it seems, was
assassinated by his own officers, which assassination Marcus Aurelius
regretted, because it deprived him of granting a free pardon to a very
able but dangerous man.

But the most signal service he rendered the Empire was a successful
resistance to the barbarians of Germany, who had formed a general union
for the invasion of the Roman world. They threatened the security of the
Empire, as the Teutons did in the time of Marius, and the Gauls and
Germans in the time of Julius Caesar. It took him twenty years to subdue
these fierce warriors. He made successive campaigns against them, as
Charlemagne did against the Saxons. It cost him the best years of his
life to conquer them, which he did under difficulties as great as Julius
surmounted in Gaul. He was the savior and deliverer of his country, as
much as Marius or Scipio or Julius. The public dangers were from the
West and not the East. Yet he succeeded in erecting a barrier against
barbaric inundations, so that for nearly two hundred years the Romans
were not seriously molested. There still stands in "the Eternal City"
the column which commemorates his victories,--not so beautiful as that
of Trajan, which furnished the model for Napoleon's column in the Place
Vendôme, but still greatly admired. Were he not better known for his
writings, he would be famous as one of the great military emperors,
like Vespasian, Diocletian, and Constantine. Perhaps he did not add to
the art of war; that was perfected by Julius Caesar. It was with the
mechanism of former generals that he withstood most dangerous enemies,