25. Sunt Lacrimae Rerum: 172-185
26. The Martyrs: 186-196
27. The Triumph of Marcus Aurelius: 197-207
28. Anima Naturaliter Christiana: 208-224



PART THE THIRD

CHAPTER XV: STOICISM AT COURT

[3] THE very finest flower of the same company--Aurelius with the
gilded fasces borne before him, a crowd of exquisites, the empress
Faustina herself, and all the elegant blue-stockings of the day, who
maintained, people said, their private "sophists" to whisper
philosophy into their ears winsomely as they performed the duties of
the toilet--was assembled again a few months later, in a different
place and for a very different purpose. The temple of Peace, a
"modernising" foundation of Hadrian, enlarged by a library and
lecture-rooms, had grown into an institution like something between a
college and a literary club; and here Cornelius Fronto was to
pronounce a discourse on the Nature of Morals. There were some,
indeed, who had desired the emperor Aurelius himself to declare his
whole mind on this matter. Rhetoric was become almost a function of
the state: philosophy was upon the throne; and had from time to time,
by [4] request, delivered an official utterance with well-nigh divine
authority. And it was as the delegate of this authority, under the
full sanction of the philosophic emperor--emperor and pontiff, that
the aged Fronto purposed to-day to expound some parts of the Stoic
doctrine, with the view of recommending morals to that refined but