shrined in the page of history, or whose
features are preserved to us in the repositories of art, one alone seems
still to haunt the Eternal City in the place and the posture most
familiar to him in life. In the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius,
which crowns the platform of the Campidoglio, Imperial Rome lives
again.... In this figure we behold an emperor, of all the line the
noblest and the dearest, such as he actually appeared; we realize in one
august exemplar the character and image of the rulers of the world. We
stand here face to face with a representative of the Scipios and Caesars,
the heroes of Tacitus and Livy. Our other Romans are effigies of the
closet and the museum; this alone is a man of the streets, the forum,
and the capitol. Such special prominence is well reserved, amid the
wreck of ages, for him whom historians combine to honor as the worthiest
of the Roman people."

Mr. Long, in his biographical introduction, examines at length the
evidence for Marcus's alleged persecution of the Christians. Lardner,
and other writers in the Christian ecclesiastical interest, assuming the
fact, denounce it as a blot on the Emperor's fame. The translator
devotes more space to the consideration of this matter than, perhaps, in
the judgment of the historical critic at this day, it will seem to
deserve. That Christians, in the time of M. Antoninus, in Asia Minor and
in Gaul, suffered torture and death on account of their faith, admits of
no reasonable doubt. That Marcus authorized these persecutions, in any
sense implying the responsibility of an original decision, does not
appear. The imperial power, it must be remembered, was not absolute, but
constitutionally defined. The Augusti, for the most part, were but the
executors of existing laws. The punishment of Christians, who refused to
sacrifice, and persisted in contravening the religion of the State, was
one of those laws. In some places, especially at Lyons and Vienne, the
Christians were the victims of popular riots; but where they suffered by
legal authority, in the name of the imperial government, it was under
the well-known law of Trajan, a law which had been sixty years in
operation when Marcus came upon the throne. The only blame that can be
imputed to him in this relation (if blame it be) is that of failing to
discern and acknowledge the divine authority of the new religion which
was silently undermining the old Roman world. But no one who puts
himself in