was only three months old, and the
grandfather had adopted the child as his heir, and brought Lucilla, the
widowed mother, and her baby to live in his house.

Years before, the Consul's wife had passed away, and Faustina, his
daughter, became the lady of the house. Lucilla and Faustina didn't get
along very well together--no house is big enough for two families, some
man has said. Lucilla was gentle, gracious, spiritual, modest and
refined; Faustina was beautiful and not without intellect, but she was
proud, domineering and fond of admiration. But be it said to the credit
of the good old Consul, he was able to suffuse the whole place with
love, and even if Faustina had a tantrum now and then, it did not last
long.

There were always visitors in the household--soldiers home on furloughs,
governors on vacations, lawyers who came to consult the wise and
judicial Verus.

One visitor of note was a man by the name of Aurelius Antoninus. He was
about forty years old as Marcus first remembered him--tall and straight,
with a full, dark beard, and short, curly hair touched with gray. He was
a quiet, self-contained man, and at first little Marcus was a bit afraid
of him. Aurelius Antoninus had been a soldier, but he showed such a
studious mind, and was so intent on doing the right thing that he was
made an under-secretary, then private secretary to the Emperor, and
finally he had been sent away to govern a rebellious province, and put
down mutiny by wise diplomacy instead of by force of arms.

Aurelius Antoninus was inclined towards the Stoics, although he didn't
talk much about it. He usually ate but two meals a day, worked with the
servants, and wrote this in his diary, "Men are made for each other:
even the inferior for the superior, and these for the sake of one
another."

This philosophy of the Stoics rather appealed to the widow Lucilla,
also, and she read Zeno with Aurelius Antoninus. Verus did not object to
it--he had been a soldier and knew the advantages of doing without
things and of being able to make the things you needed, and of living
simply and being plain and direct in all your acts and speech. But
Faustina laughed at it all--to her it was preposterous that one should
wear plain clothing and no jewelry when he could buy the costliest and
best; and why one should eschew wine and meat and live on brown bread
and fruit and cold water, when he could just as well have spiced and
costly dishes--all this was clear