This Emperor Had Clothes

History has been kind to Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome from 161-180 A.D. Born to a patrician family in 121 A.D., his father died when he was three or four, but his mother Domitia Lucilla, a woman of remarkable intellect, saw the high potential in her son and acquired the best tutors for him. Marcus' intellectual gifts became evident early—the Emperor Hadrian referred to him as Verissimus, or most truthful one. The mercurial Hadrian, who spent his last years in illness and paranoia, took on an extraordinary man, Antoninus Pius, almost his exact reverse in talent and temperament, to help rule the empire. Antoninus in turn adopted Marcus, which assured his own rise to the emperorship after the death of Antoninus in 161.