Marcus Aurelius and his Legacy

Millions of visitors to Rome’s Capitoline Museums admire the great bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 CE), practising Stoic and the last ‘Good Emperor’ before Rome commenced its prolonged decline. One ancient historian compared the succession from Marcus to his son Commodus as a descent from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust. The statue’s fortuitous survival occurred only because of a longstanding belief that it represented Constantine, the first Christian Emp