[3] For Marcus' life and rule, the biographies of Hadrian, Antoninus, Marcus, and Lucius are largely reliable, but those of Aelius Verus and Avidius Cassius are not. Throughout North Africa, the Catholics were feuding—and sometimes losing—against the Donatists. Pontitianus noticed a copy of Paul’s epistles on Augustine’s desk, and began talking about his own Christianity. The Antonine Plague broke out in 165 or 166 and devastated the population of the Roman Empire, causing the deaths of five million people. The failing empire, still trying to hold things together, convened a debate in Carthage to decide this troublesome Donatist-Catholic dispute once and for all. It was no laughing matter, he indicated: the baptism had been real. His training as a Stoic, however, had made the choice clear to him that it was his duty. The emperor gave the keynote to his life in the last word that he uttered when the tribune of the night-watch came to ask the password – 'aequanimitas' (equanimity). Boniface had held the line against the barbarians in Europe. For St. Augustine, true happiness could only be found... Aurelius and Augustine. [188] Fronto would again remind his pupil of the tension between his role and his philosophic pretensions: 'Suppose, Caesar, that you can attain to the wisdom of Cleanthes and Zeno, yet, against your will, not the philosopher's woolen cape'. ?). He asked Fronto for 'some particularly eloquent reading matter, something of your own, or Cato, or Cicero, or Sallust or Gracchus – or some poet, for I need distraction, especially in this kind of way, by reading something that will uplift and diffuse my pressing anxieties. Augustine wrote to Boniface, chastising him for his actions. The widowed Monica followed him there. [21] However, as evidenced by the 3rd-century Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and the 6th-century Christian Topography by Cosmas Indicopleustes, Roman maritime trade into the Indian Ocean, particularly in the silk and spice trades, certainly did not cease but continued until the loss of Egypt to the Muslim Rashidun Caliphate. [268], Like many emperors, Marcus spent most of his time addressing matters of law such as petitions and hearing disputes,[269] but unlike many of his predecessors, he was already proficient in imperial administration when he assumed power. (His adoptive brother, nearly 10 years his junior, was brought into official prominence in due time.) He and Faustina, Marcus wrote, had been 'pretty occupied' with the girl's care. 1872.--IV. “ Anthony had apparently heard God speaking to him in this chance occurrence, so he gave up his possessions and started a monastery.