MARCUS AURELIUS
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Marcus Aurelius succeeded Antoninus Pius (86–161 CE; r. 138–161 CE) as emperor: Antoninus Pius had adopted Marcus so that he would be next in line for the throne. This was a common practice in Roman aristocracy—adoption functioned as a way to transfer power—and the succession plan had actually been set up a generation earlier, by the emperor Hadrian (76–138 CE; r. 117–138 CE). Hadrian noted Marcus Aurelius's sense of duty, studiousness, and frugality when the future emperor was only a teenager, and required that Pius adopt Marcus as his heir, as well as Lucius Ceionius Commodus (130–169 CE; r. 161–169 CE). After Pius died, Marcus—together with his brother-by-adoption, whose name was changed to Lucius Verus—co-ruled the Roman Empire for about seven years, until Verus’s death. Although they shared the title, there was little question that Marcus held greater authority, and he continued to rule for an additional eleven years. Marcus briefly co-ruled again at the end of his life, this time with his biological son Commodus (161–192 CE; r. 176–192 CE), who inherited the throne when his father died. Historical convention reflects the legacy of this era, the tail-end of the Pax Romana, by naming the period in honor of its emperors: the reign of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus is known as the “Antonine Period.”
Marcus Aurelius's war against the Germanic tribes occupied the second half of his reign: the “Germans” had crossed the Danube River and invaded the Roman Empire. Co-rulers Marcus and Verus were planning their attack on Bohemia and readying their armies in Aquileia, in northern Italy, for what came to be known as the Marcomannic Wars. It was common for emperors to travel with doctors in their entourage, and Galen had worried that he might receive a summons, especially since he knew that his well-connected friends had been singing his praises in high places: “Not a few of the emperors’ friends mentioned my name.” In fact, Galen fled from Rome to Pergamon for a time in 166 CE, noting that he departed “like a runaway slave” in part to avoid conscription into Marcus's retinue. Being called up by the emperor was an honor—the highest possible professional accomplishment, conferring enormous prestige—but when the letter finally came in 168 CE, Galen had mixed feelings. He was hesitant to go since he feared a long battle would take him away from his life in Rome and bring him to the uninhabitable frontier for battle with a dreaded enemy. Today we do not know definitively if he was invited to serve as personal physician to the emperors or as a field doctor to treat injured soldiers; either way, Galen was unhappy but obliged to comply with the summons:
“By necessity, I went.”
Galen encountered the emperors personally for the first time in Aquileia, and he notes that his reputation had preceded him. What he found upon his arrival was not what he had expected, however, and Galen was met by a situation far worse than he had feared:
“When I reached Aquileia, the plague descended as never before; so that the emperors immediately fled to Rome with a few soldiers.”
Lucius Verus died suddenly (accounts vary: perhaps he succumbed to the plague, a stroke, or a heart attack), and the attack on the Germanic tribes was postponed. Marcus Aurelius returned to Rome for Verus’s state funeral. Galen returned to Rome shortly after Marcus and was back in the capital that same year. The plague and Verus’s death did not deter the emperor’s military ambitions: Marcus returned to the front in 169 CE, and, once again, Galen was invited to join. Galen was determined not to leave Rome, so he told the emperor that Asclepius had come to him in a dream and forbidden him from going. Marcus acquiesced—“since he was a good and charitable man”—and instead put the physician in charge of his son Commodus’s medical care. Marcus also came to rely on Galen to oversee the preparation of his daily medicine, which was sent to the emperor from Rome.
Marcus Aurelius’s campaign against the Germanic tribes lasted longer than he had anticipated, and when he finally returned to Rome, he continued the doctor-patient relationship with Galen. Returning to the capital in 176 CE, Galen became one of the personal physicians to the emperor. Marcus’s health was delicate—he suffered from abdominal and chest pains—and the daily medicine he took, his “theriac,” was a special compound designed both to alleviate his symptoms and to prevent poisoning. Galen boasts that when the emperor became ill, he alone successfully cured his digestive complaints:
“The cure that I performed on the emperor himself was really remarkable.”
Since a knowledge of medicine was also part of a well-rounded education for a philosophically inclined man like Marcus Aurelius, it is also plausible that he felt an affinity to Galen’s intellectual credentials; certainly, Galen relates with pride that the emperor praised him as