And the very
hands, which dressed his altars and crowned his Praetorian pavilion, might
not improbably in that same hour put an edge upon the sabre which was to
avenge the injuries of the too indulgent and long-suffering Antoninus.
Meantime, to give a color of patriotism to his treason, Cassius alleged
public motives; in a letter, which he wrote after assuming the purple, he
says: "Wretched empire, miserable state, which endures these hungry blood-
suckers battening on her vitals!--A worthy man, doubtless, is Marcus; who,
in his eagerness to be reputed clement, suffers those to live whose
conduct he himself abhors. Where is that L. Cassius, whose name I vainly
inherit? Where is that Marcus,--not Aurelius, mark you, but Cato
Censorius? Where the good old discipline of ancestral times, long since
indeed disused, but now not so much as looked after in our aspirations?
Marcus Antoninus is a scholar; he enacts the philosopher; and he tries
conclusions upon the four elements, and upon the nature of the soul; and
he discourses learnedly upon the _Honestum_; and concerning the _Summum
Bonum_ he is unanswerable.
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