In the previous article, we tackled Hadrian Caesar, the erratic contradictory character, in whose era a great strife broke out in Egypt, yet he managed to quell it, his son died during his stay at Egypt, and he was a violent persecutor of Christians. His successor was Antoninus Pius Caesar who made great efforts in managing the country, achieving progress of trade and industry and constructing great edifices. Afterwards, Marcus Aurelius Caesar was seated on the throne of Rome.
Marcus Aurelius Caesar (161 – 180 AD)
Ruled Rome after Antoninus Pius Caesar, he was called ‘the Philosopher Emperor’, he used to be ascetic since his youth. Historians recount that he had never slept except on a rough hard bed, and he used to do toilsome works. He was greatly interested in Literature and Philosophies and he worked in them, acquired a wide spread fame in the fields of knowledge, and was considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers. Marcus Aurelius is considered the last among the Emperors of Rome’s Golden Age, besides; he was a Stoic philosopher emperor.
Marcus ruled the country and managed its affairs well, he was committed to applying laws and working according to those laws in the country. He ruled with Lucius Verus, who was known for his bad traits.
During his era, the country was exposed to some disasters, like an epidemic’s breaking out, consuming a countless number of people, that there was nobody left to bury the dead! Also, the River of Rome flooded, causing the regions of Central Italy to drown. The country had passed then through a distressful state for a long period, and Christians – as mentioned by one of the historians – sent up prayers, supplications and fasts to God in order to pour rains, indeed, God responded to them and the epidemic and flood were lifted up. Surprisingly, a great earthquake that was about to destroy the country also happened in his era.
Al Ajam (The Non Arabs) raided on Rome’s kingdoms in the east; so, he sent his partner in power, Lucius, to expel them. He managed to expel and defeat them as he asked the aid of one of the brave and skilled Roman commanders. At that time, Marcus was defending the western properties of the Roman Empire, which were attacked by the Germanic tribes – they are peoples and tribes who settled in the areas adjacent to the Roman Empire, speaking in Germanic languages – He defeated and expelled them. But they returned again to raid on Rome after being united with other tribes, so the king confronted them with a large army to face the threats of enemies.
No sooner did the two armies confront each other, than the tribes besieged the king’s army, and cut off all supplies until he and his armies were about to die of thirst. Here, the history expresses what happened; while they were on this state of distress and nearly death, the rains fell and descended abundantly. God the Almighty aided them, so they drank, had their thirst quenched, and their misery gone. They attacked their enemies and achieved a great victory. Christians also were praying faithfully and with good intentions, so all of them thought that rains fell due to the supplications raised by the priests and bishops. The Caesar believed that the distress was alleviated due to the prayers of the Christians, considering what happened as a miracle of Christianity. After he had considered Christianity to be a sinful religion, he immediately wrote to the Roman Senate, recommending it to treat Christians fairly, and to disallow any offense or harm caused to Christians, he also regretted what he had done to them, and finally he allowed Christians to join his army. This Caesar had previously persecuted the Christians severely, tortured them in various ways and killed countless numbers of them, until this incident occurred which prevented harm to be caused to them for a long time. However, from a time to another, the rulers used to persecute Christians without the Caesar awareness of it.
The revolution broke out in Alexandria marked one of the most important incidents of Marcus Aurelius Caesar’s era. People revolted against the Roman Caesar led by one of the Egyptian priests, who assembled huge multitudes against the ruler and the Roman soldiers. The Egyptians managed to defeat the Roman forces until Alexandria was about to
