With Maximus he closes the list of his teachers. His minute observation of their characteristics, remembered through a troubled life, paralleled only by the minuteness of his self-analysis, testifies to his intense desire for virtue. So intense indeed was this desire that it became a moral disease which to some extent paralysed his power for action. But, despite its excess, we must pay homage to this thirst of the soul, this torture of the spirit, those “High instincts, before which our mortal nature Did tremble, like a guilty thing surprised.” Fully to slake that thirst, to alleviate that torture, Marcus should have shared the love-feasts of the Christians, the morning sacrifices, the homilies and the ceremonies of the Catacombs. But he knew not the sublime secrets, the treasure, hidden beneath the earth he daily trod. Hadrian died in A.D. 138, when Marcus was seventeen years of age. Antoninus Verus, better known as Antoninus Pius, succeeded as Emperor, betrothed Marcus to his beautiful daughter Faustina, and had them both to live with him during the rest of his life in the Imperial household. Henceforth Marcus and Antoninus were bound by the closest ties of friendship. Marcus revered Antoninus with an almost superstitious reverence. Antoninus’ word was law for him, and afterwards in the rule of the Empire he sought to avoid the least deviation from his predecessor’s rule of action. In this he was wise, if we are to judge by the picture he himself has left us of Antoninus. He says:--“In him I observed mildness of temper, constancy and contempt of honours; a love of labour and readiness to listen to the advice of others; strict justice; a knowledge of the time for vigorous action and for remissness. He considered himself no more than a citizen. His disposition was to keep his friends, and not to be soon tired of them, nor yet to be extravagant in his affection; to be contented, cheerful and provident; to shun flattery and display; to be watchful over the affairs of the Empire and to be economic in expenditure. In regard to the gods, he avoided superstition; as to philosophy, he was not a sophist or a pedant, but honoured true philosophers; not however reproaching pretended philosophers nor yet being their dupe. In society he was easy and agreeable and free from all petty jealousy. After his paroxysms of headaches he came immediately fresh and vigorous to his usual occupations. His secrets were not many but very few and very rare, and these only about public matters. He was a man who looked to what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man’s acts. That saying might be applied to him which is recorded of Socrates, that he was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things which many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without excess. To be strong both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.”