Lucilla was then married by Marcus to an elderly and worthy Senator, Claudius Pompeianus. She and her mother strongly resented the marriage, and demanded a younger and more attractive husband; but the Emperor was unusually firm. Unhappily, his firmness was misplaced, for the austerity or age of Pompeianus effected what the profligacy of Verus had failed to do, and Lucilla fell into vicious ways. We may conjecture that this did not happen until after her father’s death. Marcus had returned to the war against the Marcomanni, and, after three years of great exertion and sacrifice, was within sight of victory when death carried him off. He had not married again, in spite of Fabia’s efforts to win him. In the fashion approved even by philosophers, he took a concubine to his bed, and virtuously refused to put a stepmother over his children. At his death a new Empress comes upon the scene, and, as Lucilla still retained her Imperial dignities and privileges, we shall have to consider them in an unamiable conjunction. The last and most fatal blunder of Marcus Aurelius was to leave the Empire in the very uncertain hands of his son Commodus. War had drained the treasury; plague, famine, and sloth had thinned and weakened the population; vice had again been enthroned for all to admire and imitate; the lusty barbarians were thundering at its gates. A new Vespasian or Trajan was needed to restore its vigour, if such a restoration were possible. Yet Marcus persuaded himself that the pretty youth, with bright eyes and curly golden hair, who played at soldiering in his suite in Germany, could bear this enormous burden. Herodian, whose history of the Emperors now opens for us, tells us that Marcus was really concerned on the matter as he lay in his last illness. There were disquieting stories about the character of Commodus. It was said that in his twelfth year he had, at Centumcellæ (Civita Vecchia), ordered the bath-attendant to be thrown into the furnace because the water was not hot enough. On another occasion Marcus had driven away certain corrupting attendants, but had recalled them at the petulant tears of his son. They were with him in Pannonia. We may at least assume that even the fond eye of a father must have discerned the weakness of character which, in the course of a year or two, would let Commodus sink to indescribable depths. Marcus, however, trustful to the end in the sublime truths of his philosophy, was content to summon Commodus to his tent, make a pretty speech to him in the presence of his counsellors, and hand over to him the reins of government.