Plato had said that the world would never enjoy happiness until a philosopher should become king or until a king should become a philosopher. With the accession of Marcus the rule of the philosopher-king was an accomplished fact; according, to Gibbon, “the happiness of the subject was the one object of government,” and all the good effects anticipated by Plato were brought about. “If a man were called on,” says he, “to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus” (thus including the reigns of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius). But later historians have reversed this verdict on the Golden Age. They have shown that the reign of Marcus Aurelius was one of singular disasters to the State. And indeed Marcus himself had no such faith in the magical power of philosophy on the throne; he did not believe in the possibility of realising the Ideal State. “Do not,” he says, “expect Plato’s Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter. For who can change men’s principles? and without a change of principles what else is there than the slavery of men who groan while they pretend to obey? Simple and modest is the work of philosophy. Draw me not aside to insolence and pride.” But if Marcus despaired of establishing the reign of Philosophy as the Queen of Men, he, at any rate, secured the rule of the Philosophers. Already under Antoninus they had been in high honour; but under Marcus they filled all the great offices of State. Sophists and rhetoricians were elevated to the senate, and became consuls and proconsuls merely because they preached renunciation and had been Marcus’ tutors. He placed their images amongst his household gods and their statues in the forum and the senate-house. They were rulers in the provinces, judges in the law-courts, leaders in the senate. And on the whole they acquitted themselves well; though amongst their number there were not a few impostors, long beards, asceticism and rough cloaks became the fashion and profitable. “His beard is worth ten thousand sesterces to him,” was the remark passed on one of them; “come, we shall have to pay goats a salary next!” Marcus distinguished between “true philosophers” and “pretended philosophers,” and learnt from Antoninus to esteem the former and to show indulgence to the latter, yet “without permitting himself to be their dupe.”