This was in the year A.D. 167. The Romans were just then busy burying their plague-stricken, but the call to arms would brook no delay; and to arms they went. War, the plague, and the Emperor’s charities had exhausted the treasury; hence the difficulty in raising supplies and a force. It was then that he sold by auction the treasures of the palace and his villas and thus secured the required funds. To swell the numbers of his troops he compelled the gladiators to serve. This was the most unpopular act of his reign as it was one of the most creditable. “He wants to steal our amusements from us,” cried one; “Aye, to compel us to be philosophers,” cried another of the mob, who cared for nothing but the _panem et circenses_, the public dole of food and the public games. The sporting set, the loungers, the fast young men about town, the brutalised rabble, almost created a revolt against the act. They cared little for the Empire, if they could but get their meed of blood; the gladiators were better spent in glutting their evil eyes than in checking the onrush of those Wandering Nations, who were one day to sit in those amphitheatres and exult over fallen Rome, having changed the history of Europe and the world. The two Emperors led the troops in all the glory of warlike array through the streets of Rome to the Northern gates. Aurelius, as he rode in all the Imperial adornment, yet with sad, wistful look and countenance sickled o’er with the pale cast of thought, contrasted ominously with the splendour of the pageant of which he was the centre. He seemed to be far away from it all--far away, yes, in the depths of his own soul. On one side of him rode Lucius Verus, resplendent and gay, the hero of levees and banquets; on the other, Faustina, now as ever outshining all in the great functions of state, her beauty making her the darling of the mob. Throughout the war she abode with Marcus faithfully and was called by the army the _Mater castrorum_, the mother of the camp; and the Emperor thanked the gods for the solace her fidelity brought to him. The army reached Venice in A.D. 168. Such had been the energy of their preparations that a panic seized the barbarian invaders. They begged for peace; but Marcus had determined that there should be no peace or a lasting one; the barbarians must be taught a lesson; and he set about subjugating the tribes one by one. In this he was for a time successful, thanks mainly to his able generals Pompeianus and Pertinax. The Quadi were compelled to restore the 60,000 Roman prisoners they had taken; and in A.D. 169 the Emperors felt justified in returning to Rome, leaving the completion of the war to their generals. On the way Verus died and this left Marcus sole ruler. At Rome he paid the highest honours, civil and religious, to his colleague’s questionable memory.