The Emperor went through a ceremony at this time which must have been no less revolting to him than it is to us. This was the ancient ceremony of the casting of the dart, a ceremony almost as old as Rome itself. The Emperor went in procession to the temple of Bellona, surrounded by a mob of fanatics, who cut into their living flesh with knives and whips and then lapped the streaming blood--to honour and placate their Goddess of War! Arrived at the Temple he hurled the dart towards the North--where his enemies were already pressing his armies hard. When he had done all that he considered necessary to appease the gods or to soothe the superstitious fears of his subjects, Marcus at length set out for the scene of war in A.D. 178. Of this war very little is known. The dream of Augustus and many of the other Emperors, given up as hopeless by them--the extension of the Roman frontier to the Elbe and the consolidation of Roman power in the North--was almost realised. But the Dark Shadow which had crossed Marcus’ path so often before drew nigh once more and for the last time. On the eve of a great and, it would seem, a final conquest, illness and death conquered the Conqueror. It was in the spring of A.D. 180 that the plague which had taken off half the population of the Empire came to claim the life of the Emperor. He fell ill, probably at Vienna, on the 10th of March. His constitution had never been robust and the hardships of the last years had still further weakened it. Hence he recognised immediately that this illness was to be unto death; and is said to have at once welcomed its approach. Continual disappointment had killed all hope within him, and with hope the pain of hope unfulfilled; and so he had no regrets now that that strange spirit which had ever dogged him once more passed by at midnight over the dreary northern plains and entering into his tent dashed the cup of victory from his lips. He asked Commodus as a last request to complete the war and then prepared for the end. For seven days the illness lasted. On the sixth he bade farewell to his friends. He spoke to them of the vanity of life and the easiness of death; commended to them the interests of the State and Commodus, “if he should prove worthy”; and all this with a great calm. On the seventh day he would see nobody except Commodus, and him only for a short time, with a last despairing hope perhaps of inspiring at least one noble sentiment into that monster of brutality. Then he seemed to sleep; and his sleep deepened into death. It was a death free from pomp, lonely and detached as his life had been. But death, in whatever form it came, seems to have had no terrors for him. He had often faced the thought of it and always to persuade himself that in it there was nothing to fear, but perhaps much to hope for.