To raise funds for the war, Aurelius, his luxurious brother being no more, had determined to sell by auction the accumulated treasures of the imperial household.

The works of art, the dainty furniture, had been removed, and were now "on view" in the Forum, to be the delight or dismay, for many weeks to come, of the [36] large public of those who were curious in these things.

In such wise had Aurelius come to the condition of philosophic detachment he had affected as a boy, hardly persuaded to wear warm clothing, or to sleep in more luxurious manner than on the bare floor.

But, in his empty house, the man of mind, who had always made so much of the pleasures of philosophic contemplation, felt freer in thought than ever.

He had been reading, with less self-reproach than usual, in the Republic of Plato, those passages which describe the life of the philosopher-kings--like that of hired servants in their own house--who, possessed of the "gold undefiled" of intellectual vision, forgo so cheerfully all other riches.