Explain the Biography of Marcus Aurelius?

“Alone of the emperors,” the historian Herodian would write of the man who became known to us as Marcus Aurelius, “he gave proof of his learning not by mere words or knowledge of philosophical doctrines but by his blameless character and temperate way of life.” Cassius Dio: “In addition to possessing all the other virtues, he ruled better than any others who had ever been in any position of power.”

Born April 26th, 121, nobody would have predicted that Marcus Catilius Severus Annius Verus would one day be Emperor of the Roman Empire. The emperor Hadrian, who would have known young Marcus through his early academic accomplishments, sensing his potential, kept an eye on the boy. His nickname for Marcus, whom he liked to go hunting with, was Verissimus—a play on his name Verus—the truest one. What exactly Hadrian saw in Marcus is unclear. But by Marcus’s 17th birthday, Hadrian had begun planning something extraordinary.

He was going to make Marcus Aurelius the emperor of Rome.

On February 25th, 138, Hadrian adopted a 51 year old man named Antoninus Pius on the condition that he in turn adopted Marcus Aurelius. Given life-expectancy statistics of the time, Hadrian figured this regent and mentor might be at the helm in five years. All was well, except Antoninus lived and ruled for twenty three years.

In 161, as Antoninus died and ended one of the longest reigns, Marcus finally became the Emperor of the Roman Empire and ruled for nearly two decades until his death in 180. His reign wasn’t easy: wars with the Parthian Empire, the barbarian tribes menacing the Empire on the northern border, the rise of Christianity, as well as the plague that left millions dead.

The famous historian Edward Gibbon wrote that under Marcus, the last of the ‘Five Good Emperors,’ “the Roman Empire was governed by absolute p