Authority Incarnate Wishes It Were Not



Marcus Aurelius, when Emperor of Rome,

Sat down to write a stoical tome.

The famous Decline that Gibbon wrote down

Began when good Marcus took over the crown.

Whether in charge of the “Thundering Legion,”

Or fighting on horse in Parthian regions,

His mind, it was clear, was not on the bellum,

But rather on what he would next put to vellum.