Marcus Aurelius as a youth

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This is a marble ancient bust of Marcus Aurelius, known as the Philosopher, Roman emperor from 161 to 180. He was adopted by Antoninus Pius, whose daughter Faustina he married and whom he and his adoptive brother Lucius Verus succeeded. They ruled together until Lucius' death in 169, and then Marcus ruled with his son by Faustina, Commodus, from 177. He was the last of the rulers traditionally known as the Five Good Emperors. Marcus Aurelius practiced Stoicism, a school of thought that emphasizes reason and self-control. His personal philosophical writings, which later came to be called Meditations, are a significant source of modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy. They have been seen as one of the greatest works of philosophy ever written. During his reign, the Roman Empire defeated a revitalized Parthian Empire in the East, with Marcus' general Avidius Cassius sacking the Parthian capital Ctesiphon in 164. In central Europe, Marcus fought the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatians with success during the Marcomannic Wars, although the threat of Germanic peoples began to represent a worrying reality for the Empire. The persecution of Christians increased during his reign. Marcus Aurelius' death in 180 marked the end of the Pax Romana, a period of relative peace and stability that had characterized the Roman Empire since the time of Augustus. The increasing instability in the West that followed has traditionally been seen as the beginning of the eventual fall of the Western Roman Empire.