Marcus' eleven-year-old daughter, Annia Lucilla, is betrothed…
April 161 CE
Marcus' eleven-year-old daughter, Annia Lucilla, is betrothed to Lucius (in spite of the fact that he is, formally, her uncle) soon after the emperors' accession.
At the ceremonies commemorating the event, new provisions are made for the support of poor children, along the lines of earlier imperial foundations.
Marcus and Lucius prove popular with the people of Rome, who strongly approve of their civiliter ("lacking pomp") behavior.
The emperors permit free speech, evinced by the fact that the comedy writer Marullus is able to criticize them without suffering retribution.
At any other time, under any other emperor, he would have been executed.
But it is a peaceful time, a forgiving time.
Marcus replaces a number of the empire's major officials.
The ab epistulis Sextus Caecilius Crescens Volusianus, in charge of the imperial correspondence, is replaced with Titus Varius Clemens.
Clemens is from the frontier province of Pannonia and had served in the war in Mauretania.
Recently, he had served as procurator of five provinces.
He is a man suited for a time of military crisis.
Lucius Volusius Maecianus, Marcus' former tutor, had been prefectural governor of Egypt at Marcus' accession.
Maecianus is recalled, made senator, and appointed prefect of the treasury (aerarium Saturni).
He is made consul soon after.
Fronto's son-in-law, Aufidius Victorinus, is appointed governor of Upper Germany.
Fronto had returned to his Roman townhouse at dawn on March 28, having left his home in Cirta as soon as news of his pupils' accession reached him.
He sent a note to the imperial freedman Charilas, asking if he could call on the emperors.
Fronto would later explain that he had not dared to write the emperors directly.
The tutor is immensely proud of his students.
Reflecting on the speech he had written on taking his consulship in 143, when he had praised the young Marcus, Fronto is ebullient.
Fronto calls on Marcus alone; neither think to invite Lucius.
Lucius is less esteemed by his tutor than his brother, as his interests are on a lower level.
Lucius asks Fronto to adjudicate in a dispute he and his friend Calpurnius are having on the relative merits of two actors.
Marcus tells Fronto of his reading—Coelius and a little Cicero—and his family.
His daughters are in Rome, with their great-great-aunt Matidia; Marcus thinks the evening air of the country is too cold for them.