I really like this question because you are asking about the contemporaries of Marcus Aurelius. Today he is extremely popular – maybe even the most liked Roman emperor. Even a generation after his death he was deliriously loved. But what about the people who lived under his rule?

Yes, he was popular during his lifetime. Archeology has given us many images of him while contemporary writers heap praise on him. Fronto is amused at all the portraits of Marcus for sale in the markets, Aelius Aristides openly worshipped him and Cassius Dio lovingly lists all his virtues.

The massive popularity of Marcus after his death was built on a firm foundation of popularity that was laid during his life.

But.

Marcus ruled a very big empire for a very long time, including through some major crises. It would be naïve to think he was constantly loved by everyone from Day 1 to Day 7.000 of his reign. He was not.

The Eastern Mediterranean is a good place to start. This area was rich, culturally dynamic and proud of their past. They were still a bit unsure of these upstart Romans. Hadrian gave the East a lot of fond attention, but they had been basically ignored by Antoninus Pius and were probably feeling forgotten.

When the Parthian War broke out Marcus sent his co-emperor Lucius Verus to the East. Most commonly, people say the reason for his trip was to lead the war effort. That is true, but the other main reason was to shore up shaky support among the rich and powerful factions of the East. The Historia Augusta claims Lucius Verus spent time away from the front because he was lazy bum, but doesn’t mention all the effort he made to keep the East loyal and supporting the war effort.

That loyalty was broken ten years later by the Syrian Avidius Cassius who controlled much of the East. Supposedly, his rebellion was an honest mistake. He had believed Marcus was dead and tried to seize the throne to protect the imperial family and maintain stability. Perhaps that is true, but it is interesting that Cassius did not abandon his revolt when he learned Marcus was still alive.

Think about this. Today Marcus has a glowing reputation for fairness and mercy. Why didn’t Cassius immediately disband his army and throw himself at Marcus’ mercy? We don’t know. All we know is that Cassius did have some support for his rebellion – not just throughout much of the East but apparently even in the Roman Senate. These people were willing to risk their lives, their families’ lives, and the lives of all of their supporters to depose Marcus.

Even after Cassius was assassinated by his own men, Marcus felt it was necessary to continue to the East. Much like Lucius Verus before him, Marcus made a tour to ensure the loyalty of some powerful people who were not overjoyed with him.

But why? What had Marcus done to them?

One possibility is money. The Empire was under serious stress. The death and migration caused by the Antoine plague made tax revenues collapse, just when expenses soared to finance the Marcommanic Wars. We know Marcus was desperate for money. There are stories about him auctioning off imperial possessions to raise funds, and this is commonly given as an example of how much he loved his subjects and didn’t want to hurt them by raising taxes. This is conceivable, but it is also possible that he was desperate and didn’t think raising taxes would give him the money he wanted as quickly as he wanted. Cassius Dio confirms that some people were disgruntled with Marcus’ handling of the imperial budget. This may not have been Marcus’ fault, but even today we will blame whoever is in power for the economy.

Another thing that caused some disapproval was Marcus’ key appointments. Romans didn’t necessarily try to find the best person for the job, or even people with the right policies. Many (most? all?) key appointments were down to politics. Even Marcus himself was put in line for the throne because of his family, not because everyone thought this adolescent would make a perfect emperor. Likewise, he made appointments to reward followers or to bolster support from different factions.

His modern biographer, Anthony Birley, claims that some of Marcus’ odd appointments were down to the plague. The plague carried away all the good candidates, supposedly, and Marcus was left with appointing bad candidates. Maybe, but we don’t have a list of all the candidates Marcus had available. We do know some were upset at his appointments, which would be odd if he didn’t have any choice to make. Cassius Dio mentions Pertinax as one example.

We also have the curious rumours about Marcus’ wife Faustina. Marcus adored her but it seems others did not. She was rumoured to be unfaithful, and even encouraged Cassius to rebel. These stories about her were probably circulating during her lifetime, and they did not reflect well on Marcus. His contemporaries had to wonder: why didn’t he put a stop to her affairs? Was he too weak to stop her? Or perhaps he was too stupid to notice? To the Romans the behaviour of the wife reflected back upon the husband. Remember how Julius Caesar had approached such rumours, when he said his wife had to be above suspicion.

I’ve put a lot of effort into listing the negatives about Marcus because we rarely hear about them, but don’t let this overshadow the fact that he was quite popular during his lifetime. Undoubtedly he was well-liked, respected and even loved by the people in the Empire, but there were limits to this admiration. There were some people who didn’t like him at all, and they may have even been justified.