Marcus Aurelius

The last of the "five good emperors." He is one of three men proposed as the "Antoninus" of the talmudic conversations with Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi: on soul and body, on when the soul enters a man, on whether one may fast on the Sabbath. The identification is disputed: others name Antoninus Pius or Caracalla, and some scholars hold Antoninus to be a composite figure standing not for one emperor but for the very image of power in conversation with a sage. "Marcus Aurelius conversed with Rabbi" cannot be printed as a fact.