Marius the Epicurean

Complete and unabridged, with 57 full-page plates by Hubert Robert, Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Andrea Mantegna. A thoughtful young Roman under Marcus Aurelius moves through the philosophies on offer — Epicurean, Stoic, Christian — testing each against the fact that he will die. Pater's conclusion to The Renaissance, urging readers to burn with a hard gemlike flame, had been taken up by Wilde's...