For those not in the know, Antoninus Pius is one of the “Five Good Emperors”, a series of five Emperors in a row who were well-regarded by history. Antoninus Pius got his name (‘Pius’) because he was a good and loyal son to his (sometimes mercurial) adoptive father, the Emperor Hadrian. He proceeded to embark on no major military campaigns, and spent the next two decades of rule investing in public roads, bridges, aqueducts and other systems for publicly available water, and welfare measures for the poor, including for orphans (not an actual orphanage; the original pic is a little inaccurate but they’ve got the spirit). He reduced taxes on areas experiencing hardship, funded the arts, medicine, and philosophy, and still managed to have a massive budget surplus by the end of his reign.

He brought to the Empire extensive legal reform in all areas, increasing the rights of slaves against mistreatment or murder at their masters’ hands and ensuring that when a man’s status as a slave was in doubt, one was to err on the side of freedom, not slavery. He also significantly reduced the use of torture in the Empire (reduced, not eliminated, because ultimately, as with slavery, the past is still a really shitty place). He had a warm relationship with the Jews of the Empire after his predecessor, Hadrian, quite famously… did not… and put Christians under his personal protection as Emperor (a state of affairs which sadly would fade after a few Emperors).

Not only that, but his two adoptive sons who became Emperor after him both remembered him very fondly after his death as a man of good humor and great patience, who enjoyed fishing and watching comedic plays and boxing matches. Man was probably one of the most wholesome human beings to ever become the most powerful man in the world.

he did kick some military problems down the road to when they would be bigger problems, though