Biography: When Aurelius was 18 he led a small company of Gauls, a private army, to prevent incursions by Gauls. He won many battles and through this fame he met his wife. He saved most of the money that he looted from Gallic camps and would not use it until later in his life. At the age of 20 he traveled to Sicily to watch a battle against a group of rebels. The legion that was involved in the battle and quickly came into difficulties and soon afterward they were in danger of being destroyed. Seeing this, Aurelius took his mercenaries, now reinforced with mounted troops and charged the Carthaginians in the rear, nearly getting killed by a javelin in the process. At the age of 27, a group of thieves attempted to rob him, he fended them off and the frightened thieves dropped their day's loot in their wake. With this new-found fortune, at the age of 29, he invested the money from his ventures on the borders of Gaul and in Sicily into wineries and vineyards in Campania, further enforcing his personal treasury and overall power as a noble. At the age of 30, he entered the Senate, prepared to make his mark in the revered halls of the Curia.
