(Marcus Aurelius), from the son of a gardener, became, by his great valour as a soldier, and his eminent virtues, emperor of Rome, to which dignity he was raised by the army. After having subdued the barbarous nations that had made incursions into different parts of the empire, where they committed horrid cruelties, and governed with great wisdom and clemency, he was massacred in the 7th year of his reign, by some soldiers who were weary of the public works at which he made them labour, in 282.

PROCATACTIC cause, in medicine, the pre-existing, or predisposing cause or occasion of a disease.