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Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) - full name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus |
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Roman Emperor and Stoic, the author of Meditations in twelve books. Its first printing appeared in English in 1634. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius the celebrated Pax Romana collapsed – perhaps this made the emperor the most forbearing of all Stoics. An important feature of the philosophy was that everything will recur: the whole universe becomes fire and then repeats itself. It is worth while to observe that the least thing that happens naturally to things natural has something in itself that is pleasing and delightful. Thus, for example, there are cracks and little breaks on the surface of a loaf, which, though never intended by the baker, have a sort of agreeableness in them, which invites the appetite. Thus figs, when they are most ripe, open and gape; and olives, when they fall of themselves and are near decaying, are particularly pretty to look at. The bending of an ear of corn, the brow of a lion, the foam of a boar, and many other things, if you take them singly, are far enough from being beautiful; but when they are looked on as effects of the products of Nature, help to adorn and attract.. (in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book III: 2, translated from the Greek by Jeremy Collier, revised, with an Introduction and Notes by Alice Zimmern, London: Walter Scott, 1887, pp. 35-36) Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was born in Rome. He came from an aristocratic family long established in Spain. His father was Annius Verus. When only a small child, he caught the attention of the Emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138) – a pedophile and his fellow countryman. He was appointed by the Emperor to priesthood in the year 129, and Hadrian also supervised his education, which was entrusted to the best professors of literature, rhetoric and philosophy of the time. According to a story, when one of his favorite tutors died, he was overcome by grief and wept so loud that the palace servants tried to restrain him. (How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: the Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius by Donald Robertson, 2019, p. 18) His letters to one of the teachers, Marcus Cornelius Fronto (c. 100-170), the foremost orator of his day, were found by Cardinal Mai in 1815. Marcus Aurelius discovered Stoicism by the time he was 11 and from
his early twenties he deserted his other studies for philosophy. The
Emperor Antoninus Pius, who succeeded Hadrian, adopted Marcus Aurelius
as his son in 138. "It was none of his custom to batheat unusual hours," Marcus Aurelius said
of him, "or to be overcome with the fancy ofbuilding, to study eating and
luxury, to value thecuriosity of his clothes, or the shape and person
of hisservants. .
. . Upon the whole, what was told of Socrates is applicable to him; for
he was so much master of himself, that he could either take or leave
those conveniences of life with respect to which most people are either
uneasy without them, or intemperate with them." (Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book I: 16, pp. 16-17) Antoninus Pius treated Aurelius as a confidant and helper throughout his reign; Marcus Aurelius also married his daughter, Faustina, in 139. He was admitted to the Senate, and then twice the consulship. In 147 he shared tribunician power with Antoninus. During this time he began composition of his Meditations, which he wrote in Greek in army camps. Thus at end end of Book I he says: "This was written in the country of the Quadi, at the Granua," and at the end of Book II: "Written at Carnuntum". At the age of 40, in 161 Marcus Aurelius ascended the throne and shared his imperial power with his adopted brother Lucius Aurelius Verus. Useless and lazy, Verus was regarded as a kind of junior emperor; he died in 169. After Verus's death he ruled alone, until he admitted his own son, Commodus, to full participation in the government in 177. As an emperor Marcus Aurelius was conservative and just by Roman
standards. He was beset by internal disturbances – famine, earthquakes,
fires, and plague – and by the external threat posed by the Germans in
the north and the Parthians in the east. However, Sir Edward Gobbon has
praised the period of 'Five Good Emperors' – Narva, Trajan, Hadrian,
Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius – of which Marcus' own life spanned
almost three-quarters: "If a man were called to fix the period in the
history of the world during which the condition of the human race was
most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that
which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.
The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power,
under the guidance of virtue and wisdom." (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Abridged Edition, edited and ebridged by David Womersley, London: Penguin Books, 2005, p. 83) Toward the end of his reign, in 175, Marcus Aurelius was faced with a revolt by Avidius Cassius, the governor of Syria, who perhaps believed rumors that the Emperor had died. His head was sent to Marcus Aurelius, which he declined to look upon. According to some sources, Marcus' wife Faustina may have been involved in this conspiracy. She died soon thereafter in a little town called Halala, in the Taurus Mountains. Faustina's supposed infidelities included afffairs with gladiators and sailors, but she was sincerely mourned by her husband, who asked the Senate to erect a temple to her and grant her the title Mater Castrorum, "Mother of the Camp." An epidemic of plague followed Cassius's army from the East. Aurelius tried to push barbarians back but witnessed the gradual crumbling of the Roman frontiers. In these times of disasters, he turned more and more to the study of Stoic philosophy. The Latin writings of Marcus Aurelius, letters to a teacher, Fronto, are not interesting, but the "Writings to Himself", called Meditations, are remarkable. They are personal reflections and aphorisms, written for his own edification during a long career of public service, after marching or battle in the remote Danube. Meditations is valuable primarily as a personal document, what it is to be a Stoic. Curiously, Aurelius never mentions the word "Stoic" in his book, the philosophical school to which he belonged since his youth. His opinions in central philosophical questions are very much similar to those of Epictetus (c. 55-135 AD), a freed slave. He was regarded as the Stoic philosopher, admired by a number of intellectuals. Epictetus's two basic principles were: Endure and Abstain. He stressed that inner freedom is to be attained through submission to providence, and rigorous detachment from everything not in our power. To relieve the Emperor's pains in stomach and chest, his personal doctor Galen prescribed him pills that contained opium. But being a drug addict was not an issue that Marcus Aurelius felt he needed to discuss, he was more concerned of his quick-tempered nature: "Are you angry at a rank smell or an ill-scented breath? What good will this anger do you?" (Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book V: 28, pp. 78-79) And: "On the other hand, as grief is asign of weakness, so is anger too." (Ibid., Book I: 16, pp. 16-17) His melancholic thoughts reveal that the public duties depressed him and he wanted to retire to live a simple country life. Marcus Aurelius died in Vindobona (now Vienna, Austria), on March 17, 180. On his deathbed he was perfectly calm. This was the moment he had been preparing for all his life. "What death is, and the fact that, if a man looks at it in itself, and by the abstractive power of reflection resolves into their parts all the things which present themselves to the imagination in it, he will then consider it to be nothing else than an operation of nature. And if anyone is afraid of an operation of nature, he is a child." (Meditations: The Ancient Classic by Marcus Aurelius, with an introduction by Donald John Robinson, Tom Butler-Bowdon, 2020, p. 19) Aurelius's son Commodus turned out to be one of the worst rulers. Marcus Aurelius's reputation is shadowed by his persecution of Christians for political reasons; he did not care much of the teaching of the Christians. In matters of religion, the Romans were generally tolerant, but the denial of traditional gods was a threat to the social stability of the Empire. There was no room for compromise. A devout adherent of the Roman religion, Marcus Aurelius considered the Christians fanatics, who don't die with stoic dignity. "What a brave soul is that that is always prepare'd to leave the body and unconcerned about herbeing either extinguished, scattered, or removed—prepared, I say, upon judgment, and not out of mereobstinacy like the Christians—but with a solemn air ofgravity and consideration, and in a way to persuadeanother and without tragic show." (Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book XI: 3, p. 182) Probably Marcus Aurelius knew very little about Christian beliefs, but he may have read works by anti-Christian ideologists, such as Celsus and Galen. The fierce cruelty, with which the persecution was carried out in Gaul, was not consistent with his writings. However, Stoics had a profound influence upon both Neoplatonism and Christianity. Besides Meditations Aurelius left behind among others two Roman monuments, the column which commemorates his victories in the Marcomannic Wars and the equestrian statue on the Capitol. By the time of Marcus Aurelius's death, slaves and freedmen were abandoning their old gods for Christianity. Stoicism, named after the Stoa Poikile, a hall in Athens where the Stoic school of philosophy was first formulated around 300 BC by Zeno of Citium. Zeno's all writings are lost. The philosophy was developed by Cleanthes (331-232) and Chrysippus (280-207), who organized it into a system. Marcus Aurelius based his views in part on the later version, which was developed by the freed slave Epictetus (55-135). The early Stoics were thoroughgoing pantheists: God is the universe, the universe is God. The wise and virtuous learns one's place in the scheme. According to Stoic Ethics, the goal of human existence is to live consistently with Nature, which means "consistently with Reason". Meditations, or Writings to Himself (Ta eis heauton). First
printed in 1559 in Zurich by Andreas Gesner with a Latin translation by
William Xylander. Thereafter the work has enjoyed a wide
readership from poets to statesmen. Meditations contains 12 books, but
while Book I offers a clear organization and unity, the others do not.
Marcus Aurelius worked on his philosophical summary or pensées during
the last years of his life while on campaign along the marshlands of
the Danube. Among the central themes is man's fate to die and be
forgotten. "What should be valued?", he asks, but sees not the answer
in the rewards of glory. Aurelius had wanted to be untouched by
passion, and generous by nature rather than by calculation. He had a
firm sense of responsibility, but was perhaps more attracted to the
Stoic ideal of the perfect man. When according to Stoicism humanity's
whole duty was to discover how it might live in harmony with the order
of Nature, Aurelius hoped sadly that it could also apply to him: "it is
possible to live in a palace without the ceremony of guards, without
richness and distinction of habit, without torches, statues, or such
other marks of royalty and state . . .." (Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book I: 17, p. 17) The Meditations is mentioned as a "tiny volume bound in leather" in John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden (1954); it is the book that Adam's Chinese-American servant Lee loves. For further reading: Marcus Aurelius: His Life and His Works by A.S.L. Farquharson (1951); Marcus Aurelius by Anthony Birley (1987, original edition 1966); The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius by R.B. Rutheford (1989); The Therapy of Desire by Martha C. Nussbaum (1994); The Roman Empire in Transition by Michael Grant (1994); Marcus Aurelius: A Life by Frank McLynn (2009); Marcus Aurelius in the Historia Augusta and Beyond by Geoff W. Adams (2013); How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: the Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius by Donald Robertson (2019); Marcus Aurelius by John Sellars (2020); Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor by Donald J. Robertson (2024); The Cambridge Companion to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, edited by John Sellars (2025) - Note: in some sources Marcus Aurelius's birth date is April 16, 121 (Lexicon der Weltliteratur, ed. Gero von Wilpert, 1988). Suomennoksia: Itsetutkisteluja, 1950 (suom. Yrjö Raivio); Itselleni: keisarin mietteitä elämästä, 2004 (suom. Marke Ahonen) Editions:
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