🪴 GoDeep
Search
← University Challenge
Portrait of Marcus Aurelius

Philosophy

Marcus Aurelius

AD 121–180 · Roman

Stoicism

Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and the most famous Stoic of later antiquity. His private notebook, known as the Meditations and written in Greek largely during his campaigns on the Danube frontier, records his efforts to live by Stoic principles of reason, duty and acceptance of fate. He is often cited as the nearest thing history offers to Plato's philosopher-king.

How to spot them

  • ▸The Meditations, written in Greek, originally titled 'To Himself' (Ta eis heauton)
  • ▸Stoic emperor; last of the 'Five Good Emperors'; Marcomannic Wars on the Danube
  • ▸Influence of Epictetus via Junius Rusticus; his rhetoric tutor Fronto
  • ▸Father of Commodus; portrayed by Richard Harris in the film Gladiator (2000)

Key works

Meditations (Ta eis heauton) (c. AD 170–180)

Twelve books of private Stoic reflections in Greek, never intended for publication; Book 1 lists what he learned from family and teachers

Correspondence with Fronto (c. AD 139–166)

Latin letters between Marcus and his rhetoric tutor Marcus Cornelius Fronto, rediscovered in palimpsests in the 19th century

Discourses of Epictetus (Early 2nd century AD)

Not by Marcus: Arrian's record of Epictetus' teaching, the strongest philosophical influence on the Meditations

Key ideas

  • Only virtue is good; things outside our control (wealth, reputation, pain, death) are 'indifferent'
  • Live according to nature and reason (logos), which orders the whole cosmos
  • Disturbance comes not from things themselves but from our judgements about them, which are in our power
  • All humans share in reason and form one community, so we should work for the common good and not be angered by wrongdoers
  • Everything is transient; remembering death and the brevity of fame helps one act well in the present

Quick-fire facts

  • •Adopted by Antoninus Pius in 138 as part of Hadrian's succession arrangements; became emperor in 161
  • •Ruled jointly with his adoptive brother Lucius Verus until Verus' death in 169
  • •The last of Machiavelli's 'Five Good Emperors'; his son Commodus succeeded him
  • •Much of the Meditations was written during the Marcomannic Wars; a note at the end of Book 1 places it 'among the Quadi'
  • •His reign saw the Antonine Plague, and he died in 180, probably at Vindobona (Vienna) or Sirmium
  • •His bronze equestrian statue in Rome survived the Middle Ages, probably because it was thought to depict Constantine; the original is in the Capitoline Museums
  • •The Column of Marcus Aurelius stands in Rome's Piazza Colonna
  • •He established imperial chairs of philosophy in Athens for the Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic and Epicurean schools (AD 176)

Drill it — 9 cards

1 / 9new card

Sources