The stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius was born in 121 and died in 180. For the last 19 of his 59 years, he was emperor of Rome, the last of "The Five Good Emperors," and one would think that his lofty worldly position would be the source of his fame today. His Meditations, however, has earned a place in the history of philosophy, and this unusual and often bracing book surpasses, in human interest, the details of his life and governance, which are in any event beclouded somewhat by the mists of a couple thousand years. Whereas we have his Meditations, sharp and not at all dated, a portrait of a strong mind working in the second century CE on problems such as must still occupy everyone at least occasionally today.
When I call the book "unusual," the main thing I have in mind is that it does not appear to have been written for publication but, rather, as an exercise in self improvement. "The art of living," according to one of his meditations, "is more like wrestling than dancing, inasmuch as it, too, demands a firm and watchful stance against any unexpected onset." I take this to indicate that the author has settled on a set of core beliefs or principles and that the problem is to honor them, to guard against being deflected from them, when "life happens." Living is like wrestling because you have to keep reminding yourself about what's important. These "meditations" are Marcus reminding himself about what's important. He doesn't want to be a dancer, veering off course. His view might be apprehended by stating its opposite, which would be something like: you can perfect yourself, and then goodness will follow if you only indulge your impulses.
Such an account will explain, I think, a degree of unfriendliness toward the "general reader" of today. Marcus had no such person in mind; the intended audience was himself, and we are eavesdropping. In these circumstances, it's not reasonable to expect clarity, a developing argument, guideposts, design, any organizing principle. It's become customary to divide the work into twelve sections, or "books," but it would be hard to give these divisions titles, since it is not as if "Book 3" collects all the meditations on this theme and "Book 8" all the ones on another. If a devoted reader thought such an arrangement desirable, she might at first make pretty fast work of sorting the meditations into thematic groups, but before long there would remain a challenging miscellany of considerable bulk and the need to create new group headings that seem a stretch compared to the first obvious ones. A plausible organizing principle might be that the work is ordered by the alternating "unexpected onsets" that set Marcus thinking first about one thing, then another, and another, and then the first again, and then a fourth followed by the third, and so on. This is not certain but is at least consistent with the document that's come down to us. It's sometimes possible to detect groupings of related meditations that tend to support the view that the work as a whole is essentially private. For a stretch in Book 7, for example, Marcus appears to have been reading Plato and making connections between certain Platonic precepts and his own—though he doesn't say so, probably because he knows so, and doesn't have to explain anything to himself. The meditations of Book 1 are a series of acknowledgments about what he has learned from various people and their examples. The order of the acknowledgments extend from earliest influences (eldest known relatives) down through parents, siblings, friends, tutors, mentors, philosophers. The very first "meditation" is: "Courtesy and serenity of temper I first learnt from my grandfather Verus."
One might surmise from this description that the book is open to the criticism that, as one progresses through, less and less seems fresh, there is more repetition, and a higher percentage of the meditations are restatements of something we've heard before. If this is explained by Marcus reminding himself of what's important (as I put it), it still remains the case that the modern reader experiences a sensation of diminishing returns. What sustains me to the end is the recurring thought that the author of these meditations probably wielded more power than any other person alive at the time, and that this seemingly overwhelming fact is almost, but not quite, invisible in the work. Here are the plainest glimpses—almost the only four I can discern—into the station in life of the author:
Let no one, not even yourself, ever hear you abusing court life again.
Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the colours of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thought as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible; life in a palace is possible; therefore even in a palace a right life is possible. . . .
If you had a stepmother at the same time as a mother, you would do your duty by the former, but would still turn continually to your mother. Here, you have both. Time and again turn back to philosophy for refreshment; then even the court life, and yourself in it, will seem bearable.
Be careful not to affect the monarch too much, or to be too deeply dyed with the purple; for this can well happen. Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, and unassuming; the friend of justness and godliness; kindly, affectionate, and resolute in your devotion to duty. Strive your hardest to be always such a man as Philosophy would have you to be.
Plato's conception of the philosopher king accepts the idea that the Republic's affairs are of such importance that only the best and wisest among us—philosophers—should handle the reins. Marcus rejects the premise. The affairs of state aren't important, he says. That all opinion is on the other side tempts the philosopher (who is also the emperor) to take himself too seriously. It's one of the things he must remind himself to guard against. If we ask what then is important to Marcus, the answer seems to be "philosophy," by which he means only what he calls a "right life"—the only thing that matters. One side of the endeavor is making an accurate assessment of our place in the scheme of things, and this is maybe the time to say that, in the collection of same-themed meditations, the longest perhaps belongs to death. There are many variations of
In death, Alexander of Macedon's end differed no whit from his stable boy's
and
Turn this mortal body inside out, and now see the appearance it presents. See what it comes to in old age, or sickness, or decay. How fleeting are the lives of him alike who praises and him who is praised; of the rememberer and the remembered. . . . [T]he whole earth is itself no more than the puniest dot [a conclusion that had not yet been confirmed by science].
and
Think, let us say, of the times of Vespasian; and what do you see? Men and women busy marrying, bringing up children, sickening, dying, fighting, feasting, farming, flattering, bragging, envying, scheming, calling down curses, grumbling at fate, loving, hoarding, coveting thrones and dignities. Of all that life, not a trace survives today. . . . mark how one and all, after their short-lived strivings, passed away and were resolved into the elements.
and
Philosophy aside, an effectual help towards disregarding death is to think of those who clung greedily to their lives. What advantage have they over those who died young? In every case, in some place at some time, the earth now covers them all.
and
Meditate on what you ought to be in body and soul when death overtakes you; meditate upon the brevity of life, and the measureless gulfs of eternity behind it and before, and upon the frailty of everything material.
&c, &c, &c, &c. Considering this universal levelling force, how to live in that interregnum between the "measureless gulfs"? Marcus recommends, over and over again—it's another repetitive category—modesty, kindness, tolerance, empathy. I'll give just two examples, both of which explicitly make the connection between perhaps his two most frequently recurring themes:
Very soon you will be dead; but even yet you are not single-minded, nor above disquiet; not yet unapprehensive of harm from without; not yet charitable to all men, nor persuaded that to do justly is the only wisdom.
That men of a certain type should behave as they do is inevitable. To wish it otherwise were to wish the fig-tree would not yield its juice. In any case, remember that in a very little while both you and he will be dead, and your very names will quickly be forgotten. [So cut them some slack!]
The steady accrual of high-minded, aphoristic exhortations might have delineated a real pain-in-the-ass, like if a philosophy major took a job with Hallmark. The article on Marcus in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy mentions that he can come off like Polonius, Shakespeare's most famous stuffed shirt. I think such a conclusion would be unfair for at least two reasons. One, I've already tried to emphasize, but remember: he's not preaching at anyone but himself, and couldn't know that through the ages people would listen in as the emperor of Rome privately (he thought) exhorted himself to be wiser, kinder, better, more public-spirited and considerate. The second is that he had a sense of humor about himself and seems almost to have anticipated the criticism that we're considering:
No man is so fortunate but that some who stand beside his death-bed will be hailing the coming loss with delight. He was virtuous, let us say, and wise; even so, will there not be one at the end who murmurs under his breath, 'At last we can breathe freely again without our master! To be sure, he was never harsh with any of us; but I always felt he had a silent contempt for us'? Such is the fate of the virtuous; as for the rest of us, what a host of other good reasons there are to make not a few of our friends glad to be rid of us! Think of this when you come to die; it will ease your passing. . . .
For admirers of the Meditations, Marcus's Mensch-hood may tend to refute his own doctrines concerning the inconsequence of our lives.
Comments