What did Marcus Aurelius believe? ‘Meditations’ has the answers.

The second-century A.D. world of Emperor Marcus Aurelius was in shambles. A great plague ravaged western Europe, as he embarked on a long and bloody war against the Germanic tribes along the Danube frontier. Faced with these woes, along with old age and thoughts of death, the emperor sought comfort in philosophy.

Throughout his life, notably at odd moments during the military campaign, he jotted down his personal struggles, philosophical beliefs, and insights about being a better ruler and a person. Out of this sincere expression of introspection came 12 books contemplating life and the human condition. In total this collection is called Meditations.

(Apparently men think a lot about Rome—this might be why.)

Philosopher emperor

Born in A.D. 121 into an aristocratic family in Rome, Marcus Aurelius received an excellent education in rhetoric and philosophy. He studied Greek and quoted freely from Homer and Euripides. Perhaps that’s why he wrote his Meditations in Greek rather than Latin, the Roman Empire’s official language.

As a youth, he also became deeply interested in philosophy, particularly Stoicism, a school of thought that flourished in antiquity. One of its key tenets emphasizes the development of inner strength and the acceptance of things beyond one’s control. Founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium around 300 B.C., Stoicism grew to become one of the leading philosophies of the ancient world.

(Who was Socrates? Who was Confucius?)

It flourished in ancient Rome, counting Cicero among its leading scholars (and a good source of information on Stoicism in Rome). Epictetus, a formerly enslaved Greek, became a highly influential Stoic philosopher studied by Marcus Aurelius. In fact, Meditations bears some resemblance to Epictetus’s collection of moral precepts, called Enchiridion (Manual).

But Marcus Aurelius’s work adds his own original voice to Stoicism’s philosophical tradition. He gravitated to the school of thought and came to believe that perception is the basis of true knowledge. Happiness could be found through the practice of virtue and being guided at all times by reason in the face of life’s vicissitudes.

It’s believed Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations as a form of introspection rather than for larger public consumption. The entries range from blunt maxims to cogent dissertations, and there is no definitive organization to the work—though some patterns have been identified, with themes organized around Stoic philosophy. Overall, it is generally agreed that Meditations gives a private window into what life was like for an imperial Roman individual to live as a Stoic.

With gratitude

The work starts as a kind of reckoning in which Marcus Aurelius gives thanks to all those who positively influenced him throughout his life. For example, he credits his tutors for keeping him from superstition and vice and turning him toward a more austere and virtuous life. The most important of these tutors, he remembers, was Quintus Junius Rusticus, who corrected his impetuous character and introduced him to the Stoic philosophers.

Marcus Aurelius also reminisces about his life at the court in Rome, where he arrived at age 17. His adoptive father, then emperor Antoninus Pius, maintained a modest lifestyle, and so the young Marcus Aurelius was not thrust into a world of sumptuous clothes and luxurious living; he didn’t even have a personal guard. The future emperor admired the dedication with which his adoptive father managed the empire and his calm but decisive personality. 

(This Roman emperor believed he was a god. He was assassinated for it.)

Marcus Aurelius ascended to the throne in A.D. 161, co-ruling with his adoptive brother Lucius Verus until Lucius’s death, in 169. While Marcus Aurelius doesn’t reflect directly about his life as an emperor, he touches on important related topics, including the weight of his responsibilities and the need to uphold justice. He recognizes that he must make decisions in the best interest of the people he governs. He writes: “Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill will, and selfishness … None of these things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading.”

He recognizes that power can be a burden and a temptation, emphasizing the importance of avoiding arrogance and maintaining humility in the face of authority. He also offers insights on how to cope with difficult situations, maintain inner tranquility, and remain focused on one’s purpose in the face of obstacles.

Getting personal

Among his more personal observations are the things that seem to vex him. He acknowledges that he hates what most human beings seem to love. Gladiatorial games, for example, repulse him; sex is reduced to “a brief seizure.” And he does not understand why people are impressed by the purple robes worn by senators and emperors, when these are merely “sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood.”

He tries to remain calm at all times and not bother with what his neighbor will say or think about him. As he reminds himself: “It never ceases to amaze me: We all love ourselves more than other people but care more about their opinion than our own.”

Family plays a small part in his writings, although he is exceedingly grateful for his wife, Faustina the Younger, daughter of Antonius Pius. He describes her as “so obedient, and so affectionate, and so simple.” Other contemporary sources were not as kind to Faustina. Historians such as Cassius Dio accused her of committing adultery with handsome soldiers and gladiators. In his writings, however, Marcus Aurelius has only good words for her. The two had 13 children together, but only six lived past childhood. When Faustina died, in 175, the emperor grieved the loss. He entombed his wife in the Mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome.

(Emperor Hadrian spared no expense on his passion for all things Greek.)

War and death

Writing night after night from his military encampment along the Danube, Marcus Aurelius turns to darker subjects, including the nature of war. At various points, he notates the gruesome reality of combat: “Have you ever seen a severed hand or foot, or a decapitated head, just lying somewhere far away from the body it belonged to … ?”

But when day breaks, those ruminations fade and reality prevails. The philosopher by night must be a military leader by day. He acknowledges that it is not always easy. “At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work—as a human being,’” even though it’s preferable “to huddle under the blankets.”

There are reflections on great generals of the past, such as Alexander the Great, Caesar, and Pompey, and how, despite their resounding triumphs, “they too departed this life.” Also mentioned are the anonymous inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum who suffocated under the ash of Mount Vesuvius.

Throughout Meditations, Marcus Aurelius reiterates, almost obsessively, the idea that everyone ultimately shares the same destiny in this short life: death. “Human lives are brief and trivial,” he writes. “Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash.”

(Do you have a morning routine? Here’s how Marcus Aurelius started his day.)

Finding peace

Above all, the emperor’s greatest quest is to find peace of mind, as he muses how quickly life passes: “Existence flows past us like a river: The ‘what’ is in constant flux, the ‘why’ has a thousand variations.” In the light of this transience, he states the best course is to “do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life.”

(This warrior was the best of ancient Rome’s ‘Five Good Emperors’.)

And yet, death offers Marcus Aurelius a kind of liberation, a chance to detach from a world where many ignore the only values he recognizes—that of rational virtue and moral good. The true drama of the philosopher-emperor is that he tries to love his fellow human beings: “The things ordained for you—teach yourself to be atone with those. And the people who share them with you—treat them with love. With real love.”

All this Marcus Aurelius tells himself without anguish or despair. Even death must be accepted with gratitude: “Don’t look down on death but welcome it.” Death is part of the natural scheme of things, he muses, comparing it with “an olive that ripens and falls. / Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.” He says to accept death “in cheerfulness and truth, grateful to the gods from the bottom of your heart.”

When Marcus Aurelius died on March 17, 180, at age 58, a victim of the plague, he left behind an indelible mark. His writings have intrigued heads of state from Prussia’s Frederick the Great to U.S. president Bill Clinton.  When Wen Jiabao, China’s premier between 2003 and 2013, claimed to have read Meditations more than a hundred times, the work became one of the country’s most published Greek classics. Readers all over the world make it an annual tradition to revisit the text and remind themselves of the lessons within.