# 2026-05-02 - The Emperor Marcus Aurelius by John C. Joy
I asked a friend how he became so civic-minded. He answered that he
supposed it came from reading the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. I
read George William Chrystal's translation [1] on Project Gutenberg.
The writing struck me as cool headed and serene, similar to what i might
expect from a Buddhist writer [2]. It made a good impression on me.
Later, i saw the biographical ebook The Emperor Marcus Aurelius by
John C. Joy in the Project Gutenberg new book feed, so i read that
too. I appreciate its more personal description of the emperor's
life.
One draw-back is that the author misses no chance to point out the
inferiority of Marcus's Pagan philosophy compared to the superiority
of the author's Christianity. He wrote an entire chapter on Roman
treatment of Christian martyrs. However, he wrote nothing about the
later conduct of the Christian church during the crusades,
inquisitions, witch hunts, and transatlantic slave trade.
Setting the judgments aside, i thought it was a worthwhile book.
> In the frieze on the Antonine column [3] which represents him on
> horseback, surrounded by banners and triumphant soldiers, receiving
> the submission of the kneeling Germans, there is the same
> disenchantment in his eyes, the same firm lines of duty on the
> lips; there is no flash of enthusiasm, no gloating over the fallen.
> He seems absorbed in the thought that all is vanity, and the
> vanquished look at him with a puzzled, interested look which has
> something of affection in it.
This quote resonated with me. Marcus Aurelius was often successful
in performing his duties, but he did not derive personal satisfaction
his success. Though stodgy in Roman tradition, his high-minded
values clashed with his own family and his society. In his personal
life he was surrounded by good fortune and good people, yet he was
resigned to being an outsider.
What follows are quotes from the book, with any of my own comments
in square brackets.
# Chapter 1: Prelude
Marcus took the ceremonies more seriously than did the usual Roman of
high rank; but even his faith in the old myths wavered. He was
content, however, not to pry into high matters, and adopted the Stoic
attitude towards them. These philosophers interpreted the legends,
often by Procrustean methods, to suit their own doctrine, but in
reality thought their truth or falsehood of little practical
importance. For them the chief thing was to live a life of virtue,
relying on one's own strength.
# Chapter 2: The Boy Stoic
Annius Verus, known to the world by his adopted name as the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius, was born at Rome in A.D. 121. His father, also
Annius Verus, was descended from a Spanish family which a few
generations before had settled in Rome.
When Marcus was born the reigning Emperor was Hadrian. Hadrian was
himself a Spaniard and inclined to favour those of Spanish descent.
Thus the family of Annius Verus came into prominence; and before
Marcus was yet more than eight years of age the Emperor took a
special interest in him.
The boy even at this early age was not quite as the other children
who passed to and fro in the Imperial palace. All through life his
health was imperfect; yet even as a child he had begun to practise
the Stoic austerities. He slept on a plank bed and was abstemious at
table...
Marcus was educated altogether by private teachers in his own home;
he did not attend the public schools--a fact which he recalls with
gratitude; and he had reason to be grateful. These schools had
multiplied under the generous patronage of the Emperors; no expense
was spared in securing for them the best possible teachers; but in
them the theory of virtue was acquired, if acquired at all, at the
cost of its practice.
Hadrian died in A.D. 138, when Marcus was seventeen years of age.
Antoninus Verus, better known as Antoninus Pius, succeeded as
Emperor, betrothed Marcus to his beautiful daughter Faustina, and had
them both to live with him during the rest of his life in the
Imperial household. Henceforth Marcus and Antoninus were bound by the
closest ties of friendship.
In many respects the character of Antoninus was more admirable than
that of his successor, whose glory has eclipsed his. He was an abler
ruler because he was not so good a Stoic. He had more of human
sympathy and a more varied interest in life because he was not so
much engrossed in the study of his own soul. He was simple, kind, and
genial, whereas Marcus was cold, reserved, self-conscious.
[Marcus Aurelius had a sense of humor. See following excerpt from
one of his letters:]
I think I have caught a cold, whether from walking in slippers or
from writing badly, I do not know.
# Chapter 3: A Philosopher On The Throne
And indeed Marcus himself had no such faith in the magical power of
philosophy on the throne; he did not believe in the possibility of
realising the Ideal State. "Do not," he says, "expect Plato's
Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and
consider such an event to be no small matter. For who can change
men's principles? and without a change of principles what else is
there than the slavery of men who groan while they pretend to obey?
Simple and modest is the work of philosophy. Draw me not aside to
insolence and pride."
The Stoics preached the brotherhood of man, and sympathy with men, as
men. Hence charity too became part of the Time-Spirit and showed
itself in milder legislation and in beneficent institutions.
With the blessings of peace there came also its vices; the advances
in prosperity and humanity, such as it was, was not accompanied by
any improvement in morals, but perhaps the reverse. His reign left
little outward impress on the Roman State; his greatest legacy to
Rome and to the world was the development of humane legislation, the
reverence for mind above matter, and the example of a disinterested
and noble ruler.
# Chapter 4: Life In The Palace
All through life it was his lot to consort with persons having sadly
different views from his own on the meaning of existence, the value
of virtue; yet he was kind and sociable with all.
The severe light of Stoicism was softened and suffused in passing
through the medium of his gentle nature; he trusted the reasons of
the heart, more than those of the pure intellect.
# Chapter 5: On The Danube
A prince of peace, Marcus Aurelius was destined by the irony of fate
to live most of his days as a leader of battles.
...and to replace a Scipio and a Marcellus, they had for leader not a
Vespasian or a Trajan, but a sickly "Greekling," "a philosophical old
woman," as Avidius Cassius used to call him.
War, the plague, and the Emperor's charities had exhausted the
treasury; hence the difficulty in raising supplies and a force. It
was then that he sold by auction the treasures of the palace and his
villas and thus secured the required funds. To swell the numbers of
his troops he compelled the gladiators to serve. This was the most
unpopular act of his reign as it was one of the most creditable.
The army reached Venice in A.D. 168. Such had been the energy of
their preparations that a panic seized the barbarian invaders. They
begged for peace; but Marcus had determined that there should be no
peace or a lasting one; the barbarians must be taught a lesson; and
he set about subjugating the tribes one by one. In this he was for a
time successful, thanks mainly to his able generals Pompeianus and
Pertinax. The Quadi were compelled to restore the 60,000 Roman
prisoners they had taken; and in A.D. 169 the Emperors felt justified
in returning to Rome, leaving the completion of the war to their
generals.
These victories in the North stirred in him no pride. Here is his
sadly disillusioned comment on the whole campaign: "A spider is proud
when it has caught a fly, and a hunter when he has caught a poor
hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a net, and
another when he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken
Sarmatians. Are not these robbers, if thou examinest their
principles?"
In the frieze on the Antonine column which represents him on
horseback, surrounded by banners and triumphant soldiers, receiving
the submission of the kneeling Germans, there is the same
disenchantment in his eyes, the same firm lines of duty on the lips;
there is no flash of enthusiasm, no gloating over the fallen. He
seems absorbed in the thought that all is vanity, and the vanquished
look at him with a puzzled, interested look which has something of
affection in it.
# Chapter 6: The Book of Meditations
It was in the midst of this active strife that Marcus wrote one of
the most introspective and peaceful of books--his Thoughts About
Himself--the twelve books of his Meditations.
These jottings were the fruit of his frequent searchings of the
heart, the outward expression of the inner life of one who seemed to
live all within, with now and then some golden gleanings from his
favourite moralists. They, with the Discourse of Epictetus, were to
be his mainstay. This latter book--a noble book too--was his
à Kempis, and to it he owed the suggestion of gathering together his
own thoughts.
The mind can weave its own Universe; and with it it rests to weave it
a fairyland of ordered goodness and beauty. All things without are
fleeting and unstable, shadows that will pass, mists that disappear
at dawn. "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it
so." "The aids to nobler life are all within."
As Arnold felt many have felt: "It is impossible to rise from reading
Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius without a sense of constraint and
melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid upon man is
well-nigh greater than he can bear." But we must add with him:
"Honour to the sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it."
Stoic optimism can scarcely be said to have solved the mysteries of
evil and the unrest of the soul, or satisfied the craving for
happiness, for guidance and support which is deep down in every
heart. Yet the followers of that school were a good influence on a
corrupt world.
The view of his fellow-men which Marcus expresses is a curious
mixture of charity, pity, and contempt.
This note of world-weariness and disillusion as regards everything
men prize recurs again and again in the course of the Meditations: it
runs through his doctrines of resignation, of charity and
forbearance, of self-restraint and peace.
There was no question of giving an exact account of the system
expounded in the Meditations: for there is no such system; Marcus
Aurelius was more interested in virtue than in learning; he would
rather feel compunction [pause, repentance] than know its definition.
# Chapter 7: Last Days In Rome
The hasty summons to the East which interrupted Marcus' northern
campaign was due to the revolt of one of his best generals, Avidius
Cassius.
It were well for Cassius had he confined his zeal for reform to the
army; but he wished to reform the Emperor and the court also.
Avidius admits that Marcus is a worthy man, but he is letting the
State go to ruin, while "hungry blood-suckers batten on her vitals."
"Marcus Antoninus is a scholar; he enacts the philosopher; and he
tries conclusions concerning the four elements and upon the nature of
the soul; and he discourses learnedly upon the Honestum; and
concerning the Summum Bonum he is unanswerable. Meanwhile, is he
learned in the interests of the State? Can he argue a point upon the
public economy?"
When Marcus reached Antioch the revolt was already ended. One of the
assassins, hoping for reward, brought the head of Cassius to the
Emperor; but he put him from him with indignation and loathing. His
one regret was that he had been deprived of the pleasure of pardoning
his enemy.
Yet [forgiveness] was a virtue familiar to the wise ones of the
Stoics, and perhaps not a difficult virtue to those who adopted their
philosophy of life. If nothing matters and all is in very truth but
vanity of vanities and the soul is steeped in this conviction, the
disposition to look on life's worries, whatever their sources, as but
petty and trifling, is natural and spontaneous.
It is to the credit of Marcus Aurelius that even in this he avoided
to a great extent the faults of his virtues; it is the touch of
emotion in his writings and in those of the other later Stoics of the
Empire which gives them their charm beyond the earlier members of the
school.
The Stoic must check [their] feelings but not suppress them. It
suffices that the barrier of the will be raised and strengthened day
by day and then the feelings may surge up behind it, ready for right
use; but as servants not as masters. Thus the paradox is true that
those have often the strongest emotions whose emotions are most in
check.
While at Athens he was also initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries.
With Marcus Aurelius it was probably a sincere act of religion. There
was much in the symbolism and ritual of the mysteries, its hymns and
processions and dramatic representations resembling the mystery plays
of the Middle Ages, in its fasting and nightly torchlight processions
by the sea-shore and through the plain, which would appeal to his
ritualistic nature.
Indeed, he was more deeply interested in the practical than in the
pure reason; and conduct was more for him than dogma: hence it is
that his thoughts are so intensely human and universal in their
appeal.
It is useless to inquire further into the nature of his religious
beliefs. He would have been at a loss to define them himself.
# Chapter 8: The End of the Old World
It was in the spring of A.D. 180 that the plague which had taken off
half the population of the Empire came to claim the life of the
Emperor. He fell ill, probably at Vienna, on the 10th of March. His
constitution had never been robust and the hardships of the last
years had still further weakened it.
It was a death free from pomp, lonely and detached as his life had
been.
The reason is that between life and death there is nothing to choose;
they are but successive stages of one and the same natural process.
author: Joy, John C.
TEXT detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Marcus_Aurelius
tags: biography,ebook,history,philosophy
HTML source: ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/7/8/3/2/78320/
title: The Emperor Marus Aurelius
# Footnotes
HTML [1] The Meditations translated by George William Chrystal
HTML [2] Stoicism & Buddhism
TEXT [3] Antonine column
# Tags
DIR ebook
DIR biography
DIR history
DIR philosophy