Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
4.27from 379,278 ratingson Goodreads
The private notebooks of a Roman emperor, written in Greek in army camps on the Danube during years of war and plague, and never meant to be read. There is no system in them and a good deal of repetition: they are reminders, written to himself, about doing the work in front of him, tolerating other people, and dying without complaint.
About the book
Written in Greek between about 170 and 180, in army camps on the Danube, the Meditations are the private notebooks of a Roman emperor and were never prepared for publication. There is no argument running through them and a great deal of repetition: they are exercises, written to be reread by the man who wrote them — on doing the work in front of you, on tolerating people who behave badly because they do not know better, on the shortness of fame, and on dying without making a scene about it. The first book is different from the rest and is a list of debts: what he learned from his grandfather, his mother, his tutors, and above all from the emperor who adopted him. Marcus Aurelius ruled through nearly continuous war and a plague that killed millions, and the flat, unconsoling tone of these pages is what Stoicism sounds like when it is being used rather than taught.
Characters
Marcus Aurelius — The writer
Roman emperor from 161 to 180, writing reminders to himself on campaign and expecting no other reader.
Antoninus Pius — Adoptive father
The emperor who adopted him, and the worked example Book I returns to for how a ruler should behave.
Junius Rusticus — Teacher
The Stoic who gave him Epictetus and taught him to stop writing rhetoric and read properly.
Epictetus — Influence
The freed slave whose discourses supply most of the doctrine, quoted throughout and never met.
Diognetus — Teacher
Credited with curing him of credulity about wonder-workers, and with putting him on a plank bed.
Apollonius of Chalcedon — Teacher
From whom he says he learned steadiness, and how to accept a favour without becoming obligated.
About the author
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) was Roman emperor from 161 until his death and the last of the rulers Machiavelli called the Five Good Emperors. He wrote the Meditations in Greek, in camp on the Danube frontier, during years consumed by war and by a plague that killed millions across the empire — not as a book but as private notes, reminders to himself of what a Stoic already knows and keeps forgetting. Nothing suggests he meant anyone to read them. They survived by an accident nobody has explained and were first printed in 1559, fourteen centuries after he made them.