July 11, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Much has been written about Marcus Aurelius. And rightly so. His pithy, poignant distillations offer advice that impacts daily life to this day. He touches on birth, death, virtue and vice, and many other topics of great importance. Though important, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, his writings may not be as straightforward as some want us to believe. The Encyclopedia states: “the reader who wants to understand Marcus’ thought as a whole is bound to be frustrated; sometimes reading Marcus feels like reading the sententiae-spoofing lines given to Hamlet’s Polonius. Philosophical treatments of Marcus have to bring their own structure to the work.” Part of the problem with reading Aurelius today is that his words must be mediated. Translations are essential, but also flawed by their very nature. More than that, in contemporary society, stoicism has become a branded marketing tool full of many gimmicks and nonsense. Stoicism is desirable because it talks about how to deal with daily troubles and cares, and how to filter out the unnecessary worries. The fact remains, however, that we must read Aurelius’s words for ourselves to judge their content, applicability, and of course, to implement new practices.
Marcus Aurelius was an extremely influential philosopher and emperor, however, Aurelius most likely wrote this book for himself. The advice gathered into Meditations likely took years to fully form and was never intended for publication, at least according to the Great Books Biographical Note in Volume 11. Prior to Aurelius’s reign, Rome had experienced a period of stability and peace. Marcus Aurelius, unfortunately faced immense turmoils during his reign. The Biographical Note explains:
“The reign of Antoninus Pius had been a time of peace and prosperity; that of Marcus Aurelius was filled with every kind of calamity. The wisdom and firmness of the emperor could not prevent the beginning of decline. In the first year of his reign there were floods and famine in Italy, earthquakes in Asia, eruptions of barbarians across the northern frontier, riots and seditions of the legionaries in Britain. But there were even more serious preoccupations for Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian and Antoninus had kept the kingdom of Armenia under Roman influence, but as soon as Antoninus died the Parthians drove out the Armenian king, friendly to Rome, and put in a king of their own choice. The province of Syria was at once attacked. At the same time the Goths, coming down from the Baltic, were driving other German tribes before them, some of whom overflowed into the Roman provinces on the right bank of the Danube. Marcus Aurelius spent most of his reign fighting the Parthians in the East and the Quadi, the Marcomanni, and other barbarian nations in the North. The last yen years of his life he was almost continually absent from Rome. The Meditations, ‘Thoughts addressed to himself’ and not, presumably, intended for publication, were written down, in part at least, during the time Marcus Aurelius was campaigning against the Germans.”
The Meditations begin with very personal notes, but even these notes which mentions important teachers, mentors and family members, mean something to the reader as well. For example, the first reads “From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper.” From this straightforward sentiment, we can understand that Aurelius is interested in education, virtue, prudence, reason, and temperance.
Simple and direct speech is the hallmark of much of Meditations. In fact, many of the meditations are short, comprised of a paragraph or less. These paragraphs distill a thought or experience which he turns into a philosophical statement meant to improve life. Most notes involve relationships of some sort: self to self, self to other, self to society, etc. He notes that these complicated relationships force us to make decisions which will define us. Aurelius attempts to outline the most virtuous actions in difficult situations such as death.
This invaluable text offers excellent ideas, but also raises important questions. For example, Aurelius mentions different kinds of nature: common and universal. Are these the same? How might we distinguish between different types of nature? What responsibilities do we have to ourselves? To others? Is this version of moderation too excessive and does that answer change with evolving technologies?
Because Marcus Aurelius raises so many questions that are applicable to any generation, any race, any culture, any era, and because social media, media, news, information, and the world inundates us with data and excess, I thought that it is a good time to read Marcus Aurelius.
Therefore, I propose the Marcus Aurelius Project in which I will add a single chapter from Meditations to our Facebook page each day. We encourage you to read the chapter by itself, pause, contemplate, and think about its meaning. One chapter a day allows for a pause from daily life. It allows us to focus on each thought as it arises. As you read, you may consider the following additions:
- rewrite the quote or an important section of the quote in a journal. Explore the parts that most affect you.
- isolate one word or idea and try to define it.
- keep a list of virtues as defined by Marcus Aurelius. Organize each chapter into categories of virtues.
- write your own daily meditations.
- create a comic strip alongside 2023 Fellow in Ideas comic creator Chad Greene. Find more on this previous blog.
The Marcus Aurelius Project will be ongoing until each of his chapters has been posted on our Facebook page. We hope you enjoy reading along. We hope you enjoy this slow and meaningful exploration of virtue.
Photo credit: Shutterstock/ El Cutter
