ABSTRACT
Marcus Aurelius, born in ad 121, was the Roman emperor from 161 until the time of his death in 180. His Meditations, written in Greek and organized into twelve books, were published posthumously by an unknown editor: the only title given to them by their author was To Himself, which indicates their inward and reflective orientation. Although his writings “give us very little information about his personal experiences,” as Pierre Hadot has pointed out, they do show him struggling to cope with the ups and downs of what we know to have been a “tormented reign” that was filled with military and political tumult as well as personal upheaval.1 His method of coping was largely shaped by the influence of Epictetus, whose teachings were introduced to Marcus Aurelius by his own teacher Junius Rusticus.2 For this reason, Marcus is the last great representative of Stoic ethics in the ancient world. Time and time again, he advises himself to remember the Stoic principle that what lies outside of one’s own mind is of no importance, so that he can remain unperturbed in the face of any worldly occurrence: “If you are disturbed by something outside yourself,” he writes, “it is not the thing which troubles you but what you think about it, and it is within your power to obliterate this [conception] immediately.”3
