ABSTRACT
One of Marcus Aurelius's central aims when writing Meditations was to bring out the fleetingness of mortal existence. On several occasions he compares the nature of change over time, for instance, to a roaring river that sweeps everything before it. The idea is that nothing in reality is immune to ongoing, dynamic processes. The person who is aware of the ceaseless instability in the world is better equipped to develop a sense of acceptance of misfortune and so to remain calm in the face of irrational and intemperate emotional behavior. Meditations take its place alongside a handful of other writings in the catalogue of significant texts of Stoic philosophy. It remains perfectly legitimate to consider his contribution as the product of a mind steeped for many decades in Stoic teachings, practices, and writings. It is for this reason that Meditations remains one of the most compact and readily understood accounts of Stoic philosophy to have survived from antiquity.
