ABSTRACT
In the centuries after its composition, Marcus Aurelius's Meditations appears to have disappeared almost entirely from view. There are two or three glancing references to Meditations in the fourth and ninth centuries, but these do not amount to anything that could be described as critical engagement. The most plausible explanation for the critical silence is, of course, that the work was never intended to be read by anyone other than Marcus himself. The work slipped into the bloodstream of European philosophical and political thought, though mostly as a source of practical advice. Once printed translations of Meditations began to circulate more widely, many of its guiding themes and ideas begin to emerge in a remarkably broad number of other works. In general, the few conflicts the work has stimulated tend to arise as a result of the difficulties involved in characterizing the genre, style, and content of the work.
