MARCUS AURELIUS
MARCUS AURELIUS
MARCUS AURELIUS
MARCUS IN GLADIATOR
Column of Marcus Aurelius
THE COLUMN
THE COLUMN-2
LIFE AND WORKS
• Born 121 ad adopted by future emperor
Antoninus Pius
• Became Emperor 161
• Died 180 – with a good reputation
• A busy period of rule with wars on the Danube
and Rhine and in Persia as well as a brief internal
revolt
• Wrote his ‘Meditations’ while on campaign in the
170’s
THE MEDITATIONS
• A book of c 200 pages; 12 chapters ; some just
a page or so; others quite substantial
• Not a narrative of events
• Not a diary in any sense
• Not a polished piece of prose intended for
publication
• That it has come down to us is remarkable
CONTENTS
• Very variable but several themes emerge if
one examines the whole work. No sustained
piece of exposition – just jottings at the end of
the day or ‘free’ days when in winter quarters.
• First- what he calls ‘diatribes’ –coarse, brief
comments often with striking metaphors from
nature. Eg ch v.1,3 or vi. 55
CONTENTS -2
• Second- more sustained pieces of comments on
philosophical issues. He was a serious follower of
the Stoic school but with an appreciation of the
Epicureans and earlier Greek philosophy
• So- v.8 ; vi.16 ; vi.44 ; ix.9 ; ix.40/42; xii. 5
• Third – what was called a ‘protreptic’ –a type of
rhetorical exhortation usually enjoining the
reader/listener to engage with some issue in
pursuit of a better life . Galen and Plato are good
examples. See ii.17 ; vi.12
CONTENTS -3
• Fourth – anecdotes about famous men from
the past – role models for certain types of a
behaviour . Usually moral injunctions /lessons
known as Xreiai – and also pithy sayings and
proverbs called gnomai. xi.25 ; xi. 28
• These include some comments from Epicurus
at vii.64, 34, and xi .26 and especially his
brave words on death ix.41.
BACKGROUND TO STOICISM
• THE MAIN PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOL OF THE
ROMAN UPPER CLASSES c. 200 bce -200 ce
• The rival school was Epicureanism
• Both schools were more concerned with how
to live a good life than with the niceties of
philosophical problems ( altho’ we have
some interesting commentaries on Plato and
Aristotle)
STOICISM
• Founded by Zeno of Citium who set up a
school in the Stoa in Athens c.300 bce
• Became the dominant school in Rome by
c.200 bce.
• The writings of the Greek slave Epictetus very
influential c. yr 1 as, later, Marcus Aurelius
• Championed by Cicero ,Seneca and others
STOICISM-1
• The main focus is ethics: how we should live
• The goal is to be tranquil; to achieve and
sustain a sense of equilibrium which could be
mistaken for indifference to the events and
persons in one’s life. What Epictetus called
‘apatheia’.
• To recognise both the family and local issues
and yet be aware we are part of nature and
the cosmos
STOICISM-2
• To achieve tranquility we need to abandon
issues of rank, wealth, our bodily conditions
and external events –these are all relatively
unimportant
• What is of fundamental importance is our
own moral choices-these we can control
• But the stoics also taught that a divine
providence governed all things : an
incoherence that they never resolved
STOICISM -3
• So a father who tried but failed to save a
drowning child would accept the event with
apatheia- ie ‘indifference’ in that providence
must have meant it for the best. There is no
loss of happiness.
• As long as one does one’s best there can be no
regrets for what happens in life- providence
governs all –so accept with good grace what
befalls us
STOICISM-4
• The stoics tied moral choice to nature- the
wise man does his best in his circumstances
but the outcome is determined by providence
and we need to accept outcomes over which
we have no control.
• So the stoics had a well argued materialist
account of nature/physics : god/nature had a
corporeal existence in pneuma
• And LOGOS – the reasoning power or logic
MARCUS ON STOICISM
• His Meditations is a unique document.
• An Emperor who lives and writes and behaves
as well as he can according to the tenets of
Stoicism: that the world is ONE great natural
system which has order and providence
throughout , that one should accept what is
inevitable – natural - for oneself but treat
others with understanding .