Lives Of The Stoics |Marcus Aurelius The Philosopher King

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2:38Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy. And most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

3:22Marcus Aurelius, the Philosopher King Born 121 A.D. Died 180 A.D. Origin, Rome Since Plato, it had been the dream of wise men that one day there might be such a thing as a philosopher king. Although the Stoics had been close to power for centuries, none of them had come close to wielding supreme command themselves. Time and time again, they had hoped that the new emperor would be better, that this one would listen, that this one would put the people before his own needs. Each one would prove, sadly, that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Caesar, Octavian, Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, Trajan, Vespasian, Domitian.

4:11The list of flawed and broken kings was long, stretching back not just past Rome, but to the kings of Zeno and Cleanthes' times. Just as the Christians had prayed for a savior, so too had the Stoics hoped that one day a leader cut from their own cloth would be born, one who could redeem the empire from decay and corruption. This star, born April 26, 121 AD, was named Marcus Cotillius Severus Annius Verus, and for all impossible expectations and responsibilities he would manage, to paraphrase his great admirer Matthew Arnold, to prove himself worthy of all of it. The early days of the boy who would become Marcus Aurelius were defined by both loss and promise.

5:02His father, Verus, died when he was three. He was raised by his grandfathers, who doted on him and who clearly showed him off at court. Even at an early age, he developed a reputation for honesty. The Emperor Hadrian, who would have known of young Marcus through his early academic accomplishments, sensing his potential, began to keep an eye on him. His nickname for Marcus, whom he liked to go hunting with, was Verismus, a play on his name, Verus, the truest one. What could it have been that Hadrian first noticed? What could have given him a sense that the boy was destined for great things? Marcus was clearly smart, from a good family, handsome, and hardworking.

5:45But there would have been plenty of that in Rome, and there had been plenty of true teenagers. That doesn't mean they'll be good heads of state. By the time Marcus was 10 or 11, he'd already taken to philosophy, dressing the part in humble, rough clothing and living with sober and restrained habits, even sleeping on the ground to toughen himself up. Marcus would write later about the character traits he tried to define himself by, which he called epithets for the self. And they were upright, modest, straightforward, sane, cooperative, disinterested. Hadrian, who never had a son and had begun to think of choosing a successor, just as he had been selected himself by the airless emperor Trajan, must have sensed the commitment to those ideas in Marcus from boyhood on.

6:35He must have seen as they hunted wild boar together, some combination of courage and calmness, compassion and firmness. He must have seen something in his soul that Marcus likely could not even see himself because by Marcus's 17th birthday, Hadrian had begun planning something extraordinary. He was going to make Marcus Aurelius the emperor of Rome. We don't know much about Hadrian's stated reasons, but we know about the plan he settled on. On February 25th, 138 AD, Hadrian adopted an able and trustworthy 55-year-old administrator named Antoninus Pius on the condition that he in turn adopt Marcus Aurelius.

7:19Tutors were selected, a course of successive offices laid out. Even after Marcus became a member of the imperial family, we're told, he still went to the residences of his philosophy teachers for instruction, though he could have just as easily demanded that they come to him. He continued to live as if his means and status had not irrevocably changed. By the time Hadrian died a few months later, destiny was set. Marcus Aurelius was groomed for a position that only 15 people had ever held in Rome. He was going to wear the purple. He was to be made Caesar. It was not an altogether dissimilar path to the one that Nero's mother had charted for her own boy.

8:03Would the results be different? Unlike most princes, Marcus did not yearn for power. We are told that when he learned he had been officially adopted by Hadrian, he was greatly saddened rather than overjoyed. Perhaps that's because he would have rather been a writer or a philosopher. There was an earnestness to his reticence. One ancient historian notes that Marcus was dismayed at having to leave his mother's house for the royal palace. When asked by someone why he was so downcast about such an incredible bounty of fortune, he listed all the evil things that kings had done. Reservations are not the same as cowardice, however.

8:44The most confident leaders, the best ones, are often worried that they won't do a good enough job. They go in knowing it will not be easy, but they do proceed, and Marcus, around this time, would dream a dream that he had shoulders made of ivory. To him, it was a sign he could do this. At age 19, Marcus Aurelius was consul, the highest office in the land. At age 24, he held it again. In 161, at age 40, he was made emperor, the same position held by Nero and Domitian and Vespasian and so many other monsters. Being chosen to be king, having enormous power thrust upon him, at such an early age, somehow seems to have made Marcus Aurelius a better person.

9:31This utterly anomalous event in human history, how one man did not go the way of all kings, can only be explained by one thing, stoicism. But it would be an injustice to Marcus Aurelius to not give him the full credit due for the work he had put in. And we know it was conscious, deliberate work. He recognized quite openly the malice, cunning, and hypocrisy that power produces, as well as the peculiar ruthlessness often shown by people from good families. And he decided he would be an exception to that rule. Take care not to be Caesar-fied or died in purple, he was still writing to himself as an old man.

10:12It happens. So keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, unpretentious, a friend of justice, God-fearing, kind, full of affection, strong for your proper work. Strive hard to remain the same man philosophy wished to make you. It wasn't just the headwind of power that Marcus faced in life. From his letters, we know he had recurring painful health problems. He became a father at age 26, a transformative and trying experience for any man. In Marcus's case, though, fate was almost unbelievably cruel. He and his wife, Faustina, would have 13 children. Only five would survive into adulthood. His reign from 161 to 180 was marked by the Antonine Plague, a global pandemic that originated in the Far East, spread mercilessly across borders and claimed the lives of at least 5 million people over 15 years, and he faced some 19 years of wars at the borders.

11:15As the historian Diocassius would write, Marcus Aurelius did not meet with the good fortune that he deserved, for he was not strong in body and was involved in a multitude of troubles throughout practically his entire reign. But these external things don't deter a Stoic. Marcus believed that plagues and war could only threaten our life. What we need to protect is our character, how we act within these wars and plagues and life's other setbacks. To abandon character, that's real evil. Perhaps the copy of Epictetus that Junius Rusticus had given him had so landed with Marcus Aurelius because he and Epictetus were both dealt hard blows by fate.

11:57It's a striking contrast, an emperor and a slave sharing and loving the same philosophy, the latter figure greatly influencing the former, but it is not a contradiction, nor would it have seemed odd to the ancients. It's only in our modern reactionary divisive focus on privilege that we have forgotten how much we all have in common as human beings, how we all stand equally naked and defenseless against fate, whether we possess worldly power or not. Both Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus were, to borrow Epictetus's metaphor, assigned difficult roles by the author of the universe. What defined them was how they managed to play these roles, which neither of them, Marcus especially, would have chosen.

12:42Consider the first action that Marcus Aurelius took in 161 AD when his adopted father Antoninus Pius died. When Octavian had become emperor, Arius Didymus, his stoic philosopher, had suggested that he get rid of young Caesarian, the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. It's not good to have too many Caesars, the Stoic had told his boss, joking as he suggested murder. Nero had eliminated so many rivals that Seneca had to remind him that no king had it in his power to get rid of every successor. Marcus Aurelius found himself in an even more complex situation. He had an adoptive brother, Lucius Veras, who had even closer ties to Hadrian's legacy.

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16:42The first thing Marcus Aurelius did with absolute power was voluntarily share half of it. This alone would make him worthy of the kind of awe that King George III had upon hearing that George Washington would return to private life. If he does that, sir, he had said, he will be the greatest man in the world. But this was just one of several such gestures that defined Marcus Aurelius' reign. When the Antonine Plague hit Rome and the streets were littered with bodies and danger hung in the air, no one would have faulted him for fleeing the city. In fact, that might have been a more prudent course of action.

17:19Instead, Marcus stayed, braving it like the British royal family during the Blitz, never showing fear, reassuring the people by his very presence that he did not value his safety more than the responsibilities of his office. Later, when due to the ravages of the plagues and those endless wars, Rome's treasury was exhausted. Marcus Aurelius was once again faced with the choice of doing things the easy way or the hard way. He could have levied high taxes. He could have looted the provinces. He could have kicked the can down the road, running up bills his successors would have to deal with. Instead, Diocassius tells us, Marcus took all the imperial ornaments to the Forum and sold them for gold.

18:00When the barbarian uprising had been put down, he returned the purchase price to those who voluntarily brought back the imperial possessions, but used no compulsion in the case of those who were unwilling to do so. Even though as emperor he technically had unfettered control over Rome's budget, he never acted as such. As for us, he once said to the Senate about his family, we are so far from possessing anything of our own that even the house in which we live is yours. Finally, towards the end of his life, when Avidius Cassius, his most trusted general, turned on him attempting a coup, Marcus Aurelius was faced with another test of all the things he believed when it came to honor, honesty, compassion, generosity, and dignity.

18:47He had every right to be angry. Incredibly, Marcus decided the attempted coup was an opportunity. They could, he said to his soldiers, go out and settle this affair well, and show to all mankind there is a right way to deal even with civil wars. It was a chance, he said, to forgive a man who has wronged one, to remain a friend to one who has transgressed friendship, to continue faithful to one who has broken faith. An assassin would soon take down Avidius, hoping almost certainly to impress himself to Marcus, and in the process, reveal just how different a plane Marcus Aurelius operated on. As Dio Cassius writes, Marcus was so greatly grieved at the death of Cassius that he could not bring himself even to look at the severed head of his enemy, but before the murderers drew near, gave orders that it should be buried.

19:39He proceeded to treat each of Avidius's collaborators with leniency, including several senators who had actively endorsed this attempted coup. I implore you, the Senate, to keep my reign unstained by the blood of any senator, Marcus appealed to those who wanted vengeance on his behalf. May it never happen. His dictum in life and in leadership was simple and straightforward. Do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter. No better expression or embodiment of stoicism is found in his line and in his living than waste no more time talking about what a good man is like, be one. Yet there is, in studying Marcus's life, an impression that he was somehow different, made of special stock that made his many difficult decisions easier.

20:28The common perception of Stoicism only compounds this, that somehow the Stoics were beyond pain, beyond material desire, beyond bodily desires. But Marcus would not have accepted this explanation for it sells short the training and the struggle he experienced as he worked to get better. Alone of the emperors, the historian Herodian would write of Marcus Aurelius, he gave proof of his learning not by mere words or knowledge of philosophical doctrines, but by his blameless character and temperate way of living. And underneath this learning and character, he was still a human being. We know that Marcus Aurelius was brought to tears like one, that he felt the same pain and losses and frustrations that everyone feels.

21:13We're told quite vividly by the Historia Augusta that Marcus wept when he was told that his favorite tutor had passed away. We know that he cried one day in court when he was overseeing a case and the attorney mentioned the countless souls who perished in the plague still ravaging Rome. We can imagine Marcus cried many other times. This was a man who was betrayed by his most trusted general. This was a man who one day lost his wife of 35 years. This was a man who lost eight children, including all but one of his sons. Marcus didn't weep because he was weak. He didn't weep because he was unstoic.

21:49He cried because he was human, because these very painful experiences made him sad. Neither philosophy nor empire, Antoninus said sympathetically as he let his son sob, takes away natural feeling. So Marcus Aurelius must have lost his temper on occasion, where he never would have had cause to write in his meditations, which was never intended for publication, about the need to keep it under control. We know that he lusted. We know that he feared. We know that he fantasized about his rivals disappearing. It was not all emotions he worked at domesticating, but the harmful ones, the ones that could make him betray what he believed.

22:29Start praying like this and you'll see, he wrote to himself, not some way to sleep with her, but a way to stop wanting to, Not some way to get rid of him, but a way to stop trying. Not some way to save my child, but a way to lose your fear. And for the times when he did fall short, Marcus had this advice. When jarred unavoidably by circumstance, revert at once to yourself and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of harmony if you keep going back to it. The wife of George Marshall, another great man of equal stature In describing her husband would capture what made Marcus Aurelius so truly impressive In many of the articles and interviews I have read about General Marshall She said, the writers speak of his retiring nature and his modesty No, I do not think I would call my husband retiring or overly modest I think he is well aware of his powers But I also think this knowledge is tempered by a sense of humility and selflessness such that I have seen in few strong men.

23:32If Marcus had been naturally perfect, there would have been little to admire. That he wasn't is the whole point. He worked his way there, as we all can. It should be noted that Marcus himself would not want us to be shamed by his example, but be reminded of our own capacities. Recognize that if it's humanly possible, He said both to us and to himself, you can do it too. Marcus Aurelius managed to not be corrupted by power, managed to not be afraid as he faced a terrible epidemic, managed to not be too angered by betrayal, nor utterly broken by unfathomable personal tragedy. What does that mean?

24:12It means that you can do the same. At the core of Marcus Aurelius's power as a philosopher and as a philosopher king seems Seems to have been a pretty simple exercise that he must have heard about in Seneca's writings and then in Epictetus's. The morning or the evening review. Every day and night keep thoughts like these at hand, Epictetus had said. Write them, read them aloud, talk to yourself and others about them. So much of what we know about Marcus Aurelius's philosophical thinking comes from the fact that for years he did that. He was constantly jotting down reminders and aphorisms of stoic thinking to himself.

24:50Indeed, his only known work, Meditations, is filled with quotes from Chrysippus, allusions to the themes from the writings of Panathias and Zeno, stories about Socrates, poems, exercises from Epictetus, as well as all sorts of original interpretations of Stoic wisdom. The title Meditations, which dates to 167 AD, translates as To Himself. This captures the essence of the book perfectly, for Marcus was truly writing for himself, as anyone who has read meditations can easily feel. How else can we understand notes that reference without explanation the way Antoninus Pius accepted the custom agent's apology at Tusculum, or even more obliquely speaking of moments of divine intervention, which he writes only the one at Caeteta?

25:40These were moments far too insignificant to have made the historical record, but influenced the author, the man, enough that he remembered them decades later and was still mulling them over. Meditations is not a book for the reader, it is a book for the author. Yet this is what makes it such an impressive piece of writing, one of the great literary feats of all time. Somehow in writing exclusively to and for himself, Marcus Aurelius managed to produce a book that has not only survived through the centuries, but is still teaching and helping people today. As the philosopher Brand Blanchard would observe in 1984, few now care about the marches and countermarches of the Roman commanders.

26:22What the centuries have clung to is a notebook of thoughts by a man whose real life was largely unknown, who put down in the midnight dimness, not the events of the day or the plans of the but something of far more permanent interest, the ideals and aspirations that a rare spirit lived by. The opening pages of Meditations reveal that spirit quite well, for the book begins with a section entitled Debts and Lessons. Across 17 entries and some 2 ,100 words, a full 10 % of the book, Marcus Aurelius takes the time to acknowledge and codify the lessons he had learned from the important people in his life.

27:01In the privacy of these pages, he recognized his grandfather for his courtesy and serenity of temper, his father for manliness without ostentation, his mother for piety and generosity, his tutor for instilling a positive work ethic, the gods for surrounding him with good people. He even thanks, not to put too fine a point on it, Rusticus for teaching him not to write treaties on abstract questions or deliver moralizing little sermons or compose imaginary descriptions of the simple life or the man who lives only for others. Why was he writing this if it was never to be seen, if the people would never fully know what they meant to him?

27:41Marcus explains, When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have. This one's energy, that one's modesty, another's generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us when we're practically showered with them. It's good to keep this in mind. What Marcus was using this writing for then is for the true intended purpose of Stoicism, for getting better, for preparing himself for what life had in store. In book two, he opens by noting that the people he will meet in the course of the upcoming day will be surly and rude and selfish and stupid.

28:20Was this to excuse himself from good behavior or to justify despair? No. Marcus wrote, no one can implicate me in ugliness, nor could they hurt him or make him angry. He had to love people, the people, he had to be ready and good. Indeed, one of the most common themes in Marcus's writings was his commitment to serving others, the notion of sympathia and a duty to act for the common good, first advanced by Zeno but carried on by Chrysippus and Posidonius in the centuries since. The phrase common good appears more than 80 times in meditations, which for a Stoic makes sense, but is surprising considering how nearly all of his predecessors viewed the purpose of the state.

29:04Yet we have Marcus writing, when you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you have been made by nature for the purpose of working with others. But he did have to remind himself of that regularly, as we all must, because it is so easy to forget. Marcus used his private journal as a way to keep his ego in check. Fame, he wrote, was fleeting and empty. Applause and cheering were the clacking of tongues and the smacking of hands. What good was posthumous fame, he notes, when you'll be dead and gone, and for that matter when the people in the future will be just as annoying and wrong about things as they are now.

29:42Words once in common use now sound archaic, he wrote, and the names of the famous dead as well. Camillus, Ciso, Volisis, Dentatus, Scipio, and Cato, Augustus, Hadrian, and Antoninus. And everything fades so quickly, turns into legend, and soon oblivion covers it. Alexander the Great and his mule driver, Marcus writes, both died and both ended up buried in the same cold ground. What good was fame or accomplishment? It didn't hold the candle to character. At Aquincum, the Roman camp near present-day Budapest where Marcus Aurelius visited the Second Legion and is believed to have written parts of meditations, archaeologists have uncovered a larger-than-life limestone statue of an emperor in a toga.

30:29At first glance, it looks like the head has been broken off, but a closer inspection reveals that the head was designed to be replaceable. The statue was a part of a shrine for the cult of the emperor, and they wanted to be able to swap the head out each time a new one took the throne. Knowing that he was only a placeholder helped Marcus prevent his position from going to his head. He built few monuments to himself. He didn't mind criticism. He never abused his power. Hadrian once got angry enough that he stabbed a secretary in the eye with a writing stylus. Of course, there were no consequences.

31:04Marcus could have taken advantage of his freedom to behave as he liked. Instead, he kept his temper in check, refused to lash out at people around him, even if they would have let him get away with it. Why should we feel angry at the world, he writes in meditations, cribbing a line from a lost Euripides play, as if the world would notice. It cannot be said for all his dignity and poise that Marcus Aurelius was a perfect leader. No leader is, nor would Marcus have expected he could be. He must be faulted for persecutions of the Christians under his reign, a stain on both him and Rusticus. Yet even here, he was considered by Tertullian, an early Christian writer who lived through the last years of his rule, to be a protector of Christians.

31:50Although he made some minor improvements in the lives of slaves, he was, like all the Stoics, incapable of questioning the institution entirely. For all his talk of being a citizen of the world and his belief in a unity between all dwellers on this planet, he regarded large swaths of the world's population as barbarians and fought and killed many of them. And of course, for a successor, he ultimately chose or was forced to choose as only the second emperor since Augustus to have a male heir to pass the throne to his son Commodus, who turned out to be a deranged and flawed man. And there's no room here to discuss the disappointing life of Commodus, but if you've seen the movie Gladiator, you have a pretty good picture of it.

32:33No one can say why he was the way that he was, but certainly the loss of so many brothers and sisters must explain part of it, and certainly much of Marcus and Faustina's responsibility as parents. The world is full of tours. But you don't choose a Toyota truck to follow the beaten path. You choose it to find the places in between. The detours, where each adventure pulls you toward the next. and wrong turns to not right. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota Trucks. Look, if you're listening to this podcast, you've probably heard of HelloFresh, right? They're the number one meal kit in America.

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34:33New subscribers only varies by plan. That's HelloFresh.com, Stoic 10 FM to get 10 free meals plus free breakfast for life. It's unfair to compare Marcus only to his own writings or to the impossibly high standards of his philosophy. Instead, he should also be looked at in the company of other men and women who held supreme power, which Dio Cassius did well when he observed that Marcus ruled better than any others who had ever been in any position of power. The rule is that sensitive and thoughtful men like Marcus Aurelius turn out to be poor leaders. To be a sovereign or an executive is to come face to face with the messiness of the world, the flaws and foibles of humanity.

35:16The reason there have been so few philosopher kings is not just a lack of opportunity, it's that philosophers often fall short of what the job requires. Marcus turned out to have the ivory shoulders as well as the sharp mind for the job. Don't go expecting Plato's Republic, he reminded himself. He had to take reality on reality's terms. He had to make do with what was there. For an idealist and a lover of ideas, Marcus was also, like Abraham Lincoln, impressively pragmatic. The cucumber is bitter, he said rhetorically, then throw it out. There are brambles in the path, then go around. That's all you need to know.

35:54Nothing better expressed his leadership style and his view of progress than this quote. You must build up your life action by action and be content if one achieves its goal as far as possible. And no one can keep you from this. But there will be some external obstacle, perhaps, but no obstacle to acting with justice, self-control, and wisdom. But what if some other area of my action is thwarted? Well, then gladly accept the obstacle for what it is and shift your attention to what is given, and another action will immediately take its place, one that better fits the life you are building. This seems to be how he thought about the politicians he worked with as well.

36:32Instead of holding them to his standards or expecting the impossible, as many talented, brilliant leaders naturally do, he focused on their strengths and was tolerant of their weaknesses. Like Lincoln again, Marcus Aurelius was not afraid of being disagreed with and made use of common ground and common causes best he could. So long as a person did anything good, Diocasius writes, Marcus would praise him and use him for the service in which he excelled, but to his other conduct he paid no attention, for he declared that it is impossible for one to create such men as one desires to have, and so it is fitting to employ those who are already in existence for whatever service each of them may render to the state.

37:13Ernest Renan, a 19th century biographer of Marcus, puts it quickly. The consequence of austere philosophy might have produced stiffness and severity, but here it was that the rare goodness of the nature of Marcus Aurelius shone in all its brilliancy. His severity was confined only to himself. Musonius Rufus, some 40-odd years before Marcus was born, had been approached by a Syrian king. Do not imagine, he had told the man, that it is more appropriate for anyone to study philosophy than you, nor for any other reason than because you are a king. For the first duty of a king is to be able to protect and benefit his people, and a protector and benefactor must know what is good for a man and what is bad, what is helpful and what is harmful, what is advantageous and what is disadvantageous.

38:05in as much as it is plain that those who ally themselves with evil come to harm, while those who cleave to good enjoy protections, and those who are deemed worthy of help and advantage enjoy benefits, while those who involve themselves in things disadvantageous and harmful suffer punishment. Could Musonius have imagined, persecuted and abused by five consecutive Roman emperors, that his vision would one day take hold in such a man, that everything the Stoics had spoken of and dreamt of would come true so beautifully and yet so fleetingly. He had said it was impossible for anyone but a good man to be a good king, and Marcus, who had read Musonius, did his best to live up to this command.

38:50Could Epictetus have imagined that his writings would make their way to the first emperor who would, as Marcus did, make real steps towards improving the plight of Rome's slaves? Along with his stepfather Antoninus, Marcus protected the rights of freed slaves and even made it possible for slaves to inherit property from their masters. We're told that Marcus forbade the capital punishment of slaves and made excessively cruel treatment of them a crime as well. Was it the story of Epictetus' broken leg that inspired him? Was it the stoic virtue of justice that compelled him to care about the less fortunate?

39:25While it's disappointing that Marcus lacked the vision to do away with the institution entirely, it remains impressive any time someone is able to see beyond or through the flawed thinking of their time and make, if only incrementally, the world better for their fellow human beings. These would not have been easy decisions, nor uncontroversial ones, but he made them as a stoic must. Forget protests, forget criticism and the agendas of the critics, forget the hard work it takes to enact something new or pioneering, do what is right, come what may. It is obvious in retrospect that Marcus used the pages of his journal to calm himself, to quiet his active mind, to get to the place of apotheia, the absence of passions.

40:11The word galena, calmness or stillness, appears eight times in his writings. There are metaphors about rivers and the ocean, the stars and beautiful observations about nature. The process of sitting down with a stylus and a wax tablet or papyrus and ink was deeply therapeutic for him. He would have loved to have spent all his time philosophizing, but it was not to be. So the few minutes he stole in his tent on campaign or even in his seat at the Coliseum as the gladiators fought below, he savored as opportunities for reflection. Also in these pages, he was stealing himself against the blows that fate seemed to so regularly target him for.

40:53Life is warfare and a journey far from home, he writes. It was literally true. Some 12 years of his life would be spent at the empire's northern border along the Danube River fighting long, brutal wars. Dio Cassius describes the scene of Marcus returning to Rome after one long absence. As he addressed the people, he made a reference to how long he'd been forced to be away. Eight, the people cried lovingly. Eight, as they held up four fingers on each hand. He had been gone for eight years. The weight of this hit him in the moment, and so too must have the adoration of the crowd, even though Marcus often told himself how worthless it was.

41:33As a token of his gratitude and beneficence, he would distribute to them 800 cestitures apiece, the largest gift from the emperor to the people ever given. He did not stop there. On his return, he forgave countless debts owed to the emperor's private treasury, actually burning the documents in the forum so they could not easily be recovered. Marcus may have lived humbly, but no one would say he was not generous to others. In fact, his policies as emperor perfectly adhered to the principles he jotted down one day in his diary, be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. How exhausting it must have been to be so self-disciplined, yet there are no complaints in meditations, no private laments or blame shifting.

42:21When Marcus dreamed of his burdens, thought of the beach or the mountains or time in his library with beloved books, he reminded himself that he didn't need a vacation to recover. He didn't need to travel to relax, For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul, he wrote. Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed. As we said, Marcus's early years were defined by loss, and so were his later ones. There would be one blow after another. In 149, he lost newborn twin boys. In 151, he lost his firstborn daughter. In 152, another son died in infancy. That same year, Marcus's sister died.

43:03Shortly after, Marcus's mother died. In 158, another son died. In 161, he lost his adoptive father, Antoninus Pius. In 165, another son, the twin brother of Commodus, died. In 169, he lost his son, Varys, a sweet boy during what was supposed to be routine surgery, whom he hoped would rule alongside Commodus as he had ruled with his own brother. That same year he lost that brother, his co-emperor, Lucius Verus. He would lose his wife of 35 years not long after. Of Marcus's boys, five died before he did, three of his daughters as well. No parent should outlive their children. To lose eight of them so young, it staggers the mind.

43:49Unfair does not even come close. It is grotesque. How easily this could shatter a person. and how easily and understandably it might cause them to toss away everything they ever believed, to hate the world that could be so cruel. Yet somehow we have Marcus Aurelius writing, after all these twists of fate, a note that captures the essence of leadership and the incredible resilience of the human spirit. It's unfortunate that this has happened, he writes. No, he replies. It's fortunate that this has happened and I've remained unharmed by it, not shattered by the present or frightened of the future.

44:24It could have happened to anyone, but not everyone could have remained unharmed by it. Marcus held Antoninus, his adopted father, up as his example always. He was particularly inspired, he said, by the way he handled the material comforts that fortune had supplied him in such abundance, without arrogance and without apology. If they were there, he took advantage of them. If he did not, he did not miss them. Accept it without arrogance, Marcus would later write in meditations about the ups and downs and blessings and curses of life and let it go with indifference. Is there a better encapsulation of that idea of preferred indifference that Zeno and Cleanthes and Chrysippus and Aristo had argued about all those years ago?

45:09There is no theme that appears more in Marcus's writing than death. Perhaps it was his own health issues that made him so acutely aware of his mortality, but there were other sources. In his book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, Donald Robertson tells us that the Romans believed that the burning of incense might protect the family from falling ill. Since he did not flee Rome as many other wealthy citizens did during the plague, Marcus woke up in a surreal-smelling city, a mixture of the putrid smell of dead bodies and the sweet aroma of incense. As Robertson writes, for over a decade, the scent of smoke of incense was a reminder to Marcus that he was living under the shadow of death and that survival from one day to the next should not be taken for granted.

45:54His writings reflect this insight time and time again. Think of yourself as dead, he writes. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly. On another page, he says you could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. The final two entries in Meditations, which may well have been written as he lay dying, pick up the theme again. What does it matter if you live for this long or that long, he asks. The curtain falls on every actor. But I've only gotten three acts, he says, giving voice to that part inside of us that is scared to die. Yes, this will be a drama in three acts, the length fixed by the power that directed your creation and now directs your dissolution.

46:35Neither was yours to determine, so make your exit with grace the same grace shown to you. To do this would be the final test of this philosopher king, as it was for each of the Stoics and every human being. We all die. We don't control that, but we do influence how we face that death, the courage and poise and compassion we bring to it. We're told that Marcus was quite sick toward the end, far away from home on the Germanic battlefields near modern-day Vienna. Worried about spreading whatever he had to his son and also to avoid any complications about succession, Marcus bade him a tearful goodbye and sent him away to prepare to rule.

47:16Even with his own end moments away, he was still teaching, trying to be a philosopher, particularly to his friends who were bereft with grief. Why do you weep for me, Marcus asked them, instead of thinking about the pestilence and about death, which is the common lot to us all. Then with the dignity of a man who had practiced for this moment many times, he said, if you now grant me leave to go, I bid you farewell and pass on before. He would survive a day or so more. Perhaps it was in these last few moments, weak in body but still strong in will, that he jotted down the last words that appear in his meditations, a reminder to himself about staying true to his philosophy.

47:57So make your exit with grace the same grace shown to you. Finally, on March 17th, 180, at age 58, he returned to his guard and said, Go to the rising sun, I am already setting. Then he covered his head to go to sleep and never woke up. Rome and us, her descendants, would never see such greatness again.

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