About This Article: Like other entries in my Notes from the Book series, I wrote this primarily for myself. These notes serve as an online journal, where writing helps me learn and publishing sharpens my thoughts while creating an accessible reference. Expect longer quotations, drawn directly from my Kindle highlights, as I aim to capture key insights. Learn more about my workflow for syncing these notes here.
Why this book matters
Thinking about the Romans
While I’m an optimist about the future and the potential it brings, it’s also clear that human behaviour has clear patters on an individual and societal basis, and across many vectors (it seems to me that) we are in decline.
One striking area of similarity many feel is between modern times (2020s in ‘the West’) and the decline of the Roman Empire. From population shrinkage and bloated bureaucracies to cultural stagnation and over-reliance on past achievements, the parallels are hard to ignore. This has given rise to the popular meme ‘thinking about the Romans’ – as many men are apparently thinking about the fall of Rome, on an near daily basis.
Marcus Aurelius – Peak Roman?
Many see the peak of the Roman times, as the period of Marcus Aurelius. While Marcus’ time was not without its troubles – with external threats etc – it is often considered the apex of “Pax Romana” due to its stability, philosophical legacy, and cultural flourishing, with his own Stoic writings embodying the era’s intellectual and moral ideals. It was a period where Stoic Philosophy was at it’s heyday. A similar parallel in modern times might be Pax Britannica (1815 – 1914), where global free trade, education and liberalism flourished.
Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is his personal journal written during his military campaigns (c. 170–180 AD) as a guide for self-improvement and as a way to process his thoughts. It was written to himself and was not intended for publication. It was likely passed down through his family and found its way into the hands of Stoic scholars. The first reference to it was made four Centuries later, and it didn’t enter common discourse until its publication in English in 1862 AD – almost 700 years after it was written.
Meditations – A cornerstone book for Stoic practice
Today Meditations is viewed as a cornerstone to Stoic practice. Composed in Greek, its 12 books reflect on virtue, mortality, and living in harmony with nature, offering timeless insights into resilience and ethical clarity.
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citium (c. 300 BCE) in Athens. He himself was influenced by Socrates, Heraclitus, and Cynicism.
Man conquers the world by conquering himself.
– Zeno of Citium
Key Stoicism Concepts include:
- Virtue as the Only Good: Wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance define a flourishing life. External factors (wealth, fame) are indifferent
- Living According to Nature: Align with rational logos (universal reason) governing the cosmos.
- Rational Control: Focus only on thoughts/actions; accept external events as beyond control.
- Mental discipline and inner retreat – contentment comes from within, detached from external validation
- (Acceptance of) Impermanence and mortality – Amor Fati (Embrace Fate), and Memento More (Remember that you will die – i.e. embrace every moment you are alive). Detach from trivial concerns
- Purposeful Action & Duty – duty for act for the common good
Stoicism shaped Roman thought, and I feel there is more wisdom in Stoicism than many (all?) modern schools of thought and religion.
Book 1
Book One stands out due to the unity of theme and composition, which distinguishes it from the other eleven Books of the Meditations, where the sequence and treatment of material, suggest the random jottings of a busy and preoccupied man – sometimes tired, sometimes at leisure to write more expansively.
It is organised into a list of key stoic principles he has learnt from his mentors.
“From my tutor: to work with my own hands and mind my own business; to be deaf to malicious gossip. (Book 1).
From Apollonius: “moral freedom, the certainty to ignore the dice of fortune, and have no other perspective, even for a moment, than that of reason alone; to be always the same man, unchanged in sudden pain” (Book 1).
From Maximus: “self-mastery, immune to any passing whim; good cheer in all circumstances, including illness; a nice balance of character, both gentle and dignified; an uncomplaining energy for what needs to be done” (Book 1).
From my [adoptive] father: “to reward impartially, giving everyone their due; foresight for the longer issues and unfussy control of the least detail; sensible care of his own body, neither vain nor valetudinarian, but not neglectful either” (Book 1).
The remaining books – Key Stoic themes covered
The remaining books are more sporadic in their sequencing. Below are some of my reading highlights organized around core principles.
1. Virtue as the Sole Good:
“If you set yourself to your present task along the path of true reason, with all determination, vigour, and good will: if you admit no distraction, but keep your own divinity pure and standing strong, as if you had to surrender it right now; if you grapple this to you, expecting nothing, shirking nothing, but self-content with each present action taken in accordance with nature and a heroic truthfulness in all that you say and mean – then you will lead a good life. And nobody is able to stop you” [Book 3]
“At break of day, when you are reluctant to get up, have this thought ready to mind: ‘I am getting up for a man’s work. Do I still then resent it, if I am going out to do what I was born for, the purpose for which I was brought into the world? Or was I created to wrap myself in blankets and keep warm?’” [Book 6]
2. Living in Agreement with Nature:
“All that you see will in a moment be changed by the nature which governs the Whole: it will create other things out of this material, and then again others out of that, so that the world is always young.” [Book 7]
“Do what nature requires at this moment. Start straight away, if that is in your power” (Book 9).
“So one should pass through this tiny fragment of time in tune with nature, and leave it gladly, as an olive might fall when ripe” (Book 4).”Do what nature requires at this moment. Start straight away, if that is in your power” (Book 9).
“We should also attend to things like these, observing that even the incidental effects of the processes of Nature have their own charm and attraction. Take the baking of bread. The loaf splits open here and there, and those very cracks, in one way a failure of the baker’s profession, somehow catch the eye and give particular stimulus to our appetite.” (from Book 3)
3. Dichotomy of Control:
“The directing mind is that which wakes itself, adapts itself, makes itself of whatever nature it wishes, and makes all that happens to it appear in the way it wants” (Book 6).
“Be like the rocky headland… round it the seething waters are laid to rest.” [Book 4]
“Focus only on thoughts/actions; accept external events as beyond control.” [Book 5]
““You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” [Book 6]
4. Mental Discipline & Inner Retreat
Withdrawal into the Self:
“Men seek retreats for themselves – in the country, by the sea, in the hills – and you yourself are particularly prone to this yearning. But all this is quite unphilosophic, when it is open to you, at any time you want, to retreat into yourself. No retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation than that into his own mind, especially if he can dip into thoughts there which put him at immediate and complete ease: and by ease I simply mean a well-ordered life.” [Book 4]
“Dig inside yourself. Inside there is a spring of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging” (Book 7).
Mastery of Perception:
Do not waste the remaining part of your life in thoughts about other people, when you are not thinking with reference to some aspect of the common good. Why deprive yourself of the time for some other task? I mean, thinking about what so-and-so is doing, and why, what he is saying or contemplating or plotting, and all that…” (Book 3).
“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.” [Book 6]
“To tolerate plain speaking; to have an affinity for philosophy.” [Book 1]
“Sober up, recall yourself, shake off sleep once more.” [Book 6]
5. Impermanence & Mortality
Acceptance of Transience:
“Remember how long you have been putting this off, how many times you have been given a period of grace by the gods and not used it. It is high time now for you to understand the universe of which you are a part, and the governor of that universe of whom you constitute an emanation: and that there is a limit circumscribed to your time – if you do not use it to clear away your clouds, it will be gone, and you will be gone, and the opportunity will not return.” [Book 2]
“No, you do not have thousands of years to live. Urgency is on you. While you live, while you can, become good.” [Book 4]
“Figs burst open at full maturity… the very proximity of decay lends a special beauty.” [Book 3]
Memento Mori (Remember you must die):
“You may leave this life at any moment: have this possibility in your mind in all that you do or say or think.” [Book 2]
“You are a soul carrying a corpse.” [Book 4]
“Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence” (Book 7).
Cosmic Perspective:
“Think of the whole of existence, of which you are the tiniest part; think of the whole of time, in which you have been assigned a brief and fleeting moment” (Book 5).
“Asia, Europe are mere nooks of the universe… Every Ocean is a drop in the Universe… All things are tiny, quickly changed, evanescent.” [Book 6]
”Well then, will a little fame distract you? Look at the speed of universal oblivion, the gulf of immeasurable time both before and after, the vacuity of applause, the indiscriminate fickleness of your apparent supporters, the tiny room in which all this is confined. The whole earth is a mere point in space: what a minute cranny within this is your own habitation, and how many and what sort will sing your praises here!”
6. Purposeful Action & Duty
Focus on Necessity:
“Remove the superfluity… do what is necessary, as reason demands.” [Book 4]
“Ask yourself: ‘Is this, or is it not, something necessary?'” [Book 4]
Alignment with Universal Reason:
“I am made up of the causal and the material… every part of me will be assigned its changed place in the universe.” [Book 5]
“Act or refrain from action according to our own proper constitution.” [Book 6]
Service to Others:
“Whatever I do, either by myself or with another, should have this sole focus – the common benefit and harmony” (Book 7).
Closing thoughts
What I enjoyed most were the deeply introspective insights into the small things around us – which humanises the text, and makes you realise that while technologically we may have progressed – in many ways we have regressed in wisdom compared to our forbearers.
When you open this book, you realise he had many of the same issues and all the same mental struggles we struggle with today. Marcus was trying to not let these distract him from being a better person.
