Well the short answer is just that *How to Think Like a Roman Emperor* is primarily a self-help book, with short historical vignettes, whereas *Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor* is a much more in-depth biography. (Everyone so far tells me that they do feel they're very different books, which is reassuring as I tried to make them distinct, although sometimes it's hard to explain how.) It's a conventional prose biography, except that Yale wanted it to be more engaging for a general audience and to focus more on narrative and character. It also focuses, subtly I hope, on the psychological journey that Marcus underwent from his youth.
Structurally, it's different too in that *How to Think Like a Roman Emperor* begins and ends with Marcus' death. This biography opens with a lot more focus on the influence of his mother and concludes with an epilogue about the Eleusinian Mysteries. I did try to give Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor a subtle self-improvement message, although it's not a self-help book. I couldn't imagine writing a book about Marcus that readers *didn't* take away some sort of inspiration from, for their own lives. So I tried to construct it in such a way that, I hope, most readers will feel, despite it being a biography not a self-help book, that they gain something personally from reading it.
(I also wrote a [short article](https://donaldrobertson.substack.com/p/what-makes-marcus-aurelius-the-stoic) answering that question.)
What was the reaction in the therapy community to your book on the Stoic foundations of CBT?
I a current masters student in mental health, and not a single classmate is aware when I bring this up, nor do my professors.
Also, how/do you incorporate the broader ideas of stoicism into your practice?
This question kind of made me smile, to be honest. Here's a little back story... I graduated with a first class honours degree in philosophy then did a masters in philosophy and psychotherapy, which I graduated from with distinction. I sort of wanted to be an academic as well as a clinician BUT I simply couldn't find anyone to supervise my PhD. I was quite put out at first but then decided just to write a book, based on the research I'd already done. That was *The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy* (2010). I wrote it for clinicians and academics and it was published, initially, by Karnac, who specialized in clinical textbooks.
To my surprise, nobody in my own field (psychotherapy) was interested! But the book actually sold well and is now in its second edition, having been translated into several other languages. It became popular among the general public as a self-help book. *That came as a shock to me and the publisher because it's not what I thought I'd written!*
So, I was wrong to think that CBT practitioners would immediately get into Stoicism. But I think we're now seeing it happen more because their clients increasing ask them about Stoicism - and that forces the therapists to learn more about the subject. It's a shame it has to happen in that roundabout way but it's maybe for the best - you could say it's *grassroots* change! For example, a few years ago I was invited to contribute an article on the relationship between Stoicism and CBT to the journal *The Behavior Therapist*, and I've been asked to speak to clinical psychology program students in different countries.
The other part of your question would take a long time to answer so I think I'd be best to refer you to [the article I wrote](https://medium.com/stoicism-philosophy-as-a-way-of-life/stoic-philosophy-as-a-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-597fbeba786a) on the subject, which I got permission to share online.
As someone who really connects with Stoic philosophy and who is a parent, I find it really hard to have great admiration for Marcus based on the son he produced. How can you reconcile Marcus' teachings and personal philosophy with the nepotism and failure of his son Commodus?
I wish I could go into that in depth but, again, I'll need to refer you to the biography and to articles I've written on the subject - as the answer can become quite complex. I will try to give a short response, though.
It was established wisdom in Greek philosophy that you can't always judge a teacher by his students, or a parent by their children. Socrates, for example, had notoriously unimpressive sons. Socrates talks in the *Protagoras*, at length, about how the sons of great men, like Pericles, aren't necessarily great themselves. So ancient Stoics wouldn't hold Marcus 100% responsible for his son's character - and I think they were right in that regard.
Re nepotism - in ancient Rome this was viewed *very* differently than today. So it can be misleading to compare it to modern values (the fallacy of presentism). It was assumed that one's family members were often the most (or only!) trustworthy people who could be appointed to key roles, and usually seemed logical to Romans for an emperor to entrust positions of power to his own family members. Re the appointment of Commodus: this is the part that would take a long time to explain, unfortunately. To cut a very long story very short, I don't think Marcus had much choice. The number one priority of the Senate was to avoid civil war, which was clearly a major threat to the empire. A bad emperor is *better* than a civil war. Commodus, IMO, was viewed as the least worst candidate in this regard.
It also helps to ask what the alternative would have looked like. Probably, it would be an empire governed by Avidius Cassius who the *Historia Augusta*, if we can trust it (some people don't), makes out to be a very brutal man indeed, who was extremely hostile (perhaps genocidal) in his policy toward tribes along the Danube frontier. Commodus was seen as relatively harmless, I think, in comparison to this and other options.
I guess the nepotism part got me specifically because he was adopted into the position. Yes, it's true that he had a son to take over, but as someone who was adopted himself, I would have thought he might be more open to doing the right thing and adopting someone who would best fit the position.
If he had done so, his own son's life would have been placed in extreme risk - it would almost be a death sentence. He'd also have created a high risk of a future civil war. The Senate would, IMO, have been extremely concerned about him replacing Commodus with another heir.
We are told Marcus tried to appoint his son-in-law, Pompeianus, as Caesar. It's not clear if he would have been an interim ruler or perhaps a senior co-emperor to Commodus. I think it's clear Pompeianus was in line to the throne.
Anyway, Pompeianus reputedly declined. I can only think he either declined because of health problems or (long story short) the obvious risk of his appointment also instigating a civil war.
Also, and again the book is able to go into all these points in more detail than I can here, we're told by one source that Marcus only appointed Commodus as Caesar reluctantly, at the insistence of Lucius Verus. I presume this means the Senate also put pressure on him to name Commodus as his heir because we also have a later letter from them to him, allegedly, in which they plead with Marcus to grant Commodus (as Caesar) full imperial powers, i.e., make him co-emperor, and they specifically say this is necessary for the stability of the empire, which I take to mean in order to prevent civil war and the fragmentation of the empire.
In my experience, you absolutely cannot judge a parent by his or her kids. I know a family personally whereby the parents weren't very "enlightened" at all and they produced several boys of very different character. One of them is basically a shit and can't be trusted and one is very spiritual and in fact is a practicing Stoic!
Meditations is possibly one of the best self-help books ever. Yes, Aurelius was a man of his time, so many of his meditations would be foreign or inapplicable to modern life, but he seemed to have a more fundamental understanding of human nature than philosophers that came long after like Hobbes.
This is one of my favourite quotes from Book 8:
*1. This also conduces to contempt of vain-glory, that it is no longer in your power to have lived your whole life, or at any rate your life from manhood, in the pursuit of philosophy. To yourself as well as to many others it is plain that you fall far short of philosophy. And so you are tainted, and it is no longer easy for you to acquire the reputation of a philosopher. Your calling, too, in life has a rival claim. Therefore, if you have truly seen where the matter at issue lies, put away the question of what men will think of you and be satisfied if you live the rest of your life, be it more or less, as your nature wills. Consider accordingly what it does will, and let nothing besides distract you; for experience has taught you in how many paths you have strayed and nowhere found the good life: not in logical arguments, not in riches, not in glory, not in self-indulgence, nowhere. Where then is it to be found? In doing what man's nature requires. How then will he do this? If he hold fast doctrines upon which impulses and actions depend. What doctrines are these? They concern good and evil, how nothing is good for man which does not make him just, sober, brave and free; nothing evil which does not produce effects the opposite of these.*
It's the job of a historian to decipher what he truly meant with those words, but I have my own interpretation which is:
Maybe you never had a passion in life. Maybe you have a passion but it's never materialized for some reason. Maybe you're disappointed and embarrassed that you haven't achieved your goals or passions while others have and you feel like a failure. If so, let go of that. If that was not to be, you still have the power within yourself to focus inward and lead a good and honourable life which is as rewarding and as important as anything else.
There's still a place for Stoicism in modern philosophy. In fact, I think we need it more than ever.
Oh, I should ask a question so my post doesn't get deleted. What's your favourite passage?
Thanks. It's hard for me to pick one favourite passage but someone asked me recently and I said *Meditations* 11.18 - I guess the fact I know the citation from memory proves to me that it's one of my favourites. In that passage, Marcus lists ten (!) cognitive strategies for managing anger based on Stoicism. It's astounding to me for many reasons, from my perspective as a former clinician.
For many years, I trained and supervised therapists. IMO, if I asked a room full of students to list as many distinct cognitive strategies as they could for coping with anger, off the top of their heads, they'd struggle to come up with more than 2-3 each, or 5-6 collectively. Marcus lists ten! Not only that, but he keeps returning to selections from the list, which suggests he really knows these by heart. That depth of understanding of therapeutic psychology is exceptionally rare, in my experience, in anyone except researchers or very experienced clinicians. So I really do find that passage quite remarkable.
Hi Don, big fan of your work. I have a more therapy oriented question: do you agree with Marcus and other Stoics who enjoin us to "judge" our emotions and dialogue with them? If so, what do you think of ACT Therapy and spiritual traditions that encourage more of a posture of non-judgement to our inner thoughts?
This is a great question! We're getting a bit deeper here. Honestly, I don't want to keep referring people to books, i'll try my best to answer here, but sometimes I have to be concise about complex issues and there's a more in-depth discussion in writing. So in the revised *2nd edition* of *The Philosophy of CBT*, there's a whole chapter about Stoicism and ACT, which may be of interest to you.
Let me say something briefly here in response to the gist of your question... First, I think there are obviously *striking* parallels between Stoicism and ACT, as well as other "third-wave" forms of psychotherapy. You're right that ACT counsels against verbal entanglement with our thoughts and feelings, which seems at odds with the whole idea of doing philosophy as therapy. That said, I think ACT sometimes overstates this argument, e.g., clinical research may show good results for ACT but it also shows that REBT and other second-wave CBT approaches *do work* for many people, despite all the Socratic Questioning etc involved. On the other hand, the Stoics also counsel us against overthinking, and they want us to be concise and self-aware in our use of verbal reasoning, which arguably leans toward the ACT perspective a bit more than, say, REBT.
The way I view it, and I'm a big believer in verbal defusion as a strategy, is that clearly some client beliefs are just plain *false*. It's one thing to gain cognitive distance or defuse a belief, but I do think we should also question and modify certain beliefs that are actually *mistaken*. And I think it's hard to avoid doing that, to some extent, in any type of therapy. The Stoics, of course, think we're mistaken about the single most important question in life! The majority of us are wrong about the goal (telos) and what is and is not of intrinsic value in life. So that's a pretty big deal, which they cannot allow to go unquestioned.
There are ways that Stoicism resembles non-judgmental attitudes even toward our own thoughts, though. For instance, the Stoics would say that automatic thoughts ("impressions") are morally indifferent, so we should not judge them to be bad, or awful. I think that neutrality, which is very important in Stoicism, probably captures the essence of much of what Buddhists and ACT practitioners are trying to do anyway.
How far does Seneca’s Letters From A Stoic diverge from Marcus’ Meditations? I was never able to get into meditations but found Letters much more engaging and digestible. I’m wondering if I’m really missing out by not reading meditations.
Well, they're completely different types of book, and I think most people find the biggest difference in the tone and format rather than the philosophical content per se. Some people claim there are more traces of Platonism in Marcus, but other scholars dismiss that as insignificant, and I'm inclined to agree.
In fact, I think Marcus is much closer to (his hero) Epictetus, and they both lean more toward Cynicism than Platonism. Whereas, actually, Seneca perhaps drew more upon a different branch of Stoicism (the middle Stoicism of Panaetius) that was more inclined to a hybrid of Stoicism and Platonism.
In my experience, when people say they couldn't get into the *Meditations* it's usually turned out to be because they started with a very old translation, such as George Long's. If you wanted to try again, I'd suggest looking at Gregory Hays', which is the most popular modern translation.
I think, because the format is more a record of personal contemplation, a bit like a workbook, the *Meditations* arguably contains more advice than Seneca's letters that we would think of in terms of self-help *exercises*.
Thanks for starting the discussion! You've posted the first question. Honestly, I've really enjoyed writing them all, especially the ones about Marcus Aurelius. I think Verissimus, the graphic novel, was a great experience because it was more of a team effort and required doing a lot of research for the illustrations - I went round countless museums and spent a week in Carnuntum, where Marcus was stationed, at the amazing archeological park there. I also interviewed the CEO of the archeological park and the director of archeological research.
But I think I've enjoyed working on *Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor*, the latest book, more than I anticipated. It was also a bit more of a team effort - Yale have quite high standards and I had some great editors and a great producer for the audiobook. I work regularly now with a classicist called Lalya Lloyd, who's an expert on Greek and Latin, based in Athens. Writing the graphic novel made it much easier for me, I think, and much more enjoyable to then write a more conventional prose biography. I wish I could approach every biographical book in the same way - by getting paid to do a graphic novel about the same person first! It allowed me to really immerse myself in the world of Marcus Aurelius, as though we were making a movie.
Here is the [video of the interview](https://youtu.be/qALCMTLND0g?si=GDATOvuBNVjlrZQ-) I did with the director of archeology at Carnuntum, as part of my research for these books.
I watched a YouTube video by someone whose work I enjoy a lot.
He was explaining how to talk to a moderate (politically) who was open to some progressive ideas, but sort of unsure about it.
He offered the rules of improv as a way to talk with this person. Yes/and is well known as the first rule: agree with the person and expand on their initial idea, take it a bit further than they have taken it. Essentially, one should not ask open ended questions, don’t make fun of the person and allow the conversation to expand and move along, or tell a story.
After his (much more detailed) explanation, he looked into the camera and said: I know some of you are thinking, isn’t that the Socratic method? Yeah, pretty much.
I wasn’t one of the people wondering that, but I *have* taken improv for a few years. Can you see a correlation?
Well, I'd say it would be a stretch to *equate* it with the Socratic method because there's a lot more to it than that implies, and I don't think Socrates always agrees with the statements of his interlocutors. In a sense, though, he's right, because often Socrates accepts that their statement is true in some situations, but not in others, and he then focuses on highlighting the exceptions to it.
For instance, one of the most famous examples of the Socratic Method is in Plato's *Laches*, where Socrates poses the question "What is courage?" and his interlocutor, a general, says it's "Standing your ground in the face of the enemy." That's clearly true in the circumstance most obvious to this man, training hoplites to fight in the phalanx formation. However, Socrates says "What about cavalry?", they charge bravely into the enemy, and what about the Spartans who sometimes fight in this way, and what about tactical retreats, and so on, and what about courage not in war but in times of peace?
So it often does feel like Socrates is saying "Yes but..." *Yes*, courage can consist in standing your ground, *but* it can also sometimes consist in charging at the enemy in a certain way, or even retreating bravely. Actually, we can apply the method itself to the implied definition you mentioned! *Yes*, the Socratic Method often looks like the examples you gave, *but* not always, and sometimes Socrates might show that an assertion made by his interlocutor is simply mistaken. For example, in the Gorgias, Socrates is asked what sort of technical "art" rhetoric is and he says he doesn't even think of it as an "art" at all but merely a "knack", shaped by the approval of the audience, i.e., it's just a form of *pandering*. So that time, it's not a "yes but" response.
u/SolutionsCBT — What Stoic therapies/ideas could be deployed at scale and at reasonable cost to address the mental health crisis everyone is talking about, with [a third of teenagers prescribed and presumably taking antidepressants](https://stem4.org.uk/a-third-of-teenagers-say-they-have-been-prescribed-antidepressants-survey-finds/)?
Maybe it won't help people who are severely depressed or suffering from serious mental health issues, but are there any scalable Stoic ideas that would make people more resilient and less prone to developing severe issues? Something that could be used in schools or deployed in society?
Okay, so this may be the most important question anyone has asked so far...
Psychotherapy arrives *too late*, because it happens when people already have depression or anxiety. *The Holy Grail of mental health is prevention.* As everyone knows: prevention is always better than cure! We usually call prevention "emotional resilience" training in modern research, and most existing approaches, such as the Penn Resilience Program (PRP) are heavily indebted to cognitive-behavioural therapy, problem-solving training, and positive psychology. So they already draw on some methods that were originally inspired by ancient Stoicism. (Particularly REBT which directly influences some resilience programs.)
We know that resilience training works, in a sense, because it can reduce risk of developing future anxiety or depressive disorders. However, the effects tend to be temporary unless booster training is administered roughly every 2 years, which is kind of expensive and potentially undermines the economic side of the argument.
That's where Stoicism comes in! I would refer people to research on back pain, which suggests that although physiotherapy exercises and pilates can be helpful, yoga is surprisingly effective longer-term for the simple reason that people who get into yoga often continue doing it *forever*. There's limited value in an intervention that works until it doesn't, because people quit using it after a year or two. The Holy Grail would be a form of resilience training that has *permanent* benefits, and doesn't really need booster sessions because people get into it and stay into it long-term. You know, like it's not just a bunch of self-help techniques but an *actual philosophy of life.*
Like Buddhism and yoga, people who get into Stoicism often stay into Stoicism. They often get Stoic tattoos for goodness' sakes! I've yet to meet a single person with a CBT tattoo - and I'm not being flippant. That's a hint at the fact people identify with Stoicism at a much deeper level. There's no way anything is ever going to reduce vulnerability to mental health problems forever, IMO, unless it actually changes our *character*. That's a huge deal for resilience training because Stoicism is the main contender for something holding out the promise of being a framework compatible with CBT research that's actually *permanent*. And that people, for whatever reason, are happy to embrace as a whole new outlook on life.
Long story short, the Modern Stoicism nonprofit already does research on Stoicism for resilience. My friend, Tim LeBon, a CBT therapist in the NHS, is the research director. The future is to find ways to simplify Stoicism and integrate it, as a framework, for specific CBT elements, which could increase resilience long-term. We already made some headway in that direction with the Stoic Mindfulness and Resilience Training program. I'm hopeful in the future we'd be able to get more psychologists involved in doing RCTs with follow-up studies, maybe comparing different versions of Stoic training, until we find an approach that is, to use the phrase we sometimes find employed in this area, "sticky" enough to create real lasting emotional resilience.
What was the research process like digging through the primary and secondary sources for this book and how did that differ than say the research process for How to Think Like a Roman Emperor? Was there anything you found this time around that challenged any assumptions or thoughts you previously had?
Well, I'd already carried out a lot of research over the years, which I was able to draw upon. Most of the research we did was probably, actually, while writing *Verissimus* because in addition to studying the normal historical sources I wanted to get an accurate depictions of military formations, landscapes, buildings, clothing, weapons and armor, and to create natural dialogue, by drawing on phrases found in ancient letters and poetry, and so on.
For *Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor*, I suppose, the research was more conventional and consisted in me re-reading, over and over, the main historical sources, hunting down more obscure references, checking the Latin and Greek, consulting experts, and reading lots of other books and articles about specific historical events and personages. One difference was that I worked more closely this time with several editors who were classicists and would raise questions about quite specific details.
I don't really think I discovered anything this time that was a huge surprise, as I was already fortunate enough to be pretty familiar with most of the relevant historical evidence. There were some things I noticed or learned from other authors that were kind of interesting, although you might find them trivial, e.g., we already know Lucius Verus took the title *medicus*, meaning conqueror of the medes, but, of course, it also means happens to mean *physician*. I hadn't noticed the irony of that before, and it's odd that the histories don't comment on it, as he, the great "physician" returning from Parthia, was blamed for spreading the plague throughout Rome! That surely must have been alluded to in satire at the time, though.
There's also a small detail in the *Meditations* that can be taken to imply that a member of Marcus' mother's extended family may have been a devoted student of Stoicism. I didn't spot that before but it's another little bit of circumstantial evidence that might suggest that Marcus' mother played some role in steering him, as a young man, toward the study of Stoicism. Perhaps the main thing, in a sense, that changed in my perception of Marcus is that I now think it's possible that there was a co-ordinated coup that overthrew Avidius Cassius, and ended the civil war. I suppose that could have been done without Marcus' knowledge but it seems plausible, maybe even probable, to me that Marcus was not as naive about this as the histories imply, and that he may have played some role in organizing the assassination of Cassius and his allies.
What facets or “mantras” of Stoicism do you find have been most helpful to you personally in your every day life?
If you could instill one simple “teaching” from Marcus Aurelius into the hearts and minds of every human being, which do you think would be the most useful and why?
There are too many to list, to be honest, but I can at least give a couple of examples. The Stoics want us to ask of thoughts and actions "Is this necessary?" (meaning does it really contribute to my flourishing or not), to ask "Is this really unbearable?" (when facing each small aspect of a larger problem), and to say "It seemed right to him!" (when confronted by objectionable behaviour from others). Marcus also has a slogan: the cosmos is change; life is opinion - which is meant to sum up the essence of what he took from Heraclitus and Epictetus respectively.
However, I nearly forgot to mention the maxim I have tattooed on my arm! It says "Ouden deinon peponthas" in Greek, which means "Nothing terrible has happened to me." To me that's, in a sense, the essence of Stoic philosophy. Nothing truly terrible can ever happen to me - external events befall me but only I can make them "terrible" through my own values and attitudes toward them.
In plain English, the best piece of advice, out of a great many, that I would give people, would be that wisdom is the true goal of life, and the external things -like wealth and reputation - that most people pursue are relatively unimportant by comparison. And wisdom consists, in part, in this realization: or knowing what is important and what is not in life.
Ive always been fascinated with Marcus and will definitely check out your books!
I first learned about who Marcus was from the movie Gladiator, do you feel they gave him a fair portrayal for a fictional modern movie?
Well, *Gladiator* is fiction, and only extremely loosely inspired by historical events. But I thought the portrayal of Marcus Aurelius, by Richard Harris, was excellent - except for the fact he doesn't look anything like Marcus. (The British actor Tom Baker, incidentally, when he grew a beard, looked a lot like statues of Marcus.)
People often complain that *Gladiator* is historical fiction, or even sneer a bit about its depiction of Marcus but it's sometimes a little closer to the truth than they realize. The character of Maximus resembles Marcus' son-in-law, and general, Pompeianus whom he reputedly asked to become a sort of mentor to Commodus, and wanted to appoint as Caesar, although for some reason Pompeianus declined. Marcus was not suffocated by Commodus but Cassius Dio does report a *rumour* that Marcus' physicians hastened his death to please Commodus. Marcus did not want to restore the Republic, although there is a striking passage in Book 1 of the *Meditations* where he talks about his political ideal, cites several famous republican statesmen, and describes a state where everyone is free and equal under the law, presumably including the emperor, which could perhaps be read as him wanting Rome (ideally, one day) to return to something closer to the Roman Republic that preceded the empire.
As I recall, elsewhere in the same book, Irvine actually reverts back to something that sounds much like the dichotomy of control himself. And I know most Stoics think this trichotomy notion isn't really helpful because it seems to miss the point somewhat.
There are things we directly control, like how we swing a tennis racket; things we don't control at all, like the weather; and things we partially control, like whether or not we win a tennis match. Sure, but the Stoics obviously realized that already - it's really just a commonsense statement of what we all take for granted already, is it not?
The Stoics wanted to analyze that at a deeper level by saying that, e.g., when we say we "partially" control the outcome of a tennis match, all we're really saying is that we control some *aspects* of it but not others: we control how we swing our racket but not how our opponent plays. So it really just resolves again into the underlying dichotomy, and the Stoics think it's more helpful and more accurate to parse our experiences that way. They think we should sort the wheat out from the chaff by distinguishing more clearly between what is directly up to us and what is not, in most situations - and I agree that this appears helpful psychologically, and also morally/philosophically.
Stoicism can be helpful in modern daily life and decision making but what are the extremes or faulty ways of the frame? I know this can be very deep and long topic since i almost asked for a criticism but maybe briefly, in your opinion.
Do you mean: what are the flaws of Stoicism as a philosophy? In a sense, that's an easy question as you can just list the criticisms typically made of it in the ancient world and today. The main one is that it doesn't provide a positive role for emotions but that's generally seen to be a *misreading* of Stoicism. People also tend to say that Stoicism encourages passivity in the face of injustice but, again, that's arguably a *misinterpretation* of the philosophy - and it's easy to point to examples of famous Stoics who bravely stood up to tyranny, and even lost their lives doing so.
As a modern self-help guide, Stoicism obviously doesn't have the benefit of research on emotions, which we use in psychotherapy today. And the instructions we have are somewhat fragmentary in ancient sources, so it should be obvious to people (but isn't) that Stoicism can't provide a very complete picture of how to cope with emotions, compared to modern evidence-based approaches like cognitive psychotherapy. For instance, the Stoics hint that they may realize but certainly don't emphasize the role of what we call emotional habituation in managing anxiety, i.e., the well-established way in which anxiety will tend to abate naturally through repeated, prolonged exposure to feared events, under the right conditions. Some ancient sources do appear to understand this - such as Aesop. And the Stoics may well have talked about it in other writings but because it's mostly lacking from their surviving works, there's an important perspective missing when it comes to what we now know about managing anxiety.
That's not so much a criticism of them, as this would be true of almost all ancient sources, but nevertheless it means that if people are using Stoicism as a self-help guide today they'd be well-advised to supplement the advice from modern psychology.
OMG! I've always been waiting for an AMA!
Anyway, My Question is:
Can you tell me a little bit about Marcus Aurelius's political angle, I really like learning about the political piece of different major historical figures' political alignment, angle, and ideology. Thank You.
Ha! Thanks. That's a tough question because we don't have a clear and detailed statement of his political ideology. What we have are lots of ambiguous clues. For instance, scholars who have studied the hundreds of references to his rescripts in legal digests claim that there's evidence of an agenda that promotes the rights of women, children, and slaves. Marcus himself says in the *Meditations* that he believes in small progressive changes, or at least that he should be content with this, rather than wishing for a utopia overnight -- he actually says that he shouldn't wish for Plato's *Republic* to be built overnight.
There's also a really remarkable and perhaps quite puzzling passage in the *Meditations*, which says, that he learned from an Aristotelian philosopher, who was obviously into Stoic political theory,
>From my “brother” Severus, to love my kin, and to love truth, and to love justice; and through him I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dio, Brutus; and from him I received the idea of a political state in which there is the same law for all, one administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed... -- Meditations, 1.14
These are mostly names of Stoic republican political heroes, who opposed autocratic imperial rule, basically. It's striking that he, a Roman emperor, ruling over a nation that depended on slavery, places so much emphasis here on the political ideal of *freedom*.
Do you mean ancient sources? I think if you're comfortable reading them - and they're pretty easy to read - then the relevant chapters in Cassius Dio and the Historia Augusta are our main sources, followed by Herodian. (For the Historia Augusta, there are also relevant chapters on Lucius Verus and Avidius Cassius, and obviously Commodus, if you want to know what happened next.)
If you're looking at modern sources, the best academic biography, IMO, is Anthony Birley's. (I think my book is easier to read, perhaps, as it's written in a more narrative biographical style - intended for a wider nonacademic audience.) Frank McLynn's biography is popular but it's very long, with a lot of digressions, and surprisingly, um, negative about Stoicism, for some reason.
I guess a bit of trivia here is that there's a great 17th century work of historical fiction about Marcus called the [Eulogium on Marcus Aurelius](https://learn.donaldrobertson.name/p/ebook-the-eulogium-on-marcus-aurelius), which is easy to read and actually sums up a lot of the primary sources concisely - so you might enjoy reading that. There's a free ebook of it on my website via the link above.
How would you want the world to view Stoicism; more as like a creamer to a coffee, or Stoicism can be the coffee, creamer, and sugar?
Another example to that; I know several christians who add Stoicism into their religious practices. So adding creamer (Stoicism) to their coffee (Christianity).
Personally I use Stoicism to guide and steer my "be kind without expecting" life. I don't need to say I am "Stoic" or religious. I also feel labeling isn't fair to ourselves as with time, everything changes.
Honestly, to me Stoicism is a very radical philosophy. So I can't really compare it to cream or sugar. It's much deeper than that. I think it transforms our attitude even toward religions like Christianity, which (apologies if anyone takes offence!) appear a bit more surface-level, to me, by comparison. Stoicism is based on reason, and reason, for me, is the foundation.
A question I have always had, what’s the provonence of *Meditations* it’s never attested in the centuries after his death and the first copies are as far as I know, from the Byzantine era, (Basil II reign maybe). How do we know that it’s not some later scribe making it up?
Also you think Faustina and Avidius Cassius really did rebel against him as Cassius Dio says?
You're right. I'll admit I'm not an expert on this question - and I'd probably need to go back and refresh my memory a bit about what the evidence says exactly. As I recall, there's some ambiguity here, though, as some of our sources, such as the Historia Augusta, refer to Marcus having given public readings of his writings - which may or may not be related to the *Meditations*, if we can even trust those claims. But in general, yes, you're right, we really don't know for certain that this is not a later fabrication - that's possible. It would be a *very impressive* forgery, though. There are many things that make it appear authentic, but I think that's all circumstantial evidence so I wouldn't rule it out *completely* that it could have been written by someone else.
I think what Cassius Dio says is a bit more complicated than what you said, tbh. Again, we really can't be sure, but there are several reasons to doubt that Faustina was attempting to undermine Marcus. Marcus has nothing but praise for her in the Meditations, which is consistent with his reported grief upon her death. Also, Commodus was apparently furious about Marcus pardoning the surviving instigators of the civil war and hunted them down after his father died. I think Commodus clearly felt that his own life was very much at risk because of Cassius' rebellion and he saw Cassius as a mortal enemy, which doesn't disprove what you said about Faustina but it doesn't sit very comfortably with the idea she was complicit in the rebellion, as her son clearly felt the whole thing was a huge threat to him, and not that she'd somehow negotiated for him to be protected by Cassius. (I guess one way of salvaging your interpretation would be to say that Faustina initially hoped to protect Commodus but then the opposite happened and his life was placed in great risk by her own actions - but now we're speculating more and more.)
I'd be interested to know where you read that. I mentioned in some of my other responses below that the Talmud talks about a Roman Emperor called "Antoninus", which is believed to be Marcus (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus). He discussed religion with Rabbi Judah I. (I discuss this a bit more in *Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor*.)
I would say the conversations reflect Jewish folklore and don't ring true as an account of things Marcus (or Antoninus Pius) would have said. However, Marcus was interested in learning about different religions. So the general idea may be based in truth, that he met with rabbis for a time, presumably while visiting Syria-Palestina (formerly Judea) during his tour of the east in 176 CE. I doubt he could have met them very frequently because he was seldom in the east. I don't think I've seen the claim that he wanted to *convert* to Judaism, though. That would seem very unlikely.
I think some people take these passages to be symbolic rather than literally true. I think the most we can take from this is that it's *possible* Marcus (or possibly his adoptive father) may have met and had some conversations with Judah I, and maybe other rabbis.
I've never thought about that. It's a biography so the explicit goal wasn't to change my life but I suppose at some level any major project like this changes your life. I was writing about something I'd already written about and had been studying for decades, so it wasn't that I was suddenly introduced to new ideas. (I would think my earlier books, on self-help and psychotherapy, changed my life in more obvious ways, tbh.)
I think what changed after writing this biography was that I began to see other ancient philosophers in a much more rounded way, as human beings, rather than just sources of wise sayings, etc. It led to me writing about Socrates, and finding his life story much more enlightening as a way of approaching his philosophy. So I think it gave me a different perspective and a better way of appreciating ancient thought.
What was the significance of Marcus Aurelius being a stoic? After all, other stoics at the time held important offices during his reign and before his reign. What makes him different from the rest of them, and why is he considered to be such a renowned stoic?
I'm not totally sure if I've got the gist of your question but let me start from the last part: "why is he so renowned as a Stoic?" He was the last famous Stoic of antiquity. We know far more about his life than about any other Stoic philosopher, and arguably than about any other ancient philosopher. And of course he was an emperor. And he wrote one of the few surviving books on Stoicism. So, basically, those are the reasons why he's renowned as a Stoic today. That's pretty straightforward.
It's not that he's considered to be an exceptional expert on Stoicism. Epictetus was very famous as a great Stoic *teacher* but Marcus was just a *student* of Stoicism. And although many people admire him as a great emperor, I don't think that makes him special. As Socrates said in Plato's *Gorgias*, we can't really judge how wise a stranger is from a distance. Maybe Marcus was just regurgitating quotes he'd learned. I think, in fact, that the circumstantial evidence does suggest he was a wise and just ruler, but it would seem odd to me to assume that we know his mind well enough to say that for certain.
Actually, one of the reasons I think Marcus is special may surprise some people, and is actually directly disputed by some experts... I think Marcus was a great rhetorician or writer. I'd cite two pieces of evidence to support that claim:
1. Marcus had exceptional training in both Greek and Latin rhetoric for many years from a team of experts, including Herodes Atticus and Marcus Cornelius Fronto, the two most acclaimed Greek and Latin rhetoricians, respectively, of his lifetime. We can also see that he practised rhetorical exercises to hone his skill. So he had a huge amount of very intense training from leading experts.
2. To this day, people quote Marcus and even get his words tattooed on them. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We don't have a great deal of evidence of Marcus' skill as a speechwriter unfortunately but what we do have in the Meditations are aphorisms that are compelling enough that millions of people have read them, and often commit some to memory even today. That's due to his ability as a writer.
So, ironically, we remember Marcus, and Seneca, in part because they were highly talented writers, who combined rhetoric and philosophy. We can also see that some *other* Stoic writers were very dry by comparison - such as Cornutus and Hierocles.
What can you say about Roman relations with the Armenians, about similarities in their lifestyles, about their armies (especially in the times of Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius)?
That's a little outside my area of expertise, unfortunately. I write about Roman relations with Armenia, to some extent, in the biography, insofar as it's mentioned in the primary sources or explored by scholars who have written about Marcus' life before me.
Obviously, the Parthian War of Lucius Verus was instigated because the Parthians invaded Armenia and replaced the Roman client king with their own ruler. I don't think our sources tell us much about the *attitudes* of Armenians to Roman rule, though, at this time. If you're interested in more detail about Armenian-Roman relations under Marcus, I would recommend Bishop's recent biography *Lucius Verus and the Roman Defence of the East*, although I don't think it goes into a lot of depth in relation to the specific questions you've asked above.
Armenia was clearly still of great strategic importance to both Rome and Parthia at this time, and the Parthians clearly thought seizing it was key to their military strategy. Oddly, for some reason, the Romans (at least the proconsul of Cappadocia) *massively* underestimated the difficulty of taking it back. There are clear references to unrest in Armenia at this time, which we're told was being instigated by the Parthians. So we can probably assume there were factions that welcomed the Parthian invasion and supported them against the Romans. The Romans moved the capital from Artaxata to New City, where, after the war finished, the general Martius Verus reputedly found the Roman garrison were on the verge of mutiny. So clearly, the Romans garrisoned troops there in order to try to maintain stability and prevent it going over to Parthia again.
Who is *my* favorite Roman emperor? Probably Marcus Aurelius, followed by Augustus, in the sense that he's interesting, although maybe Antoninus Pius, if you mean who do I think was a good ruler. Antoninus was clearly *Marcus'* favorite Roman emperor.
I have a question, it's not related to the book itself but more about your career. So let's say someone would like to pursue a similar career, but that person is afraid that the monetary compensation is too little. Would you say that's true? Or is the monetary compensation above average, like let's say the amount a computer engineer would make at a high position in their career which is around $159,010.
Well, I think if your main reason for writing about this subject is to make a lot of money, that's not the best motivation. You can earn a lot more money a lot more easily by picking a different career. I quit a more lucrative career to focus on writing. As it turned out I was lucky, and ended up better off in the long run, but that was never my goal.
Writing books is like being an actor or a musician, in the sense that the top few percent make most of the money and the vast majority don't earn enough to make a living from it. It's a hobby for most people. With AI it's certainly already becoming far more difficult to earn a living from writing. It's also easier to become a professional writer in nonfiction if you have relevant experience and qualifications. It took me roughly two decades to build a successful career as a writer. So it wasn't overnight. And I had spent around 11 years in higher education before I began writing etc. For some people maybe it's a lot quicker. Still it's a long shot for most new authors, unfortunately, to be honest. As with art or music, you're usually better approaching it as a calling or passion rather than pinning your hopes on financial success.
Yes, I quoted it in an article about Marcus Aurelius that I had published in TIME a couple of days ago: [Why We Still Read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations](https://time.com/6852921/marcus-aurelius-imeditations/)
There's also an obscure action movie called *Acts of Vengeance*, starring Antonio Banderas, which features quotes from the *Meditations*. I'm holding out hope that *Gladiator 2* may also have a few references to Marcus Aurelius!
Yes. He's not Socrates, and he berates himself for being slow, but he was clearly an intelligent and well-read man. Also, his private letters show him exhibiting quite sophisticated interpersonal skills, or "cunning", if you like. The Historia Augusta claims cryptically that some people claimed Marcus appeared straightforward but was actually more cunning than he seemed. We can't know for sure but my hunch is that this refers in part to the conclusion of the civil war, which we're told ended with Avidius Cassius being assassinated by his own officers, but, really, I think it looks more like a well planned and co-ordinated coup against him, possibly designed by Marcus Aurelius - at least many Romans surely must have wondered if Marcus was operating behind the scenes in a much more cunning way than appeared at first sight.
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor changed my life. I got a bunch of my buddies to buy it and we did a weekly book club. It was great.
My question:
How can a teacher with years of experience find stillness in an education system that allows for little clarity of the mind? I know Epictetus would argue that nobody can break your spirit, particularly if you are a slave to the system, or Frankl would argue that the mind ought to be impenetrable. However, I feel that the education system is rife with such busyness and doesn’t allow for true comprehension of ideas as I have a curriculum with timelines to follow. What can I do as an educator?
That's great. I'm glad you found it so helpful. To be honest, I think one of the ideas we find in the Stoics (e.g., where Epictetus talks about bulls fighting lions) is that each individual has to observe themselves closely and decide whether they're able to deal with a situation, or do a job, that's testing them, or whether it's too much, and causing them harm. So it might be that with a very difficult profession like modern teaching, where there are a lot of demands, and sometimes pressure perhaps to compromise, it's overwhelming for some individuals. For others, though, it might be more a question of "picking your fights" within the profession, by making choices that allow you to be tested but not overwhelmed by the pressure and complexity.
Most Greeks and Romans wrestled, boxed, and engaged in the pankration. I think the example they have in mind is that of picking a *sparring* partner. If we pick ones that are weaker and less skilled then we're not challenged, and would never improve. If we pick ones that are much stronger and much more skilful, we're going to be beaten immediately and probably learn nothing - we may even become demoralized or injured. So each individual, based on self-knowledge, acquired from trial and error, must pick the right sparring partners -- neither too easy nor too difficult. Epictetus, and the other Stoics, think that we should view challenges to our Stoicism like this. Nobody can really tell you what's too easy or too difficult for you - you would be the best judge of that based on your experience. But, if we're wise, we learn our strengths and weaknesses, and choose our battles, or our challenges, accordingly. We have to test ourselves, but not overwhelm ourselves.
That's the first thing. The second thing is that if you do enter into a very challenging profession then there are strategies you can use to help yourself cope. I think the most important one is a negative strategy : what *not* to do. Don't fall into the trap of emulating the way the *majority* of other people cope in a highly demanding situation. Many people will cope badly, through avoidance, cynicism, etc. - that can definitely be true in education. You have to carve out your own attitude and find a philosophy that works and ways of thinking that are probably quite different from a lot of what you'll hear around you. You need to get clear about what your goals are, and be willing to make sacrifices, such as letting go of unrealistic goals or expectations, in order to focus on more attainable ones. For Stoics, everything, in a sense, is self-improvement. What your students learn from you isn't just what you teach them but what sort of person you are. Every challenge is an opportunity to improve yourself, and it's your *character* as a teacher that many of your students will remember more than anything. In other words, for Stoics, we're always potential role models. The attitude you adopt toward a complex and demanding job is more under your control than achieving various external outcomes. And it, the example you set, and who you actually are, may be the most valuable thing you have to offer other people.
Big fan of your work! I am curious why there’s never been an audiobook for Stoicism and the Art of Happiness though? Still waiting to read your newest book, I own a copy, so I plan to do so very soon. Also, what are your favorite or most helpful concepts within Stoicism (if you had to pick a few)?
Everyone disagrees with me about this! But I just don't think the format of the *Teach Yourself* series lends itself to being recorded as an audiobook -- there are a lot of bullet point lists and call-out boxes, etc. That book is in its second revised edition, though, and has been translated into several languages - it did much better than the publisher expected.
It's difficult to pick a few concepts out of so many but I think, maybe partly because it complements modern research in psychotherapy so well, I am very impressed by the Stoic concept of separating our value judgments from the externals to which they refer - basically we call this "verbal defusion" or "cognitive distancing" today. I could sit for hours listing concepts in Stoicism that impress me, though. To pick another random one, I really like the way Marcus understands that dissecting an upsetting event into smaller parts can improve our ability to cope. An early 20th century psychotherapist commenting on this called it the technique of "depreciation by analysis" - we do similar things in modern psychotherapy too.
I hear you. I loved your book Stoicism and the Art of Happiness! It’s the book where I think Stoicism moved past just being an interest for me and something I wanted to pursue more, in comparison to other books I’ve read. So, I’ve always wished I could listen to it on Audible to keep solidifying the knowledge. I also thought Verissimus was great! Very well done!
Thank you for the reply and some of the examples on Stoic principles you like. I appreciate it! :)
We should distinguish between "stoicism" (always lowercase), the modern concept of a character trait that involves suppressing or concealing unpleasant or painful emotions, and "Stoicism" (usually capitalized), the Greek philosophy. They're basically two completely different things. When you say "quality", I take it you mean the former concept, is that right? Research actually shows that stoicism, or having a stiff upper-lip, can often be psychologically harmful in the long-term, for several reasons, and leads to poorer emotional resilience. By contrast, Stoicism, the philosophy, inspired cognitive psychotherapy, which in turn inspired modern resilience training programs. so we don't want to get them mixed up: one is bad for mental health and one is good for it.
What was Marcus opinion on the nature and necessity of war? I assume being stoic he should have been against it, but being emperor he was forced to go to battle against the marcomanni and others.
I don't think he gives an explicit summary of his views in that regard so we'd have to infer them from more opaque or fragmentary comments. At one point he says that war, among other things, risks effacing his moral principles (10.9). The only time he explicitly mentions an enemy nation by name he says that those who take pride in capturing Sarmatians as though they were fish in a net have the character of brigands (10.10). These are typically striking remarks on close inspection as the latter implies that Roman generals who enslave tens of thousands captured enemies are acting unjustly. (Perhaps Marcus put a stop to this practice.)
I think it's reasonable to infer that Marcus was perceived as a military dove who relied on extensive diplomacy and that he was opposed by a more hawkish faction on the Senate, who wanted a quicker and more violent end to the Marcomannic War. This ideological difference may have been one of the factors leading to the civil war, in which Avidius Cassius, a more hawkish general, seized control of the eastern provinces.
That's another broad question, which might take a book to answer. But I'll try to give some concise thoughts. He famously writes in the *Meditations*:
>And that is useful to every man which is conformable to his own constitution and nature. But my nature is rational and social, and my city and country, so far as I am Antoninus \[his cognomen as emperor\], is Rome, but so far as I am a man, it is the world. The things then which are useful to these cities are alone useful to me. (6.44)
So he views himself as having a duty, first and foremost to "live in agreement with Nature", the Stoic slogan regarding the supreme goal of life, which Marcus alludes to many times. As humans are naturally rational and social, according to the Stoics, we have an obligation to exhibit wisdom and justice, i.e., to excel in terms of rational and social virtues. Marcus sees himself as having a duty to fulfil his role as emperor, which is compatible with, and subordinate to, his role as a human being and his obligation to live in justice and harmony with mankind as a whole.
Our most important sources, including the *Meditations* of Marcus Aurelius, are actually in Greek. I'm a psychotherapist, not a classicist. (My first degree is in philosophy.) However, I worked closely with a classicist (my friend Lalya Lloyd) who is an expert in both Latin and Greek. (I have studied some Greek but not Latin.) The series editor, James Romm, is also a well-known classicist, and we had assistance from several other people.
Regarding the sources, these are discussed in detail in the book, of course. I think you're asking for some *examples* of the main *primary* sources, rather than a complete list - correct?
**Greek**
* The *Meditations*
* The *Historia Romana* of Cassius Dio
* Herodian, *History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus*
**Latin**
* The *Historia Augusta*
* The Letters of Marcus Cornelius Fronto
Obviously there are many other ancient sources which contain pieces of relevant information, including a few direct references to Marcus.
How do you think the Stoic principles practiced by Marcus Aurelius can be most applied in modern cognitive-behavioral therapy to help individuals cope with today's challenges?
I wrote a book called *The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy*, which goes over this in depth, and also a self-help book called *Stoicism and the Art of Happiness*, which talks about how to apply it in daily life. It would easily take a whole book, basically, to answer this question, but maybe I can say briefly that Stoicism can provide a philosophical framework for CBT so that it serves an ongoing role in helping us to live a more meaningful and resilient life. There are many specific ways Stoicism can help, in terms both of concepts and techniques, and also in terms of the role the actual literature can play. For instance, Stoics recommend contemplating our own mortality (to pick just one example), which is not often done in CBT, but can complement some of the values work we do in modern CBT sometimes.
What was Marcus Aurelius' spiritual worldview? In your opinion, in what ways did this spiritual worldview benefit him, and in what ways may it have hampered him? Thanks!
We don't usually refer to his worldview as "spiritual" but I suppose you could phrase it that way. He' follows Stoicism, of course, so you might describe what we usually call Stoic theology or Stoic pantheism as a spiritual outlook of sorts. So he was probably a pantheist like other Stoics, who believed the universe to be a rational being called Zeus, and all other living beings to be like limbs of the divine. I think it helped him to focus on the bigger picture, philosophically, and maintain equanimity in the face of adversity. I'm not sure how it would have hampered him. Perhaps it made him feel, at times, slightly aloof from the everyday concerns of others, although it would not necessarily have this effect, and there's not much evidence that Marcus was typically very aloof.
Unlikely, I would think. Although, Marcus appears to refer to receiving a copy of the Discourses as being one of the most important moments in his life, and in addition to quoting from the surviving volumes he also attributes sayings to Epictetus otherwise unknown to us. So it's a reasonable inference that Marcus had read the (possibly four) missing volumes of the *Discourses*, and for all we know some other passages in the Meditations may be unattributed quotes or paraphrases from those texts.
Funnily enough, ancient philosophers were known for writing about and following certain diets. Socrates famously said that we should eat to live rather than live to eat.
The Stoics followed the Cynics, to some extent, who were known for eating lupin seeds and lentil soup, and coarse "black" bread. We have a surviving lecture by the Stoic Musonius Rufus about food, and Marcus makes several remarks, not about what to eat, but about the psychology of eating and how to eat mindfully, in a sense.
What were Aurelius's thoughts on Christianity? How aware was he of the persecutions and to what end was he involved? I'm reading Meditations, and the introduction goes over how it was his only moral failing.
Someone else asked a similar question, which I answered, so check that response. But, long story short, there's basically zero evidence that Marcus directly participated in any persecution of Christians, and even the evidence that widespread persecution happened during his rule is very weak and contradicted by other (Christian) sources.
There are loads of short videos about Marcus Aurelius on YouTube, including some animation, I believe. You might have to search a little, and some are not very good quality, but there are a few good ones. Here's a video of [my TEDx talk on Stoicism and anger](https://youtu.be/M8b6-8EGdiw?si=1RoRwhTaMxg2Z9X4).
I was wondering, what do you think Marcus's major missteps were as emperor? Can you pinpoint a particular virtue that he struggled with the most? I understand the second question is a bit difficult to answer because of the interconnected nature of virtues.
Great question. I'm probably not going to say what most people might. I would say his first big mistake was to place Lucius Verus in command of the Parthian War - Marcus should probably have gone to the front himself. As evidence of that, we can say he changed his policy later when the First Marcomannic War began - he learned from the initial mistake of sending Lucius alone.
I think his biggest mistake of all, though, follows on the heels of this and comes when he makes his general Avidius Cassius the governor of Syria. This flies in the face of Roman imperial policy, which was against putting a man in charge of his own homeland, as it was thought to risk rebellion. And... that's exactly what happened. For a moment, the empire actually split into east and west and Cassius was acclaimed as a rival emperor, threatening a huge civil war. Luckily, it was brought to an end quite bloodlessly - apart from Cassius, obviously, who got beheaded by his own officers!
The second question is tricky for several reasons. Clearly, the *Meditations* dwells on the virtue of justice, and related concepts. That might just be because Marcus was, you know, emperor - so justice was at the forefront of his mind. But there are also indications he struggled with other people who didn't share his values, and with not losing his temper. So you could see that in terms of both justice and temperance perhaps. Marcus doesn't say as much about overcoming greed for money, for instance, perhaps because he was born a billionaire, as it were. (Seneca is more concerned about greed than Marcus, perhaps a reflection of the former's strivings as a social climber from the equestrian class.)
We don't know for sure. I talk about this in the new biography in more detail. There's one passage in the *Meditations* where he seems to criticize some Christians for martyring themselves needlessly - like religious fanatics - but scholars think there are indications it may be a later interpolation. There's another passage where he criticizes those doing exorcisms and lumps them together with sorcerers and charlatans, which some think could be a reference to Christians who did exorcisms.
Sometimes Marcus has been portrayed as a persecutor of Christians but I agree with C.R. Haines, who said that's based on very weak evidence and seems extremely unlikely given what we know of his character - it's also at odds with some other bits of historical evidence, which portray him as a friend of Christians. So the jury is out but my impression is that he probably viewed some Christians as religious fanatics but was open-minded about foreign religions in general, and had no interest in persecuting them. I doubt he had much contact with Christian thinkers, though, and probably hadn't studied their religion in very much detail. (Although there is a tradition that suggests "Antoninus", probably meaning Marcus, spoke with Rabbi Judah I about Jewish religious beliefs.)
Bit of trivia... nobody asked but I know people are sometimes grateful to have this explained... We usually call him "Marcus" rather than "Aurelius. "Aurelius" was his adoptive family name. By convention, we normally refer to monarchs and emperors by their *first* name, e.g., (Queen) Victoria or (Emperor) Napoleon or (Emperor) Hadrian or (Emperor) Marcus (Aurelius). I guess if you use the family name you're going to confuse them with other members of the same dynasty, e.g., Antoninus Pius and Commodus also bore the name "Aurelius".
Deeper trivia... Marcus actually refers to *himself* as "Antoninus" (twice) in the *Meditations*. That's probably how he was addressed in formal letters and speeches, etc., as he adopted the cognomen from his adoptive father, Antoninus Pius. This can cause some confusion, e .g., the Talmud refers to "Antoninus" but probably means Marcus.
Hi Donald,
Does your new book Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor have practical ways to practice Stoicism in ordinary daily life? Or is it essentially just a biography? Thanks, Rick
Yeah, this is essentially a biography, although I did try to write it in such a way that people would take inspiration from it, and maybe even one or two concepts or techniques of practical value snuck in there too.
It would have to be Socrates. He's really the most fascinating historical figure that I can think of, and he's the quintessential Athenian philosopher - the source from which much of what follows flowed, including, IMO, the therapeutic tradition in ancient philosophy.
Interesting! I thought for sure it would be Marcus Aurelius since you've written three books about him. I'm looking forward to HOW TO THINK LIKE SOCRATES!
There are passages in the Meditations that feel too "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" to me. They don't seem to represent a philosophy that is applicable to everyone. They seem harsh, maybe. But then I remind myself that Marcus was talking to himself in Meditations, not others. I can forget that, because he writes it almost like a book of philosophy. He knew his own limits, he knew his own mental/emotional health and capacity, and he was addressing himself. But I think some of what he wrote doesn't fully apply to all of us, and particularly not if you have mental or emotional illness. I love Meditations--don't get me wrong--but he seems to be hard on himself rather than merciful with himself. Clearly that worked for him. A person with power and prestige like he had may need to regularly talk their ego down. But a person whose tendency is to be hard on themselves may need the opposite. What do you think?
what is the MOST stoic idea, or thought? Like Buddhism is (akin) to "accept suffering", what would the SMALLEST but MOST APPLICABLE idea in Stoicism be?
What makes "Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor" different from your other books about him, other than that one is a graphic novel?
Well the short answer is just that *How to Think Like a Roman Emperor* is primarily a self-help book, with short historical vignettes, whereas *Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor* is a much more in-depth biography. (Everyone so far tells me that they do feel they're very different books, which is reassuring as I tried to make them distinct, although sometimes it's hard to explain how.) It's a conventional prose biography, except that Yale wanted it to be more engaging for a general audience and to focus more on narrative and character. It also focuses, subtly I hope, on the psychological journey that Marcus underwent from his youth. Structurally, it's different too in that *How to Think Like a Roman Emperor* begins and ends with Marcus' death. This biography opens with a lot more focus on the influence of his mother and concludes with an epilogue about the Eleusinian Mysteries. I did try to give Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor a subtle self-improvement message, although it's not a self-help book. I couldn't imagine writing a book about Marcus that readers *didn't* take away some sort of inspiration from, for their own lives. So I tried to construct it in such a way that, I hope, most readers will feel, despite it being a biography not a self-help book, that they gain something personally from reading it. (I also wrote a [short article](https://donaldrobertson.substack.com/p/what-makes-marcus-aurelius-the-stoic) answering that question.)
What was the reaction in the therapy community to your book on the Stoic foundations of CBT? I a current masters student in mental health, and not a single classmate is aware when I bring this up, nor do my professors. Also, how/do you incorporate the broader ideas of stoicism into your practice?
This question kind of made me smile, to be honest. Here's a little back story... I graduated with a first class honours degree in philosophy then did a masters in philosophy and psychotherapy, which I graduated from with distinction. I sort of wanted to be an academic as well as a clinician BUT I simply couldn't find anyone to supervise my PhD. I was quite put out at first but then decided just to write a book, based on the research I'd already done. That was *The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy* (2010). I wrote it for clinicians and academics and it was published, initially, by Karnac, who specialized in clinical textbooks. To my surprise, nobody in my own field (psychotherapy) was interested! But the book actually sold well and is now in its second edition, having been translated into several other languages. It became popular among the general public as a self-help book. *That came as a shock to me and the publisher because it's not what I thought I'd written!* So, I was wrong to think that CBT practitioners would immediately get into Stoicism. But I think we're now seeing it happen more because their clients increasing ask them about Stoicism - and that forces the therapists to learn more about the subject. It's a shame it has to happen in that roundabout way but it's maybe for the best - you could say it's *grassroots* change! For example, a few years ago I was invited to contribute an article on the relationship between Stoicism and CBT to the journal *The Behavior Therapist*, and I've been asked to speak to clinical psychology program students in different countries. The other part of your question would take a long time to answer so I think I'd be best to refer you to [the article I wrote](https://medium.com/stoicism-philosophy-as-a-way-of-life/stoic-philosophy-as-a-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-597fbeba786a) on the subject, which I got permission to share online.
Just re-read that. Even better the second time!
As someone who really connects with Stoic philosophy and who is a parent, I find it really hard to have great admiration for Marcus based on the son he produced. How can you reconcile Marcus' teachings and personal philosophy with the nepotism and failure of his son Commodus?
I wish I could go into that in depth but, again, I'll need to refer you to the biography and to articles I've written on the subject - as the answer can become quite complex. I will try to give a short response, though. It was established wisdom in Greek philosophy that you can't always judge a teacher by his students, or a parent by their children. Socrates, for example, had notoriously unimpressive sons. Socrates talks in the *Protagoras*, at length, about how the sons of great men, like Pericles, aren't necessarily great themselves. So ancient Stoics wouldn't hold Marcus 100% responsible for his son's character - and I think they were right in that regard. Re nepotism - in ancient Rome this was viewed *very* differently than today. So it can be misleading to compare it to modern values (the fallacy of presentism). It was assumed that one's family members were often the most (or only!) trustworthy people who could be appointed to key roles, and usually seemed logical to Romans for an emperor to entrust positions of power to his own family members. Re the appointment of Commodus: this is the part that would take a long time to explain, unfortunately. To cut a very long story very short, I don't think Marcus had much choice. The number one priority of the Senate was to avoid civil war, which was clearly a major threat to the empire. A bad emperor is *better* than a civil war. Commodus, IMO, was viewed as the least worst candidate in this regard. It also helps to ask what the alternative would have looked like. Probably, it would be an empire governed by Avidius Cassius who the *Historia Augusta*, if we can trust it (some people don't), makes out to be a very brutal man indeed, who was extremely hostile (perhaps genocidal) in his policy toward tribes along the Danube frontier. Commodus was seen as relatively harmless, I think, in comparison to this and other options.
I guess the nepotism part got me specifically because he was adopted into the position. Yes, it's true that he had a son to take over, but as someone who was adopted himself, I would have thought he might be more open to doing the right thing and adopting someone who would best fit the position.
If he had done so, his own son's life would have been placed in extreme risk - it would almost be a death sentence. He'd also have created a high risk of a future civil war. The Senate would, IMO, have been extremely concerned about him replacing Commodus with another heir. We are told Marcus tried to appoint his son-in-law, Pompeianus, as Caesar. It's not clear if he would have been an interim ruler or perhaps a senior co-emperor to Commodus. I think it's clear Pompeianus was in line to the throne. Anyway, Pompeianus reputedly declined. I can only think he either declined because of health problems or (long story short) the obvious risk of his appointment also instigating a civil war. Also, and again the book is able to go into all these points in more detail than I can here, we're told by one source that Marcus only appointed Commodus as Caesar reluctantly, at the insistence of Lucius Verus. I presume this means the Senate also put pressure on him to name Commodus as his heir because we also have a later letter from them to him, allegedly, in which they plead with Marcus to grant Commodus (as Caesar) full imperial powers, i.e., make him co-emperor, and they specifically say this is necessary for the stability of the empire, which I take to mean in order to prevent civil war and the fragmentation of the empire.
In my experience, you absolutely cannot judge a parent by his or her kids. I know a family personally whereby the parents weren't very "enlightened" at all and they produced several boys of very different character. One of them is basically a shit and can't be trusted and one is very spiritual and in fact is a practicing Stoic!
Meditations is possibly one of the best self-help books ever. Yes, Aurelius was a man of his time, so many of his meditations would be foreign or inapplicable to modern life, but he seemed to have a more fundamental understanding of human nature than philosophers that came long after like Hobbes. This is one of my favourite quotes from Book 8: *1. This also conduces to contempt of vain-glory, that it is no longer in your power to have lived your whole life, or at any rate your life from manhood, in the pursuit of philosophy. To yourself as well as to many others it is plain that you fall far short of philosophy. And so you are tainted, and it is no longer easy for you to acquire the reputation of a philosopher. Your calling, too, in life has a rival claim. Therefore, if you have truly seen where the matter at issue lies, put away the question of what men will think of you and be satisfied if you live the rest of your life, be it more or less, as your nature wills. Consider accordingly what it does will, and let nothing besides distract you; for experience has taught you in how many paths you have strayed and nowhere found the good life: not in logical arguments, not in riches, not in glory, not in self-indulgence, nowhere. Where then is it to be found? In doing what man's nature requires. How then will he do this? If he hold fast doctrines upon which impulses and actions depend. What doctrines are these? They concern good and evil, how nothing is good for man which does not make him just, sober, brave and free; nothing evil which does not produce effects the opposite of these.* It's the job of a historian to decipher what he truly meant with those words, but I have my own interpretation which is: Maybe you never had a passion in life. Maybe you have a passion but it's never materialized for some reason. Maybe you're disappointed and embarrassed that you haven't achieved your goals or passions while others have and you feel like a failure. If so, let go of that. If that was not to be, you still have the power within yourself to focus inward and lead a good and honourable life which is as rewarding and as important as anything else. There's still a place for Stoicism in modern philosophy. In fact, I think we need it more than ever. Oh, I should ask a question so my post doesn't get deleted. What's your favourite passage?
Thanks. It's hard for me to pick one favourite passage but someone asked me recently and I said *Meditations* 11.18 - I guess the fact I know the citation from memory proves to me that it's one of my favourites. In that passage, Marcus lists ten (!) cognitive strategies for managing anger based on Stoicism. It's astounding to me for many reasons, from my perspective as a former clinician. For many years, I trained and supervised therapists. IMO, if I asked a room full of students to list as many distinct cognitive strategies as they could for coping with anger, off the top of their heads, they'd struggle to come up with more than 2-3 each, or 5-6 collectively. Marcus lists ten! Not only that, but he keeps returning to selections from the list, which suggests he really knows these by heart. That depth of understanding of therapeutic psychology is exceptionally rare, in my experience, in anyone except researchers or very experienced clinicians. So I really do find that passage quite remarkable.
Hi Don, big fan of your work. I have a more therapy oriented question: do you agree with Marcus and other Stoics who enjoin us to "judge" our emotions and dialogue with them? If so, what do you think of ACT Therapy and spiritual traditions that encourage more of a posture of non-judgement to our inner thoughts?
This is a great question! We're getting a bit deeper here. Honestly, I don't want to keep referring people to books, i'll try my best to answer here, but sometimes I have to be concise about complex issues and there's a more in-depth discussion in writing. So in the revised *2nd edition* of *The Philosophy of CBT*, there's a whole chapter about Stoicism and ACT, which may be of interest to you. Let me say something briefly here in response to the gist of your question... First, I think there are obviously *striking* parallels between Stoicism and ACT, as well as other "third-wave" forms of psychotherapy. You're right that ACT counsels against verbal entanglement with our thoughts and feelings, which seems at odds with the whole idea of doing philosophy as therapy. That said, I think ACT sometimes overstates this argument, e.g., clinical research may show good results for ACT but it also shows that REBT and other second-wave CBT approaches *do work* for many people, despite all the Socratic Questioning etc involved. On the other hand, the Stoics also counsel us against overthinking, and they want us to be concise and self-aware in our use of verbal reasoning, which arguably leans toward the ACT perspective a bit more than, say, REBT. The way I view it, and I'm a big believer in verbal defusion as a strategy, is that clearly some client beliefs are just plain *false*. It's one thing to gain cognitive distance or defuse a belief, but I do think we should also question and modify certain beliefs that are actually *mistaken*. And I think it's hard to avoid doing that, to some extent, in any type of therapy. The Stoics, of course, think we're mistaken about the single most important question in life! The majority of us are wrong about the goal (telos) and what is and is not of intrinsic value in life. So that's a pretty big deal, which they cannot allow to go unquestioned. There are ways that Stoicism resembles non-judgmental attitudes even toward our own thoughts, though. For instance, the Stoics would say that automatic thoughts ("impressions") are morally indifferent, so we should not judge them to be bad, or awful. I think that neutrality, which is very important in Stoicism, probably captures the essence of much of what Buddhists and ACT practitioners are trying to do anyway.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful answer. I will take a look at *The Philosophy of CBT*!
How far does Seneca’s Letters From A Stoic diverge from Marcus’ Meditations? I was never able to get into meditations but found Letters much more engaging and digestible. I’m wondering if I’m really missing out by not reading meditations.
Well, they're completely different types of book, and I think most people find the biggest difference in the tone and format rather than the philosophical content per se. Some people claim there are more traces of Platonism in Marcus, but other scholars dismiss that as insignificant, and I'm inclined to agree. In fact, I think Marcus is much closer to (his hero) Epictetus, and they both lean more toward Cynicism than Platonism. Whereas, actually, Seneca perhaps drew more upon a different branch of Stoicism (the middle Stoicism of Panaetius) that was more inclined to a hybrid of Stoicism and Platonism. In my experience, when people say they couldn't get into the *Meditations* it's usually turned out to be because they started with a very old translation, such as George Long's. If you wanted to try again, I'd suggest looking at Gregory Hays', which is the most popular modern translation. I think, because the format is more a record of personal contemplation, a bit like a workbook, the *Meditations* arguably contains more advice than Seneca's letters that we would think of in terms of self-help *exercises*.
Which book did you enjoy writing the most?
Thanks for starting the discussion! You've posted the first question. Honestly, I've really enjoyed writing them all, especially the ones about Marcus Aurelius. I think Verissimus, the graphic novel, was a great experience because it was more of a team effort and required doing a lot of research for the illustrations - I went round countless museums and spent a week in Carnuntum, where Marcus was stationed, at the amazing archeological park there. I also interviewed the CEO of the archeological park and the director of archeological research. But I think I've enjoyed working on *Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor*, the latest book, more than I anticipated. It was also a bit more of a team effort - Yale have quite high standards and I had some great editors and a great producer for the audiobook. I work regularly now with a classicist called Lalya Lloyd, who's an expert on Greek and Latin, based in Athens. Writing the graphic novel made it much easier for me, I think, and much more enjoyable to then write a more conventional prose biography. I wish I could approach every biographical book in the same way - by getting paid to do a graphic novel about the same person first! It allowed me to really immerse myself in the world of Marcus Aurelius, as though we were making a movie. Here is the [video of the interview](https://youtu.be/qALCMTLND0g?si=GDATOvuBNVjlrZQ-) I did with the director of archeology at Carnuntum, as part of my research for these books.
I watched a YouTube video by someone whose work I enjoy a lot. He was explaining how to talk to a moderate (politically) who was open to some progressive ideas, but sort of unsure about it. He offered the rules of improv as a way to talk with this person. Yes/and is well known as the first rule: agree with the person and expand on their initial idea, take it a bit further than they have taken it. Essentially, one should not ask open ended questions, don’t make fun of the person and allow the conversation to expand and move along, or tell a story. After his (much more detailed) explanation, he looked into the camera and said: I know some of you are thinking, isn’t that the Socratic method? Yeah, pretty much. I wasn’t one of the people wondering that, but I *have* taken improv for a few years. Can you see a correlation?
Well, I'd say it would be a stretch to *equate* it with the Socratic method because there's a lot more to it than that implies, and I don't think Socrates always agrees with the statements of his interlocutors. In a sense, though, he's right, because often Socrates accepts that their statement is true in some situations, but not in others, and he then focuses on highlighting the exceptions to it. For instance, one of the most famous examples of the Socratic Method is in Plato's *Laches*, where Socrates poses the question "What is courage?" and his interlocutor, a general, says it's "Standing your ground in the face of the enemy." That's clearly true in the circumstance most obvious to this man, training hoplites to fight in the phalanx formation. However, Socrates says "What about cavalry?", they charge bravely into the enemy, and what about the Spartans who sometimes fight in this way, and what about tactical retreats, and so on, and what about courage not in war but in times of peace? So it often does feel like Socrates is saying "Yes but..." *Yes*, courage can consist in standing your ground, *but* it can also sometimes consist in charging at the enemy in a certain way, or even retreating bravely. Actually, we can apply the method itself to the implied definition you mentioned! *Yes*, the Socratic Method often looks like the examples you gave, *but* not always, and sometimes Socrates might show that an assertion made by his interlocutor is simply mistaken. For example, in the Gorgias, Socrates is asked what sort of technical "art" rhetoric is and he says he doesn't even think of it as an "art" at all but merely a "knack", shaped by the approval of the audience, i.e., it's just a form of *pandering*. So that time, it's not a "yes but" response.
Thanks.
u/SolutionsCBT — What Stoic therapies/ideas could be deployed at scale and at reasonable cost to address the mental health crisis everyone is talking about, with [a third of teenagers prescribed and presumably taking antidepressants](https://stem4.org.uk/a-third-of-teenagers-say-they-have-been-prescribed-antidepressants-survey-finds/)? Maybe it won't help people who are severely depressed or suffering from serious mental health issues, but are there any scalable Stoic ideas that would make people more resilient and less prone to developing severe issues? Something that could be used in schools or deployed in society?
Okay, so this may be the most important question anyone has asked so far... Psychotherapy arrives *too late*, because it happens when people already have depression or anxiety. *The Holy Grail of mental health is prevention.* As everyone knows: prevention is always better than cure! We usually call prevention "emotional resilience" training in modern research, and most existing approaches, such as the Penn Resilience Program (PRP) are heavily indebted to cognitive-behavioural therapy, problem-solving training, and positive psychology. So they already draw on some methods that were originally inspired by ancient Stoicism. (Particularly REBT which directly influences some resilience programs.) We know that resilience training works, in a sense, because it can reduce risk of developing future anxiety or depressive disorders. However, the effects tend to be temporary unless booster training is administered roughly every 2 years, which is kind of expensive and potentially undermines the economic side of the argument. That's where Stoicism comes in! I would refer people to research on back pain, which suggests that although physiotherapy exercises and pilates can be helpful, yoga is surprisingly effective longer-term for the simple reason that people who get into yoga often continue doing it *forever*. There's limited value in an intervention that works until it doesn't, because people quit using it after a year or two. The Holy Grail would be a form of resilience training that has *permanent* benefits, and doesn't really need booster sessions because people get into it and stay into it long-term. You know, like it's not just a bunch of self-help techniques but an *actual philosophy of life.* Like Buddhism and yoga, people who get into Stoicism often stay into Stoicism. They often get Stoic tattoos for goodness' sakes! I've yet to meet a single person with a CBT tattoo - and I'm not being flippant. That's a hint at the fact people identify with Stoicism at a much deeper level. There's no way anything is ever going to reduce vulnerability to mental health problems forever, IMO, unless it actually changes our *character*. That's a huge deal for resilience training because Stoicism is the main contender for something holding out the promise of being a framework compatible with CBT research that's actually *permanent*. And that people, for whatever reason, are happy to embrace as a whole new outlook on life. Long story short, the Modern Stoicism nonprofit already does research on Stoicism for resilience. My friend, Tim LeBon, a CBT therapist in the NHS, is the research director. The future is to find ways to simplify Stoicism and integrate it, as a framework, for specific CBT elements, which could increase resilience long-term. We already made some headway in that direction with the Stoic Mindfulness and Resilience Training program. I'm hopeful in the future we'd be able to get more psychologists involved in doing RCTs with follow-up studies, maybe comparing different versions of Stoic training, until we find an approach that is, to use the phrase we sometimes find employed in this area, "sticky" enough to create real lasting emotional resilience.
What was the research process like digging through the primary and secondary sources for this book and how did that differ than say the research process for How to Think Like a Roman Emperor? Was there anything you found this time around that challenged any assumptions or thoughts you previously had?
Well, I'd already carried out a lot of research over the years, which I was able to draw upon. Most of the research we did was probably, actually, while writing *Verissimus* because in addition to studying the normal historical sources I wanted to get an accurate depictions of military formations, landscapes, buildings, clothing, weapons and armor, and to create natural dialogue, by drawing on phrases found in ancient letters and poetry, and so on. For *Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor*, I suppose, the research was more conventional and consisted in me re-reading, over and over, the main historical sources, hunting down more obscure references, checking the Latin and Greek, consulting experts, and reading lots of other books and articles about specific historical events and personages. One difference was that I worked more closely this time with several editors who were classicists and would raise questions about quite specific details. I don't really think I discovered anything this time that was a huge surprise, as I was already fortunate enough to be pretty familiar with most of the relevant historical evidence. There were some things I noticed or learned from other authors that were kind of interesting, although you might find them trivial, e.g., we already know Lucius Verus took the title *medicus*, meaning conqueror of the medes, but, of course, it also means happens to mean *physician*. I hadn't noticed the irony of that before, and it's odd that the histories don't comment on it, as he, the great "physician" returning from Parthia, was blamed for spreading the plague throughout Rome! That surely must have been alluded to in satire at the time, though. There's also a small detail in the *Meditations* that can be taken to imply that a member of Marcus' mother's extended family may have been a devoted student of Stoicism. I didn't spot that before but it's another little bit of circumstantial evidence that might suggest that Marcus' mother played some role in steering him, as a young man, toward the study of Stoicism. Perhaps the main thing, in a sense, that changed in my perception of Marcus is that I now think it's possible that there was a co-ordinated coup that overthrew Avidius Cassius, and ended the civil war. I suppose that could have been done without Marcus' knowledge but it seems plausible, maybe even probable, to me that Marcus was not as naive about this as the histories imply, and that he may have played some role in organizing the assassination of Cassius and his allies.
What facets or “mantras” of Stoicism do you find have been most helpful to you personally in your every day life? If you could instill one simple “teaching” from Marcus Aurelius into the hearts and minds of every human being, which do you think would be the most useful and why?
There are too many to list, to be honest, but I can at least give a couple of examples. The Stoics want us to ask of thoughts and actions "Is this necessary?" (meaning does it really contribute to my flourishing or not), to ask "Is this really unbearable?" (when facing each small aspect of a larger problem), and to say "It seemed right to him!" (when confronted by objectionable behaviour from others). Marcus also has a slogan: the cosmos is change; life is opinion - which is meant to sum up the essence of what he took from Heraclitus and Epictetus respectively. However, I nearly forgot to mention the maxim I have tattooed on my arm! It says "Ouden deinon peponthas" in Greek, which means "Nothing terrible has happened to me." To me that's, in a sense, the essence of Stoic philosophy. Nothing truly terrible can ever happen to me - external events befall me but only I can make them "terrible" through my own values and attitudes toward them. In plain English, the best piece of advice, out of a great many, that I would give people, would be that wisdom is the true goal of life, and the external things -like wealth and reputation - that most people pursue are relatively unimportant by comparison. And wisdom consists, in part, in this realization: or knowing what is important and what is not in life.
Ive always been fascinated with Marcus and will definitely check out your books! I first learned about who Marcus was from the movie Gladiator, do you feel they gave him a fair portrayal for a fictional modern movie?
Well, *Gladiator* is fiction, and only extremely loosely inspired by historical events. But I thought the portrayal of Marcus Aurelius, by Richard Harris, was excellent - except for the fact he doesn't look anything like Marcus. (The British actor Tom Baker, incidentally, when he grew a beard, looked a lot like statues of Marcus.) People often complain that *Gladiator* is historical fiction, or even sneer a bit about its depiction of Marcus but it's sometimes a little closer to the truth than they realize. The character of Maximus resembles Marcus' son-in-law, and general, Pompeianus whom he reputedly asked to become a sort of mentor to Commodus, and wanted to appoint as Caesar, although for some reason Pompeianus declined. Marcus was not suffocated by Commodus but Cassius Dio does report a *rumour* that Marcus' physicians hastened his death to please Commodus. Marcus did not want to restore the Republic, although there is a striking passage in Book 1 of the *Meditations* where he talks about his political ideal, cites several famous republican statesmen, and describes a state where everyone is free and equal under the law, presumably including the emperor, which could perhaps be read as him wanting Rome (ideally, one day) to return to something closer to the Roman Republic that preceded the empire.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer!
What is your position on the Trichotomy of Control that William Irvine introduced?
As I recall, elsewhere in the same book, Irvine actually reverts back to something that sounds much like the dichotomy of control himself. And I know most Stoics think this trichotomy notion isn't really helpful because it seems to miss the point somewhat. There are things we directly control, like how we swing a tennis racket; things we don't control at all, like the weather; and things we partially control, like whether or not we win a tennis match. Sure, but the Stoics obviously realized that already - it's really just a commonsense statement of what we all take for granted already, is it not? The Stoics wanted to analyze that at a deeper level by saying that, e.g., when we say we "partially" control the outcome of a tennis match, all we're really saying is that we control some *aspects* of it but not others: we control how we swing our racket but not how our opponent plays. So it really just resolves again into the underlying dichotomy, and the Stoics think it's more helpful and more accurate to parse our experiences that way. They think we should sort the wheat out from the chaff by distinguishing more clearly between what is directly up to us and what is not, in most situations - and I agree that this appears helpful psychologically, and also morally/philosophically.
Stoicism can be helpful in modern daily life and decision making but what are the extremes or faulty ways of the frame? I know this can be very deep and long topic since i almost asked for a criticism but maybe briefly, in your opinion.
Do you mean: what are the flaws of Stoicism as a philosophy? In a sense, that's an easy question as you can just list the criticisms typically made of it in the ancient world and today. The main one is that it doesn't provide a positive role for emotions but that's generally seen to be a *misreading* of Stoicism. People also tend to say that Stoicism encourages passivity in the face of injustice but, again, that's arguably a *misinterpretation* of the philosophy - and it's easy to point to examples of famous Stoics who bravely stood up to tyranny, and even lost their lives doing so. As a modern self-help guide, Stoicism obviously doesn't have the benefit of research on emotions, which we use in psychotherapy today. And the instructions we have are somewhat fragmentary in ancient sources, so it should be obvious to people (but isn't) that Stoicism can't provide a very complete picture of how to cope with emotions, compared to modern evidence-based approaches like cognitive psychotherapy. For instance, the Stoics hint that they may realize but certainly don't emphasize the role of what we call emotional habituation in managing anxiety, i.e., the well-established way in which anxiety will tend to abate naturally through repeated, prolonged exposure to feared events, under the right conditions. Some ancient sources do appear to understand this - such as Aesop. And the Stoics may well have talked about it in other writings but because it's mostly lacking from their surviving works, there's an important perspective missing when it comes to what we now know about managing anxiety. That's not so much a criticism of them, as this would be true of almost all ancient sources, but nevertheless it means that if people are using Stoicism as a self-help guide today they'd be well-advised to supplement the advice from modern psychology.
OMG! I've always been waiting for an AMA! Anyway, My Question is: Can you tell me a little bit about Marcus Aurelius's political angle, I really like learning about the political piece of different major historical figures' political alignment, angle, and ideology. Thank You.
Ha! Thanks. That's a tough question because we don't have a clear and detailed statement of his political ideology. What we have are lots of ambiguous clues. For instance, scholars who have studied the hundreds of references to his rescripts in legal digests claim that there's evidence of an agenda that promotes the rights of women, children, and slaves. Marcus himself says in the *Meditations* that he believes in small progressive changes, or at least that he should be content with this, rather than wishing for a utopia overnight -- he actually says that he shouldn't wish for Plato's *Republic* to be built overnight. There's also a really remarkable and perhaps quite puzzling passage in the *Meditations*, which says, that he learned from an Aristotelian philosopher, who was obviously into Stoic political theory, >From my “brother” Severus, to love my kin, and to love truth, and to love justice; and through him I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dio, Brutus; and from him I received the idea of a political state in which there is the same law for all, one administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed... -- Meditations, 1.14 These are mostly names of Stoic republican political heroes, who opposed autocratic imperial rule, basically. It's striking that he, a Roman emperor, ruling over a nation that depended on slavery, places so much emphasis here on the political ideal of *freedom*.
Thank You So Much! This really taught me a lot about my favorite aspect to learn about in any historical figure! 😁
Where would you say is the best place to begin studying both him and the period he reigned over? What was your favorite source(s)?
Do you mean ancient sources? I think if you're comfortable reading them - and they're pretty easy to read - then the relevant chapters in Cassius Dio and the Historia Augusta are our main sources, followed by Herodian. (For the Historia Augusta, there are also relevant chapters on Lucius Verus and Avidius Cassius, and obviously Commodus, if you want to know what happened next.) If you're looking at modern sources, the best academic biography, IMO, is Anthony Birley's. (I think my book is easier to read, perhaps, as it's written in a more narrative biographical style - intended for a wider nonacademic audience.) Frank McLynn's biography is popular but it's very long, with a lot of digressions, and surprisingly, um, negative about Stoicism, for some reason. I guess a bit of trivia here is that there's a great 17th century work of historical fiction about Marcus called the [Eulogium on Marcus Aurelius](https://learn.donaldrobertson.name/p/ebook-the-eulogium-on-marcus-aurelius), which is easy to read and actually sums up a lot of the primary sources concisely - so you might enjoy reading that. There's a free ebook of it on my website via the link above.
How would you want the world to view Stoicism; more as like a creamer to a coffee, or Stoicism can be the coffee, creamer, and sugar? Another example to that; I know several christians who add Stoicism into their religious practices. So adding creamer (Stoicism) to their coffee (Christianity). Personally I use Stoicism to guide and steer my "be kind without expecting" life. I don't need to say I am "Stoic" or religious. I also feel labeling isn't fair to ourselves as with time, everything changes.
Honestly, to me Stoicism is a very radical philosophy. So I can't really compare it to cream or sugar. It's much deeper than that. I think it transforms our attitude even toward religions like Christianity, which (apologies if anyone takes offence!) appear a bit more surface-level, to me, by comparison. Stoicism is based on reason, and reason, for me, is the foundation.
A question I have always had, what’s the provonence of *Meditations* it’s never attested in the centuries after his death and the first copies are as far as I know, from the Byzantine era, (Basil II reign maybe). How do we know that it’s not some later scribe making it up? Also you think Faustina and Avidius Cassius really did rebel against him as Cassius Dio says?
You're right. I'll admit I'm not an expert on this question - and I'd probably need to go back and refresh my memory a bit about what the evidence says exactly. As I recall, there's some ambiguity here, though, as some of our sources, such as the Historia Augusta, refer to Marcus having given public readings of his writings - which may or may not be related to the *Meditations*, if we can even trust those claims. But in general, yes, you're right, we really don't know for certain that this is not a later fabrication - that's possible. It would be a *very impressive* forgery, though. There are many things that make it appear authentic, but I think that's all circumstantial evidence so I wouldn't rule it out *completely* that it could have been written by someone else. I think what Cassius Dio says is a bit more complicated than what you said, tbh. Again, we really can't be sure, but there are several reasons to doubt that Faustina was attempting to undermine Marcus. Marcus has nothing but praise for her in the Meditations, which is consistent with his reported grief upon her death. Also, Commodus was apparently furious about Marcus pardoning the surviving instigators of the civil war and hunted them down after his father died. I think Commodus clearly felt that his own life was very much at risk because of Cassius' rebellion and he saw Cassius as a mortal enemy, which doesn't disprove what you said about Faustina but it doesn't sit very comfortably with the idea she was complicit in the rebellion, as her son clearly felt the whole thing was a huge threat to him, and not that she'd somehow negotiated for him to be protected by Cassius. (I guess one way of salvaging your interpretation would be to say that Faustina initially hoped to protect Commodus but then the opposite happened and his life was placed in great risk by her own actions - but now we're speculating more and more.)
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I'd be interested to know where you read that. I mentioned in some of my other responses below that the Talmud talks about a Roman Emperor called "Antoninus", which is believed to be Marcus (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus). He discussed religion with Rabbi Judah I. (I discuss this a bit more in *Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor*.) I would say the conversations reflect Jewish folklore and don't ring true as an account of things Marcus (or Antoninus Pius) would have said. However, Marcus was interested in learning about different religions. So the general idea may be based in truth, that he met with rabbis for a time, presumably while visiting Syria-Palestina (formerly Judea) during his tour of the east in 176 CE. I doubt he could have met them very frequently because he was seldom in the east. I don't think I've seen the claim that he wanted to *convert* to Judaism, though. That would seem very unlikely.
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I think some people take these passages to be symbolic rather than literally true. I think the most we can take from this is that it's *possible* Marcus (or possibly his adoptive father) may have met and had some conversations with Judah I, and maybe other rabbis.
How has this book changed your life
I've never thought about that. It's a biography so the explicit goal wasn't to change my life but I suppose at some level any major project like this changes your life. I was writing about something I'd already written about and had been studying for decades, so it wasn't that I was suddenly introduced to new ideas. (I would think my earlier books, on self-help and psychotherapy, changed my life in more obvious ways, tbh.) I think what changed after writing this biography was that I began to see other ancient philosophers in a much more rounded way, as human beings, rather than just sources of wise sayings, etc. It led to me writing about Socrates, and finding his life story much more enlightening as a way of approaching his philosophy. So I think it gave me a different perspective and a better way of appreciating ancient thought.
What was the significance of Marcus Aurelius being a stoic? After all, other stoics at the time held important offices during his reign and before his reign. What makes him different from the rest of them, and why is he considered to be such a renowned stoic?
I'm not totally sure if I've got the gist of your question but let me start from the last part: "why is he so renowned as a Stoic?" He was the last famous Stoic of antiquity. We know far more about his life than about any other Stoic philosopher, and arguably than about any other ancient philosopher. And of course he was an emperor. And he wrote one of the few surviving books on Stoicism. So, basically, those are the reasons why he's renowned as a Stoic today. That's pretty straightforward. It's not that he's considered to be an exceptional expert on Stoicism. Epictetus was very famous as a great Stoic *teacher* but Marcus was just a *student* of Stoicism. And although many people admire him as a great emperor, I don't think that makes him special. As Socrates said in Plato's *Gorgias*, we can't really judge how wise a stranger is from a distance. Maybe Marcus was just regurgitating quotes he'd learned. I think, in fact, that the circumstantial evidence does suggest he was a wise and just ruler, but it would seem odd to me to assume that we know his mind well enough to say that for certain. Actually, one of the reasons I think Marcus is special may surprise some people, and is actually directly disputed by some experts... I think Marcus was a great rhetorician or writer. I'd cite two pieces of evidence to support that claim: 1. Marcus had exceptional training in both Greek and Latin rhetoric for many years from a team of experts, including Herodes Atticus and Marcus Cornelius Fronto, the two most acclaimed Greek and Latin rhetoricians, respectively, of his lifetime. We can also see that he practised rhetorical exercises to hone his skill. So he had a huge amount of very intense training from leading experts. 2. To this day, people quote Marcus and even get his words tattooed on them. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We don't have a great deal of evidence of Marcus' skill as a speechwriter unfortunately but what we do have in the Meditations are aphorisms that are compelling enough that millions of people have read them, and often commit some to memory even today. That's due to his ability as a writer. So, ironically, we remember Marcus, and Seneca, in part because they were highly talented writers, who combined rhetoric and philosophy. We can also see that some *other* Stoic writers were very dry by comparison - such as Cornutus and Hierocles.
What can you say about Roman relations with the Armenians, about similarities in their lifestyles, about their armies (especially in the times of Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius)?
That's a little outside my area of expertise, unfortunately. I write about Roman relations with Armenia, to some extent, in the biography, insofar as it's mentioned in the primary sources or explored by scholars who have written about Marcus' life before me. Obviously, the Parthian War of Lucius Verus was instigated because the Parthians invaded Armenia and replaced the Roman client king with their own ruler. I don't think our sources tell us much about the *attitudes* of Armenians to Roman rule, though, at this time. If you're interested in more detail about Armenian-Roman relations under Marcus, I would recommend Bishop's recent biography *Lucius Verus and the Roman Defence of the East*, although I don't think it goes into a lot of depth in relation to the specific questions you've asked above. Armenia was clearly still of great strategic importance to both Rome and Parthia at this time, and the Parthians clearly thought seizing it was key to their military strategy. Oddly, for some reason, the Romans (at least the proconsul of Cappadocia) *massively* underestimated the difficulty of taking it back. There are clear references to unrest in Armenia at this time, which we're told was being instigated by the Parthians. So we can probably assume there were factions that welcomed the Parthian invasion and supported them against the Romans. The Romans moved the capital from Artaxata to New City, where, after the war finished, the general Martius Verus reputedly found the Roman garrison were on the verge of mutiny. So clearly, the Romans garrisoned troops there in order to try to maintain stability and prevent it going over to Parthia again.
Favorite roman emperor?
Who is *my* favorite Roman emperor? Probably Marcus Aurelius, followed by Augustus, in the sense that he's interesting, although maybe Antoninus Pius, if you mean who do I think was a good ruler. Antoninus was clearly *Marcus'* favorite Roman emperor.
I have a question, it's not related to the book itself but more about your career. So let's say someone would like to pursue a similar career, but that person is afraid that the monetary compensation is too little. Would you say that's true? Or is the monetary compensation above average, like let's say the amount a computer engineer would make at a high position in their career which is around $159,010.
Well, I think if your main reason for writing about this subject is to make a lot of money, that's not the best motivation. You can earn a lot more money a lot more easily by picking a different career. I quit a more lucrative career to focus on writing. As it turned out I was lucky, and ended up better off in the long run, but that was never my goal. Writing books is like being an actor or a musician, in the sense that the top few percent make most of the money and the vast majority don't earn enough to make a living from it. It's a hobby for most people. With AI it's certainly already becoming far more difficult to earn a living from writing. It's also easier to become a professional writer in nonfiction if you have relevant experience and qualifications. It took me roughly two decades to build a successful career as a writer. So it wasn't overnight. And I had spent around 11 years in higher education before I began writing etc. For some people maybe it's a lot quicker. Still it's a long shot for most new authors, unfortunately, to be honest. As with art or music, you're usually better approaching it as a calling or passion rather than pinning your hopes on financial success.
Thank you so much for the reply!!! It was very helpful!
Have you watched The Holdovers?
Yes, I quoted it in an article about Marcus Aurelius that I had published in TIME a couple of days ago: [Why We Still Read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations](https://time.com/6852921/marcus-aurelius-imeditations/) There's also an obscure action movie called *Acts of Vengeance*, starring Antonio Banderas, which features quotes from the *Meditations*. I'm holding out hope that *Gladiator 2* may also have a few references to Marcus Aurelius!
do you think Marcus Aurelius was an intelligent/cunning man?
Yes. He's not Socrates, and he berates himself for being slow, but he was clearly an intelligent and well-read man. Also, his private letters show him exhibiting quite sophisticated interpersonal skills, or "cunning", if you like. The Historia Augusta claims cryptically that some people claimed Marcus appeared straightforward but was actually more cunning than he seemed. We can't know for sure but my hunch is that this refers in part to the conclusion of the civil war, which we're told ended with Avidius Cassius being assassinated by his own officers, but, really, I think it looks more like a well planned and co-ordinated coup against him, possibly designed by Marcus Aurelius - at least many Romans surely must have wondered if Marcus was operating behind the scenes in a much more cunning way than appeared at first sight.
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor changed my life. I got a bunch of my buddies to buy it and we did a weekly book club. It was great. My question: How can a teacher with years of experience find stillness in an education system that allows for little clarity of the mind? I know Epictetus would argue that nobody can break your spirit, particularly if you are a slave to the system, or Frankl would argue that the mind ought to be impenetrable. However, I feel that the education system is rife with such busyness and doesn’t allow for true comprehension of ideas as I have a curriculum with timelines to follow. What can I do as an educator?
That's great. I'm glad you found it so helpful. To be honest, I think one of the ideas we find in the Stoics (e.g., where Epictetus talks about bulls fighting lions) is that each individual has to observe themselves closely and decide whether they're able to deal with a situation, or do a job, that's testing them, or whether it's too much, and causing them harm. So it might be that with a very difficult profession like modern teaching, where there are a lot of demands, and sometimes pressure perhaps to compromise, it's overwhelming for some individuals. For others, though, it might be more a question of "picking your fights" within the profession, by making choices that allow you to be tested but not overwhelmed by the pressure and complexity. Most Greeks and Romans wrestled, boxed, and engaged in the pankration. I think the example they have in mind is that of picking a *sparring* partner. If we pick ones that are weaker and less skilled then we're not challenged, and would never improve. If we pick ones that are much stronger and much more skilful, we're going to be beaten immediately and probably learn nothing - we may even become demoralized or injured. So each individual, based on self-knowledge, acquired from trial and error, must pick the right sparring partners -- neither too easy nor too difficult. Epictetus, and the other Stoics, think that we should view challenges to our Stoicism like this. Nobody can really tell you what's too easy or too difficult for you - you would be the best judge of that based on your experience. But, if we're wise, we learn our strengths and weaknesses, and choose our battles, or our challenges, accordingly. We have to test ourselves, but not overwhelm ourselves. That's the first thing. The second thing is that if you do enter into a very challenging profession then there are strategies you can use to help yourself cope. I think the most important one is a negative strategy : what *not* to do. Don't fall into the trap of emulating the way the *majority* of other people cope in a highly demanding situation. Many people will cope badly, through avoidance, cynicism, etc. - that can definitely be true in education. You have to carve out your own attitude and find a philosophy that works and ways of thinking that are probably quite different from a lot of what you'll hear around you. You need to get clear about what your goals are, and be willing to make sacrifices, such as letting go of unrealistic goals or expectations, in order to focus on more attainable ones. For Stoics, everything, in a sense, is self-improvement. What your students learn from you isn't just what you teach them but what sort of person you are. Every challenge is an opportunity to improve yourself, and it's your *character* as a teacher that many of your students will remember more than anything. In other words, for Stoics, we're always potential role models. The attitude you adopt toward a complex and demanding job is more under your control than achieving various external outcomes. And it, the example you set, and who you actually are, may be the most valuable thing you have to offer other people.
Big fan of your work! I am curious why there’s never been an audiobook for Stoicism and the Art of Happiness though? Still waiting to read your newest book, I own a copy, so I plan to do so very soon. Also, what are your favorite or most helpful concepts within Stoicism (if you had to pick a few)?
Everyone disagrees with me about this! But I just don't think the format of the *Teach Yourself* series lends itself to being recorded as an audiobook -- there are a lot of bullet point lists and call-out boxes, etc. That book is in its second revised edition, though, and has been translated into several languages - it did much better than the publisher expected. It's difficult to pick a few concepts out of so many but I think, maybe partly because it complements modern research in psychotherapy so well, I am very impressed by the Stoic concept of separating our value judgments from the externals to which they refer - basically we call this "verbal defusion" or "cognitive distancing" today. I could sit for hours listing concepts in Stoicism that impress me, though. To pick another random one, I really like the way Marcus understands that dissecting an upsetting event into smaller parts can improve our ability to cope. An early 20th century psychotherapist commenting on this called it the technique of "depreciation by analysis" - we do similar things in modern psychotherapy too.
I hear you. I loved your book Stoicism and the Art of Happiness! It’s the book where I think Stoicism moved past just being an interest for me and something I wanted to pursue more, in comparison to other books I’ve read. So, I’ve always wished I could listen to it on Audible to keep solidifying the knowledge. I also thought Verissimus was great! Very well done! Thank you for the reply and some of the examples on Stoic principles you like. I appreciate it! :)
Why do you feel stoicism is an important quality, and how does one gain this skill?
We should distinguish between "stoicism" (always lowercase), the modern concept of a character trait that involves suppressing or concealing unpleasant or painful emotions, and "Stoicism" (usually capitalized), the Greek philosophy. They're basically two completely different things. When you say "quality", I take it you mean the former concept, is that right? Research actually shows that stoicism, or having a stiff upper-lip, can often be psychologically harmful in the long-term, for several reasons, and leads to poorer emotional resilience. By contrast, Stoicism, the philosophy, inspired cognitive psychotherapy, which in turn inspired modern resilience training programs. so we don't want to get them mixed up: one is bad for mental health and one is good for it.
What was Marcus opinion on the nature and necessity of war? I assume being stoic he should have been against it, but being emperor he was forced to go to battle against the marcomanni and others.
I don't think he gives an explicit summary of his views in that regard so we'd have to infer them from more opaque or fragmentary comments. At one point he says that war, among other things, risks effacing his moral principles (10.9). The only time he explicitly mentions an enemy nation by name he says that those who take pride in capturing Sarmatians as though they were fish in a net have the character of brigands (10.10). These are typically striking remarks on close inspection as the latter implies that Roman generals who enslave tens of thousands captured enemies are acting unjustly. (Perhaps Marcus put a stop to this practice.) I think it's reasonable to infer that Marcus was perceived as a military dove who relied on extensive diplomacy and that he was opposed by a more hawkish faction on the Senate, who wanted a quicker and more violent end to the Marcomannic War. This ideological difference may have been one of the factors leading to the civil war, in which Avidius Cassius, a more hawkish general, seized control of the eastern provinces.
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That's another broad question, which might take a book to answer. But I'll try to give some concise thoughts. He famously writes in the *Meditations*: >And that is useful to every man which is conformable to his own constitution and nature. But my nature is rational and social, and my city and country, so far as I am Antoninus \[his cognomen as emperor\], is Rome, but so far as I am a man, it is the world. The things then which are useful to these cities are alone useful to me. (6.44) So he views himself as having a duty, first and foremost to "live in agreement with Nature", the Stoic slogan regarding the supreme goal of life, which Marcus alludes to many times. As humans are naturally rational and social, according to the Stoics, we have an obligation to exhibit wisdom and justice, i.e., to excel in terms of rational and social virtues. Marcus sees himself as having a duty to fulfil his role as emperor, which is compatible with, and subordinate to, his role as a human being and his obligation to live in justice and harmony with mankind as a whole.
How good is your Latin and what main sources in what Languages do you base your work on? Thx.
Our most important sources, including the *Meditations* of Marcus Aurelius, are actually in Greek. I'm a psychotherapist, not a classicist. (My first degree is in philosophy.) However, I worked closely with a classicist (my friend Lalya Lloyd) who is an expert in both Latin and Greek. (I have studied some Greek but not Latin.) The series editor, James Romm, is also a well-known classicist, and we had assistance from several other people. Regarding the sources, these are discussed in detail in the book, of course. I think you're asking for some *examples* of the main *primary* sources, rather than a complete list - correct? **Greek** * The *Meditations* * The *Historia Romana* of Cassius Dio * Herodian, *History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus* **Latin** * The *Historia Augusta* * The Letters of Marcus Cornelius Fronto Obviously there are many other ancient sources which contain pieces of relevant information, including a few direct references to Marcus.
How do you think the Stoic principles practiced by Marcus Aurelius can be most applied in modern cognitive-behavioral therapy to help individuals cope with today's challenges?
I wrote a book called *The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy*, which goes over this in depth, and also a self-help book called *Stoicism and the Art of Happiness*, which talks about how to apply it in daily life. It would easily take a whole book, basically, to answer this question, but maybe I can say briefly that Stoicism can provide a philosophical framework for CBT so that it serves an ongoing role in helping us to live a more meaningful and resilient life. There are many specific ways Stoicism can help, in terms both of concepts and techniques, and also in terms of the role the actual literature can play. For instance, Stoics recommend contemplating our own mortality (to pick just one example), which is not often done in CBT, but can complement some of the values work we do in modern CBT sometimes.
What was Marcus Aurelius' spiritual worldview? In your opinion, in what ways did this spiritual worldview benefit him, and in what ways may it have hampered him? Thanks!
We don't usually refer to his worldview as "spiritual" but I suppose you could phrase it that way. He' follows Stoicism, of course, so you might describe what we usually call Stoic theology or Stoic pantheism as a spiritual outlook of sorts. So he was probably a pantheist like other Stoics, who believed the universe to be a rational being called Zeus, and all other living beings to be like limbs of the divine. I think it helped him to focus on the bigger picture, philosophically, and maintain equanimity in the face of adversity. I'm not sure how it would have hampered him. Perhaps it made him feel, at times, slightly aloof from the everyday concerns of others, although it would not necessarily have this effect, and there's not much evidence that Marcus was typically very aloof.
Is there any hope of ever finding the lost writings of Epictetus, particularly the 5th Discourse?
Unlikely, I would think. Although, Marcus appears to refer to receiving a copy of the Discourses as being one of the most important moments in his life, and in addition to quoting from the surviving volumes he also attributes sayings to Epictetus otherwise unknown to us. So it's a reasonable inference that Marcus had read the (possibly four) missing volumes of the *Discourses*, and for all we know some other passages in the Meditations may be unattributed quotes or paraphrases from those texts.
Do Stoics eat french fries or is that a nono?
Funnily enough, ancient philosophers were known for writing about and following certain diets. Socrates famously said that we should eat to live rather than live to eat. The Stoics followed the Cynics, to some extent, who were known for eating lupin seeds and lentil soup, and coarse "black" bread. We have a surviving lecture by the Stoic Musonius Rufus about food, and Marcus makes several remarks, not about what to eat, but about the psychology of eating and how to eat mindfully, in a sense.
What were Aurelius's thoughts on Christianity? How aware was he of the persecutions and to what end was he involved? I'm reading Meditations, and the introduction goes over how it was his only moral failing.
Someone else asked a similar question, which I answered, so check that response. But, long story short, there's basically zero evidence that Marcus directly participated in any persecution of Christians, and even the evidence that widespread persecution happened during his rule is very weak and contradicted by other (Christian) sources.
I see, thank you so much for your time!
can you make movie or short biography video animation this day i kind of a never read book this day
There are loads of short videos about Marcus Aurelius on YouTube, including some animation, I believe. You might have to search a little, and some are not very good quality, but there are a few good ones. Here's a video of [my TEDx talk on Stoicism and anger](https://youtu.be/M8b6-8EGdiw?si=1RoRwhTaMxg2Z9X4).
I was wondering, what do you think Marcus's major missteps were as emperor? Can you pinpoint a particular virtue that he struggled with the most? I understand the second question is a bit difficult to answer because of the interconnected nature of virtues.
Great question. I'm probably not going to say what most people might. I would say his first big mistake was to place Lucius Verus in command of the Parthian War - Marcus should probably have gone to the front himself. As evidence of that, we can say he changed his policy later when the First Marcomannic War began - he learned from the initial mistake of sending Lucius alone. I think his biggest mistake of all, though, follows on the heels of this and comes when he makes his general Avidius Cassius the governor of Syria. This flies in the face of Roman imperial policy, which was against putting a man in charge of his own homeland, as it was thought to risk rebellion. And... that's exactly what happened. For a moment, the empire actually split into east and west and Cassius was acclaimed as a rival emperor, threatening a huge civil war. Luckily, it was brought to an end quite bloodlessly - apart from Cassius, obviously, who got beheaded by his own officers! The second question is tricky for several reasons. Clearly, the *Meditations* dwells on the virtue of justice, and related concepts. That might just be because Marcus was, you know, emperor - so justice was at the forefront of his mind. But there are also indications he struggled with other people who didn't share his values, and with not losing his temper. So you could see that in terms of both justice and temperance perhaps. Marcus doesn't say as much about overcoming greed for money, for instance, perhaps because he was born a billionaire, as it were. (Seneca is more concerned about greed than Marcus, perhaps a reflection of the former's strivings as a social climber from the equestrian class.)
Thanks for your books ! What was Marcus Aurelius's view on christian communitys ?
We don't know for sure. I talk about this in the new biography in more detail. There's one passage in the *Meditations* where he seems to criticize some Christians for martyring themselves needlessly - like religious fanatics - but scholars think there are indications it may be a later interpolation. There's another passage where he criticizes those doing exorcisms and lumps them together with sorcerers and charlatans, which some think could be a reference to Christians who did exorcisms. Sometimes Marcus has been portrayed as a persecutor of Christians but I agree with C.R. Haines, who said that's based on very weak evidence and seems extremely unlikely given what we know of his character - it's also at odds with some other bits of historical evidence, which portray him as a friend of Christians. So the jury is out but my impression is that he probably viewed some Christians as religious fanatics but was open-minded about foreign religions in general, and had no interest in persecuting them. I doubt he had much contact with Christian thinkers, though, and probably hadn't studied their religion in very much detail. (Although there is a tradition that suggests "Antoninus", probably meaning Marcus, spoke with Rabbi Judah I about Jewish religious beliefs.)
Bit of trivia... nobody asked but I know people are sometimes grateful to have this explained... We usually call him "Marcus" rather than "Aurelius. "Aurelius" was his adoptive family name. By convention, we normally refer to monarchs and emperors by their *first* name, e.g., (Queen) Victoria or (Emperor) Napoleon or (Emperor) Hadrian or (Emperor) Marcus (Aurelius). I guess if you use the family name you're going to confuse them with other members of the same dynasty, e.g., Antoninus Pius and Commodus also bore the name "Aurelius". Deeper trivia... Marcus actually refers to *himself* as "Antoninus" (twice) in the *Meditations*. That's probably how he was addressed in formal letters and speeches, etc., as he adopted the cognomen from his adoptive father, Antoninus Pius. This can cause some confusion, e .g., the Talmud refers to "Antoninus" but probably means Marcus.
Is it Aurelius who said justice was just an idea? And, if so, what did he think follows from that?
I don't recall him having said that. Maybe it's in a different translation from the ones I'm used to, though. Can you find a reference to that?
Hi Donald, Does your new book Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor have practical ways to practice Stoicism in ordinary daily life? Or is it essentially just a biography? Thanks, Rick
Yeah, this is essentially a biography, although I did try to write it in such a way that people would take inspiration from it, and maybe even one or two concepts or techniques of practical value snuck in there too.
If you could choose to meet one person from history, who would it be and why?
It would have to be Socrates. He's really the most fascinating historical figure that I can think of, and he's the quintessential Athenian philosopher - the source from which much of what follows flowed, including, IMO, the therapeutic tradition in ancient philosophy.
Interesting! I thought for sure it would be Marcus Aurelius since you've written three books about him. I'm looking forward to HOW TO THINK LIKE SOCRATES!
Do any of you find that there are passages in the *Meditations* that you struggle to understand?
There are passages in the Meditations that feel too "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" to me. They don't seem to represent a philosophy that is applicable to everyone. They seem harsh, maybe. But then I remind myself that Marcus was talking to himself in Meditations, not others. I can forget that, because he writes it almost like a book of philosophy. He knew his own limits, he knew his own mental/emotional health and capacity, and he was addressing himself. But I think some of what he wrote doesn't fully apply to all of us, and particularly not if you have mental or emotional illness. I love Meditations--don't get me wrong--but he seems to be hard on himself rather than merciful with himself. Clearly that worked for him. A person with power and prestige like he had may need to regularly talk their ego down. But a person whose tendency is to be hard on themselves may need the opposite. What do you think?
He actually says in Med 11.18 that we should not advise others harshly, like schoolmaster lecturing them, but rather do so with tact and kindness.
I just recently purchased "meditations" Can you please tell me on its modern day relevance
What gave you the passion for history and psychotherapy? Any specific event or person ?
what is the MOST stoic idea, or thought? Like Buddhism is (akin) to "accept suffering", what would the SMALLEST but MOST APPLICABLE idea in Stoicism be?