Marcus Aurelius

2010

In C. Moore, ed., Brill's Companion to the Reception of Socrates (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 2019

Although Marcus Aurelius refers to Socrates only a handful of times in the Meditations, and often only to name him as an example of an illustrious figure now long dead, this chapter argues that there is a distinctive Socratic character to the philosophical project that we see at work in Marcus's notebook writings. In those few places where Marcus does invoke Socrates it is usually in connection with one of the central preoccupations of the Meditations, in particular the notion of taking care of oneself, the primacy of virtue, and the need for self-control. This chapter i) examines Marcus's knowledge of Socrates and the sources he used, and ii) explores the Socratic themes in the Meditations noted above. Although Marcus does not explicitly say very much about Socrates, I suggest that he probably considered the Meditations to embody a deeply Socratic project.

Mnemosyne, 1992

2010

i n t r o d u c t i o n xv for the origin of families, societies, clans, and tribes in a manner similar to Marcus (bk. IX, art. 9, pp. 109-10). Shaftesbury did not draw the conclusion formed by Marcus, however, that there is a universal happiness or good that all mankind may share. Instead, he thought that "Universal good, or the interest of the world in general, is a kind of remote philosophical object. That greater community falls not easily under the eye." 22 In this respect, Hutcheson's concern for "universal happiness" has more in common, as we shall see, with Marcus and with Stoic ideals. Shaftesbury elsewhere considered Marcus "one of the wisest and most serious of ancient authors." 23 And he cited sayings of Marcus, together with excerpts from the works of Epictetus and Horace, to urge readers to withdraw their admiration and desire from objects that are merely pleasurable and direct them instead to "objects, whatever they are, of inward worth and beauty (such as honesty, faith, integrity, friendship, honour)." 24 Another moralist whom Hutcheson held in high regard, Henry More, cited sayings of Marcus repeatedly throughout his handbook of morals, Enchiridion ethicum. 25 More was particularly impressed by Marcus's concept of the rational soul, of the idea that there is a divinity within us: "that every Man's Mind is a God, and had its Original from him"; 26 that "in the Judgment of that wisest Philosopher. .. to acquiesce in Nature's common Law, is. .. to obey the common Reason, that is in God; nay, which is little less than God himself. For he is the living Law"; 27 "that it was highly estimable to live benignly, and to practise Truth and Justice." 28 More, it may be added, was attempting in these citations to reconcile Stoic and neo-Platonic ideas concerning virtue with a reading of Aristotle's ethics in which Right Reason was ultimately nothing more than the promptings of an "Inward Sense." 29

2012

2017

M. Van Ackeren (ed.) A Companion to Marcus Aurelius (Oxford 2012), 396-407

Besides their philosophical meaning the Meditations have traditionally interested a broader audience of classicists because of their linguistic and stylistic features. This is first of all due to Marcus Aurelius' rhetorical skills expressed throughout the Meditations, which made it a significant text in the literary context of the second century AD, secondly to the fact that by some readers it has been considered -quite unsatisfactorily, one should admit -the first journal intime in Western literature, and lastly to the fact that it is a precious testimony on the use of Greek in the Roman (Latin speaking) world during the Imperial Era. In the last decades, the style of the Meditations has also drawn the attention of scholars interested in its philosophical content; this helped to appreciate the fact that stylistic choices are to be taken as essential elements of Marcus Aurelius' philosophical agenda. Following this approach I will provide an overview on Marcus' stylistic procedures considering their role within the broader ethico-practical background and function of the Meditations.

Forthcoming in M. Garani, D. Konstan, and G. Reydams-Schils, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press), 2023

This chapter examines Marcus Aurelius's Meditations and considers its status as a work of philosophy by placing it within a broader tradition of spiritual exercises in ancient philosophy. It presents the Meditations as a private notebook, never intended for publication, in which Marcus engaged in a series of written exercises aimed at self-examination. In particular, these exercises were aimed at assimilating and digesting key philosophical principles. Central to this process was the practice of paying close attention to principles at all times. In this context the notion of a spiritual exercise is introduced and its use by Musonius Rufus and Seneca is examined; then some specific spiritual exercises in the Meditations are discussed. 1 See Casaubon (1634), who went on to publish an edition of the Greek text in 1643. In what follows I have in general relied on the text and quote from the translation in Farquharson (1944), occasionally modified. There is a more recent edition in Dalfen (1987) and the first volume of a new edition in Hadot and Luna (1998). Material in this chapter has also been incorporated, in a slightly different form, in Sellars (2021). 2 For titles of translations up to 1908 see Wickham Legg (1910). 3 The title is recorded in the editio princeps, which was based on the now lost Palatine manuscript (on which see Ceporina (2012) 55-56). Many have assumed that the title was taken over from the manuscript, although Ceporina (2012) 47 suggests that it may have been added by Xylander. It is literally rendered by a few translators; see e.g. Rendall (1898). When translated into Latin it is usually, though not universally, translated literally as ad se ipsum. It is worth noting that Casaubon's full title in English was Meditations Concerning Himselfe. 4 The title is first mentioned by Arethas of Caesarea (c. 850-935), Scholia in Lucianum 207,6-7 Rabe, quoted in Farquharson (1944) 158. An earlier mention of the text by Themistius, Orationes 6.81c (dated 364; see Farquharson (1944) xv) does not use the title but instead calls the work Precepts or Admonitions (parangelmata). In the Meditations Marcus refers to his own writings as hupomnematia (little notes), at 3.14.

Stoicism Today, 2022

Ian Watt, in his groundbreaking 'The Rise of the Novel' (1957), found the key to the sensibility of Daniel Defoe - author of 'Robinson Crusoe' (1719) - in the English Puritan tradition. Yet the Defoe text cited by Watt, 'The Dumb Philosopher' (also 1719), turns out to consist largely of aphorisms lifted directly from the Meditations (written in Greek) by Roman Stoic philosopher, emperor Marcus Aurelius. Did the rise of the English novel have more to do with classical Stoicism, than previously realised?