‘Meditations’ by The Emperor of Rome, Marcus Aurelius, Book of The Month June 2024

‘Meditations’

by The Emperor of Rome, Marcus Aurelius

The personal diary of the reflections of a stoic Roman Emperor, that he never intended anyone else to read …
It takes a while to adjust to the ‘old fashioned style’ of the author’s writing, which comes through despite the modern translation. If you don’t ever get to read this book or listen to the audio, I hope you will appreciate this book review and some historical background in which I will explain the profound significance of this book in terms of the history and development of human philosophy. His stoic philosophies provide us with some insights about what it takes to be an authentic servant leader in a very high profile leadership position, something that is extraordinarily rare in today’s world leaders.

Marcus Aurelius was the emperor of Rome from AD 161 to 180, who endeavoured to practice a spiritual, life discipline and ‘philosophical system’ known as ‘stoicism’. This book was effectively Marcus Aurelius’s personal memoirs and reflections.  He never intended these writings to be read by others, let alone to be published, however his original notes which were written in Ancient Greek were perfectly preserved enabling their publication and sharing with the whole world. There are several translations of these writings from ‘ancient Greek’ into ‘modern language’ the one I am reviewing is by Martin Hammond.

Stoicism can be traced back to ancient Greece and is most associated by 2 giants of the ancient Greek world, the founder of Stoicism Zeno and one of the most famous teachers and philosophers in history, Aristotle.

Here is an example of a typical line from the book (Book 10, Verse 35) … “The eye must look at all there is to be seen, and not look only for pale colours ……”

This alludes to the stoic philosophy of pro-actively looking for the things that we / our ego finds uncomfortable to consider. It is very human to be biased, often our bias is so  sub-conscious that we are not aware of it.  Stoic practices include  consciously choosing to ‘see the world through the eyes of others, even including our enemies’ and pushing ourselves to ‘see both the upsides and the downsides of all situations’.

Some notable aspects of stoic philosophy that come across strongly in the book include:

Death
Marcus Aurelius often refers to death in his meditations. The acceptance and complete ownership of your own inevitable mortality and the mortality of those you love, such a regular practice diminishes your fear death!  The philosophy being that if you can only have an authentic and fulfilling life to the degree that you do not fear death!  Typically, many stoics have a daily practice of imagining their own inevitable passing and then imagining the inevitable passing of all the people they love, this does not mean that they ‘want to die’, but it means that they ‘are as comfortable as possible with the fact that they are one day they will die, sooner or later!’. This practice liberates the stoics from many of the fears that influence or control others. A reduced fear of death is also a key characteristic of the most inspiring servant leaders.

Principles
Having strong principles, character and morals are more important to a stoic than absolutely anything else in life.

Natural laws
Whatever happens in life, and in death is subject to natural laws, regardless of whether we are able to understand what has happened in any given situation and why.

Balance
Stoics strive to be balanced in how they perceive all things.  This key philosophy of stoicism is about, not getting too down when things are challenging and not getting too elated when things are going well.  The concept of duality is key to daily living, always striving to see the upsides of a challenge and the downsides when things appear to be going well and thereby staying in balance.

It is difficult to know to what extent Marcus Aurelius led a stoic way of life, but his endeavour to do so was particularly remarkable as, at the time, he was emperor of the Roman empire and was politically, militarily, and economically the most powerful and privileged man in the world!
There is much historical evidence that Marcus Aurelius tried to be an ‘authentic servant leader’ whilst holding a position of such great power, this is historically unusual and in today’s world there are currently very few ‘authentic servant leaders’ in the most powerful positions from politics to business, locally, nationally, and globally.

Marcus Aurelius’ journey to becoming the emperor of Rome was somewhat unexpected and involved him being adopted twice following the death of his biological father when he was only 3 years old.  Marcus was more interested in philosophy than he ever was interested in power, in fact he only agreed to become a ruler, as he saw it as his duty for the greater good of Rome.

His unusual non-attachment to power was illustrated after the death of his adoptive father Antoninus Pius when he ascended to become emperor of Rome. He made an extraordinary request to the Senate of Rome, stating that he would only agree to become emperor if his brother Lucius Aurelius Verus was made ‘joint-emperor’ with him. The Senate agreed and this was the only time in the history of Rome that this happened, Lucius died in AD 169 leaving Marcus as the sole emperor.

It is obvious that his position of great power and privilege made living a stoic life difficult for Marcus and this is something he often wrestled with. Many of his ‘reflective writings’ aka his ‘meditations’ reflected this regular struggle between his stoic philosophy that for example ‘viewed all people as being equal’ in an empire where so many people were ‘slaves’, although there are stoic philosophies on natural law that address some of these types of inequalities. During his reign there were several bloody wars across the roman empire, Marcus must have had some of his stoic philosophies tested to the limit on a regular basis.

I have met 2 practicing stoics (that I am aware of) in my life, and I did so by complete accident as they are often not easy to find. They rarely draw attention to their stoic philosophies and spiritual practices, unlike many religious people who are often keen to share their spiritual beliefs and practices.

Whilst I believe that most of the world’s major religions have a pure spiritual message at their core, they are often riddled with political hierarchies that are completely absent from stoicism which is a philosophy and not a religion.

In the dictionary ‘Stoic’ (either a noun or an adjective) is typically defined as …..
“One who is seemingly indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure, or pain.”

For a man with such absolute power Marcus Aurelius appeared to lead a very principled life and was an extraordinary leader who was loved by many citizens of Rome. He usually did not practice indulgences in food, wine, roman orgies or hedonistic living and he saw his primary privilege to be able to lead and serve his people, he was by no means a saint, but as leaders go, he achieved more popularity and success than most. Historically his ‘Meditations’ must be one of the most important records of what is possible in terms of servant leadership. It is also an important book in the context of the historical development of psychology and philosophy, and it has influenced many leading modern psychologists and philosophers.

There are several translations of the book and the obvious challenge for any translation is bringing ancient Greek language to life and dealing with the extremely old-fashioned roman style of explaining how the world works. This said there is no doubt that some of Marcus Aurelius writings are beautifully poetic.

Both of the stoic practitioners that I encountered ‘by chance’, recommended this book to me.  Interestingly, they both said that they regularly read just one short passage of this book and reflect on it, and how it applies to their everyday life, as is the stoic way.  Interestingly, both these gentlemen are ‘authentic servant leaders’ who are achieving inspiring things in their lives, they appear to fear very little, and they appear to be very fulfilled.

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