The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus is less a formal treatise than a private exercise in moral vigilance: a sequence of aphorisms, reflections, and self-admonitions composed in Greek while its author governed an empire at war and in plague. Rooted in Stoic philosophy, the work transforms doctrines of providence, duty, impermanence, and rational self-command into a severe yet humane literary form. Its style is compressed, intimate, and repetitive by design, returning the min ...