Reading room

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

Twelve books of short notes, in Koine Greek, in which the emperor urges himself to live according to nature and reason on Stoic principles. Book I differs from the rest: an account of what he learned from his family, his teachers—Rusticus, Apollonius, Sextus, Fronto—and Antoninus Pius, and of what he owes to the gods. Book II is headed "Among the Quadi, on the Granua" and Book III "At Carnuntum". Books IV to XII alternate maxims, meditations on death and transience, the examination of one's own impressions, the view from above on human affairs, patience with others as kin in a common reason, and acceptance of what fate brings. He quotes Heraclitus, Epicurus and above all Epictetus. The first printed edition is Xylander's (Zurich, 1558); the other complete witness is the Vaticanus graecus 1950 (14th century).