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David Wilson

Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius was a superman: a great philosopher and a legendary emperor. Aurelius ruled from AD161 to his death in AD180, the last of the "five good emperors", to use a phrase later coined by political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.
His reign was dogged by attacks from Germany, rebellions in northern Italy and Egypt, and an outbreak of the plague. He wrote much of Meditations on campaign between AD170 and AD180.
Written in Greek, Meditations remains admired as a masterpiece of moral, stoical logical thinking with a streak of sensitivity - the cultural critic D.A. Rees praised it as "unendingly moving and inspiring".
Aurelius never intended his tour de force, which is split into 12 parts, to be published. Essentially, it is a grim hotchpotch of ruminations on whatever subject caught his eye.
Aurelius wrote with feeling about the morning. One of his tips reads: "Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today inquisitive, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill."
Almost every statement Aurelius wrote is underpinned by grace and restraint. Reading Meditations could lead the reader to think he could be preferable to the current Italian president, "master puppeteer" Giorgio Napolitano.
After his death Aurelius was put on a pedestal as the perfect emperor, whose reign contrasted sharply with the eras that followed.
But despite Aurelius' outward guru image, he was wedded to war - the expansion of the Roman Empire through its vicious efficiency. Another niggle: Aurelius' writing has no sense of humour.
Still, winningly, Meditations keys into the stoical slant of modern popular psychology. "You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength," Aurelius wrote.
Some of his statements have entered our language in modified form. One example: "You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last."
Aurelius achieved a kind of immortality. A bronze four-metre-high statue of him astride a horse remains in Rome's Piazza del Campidoglio. His statue is depicted on the reverse of the Italian €0.50 coin. He seems like the embodiment of a solidity that today's teetering Italian economy sadly lacks.


Rewind, Book: 'Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius

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Marcus Aurelius was a superman: a great philosopher and a legendary emperor. Aurelius ruled from AD161 to his death in AD180, the last of the "five good emperors", to use a phrase later coined by political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.
