, Ioannis Stobaei
Antholo
gium, 5 vols.
Hadot - The Inner Citadel The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Stoic tradition- r instance, Epictetus (II, 13, 24)-opposed to their brute material power the spiritual and moral power of Diogenes, who did not hesitate to speak ankly to them.
This is, moreover, the meaning ofone ofMarcus' Meditations, which expresses an analogous idea (VIII, 3):
Alexander, Caesar, and Pompey: what are they compared to Dio genes, Heraclitus, or Socrates? The latter saw realities, causes, and matter; and the guiding principles oftheir souls were su cient unto themselves. As r the others: so much pillage! 97 so many people reduced to slavery!
Alexander, Philip, and Demetrius may have been great conquerors; but did they know what Nature or universal Reason wanted? Were they masters, not only of the world, but also of themselves? Or were they,
306 THE INNER CITADEL
instead, nothing but "tragic actors"? In other words, were they people who, by means of their conquests, were the cause of atrocious events, worthy of being represented in a tragedy, and were they themselves actors who took up lse and solemn poses? Pace the "snotty little men" to whom Marcus alludes, nothing can make him imitate them. He will continue to do his job as an emperor and a true philosopher: that is to say, by con rming at every instant to the will ofReason and Nature, not with turgid solemnity but with simplicity.
For Marcus, philosophy does not propose a political program. Rather, he expects that philosophy will rm him and prepare him, by means of the spiritual exercises which he performs, to carry out his political action in a speci c spirit and style. What one does matters less than the way in which one does it. In the last analysis, the o y true politics is ethics. It consists, above all, in the discipline of action, which, as we have seen, consists essentially in service to the human community, devotion to others, andjustice. Like the discipline ofaction, politics cannot be sepa rated om the great human and cosmic perspectives that are opened up r us by our recognition of a transcendent universality-Reason or Nature-which, by means of its harmony with itsel unds both peo ple's love r one another and their love r that Whole of which they are the parts. It is hard not to think ofthe recent comments ofVaclav Havel,98 as he discusses what he calls the "moral State" or the "spiritual State " :
True politics-the only thing worthy of the name, and the only thing I will consent to practice-is politics in the service of our fellow man, and in the service of the community. . . . Its basis is ethical, inso r as it is only the realization of the responsibility of all toward all. . . . [It] is nourished by the certainty, conscious or un conscious, that . . . everything is inscribed rever; that everything is evaluated elsewhere, somewhere "above us," in what I have called "the memory ofBeing": it is that part which is indissociable om the cosmos, om nature and om life which believers call God, and to whosejudgment all things are submitted. . . . To try to remain, in all circumstances, courteous, just, tolerant, understanding; and at the same time uncorruptible and in llible. In sum, to try and re main in harmony with my conscience and with my better sel
CONCLUSION
At the beginning of this book I alluded to the extraordinary success which Marcus Aurelius' Meditations have enjoyed throughout the centu ries, beginning with the rst edition in the sixteenth century. How can we explain this phenomenon? Why does this work continue, even today, to scinate us to such an extent? Perhaps one reason is the consummate art with which the Emperor chiseled out his aphorisms. In the words of Nietzsche:
A good saying is too hard r the teeth oftime, and all the millennia are not enough to consume it, although it serves as od r every epoch. It is thus the great paradox ofliterature: the imperishable in the midst ofthe changing, the od which always is appreciated, like salt, and again like salt, it never becomes insipid. 1
Yet the nutritive substance which we nd in this work is, as we have seen, the Stoic system, as it was set rth by Epictetus. Is it possible that it could still serve as spiritual nourishment r us, people of the modern era?
Ernest Renan,2 r one, did not think so. For him, the Meditations went beyond Epictetus, Stoicism, and all de nitive doctrines:
Fortunately, the little box which contained the Meditations on the banks ofthe Gran and the philosophy ofCarnonte was saved. There came out of it this incomparable book, in which Epictetus was surpassed: this manual of the resigned life, this Gospel of those who do not believe in the supernatural, which has not been able to be understood until our time. A true eternal Gospel, the Meditations will never grow old, r it a rms no dogma. The Gospel has grown old in some ofits parts: science no longer allows the naive concep-
308 THE INNER CITADEL
tion of the supernatural which constitues its undation. In the Meditations, the supernatural is only a tiny, insigni cant stain which does not a ect the wonderful beauty of the background. Science could destroy God and the soul, but the Meditations would still remain young with life and truth. The religion ofMarcus Aurelius is, like that ofJesus was at times, absolute religion: that which results om the simple ct of a high moral conscience ced with the universe. It is not of one race, nor of one country; no revolution, no progress, no discovery will be able to change it.
These lines do an admirable job of describing the impression that may be lt by Marcus' readers. They must, however, be quali ed and made more precise. Like many other historians who llowed him, Renan was wrong about the meaning which the famous dilemma " Nature or atoms " had r Marcus. He thought it meant that Marcus was completely indif ferent to the dogmas of Stoicism (Nature) or of Epicureanism (atoms) . According to Renan-and this, he thought, was the secret of the eternal youth of the Meditations-Marcus discovered that the moral conscience is independent of all theories about the world and of all de nite dogmas, "as i " in Renan's words,3 "he had read Kant's Critique Practical Rea- son. "
In ct, as I have noted, the meaning of this dilemma is entirely di erent. In the rst place, Marcus did not invent it: it was traditional within the Stoic school. Moreover, the Stoics had elaborated this reason ing in order to establish irre tably that, even if Epicureanism were true-a hypothesis which they excluded absolutely-one would still have to live as a Stoic. In other words, one would still have to act in accordance with reason, and consider moral good to be the only good, even i all around us, everything were nothing but chaos and chance. Such a position does not imply skepticism-quite the contrary. Yet the ct that the Stoics constructed such an argument is extremely interesting. By imagining that their physical theories might be false, and yet people would still have to live as Stoics, they revealed that which, in their eyes, was absolutely essential in their system. What de ned a Stoic above all else was the choice of a life in which every thought, every desire, and every action would be guided by no other law than that of universal Reason. Whether the world is ordered or chaotic, it depends only on us to be rationally coherent with ourselves. In ct, all the dogmas of Stoi cism derive om this existential choice. It is impossible that the universe could produce human rationality, unless the latter were already in some
Conclusion
way present within the rmer. The essence of Stoicism is thus the experience of the absolute nature of moral conscience and of the purity of intention. Moral conscience, moreover, is only moral if it is pure that is to say, if it is based upon the universality of reason, which takes itselfas an end, not in the particular interest ofan individual or a state. Stoics, and not just Marcus Aurelius, could have subscribed to the twin Kantian rmulations of the categorical imperative:
Act only in accordance with the maxim which is such that you can wish, at the same time, that it become a universal law.
Act as ifthe maxim ofyour action were, by your will, to be erected as a universal law ofNature. 4
We must not say, there re, that "Marcus writes as though he had read the Critique of Practical Reason, " but rather that Kant uses these rmulas because, among other reasons, he has read the Stoics.
With these quali cations, Renan was right to say that we nd in the Meditations the a rmation of the absolute value of moral conscience. Can we speak ofreligion here? I do not think so. The word "philoso phy" is enough, I think, to describe the purity of this attitude, and we ought to avoid mixing with philosophy all the vague and imprecise implications, both social and mythical, which the notion of religion brings with it.
An eternal Gospel? Renan thought that some parts of the Christian Gospel had grown old, whereas the Meditations would always remain young. And yet, are not some of Marcus' pages-the religious ones also very distant om us? Isn't it better to say that all gospels grow old, to the same extent that they have been shionable-in other words, to the extent that they have re ected the myths and collective representations of the time and milieu in which they were written? There are some works, however-among them both the Gospel and the Meditations which are like ever-new springs to which humanity comes to drink. If we can transcend their perishable aspects, we can sense in them an imperishable spirit which calls us to a choice oflife, to the trans rmation of ourselves, and to a complete revision of our attitude with regard to human beings and to the world.
The Meditations call us to a Stoic choice of life, as we have seen throughout this book. This obviously does not mean that the work is capable ofleading us to a complete conversion to the dogmas and prac-
]IO THE INNER CITADEL
tices ofStoicism. Yet, inso r as we attempt to give meaning to our lives, the Meditations invite us to discover the trans rmation which could be brought to our lives, if we were to realize-in the fullest sense of the term-those speci c values which constitute the spirit ofStoicism.
It could be said, moreover, that there is a universal Stoicism in human ity. By this I mean that the attitude we call "Stoic" is one ofthe nda mental, permanent possibilities ofhuman existence, when people search r wisdom. For instance, J. Gemet5 has shown how some aspects of Chinese thought were related to what we call Stoicism. They obviously developed without Greco-Roman Stoicism having exercised any in uence on them whatsoever. This phenomenon may be observed, among other places, in Wang-Fou-chih,6 a Chinese philosopher of the seventeenth century, who writes:
Vulgar knowledge (that which limits itself to what one has seen or heard) is constituted in the egotism of the self and is r om the "great objectivity" [ta kong, a term which has both a moral and an inte ectual meaning] .
We can glimpse that this "great objectivity" is entirely analogous to Marcus' method of physical de nition, which also consists in liberating oneself om an egoistic point of view, and in placing oneself within the perspective ofuniversal Nature. As Gemet comments:
Morality and reason are one. Once the sage has enlarged his spirit to the dimensions of the universe (ta sin: the exact equivalent of the term megalopsuchia, or "greatness ofsoul") and "made his person an object ofthe world," he is able to grasp the spirit ofthe "Great Trans rmation"; that is, ofthe life ofuniversal exchanges by which the beat of the world is marked.
The sage's "great objectivity"-or, as we could say, the expansion of his spirit to the dimensions of universal Reason-inspires a moral atti tude which is entirely Stoic. We can see this in the llowing passage om Wang-Fou-chih:7
The good man waits r what destiny reserves r him, and is not saddened by death. He uses his particular capacities as r as he can, and develops the good dispositions ofhis nature [which is a re ec-
Conclusion 3 1 1 tion o f the celestial principle of order] , s o that h e does not sm
against the relevant norms.
We can recognize another theme that we have encountered in Marcus Aurelius in Tang Zhen, another Chinese philosopher ofthe same period who has been translated by Gemet: the opposition between the puniness ofhuman beings, lost in the cosmos, and the transcendence ofthe moral conscience, which makes it equal to the universe:
In the immensity of the space and time of the universe, man resem bles a speck of dust blown by the wind, or a tiny spark of light. What makes him equal to it, however, is the perfection of his ndamental goodness, and the nobility ofhis moral e rt. 8
Among the numerous attitudes which human beings can adopt with regard to the universe, there is one which was called "Stoic" in the Greco-Roman world, but which could be called by many other names, and which is characterized by speci c tendencies.
In the rst place, the "Stoic," in the universal sense in which we understand him, is conscious of the ct that no being is alone, but that we are parts of a Whole, constituted by the totality of human beings as well as by the totality of the cosmos. The Stoic constantly has his mind on this Whole. One could also say that the Stoic feels absolutely serene, ee, and invulnerable, inso r as he has become aware that there is no other evil than moral evil, and that the only thing that counts is the purity ofmoral conscience.
Finally, the Stoic believes in the absolute value ofthe human person. It is too o en rgotten, and cannot be repeated too much, that Stoicism is the origin ofthe modem notion of "human rights. " I have already cited Seneca's ne rmula on this subject:9 "man is a sacred thing r man. " Yet how could I il to cite also the remark ofEpictetus, when someone asked him how he should put up with a clumsy slave (I, 13, 3):
You are the slave! So you can't put up with your brother, who has Zeus as his ancestor, and who, as a son, was born om the same seed as you and, like you, descends om on high . . . Don't you remember whom you are ordering around? Your kinsmen, your brothers by nature, and progeny of Zeus.
-But I've got rights with regard to them because I bought them; they don't have any with regard to me!
312 THE INNER CITADEL
-Can you see where you are looking? You see the earth, a pit, and you see only these miserable laws, which are the laws of the dead. Don't you look to the laws ofthe gods?
Epictetus uses the mythical, imagistic representation ofthe liation of all human beings om God, which may seem antiquated to a modem audience. Yet when he talks about Zeus-and, as we have seen, the same thing holds true ofMarcus Aurelius-he is thinking rst and remost of reason. What Epictetus means is simply the llowing: this slave is a living being like you, and, like you, a man gifted with reason. Even if human laws re se to recognize that he is your equal, the laws ofthe gods, which are the laws ofreason, recognize his absolute value. We people ofmod em times think that we have abolished these laws ofthe dead, but in the last analysis they still dominate the world.
V. Goldschmidt10 was right to point out that another aspect ofwhat could be called "eternal Stoicism" is the exercise ofconcentration on the present instant. This consists, on the one hand, in living as if we were seeing the world r the rst and last time; and, on the other, in being aware that within this lived present of the instant, we have access to the totality oftime and ofthe world.
The reader may rightly object at this point: the ct that there is a kind of universal, perennial character to this peculiar attitude which we call "Stoic" may perhaps explain why, despite the distance which separates us om them, we can still understand the Meditations, and, better yet, nd rules r our thought and action in them. Yet this doesn't explain the unique scination that they exert upon us. Could we not say that if this book is still so attractive to us, it is because when we read it we get the impression ofencountering, not the Stoic system, although Marcus con stantly re rs to it, but a man of good will, who does not hesitate to criticize and examine himsel who constantly takes up again the task of exhorting and persuading himsel and of nding the words which will help him to live, and to live well? To be sure, these are spiritual exercises, carried out in accordance with a speci c method. Yet, in a sense, we are present at them: we catch them in actu, in the very moment in which they are being practiced.
In wo d literature one nds lots ofpreachers, lesson-givers, and cen sors, who moralize to others with complacency, irony, cynicism, or
Conclusion 3 1 3
bitterness; but it is extremely rare to nd a person training himselfto live and to think like a human being (V, I ) :
In the morning, when you have trouble waking up, let the llow ing thought be present to you: 'Tm getting up to do the job of a human being. "
One must admit that there are w hesitations, mblings, or search ings in these exercises which llow a canvas that Stoic philosophy and Epictetus have drawn in advance with precision. The personal e rt appears rather in the repetitions, the multiple variations developed around the same theme, and the stylistic e ort as well, which always seeks r a striking, e ective rmula. Nevertheless, we feel a highly particular emotion when we enter, as it were, into the spiritual intimacy of a soul's secrets, and are thus directly associated with the e orts of a man who, scinated by the only thing necessary-the absolute value of moral good-is trying to do what, in the last analysis, we are all trying to do: to live in complete consciousness and lucidity; to give each of our instants its llest intensity; and to give meaning to our entire life. Marcus is talking to himsel but we get the impression that he is talking to each one ofus.
AB B RE V I AT I O N S
Birley: A. R. Birley, Marcus Aurelius (London, 1966); 19872•
Breithaupt: G. Breithaupt, De M. Aurelii Antonini commentariis quaestiones se lectae (G ttingen, 1913).
Casaubon: Marci Antonini Imperatoris De Seipso et Ad Seipsum libri XII, Guil. Xylander . . . Graece et Latine primus edidit, nunc vero . . . notas et emendatio nes adjecit Mericus Casaubonus (London, 1643). Greek text with Latin transla tion.
Dalfen: ]. Dalfen, ed. , M. Aurelii Antonini ad Se Ipsum Libri XII (Leipzig: Teubner, 1979, reprinted 1987). Greek text only. A critical edition with an excellent index of vocabulary; but Dalfen, in my view, wrongly considers too many passages to be interpolations.
Diels-Kranz: Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Greek and German by Hem1ann Diels, edited by Walther Kranz, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1954-). Contains the Greek text with German translation of the pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Heraclitus, Democritus, and Empedocles.
Farquharson: The Meditations of the Emperor M. Aurelius, ed. with translation and commentary by A. S. L. Farquharson (Ox rd, 1968). Greek text with an English translation; rich commentary.
Fronto: cited simultaneously in two editions: M. Cornelius Fronto, Epistulae, ed. M. J. P. van den Hout (Leipzig: Teubner, 1988); The Correspondence Marcus Co elius Pronto, ed. and trans. C. R. Haines, 2 vols. , Loeb Classical Library.
Galen, ed. Kuhn: Claudii Galeni Opera omnia, ed. C. G. Kuhn, 20 vols. (Leipzig, 1821-1833). Greek text with Latin translation. Some ofGalen's works have been published in newer editions by various editors; these are indicated in the notes.
Gataker: Marci Antonini Impe toris de rebus suis, sive de eis quae ad se pertinere censebat libri X I commentario pe etuo explicati atque illustrati, studio . . . Thomae Gatakeri (Cambridge, 1652). Greek text with Latin translation. The Latin com mentary is extremely rich, but sometimes a bit prolix.
Grimal: P. Grimal, Marc Aurele (Paris: Fayard, 1991).
Renan: E. Renan, Marc Aurele et la n du monde antique (Paris, 1882). O en
3 1 6 Abbreviations
reprinted. The edition I cite is in the collection entitled "Le livre de poche," "Biblio/Essais," no. 4015 (Paris: Librairie generale a aise, 1984).
Stobaeus Anthol. : K. Wachsmuth and 0. Hense. , eds.
, Ioannis Stobaei Antholo gium, 5 vols. (Berlin, 1884-1912).
Stoidens: Les Stoidens, trans. E. Brehier, ed. under the direction ofP. M. Schuhl; Bibliotheque de la Plfaade (Paris: NRF, 1962). Contains French transla tions of texts by Cleanthes, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.
S : H. von Arnim, ed. , Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1905- 1924). Contains only Latin and Greek texts.
Theiler: W. Theiler, ed. , Kaiser Marc Aurel: Wege zu sich selbst (Zurich, 1951-). To date, this is the best edition ofthe Greek text ofthe Meditations, as
we as the best translation (in German).
NOTES
1 . The Emperor-Philosopher
l. On these ctories, see H. Bloch, I bolli laterzi e la storia edilizia romana (Rome, 1947 [19682]), especially pp. 204-210, 331; Margareta Steinby, "Ziegel stempel von Rom und Umgebung," in Paulys Realencyclopadie, Supplement, XV, 1978, col. 1489-l59r.
2 . On the relationship between these births, mintings of coinage, and impe rial propaganda, see K. Fittschen, Die Bildnistypen der Faustina Minor und die Fecunditas Augustae (Gottingen, 1982).
3 . Cf E. Champlin, Pronto and Antonine Rome (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. l39-142.
4 . J a m e s F . G i l l i a m , " T h e P l a g u e u n d e r M a r c u s A u r e l i u s , " A m e r i c a n Jo u a l e f Philology, 82 (1961): 225-25r.
5. Cassius Dio, LXXII, 36, 3.
6. F. Lot, La Fin du monde antique et le debut du Moyen Age (Paris, 195l),
pp. 198-199.
7. See the works ofE. Renan, A. R. Birley, and P. Grimal.
8. On this aspect ofancient philosophy, see P. Hadot, Exercices spirituels et
philosophie antique (Paris, 19923) [English translation: Philosophy As a Way ofL e, Chicago, 1995); Hadot, pre ce to R. Goulet, ed. , Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, vol. I (Paris, 1989), pp. ll-16.
9. J. M. Rist, "Are You a Stoic? The Case ofMarcus Aurelius," in B. F. Meyer and E. P. Sanders, eds. ,Jewish and Christian Se De nition, vol. III (Lon don, 1983), p. 23.
ro. It is true that the Christian apologist Justin, a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius (cf Andre Wartelle, SaintJustin, Apologies [Paris, 1987), pp. 3 1-32), at the beginning ofhis Apology, gives the title of"philosophers" to Marcus Aurelius and to Verus. Melito of Sardis, another apologist (cf Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History IV, 26, 7) associates Commodus with the philosophical repu tation of his ther, Marcus Aurelius. In both these cases, it was obviously because of Marcus that his associates were digni ed with this title. On the notion of "philosopher" in the Imperial period, see the excellent work by
J. Hahn, Der Philosoph und die Gesellsch (Stuttgart, 1 989) .
318 Notes to Pages 5-13
rr. Fronto, AdAntonin. Imper. , De eloquentia, 2, 15, p. 143, 19 Van den Hout; vol. II, p. 70 Haines.
12. HistoriaAugusta, MarcusAurelius (herea er ), II, r: "Fuitaprima infantia gravis. "
13. Fronto, Ad Marc. Caes. , II, 16, p. 34, 2 Van den Hout = vol. I, p. 150 Haines.
14. According to the Historia Augusta ( IV, 9, vol. I), Diognetus or Dioge- netus was Marcus' painting teacher.
15. SeeJ. Taillardat, Les Images d'A stophane (Paris, 1962), p. 268, §474; n. 2. 16. Historia Augusta, , II, 6.
17. Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 18, 5-7; 20, 9; Pliny the Younger, Letters, I, 22,
4; Musonius, 20, in A. -J. Festugiere, trans. , Deux predicateurs de l'Antiquite, les et Musonius (Paris, 1978), pp. 123-124.
18. C Strabo, Geography, V, 47.
19. C Polybius, Histories, I, 32, r; Plutarch, Agesilaus 2; Cleomenes I I , 3-4; Dionysius ofHalicarnassus, Antiquities Rome, 2, 23, 2, r.
20. Plutarch, Lycu us, 16, 12.
2r. F. Ollier, Le Mirage spartiate, 2 vols. (Paris, 1933-1943). C E. N. Tig erstedt, The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, 2 vols. (Stockholm, 1965- 1973).
22. Musonius, in Festugiere, Deux predicateurs de l'Antiquite, pp. 52; 124. 23. C Plato, Symposium, 219b; Xenophon, Memorabilia, I, 6, 2.
24. Historia Augusta, MA, III, 3 .
25. Cassius Dio, LXXII, 35, r.
26. Themistius, Orationes quae supersunt, ed. G. Downey and A. F. Norman (Leipzig: Teubner, 1969-1974), vol. I (orat. 17), p. 307, 28; vol. II (o t. 34),
pp. 218, 6; 226, 9.
27. I. Hadot, Seneca und diegreichisch-romische Tradition der Seelenleitung (Berlin,
1969), pp. 167-168.
28. Epictetus, Discourses, IV, 8, 12.
29. Fronto, Ad Antonin. Imper. , I, 2, 3, p. 88, 4 Van den Hout = vol. II, p. 36
Haines .
30. Fronto, AdMarc. Caesar. , IV, 13, pp. 67-68 Van den Hout = vol. I, p. 214
Haines. On the idea ofconversion, c A. D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion om Alexander the Great to Augustine ofHippo (Ox rd, 1933); P. Hadot, Exercices spirituels, pp. 175-182.
3 r. It is highly improbable that Marcus, as a Caesar, should have been the assessor ofAu dius.
32. E. Champlin, "The Chronology ofFronto,"Journal ofRoman Studies, 64 (1974): r44
3 3 . R. B. Rutherford, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study (Oxford, 1989), p. ro6 n. 41; H. Gargemanns, "Der Bekehrungsbrief Marc Aurels," Rheinisches Museumfur Philologie, 134 (1991): 96-109; P. Hadot, in Ecole Pratique
Notes to Pages 13-17 319
des Hautes Etudes, Section. Annuaire XCII (1983-1984) (hereafter Annuaire EPHE), pp. 331-336.
34. H. Gorgemanns ("Der Bekehrungsbrief Marc Aurels," pp. 102-108) shows that this description contains an allusion to the wrath of Achilles in the rst book of Homer's iad. The irony was intended by the young Marcus, in order to attenuate the pain he was in icting upon his teacher Fronto, by allow ing him to glimpse his growing love r philosophy.
35. Cf the rmula "Silent leges inter arma" ("laws are silent during wars"), in A. Otto, Die Sprichworter (Hildesheim, 1962), p. 192, and cf Plutarch, Agesilaus, 30, 4.
36. Les Stoidens, textes traduits par E. Brehier, edites sous la direction de M. Schuh/ (Paris, collection de la Pleiade, 1964), p. 68 (§163); cited in what llows as Stoidens. On this philosopher, cf I. Ioppolo, Aristone di Chio e lo stoicismo antico (Naples, 1981).
37. Cf SVF, vol. I, §§383-403.
3 8 . Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 94, 2; Cicero, On Ends, III, 50; IV, 43 ; 79.
39.
Alexander, Caesar, and Pompey: what are they compared to Dio genes, Heraclitus, or Socrates? The latter saw realities, causes, and matter; and the guiding principles oftheir souls were su cient unto themselves. As r the others: so much pillage! 97 so many people reduced to slavery!
Alexander, Philip, and Demetrius may have been great conquerors; but did they know what Nature or universal Reason wanted? Were they masters, not only of the world, but also of themselves? Or were they,
306 THE INNER CITADEL
instead, nothing but "tragic actors"? In other words, were they people who, by means of their conquests, were the cause of atrocious events, worthy of being represented in a tragedy, and were they themselves actors who took up lse and solemn poses? Pace the "snotty little men" to whom Marcus alludes, nothing can make him imitate them. He will continue to do his job as an emperor and a true philosopher: that is to say, by con rming at every instant to the will ofReason and Nature, not with turgid solemnity but with simplicity.
For Marcus, philosophy does not propose a political program. Rather, he expects that philosophy will rm him and prepare him, by means of the spiritual exercises which he performs, to carry out his political action in a speci c spirit and style. What one does matters less than the way in which one does it. In the last analysis, the o y true politics is ethics. It consists, above all, in the discipline of action, which, as we have seen, consists essentially in service to the human community, devotion to others, andjustice. Like the discipline ofaction, politics cannot be sepa rated om the great human and cosmic perspectives that are opened up r us by our recognition of a transcendent universality-Reason or Nature-which, by means of its harmony with itsel unds both peo ple's love r one another and their love r that Whole of which they are the parts. It is hard not to think ofthe recent comments ofVaclav Havel,98 as he discusses what he calls the "moral State" or the "spiritual State " :
True politics-the only thing worthy of the name, and the only thing I will consent to practice-is politics in the service of our fellow man, and in the service of the community. . . . Its basis is ethical, inso r as it is only the realization of the responsibility of all toward all. . . . [It] is nourished by the certainty, conscious or un conscious, that . . . everything is inscribed rever; that everything is evaluated elsewhere, somewhere "above us," in what I have called "the memory ofBeing": it is that part which is indissociable om the cosmos, om nature and om life which believers call God, and to whosejudgment all things are submitted. . . . To try to remain, in all circumstances, courteous, just, tolerant, understanding; and at the same time uncorruptible and in llible. In sum, to try and re main in harmony with my conscience and with my better sel
CONCLUSION
At the beginning of this book I alluded to the extraordinary success which Marcus Aurelius' Meditations have enjoyed throughout the centu ries, beginning with the rst edition in the sixteenth century. How can we explain this phenomenon? Why does this work continue, even today, to scinate us to such an extent? Perhaps one reason is the consummate art with which the Emperor chiseled out his aphorisms. In the words of Nietzsche:
A good saying is too hard r the teeth oftime, and all the millennia are not enough to consume it, although it serves as od r every epoch. It is thus the great paradox ofliterature: the imperishable in the midst ofthe changing, the od which always is appreciated, like salt, and again like salt, it never becomes insipid. 1
Yet the nutritive substance which we nd in this work is, as we have seen, the Stoic system, as it was set rth by Epictetus. Is it possible that it could still serve as spiritual nourishment r us, people of the modern era?
Ernest Renan,2 r one, did not think so. For him, the Meditations went beyond Epictetus, Stoicism, and all de nitive doctrines:
Fortunately, the little box which contained the Meditations on the banks ofthe Gran and the philosophy ofCarnonte was saved. There came out of it this incomparable book, in which Epictetus was surpassed: this manual of the resigned life, this Gospel of those who do not believe in the supernatural, which has not been able to be understood until our time. A true eternal Gospel, the Meditations will never grow old, r it a rms no dogma. The Gospel has grown old in some ofits parts: science no longer allows the naive concep-
308 THE INNER CITADEL
tion of the supernatural which constitues its undation. In the Meditations, the supernatural is only a tiny, insigni cant stain which does not a ect the wonderful beauty of the background. Science could destroy God and the soul, but the Meditations would still remain young with life and truth. The religion ofMarcus Aurelius is, like that ofJesus was at times, absolute religion: that which results om the simple ct of a high moral conscience ced with the universe. It is not of one race, nor of one country; no revolution, no progress, no discovery will be able to change it.
These lines do an admirable job of describing the impression that may be lt by Marcus' readers. They must, however, be quali ed and made more precise. Like many other historians who llowed him, Renan was wrong about the meaning which the famous dilemma " Nature or atoms " had r Marcus. He thought it meant that Marcus was completely indif ferent to the dogmas of Stoicism (Nature) or of Epicureanism (atoms) . According to Renan-and this, he thought, was the secret of the eternal youth of the Meditations-Marcus discovered that the moral conscience is independent of all theories about the world and of all de nite dogmas, "as i " in Renan's words,3 "he had read Kant's Critique Practical Rea- son. "
In ct, as I have noted, the meaning of this dilemma is entirely di erent. In the rst place, Marcus did not invent it: it was traditional within the Stoic school. Moreover, the Stoics had elaborated this reason ing in order to establish irre tably that, even if Epicureanism were true-a hypothesis which they excluded absolutely-one would still have to live as a Stoic. In other words, one would still have to act in accordance with reason, and consider moral good to be the only good, even i all around us, everything were nothing but chaos and chance. Such a position does not imply skepticism-quite the contrary. Yet the ct that the Stoics constructed such an argument is extremely interesting. By imagining that their physical theories might be false, and yet people would still have to live as Stoics, they revealed that which, in their eyes, was absolutely essential in their system. What de ned a Stoic above all else was the choice of a life in which every thought, every desire, and every action would be guided by no other law than that of universal Reason. Whether the world is ordered or chaotic, it depends only on us to be rationally coherent with ourselves. In ct, all the dogmas of Stoi cism derive om this existential choice. It is impossible that the universe could produce human rationality, unless the latter were already in some
Conclusion
way present within the rmer. The essence of Stoicism is thus the experience of the absolute nature of moral conscience and of the purity of intention. Moral conscience, moreover, is only moral if it is pure that is to say, if it is based upon the universality of reason, which takes itselfas an end, not in the particular interest ofan individual or a state. Stoics, and not just Marcus Aurelius, could have subscribed to the twin Kantian rmulations of the categorical imperative:
Act only in accordance with the maxim which is such that you can wish, at the same time, that it become a universal law.
Act as ifthe maxim ofyour action were, by your will, to be erected as a universal law ofNature. 4
We must not say, there re, that "Marcus writes as though he had read the Critique of Practical Reason, " but rather that Kant uses these rmulas because, among other reasons, he has read the Stoics.
With these quali cations, Renan was right to say that we nd in the Meditations the a rmation of the absolute value of moral conscience. Can we speak ofreligion here? I do not think so. The word "philoso phy" is enough, I think, to describe the purity of this attitude, and we ought to avoid mixing with philosophy all the vague and imprecise implications, both social and mythical, which the notion of religion brings with it.
An eternal Gospel? Renan thought that some parts of the Christian Gospel had grown old, whereas the Meditations would always remain young. And yet, are not some of Marcus' pages-the religious ones also very distant om us? Isn't it better to say that all gospels grow old, to the same extent that they have been shionable-in other words, to the extent that they have re ected the myths and collective representations of the time and milieu in which they were written? There are some works, however-among them both the Gospel and the Meditations which are like ever-new springs to which humanity comes to drink. If we can transcend their perishable aspects, we can sense in them an imperishable spirit which calls us to a choice oflife, to the trans rmation of ourselves, and to a complete revision of our attitude with regard to human beings and to the world.
The Meditations call us to a Stoic choice of life, as we have seen throughout this book. This obviously does not mean that the work is capable ofleading us to a complete conversion to the dogmas and prac-
]IO THE INNER CITADEL
tices ofStoicism. Yet, inso r as we attempt to give meaning to our lives, the Meditations invite us to discover the trans rmation which could be brought to our lives, if we were to realize-in the fullest sense of the term-those speci c values which constitute the spirit ofStoicism.
It could be said, moreover, that there is a universal Stoicism in human ity. By this I mean that the attitude we call "Stoic" is one ofthe nda mental, permanent possibilities ofhuman existence, when people search r wisdom. For instance, J. Gemet5 has shown how some aspects of Chinese thought were related to what we call Stoicism. They obviously developed without Greco-Roman Stoicism having exercised any in uence on them whatsoever. This phenomenon may be observed, among other places, in Wang-Fou-chih,6 a Chinese philosopher of the seventeenth century, who writes:
Vulgar knowledge (that which limits itself to what one has seen or heard) is constituted in the egotism of the self and is r om the "great objectivity" [ta kong, a term which has both a moral and an inte ectual meaning] .
We can glimpse that this "great objectivity" is entirely analogous to Marcus' method of physical de nition, which also consists in liberating oneself om an egoistic point of view, and in placing oneself within the perspective ofuniversal Nature. As Gemet comments:
Morality and reason are one. Once the sage has enlarged his spirit to the dimensions of the universe (ta sin: the exact equivalent of the term megalopsuchia, or "greatness ofsoul") and "made his person an object ofthe world," he is able to grasp the spirit ofthe "Great Trans rmation"; that is, ofthe life ofuniversal exchanges by which the beat of the world is marked.
The sage's "great objectivity"-or, as we could say, the expansion of his spirit to the dimensions of universal Reason-inspires a moral atti tude which is entirely Stoic. We can see this in the llowing passage om Wang-Fou-chih:7
The good man waits r what destiny reserves r him, and is not saddened by death. He uses his particular capacities as r as he can, and develops the good dispositions ofhis nature [which is a re ec-
Conclusion 3 1 1 tion o f the celestial principle of order] , s o that h e does not sm
against the relevant norms.
We can recognize another theme that we have encountered in Marcus Aurelius in Tang Zhen, another Chinese philosopher ofthe same period who has been translated by Gemet: the opposition between the puniness ofhuman beings, lost in the cosmos, and the transcendence ofthe moral conscience, which makes it equal to the universe:
In the immensity of the space and time of the universe, man resem bles a speck of dust blown by the wind, or a tiny spark of light. What makes him equal to it, however, is the perfection of his ndamental goodness, and the nobility ofhis moral e rt. 8
Among the numerous attitudes which human beings can adopt with regard to the universe, there is one which was called "Stoic" in the Greco-Roman world, but which could be called by many other names, and which is characterized by speci c tendencies.
In the rst place, the "Stoic," in the universal sense in which we understand him, is conscious of the ct that no being is alone, but that we are parts of a Whole, constituted by the totality of human beings as well as by the totality of the cosmos. The Stoic constantly has his mind on this Whole. One could also say that the Stoic feels absolutely serene, ee, and invulnerable, inso r as he has become aware that there is no other evil than moral evil, and that the only thing that counts is the purity ofmoral conscience.
Finally, the Stoic believes in the absolute value ofthe human person. It is too o en rgotten, and cannot be repeated too much, that Stoicism is the origin ofthe modem notion of "human rights. " I have already cited Seneca's ne rmula on this subject:9 "man is a sacred thing r man. " Yet how could I il to cite also the remark ofEpictetus, when someone asked him how he should put up with a clumsy slave (I, 13, 3):
You are the slave! So you can't put up with your brother, who has Zeus as his ancestor, and who, as a son, was born om the same seed as you and, like you, descends om on high . . . Don't you remember whom you are ordering around? Your kinsmen, your brothers by nature, and progeny of Zeus.
-But I've got rights with regard to them because I bought them; they don't have any with regard to me!
312 THE INNER CITADEL
-Can you see where you are looking? You see the earth, a pit, and you see only these miserable laws, which are the laws of the dead. Don't you look to the laws ofthe gods?
Epictetus uses the mythical, imagistic representation ofthe liation of all human beings om God, which may seem antiquated to a modem audience. Yet when he talks about Zeus-and, as we have seen, the same thing holds true ofMarcus Aurelius-he is thinking rst and remost of reason. What Epictetus means is simply the llowing: this slave is a living being like you, and, like you, a man gifted with reason. Even if human laws re se to recognize that he is your equal, the laws ofthe gods, which are the laws ofreason, recognize his absolute value. We people ofmod em times think that we have abolished these laws ofthe dead, but in the last analysis they still dominate the world.
V. Goldschmidt10 was right to point out that another aspect ofwhat could be called "eternal Stoicism" is the exercise ofconcentration on the present instant. This consists, on the one hand, in living as if we were seeing the world r the rst and last time; and, on the other, in being aware that within this lived present of the instant, we have access to the totality oftime and ofthe world.
The reader may rightly object at this point: the ct that there is a kind of universal, perennial character to this peculiar attitude which we call "Stoic" may perhaps explain why, despite the distance which separates us om them, we can still understand the Meditations, and, better yet, nd rules r our thought and action in them. Yet this doesn't explain the unique scination that they exert upon us. Could we not say that if this book is still so attractive to us, it is because when we read it we get the impression ofencountering, not the Stoic system, although Marcus con stantly re rs to it, but a man of good will, who does not hesitate to criticize and examine himsel who constantly takes up again the task of exhorting and persuading himsel and of nding the words which will help him to live, and to live well? To be sure, these are spiritual exercises, carried out in accordance with a speci c method. Yet, in a sense, we are present at them: we catch them in actu, in the very moment in which they are being practiced.
In wo d literature one nds lots ofpreachers, lesson-givers, and cen sors, who moralize to others with complacency, irony, cynicism, or
Conclusion 3 1 3
bitterness; but it is extremely rare to nd a person training himselfto live and to think like a human being (V, I ) :
In the morning, when you have trouble waking up, let the llow ing thought be present to you: 'Tm getting up to do the job of a human being. "
One must admit that there are w hesitations, mblings, or search ings in these exercises which llow a canvas that Stoic philosophy and Epictetus have drawn in advance with precision. The personal e rt appears rather in the repetitions, the multiple variations developed around the same theme, and the stylistic e ort as well, which always seeks r a striking, e ective rmula. Nevertheless, we feel a highly particular emotion when we enter, as it were, into the spiritual intimacy of a soul's secrets, and are thus directly associated with the e orts of a man who, scinated by the only thing necessary-the absolute value of moral good-is trying to do what, in the last analysis, we are all trying to do: to live in complete consciousness and lucidity; to give each of our instants its llest intensity; and to give meaning to our entire life. Marcus is talking to himsel but we get the impression that he is talking to each one ofus.
AB B RE V I AT I O N S
Birley: A. R. Birley, Marcus Aurelius (London, 1966); 19872•
Breithaupt: G. Breithaupt, De M. Aurelii Antonini commentariis quaestiones se lectae (G ttingen, 1913).
Casaubon: Marci Antonini Imperatoris De Seipso et Ad Seipsum libri XII, Guil. Xylander . . . Graece et Latine primus edidit, nunc vero . . . notas et emendatio nes adjecit Mericus Casaubonus (London, 1643). Greek text with Latin transla tion.
Dalfen: ]. Dalfen, ed. , M. Aurelii Antonini ad Se Ipsum Libri XII (Leipzig: Teubner, 1979, reprinted 1987). Greek text only. A critical edition with an excellent index of vocabulary; but Dalfen, in my view, wrongly considers too many passages to be interpolations.
Diels-Kranz: Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Greek and German by Hem1ann Diels, edited by Walther Kranz, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1954-). Contains the Greek text with German translation of the pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Heraclitus, Democritus, and Empedocles.
Farquharson: The Meditations of the Emperor M. Aurelius, ed. with translation and commentary by A. S. L. Farquharson (Ox rd, 1968). Greek text with an English translation; rich commentary.
Fronto: cited simultaneously in two editions: M. Cornelius Fronto, Epistulae, ed. M. J. P. van den Hout (Leipzig: Teubner, 1988); The Correspondence Marcus Co elius Pronto, ed. and trans. C. R. Haines, 2 vols. , Loeb Classical Library.
Galen, ed. Kuhn: Claudii Galeni Opera omnia, ed. C. G. Kuhn, 20 vols. (Leipzig, 1821-1833). Greek text with Latin translation. Some ofGalen's works have been published in newer editions by various editors; these are indicated in the notes.
Gataker: Marci Antonini Impe toris de rebus suis, sive de eis quae ad se pertinere censebat libri X I commentario pe etuo explicati atque illustrati, studio . . . Thomae Gatakeri (Cambridge, 1652). Greek text with Latin translation. The Latin com mentary is extremely rich, but sometimes a bit prolix.
Grimal: P. Grimal, Marc Aurele (Paris: Fayard, 1991).
Renan: E. Renan, Marc Aurele et la n du monde antique (Paris, 1882). O en
3 1 6 Abbreviations
reprinted. The edition I cite is in the collection entitled "Le livre de poche," "Biblio/Essais," no. 4015 (Paris: Librairie generale a aise, 1984).
Stobaeus Anthol. : K. Wachsmuth and 0. Hense. , eds.
, Ioannis Stobaei Antholo gium, 5 vols. (Berlin, 1884-1912).
Stoidens: Les Stoidens, trans. E. Brehier, ed. under the direction ofP. M. Schuhl; Bibliotheque de la Plfaade (Paris: NRF, 1962). Contains French transla tions of texts by Cleanthes, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.
S : H. von Arnim, ed. , Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1905- 1924). Contains only Latin and Greek texts.
Theiler: W. Theiler, ed. , Kaiser Marc Aurel: Wege zu sich selbst (Zurich, 1951-). To date, this is the best edition ofthe Greek text ofthe Meditations, as
we as the best translation (in German).
NOTES
1 . The Emperor-Philosopher
l. On these ctories, see H. Bloch, I bolli laterzi e la storia edilizia romana (Rome, 1947 [19682]), especially pp. 204-210, 331; Margareta Steinby, "Ziegel stempel von Rom und Umgebung," in Paulys Realencyclopadie, Supplement, XV, 1978, col. 1489-l59r.
2 . On the relationship between these births, mintings of coinage, and impe rial propaganda, see K. Fittschen, Die Bildnistypen der Faustina Minor und die Fecunditas Augustae (Gottingen, 1982).
3 . Cf E. Champlin, Pronto and Antonine Rome (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. l39-142.
4 . J a m e s F . G i l l i a m , " T h e P l a g u e u n d e r M a r c u s A u r e l i u s , " A m e r i c a n Jo u a l e f Philology, 82 (1961): 225-25r.
5. Cassius Dio, LXXII, 36, 3.
6. F. Lot, La Fin du monde antique et le debut du Moyen Age (Paris, 195l),
pp. 198-199.
7. See the works ofE. Renan, A. R. Birley, and P. Grimal.
8. On this aspect ofancient philosophy, see P. Hadot, Exercices spirituels et
philosophie antique (Paris, 19923) [English translation: Philosophy As a Way ofL e, Chicago, 1995); Hadot, pre ce to R. Goulet, ed. , Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, vol. I (Paris, 1989), pp. ll-16.
9. J. M. Rist, "Are You a Stoic? The Case ofMarcus Aurelius," in B. F. Meyer and E. P. Sanders, eds. ,Jewish and Christian Se De nition, vol. III (Lon don, 1983), p. 23.
ro. It is true that the Christian apologist Justin, a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius (cf Andre Wartelle, SaintJustin, Apologies [Paris, 1987), pp. 3 1-32), at the beginning ofhis Apology, gives the title of"philosophers" to Marcus Aurelius and to Verus. Melito of Sardis, another apologist (cf Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History IV, 26, 7) associates Commodus with the philosophical repu tation of his ther, Marcus Aurelius. In both these cases, it was obviously because of Marcus that his associates were digni ed with this title. On the notion of "philosopher" in the Imperial period, see the excellent work by
J. Hahn, Der Philosoph und die Gesellsch (Stuttgart, 1 989) .
318 Notes to Pages 5-13
rr. Fronto, AdAntonin. Imper. , De eloquentia, 2, 15, p. 143, 19 Van den Hout; vol. II, p. 70 Haines.
12. HistoriaAugusta, MarcusAurelius (herea er ), II, r: "Fuitaprima infantia gravis. "
13. Fronto, Ad Marc. Caes. , II, 16, p. 34, 2 Van den Hout = vol. I, p. 150 Haines.
14. According to the Historia Augusta ( IV, 9, vol. I), Diognetus or Dioge- netus was Marcus' painting teacher.
15. SeeJ. Taillardat, Les Images d'A stophane (Paris, 1962), p. 268, §474; n. 2. 16. Historia Augusta, , II, 6.
17. Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 18, 5-7; 20, 9; Pliny the Younger, Letters, I, 22,
4; Musonius, 20, in A. -J. Festugiere, trans. , Deux predicateurs de l'Antiquite, les et Musonius (Paris, 1978), pp. 123-124.
18. C Strabo, Geography, V, 47.
19. C Polybius, Histories, I, 32, r; Plutarch, Agesilaus 2; Cleomenes I I , 3-4; Dionysius ofHalicarnassus, Antiquities Rome, 2, 23, 2, r.
20. Plutarch, Lycu us, 16, 12.
2r. F. Ollier, Le Mirage spartiate, 2 vols. (Paris, 1933-1943). C E. N. Tig erstedt, The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, 2 vols. (Stockholm, 1965- 1973).
22. Musonius, in Festugiere, Deux predicateurs de l'Antiquite, pp. 52; 124. 23. C Plato, Symposium, 219b; Xenophon, Memorabilia, I, 6, 2.
24. Historia Augusta, MA, III, 3 .
25. Cassius Dio, LXXII, 35, r.
26. Themistius, Orationes quae supersunt, ed. G. Downey and A. F. Norman (Leipzig: Teubner, 1969-1974), vol. I (orat. 17), p. 307, 28; vol. II (o t. 34),
pp. 218, 6; 226, 9.
27. I. Hadot, Seneca und diegreichisch-romische Tradition der Seelenleitung (Berlin,
1969), pp. 167-168.
28. Epictetus, Discourses, IV, 8, 12.
29. Fronto, Ad Antonin. Imper. , I, 2, 3, p. 88, 4 Van den Hout = vol. II, p. 36
Haines .
30. Fronto, AdMarc. Caesar. , IV, 13, pp. 67-68 Van den Hout = vol. I, p. 214
Haines. On the idea ofconversion, c A. D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion om Alexander the Great to Augustine ofHippo (Ox rd, 1933); P. Hadot, Exercices spirituels, pp. 175-182.
3 r. It is highly improbable that Marcus, as a Caesar, should have been the assessor ofAu dius.
32. E. Champlin, "The Chronology ofFronto,"Journal ofRoman Studies, 64 (1974): r44
3 3 . R. B. Rutherford, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study (Oxford, 1989), p. ro6 n. 41; H. Gargemanns, "Der Bekehrungsbrief Marc Aurels," Rheinisches Museumfur Philologie, 134 (1991): 96-109; P. Hadot, in Ecole Pratique
Notes to Pages 13-17 319
des Hautes Etudes, Section. Annuaire XCII (1983-1984) (hereafter Annuaire EPHE), pp. 331-336.
34. H. Gorgemanns ("Der Bekehrungsbrief Marc Aurels," pp. 102-108) shows that this description contains an allusion to the wrath of Achilles in the rst book of Homer's iad. The irony was intended by the young Marcus, in order to attenuate the pain he was in icting upon his teacher Fronto, by allow ing him to glimpse his growing love r philosophy.
35. Cf the rmula "Silent leges inter arma" ("laws are silent during wars"), in A. Otto, Die Sprichworter (Hildesheim, 1962), p. 192, and cf Plutarch, Agesilaus, 30, 4.
36. Les Stoidens, textes traduits par E. Brehier, edites sous la direction de M. Schuh/ (Paris, collection de la Pleiade, 1964), p. 68 (§163); cited in what llows as Stoidens. On this philosopher, cf I. Ioppolo, Aristone di Chio e lo stoicismo antico (Naples, 1981).
37. Cf SVF, vol. I, §§383-403.
3 8 . Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 94, 2; Cicero, On Ends, III, 50; IV, 43 ; 79.
39.
