No More Learning

I'd write you still more about it, but they're coming to get me r my bath. 13
In this childish prank, we catch the ture emperor in an act of olish­ ness and senselessness. We are a long way om the philosopher who will later try, among other things, to renderjustice with the utmost scrupu­ lousness. Most of the time, moreover, the tone of these letters to Fronto is very play l. It appears as though the young Caesar, that passionate reader, who was no doubt trying his hardest to polish his skills at rhetoric, was not thinking about anything else.
It does seem, however, that even in his childhood Marcus Aurelius had seen what the ideal ofa philosophical life could be. In the rst book ofhis Meditations (I, 6), he attributes this aspiration r a life ofausterity to the in uence of a certain Diognetus. 14 The latter was one of the rst
The Emperor-Philosopher 7
teachers Marcus had; he had taught him to write dialogues "while he was still a child, " and had turned him away om a game which had long been practiced by young Greeks: mentioned by Aristophanes and Plato, it consisted essentially in playing with quails by striking them lightly on the head. 15 It was Diognetus, said Marcus, who gave him his love r phi­ losophy and inspired in him "the desire to sleep on a cot and a simple animal-skin, and r things of this sort which belong to the 'Hellenic' way oflife. " We shall return to this last phrase. For the moment, let us note the correspondence between this note om the Meditations and the indications given us by The Life ef Marcus Aurelius in the Histo a Augusta:16 "At the age of twelve, he adopted the costume of a philoso­ pher, and a little later the endurance of one, too. He used to study dressed in a pallium-that is, a philosophers' cloak-and sleep on the ground; his mother had all kinds ofdi culty in getting him to stretch out on a bed covered with animal skins. "
A short cloak and a hard bed were the symbols ofthe Stoic philosophi­ cal li . We nd them in Seneca, who advises his disciple Lucilius to practice this austerity om time to time, evoking Demetrius the Cynic lying on his cot; in the younger Pliny, who speaks of the jurist Aristo­ more ofa philosopher than the so-called philosophers-whose bed called to mind the simplicity of life of the ancients; and nally in the Stoic Musonius, teacher of Epictetus, who declared that a cot and a simple animal-skin are enough r sleeping. 17
On this topic, we can well wonder whether "Hellenic way of life (agoge), " the reading of the manuscripts of the Meditations, ought to be preserved, or whether we should emend the reading to "Laconian way of life (agoge). " For among the ancients, the "Hellenic way oflife" tended
rather to designate Greek culture and civilization, both in its spiritual and in its material rms: literature and philosophical discourses, to be sure, but also the gymnasia and social way ofli . 18 The expression "Laconian way oflife," by contrast, traditionally designated the "rough life" which characterized at the same time Spartan education and philosophical askesis. The word agoge was, moreover, o en used by itself to designate the life-style ofthe Lacedaemonians. 19 In his li ofthe Spartan legislator Lycurgus, Plutarch20 describes the way in which Spartan children were brought up: once they reached the age oftwelve, they lived without any tunic, received only one cloak r the whole year, and slept on mattresses which they themselves had made out ofreeds.
The model of this style of life was strongly idealized by the philoso­ phers, especially the Cynics and Stoics. This was what F. Ollier21 has
8 THE INNER CITADEL
termed the "Spartan mirage," and it was all the more a mirage in that Sparta was a warlike, totalitarian state which " shioned its citizens to become the docile instruments ofits ," whereas the Cynics and Stoics considered personal moral value as the only goal of life. From Spartan education, they retained only its training r perseverance, its return to a natural li , and its contempt r social conventions. To cite only one example: the Stoic Musonius considered that a disciple "educated Spar­ tan style" was in a better condition to receive philosophical instruction, and he had praised at length the Lacedaemonians' frugal li -style. 22 One might add that the philosophers' cloak (Greek tribon, Latin pallium) worn by the young Marcus Aurelius was none other than the Spartan cloak, made of coarse cloth, that had been adopted by Socrates, Antisthenes, Diogenes, and the philosophers ofthe Cynic and Stoic tradition. 23
How did Diognetus transmit to Marcus the desire r the austere li of the philosophers and the Spartans? We do not know. Did he boast to him of the ee life of the Cynic or Stoic philosophers? Following the example of Plutarch, did he tell him about the life of Lycurgus or of Cleomenes? Be this as it may, he brought about in his student what we might call an initial conversion toward philosophy.
Nevertheless, in the letters om Marcus to Fronto which date om be re the years 146-147, we do not perceive the slightest trace ofthis youthful-or rather, childish-enthusiasm r the Spartan-style philo­ sophical way oflife. No doubt it had been short-lived; and yet this re, though apparently extinguished, continued to smolder, and it would not be long be re it ared up once again.
Junius Rusticus
Ancient historians are unanimous in recognizing the vitally important role played by Junius Rusticus in Marcus' evolution toward philosophy. "His vorite teacher, " says the Historia Augusta,24 "was Junius Rusticus, whose disciple he was and r whom he had the greatest respect. This Rusticus was as e ective in war as he was in peace, and he was a great practitioner of the Stoic way of life . Marcus Aurelius consulted him on all his business, whether public or private; he used to greet him with a kiss even in ont of the Praetorian prefect; honored him with a second consulate, and, after his death, requested that the Senate raise statues of him. " The Historia Augusta could, moreover, have added that Rusticus' rst consulate, in 162 (the year after Marcus became emperor), was certainly intended as a sign ofthe disciple's gratitude toward his master. When the historian Cassius Dio25 speaks ofMarcus' philosophy teachers,
The Emperor-Philosopher 9
he mentions only Junius Rusticus and Apollonius of Chalcedon, both of whom he depicts as Stoics. Later, in the urth century, Themistius still speaks of the privileged relationship between Junius Rusticus and the Emperor. 26
It will come as no su rise that a statesman, who was to become Pre ct of the City om 162 to 168, should be at the same time a philosophy teacher. There was nothing extraordinary about this in antiq­ uity: Cicero and Seneca were also statesmen, and they too did not hesi­ tate to present themselves as philosophy teachers. There were two rea­ sons r this: in the rst place, ancient philosophy was not restricted to specialists and professionals, so that statesmen could perfectly well live as philosophers and master philosophical discourse. Moreover, as has been well shown by I. Hadot,27 there was at Rome an old tradition according to which young people attached themselves to older and more experi­ enced personages who initiated them into political life, but also into ethical li . This was in particular the way they studied law-as Cicero did under Scaevola-but young people could also be initiated into the philosophical li in this way. From this perspective, we may say that
Junius Rusticus gave Marcus Aurelius private philosophy lessons, and that he was at the same time his iend and his spiritual guide.
The rst book of the Meditations renders him an extended homage­ the longest ofany, in ct, except r that accorded to Marcus' adoptive ther, the emperor Antoninus (I, 7) :
From Rusticus. To have had some idea of the need I had to straighten out my moral condition, and to take care ofit.
That I did not let myselfbe dragged into sophistical ambition, or to compose treatises on philosophical theorems, to declaim ne exhortatory speeches, or, nally, to try to strike my audience's imagination by parading myself ostentatiously as a man who prac­ tices philosophical exercises, or is generous to a ult.
To have given up rhetoric, poet , and re ned expressions.
Not to walk around in a toga while I'm home, and not to let myselfgo in such matters.
To write letters simply, just like the letter he himself wrote to my mother om Sinuessa.
To be disposed, with regard to those who are angry with you and o end you, in such a way as to be ready to respond to the rst call, and to be reconciled as soon as they themselves wish to return to you.
To study texts with precision, without being content just to skim
IO
THE INNER CITADEL
over them in a general, approximate way; and not to give my assent too quickly to smooth talkers.
To have been able to read the notes taken at the courses of Epictetus, which he lent to me om his own library.
What Marcus learned om Rusticus was thus, in a sense, the opposite ofwhat he had learned om Diognetus. As Epictetus28 had said, the goal ofphilosophy is not to wear a cloak, but to reason correctly. Philosophy does not consist in sleeping on the ground, nor in writing dialogues, but in recti ing one's character. It resides neither in sophistry, bookish dis­ sertations, nor pretentious declamations, nor in ostentatiousness, but rather in simplicity. In this text, we can glimpse the con ict that sepa­ rated Franta and Rusticus in the orientation ofMarcus' education: "To have given up rhetoric, poetry, and re ned expressions. " Franta himself referred to this opposition when, declaring himself delighted to see that the new Emperor had spoken eloquently in public, although it had been several years since he had re sed to continue his rhetorical studies, he wrote to him: "Of all the people I have known, I have never und anyone gi ed with a greater natural gift r eloquence. . . . My dear Rusticus, our Roman, who would give his li or sacri ce it willingly to save your little nger, was then rced to concede-much against his will, and with a disgusted look on his ce-that what I used to say about your rhetorical talents was right. "29
His role as spiritual guide cannot always have been easy r Rusticus. The mention ofRusticus' attitude toward those who got angry with him does seem to be an allusion to the attitude ofMarcus himsel in the same rst book ofhis Meditations, Marcus thanks the gods r having brought it about that, although he equently became angry with Rusticus, he never went so r as to do something he might later regret (I, 1 7, 1 4) . No doubt relations between the two men were stormy, both during Marcus' youth, when Rusticus pointed out to his disciple that he needed to re rm his character (I, 7, r), and during the period when Rusticus was one ofthe Emperor's advisers. Thus, Rusticus, by his indulgence and his gentleness, showed Marcus the attitude that he too should adopt vis-a-vis those who became irritated with him. It does seem as though one ofthe Emperor's principal character defects was his tendency to become irritated easily.
Marcus Aurelius does not say a word about the Stoic doctrines taught to him by Junius Rusticus. There is nothing surprising about this, r although the rst book of the Meditations draws up a list of what the Emperor has received om his parents, his teachers, his friends, and the
The Emperor-Philosopher I I
gods, it is a list of the models and practical advice which have been o ered to him, and not the description of a purely intellectual itinerary. From this perspective, however, the mention of the notes taken during the classes of Epictetus is su cient, r compared to Epictetus, the Stoic teachers ofMarcus' time were mere epigones. As r as Stoicism is concerned, the gure ofEpictetus dominated the entire second century. For Marcus, this was the greatest bene t he had received om Rusticus, r his Meditations were to be no more than variations-often superbly orchestrated-on themes proposed by the philosopher-slave.
The reading of "A sto "
Conversions are often thought to be events that happen instantaneously in unexpected circumstances. History is lled with anecdotes of this kind, whether they be about Polemon, after a night of debauchery, stumbling by chance into the class of the Platonic philosopher Xeno­ crates; Augustine hearing a child's voice telling him to "take this and read it"; or Saul blinded on the road to Damascus. It would be nice to nd the traces of a sudden conversion to philosophy in the case of our philoso­ pher-emperor as well, and they have long been thought to have been discovered in a letter om Marcus to his teacher Fronto,30 in which he says that he is so upset that he is sad and is no longer eating.
At the beginning of this letter, Marcus mentions-in a half-joking tone and without entering into details-a discussion he had had with his friend Au dius Victorinus, Fronto's son-in-law. Au dius is bursting with pride at having been a judge during an arbitration; he boasts-certainly less than seriously-that he is the mostjust of the men who had come to Rome om Umbria, and he considers himself superior to Marcus Aurelius, who is only an assessor and is happyjust to sit and yawn beside the judge. As Caesar-we learn om the rest of the letter that Marcus was twenty- ve years old at the time-Marcus had to assist the emperor Antoninus in his judicial activity, and it is to this nction that Au dius is probably alluding. 31
After telling this story, Marcus moves on to another topic. Fronto is coming to Rome, intending, as was his custom, to check on his pupil's literary work. To be sure, Marcus is happy at the thought ofhis master's visit, but he is extremely upset that he has not read the texts Fronto had assigned to him (Plautus and Cicero, it would seem), and especially that he has not written a rhetorical argument in which he was to plead r both the pro and the contra side.
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THE INNER CITADEL
The reason r his lling behind, says Marcus, is his reading ofArista:
Aristo's books are ajoy r me, and at the same time a torture. They are a joy, in that they teach me better things; but when they show me to what extent my inner dispositions (ingenium) are distant om these better things, then too often your disciple blushes and is angry with himselfbecause, at the age oftwenty- ve, I have not yet assimilated into my soul any of the salutary dogmas and purest reasonings. This is why I am tormented, angry, andjealous, and I no longer eat.
In the third part of his letter, Marcus announces to Fronto that he is going to llow the advice of an ancient orator: under certain circum­ stances, the laws must be allowed to sleep. He will there re let Aristo's books sleep a little, and devote himself to the rhetorical work he had promised his teacher. However, in his current state ofmind, it would be impossible r him to argue simultaneously r and against some mat­ ter-that is, we are to understand, as if the justice or injustice of the matter in question were indi erent to him.
Traditionally, this letter has been considered as the story of Marcus' conversion, which would thus have occurred at the age of twenty- ve, and the Arista spoken of here has consequently been identi ed with Arista ofChios, a Stoic ofthe third century B. C. On this interpretation, it was the reading ofthis author which brought about this sudden trans r­ mation.
E. Champlin has recently expressed his doubts about this interpreta­ tion. 32 This author starts o om the observation that the beginning and end of the letter allude to jurisprudence, with the beginning evoking Au dius' pride as a judge, and the end speaking, a propos of Aristo's books, of "letting the laws sleep, " and he concludes that the middle part ofthe letter is also to be interpreted in the context ofjurisprudence. The books mentioned by Marcus would there re be those not ofArista of Chios, but of Titus Arista, a Roman jurisconsult of the time of Trajan, whose ascetic image had been evoked in one of the letters of Pliny the Younger. When he describes the e ect made on him by these works, there re, Fronto's student is not at all speaking of his regrets at not yet being a philosopher, but of his sadness at not yet having su ciently studied jurisprudence. This is why at the end of the letter, the books of
Arista are identi ed with the laws which must sometimes be allowed to sleep .
The Emperor-Philosopher 13
This interpretation has been criticized by R. B. Rutherford, H. Gorgemanns, and mysel£33 In the rst place, it seems completely unlikely that, at the age oftwenty- ve, Marcus could cry out, a propos of some books onjurisprudence: "At the age oftwenty- ve, I have not yet assimilated into my soul any of the salutary dogmas and the purest rea­ sonings, " and that he could speak of the distance of his "inner disposi­ tions" as compared to the ideal he has discovered. Moreover, the irrita­ tion, sadness, and loss of appetite,34 even when we take rhetorical ampli cation into account, would seem highly exaggerated if they were the result ofa temporary passion rjurisprudence.
Second, it is somewhat cile to attempt to interpret the letter as ifit dealt with the one theme ofjurisprudence, and with that theme alone. The story of Au dius Victorinus rms a whole, independent of what llows it. Finally, the rmula "to let the laws sleep" was a proverbial expression,35 meaning that, in cases of serious crises, we must sometimes resign ourselves to silencing our moral principles.
Champlin bases his argument on the ct that, already in antiquity, all the works of Aristo of Chios were considered to be apocryphal. To be sure, it is virtually certain that this philosopher, like many others om Socrates down to Epictetus, gave only oral instruction and wrote noth­ ing. Yet the list ofhis "works" as it existed in antiquity enumerated, r the most part, such titles as hypomnemata, scholai, and diat bai, which designated notes taken during class by students. 36 This is also how the teachings ofEpictetus have come down to us: thanks to the notes taken by Arrian, a statesman of the beginning of the second century A. D. It is not impossible that Marcus had access to these notes taken at Aristo's classes, or to extracts om the letter preserved in the Stoic schools. He may also have read a collection of "Comparisons" (Homoiomata) by the same Aristo, which was popular down to the end ofantiquity, and which
moreover does seem authentic, since it accords with what we know of Aristo's teaching om other sources. For instance, we know that he considered dialectics to be useless, and we nd sayings in this collection which illustrate this view. The reasonings ofthe dialecticians, says Aristo, are like spiders' webs: completely useless, but ingenious. Those who conduct advanced studies of dialectics are like people eating cray sh: they struggle with a lot of shell r very little nourishment. Dialectics is like mud on the road: it is completely useless, and it makes those who walk ll down. We should also note the llowing remark on the brevity of li : the time and life accorded to men are very short; sleep, like a tutor, takes away half of it om us. 37 It should be noted as well that
14 THE INNER CITADEL
Marcus could have known Aristo through Cicero and Seneca, who had spoken about him. 38
In the nal analysis, however, our problem is not that of knowing which Aristo Marcus read. According to the testimony of Pliny, the jurisconsult Titus Aristo used to live like a philosopher, and he too can perfectly well, a er all, have written philosophical works. The only thing we can say with certainty is that the letter reveals the complete upheaval
that his reading ofphilosophical books brought about in Marcus.
It is nevertheless di cult to admit that it was the mere reading of Aristo of Chios-if the books in question were genuinely by him-that
brought about Marcus' conversion and had a considerable in uence on his thought, r the characteristics which, according to ancient tradition, distinguished the teaching ofAristo ofChios are not und in the Medita­ tions ofMarcus Aurelius. On this point, I must correct an inte retation which I had proposed in a previous study, and I shall return later to this doctrinal problem. 39
Marcus states quite clearly in the rst book of his Meditations that the decisive in uence on him came om his reading of the Discourses of Epictetus, which Junius Rusticus had obtained r him. We must imag­ ine Marcus' conversion rather as a slow evolution, brought about by his equenting of Junius Rusticus, and of other philosophers of whom I shall speak shortly. Besides, we must not rget that many of Marcus' letters to Fronto are lost. It is probable that, in other missives, the student let his teacher know that he was becoming more and more detached om rhetoric, and that he wanted to devote himselfto the improvement of his inner dispositions. He tried to do so with delicacy, and a bit of self-deprecating irony, as in the present letter. Marcus' reading ofAristo, whoever he may have been, represents only a moment and a milestone in a long process. Marcus certainly read many other authors, just as he listened to di erent philosophy teachers. What is ofinterest here, how­ ever, is that the rst evidence we have of his adherence to philosophy may be dated approximately om his twenty- h year.
Professors and ends
In addition to Junius Rusticus, Marcus and the ancient historians name other philosophy teachers, in particular Apollonius of Chalcedon and Sextus of Chaeronea. Junius Rusticus was the spiritual guide who was very close to his disciple, whereas Apollonius and Sextus were professors
The Emperor-Philosopher 1 5
in charge of a school, where Marcus had to go hear their lectures. According to the Historia Augusta, Apollonius-whom the ancient histo­ rians depict as a Stoic-re sed to come to the palace to give lessons to his royal student: "The disciple must come to the master," he is supposed to have said, "and not the master to the disciple. " The emperor Anton­ inus Pius, who had had him sent r at great expense om distant Chal­ cedon to teach the young Caesar Stoicism, remarked on this occasion40 that it was easier to get Apollonius to come om Chalcedon to Rome than to get him to come om his house to the palace.
In the rst book ofthe Meditations (I, 8), Marcus mentions Apollonius immediately a er Rusticus. Here again, Marcus makes no allusion to the content ofApollonius' teaching; rather, what he retains om his teacher are moral attitudes and practical advice: on eedom; on the art ofrecon­ ciling extremes- r example, to come to a decision a er lengthy re ec­ tion, but without putting it o to be on the alert but at the same time relaxed;41 not to consider oneself bound by the vors one has received, but not to disdain them either. In Marcus' eyes, Apollonius was a teacher who did not give himselfthe airs ofa great pro ssor. He did not consider the experience and teaching skills he had acquired to be his main quali­ ties, and he did not go in r nitpicking when it came to the explanation of texts. When Apollonius died be re Marcus became emperor, the latter was deeply grieved, and wept abundantly. The courtiers re­ proached Marcus r his demonstration of a ection, probably because they considered his philosophical pretensions to be a joke, and wanted to show him that he was being un ith l to his own principles. However, the emperor Antoninus Pius said to them: "Let him be a man. Neither philosophy nor the Empire can uproot a ections. "42
Marcus, then, attended the school of Apollonius while he was still a young Caesar. It seems, however, that it was a er he became emperor, when Marcus was already growing old, that he attended the lectures of Sextus of Chaeronea. The latter was, according to the Histo a Augusta,43 a Stoic, whereas the collection known as the Souda44 calls him a skeptic, no doubt con sing him with the mous skeptic Sextus Empiricus. Ac­ cording to the Souda, Marcus equently took Sextus along as his assessor when he had trials to judge. The story was told that a certain Lucius, a philosopher of Marcus' time mous r his uninhibited speech, asked Marcus why he went to Sextus' school. Marcus replied: "Learning is a good thing, even r one who is growing old. From Sextus the philoso­ pher I shall learn what I do not yet know. " Lucius raised his hands
16 THE INNER CITADEL
skyward: "Oh Zeus," he cried, "the a ng Emperor of the Romans is hanging tablets around his neck in order to go to school, while my king Alexander died at the age of thirty-two ! "45
Sextus also appears in the rst book ofMarcus' Meditations (I, 9), right after Apollonius. Among other things, what Marcus retained om Sextus were his benevolence, the way in which he directed his household, the model he provided ofa li in accordance with nature, his simple gravity, his gi of guessing his iends' feelings, his patience, his abili to adapt himselfto each person, and tojoin together impassibility and tenderness. At the same time, however, Marcus also evokes part ofSextus' teachings, r instance his ability to set in order "the ndamental principles (dog­ mata) necessary r life, with evidence and method," and above "the idea of a life in con rmity with nature. " This last detail does seem to con rm that Sextus was a Stoic.
We have no way of knowing whether there were any di erences between the teachings ofApollonius and those ofSextus. It is likely that there were few, and that the Stoics of the time were all more or less dependent upon the teachings of Musonius Ru s and his student Epictetus. Fronto, at least, considered that the mous philosophers ofhis day-Euphrates, Dion, Timocrates, and Athenodotus-were disciples of Musonius Ru s. 46 Besides, if Marcus llowed a regular course of study in the schools of Apollonius and of Sextus, this means that he studied the three parts ofphilosophy: not only ethics, but also the theory of nature and dialectics. When, in a letter to Marcus, Fronto reproaches him47 r studying dialectics and the re tation ofsophisms, it is perhaps not a case of rhetorical exaggeration.
Apart om these philosophers in charge of schools, whose classes Marcus attended, we nd among his teachers Roman statesmen who pro ssed philosophy. It seems to me that this is clea y apparent om the plan of the rst book of the Meditations, in which Marcus evokes succes­ sively his parents; the educators he had during his childhood, in particu­ lar Diognetus; the dominant gure ofhis spiritual guideJunius Rusticus, who, r Marcus, was linked to his conversion to philosophy; Apollonius and Sextus, the two professors whose schools he attended; Alexander the Grammarian and Fronto, his grammar and rhetoric teachers; and Alexan­ der the Platonist,48 a rhetorician who became Marcus' secretary r Greek correspondence about I70. The Emperor considered the last­ named gure as a " iend," and retained om him some lessons about moral conduct.
The three names which llow-Catulus, Severus, and Maximus-
The Emperor-Philosopher 17
rm a group not ofprofessors but offriends. They were no doubt older men who, like Junius Rusticus, either were statesmen or least had had a political career, but who also had an in uence on the development of Marcus' philosophical li . The Maximus in question was Claudius Maximus, proconsul of A ica and philosopher, whom Apuleius men­ tions in his Apology. The Historia Augusta presents Claudius Maximus and Cinna Catulus as Stoics, and there is no good reason to doubt this testimony, since the same Historia Augusta is perfectly well aware that Severus-that is, Claudius Severus Arabianus, consul in 146-was an Aristotelian. 49 The son of this individual, also a consul, was also an Aris­ totelian; this is explicitly stated by Galen,50 who tells how Severus' son used to attend the public sessions of anatomy, with commentary, which the mous doctor had organized r the Roman nobility. 51
Marcus then goes on to evoke the Emperor Antoninus (I, 16), of whom Marcus paints, as it were, the portrait of the ideal prince that he himself would have liked to be. Philosophy is not absent om this description, r Antoninus is compared to Socrates, who was able both to enjoy pleasures and to abstain om them, according to the circum­ stances.
Book I concludes with Marcus recalling all the bene ts he has re­ ceived om the gods, remost among which, he says, were his encoun­ ters with the philosophers Apollonius, Rusticus, and Maximus. The nal lines of this rst book do seem to allude to chapter 7, in which the Emperor had expressed his gratitude to Rusticus r having dissuaded him om sophistical ambition, bookish dissertations, and pretentious declamations, and r having thus revealed to him that philosophy was a way oflife.
According to his own testimony in Book I, then, it was to Junius Rusticus that Marcus owed his discovery of true philosophy and of the thought of Epictetus. The Stoic teachings of Apollonius and of Sextus were then added to this decisive contribution, while om his " iends" Alexander the Platonist, Claudius Maximus, Claudius Severus, and Cinna Catulus he received the advice and the examples which helped him to live his philosophical life.
The philosopher-emperor
When, on March 7, r6r, Marcus became emperor, it was an unexpected and extraordinary event. Rome now had an emperor who professed to be a philosopher-not only that, but a Stoic philosopher. Fronto, r
18 THE INNER CITADEL
one, was less than reassured to see such a man governing the Empire: philosophy, he felt, could be a bad inspiration. In a letter to Au dius Victorinus about a juridical problem Marcus was cing concerning the will of his extremely wealthy aunt Matidia, Fronto wrote: " I was greatly a aid that his philosophy might persuade him to make the wrong deci­ sion. "52 For Fronto, moreover, Stoic philosophy as Marcus understood it was the enemy ofeloquence, which Fronto held to be indispensable r a sovereign. He wrote to the Emperor:
Even should you attain the wisdom of Cleanthes or of Zeno, you shall still be obliged, like it or not, to wear the purple pallium, and not that ofthe philosophers, made ofcoarse wool. 53
". . . and so," we are to understand, "you are darned well going to have to speak in public, and remember my rhetoric classes. "
Throughout the years in which Marcus was weighed down by the heavy burdens of the Empire, Fronto was to become the advocate of common sense, as opposed to philosophical rigor. For example, he ad­ vised the Emperor to relax and take a real vacation during his stay on the coast at Alsium: "Even your Chrysippus himsel they say, used to get plastered every day. "54 When Fronto speaks of "your Chrysippus, " by the way, it should be noted that although some modern historians-no doubt nd of paradoxes-have wondered whether or not Marcus con­ sidered himselfa Stoic,55 his friend Fronto certainly had no such doubts. When he speaks of the Emperor's philosophy, he spontaneously brings up the great names of Stoicism: Cleanthes, Zeno, and Chrysippus. It is clear that Marcus made no secret ofhis Stoic a nities.
Sometimes, Fronto is content to smile at the Emperor's in tuation: in keeping with his dogmas (instituta tua), says Fronto, Marcus must have remained imperturbable in a situation in which his li was threatened. 56 On another occasion, speaking about the Emperor's children whom he hadjust visited, Fronto observed that one ofthem was holding a piece of black bread in his hand, just like a real philosopher's son. 57
The people, both in Rome and throughout the Empire, seem to have been aware that the Emperor was a philosopher. Thus when, during his reign, at the height ofthe Danubian wars, Marcus was rced to enlist the gladiators, the current joke in Rome was that Marcus wanted to make the people renounce their pleasures and constrain them to philosophy. 58 In this regard, the dedications of the Apologies that some Christian apolo­ gists used to send to the Emperor are interesting. The emperors' titles
The Emperor-Philosopher 19
usually included the names they gave themselves a er a victory, but in Marcus' case we see that the Christian apologist Athenagoras added the title of "philosopher" to the list: "To the Emperors Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, Armenians, Sarmatians, and above all philosophers. " Here Commodus, Marcus' unworthy son, bene ts om his ther's reputation. The same holds true r Marcus' adoptive brother Lucius Verus, in the dedication-un rtunately corrupt in its present state-which Justin placed at the beginning of his Apology. In any case, Marcus, then still a Caesar, is called "philosopher" in it, together with Lucius Verus.
The reason these dedications mention the title of "philosopher" is that the Apologists' arguments ran as llows: Christianity is a philosophy-indeed the best of all philosophies. There­ re, a philosopher-emperor must tolerate it.
In order to gove , the Emperor surrounded himself with philoso­ phers. I have already spoken of his Stoic " iends": Junius Rusticus, consul in the year 162, Prefect ofRome around 165; Claudius Maximus, proconsul ofA ica; and Cinna Catulus. But there were not only Stoics; there were also convinced Aristotelians like Claudius Severus, consul in
1 73 and Marcus' son-in-law, as well as all those whom Galen mentions in the context of his sessions of dissection. Above all, there was the circle which gravitated around the Peripatetic philosopher Eudemus of Per­ gamon: Sergius Paulus, consul in 168, proconsul of Asia in 166-167, Prefect ofRome around 168; Flavius Boethius, Governor ofPalestinian Syria around 166-168, who had been the student of the Peripatetic Alexander of Damascus, and nally M. Vetulenus Civica Barbarus, con­ sul in 1 57, who had accompanied Marcus' daughter Lucilla on her trip to Antioch, where she was to marry Lucius Verus. 59
Galen's testimony allows us to glimpse an intense philosophical activ­ ity in the circles of the Roman aristocracy of Marcus' time, and it must be emphasized once more that these philosophical statesmen were not amateurs, vaguely interested in philosophical doctrines, but that they had consciously chosen their philosophical school. Some were enthusiastic Aristotelians, others Stoics. Thus, it was not just one philosopher who governed the Empire at that time, but several philosophers. Galen re­ counts, moreover, that there was a radical opposition between the court of Marcus Aurelius and that of his adoptive brother Lucius Verus. Around Marcus, it was the shion to have one's head shaved, Stoic-style: the poet Persius had referred to the adepts of this school as "sheared youths,"60 who slept and ate but little. At Lucius Verus' court, by con­ trast, the shion was to wear one's hair long; and Lucius used to call
20 THE INNER CITADEL
Marcus' entourage "mimologoi," or mimes, probably because he thought they were playing at being philosophers in order to imitate the Emperor. 61 Cassius Dio, r his part, writes that under the reign ofMar­ cus Aurelius, many people gave the appearance ofbeing philosophers, in the hopes of attracting the Emperor's liberality. 62
We have so far attempted, albeit too brie y, to impse how Marcus became a philosopher. We now must ask ourselves how he came to write the Meditations.
2
A FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE MEDITATIONS
The te ofa text
In our time, now that the printing and distribution of books are banal, everyday operations, we no longer re ize to what extent the survival of any work of antiquity represented an almost miraculous adventure. I after having been dictated or written onto relatively agile materials, and then having been more or less dis gured by copyists' mistakes, a text managed to survive until the birth ofprinting, it was only because it had the good rtune not to be burned in one ofthe numerous library res of antiquity, or else simply did not fall into useless pieces. The odyssey of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations seems to have been particula y risky.
In all probability, the Emperor wrote r himself and his own private use, rather than by dictation. At his death, the notes Marcus wrote in this way were saved and conserved by a mily member, a iend, or an admirer. Was it ever published, that is to say, copied down and distrib­ uted to bookstores? It is di cult to say. Some scholars have thought that they recognize analogies between the Meditations and the speech which, according to the historian Cassius Dio, writing a few years after the Emperor's death, Marcus delivered be re his soldiers on the occasion of the rebellion ofAvidius Cassius. 1 In ct, however, the analogies in ex­ pression are not very speci c; these were rmulas which were fairly widespread in the philosophical and literary tradition.
It does seem that, two centuries after Marcus, the philosopher Them­ istius knew of the existence of the work: he speaks of para elmata2 or " exhortations " written by Marcus. The historian Aurelius Victor and the Historia Augusta claim that Marcus, be re leaving on his expedition to the Danubian ont, had publicly set rth the precepts ofhis philosophy in the rm ofa series ofexhortations. 3 This is an interesting detail, r it reveals that the writing of the Meditations was linked in a con sed way
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with the wars against the Germans, which is not completely false. Much later, in the urteenth century, it would be imagined that the work was a book composed with a view to the education of Marcus' son Com­ modus. 4 In any case, it seems that none ofthese authors had direct access to the book ofwhich they were speaking.
It was not until the Byzantine tenth century that we nd testimonies to the reading and copying of Marcus' works. The great Byzantine lexicon entitled the Souda, which dates om that period, contains several extracts om the Meditations, and speci es that Marcus Aurelius' work consists of twelve books. 5 In addition, the bishop Arethas, in a letter of 907 addressed to Demetrius, metropolitan of Heraclea, speaks of a copy of the philosopher-emperor's work in his possession, which is readable but in poor condition. He has had it recopied, he writes, and can thus bequeath it to posterity in renewed condition. 6 There are, moreover, several literal quotations om the Meditations in Arethas' works. 7 In the Byzantine world, the Meditations were read throughout the llowing centuries. 8
In the West, we do not nd quotations om Marcus until the begin­ ning ofthe sixteenth century: the De arte cabalistica ofJohannes Reuchlin, published in 1 5 1 7, contains quotations of two passages om the Medita­ tions, probably taken om a manuscript in Reuchlin's possession. 9 It was not until 1559 that a printed edition appeared, brought out by Andreas Gesner of Zurich. Based on a now-lost manuscript, this edition was accompanied by a Latin translation made by Xylander (Wilhelm Holzmann). Besides this edition, we have only one complete manuscript ofthe Emperor's works: the Vaticanus Graecus 1950, which dates om the urteenth century.
We can thus surmise that it is only a matter ofluck that we happen to know the Meditations ofMarcus Aurelius. We must admit, however, that in the case of a number of passages- rtunately not very numerous­ the state ofthe text as we now possess it is less than satis ctory; and given the small number ofmanuscripts, it is di cult to improve upon the text. In order to reestablish the text with the highest degree of probability, there re, we are sometimes reduced to making conjectures.
The text, is, in any event, rather di cult to understand, and the reader should not be surprised if he nds that the original translation I am proposing is sometimes rather di erent om other extant translations. Moreover, it is because my interpretation of the thought of Marcus Aurelius is based upon my way of translating the text that I have und it necessary to include lengthy quotations om his work.
A First Glimpse of the Meditations 23
Neither in the manuscripts nor in the rst edition, moreover, is there any division ofthe work into chapters; and there are few paragraphs. The rst editors and translators who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centu­ ries, worked with the rst edition proposed a variety ofdivisions; but the modern numeration is that of the Latin translation by Thomas Gataker, published in Cambridge in 1652. 10 Gataker's division, however, is in need of complete revision. Some chapters must be reunited, and, above all, many others must be subdivided, since a number of passages with very di erent subject matter have been unjusti ably grouped together. The reader should not be surprised, there re, to encounter the divisions I have introduced into a particular text, which will seem di erent om those und in the other extant translations.
The title
As we have seen, it was the edition of 1559 which revealed Marcus Aurelius to the West. The work quickly became a huge success, with editions of the Greek text, and translations into Latin and the various European languages, coming st and rious. Soon, however, the l­ lowing question arose: under which genre should the work be classi ed? In antiquity, a book's title allowed its readers to recognize immediately in which category it should be situated. Moreover, it was not usually the philosopher who gave the title to his writings: more o en than not, the classes he had written entered his school's library without a title. Then, r convenience, his disciples and successors got the habit ofreferring to the work by the part ofphilosophy or the speci c question with which it dealt- r example, Classes on Physi -sometimes accompanied by the name of the addressee (Nichomachean Ethi ). No doubt Plato chose the titles of dialogues himsel but they are usually taken om the names of the protagonists of the discussion: Charmides, Phaedo, Philebus. A book's title was not then, as it is now, an invention ofthe author, by means of which he tries to show o his originality and attract the reader by the unusual nature ofhis rmulations, as in The Bald Soprano, The Dancer and the Chatterton, The Cook and the Man-eater. 11
It is highly likely that when Marcus was writing what we now call the Meditations, he had no idea of giving a title to these notes intended only r himsel£ In antiquity, moreover, as long as a book remained unpub­ lished-through a public reading, r instance-it was almost always the case that the author did not give it a title. Thus, we nd the physician Galen and the philosopher Plotinus entrusting their texts to friends,
24 THE INNER CITADEL
without providing them with titles. 12 Their works, which they had given to their entourage, were in the state of what the ancients used to call hypomnemata: that is to say, notes not yet quite revised r publication, and lacking a title. This is all the more true i as is probably the case, Marcus' work was made up ofa collection ofstrictly personal and private notes. When Arethas13 (ninth to tenth centuries), to whom we no doubt owe the preservation of our precious text, describes the condition of his manuscript, he merely designates it as " the very pro table book of the Emperor Marcus. " The ct that he does not give it a title may well lead us to believe that the manuscript did not bear one. Likewise, the epigram dedicated to Marcus' book, perhaps composed by Theophylactus Simo­ cattes (seventh century), does not give any title. 14 When Arethas wrote his scholia on Lucian, he quotes the work as llows: Marcus in "the ethical writings addressed to himself" (ta eis heauton Ethika). The Byzan­ tine dictionary called the Souda15 says ofMarcus: "He consigned the rule (agoge) ofhis personal life in twelve books. " Finally, let us reca that Themistius, in the third century, made extremely vague allusions to some para elmata, or "exhortations" ofMarcus Aurelius.
The Vatican manuscript gives no title to the Emperor's work. Some manuscript collections of extracts om it do bear the notice: ta kat' heauton, which could be translated: "Writing concerning Himsel " or " Private Writing. "
After the publication of the Greek text in 1 5 59, various translations, corresponding to various theories and interpretations, were given to the work. Xylander's translation, which accompanied the Greek text in 1559, proposed the title De seipso seu vita sua ("On Himself or on His Life"). In the editions of Strasburg (1590) and ofLyon (1626), the title was De vita sua ("On his life"). When Meric Casaubon published his Graeco-Latin edition in London in 1643, he preferred the title De seipso et ad seipsum ("About Himself and to Himself"); but when the English translation appeared in 1634, he had entitled it Meditations conce ing himse . Thomas Gataker, another En ish humanist of the same period, placed the llowing rmula at the beginning of his Latin translation with commentary: De rebus suis sive de eis quae ad se pertinere censebat (" On His Private A irs, or the Matters which He Thought Concerned H1"m").
Thus, the work was to receive all kinds of titles, in all sorts of lan­ guages. In Latin: De o cio vitae ("On the Duty ofLife"); Pugillaria ("Tab­ lets"); Commentaria quae ipse sibi scripsit ("Notes which He Wrote r Himself"). In French: Pensees mo les ("Moral Thoughts"); Pensees
A First Glimpse ofthe Meditations 25
("Thoughts"); A moi-meme ("To Myself"). In English: Conversations with Himse Meditations; Though ; To Himse Communings with Himse and in German, Betrachtungen uber sich selbst or mit sich selbst ("Re ections on Himself" or "with Himself"); Selbstbetrachtungen ("Re ections on Him­ self"); Wege zu sich selbst ("Paths toward Himself").
Hypotheses on the work's literary genre
Many historians and readers of the Meditations did not understand, and still do not understand, what Marcus Aurelius' intentions were in writing them down. Consequently, they have projected back upon him, in a totally anachronistic way, the prejudices and literary habits of their own time. The rst editor, "Xylander" (Holzmann), noting that the text he was publishing lacked the ne structure of a dialogue by Plato or a treatise by Cicero, had already co ectured that the Meditations, in the state in which they existed in the manuscript he was editing, were only loose extracts om the works ofMarcus Aurelius, and that the Emperor's book had come down to us mutilated, incomplete, and in utter disor­ der. 16 It seemed to him inconceivable that Marcus could have left these obscure, disorderly texts to posteri , since in this period the systematic treatise was considered the perfect rm ofphilosophical production.
Meric Casaubon, who translated Marcus Aurelius into English and Latin in the seventeenth century (1634 and 1643 respectively), seems to have been much better in rmed about the variety of literary genres in antiquity. In the Pre ce to his Latin translation, he reminds his readers that there then existed the literary genre of the aphorism-used, r example, by Theognis and Phocylides-which consisted in expressing one's thoughts in the rm of short sayings; he added that Epictetus' Manual, as composed by Arrian, was presented entirely in this way. Moreover, he adds, ifone is able to discern the real unities that make up the text, one be better able to understand both the ow of ideas within each passage and the themes which often recur throughout the work.
Besides, Casaubon went on, we must not rget that Marcus was writing r himsel and was not seeking clarity, as an author would who was addressing himselfto the public. This gives Casaubon17 the opportu­ nity to criticize the custom that had arisen in his time ofquoting Marcus' work by the title De vita sua ("On His Life"). True, he writes, some emperors-such as Augustus-did write books about their lives; but their subject was the acts and events of their public and private lives.
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With Marcus this is not the case; rather, as the Souda indicated, what we have is a writing dealing with "the rule of his own li . " Some editors had expressed this idea by means of the title De cio suo ("On His Duty"); but this did not render the speci city ofthe title Eis heauton, which, in order to be rendered with exactitude, must be translated as De seipso et ad seipsum ("About Himselfand to Himself"). Thus, the work is a dialogue Marcus had with himself and about himself Casaubon here reminds the reader that Solon was supposed to have written some "In­ structions r Himself" (hypothekas eis heauton); above all, he reminds the reader that, r the Platonists and the Stoics, the "self" was the soul or the spirit.
Thomas Gataker de nes the speci c character ofthe work even more precisely. He opposes the Discourses of Epictetus-transmitted to us by his disciple Arrian, who was thus their editor, just as the Evangelists were in the case of Christ-to the writings of Marcus, which emanated om his own notes. Gataker uses the word adversaria, meaning "that which is always in ont of one," or "the rough draft which one always has handy. " The Emperor's mind, says Gataker, was always devoted to philosophical occupations, and he developed the habit ofwriting down the thoughts that came to him in the course of his meditations, without feeling compelled to put them into any kind of order. They were ar­ ranged solely in accordance with the places and times in which he had either composed them himsel or encountered them in the course ofhis readings and conversations. This is shown, moreover, by such remarks as "In the Land ofthe Quades" and "At Carnutum," placed at the begin­ ning of Books II and III. This resulted in some inconsistencies and repetitions, and a style that is o en elliptical or abrupt: su cient to allow the Emperor to recall such-and-such an idea, but liable to lead to a great deal ofobscurity. These were notes intended r Marcus' personal use. 18
As early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, the philologist Caspar Barth,19 writing in 1624, emphasized that traces of organization, and sometimes even long chains of reasoning, could be und in Marcus' writings. Barth thus returned to the theory of Xylan­ der, according to which the text, in the state in which it had been preserved, represented mere extracts (eclogai) taken om a vast systematic treatise on ethics which the Emperor was supposed to have composed.
In the eighteenth century, an analogous opinion was set rth by Jean-Pierre de Joly, who edited and translated the Meditations in 1 742 and again in l773. Marcus, saidJoly, had composed a systematic treatise on ethics, written on tablets which were dispersed after his death; an editor
A First Glimpse ofthe Meditations
then published them in their state of disorder. The task of the modern editor, then, was to rediscover the systematic order of the treatise; and this is what Joly attempted to do by publishing a systematic presentation of the Meditations, divided into thirty- ve sections. 20
In the twentieth century, A. S. L. Farquharson published, in I 944, an edition, English translation, and commentary on Marcus' text which was remarkable in every respect. He took up the hypothesis ofBarth andJoly om another angle: r a period of ten to fteen years, he thought, Marcus had accumulated materials of every variety with a view to the composition of "a work of consolation and of encouragement. " Indeed, certain meditations do show signs of highly conscientious literary com­ position. After the Emperor's death, it was perhaps a secretary who made a choice om among these notes. Their present disorder could be the result either of the ct that the secretary le them as they were, or that he introduced into them an order which does not satis us, or the ct that the text has been mutilated or disorganized by scribes through the course of the years. In any event, Marcus' intention was to write a handbook of use l advice r the philosophical li . In Farquharson's view, Marcus' Meditations can be compared to the Meditations of Guigues of Chartres, the well-known Rel io Medici of Thomas Browne, and above all the Pensees ofPascal. 21
The apparent lack of order of the Meditations did not disturb nine­ teenth-century readers at . In the century of Romanticism, it was thought that the work was the Emperor's own "journal intime. " "It is probable, " wrote Renan,22 " that Marcus kept a private diary of his inner states starting om an early age. In it, he would inscribe in Greek the maxims to which he had recourse in order to rti himself, reminis­ cences om his vorite authors, passages om those moralists who most impressed him, the principles which had sustained him throughout the day, and sometimes the reproaches which his scrupulous conscience thought it had to address to itself " I should state right away that, if we understand by "dia " notes which one writes r oneself and which accumulate day after day, then we can indeed say, with G. Misch in his Histo Autobiography,23 that the Emperor did write a "diary," or, in the words ofP. Brunt24 in his excellent study entitled "Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations," a "spiritual diary. " I however, we understand by "diary" a writing to which one consigns the outpourings of one's heart and spiri­ tual states, then the Meditations are not a "diary," and the ct that Marcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations does not allow us, as Renan claimed, to know whether or not the Emperor had an uneasy soul. Renan was too
28 THE INNER CITADEL
much inclined to imagine the philosopher-emperor as a kind ofAmiel or Maurice de Guerin, expressing their worries and su erings every day. Following Renan, twentieth-century historians have taken pleasure in the image of Marcus nding consolation om reality by exhaling his resignation, pessimism, or resentment into his Meditations.
A strange work
We must try to imagine the state in which the rst humanists discovered the manuscript containing the copy of Marcus Aurelius' book. They were ced with a work without a title, which began with a list of the examples or advice which Marcus had received om his parents, his teachers, his iends, and om the emperor Antoninus Pius, as well as a list of the vors which the gods had accorded to him. After this enu­ meration-in the manuscript, at any rate, which was used r the estab­ lishment of the editio princeps-one could read a note which was both geographical and chronological in nature: "Written in the land of the Quades, on the banks of the Gran. " Then there came a series of re ec­ tions, several pages long, which sometimes contained divisions, marked by a paragraph and by capital letters, which do not always correspond to our modern-day division ofthe work into chapters. At the beginning of what we now call chapter III, we nd the llowing indication: "Written in Carnutum. " The re ections then begin again, and continue until the end ofthe work. In the Vaticanus, the books are not numbered: the most this manuscript contains is a two-line separation between what are today Books I and II; between today's Books II and III; between today's Book IV and Book V; between today's Book VIII and Book IX; and a dividing mark between today's Book XI and Book XII. This means that the divisions between Books III and IV; V and VI; VI and VII; VII and VIII; and IX and X are not indicated.
Who is responsible r remarks like "in the land ofthe Quades" or "in Carnutum? " Was it Marcus himsel who wanted to remind himself of the circumstances in which a speci c group of notes had been written? Or was it some secretary responsible r preserving the Emperor's docu­ ments, who added a kind oftag to the package that had been entrusted to him? The rst hypothesis is the more likely; but if so it is, I believe, something unique in the entire history of ancient literature, and well suited to show to what extent we are dealing with writings recorded day by day and linked, not perhaps to precise circumstances, but to the variations in the spiritual state of their author. Did such geographical
A First Glimpse ofthe Meditations 29
indications exist among the other books, and did they then become lost? Or was the greater part ofthe book written at Carnutum? Was it Marcus himselfwho gave up supplying such indications? We do not know. Did the twelve books which we distinguish today correspond to twelve groups which represented, in the view of their author, sequences of thoughts having their own unity and di erent om one another? Or was this division purely accidental, due, r instance, to the rm and dimen­ sions of the physical materials of Marcus' writing? Again, were the books separated by an editor, either just after Marcus' death, or by Arethas, when he produced an edition ofthe text in the tenth century? We have seen that the breaks between books, at any rate in the Vaticanus, were intly marked, if not nonexistent.
The contents of the work are rather disconcerting as well. After Book I, which presents an undeniable unity in its evocation of those, gods and men, to whom Marcus is expressing his gratitude, the rest ofthe work is nothing but a completely incoherent series-at least in appear­ ance-of re ections which are not even composed in accordance with the rules of the same litera genre. We encounter many very short sentences, often quite striking and well written, r example:
Soon you will have rgotten everything, and soon everyone will have rgotten you (VII, 21).
Everything is ephemeral, that which remembers and that which is remembered (IV, 3 5) .
The best way to get even with them is not to resemble them (VI, 6).
Alongside these short rmulas, we nd a certain number of longer developments, which vary in length om twenty to sixty lines; they may have the rm of a dialogue with a ctitious interlocutor, or of one that Marcus carries out with himself In them, Marcus exhorts himself to llow a speci c moral attitude, or else he discusses certain general philo­ sophical problems: if souls survive after death, r instance, where can they be located (IV, 21)? In most ofthese passages, whether they are long or short, Marcus' individuality can scarcely be discerned; most of the time, we have to do with exhortations addressed to a moral person. We also nd, however, some passages in which Marcus speaks to himselfas an Emperor (VI, 30, 1; VI, 44, 6); or in which he speaks ofhis attitude toward li at court (V, 16, 2; VI, 12; VIII, 9); about the way he must
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express himselfin the Senate (VIII, 30); about his ults (V, 5, l); or about his entourage (X, 36). He also evokes the people he has known in his life (VIII, 37, l; X, 3l, 1), in imaginatory exercises in the course ofwhich, in order to prepare himself r death, he represents to himselfthe agility of all things human, and the continuity of the processes of metamorphosis, which will not spare anyone in his entourage.
In addition to these various litera rms, we must also add two collections of quotations in Books VII (p-51) and XI (22-39). Bor­ rowed om the tragedians, Plato, and Epictetus, they have obviously been chosen r their moral ef cacy.
How, then, are we to de ne this work, which, by its multiple aspects and unusual tone, seems to be the only example of its genre in all of antiquity?
The Meditations as personal notes (hypomnemata)
It's time to stop rambling. You will no longer reread the notes ypomnematia) that you had taken, the great deeds of the ancient Greeks and the Romans, or the extracts om the works you had
been putting aside until your old age (III, 14).
Here we can catch a glimpse ofthe intellectual activity to which Marcus devoted himselfall his life. Already in his youth, when still the student of Fronto, he assiduously copied out extracts om Latin authors. 25 He must later have gone to the trouble ofmaking up " r his old age" an anthol­ ogy of edi ing quotations, of which we can discover traces in some pages of the Meditations. He had also put together a historical collection: "the great deeds ofthe ancient Greeks and Romans. " Finally, Marcus also speaks of his "personal notes, " using the diminutive word hypomne­ matia. It has often been suggested that these notes should be identi ed with the Meditations. 26 It is extremely di cult to give a de nitive judg­ ment on this point; nevertheless, with the help of other ancient parallels, we can at any rate imagine the way in which the Meditations were composed.
In the rst place, it seems that, as he wrote the Meditations, Marcus decided to change completely the nality of his literary activity. In Books II and III, we nd numerous allusions both to the imminence of death weighing upon Marcus, who was then engaged in the military campaigns of the Danube, and to the urgency of the total conversion he
A First Glimpse of the Meditations 3 1 felt he was about to undergo, and the change in his literary activity which
would be a necessary result of this:
Leave your books alone. Don't let yourselfbe distracted any longer; youcan'tallowyourselfthatanymore (II, 2, 2).
Throw away your thirst r reading, so that when you die, you will not be grumbling, but will be in true serenity, thanking the gods om the bottom ofyour heart (II, 3, 3).
Marcus is no longer t o disperse himself by gathering extracts om authors in the course of his readings, r he no longer has time to read. He is no longer, out of intellectual curiosity or speculative interest, to write great quantities of "note-cards, " as we would call them nowadays: rather, he is to write only in order to in uence himsel and concentrate on the essential principles (II, 3, 3):
Let these thoughts be enough, if they are life-principles (dogmata) r you.
Marcus, then, is to keep on writing. From now on, however, he will write only e cacious thoughts: that is, those which totally trans rm his way ofliving.
As he wrote these texts, which were to become our Meditations, Mar­ cus no doubt used these "note-cards" which he was a aid he would no longer have the time to reread; just as he no doubt had recourse to his co ections of extracts in order to take om them the quotations om authors which he reproduced in several books ofthe Meditations.
Formally, then, Marcus' literary activity did not change. He continued to write down r himself all kinds of notes and re ections ypomne­ mata); but the nality of these intellectual exercises had become com­ pletely modi ed. From the point ofview ofthe imminence ofdeath, one ' thing counts, and one alone: to strive always to have the essential rules of life present in one's mind, and to keep placing oneselfin the ndamental disposition of the philosopher, which consists essentially in controlling one's inner discourse, in doing only that which is of bene t to the human community, and in accepting the events brought to us by the course ofthe Nature ofthe .
Thus, the Meditations belong to that type ofwriting called hypomnemata in antiquity, which we could de ne as "personal notes taken on a day-to-
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day basis. " This was a very widespread practice, and on this point we have the remarkable testimony ofPamphila, a married woman who lived at the time of Nero in the rst century A. D. , who had published her hypomnemata. In the introduction she had placed at the beginning ofthis collection-now un rtunately lost-she tells the reader that, during the course ofthirteen years ofmarried li , which "was not interrupted r a day nor even r an hour," she noted down what she learned om her husband, om visitors who came to the house, and om the books she read. "I wrote them down," she said, "in the rm ofnotes (hypomne­ mata), in no special order, and without sorting them out and distinguish­ ing them according to their subject matter. Rather, I wrote them down at random, in the order in which each matter presented itselfto me. " She could, she adds, have ordered them by subject matter with a view to their publication, but she und variety and the absence of a plan more pleas­ ant and more grace l. that she wrote under her own name was an overall introduction and, apparently, a few transitional passages. The notes she had gathered together dealt with the lives of philosophers, history, rhetoric, and poetry. 27
In the llowing century, the Latin author Aulus Gellius also published his personal notes, under the title ofAttic N hts. In his pre ce, he writes: "Whether I was reading a Greek or a Latin book, or whether I had heard someone say something worthy of being remembered, I jotted down what interested me, of whatever kind it was, without any order, and I then set it aside, in order to support my memory [this is the etymological meaning ofhypomnemata]". The book he is now o ering to the public, he adds, will preserve the same variety and disorder as his notes. 28
At the beginning ofhis treatise On the T nquillity the Soul, Plutarch explains to the work's addressee that, since he was in a hurry to hand over his manuscript to the mail-courier who was just about to leave r Rome, he had not had the time to put together a well-written treatise, but had merely communicated to him the notes (hypomnemata) that he had gathered together on this theme. 29
It is probable that many educated people-and especially philoso­ phers-were in the habit of making such collections of all kinds of notes r their personal use: both in order to in rm themselves, and also in order to rm themselves; that is, to ensure their spiritual progress. It was no doubt with this goal in mind that Plutarch had put together his collection on the tranquillity ofthe soul.
This, then, is the genre of writings among which we should place the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. It is important to emphasize, however,
A First Glimpse ofthe Meditations 33
that in his case, most of these notes were exhortations to himsel or a dialogue with himsel usually composed with the utmost care.
Inner dialogue gave rise to a highly particular literary genre, ofwhich we know only one written and published example: the Soliloquies of Augustine. For him the writer's ego is no longer situated-as is o en the case with Marcus-at the level of Reason, exhorting the soul. Rather, Augustine's ego takes the place ofthe soul listening to Reason:
For a long time, I had being going over a thousand thoughts in my mind; indeed, r many days I had been ardently searching r myself and my good, and r that evil which I had to avoid, when suddenly I was told (was it I who was speaking, or someone, either outside me or within me, I do not know; that is precisely what I am trying with all my strength to nd out) ; at any rate, I was told. . . .