But the translators' hesi tations o en also
correspond
to the di culties they have in under standing the text, and to the sometimes radically di erent interpretations of it which they propose.
Hadot - The Inner Citadel The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
THE INNER CITADEL
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Pierre Hadot
Translated by Michael Chase
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Camb dge, Massachusetts London, England 1998
Copyright© 1998 by the President and Fellows ofHarvard College Printed in the United States ofAmerica
All rights reserved
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant om the French Ministry of Culture.
Originally published as Citadelle Interieure: Introduction aux "Pensees" de Marc Aure/e by Pierre Hadot, copyright© l 992 Librairie Artheme Fayard.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hadot, Pierre.
[Citadelle intfaieure. English]
The inner citadel : the Meditations ofMarcus Aurelius I Pierre Hadot ; translated by Michael Chase.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-674-46171-1 (alk. paper)
r. Marcus Aurelius, Emperor ofRome, 121-180. Meditations. 2. Ethics. 3 . Stoics. 4. Life. I. Title. B583. H3313 1998
l88-dc21
97-469 7 1
CONTENTS
Pre ce Vil Note on Transliteration and Quotation XI Translator's Note XII
1 The Emperor-Philosopher
2 A First Glimpse ofthe Meditations 21
3 The Meditations as Spiritual Exercises 35
4 The Philosopher-Slave and the Emperor-Philosopher 54
5 The Stoicism ofEpictetus 73
6 The Inner Citadel, or the Discipline ofAssent 101
7 The Discipline ofDesire, or Amor Fati 128
8 The Discipline ofAction, or Action in the
Service ofMankind 183
9 Virtue andJoy 232
10 Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations 243 Conclusion 307
Abbreviations 315 Notes
Index 339
317
PREFACE
Soon, you w have rgotten everything. Soon, everybody w have rgotten you!
Meditations, VII, 2r
Marcus Aurelius was wrong. Eighteen centuries-almost two millen nia-have passed, and the Meditations are still alive. Nor have their pages been reserved to a few aristocrats of the intellect, like Shaftesbury, Frederick II, or Goethe: on the contrary, r centuries they have brought reasons to live to innumerable unknown people, who have been able to read them in the multiple translations ofthe Meditations which have been made in every corner ofthe earth; and they still do so today.
The Meditations are an inexhaustible source of wisdom; an "eternal Gospel," in Renan's words. Apparently, the Meditations do not hold any particular di culties in store r their readers. Aphorisms and brief dis sertations llow one another without any apparent order, and as the reader lea through the book, he or she winds up nding a striking or moving rmula which seems to speak by itsel and to need no exegesis. It is not a book to be read in one sitting. One must return to it often, in order to discover in it, day by day, some nourishment which suits the momentary states of our soul. The modern reader can perfectly well understand a given aphorism by Marcus Aurelius, like the one I have quoted as an epigraph. This is what is always attractive about the Medita tions: their sayings, whose limpidity can never grow old.
And yet, what a deceptive limpidity! For besides these rmulas, there are others which are much more obscure, and which have been under stood by historians in widely varying ways. The overall meaning of the book, its purpose, and some of its a rmations are very hard r us to grasp. Nor is this the case only with Marcus Aurelius. For kinds of reasons, ofwhich chronological distance is not the most important, our understanding ofancient works has grown more and more dim. To gain access to them once more, we will have to practice a kind of spiritual
Vlll Pre ce
exercise or intellectual ascetics, in order to ee ourselves om certain prejudices and rediscover what is, r us, almost another way ofthinking. This is what we shall attempt to do throughout the present work. Be re we set out upon this itinerary, however, it may be help l to become aware of these prejudices and illusions, which threatep to cause the modern reader to go astray when reading a work om antiquity.
In the rst place, the reader will perhaps imagine that the text has remained constant since the distant era in which it appeared, as do our contemporary printed texts. But we must not rget that ancient texts were, precisely, not printed: r centuries they were copied by hand, and copying errors were thereby constantly introduced. We can hardly blame the ancient scribes r this, if we think of our modern books, which, although they are printed, are often lled with printer's errors, which sometimes de rm the author's thought to the point of rendering it unintelligible. That, however, is another question. It cannot be overem phasized that it is thanks to the e orts ofthe scholars who investigate and classi the manuscripts in which ancient works have been preserved, and who attempt, using the critical method of the classi cation of errors, to reconstitute the original state of the text, that we can now read the works of antiquity in a state which is more or less satis ctory, but can never be perfect. I feel I must insist upon this point, which is sometimes com pletely ignored by some scienti c authorities or historians ofphilosophy, who imagine that one can hold rth about the theories of a particular ancient author without knowing what he really wrote. In the case of Marcus Aurelius, the greatest uncertainty often reigns with regard to certain words ofhis text. This does not a ect the totality ofthe work, but it nevertheless remains true that some passages present almost insur mountable di culties, and we should not be surprised if these di culties are re ected in the translations which have been made ofthis author.
The modern reader tends too o en to imagine that there is only one possible translation of a Greek text, and he or she may be surprised to nd considerable di erences. This ct should, however, make the reader aware of the distance that separates us om the ancients. Translation presupposes, rst of all, a choice with regard to the Greek text, in those cases in which this text is sometimes uncertain. But the translators' hesi tations o en also correspond to the di culties they have in under standing the text, and to the sometimes radically di erent interpretations of it which they propose. In the case of Marcus Aurelius, r example, many have not been able to render in an exact manner the technical terms, peculiar to the Stoic system, which are und on eve page ofthe
Pre ce lX
Meditations. Moreover, in the case ofMarcus, the division ofthe text into chapters is very uncertain, and often the limits of each "meditation" are not absolutely clear. Thus, the very appearance of the text can vary widely.
Finally, the modem reader might imagine-and no one is sa om this error-that the ancient author lives in the same inte ectual world as he does. The reader will treat the author's a rmations exactly as if they came om a contemporary author, and will there re think he has im mediately understood what the author meant. In ct, however, this understanding will be anachronistic, and the reader will often run the risk of committing serious mistranslations. To be sure, it is shionable now adays to a rm that, in any case, we cannot know exactly what an author meant, and that, moreover, this does not matter at all, r we can give the works any meaning we please. For my part, and without entering into this debate, I would say that be re we discover "unintentional" mean ings, it seems to me both possible and necessary to discover the meaning which the author intended. It is absolutely indispensable to go in the direction of a basic meaning, to which we can then refer in order to uncover, if we should so wish, those meanings of which the author was perhaps not conscious. It is true, however, that this reconstitution is extremely di cult r us, because we project attitudes and intentions proper to our era into the past. I� order to understand ancient works, we must relocate them within their context, in the widest sense ofthe term, which can signi the material, social, and political situation as well as the political and rhetorical universe ofthought. In particular, we must recall that the mechanisms of literary composition were very di erent then om what they are now. In antiquity, the rules of discourse were rigor ously codi ed. In order to say what he wanted to say, an author had to say it in a speci c way, in accordance with traditional models, and ac cording to rules prescribed by rhetoric or philosophy. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, r instance, are not the spontaneous outpourings of a soul that wants to express its thoughts immediately, but rather an exercise, accomplished in accordance with de nite rules. As we shall see, they presuppose a pre-existing canvas, upon which the philosopher-emperor could only embroider. Often, Marcus says certain things only because he has to say them, by virtue ofthe models and precepts imposed upon him. The meaning ofthe Meditations can, there re, only be understood once we have discovered, among other things, the pre bricated schemes which have been imposed upon it.
My intention, which is to o er the modem reader an introduction to
x Pre ce
the reading of the Meditations, will thus perhaps not be without use l ness. I will try to discover what Marcus wanted to accomplish by writing them, to speci the literary genre to which they belong, and, especia y, to de ne their relationship with the philosophical system which inspired. them. Finally, without trying to produce a biography of the emperor, I will try to determine how much of him is visible in his work.
I have chosen to quote the Meditations abundantly. I hate those mono graphs which, instead ofletting the author speak and staying close to the text, engage in obscure elucubrations which claim to carry out an act of decoding and reveal the "unsaid" of the thinker, without the reader's having the slightest idea of what that thinker really "said. " Such a method un rtunately permits all kinds of de rmations, distortions, and sleight of hand. Our era is captivating r all kinds of reasons: too often, however, om the philosophical and litera point ofview, it could be de ned as the era ofthe misinterpretation, ifnot ofthe pun: people can, it seems, say anything about anything. When I quote Marcus Aurelius, I want my reader to make contact with the text itself, which is superior to any commentary. I would like him to see how my interpretation tries to base itself on the text, and that he can veri my a rmations directly and immediately. The translation I o er is completely original. I have been working on Marcus Aurelius r more than twenty years, in particular on a new edition and translation of the Meditations, which will be published within the next few years. In the course ofthis work, interpretation and translation have gone hand in hand, and this is why I could not illustrate my arguments by referring the reader to existing translations, which would have been di erent om mine, and which might not have corre sponded exactly with my idea of the philosopher-emperor's work.
I should like to thank Michael Chase r his sensitive and philologi cally astute translation, as well as Angela Armstrong. Finally, my thanks go to Margaretta Fulton and Mary Ellen Geer at Harvard University Press, as well as Brian Stock at the University of Toronto, r their patient and help l advice.
Note on Transliteration and Quotation
I have sometimes und it use l to allude to certain Greek technical terms which are peculiar to Stoic philosophy. I have tried to transliterate them as simply as possible, using the letter e to represent the Greek letter eta, and o to represent the letter omega.
In order not to multiply my notes unnecessarily, the references r the quotations om Marcus Aurelius and the Discourses of Epictetus have been indicated in parentheses within the text. In both cases, the rst number refers to the number of the book, the second to the chapter number, and the third to the paragraph number within the chapter. Unless I indicate otherwise, the references given in Chapters 4 and 5 always refer to the text ofthe Discourses ofEpictetus.
The Greek text ofMarcus Aurelius on which my translations are based is generally that of W. Theiler, Marc Aurel, Wege zu sich selbst (Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1974).
Translator's Note
I have used the llowing procedure in rendering Pierre Hadot's transla tions: I rst literally translated Hadot's French version, and then com pared it with the original Greek or Latin texts. We have exchanged correspondence about doubt l cases, and this process has resulted in a number of corrections with regard to the 1992 French edition of this work. The nal result is, I hope, a translation which, inso r as is possible, is ith l both to Pierre Hadot and to the Greek and Latin authors to whom he has so fruit lly dedicated his li . Finally, all notes enclosed in square brackets are my own.
THE INNER CITADEL
1
THE EMPEROR-PHILOSOPHER
A happy youth, a tormented reign
The ture Marcus Aurelius, who was to receive this name later on, as a result ofhis adoption by the emperor Aurelius Antoninus Pius, was born in Rome in l2l, and was initially named Marcus Annius Verus. The milies of his mother and ther possessed a number of brick ctories,1 which represented an enormous rtune and a considerable investment ofcapital. Such wealth allowed its holders to exercise political in uence, and the ctory owners often attained positions om which they could in uence construction programs, as was the case r Marcus Aurelius' grand ther.
After his grand ther died during his early childhood, Marcus was noticed, protected, and vored by the emperor Hadrian. Just be re his death in 1 3 8 , the latter, in order to ensure his succession, adopted Anton inus-uncle-in-law of the ture Marcus Aurelius-and asked him to adopt Marcus as well as Lucius Verus, the son ofAelius Caesar, whom Hadrian had initially chosen as his successor, but who had just died.
OnJuly IO, 138, HadrianwassucceededbyAntoninus. Oneyearlater, the ture Marcus Aurelius, at the age of eighteen, was raised to the dignity of Caesar. In 145, he married Faustina, daughter of Antoninus. The couple had thirteen children, of whom only six survived beyond childhood: ve daughters and one son, the ture emperor Commodus. 2
The correspondence which Marcus exchanged with his rhetoric teacher Fronto, which lasted nearly thirty years- om 139 to 166/r67, the date of Fronto's death3-provides us with precious details on this period ofMarcus Aurelius' life, as well as on the atmosphere at the court ofthe Antonines: mily life, children's illnesses, wine-making, the ture emperor's studies and readings, the rhetorical homework which he punctually sent to Fronto, and the tender iendship which linked not only the master and the student, but also the milies ofMarcus Aurelius
2 THE INNER CITADEL
and ofFronto. At the death ofAntoninus (161), Marcus Aurelius, then thirty-nine years old, became emperor, and he immediately had equal power conferred upon his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus.
In the same year as their common accession to the throne, the Parthians invaded the eastern provinces of the Empire. The campaign began with a disaster r the Roman army, whereupon Lucius was sent east, where, under the command oftwo seasoned warriors, Statius Pris cius and Avidius Cassius, the Roman troops regained the upper hand (163-166). They invaded the Parthian kingdom, and seized Ctesiphon and Seleucia.
No sooner had the ceremonies celebrating the two emperors' victory of 166 ended when most alarming news arrived om another border of the Empire. The Marcomanni and the Quadi, Germanic peoples om the re on ofthe Danube, were threatening the North ofltaly. The two emperors were obliged to come and restore order to the situation, and spent the winter at Aquileia. At the beginning ofthe year l69, however, Lucius died in the carriage in which he was riding along with Marcus Aurelius. From 169 to 175, the Emperor then had to carry out military operations in the region ofthe Danube.
In 175, at the ve moment when he was beginning to enjoy some success, Marcus received word ofthe rebellion ofAvidius Cassius, who, as a result of a plot which had spread through several provinces of the East and of Egypt, had himself proclaimed Emperor. Marcus Aurelius was probably saved on this occasion by the loyalty ofMartius Verus, the governor of Cappadocia. At any rate, as the Emperor was preparing to leave r the East, he learned of the assassination of Avidius Cassius, which put an end to this tragic episode.
Marcus Aurelius nevertheless decided to travel to the eastern prov inces, accompanied by Faustina and their son Commodus; he went to Egypt, Syria, and Cilicia, where Faustina died. Ancient historians loved to linger over Faustina's numerous adulteries; whatever may be the truth behind this gossip, the Emperor was pro undly a ected by her loss, and it is with deep emotion that, in the Meditations (I, 17, 18), he evokes the memory ofhis wife, so "docile, so loving, and so upright. "
On his way back to Rome, the Emperor passed through Smyrna and then Athens, where, together with Commodus, he was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. The festivities celebrating the victories over the Germans and the Sarmatians took place at Rome, on December 23, 176,
but Marcus Aurelius had to leave once again r the Danubian ont in 178. He died at Sirmium or at Vienna in 180.
The Emperor-Philosopher
3
The Empire was ravaged by natural catastrophes even more than by wars during this period: oodings of the Tiber (161), earthquakes at Cyzicus (161) and at Smyrna (178), and above all the terrible plague epidemic brought back om Asia by Roman troops returning om the Parthian war (166). As ]. F. Gilliam has shown,4 this plague did not perhaps bring about the vast depopulation which has been described by certain historians, who have made it the decisive cause of the decline of Rome, but it certainly did have serious consequences r the social and economic li ofthe Empire.
What a tormented reign it was! No sooner had Marcus Aurelius as cended the throne than he was suddenly overwhelmed by natural disas ters, military and political di culties, and family cares and mournings, which rced him to engage in a battle every day.
The sober-alb it partial-judgment of Cassius Dio5 is one of the mostjust that have been made on the subject ofMarcus: "He didn't have the luck which he deserved . . . but was con onted, throughout his reign, by a multitude of disasters. That is why I admire him more than any other, r it was amidst these extraordinary and unparalleled di cul ties that he was able to survive, and to save the Empire. "
As Ferdinand Lot has written,6 "The Roman world saw a series of sovereigns succeed to the throne the likes of which history has never seen since, and this happened precisely at the time rst ofthe stagnation, and then of the decline of the ancient world. " A er enumerating the examples of Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Diocletian, Julian, and Theodosius, among others, he continues: "Statesmen, legislators, warri ors, they sped om Brittany to the Rhine, om the Rhine to the Danube, om the Danube to the Euphrates, in order to de nd the Roman world and civilization against the Germanic or Sarmatian Bar barians, against the Parthians, and then against the Persians. They all knew that their lives were constantly threatened . . . And they aban doned themselves fearlessly to their tragic destiny as supermen. For if ever supermen have existed, we have to look r them among the em perors of the second to the urth century. " Such is the perspective within which we must situate the personality of Marcus Aurelius, if we hope to catch a glimpse of it.
Evolution toward philosophy
In this work, however, the goal is not to write the biography of one of these "supermen. "7 Our task shall only be to ask how Marcus Aurelius
4
THE INNER CITADEL
came to write the Meditations; and this is the same as asking how he became a philosopher, and how the Meditations could represent r him a part ofhis philosophical activity.
First, it is perhaps not inappropriate to recall that a philosopher in antiquity was not necessarily a theoretician of philosophy, as is all too often supposed. In antiquity, a philosopher was someone who lived like a philosopher-that is, who led a philosophical life. Cato the Younger, a statesman ofthe rst century B. c. , was a Stoic philosopher, but he did not write a sin e philosophical treatise. Rogatianus, a statesman ofthe third century A. D. , was a Platonic philosopher, the disciple ofPlotinus, and yet he wrote no philosophical treatise. Neverthless both men considered themselves philosophers, because they had adopted a philosophical way oflife. Let it not be said, moreover, that they were amateur philosophers. In the view of the masters of ancient philosophy, authentic philosophy was not that which discoursed upon theories or commented upon authors. In the words ofEpictetus (III, 21, 5), a Stoic who had a consid erable in uence upon Marcus Aurelius: "Eat like a man, drink like a man, get dressed, get married, have children, lead the life ofa citizen. . . . Show us all this, so that we can see whether or not you have really learned something om the philosophers. "8
Ancient philosophers thus had no need to write. If, moreover, they did write, it was not necessary r them to invent a new theory, or develop any speci c part of a system. It was enough r them to rmu late the ndamental principles of the school in vor of which they had made their choice ofli . When Marcus was writing the Meditations, he did not invent anything new, and did not bring about any progress within Stoic doctrine. This, however, is not to say that he was not a philosopher, and especially not a Stoic philosopher. 9
On the other hand, the ct of having taken some philosophy courses did not necessarily mean that one was a philosopher. Lucius Verus, Marcus Aurelius' adoptive brother, received instruction om the same philosophy teachers as his brother, but no one would think ofcalling him a philosopher. 10 The Latin author Aulus Gellius, Marcus' contemporary, was a student of the Platonic philosopher Taurus at Athens. There is no doubt that Gellius was interested in philosophy, and he cites many philo sophical texts in his works, but he makes no claim to lead a philosophical life. Rhetoricians and statesmen und in philosophy courses training r dialectics, and material to develop commonplaces in their discourses. As Pronto wrote to Marcus: "Philosophy will give you the substance of
The Emperor-Philosopher 5
your discourse, and rhetoric its rm. "11 They did not, however, feel obliged to live like philosophers. This is why the Discourses ofEpictetus, as reported by Arrian, constantly remind the philosopher's audience that philosophy does not consist in dialectical skill lness or beauti l lan guage, but in the way one lives day-to-day life. To be a philosopher was not to have received a theoretical philosophical education, or to be a professor ofphilosophy. Rather, it was to pro ss, as a result ofa conver sion which caused a radical change of life-style, a way of life di erent om that ofother people.
It would be extremely interesting to know, in all its details, the man ner in which Marcus' conversion to philosophy took place. Yet many points remain obscure.
We possess two documents ofcapital importance on Marcus Aurelius' evolution. The rst is the correspondence between Marcus and his rhetoric teacher Pronto, ofwhich I have already spoken; un rtunately, it has come down to us in a palimpsest discovered in the nineteenth cen tury; thus this collection ofletters has been covered over by other writ ing, and the chemical products which were used to make it legible have caused irreparable deterioration ofthe manuscript, which contains gaps and is often unreadable. The second piece of evidence comes om the Emperor himsel who, as he wrote the rst book of his Meditations, mentioned all he owed to his parents, teachers, and iends; this is an extremely concise text, which leaves us terribly unsatis ed. Still, with the help of the meager indications we can glean om these sources, we can distinguish a certain number of phases in Marcus' evolution toward philosophy. Although later hagiographers asserted that he was "serious" om childhood on,12 we can discern an initial period of care ee youth, which seems to have continued until the age of twenty, that is, into the period when he was already Caesar. It is possible, however, that under the in uence of Diognetus, one of the teachers Marcus speaks about in his Meditations (I, 6) , the desire to live as a philosopher may have touched him already at this period.
Marcus' conversion to philosophy seems to have been the work of Junius Rusticus, who revealed to him the teachings ofEpictetus, and his conversion can probably be dated to the years 144-147. In any case, when Marcus was twenty- ve, in 146-147, he wrote Pronto a letter which leaves no doubt as to his new state of nd. Besides, throughout the rst years of Marcus' elevation to the throne, Pronto makes almost constant allusions to the philosophical way ofli ofhis Imperial student.
6 THE INNER CITADEL Care ee li ofa young prince and dreams ofa life ofausterity
Marcus' letters to Pronto-particula y those he wrote when he was still a young eighteen- or twenty-year-old Caesar-allow us to catch a glimpse ofthe simple, miliar way oflife which was led at the court of Marcus' adoptive ther Antoninus, particularly in the Imperial villas, r away om Rome, to which Antoninus often liked to withdraw. The mily took part in the labors of the grape harvests, and there was no luxury in the meals served, or even in the heating. The ture emperor liked physical exercise-especially hunting-which he seems to have practiced without any particular scruples with regard to his subjects. This, at least, is what we can glimpse om a letter which could date om the years 14 143, only the rst part ofwhich has been preserved:
. . . When my ther came back home om the vineyards, I went riding, as usual. I got started and we gradually moved away. Sud denly, in the middle ofthe road, there was a big ock ofsheep, and the place was deserted: there were ur dogs, two shepherds, and nothing else. When they saw this group ofhorsemen coming, one ofthe shepherds said to the other, "Watch out r these horseman; they're the kind that usually cause the most trouble. " No sooner did I hear this than I spurred my horse and headed him straight r the ock; the terri ed beasts scattered, running every which way, bleat ing and in the utmost con sion. The shepherd threw his sta at me, but it landed on the rider who was llowing me, and we ed.
But the translators' hesi tations o en also correspond to the di culties they have in under standing the text, and to the sometimes radically di erent interpretations of it which they propose. In the case of Marcus Aurelius, r example, many have not been able to render in an exact manner the technical terms, peculiar to the Stoic system, which are und on eve page ofthe
Pre ce lX
Meditations. Moreover, in the case ofMarcus, the division ofthe text into chapters is very uncertain, and often the limits of each "meditation" are not absolutely clear. Thus, the very appearance of the text can vary widely.
Finally, the modem reader might imagine-and no one is sa om this error-that the ancient author lives in the same inte ectual world as he does. The reader will treat the author's a rmations exactly as if they came om a contemporary author, and will there re think he has im mediately understood what the author meant. In ct, however, this understanding will be anachronistic, and the reader will often run the risk of committing serious mistranslations. To be sure, it is shionable now adays to a rm that, in any case, we cannot know exactly what an author meant, and that, moreover, this does not matter at all, r we can give the works any meaning we please. For my part, and without entering into this debate, I would say that be re we discover "unintentional" mean ings, it seems to me both possible and necessary to discover the meaning which the author intended. It is absolutely indispensable to go in the direction of a basic meaning, to which we can then refer in order to uncover, if we should so wish, those meanings of which the author was perhaps not conscious. It is true, however, that this reconstitution is extremely di cult r us, because we project attitudes and intentions proper to our era into the past. I� order to understand ancient works, we must relocate them within their context, in the widest sense ofthe term, which can signi the material, social, and political situation as well as the political and rhetorical universe ofthought. In particular, we must recall that the mechanisms of literary composition were very di erent then om what they are now. In antiquity, the rules of discourse were rigor ously codi ed. In order to say what he wanted to say, an author had to say it in a speci c way, in accordance with traditional models, and ac cording to rules prescribed by rhetoric or philosophy. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, r instance, are not the spontaneous outpourings of a soul that wants to express its thoughts immediately, but rather an exercise, accomplished in accordance with de nite rules. As we shall see, they presuppose a pre-existing canvas, upon which the philosopher-emperor could only embroider. Often, Marcus says certain things only because he has to say them, by virtue ofthe models and precepts imposed upon him. The meaning ofthe Meditations can, there re, only be understood once we have discovered, among other things, the pre bricated schemes which have been imposed upon it.
My intention, which is to o er the modem reader an introduction to
x Pre ce
the reading of the Meditations, will thus perhaps not be without use l ness. I will try to discover what Marcus wanted to accomplish by writing them, to speci the literary genre to which they belong, and, especia y, to de ne their relationship with the philosophical system which inspired. them. Finally, without trying to produce a biography of the emperor, I will try to determine how much of him is visible in his work.
I have chosen to quote the Meditations abundantly. I hate those mono graphs which, instead ofletting the author speak and staying close to the text, engage in obscure elucubrations which claim to carry out an act of decoding and reveal the "unsaid" of the thinker, without the reader's having the slightest idea of what that thinker really "said. " Such a method un rtunately permits all kinds of de rmations, distortions, and sleight of hand. Our era is captivating r all kinds of reasons: too often, however, om the philosophical and litera point ofview, it could be de ned as the era ofthe misinterpretation, ifnot ofthe pun: people can, it seems, say anything about anything. When I quote Marcus Aurelius, I want my reader to make contact with the text itself, which is superior to any commentary. I would like him to see how my interpretation tries to base itself on the text, and that he can veri my a rmations directly and immediately. The translation I o er is completely original. I have been working on Marcus Aurelius r more than twenty years, in particular on a new edition and translation of the Meditations, which will be published within the next few years. In the course ofthis work, interpretation and translation have gone hand in hand, and this is why I could not illustrate my arguments by referring the reader to existing translations, which would have been di erent om mine, and which might not have corre sponded exactly with my idea of the philosopher-emperor's work.
I should like to thank Michael Chase r his sensitive and philologi cally astute translation, as well as Angela Armstrong. Finally, my thanks go to Margaretta Fulton and Mary Ellen Geer at Harvard University Press, as well as Brian Stock at the University of Toronto, r their patient and help l advice.
Note on Transliteration and Quotation
I have sometimes und it use l to allude to certain Greek technical terms which are peculiar to Stoic philosophy. I have tried to transliterate them as simply as possible, using the letter e to represent the Greek letter eta, and o to represent the letter omega.
In order not to multiply my notes unnecessarily, the references r the quotations om Marcus Aurelius and the Discourses of Epictetus have been indicated in parentheses within the text. In both cases, the rst number refers to the number of the book, the second to the chapter number, and the third to the paragraph number within the chapter. Unless I indicate otherwise, the references given in Chapters 4 and 5 always refer to the text ofthe Discourses ofEpictetus.
The Greek text ofMarcus Aurelius on which my translations are based is generally that of W. Theiler, Marc Aurel, Wege zu sich selbst (Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1974).
Translator's Note
I have used the llowing procedure in rendering Pierre Hadot's transla tions: I rst literally translated Hadot's French version, and then com pared it with the original Greek or Latin texts. We have exchanged correspondence about doubt l cases, and this process has resulted in a number of corrections with regard to the 1992 French edition of this work. The nal result is, I hope, a translation which, inso r as is possible, is ith l both to Pierre Hadot and to the Greek and Latin authors to whom he has so fruit lly dedicated his li . Finally, all notes enclosed in square brackets are my own.
THE INNER CITADEL
1
THE EMPEROR-PHILOSOPHER
A happy youth, a tormented reign
The ture Marcus Aurelius, who was to receive this name later on, as a result ofhis adoption by the emperor Aurelius Antoninus Pius, was born in Rome in l2l, and was initially named Marcus Annius Verus. The milies of his mother and ther possessed a number of brick ctories,1 which represented an enormous rtune and a considerable investment ofcapital. Such wealth allowed its holders to exercise political in uence, and the ctory owners often attained positions om which they could in uence construction programs, as was the case r Marcus Aurelius' grand ther.
After his grand ther died during his early childhood, Marcus was noticed, protected, and vored by the emperor Hadrian. Just be re his death in 1 3 8 , the latter, in order to ensure his succession, adopted Anton inus-uncle-in-law of the ture Marcus Aurelius-and asked him to adopt Marcus as well as Lucius Verus, the son ofAelius Caesar, whom Hadrian had initially chosen as his successor, but who had just died.
OnJuly IO, 138, HadrianwassucceededbyAntoninus. Oneyearlater, the ture Marcus Aurelius, at the age of eighteen, was raised to the dignity of Caesar. In 145, he married Faustina, daughter of Antoninus. The couple had thirteen children, of whom only six survived beyond childhood: ve daughters and one son, the ture emperor Commodus. 2
The correspondence which Marcus exchanged with his rhetoric teacher Fronto, which lasted nearly thirty years- om 139 to 166/r67, the date of Fronto's death3-provides us with precious details on this period ofMarcus Aurelius' life, as well as on the atmosphere at the court ofthe Antonines: mily life, children's illnesses, wine-making, the ture emperor's studies and readings, the rhetorical homework which he punctually sent to Fronto, and the tender iendship which linked not only the master and the student, but also the milies ofMarcus Aurelius
2 THE INNER CITADEL
and ofFronto. At the death ofAntoninus (161), Marcus Aurelius, then thirty-nine years old, became emperor, and he immediately had equal power conferred upon his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus.
In the same year as their common accession to the throne, the Parthians invaded the eastern provinces of the Empire. The campaign began with a disaster r the Roman army, whereupon Lucius was sent east, where, under the command oftwo seasoned warriors, Statius Pris cius and Avidius Cassius, the Roman troops regained the upper hand (163-166). They invaded the Parthian kingdom, and seized Ctesiphon and Seleucia.
No sooner had the ceremonies celebrating the two emperors' victory of 166 ended when most alarming news arrived om another border of the Empire. The Marcomanni and the Quadi, Germanic peoples om the re on ofthe Danube, were threatening the North ofltaly. The two emperors were obliged to come and restore order to the situation, and spent the winter at Aquileia. At the beginning ofthe year l69, however, Lucius died in the carriage in which he was riding along with Marcus Aurelius. From 169 to 175, the Emperor then had to carry out military operations in the region ofthe Danube.
In 175, at the ve moment when he was beginning to enjoy some success, Marcus received word ofthe rebellion ofAvidius Cassius, who, as a result of a plot which had spread through several provinces of the East and of Egypt, had himself proclaimed Emperor. Marcus Aurelius was probably saved on this occasion by the loyalty ofMartius Verus, the governor of Cappadocia. At any rate, as the Emperor was preparing to leave r the East, he learned of the assassination of Avidius Cassius, which put an end to this tragic episode.
Marcus Aurelius nevertheless decided to travel to the eastern prov inces, accompanied by Faustina and their son Commodus; he went to Egypt, Syria, and Cilicia, where Faustina died. Ancient historians loved to linger over Faustina's numerous adulteries; whatever may be the truth behind this gossip, the Emperor was pro undly a ected by her loss, and it is with deep emotion that, in the Meditations (I, 17, 18), he evokes the memory ofhis wife, so "docile, so loving, and so upright. "
On his way back to Rome, the Emperor passed through Smyrna and then Athens, where, together with Commodus, he was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. The festivities celebrating the victories over the Germans and the Sarmatians took place at Rome, on December 23, 176,
but Marcus Aurelius had to leave once again r the Danubian ont in 178. He died at Sirmium or at Vienna in 180.
The Emperor-Philosopher
3
The Empire was ravaged by natural catastrophes even more than by wars during this period: oodings of the Tiber (161), earthquakes at Cyzicus (161) and at Smyrna (178), and above all the terrible plague epidemic brought back om Asia by Roman troops returning om the Parthian war (166). As ]. F. Gilliam has shown,4 this plague did not perhaps bring about the vast depopulation which has been described by certain historians, who have made it the decisive cause of the decline of Rome, but it certainly did have serious consequences r the social and economic li ofthe Empire.
What a tormented reign it was! No sooner had Marcus Aurelius as cended the throne than he was suddenly overwhelmed by natural disas ters, military and political di culties, and family cares and mournings, which rced him to engage in a battle every day.
The sober-alb it partial-judgment of Cassius Dio5 is one of the mostjust that have been made on the subject ofMarcus: "He didn't have the luck which he deserved . . . but was con onted, throughout his reign, by a multitude of disasters. That is why I admire him more than any other, r it was amidst these extraordinary and unparalleled di cul ties that he was able to survive, and to save the Empire. "
As Ferdinand Lot has written,6 "The Roman world saw a series of sovereigns succeed to the throne the likes of which history has never seen since, and this happened precisely at the time rst ofthe stagnation, and then of the decline of the ancient world. " A er enumerating the examples of Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Diocletian, Julian, and Theodosius, among others, he continues: "Statesmen, legislators, warri ors, they sped om Brittany to the Rhine, om the Rhine to the Danube, om the Danube to the Euphrates, in order to de nd the Roman world and civilization against the Germanic or Sarmatian Bar barians, against the Parthians, and then against the Persians. They all knew that their lives were constantly threatened . . . And they aban doned themselves fearlessly to their tragic destiny as supermen. For if ever supermen have existed, we have to look r them among the em perors of the second to the urth century. " Such is the perspective within which we must situate the personality of Marcus Aurelius, if we hope to catch a glimpse of it.
Evolution toward philosophy
In this work, however, the goal is not to write the biography of one of these "supermen. "7 Our task shall only be to ask how Marcus Aurelius
4
THE INNER CITADEL
came to write the Meditations; and this is the same as asking how he became a philosopher, and how the Meditations could represent r him a part ofhis philosophical activity.
First, it is perhaps not inappropriate to recall that a philosopher in antiquity was not necessarily a theoretician of philosophy, as is all too often supposed. In antiquity, a philosopher was someone who lived like a philosopher-that is, who led a philosophical life. Cato the Younger, a statesman ofthe rst century B. c. , was a Stoic philosopher, but he did not write a sin e philosophical treatise. Rogatianus, a statesman ofthe third century A. D. , was a Platonic philosopher, the disciple ofPlotinus, and yet he wrote no philosophical treatise. Neverthless both men considered themselves philosophers, because they had adopted a philosophical way oflife. Let it not be said, moreover, that they were amateur philosophers. In the view of the masters of ancient philosophy, authentic philosophy was not that which discoursed upon theories or commented upon authors. In the words ofEpictetus (III, 21, 5), a Stoic who had a consid erable in uence upon Marcus Aurelius: "Eat like a man, drink like a man, get dressed, get married, have children, lead the life ofa citizen. . . . Show us all this, so that we can see whether or not you have really learned something om the philosophers. "8
Ancient philosophers thus had no need to write. If, moreover, they did write, it was not necessary r them to invent a new theory, or develop any speci c part of a system. It was enough r them to rmu late the ndamental principles of the school in vor of which they had made their choice ofli . When Marcus was writing the Meditations, he did not invent anything new, and did not bring about any progress within Stoic doctrine. This, however, is not to say that he was not a philosopher, and especially not a Stoic philosopher. 9
On the other hand, the ct of having taken some philosophy courses did not necessarily mean that one was a philosopher. Lucius Verus, Marcus Aurelius' adoptive brother, received instruction om the same philosophy teachers as his brother, but no one would think ofcalling him a philosopher. 10 The Latin author Aulus Gellius, Marcus' contemporary, was a student of the Platonic philosopher Taurus at Athens. There is no doubt that Gellius was interested in philosophy, and he cites many philo sophical texts in his works, but he makes no claim to lead a philosophical life. Rhetoricians and statesmen und in philosophy courses training r dialectics, and material to develop commonplaces in their discourses. As Pronto wrote to Marcus: "Philosophy will give you the substance of
The Emperor-Philosopher 5
your discourse, and rhetoric its rm. "11 They did not, however, feel obliged to live like philosophers. This is why the Discourses ofEpictetus, as reported by Arrian, constantly remind the philosopher's audience that philosophy does not consist in dialectical skill lness or beauti l lan guage, but in the way one lives day-to-day life. To be a philosopher was not to have received a theoretical philosophical education, or to be a professor ofphilosophy. Rather, it was to pro ss, as a result ofa conver sion which caused a radical change of life-style, a way of life di erent om that ofother people.
It would be extremely interesting to know, in all its details, the man ner in which Marcus' conversion to philosophy took place. Yet many points remain obscure.
We possess two documents ofcapital importance on Marcus Aurelius' evolution. The rst is the correspondence between Marcus and his rhetoric teacher Pronto, ofwhich I have already spoken; un rtunately, it has come down to us in a palimpsest discovered in the nineteenth cen tury; thus this collection ofletters has been covered over by other writ ing, and the chemical products which were used to make it legible have caused irreparable deterioration ofthe manuscript, which contains gaps and is often unreadable. The second piece of evidence comes om the Emperor himsel who, as he wrote the rst book of his Meditations, mentioned all he owed to his parents, teachers, and iends; this is an extremely concise text, which leaves us terribly unsatis ed. Still, with the help of the meager indications we can glean om these sources, we can distinguish a certain number of phases in Marcus' evolution toward philosophy. Although later hagiographers asserted that he was "serious" om childhood on,12 we can discern an initial period of care ee youth, which seems to have continued until the age of twenty, that is, into the period when he was already Caesar. It is possible, however, that under the in uence of Diognetus, one of the teachers Marcus speaks about in his Meditations (I, 6) , the desire to live as a philosopher may have touched him already at this period.
Marcus' conversion to philosophy seems to have been the work of Junius Rusticus, who revealed to him the teachings ofEpictetus, and his conversion can probably be dated to the years 144-147. In any case, when Marcus was twenty- ve, in 146-147, he wrote Pronto a letter which leaves no doubt as to his new state of nd. Besides, throughout the rst years of Marcus' elevation to the throne, Pronto makes almost constant allusions to the philosophical way ofli ofhis Imperial student.
6 THE INNER CITADEL Care ee li ofa young prince and dreams ofa life ofausterity
Marcus' letters to Pronto-particula y those he wrote when he was still a young eighteen- or twenty-year-old Caesar-allow us to catch a glimpse ofthe simple, miliar way oflife which was led at the court of Marcus' adoptive ther Antoninus, particularly in the Imperial villas, r away om Rome, to which Antoninus often liked to withdraw. The mily took part in the labors of the grape harvests, and there was no luxury in the meals served, or even in the heating. The ture emperor liked physical exercise-especially hunting-which he seems to have practiced without any particular scruples with regard to his subjects. This, at least, is what we can glimpse om a letter which could date om the years 14 143, only the rst part ofwhich has been preserved:
. . . When my ther came back home om the vineyards, I went riding, as usual. I got started and we gradually moved away. Sud denly, in the middle ofthe road, there was a big ock ofsheep, and the place was deserted: there were ur dogs, two shepherds, and nothing else. When they saw this group ofhorsemen coming, one ofthe shepherds said to the other, "Watch out r these horseman; they're the kind that usually cause the most trouble. " No sooner did I hear this than I spurred my horse and headed him straight r the ock; the terri ed beasts scattered, running every which way, bleat ing and in the utmost con sion. The shepherd threw his sta at me, but it landed on the rider who was llowing me, and we ed. Thus, he who was a aid oflosing a lamb wound up losing his sta Do you think I made this story up? No, it's true. 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.
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Pierre Hadot
Translated by Michael Chase
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Camb dge, Massachusetts London, England 1998
Copyright© 1998 by the President and Fellows ofHarvard College Printed in the United States ofAmerica
All rights reserved
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant om the French Ministry of Culture.
Originally published as Citadelle Interieure: Introduction aux "Pensees" de Marc Aure/e by Pierre Hadot, copyright© l 992 Librairie Artheme Fayard.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hadot, Pierre.
[Citadelle intfaieure. English]
The inner citadel : the Meditations ofMarcus Aurelius I Pierre Hadot ; translated by Michael Chase.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-674-46171-1 (alk. paper)
r. Marcus Aurelius, Emperor ofRome, 121-180. Meditations. 2. Ethics. 3 . Stoics. 4. Life. I. Title. B583. H3313 1998
l88-dc21
97-469 7 1
CONTENTS
Pre ce Vil Note on Transliteration and Quotation XI Translator's Note XII
1 The Emperor-Philosopher
2 A First Glimpse ofthe Meditations 21
3 The Meditations as Spiritual Exercises 35
4 The Philosopher-Slave and the Emperor-Philosopher 54
5 The Stoicism ofEpictetus 73
6 The Inner Citadel, or the Discipline ofAssent 101
7 The Discipline ofDesire, or Amor Fati 128
8 The Discipline ofAction, or Action in the
Service ofMankind 183
9 Virtue andJoy 232
10 Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations 243 Conclusion 307
Abbreviations 315 Notes
Index 339
317
PREFACE
Soon, you w have rgotten everything. Soon, everybody w have rgotten you!
Meditations, VII, 2r
Marcus Aurelius was wrong. Eighteen centuries-almost two millen nia-have passed, and the Meditations are still alive. Nor have their pages been reserved to a few aristocrats of the intellect, like Shaftesbury, Frederick II, or Goethe: on the contrary, r centuries they have brought reasons to live to innumerable unknown people, who have been able to read them in the multiple translations ofthe Meditations which have been made in every corner ofthe earth; and they still do so today.
The Meditations are an inexhaustible source of wisdom; an "eternal Gospel," in Renan's words. Apparently, the Meditations do not hold any particular di culties in store r their readers. Aphorisms and brief dis sertations llow one another without any apparent order, and as the reader lea through the book, he or she winds up nding a striking or moving rmula which seems to speak by itsel and to need no exegesis. It is not a book to be read in one sitting. One must return to it often, in order to discover in it, day by day, some nourishment which suits the momentary states of our soul. The modern reader can perfectly well understand a given aphorism by Marcus Aurelius, like the one I have quoted as an epigraph. This is what is always attractive about the Medita tions: their sayings, whose limpidity can never grow old.
And yet, what a deceptive limpidity! For besides these rmulas, there are others which are much more obscure, and which have been under stood by historians in widely varying ways. The overall meaning of the book, its purpose, and some of its a rmations are very hard r us to grasp. Nor is this the case only with Marcus Aurelius. For kinds of reasons, ofwhich chronological distance is not the most important, our understanding ofancient works has grown more and more dim. To gain access to them once more, we will have to practice a kind of spiritual
Vlll Pre ce
exercise or intellectual ascetics, in order to ee ourselves om certain prejudices and rediscover what is, r us, almost another way ofthinking. This is what we shall attempt to do throughout the present work. Be re we set out upon this itinerary, however, it may be help l to become aware of these prejudices and illusions, which threatep to cause the modern reader to go astray when reading a work om antiquity.
In the rst place, the reader will perhaps imagine that the text has remained constant since the distant era in which it appeared, as do our contemporary printed texts. But we must not rget that ancient texts were, precisely, not printed: r centuries they were copied by hand, and copying errors were thereby constantly introduced. We can hardly blame the ancient scribes r this, if we think of our modern books, which, although they are printed, are often lled with printer's errors, which sometimes de rm the author's thought to the point of rendering it unintelligible. That, however, is another question. It cannot be overem phasized that it is thanks to the e orts ofthe scholars who investigate and classi the manuscripts in which ancient works have been preserved, and who attempt, using the critical method of the classi cation of errors, to reconstitute the original state of the text, that we can now read the works of antiquity in a state which is more or less satis ctory, but can never be perfect. I feel I must insist upon this point, which is sometimes com pletely ignored by some scienti c authorities or historians ofphilosophy, who imagine that one can hold rth about the theories of a particular ancient author without knowing what he really wrote. In the case of Marcus Aurelius, the greatest uncertainty often reigns with regard to certain words ofhis text. This does not a ect the totality ofthe work, but it nevertheless remains true that some passages present almost insur mountable di culties, and we should not be surprised if these di culties are re ected in the translations which have been made ofthis author.
The modern reader tends too o en to imagine that there is only one possible translation of a Greek text, and he or she may be surprised to nd considerable di erences. This ct should, however, make the reader aware of the distance that separates us om the ancients. Translation presupposes, rst of all, a choice with regard to the Greek text, in those cases in which this text is sometimes uncertain. But the translators' hesi tations o en also correspond to the di culties they have in under standing the text, and to the sometimes radically di erent interpretations of it which they propose. In the case of Marcus Aurelius, r example, many have not been able to render in an exact manner the technical terms, peculiar to the Stoic system, which are und on eve page ofthe
Pre ce lX
Meditations. Moreover, in the case ofMarcus, the division ofthe text into chapters is very uncertain, and often the limits of each "meditation" are not absolutely clear. Thus, the very appearance of the text can vary widely.
Finally, the modem reader might imagine-and no one is sa om this error-that the ancient author lives in the same inte ectual world as he does. The reader will treat the author's a rmations exactly as if they came om a contemporary author, and will there re think he has im mediately understood what the author meant. In ct, however, this understanding will be anachronistic, and the reader will often run the risk of committing serious mistranslations. To be sure, it is shionable now adays to a rm that, in any case, we cannot know exactly what an author meant, and that, moreover, this does not matter at all, r we can give the works any meaning we please. For my part, and without entering into this debate, I would say that be re we discover "unintentional" mean ings, it seems to me both possible and necessary to discover the meaning which the author intended. It is absolutely indispensable to go in the direction of a basic meaning, to which we can then refer in order to uncover, if we should so wish, those meanings of which the author was perhaps not conscious. It is true, however, that this reconstitution is extremely di cult r us, because we project attitudes and intentions proper to our era into the past. I� order to understand ancient works, we must relocate them within their context, in the widest sense ofthe term, which can signi the material, social, and political situation as well as the political and rhetorical universe ofthought. In particular, we must recall that the mechanisms of literary composition were very di erent then om what they are now. In antiquity, the rules of discourse were rigor ously codi ed. In order to say what he wanted to say, an author had to say it in a speci c way, in accordance with traditional models, and ac cording to rules prescribed by rhetoric or philosophy. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, r instance, are not the spontaneous outpourings of a soul that wants to express its thoughts immediately, but rather an exercise, accomplished in accordance with de nite rules. As we shall see, they presuppose a pre-existing canvas, upon which the philosopher-emperor could only embroider. Often, Marcus says certain things only because he has to say them, by virtue ofthe models and precepts imposed upon him. The meaning ofthe Meditations can, there re, only be understood once we have discovered, among other things, the pre bricated schemes which have been imposed upon it.
My intention, which is to o er the modem reader an introduction to
x Pre ce
the reading of the Meditations, will thus perhaps not be without use l ness. I will try to discover what Marcus wanted to accomplish by writing them, to speci the literary genre to which they belong, and, especia y, to de ne their relationship with the philosophical system which inspired. them. Finally, without trying to produce a biography of the emperor, I will try to determine how much of him is visible in his work.
I have chosen to quote the Meditations abundantly. I hate those mono graphs which, instead ofletting the author speak and staying close to the text, engage in obscure elucubrations which claim to carry out an act of decoding and reveal the "unsaid" of the thinker, without the reader's having the slightest idea of what that thinker really "said. " Such a method un rtunately permits all kinds of de rmations, distortions, and sleight of hand. Our era is captivating r all kinds of reasons: too often, however, om the philosophical and litera point ofview, it could be de ned as the era ofthe misinterpretation, ifnot ofthe pun: people can, it seems, say anything about anything. When I quote Marcus Aurelius, I want my reader to make contact with the text itself, which is superior to any commentary. I would like him to see how my interpretation tries to base itself on the text, and that he can veri my a rmations directly and immediately. The translation I o er is completely original. I have been working on Marcus Aurelius r more than twenty years, in particular on a new edition and translation of the Meditations, which will be published within the next few years. In the course ofthis work, interpretation and translation have gone hand in hand, and this is why I could not illustrate my arguments by referring the reader to existing translations, which would have been di erent om mine, and which might not have corre sponded exactly with my idea of the philosopher-emperor's work.
I should like to thank Michael Chase r his sensitive and philologi cally astute translation, as well as Angela Armstrong. Finally, my thanks go to Margaretta Fulton and Mary Ellen Geer at Harvard University Press, as well as Brian Stock at the University of Toronto, r their patient and help l advice.
Note on Transliteration and Quotation
I have sometimes und it use l to allude to certain Greek technical terms which are peculiar to Stoic philosophy. I have tried to transliterate them as simply as possible, using the letter e to represent the Greek letter eta, and o to represent the letter omega.
In order not to multiply my notes unnecessarily, the references r the quotations om Marcus Aurelius and the Discourses of Epictetus have been indicated in parentheses within the text. In both cases, the rst number refers to the number of the book, the second to the chapter number, and the third to the paragraph number within the chapter. Unless I indicate otherwise, the references given in Chapters 4 and 5 always refer to the text ofthe Discourses ofEpictetus.
The Greek text ofMarcus Aurelius on which my translations are based is generally that of W. Theiler, Marc Aurel, Wege zu sich selbst (Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1974).
Translator's Note
I have used the llowing procedure in rendering Pierre Hadot's transla tions: I rst literally translated Hadot's French version, and then com pared it with the original Greek or Latin texts. We have exchanged correspondence about doubt l cases, and this process has resulted in a number of corrections with regard to the 1992 French edition of this work. The nal result is, I hope, a translation which, inso r as is possible, is ith l both to Pierre Hadot and to the Greek and Latin authors to whom he has so fruit lly dedicated his li . Finally, all notes enclosed in square brackets are my own.
THE INNER CITADEL
1
THE EMPEROR-PHILOSOPHER
A happy youth, a tormented reign
The ture Marcus Aurelius, who was to receive this name later on, as a result ofhis adoption by the emperor Aurelius Antoninus Pius, was born in Rome in l2l, and was initially named Marcus Annius Verus. The milies of his mother and ther possessed a number of brick ctories,1 which represented an enormous rtune and a considerable investment ofcapital. Such wealth allowed its holders to exercise political in uence, and the ctory owners often attained positions om which they could in uence construction programs, as was the case r Marcus Aurelius' grand ther.
After his grand ther died during his early childhood, Marcus was noticed, protected, and vored by the emperor Hadrian. Just be re his death in 1 3 8 , the latter, in order to ensure his succession, adopted Anton inus-uncle-in-law of the ture Marcus Aurelius-and asked him to adopt Marcus as well as Lucius Verus, the son ofAelius Caesar, whom Hadrian had initially chosen as his successor, but who had just died.
OnJuly IO, 138, HadrianwassucceededbyAntoninus. Oneyearlater, the ture Marcus Aurelius, at the age of eighteen, was raised to the dignity of Caesar. In 145, he married Faustina, daughter of Antoninus. The couple had thirteen children, of whom only six survived beyond childhood: ve daughters and one son, the ture emperor Commodus. 2
The correspondence which Marcus exchanged with his rhetoric teacher Fronto, which lasted nearly thirty years- om 139 to 166/r67, the date of Fronto's death3-provides us with precious details on this period ofMarcus Aurelius' life, as well as on the atmosphere at the court ofthe Antonines: mily life, children's illnesses, wine-making, the ture emperor's studies and readings, the rhetorical homework which he punctually sent to Fronto, and the tender iendship which linked not only the master and the student, but also the milies ofMarcus Aurelius
2 THE INNER CITADEL
and ofFronto. At the death ofAntoninus (161), Marcus Aurelius, then thirty-nine years old, became emperor, and he immediately had equal power conferred upon his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus.
In the same year as their common accession to the throne, the Parthians invaded the eastern provinces of the Empire. The campaign began with a disaster r the Roman army, whereupon Lucius was sent east, where, under the command oftwo seasoned warriors, Statius Pris cius and Avidius Cassius, the Roman troops regained the upper hand (163-166). They invaded the Parthian kingdom, and seized Ctesiphon and Seleucia.
No sooner had the ceremonies celebrating the two emperors' victory of 166 ended when most alarming news arrived om another border of the Empire. The Marcomanni and the Quadi, Germanic peoples om the re on ofthe Danube, were threatening the North ofltaly. The two emperors were obliged to come and restore order to the situation, and spent the winter at Aquileia. At the beginning ofthe year l69, however, Lucius died in the carriage in which he was riding along with Marcus Aurelius. From 169 to 175, the Emperor then had to carry out military operations in the region ofthe Danube.
In 175, at the ve moment when he was beginning to enjoy some success, Marcus received word ofthe rebellion ofAvidius Cassius, who, as a result of a plot which had spread through several provinces of the East and of Egypt, had himself proclaimed Emperor. Marcus Aurelius was probably saved on this occasion by the loyalty ofMartius Verus, the governor of Cappadocia. At any rate, as the Emperor was preparing to leave r the East, he learned of the assassination of Avidius Cassius, which put an end to this tragic episode.
Marcus Aurelius nevertheless decided to travel to the eastern prov inces, accompanied by Faustina and their son Commodus; he went to Egypt, Syria, and Cilicia, where Faustina died. Ancient historians loved to linger over Faustina's numerous adulteries; whatever may be the truth behind this gossip, the Emperor was pro undly a ected by her loss, and it is with deep emotion that, in the Meditations (I, 17, 18), he evokes the memory ofhis wife, so "docile, so loving, and so upright. "
On his way back to Rome, the Emperor passed through Smyrna and then Athens, where, together with Commodus, he was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. The festivities celebrating the victories over the Germans and the Sarmatians took place at Rome, on December 23, 176,
but Marcus Aurelius had to leave once again r the Danubian ont in 178. He died at Sirmium or at Vienna in 180.
The Emperor-Philosopher
3
The Empire was ravaged by natural catastrophes even more than by wars during this period: oodings of the Tiber (161), earthquakes at Cyzicus (161) and at Smyrna (178), and above all the terrible plague epidemic brought back om Asia by Roman troops returning om the Parthian war (166). As ]. F. Gilliam has shown,4 this plague did not perhaps bring about the vast depopulation which has been described by certain historians, who have made it the decisive cause of the decline of Rome, but it certainly did have serious consequences r the social and economic li ofthe Empire.
What a tormented reign it was! No sooner had Marcus Aurelius as cended the throne than he was suddenly overwhelmed by natural disas ters, military and political di culties, and family cares and mournings, which rced him to engage in a battle every day.
The sober-alb it partial-judgment of Cassius Dio5 is one of the mostjust that have been made on the subject ofMarcus: "He didn't have the luck which he deserved . . . but was con onted, throughout his reign, by a multitude of disasters. That is why I admire him more than any other, r it was amidst these extraordinary and unparalleled di cul ties that he was able to survive, and to save the Empire. "
As Ferdinand Lot has written,6 "The Roman world saw a series of sovereigns succeed to the throne the likes of which history has never seen since, and this happened precisely at the time rst ofthe stagnation, and then of the decline of the ancient world. " A er enumerating the examples of Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Diocletian, Julian, and Theodosius, among others, he continues: "Statesmen, legislators, warri ors, they sped om Brittany to the Rhine, om the Rhine to the Danube, om the Danube to the Euphrates, in order to de nd the Roman world and civilization against the Germanic or Sarmatian Bar barians, against the Parthians, and then against the Persians. They all knew that their lives were constantly threatened . . . And they aban doned themselves fearlessly to their tragic destiny as supermen. For if ever supermen have existed, we have to look r them among the em perors of the second to the urth century. " Such is the perspective within which we must situate the personality of Marcus Aurelius, if we hope to catch a glimpse of it.
Evolution toward philosophy
In this work, however, the goal is not to write the biography of one of these "supermen. "7 Our task shall only be to ask how Marcus Aurelius
4
THE INNER CITADEL
came to write the Meditations; and this is the same as asking how he became a philosopher, and how the Meditations could represent r him a part ofhis philosophical activity.
First, it is perhaps not inappropriate to recall that a philosopher in antiquity was not necessarily a theoretician of philosophy, as is all too often supposed. In antiquity, a philosopher was someone who lived like a philosopher-that is, who led a philosophical life. Cato the Younger, a statesman ofthe rst century B. c. , was a Stoic philosopher, but he did not write a sin e philosophical treatise. Rogatianus, a statesman ofthe third century A. D. , was a Platonic philosopher, the disciple ofPlotinus, and yet he wrote no philosophical treatise. Neverthless both men considered themselves philosophers, because they had adopted a philosophical way oflife. Let it not be said, moreover, that they were amateur philosophers. In the view of the masters of ancient philosophy, authentic philosophy was not that which discoursed upon theories or commented upon authors. In the words ofEpictetus (III, 21, 5), a Stoic who had a consid erable in uence upon Marcus Aurelius: "Eat like a man, drink like a man, get dressed, get married, have children, lead the life ofa citizen. . . . Show us all this, so that we can see whether or not you have really learned something om the philosophers. "8
Ancient philosophers thus had no need to write. If, moreover, they did write, it was not necessary r them to invent a new theory, or develop any speci c part of a system. It was enough r them to rmu late the ndamental principles of the school in vor of which they had made their choice ofli . When Marcus was writing the Meditations, he did not invent anything new, and did not bring about any progress within Stoic doctrine. This, however, is not to say that he was not a philosopher, and especially not a Stoic philosopher. 9
On the other hand, the ct of having taken some philosophy courses did not necessarily mean that one was a philosopher. Lucius Verus, Marcus Aurelius' adoptive brother, received instruction om the same philosophy teachers as his brother, but no one would think ofcalling him a philosopher. 10 The Latin author Aulus Gellius, Marcus' contemporary, was a student of the Platonic philosopher Taurus at Athens. There is no doubt that Gellius was interested in philosophy, and he cites many philo sophical texts in his works, but he makes no claim to lead a philosophical life. Rhetoricians and statesmen und in philosophy courses training r dialectics, and material to develop commonplaces in their discourses. As Pronto wrote to Marcus: "Philosophy will give you the substance of
The Emperor-Philosopher 5
your discourse, and rhetoric its rm. "11 They did not, however, feel obliged to live like philosophers. This is why the Discourses ofEpictetus, as reported by Arrian, constantly remind the philosopher's audience that philosophy does not consist in dialectical skill lness or beauti l lan guage, but in the way one lives day-to-day life. To be a philosopher was not to have received a theoretical philosophical education, or to be a professor ofphilosophy. Rather, it was to pro ss, as a result ofa conver sion which caused a radical change of life-style, a way of life di erent om that ofother people.
It would be extremely interesting to know, in all its details, the man ner in which Marcus' conversion to philosophy took place. Yet many points remain obscure.
We possess two documents ofcapital importance on Marcus Aurelius' evolution. The rst is the correspondence between Marcus and his rhetoric teacher Pronto, ofwhich I have already spoken; un rtunately, it has come down to us in a palimpsest discovered in the nineteenth cen tury; thus this collection ofletters has been covered over by other writ ing, and the chemical products which were used to make it legible have caused irreparable deterioration ofthe manuscript, which contains gaps and is often unreadable. The second piece of evidence comes om the Emperor himsel who, as he wrote the rst book of his Meditations, mentioned all he owed to his parents, teachers, and iends; this is an extremely concise text, which leaves us terribly unsatis ed. Still, with the help of the meager indications we can glean om these sources, we can distinguish a certain number of phases in Marcus' evolution toward philosophy. Although later hagiographers asserted that he was "serious" om childhood on,12 we can discern an initial period of care ee youth, which seems to have continued until the age of twenty, that is, into the period when he was already Caesar. It is possible, however, that under the in uence of Diognetus, one of the teachers Marcus speaks about in his Meditations (I, 6) , the desire to live as a philosopher may have touched him already at this period.
Marcus' conversion to philosophy seems to have been the work of Junius Rusticus, who revealed to him the teachings ofEpictetus, and his conversion can probably be dated to the years 144-147. In any case, when Marcus was twenty- ve, in 146-147, he wrote Pronto a letter which leaves no doubt as to his new state of nd. Besides, throughout the rst years of Marcus' elevation to the throne, Pronto makes almost constant allusions to the philosophical way ofli ofhis Imperial student.
6 THE INNER CITADEL Care ee li ofa young prince and dreams ofa life ofausterity
Marcus' letters to Pronto-particula y those he wrote when he was still a young eighteen- or twenty-year-old Caesar-allow us to catch a glimpse ofthe simple, miliar way oflife which was led at the court of Marcus' adoptive ther Antoninus, particularly in the Imperial villas, r away om Rome, to which Antoninus often liked to withdraw. The mily took part in the labors of the grape harvests, and there was no luxury in the meals served, or even in the heating. The ture emperor liked physical exercise-especially hunting-which he seems to have practiced without any particular scruples with regard to his subjects. This, at least, is what we can glimpse om a letter which could date om the years 14 143, only the rst part ofwhich has been preserved:
. . . When my ther came back home om the vineyards, I went riding, as usual. I got started and we gradually moved away. Sud denly, in the middle ofthe road, there was a big ock ofsheep, and the place was deserted: there were ur dogs, two shepherds, and nothing else. When they saw this group ofhorsemen coming, one ofthe shepherds said to the other, "Watch out r these horseman; they're the kind that usually cause the most trouble. " No sooner did I hear this than I spurred my horse and headed him straight r the ock; the terri ed beasts scattered, running every which way, bleat ing and in the utmost con sion. The shepherd threw his sta at me, but it landed on the rider who was llowing me, and we ed.
But the translators' hesi tations o en also correspond to the di culties they have in under standing the text, and to the sometimes radically di erent interpretations of it which they propose. In the case of Marcus Aurelius, r example, many have not been able to render in an exact manner the technical terms, peculiar to the Stoic system, which are und on eve page ofthe
Pre ce lX
Meditations. Moreover, in the case ofMarcus, the division ofthe text into chapters is very uncertain, and often the limits of each "meditation" are not absolutely clear. Thus, the very appearance of the text can vary widely.
Finally, the modem reader might imagine-and no one is sa om this error-that the ancient author lives in the same inte ectual world as he does. The reader will treat the author's a rmations exactly as if they came om a contemporary author, and will there re think he has im mediately understood what the author meant. In ct, however, this understanding will be anachronistic, and the reader will often run the risk of committing serious mistranslations. To be sure, it is shionable now adays to a rm that, in any case, we cannot know exactly what an author meant, and that, moreover, this does not matter at all, r we can give the works any meaning we please. For my part, and without entering into this debate, I would say that be re we discover "unintentional" mean ings, it seems to me both possible and necessary to discover the meaning which the author intended. It is absolutely indispensable to go in the direction of a basic meaning, to which we can then refer in order to uncover, if we should so wish, those meanings of which the author was perhaps not conscious. It is true, however, that this reconstitution is extremely di cult r us, because we project attitudes and intentions proper to our era into the past. I� order to understand ancient works, we must relocate them within their context, in the widest sense ofthe term, which can signi the material, social, and political situation as well as the political and rhetorical universe ofthought. In particular, we must recall that the mechanisms of literary composition were very di erent then om what they are now. In antiquity, the rules of discourse were rigor ously codi ed. In order to say what he wanted to say, an author had to say it in a speci c way, in accordance with traditional models, and ac cording to rules prescribed by rhetoric or philosophy. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, r instance, are not the spontaneous outpourings of a soul that wants to express its thoughts immediately, but rather an exercise, accomplished in accordance with de nite rules. As we shall see, they presuppose a pre-existing canvas, upon which the philosopher-emperor could only embroider. Often, Marcus says certain things only because he has to say them, by virtue ofthe models and precepts imposed upon him. The meaning ofthe Meditations can, there re, only be understood once we have discovered, among other things, the pre bricated schemes which have been imposed upon it.
My intention, which is to o er the modem reader an introduction to
x Pre ce
the reading of the Meditations, will thus perhaps not be without use l ness. I will try to discover what Marcus wanted to accomplish by writing them, to speci the literary genre to which they belong, and, especia y, to de ne their relationship with the philosophical system which inspired. them. Finally, without trying to produce a biography of the emperor, I will try to determine how much of him is visible in his work.
I have chosen to quote the Meditations abundantly. I hate those mono graphs which, instead ofletting the author speak and staying close to the text, engage in obscure elucubrations which claim to carry out an act of decoding and reveal the "unsaid" of the thinker, without the reader's having the slightest idea of what that thinker really "said. " Such a method un rtunately permits all kinds of de rmations, distortions, and sleight of hand. Our era is captivating r all kinds of reasons: too often, however, om the philosophical and litera point ofview, it could be de ned as the era ofthe misinterpretation, ifnot ofthe pun: people can, it seems, say anything about anything. When I quote Marcus Aurelius, I want my reader to make contact with the text itself, which is superior to any commentary. I would like him to see how my interpretation tries to base itself on the text, and that he can veri my a rmations directly and immediately. The translation I o er is completely original. I have been working on Marcus Aurelius r more than twenty years, in particular on a new edition and translation of the Meditations, which will be published within the next few years. In the course ofthis work, interpretation and translation have gone hand in hand, and this is why I could not illustrate my arguments by referring the reader to existing translations, which would have been di erent om mine, and which might not have corre sponded exactly with my idea of the philosopher-emperor's work.
I should like to thank Michael Chase r his sensitive and philologi cally astute translation, as well as Angela Armstrong. Finally, my thanks go to Margaretta Fulton and Mary Ellen Geer at Harvard University Press, as well as Brian Stock at the University of Toronto, r their patient and help l advice.
Note on Transliteration and Quotation
I have sometimes und it use l to allude to certain Greek technical terms which are peculiar to Stoic philosophy. I have tried to transliterate them as simply as possible, using the letter e to represent the Greek letter eta, and o to represent the letter omega.
In order not to multiply my notes unnecessarily, the references r the quotations om Marcus Aurelius and the Discourses of Epictetus have been indicated in parentheses within the text. In both cases, the rst number refers to the number of the book, the second to the chapter number, and the third to the paragraph number within the chapter. Unless I indicate otherwise, the references given in Chapters 4 and 5 always refer to the text ofthe Discourses ofEpictetus.
The Greek text ofMarcus Aurelius on which my translations are based is generally that of W. Theiler, Marc Aurel, Wege zu sich selbst (Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1974).
Translator's Note
I have used the llowing procedure in rendering Pierre Hadot's transla tions: I rst literally translated Hadot's French version, and then com pared it with the original Greek or Latin texts. We have exchanged correspondence about doubt l cases, and this process has resulted in a number of corrections with regard to the 1992 French edition of this work. The nal result is, I hope, a translation which, inso r as is possible, is ith l both to Pierre Hadot and to the Greek and Latin authors to whom he has so fruit lly dedicated his li . Finally, all notes enclosed in square brackets are my own.
THE INNER CITADEL
1
THE EMPEROR-PHILOSOPHER
A happy youth, a tormented reign
The ture Marcus Aurelius, who was to receive this name later on, as a result ofhis adoption by the emperor Aurelius Antoninus Pius, was born in Rome in l2l, and was initially named Marcus Annius Verus. The milies of his mother and ther possessed a number of brick ctories,1 which represented an enormous rtune and a considerable investment ofcapital. Such wealth allowed its holders to exercise political in uence, and the ctory owners often attained positions om which they could in uence construction programs, as was the case r Marcus Aurelius' grand ther.
After his grand ther died during his early childhood, Marcus was noticed, protected, and vored by the emperor Hadrian. Just be re his death in 1 3 8 , the latter, in order to ensure his succession, adopted Anton inus-uncle-in-law of the ture Marcus Aurelius-and asked him to adopt Marcus as well as Lucius Verus, the son ofAelius Caesar, whom Hadrian had initially chosen as his successor, but who had just died.
OnJuly IO, 138, HadrianwassucceededbyAntoninus. Oneyearlater, the ture Marcus Aurelius, at the age of eighteen, was raised to the dignity of Caesar. In 145, he married Faustina, daughter of Antoninus. The couple had thirteen children, of whom only six survived beyond childhood: ve daughters and one son, the ture emperor Commodus. 2
The correspondence which Marcus exchanged with his rhetoric teacher Fronto, which lasted nearly thirty years- om 139 to 166/r67, the date of Fronto's death3-provides us with precious details on this period ofMarcus Aurelius' life, as well as on the atmosphere at the court ofthe Antonines: mily life, children's illnesses, wine-making, the ture emperor's studies and readings, the rhetorical homework which he punctually sent to Fronto, and the tender iendship which linked not only the master and the student, but also the milies ofMarcus Aurelius
2 THE INNER CITADEL
and ofFronto. At the death ofAntoninus (161), Marcus Aurelius, then thirty-nine years old, became emperor, and he immediately had equal power conferred upon his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus.
In the same year as their common accession to the throne, the Parthians invaded the eastern provinces of the Empire. The campaign began with a disaster r the Roman army, whereupon Lucius was sent east, where, under the command oftwo seasoned warriors, Statius Pris cius and Avidius Cassius, the Roman troops regained the upper hand (163-166). They invaded the Parthian kingdom, and seized Ctesiphon and Seleucia.
No sooner had the ceremonies celebrating the two emperors' victory of 166 ended when most alarming news arrived om another border of the Empire. The Marcomanni and the Quadi, Germanic peoples om the re on ofthe Danube, were threatening the North ofltaly. The two emperors were obliged to come and restore order to the situation, and spent the winter at Aquileia. At the beginning ofthe year l69, however, Lucius died in the carriage in which he was riding along with Marcus Aurelius. From 169 to 175, the Emperor then had to carry out military operations in the region ofthe Danube.
In 175, at the ve moment when he was beginning to enjoy some success, Marcus received word ofthe rebellion ofAvidius Cassius, who, as a result of a plot which had spread through several provinces of the East and of Egypt, had himself proclaimed Emperor. Marcus Aurelius was probably saved on this occasion by the loyalty ofMartius Verus, the governor of Cappadocia. At any rate, as the Emperor was preparing to leave r the East, he learned of the assassination of Avidius Cassius, which put an end to this tragic episode.
Marcus Aurelius nevertheless decided to travel to the eastern prov inces, accompanied by Faustina and their son Commodus; he went to Egypt, Syria, and Cilicia, where Faustina died. Ancient historians loved to linger over Faustina's numerous adulteries; whatever may be the truth behind this gossip, the Emperor was pro undly a ected by her loss, and it is with deep emotion that, in the Meditations (I, 17, 18), he evokes the memory ofhis wife, so "docile, so loving, and so upright. "
On his way back to Rome, the Emperor passed through Smyrna and then Athens, where, together with Commodus, he was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. The festivities celebrating the victories over the Germans and the Sarmatians took place at Rome, on December 23, 176,
but Marcus Aurelius had to leave once again r the Danubian ont in 178. He died at Sirmium or at Vienna in 180.
The Emperor-Philosopher
3
The Empire was ravaged by natural catastrophes even more than by wars during this period: oodings of the Tiber (161), earthquakes at Cyzicus (161) and at Smyrna (178), and above all the terrible plague epidemic brought back om Asia by Roman troops returning om the Parthian war (166). As ]. F. Gilliam has shown,4 this plague did not perhaps bring about the vast depopulation which has been described by certain historians, who have made it the decisive cause of the decline of Rome, but it certainly did have serious consequences r the social and economic li ofthe Empire.
What a tormented reign it was! No sooner had Marcus Aurelius as cended the throne than he was suddenly overwhelmed by natural disas ters, military and political di culties, and family cares and mournings, which rced him to engage in a battle every day.
The sober-alb it partial-judgment of Cassius Dio5 is one of the mostjust that have been made on the subject ofMarcus: "He didn't have the luck which he deserved . . . but was con onted, throughout his reign, by a multitude of disasters. That is why I admire him more than any other, r it was amidst these extraordinary and unparalleled di cul ties that he was able to survive, and to save the Empire. "
As Ferdinand Lot has written,6 "The Roman world saw a series of sovereigns succeed to the throne the likes of which history has never seen since, and this happened precisely at the time rst ofthe stagnation, and then of the decline of the ancient world. " A er enumerating the examples of Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Diocletian, Julian, and Theodosius, among others, he continues: "Statesmen, legislators, warri ors, they sped om Brittany to the Rhine, om the Rhine to the Danube, om the Danube to the Euphrates, in order to de nd the Roman world and civilization against the Germanic or Sarmatian Bar barians, against the Parthians, and then against the Persians. They all knew that their lives were constantly threatened . . . And they aban doned themselves fearlessly to their tragic destiny as supermen. For if ever supermen have existed, we have to look r them among the em perors of the second to the urth century. " Such is the perspective within which we must situate the personality of Marcus Aurelius, if we hope to catch a glimpse of it.
Evolution toward philosophy
In this work, however, the goal is not to write the biography of one of these "supermen. "7 Our task shall only be to ask how Marcus Aurelius
4
THE INNER CITADEL
came to write the Meditations; and this is the same as asking how he became a philosopher, and how the Meditations could represent r him a part ofhis philosophical activity.
First, it is perhaps not inappropriate to recall that a philosopher in antiquity was not necessarily a theoretician of philosophy, as is all too often supposed. In antiquity, a philosopher was someone who lived like a philosopher-that is, who led a philosophical life. Cato the Younger, a statesman ofthe rst century B. c. , was a Stoic philosopher, but he did not write a sin e philosophical treatise. Rogatianus, a statesman ofthe third century A. D. , was a Platonic philosopher, the disciple ofPlotinus, and yet he wrote no philosophical treatise. Neverthless both men considered themselves philosophers, because they had adopted a philosophical way oflife. Let it not be said, moreover, that they were amateur philosophers. In the view of the masters of ancient philosophy, authentic philosophy was not that which discoursed upon theories or commented upon authors. In the words ofEpictetus (III, 21, 5), a Stoic who had a consid erable in uence upon Marcus Aurelius: "Eat like a man, drink like a man, get dressed, get married, have children, lead the life ofa citizen. . . . Show us all this, so that we can see whether or not you have really learned something om the philosophers. "8
Ancient philosophers thus had no need to write. If, moreover, they did write, it was not necessary r them to invent a new theory, or develop any speci c part of a system. It was enough r them to rmu late the ndamental principles of the school in vor of which they had made their choice ofli . When Marcus was writing the Meditations, he did not invent anything new, and did not bring about any progress within Stoic doctrine. This, however, is not to say that he was not a philosopher, and especially not a Stoic philosopher. 9
On the other hand, the ct of having taken some philosophy courses did not necessarily mean that one was a philosopher. Lucius Verus, Marcus Aurelius' adoptive brother, received instruction om the same philosophy teachers as his brother, but no one would think ofcalling him a philosopher. 10 The Latin author Aulus Gellius, Marcus' contemporary, was a student of the Platonic philosopher Taurus at Athens. There is no doubt that Gellius was interested in philosophy, and he cites many philo sophical texts in his works, but he makes no claim to lead a philosophical life. Rhetoricians and statesmen und in philosophy courses training r dialectics, and material to develop commonplaces in their discourses. As Pronto wrote to Marcus: "Philosophy will give you the substance of
The Emperor-Philosopher 5
your discourse, and rhetoric its rm. "11 They did not, however, feel obliged to live like philosophers. This is why the Discourses ofEpictetus, as reported by Arrian, constantly remind the philosopher's audience that philosophy does not consist in dialectical skill lness or beauti l lan guage, but in the way one lives day-to-day life. To be a philosopher was not to have received a theoretical philosophical education, or to be a professor ofphilosophy. Rather, it was to pro ss, as a result ofa conver sion which caused a radical change of life-style, a way of life di erent om that ofother people.
It would be extremely interesting to know, in all its details, the man ner in which Marcus' conversion to philosophy took place. Yet many points remain obscure.
We possess two documents ofcapital importance on Marcus Aurelius' evolution. The rst is the correspondence between Marcus and his rhetoric teacher Pronto, ofwhich I have already spoken; un rtunately, it has come down to us in a palimpsest discovered in the nineteenth cen tury; thus this collection ofletters has been covered over by other writ ing, and the chemical products which were used to make it legible have caused irreparable deterioration ofthe manuscript, which contains gaps and is often unreadable. The second piece of evidence comes om the Emperor himsel who, as he wrote the rst book of his Meditations, mentioned all he owed to his parents, teachers, and iends; this is an extremely concise text, which leaves us terribly unsatis ed. Still, with the help of the meager indications we can glean om these sources, we can distinguish a certain number of phases in Marcus' evolution toward philosophy. Although later hagiographers asserted that he was "serious" om childhood on,12 we can discern an initial period of care ee youth, which seems to have continued until the age of twenty, that is, into the period when he was already Caesar. It is possible, however, that under the in uence of Diognetus, one of the teachers Marcus speaks about in his Meditations (I, 6) , the desire to live as a philosopher may have touched him already at this period.
Marcus' conversion to philosophy seems to have been the work of Junius Rusticus, who revealed to him the teachings ofEpictetus, and his conversion can probably be dated to the years 144-147. In any case, when Marcus was twenty- ve, in 146-147, he wrote Pronto a letter which leaves no doubt as to his new state of nd. Besides, throughout the rst years of Marcus' elevation to the throne, Pronto makes almost constant allusions to the philosophical way ofli ofhis Imperial student.
6 THE INNER CITADEL Care ee li ofa young prince and dreams ofa life ofausterity
Marcus' letters to Pronto-particula y those he wrote when he was still a young eighteen- or twenty-year-old Caesar-allow us to catch a glimpse ofthe simple, miliar way oflife which was led at the court of Marcus' adoptive ther Antoninus, particularly in the Imperial villas, r away om Rome, to which Antoninus often liked to withdraw. The mily took part in the labors of the grape harvests, and there was no luxury in the meals served, or even in the heating. The ture emperor liked physical exercise-especially hunting-which he seems to have practiced without any particular scruples with regard to his subjects. This, at least, is what we can glimpse om a letter which could date om the years 14 143, only the rst part ofwhich has been preserved:
. . . When my ther came back home om the vineyards, I went riding, as usual. I got started and we gradually moved away. Sud denly, in the middle ofthe road, there was a big ock ofsheep, and the place was deserted: there were ur dogs, two shepherds, and nothing else. When they saw this group ofhorsemen coming, one ofthe shepherds said to the other, "Watch out r these horseman; they're the kind that usually cause the most trouble. " No sooner did I hear this than I spurred my horse and headed him straight r the ock; the terri ed beasts scattered, running every which way, bleat ing and in the utmost con sion. The shepherd threw his sta at me, but it landed on the rider who was llowing me, and we ed. Thus, he who was a aid oflosing a lamb wound up losing his sta Do you think I made this story up? No, it's true. 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.
