No More Learning

According to E. R. Dodds,8 the emperor considered human activity to be not only unimportant, but in a way almost unreal. It seems very di cult to reconcile such an interpretation with what Marcus says about the discipline of action. Dodds insists on the perpetual self-criticism to which Marcus subjects himsel and on the need which the emperor feels to be "another. " Dodds relates this tendency to a dream which, accord­ ing to Cassius Dio and the Historia Augusta, Marcus had at the age of seventeen, on the night of his adoption by the emperor Antoninus. Marcus dreamed that he had ivory shoulders, and this suggests to Dodds that Marcus su ered om an acute rm ofwhat modern psychologists would call an identity crisis.
Here we have a typical example of the dangers of historical psychol­ ogy. Dodds gives a poor de nition ofwhat it means to "desire to be something other than one is. " It is true that Marcus aspired to be another man and to begin another li (X, 8, 3). But as the context shows, what he means by this is that he wants to acquire truth, prudence, and nobility of soul (X, 8, r). I think that every normal person also desires to be someone else in that sense, and if that is an identity crisis, then every person has an identity crisis. I cannot, moreover, see how "so much self-reproach" presents a "morbid" aspect, as Dodds maintains. 9 On this theme, Dodds attributes to Marcus the rmula "It is di cult r a man to put up with himself, " which, we are to believe, lets us infer either that Marcus w s unbearable to himsel or that, more generally, human nature taken in itselfis unbearable to itsel In ct, however, Dodds completely de rms the meaning ofMarcus' text 0/, IO, 4; not V, IO, I as is incor­ rectly indicated in Dodds's note). Marcus' actual tone is the llowing:
Also consider the ways of li of the men who live with you; the most pleasant of them is di cult to put up with, not to say that he can scarcely put up with himsel
Thus, the issue is not at all Marcus' relationship with his own self, but a wholly other problem, to which I shall return. Neither is this Marcus' personal experience; rather, it is a description, traditional within Stoicism and even within the other schools, of the misery of a person who does not live as a philosopher, does not devote himselfto the unique value of the moral good, and who is there re in contradiction and at war with himsel To live philosophically-that is to say, to live "according to
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Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations 247
nature"-is to be coherent with oneself In all this, no "identity crisis" on the part ofMarcus can be discerned.
Moreover, when discussing Marcus' dream, Dodds does not give a complete report of what the ancient historians had to say. The Historia Augusta,10 r example, tells us that not only did the young man dream that he had ivory shoulders, but that he wondered ifthey would be able to support a burden, whereupon he discovered that they were extraordi­ narily stronger. Cassius Dio,11 writing shortly after Marcus' death, spe­ ci es that in his dream, Marcus could use these shoulders just as easily as the other parts of his body. In ct, however, the question is not what such a dream might represent to a person of modem times, but what it may have meant to a person of antiquity. The mistake made by some kinds ofpsychological history is to project back onto the past our mod­ em-day representations, according to which shoulders which are "other" must correspond to "another" man. What we must try to understand is what the images which appeared to the people of antiquity in their dreams could represent within their collective mentality. As Pierre Gri­ mal12 has shown, r them ivory shoulders immediately brought to mind the story of Pelops. Pelops' body, tom to pieces by his ther Tantalus, had been served to the gods r dinner. Demeter, still grieving over the death ofher daughter Persephone, was the only one not to recognize the dish, and she ate Pelops' shoulder. Clotho, goddess of Fate, replaced it with an ivory shoulder and revived the young Pelops. According to the Images by Philostratus, who wrote a few decades after the death ofMar­ cus, Poseidon was dazzled by the sight of this ivory shoulder, and he ll in love with Pelops. "When the night covered the earth, the young man was illuminated by his shoulder, which shone like the evening star in the midst ofthe darkness. "13
To have ivory shoulders was thus to be the object ofdivine solicitude and grace; it was to be protected by Fate, as personi ed by Clotho. In the situation ofincreased responsibility announced by his adoption, the ivory shoulders announce the help om the gods and om Fate which will make Marcus strong enough to assume his task. This, r a man of antiquity, is the true meaning ofMarcus' dream.
The psychosomaticist R. Dailly and H. van E enterre have under­ taken collaborative research in order to diagnose what they call "the Marcus Aurelius Case. "14 In particular, they sought to know the reason why, in a kind of contradiction with his principles, this emperor sur­ rounded himselfwith highly dubious characters. He chose as co-ruler his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus; he entrusted the position ofCommander
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in Chief over the entire East to Avidius Cassius, the general who later took up arms against him; and nally, he chose as his successor in the imperial dignity his son Commodus, who was to become a tyrant com­ parable to Nero. "These were three ne male specimens," write the authors ofthis article, "who had a de nite ability to enchant the crowds; and we are entitled to wonder whether they did not also exert a kind of unconscious scination upon Marcus Aurelius. " Thus, right at the be­ ginning of the article, we encounter the thesis which the two authors mean to defend: the philosopher-emperor was a weak man, lacking in virility, who lt the need to compensate r his doubts and hesitations by surrounding himself with strong, self-con dent men. Here we can glimpse the inner workings of this kind of psychological explanation: people believe they have uncovered a highly characteristic symptom, which is not in ct the symptom of anything, since it is not even a symptom. Nothing proves that Marcus chose these individuals out of attraction toward their virile rce. The elections of Lucius Verus, Avidius Cassius, and Commodus were dictated by complex political reasons, which historians have analyzed thoroughly. Nor is there any­ thing to prove that these " ne male specimens" (were they indeed so ne? ) were really so sure of themselves. Since, however, the subject of this book is the Meditations, I do not wish to allow myselfto be dragged into the domain of history. I wish simply to a rm, most rmly, that the Meditations do not, either in their goal or in their content, permit us either to a rm or to deny that Marcus was a weak man, that he lacked virility, or, as our two authors would have it, that he had a stomach ulcer. They arrive at this last diagnosis on the basis of the llowing passage om the historian Cassius Dio:15
[During the Danubian campaign] , he became physically very weak, to the point that, at the beginning, he could not stand the cold, and a er the soldiers had been assembled on his order, he had to retire be re having spoken to them. . . . For it was not his custom to eat anything during the day, with the exception of the medicine called theriac. He took this not because he was a aid of anything, but because his stomach and his chest were in poor shape. And it is said that it was because of this medicine that he was able to resist this i ness, and others as well.
This text makes no mention ofany chronic illness, but rather re rs to Marcus' state during the Danubian campaign. Elsewhere, Cassius Dio
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations 249
bears witness to the ct that the Emperor was vigorous in his youth, and that he took part in violent sports like hunting. 16 According to Dio, it was the worries ofhis of ce and his ascetic ways that weakened his body. Be that as it may, our two authors, after having diagnosed a gastric ulcer, move on to the psychological correlates ofthis illness:
The ulcerous man . . . is he who is essentially withdrawn into him­ sel worried and preoccupied . . . His neighbors are masked om him by a kind of hypertrophy of the sel it is himsel in the last analysis, that he seeks in others . . . Conscientious to the point of minutiae, he is more interested in the technical perfection of ad­ ministration than in those human relations ofwhich administration should be only the sum total. Ifhe is a thinking man, he will incline to seek r justi cations, to compose superior personalities, and to adopt Stoic or Pharisaic attitudes. In the area of ethics, he will be virtuous by e rt, good by application, and a believer by rce of will. 17
I am not quali ed to debate the scienti c value of the psychological portrait which these two authors trace ofthese "gastropaths," although it would be interesting to ask them if they recognized themselves in this dark portrait. What I question is the possibility of deriving om the Meditations even the slightest hint which might con rm or invalidate this description ofMarcus Aurelius' psychology. The authors are completely mistaken as to the nature of this work when, to justi their diagnosis, they claim that the Meditations respond to a need r "justi cation in his own eyes," and constitute "a long series ofexhortations to persist in the path chosen be rehand. " As we have seen, the Meditations do not repre­ sent an exceptional phenomenon, proper to Marcus. Such written medi­ tation was highly recommended by Stoic masters, and is, moreover, still practiced today by people who do not have a stomach ulcer, but who are simply trying to live in a somewhat human way. And this is not a case of self-justi cation, but rather of an attempt at self-criticism and self-trans­ rmation. These variations on themes supplied by Epictetus cannot in rm us about the Emperor's gastric ulcer, and can tell us nothing decisive about the Marcus Aurelius "case. " Here we have a good exam­ ple ofthe dangers ofpsychological history when applied to ancient texts. Be re we present the interpretation of a text, we should rst begin to distinguish between, on the one hand, the traditional-one might almost say "pre bricated"-elements used by the author, and, on the other,
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what he or she wishes to do with them. Ifwe do not make this distinc­ tion, we will consider as symptomatic rmulas or attitudes which are not at such, because they do not emanate om the author's personality but are imposed upon him by tradition. We must try to nd out what the author wants to say, but also what he can or cannot say, and what he must or must not say, as a nction of the traditions and the circumstances imposed upon him.
Was Marcus an opium addict?
This is what T. W. Africa should have investigated, be re he claimed to discover the symptoms ofMarcus' alleged opium addiction in the Medi­ tations .
A ica bases his claim on three pieces of evidence. He takes up the passage om Cassius Dio discussed above, which, while describing the Emperor's state of health during the winter campaigns on the Danube, told us that he did not consume anything during the day except an antidote called theriac. He did this not because he was a aid of being poisoned, as we saw, but in order to calm his chest and stomach. Else­ where, A ica mentions a work by Galen entitled On Antidotes, which describes the di erent ways of preparing theriac, the use lness of this medicine, and the way in which Marcus used it. Finally, A ica thinks he can discover visions and psychic states produced by opium abuse within the Meditations.
Here is how A ica summarizes the evidence of Galen18 on Marcus' theriac consumption:
When he und himself getting drowsy at his duties, he had the poppy juice removed [ om the mixture] . . . But, then, he was unable to sleep at night. . . . So he was obliged once again to have recourse to the compound which contained poppyjuice, since this was now habitual with him.
Ifwe read Galen's text19 through to the end, however, we nd that it says precisely the opposite of what A ica wants to make it say. In the continuation of his text, Galen speci es two things. In the rst place, when Marcus took up the mixture containing poppy juice again, his personal physician, Demetrius, made sure that it contained aged poppy
juice, which did not have the same sopori c e ect. Second, a er the death of Demetrius, Galen himself was responsible r preparing the
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations 251
Emperor's theriac, and he is quite proud to be able to say that Marcus was completely satis ed with the way he composed the antidote in accordance with the recipe that was traditional among the physicians to the emperors. Thus, according to Galen, the Emperor's sleepiness was only a temporary accident which happened during the Danubian cam­ paigns, and which did not happen again after aged poppyjuice was used, and especially after Galen intervened. That is what the latter's text actu­ a y says.
In ct, the question is exceedingly complex, and we have no way of determining the exact quantity and quality of the opium juice that went into the theriac which the Emperor consumed. On the one hand, his doctors took care to see that the opium juice was aged and weakened. On the other hand, Galen, in the course of his treatise, speaks of three kinds ofantidotes which he had prepared r Marcus Aurelius: galene (the antidote ofAndromachus), which contained sixty- ur ingredients, one of which was poppy juice; theriac of Hera, which contained no poppy
juice, but had equal parts of bituminous clover, Aristolochia rotunda, mountain rue (Ruta halepensis), and ground vetch ( cia E ilia). Finally, there was an antidote consisting of one hundred ingredients, which con­ tained very little poppy juice. Thus, the quantity of poppy juice was highly variable. 20
For his part, Galen saw a proof of Marcus' wisdom in this custom of his :
Some people use this medicine every day, r the good of their body, as we know personally om the case of the divine Marcus who once ruled in respect of the laws, and who, thanks to the consciousness he had of himsel observed the mixture of his body with very precise attention. He used this medicine copiously, as ifit were nourishment. It was om him that theriac began to be ­ mous, and that its powerful e ectiveness appeared among men. Indeed, thanks to the ct that the Emperor's health improved be­ cause of it, people's con dence in the use lness of this medicine increased considerably. 21
Thus, we can see om this body of evidence, taken om Cassius Dio and om Galen, that nothing in any way allows us to infer that Marcus was an opium addict.
This, moreover, is the conclusion which T. W. A ica himself reaches,22 in a otnote to his article: "Admittedly the amounts of opium
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could vary, and, on the basis of the antidote of the younger Antimachus (Galen XIV 42), a kyamos (Marcus' daily dose) would contain about 0. 03 3 gram of opium, hardly su cient r addiction. "
In that case, however, can we still speak ofan opium addiction? Yes, says A ica, because Marcus displays two symptoms: his "odd detachment om domestic realities," and the "bizarre visions" which we nd in the Meditations. The strange detachment mentioned by A ica is probably­ r he never clari es the point-what historians have always censured Marcus r: his apparent indi erence to the in delities of his wife Faustina and to the extravagances ofhis colleague Lucius Verus, as well as the un rtunate choice he made of Commodus as his successor. As we have already seen, however, the question with regard to Lucius Verus and Commodus is very complex, and political motives must have played a large role in determining Marcus' attitude. As r Faustina: she bore Marcus thirteen children, and he mentions her brie y but very emotion­ ally in the rst book ofthe Meditations. Everything leads us to believe that she was the victim of court gossip. Be that as it may, it is di cult to see why Marcus' attitude was any more a symptom of opium addiction, as A ica maintains, than it was of a stomach ulcer, as Dailly and van E en­ terre had thought.
There remain the "bizarre visions. " Here, bad historical psychology reaches one ofits summits; this is a piece worthy ofan anthology. I quote T. W. A ica:23
Marcus' vision oftime as a raging river carrying all be re it into the abyss of the ture was no school doctrine of li viewed om the Porch, but an attempt to express the extended perspectives oftime and space which opium had opened up to him. Temporal and spatial dimensions were accelerated until Europe was but a speck and the present a point and men insects crawling on a clod. History was no longer a reference but an actual pageant of the past. Marcus shared the exacerbated sensations of his fellow opium-addict De Quincey:24 "The sense of space, and, in the end, the sense of time, were both powerfully a ected. Buildings, landscapes, etc. , were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not tted to receive them. Space swelled and was ampli ed, to an extent of unutterable in nity. This, however, did not disturb me so much as the vast expansion of time; I sometimes seemed to have lived r 70 or I oo years in one night; nay, sometimes had elings representative
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations 253 o f a millennium passed i n that time, or, however, o f a duration r
beyond the limits ofany human experience. "
Let us now examine the passages om Marcus Aurelius to which Africa refers in a otnote:
A river of events, a violent current: that is what eternity is. No sooner has one thing been seen than it has already passed; another one passes, and will, in its turn, be swept away (IV, 43).
Think often about the rapidity with which beings and events pass and disappear: r substance is like a river in perpetual ux; activities are in constant trans rmation; and causes are in a myriad ofmodes. Almost nothing is stable, even that which is close to you. Think also ofthe in nite abyss ofthe past and ofthe ture, into which every­ thing is swallowed up (V, 23).
Pace Mr. A ica, this theme is well attested in Stoicism, r instance in Seneca:25
Represent to yourself ropane) the vastness of time and embrace the universe, and then compare what we call human li to this immen­ sity.
Time passes with in nite speed. . . . Everything lls into the same abyss. . . . Our existence is a point, or less; but nature, by dividing this minimal thing, has given it the appearance ofa longer duration.
We nd this ancient image in the llowing ne verses by Leonidas of Tarentum:26
In nite, 0 man, is the time be re you came to the dawn; in nite is that which awaits you in Hades. What portion ofexistence remains to you, ifit is not barely the value ofa point, or still less?
Marcus' river is no doubt the Stoic river of substance, "which ows ceaselessly, "27 but in the last analysis it is the river of Heraclitus-that Heraclitus who Plato said compared beings to the ow of a river. 28 It is also the river of the Platonists, mentioned by Plutarch: "Everything appears and disappears in one unique moment; be it actions, words, or
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feelings; like a river, time sweeps everything away. "29 Finally, we also encounter this river in Ovid: "Time ows in perpetual movement; like a river, wave is pressed by wave. "30
When Seneca uses the expression propane, which means "represent to yourself" or "place be re your eyes the bottomless chasm of time, " he emphasizes that he is speaking of an exercise of the imagination, which the Stoic must practice. We nd an exercise of the same kind in those Meditations in which Marcus seeks to embrace the dimensions of the universe by his imagination, or to see things om on high, in order to reduce them to their true value:
Remember the totality of substance, of which you participate in only the smallest portion; remember also the whole of eternity, of which you have been assigned but a brie tiny interval. Finally, remember destiny, ofwhich you are a part: but how tiny! (V, 24)
If you suddenly und yourself transported into the air, and con­ templated human a airs and their variety om above, you would have contempt r them, as you saw, in the same glance, how vast is the domain ofthe inhabitants ofthe air and ofthe ether (XII, 24, 3).
You can cut o many of the super uous things which present obstacles to you, and which rest entirely on your value-judgment. Thus you will clear r yourself a vast open eld, by embracing the entire universe in your mind; you will comprehend perpetual eter­ nity, as you consider the rapid trans rmation of each individual thing. How short is the time om birth to dissolution; how gaping is the in nity be re birth, and similarly the in nity a er dissolution (IX, 32).
The soul traverses the entire world and the void which surrounds it; it examines the rm ofthe world; extends itselfinto the in nity of eternity, and embraces and conceives the periodic rebirth of the universe (XI, I, 3).
Asia and Europe are corners ofthe world; the entire sea is a drop of the world; Athas is a lump of earth in the world; all of present time is a point in eternity; everything is tiny, agile, and evanescent (VI, 36, 1).
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations 255
We can immediately see the di erence between these passages and those by De Quincey. For the latter, the distention ofduration and space is an impression imposed upon the addict om outside, and he is in a sense its passive victim. For Marcus, by contrast, the consideration ofthe in nity of time and space is an active maneuver, as we can see om his equent admonitions to "represent to himself" or to "think" the totality. Here again, we are in the presence of a traditional spiritual exercise, which utilizes the culties ofthe imagination. Moreover, De Quincey speaks of a distention of the instant, which takes on outlandish propor­ tions; whereas Marcus speaks of an e ort to imagine the In nite in its totality, in order subsequently to see the instant, or the place, reduced to in nitesimal proportions. This voluntary exercise ofthe imagination pre­ supposes that Marcus adhered to the classical representation of the Stoic universe: the universe is situated within an in nite void, and its duration within an in nite time, within which the periodic rebirths of the uni­ verse repeat themselves eternally. This exercise is intended to obtain a vision of human a airs which resituates them within the perspective of universal Nature.
A procedure such as this is the very essence of philosophy. Thus we nd it, always identical beneath the diversity of vocabularies, in all the philosophical schools ofantiquity. Plato de ned the philosophical nature by its ability to contemplate the totality oftime and ofbeing, and there­ re to hold human a airs in contempt. 31 We nd this theme again among such Platonists as Philo32 or Maximus of Tyre,33 in Neopythagoreanism,34 among the Stoics,35 and even among the Epicure­ ans. Representative of the last-named is the llowing saying by Metro­ dorus:
Remember that, although you were born mortal and with a limited life, you have nevertheless, by means of discussions about nature, risen up to the eternity and in nity ofthings. You have also seen the ture and the past. 36
In Cicero's mous Dream ofScipio,37 the grandson ofScipio A icanus contemplates the world om the heights of the Milky Way. He sees the earth so small that the Roman Empire seems imperceptible to him; the inhabited portion of the world seems like a tiny island in the middle of Ocean; and life seems to be less than a point. This theme was to remain very much alive throughout the Western tradition. We have an echo of it in Pascal's "two in nites":38 "Let the earth appear to him as a point,
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compared to the vast circle described by this star . . . " Was Pascal, then, also an opium addict?
Marcus also transports this view om above onto the past (X, 27):
Think constantly about this: how all events which are similar to those which are happening now, have also happened in the past; and think that they will happen again. Place entire dramas, and homogeneous scenes, which you know through your personal ex­ perience or through ancient history, be re your eyes: r instance, all of Hadrian's court; or that of Antoninus; the whole courts of Philip, Alexander, or Croesus. For all of that was similar; only the actors were di erent.
T. W. Africa has read De Quincey, and has noticed the ne page in which the latter evokes the reveries in which there appeared to him the luminous spectacle of the ladies of the court of King Charles I, or Paulus Aemilius, surrounded by centurions, striding in ont of the Roman legions. A ica believes he nds an analogous phenomenon in Marcus Aurelius. Once again, however, it is enough to read Marcus attentively to recognize the di erence. De Quincey's description is purely oneiric: the dream is told r its own sake, as a strange and marvelous spectacle. For Marcus, however, it is not a dream: the Emperor demands an imagi­ native e ort om himsel in order to try to represent to himself the courts of the past. As Paul Rabbow has shown,39 this practice is carried out in accordance with the rules which rhetoric prescribed when one had to depict a scene or a circumstance in an expressive way. Moreover, the picture was not there r its own sake, but o y in order to provide a highly austere conviction in the soul of the person practicing the exer­ cise; namely, that human a airs are banal and ephemeral (VII, 49):
Behold the past. So many changes ofregime; and the ture can be predicted equally well. Things will be entirely homogeneous, and we cannot escape the rhythm of what is happening now. That is why there is no di erence between studying human life r rty years, or ten thousand years, or more: what more could one possi­ bly see?
I believe I have su ciently demonstrated the workings of a certain type of historical psychology.
Generally speaking, it is based upon igno-
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations 257
ranee ofthe modes ofthought and composition ofancient authors, and it anachronistically projects modern representations back upon ancient texts. It would, moreover, be interesting to psychologize some historical psychologists; I believe we could discover in them two tendencies. One is iconoclastic: it takes pleasure in attacking such gures as Plotinus or Marcus Aurelius, r example, who are naively respected by right-think­ ing people. The other is reductionist: it considers that elevation ofthe soul or of thought, all moral heroism, and all grandiose views of the universe can only be morbid and abnormal. Everything has to be ex­ plained by sex or drugs.
Stylistic elegance
From everything that has just been said, we must not conclude that Marcus is absent om his Meditations. Rather, he is present in them in many ways, and the work has an autobiographical value which is limited, but very real.
First and remost, Marcus is present by virtue ofhis stylistic elegance. We have already seen that the Emperor, who was writing r himsel usually makes an e rt to write with the greatest care, certainly because he is aware of the psychological power of a well-turned phrase. The procedures Marcus uses have been well analyzed by]. Dal n,40 Monique Alexandre,41 and R. B. Ruther rd,42 who have also pointed out the felicitous expressions in which they result. As Monique exandre has shown, Marcus here reveals himself to be a true student of Fronto. It appears that Fronto required his student to compose a saying nome) every day, and above all to rmulate it in di erent ways. As Fronto writes,43 "Each time you conceive ofa paradoxical thought, turn it over within yoursel vary it with diverse gures and nuances, make trial ofit, and dress it in splendid words. " Throughout this book, we have been able to admire Marcus' skill at developing multiple variations on the same theme. Fronto also advised his student to make collections ofsay­ ings r himself44
It is dif cult to add anything new to the remarkable studies that have been carried out on Marcus' style. I think, however, that it may be use l to cite some examples ofthe quest r stylistic elegance which appears in some passages om his work.
The quest r conciseness o en gives such passages a remarkable vigor, and an almost enigmatic character:
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Correct, not corrected! (VII, 12).
Grow on the same trunk, but don't pro ss the same doctrines! (XI,
8, 6: the opposition is between homothamnein and homodogmatein). Neither an actor nor a whore! (V, 28, 4).
For the stone thrown up in the air, it is neither bad to ll back down, nor good to rise up (IX, 1 7) .
Receive without pride, let go without attachment (VIII, 3 3) .
Men have come into being r one another; so either teach them or put up with them (VIII, 59).
Leave the ult of another right where it is (IX, 20) .
A bitter cucumber? Throw it away! Brambles on the road? Avoid
them! (VIII, 50).
We have already equently encountered the brutal, explosive rmu­ las which Marcus uses to describe the ugliness oflife when it is bereft of moral value:
A mime (mimos) and a war olemos); excitement toia) and numb­ ness (narka); the slavery (douleia) of every day! (X, 9) .
Note the assonances in this last passage, which are indicative ofMarcus' search r literary e ect.
In how short a time, ashes or a skeleton! A mere name, or no longer even a name. But a name is nothing but meaningless noise, or an echo .
And everything to which people attach so much importance in this life is empty, rotten, and petty: little dogs that nip at one an­ other; kids who ght, laugh, and then suddenly burst into tears. Faith, however, and Modesty, Justice, and Truth "have taken ight toward Olympus, eeing the road- rrowed earth" (V, 33). 45
The most striking mmlas deal with the brevity oflife, death, and the vanity of me:
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations 259 Soon, you will have rgotten everything! Soon, everyone will have
rgotten you! (VII, 21).
Everything is ephemeral; both that which remembers, and that which is remembered (IV, 35).
Soon you too will close your eyes, and someone else will have wept r the person who laid you to rest (X, 34, 6).
Yesterday, a bit of phlegm; tomorrow, ashes or a mummy (IV, 48, 3).
Marcus not only had a knack r turning concise phrases, but he also knew how to tell of the beauty of things in few words, as in a passage om the Meditations (III, 2) cited earlier. There, Marcus evoked crusty bread and ripe gs which split, and maturity, which is already almost rottenness, which gives its beauty to the color of olives, and which also gives a kind of ourishing to elderly men and women, and makes heavy­ laden ears of com lean toward the earth. The "lion's wrinkled brow, " the " am dripping om the boar's muzzle," and the "gapingjaws ofwild beasts" also have their own savage beauty.
Fronto had taught his imperial student to introduce images and com­ parisons into his sayings and discourses, and Marcus learned his lesson well :
On the same altar, there are many grains ofincense. One falls be re the others, another later. What di erence does it make? (IV, 1 5) .
Dig within. That's where you'll nd the source ofthe good, and it can always burst rth anew, ifyou keep digging (VII, 59).
A spider hunts down a fly, and thinks he is pretty hot stu One man hunts down a little hare; another catches a sardine in his net; another hunts boars, another bears, another Sarmatians. Aren't they all thieves, ifyou examine the motives oftheir actions? (X, 10).
Have you ever seen a hand which has been cut o or a ot, or a severed head lying somewhere apart om the rest ofthe body? That is what a person does to himself . . . who does not wish r what happens, and who separates himself om the . . . (VIII, 34).
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In certain Meditations, we also notice a striving after rhythm and the harmonious balance of phrases, as r instance in the llowing prayer to the World:
Everything which is in accord with you is in accord with me, 0 World! Nothing ofwhat comes in an opportune way r you comes either too soon or too late r me! that your seasons produce, 0 Nature, is fruit r me (IV, 23).
Elsewhere, a thought is developed in parallel and ascending rmulas, as in the llowing passage, ofwhich I will cite only the beginning:
One is the light of the sun, even if it is divided by walls, moun­ tains, or a thousand other things.
One is the common substance, even ifit is divided into thousands ofbodies, each with its own individual qualities.
One is the soul, even ifit be divided into thousands of culties of growth and individual di erences.
One is the thinking soul, even ifit seems divided . . . (XII, 30).
I n these stylistic exercises, to which Marcus accorded all his attention, one may, I believe, glimpse two characteristic atures ofhis personality: a great aesthetic sensitivity and an intense search r perfection.
It may be ofinterest to point out that W. Williams46 has carried out a study of the style of Marcus' constitutions, and there re of the juridical texts which he wrote. According to this author, we can note in these writings a meticulousness highly concentrated upon details, and an al­ most exaggerated insistence on explaining points that are self-evident. This seems to indicate a certain lack of con dence in the moral and intellectual qualities of his subordinates, and a quest r purity in the use of Greek and of Latin. Finally, it shows the scrupulous attention that Marcus devoted to nding the most equitable, humane, and just solu­ tions possible.
Chronological signposts
The reader of a literary work always likes to know at what moment of the author's li it was written, and in what atmosphere. To be sure, there is something atemporal about the Meditations, and it must be admit­ ted that the attempts made by various historians to attach certain passages
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations
to speci c moments of the Emperor's li have been disappointing. As we have seen, the Meditations are spiritual exercises, carried out upon a canvas pre bricated by the Stoic tradition, which did not leave any room r personal anecdotes. In order to suggest a date r their composition, we possess o y two pieces ofobjective evidence. Between what is now Book I and what is now Book II of the Meditations, the editio princ s contains a sentence which can be translated as llows: "Written in the land of the Quadi, on the banks of the Gran, I . " Between what is now Book II and what is now Book III, it contains the indication "Written in Camutum. " It may have been the Emperor himself who added these two speci cations, as he made r himself a classi cation of the notes he had written.
Camutum was a military base which the Romans had established starting at the beginning of the rst century B. c. on the Danube, not r om Vienna, and it was home r several thousand legionnaires. A small town had sprung up near the camp, with an amphitheater which was built in the second century. It was there that Marcus established his headquarters during his wars against the Quadi and the Marcomanni, om 170 to 173.
The river Gran is still called either by this name or by that ofthe Hron; it ows om north to south through Slovakia, andjoins the Danube in Hungary. Marcus' allusion to this river is invaluable: it reveals to us that the Emperor was not content to direct operations om the rti ed camp at Camutum, but that he had crossed the Danube and had pene­ trated the territory of the Quadi-a Germanic people who, together with the Marcomanni, had invaded the Empire in 169-tO a distance of more than 60 miles.
To what books of the Meditations do these two notations refer? The allusion to the Quadi is placed between Books I and II, whereas the mention of Camutum comes between Books II and III. In antiquity, indications ofthis kind could appear either at the beginning or at the end of a book. If these two notes were placed at the end, then the rst one refers to Book I, and the second to Book II. If they were placed at the beginning, then the rst one refers to Book II, and the second to Book III. Historians have adopted both views, without ever ishing decisive proo£ I am inclined to llow G. Breithaupt47 and W. Theiler48 in thinking that these indications were placed at the beginnings ofBooks II and III respectively.
It is most interesting, and even moving, to note that at least a part of the Meditations was written during the Roman operations carried out on
the Danube in 170-173-not only in the relative calm of a military headquarters, but amidst the discom rt ofan expedition into the land of the Quadi. This situation may explain the distinctive tone ofBooks II and III: the haunting presence ofthe theme ofdeath. There is no more time to read; it's not the moment to wander. I nd it easy to believe that this warlike atmosphere explains the decision Marcus seems to make in Book II to concentrate on the practice ofthose spiritual exercises which would help him nally to live the philosophical life which he should have lived, and would have liked to live, all throughout his life.
Although I have no proo I suspect that the manuscript which was copied by the editio princeps contained other indications of this kind, which were omitted by the editor. Thus, we do not know where the other books were composed. Are we to suppose, with Breithaupt,49 that the books which deal with the court and with speeches to the Senate were written between November 176 and August 178, after Marcus had returned to Rome? But already at Carnutum, Marcus could very well have thought in a general way about his li as an emperor. It is very likely that Books IV to XII were written between 173 and 180, when Marcus died.
Let us return to the indication placed between Books I and II: "Writ­ ten in the land ofthe Quadi, on the banks ofthe Gran, I. " How can we explain the number I, if this indication refers to Book II? What is now Book I, in which Marcus, in a style wholly di erent om that of the Meditations properly so called (Books II-XII) evokes all that he has re­ ceived om men and om the gods, seems to be a text in its own right, which has its own unity, and which was placed at the beginning of the Meditations, if not by Marcus himself, then at least by an ancient editor. Thus, what is now Book II was in ct the rst book of the Meditations properly so called. 50 This would explain the number I after the indication "Written in the land ofthe Quadi"; it must have been introduced by an editor or a secretary who had numbered the various groups of notes which Marcus had written.
Moreover, it is legitimate to suppose-although it cannot be proved with certainty-that what is now Book I was written very late in the Emperor's life. This book gives the impression that it speaks on of people who have died. Since the Empress Faustina, who is mentioned in these pages,51 died in 176, it seems that this book was written between
176 and 180. Perhaps it was written at Rome between 176 and 178, after the revolt of Avidius Cassius, when Marcus returned om his great eastern voyage; or perhaps it was at Sirmium, Marcus' headquarters om
THE INNER CITADEL
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations
1 78 to 1 80, when war with the Germans broke out again. It was probably at Sirmium that Marcus died, on March 1 7, 1 80. The present-day Book I, which has a marked unity with regard both to its style and to its overall structure, seems alien to the literary project of the Meditations properly so called (Books II-XII). It is now located at the beginning like a kind of introduction, but it is really more of a parallel work; it is obviously related to the Meditations (in Book VI, 30, r example, we can discern an initial sketch ofthe portrait ofAntoninus Pius), but it repre­ sents a wholly di erent psychic disposition. Book I is a prayer of thanks­ giving, whereas Books II to XII are a meditation on the Stoic dogmas and rule oflife. These latter books were composed on a day-to-day basis, with each thought llowing without any connection to the previous thought; whereas Book I was written at a precise moment, and in ac­ cordance with a precise plan.
Books II-XII
As discussed previously, it is not certain whether the twelve books as we have them today corresponded to twelve groups of meditations which, in the eyes of their author, had their own unity, de ned by one or more dominant themes. In that case, they would a ow us to glimpse some­ thing ofMarcus' personal preoccupations, or ofwhat he happened to be reading. Or is this grouping into twelve books purely accidental, perhaps a result of the rm and dimensions of the writing materials that were used? Book I obviously represents a coherent whole in itsel it responds to a very particular intention and is independent om the eleven other books. What can we say about Books II-XII?
At rst glance, the divisions between these groups ofmeditations seem purely arbitrary. The same themes and expressions are repeated through­ out them. The tripartite structure of the disciplines which I have de­ scribed has no influence on the work's literary rm; instead, it is re­ peated in the most varied rms. A precise plan cannot be discerned in any ofthese books, with the possible exception ofBook III, which turns out to be a kind ofseries ofessays on the theme ofthe good man.
Nevertheless, a close examination allows us to discover some charac­ teristics which are peculiar to each of these books: vorite themes, special vocabularies, the greater or lesser equency of the literary rms that are used-whether they are sayings, r example, or rather short dissertations. We are justi ed in supposing that if Marcus wrote his Meditations on a day-to-day basis, and probably during the last years ofhis
THE INNER CITADEL
li , then certain spiritual preoccupations or readings may have in uenced him in di erent ways at di erent moments in the process of composition.
The preferred themes in a given book o en appear by means of a process that I would call "interwoven composition. " Marcus does not gather together one a er the other those meditations which deal with the same subject; instead-probably on a day-to-day basis-he interweaves them with other thoughts which deal with entirely di erent subjects. In other words, after an interruption, which may be very brie he returns to the theme which, r the time being, has retained his attention. Throughout a given book, then, one or more precise themes reappear intermittently, like a leitmotif
Books II and III are very close to each other. Within them, death is sensed as imminent (II, 2; II, 5; II, 6; II, l l; II, 12; II, 14; II, 17), and there is no more time to distract oneselfby reading (II, 2; 3). Marcus decides not to write anything more which does not contribute to the trans rmation ofhis moral life and to his meditation on Stoic doctrines (III, 14). It is urgent that he change his life, especially since he has received so many reprieves om the gods (II, 14). Only one thing counts: philosophy (II, 17, 3), which consists of the three disciplines. First, it means keeping the guiding principle ofthe soul (hegemonikon; II, 2, 4), or-another way ofexpressing the same thing-the soul (II, 6) or else the inner daimon (II, 17, 4; II, 13, 2), ee om the slave offalse thoughts (II, 2, 4). This is the discipline ofthought orjudgment. Second, the soul must be kept pure ofall irritation against events, and accept the portion which has been attributed to it by destiny (II, 2, 4; II, 16, l-2; II, 17, 4); this is the discipline ofdesire. Finally, it must be kept pure ofall egoistic action, or actions which are undertaken lightly or without a goal (II, 2, 4; II, 17; 4); this is the discipline ofaction.
Book III takes up exactly the same themes. We nd in it the same atmosphere of the imminence of death, and Marcus' decision to devote himself exclusively to spiritual exercises intended to trans rm moral life:
Cease your wandering. Don't read your little notebooks any more (III, 14).
We also re-encounter the description ofthe one thing necessary, and the only thing that counts in such an urgent situation: to maintain the purity of one's daimon or guiding principle, in the areas of thought, desire, and action.
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations
It is very interesting, however, to observe how Book III attempts to present these themes om Book II in a much more developed and elaborate way, so that Book III is essentially made up ofa series ofshort dissertations which are all on the same topic: the description ofthe "good man" as an ideal r life, and the enumeration ofthose precepts which permit the realization of such an ideal (III, 9-1 1). An initial attempt is presented in III, 4 (in about rty lines), then brie y taken up again in III, 5 ( r about ten lines), and then nally set rth abundantly once again in III, 6-8 (in about rty lines). The "good man," who has pre­ ferred his inner daimon in every circumstance, and is in some way its priest and its se ant, attains the supreme level of human happiness, which consists in acting in accordance with right reason (III, 7, 2).
Books IV-XII are rather di erent om the two preceding books. First ofall, even ifwe do sometimes nd short dissertations ofthe same kind as those in Book III, especially in Books V, X, and XI, the majority of meditations in these books appear in the rm of short, striking sayings. Marcus himself seems to theorize about this literary genre when he mentions the "spiritual retreat into himsel " which consists precisely in the act ofconcentrating on "short and ndamental" sayings which can dissipate all griefand irritation (IV, 3, 1-3).
Some themes om Books II-III are still present in Book IV: r instance, the theme ofthe imminence ofdeath and the ideal ofthe "good man" (IV, 17; c£ IV, 25; 37):
Don't live as ifyou were going to live r ten thousand years. The inevitable is hanging over you. As long as you are still alive, and as long at it is still possible, become a good man.
As in the previous books, this sense ofurgency does not allow Marcus to waste his time by concerning himselfwith what others do or say (IV, 1 8) ; rather, one must hasten toward the goal by the shortest path possible (IV,
18; 51).
The notion of the daimon disappears almost completely in the later
books, and reappears in the Meditations only sporadically (V, IO, 6; V, 27; VIII, 45, 1; X, 13, 2; XII, 3, 4). By contrast, new themes, which be und throughout all the llowing books, make their appearance. For example, we ndthe dilemma "Providence or atoms" (IV, 3, 6), which I have already discussed at some length.
In Book V, the themes which had dominated Books II and III disap­ pear or become blurred once and r all. In particular, although death is
266 THE INNER CITADEL
sometimes still mentioned as a possibility which might compromise our e orts toward per ction, it is now also present as a liberation r which we must wait with patience and con dence; r it will deliver us om a human world in which moral li -the only thing that counts, and the only valu i s constantly ustrated (V, I O, 6; V, 3 3 , 5).
In another new theme, Marcus exhorts himselfto examine his con­ science (V, I I):
Toward which goal am I using my soul in this moment? Ask myself this question in every circumstance . . .
Similarly, he wonders (V, 3I) how he has behaved with regard to the gods, his mily, his teachers, his friends, and his slaves. Here we recog­ nize the domain of "duties" (kathekonta), which are the subject of the discipline of action. Marcus continues by sketching a kind of balance sheetofhisli (V,31, 2),which,asinV,IO, 6andV,33, 5,givesusto understand that he can wait r death with serenity, since he has had everything he could expect om life.
One particular notion, to which Book II had made only a brief allu­ sion (II, 9), is amply and equently developed in Book V: the distinction between universal Nature and "my" own nature. As we have seen, this distinction is the basis of the opposition between the discipline of desire, which consists in consenting to the ct that I "su er" owing to the action ofuniversal Nature, and the discipline ofaction, which consists in "acting" by virtue ofmy own rational nature (V, 3 , 2; V, IO, 6; V, 25, 2; V, 27):
In this very moment, I have what common Nature wants me to have at this moment, and at this moment I am doing what my own nature wants me to do at this moment (V, 25, 2).
As Marcus says, the road that these two natures llow is, in ct, the same (V, 3 , 2) ; it is the straightest and shortest road. It is here, moreover, that the notion ofthe daimon brie y reappears, and it is extremely inter­ esting to observe an identi cation and an opposition between the "outer" god, who is universal Nature or Reason, and the "inner" god­ the daimon or hegemonikon-who emanates om it (V, I O , 6) :
Nothing will happen to me which is not in con rmity with the Nature ofthe All. It depends on me to do nothing which is contrary to my god and my daimon.
Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations
This is why moral life can be de ned as "a life with the gods" (V, 27):
He lives with the gods who constantly shows them a soul which greets what has been allotted to it with joy, and, at the same time, does everything wanted by that daimon which Zeus [i. e. , universal Nature] has given to each person as a watchman and a guide, and which is a parcel detached om himself This is nothing other than the intellect and reason of each of us.
This theme ofthe two natures is und in otherbooks (VI, 58; VII, 55, XI, 13, 4 ; XII, 32, 3), but never as equently as in Book V.
l ;
Other themes also seem to be characteristic ofBook V. For example, it contains two allusions to a Stoic cosmological doctrine which Marcus mentions very rarely: that ofthe eternal return. Usually, Marcus imagines the metamo hoses ofthings and the destiny ofsouls within the "period" ofthe world in which we are now living, without worrying about the eternal return ofthis period. This is what he does rst, in V, 13, where he begins by a rming that each part ofthe universe, as it is born and dies, is trans rmed into another part ofthe universe. Yet he remarks:
There is nothing to prevent one om talking like this, even if the world is administered in accordance with determinate periods.
In this case, he means, all the parts of the universe will be reabsorbed at the end of each period into the original Fire-Reason, be re they are reborn om this same Fire in the llowing period. Elsewhere, in V, 32, we get a glimpse ofthe immensity ofthe space that opens up be re the soul which "knows"-that is, which accepts Stoic doctrine:
It knows the beginning and the end, and the Reason which tra­ verses universal substance, and which administers the All through­ out eternity, in accordance with determinate periods.
We do not nd another allusion to the eternal return until XI, l , 3 . Finally, an important autobiographical theme also makes its appear­ ance in Book V: the opposition, which constitutes a serious personal problem r Marcus, between the court at which he is obliged to live, and philosophy, to which he would like to devote himself entirely (V, 1 6 , 2). This theme will be taken up again in Book VI (12, 2), and in Book
VIII (9).
The rst meditations of Book VI present a good example of the
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"interwoven composition" of which I have been speaking. Chapter l deals with the Stoic doctrine that explains the constitution of reality by the opposition between the matter of the world-which is docile and ready r any and all trans rmations, and in which there is there re no evil-and the "Reason which guides it," in which there is similarly no place r evil. After three very short meditations, which have no connec­ tion with this problem, Marcus returns (VI, 5) to the theme of the beginning: the action which the "Reason which guides" exerts upon matter. The expression "Reason which guides/governs" (dioikon logos), which is attested in VI, l and 5, is not und elsewhere in the Meditations, with the exception of a quotation om Heraclitus in IV, 46, 3 .