This is an excerpt from my new biography Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor, published by Yale University Press as part of their Ancient Lives series. Available now in hardback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all good bookstores.
Who was Marcus Aurelius?
Who was Marcus Aurelius the man? Many today came to know him through his portrayal by Richard Harris in the movie Gladiator (2000), and a few may recall Alec Guinness in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)—but these films are only loosely based on history. As it happens, we know more about Marcus Aurelius’s biography than that of any other Stoic or of almost any other ancient philosopher.
Three main Roman histories survive that describe his life and character: the Roman History of Cassius Dio, the History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus by Herodian, and the multi-author Augustan History. We also possess a cache of private letters between Marcus and his rhetoric tutor Marcus Cornelius Fronto that give us exceptional insight into his private life as Caesar (designated heir of the emperor) and later as emperor himself.
The emperor Hadrian features prominently in this book because he had a profound influence on the boy’s upbringing.
In these sources, we encounter colorful characters with whose lives Marcus Aurelius’s story was intertwined. The emperor Hadrian, for instance, features prominently in this book because he had a profound influence on the boy’s upbringing. Marcus Aurelius was born under Hadrian’s rule, later adopted as his grandson, and even brought to live in his villa during the final months of Hadrian’s life.
Hadrian has a reputation today as one of the better emperors, which he owes in part to Marguerite Yourcenar’s celebrated novel Memoirs of Hadrian: as one of his other biographers notes::
“It is no exaggeration to say that for a while Mme. Yourcenar supplanted the academics. Her Hadrian was received as a true image of the real thing.”
Yourcenar’s book, considered by many to be a literary masterpiece, draws on careful research. It was, however, intended as a work of historical fiction, and it portrays Hadrian far more sympathetically than is justified by the historical evidence. It is written from Hadrian’s perspective in the form of letters from him to the young Marcus Aurelius, whose replies we never see. The book you are currently reading is more concerned with that boy’s story—and Marcus Aurelius had nothing positive to say about Hadrian.
Hadrian’s name is conspicuously absent from book 1 of the Meditations, which lists the sixteen family members and tutors whose qualities Marcus most admires. That book is, in a sense, his autobiography, though perhaps it would be better to call it a fragment of an autobiography, as the author tells us only how specific individuals inspired him. He leaves out the others, such as the many critics of his rule who opposed him or came to see him as their enemy. He also omits virtually any reference to the major events of his life.
In this modern biography I build on these fragments, and other sources, to show how Marcus took inspiration from his family and his tutors as a young man, and how he proceeded to apply the Stoic philosophy they taught him to the enormous challenges he faced as emperor.