The Emperor Marcus Aurelius

_Our freedom for a little bread we sell, And drudge under some foolish master’s ken Who rates us if we peer outside our pen-- Matched with a palace, is not this a hell?_

“Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those consoling and hope-inspiring marks which stand for ever to remind our weak and easily discou...

Annius Verus, known to the world by his adopted name as the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, was born at Rome in A.D. 121. His father, also Annius Verus, was descended from a Spanish fa...

Plato had said that the world would never enjoy happiness until a philosopher should become king or until a king should become a philosopher. With the accession of Marcus the ru...

There is much truth in the saying, “No man is a hero to his valet”--be his reputed heroism either of the physical or the moral type. Humanity, even at its best, is an imperfect...

A prince of peace, Marcus Aurelius was destined by the irony of fate to live most of his days as a leader of battles. The low rumbling of war from the provinces mingled discorda...

It was in the midst of this active strife that Marcus wrote one of the most introspective and peaceful of books--his Thoughts About Himself (τὰ εἰς ἑαυτὸν βιβλία)--the twelve bo...

Cassius until now had been loyal to the Emperor and had served him well in the war against the Parthians. In that war the worthless debauchee Lucius Verus, Marcus’ colleague, ha...

The peace hastily made in A.D. 175 was broken two years later. The local commanders again proved incompetent to drive back the barbarian hordes, and Marcus had once more to assu...

In reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius we frequently are struck by the almost Christian spirit which permeates them. Mr. F. H. Myers has well said: “Whatever winds of the...

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius have often been compared with the _Imitation of Christ_. The comparison is interesting; and the analysis which it involves of one of the noble...