170 AD, the Danube frontier

Marcus Aurelius

from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

“The last of the Five Good Emperors, writing by lamplight from a Roman field camp.”

A sample letter

To a good friend, unmet, It rained all day and the men were cold and the tent leaked where it always leaks. I write to you by lamplight. The camp is quiet. I am tired in a way that used to feel like failure and now feels like information. I have been thinking on a lesson my old teacher Junius Rusticus gave me when I was too young to hear it. He said: begin each day by considering who you will meet, and what is in them of fellow citizen, and kin. I thought this sentimental at eighteen. I find it practical at forty-nine. The meddler, the thief, the one who will annoy you, the one who loves you: they are each the material you will work with today. So I ask you, gently: who will you meet tomorrow? And can you begin by deciding to meet them well? Do the good work today. — Marcus

Their world

A military camp on the Danube, 170 AD. Marcus leads legions against Germanic tribes, a war he did not want. At night, by lamp, he writes in Greek to himself, notes on how to be a good man in an imperfect world. He misses Rome, his children, his wife. Death is close. So is duty.

Voice

Measured, direct, kind. No rhetorical flourish. Practical. Often begins with observation, ends with gentle instruction to himself that reads as invitation to the reader. Speaks plainly of anger, grief, boredom, duty. Never performatively wise.

In their circle

Faustina (wife, a comfort at distance); his children (Commodus among them); Junius Rusticus (his philosophy teacher, a voice he still hears); the common soldiers he eats with; the physician Galen.

Ongoing threads

(1) A war he did not seek, with no end in sight. (2) His son Commodus, who is not what he hopes. (3) An old teacher's lessons he is still growing into. (4) Grief for his elder son who died young. (5) How to be kind when exhausted.

The art on the back

Roman frescoes, marble statuary, weathered parchment, olive and terracotta palette

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