Marcus was the closest thing the world has ever witnessed to Plato’s ancient ideal of the philosopher-king. Indeed, we’re told that he frequently quoted Plato: “that those states prospered where the philosophers were kings or the kings philosophers.” He did have enemies, though. In 175 AD, toward the end of his reign, Marcus faced a civil war when the governor-general of the eastern provinces, Avidius Cassius, had himself acclaimed as a rival emperor by the Egyptian legion. Cassius was a cruel general, known to torture his prisoners of war and deserters alike. He criticized Marcus for being a weak and unmanly ruler, calling him “a philosophical old woman.” After only three months, however, Marcus won the civil war when Cassius’ own officers ambushed and beheaded him. 

Marcus actually tackles the question of masculinity head-on in his personal notes on Stoic philosophy as a way of life, known today as Meditations. 

Manliness and fatherhood

Tragically, his father died when Marcus was a child, perhaps as young as three years old. We don’t know the circumstances. Marcus only knew him through early childhood memories and what he learned from family and friends about his father’s reputation, which he sums up in just two words: “modesty and manliness” (Meditations, 1.2). Other Roman nobles would have regarded “modesty” as evidence of weakness. Marcus, on the contrary, saw the modesty for which his father was known as a sign of his manliness and strength of character. For Marcus, the ability to show kindness and compassion toward others, rather than wallowing in anger, was one of the most important signs of true inner strength and manhood.

Although he lost his father before he even had a chance to know him, Marcus was fortunate to be adopted as a teen by a Roman noble destined to become the emperor known as Antoninus Pius. Marcus made Antoninus Pius his role model in life. Meditations lists in great detail the qualities Marcus most admired in his adoptive father and sought to emulate. The first thing he mentions is that Antoninus was “gentle.” He was “never harsh, or implacable, or overbearing,” and never worked himself up into a lather over anything (Meditations, 1.16). For Marcus, the ability to show kindness and compassion toward others, rather than wallowing in anger, was one of the most important signs of true inner strength and manhood.

Manliness and mastering anger

In Meditations, Marcus goes into detail about Stoic strategies for mastering our feelings of anger. He concludes by saying something remarkably ahead of its time:

And when you do become angry, be ready to apply this thought, that to fly into a passion is not a sign of manliness, but rather, to be kind and gentle. For insofar as these qualities are more human, they are also more manly. It is the man who possesses such virtues who has strength, nerve, and fortitude, and not one who is ill-humoured and discontented. Indeed, the nearer a man comes in his mind to freedom from unhealthy passions [apatheia], the nearer he comes to strength. Just as grief is a mark of weakness, so is anger too, for those who yield to either have been wounded and have surrendered to the enemy.  -  Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.18

Marcus, like other Stoics, didn’t believe that all feelings of anger and grief are signs of weakness. The Stoics accepted that there is a type of emotional reaction that’s inevitable in certain situations. Here, he’s talking about what they called the unhealthy passions, feelings such as fear or grief that someone indulges in and magnifies beyond the bounds set by nature. The wise man, by contrast, doesn’t add to this initial spark of anger or perpetuate it any further. To do so, according to Marcus, is a sign of true weakness. Although he seemed like a powerful figure, the cruel usurper Avidius Cassius was, in this sense, actually a very weak man. He lacked the strength of character and freedom from passionate grief and anger (apatheia) exhibited by Marcus’ birth father and role models such as his adoptive father, Antoninus.

To be more manly, you must first be more human

One of the pitfalls of defining manliness is the potential implication that women don’t possess the qualities you’re describing. The Stoics avoided that by insisting that the virtues are fundamentally the same in men and women. However, they manifest in superficially different ways in each of us, depending on our nature and circumstances. It would be more accurate to say that Marcus is describing prerequisites for manliness, required for humans to fulfill their nature properly –  “insofar as these qualities are more human,” as he puts it, “they are also more manly.” Stoics believed that anyone, whether male or female, required this moral and practical wisdom in order to reach their potential in life.

Elsewhere, Marcus affirms his desire to live up to Antoninus’ example and become “one who is manly and mature, a statesman, a Roman, and a ruler” (Meditations, 3.5). To him this means being able to perform his duties, and even face death, in good cheer, without being dependent upon support from others. He sums it up in the maxim: “you must stand upright, not be held upright.” 

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