Even before he died Marcus Aurelius was thought of as being a philosopher-king, and that reputation endured long after his death. Some may think it a faux pas to call him a king because he was an emperor. But a Roman emperor was much less likely to refer to himself as imperator than as princeps, which means basically leader. In the eastern half of the empire, where far more people spoke Greek than Latin, emperors were regularly called kings ( basileis in Greek ) . So, labelling Marcus a philosopher-king seems fair. The biggest reason for this is that he was keenly conscious of his extraordinary position, and he soberly reflected on the claim of Plato’s character Socrates that until philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers, uniting political power and philosophic wisdom, there can be no end to troubles for states or humanity ( Rep. v. 473d–e ) . Marcus writes: ‘Do what nature now demands. Get on with it, if given the chance, and don’t look around to see whether anyone will know what you’re doing. Don’t expect to create Plato’s Republic, but be satisfied with making the smallest progress, and count that as no tiny accomplishment' ( Mem. ix.29 ) . Marcus understood that his responsibility to the empire was to do what he could to inch it forward, improve it incrementally through small actions, concatenated over weeks and months. No grandiose transformation of the likes of Plato’s politico-philosophical vision was possible in the real world, as Plato himself recognizes in the Republic. Marcus could not legislate a dream into reality; he only had the power to enact tiny improvements, with the help of others, as circumstances permitted. Marcus thought he could make himself a better princeps by striving ceaselessly, day by day, to become a better man. In this respect, his political philosophy coincided with his personal ethic of self- improvement. [ … ]

The objection can be raised that Marcus was not much of a philosopher. He was never a philosophy teacher and never lectured to students as Musonius Rufus and Epictetus were and did. His only pseudo-philosophical work was the Memoranda , which is a jumble of notes on a handful of moralizing themes presented in repetition. In contrast, Seneca’s huge corpus includes 124 letters instructing a friend on moral progress and details of Stoic theory, a dozen carefully crafted essays on a range of philosophical topics, a seven-book-long treatise on natural philosophy, cosmology, meteorology, geology and hydrology, and eight tragedies rich with philosophical motifs. Moreover, Marcus himself seems to admit he lacks the chops of a real philosopher. He expresses gratitude ‘that when I grew interested in philosophy I didn’t fall into the clutches of a sophist, nor did I get mired in writing treatises, or parsing syllogisms, or preoccupied with celestial phenomena’ ( Mem. i.17 ) . Thus, this objection goes, Marcus was, and admitted that he was, a dilettante, not a bona fide philosopher.

These are poor reasons to discount Marcus’ philosophical aptitude. First, many of his teachers were Stoic philosophers: Apollonius of Chalcedon, Sextus of Chaeronea, Junius Rusticus, Claudius Maximus, and Cinna Catulus. He also attended the lectures of the Peripatetic Claudius Severus. Marcus received a fine education in philosophy, and above all Stoicism. Second, the fact that he did not lecture to students was not because he did not understand Stoic doctrines, but because he was groomed to rule, not to teach in a classroom. Indeed, Marcus’ Memoranda have been studied as a valuable philosophical text by thousands of people for centuries. Third, the fact that the Memoranda packages reflections and arguments differently than the letters and moral essays of, say, Seneca is no justification for denying its philosophical content. Marcus explicitly states in the Memoranda that his purpose is to retreat into his own mind to gain peace and free himself from worries, in contrast to the unphilosophical, who try to escape their troubles by retreating to the countryside, the seaside or the mountains ( iv.3 ) . Philosophy is Marcus’ refuge, his inner resource for self-renewal. He tells himself to be sure that his inner resources are concise and elemental, so that when he turns to these fundamental truths, they will instantly cleanse him of all perturbation and return him refreshed and devoid of resentment to his duties and tasks ( iv.3 ) . The brevity of the reminders in his notes is thus a deliberate choice of curative therapy for dispelling distress and correcting harmful thoughts. Rehearsing concise reminders of Stoic doctrines is his regimen of practising philosophy as a way of life. It is a mental technique, a therapy, for chiselling away his flaws and moulding himself into a better person.

This book extract is from William O. Stephens' Marcus Aurelius: Philosopher-King . Reaktion Press 2025. We thank the author for his contribution. A review of this book can be found in this issue of THE STOIC.

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