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For those unfamiliar, it reads easily and has a non-academic feel without sinking to a "dear diary" sappiness. The brief maxims and longer diatribes are not profession in nature or necessarily inspiring, but are timeless all the same, and like the Ecclesiastes and the Upanishads, a practical code to follow. If you expect this book to be anything but common sense and practical idioms you are mistaken. These are real-life politics and wars he is describing, and he's the one responsible for pulling the empire through it. A book I will likely come back to again and again. The genius is this common sense and practical knowledge is tested and elaborated on by the most powerful man on earth at that time and one of the most respected of his empire, a good judge of ethics and morals. Marcus Aurelius neither intended this to be a radical new treatise, or even published for that matter; instead these are the reiterations of a student of Stoicism, reinforcing his willpower in face of his self-acknowledged weaknesses, and in that regard an intriguing, intimate look into one of the few "philospher kings" of Plato's dreaming.His philosophy, sometimes rambling, often redundant, and idiosyncratic (repetition of the theme of afterlife), is nothing new to anyone who has studied Stoicism.
I find this a great hindrance to fluent reading, hence the docked star. This is in any case the thrust of his writing - the aspiration to be more perfect rather than the comfort taken in believing himself already to be so.This is wonderfully accessible writing, as the ancient classics almost always turn out to be. At worst, it shows that Marcus was now and again simply human, and thus imperfect. The writing consists of one aphorism after another, and is undoubtedly best read as a reference/browser over a lifetime, dipping in and out as and when one requires advice or a good perspective on life's travails. The text is the accumulated thoughts of a good man trying to find a right path. Footnotes would be less irritating in that one could read them without having to search for the corresponding entry, but I would have preferred direct integration of the notes with the text.Reading Marcus himself is the purest joy.
Moreover, it is a treasure-trove of sound, ethical advice. It feels a little like lèse majesté to give Marcus fewer than the full five points, but there are many editions of the "Meditations" and only one Penguin Classic, and this edition irritates a little in its layout. There are a substantial quantity of notes, exceeding the size of the text itself, and they are all collected after the text. This is worth bearing in mind, lest he appear to be lecturing others.
I believe there is no strong basis for alleging that he was a monotheist or henotheist.Marcus speaks to himself throughout. I think my judgement is justified nevertheless, because Marcus uses a variety of terms interchangeably to refer to the overall sense and organisation of the Universe, including "Nature" and "the gods". There are occasional, rare, jarring references which rock this impression of a good man here and there: "As for pleasure, pirates, catamites, parricides and tyrants have enjoyed it to the full." His inclusion of "catamites" in such company strikes a sour note in today's more tolerant climate, especially since the Romans were themselves not typically censorious about sexual morality. A copy belongs in every personal library.
These are aberrations, however, and Marcus constantly exhorts himself to accept the character of others and to focus his energies on disciplining his own. There is a strong, secular ethic running through all that he says to himself that resonates strongly with today's ethical thinker and compares so very favourably with the bankrupt, sexually-obsessed religious "morals" more often heard today. One passage speaks darkly of, "A black character, an effeminate, unbending character, the character of a brute or dumb animal: infantile, stupid, fraudulent, coarse, mercenary, despotic."I am not sure to whom he refers, but it appears that this person, if such existed, did not meet with Marcus' unreserved approval. This forces one either to read them separately or to dodge back and forth with each paragraph.
I think I must also be a stoic, if this is what a stoic aspires to, and I suspect that most of us would say the same. There are many references to "god" in the text. I can only say that a single reading cannot suffice to do credit to it in a review. Among other world leaders who have found comfort in Aurelius is William Jefferson Clinton, so the reader is in good company.A superficial reading might undermine my statement about Marcus' Stoicism being a secular ethic.
The translation strays,from time to time,into Hallmark card lingo but not so often to deprive it of 5 stars. One of the great lessons: do not rely on others to determine how you feel about yourself;that power belongs to you alone.The Meditations are Buddhist like in their focus on constant change and the need to msae the most of the moment,now. Get this translation,along with the Penguiin one for a full appreciation of what the Meditations teach us. Or so Aurelius tells us in this excellent translation. Rutherford uses bullet points as well as a Q and A format to help us get the most out of the Meditations.
This only one mistake (concerning the succession), which was done at the end of his life clearly proved that he was still a man, despite the fact that he reached almost the ideal form of the humanity. This book, which is full of good will and good advices for every reader was written by great man, who did only one mistake in his remarkable life.
But he also mentions many times the alternative belief that all is chance and that death will be followed by oblivion. I like this Penguin Classics edition. There is no reward or punishment for our actions in this life. Remember that he wrote this book so that he would have constant and personal reminders to live up to his own philosophy. His descriptions of sexuality are always mingled with tones of disgust.Where the Meditations may be most useful is when we are dealing with some sort of very extreme situation.
It is essential to his ethics however that death is not followed by any sort of hell.Also worth thinking about is whether MA is a man whose philosophy is to be rejected (or, at least, radically modified) because it ultimately makes one less human. True confront embraces vulnerability and fully accepts the whole of our humanity. It is clear that he believes in gods and occasionally talks about God (see 12.2). We must not let our attachments cause us to lose sight of the truth.We may kiss our children good night but we must remind ourselves as we are doing so that they could be dead tomorrow (11.34 in Meditations- this bit of choice advice came from Epictetus).One point about this is that there is a real conflict in MA with his idea that we should accept everything that the gods see fit to visit upon us (an idea expressed too many times to quote a single source) and his desire to not be effected by any of it.
Augustine, of Montaigne, of Machiavelli, of Plato, and of the Buddha (among many others- this list is mine own). MA suspends judgments on all sorts of issues. At his worst, he sometimes seems to be saying that we can chose not to feel our suffering. This is decidedly not a Christian text. What makes Meditations an important book is that it provides the opportunity to discuss what it is to be human, to have a soul, to live a good life with one of the most remarkable men in history.Before I get to that I want to second a suggestion made by several reviewers.
We have a choice about how we respond to our suffering. NO, NO, a thousand times, NO. Hammond will use "sin" where other translators (like Farquharson or Frances Hutchinson) would use "impiety" or "harm". MA, at his best, is saying that and pointing out that we can not let our suffering control our actions. The Meditations is one of those few books that everyone should read for help in working out their own philosophy.
Use two or more translations when you read the Meditations. The introduction by Diskin Clay is useful, the translation by Martin Hammond is mostly accurate and his explanatory notes are very useful. (These essays are referenced in the intro to the Penguin editionof Epictetus' writings. He does not seem to have liked or admired many of his contemporaries and he does not seem fond of the simple pleasures of life. He is such a compelling writer that I think it is all too easy to read MA in a one that avoids how radical are some of his ideas.The desire of MA for some sort of emotional invulnerability is part and parcel of his rejection of quotidian experience. You can use the Amazon preview of that book to see the reference).Does all this mean that I think you should not immediately run out and buy a copy of this book.
So, yes, read MA in the Hammond translation by all means. He belongs in the company of St. By reading this book, you may come to some understanding of what it would be like to live up to your own philosophy.
We all have to come to grips with how we want to live our own lives, what values we want to honor and MA is one of the writers who will help you work that out. There are some solid suggestions for further reading and several useful indices (of Names, of Quotations, and a General Index).My one qualm about the translation is that Hammond sometimes makes the book sound a little Christian. There are two Naval Academy essays by John Stockdale about how he survived his imprisonment during the Vietnam War using the philosophy of Epictetus that delve into the full complexity of that philosophy.
I would argue that true acceptance does not seek invulnerability. There is nothing in Marcus Aurelius (MA) of final judgment. With MA, everything is to be thought through with the corrosive that is reason.
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