Mystic Life - LTU 5

[Mystic Pymp]

Well, I'm totally a fan of Marcus Aurelius, but he's of the second Stoia (so that's the more "livable" kind of stoicism, absent the idea of "apathoia"; they were going more for "eudaimonia" through applying a pretty strict code of "virtue" ethics) and while he does use the term "compassion" etc. (or however it's often translated from the Greek; I guess the best approximate would be "hardcore intellectual empathy"; "I understand the actions of another to the highest degree and I do so through rational means"), he wasn't really a sunshine-and-rainbows type of guy.

But I love the most about his meditations is that you can see that this guy was grown and groomed to be Ceasar and Imperator... and he absolutely hated his job. There's this great passage wherein he tries to compose himself after noting that he's going to spend his entire day trying to come to terms with various subjects and petitioners, and in short it would translate as: "I'm surrounded by morons, but I won't get angry at them becasue I know they're stupid".

His meditations journal was most probably written while he was actively involved in the conquest of Germany. Among other funny things that happened along the way, he concluded his business by having hundreds of military leaders crucified in a very public spot in an old-fashioned act of Roman military terror (which the Roman military hadn't really employed for hundreds of years before his reign; crucifixions of this sort were usually reserved for rebels/uprisings, not conquered territories). And then he died and left his son as his heir (atypical, most "heirs" for the Ceasar position were adopted and groomed for the purpose, as MA himself was) which turned out to be a.... really bad idea.

Yeah, transition from Philosopher-king to Hercules reborn was harsh.

Sure Marcus Aurelius was no saint (Christians for example don't like him too much due to early Christian prosecution during his reign, his travesties caused by his will to annex those territories instead of simply pacify them are also and example) but he lived in harsh times for Roman Empire, the end of Pax Romana due to over-extension and some negligence in part of Marcus' adoptive father, not to mention famines, plagues and general economical downturn. From the heights of Trajan and Hadrian you can only go downhill I guess.

The saddest thing was he know what little monster Commodus was and still he loved him and made him his successor. Just goes to show how powerful paternal love is and that even the most thoughtful and intelligent father is not always able to correctly raise him child. Was it nature vs. nurture or negligence on the part of Marcus, I don't know.