How to Succeed in Politics Without Losing Your Sanity—or Your Soul
A review of "Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor" by Donald Robertson.
Here at The Liberal Patriot, we’ve given some thought as to how regular citizens and political leaders can improve the quality of our national politics and shared public life so that, among other things, a new vital center can emerge from our current era of polarization. We’ve looked at public opinion data to see what voters actually want but aren’t getting from their political leaders and offered ways to build relationships with our fellow citizens outside politics in arenas like sports. But we’ve also looked back to ancient philosophy for guidance, whether from philosophers like Seneca and Epictetus themselves or modern exegetes like the philosophy scholar Massimo Pigliucci.
The ancient figure perhaps most associated with the amalgam of practical politics and philosophical rumination remains the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who ruled in the second half of the second century of what’s now called the Common Era. When he sat down to reflect and write notes to himself in his personal philosophical journal, however, Marcus couldn’t possibly have imagined he was creating one of the most popular and enduring works of philosophy in history. Over the centuries, countless individuals from every rank and station have read and taken solace from the thoughts inscribed in his notebooks—what we now call the Meditations. Marcus never intended his journals for publication, and as much insight as the Meditations can give us into his inner life—and they give quite a lot—they can seem somewhat detached from their historical context.
Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor, the new and eminently readable biography by cognitive psychotherapist Donald Robertson, provides just that context. A leading light in the modern revival of Stoic philosophy, Robertson directly and elegantly draws out the connections between Marcus’ experiences in the unforgiving crucible of Roman imperial politics and the philosophical ideas he expresses in the Meditations. Robertson’s biography stands as an invaluable companion to the Meditations itself, rounding out our picture of Marcus himself and putting his philosophical exercises into the broader perspective of his life and times. It also reminds us that Marcus came of age and ruled as emperor in the often brutal and sometimes lethal political culture and public life of the Roman Empire at the height of its own power and influence.
Politics and public life are thankfully less dangerous and sanguinary in our own day and age. But as Robertson’s lively biography of Marcus shows, it’s possible to adhere to high standards, fulfill our duty to participate in public life, and govern effectively—even in much more trying and precarious circumstances than we find ourselves today.
The Life and Times of Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius was born into Rome’s elite. His mother, Domitia Lucilla, inherited a major construction business from her parents (Robertson calls her “one of the leading magnates of the Roman construction industry of the second century CE”), gave generously as a philanthropist, and cultivated a circle of friends and intellectuals that included leading admirers of Greek culture and philosophy. His father, Marcus Annius Verus, had family ties to the imperial household—his aunt was wife of the Emperor Hadrian—and appeared destined for high office, but died when Marcus was just a toddler.
From an early age, Marcus was seen by Hadrian as a potential successor to the imperial throne—and Marcus himself took an early interest in philosophy, no doubt due to the influence of the mothers and the tutors she hired to teach him. Marcus displayed a tendency toward plain speaking, even in the company of the emperor, earning the sobriquet “Verissimus” (a play on his family name Verus, meaning “Truest” or “Most True”) from Hadrian.
But Hadrian grew increasingly erratic and paranoid once he returned to Rome in 133 CE after a lengthy tour of the provinces; at age 12, Marcus would have a front-row seat to Hadrian’s descent into madness. The emperor built a network of spies and informers known as the frumentarii that “began to function more like the secret police of a totalitarian state,” forcing Marcus and everyone else in Rome, no matter how distant from the imperial court, to watch what they said about Hadrian—even in private. Purges and executions of political elites, some of them not-so-distantly related to Marcus, followed.
These years left their mark on Marcus, and he would allude to them later in life in the Meditations. Looking back, Marcus recalled the often-brutal nature of life at the imperial court and reminded himself to do nothing hidden behind walls or curtains. “These words take on a sinister meaning,” Robertson notes, “when we realize they came from someone who grew up in a regime in which informers, even in his own home, could be opening his letters, and watching his every move.”
Marcus has nothing at all to say about Hadrian in the Meditations—an indication, Robertson persuasively argues, of the low esteem in which he held the emperor. Indeed, Marcus seems to have taken Hadrian as a negative example, a model for how not to govern. That’s in marked contrast to the praise Marcus heaps on Antoninus Pius, Hadrian’s successor and his own immediate predecessor as emperor. “In Marcus’s telling,” Robertson observes, “Antoninus was everything Hadrian was not.”
In the Meditations, Marcus goes so far as to call himself “a disciple of Antoninus” and clearly saw his adoptive father and predecessor as his political role model—the person he felt embodied the way Stoic virtues could and should be applied to practical politics and governance. The feeling was mutual, or quickly became so, with Antoninus making Marcus his “righthand man” and “co-emperor in all but name” less than halfway through his 23-year reign. Antoninus didn’t just share supreme power with Marcus, however; he frequently consulted with the Senate and sought its approval for important policy decisions, a practice Marcus continued and expanded to include seeking permission from the body for the use of public funds.
Upon Antoninus’ death in 161 CE, Marcus assumed power as senior emperor with his dissolute adoptive brother Lucius Verus as junior co-emperor. His reign was beset by one crisis after another; as the contemporary Roman historian Cassius Dio put it, Marcus “did not meet with the good fortune he deserved.” Wars against the Parthians in Mesopotamia and a slew of Germanic tribes in the empire’s north, the devastating Antonine plague (named after Marcus’ imperial dynasty and now believed to be a variant of smallpox) that killed millions, and a reign-threatening rebellion by a trusted military commander in Egypt and the Levant all occurred during Marcus’ nineteen eventful years as emperor.
Yet Marcus held the empire together through these harrowing and tumultuous times. He provided state support for burials of plague victims. Physically frail and with little military experience—as Robertson reminds us, he had been trained as a political leader and not a general—Marcus won the respect and devotion of the troops he led in the wars against Germanic tribes on the empire’s northern borders. His magnanimity in the face of rebellion and potential usurpation—Marcus promised to pardon all those involved in insurrection—likely cut it short by encouraging the assassination of its leader, Avidius Cassius, by his own officers. The way Marcus handled this “multitude of troubles,” as Cassius Dio puts it, is as remarkable as the fact that he both survived and kept the empire intact despite them.
What Would Marcus Aurelius Do?
Marcus died in 180 CE, almost certainly succumbing to the same plague that had killed so many of Rome’s subjects. His son, the callow and easily manipulated Commodus, took power, avoiding a potential succession crisis but abandoning his father’s policies and approach to politics. “Marcus Aurelius’s real legacy,” Robertson concludes, “can be found in the example of his own conduct as emperor and in the influence of his surviving writings, known today as the Meditations.”
So what can we learn about politics and public life from Marcus? Robertson’s biography and allusions scattered throughout the Meditations paint a fairly clear picture:
Magnanimity. When faced with the betrayal of one of his top generals and a real prospect of civil war, Marcus didn’t vow vengeance or bemoan his fate. He kept his cool and offered to unconditionally pardon all those involved—including the ambitious instigator, Avidius Cassius. The result, as noted, was a quick end to the rebellion when rebel officers took matters into their own hands and killed Cassius. Germanic tribes likewise frequently went back on peace deals struck with the Marcus, yet Marcus refused to treat his adversaries harshly after their surrenders. No wonder he repeatedly reminds himself in the Meditations to expect betrayal and remember that he and his adversaries share a common humanity—even as he continued to prosecute wars against them.
Courage. By all accounts, Marcus wasn’t the most physically robust specimen—nor did he have much in the way of military training. But he nonetheless took command of Rome’s armies and led them to victory in harsh conditions, earning the undying loyalty of his troops. Marcus also displayed moral courage in refusing to punish those who rebelled against him; he ordered Cassius be given a proper burial and treated his daughter with generosity.
Natural affection. Early on in the Meditations, Marcus praises his mother for instilling him with philostorgia or “natural affection”—a concept Robertson says best corresponds with modern notions of familial or brotherly love, extended to humanity as a whole. When the Antonine plague struck Rome in 166, Marcus didn’t flee to the countryside or another city in the way his physician Galen did. He stuck it out in the imperial capital with his fellow Romans, enacting policies intended to ease the suffering of Rome’s populace and halt the spread of disease given the medical knowledge of the time. Marcus also attempted to prevent religious con artists from “preying on the desperate and gullible” during the plague, in one case pardoning a soothsayer in exchange for a public confession.
Responsibility. Marcus didn’t ask to be emperor and would have preferred to study philosophy full time. He harbored serious doubts early on about the role he was asked to assume, and shortly after his designation as heir apparent he “rattled off a litany of evils associated in his mind with donning the imperial purple.” These apprehensions and concerns never left Marcus; in the Meditations, he reminds himself that it was just as possible to live well at court as anywhere else—not a flattering comparison for the imperial court. He nonetheless did his duty as he saw it and was, Robertson tells us, “painfully conscious of the responsibilities that accompanied his imperial status.”
Perseverance. As much as anything else, though, Marcus relied on philosophy to help him endure and persevere in the face of myriad setbacks and challenges he confronted as emperor. That much is clear from the Meditations itself, where Marcus tells himself to “return to philosophy frequently” so that “what you meet with in the court appears to you tolerable, and you appear tolerable in the court.” Nor did Marcus allow the imperfections, inanities, and insanities of politics keep him from doing his duty and making progress where he could. Or as he put it in the Meditations: “Do not expect the ideal Republic of the philosophers to happen overnight, but be content if even small steps go well, and consider that to be no small matter.”
That, ultimately, is what the life of Marcus Aurelius teaches us: that it’s possible to participate in politics and public life—and even make progress toward our policy goals and political objectives—without betraying our principles or losing ourselves in the process. It’s something we still struggle with in our own day and age, and few of us do as well as Marcus did millennia ago. Marcus reminds us that this isn’t some distant, unreachable goal—it’s one well within our grasp, no matter how lofty or degraded the circumstances of our politics and public life may well be.
If it’s possible for Marcus Aurelius keep his cool and hold fast to his principles even in the cruel and bloodthirsty arena of Roman imperial politics, then it’s possible for those of us living in the far more secure and sanguine democracies of the twenty-first century to do the same.
Wow. Lots to contemplate and learn here. Thanks for this “soulful” review!