Marcus Aurelius is a Roman emperor (161-180) and a Stoic philosopher, born April 26, 121 in Rome, died March 17, 180, probably in Vindobona.
Marcus Annius Verus (originally Marcus Catilius Severus) took, after its adoption by the Emperor Antonin the Pious, the name of Marcus Ælius Aurelius Verus. As emperor, he called himself Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. Cf. below its other names and titles.
Marcus Aurelius, "who cultivated reading all his life, and prevailed over all emperors by the purity of his manners, was the son of Annius Verus, who died a praetor." (Julius Capitolinus, Histoire Auguste.)
His ancestor Annius Verus, consul and prefect of Rome, was added to the patricians by the emperors Vespasian and Titus, during their censorship. His paternal uncle, Annius Libon, was consul; his aunt Galerie Faustine bore the title of Augustus; his mother Domitia Calvilla was the daughter of Calvisius Tullus, who had twice obtained the consulate. His paternal great-grandfather, Annius Verus, after serving in the municipality of Succube in Spain, became a senator. His maternal great-grandfather, Catilius Severus, was twice consul and prefect of Rome. Her paternal great-grandmother was Rupilie Faustine, daughter of Consular Rupilius Bonus.
Marcus Aurelius was born in Rome on the sixth of the May Day (April 26, 121), in the gardens of Mount Celius, under the second consulate of his ancestor and under that of Augustus, into an Italian family who lived in Spain for a long time. . He was raised in the same place where he was born, and in the house of his great-grandfather Verus, near the palace of Lateran. He had a sister younger than himself, and named Annia Cornificia.
At his birth he first bore the name of his great-grandfather, and his maternal great-great-grandfather Catilius Severus. But, after the death of his father, Hadrian named him Annius Verissimus; and when he had taken the manly toga, he was, his father having died, raised, and adopted by his paternal great-grandfather, under the name of Marcus Annius Verus.
After the death of his father, when he was only three years old, the emperor Hadrian took him under his protection and asked, in 138, his adopted son, Antonin, to adopt him in turn and Lucius Verus, the son of the one whom Hadrian had first chosen as heir and who had just died. After his adoption he became Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus.
Historian Dion Cassius makes a particularly revealing judgment of Marc Aurèle’s character. He writes:
What I admire most about him is that in extraordinary and extraordinary difficulties, he managed to survive and save the empire.
This judgment is sometimes challenged by some modern historians who make Marcus Aurelius a fairly ordinary emperor and who, overwhelmed by the difficulties of his task, would have found in philosophy a derivative, a consolation. However, this view is vigorously challenged both by the judgment of ancient historians, almost unanimous in praising the character, and by the majority of modern historians who, without denying the many difficulties of his reign, admit the great moral rigor of the character. .
His masters were, for philosophy, Apollonius of Chalcedon; for Greek literature, Sextus of Cheronee, grandson of Plutarch; for Latin letters and rhetoric, Fronton, the most famous orator of that time. He exchanged correspondence with the latter, which extended from 139, when Marcus Aurelius became his pupil, at 166, the year of Fronton’s death. This correspondence is interesting because it provides valuable details about Marc Aurèle’s personal and family life and Antonin’s court. It also reveals the strong friendship that bound the two men, a friendship sometimes tarnished by a few quarrels as in 146/147 when Marcus Aurelius "converted" to philosophy.
Herodian, in his “Roman History” (Book I) states that “of all the princes who took the quality of philosopher, only he deserved it”. He made it not only to know all feelings and to know how to talk about all things, but rather in an exact and severe practice of virtue. Since subjects have the honor of imitating their prince, we have never seen so many philosophers as under his reign.
The historian Dion Cassius, in his “Roman History” (book 71) teaches us that Marcus Aurelius “was weak in temperament and devoted almost all his time to study; it is said that, even being an emperor, he did not blush to go to his professors, that he frequented the philosopher Sextus of Boeotia, and that he was not afraid to go and listen to the lessons of the rhetorician Hermogenes; moreover, he was mostly attached to the Stoic sect. ”
In 145, he married his sister-in-law Annia Faustina (Faustine the Younger), Antonin’s daughter, of whom he would have many children. Ancient historians have liked to mention the many alleged adulteries of Faustine the Younger, but it is certain that Marcus Aurelius was deeply affected by the death in 176 at Halala in Cappadocia of what the soldiers affectionately called, due to his presence at the side. of her husband in the military campaigns, Mater castrorum (the Mother of the Camps).
His moral qualities and the excellence of the education he received are pointed out by Hadrian, who recognizes in him a possible successor, but too young in 138, he will have to wait for Antonin's death to ascend the throne on March 7, 161. By respect for Hadrian, he then associates his adopted brother Lucius Verus with the Empire.
His reign was marked by the resurgence of wars on all fronts:the philosopher emperor, converted to Stoicism, will have to spend his entire reign trying to bridge all the gaps that open in the borders of a huge and attacked Empire from all sides.
In the year of his accession to the throne the Parthians invaded the eastern provinces of the empire and the Roman army experienced its first disaster. Lucius Verus is sent urgently to the east. If the co-emperor's military capabilities are real, his love of luxury and debauchery quickly leads him to abandon the direction of operations to two excellent generals, Statius Priscus and especially Avidius Cassius. Between 162 and 166, the Romans regained the advantage and seized the two great cities of the Parthian kingdom, Seleucia of the Tiger and especially the capital Ctesiphon.
Domestically, it is doing important legislative work. But his reign is marked by his intolerance of the Christian religion, which is experiencing significant persecution. In 165, Marcus Aurelius persecuted Christians (see persecution of Marcus Aurelius). Justin dies a martyr.
The two emperors celebrated their triumph in 166, but the Roman army returning to Rome brought back in its baggage the "Antonine Plague," a terrible epidemic that wreaked such havoc on the population that some historians have abusively made it the decisive cause of the war. Roman decadence (occurred two centuries later). The social and economic consequences of this epidemic, however, were very serious. The beginning of the reign was marked by great natural disasters that strongly marked the spirits, such as the floods of the Tiber in 161 or the earthquake of Cyzicus in 165.
As soon as the war against the Parthians is over, a new threat appears at the borders. The barbarian peoples settled in the Danube regions, the Quades and the Marcomans, directly threaten northern Italy. The threat is so strong that the two emperors personally go there on 168/169 and spend the winter in Aquileia. In January 169 Lucius Verus died exhausted and ill, leaving Marcus Aurelius as sole emperor. It took the emperor more than five years (169/175) to deal with this threat. He then relied on competent generals such as Claudius Pompeianus his son-in-law, or Pertinax, the future emperor.
Is that then a false rumor - real or pretext? - of the death of Marcus Aurelius leads Avidius Cassius, governor of a large part of the East, to proclaim himself emperor. The allegiance of the governor of Cappadocia, Martius Verus, leaves time for the emperor to raise troops and prepare to march on the rebel. But in July 175 he was assassinated and his head sent to Marcus Aurelius. The latter considers it more prudent, however, to make a trip to the East with his wife, who dies on the way, and his son Commode. He visits Cilicia, Syria, Egypt and then on his way back through Smyrna and Athens where, with his son, he is introduced to the mysteries of Eleusis.
On November 23, 176, the festivities of triumph over the Germanic peoples took place in Rome. Ephemeral triumph because as early as 177 Marcus Aurelius had to go back to war on the Danube border.
It was during one of his campaigns on the Danube that Marc-Aurèle fell ill in Pannonia. He died on March 17, 180, probably struck by the plague (the exact nature of which is unknown) in Vindobona (now Vienna, Austria).
As soon as he felt his end approaching, he cared only for his son Commode, who was only fifteen or sixteen years old, and the emperor feared that he had abandoned himself to such a great youth. he soon forgot the good instructions he had been given, to indulge in excesses and debauchery. Contrary to the wise practices of his predecessors, already begun by Hadrian, he leaves the empire not to the most worthy but to his son, renewing dynastic practices that had been fatal in the first century to the Julio-Claudians and then to the Flavians.>
Doctrine
Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic, his masters of thought were all representatives of the Portico:Epictetus, Apollonius of Chalcedon, Sextus of Cheronea. From this legacy, he made a practical philosophy of life which he set out in his only book, Thoughts for Myself.
Through the twelve books that make up the thoughts, several themes, often in the form of recurring maxims. We have:
* All things participate in a Whole (which he sometimes calls The One, God, Nature, Substance, Law, Reason). We men are parts of this All.
* We must live according to Nature, that is, by following the Law of Nature, and it proceeds from Providence, so all that happens is necessary and useful to the universal world, of which you are a part (Book II).
* It also means living in accordance with the Nature of Man which is reasonable and sociable. We must strive for what is useful and appropriate to the community (Book VII)
* Death is part of Nature, for everything changes, everything is transformed, everything, from eternity, similarly occurs and will reproduce in other forms similar to infinity (Book IX).
* What matters is the present, it’s not the future or the past that depends on you, but always the present.
Philosophical contribution
"Often thinking about the sequence of all things in the world and their reciprocal relations, they could be said to be intertwined with each other and, therefore, have a mutual friendship for each other, and this under the connection that drives it and the unity of matter "writes Marcus Aurelius in Thoughts for Myself (VI, 38). It seems that the philosopher emperor had already grasped more conceptually than physically what Einstein would demonstrate much later:"All forces, all movements, all dimensions, all material characteristics are relative and participate in a unity:the universe."
Marc-Aurèle is part of an "accomplished Stoicism". What do we mean by that? We signify that the emperor had sufficiently integrated the teaching of Epictetus, Seneca, and Zeno to skillfully extend the knowledge of this mastery of the passions which the teaching of Stoicism formulates.
Recognition of the harmony of the pneuma, of that warm breath that runs through our being to lead it to the movement of life and its balance with destiny does not imply any fatalism but requires some practice.
It is to this praxis art that Marc-Aurèle practices. It is from him, in fact, that we hold "this matter for conduct," an ethic in reality very far removed from the Manichean aspect often imposed by collective morality, an ethic close on the contrary to a just discernment in our actions. :"The best way to get revenge is not to look like those who hurt you."
Marc-Aurèle will always be keen to recognize within the complexity of human relationships and even physical training what man can bring in terms of balance both for himself and for the world. Conduct is therefore part of a dynamic that goes beyond the human being in order to be more closely linked to the harmony of one and the same world:"All things are connected with each other and with a sacred knot, and it n "There is almost nothing that has its relations. All beings are coordinated together, all contribute to the harmony of the same world"
The understanding of the philosopher emperor thus comes to promise a certain agreement between what he calls "the inner genius (or demon)", the possibility of apprehending nature through creation, and what nature in turn creates and determines. From this relationship arises a certain wisdom and way of life, an idea of what the universe can bring to the individual as well as what the individual can bring to the universe:"Remember the universal matter of which you are such a thin part; of the endless duration of which you have been assigned such a short moment, and as a point; finally of the destiny of which you are a part and which part! ".
The philosopher emperor confronts his political obligations with the values his Stoic masters taught him, but also with other references:the philosophical contribution of Plato, Epicurus, Democritus, Heraclitus. It is in this sense that Marc Aurèle’s texts retain a definite interest. They do, in fact, emphasize ethical correctness in a policy where the art of deciding must always be articulated with this question:do you want power for power or the exercise of power? In other words, is your ambition to obtain power, or to be able through it to think, say, and act so that a virtuous path is drawn for the city?
Far from being simple to put into practice, this question underscores the concern of an emperor who, holding supreme power, continues to question his own more buried motivations and intentions. This is a lesson that, no doubt, many politicians should meditate on right now. Stopping arguing about whether what one is trying to create is part of a certain ‘kindness’ and a desire to help or a very personal ambition involves the politician to refocus and set a necessary time in its decision making.
Throughout his writings Marcus Aurelius emphasizes the highest values of the human being:Wisdom, Justice, Moral Strength and Temperance, which since Plato are the four main virtues of the Philosopher, those that ensure the consistency and strength of the actions of the latter. The originality of his work lies in the personal tone of "Thoughts for Myself," which testifies to a keen attention to the urgency of "living for good," that is, living with dignity in a world full of unrest, in the urgency of fulfilling his role as a man possessing an "inner genius":a form of intelligence to situate reason and elevate his judgment. The precariousness of human existence, the transience of time, of memory, which engulfs all men, great or small, in oblivion and death; the smallness of man and the earth in the infinity of the universe:such are the great themes of Marcus Aurelius ’philosophy. This so modern insistence is nothing tragic because man has his place in this universe where every being is located in an orderly fashion. By his "inner genius," his reasonable mind (this is not yet rationality), man participates in this divine cosmos. He understands his eternal transformation. This vision therefore eliminates the fear of death which is not annihilation but change, renewal of the universe. We must therefore calmly accept this natural event. The purpose of man is then to live the present with dignity, to play his role which is to be useful to the common good, for all men are connected with nature:"May the future not trouble you because you will come to him, when it is necessary, with the same reason that you use for the present things ".
Marc-Aurèle shows a very high sense of his responsibility in the state, and severely criticizes himself while constantly questioning the purpose of political action:"Get in the habit as much as possible, to ask yourself what The end is related to this action, what does the man who wants to act want? ". In any case, the philosopher insists very long on the idea that the vision of the Whole, of its eternal transformations, elevates our soul. Participating in natural balance by making one’s mind a way to be in harmony with the world participates in our own balance. "The vision of the Whole" goes even beyond this conception of balance, it places the individual in a complex relationship with the whole universe and forces him to think about the multiplicity of relationships between a man and " the totality of existence "(which implies all life but also all duration). That’s why destiny isn’t so foreign to us. Sure, he can sometimes dominate us, but he doesn’t exist without his “actors,” and men are part of it.
This vision completely eliminates false representations, passions (in the sense of suffering), especially ambition, pride, anger, and leads us to be modest, just and benevolent towards every man, our equal as than to be reasonable and sociable, to be listened to by "entering one's soul." The man who follows reason in everything is "quiet and determined at once, radiant and at the same time consistent." In this sense, the emperor was a forerunner of the Enlightenment specifying (like Kant) Reason as the best guide for the understanding and judgment of human beings.
Human reason which is thus the "inner genius" of man becomes that parcel of the divine universal purpose which is providence and to which man must agree because he is, we have understood, as a part in a very particular significant. The originality and modernity of Marc-Aurèle's thought also lies in the radical and already "Cartesian" distinction (intended anachronism) of human intelligence, not only with the body, but also with the soul of material essence. . It is from this physical conception, moreover, that the philosopher emperor then speaks of his ethical considerations which are:"principle of vital functions, mastery of passions" and "mark of the spirit of the time.">
Marcus Aurelius considers himself a "progressive", that is, one who progresses little by little on the path of universal order by living precisely according to nature, but also one who holds his director of consciousness always faced with the harsh reality of events. Therefore, the Stoic demand for the decisions that man must make is progressing and cannot reach total perfection but only a certain serenity:ataraxia.
Thus happiness is possible in what makes nature content with itself, and it does not depend on any external good but on a state of mind in which the individual feels substantially capable of being at peace with himself. even and with the world. Beyond that, one must follow one’s “inner genius” and consider as good and evil only what is up to us because, in reality, one can only truly and justly judge one’s own conduct. This ethical concern for a "desired individual morality" and naturally articulated to the community seems to be the major contribution of Marc-Aurèle's philosophy.
It is also central to recall the importance of a notion dear to the emperor:harmony, the potential to add to the uncertain manifestations of individual or collective existence, a balance leading to a relative share of stability, it -even leaving us the opportunity to understand nature and reflect on our conduct. If the Stoic philosopher emphasizes the impact of this harmony while signifying his own, in his view, ethical justice, it is only to further establish his deeper questioning of universality, of what, as he points out, often in his thoughts, is marked by the seal of perpetual entanglement, that is, by the constant presence of the link which unites each element with all the others. Marc-Aurèle is a thinker of connection, of a relativity of ties that is part of the absolute of a unification that gives meaning to our actions.
Many philosophers have been and still are influenced by the very modern and at the same time ancient vision of Marcus Aurelius and many have seen in him a pragmatic contribution and above all a correctness in affirmation and action, that is. that is, in both ways of deciding and keeping his determination.
Marc-Aurèle’s philosophy is not a system, and while it is not very complex, it nevertheless remains fundamental to any ethical construction.
The great political acts of Marc-Aurèle
Between 175-176 AD, the emperor made a trip to Athens and became a protector of philosophy.
Marc-Aurèle gives a fixed salary to the rhetoricians and philosophers, ensures the recruitment of teachers, ensures in the Senate and with the greatest senators "a council of reflection for the city", creates four teaching chairs for the great philosophical schools:The Platonic Academy, the Aristotelian High School, the Epicurean Garden, and the Stoic Portico. The Emperor is already in favor of a thought for the complementarity of scientific disciplines.
The emperor, concerned with public health matters, did his best to prevent the terrible progression of the plague. Also concerned with the problems of exclusion and indigence, he founded several educational institutions for 5,000 poor girls and canceled debts to the imperial treasury but strengthened his praetorian guard (the guard of the emperor).>
Although he has clearly fostered the development of philosophy, he does not support “the fanaticism of Christians” (in his own words) and cannot tolerate their “fetishism” for Christ. He persecutes them, judging them to be a threat to the unity and even cohesion of the Empire. According to Marcus Aurelius, Christianity uses passions to establish a morality unrelated to nature but above all unthinking.
Despite his modesty and thirst for thought, Marcus Aurelius was forced to fight throughout the empire and had only 4 years of peace out of 25. He had to repel the invaders several times and died in Vindobona (Vienna, Austria) after fell ill during a battle on the Danube.