Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor from 161 to 180, most of it spent on the Danube frontier fighting the German tribes, and in the intervals he wrote, in Greek, for himself, the notebook that later readers called the Meditations. It is the Stoicism of Epictetus practised by the most powerful man in the world: reminders to himself to accept what happens, to do his duty, to remember that he will die and be forgotten, and to be kind. He persecuted Christians, and his son Commodus was a disaster. Gibbon began the decline with his death, and the Meditations have been the emperor’s book for every ruler since.