Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning.
A philosopher without clothes and one without books. “I have nothing to eat,” says he, as stands there half-naked, “but I subsist on the logos [reason].” And with nothing to read, I subsist on it too.
These unconnected lines are taken from the Meditations , a book of aphorisms written by a ruler of Rome in antiquity. Like many educated Romans, the writer thought of Greek as the language of philosophy and that is the language this work was written in, by emperor Marcus Aurelius. Like the Dhammapada , his Meditations is an easy read but, although well-known, is not commonly read. Like the Dhammapada , a collection of sayings attributed to the Buddha, the thinker in the Meditations is aware of the external world and its relationship to the individual. Marcus was a Stoic — a follower of the philosophy that stressed virtue and the present moment.
One of the five good emperors
The name Meditations was given to the work later. The work originally had no name and was not intended for publication. Other emperors had written before him, including, as we have seen in these pages, Julius Caesar, one of the great writers of Latin. But none revealed his thinking and his humanity as Marcus did.
Marcus Aurelius was the last of the ‘five good emperors’ of Rome. The description comes from the Italian political scientist Machiavelli, who thought that these men represented the best of Rome. These were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. Marcus was emperor from AD 161 to 180. As a ruler, Marcus was seen as a very fine administrator, a hands-on type who spent much time on disputes and letters and petitions (he reminds the reader of Aurangzeb, whose style was similar). He was, and here also he resembles the last of the Great Mughals, someone who knew war. After a setback and the loss of two legions, Caesar Augustus had stopped the northward expansion of Rome halfway into Germany a century and a half before Marcus.
But the press of the Germanic tribes towards the Mediterranean was irresistible and Marcus went to battle with the Marcomanni and Quadi tribes a few months into his reign. It is during this fighting that he begins writing. In fact, the Meditations begins with the line “Among the Quadi at the River Granua”. These experiences conditioned what he thought and what he wrote and they enrich the Meditations .
Stoicism emphasised harmony and orderliness. Marcus takes it for granted that human beings are hierarchical and there exists no such thing as equality. To him justice does not accommodate equality and certainly does not mean it. Justice means that we must treat people as they deserve to be treated.
Being good
The Meditations was not famous in the first millennia after it was written. It was rediscovered when Europe fell in love with the ideas of the classical Greek world, and has remained popular ever since. In part this is because of its quality, and in part because of its accessibility (unlike, say, the works of philosophy of Aristotle or Plotinus).
Indians in particular will find a lot that is familiar in the writing of Marcus. His adherence to Stoic principles of avoiding the sensory stimuli is very much a part of the Gita ’s message too. The ethics of being good is expressed in similar terms as the philosophy of Dharma.
This is how Marcus approaches the idea that some divine power controls everything in the world.
“If the gods have made decisions about me and the things that happen to me, then they were good decisions — it’s hard to picture a god who makes bad ones. Why would they spend their energy on causing me harm? What good would it do to them or this world, which is their first concern?
And if they have not made decisions about me as an individual, surely they have about the welfare of all and I welcome and embrace all that comes as a result.
However, if they make no decisions at all — and I accept that it is blasphemy to think this, because it means all our prayers, oaths and sacrifices are useless… if they make no decisions at all, well, at least I can still make decisions.”
There is something of the Upanishads in this. A healthy scepticism, a pride in the ability of the self to think and be independent and yet be a part of this universe.
The writer is a columnist and translator of Urdu and Gujarati non-fiction works.
