Talk:Marcus Aurelius

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[edit] Marcus Aurelius syncretism

His self-reflections written in Greek and passed down to us without a title are captured in a concise, aphoristic style: not philosophy nor literature but Hellenistic spiritual exercises, in order to manage troubles, like those prescribed at the end of Menoeceus Letter. Contemporary didn't know it: Dio Cassius, Herodianus, Aurelius Victor, Julien the Emperor, Marius Maximus. He never proclaim to be a Stoic, but influence of Epictetus is obvious. The imperial and philhellenic interest of M. in philosophical school in Athens included the Garden. Beside, the Stoics agreed with Epicureans that the inevitable events are not to be feared, because fear is useful, in case, only for the avoidable things: thus both welcomed what happens, what isn't up to us, with contentedness, no sensation pursuit (ataraxia/apathy). For D. Oen. (and Epictetus): "The sum of happiness consist in our dispositions, of which we are masters [Max.112, Ferguson Smith ed.]; some Stoics didn't believe in soul's immortality; the very soul get transformed and becomes: "a different animal [...] no breakdown of disintegration [VIII, 58]": inevitable and no damaging for each involved part, (X,7). They dissented no doubt about human freedom and political values. No Nature-God-Logos, but natural many-sided mutual Born; no happy obedience-duty to Destiny (unmoved by otherwise), but beyond katastêmatikòs edonè of deterministic fulfilled needs an utilitarian evolutionary freedom through variations.
Like Epicureans, Marcus was inclined to consider human political activities as of no intrinsic value: "A procession's vain pomps, plays on the stage..., fame after death is only forgetfulness" [Book VII.3] and to be more frequently open-minded about the rational organization of the universe and its lack of perfection: no pride and narrow mindedness like Cato, but not idiosyncrasies either like Zeno.

Whether there be atoms or a Nature [...] I remember that I am a part of such a whole, I shall be well pleased with all that happens [... Book X 6.] and is allotted as issuing from the same source, whatever it be, from which the man himself has issued; and above all waiting for death with a good grace as being but a setting free of the elements of which every thing living is made up. But if there be nothing terrible in each thing being continuously changed into another thing, why should a man look askance at the change and dissolution of all things ? For it is in the way of Nature, and in the way of Nature there can be no evil. [Meditations, Book II 17]

In his confidential booklet he utilizes Epicurus without quoting him too. Among the less widespread, he recognized the effectiveness of distraction from pain and trouble, perhaps better than exertions of apathy:

"During my illness [... Epicurus says] I didn't talk to my visitors about such matters. All my time was spent contemplating natural philosophy, reasoning on its most important points, [IX, 41] ". "(in untimely death) one cannot lose past time nor future time he don't possesses [...] (the one who believes though to lose it) if he dies whether burdened with age or at once he he's always feeling loss of the same thing [II, 14]." "To live a present day as if were the last day" [VII,69]" "Whether an orderly world, or a fortuitous cluster, but to some extent in order" [by swerve and some human freedom] [IV, 27].

The Stoic Marcus was aware of the rigor and loneliness of his faith, and this seems to be an Epicurean afterthought*: (At sage's throes of death somebody sometime may think) "Enough of this pedant! [...] he was not bad, but in his hearth he looked down on us peacefully" [X, 36]. His moral schematism had repressed his own former homosexuality (unconscious duplicity, with psychosomatic disorders, opium addiction; Christian persecutions) [see: Fronton, 'Ad M. Caes.', II, 5, 1]. M.A. was chosen and educated by gay emperor Hadrian, he too adopted son of sterile Plotina with her Epicurean faith and library, of course]; he accepted bastard children, dissipated brother Lucius Verus (he proclaimed 'divine'), docker/gladiator-phile wife/cousin Faustina, finally suicidal (with gift of money by M.A. to the gigolos, and blunted weapons at circus...): all ennobled by logos-providence and praised in his self-reflections. Aurelius Victor the historian attributed him the hidden thought "If I repudiate my wife, I should repudiate her dowry too [that is Empire]". Marius Maximus' Vita Divi Marci is lost.

• "I urge toward continuous pleasures, not to empty virtues..." [Epic. Letter to Anaxarchus. U116]