Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, translated by Aaron Poochigian

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius, translated by Aaron Poochigian (Liveright, $29.99, 240 pages)

In recent years Stoicism, the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy that stressed self-control as the path to the well-lived life in accordance with nature, has enjoyed an intellectual renaissance. Although it began in Greece, its most famous practitioners and expositors were Roman, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius (121–180 A.D.), the latter a philosopher-king. Aaron Poochigian’s lively translation and Liveright’s beautiful publication of the emperor’s Meditations is an excellent introduction to Stoic thought. Indeed, there may be no better summation of stoicism that Aurelius’s assertion that “Being a puppet to your urges, no value.” Not everything that the stoics said was wise or true – who can make claims to such omnipotence, especially amongst pagans? –  such as when he says “Human lives are brief and trivial.” But much of what he said was good counsel and opening almost any random page will find epigrammatic advice worth following: “When you have done someone good, and he has enjoyed the benefit of it, why do you look for some third thing beyond that?” or “Epictetus says ‘no one can steal free will’,” or “A sound life comes down to examining what each thing is in itself, what makes it up, and what gives it shape, using your whole soul to do just deeds and speak the truth.” In Book 1 of his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius lists the traits he learned from specific others; these include from his father, “modesty and manfulness” and his mother, “piety, generosity, and an aversion to wrongdoing, the very thought of it.” From his boyhood tutor, “to endure discomfort and need little.” From Diognetus, among many other traits, “that I tolerate the free speech of others,” and from Alexander the Grammarian, “not to nitpick.” From Sextus “dignity without pretension,” and from Maximus “a disinclination to give up hope.” Meditations is part autobiography, part diary, part self-help book, and moderns would could do worse than follow the counsel of Marcus Aurelius.

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