Meditations

Meditations is a singular work of philosophical self-examination: a series of private notes in which Marcus Aurelius tests his mind against fear, anger, vanity, grief, and the instability of power. Written in Greek and never intended as a polished treatise, it possesses a compressed, aphoristic style shaped by Stoic discipline and the moral vocabulary of Epictetus. Its literary context is that of ancient ethical practice, where writing served not ornament but spiritual exercise, training the so ...