Latest / Marcus Aurelius: Rome's Philosopher King — Fexingo History / Marcus Aurelius and the Stoic Response to Disaster
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- Lucas: So, we’ve talked a lot about Marcus Aurelius as the philosopher emperor, but I want to dig into something we haven’t really touched on: how he actually used Stoicism to cope with the disasters that hit Rome in the late 160s. I mean, the guy was facing the Antonine Plague, the Marcomannic Wars, and even a revolt from one of his top generals, all at once. Luna: Wait, a revolt? We hadn’t really covered that. Who revolted? Lucas: Avidius Cassius. He was the general who had commanded in the East during the Parthian War, and in 175 AD, while Marcus was fighting on the Danube, Cassius declared himself emperor. It was a serious crisis, because Cassius had the support of several eastern provinces, including Egypt, which was the empire’s breadbasket. Luna: So Marcus had to deal with a plague, a war, and a rebellion all at the same time. How did he even handle that? Lucas: That’s exactly the question. And the answer, I think, lies in his Stoic training. He had been studying philosophy since he was a boy, and by this point, he was writing his Meditations — those are basically his personal notes to himself, a kind of philosophical diary. And in them, we can see him grappling with these very events. Lucas: For instance, when the plague hit Rome around 165 AD, it killed millions. Estimates range from 5 to 10 million people across the empire. Marcus lost friends, colleagues, and possibly even his wife Faustina a few years later. In the Meditations, he writes things like, ‘You have been a citizen of this great city, the universe. What does it matter if for five years or fifty?’ That’s straight Stoic cosmopolitanism — the idea that we’re all part of a greater whole, and our individual lifespan is just a drop in the ocean. Luna: That’s beautiful, but also incredibly hard to actually believe when you’re in the middle of it. Lucas: Absolutely. And Marcus wasn’t a robot. In his letters to his old tutor Fronto, you can see his grief more rawly. In one letter, he writes about the death of a child — probably one of his own, since he lost several — and he says, ‘I am in such sorrow that I can hardly write.’ So the Meditations aren’t his whole story; they’re the voice he cultivated to get through it. Lucas: Now, the revolt of Avidius Cassius is particularly interesting because it forced Marcus to confront the fragility of his own position. Cassius was a trusted general, and his rebellion showed that even the most loyal could turn. But Marcus’s response was very Stoic: he refused to hate Cassius. In the Meditations, he says, ‘The best way to avenge yourself is not to become like the wrongdoer.’ He even ordered that Cassius’s family be spared after the revolt was crushed. Luna: He spared the family? That’s remarkably merciful for a Roman emperor. Most would have killed them all. Lucas: Exactly. And that clemency wasn’t just a political move; it was a philosophical principle. For Stoics, anger is a passion that clouds judgment. Marcus believed that acting with reason — what the Stoics call logos — was the only proper response. So even when Cassius was killed by his own soldiers, Marcus mourned him. He said, ‘I have lost a relative.’ That’s from Cassius Dio. Luna: Wow. So he saw Cassius as a tragic figure, not a villain. Lucas: Right. And this connects back to the plague and the wars. Marcus saw all these disasters as part of the natural order, what he called ‘the nature of the whole.’ He believed that everything that happens is either necessary, or beneficial, or at least not evil — because the universe is rational. So the plague, the war, the rebellion — they were all opportunities to practice virtue. Lucas: But here’s the thing: that philosophy was tested to the limit. The Marcomannic Wars dragged on for years, and Marcus died on the frontier in 180, probably of the plague himself. In his final days, according to the Historia Augusta, he told his friends, ‘Why do you weep for me? Instead, think of the plague and the common death.’ He was still being a Stoic to the end. Luna: That’s almost heartbreaking. He never really got a break from the crises. Lucas: No, he didn’t. And I think that’s what makes his Meditations so powerful. They’re not abstract philosophy — they’re a man talking to himself in the dark, trying to find a way to keep going. He writes, ‘When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and I know that the wrongdoer is my brother.’ That’s not just a nice sentiment; that’s a survival strategy. Luna: It’s almost like a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, isn’t it? Lucas: Exactly. And modern psychologists have actually noted that Stoic practices are very similar to CBT. Marcus was essentially training his mind to reframe events, to focus on what he could control — his own judgments — and let go of what he couldn’t. The plague, the war, the rebellion — none of those were up to him. But his response was. Lucas: So when we look at Marcus Aurelius as the philosopher king, we often focus on his writings or his reforms. But I think his real legacy is how he endured. He showed that philosophy isn’t just something you read — it’s something you live, especially when everything falls apart. Luna: It makes you wonder, if he hadn’t had Stoicism, would he have been able to lead as effectively? Or would he have cracked under the pressure? Lucas: That’s the big question. And I suspect the answer is, without Stoicism, he might have been a very different emperor — more ruthless, more despairing, or maybe just broken. But because he had that framework, he was able to see meaning in the chaos. He could say, as he does in the Meditations, ‘The universe is transformation; life is opinion.’ And he chose his opinion wisely. Luna: That’s a great way to put it. Thanks, Lucas. I feel like I understand him a lot better now. Lucas: Glad to hear it. And that’s a good note to end on. Next time, maybe we’ll look at how his son Commodus completely rejected all of this — but that’s a story for another day.