John Sellars is a Reader in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the author of multiple books on Stoicism. He is also a founding member of Modern Stoicism and The Aurelius Foundation, both non-profit companies devoted to bringing Stoicism to a wider audience and showing how it can benefit people today.
In this new study, John Sellars offers a fresh examination of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations as a work of philosophy by placing it against the background of the tradition of Stoic philosophy to which Marcus was committed.
Challenging claims that Marcus Aurelius was merely an eclectic thinker, that the Meditations do not fit the model of a work of philosophy, that there are no arguments in the work, and that it only contains superficial moral advice, Sellars shows that he was in constant dialogue with his Stoic predecessors, engaging with themes drawn from all three parts of Stoicism: logic, physics, and ethics. The image of Marcus Aurelius that emerges is of a committed Stoic, engaging with a wide range of philosophical topics, motivated by the desire to live a good life.
There are numerous translations of the Meditationsavailable at the moment. Which one is best?
And given there are so many, surely there’s no point in anyone translating it again. Well, there’s now another, brand new version available, and I think there are good reasons for it to become people’s first choice.
It’s by Robin Waterfield, who is a highly experienced and accomplished translator of both Greek history and philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Herodotus, Plutarch, and more). Robin doesn’t just know his Greek; he has a thorough command of Greek philosophy too.
What this volume gives, then, is an excellent translation informed by the latest scholarship on Marcus, along with a substantial introduction and detailed notes that are helpfully printed as footnotes on the page. While there are other translations out there that are just fine, this is now the one I’d recommend.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the sixteenth emperor of Rome -- and by far the most powerful and wealthy man in the world. Yet he was also an intensely private person, with a rich interior life and deep reservoirs of personal insight. He collected his thoughts in notebooks, gems which have come to be called his Meditations. Never intended for publication, the work survived his death and has proved an inexhaustible source of wisdom and one of the most important Stoic texts of all time. In often passionate language, the entries range from essays to one-line aphorisms, and from profundity to…
This is a large and expensive academic book containing over thirty chapters by different authors (disclaimer: two of them are by me).
It’s perhaps not the sort of thing that a typical general reader is likely to buy. But taken together, these chapters constitute the fullest discussion of Marcus Aurelius available in English, and most questions that people are likely to have about Marcus or his philosophy are probably answered somewhere in its five hundred-plus pages.
A Companion to Marcus Aurelius presents the first comprehensive collection of essays to explore all essential facets relating to contemporary Marcus Aurelius studies. First collection of its kind to commission new state-of-the-art scholarship on Marcus Aurelius Features readings that cover all aspects of Marcus Aurelius, including source material, biographical information, and writings Contributions from an international cast of top Aurelius scholars Addresses evolving aspects of the reception of the Meditations
Pierre Hadot is famous for arguing that in antiquity, philosophy was understood as above all a way of life.
Although some scholars have pushed back against his account, it’s a really fruitful way to approach Marcus’s Meditations, which clearly isn’t a typical theoretical philosophical text. Hadot approaches the Meditations as a series of written ‘spiritual exercises’ through which Marcus is trying to transform himself.
In the process of writing my own book on Marcus, I came to disagree with a number of the claims that Hadot makes, but even so, The Inner Citadel remains a highly stimulating and engaging book.
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are treasured today--as they have been over the centuries--as an inexhaustible source of wisdom. And as one of the three most important expressions of Stoicism, this is an essential text for everyone interested in ancient religion and philosophy. Yet the clarity and ease of the work's style are deceptive. Pierre Hadot, eminent historian of ancient thought, uncovers new levels of meaning and expands our understanding of its underlying philosophy.
Written by the Roman emperor for his own private guidance and self-admonition, the Meditations set forth principles for living a good and just life. Hadot probes…
This book contains a selection of letters from the correspondence between Marcus Aurelius and his rhetoric teacher Fronto. Most of these letters date from Marcus’s youth and show a quite different side to his character.
Richlin argues – controversially – that some of these letters give evidence of a homosexual relationship between Marcus and Fronto. Although I’m not convinced by that claim, this volume remains a really helpful way to access these letters in a modern translation with helpful notes. The youthful Marcus we meet is a nice counterpoint to the older Marcus of the Meditations.
In 1815 a manuscript containing one of the long-lost treasures of antiquity was discovered-the letters of Marcus Cornelius Fronto, reputed to have been one of the greatest Roman orators. But this find disappointed many nineteenth-century readers, who had hoped for the letters to convey all of the political drama of Cicero's. That the collection included passionate love letters between Fronto and the future emperor Marcus Aurelius was politely ignored-or concealed. And for almost two hundred years these letters have lain hidden in plain sight.
Marcus Aurelius in Love rescues these letters from obscurity and returns them to the public eye.…
Part biography, part self-help book, Donald Robertson draws on his own professional experience as a psychotherapist to draw out of the Meditations a series of practical techniques that people can use today.
For readers new to Marcus Aurelius, this book is a great place to start, introducing the man himself, the Stoic philosophy on which he drew, and shows how people might draw on and make use of ideas in the Meditations in their own lives.
"This book is a wonderful introduction to one of history's greatest figures: Marcus Aurelius. His life and this book are a clear guide for those facing adversity, seeking tranquility and pursuing excellence." --Ryan Holiday, bestselling author of The Obstacle is the Way and The Daily Stoic
The life-changing principles of Stoicism taught through the story of its most famous proponent.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was the final famous Stoic philosopher of the ancient world. The Meditations, his personal journal, survives to this day as one of the most loved self-help and spiritual classics of all time. In How to Think…
Gabrielle found her grandfather’s diaries after her mother’s death, only to discover that he had been a Nazi. Born in Berlin in 1942, she and her mother fled the city in 1945, but Api, the one surviving male member of her family, stayed behind to work as a doctor in a city 90% destroyed.
Gabrielle retraces Api’s steps in the Berlin of the 21st century, torn between her love for the man who gave her the happiest years of her childhood and trying to come to terms with his Nazi membership, German guilt, and political responsibility.
Api's Berlin Diaries: My Quest to Understand My Grandfather's Nazi Past
"This is not a book I will forget any time soon."
Story Circle Book Reviews
Moving and provocative, Api's Berlin Diaries offers a personal perspective on the fall of Berlin 1945 and the far-reaching aftershocks of the Third Reich.
After her mother's death, Robinson was thrilled to find her beloved grandfather's war diaries-only to discover that he had been a Nazi.
The award-winning memoir shows Api, a doctor in Berlin, desperately trying to help the wounded in cellars without water or light. He himself was reduced to anxiety and despair, the daily diary his main refuge. As Robinson retraces Api's…
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