This chapter argues that there was significant competition for junior senatorial positions during the early-imperial period. The number of eligible candidates in Italy alone exceeded the available positions with a wide margin. Moreover, the inclusion of increasing numbers of provincials further intensified the competition. Selection occurred across several stages—the latus clavus, vigintivirates, and quaestorship—mitigating potential friction that could arise among competing candidates and their supporters.

This chapter considers the presentation of virtue and happiness in the Meditations and asks how far this matches the distinctive features of Stoic thinking on these topics. The main topics considered are (1) the virtue–indifferents distinction, (2) the presentation of the virtues as forming groups or as unified in some way, (3) the virtue-happiness relationship and the idea of happiness as ‘the life according to nature’, meaning according to human or universal nature (or both). Overall, it is suggested that, although Marcus’s focus in the work is on the contribution of these ideas to his overall project of ethical self-improvement, his presentation largely reflects the ideas and connections between them that we find in the standard ancient accounts of Stoic ethics.

This chapter investigates the variation in the governing bodies (the curial councils) of the Italian civitates. It focuses on two aspects: the number of decurions and the census qualification for council entry. The evidence reveals a similar pattern for both of these aspects: medium-sized and larger civitates adhered to ‘canonical’ values (a hundred decurions with at least HS 100,000, likely inspired by Roman tradition), while smaller civitates deviated from this canon, probably due to local economic constraints.

In this chapter, I attempt to trace the influence of the Stoic tradition on Marcus Aurelius by focusing on his approach to impressions, material flux, and fate. The primary suggestion is that the influence of earlier Stoicism is best interpreted within the framework of how Marcus develops a normative response to the external world. It is within this context of getting to grips with fluctuating, alienating, and disturbing appearances that we should seek to locate his reception of the Stoic theories of the cognitive impression, material flux, and the philosophical life, more broadly. Such an emphasis on inculcating a reliable response in the soul to the outside world also helps to explain a much-discussed feature of the Meditations, namely the unusual incorporation of Epicurean atomism within the work. I also push back on recent claims that there is evidence of a flirtation with Platonism evident in this text. Marcus was an innovative interpreter of his tradition with a particular focus on psychological stability, but, for all that, he was also a thoroughgoing Stoic.

This chapter explores Marcus’ concept of the soul and its main cognitive parts (hēgemonikon, nous, dianoia, daimon) and their relevance for the construction of a concept of the self that is closely interwoven with Stoic self-care. It also investigates Platonic influence on Marcus’ concept of the mind and its relation with the body. Selfhood, understood as an entity referring to itself, unfolds around the hēgemonikon and, to a lesser extent, the dianoia. Self-reference by cognitive acts is limited to the logical soul. These three rational elements are subordinated to the ‘I’ (or psychagogic subject) and serve as objects of its psychagogic self-(trans)formation, thereby construing its selfhood. The perfect starting point for mental self-transformation in Marcus is hypolēpsis ‘assumption’, a single mental act, similar to Epictetus’ prohairesis ‘choice’, to which Marcus’ concept of mental selfhood is heavily indebted. Platonising rhetoric supports the delineation and detachment of the soul’s rational part (esp. nous) from external entities and subordinate mental phenomena but offers no evidence for a dualist psychology or metaphysical concept of the mind. Instead, Marcus’ concepts of mind and body abide by Stoic orthodoxy and its materialist monism.

This chapter sets Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations in the wider historical context of the emperor’s life and reign. It considers his family, upbringing, and route to the imperial purple, as well as his principal philosophical and intellectual influences. Marcus’ attitudes to proper imperial conduct are explored through his description of his adoptive father Antoninus Pius. Special attention is paid to comparing and contrasting Marcus’ own views in the Meditations with other ancient sources, particularly his correspondence with his tutor Fronto and later accounts by Cassius Dio and the Historia Augusta.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is consistently one of the best-selling philosophy books among the general public. Over the years, it has also attracted a number of famous admirers, from the Prussian king Frederick the Great to US president Bill Clinton.1 It continues to attract large numbers of new readers, drawn to its reflections on life and death. Despite this, it is not the sort of text read much by professional philosophers or even, until recently, taken especially seriously by specialists in ancient philosophy. It is a highly personal, easily accessible, yet deceptively simple work.

On the face of it, what we find are a series of notebook jottings, reminders that Marcus has written to himself, comments on events that have happened to him, reflections on his own mortality, and a few quotations from things that he has been reading. There is little in the way of structure and a good deal of repetition.

Marcus’ Meditations have been the object of special attention for their literary form, structure, and style as well as for the function and destination that the author ascribed to them. Since they lack a precise plan and present some formal characteristics, the most important of which are the use of the second person, i.e. self-reference, conciseness, and repetitiveness, most scholars have concluded that the work was intended only for the emperor’s reading and use. This chapter provides, after an overview of the scholarly trends that have promoted such an exegesis of the form and function of the Meditations, a reconstruction of the relationship between formal elements and philosophical content follows and a terminological analysis of a sample of the text, concluding with a proposal to revise the widespread belief that the Meditations were conceived by the author only for his own education and spiritual improvement.

This chapter recapitulates the main findings of this study, relating them to the concepts of ‘oligarchy’, the boni and different forms of social power.