Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was Emperor of the Roman Empire for almost two decades, from 161–180 C.E. He was born Marcus Annius Verus and brought up by his grandfather, a Roman consul (Marcus’s father having died when he was young). He came from a fairly distinguished family and enjoyed a well-educated, upper-class youth that would have included study of classical literature in both Latin and Greek, as well as rhetoric and philosophy. He did not regard himself as a philosopher, but simply as a student of philosophy—a subject that became increasingly important to him later in life. In 137, the childless emperor Hadrian selected the senator Antoninus Pius as his successor, who in turn designated his nephew and adoptive son, Marcus, as his own successor. At this point, Marcus added the family name of Aurelius Antoninus to his own. In 161, Antoninus’s death made Marcus Emperor; Marcus then made his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus, his co-regent. His entire reign was troubled: early on, the Empire was devastated by a plague brought back by soldiers fighting against the Parthians (an empire in what’s now Iran), followed soon after by the invasion of Germanic peoples from the north. In 168, Marcus himself marched with the armies to fight in what were known as the Marcomannic Wars on the Empire’s northern frontiers. Meditations was written during this last decade of his life, during a period marked by upheaval on the borders, revolt within, and the deaths of loved ones. Marcus was married to a woman named Faustina and had at least 13 children with her. He was succeeded by his son, Commodus, whose reign was both more peaceful and far more scandalous than his father’s.