The closing book of Marc Aurel’s Meditations is taking issue with his own posterity. As a guideline for others, he formulated the claim not to care so much more about the opinions of others, but to stand by own reasoning and trust in one’s own opinion. “I have ofetn wondered how it is that everyone loves himself more than anyone else, but rates his own judgement of himself below that of others. … So it is that we have more respect for what our neighbours will think of us than we have for ourselves.” (Paragraph 4, Penguin Classics).
Of course, in the age of “philosophy as discourse” (Habermas), we are used to criticism of books and their authors. For the emperor philosopher this was less obvious, albeit the Socratic tradition of exchanges between teachers and their scholars was a kind of precursor of 20th century philosophy.
His writings in ancient Greek, however, remained little known and debated until its first Latin publication. Ever since, it has been a prominent work on ethics and leadership. The exhibition in Trier featured the copy of Helmut Schmidt, as the long reach of stoic writings on virtues and leadership.
(Image: Stadtmuseum Trier, Model of Villa in Welschbillig)
