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Tag Archives: Marcus Aurelius

Carnuntum: Where Marcus Aurelius Wrote The Meditations

By Donald Robertson, author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. (Thanks to Landessammlungen Niederösterreich, Archäologischer Park Carnuntum for permission to use photographs of their exhibits.) If thou would’st master care and pain,Unfold this book and read and read againIts blessed leaves, whereby thou soon shalt seeThe past, the

How Can We Make Peace With Death?

By Anya Leonard Death does not concern us,” says the fourth century BC philosopher Epicurus, “because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” Well, that’s a little easier said than done.  The reality is that on top of inevitably pushing up the daisies (life

A Stoic Skill: Premeditatio Malorum

by Andrew Rattray What makes you nervous? What worries you? We all have something that ties our guts up in knots when we think about having to do it, don’t we? Life is full of these situations, where we find ourselves concerned about what the future holds. Especially now, with the ever-negative deluge of the

The Four Stoic Virtues

by Andrew Rattray What makes a person good? What separates those people who always seem to make the best choices from those who are plagued by their vices? Like so many other philosophies, the Stoics spent significant time and effort establishing their ideas around ethics and virtue to determine what exactly makes a person ‘good’.

Theriac: the Ancient World’s Miracle Drug

by Kevin Blood I remember lining up with my younger brothers on the linoleum floor of our kitchen, ready to receive a spoonful of foul-tasting cod-liver oil and another of some vile milky tonic, whose name escapes me. Both made me retch from my boots. I thought my mother was trying to poison me! These

The Last Words of Marcus Aurelius

by Andrew Rattray There’s something poignant about last words. A final flourish made all the more beautiful because we know there’s no more wisdom to come. A reminder that all things come to an end. Eugene Delacroix, the 19th century romantic artist, certainly thought so when he painted ‘Last Words of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius’.