The Daily Stoic - How Marcus Aurelius Became Marcus Aurelius

Episode Date: June 9, 2024

🎙️Listen to Donald Robertson’s two-part interview on The Daily Stoic: Spotify & Apple Podcasts 📕 Pick up a copy of Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor and How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius by Donald Robertson at The Painted Porch: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/📕 Pre-order Right Thing, Right Now and get exclusive bonuses! To learn more and pre-order your own copy, visit dailystoic.com/justice✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSubstackX: @donjrobertsonIG: @donaldjrobertsonSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Look out Canadian listeners, this one's for you. Coho is a MasterCard with an easy to use app that makes managing your finances easier. Coho lets you earn cash back, borrow, build your credit history, and so much more. Join over 1 million Canadians and sign up for your free trial today. Download Coho on Google or App Store today or koho.ca for more details. Plus, for any basketball fans out there, get a $75 e-gift card for nbastore.ca when you sign up with the promo code COHO75.

That's code K-O-H-O-75. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening. for listening. This should awe you. There's a lot from the Stoics about the beauty and majesty of nature.

Marcus Aurelius was clearly in awe of the natural world, both in matters big and small, from lions to stalks of grain. Seneca wrote a whole multi-volume series of books on nature and spoke of the world as a temple of the gods. But it wasn't rock formations or the vast expanse of the sea that awed the Stoics the most. What they were clearly impressed by, what they worshiped the most was the awe-inspiring deeds of their ancestors and their heroes.

The way that Regulus, who we talked about recently, was willing to keep his word, even though it meant marching back to his own death in Carthage. The effortlessness, as Marcus noted, with which his mother was so generous and decent. The way that Agrippinus defied Nero, the way that Rutilius Rufus resisted corruption

and didn't even complain when he was framed on false charges. The way Cato chose death over subservience to Caesar, how the first thing Marcus Aurelius did with absolute power was share it with his stepbrother. It was these feats of courage and justice that the Stoics stood in awe of. And so should we, because even centuries later they somehow still seem unreal, nearly superhuman. The selflessness of it, the certainty of it, where did it come from, how do they do it? It's truly awesome. As we said earlier

this month, and this is what right thing right now is all about, we have to study these examples. We have to try to answer those questions. We have to let these examples make us better because they are truly awe-inspiring. They are as impressive as any feat of nature or evolution and yet because they were done by humans We should understand that we are capable of such deeds, too The stoic idea of human nature and living in accordance to it as one stoic scholar described Refers to the condition of a human who is expressing the very best in his or her development That is their ultimate best self

in his or her development. That is their ultimate best self. They are growing and changing in an effort to reach the ultimate goal for a human being. And that's the aim of the new book to hopefully give us a roadmap so we can become our ultimate best self to positively impact the people and the world around us. I tried to write a book that would show you, to show me, how the mighty examples of people like Gandhi and Sojourner Truth and Marcus Aurelius and many more just how we can do great things. To remind you that as Marcus Aurelius writes, not to assume it's impossible because you find it hard, but to recognize that if it's humanly possible you can do it also. Anyways, look I've been beaten this drum quite a bit but it means a lot to authors. If you could pre-order the new book right thing right now, you could do that right now. That would be amazing.

DailyStoke.com. We have a bunch of awesome pre-order bonuses. We're running out of the numbered signed first editions. Not too many of them left. It would be awesome if you could grab them. We're coming up on the launch here shortly. Of course, if you want to grab the ebook or the audiobook, whatever is best for you, you can grab all the bonuses still at dailystoke.com. Justices, the instructions, and I can't wait to hear what you think. Only a couple more days, and I'm really proud of this one and I hope it makes you better. It made me better to write it, and I can't wait to hear what you think. Hey it's Ryan.

Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke podcast. I think I've talked about this before, but when I read meditations for the first time, my first thought was, where is a biography of this person? I want to read an amazing biography of Mark Shrevez. I want to know everything about him. Basically for hundreds of years, the answer to that question has been no, there's not a good biography of Marcus. I don't know why that is. There's been little essays that were fantastic even from antiquity.

Cassie's Dio's sort of biographical sketch of Marcus is quite good, but there wasn't a full-length biography of Marcus. And I thought about writing one. I did one in Lives of the Stoics. I did my best, but he's a hard guy to get a full book out of because we unfortunately, even though he was very, very famous, we don't know that much about him. And so I was very excited when my agent, Steve Hanselman, who I also wrote The Daily Stoic with, told me that one of his other clients, the great Don Robertson, was working on a full-length biography of Marcus. It's called Marcus Triglius, The Stoic Emperor. I've been raving about it since it came out. I took a ton of notes on it. It's one of my favorite books that I read this year.

And I liked it so much that I asked Donald if we could run an excerpt of it. And he and his publisher said yes. So I want to bring you chapter three, and it's about Marcus's Greek training, how Marcus trained to become Marcus Relius, what his philosophical influences were. And I think you'll really like it. Definitely grab the book. The audio is good. We have the physical copy here at the Painted Porch. So I'll link to that in today's show notes.

And if you want an in-depth conversation about the ideas in the book, about Marcus and me and Donald kicking things around, we've got a two-parter on the Daily Stove podcast. Donald was nice enough to come out a couple months ago. So I'll link to that in today's show notes too. We really did a deep dive into Marcus and what made him great. I think they are great companions to this book. So listen to this episode, grab a signed copy of Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic Emperor and How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. You can grab both of those from The Painted Porch.

You can follow Donald Substack, which I'll link to. You can follow him on Twitter at Don J. Robertson and on Instagram at Donald J. Robertson. Great writer, great dude. Enjoy this excerpt from Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic Emperor. Chapter 3 The Greek Training One morning, Marcus Aurelius' favourite tutor took him to join a group of older boys as they crammed into a busy school hall, writing tablets dangling from their necks. Marcus was the only one still wearing the golden buller or protective amulet that marked him as a child. He must have been thrilled to witness something normally reserved for those who had donned the toga virilis and legally achieved manhood.

The boys were crowded around a foreign lecturer who was dressed in a simple grey shawl with long white hair and a well-kempt beard that added to his sage-like appearance. He spoke eloquently in Greek, the language of philosophy, often stopping to answer questions from excited students. Originally from Asia Minor, Apollonius of Chalkadon had recently been teaching Stoicism in Athens, but now he was the talk of Rome. Apollonius would have given speeches exhorting Roman youths to study philosophy. He doubtless told them the fable known today as the choice of Hercules. Nearly five centuries earlier, this tale had inspired Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, to dedicate his life to philosophy.

We can imagine Marcus listening transfixed to the story of how the young Heracles, as Hercules was known to the Greeks, lost his way and was forced to choose between two diverging paths, a decision that would shape his character for the rest of his life. On one side lay pleasure and vice, on the other discipline and virtue. The goddess of virtue, Aratae, appeared to Heracles giving a compelling argument for choosing the harder of the two paths. The moral was clear. Although a life of pleasure might seem appealing, true fulfilment comes only by following the path of virtue. In his early teens Marcus would have heard other such exhortations which inspired young men to dream of becoming philosophers.

Philosophy was, nevertheless, an advanced academic subject, one that only a fraction of Marcus's childhood companions studied in any depth. They would usually begin the course after reaching the age of fifteen, so long as they made good initial progress in their study of rhetoric. Greek-speaking tutors in particular, who travelled to Rome from Athens, Egypt or Asia Minor, could command high fees. The salaries quoted, for instance, by Philostratus in his Life of the Sophists vary from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of Greek drachmas. It would take the average skilled worker many decades to earn what a leading sophist might charge for a single speech. Although we might expect the Stoics

to have charged less than the sophists, as they typically condemned love of wealth as a vice, Apollonius had a reputation for expecting to be paid very generously. Marcus's mother had invested in a programme of education for her son that was not only unusually costly but covered topics far ahead of his years. Few Roman twelve year olds received home tuition from advanced instructors on the finer points of Greek philosophy. At this stage of his secondary education it fell to Marcus' grammarians to give him a head start on topics usually reserved for older boys doing their tertiary studies. Remarkably, it was the painting master appointed by Lysilla, a Greek named Diognatus, who first

acquainted Marcus with philosophy and accompanied the boy to several public lectures. Diagnatus also had young Marcus try his hand at writing dialogues, doubtless of a philosophical nature. Marcus attributes several moral lessons to Diagnatus. The painting master taught him not to preoccupy himself with trifling amusements, such as the popular Roman sport of quail fighting, and perhaps cautioned him against gambling in general. He also convinced Marcus to view with scepticism self-proclaimed miracle workers, sorcerers and exorcists. The latter incidentally was apparently a reference to early Christians, still viewed as superstitious fanatics by many Romans. Similar reminders to maintain focus on the

true goal of philosophy and not to be distracted by trivial pursuits or lose himself down intellectual rabbit holes would later become a theme of the meditations. In the midst of this moral education, ironically, we find no mention of the painting master having taught Marcus anything about painting. Presumably they were too busy strolling around Lysilla's gardens, talking and sharing their mutual love of philosophy. Diognatus also taught Marcus to be tolerant of plain speaking, a concept associated with several schools of philosophy. The cynics, however, were especially known for this virtue. Diognatus most likely exhibited similar frankness,

a trait highly regarded by Marcus' mother, as we've seen. Now though, the little boy whom Hadrian had dubbed Verissimus for his outspokenness, had to learn to be gracious when he found himself on the receiving end of unvarnished remarks from his tutors. It was also the painting master who taught Marcus to desire a straw camp bed and animal pelt, and whatever else of the kind belongs to the Greek training, or elenike agogi. Marcus's use of this phrase is striking, because the word agogi is best known as a reference to military cadet training of the kind young boys were put through in Sparta. For certain philosophers, military traditions such as sleeping on a straw mat, wearing a rough woolen cloak, and

undergoing other similar hardships formed part of a larger programme of self-improvement training. Hello, I'm Matt Ford. And I'm Alice Levine and we're the hosts of Wondry's podcast British Scandal. In our latest series, Michelle Mone, we tell the story of a woman from Glasgow who left school at 15 and devised an idea. A next level bra that remoulds the cleavage. An uplifting story which gives you a real boost. I hate myself. She moved from business to politics and when Covid hit,

says she knows a great company to supply PPE. And the company, PPE Medpro, made millions of pounds of profit from the contract. Oh, and a lot of the equipment was unusable. Oh, a minor detail. And having said that she had nothing to do with that profit repeatedly, she then goes on national television and says that Hona Children are actually in line to receive nearly £30 million as a result of it. To find out the full incredible story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts

or listen early and ad free on Wondery Plus. Despite his already wanting to be a philosopher at the age of 12 and attending some lectures, one suspects Marcus was not yet able to fully immerse himself in the scholarly aspects of the subject. So he began by copying the outward behaviour of certain philosophers, such as their plain speaking, rudimentary attire and aesthetic practices. Even Lucilla, praised by Marcus for her simple way of life, at least compared to other wealthy Romans, clearly found his behaviour odd at times. He studied philosophy with ardour, even as a youth, for when he was twelve years old he adopted the dress and a little later the hardiness of a philosopher. Pursuing his

studies clad in a rough Greek cloak and sleeping on the ground, at his mother's solicitation however, he reluctantly consented to sleep on a couch strewn with skins, we're told. What the historian means by rough Greek cloak is the traditional philosopher's shawl or tribon, a cheap garment made from coarse grey wool. The more austere sects wore this without a tunic or chiton underneath, often with one shoulder left bare, a way of dressing dubbed semi-naked by Greeks and Romans. For a precocious young Roman of Marcus' station to dress and act like an ascetic beggar philosopher must have seemed like an affectation even to cultured individuals such as his mother.

The embrace of voluntary hardship, wearing crude attire, going barefoot, sleeping in a straw mat on the ground, was mostly associated with cynic philosophy, from which Stoicism in part derived. Marcus alludes to cynicism several times in the meditations. He seems for instance to have cynics in mind when he writes, The one is a philosopher without a tunic, and the other without a book. Here is another half-naked. Bread I have not, he says, and I abide by reason. And they do not get the means of living out of my learning, and I abide by my reason.

In addition to going about half-naked and sneering at bookish learning, cynics also tended to earn no money from their teaching, preferring instead to beg for their daily bread. Although Marcus always respected the cynics, he eventually came to prefer the more urbane Stoic school. One reason was that the cynics emphasised indifference toward external things, including other people. The Stoics adopted this notion of indifference or apotheia, but in a milder form, placing more emphasis on the value of healthy emotions, particularly love or natural affection. Although love of philosophy replaced sports and other common pursuits, leaving Marcus

increasingly serious and dignified. The Augustan history notes that it did not take away from the geniality or natural affection he continued to show towards his household, friends and casual acquaintances. His character was well balanced, austere though not unreasonable, modest though not inactive, and serious without gloom. He was also named and beloved variously as brother, father, or son by various men, according to their age. In short, although he was maturing into a grave young man, committed to the study of an austere philosophy, Marcus continued to be known for his warmth, friendship and affection. Today many people assume that the Stoics were cold and unemotional. That is typically because

they confuse Stoicism, which has capitalised the Greek philosophy, with lowercase Stoicism, the stiff upper lip style of coping with adversity. Although this is a fundamental misinterpretation, the image of Stoicism as a cold and dispassionate philosophy is found even in ancient sources. Marcus's family friend, the sophist Herodes Atticus, was critical of the Stoics for precisely this reason. He compares them to an uneducated man who cuts down all the crops in his field, along with the weeds, or as we might say today, like someone who throws the baby out with the bathwater. Thus it is that those disciples of insensibility, wishing to be thought calm, courageous and steadfast because of showing neither desire nor grief, neither wrath nor joy, root out

all the more vigorous emotions of the mind, and grow old in the torpor of a sluggish and, as it were, nerveless life. Marcus was not swayed by criticisms such as these. Whereas Herodes was notorious for his violent temper, Marcus found the Stoics admirable, both for their equanimity and their natural affection. One of his favourite stoic tutors never showed anger or any other passion, as he puts it, for instance, but was entirely free from passion and yet full of natural affection. Indeed the stoic ideal was to be free of irrational and unhealthy passions and yet full of rational and healthy ones, particularly natural affection. Commendable emotions such as friendship and love play an important role in the philosophy.

For the Stoics, to love someone is to wish for that person to flourish, so long as nothing prevents this. To hope, in other words, that the loved one may acquire virtue. We could say then that Stoicism tried to marry love with wisdom. Indeed the purest form of love is the desire to attain wisdom and share it with others for the common good. The very quality that Fronto had found most lacking among patricians was therefore exemplified by the stoic teachers whom Marcus was just beginning to encounter. He first witnessed this quality however in his mother. The values that Marcus inherited from his family, moral integrity, humility, freedom from anger, kindness, honesty, made him a natural Stoic. The tutors later appointed to train him in Stoicism would nurture and

reinforce precisely these traits. Many individuals have turned to philosophy indeed, not because it promised wisdom, but because it promised freedom from distress, or the ability to foster what we today call emotional resilience. Marcus in the meditations described his childhood as consisting of many losses and changes. Looking back he asked himself, is this anything to fear? The repeated upending of a young boy's life would inevitably make him feel quite anxious, his mother's presence alone remained constant.

Lucilla was always there for him. At least that is the impression we get, especially from the letters of Fronto. As Marcus found himself drawn ever closer to the rarefied atmosphere of the imperial court, he looked to the friendship of his tutors and love of his family to keep him grounded and give him a sense of perspective on events. Such an attitude would be much needed as the political climate at Rome grew increasingly unpredictable and fraught with danger once the Emperor, Hadrian, finally returned from his travels. Thanks so much for listening.

If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on Wondery.com slash survey. For more than two centuries, the White House has been the stage for some of the most dramatic

scenes in American history. Inspired by the hit podcast American History Tellers, Wondery and William Morrow present the new book, The Hidden History of the White House. Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, the world-altering decisions, and shocking scandals that have shaped our nation. You'll be there when the very foundations of the White House are laid in 1792, and you'll watch as the British burn it down in 1814. Then you'll hear the intimate conversations between FDR and Winston Churchill as they make plans to defeat Nazi forces in 1941. And you'll be in the Situation Room when President Barack Obama approves the raid

to bring down the most infamous terrorist in American history. Order The Hidden History of the White House now in hardcover or digital edition wherever you get your books.