Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

The Wisdom of Marcus Aurelius

An idea in effect since time and people came into being is this:

People learn from other people.

This is good.

Then should we not gladly share the wisps and bits of wisdom that we garner from others with friends and family and even total strangers? I think so. It is our duty.

Not long ago I learned some things from a Roman emperor who lived two thousand years ago. It came about this way:

My Louisiana sister-in-law Florence (who has long known my penchant for antique books) found a copy of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius down at the Good Will Industries store in Enterprise and bought it for me for 50 cents.

It’s a classic. It’s a treasure. It’s chock-full of the wisdom of a conscientious, modest, resigned Roman ruler and general, who was born in Rome in 121 A.D. and died in 179 during a bitter campaign against the invading barbarians pouring across the Alps into Italy.

Through his Meditations. Marcus Aurelius provided for generations of readers, and for our own age of seeming chaos, his touching faith that “despite the unreasonableness of men and events, there is a deeper reason in things, a reason which is good, a reason which is God.”

Marcus Aurelius was not a brilliant general, historians say. He is described as “dogged”. He was not considered a great ruler. Unfortunately, he was in power just at the time the Roman Empire was beginning to show signs of collapse. He had to cope with wars, pestilence, a revolt in the East, the invading Germans coming from the North.

It was during a campaign against the Quadi (the peoples of Bohemia and Moravia) that Marcus Aurelius took time to write out a list of 17 persons from whom he had learned much. This part of the Meditations reads like the voice of a lonely, eminently placed man talking to himself to keep us his courage.

Here are samples of his thoughts and a partial summary of the things he declares that he had learned from others:

“1. From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper.

“2. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character.

“3. From my mother, piety and generosity, and abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thought; and further, simplicity in my way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich.

“4. From my great-grandfather, not to go to the public schools, but to have good teachers at home...

“5. From my tutor... to work with my own hands, and not meddle with other people’s affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.”

(Scandalmongering historians maintained that the wife of Marcus, Faustina, gave her husband little cause to believe in the goodness of women, but he apparently would not know or did not know of “infidelities in her that were notorious to others.”)

“6. From Rusticus (a stoic philosopher) I got the idea that my character needed improvement and discipline.

“7. From Sextus (a friend) good humor ... and to look carefully after the interests of friends, and to tolerate ignorant persons, and those friends who form opinions without consideration ...

“... to cherish good hopes ... to love my children truly ... not to say to anyone, or to write in a letter, ‘I have no time’ ... I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and’ friends, nearly everything good..

“You must now at least perceive of what kind of a universe you are a part, and the true meaning of the Lord of the universe of which your being is a part, and how a limit of time is fixed for you, which if you do not use for clearing away the clouds from your mind, it will go, and you will go, and it will never return ...

“Give yourself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around ...“

What excellent advice! May I suggest that Hedgehopper readers would enjoy the entire contents of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Copies may be found in public libraries.

Also, it might be interesting to compile your own list of the people from whom you have learned and to whom you are indebted. This, too, could become a classic piece of wisdom literature.

Published October 1985. Click your browser’s “Back” button to return.