this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Explanation: Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor who was famous as a philosopher, and the writings of his Meditiations are still widely read and appreciated today. In them, Aurelius exhorts oneself to endure all things with patience and humility, to treat one's fellow man with kindness and tolerance, to work for the common good, and to turn away from rancor and anger.
He also led military campaigns which killed a TON of Germanic tribesmen. Which, while not STRICTLY speaking a violation of what he wrote considering the nature of the threat to the lives of the people he was responsible for ruling, is a bit different in tone, lmao.
Just a touch of "Do as I say, not as I do", though his overall philosophy is still generally applicable.
Supposedly Meditations were not supposed to be published, although I'm not sure why he'd write all that if not for others to read.
I'd interpret it as his way of dealing with the cognitive dissonance of trying to be a good person and roman emperor at the same time
It seems it was his way of dealing with the life he was forced to live. He was an intelligent scholarly man, who had to spend majority of his life in cold backwater battling constant incursions of germanic tribes.