How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

by Donald J. Robertson

Nevertheless, once I started working as a psychotherapist, it became evident to me that most of my clients who suffered from anxiety or depression benefited from the realization that their distress was due to their underlying values. Everyone knows that when we believe very strongly that something very bad has happened, we typically become upset as a result. Likewise, if we believe that something is very good and desirable, we become anxious when it’s threatened or sad if it has already been lost.

He has been preparing for this moment most of his life. The Stoic philosophy he follows has taught him to practice contemplating his own mortality calmly and rationally. To learn how to die, according to the Stoics, is to unlearn how to be a slave.

From the moment we’re born we’re constantly dying, not only with each stage of life but also one day at a time. Our bodies are no longer the ones to which our mothers gave birth, as Marcus put it. Nobody is the same person he was yesterday. Realizing this makes it easier to let go: we can no more hold on to life than grasp the waters of a rushing stream.

“Go to the rising sun,” he said, “for I am already setting.”5

Decatastrophizing involves reevaluating the probability and severity of something bad happening and framing it in more realistic terms. Beck asks his clients, “Would it really be as terrible as you think?” Catastrophizing often seems to involve thinking, “What if?” What if the worst-case scenario happens? That would be unbearable. Decatastrophizing, on the other hand, has been described as going from “What if?” to “So what?”: So what if such-and-such happens? It’s not the end of the world; I can deal with it.

The Stoics taught Marcus that anger is nothing but temporary madness and that its consequences are often irreparable,

When people are really struggling, they focus on their inability to cope and the feeling that the problem is spiraling out of control: “I just can’t bear this any longer!” This is a form of catastrophizing: focusing too much on the worst-case scenario and feeling overwhelmed. However, Epicurus meant that by focusing instead on the limits of your pain, whether in terms of duration or severity, you can develop a mind-set that’s more oriented toward coping and less overwhelmed by worry or negative emotions about your condition.

However, people who handle pain well usually view it objectively, as something more limited in nature, which makes it easier for them to see themselves coping with it in various ways. Indeed, elsewhere in The Meditations, Marcus adds a Stoic twist to Epicurus’s saying. “Pain is neither unendurable nor everlasting, if you keep its limits in mind and do not add to it through your own imagination.”13

The Sarmatians were a mysterious, intimidating enemy. They were actually a loose coalition of nomadic tribes led by King Bandaspus, ruler of the Iazyges, the most warlike among the tribes. Sarmatian men were tall and muscular, with fierce blue eyes and long reddish-yellow hair and beards. These exceptional horsemen rode into battle clad in a type of scale mail carved from hooves. Their unusual armor reminded the Romans of a python’s skin, perhaps even conjuring images of dragons. It was said that the Iazyges worshiped fire. They wore great helms and fought with huge wooden lances tipped with sharpened bone. However, what shocked the Romans most of all was the discovery, as they removed helmets from the corpses of slain Sarmatians, that many of the warriors were women.

Native Egyptians had borne the brunt of tax increases required to fund Marcus’s war in the north. As a result, more and more of them had turned to banditry, and eventually, out of desperation, they formed a rebel army, led by a charismatic young warrior-priest called Isidorus. The story goes that a handful of these men disguised themselves in women’s clothing and approached a Roman centurion, pretending that they were going to pay him a ransom of gold for their captured husbands. They ambushed him, however, and then captured and sacrificed another officer, reputedly swearing an oath over his bloody entrails before ritually devouring them. News of this reputed act of terrorism quickly spread across Egypt, and a general uprising ensued.

To forgive a man who has done wrong, to be still a friend to one who has trodden friendship underfoot, to continue being faithful to one who has broken faith. What I say may perhaps seem incredible to you, but you must not doubt it. For surely all goodness has not yet entirely perished from among men, but there is still in us a remnant of the ancient virtue. However, if anyone should disbelieve it, that merely strengthens my desire, in order that men may see accomplished with their own eyes what no one would believe could come to pass. For this would be the one profit I could gain from my present troubles, if I were able to bring the matter to an honorable conclusion, and show all the world that there is a right way to deal even with civil war.

NOBODY DOES WRONG WILLINGLY This follows on from the previous point. It’s a statement of one of the central paradoxes of Socrates’s philosophy and was embraced by the Stoics: no man does evil knowingly, which also entails that no man does it willingly. Marcus gave Cassius the benefit of the doubt by assuming that at some level the usurper believed he was doing the right thing and was simply mistaken. In The Meditations, he says you should view others’ actions in terms of a simple dichotomy: either they are doing what is right or doing what is wrong. If they are doing what is right, then you should accept it and cease to be annoyed with them. Let go of your anger and learn from them. However, if they are doing what is wrong, then you should assume it’s because they don’t know any better. As Socrates pointed out, nobody wants to make mistakes or be deceived; all reasoning creatures inherently desire the truth. So if someone is genuinely mistaken about what is right, you should, if anything, feel sorry for them. Everyone resents being called vicious or dishonorable. In some sense, they believe that what they’re doing is right, or at least acceptable. No matter how perverse that conclusion may seem, it’s justified in their own mind. If we constantly think of others as being mistaken rather than simply malicious, as deprived of wisdom against their wishes, we will inevitably deal more gently with them. Marcus therefore says that whenever you believe someone has wronged you, you...

Remembering that fallibility is the common lot of mankind—including you—can help diminish feelings of anger. When you point your finger in anger at someone else, remember that three fingers on the same hand point back in your own direction.