Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

by Ryan Holiday

How exhausting it must have been to be so self-disciplined. Yet there are no complaints in Meditations, no private lamentations or blame-shifting. When Marcus dreamt of escaping his burdens, thought of the beach or the mountains or time in his library with beloved books, he reminded himself that he didn’t need a vacation to recover. He didn’t need to travel to relax. “For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul,” he wrote. “Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed.” As we said, Marcus’s early years were defined by loss, and so were his later ones. There would be one blow after another. In 149, he lost newborn twin boys. In 151, he lost his firstborn daughter, Domitia Faustina. In 152, another son, Tiberius Aelius Antoninus, died in infancy. That same year, Marcus’s sister Cornificia died. Shortly after, Marcus’s mother, Domitia Lucilla, died. In 158, another son, whose name is unknown, died. In 161, he lost his adoptive father, Antoninus Pius. In 165, another son, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus (twin