Essays on Marcus Aurelius

After the demise of Domitian, Rome came under the rule of beneficent and wise leaders commonly referred to as the “Five Good Emperors.” The emperors namely Nerva, Marcus Aurelius, Hadrian, Trajan, and Antoninus Pius maintained a period of economic prosperity and developed Roman civilization. Each emperor had his accomplishments and strengths. This essay examines the rule of the five emperors identifying what made them successful and different from their predecessors. Nerva came in immediately after Domitian. He had the difficult task of relieving people from the oppressive rule of the previous emperor. Hence, for the brief time he sat ...

During the first 2 centuries C.E., there was a period of peace and prosperity, called Pax Romana , which remained in history as one of the happiest and prosperous periods in the entire human history. However, the achievements of the 3 emperors of the Flavian dynasty, Vespasian, and his sons, Titus and Domitian, laid the foundations for Pax Romana because it represented a period of able administration and important political, social, military and educational changes which brought prosperity in the empire. The succession of the first of these emperors, Nerva, put an end to the Flavian dynasty and in particular, ...

Sculptures are a separate genre of art that deals with three-dimensional objects especially made for decorating a place to make it aesthetically pleasant to the eyes. In the past centuries, sculptures were defined as elaborate, discernible figures of living things depicted in various poses mainly to evoke reactions from its viewers and up until the 19th century, the sculptors continued this tradition of making elaborate figures of humans to appease the artistic cravings of their patrons. Krauss (1979) explained in her article that although this might seem to be the real nature of the sculptures in the past, the ...

1) Athens and Sparta were the main city-states of Ancient Greece. Between the VI and V centuries B.C., they contended about the political and military domination over the entire Greek territory. The only feature they had in common was the fact that they were both “polis”, Greek city-states. However, Athens and Sparta were completely different in terms of their political, social and cultural systems. According to Laveck (2010), Sparta, also known as “Lacedemonia”, was founded in the XIII century B.C. The city-state Sparta was born through the merge of four Doric tribes. During the VII century B.C., Sparta started ...

Introduction

Marcus Aurelius is one of the most influential philosophers. Ideally, he has substantial reasons why he came up with his philosophical works including the “Meditations”. Stoic Aristo’s readings and reports influenced Aurelius’ efforts to come up with his philosophical piece of work. These readings initiated a sense of self-acceptance and confidence in Aurelius’ philosophical works. The “Meditations” is a very different from the text from the other philosophical texts. Most of the elements that are significant in the book elevate towards Aurelius’ personal experiences. Some of these experiences such as death and livelihood irritations manifest in the entire text. For ...

In Book I, Marcus Aurelius describes skills and character traits he has learned from his family and friends. Book I makes an impression that Marcus Aurelius was a young man who was eager to learn new things and develop his personality. It seems that his family was rather strong and his family gave Marcus Aurelius a lot of care and support. Also, Book I makes an impression that Marcus Aurelius had many friends and teachers who played a significant role in his personal development. The general argument of the author is that family and friends were the ones who influenced the ...

ABSTRACT

The ancients knew that leading a meaningful life meant, first and foremost, finding virtue within oneself. Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius believed in a virtuous life of meaning and left blueprints for others to follow. The model they established of the secular saint stands in counterpoint to the modern incarnation of the “hero,” the media-created celebrity saint or public relations creation, whose humanism supports corporate interests or establishes a “bankable” cult of personality. This celebrity culture affected the legacy of Friedrich Nietzsche, of whom secular sainthood made a kind of pseudo-religious hero, a notion that would have been abhorrent to the great German philosopher. The ...