Marcus Aurelius Meditations Upon Ideas

In “The Deeds of the Divine Augustus” Augustus portrays Rome as a dignified cut above the rest. In this reading, we learn about the ruling of Augustus and how he feels entirely responsible for all the successes of Rome. I believe that this writing is not a display of the “real Rome” but rather a depiction of its author. Throughout “The Deeds of the Divine Augustus” Augustus repeatedly refers to himself in the text and how all these successes are a result of his leadership. An example of this is when Augustus states, “In my nineteenth year, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army with which I set free the state, which was oppressed by the domination of a faction.” There are

Roman philosopher “urged men to realize before it was too late that life, as most people led it ,

Both Marcus Aurelius and Cicero try to create a guide, based on their stoic views, on how a person is supposed to live a purposeful life. Marcus Aurelius was an emperor and Cicero was a politician, so both serve somebody or something. In Cicero’s “On Friendship” he bases his guides on what he has learned from important people in his life. In Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations” he bases his guide off of what he has learned as an emperor with stoic views. Some of what he Aurelius has learned is different from Cicero’s view of stoicism; an example of this is in section seven of Meditations. Section seven of Meditations is about what Aurelius learned from his tutor. He states, “Endure hardship, and have few needs; to do things for myself and not

To begin, Apuleius wrote a novel, The Golden Ass, which demonstrates Roman worldviews of the self. In the book, he explains a perspective about what makes the self: experience and transformations. Lucius, the protagonist, goes through many different changes that really shaped his character by the end of the novel. He underwent multipart transformations that are physical, personality wise, his social class, his beliefs, and his interests. At the beginning of The Golden Ass, Lucius’ internal and external selves do not correlate. Only through his experiences and numerous transformations is he truly able to be himself because both his internal and external selves match. This worldview is especially present in ancient Rome because of all the wars this great city took part in that physically transformed Rome’s territory and its citizens. These experiences made Roman men physically strong, wise, powerful and meant that they were good at warfare since they were able to conquer so many different places like Carthage, Italy, and Greece. The men that took part in these wars came back as different people after they had experienced war and all its casualties. There are many implications of

Overall, Marcus Aurelius makes a convincing argument when discussing how the universe is a place where all things work together and are a part of each other; however, fall flat when it explaining death due to his level of

Marcus Aurelius' book Meditations gives a clear and concise view of what death is and how man should cope with it. There are many factors that Marcus must take into account when he is pondering about death. There is death on a physical plane of existence and there is death on a supernatural plane of existence. How man is related to both of these concepts can differ drastically but both are equally important concepts in man's view of death. The way that man approaches death and how he should view it in life are other factors that also play an important role in Marcus' philosophy of death.

During his childhood Marcus studied Stoic Philosophy. Stoic Philosophy deals with the teachings of living simply and being down to Earth and logical about situations. Marcus wrote about this philosophy in his book Meditations. Also during his childhood Hadrian had appointed Marcus to equestrian rank, at the age of six. Then at the age of eight he was appointed Priest of Salian. During his youth he was called “Verissimus”, by Hadrian, which means genuine or true.

David Hume is one of the world’s most well-known and relevant philosophers, in his time and still to this day. In one of his most famous writings, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he dedicates a whole chapter to exploring the validity of miracles, based on his own premise (That they defy the laws of nature), a chapter so large, it is separated into two parts. Exploration of Miracles is a large topic for philosophical discussion as it has caught the attention and caused the works of many of the world’s most famous philosophers, such as David Hume, Richard Swinburne and Peter Atkins.

Abstract The author’s perception and treatment of Everyman are that each individual need to prepare for it by repenting, following God, and doing good works. The author’s perception is that at the end of the day one cannot take anything or anyone with them when they die. The only entity someone can take is their actions and how they use the resources that are given to them. Those who put God before everything and perform good works will enjoy eternity with Him, but those who enjoy only the pleasures of life and forget God, will not. The author’s main message throughout the play is to not fearful of death but know that one day everyone will die, so do as much good as one can, repent of one’s sins, and to put God first. Keywords: author, perception, treatment, death The Author’s Perception and Treatment of Death in Everyman In the late fifteenth century, an unknown author wrote a morality play called Everyman. According to Pearson, a morality play during the Medieval period would communicate a moral lesson and make it so simple that both illiterate and well-educated audiences could both understand the lesson (Adu-Gyamfi, 2016). One may believe that the author of Everyman want to communicate to the audience that everyone will receive judgment the actions they commit on Earth. The author’s perception of death is that God is the only one who has the power to control when each individual die, so if one has a relationship with Him one should not be fearful death. The author

First, jealousy leads Commodus and Claudius into a Machiavellian nature to achieve greatness. Previous to Marcus Aurelius’ death, he tells maximus that he wants him to become the next emperor of Rome and that he will bring Rome back to a republic. Marcus’ reasoning for this is, “‘Your faults as a son, is my failure as a father’” (Marcus Aurelius). All Commodus wants from his dad is love and for him to accept him for who he is. Marcus has always been praising Maximus over his own son. When Marcus chooses Maximus over his own son to become Rome’s emperor, Commodus becomes enraged. This drove Commodus to become a vicious villain. This also elicits pathos towards Commodus because his own father does not want him. Commodus begins to realize his father will never love him so he suffocates Marcus before he announced Maximus would be emperor so the throne would be passed down to himself. Commodus is jealous of the amount of love Maximus gets from his father and envy’s him. The

Even though people have been dying since the start of life, we can never get use to the idea of leaving our loved ones behind. Therefore humans choose to disregard death and get pleasure from life, and consequently we tend to stray away from righteousness. Two works; Everyman by an unknown author, and The Pardoner’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer have been written to preach humans toward Christianity-the right way of living. These authors utilize plot to reveal the role of death in understanding life. This is achieve by drawing on the foolishness of mankind, their response to the inevitable death and the effect of death on protagonists which altogether helps the readers understand worldly treasures are temporary.

Marcus Aurelius and his philosophies were composed down in a collection of his intimate writings titled Meditations. The compilations and stories that Meditations follows are the influence of Stoicism along with

	Throughout his life, Aurelius was never able to be happy being an emperor. Even though he had money and privileges, and was royalty, he never became tranquil, or at peace with himself, with these material riches. It is evident when a person reads Meditations that Aurelius would much rather have lived the quite life of a philosopher than the public life of an emperor. He always wished that, at some point in his life, maybe when the wars were over, he would have some time to actively pursue philosophy. He never received that opportunity. However, he did, in the midst of all the wars he fought in, find the time to write down his thoughts into a

Stoicism: “a systematic philosophy, dating from around 300 b.c., that held the principles of logical thought to reflect a cosmic reason instantiated in nature.” (dictionary.com). Marcus Aurelius (the author of “Meditations”) was a stoic as well as an emperor. The book he wrote was a collection of thoughts, things he advised himself to do, a piece reflecting his stoicism, and a personal diary of sorts. The kinds of things put into this book were sometimes crazy, sometimes contradictory, yet sometimes very true and insightful. Marcus wasn’t a professional philosopher, and this comes out in his work, but he had an interesting way of living his life. His writings

them. He fell victim to the plague, however, never to know that the war he