Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxv
mood, each incident, each perplexity as it arises to the
criterion of cosmic duty. All is cosmos : of this cosmos
thou art part : for thee and for it there is but '
one god, one being, one law :
one order,
' l not self-will, but the
cosmos, the will of God, is the way of virtue and the
rule of life. And in applying this touchstone to the
complicated vicissitudes, demands, and emergencies of
life, he has not his eye upon a congregation, or a side-
glance for posterity. An Eikon Basilike such as this
would have found wide vogue, had publication been
designed or permitted, at a time when 'to be without an
image of the author seemed a sacrilege.' What accident
of faithful piety concealed and preserved the document,
cannot be guessed, but for nine centuries 2 no note or
whisper betrays its existence. Fourteen hundred years
after they were written down, the Thoughts re-emerge, 3 a
revelation of personality, without parallel in the literature
of Greek or Roman philosophy. Who can reconstruct
for himself the personality of Plato or of Aristotle ? We
have full-length portraits of Socrates and Epictetus?
which reproduce their lineaments and habits, their way
of life, the shrewd and cheery optimism of their talk;
but even here we do not hold the key of individuality,
or penetrate, as Marcus bids us, into the inner self. 4
While to the attentive reader of these self-communings
Marcus Aurelius becomes so absolutely known, that
1 vii. 9.
2 Until Suidas, lexicographer of the eleventh century.
3 Editio princeps by Xylander, Zurich 1558, from a manuscript
subsequently lost.
4 iv. 38 ; vi. 3 ; vii. 59 ; viii. 6l.