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[–]EternalSunset 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I read Meditations back to back some years ago, I was quite enamored with his ideas. Couldn't quite make sense of it how the son of such a seemingly wise and selfless man would become one of the worst emperors in all of Rome's history. Then I learned about the history of his wife and his relationship with her, how he was tolerant of her unashamed infidelity and how Commodus was likely not really his son. Aurelius could have prevented all of this by having his wife and bastard heir killed, instead he insisted on his flawed idea that the behavior of others around him was not his responsibility (even as he was the most powerful person in the world and could put an end to all of their bullshit by stopping his practice of suppressing anger). Arguably his enabling and tolerance of the misbehavior of those around him were his greatest failure and spelt the beginning of the fall of the Roman Empire.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

In pure stoicism, as which I regard this book a part of, your only responsibility are your own thoughts.

Also, he couldn't foresee the future and Rome was set on a road to its implosion anyway. From the moment, Caesar turned it from a relatively balanced republic into a monarchy on.

Constantin was the gravedigger of Rome imho, when he institutionalized Christianity as state religion and as a consequence destroyed Rome's relatively pluralistic society. He drove off a lot of quite natural progressive cultural and intellectual influx coming from Asia with this.

[–]EternalSunset 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Stoicism is exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned 'his flawed idea'. He constantly complained in the book about the selfishness and pettiness of the people who surrounded him, yet his stoicism led him to believe that he should simply try to gently instruct them into the righteous path. His attitude was interpreted by those around him as a form permissiveness towards their worst impulses, his wife being a case example of how he would fail to punish even the worst of transgressions.

As for Commodus, I very much doubt that all of his extreme hedonism, egomania, incompetence and general unfitness to rule only became apparent after he became emperor. Aurelius did commit an error in not reigning in his wife and thus allowing the probable bastard son of a gladiator into the succession line for the Roman Empire, but he also committed an even greater error when he did not amend his mistake by following the footsteps of all the good roman rulers before him; as Julius, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antonnius Pius, he too should have adopted an talented young man to be his successor, yet instead of meritocracy he opted for allowing Rome to further decay into the path of an hereditary monarchy. Commodus was the turning point for Rome, from his disastrous rule followed all of the chaotic succession wars and further decadence of roman society, never again would Rome have the territorial extent and military power of the days of Aurelius.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It is the same in nowadays war's. Civility or at least the sincere try to keep it is almost always interpreted as weakness.

While state-terrorism on the other hand never is adressed as such. It is mislabelled as "victory" all to often.

And hedonism and decadence of the ruling class in certain extends almost always are signs of a society failing as such.

Trajan was the "best" emperor Rome ever had, imho.

After that... well it is history now. Looking at some imperialists of todays times it is a pity that most of them seemingly didn't even try to learn from these ancient mistakes in judgement.