Aurelius: The Cost of Virtue

Marcus Aurelius once said, “Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live.” For many, this crystallises what it means to practise Stoicism: emotional control, resilience, and clarity of purpose. Stoicism has become synonymous with the word ‘grit.’ However, to reduce Aurelius’ life to a quote, or a single word, is to do him a disservice. It is true that Aurelius lacks the imaginative world-building of Plato, or the discipline and sweeping ethical vision of Aristotle. Nevertheless, his philosophical text remains significant. He does not attempt to persuade or reconstruct political systems, instead he documents his attempt to be a better person, in an often corrupt world. He is valuable, in the way human trials are valuable for medical research. If no one volunteered to take the pill, then we would be blind to the side-effects. Meditations is the small print of Stoicism, presenting the true cost of virtue. If you are willing to read it carefully, you can decide for yourself whether that cost is worth paying.

The opening of Meditations (Books I–IV) starts by outlining the core framework of his philosophy. To a modern reader, Stoicism often resembles Buddhism, but filtered through a lens of Western thought. The core idea that ‘some things are within our power, while others are not,’ is a concept that both Ancient Stoics and Tibetan Buddhist monks would agree on. Avoiding suffering by building emotional self-control, especially through deliberate action, is a central practice of both philosophies.  Throughout Meditations, Aurelius often records his attempts to form these right impressions and to behave ‘rightly towards the deity stationed within him.’ His writing often demonstrates monastic discipline, and a desire to detach himself from human emotions and material desires. He thinks like a monk, while wearing the laurel of an emperor. He is an emperor who in the midst of war would not write ‘We shall fight them on the beaches’; rather, he scribes ‘people seek retreat for themselves… when it is possible, retreat into yourself.’ In the historical context, this is understandable. Rome stretched from Britannia to Mesopotamia and the wars with the Germanic tribes and Sarmatian people never posed a realistic threat to the power of Rome. But, an unstable emperor could unravel the world. For Aurelius, philosophy offered personal and imperial salvation: virtue to resist the pull and temptation of tyranny. In avoiding the purple, his robes, at times, could be mistaken for having the faint hue of maroon.

In The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Pierre Hadot reaffirms this idea that Aurelius’ writings are ‘exercises intended to train and improve himself.’ According to Hadot, these writings are not confessions or personal outpourings, but a deliberate philosophical practice; a form of virtuous metacognition: a process of reflecting on one’s thinking and moral actions. Yet Aurelius himself states that ‘the soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts’; our desires, wants, and grievances all shape who we are. Thus, Meditations reveals more than his Stoic practice. It unveils the man behind the stylus—a window into his inner thoughts—and it is in Book IV that the glass begins to fracture. His mind obsessively returns to the same themes: legacy, death, equanimity, and renunciation. For each intruding thought and moment of self-doubt, he cocoons himself with Stoic incantations: ‘The best way to avenge yourself is not to become as they are.’ Yet his attempt at disassociation only exposes his true urges. He reimagines fine food as animal corpses, expensive robes as ‘sheep’s wool dipped in blood’, and sex as ‘friction of a piece of gut… , [and] the expulsion of mucus’. Aurelius’ entry manifests Epictetus’ wisdom: ‘When you are struck by the impression of some pleasure, guard yourself against being carried away.’ Even if this is the case, a man in control usually does not need grotesque imagery to calm his yearning. That said, the more accessible the pleasure, the more restraint one requires. Lord Acton once said, ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are always bad men.‘ In this Aurelius appears to be an exception. He is fully attuned to his vices, but his practice, his ‘Inner Citadel’ becomes a fortress against indulgence. ‘Take care you are not turned into a Caesar… keep yourself simple.’ He deliberately strips his pleasures of grandeur, reduces his power to the common notion of duty, and keeps himself in the shadow of ancestors and the divine. He escapes the trappings of power through internalised inadequacy. Meditations offers an example of how to wield power without debauchery, the cognitive tools needed to remain virtuous amid temptation. It is better for Aurelius to describe sex as ‘mucus’ expulsion, than to give in to the temptation of a Nero themed house party.

In the beginning of Book II, Aurelius writes: ‘Say to yourself at the start of your day, I shall meet with meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and unsociable people. They are subject to all these defects because they have no knowledge of good and bad… I can neither be harmed by these people nor become angry with one.’ Aurelius scribes and internalises  Stoic technique, premeditatio malorum (premeditation of evils), accepting the flaws of the outside world in order to avoid the daily frustrations of other people. But, what happens when the world remains treacherous, but you can only critique your own actions and perceptions, never allowing yourself to critique the choices of others. Meditations records the answer. In his earliest entries Aurelius is optimistic and well-intentioned: ‘if anyone can give me good reason to think I am going astray in my thoughts or my actions, I will gladly change my way.’ His self-criticism good humoured: ‘Go away in the name of the god, just as you came. I have no need for you… I am not angry with you: only go away.’ But, within the later entries, this humour becomes unsustainable and self-critique transforms into self-loathing: ‘For you have made it plain to many people, including yourself, that you fall short of philosophy. And thus you are tarnished.’ This is quickly followed by irritability and frustration at those that refuse to change for the better: ‘Even if you burst with rage, they will do the same things nonetheless for that.’ This quiet rage and anger slowly warps how he views the world around him: ‘Nothing but a stick of decay and a sackful of gore. If you can see clearly then look.’ The children described in Book IX, ‘little souls carrying their corpses around’, becoming a mirror for the depths of his mental despair. By the end of this section, Meditations is no longer a Stoic self-help guide, but a blueprint for how a mental citadel can collapse inwards, taking the form of a mental prison, a purgatory. The pillars of the philosophy — control your mind, serve the common good, practise detachment — begin to resemble chains the more the individual tries, and fails, to live by this creed. In this Aurelius provides the case study. He circles the mountain, weighed down by the burden of attempting to be more virtuous in a world that does not expect virtue, while simultaneously not allowing himself the grace of feeling frustrated that his virtue is often consumed without reward. Instead he writes another entry, muttering to himself that the chains are not too heavy. If this is the true price of virtue, it is not unsurprising that many reject the steep price, some scoffing at those who are willing to pay.

That said, the ridicule of the masses has never been a sound test of whether a philosophy is worth the effort, nor is the struggle evidence of its failure. As Epictetus put it: ‘If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid.’ We should therefore not judge Stoicism by how hard it is to practise, or by the mental scars left on its practitioners. The better measure is: what does it produce? For Aurelius, the purpose of his Stoic philosophy is often circled, but it is at the start of Book X that we get a rare moment of succinct clarity. He starts the entry by reflecting on whether his soul will ever be ‘good and simple’, and if he will ever be able to shred himself of all desire: his life pursuit is, therefore, virtuous contentment. And if we were to judge Aurelius using only his words, we would conclude he achieved this inner peace. In the final book of Meditations, a new voice emerges, confident and stable, and accepting of his choices and previous struggles: ‘All these things which you hope to attain by a circuitous route, you can secure at this moment, if you do not deny them to yourself.’ His final entry is a befitting end, the cycle closed and death accepted: ‘Make your departure with a good grace, as he who is releasing you shows a good grace.’

Yet, this is possibly a dramatisation, an attempt to let the actor take the final bow before the curtain closes. If the show went on, would the same fears and desires not return? It only feels like closure because we close the book. In his final entries, does Aurelius find peace, or is it just resignation? And if we were given the same choice between the red pill of Stoic virtue, exposing the ugliness of being good in a corrupt world, or the blue pill of blissful ignorance, would the blue pill not be preferable? That is perhaps why we highlight Aurelius’ quotes, with the same intention as we watch The Matrix for the slow-motion bullet scene. We want to be entertained, not think too deeply about the subject matter, lest it becomes unnerving. Still, virtue has a societal role beyond personal fulfilment. The good are a blessing to all, whereas the ignorant become a burden to many. Aurelius’ own son highlights this point, believing himself to be Hercules reborn, a deity amongst men, while his contemporaries referred to him as the ‘sore on the body of Rome’. Commodus purged the Senate, drained the treasury, and ushered in the Crisis of the Third Century. In this context, virtue is not a cost; it is a sacrifice: an action that someone carries out, in full knowledge, that it will never be repaid in full. Prometheus was chained and pecked by an eagle: Aurelius bound himself to duty, pecked at by corruption, incompetence, and his own private torments. Both endured, hoping for some favour from the divine.

If Stoicism was an over-the-counter drug the side-effects would read: insomnia, irritability, anxiety, psychosis, depression, and loss of sexual appetite. For Aurelius, only his belief in the divine enabled him to take his medicine. For many this is no longer sufficient reason. But any disease that is left untreated only spreads. Base pleasures infect personal happiness. Selfishness erodes community. Materialism replaces charity. To overcome this, we must model the behaviour of the man, not just quote the philosophy. We must be willing to accept personal hardship for others, even if they are underdeserving. The pill of Stoicism may be bitter, but if you wish to “be good for something while you live,” you must swallow it whole, eyes-wide open.