Marcus Aurelius - Hardcover

McLynn, Frank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224072927 ISBN 13: 9780224072922

Publisher: Bodley Head, 2009

Synopsis

The vivid, magisterial and long-awaited biography of Marcus Aurelius — the last of the “five good emperors” of the Roman Empire.

Emperor Marcus Aurelius — the embodiment of the philosopher’s king — is the one figure of antiquity who still speaks vividly to us today, over 2000 years after his death. We may thrill to the exploits of Alexander the Great, Hannibal or Caesar, and historical novelists may beguile us with their imaginative reconstructions of this life or that, but the only voice from the Greco-Roman world that still seems to have contemporary relevance is that of the man who ruled the Roman Empire from 161 to 180 A.D. His book of reflections, Meditations, continues to sell in large numbers in numerous editions.

Though a persecutor of Christians, Marcus holds out the prospect of spirituality for atheists, happiness without God, joy without heaven and morality without religion. He truly was a man for all seasons, and those seasons include the twenty-first century.

His reign foreshadowed the eventual decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and his life itself represents the fulfillment of Plato’s famous dictum that mankind will prosper only when philosophers are rulers and rulers philosophers. Marcus Aurelius by acclaimed historian Frank McLynn, promises to be the definitive biography of this monumental historical figure — now known very widely through the Oscar-winning film Gladiator.

About this title

About the Author:

Frank McLynn is the author of many critically acclaimed books, including Napoleon; 1066; Villa and Zapata; Wagons West; Stanley; 1759; and Lionheart and Lackland.

From Publishers Weekly:

Pat Buchanan once said that George W. Bush was no Marcus Aurelius, while Bill Clinton claimed that he read and reread Aurelius' Meditations as president. McLynn, author of biographies of figures from Napoleon to Jung, argues that the emperor and Stoic philosopher satisfies a thirst for guidance that modern philosophers have largely abandoned. But McLynn fails to make his case in a book that veers between biography and a defense of an emperor more famous for his words than for his actions. Drawing on Aurelius' Meditations, letters with his tutor and other ancient sources of disputed authenticity, McLynn ploddingly narrates Aurelius' rise to emperor in 161 C.E.—a role to which he was, McLynn acknowledges, temperamentally unsuited—and the challenges he faced, mostly unsuccessfully, during his 19-year reign. Attempting to protect the Roman Empire from the German barbarians, for example, he gave land to these foreign tribes. This strategy backfired, creating new economic and social divisions. Marcus Aurelius emerges from McLynn's biography as a disappointing political figure who could do nothing to unite the Roman Empire in its waning days and who remains most memorable for his aphorisms, such as By a tranquil mind I mean a well-ordered one. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Sept.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Bodley Head
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0224072927
• ISBN 13: 9780224072922
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 704