Preface Note on Transliteration and Quotation Translator's Note 1. The Emperor-Philosopher 2. A First Glimpse of the Meditations 3. The Meditations as Spiritual Exercises 4. The Philosopher-Slave and the Emperor-Philosopher 5. The Stoicism of Epictetus 6. The Inner Citadel, or the Discipline of Assent 7. The Discipline of Desire, or Amor Fati 8. The Discipline of Action, or Action in the Service of Mankind 9. Virtue and Joy 10. Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Index
Pierre Hadot was Professor Emeritus at the Collège de France. His books include Philosophy as a Way of Life and Plotinus.
Plato used to talk of philosopher-kings; Marcus Aurelius was
something even better: He was a philosopher-emperor. The leader of
the Roman Empire spent most of his life in troubling times,
campaigning against the barbarians, dealing with conspiracy at
home, even combating an upstart cult that revered one of those
Galilean wonder-workers. Yet the most powerful man in the world
still managed to live the life of a Stoic, and to record his
reflections on how we should live. Those meditations, as these
inner pep talks are usually called, became one of the best-loved
books of antiquity… This study—by a leading authority on
Marcus—provides background matter and analysis of the main themes
in the Meditations, as well as fresh translations of many of the
sayings.
*Washington Post Book World*
In The Inner Citadel, Hadot applies to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations
his characteristic interpretive approach: treating ancient
philosophy as a ‘way of life,’ in particular one which provides its
students with ‘spiritual exercises’ to enable them to make progress
towards wisdom, and treating ancient philosophical texts with
attention to the ‘forms of discourse,’ or constraints of genre,
tradition, and audience that affected their production… The Inner
Citadel is a rich and substantial book and will certainly affect
future scholarship on Marcus Aurelius.
*Bryn Mawr Classical Review*
Pierre Hadot, Professeur Honoraire of the Collège de France, aims
in The Inner Citadel to discover what the emperor wanted to
accomplish by writing [the Meditations]… The book he has written
(published in French in 1992) achieves these aims superbly while
also offering a broad introduction to the intellectual world of the
second century… Through his analysis of the Meditations, Hadot
exposes to our view the mind of those who ruled the Roman world at
the height of its prosperity.
*Calvin Theological Journal*
The power and vigour of Hadot’s interpretation derive partly from
his belief in the importance and continuing value of Stoic
philosophy at least broadly interpreted in terms of a stoic outlook
on life… In this book, as in his work as a whole, he sets a
demanding standard, and an example which we can all applaud.
*Classical Review*
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius has been a popular text since
the sixteenth century, and is a vital source in understanding the
ideas of the Stoic School. Hadot seeks to demonstrate the context
and background to Marcus Aurelius’s writings, and helps to explain
them to a modern readership. He makes the crucial point that Stoics
considered the sole purpose of studying philosophy was to improve
one’s moral conduct. Hence Marcus’s writings are in the form of a
personal journal designed to develop the practice of acting morally
and reflectively… Throughout the book Hadot stresses the depth of
Stoic thought, and the interest it holds for modern philosophy… I
would particularly recommend this book to those whose education in
Ancient Philosophy has centred on Plato and Aristotle, and who are
interested in finding out how their ideas were developed by later
philosophers.
*JACT Review*
Hadot probes Marcus Aurelius’s guidelines and convictions and
discerns the until now unperceived conceptual system that grounds
them. Abundantly quoting the Meditations to illustrate his
analysis, he allows Marcus Aurelius to speak directly to us. Hadot
unfolds for us the general philosophical context of the
Meditations, commenting on the philosophers Marcus Aurelius read
and giving special attention to the teachings of Epictetus, whom
Marcus followed closely… Hadot’s study offers a fresh picture of
the fascinating philosopher-emperor, a fuller understanding of
theories and doctrines of Stoicism, and rich insight on the culture
of the Roman empire in the second century. Hadot has been working
on Marcus Aurelius for more than twenty years; in this book he
distills his analysis and conclusions with extraordinary lucidity
for the general reader and specialist.
*Word Trade*
Because both translator and author are contemporaries, discussions
between them contributed to an excellent and faithful translation…
[Hadot argues] that the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius must be
understood primarily as a ‘philosophical’ work not in the sense of
speculative philosophy, but as philosophy that represents a way of
life in the tradition of the Stoics… This is an excellent study of
the Meditations.
*Choice*
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