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The Art of Living

Marcus Aurelius’s Ten Commandments

Massimo Pigliucci studies the Stoic Emperor’s to-do list.

Commandments are generally lists of things someone requires someone else to do, usually with the implied threat that something bad will happen if they don’t. In the case of the Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE), though, the list we find in section 18 of the 11th book of his Meditations is actually comprised of wise suggestions to himself. Still, they may help us as well:

“Firstly: Consider your relation to humankind and that we came into the world for the sake of one another” (trans. C.R.

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