premises of the system developed by Zeno and Chrysippus,
they showed no reluctance to borrow aphorisms, anecdotes,
and argumentative strategies from non-Stoic sources. The
Meditations follows a similar procedure. While built on a
Stoic foundation, it also refers to and quotes a wide range of
figures, both precursors of the Stoics and representatives of
rival schools.
Of the predecessors Marcus invokes, the most important is
surely Socrates, the great Athenian thinker who had helped
redirect philosophy from a preoccupation with the physical
world to a focus on the role of man in society and the nature
of human morality. Socrates himself wrote nothing. His
teachings were transmitted (and greatly elaborated) in the
philosophical dialogues of his student Plato. Marcus quotes
Plato repeatedly (especially in Book 7), and Socratic or
Platonic elements can be discerned elsewhere too. One
example is the so-called Socratic paradox, the claim that no
one does wrong willingly, and that if men were able to
recognize what is right, they would inevitably do it. “They
are like this,” Marcus says of other people, “because they
can’t tell good from evil” (2.1), and he repeats this assertion
elsewhere.
Socrates’ character was as important as his doctrines. His
legendary endurance and self-denial made him an ideal
model for the Stoic philosopher—or any philosopher. His
refusal to compromise his philosophical beliefs led him to