book. In the lost Greek manuscript used for the first printed
edition—itself many generations removed from Marcus’s
original—the work was entitled “To Himself” (Eis
heauton). This is no more likely than Meditations to be the
original title, though it is at least a somewhat more accurate
description of the work.^6
In fact, it seems unlikely that Marcus himself gave the
work any title at all, for the simple reason that he did not
think of it as an organic whole in the first place. Not only
was it not written for publication, but Marcus clearly had no
expectation that anyone but himself would ever read it. The
entries include a number of cryptic references to persons or
events that an ancient reader would have found as
unintelligible as we do. While a contemporary might have
recognized some of the figures mentioned in Meditations
8.25 or 12.27, for example, no ancient reader could have
known what was in the letter that Rusticus wrote from
Sinuessa (1.7), what Antoninus said to the customs agent at
Tusculum (1.16), or what happened to Marcus at Caieta
(1.17). Elsewhere Marcus reflects directly on his role as
emperor, in terms that would be quite irrelevant to anyone
else. We find him worrying about the dangers of becoming
“imperialized” (6.30), reminding himself to speak simply in
the Senate (8.30), and reflecting on the unique position he
occupies (11.7). From these entries and others it seems clear
that the “you” of the text is not a generic “you,” but the
emperor himself. “When you look at yourself, see any of the