To try to extract a sustained and coherent argument from the
Meditations as a whole would be an unprofitable exercise. It
is simply not that kind of work. It would be equally fruitless
to try to read autobiographical elements into individual
entries (to take 9.42 as referring to the revolt of Avidius
Cassius, for example, or 10.4 as a reflection on Commodus)
—all the more so since so few of the entries can be dated
with any security. This is not to say that the Meditations has
no unity or no relationship to Marcus’s own life, for it has
both. What unifies it is the recurrence of a small number of
themes that surely reflect Marcus’s own preoccupations. It is
the points to which Marcus returns most often that offer the
best insight into his character and concerns.
One example that will strike almost any reader is the sense
of mortality that pervades the work. Death is not to be feared,
Marcus continually reminds himself. It is a natural process,
part of the continual change that forms the world. At other
points it is the ultimate consolation. “Soon you will be
dead,” Marcus tells himself on a number of occasions, “and
none of it will matter” (cf. 4.6, 7.22, 8.2). The emphasis on
the vanity and worthlessness of earthly concerns is here
linked to the more general idea of transience. All things
change or pass away, perish and are forgotten. This is the
burden of several of the thought exercises that Marcus sets
himself: to think of the court of Augustus (8.31), of the age of
Vespasian or Trajan (4.32), the great philosophers and
thinkers of the past (6.47)—all now dust and ashes.