those who love the book cannot deny that there is something
impoverishing about the view of human life it presents.
Matthew Arnold, whose essay on the work reveals a deep
respect and affection for Marcus, identified the central
shortcoming of his philosophy as its failure to make any
allowance for joy, and I think this is a fair criticism. Marcus
does not offer us a means of achieving happiness, but only a
means of resisting pain. The Stoicism of the Meditations is
fundamentally a defensive philosophy; it is noteworthy how
many military images recur, from references to the soul as
being “posted” or “stationed” to the famous image of the
mind as an invulnerable fortress (8.48). Such images are not
unique to Marcus, but one can imagine that they might have
had special meaning for an emperor whose last years were
spent in “warfare and a journey far from home” (2.17). For
Marcus, life was a battle, and often it must have seemed—
what in some sense it must always be—a losing battle.
There are also a handful of points in the text where we
have glimpses of a different frame of mind, most obviously
when Marcus refers to the gods. From a Stoic perspective, of
course, “God” or “the gods” (the terms are used
interchangeably by many ancient writers) are merely
conventional terms for what we might equally well call
“nature” or “the logos” or “Providence,” or simply “how
things are.” Marcus stresses the benevolence of this power
(what is divine must be good, surely?), but it is clear that he
also ascribes to its actions the implacability with which