His Meditations,” Journal of Roman Studies 64 (1974): 1–
20, analyzes the themes that especially exercise Marcus.
Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The “Meditations” of
Marcus Aurelius, trans. M. Chase (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1998), is a thoughtful
reconstruction of Marcus’s philosophical system. R. B.
Rutherford, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study
(Oxford, Eng.: Clarendon, 1989), is an excellent analysis
from a more literary perspective, with good remarks also on
Marcus’s relationship with the gods. Among the many
appreciations by nonclassicists two deserve special mention:
Matthew Arnold’s “Marcus Aurelius” (originally a review
of Long’s translation) in his Lectures and Essays in
Criticism, ed. R. H. Super (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1962), and Joseph Brodsky’s “Homage to
Marcus Aurelius” in his collection On Grief and Reason
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Karen Schwabach read through an initial draft of the
translation and suggested numerous improvements, for which
I am deeply grateful. For help of various sorts I am also
indebted to Deborah DeMania, Gregory Gelburd, Krista
Kane, Charles Mathewes, Katherine Odell, Hayden
Pelliccia, Ellyn Schumacher, and Alphonse Vinh. My
colleagues in the Department of Classics at the University of