Was Marcus Aurelius really a Stoic philosopher? No, according to this Historian

This article was first published in French on www.unregardstoicien.com

Marcus Aurelius is often presented as a Stoic philosopher, in the same way as Seneca or Epictetus. His wisdom, inherited from the Stoa, is said to be particularly evident in his progressiveness towards slaves and women. There is no doubt about this label in the contemporary Stoic community, since the Stoic Week 2015 was based on his Meditations. Nevertheless, for the anthropologist and historian Pierre Vesperini, there is a mistake: the emperor was not a Stoic. This is what he demonstrates in his book Droiture et mélancolie, sur les écrits de Marc-Aurèle (Righteousness and Melancholy, On the writings of Marcus Aurelius), by proposing a reading that would be less partial of the sources available to us.

Compared to other commentators, the author has a great advantage for his study: he knows both Latin and Greek, and Marcus Aurelius, perfectly bilingual, spoke Latin and wrote in Greek. Consequently, Pierre Vesperini can draw on a very wide range of texts. His references even include writings that are often ignored or misunderstood : “this essay would therefore attemp to restore to Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations their strangeness, which is also that of ancient philosophy” (p.14), he explains in the first pages.