Review: Marcus Aurelius, A Biography

By Anthony Birley

Marcus Aurelius is a fascinating character who is absolutely worthy of a biography. He ruled for 19 years from 161 AD to 180, the last of the ‘five good emperors’ that generated great prosperity for Rome. Marcus Aurelius displayed a level of mercy exceeding that of his predecessors, despite plague, barbarian invasions, personal illness and the death of nine of his children. His book of personal writings, probably never intended for public use, is considered a great source of ancient wisdom today. He was one of the principal adherents of the philosophical school of Stoicism, and one of our best sources for the philosophy today.

Originally published in 1966 with this edition published in 1987, this book provides a biography of the great Marcus Aurelius, which updated the book to include information about the Greek intellectual renaissance, the writings of Fronto and archaeological and epigraphic evidence that had been discovered.

The book is very much a detailed, historical biography. Chapters aim to cover all of Marcus’s life, from his early upbringing, his philosophy of stoicism, becoming Antoninus Pius successor, crises like the plague and the wars against the Germanic tribes.

Fronto, Marcus’s tutor, is the key primary source for the early years and is heavily relied upon. The letters were rediscovered in the nineteenth century. Often, their correspondence between each other is quoted in full which, although serving to illustrate a point sometimes, often didn’t seem necessary and added bloat. It is important to treat these adequately, since they are the key source Birley had at this time, but it often felt tedious and unnecessary to me.

Marcus the man

We see in his early years Marcus’ passion for philosophy, education and hints of his strong moral character in his growing up. These areas are covered well. Yet one gripe was the family section, where Birley was perhaps as meticulous as Marcus was in his judicial and administrative responsibilities. It isn't all positive though, often verging on arduous to get through. Many familial names and their spouses are introduced in short spaces of time, with long lists of names. This is perhaps useful to other historians, but much of the wider family has little use in understanding Marcus and don’t come up again. It seems like detail for details’ sake.

Marcus reluctantly took up the role of Emperor from his uncle Antoninus Pius and takes up Tiberius’s residence. His reluctance did not adversely affect his competency as an Emperor. He was one of the longest ruling Roman emperors, and was treated by contemporaries as an extremely good ruler. He also displayed his humility in fulfilling Hadrian’s wish of ruling jointly with Lucius Verus until the latter’s death in 169. The positive perception of Marcus certainly contributes to our perception of him today, although reviewing all the factual material available to us about him that view does make sense. Attempts have been made to revise the perception of emperors such as Nero (see Richard Holland’s Man Behind the Myth) who quite patently had a malicious streak Marcus did not possess. But it’s worth noting that biographies of Roman Emperors such as Aloys Winterling’s Caligula that there is a compelling case that the perception at the time was exaggerated to tarnish Caligula’s name: this is something common with the period.

An imperfect picture

Birley is thorough in his research but I repeatedly found myself tiring of the unnecessary detail but I also found some key aspects were missing. In the chapters about Stoicism there is explanation of what the philosophy was and examples of Marcus outlook in Meditations on, for example, how he took his personal illness, his opinions on death, but very little on how this philosophy influenced Marcus’s decisions and actions. Like the chapter about his family, I think the editor needed to be a bit more reductive in their revisions.

Birley treats the wars much more effectively, where, due to the multiple fronts, Germanic tribes and significant Roman characters greater detail is necessary and helpful for the general reader. Similarly, Birley discusses how Christianity was treated during Marcus’s reign effectively, considering multiple perspectives. Christianity was still a crime but was unique in that the Christian could renounce his faith and earn a pardon. No other crime at the time had this benefit, so although in our times the idea of persecuting someone for their beliefs seems wrong, for Marcus's time he was demonstrating leniency compared to his peers. Marcus still punished criminals but was worlds apart from the brutality and deviancy of emperors like Tiberius, Caligula or Nero. Birley is good at analysing some of these judicial events and selects relevant examples.

Yet despite these glimmers I found the book a difficult read despite being very interested and passionate about Marcus Aurelius, Stoicism and the Roman Emperors. I had to put the book down for a week. Contrast this with biographies such as those of Adrian Goldsworthy which cram in an incredible amount of detail whilst retaining a picture of who Caesar or Augustus were, why they made the decisions they made, and this book is just not at the same level.

It’s really important to be selective with the detail in a book of this scope, and I was also left with a hazy picture of a man who merited more than a two-page epilogue at the end attempting to tie everything together. The book was written a while ago, but I couldn’t help but feel it lacked quantity of analysis over quantity of extraneous information, even allowing for any changes in primary sources and tertiary discussion and debate that may have occurred since.

Final score

This book needed more thorough analysis and although it does a thorough job of including primary sources. It didn’t always utilise them well and the good analysis was often in brief spurts which became frustrating. It often felt like long quotations or letters were included to explain a very minor or unnecessary point. Some areas of the book really were tough to get through, due to it not allocating appropriate length of discourse to the subject. Small matters are delved into far too much and key areas are mentioned in passing or overlooked.

3/10