Robin Waterfield on The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
“Accept what you can’t do anything about. What you can, change for the better.” — Robin Waterfield
Built Not Born (Episode X-Ray): Classical scholar and author Robin Waterfield discusses Marcus Aurelius and his annotated translation of The Meditations.
Robin Waterfield is a British classical scholar, author of more than 50 books, translator, and editor, who specializes in Ancient Greek philosophy. Robin studied Classics at Manchester University and went on to research ancient Greek philosophy at King’s College, Cambridge.
Robin and I discuss his latest work, an annotated edition of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ personal journal, The Meditations, which miraculously survived 2,000 and made it to us in the present day.
3.5 Ideas from Robin Waterfield:
1) Who was Marcus Aurelius?
- “Marcus Aurelius, the author The Meditations, was the Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180, and therefore the wealthiest and most powerful person in the Western world.”
2) What are The Meditations?
- “Meditations, sometimes called To Himself, is a collection of twelve notebooks in which Marcus wrote down his private thoughts about himself and life. He certainly intended them to remain private.”
3) Why are The Meditations so relatable to the modern reader?
- “Because Marcus is very often showing himself to be a flawed human being or not as good a person as he expects himself to be or wants himself to be. We can relate to that because we’re flawed people ourselves. I think the simplicity and rightness of that is very attractive to people.”
3.5) If You Could Have Everyone Take ONE LESSON from The Meditations, what would it be?
- “Accept what you can’t do anything about and what you can, change for the better. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a slave (Epictetus) or an emperor (Marcus Aurelius). You simply have to play the hand that you’ve been dealt.”
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