About the emperor of Rome who is considered to be the realization of Plato's vision of a wise ruler, the portrait of a gloomy man
Marcus Aurelius says: "We die constantly during our lives, first I die as a baby and then as an old man and as a middle-aged man, and because I only have the opportunity to get used to death" (Spiegel 175:1980). Although Aurelius uses this statement to free man from the fear of death, one cannot avoid the impression that this is a grim and difficult statement that has no pleasure in it, at any stage of life. This feeling accompanies the reader in the thoughts of the philosopher emperor in many places in his writings such as in the statement that "everything passes and soon becomes a legend and in a short time everything will be forgotten" (Spiegel 133:1980).
In another place he says, "They are all things of their day and will soon pass away." There is no point, therefore, in ascribing any value to them and being eager for them" (Spiegel 162:1980). An optimistic or pessimistic world view cannot grow completely. It must come from a personal or social experience that leaves its mark on the writer, an experience that is often traumatic. Marcus Aurelius came from an affluent family that invested heavily in him and a supportive environment that prepared him for the most exalted position and that is to be emperor, leader of the greatest power in the world. In theory, Marcus Aurelius had no reason to be so pessimistic, yet where did this gloom come from? A possibility that must be taken into account is that this trait comes from within himself. His face seemed to have an innate melancholy.
From his own testimony and that of the Roman historians, it becomes clear that from the age of twelve Marcus Aurelius developed a penchant for abstinence. He did not eat meat, used to fast, minimized his sleep and slept on a hard bed. All these were beyond the strength of an adolescent boy, which caused his health to deteriorate irreversibly. Despite his mother's pleas, he continued on his own (Spiegel 45:1980). When he was appointed emperor, he could not continue in the same extreme ascetic pattern since his status required him to moderate his behavior, but he continued to avoid the pleasures of life. He lacked the motivation to be strong and subjugate his will over others. In his attitude towards his subjects he showed a great degree of liberality and forgiveness. The bereavement that accompanied him with the death of several of his children also contributed to this gloom (Spiegel 46:1980). To this must be added his wanderings from house to house until he reached Hadrian's house.
This journey of wandering began with the death of his birth father in his childhood, a father to whom Markus attributed "manly modesty and beauty" (Spiegel 33:1980). It seems that he adored his father and from him he absorbed the attitude of and austerity to the sect. With the death of the father, he lost his source of identification. His warm attitude towards his father was also the attitude he showed towards his mother for whom he felt great love. In order to provide him with a father figure, he moved to live in the house of his grandfather, Marcus Ennius Verus, which forced him to break away from his mother, who, like his father, advocated contentment with little and, in addition, abstained from the pleasures of the body. The one who paid a lot of attention to him was Hadrian Caesar who appointed him at the age of eight to be a member of the leadership of the Salian priests, and when he turned fifteen, he donned a man's toga and was appointed Prefect of Rome. "In the year 138, Hadrian adopted Titus Aurelius Antoninus and named him the heir to his throne. and then ordered him to adopt Marcus. It was an unusual case of the appointment of an heir to an heir by the emperor" (Spiegel 35:1980). Throughout his childhood, he received an excellent education, which further sharpens the question of the factors that led to the development of a feeling of gloom and unwillingness to enjoy the pleasures of life and its reduction to the most minimal things. From the little that is known about his childhood, it can be seen that he went through a severe trauma as a child following the death of his father and that he lost some of the social anchors that began his wandering journey from the death of his father until he arrived at Hadrianus Caesar's house.
Even before he could develop and shape relationships with his peers in one environment, he had to learn to know other childhood friends when he moved from his house, to his grandfather's house, back to his mother's house and then to Hadrianus Caesar's house. These "wanderings" and the humble approach of his parents, assimilated in him to the point of adopting it as a way of life. From the fact that his mother tried to dissuade him from asceticism, it can be seen that he was endowed with a very strong personality. He was indeed a child when he adopted the monastic attitude, but he knew exactly what he wanted. It seems that contentment with little was already ingrained in him as a child, but the combination of the traumatic experience and the modesty education he received intensified by several orders of magnitude, to the point of harming his health. It is very possible that this attitude was for him a kind of defense mechanism against the trauma that came upon him with the death of his father. Another trauma that hit him was in his adulthood when some of his children died. An extremely difficult experience that most likely deepened his severe gloom.
To all these must be added his appointment to senior positions at a young age. His appointment as a member of the Society of Salian Priests required him to participate in various ceremonies, the meaning of which he was probably unable to understand because he was too young, what's more, the first encounters with these ceremonies were terrifying and left their mark on him. His appointment as prefect of Rome forced him to enter public life at the age of fifteen, an age at which many of his peers still play. He had to experience political life, a demanding and abrasive way of life, far beyond the powers of an adolescent boy.
Ben Ami Sharpstein claims that "thanks to the blessed persistence and consistency of the mother and the other members of the household, the child learns to think positively about himself and others. The world is experienced as fundamentally useful and worthy of trust, an opposite experience produces, of course, an opposite result" (22:1989). Marcus Aurelius despite all the love and attention given to him, remained a gloomy and pessimistic person in his being. Although there is no extensive information about his daily behavior, one can clearly see that his personality includes melancholic elements. From the very fact that he was appointed emperor despite his abnormal behavior, we can learn that the melancholy he suffered from did not impair his functioning. He knew how to live with it and at the same time run a country in a more understandable way. The proof of this is the great sympathy she won from the Roman public. He did not descend on the masses of the people and did not entertain them. In his basic approach he was a liberal man and he also found time for Gothic writing. It seems that the melancholy served as a lever for him to develop his philosophical thought and his humanistic approach.
Sources:
1. Nathan Spiegel - Marcus Aurelius Caesar and Philosopher, Magnes Publishing House, 1980.
2. Sharpstein Ben Ami - Philosophers as Humans, Zamora Beitan Moden, 1984.
