Has anyone noticed of late that reading/quoting Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations seems to have become the barometer of whether you are a serious intellectual these days? Look at these examples just in the past week … from the DC Examiner in regards to Arthur Brooks (president of the American Enterprise Institute):
So it is that he begins his day with this routine: For an hour beginning at 5:30 a.m., he exercises — cardio and weights. (The rigor of the regimen is obvious from his linelike figure.) As the early morning continues, Brooks, a Roman Catholic, reads the Bible and, lately, has devoted some of his morning reading period to the second century A.D. “Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.” He also does math problems.
Then, Sir Terry Wogan was mentioning in a Times interview:
I’m very interested in religion and if you went into my loo you’d find the writings of St Thomas Aquinas and Marcus Aurelius.
Then there’s Alexander Lebedev, the new owner of the Evening Standard, who was also mentioned in the Times:
One of his many historical heroes is the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. “I would like to think that I am following his example, rather than other emperors who were more profligate.”
He was a bit more explicit in the Independent:
He conceded that his financial resources had been drained by the economic downturn. “I will survive? Every economic crisis is cyclical – one day you borrow cheaply, one day you have to pay it all back. Like Deribaska’s 27 billion or Usmanov with 12. So I didn’t amass any losses, any debts, and I live through it. So, for me, my personal consumption is very limited. I’m taught to be more Marcus Aurelius than Caracalla if you know your Roman history.”
rogueclassicism 