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MeditationsMarci Antonini Imperatoris De rebus suis, sive de eis quae ad se pertinere censebat, libri XII

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor from 161 to 180, kept a notebook for himself during the long wars on the Danube frontier. He never meant it for anyone else. It was copied and preserved, and became one of the most read books of philosophy: short reminders, written in Stoic terms, about how to act well, how to bear other people, and how to face death without fear.

Marcus wrote in Greek, the language of philosophy in his day. The Latin here is Thomas Gataker's translation, published at Cambridge in 1652 with the Greek on the facing page. For two centuries it was the Latin in which Europe read the book. Gataker translates fully and sometimes expands, so his Latin is a little longer than the Greek. It is clear, regular Latin, well suited to learning.

How to read: click any word to see its dictionary entry, its form, what it means in this sentence and its role in it, with the translation of the sentence and notes on its grammar. The buttons above the text add a gloss under every word, mark long vowels, show the translation of each sentence, or show all the notes. Start without them and use them when you need them.

Books

  1. IWhat I owe to othersThe people and gods Marcus thanks, one by one, for what he learned from them.Read →
  2. IIWritten at CarnuntumMorning resolve, the shortness of life, the guiding self within, and why death is nothing to fear.Read →
  3. IIIThe guiding selfTime is short and the mind may fail first; live by the god within, and let nothing outside unsettle it.Read →
  4. IVRetreat into yourselfThe inner refuge, the flux of all things, the brevity of fame, and the headland the waves break against.Read →
  5. VThe work of a manRising from bed to do a man's work, the vine that bears its grapes, living with the gods, and not being troubled by what others do.Read →
  6. VIAll things changeThe pliant substance of the universe, revenge by not becoming like the wrongdoer, Alexander and his muleteer, the bee and the swarm.Read →
  7. VIIThe spring withinNothing new under the sun, the wax that nature moulds and remoulds, sayings of Plato and the poets, and the spring of good that wells up if you keep digging.Read →
  8. VIIIThe citadel of the mindNever having lived wholly as a philosopher, the dead of Augustus's court, the bitter cucumber and the brambles in the road, the mind as a fortress, and the sunlight that spreads without being spent.Read →
  9. IXThe torrent of thingsInjustice as impiety, waiting for death as for a birth, little souls carrying corpses, not hoping for Plato's republic, and what to ask of the gods in prayer.Read →
  10. XBe good, my soulThe soul asked when it will be good, the spider proud of its fly, living as on a mountain, the leaves the wind scatters, and the strings pulled from within.Read →
  11. XIGifts of the MusesThe rational soul that gathers its own fruit, the branch cut from the tree, nine ways to bear with those who offend you, and sayings of Socrates and Epictetus.Read →
  12. XIICitizen of the great cityAll you seek by roundabout ways is yours now; body, breath and mind; the lamp that shines until it goes out; and the actor dismissed before the fifth act.Read →

Text: Gataker's Latin version as printed in his own edition (Cambridge 1652), read from the page images of two copies on the Internet Archive. It was first transcribed from the Foulis reprint (Glasgow 1744), which follows the London edition of 1704; that edition revises Gataker's wording in many places, and every book has since been collated with the 1652 and brought back to it. Evident misprints of the 1652 are corrected from its own errata or the later editions, and each is listed in the source files. Long s, ligatures and accents are written plainly; Gataker's spelling is kept (caeterum, jugiter, quenquam). Sections are numbered as in his margin, which is the numbering of modern editions.

The English translations, glosses and notes translate Gataker's Latin. They are not a version of the Greek.

The parsing, glosses, translations and notes were prepared with the help of AI and checked by sampling against the Latin; they have not yet been proofread in full, so a mistake is possible.