Marcus Aurelius

Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD — the last of the "Five Good Emperors" — who ran a vast and unraveling empire while quietly keeping a private notebook in Greek. We call it the Meditations. He never titled it, never showed it to anyone, never intended publication; the original title was simply "To Himself." Across twelve short books he reminds himself to do his duty, to bear with difficult people, to remember he will die, to not waste this morning. He fought plague, war on the Danube, the betrayal of a trusted general, and the death of several of his children. The book reads, eighteen hundred years later, like a friend talking to himself in the dark.