The portrait of Antoninus

Book Six contains, near its center, the long paragraph that is the closest thing the Meditations has to a sustained portrait of any one person. Marcus describes Antoninus Pius, his adoptive father and the emperor before him, as the model of decent rule. "Everything he did was thought through carefully, as if he had time to spare." He bore pain and grief without showing it. He did nothing for the sake of show. He did not flatter and did not enjoy being flattered. He was content with simple things. He kept the same friends his whole life. When new ideas came to him, he tested them slowly. When he had decided, he was firm.

The portrait is one of the most touching things in the work. Marcus is writing it years after Antoninus's death and clearly still measures himself against the man. The argument is not stated, but it is clear: this is what a good emperor looks like; this is what I am trying to be. The Meditations is, in part, the document of that effort.

The rest of Book Six pulls back to the regular exercises. The cosmos as one ordered system. The brevity of life. The discipline of assent. The futility of fame. Marcus repeats himself; that is the point. He has to remind himself of these things every day, and the book is partly a record of him doing so. But Antoninus, mentioned by name and then unnamed in dozens of passages, is the warmth at the center. Marcus is writing in the shadow of a man he loved.