It’s one of the most haunting paintings you’ll ever see. More than 11 feet wide and 8 feet tall, painted in rich but dark oils, Eugene Delacroix (a student of the Stoics) captures Marcus Aurelius at the end of his life. A plague has devastated Rome. His troubled son stands in the wings, unlikely to rule well. Marcus has had a hard life, filled with adversity, not meeting, as one historian noted, “with the good fortune he deserved.”
Yet he strived to do right and to be good. He escaped “imperialization” in his words, avoided being “Caesarified” and dyed purple by the power of his position. He kept the faith, kept the empire going, doing his best. And now, weak and frail, the end was here. He knew, as he would say to his bodyguard, that the sun was setting.
To learn more about the life of Marcus Aurelius, pick up this in-depth biography of the man in Lives of the Stoics, which is included in the new leather bound edition of the Gregory Hays translation of Meditations.
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