Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

April 26, 121 – March 17, 180)

was Roman Emperor from 161 until 180.

It has been said that the Stoic philosophy first
showed its real value when it passed from Greece to
Rome. The doctrines of Zeno and his successors were
well suited to the gravity and practical good sense
of the Romans; and even in the Republican period we
have an example of a man, M. Cato Uticensis, who
lived the life of a Stoic and died consistently
with the opinions which he professed. He was a man,
says Cicero, who embraced the Stoic
philosophy from
conviction; not for the purpose of vain discussion,
as most did, but in order to make his life
confortable to the Stoic precepts. In the wretched times from the death of
Augustus to the murder of Domitian, there was nothing but the Stoic
philosophy which could console and support the followers
of the old religion under imperial tyranny and amidst universal
corruption. There were even then noble minds that could dare and endure,
sustained by a good conscience and an elevated idea of the purposes of
man's existence. Such were Paetus Thrasae, Helvidius Priscus, Cornutus,
C. Musonius Rufus,[A] and the poets Persius and Juvenal, whose energetic
language and manly thoughts may be as instructive to us now as they might
have been to their contemporaries. Persius died under Nero's bloody reign;
but Juvenal had the good fortune to survive the tyrant Domitian and to see
the better times of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian.[B] His best precepts are
derived from the Stoic school, and they are enforced in his finest verses
by the unrivalled vigor of the Latin language.