Among scholarly studies of the Meditations, three in particular deserve mention. P. A. Brunt, “Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations,” Journal of Roman Studies 64 (1974): 1–20, analyzes the themes that especially exercise Marcus. Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The “Meditations” of Marcus Aurelius, trans. M. Chase (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), is a thoughtful reconstruction of Marcus’s philosophical system. R. B. Rutherford, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study (Oxford, Eng.: Clarendon, 1989), is an excellent analysis from a more literary perspective, with good remarks also on Marcus’s relationship with the gods. Among the many appreciations by nonclassicists two deserve special mention: Matthew Arnold’s “Marcus Aurelius” (originally a review of Long’s translation) in his Lectures and Essays in Criticism, ed. R. H. Super (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962), and Joseph Brodsky’s “Homage to Marcus Aurelius” in his collection On Grief and Reason (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995). 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Karen Schwabach read through an initial draft of the translation and suggested numerous improvements, for which I am deeply grateful. For help of various sorts I am also indebted to Deborah DeMania, Gregory Gelburd, Krista Kane, Charles Mathewes, Katherine Odell, Hayden Pelliccia, Ellyn Schumacher, and Alphonse Vinh. My colleagues in the Department of Classics at the University of Virginia, and in particular my department chair, John Miller, made it possible for me to take course relief during the fall semester of 2001, when much of the work was completed. Thanks are due finally to my editor, Will Murphy, for his patience and enthusiasm for this project.