Hadrian’s marriage was childless, so in his later years, when his health began to deteriorate, he adopted a successor. To everyone’s surprise, he chose a relatively undistinguished man called Lucius Ceionius Commodus, who then became known as Lucius Aelius Caesar, starting a tradition that the official heir to the empire would assume the title Caesar. However, Lucius was in such poor health that he dropped dead little over a year later. Hadrian reputedly wanted Marcus, now sixteen, to become his successor, but he felt the boy was still too young. Instead, he chose an older man called Titus Aurelius Antoninus, who was already in his early fifties and had two daughters but no surviving sons. He was married to Marcus’s aunt, Faustina. So, as part of a long-term succession arrangement, Hadrian adopted Antoninus on condition that he would in turn adopt Marcus, placing him in direct line to the throne. Hadrian thereby adopted Marcus as his grandson.
In early 138 AD, on the day of his adoption, young Marcus Annius Verus assumed Antoninus’s family name, becoming forever known as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. However, complicating matters, Lucius Aelius, the man Hadrian originally appointed as his successor and Caesar, had left behind a young son of his own, also called Lucius. Antoninus therefore adopted the child Lucius, who thereby became Marcus Aurelius’s new brother. Later, immediately following his own acclamation, Marcus would appoint his adopted brother co-emperor, at which point he became known as the Emperor Lucius Verus. It was the first time two emperors had ruled jointly in this way. Marcus presumably made the decision to share power with his brother at least in part to avoid the risk of unrest caused by having a rival dynasty with a claim on the throne. (We’ll come back to the relationship between Marcus and his brother Lucius later.)
At first, Marcus was deeply dismayed that Hadrian had adopted him into the imperial household. He was reluctant to move from his mother’s villa to the emperor’s private home. When his friends and family members asked him why he was so perturbed, he rattled off a whole list of his concerns about life at court. Based on his later comments, we know he struggled with the insincerity and corruption of Roman politics. That night, though, after learning he was to become emperor, Marcus dreamt that he had arms and shoulders of ivory. Asked in the dream if he could still use them, he picked up a heavy load and discovered he had become much stronger. Exposed shoulders were the mark of a Cynic or Stoic philosopher’s endurance against the cold, so he may have foreseen in this dream that his training in Stoic philosophy would grant him the strength and resilience required to fulfill his future role as emperor.
Marcus was now second in line to the throne and destined to succeed Antoninus. He was introduced to the circle of intellectuals at court, some of the finest rhetoricians and philosophers in the empire. He must also have observed the way the emperor bullied them. This was completely at odds with Marcus’s values, as were Hadrian’s growing suspicion, intolerance, and persecution of his supposed enemies. Later, during his own reign as emperor, Marcus made a point of allowing his political opponents to go unpunished when they publicly ridiculed or criticized him. The most he ever did in response to outspoken critics was to address their remarks politely in speeches or pamphlets, whereas Hadrian would have had them banished or beheaded. Marcus famously pledged that not a single senator would be executed during his reign, and, as we will see, he maintained this promise even when several of them betrayed him during a civil war in the east. He believed that true strength consisted of one’s ability to show kindness, not violence or aggression.
In his final years, Hadrian became something of a tyrant. He grew increasingly paranoid, paid agents to spy on his friends, and ordered a swath of executions. The Senate ended up hating him so bitterly that after his death they wanted to annul his acts and withhold the traditional honor of deification. However, the new emperor Antoninus reasoned with them that it would be better to act in a more conciliatory manner, for which he earned the cognomen Pius. Hadrian would doubtless have been infuriated by the fact that despite being mentioned several times elsewhere in the text, he is conspicuously absent from the first book of The Meditations, in which Marcus individually praises his family members and teachers. On the other hand, Marcus listed the virtues of Antoninus at great length more than once and made it clear that he represented his ideal role model as emperor.
Roman historians portray Antoninus, in many ways, as the opposite of his predecessor. Indeed, some of the traits Marcus praises in his adoptive father can be read as implicit criticisms of Hadrian. Antoninus was completely unpretentious. We’re told that upon being acclaimed emperor, despite some resistance from the palace staff, he earned great respect from the people by minimizing the pomp of the imperial court. He often dressed as an ordinary citizen, without wearing the robes of state, to receive visitors, and he tried to continue living as he had previously done. Whereas his subjects came to humor Hadrian, wary of his changeable moods and quick temper, Antoninus was famous for his calm demeanor and for welcoming plain speaking at court and elsewhere. Unlike Hadrian, Antoninus would simply ignore any barbed remarks made at his expense.
The Stoics were happy to admit that some individuals naturally embodied virtues they sought to acquire through years of effort, by means of study and training in philosophy. Antoninus was such a man, according to Marcus. The traits he’s described as possessing paint a vivid picture of the sort of character that Marcus wanted to develop through his training in Stoic philosophy. Once Antoninus had considered something and arrived at a decision, for example, he implemented it with unwavering determination.11 In The Meditations Marcus contemplates how his predecessor never sought out empty praise or approval from others; instead, he was always willing to listen to other people’s views and consider them carefully. He was meticulous in examining matters that required careful deliberation. He never rushed making a decision and was always willing to question his first impressions. He would patiently think over the issue until he was completely satisfied with his reasoning. He honored genuine philosophers, though he didn’t necessarily agree with all of their doctrines. He didn’t attack charlatans, but he wasn’t taken in by them either. In other words, he was a very calm and rational man. His natural freedom from vanity helped him to follow reason more consistently and see things more clearly—unlike Hadrian, he didn’t always have to be right.
Under Antoninus and later Marcus, the culture at Rome would noticeably shift from favoring Sophists toward philosophers, particularly the Stoics. Marcus wanted to engage with Greek learning but in a totally different way than Hadrian. He genuinely sought to transform himself into a better person instead of merely scoring points against intellectual rivals. The seeds of that transformation were planted by his family, perhaps especially by his mother, but they were then nurtured by a series of exceptional tutors.
Nevertheless, young Roman noblemen were expected to undergo formal training in rhetoric. This began when they officially reached adulthood, symbolized by taking the toga virilis around the age of fifteen. Studying rhetoric in order to communicate more eloquently and persuasively would become Marcus’s main obligation as a student, although it clashed with his growing interest in Stoic philosophy. Herodes Atticus and others trained him extensively in Greek, the language he would use to write The Meditations. However, once Emperor Antoninus adopted Marcus, his main tutor became Marcus Cornelius Fronto, the leading Latin rhetorician of the day.