The legionaries gathered before Marcus know well enough that their beloved sovereign and commander is a philosopher of the Stoic sect. Nevertheless, what happens next must have left them stunned. Marcus assures them that his greatest desire is to show clemency.
To forgive a man who has done wrong, to be still a friend to one who has trodden friendship underfoot, to continue being faithful to one who has broken faith. What I say may perhaps seem incredible to you, but you must not doubt it. For surely all goodness has not yet entirely perished from among men, but there is still in us a remnant of the ancient virtue. However, if anyone should disbelieve it, that merely strengthens my desire, in order that men may see accomplished with their own eyes what no one would believe could come to pass. For this would be the one profit I could gain from my present troubles, if I were able to bring the matter to an honorable conclusion, and show all the world that there is a right way to deal even with civil war.
This is not misfortune, in other words, but to bear it nobly is good fortune. That was something Rusticus and the other Stoics had taught him as a boy. There isn’t a trace of anger in Marcus’s words, although the news of Cassius’s rebellion has turned Rome upside down and left the whole empire in turmoil. The men serving under Marcus’s command know him well enough to expect that he would respond with dignity and calm, even to such a shocking betrayal as this. Even so, it must seem remarkable to the average legionary, standing there in the mud that day, to hear the Emperor Marcus Aurelius summarily pardon not only this usurper but also the rest of those ranged against him.
Upon finishing his speech to the troops, Marcus instructs his secretary to forward a copy to the Senate. He retires to his residence once again, closes his eyes, and continues to meditate on how best to cope with the emerging crisis, turning to his philosophy for guidance. HOW TO CONQUER ANGER
Marcus did not have a completely placid disposition by nature—he had to work on overcoming his temper. In the very first sentence of The Meditations, he praises his grandfather for being so calm and mild mannered, and throughout the rest of his notes, he keeps returning to the problem of mastering one’s anger.2 We know that Marcus struggled with his own feelings of anger and worked to become a more calm and reasonable man because he says so. He concludes the first book of The Meditations by thanking the gods that he never lapsed into offending his friends, family, or teachers, even though he felt inclined to lose his temper at times. People who suffer from fatigue and chronic pain, as Marcus did, can often be prone to irritability and anger. It shouldn’t surprise us if a frail man who slept poorly and was bothered by severe chest and stomach pains sometimes felt irritated with the countless people who were trying to manipulate or deceive him.
For Stoics, full-blown anger is an irrational and unhealthy passion that we should never indulge. As we’ve seen, though, it’s human nature to have some automatic feelings of irritation in response to life’s problems. The Stoics consider these “proto-passions” inevitable and accept their occurrence with an attitude of indifference. A Stoic might reasonably prefer that someone behave differently. They might even take determined action to stop them, as Marcus did when he mobilized his army to march against Avidius Cassius. Being a Stoic clearly doesn’t mean being a passive doormat. However, the wise man will not get upset about things that lie beyond his direct control, such as other people’s actions. The Stoics therefore have a variety of psychological techniques that they employ to help them counteract feelings of anger and replace them with a more even-tempered, but equally determined, attitude.
Dealing with feelings of anger by cultivating greater empathy and understanding toward others is one of the major recurring themes of The Meditations. Whereas modern psychotherapy typically focuses on anxiety and depression, the Stoics concerned themselves more with the problem of anger. Indeed, an entire book by Seneca titled On Anger, which survives today, describes the Stoic theory and treatment of this passion in great detail.
As in most aspects of life, Marcus’s supreme role model here was his adoptive father. From the Emperor Antoninus he learned “gentleness” first and foremost, and mildness of temperament. Antoninus exhibited “patient tolerance” of those who harshly criticized his cautious handling of the empire’s resources. Marcus specifically reminds himself of how gracefully his adoptive father accepted the apology of a customs officer at Tusculum on one occasion, and that this was typical of his gentle character. Unlike his predecessor Hadrian, Antoninus was never rude, overbearing, or violent to people, and he never lost his temper. He considered every situation on a case-by-case basis, calmly, methodically, and consistently, as if doing so at his leisure. Elsewhere we hear again of Antoninus’s gentle disposition and “how he put up with those who found fault with him unfairly, finding no fault with them in return” and “his forbearance towards those who openly opposed his views, and his pleasure when somebody pointed out something better.”3 The patience and gentleness Antoninus showed as a ruler were among the most important virtues Marcus learned. Indeed, Marcus was famous for remaining calm in the face of provocation. Nevertheless, he had to practice and train himself to overcome his feelings of anger.
So what therapy did the Stoics prescribe? They believed that anger is a form of desire: “a desire for revenge on one who seems to have done an injustice inappropriately,” according to Diogenes Laertius. Speaking less formally, we might say that anger typically consists in the desire to harm someone because we think they’ve done wrong and deserve to be punished. (Occasionally it might be more of a desire for someone else to harm them, as in, “I hope someone teaches her a lesson!”) This is not unlike modern cognitive theories of anger, which typically define it as based upon the belief that a rule that is personally important to you has somehow been violated. Anger stems from the idea that an injustice has been committed, or someone has done something they shouldn’t have done. It’s often associated with the impression that you’ve somehow been threatened or harmed by the other person, making anger a close companion of fear: “He did something to me that he shouldn’t have done—that was wrong!” Not surprisingly, the Stoic antidote for anger resembles the general therapy applied to desire we described earlier. So it’s worth briefly reviewing the typical steps in this approach and considering how they would apply to this passion:
1. Self-monitoring. Spot early warning signs of anger, to nip it in the bud before it escalates. For example, you might notice that your voice begins to change, or that you frown or your muscles tense, when you’re beginning to grow angry, or you may think of someone’s actions as unjust or in violation of a personal rule. (“How dare she say that to me!”)
2. Cognitive distancing. Remind yourself that the events themselves don’t make you angry, but rather your judgments about them cause the passion. (“I notice that I am telling myself ‘How dare she say that,’ and it’s that way of looking at things that’s causing me to feel angry.”)