Meditations - The Classical Translation by George Long

Born in A.D. 121, Marcus Aurelius was the Roman Emperor from A.D. 161 to A.D. 180, widely recognized as the last of the "Five Good Emperors" and the last emperor of the Roman Empire's "Pax Romana" age, a time of relative peace and stability. Throughout his life, the great Roman emperor would write down personal notes ranging from a single sentence to several pages on his observations in his everyday life. These notes, written originally in Greek, would be the basis for how he could improve himself and his stature amongst his peers, and how he would conduct himself in the world. After his death, these notes were collected to form one volume titled Meditations, separated into twelve chapters, providing a clear insight into the stoic philosophy that was prevalent during the Roman Empire.

George Long, a Cambridge-educated scholar, historian, and linguist of Latin and Greek, was the one who greatly esteemed the 1862 translation of Meditations, for it kept a faithful direct translation of the original Greek text. Born on November 4th, 1800, in Lancashire, England, Long directly contributed to the translations and commentary of works from antiquity previously without scholarly editions, including Cicero's Orations, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and Discourses of Epictetus, among many others. He died in 1879.

The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus, the title under which the 1862 George Long translation was published, presents an unmodified version of Marcus Aurelius's famous philosophical work. Contemporary biographers call Marcus Aurelius "the philosopher" for this book on philosophy, and he had 14 descendants, including his successor Commodus. He died in 180 A.D.

The central idea conveyed in the original text is that nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear. This notion resonates with the stoic philosophy that was prevalent during the Roman Empire, which Marcus Aurelius, as a philosopher-emperor, deeply embodied and expressed through his personal reflections and observations documented in Meditations. The timeless wisdom and insights shared in this work have continued to captivate and inspire readers throughout the centuries, making it a seminal contribution to the canon of Western philosophy.

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