A Discussion On The Concept Of Virtue Of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius

The Meditations epitomized the concept of virtue of its author, Marcus Aurelius—the‘philosopher emperor’ of the Roman Empire. Being hardly impressed by Stoic, MarcusAurelius considered ‘virtue’, or one’s inner good characteristics—such as honesty, just, andprudence—was the most worthy of people’s pursuing. He advocated that a person shouldconsistently improve his ethics, emphasized that emperors should be benevolent andpopularized ethics subordinated to the whole Roman Empire society. His concept of virtuehad played the role of stabilizing the social ethics system on the wane to a certain extent.As the ruler of the Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius governed the country under theguidance of his concept of virtue. Politically, he was diligent in attending to state affairs andwidely run the country with benevolence. To avoid dictatorship, he underlined to run byconsultation with the Senate and persisted in inheriting to the throne with his brother, Virus.Economically, he took appropriate measures to develop Roman economy, improve thefinancial position of the country and subsidize large grants to the army and civilians. Heopposed to wars and believed that they were humiliation to the humanity, but he held that acountry must defend justifiably. As a result, he successfully led the Roman Army repelledParthian in the east and the invasion of the Germanic barbarians in the north, which protectedthe frontier areas of the empire. In the aspect of religious policy, the Romans at that timedeemed that the misfortune they had suffered was caused by the ignorance of Roman God,and the Christian should be responsible for this. Influenced by the psychological fear of itspeople, Marcus Aurelius persecuted the Christian. In legal system, he had always transformedthe moral issue to legal provision as much as possible, decreed laws to improve people’swell-being and abolished some brutal punishment system. In social enlightenment aspect,Marcus Aurelius despised for luxury and also disgusted athletics competition. Such emperorwas rare in Roman history.The implementation of his concept of virtue on ruling policy has had a profound impacton the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, this thought of him is also of great significance for ourmodern people’s virtue self-discipline and moral practice.