Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Reminiscences of Fronto in Marcus Aurelius' Book of Meditations

Reminiscences of Fronto in Marcus Aurelius' Book of Meditations REMINISCENCES OF FRONTO IN MARCUS AURELIUS' BOOK OF MEDITATIONS BY MICHIEL VAN DEN HOUT Marcus Aurelius' personality will always captivate mankind; in our times psychology has already started to rewrite his life and modern humanism is inspired by his view of the world. Many writers speak of Marcus' "conversion to philosophy", when, as a young man, he found out that real perfection cannot be found in rhetoric, but only there where the ultimae causae are sought, in philosophy. Yet, when Marcus read Aristo's works, he did not undergo the same change as Saint Augustine when reading Cicero's Hortensius: Aristo made Marcus feel guilty for not having persisted in cultivating his per- sonal value. At that moment, twenty-five years old, his life took a definite course, but the letters of Fronto prove sufficiently that Marcus did not reject rhetoric altogether; as an emperor he could hardly do this, but now the great difference is that he did not think the embellishment of a speech more important than the embellish- ment of outward appearence. Neither could he share the opinion which gave the first place in spiritual life to rhetoric and this means that he had to disappoint his old master http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Mnemosyne Brill

Reminiscences of Fronto in Marcus Aurelius' Book of Meditations

Van Den Hout, Michiel
Mnemosyne , Volume 3 (1): 6 – Jan 1, 1950
Download PDF
6 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/reminiscences-of-fronto-in-marcus-aurelius-book-of-meditations-eJrmQCTfCQ

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0026-7074
eISSN
1568-525X
DOI
10.1163/156852550x00292
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

REMINISCENCES OF FRONTO IN MARCUS AURELIUS' BOOK OF MEDITATIONS BY MICHIEL VAN DEN HOUT Marcus Aurelius' personality will always captivate mankind; in our times psychology has already started to rewrite his life and modern humanism is inspired by his view of the world. Many writers speak of Marcus' "conversion to philosophy", when, as a young man, he found out that real perfection cannot be found in rhetoric, but only there where the ultimae causae are sought, in philosophy. Yet, when Marcus read Aristo's works, he did not undergo the same change as Saint Augustine when reading Cicero's Hortensius: Aristo made Marcus feel guilty for not having persisted in cultivating his per- sonal value. At that moment, twenty-five years old, his life took a definite course, but the letters of Fronto prove sufficiently that Marcus did not reject rhetoric altogether; as an emperor he could hardly do this, but now the great difference is that he did not think the embellishment of a speech more important than the embellish- ment of outward appearence. Neither could he share the opinion which gave the first place in spiritual life to rhetoric and this means that he had to disappoint his old master

Journal

Mnemosyne – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1950

There are no references for this article.