Reflexions Morales de l'Empereur Marc Antonin

Stoic musings by the last of Rome's Five Good Emperors

A lovely pocket edition of the meditations of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the third edition of this translation by husband and wife André and Anne Dacier.

Marcus Aurelius composed his Meditations between 170 and 180 AD as a private work intended for his own moral guidance and self-improvement. The first definite mention of the text was made by Arethas of Caesarea in the 10th century, who sent a copy of the Emperors' '[writings] to himself' to Demetrius, Archbishop of Heracleia sometime before 907 AD. Although now lost, this edition is considered the likely source of the two extant manuscripts on which the present-day text is almost entirely based. The work survives to offer us a unique insight into the mind of a Roman emperor and 'philosopher king'.

Third edition; 12mo (16.5 x 11 cm); engraved portrait frontispiece, title printed in red and black, engraved printer's device, woodcut initials, head and tailpieces, a few isolated instances of underlining in red crayon else internally clean, a little tightly bound; contemporary vellum, lettered in pen to spine, blue morocco library label numbered in gilt to lower spine, sprinkled edges, a little warped, slightly soiled, very good or better; [30], 162, [2], 264pp.