Aurelius - The Emperor's Handbook

Why would you re-title a new translation of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations "The Emperor's Handbook"? Marcus Aurelius himself never named the book and never meant if for publication. These were a collection of private notes he kept to remind himself of the right way to live, in accordance with his Stoic guiding principles.

Historically, this collection of notes was called The Meditations, not "The Emperor's Handbook". Yes, the book was technically written by a Roman emperor, and yes, it was technically meant to be a handbook for his own life. But he was trying to be the best person he could be, not just the best emperor.

This may have been the handbook of the emperor, but it isn't a handbook on how to be an emperor. It isn't even really a handbook on how to live your life. How can you live your life based on the private notes someone wrote to himself to remind him of what was important to him and to help him avoid the weaknesses he knew he was vulnerable to?

Who on earth could this book be aimed at? Well, flipping to the back cover of this translation, all mysteries are revealed. Steve Forbes, President and CEO of Forbes Inc, gushes that the book is "a must read for business leaders." Ha ha. Really? Do you spend a portion of every day preparing for death and repeating to yourself "Soon you will have forgotten everything, and everyone will have forgotten you." (VII, 21). I hope so. But are there really any similarities between a Roman emperor who spent years at war and a modern day manager?

Admiral Stansfield Turner, former director of the CIA, also says that the book "should be of great value to each of us, whether in leading fulfilling lives, managing corporations, or leading countries." Why is leading a fulfilling life and managing a corporation an either/or proposition? And why is the value of this book somehow related to its questionable ability to teach management skills? How on earth did the management of other people become a respectable course of study? And how is it at all reasonable to repackage a book about one man learning to be true to his own principles into a management textbook for the self-identified little emperors of the modern day?

So many notes here have to do with the inevitability of death, decay and loss. Marcus Aurelius seemed to want to remind himself daily that all things will pass away and that he should not fear death. He also spent lots of time trying to keep himself grounded with reminders like "Death brought Alexander of Macedon and his stable boy to the same end" (VI, 24). But what are modern day managers expected to make of some of these notes? For example;

"Strip the body naked and see it for what it is, for what it becomes with age, disease, and debauchery. Short are the lives of those who praise and of those who are praised, of those who remember and those who are remembered. And even these lives are lived in but one small corner of this continent where men are not at peace with one another or with themselves - and the whole earth is the merest speck in space." (VIII, 21)

This would be a fun book to turn into a PowerPoint presentation for a management training seminar with lots of nuggets of management wisdom.

• Life short; Death may come unexpectedly
• You, your colleagues and loved ones - all dead soon
• Don't forget! Dark shadow of death hangs over all you do

Good lord, I need to make some of these notes into big inspirational posters to frame and put up at my desk at work.

The index to this translation is also hilarious, with listings on "managing change," "delegating" and "crisis management". Weirdly, the index has no references to Zeus, Apollo, the Muses, God, or religion, even though the text is littered with discussions of them. Nor are there any mentions in the index to the blunt note on the "sheer contrariness" of the Christians (who I assume were still being executed in horrible ways under his rule). I guess that good managers need to be willing to feed Christians (or their modern, metaphorical equivalents?) to the lions for the good of Rome. Er, I mean the company.

Okay, I hated the idea behind the creation of this new translation of Marcus Aurelius. But I did really enjoy the book itself. I don't know how accurate the translation is, but I thought it made for excellent reading. And many of these private notes are striking and insightful. You should read it. But don't try to live your life by it or manage people with it. If you must, maybe you could consider what your own guiding principles are and how you might remind yourself of them periodically.

One last quote:

"Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that a man can lose only the life he is living, and he can live no other life than the one he loses. Whether he lives a long time or a short time amounts to the same thing, for the present moment is of equal duration for everyone, and that is all any man possesses. This is why the loss of life seems so momentary. A man cannot lose the past or the future - how can he be robbed of what is not his? ..... A man can only be deprived of the present moment, for this is all he has, and how can a man lose what he doesn't possess? (II, 14)