Marcus Aurelius - and "The Emperor's Handbook" by David Hicks

The Emperor’s Handbook - David Hicks, former Rector at St. Paul's School and Head of four others, now serves as Chief Academic Officer at the Meritas Family of Schools and has launched with his brother Scot a new blog to celebrate and reflect upon the ten-year anniversary of their translation of Marcus Aurelius' MEDITATIONS. The website is emperorshandbook.com. Below is the “About” page of the website - a compelling blend of classical scholarship, personal reflection, and technology-enabled conversation.

  It's been over a decade since my brother and I translated and produced, with the help of Charles Scribner & Son, THE EMPEROR'S HANDBOOK (TEH), otherwise known as the Meditations of the second-century Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Since then, Hollywood has rewritten history and made Commodus (Joachim Phoenix) the murderer of his father (Richard Harris), and Maximus (Russell Crowe) the avenger of the parricide. Since then, our work has been translated yet again into Korean and Portuguese, and other translations and lives of Marcus have appeared both in America and throughout the world. Presumably, all of these works are selling as briskly as ours continues to do.

How does one account for the enduring popularity of this work and the enigmatic story of its author? Usually, a question like this is answered by looking at the author and his work, and no doubt, a complete answer requires this. But the beginning of an answer might be found in us. What's behind our restless curiosity about the past and our interest in those who inhabited that far-off country receding as fast as the stars? The answer provides the key to what's behind this web site.

Every thoughtful person, it seems to us, looks for personal vantage points from which to gain a broader or more objective perspective on her self, his situation, and the world we live in. This is the essence of the reflective life Socrates talks about; it is what underlies literacy and drives it; it is what it means to be cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world as Marcus himself understood it. Many gain this vantage point through faith, not a faith that compromises with the spirit of the age, but a robust faith that argues with and is not afraid to defy it. For others the vantage point may be a second country, not a country supersized by America or wholly bought into the notion that democracy is an unalloyed blessing or that comfort and prosperity are the chief ends in life, but a country sufficiently authentic and different from one's own to offer counterpoints at every turn. Yet for others, as it was for Emily Dickinson, it may be a library peopled with voices from the past, voices like Marcus', not to be dumbed down or "corrected" to accommodate modern tastes, but to be heard in their singularity and to be loved most when they seem most alien and challenging.

Vantage points were probably never as accessible as they are now, yet paradoxically, never more difficult to attain than in an age when the social pressures of conformity and correctness are so powerful and when the noise and glitter of contemporary culture invade our most intimate spaces and private moments, lighting up the night and blotting out the silence. Although he lived almost two thousand years ago, Marcus shared our fate. In theory free and with unimagined power to do as he pleased, Marcus viewed his palace as a cultural prison where the pressure to conform and the temptation to take his ease and please himself were forces as constant and inescapable as gravity. Stoicism was his vantage point.

Yet what we have in TEH is not just a theoretical vantage point, as helpful as that may be. We have the reflections of a man who consciously and painstakingly worked to see himself and those around him from this vantage point, and then to act accordingly and reflect again on the consequences, both inner and outer, of his actions. Marcus offers us a stunning example of the reflective life, of the proper use of our vantage points, and of what their proper use can teach us about ourselves and about our ability to navigate in the storm of life, calmly and wisely.

We want our web site not only to celebrate this example, but to provide a vantage point for visitors who have come to learn from Marcus and from one another, whether they're teaching the young or leading them into battle, whether they're looking to philosophy as a way of life or seeking a deeper understanding of the stoic forces that helped shape their religious faith. We're hoping for a quiet and courteous conversation here, not one looking out from whatever culture you're in, but looking into your culture from the vantage point of TEH.

Every week, our Homepage will feature a new "chapter" from TEH, first in the original Greek, followed by our English translation and Scot's" reading notes", a look back after ten years at the translator's challenges and key decision points. In the Authors' Blog, Scot and I will take the cover off our wideranging correspondence on the events, ideas, people and books of the day. Readers interested in what we have to say are welcome to comment but may not receive a response from us since our intention is to maintain a dialogue. On the Forums page, we offer opportunities for the diverse communities of interest in Marcus and his ideas (Philosophers, Leaders Military-Business-Political, Educators, Theologians, Psychologists) to talk with one another and share their thoughts on Stoicism's extraordinary influence. Most of the forums are "hosted" by someone whose job it is to moderate the discussion and prevent it from bogging down or becoming univocal. If you are interested in hosting a relevant forum, please let us know.