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Books Comics Marcus Aurelius Stoicism

Get Verissimus for 25% off at Barnes and Noble

Good news! We’re delighted to announce that from Wednesday 26th until Friday 28th January, for three days, you can get 25% off when pre-ordering either the ebook or hardback edition of our new graphic novel from Barnes and Noble, in the US. NB: Make sure you enter the special offer code PREORDER25 when ordering to claim your discount!

Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius is a philosophical epic, 2-3 years in the making, a 250pp. full-colour publication with stunning artwork from our award-winning illustrator Zé Nuno Fraga. It’s like Gladiator meets The Meditations: and combines a lot of carefully researched historical action, from the life of Marcus Aurelius, with philosophical insights from Stoicism. Go to Barnes and Noble now, and claim your discount using the code above.

We hope you enjoy the book and look forward to hearing your comments.

Regards,

Donald Robertson Signature

Donald Robertson

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Marcus Aurelius Stoicism Verissimus Videos

Verissimus Video: Marcus Aurelius

Check out this amazing video that Kasey made on Instagram, and follow our account for more artwork and notifications on the forthcoming graphic novel, Verissimus.

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Comics Marcus Aurelius Stoicism Verissimus

More Artwork from Marcus Aurelius Graphic Novel

You can now follow @verissimusgraphicnovel on Instagram for sample artwork and notifications about our forthcoming graphic novel Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.

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Marcus Aurelius Stoicism

Artwork from Marcus Aurelius Graphic Novel

Want a sneak preview of a scene from our forthcoming graphic novel on the life, adventures, and Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius? Click the arrows to advance the Instagram slides below… (And follow our new Instagram page @verissimusgraphicnovel if you want to learn when the book’s coming out.)

Some more sample artwork from Verissimus…

The first colour printout of the pages from the book…

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Interviews Marcus Aurelius Podcasts Stoicism

Modern Stoicism Podcast

Listen to my interview on Marcus Aurelius and Alexander the Great for the new Modern Stoicism podcast.

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Books Marcus Aurelius Stoicism

Translations of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor

I get a lot of enquiries from people asking “When is your book coming out in…?” So here’s the current list of translations. There may be more coming, though, this list is just how things stand at the moment.

The English edition of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius is currently available from Macmillan in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

Now Available

  1. The Spanish translation, Piensa como un emperador romano, is now available from Planeta. (ISBN 6070767063)
  2. The Dutch translation, Leer denken als een Romeinse keizer, is available from Ten Have publishing. (ISBN 9789025907211)
  3. The Greek translation, Μάρκος Αυρήλιος: Σκέψου σαν Ρωμαίος αυτοκράτορας, is available from Dioptra publishing. (ISBN 9789606058578)
  4. The German translation, Denke wie ein römischer Herrscher, is available from FinanzBuch Verlag. (ISBN 9783959722513)
  5. The Italian translation, A dieci passi dalla felicità, is available from Edizioni Piemme. (ISBN 9788856672374)
  6. The Brazilian translation, Pense como um imperador, is available from Editora Citadel. (ISBN 6550470307)
  7. The Russian translation, Думай как римский император, is available from Eksmo. (ISBN 9785041131340)
  8. The Romanian translation, Cum sa gandesti ca un imparat roman, is available from Seneca Iulius Annaeus Publishing House, part of Asociatia SNK
  9. The Serbian translation, Marko Aurelije – filozofija stoicizma ili kako da razmišljate kao rimski imperator, is available from Kontrast (ISBN 9788660360986)
  10. The Croatian translation, Kako razmišlja car filozof, is now available from Planetopija (ISBN 978-953-257-457-9).
  11. The Turkish translation, Roma İmparatoru Gibi Düşünmek, is available from Beyaz Baykuş Yayınları (White Owl Publishing, part of the Destek group). (ISBN 9786254410895)
  12. The Persian translation is now available from Sang (Stone) publishing.
  13. The Vietnamese translation, NGHĨ NHƯ HOÀNG ĐẾ LA MÃ, is now available from NXB Trẻ.
  14. The Czech translation is now available from Audiolibrix.
  15. The Polish translation, Myśl jak rzymski cesarz, is now available from Onepress.

Coming Soon

  1. The Korean translation will be available from Golden Turtle.
  2. The Arabic translation is coming.
  3. Japanese translation is coming from CCC Media House.
  4. And other translations may become available over time…
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Marcus Aurelius Stoicism Videos

Author Reading: How to Think Like a Roman Emperor

I said I’d upload a video of myself reading the final chapter from How to Think Like a Roman Emperor when we reached 500 reviews on Goodreads. So here it is…

When we reach 100 reviews on Amazon US, I’m going to release a new poster from by forthcoming graphic novel about Marcus Aurelius.

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Books Marcus Aurelius Stoicism

Derren Brown on How to Think Like a Roman Emperor

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Books Marcus Aurelius Stoicism Uncategorized

Video: Favourite Passage from How to Think Like a Roman Emperor

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Books Marcus Aurelius Stoicism Uncategorized

The Dead Emperor

Excerpt from How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: the Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius (2019). Copyright © Donald Robertson. All rights reserved.

The year is 180 AD. As another long and difficult winter draws to a close on the northern frontier, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius lies dying in bed at his military camp in Vindobona (modern-day Vienna). Six days ago he was stricken with a fever, and the symptoms have been worsening rapidly. It’s clear to his physicians that he is finally about to succumb to the great Antonine Plague (probably a strain of smallpox) that has been ravaging the empire for the past fourteen years. Marcus is nearly sixty, physically frail, and all the signs show he’s unlikely to recover. However, to the physicians and courtiers present he seems strangely calm, almost indifferent. He has been preparing for this moment most of his life. The Stoic philosophy he follows has taught him to practice contemplating his own mortality calmly and rationally. To learn how to die, according to the Stoics, is to unlearn how to be a slave.

This philosophical attitude toward death didn’t come naturally to Marcus. His father passed away when he was only a few years old, leaving him a solemn child. When he reached seventeen, he was adopted by the Emperor Antoninus Pius as part of a long-term succession plan devised by his predecessor, Hadrian, who had foreseen the potential for wisdom and greatness in Marcus even as a small boy. Nevertheless, he had been most reluctant to leave his mother’s home for the imperial palace. Antoninus summoned the finest teachers of rhetoric and philosophy to train Marcus in preparation for succeeding him as emperor. Among his tutors were experts on Platonism and Aristotelianism, but his main philosophical education was in Stoicism. These men became like family to him. When one of his most beloved tutors died, it’s said that Marcus wept so violently that the palace servants tried to restrain him. They were worried that people would find his behavior unbecoming of a future ruler. However, Antoninus told them to leave him alone: “Let him be only a man for once; for neither philosophy nor empire takes away natural feeling.” After losing several young children, Marcus was once again moved to tears in public while presiding over a legal case, when he heard an advocate say in the course of his argument: “Blessed are they who died in the plague.”

Marcus was a naturally loving and affectionate man, deeply affected by loss. Over the course of his life, he increasingly turned to the ancient precepts of Stoicism as a way of coping when those closest to him were taken. Now, as he lies dying, he reflects once again on those he has lost. A few years earlier, the Empress Faustina, his wife of thirty-five years, passed away. He’d lived long enough to see eight of their thirteen children die. Four of his eight daughters survived, but only one of his five sons, Commodus. Death was everywhere, though. During his reign, millions of Romans throughout the empire had been killed by war or disease. The two went hand in hand, as the legionary camps were particularly vulnerable to outbreaks of plague, especially during the long winter months. The air around him is still thick with the sweet smell of frankincense, which the Romans vainly hoped might help prevent the spread of the disease. For over a decade now, the scent of smoke and incense had been a reminder to Marcus that he was living under the shadow of death and that survival from one day to the next should never be taken for granted.

Comments

That was an excerpt from the opening chapter of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, which follows a short introduction about how I came to write the book and my work over the years on Stoicism. It opens with the death of Marcus Aurelius. I wanted to start the book with something dramatic. Each chapter begins with a story about some major event in Marcus’ life, based on the information we have from the various Roman histories of his reign. In most of the chapters that leads into a discussion of Stoic philosophy and psychology and the concepts and techniques he used to cope with various problems such as anger, anxiety, pain, and so on. Then there’s a detailed discussion of how Stoic techniques can actually be applied today, drawing on my experience as a cognitive-behavioural therapist and the relevant scientific research. However, the first chapter is slightly different because after describing the events surrounding Marcus’ death in some detail, it proceeds to give the reader a short introduction to Stoic philosophy – an overview.

The story of Stoicism begins with Zeno of Citium, the founder of the school, and so you’ll be introduced to various anecdotes about him and other famous Stoics. Then we focus on what the Stoics actually believed: the core doctrines of the philosophy followed by Marcus throughout his entire adult life. And we’ll address some common misconceptions about Stoicism, such as the idea that Stoics were unemotional or joyless, which is false. I tried to keep the explanation of Stoicism in this chapter as simple as possible but after reading it you should have a pretty clear idea of who the Stoics were and what they believed. Then you’ll be well prepared to begin delving into the application of Stoicism to different areas of life. For example, in the next chapter we’ll be looking at how Stoics used language and in subsequent chapters you’ll learn how they overcame unhealthy desires and bad habits, conquered anxiety, managed anger, coped with pain and illness, came to terms with loss, and even faced their own mortality.