Donald J. RobertsonSign up for our Substack newsletter to download this new Marcus Aurelius poster, with artwork by award-winning illustrator Zé Nuno Fraga.
We are delighted to be able to bring you this downloadable PDF of a full-color, 16” x 20” Marcus Aurelius poster designed by Zé Nuno Fraga, courtesy of St. Martin’s Press. Zé is the award-winning Portuguese illustrator, responsible for the artwork in our graphic novel, Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.
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The latest podcast episode of my podcast, brand new today, is a conversation with Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, author of How to be a Stoic and The Quest for Character. I’ve known Massimo for years and wanted to talk to him about how he first became interested in Stoicism, whether his views had changed, his interest in Skepticism and anti-pseudoscience, as well as what his new book says about Socrates, Alcibiades, good leadership, and the development of character.
You can download from Substack Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and many other hosts.
In this episode, I chat with Tim LeBon, cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, research director for the Modern Stoicism organization, and author of Wise Therapy: Philosophy for Counsellors, Teach Yourself Positive Psychology, and more recently, 365 Ways to be More Stoic, edited by my wife Kasey Pierce.
Topics covered include…
I recently had a pretty in-depth and original discussion about Stoicism, psychotherapy, and our graphic novel, with Tanner Campbell for his Practical Stoicism Podcast. You can listen via Apple, Spotify, or other podcast links available on Tanner’s website.
He dies at the end. Actually, he dies at the beginning. We borrowed that idea from How to Think Like a Roman Emperor when writing the script for Verissimus, because it made it much easier to structure the story of Marcus Aurelius’ life by embedding it within a framing story about his death. So this is how the book begins…
Verissimus was a labor of love. Our 260-page full-color graphic novel about the life and philosophy of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, was published in July 2022. It took a small team of us about two and a half years to create — normally you’re given about one year to write a conventional prose book. The project began when I was contacted by an award-winning illustrator, from Portugal, called Zé Nuno Fraga, who had recently published the graphic novel Assemblywomen, the ancient Greek satire by Aristophanes. A couple of major publishing houses were interested and before long we had a book deal with St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of Macmillan.
I’d never worked on a graphic novel before so I immediately plunged into reading books on the art of writing scripts for them, and illustrating them. The best is Scott Macleod’s fantastic Making Comics, which I read cover to cover 2-3 times — it became my Bible. I also sought advice from comic book enthusiasts who read the script and reviewed the draft illustrations. Before long I’d added Kasey Pierce, a freelance comic editor, to our team — a couple of years later we got married!
Verissimus is one of three books in a row that I wrote about Marcus Aurelius, the others being a self-help book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, and the forthcoming Marcus Aurelius biography I wrote for Yale University Press’ Ancient Lives series, which is edited by James Romm. I also edited an edition of the Meditations for Capstone Classics and wrote the biographical introductory essay on Marcus Aurelius for that volume. For several years, I was completely immersed in Marcus’ life and philosophy.
Some people have told me they’re surprised how much research went into Verissimus. So I thought it might be interesting to say more about how it was written. Here are some behind-the-scenes insights…
Near the end of the process, I realized that I’d “accidentally written the prequel to Gladiator but with a lot more philosophy” as I like to put it. Incidentally, my publisher told me that the scriptwriter for Gladiator 2 (now in the works) had read How to Think Like a Roman Emperor as part of his own research. Graphic novels take many different forms — at the bare minimum the artwork could have just been lots of stickmen with speech bubbles. We naturally went for a classic European historical epic look, with a sweeping cinematic feel, because it seemed to fit this story very nicely. It also makes it easy to imagine Verissimus being made — Fate permitting! — into an animation or live-action movie. (We’ve already had some initial interest in the movie rights.)
In my original pitch I said I wanted to avoid having 250 pages of “guys in togas and sandals talking about philosophy”. We wanted to create something that was much more action-oriented — like Gladiator or 300 but more historically authentic and with a lot more Stoicism! I scoured the Meditations for references to objects and events that might allow us to combine Marcus’ words with the action in plausible ways. For example, when Marcus talks in the Meditations about how to respond to treachery or deceit, it seems natural to imagine he would have said similar things about the various real-world betrayals he experienced. When he refers to events like gladiatorial contests, as a metaphor for philosophy, it’s easy to imagine him having made similar remarks while watching fighters at the Colosseum in Rome, and so on. In the few situations where long conversations took place that had no relation to Marcus’ action — borrowing a tip from Scott Macleod! — we placed Marcus in an unusual but plausible setting, such as the circus maximus or a Roman bathhouse, that allowed us to include action unfolding in parallel to, and sometimes complementing, his words.
I wanted people who knew nothing about Stoic philosophy to be able to read Verissimus and come away with a basic grasp both of its fundamentals and also of ways in which it could actually help them in the modern world — quite an ambitious goal! Early on I decided that in order to clearly communicate Stoic philosophy and also give people practical “takeaways”, I should focus on the problem of overcoming anger. Marcus explicitly states near the start of the Meditations that, for a time, he struggled to control his temper. The hero of a story like this typically has to go on a personal journey, otherwise he’ll seem boring and one-dimensional — we need to see Marcus changing over time, at least to some extent. We decided our Marcus should come across as a more complex human being. He is therefore shown struggling with his emotions at first and later, through Stoicism, mastering them — that’s a plausible reading of the historical evidence. My opinion, incidentally, is that anger is the best emotion for comics! It’s very interpersonal and expressive, and linked to action — it’s highly visual and dynamic by its very nature!
Early on in the project, we recruited an expert on Roman military reenactment who advised us throughout the process on details relating to weapons and armour, etc. During the initial draft phase, poor Zé had to go through and change many sketches after our consultant explained that Roman legionaries in this period began using the spatha, a longer sword than the conventional gladius, better suited to fighting “barbarian” horsemen. Many other details like uniforms, siege engines, and military formations, were checked for historical authenticity.
Some people — and this surprises me — believe that we don’t know much about the life of Marcus Aurelius. They’re wrong. We know far more about him than we do about any other Stoic, and perhaps even more than we know about any other ancient philosopher. Why? Because he was a famous emperor. The Meditations is not a normal text on philosophy but rather a series of personal reflections, almost autobiographical in nature. They tell us things about Marcus’ inner life, his character, preoccupations, and even some details about his outward life as emperor — particularly in the first chapter where he dwells at length on his relationships with his family and tutors, some of his closest friends. We also have three main historical accounts of his life, from Cassius Dio, the Historia Augusta and Herodian. We have an amazing cache of Marcus’ private letters, some alleged speeches by him, and many passing references to him in other ancient sources. The least well-known of our sources, incidentally, is the collection of references to his legislation in the Roman legal digests. We also have important inscriptions and numismatic and archeological evidence, etc. There are, moreover, many modern biographies of Marcus as well as several pieces of modern scholarship on his era and other famous figures who are part of his story, such as Hadrian and Lucius Verus. I’m surprised that biographers tend to have an insular approach, incidentally, focusing on the evidence relating to Marcus himself, whereas evidence about the lives of key people he associated with can also shed a great deal of light on the events of his life. For instance, the more we learn about the later years of Emperor Hadrian, the more we understand the early life of Marcus Aurelius — Marcus even lived in Hadrian’s villa for several months toward the end of the latter’s troubled life.
Verissimus is not really a work of fiction — it’s about as close as a graphic novel about the ancient world can get to being a historical biography. (Though the notorious unreliability of many ancient sources makes this claim problematic, of course.) The Roman histories provided our main source for Verissimus, supplemented by the other historical evidence mentioned above. We followed them very closely. Anyone reading the ancient sources alongside Verissimus will see that it’s a pretty faithful retelling of the story they provide although, of course, we have to create some dialogue, etc., for this medium. We were even able to do things that are tricky in a conventional prose biography, e.g., depicting gossip, dreams, memories, and stories within stories, which are also derived from our historical sources. For instance, where ancient sources label something as rumour or present it as unreliable information, we depict it as gossip between characters commenting on events, allowing the reader to decide how much trust to put in their words. This has the added bonus of allowing us to imagine what it tells us about the Romans who might have spread such stories about the emperor. Even dreams and rumours are a real, and often very important, part of the historical milieu, insofar as they can dramatically influence someone’s public image and the way they interact with those around them.
The script was written by me. Graphic novel scripts can be pretty simple, even just a “dialogue dump”, leaving the artist to do a lot of creative work. Our was much more detailed, like a movie script, nearly 150 pages and about 90k words long. It included many links to reference images, such as photographs I’d taken of artefacts in museums, or sculptures, and ruins or landscapes at historic locations. One day I’d like to release some more side-by-side images showing how Zé used photos of historical artefacts, etc., to inspire his illustrations.
I travelled to many museums and historical locations around the world, during my research. I spent about a week at Carnuntum in Austria, for instance, the archeological site of the Roman legionary fortress where Marcus stationed himself throughout much of the First Marcomannic War. We shot video and took many photographs there.
I also interviewed the museum director and head of archeological research at Carnuntum. In the archeological park, they have a full reconstruction of a Roman villa from the time of Marcus Aurelius, which was a huge help to us in illustrating the decor and furnishings of various rooms in our graphic novel.
I also spent a great deal of time in Greece, travelling to many museums there and archeological sites, such as the Agora and Stoa Poikile, Eleusis, and Delphi, which inspired scenes in our book. I don’t have much Latin but I do read a little ancient Greek and began learning to speak modern Greek. (I applied for and now have my official “permanent resident” status in Greece.)
It was also important to me that the dialogue in Verissimus should seem natural and believable. Here’s a tip: a good way to do that for a historical novel is by reading ancient letters, especially private ones. I made lists, for instance, of all the oaths (“By Hercules!”) and greetings (“Best of masters!”) used in Marcus Aurelius’ correspondence with his rhetoric tutor, Marcus Cornelius Fronto. Poetry also provides a good source of material for various idioms and colloquial expressions. We used this to create more authentic dialogue for our characters. Sometimes this surprises people, incidentally. They don’t expect Romans to use Greek god names, for instance, but they certainly did. Forms of address are sometimes not quite as some readers expect. Marcus was often addressed as Caesar or, especially in a military setting, as Imperator. (Some people mistakenly believe that “Caesar” was a title used to denote the emperor’s designed successor but it is more like a cognomen, also retained by the emperor in office.) In the Meditations, incidentally, Marcus actually refers to himself by his dynastic name, Antoninus, and we know others commonly referred to him in this way, especially in official contexts. His close friends called him Marcus, but we never find him simply referred to as Aurelius, his adoptive family name.
Zé particularly enjoyed illustrating the dreams and visions as he didn’t have to worry quite as much about historical accuracy in these scenes and was able to express his artistry more freely, by creating fantastic images.
Shortly after we began, I realized that some of the scenes resembled a genre I hadn’t anticipated drawing upon: horror. Kasey helped us to approach nightmares, graphic war imagery, and scenes of the devastation caused by plague, with more of a “horror aesthetic” in mind.
As a kid I read the British comic 2000 AD religiously. What I loved most was that there were small details in the background of the panels that I didn’t notice at first but could enjoy on rereading my favorite comic strips. I realized that adding subtle cues to the background can really add another dimension to the artwork so we carefully planned ways to do this in Verissimus, such as by including various animals — birds taking flight, dogs fighting, etc. — in the background of panels, as well as other forms of action. To avoid making the world visually monotonous we tried to show various locations and different types of buildings, as well as incorporating dreams, visions, and flashbacks. We also varied the nine-panel page layout, e.g., by using vertical or horizontal strips for panels and many full-page splash pages, which we hoped could be used to create posters.
I was fortunate enough to be able to consult with several classicists and scholars of ancient philosophy, who advised me on various details, from language to culture and philosophy. In particular, the classicist Robin Waterfield, was kind enough to review the entire manuscript and provide detailed feedback and advice before publication — I owe him a lot of thanks for that!
I hope that’s of interest to readers, and maybe these notes could even help other authors working on graphic novels like ours.
Verissimus has been reviewed very positively since its release and was chosen as an Amazon Editor’s pick for Best History Book. The foreign rights have already been sold for the Brazilian Portuguese edition and I hope many other translations will follow. You can already order the hardback or ebook of the English edition from Amazon or, indeed, from anywhere they sell books!
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We’re delighted to announce the new book written by Tim LeBon, with editor Kasey Pierce, 365 WAYS TO BE MORE STOIC, published by John Murray Press, is now available for preorder from all good bookstores! Check out the listing on Amazon or visit the publisher’s website for other online retailers.
This is a new audio recording of an article I published on Medium about the Stoic contemplation of death. The photo shows me outside the ruined Temple of Hades at the ancient site of Eleusis near Athens.
I recently shared An Illustrated Guide to Stoic Anger Management on Medium, which describes in detail the ten cognitive strategies listed by Marcus Aurelius in the Meditations. The article includes original artwork illustrating each strategy from our graphic novel, Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.
In this post, though, I’m going to provide a more concise outline of these anger-management strategies, which Marcus calls ten “gifts” from Apollo, the Greek god of healing, and patron of philosophy. I’ll summarize each one in plain English, in a more simplified form, but you can always read the original article if you want more.
This is possibly the strategy Marcus employs most often, reminding himself to focus on our natural capacity for forming families and communities. Greek philosophers had long argued, like modern evolutionary theorists, that our ancestors survived primarily by working together, and eventually building cities for protection. Marcus tells himself that because we’re naturally designed for cooperation, we have a duty to fulfil our potential by forming alliances rather than creating enemies.
When we’re angry with someone we tend to focus selectively on the most annoying aspects of their behaviour. Marcus, however, had studied law and served for many years as a magistrate. He tells himself that in order to understand others we have to consider their whole character. Doing so often moderates our feelings of anger, by placing their behaviour in a wider context.
This was a famous paradox of Socrates. Marcus tells himself that everyone naturally wants to grasp the truth, rather than fall into error. Likewise, we naturally want to do what’s rational, and in our interests. The Stoics argue that doing evil is against our true interests, which means that wrongdoing only occurs because of errors of judgment, about right and wrong. Of course, people commit crimes knowing that others consider them to be morally wrong but they don’t typically agree with that judgment — they believe what they’re doing is right and in their own self-interest. Marcus views this as an ethical mistake on their part rather than an act of genuine malice.
Modern psychotherapists have often argued that anger is a form of “projection”, meaning that we get angry with other people for having flaws that we possess ourselves. Realizing that, though, can often moderate our feelings of anger, and it shifts the focus of attention on to the improvements we could make in our own character. Marcus tells himself to pause when becoming angry so as to ask himself whether he’s guilty, actually or potentially, of similar moral wrongdoing.
As a magistrate, Marcus knew that it’s often difficult to look into people’s hearts and ascertain their motives. People often do the right things for the wrong reasons, and vice versa. Some people are not even clear about their own motives, and may find them hard to articulate. When we become angry, though, we tend to jump to conclusions about what other people are thinking. Marcus tries to prevent himself from rushing to judgment, by pausing to consider whether he really understands why others have acted as they did.
Reminding ourselves of the transience of material things in general, and even of our own lives, is a common Stoic strategy. When growing angry, Marcus also reminds himself that the other person will be dead before long, and shortly thereafter forgotten forever. The reason for the argument will likewise soon be lost in the mists of time. Focusing on the transience of these things can make getting very angry feel pointless.
This saying, derived from Epictetus, is the most famous Stoic psychological strategy of all, and the inspiration for modern cognitive psychotherapy: “It’s not things that upset us but rather our opinions about them.” Here Marcus specifically applies it to anger. We tend to say “He is making me angry” but Epictetus wants us to say “My opinions about him are making me angry”, because other individuals confronted by the same sort of behaviour might feel and respond very differently.
Although less well-known today, this also seems to have been a common strategy in ancient Stoicism. For Stoics, all of our irrational “passions” (the pathological desires and emotions) do us more harm than the things they’re supposedly about. Fear does us more harm than the things of which we’re afraid, they say, and anger does us more harm than the people do with whom we’re angry. Focusing on the harmful consequences of anger, particularly the damage it does to our moral character, can help motivate us to change our response.
This resembles a simple concept from modern behaviour therapy called the principle of reciprocal inhibition. Emotions that are genuine opposites, and mutually exclusive, can potentially be used to replace one another. You can remove anger, in other words, by focusing on cultivating its opposite. For Stoics, anger is typically the desire for revenge, i.e., the desire for others to be harmed or punished, because of some perceived injustice they’ve committed. In that regard, its opposite would be the desire to help others, which the Stoics call kindness. By making a conscious effort to respond with genuine kindness to others, instead of anger, we can create new habits, and eventually change our own character in a positive direction.
Marcus concludes with what he says is the most important strategy of all for coping with anger. The Stoics noticed that, paradoxically, when people are upset they usually talk as if they were shocked by events which are actually quite normal. “I can’t believe that traveling merchant lied to me about these magic beans!” We all know that people lie and steal every day, and seemingly foolish, vicious, behaviour, is very common. Reacting with surprise is quite irrational. A wise person cultivates a more philosophical attitude toward human behaviour, accepting in advance that people aren’t perfect, and that they often do things that seem unjust. Stoic philosophers try to view the wrongdoing of others calmly and dispassionately, as a natural phenomenon, like the behaviour of nonhuman animals. There’s a story that once when angry man attacked Socrates in the street, kicking him, an onlooker said the philosopher should sue him for assault. However, Socrates thought doing so would be ridiculous. He felt no more offended, he said, than if a donkey had kicked him.
Of course, you don’t need to master all ten of these strategies. You only need to find one of them that works for you in order to overcome feelings of anger. Most people, though, will find that they can relate to several, perhaps even most, of the Stoic strategies described by Marcus. If you want more vivid examples of how Marcus struggled with his own anger, until he learned to master it through Stoicism, please take a look at our graphic novel about his life, Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, which was chosen by Amazon editors as an Editor’s Pick for Best History Book, and has just reached 150 reviews on Amazon US.
Regards,
Donald Robertson