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.
Our graphic novel, Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, was written for adults but an increasing number of people have told me their children have been reading it. They told me that their kids saw the cover, were intrigued by the artwork, and “stole” their copy. Some teachers have also approached me, interested in purchasing copies for their classes. They think it would make a useful teaching aid.
With Christmas approaching, I’ve been asked about its suitability as a gift for young people. In this post, I’ll try to give a comprehensive answer, inspired by the review site Common Sense Media, which I think does a great job of helping adults decide for themselves what’s appropriate for their children. The short answer is that I would rate this book PG-13 but I’ll explain below the aspects of which parents and teachers should be aware, in order to decide for themselves.
We’re delighted to announce that our new graphic novel Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius is currently among Amazon’s top-rated books in the Ancient Roman History category, with an average rating of 4.8 stars from nearly 100 reviewers.
On its release, Verissimus was chosen as an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best History Book.
See our publisher, MacMillan’s website for more information and links to other booksellers. Verissimus is available in both hardback and ebook format from all good bookstores.
Watch the video of my live session on Marcus Aurelius, showcasing some of the artwork and behind the scenes secrets of our graphic novel, Verissimus.
We’re delighted to announce that my publisher St. Martin’s Press has generously agreed to give away three signed copies of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor.
Just share your favourite images from the book on social media and use #Verissimus!
🎨 You can check out samples of artwork from Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius shared by accounts on Instagram. Please share your own photos using #Verissimus.
Our graphic novel, Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, was published by St. Martin’s on 12th July. There are lots of early reviews of Verissimus already on Goodreads. This post contains a video review by Greg Sadler and links to various other reviews by bloggers. (If I’ve missed one, post it in the comments section below please!)
There was also a more critical review in Publisher’s Weekly: the reviewer thought the story packed in too much history and philosophy.
You may also be interested in this Medium article on How I wrote Verissimus, or the interview I did for The Comic Vault. You can preview a sample 30 pages including artwork from Verissimus on Google Books.
What does Stoic philosophy tell us about how to control our tempers? When we began working on our graphic novel, Verissimus, the illustrator, Zé Nuno Fraga, and I decided to show how colourful and action-packed Marcus Aurelius’ life really was. We also liked the idea, however, of leaving our readers with a good amount of practical advice from Stoicism, which they could take away and use to help themselves and others.
I chose to focus on Stoic advice about anger — the royal road to self-improvement.
I chose to focus on Stoic advice about anger — the royal road to self-improvement. We know that this was a problem for Marcus because he tells us in the Meditations that he struggled, at first, to master his own temper. Later in life, Marcus had a reputation for remaining completely level-headed, even in the face of extreme provocation. So it appears that he succeeded in using Stoicism to master his natural quick temper. He did this by employing Stoic psychological practices, over and over again, on a daily basis. I can see parallels between many of these strategies and those employed in modern cognitive therapy. So I think that, with practice, they may help the rest of us cope with our feelings of anger too.
It was one of the men who provoked Marcus’ temper the most, ironically, who also taught him how to restore calm and rebuild friendships after an argument — his Stoic mentor, Junius Rusticus. We therefore speculated, in our illustrations, that it could have been Rusticus who taught Marcus the ten anger-management strategies he describes using in the Meditations (11.18). Marcus, curiously, refers to these as ten “gifts” from the god Apollo, and his nine Muses. Apollo, Lord of the Muses, was the god of the arts, including the arts of medicine and, in a sense, also philosophy. It’s perhaps fitting, therefore, that Marcus would call these therapeutic strategies, or self-help tips, gifts from the god of healing.
Marcus describes things he should tell himself whenever he noticed he was growing annoyed with someone. I would call these cognitive (thinking) strategies for anger-management. In this article, I’ll discuss each of his ten strategies in turn, adding a few comments, here and there, from my perspective as a cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist.
Had a great Instagram Live conversation with actor Troy Baker about my new graphic novel, Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. You can watch the video here…
Below you can read three sample web comics about the Stoic philosophy of Marcus Aurelius that I created with award-winning illustrator Zé Nuno Fraga. Each one links a passage in the Meditations with one of Aesop’s Fables. (Marcus mentions the Town Mouse fable in the Meditations.)
These web comics led to a much bigger project, our graphic novel Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, available now from all good bookstores. See our publisher, St. Martin’s website for details of special offers available if you preorder.
You can click on the web comic images to open them in a new window and should then be able to download them or zoom using your browser.
