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Home / People / Marcus Aurelius

Historical person

Marcus Aurelius

121–180

Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor from AD 161 to 180 and is remembered both as a ruler and as a Stoic philosopher. His reign was dominated by frontier wars, plague and the burdens of imperial duty reflected in his Meditations.

In Simon Turney’s Commodus, Marcus Aurelius prepares his son Commodus to inherit an empire strained by frontier war and epidemic disease. In Adam Lofthouse’s Shield of the Rising Sun, the Roman Empire under Marcus Aurelius. Other novels featuring Marcus Aurelius include Steven Saylor’s Dominus, Adam Lofthouse’s The Centurion’s Son, and Adam Lofthouse’s War in the Wilderness.

In non-fiction, Marcus Aurelius is discussed in Mary Beard’s Emperor of Rome. Mary Beard’s Emperor of Rome approaches the subject through court politics and dynastic power, empire, conquest and resistance, and social change and the pressures of ordinary life.

Historical context

Historical periods linked to Marcus Aurelius

Series

Series featuring Marcus Aurelius (2 series)

Roma Trilogy in Order

by Steven Saylor 3 books 4.0

The Roma Trilogy follows generations of the fictional Pinarius family across the long history of Rome. Roma begins with the city’s legendary foundation and continues through the Republic and the rise of Augustus; Empire carries the family through the Julio-Claudian, Flavian and adoptive-emperor periods; Dominus follows the later…

All books in this series

Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Marcus Aurelius (2 books)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.