Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/21

 Plato's letters, the epistles ascribed to Phalaris, and those of the 'royal philosopher'. Since many of these ancient collections consist of brief apophthegms, addressed to fictitious recipients, and are indeed in no sense genuine private letters, it is possible that the Letters of Marcus were issued by an enterprising bookseller and consisted, among other matter, of pieces from the genuine work of the 'royal philosopher'. This might help to explain the curiously diverse forms in which Marcus is quoted by Suidas.

Of the publication of the Meditations we know as little as we do of that of most ancient and some modern masterpieces. There have been advocates of the view that Marcus gave his thoughts to the public before his death in 180. Their intimate and unpremeditated character, and a certain disorder in them as they have survived, seem decisive against such a theory. Who the editor was, when they did come out, is equally unknown. Chryseros, a freedman of Marcus, author of a chronicle to the date of Commodus, has been suggested, but by pure hypothesis. We can but surmise that the work was done, under the direction of a relative or friend, by a subordinate, perhaps by Marcus' Greek secretary, Alexander. The present state of the work suggests that the author's notes were already in some order, though left unfinished, and that they were treated scrupulously.

Remarkably little evidence has survived from the troubled period which followed upon the accession of Commodus in 180 and from the still darker years of anarchy which followed. There are, however, a few xiii