[mjburgess]

There's a lot in just the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius

But be aware that most writings about him are roman, and hence state propaganda which glorify his actions. In order to see more clearly what his actions were, just imagine being their victim. He perpetrated a genocide against Germanic tribes in retribution.

It's very hard to be a morally good roman emperor -- you can be seen as good by either the plebs or the elite of roman society, but not by nearly anyone else, and almost never by both even in rome.

I don't think its any accident the elite of concequering empires adopted this mentality. Though, no doubt, there were originally honest/moral/good stoic-philosophers they did create a kind of "retreat from the world dissociation" which isn't in my view, itself good. It's therapeutic in some situations, typically in cases of grief/loss/extreme-attachement --- but outside of these cases, you want to associate and attach.

Perhaps there's some case for a little stocisim in the face of social media today, or in the kinds of "adversarial environments" which exploit your attachment -- such as leading an empire (cf. Machiavelli: leaders have to be rutheless). There's possibly an argument that twitter turns everyone into a viperous courterier looking to attack each other's reputation and attachemnt-bait.

[mdiesel]

On the scale of leaders: not being needlessly cruel, trying to consider the impacts of policies beyond the immediate, and dedicating your days to ruling rather than enjoying whatever pleasure you pick makes him one of the "good" ones. Maybe that's a low bar, but even today not all leaders clear it and certainly we can compare to Commodus who came immediately after and the sources for which are similarly patchy, to compare.

[mjburgess]

> not being needlessly cruel

To whom?