Who Do You See?

We don’t think of the ancient Romans as living just like us, but in many ways they did. A recent archaeological dig in Bulgaria found a Roman estate with a collection of household mirrors. In the 1st century AD, Pliny the Elder wrote in his Natural History about the invention of glass mirrors, which means that Marcus Aurelius may have looked himself in the mirror in the morning just like you did. What did he see?✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us, dailystoic.com.

• 0:30Ryan Holiday?

  Who do you see? We don't think of the ancient Romans as living just like us, but in many ways, they did. A recent archaeological dig in Bulgaria found a Roman estate with a collection of household mirrors. In the first century AD, Pliny the Elder wrote in his Natural History about the invention of glass mirrors, which means that Marcus Aurelius may have looked at himself in the mirror in the morning, just like you did. What did he see? Of course, we have some idea. Plenty of statues of the man survive. There are also recent colorized renderings of Marcus that give us an idea. But deeper than physical form, what did Marcus see? Did he like himself? Was he self-conscious? Did he like his curls? Did he wonder what he'd look like without a beard,

• 1:15Ryan Holiday?

  which had become trendy since Hadrian? Or on a deeper level, was he starting to notice his age? As we talked about recently, that may well be what our faces are for, to remind us of the passage of time, to show us that we're not so young anymore. We know that in meditations, Marcus was often frustrated with himself, that he didn't believe he was living up to his potential or his philosophy, even though he had studied it for so long. Hopefully, those mornings in the mirror were more positive, though. Marcus could have taken time to remind himself of what his job was, that no matter what anyone else said or did, his task was to be good. Maybe he gave himself a wink, prepared himself for the annoying and obnoxious people he was likely to meet that day, smiling, knowing that he didn't have

• 1:58Ryan Holiday?

  to implicate himself in their ugliness. Maybe he noted that he was lucky to be alive, and he felt a second of gratitude before heading out in the world. What about you? What did you see in the morning? What conversations do you have with yourself in those fleeting seconds as you check your hair and make sure that you don't have anything in your teeth?

• 2:19Ryan Holiday?

  It may not seem like much, but this little opportunity is a timeless one, and it's one you can take to be present and philosophical. So take it.