What Ryan Holiday Would Ask Marcus Aurelius

If Ryan could sit down with Marcus Aurelius and ask him one question, it wouldn’t be about Meditations https://store.dailystoic.com/collections/leather/products/meditations-marcus-aurelius-premium-leather-edition-gregory-hays-translation or Stoic philosophy. In today’s episode, Ryan poses the question to Professor William O. Stephens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM3h-VhQPvY, author of and they discuss why the answer is far more complicated than it seems. 👉 WATCH ON YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM3h-VhQPvY | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM3h-VhQPvY William O. Stephens is a philosopher specializing in Stoicism, ethics, and ancient philosophy. He earned his Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania and spent over 30 years teaching at Creighton University, where he is now Professor Emeritus. His work spans topics like friendship, ecology, and human nature, with a focus on Stoic thought. His latest book is Marcus Aurelius: Philosopher-King (2025), and he is also the author of Marcus Aurelius: A Guide for the Perplexed, Epictetus’s Encheiridion: A New Translation and Guide to Stoic Ethics, and Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom. Check out more of William Stephens’ work at https://WilliamOStephens.com/ 📚 Grab a copy of Marcus Aurelius: Philosopher-King by William Stephens https://us.amazon.com/Marcus-Aurelius-Philosopher-King-Great-Ancient-ebook/dp/B0FCS6PRG6/ref=sr_1_1?_encoding=UTF8&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9. ReHsbjtr2Q3jO1k0Cc_kjkx1hpHTgcaC6iEsMQs3ocoAaK_zaDXWIoXu2dXs2USEFIcu0FluRLdw0KUIrl46bcAd-YeswoCMxRWY3tRdW_4.ehAz6Sppwh3vW5AY9EIj1xYxd8nVAghwOPyQmDbvRnE&dib_tag=se&keywords=B001IZV80W&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1788381239&s=digital-text&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&sr=1-1 🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/| Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you https://www.dailystoiclive.com/! 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• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:15Ryan Holiday?

  One of the questions I get asked the most is, if I could ask Marcus Aurelius any question, what would I ask him? And usually, I somewhat cheekily say, I'd ask him, man, what the hell happened with Commodus? And it is fascinating, right? Like, how does someone who's so decent and diligent and responsible and dutiful, someone who is so philosophical, someone so committed to these ideas of Stoicism, how do they leave their empire to a son who is the opposite of everything they stand for? Like, was he blind to Commodus's faults? Was he negligent as a parent? I don't know, right? It's so easy, of course, to turn children

• 0:58Ryan Holiday?

  into moral referendums on their parents. And anyone who has kids knows that that's not exactly how it works. But I think we all know something clearly went sideways. This was not how Marcus wanted it to go. And so I think it's worth exploring, and it's worth contemplating. And it's what I talk about with today's guest, Professor William O. Stevens, who is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Creighton University and the author of a fantastic biography on Marcus Aurelius called Marcus Aurelius: Philosopher King. He's written extensively on Marcus, on Epictetus, on the practical demands of Stoic ethics. And so in today's episode, we are riffing on what went wrong with Commodus

• 1:43Ryan Holiday?

  and also the history behind it. Because history and politics and precedent and tradition all play a part in how this decision came about. And that's not to excuse Commodus, who is probably worse than people think. Like, you watch the movie Gladiator, and you go, oh, Joaquin Phoenix is an incredible actor, but this is fictional. When you read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon presents Commodus as even worse. And at the time, the Romans thought he was one of the worst emperors to ever live, right? How does this happen? One of the best emperors leads to the worst. And that's what we're going to explore in today's episode.

• 2:26Ryan Holiday?

  You can watch the full interview of this on the Daily Stoic Podcast YouTube channel, which I will link to this in today's show notes. I know more and more people are watching podcasts these days. I recorded this remotely with Professor Stevens, but it's a great interview. And he was just a delight to talk to. And I think you're going to find him delightful to listen to and watch.

• 2:48Ryan Holiday?

  Sometimes people ask me, you know, if you could sit down with Marcus Aurelius and ask him a question, what would you ask him? And there's so many philosophical questions I would want to ask. But I think practically, like, the big one for historians is like, what happened with Commodus? How does such a great man have such a... I mean, flawed doesn't even begin to capture it, you know, with regards to his son. So I imagine you spent a lot of time thinking about that. What do you think he would say? Or what do you think the answer is?

• 3:19Speaker 01

  It was the first time in generations that a Roman emperor had a biological son who could succeed him.

• 3:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Hadrian did not have any children. And Trajan, you have to go back, you know, 100 years, 150 years approximately, I think, right? Several generations. So this is how it used to be done, number one. So that is the... That's the traditional way to pass on power, was from the emperor's father to the emperor-to-be's son, number one. Number two, I... We really have a lot of confidence that Marcus was really rattled. He felt so betrayed by Avidius Cassius. If Marcus did not have a surviving son,

• 4:14Speaker 01

  who was old enough, who was close enough to adulthood to ascend the throne and rule when he died, then it seems like Avidius Cassius would have been a very natural choice for Marcus to handpick. Because he was a proven general. He was very successful. He's respected by his men. There's no substitute for that. There's no more successful, more highly respected military mind who could command men, right? Who could rule over men than Avidius Cassius. And the whole thing with the letters, with Faustina convincing him that, oh, Marcus is frail and he's about to die, and Commodus isn't old enough to take over.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  And if Marcus dies, then we're going to get killed. I, Faustina, and my son, my young son Commodus, are going to get murdered. We have to have somebody who's strong to step in now and take Marcus's place, because he's not going to make it. He's going to die. He's frail or whatever. He's going to get the plague. We mostly just don't know, right? So there are rumors that, you know, that might have been, you know, letters that... In the letters that Faustina sent to Avidius Cassius. But we do know that he led a revolt. Or maybe he was egged on by his men. You're great. You're the great commander. You should be emperor. And there was a precedent for that in Roman history.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Very, very successful generals, who had the loyalty of their troops, could decide, you know what? I don't really care for this emperor. I want the power. I've got the military might. I'm going to seize the throne myself by the sword. And Avidius Cassius decided that's what he's going to do. And so he started marching his troops west. And Marcus was like, holy cow, I count on this guy more than anybody else. This is a disaster. And he never had to face him in battle, because before that, Marcus marshaled enough troops. And it didn't work out for Avidius Cassius. He was killed by one of his own men. And so having been betrayed by Avidius Cassius, you know, what other choice does he have?

• 6:24Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  If he can't trust that guy, right, to enforce his will, and he's not an option for a handpicked successor, and he's got this son, that's the natural choice. That's the traditional choice. Marcus couldn't see the future. Sure, he might have had concerns about Commodus's character. Was he studious and serious and taking his responsibilities seriously? Yeah, maybe not. You know, but he's young, and he, you know, Marcus had his friends to advise Commodus and try to help him with his upbringing. After Marcus was gone, you know, he's a little bit too into, you know, the gladiatorial displays, like Lucius Verus was. He was not, you know,

• 7:09Speaker 01

  he was an okay, not great co-emperor. So maybe he thought, well, maybe Commodus will be as good as my adoptive brother Lucius was. And he'll get enough. He will have learned enough from me that he'll take it seriously. But he didn't have the character for it, not by a long shot.

• 7:27Ryan Holiday?

  Don't you think the tragedy of Marcus here is not just that he had a son who was flawed, but he had several sons, and they kept dying? I imagine that if you were just trying to explain Commodus, and you're like, well, he was the sole surviving boy and watched four or five of his brothers die. Or, you know, that... Plus, his dad was gone a lot for work. You'd be like, oh, that screws somebody up.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, just amazing that Faustina had so many children.

• 8:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Approximately 13 children, and four of whom lived to be adults.

• 8:14Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, it's a black parade of tragedy.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  I can't even imagine. Can you imagine nine of your 13 children dying? I mean, the grief, just the devastation. And so, yes, I mean, so I think that's insightful. I mean, he must have cherished Commodus. He loved all of his kids.

• 8:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  How could he not? You know, and Stoics are so misportrayed, right? It was like, oh, well, Stoics are going to be indifferent. You know, they're not going to be affectionate, loving with their kids. Oh, come on. Epictetus says explicitly, once you have a child, it's no longer up to you not to love it.

• 8:54Ryan Holiday?

  That's beautiful.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  That's a direct quote from the discourses, right? And Marcus, you know, he got that. Yes, of course, he loved his kids, all of them. And his heart was broken every time one of his babies died. And so he's going to cherish Commodus. Sure.

• 9:08Ryan Holiday?

  Right. Like, you could imagine any parent who is busy and has a hard job is gonna, you know, maybe make some allowances for their kid, gonna do so out of guilt, gonna do so out of,

• 9:25Ryan Holiday?

  you know, understanding that they didn't ask to be born into this life. And then you're right to layer on top of that, that he held so many of his siblings in his arms as they died. It would skew your compass. I mean, every parent is blind to a certain degree to the faults of their children. But I imagine it would be really, really, really hard to see the pros and cons of your, of your child as a future emperor of the world when, when you have seen so much loss and devastation.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. And how much discipline can you actually impose on, on a son who, who is, is, you know, destined to become the next emperor?

• 10:12Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  That there's a life of privilege and then there's the life of the most privileged.

• 10:17Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  As you were, as you've described before, right? So, you know, unless it's the case that Commodus had that kind of introspective, you know,

• 10:29Speaker 01

  driven inclination to gain self-knowledge and be mindful of his weaknesses and then dedicate himself to overcome his vices and his weaknesses of character, as we suppose Marcus did pretty well, right?

• 10:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Unless he was a special child like that, then the temptations surrounding him are going to deform him as they did with Nero and Caligula.

• 11:00Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know. Sometimes I think about when you're sort of judging historical characters, right? So, so Marcus obviously makes a choice here to pass the throne on to his son. And we know ultimately the choice ends up badly. He didn't know that it would end badly, but it does end badly. There's no dancing around that. Commodus is horrible. Notice that he does the same thing that he did with Lucius. They were co-emperors.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:26Ryan Holiday?

  So that was an innovation that Marcus did.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:29Ryan Holiday?

  The empire had never had co-emperors before. And Marcus was, Marcus insisted to the Senate, I will, you want me to be emperor? I will agree to do it only if you make my adoptive brother co-emperor. So he's right, right from the get-go, sharing the power with someone else, right?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:45Ryan Holiday?

  And so he does the same with Commodus. He makes Commodus co-emperor, the younger co-emperor, just as Lucius was also younger than Marcus.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Right?

• 11:55Ryan Holiday?

  And we suspect, well, I think there's two things there. One, this is codifying effectively what Antoninus had done with him, right? Sharing power. And then secondarily, I suspect, or I think we can suspect that Marcus probably wanted some version of that with his sons, plural, you know, had, had this worked out with fate. So, yeah, I do think that's a good point. But as far as, say, not passing it to Commodus, right? That people go, well, why did he do it? Or he shouldn't have done it? I think it's important that we ask ourselves, are you expecting something from someone that has ever been done before? Like, is there any kind of precedent, right?

• 12:35Ryan Holiday?

  Is there any kind of historical precedent for a king or a queen who had a problematic child to say, eh, no, I'm gonna deprive you of your so-called birthright, right? I'm not sure there's any precedent or example for that. Like, has anyone else in the thousands of years of history before, or the thousands of years of history since, been able to look at the character of their, of their young child and say, eh, you're not cut out for this. We're gonna create an entirely new form of government in, in, in response to that? Or, or we're going to totally rewrite the laws or the traditions of our society in response to that?

• 13:19Ryan Holiday?

  I, I do think that's a lot to ask of a, of a dying old man.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Right. Absolutely. You know, Marcus, of course, is gonna be aware that that's Commodus's expectation.

• 13:30Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  He, he is the rightful heir to the throne. And so if Marcus picked someone else, then, I mean, this is Game of Thrones stuff. We, we know what happens here, right?

• 13:43Ryan Holiday?

  That choice is the choice of civil war. He is choosing to throw, throw Rome into a civil war.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Bloody civil war. Absolutely. It's gonna be a total power grab. How is that going to be a better, a, a, a better legacy for Marcus? That he picks one of his other trusted generals? Oh, well, Lvidius Cassius didn't work out. Well, this guy might do okay. Sorry, Commodus. You know, we're, we're bumping you aside.

• 14:09Ryan Holiday?

  He's promised not to murder you in your sleep.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  You know, like, this is why, exactly. This is why, you know, as much as I enjoy the, the movie Gladiator.

• 14:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  You know, that story, that plotline is, is utterly ludicrous. There was no Russell Crowe for Marcus to pick.

• 14:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  There was no Maximus Decimus Meridius that he wanted to be the protector of Rome and give the power back to the Senate. No, no, no, no, no. He had a perfectly legitimate son, and he didn't want civil war to erupt by picking someone else, even if he did have those doubts.

• 14:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that, that, that wouldn't have played, that wouldn't have played at all. Marcus was smarter than that.

• 14:53Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  And he couldn't have known the future. You can't see into the future. All of those considerations, right? The tradition, he's your blood son, you know, as you were saying before, I mean, if I, as I recall, Commodus was a twin. He had a twin brother.

• 15:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Who died when he was like six, six or eight, I think, maybe around six. And Marcus was devastated. He thought, as you were saying, they would be co-emperors, both sons, two sons. And he died. So it's like Commodus is the last, the last son standing, right?

• 15:28Ryan Holiday?

  Totally, totally. And look, he's trapped in a stupid form of government, okay? Like, it's a dumb form of government. The idea of passing it to your child, it, it almost never works out well. It's a bad form of government. And so, of course, it ended badly.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  That's right. And it more often, the history of the principate more often was ugly. That's why it was an exception when you had the rare, the rare examples of, of Trajan and Hadrian and Antoninus Pius and, and Marcus.

• 15:59Ryan Holiday?

  And I mean, look, this is true even in the modern age. I mean, your Queen Elizabeths are rarer than your Prince Andrews, right? It's not good for people and it doesn't tend to engender competent, selfless, you know, ethical people. And, and again, this is what makes Marcus Aurelius such an extraordinary story in history, that, that he was basically groomed for this from a young age and he, he didn't end up that way.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  And this is why I, in the book, I, I push back against a certain trend. Donald Robertson is a friend of mine and he's an outstanding scholar and I love the guy. And he likes to heroize Marcus, right? His earlier book on Marcus, he really heroizes the guy. And it's natural to do that. If you want to look for, if you're looking for heroes, Marcus is a natural choice if you're, if you're moved by Stoicism. I think it's better to see Marcus as, as deeply human, not a superhuman. Marcus had flaws. Marcus congratulates himself for not, you know, raping, taking advantage of sexually his attractive slaves. Ouch.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  You know, he has warts. He had a temper, right? Christians were persecuted in his reign. They were. My judgment is that, given the evidence that I've assessed, Christians were not really widely known. So they were a fringe sect that not a lot of people knew about. And the provincial governors were the ones who, under pressure from the populace, when they decided they wanted to scapegoat somebody, the Christians were natural targets to scapegoat. And the provincial governors were the ones, ones who were principally responsible. But yeah, but Marcus was following the, the letter from, from Trajan,

• 17:54Speaker 01

  the previous letter from Trajan that, that outlawed, that made illegal being a Christian. So, yeah, there are, you know, there are certainly warts, there are certainly flaws in the man. But that just makes him more fascinating to me.

• 18:07Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Because he, he had virtues and he had weaknesses. He was a real human being. He was not a sage. He was not perfectly wise. But he recognized that as a prescriptive ideal, trying to be sage-like, trying to become wiser, trying to enact justice in your own life and be, live as, in a kingly way, as you were saying, quoted from, from Muesonius, right? That's his challenge. That's his goal in life. And that allows for many good things to happen in his empire as he's fighting wars and, and battling the plague.

• 18:50Ryan Holiday?

  And, and ultimately, that's where I come down on Seneca as well. In a way, his complicated, contradictory life presents endless opportunities for moral examination. And

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:04Ryan Holiday?

  You don't get anything if you just condemn him outright, but if you look at the complexity, it can make you better.