This carefully compiled edition contains not only the biography of the famous Roman emperor, but also the collection of his thoughts and philosophical views on Stoicism in his "Meditations". Marcus Aurelius wrote this work originally in Greek and as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. The original title of this work is unknown but even without the original title it is still considers as a literary monument to a government of service and duty.

Marcus Aurelius (121 –180) was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire.