‘Another Companion …’ (p. xvii). This Companion begins almost on a note of apology for adding another volume to the seemingly ever-expanding series of companions, introductions and reader's guides. But the editor goes on to note that this is in fact the first ever companion to Marcus and therefore fills a gap, collecting in a single volume the many perspectives that classical studies can bring to bear upon the ancient world: archaeology, numismatics, epigraphy, textual criticism, political and military history, history of art, philology, philosophy, religious studies and even rhetoric. Indeed, the express aim of the volume is ‘to give an overview of every essential facet of contemporary studies on Marcus Aurelius’ (p. 7). The Companion largely succeeds in this ambitious goal, though one might have welcomed a chapter on films, historical novels and other popular media involving Marcus: V.A. alludes briefly on p. 1 to Irving's World According to Garp and the films The Fall of the Roman Empire and Gladiator, but there are other films, as well as such novels as Yourcenar's Mémoires d'Hadrien.
The wide range of material is divided into six thematic sections. Part 1, ‘The Main Sources’, explores the historical, archaeological and epigraphic background to Marcus' reign as well as his letters and the textual history of the Meditations. Part 2, ‘Biography and Background’, offers five detailed overviews of the politics and culture of the second century, narratives of Marcus' early life and reign as emperor, and an exploration of Marcus' philosophical ideals and political practice. This last chapter forms a transition to Part 3, ‘Marcus the Emperor’. This section begins with two surveys – ‘Administration and Jurisdiction in Rome and in the Provinces’ and ‘Religion in the Age of Marcus Aurelius’ – which might equally belong to Part 2, but which contain pointed references to particular aspects of Marcus' times and career. Part 4, ‘Material Forms of Self-Representation’, contains five chapters exploring Marcus' column, equestrian statue, coins, imperial portraits and victory reliefs. Part 5, the longest section by far, turns to ‘Marcus the Philosopher’. Its eleven chapters range from textual explorations of the structure, vocabulary, style and genre of the Meditations to Marcus' variations on the Stoic sub-disciplines of logic, physics and ethics. Part 6, ‘Reception’, rounds off the volume with four chapters on Marcus' various earthly afterlives – in antiquity and the medieval period, among early modern readers, translators and scholars of Marcus, and among more recent thinkers from Hegel to Hadot.
Given their range and number, one cannot review each individual chapter, and readers will find their own favourites. But on the whole, there are many helpful contributions, filled with information and/or considered reflection, to which one can return repeatedly. To take a few examples, Birley's four historical articles are densely crowded with details, in the style of his political biography of Marcus; Fischer on archaeological evidence and Kováks on epigraphy are likewise extremely useful summaries of many separate studies; Holford-Strevens's ‘Cultural and Intellectual Background and Development’ is a tour de force of erudition and succinct judgement; Stewart's history of Marcus' equestrian statue is both informative and thoughtful; in exploring the Meditations as autobiography, Männlein-Robert adduces suggestive comparanda that range through ancient literature, from the Odyssey on; Sedley's demonstration of how Stoic physics permeates the Meditations is a perceptive and considered synthesis; Chapters 24 to 30 together constitute an education in the Stoic logic, physics and ethics that most influenced Marcus. These are just some of the outstanding chapters, and while the level of erudition and analytic depth in the contributions may differ, there should be enough stylistic and methodological variety in the volume to satisfy most readers. Despite the general excellence of the entries, caveat lector: this is not really a volume that can be read cover to cover. Many of the chapters are written less as independent essays than as supplements to the original sources, which one must have at hand for consultation and comparison: the Historia Augusta, representations of Marcus' Column, his letters, his Meditations and so forth. Yet this is a ‘companion’ after all, and as a whole, the volume is an impressive accomplishment: the overviews of individual chapters and their specialised bibliographies do indeed give an overview of current scholarship on all major aspects of Marcus' time, life, reign, thought and legacy.
Nothing is perfect of course, and the volume could have been improved in some relatively easy ways. In some articles, there are awkwardnesses in expression and vocabulary that would have been mitigated by firmer editing or more careful translation. Another drawback for a volume of this size is its relative lack of supplementary material. There are no maps to accompany the detailed accounts, in Parts 2 and 3, of the Empire, Marcus' wars and archaeological sites. Part 4 does contain illustrations of Marcus' column, reliefs, equestrian statue, busts and coins, but a few more illustrations of the Column, at least, would have made more of Boschung's references intelligible without having at hand Ryberg's Panel Reliefs of Marcus Aurelius. Similarly, the inclusion of a chronology for major events of Marcus' life and the second century would have helped the introductory reader to co-ordinate material common to several chapters.
Most of all, the volume lacks an index locorum and the sixteen-page general index seems too short for a volume of this size and complexity. Some entries do not seem to be referenced fully: for example, ‘Augustus’ is discussed elsewhere than just on p. 266; Macchiavelli appears on p. 1 as well as the given 494–5; ‘discourse of the body’ is treated in a section of its own, pp. 68–70, as well the pp. 498–9 flagged by the index; this is obviously only a cursory inventory. Other inclusions such as ‘eucharist, 207’, ‘Gill, Christopher, 448’ (i.e. one of the contributors), ‘glory, 440’, ‘Hacket Press, 510’, ‘moral philosophy, 119,’ ‘Roman people, 97’ seem unhelpful. There is an entry for the metre ‘apokroton, 129’ but not for, say, ‘divinity’ (a central theme of the Meditations) or ‘Augustine’ (whose Confessions are compared briefly with the Meditations on at least pp. 362, 367, 489 and 478). As the editor acknowledges (p. 7), overlapping treatments of the same material can be a source of creative dissonance – but especially when readers can more easily compare and contrast different views with the aid of a fuller index or more cross-referencing between chapters.
Nevertheless, the wealth of material in this collection should encourage the sort of interdisciplinary study which the figure of Marcus calls for but which can be lamentably absent in an academic environment becoming ever more fragmented (pp. 6–7). One can only hope that it will succeed in this aim also – and eventually become the worthy predecessor of a second Companion to the Roman imperator, Stoic philosopher and human being who remains among the more compelling phenomena known from the ancient world.
