Marcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations in Greek, probably during military campaigns on the Danube frontier in the 170s CE. They were not written for publication and show no signs of having been organized for a reader, they are working notes, reminders to himself of Stoic principles he is trying to apply under the particular pressures of his life as Roman Emperor. He addresses himself throughout in the second person, writing not "I remind myself" but "you must remember." The result is a document that combines philosophical instruction with personal psychology in a way that systematic philosophical treatises do not, because Marcus is not arguing positions but attempting to internalize them against his own tendencies toward anger, anxiety, and distraction.
The Stoic principles Marcus returns to most frequently concern the boundary between what is and is not within one's control. Externals, reputation, the behavior of others, health, political outcomes, are not goods to be pursued or evils to be avoided; only the quality of one's own judgment and will matters morally. Marcus does not find this easy, and the Meditations are full of evidence that he finds people irritating, political obligations exhausting, and mortality frightening. The philosophical notes function as corrections to these responses rather than confirmations that he has overcome them. Book VI.2, "Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul", is one kind of statement; Book X.2, where he reminds himself not to look down on the people who fail to understand philosophy, is another kind entirely.
The Meditations have found an enormous readership outside academic philosophy, particularly among people in demanding positions who find Marcus's combination of high office and philosophical self-examination directly relevant to their own situations. The text is genuinely useful as practical philosophy, which is what it was written to be. What distinguishes it from motivational literature is that Marcus is not pretending to have solved the problems he addresses; the Meditations are evidence of continued struggle with recognizable difficulties, and the honesty of that struggle is what gives the philosophical prescriptions their force.
Marcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations entirely as private notes, he never intended anyone else to read them.
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