3921–3940 AM · 161 CE — 180 CE · world history
Marcus Aurelius
The last of the five good emperors keeps a campaign diary that becomes a classic of endurance.
His reign is one long emergency: war on the Danube, floods, and a plague brought back by the legions. At night in camp he writes notes to himself in Greek — that the crowd's opinion is worth nothing, that offence lives in our judgement rather than the event. The Meditations were never meant for publication.