Marcus Aurelius, Death Speech

February 17, 2025

Are you a man to enjoy an irony, Marcus Aurelius?
Look well then at the emperor of all Rome become no better than a slave.
And who or what is your master?
Slave!
A small point in your side. Perhaps no larger than a grain of wheat.
Of what use is your wisdom now?
No answer?
Think of all you have read and pondered over the years.
And the talk, Marcus Aurelius. The hours of talk with your friend, Timonides.
Surely it must have prepared you for this moment.
But it has failed you, hasn’t it?
You are not prepared.
Why?
In all that talk did this this topic, death slip your minds?
Or did you know deep down that your wisdom would be helpless before this mystery of mysteries.
But once you admit that, all other knowledge and skill only becomes trivial and meaningless.
But then you would not have thought and read and talked and wondered.
So, perhaps it is just as well.
For if men do not think, read, talk to each other, above all else, talk, they are no longer men.
He has come for me. The silent boatman to ferry me across the shadowed river.
I am not ready for you. I’ve always been willing to bargain with my enemies.
Can we not make a treaty?
For your part I ask you to wait two years. One year.
I cannot do it in less than a year.
I do not seek pleasures, or friendship, or love.
I speak only of Rome. And when I say Rome, I mean the world.
The future.
For my part, I am prepared to live on in pain.
A year. What is a year to you?
Coarse, vulgar, stupid thing.
Yet it was I who said, Is it not in the nature of the fig tree to give figs, as for the honey bee to give honey, and for the lion who fall upon the lamb?
So it is in the way of things that you should come for me.
Forgive me, Boatman. I did not realize you were blind
and deaf.
Come for me when you will.
My hand shall lead us.
But I tell you this:
There is a great truth
we have not yet divined.

~ Marcus Aurelius in the Movie The Fall of The Roman Empire