Talk:Meditations

Ru:
Proper Russian title is Наедине с собой (Alone With Myself), delusive interwiki was removed. --Brand спойт 17:57, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Ancient Greek or Koine Greek?
Marcus Aurelius was comtemporary to Koine Greek, of course, but I've found some sources that claim his Meditations were written in Ancient Greek. That is plausible, since the Greek being taught to Roman aristocracy would have been for the benefit of reading Ancient Greek texts, and not contemporary ones. But that doesn't actually answer the question of which stage of Greek Marcus Aurelius actually wrote. --70.131.120.11 (talk) 03:21, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Apparently he wrote in a "highly-educated" Koine Greek, in other words, the common Greek of the day but influenced by the classical Attic style: "We see the non-literary standard most clearly in our period in the lectures of Epictetus and in the (more artistic) Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Both texts are the products of highly educated and intelligent men; but close imitation of Attic was not required because the authors spoke or wrote in a philosophical context without thought of publication. Galen's many writings in what he calls 'the common dialect' are another excellent example of non-atticizing but highly educated Greek. ... A much 'lower' form of Greek can be seen in early Christian texts like the Gospels. (Simon Swain, (1996), Hellenism and Empire, page 29. Oxford University Press.)" Singinglemon (talk) 13:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Translators
I was reading this article through, and noticed that among the translators, Gregory Hays, George Hays, Gregory Long and George Long are all mentioned. Surely this is too much of a coincidence, and someone has gone wrong here?

- m - i - k - e - y - talk 16:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep looks like a mistake. Okay, now fixed. Singinglemon (talk) 18:41, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

"Depending on the English translation, Marcus's style is not viewed as anything regal or belonging to royalty, but rather a man among other men which allows the reader to relate to his wisdom." To judge style, you should certainly not depend on english translations, but on the greek original?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.142.13.61 (talk) 19:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

removing the link to ryanholiday.net
Since blogs are not a reliable resource due to the potential lack of editorial oversight, i have removed the links to the blog in question again. i don't believe i am too strictly interpreting the letter of the law by doing this; i really think that blogs have (with minor exceptions) no place in an encyclopedia. someone is free to add the link back, but other than because it's an interesting read, i would like to hear some compelling reasons why. if consensus develops that the blog should stay, then i would have no emotional attachment to the outcome going towards inclusion. thanks Theserialcomma (talk) 01:18, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I certainly won't edit war over such a trivial matter. I completely agree that a blog should never be used as a reference on an encyclopedia. But, um, it was just an external link, not a reference: I am surprised to see WP:RS being invoked. WP:EL is actually the relevant page for such matters. I think it's a marginal decision either way - there's some minor value in reading a translator's opinion on the Meditations that's all. Singinglemon (talk) 01:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * you are right, it should have been WP:EL. But the point remains the same. On WP:EL, point 11 of "links to avoid" states  "Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority (this exception is meant to be very limited; as a minimum standard, recognized authorities always meet Wikipedia's notability criteria for biographies)." Theserialcomma (talk) 04:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but under "What to link", we have "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews," and "Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources." As I said, one can make a decision either way, it's not a link I would have gone out of my way to expunge. Singinglemon (talk) 17:11, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Dates?
The opening sentence of this article gives the dates 121-180 and the wording appears to read as the period he reigned as Roman Emperor, but the dates quoted are actually his lifespan. I find the sentence ambiguous. What was the intended meaning? Lorcan (talk) 15:36, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A look at the edit history shows that User:Postdlf added "Roman Emperor 161–180 CE," on the 6th August 2010, but this was changed by User:Murr2k on the 30th August to read "121–180 CE." I've changed it back to "161–180". Thanks for pointing this out. Feel free to re-word the entire thing if you think it's still ambiguous. Singinglemon (talk) 18:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC) MARCUS AURELIUS

Opening paragraph
"(Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself") " But this is not "literally" the wording. The literal wording contains no mention of "thoughts/writings"; it is merely "(the) to himself". I shall alter this if there are no objections. Hundovir (talk) 16:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed rewrite
Please see this proposed rewrite.

Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 22:32, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Added detailed section on the history of the text
 * Added list of those he thanks in book I
 * Re-ordered quotes
 * Separated "notes" from "references"

Word count
It would be useful to mention a word count (of an edition written in Greek) and average page counts of typical English additions. If possible, those page counts would omit translator's and editor's prefaces.Rich (talk) 20:56, 10 June 2020 (UTC)