Marcus Aurelius: Why He Slept on the Floor and Sold His Treasures

Why did the man who was going to rule half the world sleep on the floor?

Marcus Aurelius could have had it all, and at twelve, he chose the hard ground and a rough cloak. Rome, year 133. A boy from an extremely wealthy family, raised among marble, slaves, and banquets.

One day, he puts on the rough cloak of the Greek philosophers, and that night he leaves his bed and lies down on the floor.

His ancient biography, the Historia Augusta, tells the story.

And that boy would become emperor. His mother, Domitia Lucilla, begged him to stop.

He reluctantly agreed to a cot covered with skins, nothing more. The idea came from a teacher, Diognetus.

Years later, Marcus thanked him for teaching him to desire a cot and a hide. Seneca had explained it: practice poverty for a few days, with little food and rough clothing, and you'll see it wasn't so Terrible. If you already know how to live with little,

no one can threaten you with taking it away.

It’s not about punishing yourself, it’s about taking power away from fear.

At sixteen, Emperor Hadrian puts him in the line of succession, and he moves to the palace reluctantly.

Surrounded by gold and people who told him yes to everything, he wrote himself a warning: beware of becoming a Caesar, of dyeing yourself purple. In the year 161, he becomes emperor.

Some sixty million people depend on him.

And then comes the test. A plague kills thousands of soldiers and civilians.

Germanic tribes cross the Danube, and the treasury is empty. They reach Aquileia, in Italy.

No enemy had come this far in centuries.

Any emperor would have raised taxes. He did something else.

He took his gold cups out of the palace and crystal, jewels, statues, paintings, and even the silk dresses embroidered in gold belonging to his wife, down to pitchers made for kings.

And he auctioned them off in public, at Trajan's Forum.

The auction lasted two months. With that, he paid for the war without imposing a new tax on anyone.

When he won, he announced that anyone who wanted to return what they had bought would get their money back.

He spent years on the frontier, in tents, among soldiers.

The war lasted, with pauses, nearly fourteen years.

And at night, he wrote a notebook for no one, which we know today as Meditations. One of its sections ends like this: "Written among the Quadi beside the river Gran."

There he confesses something very human: that he found it hard to get up in the morning.

And he answers himself: "I get up to do the work of a human being."

Sleeping on the ground was never about suffering.

It was training, so that nothing he had could possess him, him. The man who had everything sold his treasures without hesitation, because he had learned years ago not to need them.

He died in the year 180, still on campaign, near the Danube.

His notebook survived. The golden cups did not.

What do you have that actually already has you?