5 Great Books from Ancient Roman Authors That Make you Think
One from a slave, another from an emperor, but all of them are among the best I read.
An interesting thought I learned from Nassim Taleb is the Lindy Effect. It tells us how a value of a certain thing and the future life-expectancy of it are proportional to the time humans are using it. Therefore, things like Crocs have a lower life expectancy than hair combs because the former is being used already for millennia, while the first for decades. In other words, the seal of approval of the test of time is very trustworthy. Besides good for choosing books, I also use the Lindy effect to control my consumer habits.
This brings me to the subject of this article. You may like 50 Shades of Grey, but it is still far away from passing the test of the time. Meanwhile, authors like Seneca have been around for two thousand years, contributing with priceless lessons for all its readers.
One of the greatest improvements for my reading habits was to read at least 5 or 6 ancient books per year. Some of the deepest reflections I ever made were during afternoons walking in the park after reading Latin or Greek authors.
We are immensely privileged to have access to high-quality translations, often for free, of geniuses like Marcus Aurelius or Cicero — this is a very recent thing. Therefore, in this article, I will tell you 5 outstanding books from Roman authors available for free on the internet. Books that will make you think.
Enchiridion, from Epictetus
“Is is a mark of the inferior intellect to spend too much time on the body, […] eating, drinking, and other animalistic functions. Such things should be done incidentally, and our main strength applied to reason.”
By starting this list with Epictetus, I am risking to put a grimace on the reader’s face that knows he was not Roman, but a Greek. That is true, but he lived a big part of his life in Rome as a slave.
The first time I heard about Epictetus was in the works of Seneca — which I will also list later. Enchiridion is a collection of 50 of his thoughts. Part of it is about having a more fulfilled life, others about a rational approach to time, other about social relations and existence. It is a very short book — less than 70 pages- and all paragraphs worth the time to read.
Different from many pieces of ancient literature, Enchiridion is very easy to read. Maybe the talent to convey important messages in their simplest forms was the reason Epictetus, after gaining his freedom, became a famous teacher both in Rome and Greece
The Apology, from Tertullian
“Truth and the hatred of truth come into our world together. As soon as truth appears, it is regarded as an enemy.”
Tertullian was a lawyer from Cartago — at that time, part of the Roman empire. He took one of the hardest cases that someone can imagine: defend the victims of religious persecution and avoid that Christians became human torches in the streets of the empire.
Using a sharp arsenal of logical principles, Tertullian makes the case for the right of minorities to exist in the Roman Empire, convincingly advocating for equitable legal treatment and freedom for all citizens. He does while simultaneously quoting other brilliant authors from his time.
The writing style Apologeticum (the original name of this book) is pleasant. This easiness to read is a surprise because it is from a time where manuscripts had a weird style (for our standards) because authors wrote them to be spoken out loud, not read in a quiet room. The book has many insights into Roman life and its persecutions. It is, altogether, a logical, philosophical and historical treatise
Moral Letters to Lucilius Volume 1, from Seneca
“It is the time for you to reflect: Not only that all things are mortal, but that mortality is subject to no fixed law. Whatever can happen at any time, can happen today.”
I bet you were expecting to find Seneca in this list — although maybe not with this book, but with other titles like On the brevity of life. The philosopher, statesman, and dramatist Lucius Annaeus Seneca does not need bigger introductions about who he is.
He is a favorite among Roman philosophers for a reason: all his letters and manuscripts are temporal, and his thoughts carry invaluable lessons. Some of those have strangely bold meanings for our times. One example is the notion of leaving distractions to focus on one activity. An idea Cal Newport later named Deep Work.
Just like the Enchiridion before mentioned, his letters to Lucilius — ranging from themes like time to physical exercise — are a pleasure to read. Or instead of a pleasure, should I say a joy, since stoics do not like the term pleasure?
Meditations, from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?
You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was an avid reader and note-taker. Enough to be already considered a philosopher at the age of 12, much before he ascends to Emperor. He was the last emperor of the Pax Romana, a period of peace and stability at the Empire — as much as he was a brilliant philosopher, he was bad at preparing a successor.
The book is a compilation of notes from the emperor. Sometimes it is almost like some sort of diary — a diary written by the most powerful and one of the wisest men in Rome. The intimacy of its pages drags the readers among common struggles that we face even today — it will even help you with social media addiction, things that are inherent to human existence.
If I need to choose one book to give to my 20 years old-self, would be Meditations.
Confessions, from Saint Augustine of Hippo,
“As the flattery of friends corrupts, so often do the taunts of enemies instruct.”
Confessions is, in a certain way, an autobiography of Augustine. From a childhood stealing fruits from his neighbors in the outskirts of the empire, to a law-student with rich friends enjoying lavish parties and women, Confessions is the epic journey of a man. A man that once was one of the most promising lawyers in the city of Rome until he abandons everything to follow his call.
Like meditations, it is a very intimate book, where the author opens his deepest thoughts. From his first “girlfriend” — if one could use this word in Ancient Rome, to his career struggles and successes, it has dilemmas that we still face in the XXI century. As a personal note, the section where Augustine writes about his mom passing out is one of the most emotional things I ever read.
If you also want to expand your reading list with contemporary books, look at this ranking of the 7 best business books that I read in 2020.
Levi Borba is the CEO of expatriateconsultancy.com and a best-selling author. You can check his books here.