Tag: Emperor

Meditation 62

As I sit here and begin to write beside my candle, I am not thinking about Marcus Aurelius, the inspiration for this blog. Instead, my thoughts have drifted towards another Roman emperor.

I have recently visited the city of York and in the square in front of the cathedral there, York Minster, is a bronze statue of the Emperor Constantine. He sits on a throne looking appropriately powerful and commanding. His gaze seems to go beyond the square to take in the centuries since he reigned (306-337 CE). Perhaps this was intended by the sculptor, Philip Jackson, as the statue was officially unveiled in 1998. It was a millennium project I suppose, suggesting that Constantine transcends the millennia, (as does Marcus, not least, I hope, in my humble blog!).

There is a small marble bust of Constantine dating from Roman times in nearby Stonegate, an altogether more modest image but with that commanding stare nevertheless. When I was in Rome, I saw the fragments of a colossal statue of him (including a very large head with a more mellow gaze and and a hand pointing upwards) in the entrance to the Capitoline museum. It must have been a massive edifice and would have dwarfed all around it. Should my school decide to place a statue in my honour outside my dear Drama studio, I would be quite happy with a small marble bust. In reality, I am happy with nothing at all (just as well, you may say!) as you only have to stand in the centre of the studio and look around you to see my monument!

It may seem strange but Constantine was actually crowned Emperor in York which was then a Roman settlement called Eboracum. There is a large stone column from that time quite near to the statue on the small square. Constantine had served in the army under his father Constantius since 305 (having fled from the reigning Caesar, Galerius, to serve the army in Western Europe). When his father died he was declared emperor by the army. It is appropriate that the statue is situated in front of the Minster as Constantine was reputedly crowned near that spot, and also because eventually he became the first Christian emperor.

York is a city steeped in history: it not only has a Roman past, but also was a Viking settlement and was a thriving medieval town around the Minster. There are also some elegant 18th and 19th century buildings and some beautiful city gardens and parks. I very much enjoyed staying with friends in York and having a little city break – my first break since last autumn and my first major venture out of the lockdown stockade. It was heartening to see the streets busy, not with international tourists of course, but with visitors from the UK. The city seemed to be going about its business in a relaxed way, unlike my visits to London last summer where the streets were virtually empty and a tense atmosphere pervaded the metropolis. There was a gentleness about the place which I hope won’t be swept away when lockdown ends (possibly) in a few weeks. At the moment in this hopefully last stage of lockdown, we seem to be in a gentle and quite relaxed phase. I wish this could be the so called ‘new normal’ and that we do not return to a frenetic or even frantic lifestyle once lockdown ends. I hope we do not forget what we have learnt from lockdown.

My first reason for travelling up North was to be with my sisters and family in Leeds. I hadn’t seen them since last August and was so very pleased to be with them, especially as we were unable to spend Christmas together. So we had Christmas in June instead! I travelled on the train with my Christmas gifts for them, like a Santa who had lost his way on Christmas Eve and had spent six months trying to find his way home! We exchanged gifts and had a turkey dinner and hats, crackers and games and it was a wonderful festive occasion especially as we hadn’t seen each other for so long.

It has been wonderful that families have been able to get together at last over the last few months. I imagine not a few have also re-celebrated Christmas, with all the family together at last. At the end of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, the miser Ebenezer Scrooge is a changed man and the narrator comments that ‘it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well’ and hopes that ‘may the same be said of us and all of us.’ Well my family and I did our best last month. They had already been together last December 25 and celebrated without my being with them but, nevertheless, the spirit of Christmas was present among us on June 24!

On that trip to Leeds and York, I came to realise that I never travel light. I always have too much stuff with me. I suppose I had a good excuse this time as I was carrying presents for seven people as well as clothes for a five day stay up North. Also I must confess to being quite nervous about travelling even though I have made the journey so many times before. I think the pandemic may have made us all nervous at times about the most ordinary things (especially travel). I spent the day before I travelled packing and repacking and deciding what to wear (as the weather is so changeable at present) and what else to take with me: books, I Pad, headphones for my music etc. My bag was heavy enough without my personal accessories.

Of course I was forgetting that I would be spending most of my time in the company of my family and my friends. I would have little time to read or play music. They weren’t important. My bag wasn’t much lighter either once I had emptied out the gifts in Leeds and gave them to my family as I received gifts too from them to take home with me. As I trundled along station platforms with my large tunnel back at my side and my backpack

on my shoulders and heaved myself onto trains for my journeys from London to Leeds then from Leeds to York and later back home again from York, I slowly began to realise that I was literally weighed down with possessions. I came to the conclusion that I need to live lighter let alone travel lighter.

I had also forgotten one of the lessons I had learnt from the lockdown last year: that people are more important than possessions. And more especially from our days of isolation, that the company of others is very precious.

Yes, I hope we do not forget what we have learnt from lockdown.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

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Neilus Aurelius

It is quite a while since I last sat beside my candle to reflect and to compose a meditation. I have been busy directing and presenting our latest school production at the Rose Theatre Kingston: ‘The Prince and the Pauper’, which took place last week.

As I sit here preparing to write my meditation beside my candle, I am thinking of Marcus Aurelius, my inspiration. I am remembering his face. I have seen it recently or rather a marble representation of it. I have just been on a visit to Florence and there, in the Uffizi Gallery, were two very long corridors lined with numerous Greek and Roman statues. Among these there were many Caesars looking down in imperial disdain on the herds of visitors as if they were captives dragged home to Rome. There seemed to be a statue or bust of every Emperor that lived. I noticed Hadrian, who looks quite similar to Marcus himself as they both have beards. Indeed, for a moment I thought Hadrian was Marcus until I read the little card in Italian and English on the wall beside the bust and realised he wasn’t. My mistake led me in search of Marcus himself.

Marcus was born during Hadrian’s reign. His rise to power was by adoption: when his wealthy father died, he was adopted by his grandfather and then, when his grandfather died, by his uncle, Aurelius Antoninus. Marcus then took his uncle’s name: Aurelius. Hadrian had no sons to succeed him so he adopted Aurelius Antoninus as his heir and when Hadrian died, he became Emperor Antoninus Pius. There is a temple to him in the Forum in Rome. And so, when Antoninus Pius died, Marcus Aurelius himself became Emperor, through all those adoptions. It could be argued he became Emperor by accident.
Half way through my search through the thicket of tourists in the long corridor I found his old uncle Antoninus Pius, looking serious and grave as a ‘pius’ (dutiful) man should.

I finally discovered Marcus at the end of the corridor with his stoical detached gaze on top of a black marble plinth. It was an older Marcus that I saw, with his curled hair and full beard, very much the philosopher rather than the military commander.

Because I was looking at a bust of his head and shoulders, it seemed as if he was about to turn his head and share his thoughts with me. A full length statue would have emphasised his power and conquests like the huge bronze one of him on horseback, hand raised in blessing, in the Capitoline Museum in Rome which I have seen several times and which has never ceased to impress me.

Yet here there was an intimacy about our encounter even though his eyes seemed to be looking beyond and above the corridor, lost in meditation again, perhaps sensing the aimlessness of the constant movement of the crowds around him. In his “Meditations’ he writes ‘No action should be undertaken without aim or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life’. In other words, our actions should be focused and should conform to our own philosophy, a philosophy that upholds life. We have seen very little of that among our politicians recently!
I must admit to being a little hard on my fellow gallery visitors. They are not necessarily aimless. After all one of the aims of going to a gallery is to explore, to discover and to appreciate. Not all visitors are aiming for a famous picture or sculpture or the work of a favourite artist. However so many were moving quickly from picture to picture, from statue to statue without staying long enough to take in what they were seeing, except perhaps to have the obligatory selfie with the famous ones.

This was borne out by a video presentation towards the end of the gallery route. My friend Alan, who accompanied me, watched it. A photographer, posing as a gallery visitor with an I pad, filmed the reactions of visitors to some of the gallery rooms. He turned these into a short film. His montage included people who would come up to a picture, take a photo of it and then move on, without even a cursory look at it. Our culture seems to be about grabbing and taking home, about acquisition and possession. Grabbing the picture as a digital image on a phone or I pad is more important than letting the picture grab the person. Possession is more important than interaction.

But back to Marcus. I was interacting with him even though his gaze was not on me but above me. His eyes looked real and the artist, whoever he was, had caught the depth of Marcus’ personality in them. They were the eyes of a real thinker. I have always presumed that classical statues had blank eyes with no pupils, to signify either that the statue was a representation of a dead person, who’s spirit was no longer in the body or that the statue was just that, a statue and not a real person. But apparently, the Romans gradually developed the idea of portraiture in statuary.

Impressive though Marcus’s stare was, it could not match the intensity and fire of the eyes Michelangelo’s David, which we saw at the Academia Gallery the following afternoon. But then, David is not a philosopher but a youth about to fire the stone from his sling that felled the giant Goliath. Situated in its huge grey alcove at the end of a great hall, the sheer size of the statue created an atmosphere of hushed respect, of silent awe among the onlookers. The overwhelming magnetism of the statue forced visitors to stop and look.

It is sad that Michelangelo’s David, along with Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ has become an artistic cliche. They are the most famous works of art and have been reproduced in so many different ways and used to advertise so many different products from chocolates and fridge magnets to underwear. On my trip I noticed ‘David’ kitchen aprons and briefs and a tee shirt with a cartoon Mona Lisa doing the ‘dab’ arm gesture of current youth culture.
Yet, David certainly towers above all this banal consumerism. I have yet to see the Mona Lisa in the Paris Louvre. David’s face is an enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s smile is purported to be. Sometimes he looks very stern, at others serene and then as if he is smiling. The young Michelangelo’s achievement is to create a figure that is the embodiment of stillness and yet about to exert great energy and strength. His achievement is even more emphasised by six other male statues in the great hall, all unfinished from his later life. Their bodies seem to be wrestling with the rock that still confines them, their torsos writhing to come alive. From a rock such as theirs, David was brought to life.

The eyes, it is in the eyes -as a good actor and director knows. How do we look at works of art? With the intense, focused gaze of David? Or with the meditative gaze of Marcus? Or with the blank almost pupil-less stare of an Ancient Greek statue?

Ave atque vale until the next blog.

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And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.
I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.
Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius