Page "Marcus Aurelius" Paragraph 5

Tutor Fronto and various Antonine officials survives in a series of patchy manuscripts, covering the period from c. 138 to 166.

Marcus ' own Meditations offer a window on his inner life, but are largely undateable, and make few specific references to worldly affairs.

The main narrative source for the period is Cassius Dio, a Greek senator from Bithynian Nicaea who wrote a history of Rome from its founding to 229 in eighty books.

Dio is vital for the military history of the period, but his senatorial prejudices and strong opposition to imperial expansion obscure his perspective.

Some other literary sources provide specific detail: the writings of the physician Galen on the habits of the Antonine elite, the orations of Aelius Aristides on the temper of the times, and the constitutions preserved in the Digest and Codex Justinianus on Marcus ' legal work.

Inscriptions and coin finds supplement the literary sources.