Did Marcus practice tolerance towards Christians or did he see them as political subversives defying Roman law? Did he punish Christians justly or persecute them? It is odd and disappointing that Christians are nowhere mentioned in this book. Nor does he explain why Marcus’ imperial clemency and cosmopolitan brotherhood did not extend to peoples outside the empire. Why did Marcus ignore his wife Faustina's infidelity? Why did he allow Commodus to succeed him as emperor despite his son's glaring defects? Robertson nowhere hints at how to reconcile the militaristic imperialism of this warrior-emperor with the ideal of cosmopolitanism inspiring this Stoic warrior of the mind. Though the Historia Augusta is not an impartial source, Robertson uncritically gathers every flattering characterization of Marcus in it so as to burnish his gleaming portrait of Marcus. He adds texts from not only the Meditations and Marcus’ correspondence with Cornelius Fronto but also Epictetus, Seneca, and other sources of Stoic ideas, interwoven with CBT psychotherapies. Robertson freely adorns these accounts with imagined dialogues and speculative details to enrich his story. The first seven chapters of this book tell tales about Marcus’ life and character taken from the accounts of Cassius Dio, Herodian, and most of all the Historia Augusta.
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