Marcus Aurelius

The last of the Five Good Emperors and the only Stoic philosopher to wear the imperial purple. His Meditations, written in Greek as private notes during his Marcomannic campaigns on the Danube, became one of the most-read works of classical literature. His twenty-year reign saw the Antonine Plague kill perhaps a tenth of the empire's population. He broke with adoptive succession and named his biological son Commodus heir — a fateful choice.