Both Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations are great examples of complementary literature that spans a time frame of 1650 years of stoic thought. To read from the translated words of Aurelius and apply them as context to which Ozymandias is written about personifies the sonnet in a way that Aurelius expressed very well. This is because one of the primary themes of his books which dwelt on impermanence and unavoidability of human societies being inseparable parts of nature that they both come from and return to. Despite Shelley having written the sonnet about Pharaoh Ramesses II, it can also be imagined that the same traveler depicted in the sonnet may also be a Roman telling the same account.
In Ozymandias, the vacuous nature of a visual setting can be imagined alongside an impressive absence of an entire empire that had once existed. In Meditations, Aurelius recounts the nature of what leads to such a statue and its current state of affairs as perceived by folks at later dates. The impression of a great loss is one that folks may be left with after having read of Ozymandias. These impressions may be put to ease by reading Aurelius’ Meditations where he writes, “Everyone’s life is but a moment, but though yours is nearly finished, your soul does not reverence itself but places your felicity on the souls of others.” (Aurelius B.II 4:40 – 4:53). Here Aurelius would make the point that while the physical objects of an empire may crumble, it’s through the loss of leadership that the retained the essence of what brought it about then becomes imbued into the “souls of others”.
It’s easy to lose sight of all that which may have happened previously, in order to bring about interactions such as that which was depicted in Ozymandias where a traveler recounts the statue bearing an inscription that said, “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains.”(Shelley). This type of demeaning sentiment is to be expected as Aurelius writes, “Accustom yourself as much as possible on the occasion that if anything being done by any person, to inquire within yourself, for what object is this man doing this? … For indeed, there is no more use in these parts without the cause which moves and checks them than in the weavers shuttle and the writers pen and the drivers whip.” (Aurelius B.X 29:38 – 30:30). A reader may otherwise be lead to suppose that the point being made in Ozymandias is that the works of leadership are useless because they will end up devoid of the respect of the population and even be left abandoned by nature (note the choice of a desert).
From Aurelius’ viewpoint this opinion would be no different than trivializing a dead “drivers whip”, as it’s not simply what can be seen such as objects that had no tangible impact. Instead, it’s something that’s passed on to people and it’s more the case that objects like statues are evidence that that process had taken place. In support of this he writes, “What is the nature of all sense objects, … How worthless and contemptible and sordid and perishable and dead they are. All this it is a part of the intellectual faculty to observe, and to observe further.” (Aurelius II 8:50 – 9:18). Aurelius felt it was adequate to indicate that one must consider the implications of that which they see rather than simply looking at what they observe. Where it’s written in Ozymandias that, “…Tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things” (Shelley), it’s evident here that both Shelley’s and Aurelius’ have similar impressions on the legacy of leadership. Those ‘objects’ never once had life to begin with and it’s not the case that an empire or statue representative of it once was alive and is now somehow dead. It was implied that the still-living people are the legacies of Empires, through ‘felicity’ with Aurelius and ‘passions’ with Shelley.
People in great civilizations often find ways to relate to nature as a natural byproduct of their being perceived as so great in the same way that objects are a natural byproduct of strong leadership as previously discussed. The point that Aurelius makes to support this is where he writes, ‘Now it is in my power to let no badness be in this soul. Nor any desire nor any perturbation at all, but looking at all things I see what is their nature and I use each according to its value. Remember this power which you have from nature.” (Aurelius VIII 13:40 – 14:00). He means that the power that is in nature is equivalent to the power that good leadership imbued in his civilization for a time. Because this is the mindset of the very last “Pax Romana” emperor, right before the decline of the Roman Empire, is important because it reflected the overall mindset of the leadership at the time (Rideout para. 1). Aurelius was able to provide a very concise and complete viewpoint of what the “peak” of Roman civilization felt like, not long before before its decline.
Is this mindset a way of life, or simply a convenience, where ubiquitous discussions on nature’s grandeur in relation to society and people and how it ought to pacify them is wrought? How is it that he could not see more, then, for himself or Rome? What may have been his limitation, this emperor who requested that people ‘observe, and then observe further’? Aurelius seemed astoundingly convinced that the Roman Empire had peaked, on every sensible level and it shows in his writing that he was quite convinced that the next steps for Rome were a return to nature as if were a requirement and not an expectation. It seemed to be a more recent shift in Roman thought that explored particularly what nature did with decay, which was different from what was seen in Ozymandias which provided a viewpoint after which nature had already reincorporated an empire. Shelley wrote of a statue of the what’s said to be the greatest Pharaoh of the Egyptian empire, Aurelius is considered to be one of the greatest Roman Emperors. Possibly it was the case that the wildness of nature Aurelius spoke of, which convinced him most of the coming fall, was from the struggles with the Germanic barbarian tribes in the Marcomannic Wars that lead to the fall of Rome (Rideout para. 10). The philosophical labeling of his Meditations unfortunately omits this context.
The general impression is that this cyclically temporal congruence with nature itself to both people and society is an idea that many folks in great empires have and is possibly a natural byproduct of their grandeur. That Aurelius seemed so focused on the impending reincorporation into nature of anything and everything implied that the same mindset was shared by the general Roman population. Aurelius implies this when he writes on nature, “… everything within her which appears to decay and to grow old and to be useless, she changes into herself, and again makes new things from these very same so that she requires neither substance from without nor once a place into which she may cast that which decays.” (Aurelius VIII 25:27 – 26:26). He made this comment on comparison to some wood shavings in a woodworkers shop. The implication is that once an empire (or person) is so full of these things that decay or are wasted, nature would ‘change into herself’. Because the strength of the barbarian forces were known, it’s unlikely that Aurelius alone would have had the thought that ‘nature’ (barbarians) was already there to reclaim the Roman Empire, as it was no longer possible to cast away more ‘wood shavings’ (that which was unwanted in Rome), without further benefiting the already imposing armies on their borders.
In conclusion, both of these pieces of literature displayed the shared mindset of not just two authors, but also two or three entire empires. Ozymandias may initially seem to mock lost empires, but on closer inspection says much to their benefit. While it is consequential, the presence of a desert setting implies that nature moves separately from the physical objects of an empire that decay in reincorporating the passions of the empire into itself. Both works are complementary literature in with themes of pervasive stoic thought. Aurelius’ Meditations makes the point that it’s the gain in ‘soul’ which is the legacy of leadership in an empire, and not the physical objects of it. Both of these works were written at times in which both authors lived toward the end of the ages of the respective empires in which they lived. Their shared mindset seems to be a byproduct of empires having existed, and a lot more history can be discussed outside these pieces of literature.
Works Cited
Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. Narrated by Duncan Steen, Audible, Naxos AudioBooks, 2010. Audiobook, 12 Books. https://www.audible.com/pd/Meditations-Audiobook/B004IBRMZS. Accessed 18Feb2025.
Rideout, Moshe. “When Was Ancient Rome at Its Peak – Ancient Rome.” Explore the Past, Enrich the Future, 3 Dec. 2023, https://www.learnancientrome.com/when-was-ancient-rome-at-its-peak/. Accessed 18Feb2025.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2025, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias, Accessed 18Feb2025.