Marcus Aurelius was a true philosopher king, but he wasn’t the first or the last amongst the Stoics. The first emperor, Octavian, studied under Athenodorus and Arius Didymus. Hadrian took classes from Epictetus and Antoninus was a kind of natural Stoic.

But actually all the Stoics were of the same mold. Cleanthes was a manual laborer, but he carried himself like his work mattered, like he mattered. Cato, a man in command of himself, had no desire for the power that Caesar so destructively sought. Epictetus was a slave but he knew he was freer than most of the men in Nero’s court, perhaps even more than Hadrian. As Epictetus’s teacher Musonius Rufus would say, “I believe a good king is from the outset and by necessity a philosopher, and the philosopher is from the outset a kingly person.”

For the Stoics, it didn’t matter what one did for a living, it mattered how they did it. Yes, sure, there was the job “king,” but far more important was being a kingly person, the greatest empire was the one that Seneca laid out: command of oneself.

If we are to aspire to power, this is the one to aspire to. If we want to lead, let us start by leading ourselves. If we want accolades and privileges, let’s seek to deserve them rather than lust after them, rather than chase them.