THE EMPEROR WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN PROGRESS

 

Marcus Aurelius opened his eyes and looked around. He was not in Rome, nor on the Danube frontier, nor on the battlefields against the Germans. He found himself in a world where the dignity of stone had been replaced by the gleaming emptiness of glass and metal. A world where walls were not built to uphold civilization, but to reflect its distorted image.

At that moment, his gaze fell upon an object that seemed familiar: a book. More than that, it was his own book. His Meditations, written with no intention of being published, were now in the hands of a modern man, who flipped through the pages with the indifference of a wine taster inspecting a bottle that had not been corked yesterday.

“Interesting,” the man said with a smile that barely concealed his condescension. “But it’s a bit… outdated.”

“In what sense?” asked the emperor calmly.

“Well, all this insistence on discipline, self-control, gratitude… Those are obsolete values. Today, we know that everyone must express themselves freely, without restrictions or external impositions.”

Marcus Aurelius nodded slowly, like someone listening to a barbarian explain why burning a city is better than governing it.

“So you have discovered that freedom consists in doing whatever one wishes?”

“Of course,” the man replied with self-assurance. “It’s the foundation of our time.”

“And have you also discovered that justice consists in obeying whoever shouts the loudest?”

The man frowned.

“That’s not what I meant…”

“Then what exactly have you discovered?”

“That happiness cannot depend on artificial restrictions. That the rules of the past do not have to govern us today. That each generation must reinvent itself.”

The emperor took a moment to consider this statement. He looked around and observed the crowd passing through the streets, hurried and distracted, unable to see beyond their own reflections in the screens they carried in their hands.

“You have changed many things,” he finally said, “but you have discovered nothing new. My ancestors believed that virtue was passed down from generation to generation, like a fire that is tended and kindled. You, on the other hand, believe that each generation must light its own fire and throw everything that came before it into the flames.”

“Progress requires breaking with the past.”

“Then you have turned history into a constant cycle of starting over, never learning. You have replaced the wisdom of the elders with the opinions of the crowd, reason with emotion, virtue with desire.”

The man crossed his arms.

“We don’t need lessons from the past.”

Marcus Aurelius smiled with a faint melancholy.

“That is exactly what the barbarians said before Rome fell.”