How to Think Like a Roman Emperor

The greatest empire is to be emperor of oneself. — Seneca, Letters, 113

When I came up with the title of my book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor it was intended to have a double meaning.

First of all, of co...

The greatest empire is to be emperor of oneself. — Seneca, Letters, 113

Rami Malek recently portrayed the psychiatrist Dr. Douglas Kelley in the movie Nuremberg (2025). Kelley was the chief psychiatrist tasked with evaluating the Nazi high command before they stood trial for war crimes. He died tragically years later, after returning home and trying to warn his fellow countrymen that there was nothing “special” about the Nazis. America,...

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Later today, I’m doing a live conversation on Substack with Phil Yanov on How to Do Stoic Therapy for the Conversations with Modern Stoicism series — and everyone is invited.

We’ll be talking about how Stoic philosophy can be applied in practice — not just as a set of ideas, but as a way of working with emotions, values, habits, and real ever...