Green or Blue

Derren Brown lingers on the strangest paragraph in Book One of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations: the tribute to Antoninus, the emperor who came before Marcus, praised for everything his predecessor Hadrian was not. Brown reads it as a coded takedown, bathing habits, building projects, and an uncomfortable line about young men, all aimed at a dead emperor nobody names. He follows the same catalogue into a throwaway line about chariot factions and hears a warning against tribalism, then holds Book One's whole list of quiet virtues up against fame, entitlement, and a culture constantly asserting itself against nature.