Power and Success Can Make You Better

<p>Lord Acton’s line is so famous and so undeniably true that most people don’t even know that it’s a quote from a real person: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. </p><p><br/>It&apos;s been proven time and time again in history. When people get power, it changes them. That’s why the biggest breakthroughs in the evolution of government have been around checks and balances on power--so that no one person can be fully corrupted, and if they are corrupt, can’t simply do what they want. </p><p><br/><a href='https://dailystoic.com/marcus-aurelius/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=make-you-better'>Marcus Aurelius</a> didn’t have much of a choice as far as the government he took over. Rome hadn’t been a republic for several generations. Marcus wasn’t even born into the emperorship, he was <em>chosen</em> for it by the emperor Hadrian. So too was his “stepfather” Antoninus. </p><p><br/></p><p>Yet this is what makes their reigns so remarkable. <a href='http://geni.us/v4wqgDL'>As Ernest Renan observed</a>, it’s nearly unbelievable that “two models of irreproachable virtue are to be found in its ranks and that the most beautiful lessons of patience and disinterestedness could proceed from a condition which we may suppose was unreservedly exposed to all the seductions of pleasure and vanity.” </p><p><br/></p><p>Just think about what the emperors before them had done: Nero killed his mother and step brothers. It is said that Claudius appointed his <em>horse</em>, <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitatus'>Incitatus</a>, a senator. Augustus (Octavian at the time) executed 300 senators. Even after Marcus, look at Commodus. His own son spent most of his time slaughtering animals in the Coliseum because he enjoyed wanton killing more than serving the state. And who could tell him to do otherwise?</p><p><br/></p><p>Both Marcus and Antoninus had unlimited power too. Unlimited wealth. Unlimited sycophants. But they ignored it. They didn’t give into it. They did their jobs ins