This novel is a practical guide through different philosophical teachings. A reader learns them by life examples of Marius's fictional personality, whose life sets him in other circumstances to test his changing beliefs. The story is based in Rome, where Greek philosophy and early Christianity live beside. A typical citizen could be closely familiar with Plato, Socrates, Epicurus, or Aristippus. A series of life events, the loss of a mother, studying at boarding school, disease, visiting Rome, and life at the court of Marcus Aurelius, the first acquaintance with Christianity, allows Marius to...