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i mean, i dont know exactly what he had in mind when writing that, but, like, there are only so many things that concern an emperors mind.

It's an excerpt from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. Aurelius was a philosopher in addition to an Emperor, and his writings are excellent-but-pretty-orthodox expressions of Stoic doctrine of the time.

The big three surviving philosophical schools of the time all had a very "Look inwards" worldview - Stoicism claiming that we decide ourselves how the outside world pains or does not pain us; Epicureans claiming that it is by learning to appreciate the simple pleasures of life that one achieves contentment with life; and Cynics claiming that mankind is happiest in a state of nature, and that the constructs of human society are window dressing at best - as such, one should act according to one's 'gut' in any given situation.

He wrote this for himself in his Meditations. So he wasn't telling this to anyone but himself, therefore not 'gaslighting' anyone. Beyond being a roman emperor, he is also a pretty respected philosopher, and that generally doesn't happen without having something interesting to say on the subject.

Great advice if your goal is to be destructive to yourself and others. I am recovering from abuse and can for sure say that nothing good has ever come from, or will ever come from anger. We're all angry from time to time. And it's still destructive as its only quality. Being violent in thought or action is not useful. Ever. Only apologists hiding from reality will say that being angry was good. Every scenario you can pose is better met with good temper. Even under actual physical attack, a calm collected response leads to superior outcomes. There is no real world use for anger. It is a remnant hunter gatherer feature.

Delete because better response already written in meantime

based

While Roman society was MUCH more sexist than anything we would regard as acceptable in modern society, women had many rights at the height of the Roman Empire that later European societies would not keep. The right of women to own property was so strict that gifts from a wife to a husband were not legally recognized - if they divorced, claims that any property of the wife was a gift to her husband would not be recognized, and would be returned to the newly-divorced wife. Women often held significant amounts of property and ran businesses in their own name, and there is ample evidence for women as independent workers in skilled and semiskilled professions.

There is considerable writing at the time discussing the role of women in society, and while the opinions of Roman men are very far from 'enlightened', they also quite clearly regard women as more than breeding stock. The Roman author Musonius Rufus even advocated for women to be trained in the arts of war, and posited than any job a man could do, a woman could do also.

Women could divorce their husbands without need for any deeper cause beyond "I don't want to stay in this marriage anymore", and domestic abuse within marriage was grounds for civil lawsuits. All rape of freeborn persons (within the context of Roman governance; foreigners being conquered were less lucky) was subject to the death penalty. Bloodline descent ('breeding stock') was considered much less important, as Romans placed a higher value on a cultural/loyalty familial system in which adoption was widely accepted and direct descent was less important (though not nil) to being recognized as part of the descendants of the family. The idea of 'securing the throne' was not really applicable until later in Roman society when the norms of the city of Rome began to be eroded in favor of a more 'cosmopolitan' and universal imperial culture.

/Romaboo moment over

Almost all predator animals have a territory and they will fight for that territory to keep others out. Chimpanzees and other great apes have clan wars over territory. And they have social hierarchies where some get more food than others.

There is a 100% chance early humans were fighting each other long before the invention of agriculture.