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    Complete Works of Marcus Aurelius (Illustrated)
    Complete Works of Marcus Aurelius (Illustrated)
    Complete Works of Marcus Aurelius (Illustrated)
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    Complete Works of Marcus Aurelius (Illustrated)

    By Marcus Aurelius

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    The celebrated ‘Meditations’ of Marcus Aurelius have endured as a potent expression of Stoic belief and remain an intriguing insight into the mind of one of Rome’s greatest emperors. The Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the Classical world, with both English translations and the original Latin and Greek texts.This comprehensive eBook presents the complete extant works of Marcus Aurelius, with beautiful illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Marcus’ life and works
    * Features the complete extant works of Marcus, in both English translation and the original Greek
    * Includes section numbers – ideal for classical students
    * Concise introduction to the ‘Meditations’
    * Features Haines’ seminal translation from the Loeb Classical Library edition
    * Excellent formatting of the texts
    * Easily locate the sections or works you want to read with individual contents tables
    * Includes Marcus’ rare speeches and sayings, first time in digital print
    * Provides a special dual English and Greek text, allowing readers to compare the sections paragraph by paragraph – ideal for students
    * Features two bonus biographies – discover Marcus’ ancient world
    * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genresPlease note: some Kindle software programs cannot display Greek characters correctly; however the characters do display correctly on Kindle devices.Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titlesCONTENTS:The Translations
    MEDITATIONS
    THE SPEECHES OF MARCUS
    THE SAYINGS OF MARCUSThe Greek Text
    CONTENTS OF THE GREEK TEXTThe Dual Texts
    DUAL GREEK AND ENGLISH TEXTThe Biographies
    INTRODUCTION TO MARCUS AURELIUS by W. H. D. Rouse
    BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS by George LongPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDelphi Classics
    Release dateAug 11, 2015
    ISBN9781910630716
    Complete Works of Marcus Aurelius (Illustrated)
    Author

    Marcus Aurelius

    Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana (27 BC to 180 AD), an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.

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      Complete Works of Marcus Aurelius (Illustrated) - Marcus Aurelius

      The Complete Works of

      MARCUS AURELIUS

      (121 AD – 180 AD)

      Contents

      The Translations

      MEDITATIONS

      THE SPEECHES OF MARCUS

      THE SAYINGS OF MARCUS

      The Greek Text

      CONTENTS OF THE GREEK TEXT

      The Dual Texts

      DUAL GREEK AND ENGLISH TEXT

      The Biographies

      INTRODUCTION TO MARCUS AURELIUS by W. H. D. Rouse

      BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS by George Long

      © Delphi Classics 2014

      Version 1

      The Complete Works of

      MARCUS AURELIUS

      By Delphi Classics, 2014

      The Translations

      Córdoba, Andalusia — Marcus’ family originated from this area of Iberian Baetica. He was born in Rome on 26 April 121 AD.

      MEDITATIONS

      Translated by C. R. Haines

      Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν (The thoughts addressed to himself) is a series of personal writings composed by Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD, which present the author’s ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus wrote the Meditations in Koine Greek, an Alexandrian dialect common during Hellenistic and Roman antiquity, as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. It is possible that large portions of the work were written at Sirmium, where the emperor spent much time planning military campaigns from 170 to 180. Some of the text was written while he was positioned at Aquincum on campaign in Pannonia, as internal notes reveal that the second book was written when he was campaigning against the Quadi on the river Granova and the third book was written at Carnuntum. It is not clear that he ever intended the writings to be published, so the title Meditations is only one of several commonly assigned to the work. The text mostly takes the form of quotations varying in length from one sentence to long paragraphs.

      The Meditations is divided into twelve books, chronicling different periods of Marcus’ life, arranged in no chronological order and composed for no audience but the emperor himself. The writing style is simplified and concise, reflecting Marcus’ Stoic perspective on life, whilst portraying its author not as an empirical figure, but as a man among other men, allowing the reader to relate to his wisdom.

      A central theme of the text is the analysis of judgement of self and others and the developing of a cosmic perspective. Marcus argues, You have the power to strip away many superfluous troubles located wholly in your judgement, and to possess a large room for yourself embracing in thought the whole cosmos, to consider everlasting time, to think of the rapid change in the parts of each thing, of how short it is from birth until dissolution, and how the void before birth and that after dissolution are equally infinite. He advocates finding one’s place in the universe, believing that as everything has come from nature, so everything must return in due time. Another major theme of the work is the importance of maintaining focus and to be without distraction, while maintaining strong ethical principles, such as Being a good man.

      Marcus’ Stoic ideas often involve eschewing indulgence in sensory affections, a skill that will free a man from the pains and pleasures of the material world. He claims that the only way a man can be harmed by others is to allow his reaction to overpower him. An order or logos permeates existence. Rationality and clear-mindedness allow one to live in harmony with the logos. This allows one to rise above faulty perceptions of good and bad.

      The Meditations has endured as a potent expression of Stoic belief and remains a central text for students of Stoicism, as well as a unique personal guide to the attainment of a moral life.

      Marcus Aurelius as a boy, from the villa of Antoninus Pius in Lanuvio, c. 140 AD

      Marcus Aurelius, c. 160 AD, Glyptothek Munich

      CONTENTS

      PREFACE

      INTRODUCTION

      BOOK I

      BOOK II

      BOOK III

      BOOK IV

      BOOK V

      BOOK VI

      BOOK VII

      BOOK VIII

      BOOK IX

      BOOK X

      BOOK XI

      BOOK XII

      Antoninus Pius (86-161 AD), Marcus’ adoptive father and predecessor as emperor; bust housed in the Glyptothek, Munich. Antoninus acquired the name Pius after his accession to the throne, either because he compelled the Senate to deify his adoptive father Hadrian or because he had saved senators sentenced to death by Hadrian in his later years.

      Faustina the Younger, Marcus’ wife; the Louvre

      If thou would’st master care and pain,

      Unfold this book and read and read again

      Its blessed leaves, whereby thou soon shalt see

      The past, the present, and the days to be

      With opened eyes; and all delight, all grief,

      Shall be like smoke, as empty and as brief.

      1 This epigram is found at the end of the Vatican MS. and also in the Anthologia Palalina, ii. p. 603 (Jacobs). Possibly by Arethas (see P. Maas in Hermes xiviii. p. 295 ff. ).

      PREFACE

      The Greek text of this book is often difficult and in many places corrupt beyond cure, but no trouble has been spared to make the translation as accurate and idiomatic as possible. I have preferred to err, if error it be, on the side of over-faithfulness, because the physiognomy of the book owes so much to the method and style in which it is written. Its homeliness, abruptness, and want of literary finish (though it does not lack rhetoric) are part of the character of the work, and we alter this character by rewriting it into the terse, epigrammatic, staccato style so much in vogue at the present day. Another reason for literalness is that it makes a comparison with the Greek, printed beside it, easier for the unlearned. When a work has been translated so often as this one, it is difficult to be original without deviating further from the text, but I have not borrowed a phrase, scarcely a word, from any of my predecessors. If unconscious coincidences appear, it remains only to say Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint! Numerous references (such as have proved so invaluable for the due understanding of the Bible) and good indices have always been greatly wanted in the translations of this work, and I have taken pains to supply the want. For a better understanding of the character of Marcus I have added to the Thoughts translations of his Speeches and Sayings, with a Note on his attitude towards the Christians (in which I am glad to find myself in complete agreement with M. Lemercier). A companion volume on the Correspondence with Fronto will contain all his extant Letters. In conclusion my best thanks are due to Messrs. Teubner for permission to use their text as the basis of the revised one here printed, to Professors Leopold and Schenkl for advice and help on various points, and, last but not least, to my predecessors in the translation of this Golden Book.

      C. R. HAINES.

      GODALMING, 1915.

      INTRODUCTION

      It is not known how this small but priceless book of private devotional memoranda came to be preserved for posterity. But the writer that in it puts away all desire for after-fame has by means of it attained to imperishable remembrance. As Renan has said, tous, tant que nous sommes, nous portons au coeur le deuil de Marc Aurele comme s’il etait mort d’hier. (all of us, as we are, we carry in our hearts the mourning for Marcus Aurelius, as if he had died only yesterday.) Internal evidence proves that the author was Marcus Antoninus, emperor of Rome 7 March 161 to 17 March 180, and notes added in one MS between Books I and II and II and III shew that the second Book was composed when the writer was among the Quadi on the Gran, and the third at Carnuntum (Haimburg). The headquarters of Marcus in the war against the barbarians were at Carnuntum 171-173, and we know that the so-called miraculous victory against the Quadi was in 174. But Professor Schenkl has given good reasons for thinking that the first book was really written last and prefixed as a sort of introduction to the rest of the work. It was probably written as a whole, while the other books consist mostly of disconnected jottings. The style throughout is abrupt and concise, and words have occasionally to be supplied to complete the sense. There is here no reasoned treatise on Ethics, no exposition of Stoic Philosophy, such as the sectarum ardua ac perocculta or the ordo praeceptionum, on which Marcus is said to have discoursed before he set out the last time for the war in 178, but we have a man and a ruler taking counsel with himself, noting his own shortcomings, excusing those of others, and whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure, exhorting his soul to think on these things. Never were words written more transparently single-hearted and sincere. They were not merely written, they were lived. Those who accuse Marcus of pharisaism wilfully mistake his character and betray their own. Very noticeable is the delicacy of the author’s mind and the restrained energy of his style. He eschews all the ‘windflowers’ of speech, but the simplicity, straight forwardness, and dignity of his thoughts lend an imperial nobility to his expression of them. There is a certain choiceness and even poetry in his words which amply condone an occasional roughness and technicality of phrase. Striking images are not infrequent, and such a passage as Book II, 2 is unique in ancient literature. This is not a book of confessions, and comparatively few allusions to personal incidents are to be found except in the first book, while an air of complete aloofness and detachment pervades the whole. The author expressly disclaims all δριμύτης or originality and acuteness of intellect, and there is a good deal of repetition unavoidable in the nature of the work, for line upon line and precept upon precept are required in all moral teaching.

      Of his two great Stoic predecessors Marcus has no affinity with Seneca. He certainly knew all about him and they have many thoughts in common, but Seneca’s rhetorical flamboyance, his bewildering contradictions, the glaring divergence between his profession and his practice have no counterpart in Marcus. Epictetus the Phrygian slave was his true spiritual father, but we do not find in the Emperor the somewhat rigid didacticism and spiritual dogmatism of his predecessor. Marcus is humbler and not so confident. The hardness and arrogance of Stoicism are softened in him by an infusion of Platonism and other philosophies. With the Peripatetics he admits the inequality of faults. His humanity will not cast out compassion as an emotion of the heart. His is no cut and dried creed, for he often wavers and is inconsistent. Call not his teaching ineffectual. He is not trying to teach anyone. He is reasoning with his own soul and championing its cause against the persuasions and impulses of the flesh. How far did he succeed? By nature a good man, says Dio, his education and the moral training he imposed upon himself made him a far better one. As was natural to one who had beautified his soul with every virtuous quality he was innocent of all wrong-doing. The wonderful revelation here given of the άσκησις of the spiritual athlete in the contests of life is full of inspiration still even for the modern world. It has been and is a source of solace and strength to thousands, and has helped to mould the characters of more than one leader of men, such as Frederick the Great Maximilian of Bavaria, Captain John Smith, the saviour of Virginia, and that noble Christian soldier, General Gordon. It was but the other day, on the fiftieth anniversary of Italian Unity, that the King of Italy, speaking on the Capitol, referred to Marcus as the sacred and propitiatory image of that cult of moral and civil law which our Fatherland wishes to follow, a reference received with particular applause by those who heard it.

      Whoever rescued the MS of the Thoughts on the death of their author in 180, whether it was that noble Roman, Pompeianus, the son-in-law of Marcus, or the high-minded Victorinus, his lifelong friend, we seem to hear an echo of its teaching in the dying words of Cornificia, his possibly last surviving daughter, when put to death by Caracalla in 215: O wretched little soul of mine, imprisoned in an unworthy body, go forth, be free! It was doubtless known to Chryseros the freedman and nomenclator of Marcus who wrote a history of Rome to the death of his patron, and to the Emperor Gordian I., for the latter in his youth, soon after the Emperor’s death, wrote an epic poem on Pius and Marcus. He also married Fabia Orestilla, the latter’s granddaughter through Fadilla (probably) and Claudius Severus. As their eldest son Gordian II. had sixty children, the blood of Marcus was soon widely diffused.

      The first direct mention of the work is about 350 A.D. in the Orations of the pagan philosopher Themistius, who speaks of the παραγγέλματα (precepts) of Marcus. Then for 550 years we lose sight of the book entirely, until, about 900, the compiler of the dictionary, which goes by the name of Suidas, reveals the existence of a MS of it by making some thirty quotations, taken from books I, III, IV, V, IX, and XI. He calls the book (συγγραφή) an "αγωγή (a directing) of his own life by Marcus the Emperor in twelve books." About the same time Arethas, a Cappadocian bishop, writing to his metropolitan, speaks of the scarcity of this μεγλωφελέστατον βιβλίον, and apparently sends him a copy of it. He also refers to it three times in scholia to Lucian, calling it τα εις εαυτον ηθικά. Two similar references are found in the scholia to Dio Chrysostom, possibly by the same Arethas.

      Again a silence of 250 years, after which Tzetzes, a grammarian of Constantinople, quotes passages from Books IV. and V. attributing them to Marcus. About 150 years later (1300 A.D.)  the ecclesiastical historian, Nicephorus Callistus (iii. 31) writes that Marcus "composed a book of instruction for his son, full of universal (κοσμικης,? secular) experience and wisdom." About this very time Planudes, a monk of Constantinople, may have been engaged in compiling the anthology of extracts from various authors, including Marcus and Aelian, which has come down to us in twenty-five or more MSS dating from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. They are practically of no help in re-establishing the text, and contain in all forty-four extracts from books IV.-XII.

      Our present text is based almost entirely upon two MSS, the Codex Palatinus (P) first printed in 1558 by Xylander but now lost, which contains the whole work, and the Codex Vaticanus 1 950 (A) from which about forty-two lines have dropped out by accidental omissions here and there. Two other MSS give some independent help to the text, but they are incomplete, the Codex Darmstadtinus 2773 (D) with 112 extracts from books I. IX. and Codex Parisinus 319 (C) with twenty-nine extracts from Books I.-IV., with seven other MSS derived from it or from the same source. Apart from all these there is but one other MS (Monacensis 323) which contains only fourteen very short fragments from Books II., III., IV., and VII.

      Translations of this Book have been made into Latin, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Norse, Russian, Czech, Polish and Persian. In England alone twenty-six editions of the work appeared in the seventeenth century, fifty-eight in the eighteenth, eighty-one in the nineteenth, and in the twentieth up to 1908 thirty more.

      The English translations are as follows.

      1. Meric Casaubon, - Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. His Meditations concerning himself: Treating of a Naturall Man’s Happinesse; wherein it consisteth, and of the Meanes to attain unto it. Translated out of the original Greeke with Notes by Meric Casaubon B.D., London, 1634.

      This, the first English translation, albeit involved and periphrastic, is not without dignity or scholarship, though James Thomson in 1747 says that it is every where rude and unpolished and often mistakes the author’s meaning, while the Foulis Press Translators of 1742 find fault with its intricate and antiquated style. It may be conveniently read in Dr. Rouse’s new edition of 1900, which also contains some excellent translations of letters between Fronto and Marcus.

      2. Jeremy Collier. The Emperor Marcus Antoninus His Conversation with Himself. Translated into English by Jeremy Collier M.A., London 1701. A recent edition of it by Alice Zimmern is in the  Camelot Series, but it hardly deserved the honour. We may fairly say of it that it is too colloquial. James Thomson in 1747 speaks of it as a very coarse copy of an excellent original, and as bearing so faint a resemblance to the original in a great many places as scarcely to seem taken from it. R. Graves in 1792 remarks that it abounds with so many vulgarities, anilities and even ludicrous expressions . . . that one cannot now read it with any patience. The comment of G. Long in 1862 is much the same, but it called forth an unexpected champion of the older translator in Matthew Arnold, who says: Most English people, who knew Marcus Aurelius before Mr. Long appeared as his introducer, knew him through Jeremy Collier. And the acquaintance of a man like Marcus Aurelius is such an imperishable benefit that one can never lose a peculiar sense of obligation towards the man who confers it. Apart from this however, Jeremy Collier’s version deserves respect for its genuine spirit and vigour, the spirit and vigour of the age of Dryden. His warmth of feeling gave to his style an impetuosity and rhythm which from Mr. Long’s style are absent. The real defect of Collier as a translator, adds Arnold, is his imperfect acquaintance with Greek.

      3. James Moor and Thomas Huicheson. The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Newly translated from the Greek with notes. Glasgow: The Foulis Press, 1742. Certainly the best translation, previous to Long’s, for accuracy and diction, and superior to that in spirit. Dr. Rendall (1898) praises it as the choicest alike in form and contents. R. Graves, however, in 1792, while  allowing its fidelity, had pronounced it unnecessarily literal and shewing a total neglect of elegance and harmony of style. A very satisfactory revision of this translation appeared in 1902, made by G. W. Chrystal.

      4. Richard Graves. The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. A New Translation from the Greek Original, with notes. By R. Graves, M.A., Rector of Claverton, Somerset. Bath, 1792. A fairly accurate and smooth version of no especial distinction, but superior to most of its predecessors. An abbreviated edition of this was published at Stourport without any date by N. Swaine with the title: The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Philosophus collated with and abridged from the best translations.

      5. George Long. The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Translated by George Long. London., 1862. This may be looked upon as in some sense the authorized version and it is from it that most people know their Marcus Aurelius. For nearly forty years it was master of the field. M. Arnold, though finding fault with the translator as not idiomatic or simple enough and even pedantic, yet gives him full credit for soundness, precision, and general excellence in his translation. The author tells us that he deliberately chose a ruder style as better suited to express the character of the original, and he was right, for in spite of Arnold’s dictum to the contrary the book of Marcus has a distinct physiognomy, and here, more than is usually the case, le style cest l’homme.

      6. Hastings Crossley. The Fourth Book of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. A revised text with Translation and commentary by Hastings Crossley, M.A., London, 1882. This specimen makes us regret that the author did not publish the whole version which he tells us was in MS. The book contains an interesting appendix on the relations of Fronto and Marcus.

      7. G. H. Rendall. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself: An English Translation with Introductory Study on Stoicism and the Last of the Stoics. By Gerald H. Rendall, M.A., Litt.D., London, 1898. A second edition with a different introduction was published in 1901.

      This version has been pronounced by many critics the best rendering of the Thoughts. Its accuracy, ability, and liveliness are unquestionable.

      8. John Jackson. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Translated by John Jackson. With an introduction by Charles Bigg. Oxford, 1906.

      This version is the newest comer, and is a worthy presentment of the Thoughts. There are useful notes, but some very bold alterations of the text have been followed in the English version. The book would have been more acceptable without the introduction by Dr. Bigg, which gives a most unfair and wholly inaccurate view of the life and character of Marcus.

      Besides the above versions there are several abridged translations of the Thoughts, which need not be enumerated here. But the two chief ones seem to be by B. E. Smith, published by the Century Company, New York, 1899, and by J. E. Wilson, London, 1902.

      BOOK I

      1. From my grandfather Verus a kindly disposition and sweetness of temper.

      2. From what I heard of my father and my memory of him, modesty and manliness.

      3. From my mother, the fear of god, and generosity; and abstention not only from doing ill but even from the very thought of doing it; and furthermore to live the simple life, far removed from the habits of the rich.

      4. From my grandfather’s father, to dispense with attendance at public schools, and to enjoy good teachers at home, and to recognize that on such things money should be eagerly spent.

      5.From my tutor, not to side with the Green Jacket or the Blue - at the races, or to back the Light-Shield Champion or the Heavy-Shield in the lists; not to shirk toil, and to have few wants, and to do my own work, and mind my own concerns; and to turn a deaf ear to slander.

      6. From Diognetus, not to be taken up with trifles; and not to give credence to the statements of miracle-mongers and wizards about incantations and the exorcizing of demons, and such-like marvels; and not to keep quails, nor to be excited about such things: not to resent plain speaking; and to become familiar with philosophy and be a hearer first of Baccheius, then of Tandasis and Marcianus; and to write dialogues as a boy; and to set my heart on a pallet-bed and a pelt and whatever else tallied with the Greek regimen.

      7. From Rusticus, to become aware of the fact that I needed amendment and training for my character; and not to be led aside into an argumentative sophistry; nor compose treatises on speculative subjects, or deliver little homilies, or pose ostentatiously as the moral athlete or unselfish man; and to eschew rhetoric, poetry, and fine language; and not to go about the house in my robes, nor commit any such breach of good taste; and to write letters without affectation, like his own letter written to my mother from Sinuessa; to shew oneself ready to be reconciled to those who have lost their temper and trespassed against one, and ready to meet them halfway as soon as ever they seem to be willing to retrace their steps; to read with minute care and not to be content with a superficial bird’s-eye view; nor to be too quick in agreeing with every voluble talker; and to make the acquaintance of the Memoirs of Epictetus, which he supplied me with out of his own library.

      8. From Apollonius, self-reliance and an unequivocal determination not to leave anything to chance; and to look to nothing else even for a moment save Reason alone; and to remain ever the same, in the throes of pain, on the loss of a child, during a lingering illness; and to see plainly from a living example that one and the same man can be very vehement and yet gentle: not to be impatient in instructing others; and to see in him a man who obviously counted as the least among his gifts his practical experience and facility in imparting philosophic truths; and to learn in accepting seeming favours from friends not to give up our independence for such things nor take them callously as a matter of course.

      9. From Sextus, kindliness, and the example of a household patriarchally governed; and the conception of life in accordance with Nature; and dignity without affectation; and an intuitive consideration for friends; and a toleration of the unlearned and the unreasoning.

      And his tactful treatment of all his friends, so that simply to be with him was more delightful than any flattery, while at the same time those who enjoyed this privilege looked up to him with the utmost reverence; and the grasp and method which he showed in discovering and marshalling the essential axioms of life.

      And never to exhibit any symptom of anger or any other passion, but to be at the same time utterly impervious to all passions and full of natural affection; and to praise without noisy obtrusiveness, and to possess great learning but make no parade of it.

      10. From Alexander the grammarian, not to be captious; nor in a carping spirit find fault with those who import into their conversation any expression which is barbarous or ungrammatical or mispronounced, but tactfully to bring in the very expression, that ought to have been used, by way of answer, or as it were in joint support of the assertion, or as a joint consideration of the thing itself and not of the language, or by some such graceful reminder.

      11. From Fronto, to note the envy, the subtlety, and the dissimulation which are habitual to a tyrant; and that, as a general rule, those amongst us who rank as patricians are somewhat wanting in natural affection.

      12. From Alexander the Platonist, not to say to anyone often or without necessity, nor write in a letter, I am too busy, nor in this fashion constantly plead urgent affairs as an excuse for evading the obligations entailed upon us by our relations towards those around us.

      13. From Catulus, not to disregard a friend’s expostulation even when it is unreasonable, but to try to bring him back to his usual friendliness; and to speak with whole-hearted good-will of one’s teachers, as it is recorded that Domitius did of Athenodotus; and to be genuinely fond of one’s children.

      14. From my ‘brother’ Severus, love of family, love of truth, love of justice, and (thanks to him!) to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, Brutus; and the conception of a state with one law for all, based upon individual equality and freedom of speech, and of a sovrainty which prizes above all things the liberty of the subject; and furthermore from him also to set a well-balanced and unvarying value on philosophy; and readiness to do others a kindness, and eager generosity, and optimism, and confidence in the love of friends; and perfect openness in the case of those that came in for his censure; and the absence of any need for his friends to surmise what he did or did not wish, so plain was it.

      15. From Maximus, self-mastery and stability of purpose; and cheeriness in sickness as well as in all other circumstances; and a character justly proportioned of sweetness and gravity; and to perform without grumbling the task that lies to one’s hand.

      And the confidence of every one in him that what he said was also what he thought, and that what he did was done with no ill intent. And not to show surprise, and not to be daunted; never to be hurried, or hold back, or be at a loss, or downcast, or smile a forced smile, or, again, be ill-tempered or suspicious.

      And beneficence and placability and veracity; and to give the impression of a man who cannot deviate from the right way rather than of one who is kept in it; and that no one could have thought himself looked down upon by him, or could go so far as to imagine himself a better man than he; and to keep pleasantry within due bounds.

      16. From my father, mildness, and an unshakable adherence to decisions deliberately come to; and no empty vanity in respect to so-called honours; and a love of work and thoroughness; and a readiness to hear any suggestions for the common good; and an inflexible determination to give every man his due; and to know by experience when is the time to insist and when to desist; and to suppress all passion for boys.

      And his public spirit, and his not requiring his friends at all to sup with him or necessarily attend him abroad, and their always finding him the same when any urgent affairs had kept them away; and the spirit of thorough investigation which he showed in the meetings of his Council, and his perseverance; nay his never desisting, prematurely, from an enquiry on the strength of off-hand impressions; and his faculty for keeping his friends and never being bored with them or infatuated about them; and his self-reliance in every emergency, and his good humour; and his habit of looking ahead and making provision for the smallest details without any heroics.

      And his restricting in his reign public acclamations and every sort of adulation; and his unsleeping attention to the needs of the empire, and his wise stewardship of its resources, and his patient tolerance of the censure that all this entailed; and his freedom from superstition with respect to the Gods and from hunting for popularity with respect to men by pandering to their desires or by courting the mob: his soberness in all things and stedfastness; and the absence in him of all vulgar tastes and any craze for novelty.

      And the example that he gave of utilizing without pride, and at the same without any apology, all the lavish gifts of Fortune that contribute towards the comfort of life, so as to enjoy them when present as a matter of course, and, when absent, not to miss them: and no one could charge him with sophistry, flippancy, or pedantry; but he was a man mature, complete, deaf to flattery, able to preside over his own affairs and those of others.

      Besides this also was his high appreciation of all true philosophers without any upbraiding of the others, and at the same time without any undue subservience to them; then again his easiness of access and his graciousness that yet had nothing fulsome about it; and his reasonable attention to his bodily requirements, not as one too fond of life, or vain of his outward appearance, nor yet as one who neglected it, but so as by his own carefulness to need but very seldom the skill of the leech or medicines and outward applications.

      But most of all a readiness to acknowledge with out jealousy the claims of those who were endowed with any special gift, such as eloquence or knowledge of law or ethics or any other subject, and to give them active support, that each might gain the honour to which his individual eminence entitled him; and his loyalty to constitutional precedent without any parade of the fact that it was according to precedent.

      Furthermore he was not prone to change or vacillation, but attached to the same places and the same things; and after his spasms of violent headache he would come back at once to his usual employments with renewed vigour; and his secrets were not many but very few and at very rare intervals, and then only political secrets; and he showed good sense and moderation in his management of public spectacles, and in the construction of public works, and in congiaria and the like, as a man who had an eye to what had to be done and not to the credit to be gained thereby.

      He did not bathe at all hours; he did not build for the love building; he gave no thought to his food, or to the texture and colour of his clothes, or the comeliness of his slaves. His robe came up from Lorium, his country-seat in the plains, and Lanuvium supplied his wants for the most part. Think of how he dealt with the customs officer at Tusculum when the latter apologized, and it was a type of his usual conduct.

      There was nothing rude in him, nor yet over bearing or violent nor carried, as the phrase goes, to the sweating state; but everything was considered separately, as by a man of ample leisure, calmly, methodically, manfully, consistently. One might apply to him what is told of Socrates, that he was able to abstain from or enjoy those things that many are not strong enough to refrain from and too much inclined to enjoy. But to have the strength to persist in the one case and be abstemious in the other is characteristic of a man who has a perfect and indomitable soul, as was seen in the illness of Maximus.

      17. From the Gods, to have good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good companions, kinsmen, friends nearly all of them; and that I fell into no trespass against any of them, and yet I had a disposition that way inclined, such as might have led me into something of the sort, had it so chanced; but by the grace of God there was no such coincidence of circumstances as was likely to put me to the test.

      And that I was not brought up any longer with my grandfather’s concubine, and that I kept unstained the flower of my youth; and that I did not make trial of my manhood before the due time, but even postponed it.

      That I was subordinated to a ruler and a father capable of ridding me of all conceit, and of bringing me to recognize that it is possible to live in a Court and yet do without body-guards and gorgeous garments and linkmen and statues and the like pomp; and that it is in such a man’s power to reduce himself very nearly to the condition of a private individual and yet not on this account to be more paltry or more remiss in dealing with what the interests of the state require to be done in imperial fashion.

      That it was my lot to have such a brother, capable by his character of stimulating me to watchful care over myself, and at the same time delighting me by his deference and affection: that my children have not been devoid of intelligence nor physically deformed. That I did not make more progress in rhetoric and poetry and my other studies, in which I should perhaps have been engrossed, had I felt myself making good way in them. That I lost no time in promoting my tutors to such posts of honour as they seemed to desire, and that I did not put them off with the hope that I would do this later on since they were still young. That I got to know Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus.

      That I had clear and frequent conceptions as to the true meaning of a life according to Nature, so that as far as the Gods were concerned and their blessings and assistance and intention, there was nothing to prevent me from beginning at once to live in accordance with Nature, though I still come short of this ideal by my own fault, and by not attending to the reminders, nay, almost the instructions, of the Gods.

      That my body holds out so long in such a life as mine; that I did not touch Benedicta or Theodotus, but that even afterwards, when I did give way to amatory passions, I was cured of them; that, though often offended with Rusticus, I never went so far as to do anything for which I should have been sorry; that my mother, though she was to die young, yet spent her last years with me.

      That as often as I had the inclination to help any one, who was in pecuniary distress or needing any other assistance, I was never told that there was no money available for the purpose; and that I was never under any similar need of accepting help from another. That I have been blessed with a wife so docile, so affectionate, so unaffected; that I had no lack of suitable tutors for my children.

      That by the agency of dreams I was given antidotes both of other kinds and against the spitting of blood and vertigo; and there is that response also at Caieta, as thou shall use it. And that, when I had set my heart on philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of a sophist, nor sat down at the author’s desk, or became a solver of syllogisms, nor busied myself with physical phenomena. For all the above the Gods as helpers and good fortune need.

      Written among the Quadi on the Gran.

      BOOK II

      1. Say to yourself at daybreak: I shall come across the busy-body, the thankless, the bully, the treacherous, the envious, the unneighbourly. All this has befallen them because they know not good from evil. But I, in that I have comprehended the nature of the Good that it is beautiful, and the nature of Evil that it is ugly, and the nature of the wrong-doer himself that it is akin to me, not as partaker of the same blood and seed but of intelligence and a morsel of the Divine, can neither be injured by any of them for no one can involve me in what is debasing nor can I be wroth with my kinsman and hate him. For we have come into being for co-operation, as have the feet, the hands, the eyelids, the rows of upper and lower teeth. Therefore to thwart one another is against Nature; and we do thwart one another by showing resentment and aversion.

      2. This that I am, whatever it be, is mere flesh and a little breath and the ruling Reason. Away with your books! Be no longer drawn aside by them: it is not allowed. But as one already dying disdain the flesh: it is naught but gore and bones and a network compact of nerves and veins and arteries. Look at the breath too, what sort of thing it is; air: and not even that always the same, but every minute belched forth and again gulped down. Then, thirdly, there is the ruling Reason. Put your thought thus: you are an old man; let this be a thrall no longer, no more a puppet pulled aside by every selfish impulse; nor let it grumble any longer at what is allotted to it in the present or dread it in the future.

      3. Full of Providence are the works of the Gods, nor are Fortune’s works independent of Nature or of the woven texture and interlacement of all that is under the control of Providence. Thence are all things derived; but Necessity too plays its part and the Welfare of the whole Universe of which you are a portion. But good for every part of Nature is that which the Nature of the Whole brings about, and which goes to preserve it. Now it is the changes not only of the elements but of the things compounded of them that preserve the Universe. Let these reflections suffice you, if you hold them as principles. But away with your thirst for books, that you may die not murmuring but with a good grace, truly and from your heart grateful to the Gods.

      4. Call to mind how long you deffer these things, and how many times you have received from the Gods grace of the appointed day and you do not use it. Yet now, if never before, you should realize what Universe you are a part of, and as an emanation from what Controller of that Universe you subsist; and that a limit has been set to your time, which if you do not use it to let daylight into your soul, it will be gone and never again shall the chance be yours.

      5. Every hour make up thy mind sturdily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with scrupulous and unaffected dignity and love of thy kind and independence and justice; and to give thyself rest from all other impressions. And thou wilt give thyself this, if thou dost execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last, divesting thyself of all aimlessness and all passionate antipathy to the convictions of reason, and all hypocrisy and self-love and dissatisfaction with thy allotted share. Thou seest how few are the things, by mastering which a man may lead a life of tranquillity and godlikeness; for the Gods also will ask no more from him who keeps these precepts.

      6. Wrong thyself, wrong thyself, O my Soul! But the time for honouring thyself will have gone by; for a man has but one life, and this for thee is well-nigh closed, and yet thou dost riot hold thyself in reverence, but settest thy well-being in the souls of others.

      7. Do those things draw thee at all away, which befall thee from without? Make then leisure for thyself for the learning of some good thing more, and cease being carried aside hither and thither. But therewith must thou take heed of the other error. For they too are triflers, who by their activities have worn themselves out in life without even having an aim whereto they can direct every impulse, aye and even every thought.

      8. Not easily is a man found to be unhappy by reason of his not regarding what is going on in another man’s soul; but those who do not attend closely to the motions of their own souls must inevitably be unhappy.

      9. This must always be borne in mind, what is the Nature of the whole Universe, and what mine, and how this stands in relation to that, being too what sort of a part of what sort of a whole; and that no one can prevent thee from doing and saying always what is in keeping with the Nature of which thou art a part.

      10. Theophrastus in his comparison of wrong doings for, speaking in a somewhat popular way, such comparison may be made says in the true philosophical spirit that the offences which are due to lust are more heinous than those which are due to anger. For the man who is moved with anger seems to turn his back upon reason with some pain and unconscious compunction; but he that does wrong from lust, being mastered by pleasure, seems in some sort to be more incontinent and more un manly in his wrong-doing. Rightly then, and not unworthily of a philosopher, he said that the wrong doing which is allied with pleasure calls for a severer condemnation than that which is allied with pain; and, speaking generally, that the one wrong-doer is more like a man, who, being sinned against first, has been driven by pain to be angry, while the other, being led by lust to do some act, has of his own motion been impelled to do evil.

      11. Let thine every deed and word and thought be those of a man who can depart from life this moment. But to go away from among men, if there are Gods, is nothing dreadful; for they would not involve thee in evil. But if indeed there are no Gods, or if they do not concern themselves with the affairs of men, what boots it for me to live in a Universe where there are no Gods, where Providence is not? Nay, but there are Gods, and they do concern themselves with human things; and they have put it wholly in man’s power not to fall into evils that are truly such. And had there been any evil in what lies beyond, for this too would they have made provision, that it should be in every man’s power not to fall into it. But how can that make a man’s life worse which does not make the man worse? Yet the Nature of the Whole could not have been guilty of an oversight from ignorance or, while cognizant of these things, through lack of power to guard against or amend them; nor could it have gone so far amiss either from inability or unskilfulness, as to allow good and evil to fall without any discrimination alike upon the evil and the good. Still it is a fact that death and life, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and penury, do among men one and all betide the Good and the Evil alike, being in themselves neither honourable nor shameful. Consequently they are neither good nor evil.

      12. How quickly all things vanish away, in the Universe their actual bodies, and the remembrance of them in Eternity, and of what character are all objects of sense, and particularly those that entice us with pleasure or terrify us with pain or are acclaimed by vanity how worthless and despicable and unclean and ephemeral and dead! this is for our faculty of intelligence to apprehend; as also what they really are whose conceptions and whose voices award renown; what it is to die, and that if a man look at death in itself, and with the analysis of reason strip it of its phantom terrors, no longer will he conceive it to be aught but a function of Nature, but if a man be frightened by a function of Nature, he is childish; and this is not only Nature’s function but her welfare; and how man is in touch with God and with what part of himself, and in what disposition of this portion of the man.

      13. Nothing can be more miserable than the man who goes through the whole round of things, and, as the poet says, pries info the secrets of the earth, and would fain guess the thoughts in his neighbour’s heart, while having no conception that he needs but to associate himself with the divine genius in his bosom, and to serve it truly. And service of it is to keep it pure from passion and aimlessness and discontent with any thing that proceeds from Gods or men. For that which proceeds from the Gods is worthy of reverence in that it is excellent; and that which proceeds from men, of love, in that they are akin, and, at times and in a manner, of compassion, in that they are ignorant of good and evil a defect this no less than the loss of power to distinguish between white and black.

      14. Even if thy life is to last three thousand years or for the matter of that thirty thousand, yet bear in mind that no one ever parts with any other life than the one he is now living nor lives any other than that which he now parts with. The longest life, then, and the shortest amount but to the same. For the present time is of equal duration for all, while that which we lose is not ours; and consequently what is parted with is obviously a mere moment. No man can part with either the past or the future. For how can a man be deprived of what he does not possess? These two things, then, must needs be remembered: the one, that all things from time everlasting have been cast in the same mould and repeated cycle after cycle, and so it makes no difference whether a man see the same things recur through a hundred years or two hundred, or through eternity: the other, that the longest liver and he whose time to die comes soonest part with no more the one than the other. For it is but the present that a man can be deprived of, if, as is the fact, it is this alone that he has, and what he has not a man cannot part with.

      15. Remember that everything is but what we think it. For obvious indeed is the saying fathered on Monimus the Cynic, obvious too the utility of what was said, if one accept the gist of it as far as it is true.

      16. The soul of man does wrong to itself then most of all, when it makes itself, as far as it can do so, an imposthume and as it were a malignant growth in the Universe. For to grumble at anything that happens is a rebellion against Nature, in some part of which are bound up the natures of all other things. And the soul wrongs itself then again, when it turns away from any man or even opposes him with intent to do him harm, as is the case with those who are angry. It does wrong to itself, thirdly, when it is overcome by pleasure or pain. Fourthly, when it assumes a mask, and in act or word is insincere or untruthful. Fifthly, when it directs some act or desire of its own towards no mark, and expends its energy on any thing whatever aimlessly and unadvisedly, whereas even the most trifling things should be done with reference to the end in view. Now the end for rational beings is to submit themselves to the reason and law of that archetypal city and polity - the Universe.

      17. Of the life of man the duration is but a point, its substance streaming away, its perception dim, the fabric of the entire body prone to decay, and the soul a vortex, and fortune incalculable, and fame uncertain. In a word all the things of the body are as a river, and the

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