Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome) [23]
8. The conventional divisions and numbering go back only to the Latin translation published by Thomas Gataker in 1652. It cannot be regarded as authoritative, and I have occasionally split up a single entry into two (sometimes following earlier editors, sometimes not).
9. There are some striking omissions, which may or may not be significant. Antoninus’s predecessor, Hadrian, is not mentioned, for example. It may be that Marcus disapproved of him, or simply that he had little contact with him before his death in 138. Perhaps more surprising is the lack of any reference to Herodes Atticus, from whom Marcus learned Greek rhetoric. Does this point to personal tensions that arose between the two in later years? Or does the omission stem from Marcus’s move away from rhetoric toward philosophy? (It is noteworthy that the Latin rhetorician Fronto, with whom Marcus seems to have been close, is allotted only a very brief entry in comparison with Marcus’s philosophical preceptors.)
10. The openings of Books 2 and 3 differ from those that follow in including a brief note to identify (presumably) the place of composition. We do not know whether these notes go back to Marcus himself, or why the other books lack them. The average length of the entries in these two books is perhaps slightly longer than in the later books, but there are few differences otherwise. Attempts to find a thematic thread within Books 2 and 3 as a whole are not convincing.
11. I have noted the most egregious instances in the notes, and have marked with an obelus (< . . . >) a few passages where the original is impossible to reconstruct.
12. William Alexander Percy, Lanterns on the Levee (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973), p. 313.
13. A survey of work on the predecessors and rivals of the Stoics is obviously beyond the scope of this note, but two good starting points may be mentioned. The surviving fragments of Heraclitus and other early philosophers who appear in the Meditations are translated in Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Presocratic Philosophers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1948 and later reprints). Any reader unfamiliar with Plato should probably begin with the Apology of Socrates, available in the Modern Library’s Selected Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett, rev. H. Pelliccia (New York: Random House, 2000) or any number of other translations.
Book 1
DEBTS AND LESSONS
1. MY GRANDFATHER VERUS
Character and self-control.
2. MY FATHER (FROM MY OWN MEMORIES AND HIS REPUTATIONf)
Integrity and manliness.
3. MY MOTHER
Her reverence for the divine, her generosity, her inability not only to do wrong but even to conceive of doing it. And the simple way she lived—not in the least like the rich.
4. MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER
To avoid the public schools, to hire good private teachers, and to accept the resulting costs as money well-spent.
5. MY FIRST TEACHER
Not to support this side or that in chariot-racing, this fighter or that in the games. To put up with discomfort and not make demands. To do my own work, mind my own business, and have no time for slanderers.
6. DIOGNETUS
Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that. To hear unwelcome truths. To practice philosophy, and to study with Baccheius, and then with Tandasis and Marcianus. To write dialogues as a student. To choose the Greek lifestyle—the camp-bed and the cloak.
7. RUSTICUS
The recognition that I needed to train and discipline my character.
Not to be sidetracked by my interest in rhetoric. Not to write treatises on abstract questions, or deliver moralizing little sermons, or compose imaginary descriptions of The Simple Life or The Man Who Lives Only for Others. To steer clear of oratory, poetry and belles lettres.
Not to dress up just to stroll around the house, or things like that. To write straightforward letters (like the one he