Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome) [77]
EPICURUS: Greek philosopher (341–270 B.C.) and founder of one of the two great Hellenistic philosophical systems. Epicureans identified pleasure as the supreme good in life and viewed the world as a random conglomeration of atoms, not ruled by any larger providence. (quoted 7.64, 9.41; compare 11.26)
EPITYNCHANUS: Perhaps a slave or freedman of HADRIAN (2). (8.25)
EUDAEMON: Perhaps to be identified with a literary official prominent under Hadrian (2). (8.25)
EUDOXUS: Greek mathematician and astronomer active in the fourth century B.C. (6.47)
EUPHRATES: Perhaps the philosopher mentioned by Pliny the Younger (Letters 1.10) and evidently close to HADRIAN (2), but he might be a later imperial official mentioned by Galen. (10.31)
EURIPIDES: Athenian playwright (480s–407/6 B.C.); some twenty of his tragedies are still extant. His plays were controversial in his lifetime, but in subsequent centuries he was among the most popular of Greek authors, thanks in large part to his quotability and accessible style. (quoted 7.38, 7.40–42, 7.50–51, 11.6)
EUTYCHES: Unknown; the comparison with SATYRON does not help us identify him. (10.31)
EUTYCHION: Not certainly identified, unless the name is a slip for the grammarian Eutychius Proculus. (10.31)
FABIUS: Unidentified, perhaps identical with FABIUS CATULLINUS. (4.50)
FABIUS CATULLINUS: Unknown. Perhaps to be identified with the FABIUS of 4.50. (12.27)
FAUSTINA: Wife of ANTONINUS Pius (8.25). Marcus married their daughter, also Faustina (1.17).
FRONTO: Marcus Cornelius Fronto (c. 95–c. 166), rhetorician from Cirta in North Africa, and a key figure in Marcus’s education. Portions of his letters to Marcus survive in two palimpsest manuscripts discovered in the early nineteenth century. (1.11)
HADRIAN (1): Prominent rhetorician; no relation to the emperor. (8.25)
HADRIAN (2): Roman emperor (117–138), best known for his travels and cultural interests; adopted ANTONINUS as his heir on the condition that the latter adopt Marcus and Lucius VERUS. (4.33, 8.5, 8.37, 10.27)
HELVIDIUS: Helvidius Priscus (died c. 75), son-in-law of THRASEA Paetus, exiled and later executed for his opposition to the emperor VESPASIAN. (1.14)
HERACLITUS: Pre-Socratic philosopher (active c. 500 B.C.) from the city of Ephesus, famous for his cryptic and paradoxical utterances. His exaltation of the logos as a cosmic power and his identification of fire as the primal substance were important influences on the Stoics (see also Introduction). According to the third-century A.D. biographer Diogenes Laertius, he died of dropsy, which he tried to cure by immersing himself in manure; this account is almost certainly a later fiction. (3.3, 6.47, 8.3; quoted or paraphrased 4.46, 6.42)
HIPPARCHUS: Second-century B.C. Greek astronomer. (6.47)
HIPPOCRATES: Greek doctor active in the fifth century B.C.; various medical writings are transmitted under his name, as is the Hippocratic Oath still administered to doctors. (3.3)
HYMEN: Unknown; the comparison with SATYRON does not help identify him. (10.31)
JULIAN: This may be a friend of FRONTO’s, Claudius Julianus, a proconsul of Asia at about this period. (4.50)
LEPIDUS: This might perhaps be the Roman aristocrat who briefly shared power with Marcus Antonius and the future emperor AUGUSTUS, but the context suggests an older contemporary of Marcus’s. (4.50)
LUCILLA: Marcus’s mother (d. 155/161). (1.3, 1.17, 8.25, 9.21)
LUSIUS LUPUS: Unknown. (12.27)
MAECENAS: Adviser and unofficial minister of culture to AUGUSTUS; patron of the poets Vergil and Horace, among others. (8.31)
MARCIANUS: Unknown philosopher. (1.6)
MAXIMUS: Claudius Maximus. Roman consul in the early 140s. Governor of Upper Pannonia in the early 150s. Later in that decade he governed North Africa, where he served as judge