Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (good books to read for young adults .TXT) 📕

favour with Marcus. There are extant various letters between Marcus and Fronto. ↩

Cinna Catulus, a Stoic philosopher. ↩

The word “brother” may not be genuine. Antoninus had no brother. It has been supposed that he may mean some cousin. Schultz omits “brother,” and says that this Severus is probably Claudius Severus, a peripatetic. ↩

We know, from Tacitus (Annales XIII, XVI, 21: and other passages), who Thrasea and Helvidius were. Plutarch has written the lives of the two Catos, and of Dion and Brutus. Antoninus probably alludes to Cato of Utica, who was a Stoic. ↩

Claudius Maximus was a Stoic philospher, who was highly esteemed also by Antoninus Pius, Marcus’ predecessor. The character of Maximus is that of a perfect man. See Book V, ¶27. ↩

He means his adoptive father, his predecessor, the Emperor Antoninus Pius. Compare Book VI, ¶30. ↩

He uses the word κοινονοημοσύνη. See Gataker’s note. ↩

This passage is corrupt, and the exact meaning is uncertain. ↩

Lorium was a villa on the coast north of Rome, and there Antoninus was brought up, and he died there. This is also corrupt. ↩

Xenophon, Memorabilia 1. 3. 15. ↩

The emperor had no brother, except L. Verus, his brother by adoption. ↩

See the Life of Antoninus. ↩

This is corrupt. ↩

The Quadi lived in the southern part of Bohemia and Moravia; and Antoninus made a campaign against them (see the Life). Granua is probably the river Graan, which flows into the Danube.

If these words are genuine, Antoninus may have written this first book during the war with the Quadi. In the first edition of Antoninus, and in the older editions, the first three sections of the second book make the conclusion of the first book. Gataker placed them at the beginning of the second book. ↩

Xenophon, Memorabilia. II 3. 18. ↩

Perhaps it should be “thou art doing violence to thyself,” ύβρίζεις not ύβριζε. ↩

Or it may mean “since it is in thy power to depart;” which gives a meaning somewhat different. ↩

See Cicero, Tusculan Disputations I, 49. ↩

Pindar, in the Theætetus of Plato. See XI, 1. ↩

See Gataker’s note. ↩

Carnantum was a town of Pannonia, on the south side of the Danube, about thirty miles east of Vindobona (Vienna). Orosius (VII, 15) and Eutropius (VIII, 13) say that Antoninus remained three years at Carnantum during his wars with the Marcomanni. ↩

Compare Book IX, ¶3. ↩

Compare Book VIII, ¶36. ↩

“Est et horum quae media appellamus grande discrimen.” —⁠Seneca, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium 82 ↩

ὺπομνήματα: or memoranda, notes and the like. See Book I, ¶17. ↩

Compare Fronto, II, 9; a letter of Marcus to Fronto, who was then consul: “Feci tamen mihi per hos dies excerpta ex libris sexaginta in quinque tomis.” But he says some of them were small books. ↩

Compare Plato, De Legibus, I, p. 644, ότι ταϋτα τὰ πάθη etc.; and Antoninus, Book II, ¶2; Book VII, ¶9; Book XII, ¶21. ↩

πρὸς τὰ πϒούμενα, Literally “towards that which leads.” The exact translation is doubtful. See Gataker’s note. ↩

“Tecum habita, noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.” —⁠Persius, IV, 52 ↩

Compare Cicero De Legibus, I, 7. ↩

Antoninus here uses the word κόσμος both in the sense of the Universe and of Order; and it is difficult to express his meaning. ↩

Ovid, Metamorphoses XC, 293:⁠—“Si quaeras Helicen et Burin Achaidas urbes, Invenies sub aquis.” ↩

An allusion to Homer’s Nestor, who was living at the war of Troy among the third generation, like old Parr with his hundred and fifty-two years, and some others in modern times who have beaten Parr by twenty or thirty years, if it is true; and yet they died at last. ↩

In this section there is a play on the meaning of συμβαίνειν. ↩

Compare Book II, ¶1. ↩

This is imperfect or corrupt, or both. There is also something wrong or incomplete in the beginning of ¶29, where he says ώς ὲξελθών ζῆν διανοῆ, which Gataker translates as “as if thou wast about to quite life;” but we cannot translate ὲξελθών in that way. Other translations are not much more satisfactory. I have translated literally and left it imperfect. ↩

Epictetus, I, 25. 18. ↩

This is the Stoic precept of άνέχον καὶ άπέχον. The first part teaches us to be content with men and things as they are. The second part teaches us the virtue of self-restraint, or the government of our passions. ↩

This section is unintelligible. Many of the words may be corrupt, and the general purport of the section cannot be discovered. Perhaps several things have been improperly joined in one section. I have translated it nearly literally. Different translators give the section a different turn, and the critics have tried to mend what they cannot understand.