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

That is, God (Book IV, ¶42), as he is defined by Zeno. But the confusion between gods and God is strange. ↩

The end of this section is perhaps corrupt. The meaning is very obscure. I have given the meaning which appears to be consistent with the whole argument. The emperor here maintains that the essential part of man is unchangeable, and that the other parts, if they change or perish, do not affect that which really constitutes the man. Schultz supposed “thy mother” to mean nature, ή ϕύσις. But I doubt about that. ↩

See Seneca, Epistles 70, on these exhibitions which amused the people of those days. These fighters were the Bestlarii, some of whom may have been criminals, but even if they were, the exhibition was equally characteristic of the depraved habits of the spectators. ↩

The islands of the Happy, or the Fortunate Insulæ, are spoken of by the Greek and Roman writers. They were the abode of Heroes, like Achilles and Diomedes, as we see in the Scolion of Harmodius and Aristogiton. Sertorius heard of the islands at Cadiz from some sailors who had been there, and he had a wish to go and live in them and rest form his troubles. (Plutarch, Sertorius, C, 8.) In the Odyssey, Proteus told Menelaus that he should not die in Argos, but be removed to a place at the boundary of the earth where Rhadamanthus dwelt: (Odyssey, IV, 565.)

“For there in sooth man’s life is easiest:
Nor snow nor raging storm nor rain is there,
But ever gently breathing gales of Zephyr
Oceanus sends up to gladden man.”

It is certain that the writer of the Odyssey only follows some old legend without having any knowledge of any place which corresponds to his description. The islands which Sertorius heard of may be Madeira and the adjacent island. (Compare Pindar, Olympian II, 129.) ↩

Corais conjectured μϊδος “hatred” in place of Mimi, Roman plays in which action and gesticulation were all or nearly all. ↩

This is corrupt. See the edition of Schultz. ↩

Marcus means to say that conquerors are robbers. He himself warred against Sarmatians, and was a robber, as he says, like the rest. But compare the Life of Avidius Cassius, C, 4, by Vulcatius. ↩

By the law, he means the divine law, obedience to the will of God. ↩

These words are from Euripides. They are cited by Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII, 1. It was the fashion of the Stoics to work on the meanings of words, so Antoninus here takes the verb φιλεϊ, “loves,” which as also the sense of “is wont,” “uses,” and the like. He finds in the common language of mankind a philosophical truth, and most great truths are expressed in the common language of life; some understand them, but most people utter them, without knowing how much they mean. ↩

Plato, Theætetus 175 D. E. But compare the original with the use that Antoninus has made of it. ↩

Antoninus here is playing on the etymology of νόμος, law, as signment, that which assigns (νέμει) to every man his portion. ↩

Nothing is known of Satyron or Satyrion; nor, I belive, of Eutyches or Hymen. Euphrates is honorably mentioned by Epictetus (III, 15, 8; IV, 8, 17). Pliny (Epistles I, 10), speaks very highly of him. He obtained the permission of the Emperor Hadrian to drink poison, because he was old and in bad health (Dion Cassius. 69, C, 8). ↩

Crito is the friend of Socrates; and he was, it appears, also a friend of Xenophon. When the emperor says “seen,” he does not mean with the eyes. ↩

Compare Epictetus, I, 29, 28. ↩

Homer, the Iliad VI, 146. ↩

He says κακόν but as he affirms in other places that death is no evil, he must mean what others may call an evil, and he means “what is going to happen.” ↩

ήν περιοὄικήν παλιϒενεσίαν. See Book V, ¶13, ¶33, and Book X, ¶8. ↩

Law is the order by which all things are governed. ↩

See the Life of Antoninus. This is the only passage in which the Emperor speaks of the Christians. Epictetus (IV, 7, 6) names them Galilæi. ↩

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex. ↩

See Book VII, ¶40, ¶37, ¶39. ↩

Instead of σκάλμη Saumaise reads σκαμβή. There is a Greek proverb, σκαμβὸν ξύλον ούδέποτ δρθόν: “You cannot make a crooked stick straight.”

The wolfish friendship is an allusion to the fable of the sheep and the wolves. ↩

It appears that there is a defect in the text here. ↩

The word πρεσβύτερα, which is here translated “prior,” may also mean “superior”: but Antoninus seems to say that piety and reverence of the gods precede all virtues, and that other virtues are derived from them, even justice, which in another passage (¶15) he makes the foundation of all virtues. The ancient notion of justice is that giving to everyone his due. It’s not a legal definition, as some have supposed, but a moral rule which law cannot in all cases enforce. Besides law that has its own rules, which are sometimes moral and sometimes immoral;