BOOK I
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 of 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,[1] 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[2] 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,[3] 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,[4] had
- ↑ Xen. Mem. I. 3, § 15. πολλοὶ would here seem = οἱ πολλοί.
- ↑ The Greek may also mean "To be strong and to persist without excess in each case is characteristic," and ἑκατέρφ suits this better.
- ↑ i.e. M. Annius Verus, three times consul (Dio 69. 21, § 1) and praef. urbi (Capit. i. 2), who died 138, and P. Calvisius Tullus, cons. suff. 109. See Capit. i. 3; Fronto, ad Caes. iii. 2.
- ↑ cp. i. 17, § 6; xi. 18, § 4.
