Page:Marcus Aurelius (Haines 1916).djvu/45

BOOK I

5. From my Tutor,^[1] not to side with the Green Jacket or the Blue^[2] at the races, or to back the Light-Shield Champion or the Heavy-Shield in the lists; not to shirk toil,^[3] and to have few wants, and to do my own work, and mind my own concerns; and to turn a deaf ear to slander.

6. From Diognetus,^[4] not to be taken up with trifles; and not to give credence to the statements of miracle-mongers and wizards^[5] about incantations and the exorcizing of demons,^[6] and such-like marvels; and not to keep quails, nor to be excited about such things: not to resent plain speaking; and to become familiar with philosophy and be a heaver first of Baccheius, then of Tandasis and Marcianus; and to write dialogues as a boy; and to set my heart on a pallet-bed and a pelt^[7] and whatever else tallied with the Greek regimen.

7. From Rusticus,^[8] to become aware of the fact that I needed amendment and training for my character; and not to be led aside into an argumentative sophistry; nor compose treatises on speculative subjects, or deliver little homilies,^[9] or pose ostentatiously as the moral athlete or unselfish man; and to eschew rhetoric,^[10] poetry, and fine language; and not to go

1. The name has perhaps dropped out. Capit. Vit. Pii x. 5 has an anecdote of the death of the educator of Marcus, but Aristides in his funeral oration on Alexander of Cotiaeum calls the latter not only διδάσκαλος but τροφεὺς to Marcus and Verus (Jebb's Ed. § 149). But he is mentioned below § 10.
2. Capit. Vit. Ver. vi. 2; Malalas xi. ad fin.
3. Dio (71. 6, § 2) calls M. φιλόπονος.
4. A Diognetus taught M. painting (Capit. iv. 9).
5. cp. Capit. xiii. 6; Dio 71. 9, § 2 (Xiphilinus).
6. Undoubtedly refers to the Christians, see Digest L. 13. 1, § 3, and cp. Justin, Apol. ii. 6 of Rome itself. The Christians constantly boasted of their power to exorcize: Tert. Apol. 23; Iren. ii. 6, § 2; Lact. v. 21. cp. also the legend of Abercius and his visit to Rome to cure Lucilla.
7. Capit. Vit. Mar. ii. 6
8. i. 17, §§ 4, 6. cp. Digest. xlix. 1. 1, § 3 "Rusticus, our friend"; Capit. iii. 3; Them. Orat. xiii. 173 c; Fronto, ad Ant. 1. 2.
9. λογάρια (ratiunculae). cp. Epict. i. 29. 55.
10. i. 17, § 4. cp. Fronto, ad Ant. i. 2 (Nab. p. 96); de Eloqu. 3 (Nab. p. 150). Dio (71. 35, § 1) says M. was ἀσκηθεὶς ἐν τοῖς ῥητορικοῖς λόγοις.

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