INTRODUCTION
however, there are of openings and closes. Thus Book v has a marked beginning and end. The first chapters of Books ix, x, and xi might fairly be taken to be commencements of new reflections; Book viii, however, runs on continuously with the last chapter of Book vii. Of the composite character of Books vii and xi I shall speak when examining the evidence to be derived from the state of the manuscripts. As to the last two Books, with only the contents to guide us we should be led to make a break after xi. 18, and to begin a new Book at xi. 19, which would run to the end of Book xii.
Not necessarily demanding from the author the precision and method of a regular treatise, but assuming a general order in the parts of his book, we are struck by some anomalies. There are passages of considerable length which appear alien in their present context. The most conspicuous is the extract from the Moralia of Theophrastus, or the paraphrase of his words, at ii. 10, in a Book which has otherwise a distinct and orderly development. Where it now stands, this chapter has a very remote connexion, if any, with what precedes and follows it. Similar passages, or fragments, are the aesthetic essay in iii. 2, possibly the inquiry about Retreat or Retirement at iv. 3; the inquiry into the source of Socrates' moral grandeur, on the basis of Aeschines' dialogue Telauges, vii. 66; the striking discussion of Tragedy and Comedy, xi. 6. To these we may perhaps add the shorter character of Antoninus Pius, vi. 30. 2.
All these appear to the reader unexpected in their present places; they are, moreover, somewhat different in complexion and in literary technique from the Meditations generally.
M. Trannoy[1] has discussed some of these digressions. He regards them as strata of earlier composition: 'old notes, grouped in some measure by subjects and utilized
- ↑ In his edition in the Budé series, Introduction, p. vii.
