What dost thou wish? to continue to exist? Well, dost thou wish to have sensation? movement? growth? and then again to cease to grow? to use thy speech? to think? What is there of all these things which seems to thee worth desiring? But if it is easy to set little value on all these things, turn to that which remains, which is to follow reason and god. But it is inconsistent with honouring reason and god to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.
How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned to every man! for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal. And how small a part of the whole substance! and how small a part of the universal soul! and on what a small clod of the whole earth thou creepest! Reflecting on all this, consider nothing to be great, except to act as thy nature leads thee, and to endure that which the common nature brings.
How does the ruling faculty make use of itself? for all lies in this. But everything else, whether it is in the power of thy will or not, is only lifeless ashes and smoke.
This reflection is most adapted to move us to contempt of death, that even those who think pleasure to be a good and pain an evil still have despised it.
The man to whom that only is good which comes in due season, and to whom it is the same thing whether he has done more or fewer acts conformable to right reason, and to whom it makes no difference whether he contemplates the world for a longer or a shorter time—for this man neither is death a terrible thing [iii, 7; vi, 23; x, 20; xii, 23].
Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state [the world];121 what difference does it make to thee whether for five years [or three]? for that which is conformable to the laws is just for all. Where is the hardship then, if no tyrant nor yet an unjust judge sends thee away from the state, but nature who brought thee into it? the same as if a prætor who has employed an actor dismisses him from the stage.122—“But I have not finished the five acts, but only three of them.”—Thou sayest well, but in life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, and now of its dissolution: but thou art the cause of neither. Depart then satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.
Endnotes
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Annius Verius was his grandfather’s name. There is no verb in this section connected with the word “from,” nor in the following sections of the book: and it is not quite certain what verb should be supplied. What I have added may express the meaning here, though there are sections which it will not fit. If he does not mean to say that he learned all these good things from the several persons whom he mentions, he means that he observed certain good qualities in them, or received certain benefits from them, and it is implied that he was the better for it, or at least might have been: for it would be a mistake to understand Marcus as saying that he possessed all the virtues which he observed in his kinsmen and teachers. ↩
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His father’s name was Annius Verus. ↩
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His mother was Domitia Calvilla, named also Lucilia. ↩
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Perhaps his mother’s grandfather, Catilius Severus. ↩
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In the works of Justinus there is a printed letter to one Diognetus, whom the writer names “most excellent.” He was a Gentile, but he wished very much to know what the religion of the Christians was, what God they worshipped, and how this worship made them despise the world and death, and neither believe in the gods of the Greeks nor observe the superstition of the Jews; and what was this love to one another which they had, and why this new kind of religion was introduced now and not before. My friend Mr. Jenkins, rector of Lyminge in Kent, has suggested to me that this Diognetus may have been the tutor of M. Antoninus. ↩
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Q. Junius Rusticus was a Stoic philosopher, whom Antoninus valued highly, and often took his advice (Capitol, M. Antonin, III).
Antoninus says τοϊς Έπικτητείοις ύπομνήυασιν, which must not be translated, “the writings of Epictetus,” for Epictetus wrote nothing. His pupil Arrian, who has preserved for us all that we know of Epictetus, says έμαντφ διαϕνλάξαι τής έκείνου διανοίας. (Epictetus ad Gellius). ↩
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Apollonius of Chalcis came to Rome in the time of Pius to be Marcus’ preceptor. He was a rigid stoic. ↩
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Sextus of Chæronea, a grandson of Plutarch, or nephew, as some say; but more probably a grandson. ↩
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Alexander was a Grammaticus, a native of Phrygia. He wrote a commentary on Homer; and the rhetorician Aristides wrote a panegyric on Alexander in a funeral oration. ↩
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M. Cornelius Fronto was a rhetorician, and in great
