Page:The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.pdf/17

MEDITATIONS

OF

BOOK

ANTONINUS.

I.

FROM Verus , my grandfather, I gained truthfulness and an even soul ; my father's fame and memory served to en gender a modest yet manly bearing ; my mother instilled piety, generosity, a dislike to do or even to think any ill, as well as aversion towards the usages of the rich . My great-grandfather made me avoid the schools, pre ferring able teachers at home, rewarding them liberally ; my governor also, led me to eschew horse- racing, and the public shews ; to be patient of want and toil, as well as to abjure slander and intermeddling. Diognetus advised me to avoid trifling, to shun impostors, and those who pretended to expel demons by a charm; not to rear fighting quails; to put up with contradiction, and to apply myself to philosophy. I owe to him the advantage of hearing Bacchius, Tandacides, and Marcianus. He caused me to write discourses when a boy; to lie on a skin-covered couch, and to live after the fashion of the Greeks. Rusticus helped me to amend my temper, to avoid sophisms, haranguing the mob, make-believe, and needless asceticism ; to shun rhetorical and poetical displays, as well as all undue anxiety on the score of language or attire. He was for a plain and homely diction, as displayed in the letters from Sinuessa to my mother. By his advice I was easily reconciled to those who had offended me, so soon as they evinced a desire to be restored to favour ; learned to study with attention, and to look into things