Meditations: What I Owe to Others

From my grandfather Verus[A] [I learned] good morals and the government of my temper.

2. From the reputation and remembrance of my father,[B] modesty and a manly character.

3. From my mother,[C] piety and beneficence, and abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich.

4. From my great-grandfather,[D] not to have frequented public schools, and to have had good teachers at home, and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally.

[A] Annius Verus was his grandfather's name. There is no verb
in this section connected with the word "from," nor in the
following sections of this 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.

[B] His father's name was Annius Verus.

[C] His mother was Domitia Calvilla, named also Lucilla.

[D] Perhaps his mother's grandfather, Catilius Severus.

5. From my governor, to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the Circus, nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius at the gladiators' fights; from him too I learned endurance of labor, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.

6. From Diognetus,[A] not to busy myself about trifling things, and not to give credit to what was said by miracle-workers and jugglers about incantations and the driving away of daemons and such things; and not to breed quails [for fighting], nor to give myself up passionately to such things; and to endure freedom of speech; and to have become intimate with philosophy; and to have been a hearer, first of Bacchius, then of Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written dialogues in my youth; and to have desired a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to the Grecian discipline.

[A] In the works of Justinus there is printed a 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.