To one or two others his obligations were still more characteristic and important. From Rusticus, for instance, an excellent and able man, whose advice for years he was accustomed to respect, he had learnt to despise sophistry and display, to write with simplicity, to be easily pacified, to be accurate, and--an inestimable benefit this, and one which tinged the colour of his whole life--to become acquainted with the _Discourses_ of Epictetus. And from his adoptive father, the great Antoninus Pius, he had derived advantages still more considerable. In him he saw the example of a sovereign and statesman firm, self-controlled, modest, faithful, and even tempered; a man who despised flattery and hated meanness; who honoured the wise and distinguished the meritorious; who was indifferent to contemptable trifles, and indefatigable in earnest business; one, in short, "who had a perfect and invincible soul," who, like Socrates, "was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things which many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without excess." [67] Piety, serenity, sweetness, disregard of empty fame, calmness, simplicity, patience, are virtues which he attributes to him in another full-length portrait (vi. 30) which he concludes with the words, "Imitate all this, that thou mayest have as good a conscience when thy last hour comes as he had." [Footnote 67: My quotations from Marcus Aurelius will be made (by permission) from the forcible and admirably accurate translation of Mr. Long. In thanking Mr. Long, I may be allowed to add that the English reader will find in his version the best means of becoming acquainted with the purest-and noblest book of antiquity.]