ἀλλ᾽ ἔλαθον ἐμαυτὸν ἐγὼ μακρότερα ἀπολογούμενος πρὸς εἰδότας ὑμᾶς, ὦ Ζεῦ καὶ θεοί· διόπερ μοι τῆς προπετείας ταυτησί συγγνώμονες γένοισθε. (Then Hermes addressing Trajan said, “Now you tell us what was the principle that guided all your actions?” “My aims,” he replied, “were the same as Alexander’s, but I acted with more prudence.” “Nay,” said Silenus, “you were the slave of more ignoble passions. Anger was nearly always his weak point, but yours was pleasure of the vilest and most infamous sort.” “Plague take you!” exclaimed Dionysus, “You keep railing at them all and you don’t let them say a word for themselves. However, in their case there was some ground for your sarcasms, but now consider well what you can find to criticise in Marcus. For in my opinion he is a man, to quote Simonides, ‘four‐square and made without a flaw.’ ”(669) Then Hermes addressed Marcus and said, “And you, Verus, what did you think the noblest ambition in life?” In a low voice he answered modestly, “To imitate the gods.” This answer they at once agreed was highly noble and in fact the best possible. And even Hermes did not wish to cross‐examine him further, since he was convinced that Marcus would answer every question equally well. The other gods were of the same mind; only Silenus cried “By Dionysus I shall not let this sophist off so easily. Why then did you eat bread and drink wine and not ambrosia and nectar like us?” “Nay,” he replied, “it was not in the fashion of my meat and drink that I thought to imitate the gods. But I nourished my body because I believed, though perhaps falsely, that even your bodies require to be nourished by the fumes of sacrifice. Not that I supposed I ought to imitate you in that respect, but rather your minds.” For the moment Silenus was at a loss as though he had been hit by a good boxer,(670) then he said “There is perhaps something in what you say; but now tell me what did you think was really meant by ‘imitating the gods.’ ” “Having the fewest possible needs and doing good to the greatest possible number.” “Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that you had no needs at all?” “I,” said Marcus, “had none, but my wretched body had a few, perhaps.” Since in this also Marcus seemed to have answered wisely, Silenus was at a loss, but finally fastened on what he thought was foolish and unreasonable in the Emperor’s behaviour to his son and his wife, I mean in enrolling the latter among the deified and entrusting the empire to the former. “But in that also,” said the other, “I did but imitate the gods. I adopted the maxim of Homer when he says ‘the good and prudent man loves and cherishes his own wife,’(671) while as to my son I can quote the excuse of Zeus himself when he is rebuking Ares: ‘Long ago,’ he says, ‘I should have smitten thee with a thunderbolt, had I not loved thee because thou art my son.’(672) Besides, I never thought my son would prove so wicked. Youth ever vacillates between the extremes of vice and virtue, and if in the end