elegancy; and yet not as one that did not regard it: so that through his
own care and providence, he seldom needed any inward physic, or outward
applications: but especially how ingeniously he would yield to any that
had obtained any peculiar faculty, as either eloquence, or the knowledge
of the laws, or of ancient customs, or the like; and how he concurred
with them, in his best care and endeavour that every one of them might
in his kind, for that wherein he excelled, be regarded and esteemed: and
although he did all things carefully after the ancient customs of his
forefathers, yet even of this was he not desirous that men should take
notice, that he did imitate ancient customs. Again, how he was not
easily moved and tossed up and down, but loved to be constant, both in
the same places and businesses; and how after his great fits of headache
he would return fresh and vigorous to his wonted affairs. Again, that
secrets he neither had many, nor often, and such only as concerned
public matters: his discretion and moderation, in exhibiting of the
public sights and shows for the pleasure and pastime of the people: in
public buildings. congiaries, and the like. In all these things,
having a respect unto men only as men, and to the equity of the things
themselves, and not unto the glory that might follow. Never wont to
use the baths at unseasonable hours; no builder; never curious, or
solicitous, either about his meat, or about the workmanship, or colour
of his clothes, or about anything that belonged to external beauty.
In all his conversation, far from all inhumanity, all boldness, and
incivility, all greediness and impetuosity; never doing anything with
such earnestness, and intention, that a man could say of him, that
he did sweat about it: but contrariwise, all things distinctly, as at
leisure; without trouble; orderly, soundly, and agreeably. A man might
have applied that to him, which is recorded of Socrates, that he knew
how to want, and to enjoy those things, in the want whereof, most men
show themselves weak; and in the fruition, intemperate: but to hold out
firm and constant, and to keep within the compass of true moderation and
sobriety in either estate, is proper to a man, who hath a perfect and
invincible soul; such as he showed himself in the sickness of Maximus.