Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius — Marcus Aurelius — John Shaqi
Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius · en
gives an abundant supply, he used without arrogance and without
excusing himself; so that when he had them, he enjoyed them without
affectation, and when he had them not, he did not want them. No one
could ever say of him that he was either a sophist or a [home-bred]
flippant slave or a pedant; but every one acknowledged him to be a man
ripe, perfect, above flattery, able to manage his own and other men’s
affairs. Besides this, he honored those who were true philosophers, and
he did not reproach those who pretended to be philosophers, nor yet was
he easily led by them. He was also easy in conversation, and he made
himself agreeable without any offensive affectation. He took a
reasonable care of his body’s health, not as one who was greatly
attached to life, nor out of regard to personal appearance, nor yet in
a careless way, but so that through his own attention he very seldom
stood in need of the physician’s art or of medicine or external
applications. He was most ready to give without envy to those who
possessed any particular faculty, such as that of eloquence or
knowledge of the law or of morals, or of anything else; and he gave
them his help, that each might enjoy reputation according to his
deserts; and he always acted conformably to the institutions of his
country, without showing any affectation of doing so. Further, he was
not fond of change nor unsteady, but he loved to stay in the same
places, and to employ himself about the same things; and after his
paroxysms of headache he came immediately fresh and vigorous to his
usual occupations. His secrets were not many, but very few and very
rare, and these only about public matters; and he showed prudence and
economy in the exhibition of the public spectacles and the construction
of public buildings, his donations to the people, and in such things,
for he was a man who looked to what ought to be done, not to the
reputation which is got by a man’s acts. He did not take the bath at
unseasonable hours; he was not fond of building houses, nor curious
about what he ate, nor about the texture and color of his clothes, nor
about the beauty of his slaves.[1] His dress came from Lorium, his
villa on the coast, and from Lanuvium generally.[2] We know how he
behaved to the toll-collector at Tusculum who asked his pardon; and
such was all his behavior. There was in him nothing harsh, nor
implacable, nor violent, nor, as one may say, anything carried to the
sweating point; but he examined all things severally, as if he had
abundance of time, and without confusion, in an orderly way, vigorously
and consistently. And that might be applied to him which is recorded of
Socrates, that he was able both to abstain from, and to enjoy, those
things which many are too weak to abstain from, and cannot enjoy
without excess. But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be
sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and
invincible soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.