1.From my grandfather Verus,a kindly disposition and sweetness of t emper.

2.From what I heard of my father and my memory of him,modesty and manliness.

3.From my mother,the fear of God,and generosity;and abstention n ot only from doing ill but even from the very thought of doing it;and f urthermore to live the simple life,far removed from the habits of the r ich.

4.From my grandfather's father,to dispense with attendance at pub lic schools,and to enjoy good teachers at home,and to recognize that o n such things money should be eagerly spent.

5.From my Tutor,not to side with the Green Jacket or the Blue at t he races,or to back the Light-Shield Champion or the Heavy-Shield in th e lists;not to shirk toil,and to have few wants,and to do my own work,and mind my own concerns;and to turn a deaf ear to slander.

6.From Diognetus,not to be taken up with trifles;and not to give credence to the statements of miracle-mongers and wizards about incantat ions and the exorcizing of demons,and such-like marvels;and not to kee p quails,nor to be excited about such things:not to resent plain speak ing;and to become familiar with philosophy and be a hearer first of Bac cheius,then of Tandasis and Marcianus;and to write dialogues as a boy;and to set my heart on a pallet-bed and a pelt and whatever else tallied with the Greek regimen.

7.From Rusticus,to become aware of the fact that I needed amendmen t and training for my character;and not to be led aside into an argumen tative sophistry;nor compose treatises on speculative subjects,or deli ver little homilies,or pose ostentatiously as the moral athlete or unse lfish man;and to eschew rhetoric,poetry,and fine language;and not to go about the house in my robes,nor commit any such breach of good taste;and to write letters without affectation,like his own letter written to my mother from Sinuessa;to shew oneself ready to be reconciled to th ose who have lost their temper and trespassed against one,and ready to meet them halfway as soon as ever they seem to be willing to retrace the ir steps;to read with minute care and not to be content with a superfic ial bird's-eye view;nor to be too quick in agreeing with every voluble talker;and to make the acquaintance of the Memoirs of Epictetus,which he supplied me with out of his own library.

8.From Apollonius,self-reliance and an unequivocal determination n ot to leave anything to chance;and to look to nothing else even for a m oment save Reason alone;and to remain ever the same,in the throes of p ain,on the loss of a child,during a lingering illness;and to see plai nly from a living example that one and the same man can be very vehement and yet gentle:not to be impatient in instructing others;and to see in him a man who obviously counted as the least among his gifts his practic al experience and facility in imparting philosophic truths;and to learn in accepting seeming favours from friends not to give up our independenc e for such things nor take them callously as a matter of course.

9.From Sextus,kindliness,and the example of a household patriarch ally governed;and the conception of life in accordance with Nature;and dignity without affectation;and an intuitive consideration for friends;and a toleration of the unlearned and the unreasoning.

And his tactful treatment of all his friends,so that simply to be w ith him was more delightful than any flattery,while at the same time th ose who enjoyed this privilege looked up to him with the utmost reverenc e;and the grasp and method which he shewed in discovering and marshalli ng the essential axioms of life.

And never to exhibit any symptom of anger or any other passion,but to be at the same time utterly impervious to all passions and full of na tural affection;and to praise without noisy obtrusiveness,and to posse ss great learning but make no parade of it.

10.From Alexander the Grammarian,not to be captious;nor in a carp ing spirit find fault with those who import into their conversation any expression which is barbarous or ungrammatical or mispronounced,but tac tfully to bring in the very expression,that ought to have been used,by way of answer,or as it were in joint support of the assertion,or as a joint consideration of the thing itself and not of the language,or by s ome such graceful reminder.

11.From Fronto,to note the envy,the subtlety,and the dissimulati on which are habitual to a tyrant;and that,as a general rule,those am ongst us who rank as patricians are somewhat wanting in natural affectio n.

12.From Alexander the Platonist,not to say to anyone often or with out necessity,nor write in a letter,I am too busy,nor in this fashion constantly Plead urgent affairs as an excuse for evading the obligations entailed upon us by our relations towards those around us.

13.From Catulus,not to disregard a friend's expostulation even wh en it is unreasonable,but to try to bring him back to his usual friendl iness;and to speak with whole-hearted good-will of one's teachers,as it is recorded that Domitius did of Athenodotus;and to be genuinely fon d of one's children.

14.From my "brother" Severus,love of family,Love of truth,love of justice,and (thanks to him!) to know Thrasea,Helvidius,Cato,Dio n,Brutus;and the conception of a state with one law for all,based upo n individual equality and freedom of speech,and of a sovranty which pri zes above all things the liberty of the subject;and furthermore from hi m also to set a well-balanced and unvarying value on philosophy;and rea diness to do others a kindness,and eager generosity,and optimism,and confidence in the love of friends;and perfect openness in the case of t hose that came in for his censure;and the absence of any need for his f riends to surmise what he did or did not wish,so plain was it.

15.From Maximus,self-mastery and stability of purpose;and cheerin ess in sickness as well as in all other circumstances;and a character j ustly proportioned of sweetness and gravity;and to perform without grum bling the task that lies to one's hand.

And the confidence of every one in him that what he said was also wh at he thought,and that what he did was done with no ill intent.And not to shew surprise,and not to be daunted;never to be hurried,or hold ba ck,or be at a loss,or downcast,or smile a forced smile,or,again,be ill-tempered or suspicious.

And beneficence and placability and veracity;and to give the impres sion of a man who cannot deviate from the right way rather than of one w ho is kept in it;and that no one could have thought himself looked down upon by him,or could go so far as to imagine himself a better man than he;and to keep pleasantry within due bounds.

16.From my father,mildness,and an unshakable adherence to decisio ns deliberately come to;and no empty vanity in respect to so-called hon ours;and a love of work and thoroughness;and a readiness to hear any su ggestions for the common good;and an inflexible determination to give e very man his due;and to know by experience when is the time to insist a nd when to desist;and to suppress all passion for boys.

And his public spirit,and his not requiring his friends at all to s up with him or necessarily attend him abroad,and their always finding h im the same when any urgent affairs had kept them away;and the spirit o f thorough investigation,which he shewed in the meetings of his Council,and his perseverance;nay his never desisting,prematurely from an enq uiry on the strength of off-hand impressions;and his faculty for keepin g his friends and never being bored with them or infatuated about them;and his self-reliance in every emergency,and his good humour;and his h abit of looking ahead and making provision for the smallest details with out any heroics.

And his restricting in his reign public acclamations and every sort of adulation;and his unsleeping attention to the needs of the empire,a nd his wise stewardship of its resources,and his patient tolerance of t he censure that all this entailed;and his freedom from superstition wit h respect to the Gods and from hunting for popularity with respect to me n by pandering to their desires or by courting the mob:yea his sobernes s in all things and stedfastness;and the absence in him of all vulgar t astes and any craze for novelty.

And the example that he gave of utilizing without pride,and at the same without any apology,all the lavish gifts of Fortune that contribut e towards the comfort of life,so as to enjoy them when present as a mat ter of course,and,when absent,not to miss them:and no one could char ge him with sophistry,flippancy,or pedantry;but he was a man mature,complete,deaf to flattery,able to preside over his own affairs and tho se of others.

Besides this also was his high appreciation of all true philosophers without any upbraiding of the others,and at the same time without any u ndue subservience to them;then again his easiness of access and his gra ciousness that yet had nothing fulsome about it;and his reasonable atte ntion to his bodily requirements,not as one too fond of life,or vain o f his outward appearance,nor yet as one who neglected it,but so as by his own carefulness to need but very seldom the skill of the leech or me dicines and outward applications.

But most of all a readiness to acknowledge without jealousy the clai ms of those who were endowed with any especial gift,such as eloquence o r knowledge of law or ethics or any other subject,and to give them acti ve support,that each might gain the honour to which his individual emin ence entitled him;and his loyalty to constitutional precedent without a ny parade of the fact that it was according to precedent.

Furthermore he was not prone to change or vacillation,but attached to the same places and the same things;and after his spasms of violent headache he would come back at once to his usual employments with renewe d vigour;and his secrets were not many but very few and at very rare in tervals,and then only political secrets;and he shewed good sense and m oderation in his management of public spectacles,and in the constructio n of public works,and in congiaria and the like,as a man who had an ey e to what had to be done and not to the credit to be gained thereby.

He did not bathe at all hours;he did not build for the love of buil ding;he gave no thought to his food,or to the texture and colour of hi s clothes,or the comeliness of his slaves.His robe came up from Lorium,his country-seat in the plains,and Lanuvium supplied his wants for th e most part.Think of how he dealt with the customs' officer at Tusculu m when the latter apologized,and it was a type of his usual conduct.

There was nothing rude in him,nor yet overbearing or violent nor ca rried,as the phrase goes,"to the sweating state";but everything was considered separately,as by a man of ample leisure,calmly,methodicall y,manfully,consistently.One might apply to him what is told of Socrat es,that he was able to abstain from or enjoy those things that many are not strong enough to refrain from and too much inclined to enjoy.But to have the strength to persist in the one case and be abstemious in the ot her is characteristic of a man who has a perfect and indomitable soul,a s was seen in the illness of Maximus.

17.From the Gods,to have good grandfathers,good parents,a good s ister,good teachers,good companions,kinsmen,friends-nearly all of t hem;and that I fell into no trespass against any of them,and yet I had a disposition that way inclined,such as might have led me into somethin g of the sort,had it so chanced;but by the grace of God there was no s uch coincidence of circumstances as was likely to put me to the test.

And that I was not brought up any longer with my grandfather's conc ubine,and that I kept unstained the flower of my youth;and that I did not make trial of my manhood before the due time,but even postponed it.

That I was subordinated to a ruler and a father capable of ridding m e of all conceit,and of bringing me to recognize that it is possible to live in a Court and yet do without body-guards and gorgeous garments and linkmen and statues and the like pomp;and that it is in such a man's p ower to reduce himself very nearly to the condition of a private individ ual and yet not on this account to be more paltry or more remiss in deal ing with what the interests of the state require to be done in imperial fashion.

That it was my lot to have such a brother,capable by his character of stimulating me to watchful care over myself,and at the same time del ighting me by his deference and affection:that my children have not bee n devoid of intelligence nor physically deformed.That I did not make mo re progress in rhetoric and poetry and my other studies,in which I shou ld perhaps have been engrossed,had I felt myself making good way in the m.That I lost no time in promoting my tutors to such posts of honour as they seemed to desire,and that I did not put them off with the hope tha t I would do this later on since they were still young.That I got to kn ow Apollonius,Rusticus,Maximus.

That I had clear and frequent conceptions as to the true meaning of a life according to Nature,so that as far as the Gods were concerned an d their blessings and assistance and intention,there was nothing to pre vent me from beginning at once to live in accordance with Nature,though I still come short of this ideal by my own fault,and by not attending t o the reminders,nay,almost the instructions,of the Gods.

That my body holds out so long in such a life as mine;that I did no t touch Benedicta or Theodotus,but that even afterwards,when I did giv e way to amatory passions,I was cured of them;that,though often offen ded with Rusticus,I never went so far as to do anything for which I sho uld have been sorry;that my mother,though she was to die young,yet sp ent her last years with me.

That as often as I had the inclination to help anyone,who was in pe cuniary distress or needing any other assistance,I was never told that there was no money available for the purpose;and that I was never under any similar need of accepting help from another.That I have been blesse d with a wife so docile,so affectionate,so unaffected;that I had no l ack of suitable tutors for my children.

That by the agency of dreams I was given antidotes both of other kin ds and against the spitting of blood and vertigo;and there is that resp onse also at Caieta,"as thou shalt use it." And that,when I had set my heart on philosophy,I did not fall into the hands of a sophist,nor sat down at the author's desk,or became a solver of syllogisms,nor bu sied myself with physical phenomena.For all the above the Gods as helpe rs and good fortune need.

Written among the Quadi on the Gran.