outh,
and that I did not make proof of my virility before the proper season,
but even deferred the time; that I was subjected to a ruler and father
who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring me to the
knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace without
wanting either guards or embroidered dresses, or torches and statues,
and such-like show; but that it is in such a man's power to bring
himself very near to the fashion of a private person, without being for
this reason either meaner in thought, or more remiss in action, with
respect to the things which must be done for the public interest in a
manner that befits a ruler. I thank the gods for giving me such a
brother,[A] who was able by his moral character to rouse me to vigilance
over myself, and who at the same time pleased me by his respect and
affection; that my children have not been stupid nor deformed in body;
that I did not make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other
studies, in which I should perhaps have been completely engaged, if I
had seen that I was making progress in them; that I made haste to place
those who brought me up in the station of honor, which they seemed to
desire, without putting them off with hope of my doing it some other
time after, because they were then still young; that I knew Apollonius,
Rusticus, Maximus; that I received clear and frequent impressions about
living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so
far as depended on the gods, and their gifts, and help, and
inspirations, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to
nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and
through not observing the admonitions of the gods, and, I may almost
say, their direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in
such a kind of life; that I never touched either Benedicta or Theodotus,
and that, after having fallen into amatory passions, I was cured, and,
though I was often out of humor with Rusticus, I never did anything of
which I had occasion to repent; that, though it was my mother's fate to
die young, she spent the last years of her life with me; that, whenever
I wished to help any man in his need, or on any other occasion, I was
never told that I had not the means of doing it; and that to myself the
same necessity never happened, to receive anything from another; that I
have such a wife,[B] so obedient, and so affectionate, and so simple;
that I ha