d abundance of good masters for my children; and that remedies
have been shown to me by dreams, both others, and against bloodspitting
and giddiness[C]...; and that, when I had an inclination to philosophy,
I did not fall into the hands of any sophist, and that I did not waste
my time on writers [of histories], or in the resolution of syllogisms,
or occupy myself about the investigation of appearances in the heavens;
for all these things require the help of the gods and fortune.
Among the Quadi at the Granua.[D]
[A] The emperor had no brother except L. Verus, his brother by
adoption.
[B] See the _Life of Antoninus_.
[C] This is corrupt.
[D] The Quadi lived in the southern part of Bohemia and
Moravia; and Antoninus made a campaign against them. (See the
_Life_.) Granua is probably the river Graan, which flows into
the Danube.
If these words are genuine, Antoninus may have written this
first book during the war with the Quadi. In the first edition
of Antoninus, and in the older editions, the first three
sections of the second book make the conclusion of the first
book. Gataker placed them at the beginning of the second book.
II.
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody,
the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things
happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.
But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of
the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it
is akin to me; not [only] of the same blood or seed, but that it
participates in [the same] intelligence and [the same] portion of the
divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on
me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For
we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like
the rows of the upper and lower teeth.[A] To act against one another,
then, is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be
vexed and to turn away.
[A] Xenophon, Mem. ii. 3. 18.
2. Whatever this is that I am, it is a little flesh and breath, and the
ruling part. Throw away thy books; no longer distract thyself: it is not
allowed; but as if thou wast now dying, despise the flesh; it is blood
and bones and network, a contexture of nerves, veins, and arteries. See
the breath also, what kind of a thing
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