ntry, so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome, but so far as I am
a man, it is the world. The things then which are useful to these cities
are alone useful to me.

45. Whatever happens to every man, this is for the interest of the
universal: this might be sufficient. But further thou wilt observe this
also as a general truth, if thou dost observe, that whatever is
profitable to any man is profitable also to other men. But let the word
profitable be taken here in the common sense as said of things of the
middle kind [neither good nor bad].

46. As it happens to thee in the amphitheatre and such places, that the
continual sight of the same things, and the uniformity, make the
spectacle wearisome, so it is in the whole of life; for all things
above, below, are the same and from the same. How long then?

47. Think continually that all kinds of men and all kinds of pursuits
and of all nations are dead, so that thy thoughts come down even to
Philistion and Phoebus and Origanion. Now turn thy thoughts to the other
kinds [of men]. To that place then we must remove, where there are so
many great orators, and so many noble philosophers, Heraclitus,
Pythagoras, Socrates; so many heroes of former days, and so many
generals after them, and tyrants; besides these, Eudoxus, Hipparchus,
Archimedes, and other men of acute natural talents, great minds, lovers
of labor, versatile, confident, mockers even of the perishable and
ephemeral life of man, as Menippus and such as are like him. As to all
these consider that they have long been in the dust. What harm then is
this to them; and what to those whose names are altogether unknown? One
thing here is worth a great deal, to pass thy life in truth and justice,
with a benevolent disposition even to liars and unjust men.

48. When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those
who live with thee; for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty
of another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality
of a fourth. For nothing delights so much as the examples of the
virtues, when they are exhibited in the morals of those who live with us
and present themselves in abundance, as far as is possible. Wherefore we
must keep them before us.

49. Thou art not dissatisfied. I suppose, because thou weighest only so
many litrae and not three hundred. Be not dissatisfied then that thou
must live only so many years and not more; for as thou art satisfied
with the amount of sub