Meditations I.15
From Maximus,27 self-mastery and stability of purpose; and cheeriness in sickness as well as in all other circumstances; and a character justly proportioned of sweetness and gravity; and to perform without grumbling the task that lies to one’s hand.
And the confidence of every one in him that what he said was also what 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 back, or be at a loss, or downcast, or smile a forced smile, or, again, be ill-tempered or suspicious.
And beneficence28 and placability and veracity; and to give the impression of a man who cannot deviate from the right way rather than of one who is kept in it29; 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.
- 27.i. 16, § 9; viii. 25. See Capitolinus’s Life of Marcus iii. 2; Index II.
Maximus is Claudius Maximus, a Stoic philosopher and senator. I.16 § 9 cites Maximus’s illness as an instance of “a perfect and indomitable soul,” and VIII.25 records his death and that of his wife Secunda; Capitolinus, Life of Marcus iii. 2, lists him among Marcus’s Stoic teachers, and Index II is Haines’s Index of Proper Names. Haines’s index identifies him with the proconsul of Africa before whom Apuleius was tried for magic, praised as vir sanctissimus, “a most upright man,” in Apuleius’s Apology.
- 28.Marcus raised a temple to Εὐεργεσία, a new deity. See Dio’s Roman History 71. 34, § 3.
Euergesia is Greek for “beneficence,” the quality named in Marcus’s text at this point, here personified as a goddess.
- 29.Compare iii. 5.