Meditations X.27

Bear in mind continually how all such things as now exist existed also before our day³⁹ and, be assured, will exist after us. Set before thine eyes whole dramas and their settings, one like another, all that thine own experience has shewn thee or thou hast learned from past history, for instance the entire court of Hadrianus,⁴⁰ the entire court of Antoninus, the entire court of Philip, of Alexander, of Croesus. For all those scenes were such as we see now, only the performers being different.

• 39.See vii. 49.
• 40.See viii. 25, 31.