Meditations VIII.20

Nature has included in its aim in every case the ceasing to be no less than the beginning and the duration, just as the man who tosses up his ball.¹⁴ But what good does the ball gain while tossed upwards, or harm as it comes down, or finally when it reaches the ground? Or what good accrues to the bubble while it coheres, or harm in its bursting? And the same holds good with the lamp-flame.

• 14.Annius Verus, grandfather of Marcus, was the best ball-player of his day, see Wilmanns’s Exempla Inscriptionum Latinarum 574. Marcus himself was an adept at the ball-game, Capitolinus’s Life of Marcus iv. 9.

  Gustav Wilmanns’s Exempla Inscriptionum Latinarum is a selection of Latin inscriptions, cited by number.