From Maximus
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Παρὰ Μαξίμου τὸ κρατεῖν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ κατὰ μηδὲν περίφορον εἶναι· καὶ τὸ εὔθυμον ἔν τε ταῖς ἄλλαις περιστάσεσι καὶ ἐν ταῖς νόσοις· καὶ τὸ εὔκρατον τοῦ ἤθους καὶ μειλίχιον καὶ γεραρόν· καὶ τὸ οὐ σχετλίως κατεργαστικὸν τῶν προκειμένων· καὶ τὸ πάντας αὐτῷ πιστεύειν περὶ ὧν λέγοι ὅτι οὕτως φρονεῖ, καὶ περὶ ὧν πράττοι ὅτι οὐ κακῶς πράττει. καὶ τὸ ἀθαύμαστον καὶ ἀνέκπληκτον καὶ μηδαμοῦ ἐπειγόμενον ἢ ὀκνοῦν ἢ ἀμηχανοῦν ἢ κατηφὲς ἢ προσσεσηρός, ἢ πάλιν θυμούμενον ἢ ὑφορώμενον· καὶ τὸ εὐεργετικὸν καὶ τὸ συγγνωμονικὸν καὶ τὸ ἀψευδές· καὶ τὸ ἀδιαστρόφου μᾶλλον ἢ διορθουμένου φαντασίαν παρέχειν· καὶ ὅτι οὔτε ᾠήθη ἄν ποτέ τις ὑπερορᾶσθαι ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ οὔτε ὑπέμεινεν ἂν κρείττονα αὐτοῦ αὑτὸν ὑπολαβεῖν· καὶ τὸ εὐχαριεντίζεσθαι.
From Maximus: self-command, and to be swayed by nothing; good cheer in all circumstances, sickness included; a character evenly tempered, gentle and dignified; working through the tasks before him without complaint. Everyone trusted that what he said he truly meant, and that whatever he did he did without malice. Nothing amazed him, nothing shook him; he was never hurried, never hanging back, never at a loss, never downcast or forcing a smile, never flaring into anger or distrustful. He was ready to do good, ready to forgive, and never false; he gave the impression of a man never warped rather than one straightened out. No one could ever have thought himself despised by him, nor could anyone have borne to reckon himself the better man. And with all this, a gift for gracious wit.
The longest single entry in Book 1's catalogue of debts: Marcus devotes one continuous, sprawling sentence to Claudius Maximus, a Stoic-minded senator he had known before his adoption, cataloguing a self-possession so complete it needed no correction.
Of all the debts catalogued in Book 1, this is the most elaborate: a single sprawling sentence that is itself a small performance of the steadiness it describes. Much of what Marcus praises in Maximus is not doctrine but demeanor — not what he taught but how he was seen: everyone trusted that his words matched his mind and his actions carried no malice. Virtue here is legible rather than argued for. The sentence's real center is the claim that Maximus gave the impression of a character never warped rather than one that had been straightened out — praised for needing no correction, for being sound from the start, which is exactly the condition Marcus elsewhere admits he has not reached; the whole notebook is the record of a man correcting himself each day.
The historical Maximus is usually identified with a Claudius Maximus known from other sources as a senator of Stoic leanings; Marcus returns to comparable qualities — patience, an even temper, freedom from suspicion — when he sums up his adoptive father Antoninus in the very next entry, 1.16, so that the two portraits are clearly meant to rhyme. Read as a whole, the closing claim that no one could feel despised by Maximus, nor bear to think himself his superior, points to something more specific than generic praise: a self-command so complete that it left no room for others to feel measured or found wanting — the opposite of the self-display Marcus warns himself against throughout the Meditations.
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