His ease with friends and patience in inquiry
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καὶ τὸ παῦσαι τὰ περὶ τοὺς ἔρωτας τῶν· μειρακίων· καὶ ἡ κοινονοημοσύνη καὶ τὸ ἐφεῖσθαι τοῖς φίλοις μήτε συνδειπνεῖν αὐτῷ πάντως μήτε συναποδημεῖν ἐπάναγκες, ἀεὶ δὲ ὅμοιον αὐτὸν καταλαμβάνεσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν διὰ χρείας τινὰς ἀπολειφθέντων· καὶ τὸ ζητητικὸν ἀκριβῶς ἐν τοῖς συμβουλίοις καὶ ἐπίμονον, ἀλλ’ οὐ τὸ προαπέστη τῆς ἐρεύνης, ἀρκεσθεὶς ταῖς προχείροις φαντασίαις· καὶ τὸ διατηρητικὸν τῶν φίλων καὶ μηδαμοῦ ἁψίκορον μηδὲ ἐπιμανές· καὶ τὸ αὔταρκες ἐν παντὶ καὶ τὸ φαιδρόν·
And his putting an end to passion for boys; his fellow-feeling; his leaving friends free neither to dine with him always nor to attend his travels of necessity, while those kept away by some business always found him the same; his exact and persistent rigor in deliberation, never breaking off an inquiry too soon, content with the first impressions to hand; his constancy toward friends, never quick to tire of them nor doting; his self-sufficiency in all things, and his serenity.
Continues Marcus's catalog of the virtues of his adoptive father Antoninus Pius (Meditations 1.16): giving up youthful passions, unforced fellow-feeling, releasing friends from ceremony, unhurried judgment, and steady, undemanding affection.
This fragment stays close to the ground. After the erotic renunciation — pederasty was an accepted feature of upper-class Roman-Greek social life, and Marcus notes its quiet abandonment without moralizing about it — he moves to a cluster of habits about presence and absence: Antoninus did not require friends to perform loyalty by dining or traveling with him constantly, and, crucially, he did not punish those kept away by real business with any coldness. ὅμοιον... καταλαμβάνεσθαι, "to be found the same," is the operative phrase: his disposition toward a friend did not fluctuate with that friend's proximity. κοινονοημοσύνη, a rare compound Marcus reaches for here rather than a commoner word, tries to name something closer to shared-mindedness than mere kindness.
The second half turns from social ease to intellectual and emotional steadiness, and the two turn out to be the same virtue seen twice. In council he was ζητητικὸν ἀκριβῶς καὶ ἐπίμονον — thorough and persistent — and explicitly not the kind who προαπέστη τῆς ἐρεύνης, gave up the search early, content with πρόχειροι φαντασίαι, the first impressions ready to hand. That refusal to settle for an unexamined appearance is the same discipline of scrutinizing impressions before assent that Marcus rehearses on himself throughout the notebook. Applied to friendship, it yields the same shape again: διατηρητικὸν τῶν φίλων, keeping friends, but μηδαμοῦ ἁψίκορον μηδὲ ἐπιμανές — neither quick to tire of them nor frantic in attachment. Paired with αὔταρκες and φαιδρόν, self-sufficiency and serenity, the whole passage describes a man whose steadiness did not depend on how tightly he held onto anything, including people.
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