His ease with fortune, and no easy label
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καὶ τὸ τοῖς εἰς εὐμάρειαν βίου φέρουσί τι, ὧν ἡ τύχη παρεῖχε δαψίλειαν, χρηστικὸν ἀτύφως ἅμα καὶ ἀπροφασίστως, ὥστε παρόντων μὲν ἀνεπιτηδεύτως ἅπτεσθαι, ἀπόντων δὲ μὴ δεῖσθαι· καὶ τὸ μηδὲ ἄν τινα εἰπεῖν μήτε ὅτι σοφιστὴς μήτε ὅτι οὐερνάκλος μήτε ὅτι σχολαστικός, ἀλλ’ ὅτι ἀνὴρ πέπειρος, τέλειος, ἀκολάκευτος, προεστάναι δυνάμενος καὶ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ ἄλλων.
And his readiness to use whatever eased his life, of which fortune furnished a lavish supply, without vanity and without excuse — enjoying it plainly when it was there, and never missing it when it was gone. And that no one could ever call him a sophist, a house-slave's sort, or a pedant, but a man matured and complete, above all flattery, fit to preside over his own affairs and those of others alike.
Continues the tribute to Antoninus Pius in Meditations 1.16, describing his unpretentious use of fortune's comforts and his refusal to fit the mold of sophist, homebred, or pedant.
The list continues Marcus's inventory of Antoninus's temperament toward wealth, turning now to the comforts fortune had placed within easy reach of an emperor. The vocabulary is exact: χρηστικόν names the capacity to use a thing well, ἀτύφως strips away τῦφος (smoke, self-importance), and ἀπροφασίστως removes any need for the excuses a lesser man might invent, whether for indulging or for renouncing. The result is a portrait of use without attachment — taking what is present plainly, wanting nothing when it is gone — a lived version of the discipline Marcus later urges on himself, not to let circumstance dye him purple.
The second clause pivots from possessions to reputation. Marcus reaches for three labels a public man risks earning — sophist, the untranslatable οὐερνάκλος (a Latin loanword for a homebred slave's manner), and mere scholastic dabbler — and insists none of them fit. What fit instead was ἀνὴρ πέπειρος, a man ripened rather than performed, whose fitness to preside (προεστάναι) extended without strain from his own household to the affairs of others. The line quietly answers an anxiety Marcus voices elsewhere in Book 1: the wish to be a philosopher rather than merely to be taken for one.
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Meditations 1.16.4 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/meditations-greek/1.16.4/