No envy of talent, no show of piety
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μάλιστα δὲ τὸ παραχωρητικὸν ἀβασκάνως τοῖς δύναμίν τινα κεκτημένοις, οἷον τὴν φραστικὴν ἢ τὴν ἐξ ἱστορίας νόμων ἢ ἐθῶν ἢ ἄλλων τινῶν πραγμάτων, καὶ συσπουδαστικὸν αὐτοῖς, ἵνα ἕκαστοι κατὰ τὰ ἴδια προτερήματα εὐδοκιμῶσι· πάντα δὲ κατὰ τὰ πάτρια πράσσων, οὐδὲ αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἐπιτηδεύων φαίνεσθαι, τὸ τὰ πάτρια φυλάσσειν.
And above all, his ungrudging readiness to yield to those who possessed some talent — eloquence, say, or the learning that comes from the study of the laws, of customs, or of other subjects; and his eagerness to help them, so that each might win the esteem his own particular gifts deserved. In everything he kept to the ways of his fathers, yet never made a study of appearing to do this very thing — of keeping the ancestral ways.
Continues the long catalogue of Antoninus's qualities from Meditations 1.16, moving from his generosity toward skilled specialists to his plain, undramatized practice of ancestral custom.
This fragment picks up mid-list from the long catalogue of Antoninus's traits that fills most of Meditations 1.16. Here Marcus singles out his adoptive father's generosity toward men with a specific competence — skill in speech, or the learning that comes from studying law, custom, or comparable matters — whom Antoninus did not merely permit to excel but actively assisted, wanting each to be honored κατὰ τὰ ἴδια προτερήματα, "according to his own particular gifts." The word προτέρημα matters: the praise is not for demanding one uniform excellence from everyone around him but for recognizing that people's strengths differ and deserve to be judged on their own terms.
The second half turns from Antoninus's regard for others to his own conduct, and lands on a distinction Marcus returns to often: the gap between doing a thing and being seen to do it. Antoninus kept the ways of his fathers (τὰ πάτρια) as a plain habit, οὐδὲ αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἐπιτηδεύων φαίνεσθαι — "not even making a study of appearing to do it." That worry about performance runs through the whole notebook, from the portrait of a man proof against flatterers earlier in this same chapter to the later warning against being "Caesarified" — playing the part of an emperor rather than quietly being one; here Marcus locates its opposite already achieved, in the man he watched most closely.
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Meditations 1.16.6 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/meditations-greek/1.16.6/