Unforced composure — and Socratic self-command
Read the full text in our reader
οὐδὲν ἀπηνὲς οὐδὲ μὴν ἀδυσώπητον οὐδὲ λάβρον οὐδὲ ὥστ’ ἄν τινα εἰπεῖν ποτε· ἕως ἱδρῶτος· ἀλλὰ πάντα διειλημμένα λελογίσθαι ὡς ἐπὶ σχολῆς, ἀταράχως, τεταγμένως, ἐρρωμένως, συμφώνως ἑαυτοῖς. ἐφαρμόσειε δ’ ἂν αὐτῷ τὸ περὶ τοῦ Σωκράτους μνημονευόμενον, ὅτι καὶ ἀπέχεσθαι καὶ ἀπολαύειν ἐδύνατο τούτων, ὧν οἱ πολλοὶ πρός τε τὰς ἀποχὰς ἀσθενῶς καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἀπολαύσεις ἐνδοτικῶς ἔχουσι.
Nothing about him was harsh, nothing relentless, nothing headlong — nothing that could ever make a man say he was straining to a sweat. Everything, instead, was weighed out and thought through as though he had all the leisure in the world: calmly, in good order, with vigor, in harmony with himself. What is remembered of Socrates would fit him too — that he could equally go without a thing or enjoy it, where most people are too weak to do without and too quick to indulge.
Continues the tribute to Antoninus Pius (1.16): his imperturbable, unhurried manner, capped by a comparison to Socrates' equal mastery over abstaining and enjoying.
This fragment closes the portrait of Antoninus that runs through 1.16: nothing harsh, nothing relentless, nothing that forces itself to the point of visible strain. The image of sweat marks exactly the kind of effort a Roman reader would expect from a ruler pushing a decision through by sheer will, and Marcus denies it of his adoptive father. Instead everything is weighed out and reasoned through unhurriedly, ὡς ἐπὶ σχολῆς, as though he always had the leisure for it. Yet the four adverbs that follow keep this from reading as mere idleness: calm, ordered, vigorous, and — the real point — consistent with himself. That last word, συμφώνως, is doing philosophical work: a mind not divided against its own judgments.
The closing sentence names its model outright, the Socrates equally able to refuse a pleasure or take one, where most people manage only half of that skill. Marcus is precise about the two ways people fail: ἀσθενῶς, weakly, toward abstaining, and ἐνδοτικῶς, yieldingly, toward enjoying — the same faculty giving out in opposite directions. Crediting Antoninus with the rarer, symmetrical strength anticipates the notebook's later concern, at places like the discussions of the ἡγεμονικόν, with a self that governs its own impulses rather than being pulled by them.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Meditations 1.16.9 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Meditations — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Meditations 1.16.9 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/meditations-greek/1.16.9/