No Need for Bodyguards or Pomp
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τὸ ἄρχοντι καὶ πατρὶ ὑποταχθῆναι, ὃς ἔμελλε πάντα τὸν τῦφον ἀφαιρήσειν μου καὶ εἰς ἔννοιαν ἄξειν τοῦ ὅτι δυνατόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐλῇ βιοῦντα μήτε δορυφορήσεων χρῄζειν μήτε ἐσθήτων σημειωδῶν μήτε λαμπάδων καὶ ἀνδριάντων τοιῶνδέ τινων καὶ τοῦ ὁμοίου κόμπου, ἀλλʼ ἔξεστιν ἐγγυτάτω ἰδιώτου συστέλλειν ἑαυτὸν καὶ μὴ διὰ τοῦτο ταπεινότερον ἢ ῥᾳθυμότερον ἔχειν πρὸς τὰ ὑπὲρ τῶν κοινῶν ἡγεμονικῶς πραχθῆναι δέοντα.
To be made subject to a ruler and father who would strip all my vanity from me and bring me to see that a man living in a palace can dispense with bodyguards, conspicuous robes, torches, statues of that kind, and all such pomp — that he may draw himself as close as possible to a private citizen, and not for that reason grow any more lowly or slack toward the duties that must be discharged, in a ruler's spirit, for the common good.
Continues Marcus's closing catalogue of thanks to the gods (1.17) for his upbringing under his adoptive father and emperor, Antoninus Pius, portrayed at length in 1.16.
This fragment names the exact lesson Marcus drew from watching Antoninus rule: that a life "in the palace" (ἐν αὐλῇ) needs none of the visible armature of power — δορυφόρησις, an armed escort; showy robes; torches; statues; and κόμπος, ostentatious display. The verb συστέλλειν, "to draw in, contract," is a favorite Stoic word for restraining excess, applied here quite literally to scaling imperial pomp down until it sits ἐγγυτάτω ἰδιώτου, "as close as possible to a private citizen." τῦφος — literally smoke or mist — is Marcus's regular name for the self-deceiving vanity that clouds judgment, and Antoninus's example, he says, was what stripped it from him (ἀφαιρήσειν).
The second half guards against a natural misreading: plainness of dress is not slackness of effort. τὰ...δέοντα, "the things that must be done," still have to be carried out ἡγεμονικῶς, "in a ruler's manner" — an adverb built on ἡγεμονικόν, the Stoic name for the soul's own ruling faculty — so that outer simplicity and inner command of duty are pointedly held on separate axes. The same worry about a ruler dissolving into either excess or laxity returns at 6.30, where Marcus warns himself not to be "dyed purple" by the court; here the warning has already hardened into a memory of the father who solved it.
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