Freedom from want, and a good household
Read the full text in our reader
τὸ ὁσάκις ἐβουλήθην ἐπικουρῆσαί τινι πενομένῳ ἢ εἰς ἄλλο τι χρῄζοντι, μηδέποτε ἀκοῦσαί με, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι μοι χρήματα, ὅθεν γένηται, καὶ τὸ αὐτῷ ἐμοὶ χρείαν ὁμοίαν, ὡς παρ’ ἑτέρου μεταλαβεῖν, μὴ συμπεσεῖν· τὸ τὴν γυναῖκα τοιαύτην εἶναι, οὑτωσὶ μὲν πειθήνιον, οὕτω δὲ φιλόστοργον, οὕτω δὲ ἀφελῆ· τὸ ἐπιτηδείων τροφέων εἰς τὰ παιδία εὐπορῆσαι.
That whenever I wished to help someone in poverty or in want of anything else, I was never told there was no money for me to draw on; and that no like need of my own ever befell me, forcing me to take relief from another; that my wife was such as she is — so biddable, so affectionate, so unaffected; and that I had plenty of fit nurses for my children.
Continues Marcus's closing catalogue of thanks to the gods (Book 1.17): for never lacking the means to help someone in need, for never having to depend on another himself, and for a devoted wife and good nurses for his children.
This entry belongs to the long list of thanks to the gods closing Book 1, and it groups three practical mercies under one heading: that Marcus was never refused the means to help someone in need, that he himself was spared the indignity of having to ask another for help, and that his household ran well — a good wife, good nurses for his children. The Stoic point sits quietly under the plain gratitude. Money (χρήματα) and the various needs (χρεία) at stake here are, by his own doctrine elsewhere (compare 2.11 and 5.36 on the raw material virtue works with), classed among the indifferents — neither good nor bad — yet he still thanks the gods for having had enough of it to act well. Gratitude for material sufficiency does not contradict calling matter indifferent; it is gratitude for the stuff virtue needed in order to have something to do.
The praise of his wife — πειθήνιον, φιλόστοργον, ἀφελῆ, "biddable, affectionate, unaffected" — is often read against the later, largely hostile Roman tradition about Faustina the Younger's conduct; nothing here confirms or denies that gossip, and Marcus was not writing for an audience that could check his claim against it. What is worth noticing instead is the register: no philosophical vocabulary, no argument, just three plain adjectives, the same plainness he uses two lines later for the nurses who raised his children. The Meditations rarely lingers on domestic life; this fragment is one of the few places it does, and it treats the subject with exactly the same brevity as everything else on the list.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Meditations 1.17.8 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 1.17.8 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/meditations-greek/1.17.8/