From my tutor
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Παρὰ τοῦ τροφέως τὸ μήτε Πρασιανὸς μήτε Βενετιανὸς μήτε Παλμουλάριος ἢ Σκουτάριος γενέσθαι· καὶ τὸ φερέπονον καὶ ὀλιγοδεές· καὶ τὸ αὐτουργικὸν καὶ ἀπολύπραγμον· καὶ τὸ δυσπρόσδεκτον διαβολῆς.
From my tutor: not to become a Green or a Blue, nor a partisan of the light-shield or heavy-shield fighters; to bear hardship and to want little; to work with my own hands, and to keep out of other people's business; and to be slow to credit a slander.
From the man who raised him, Marcus learns not to take sides in the great public passions — the chariot factions and gladiatorial camps — and to be hardy, self-reliant, and slow to believe slander.
The tutor's lesson begins with the crowd. Rome divided itself over the chariot races — the Greens and the Blues — and over the gladiatorial camps of the light-shield and heavy-shield fighters, and these loyalties ran as hot as any politics. Marcus was taught to be none of them: to keep his identity clear of the tribal passions that let a man draw his feelings ready-made from a faction.
The rest follows from that same detachment. To bear hardship (φερέπονον), to need little (ὀλιγοδεές), to do one's own work with one's own hands and not busy oneself with others' affairs (ἀπολύπραγμον), and — the emperor's particular hazard — to be δυσπρόσδεκτον διαβολῆς, hard to sell a slander to. A ruler ringed by informers is naming the discipline that will keep him just: withhold belief until it is earned. The small private virtues of Book 1 are quietly the equipment of a fair judge.
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