From Diognetus
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Παρὰ Διογνήτου τὸ ἀκενόσπουδον· καὶ τὸ ἀπιστητικὸν τοῖς ὑπὸ τῶν τερατευομένων καὶ γοήτων περὶ ἐπῳδῶν καὶ περὶ δαιμόνων ἀποπομπῆς καὶ τῶν τοιούτων λεγομένοις· καὶ τὸ μὴ ὀρτυγοτροφεῖν μηδὲ περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐπτοῆσθαι· καὶ τὸ ἀνέχεσθαι παρρησίας· καὶ τὸ οἰκειωθῆναι φιλοσοφίᾳ καὶ τὸ ἀκοῦσαι πρῶτον μὲν Βακχείου, εἶτα Τανδάσιδος καὶ Μαρκιανοῦ· καὶ τὸ γράψαι διαλόγους ἐν παιδί· καὶ τὸ σκίμποδος καὶ δορᾶς ἐπιθυμῆσαι καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς ἀγωγῆς ἐχόμενα.
From Diognetus: not to fuss over trifles; to be skeptical of what the miracle-mongers and charlatans tell us about incantations and the driving-off of demons and all such things; not to keep fighting-quails nor let myself be carried away by such pursuits; to put up with plain speaking; to grow at home in philosophy; to have studied first under Bacchius, then Tandasis and Marcianus; to have written dialogues while still a boy; and to have set my heart on the camp-cot and the hide, and everything else that goes with the Greek discipline.
Diognetus, Marcus's painting-master, first turned him from fashionable superstitions toward philosophy and the plain Greek discipline of life. The debts now widen from character into a way of thinking.
Diognetus is the hinge of Book 1. Until now the debts have been about character; here Marcus credits the man who changed how he thinks. The first gift is negative — ἀπιστητικόν, a trained skepticism toward the miracle-mongers and charlatans with their incantations and their driving-off of demons. It is easy to miss how radical this is: the future emperor is taught, as a boy, to withhold belief from the whole supernatural marketplace of his age.
The skepticism is not emptiness; it clears ground for something. In the same breath Marcus learns τὸ οἰκειωθῆναι φιλοσοφίᾳ — to be made at home with philosophy, using the loaded Stoic word οἰκείωσις, the appropriation by which a creature comes to treat something as its own. The boy who gives up quail-fighting for the philosopher's pallet and hide is not renouncing pleasure so much as reassigning it. The last phrase names the whole inheritance plainly: τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς ἀγωγῆς, the Greek discipline — a Roman prince choosing a Greek way of life.
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