A new rendering based on the Foulis translation of 1742
by George W. Chrystal
Warner exhibitioner of Balliol College, Oxford
Edinburgh
Otto Schulze & Company
20 South Frederic Street
London: S. C. Brown & Company
47 Great Russell Street, W.C.
1902
1. I learned from my grandfather, Verus, to use good manners, and toput restraint on anger. 2. In the famous memory of my father I had apattern of modesty and manliness. 3. Of my mother I learned to bepious and generous; to keep myself not only from evil deeds, but evenfrom evil thoughts; and to live with a simplicity which is far fromcustomary among the rich. 4. I owe it to my great-grandfather that Idid not attend public lectures and discussions, but had good and ableteachers at home; and I owe him also the knowledge that for things ofthis nature a man should count no expense too great.
5. My tutor taught me not to favour either green or blue at thechariot races, nor, in the contests of gladiators, to be a supportereither of light or heavy armed. He taught me also to endure labour;not to need many things; to serve myself without troubling others; notto intermeddle in the affairs of others, and not easily to listen toslanders against them.
6. Of Diognetus I had the lesson not to busy myself about vain things;not to credit the great professions of such as pretend to workwonders, or of sorcerers about their charms, and their expelling ofDemons and the like; not to keep quails (for fighting or divination),nor to run after such things; to suffer freedom of speech in others,and to apply myself heartily to philosophy. Him also I must thank formy hearing first Bacchius, then Tandasis and Marcianus; that I wrotedialogues in my youth, and took a liking to the philosopher’s palletand skins, and to the other things which, by the Grecian discipline,belong to that profession.
7. To Rusticus I owe my first apprehensions that my nature neededreform and cure; and that I did not fall into the ambition of thecommon Sophists, either by composing speculative writings or bydeclaiming harangues of exhortation in public; further, that I neverstrove to be admired by ostentation of great patience in an asceticlife, or by display of activity and application; that I gave over thestudy of rhetoric, poetry, and the graces of language; and that I didnot pace my house in my senatorial robes, or practise any similaraffectation. I observed also the simplicity of style in his letters,particularly in that which he wrote to my mother from Sinuessa. Ilearned from him to be easily appeased, and to be readily reconciledwith those who had displeased me or given cause of offence, so soon asthey inclined to make their peace; to read with care; not to restsatisfied with a slight and superficial knowledge; nor quickly toassent to great talkers. I have him to thank that I met with thediscourses of Epictetus, which he furnished me from his own library.
8. From Apollonius I learned true liberty, and tenacity of purpose; toregard nothing else, even in the smallest degree, but reason always;and always to remain unaltered in the agonies of pain, in the lossesof children, or in long diseases. He afforded me a living example ofhow the same man can, upon occasion, b