Chapter 20
i. p. 92.)
396 Diog. Laert. _Pythagoras_.
397 Thus Cicero makes Cato say: "Pythagoreorumque more, exercendae memoriae gratia, quid quoque die dixerim, audiverim, egerim, commemoro vesperi."-_De Senect._ xi.
398 Ibid.
_ 399 Sermon_, i. 4.
400 He even gave up, for a time, eating meat, in obedience to the Pythagorean principles. (_Ep._ cviii.) Seneca had two masters of this school, s.e.xtius and Sotion. He was at this time not more than seventeen years old. (See Aubertin, _etude critique sur les Rapports supposes entre Seneque et St. Paul_, p. 156.)
401 See his very beautiful description of the self-examination of s.e.xtius and of himself. (_De Ira_, iii. 36.)
402 Arrian, ii. 18. Compare the _Manual_ of Epictetus, x.x.xiv.
403 "Quod de Romulo aegre creditum est, omnes pari consensu praesumserunt, Marc.u.m clo receptum esse."-Aur. Vict. _Epit._ xvi. "Deusque etiam nunc habetur."-Capitolinus.
404 The first book of his _Meditations_ was written on the borders of the Granua, in Hungary.
405 i. 14.
406 See his touching letter to Fronto, who was about to engage in a debate with Herod Atticus.
407 i. 6-15. The eulogy he pa.s.sed on his Stoic master Apollonius is worthy of notice. Apollonius furnished him with an example of the combination of extreme firmness and gentleness.
408 E.g. "Beware of Caesarising." (vi. 30.) "Be neither a tragedian nor a courtesan." (v. 28.) "Be just and temperate and a follower of the G.o.ds; but be so with simplicity, for the pride of modesty is
409 iii. 4.
410 i. 17.
411 v. 1.
412 ix. 29.
413 viii. 59.
414 xi. 18.
415 ix. 11.
416 viii. 15.
417 vii. 70.
418 vii. 63.
419 vii. 22.
420 Mr. Maurice, in this respect, compares and contrasts him very happily with Plutarch. "Like Plutarch, the Greek and Roman characters were in Marcus Aurelius remarkably blended; but, unlike Plutarch, the foundation of his mind was Roman. He was a student that he might more effectually carry on the business of an emperor."-_Philosophy of the First Six Centuries_, p. 32.
421 vi. 47.
422 Capitolinus, Aurelius Victor.
423 M. Suckau, in his admirable _etude sur Marc-Aurele_, and M. Renan, in a very acute and learned _Examen de quelques faits relatifs a l'imperatrice Faustine_ (read before the Inst.i.tut, August 14, 1867), have shown the extreme uncertainty of the stories about the debaucheries of Faustina, which the biographers of Marcus Aurelius have collected. It will be observed that the emperor himself has left an emphatic testimony to her virtue, and to the happiness he derived from her (i. 17); that the earliest extant biographer of Marcus Aurelius was a generation later; and that the infamous character of Commodus naturally predisposed men to imagine that he was not the son of so perfect an emperor.
424 "Quid me fletis, et non magis de pestilentia et communi morte cogitatis?" Capitolinus, _M. Aurelius_.
425 Ibid.
426 Many examples of this are given by Coulanges, _La Cite antique_, pp.
177-178.
427 All this is related by Suetonius, _August_.
428 Tacit. _Annal._ iv. 36.
429 See, e.g., the sentiments of the people about Julius Caesar, Sueton.
_J. C._ lx.x.xviii.
430 Sueton. _Vesp._ xxiii.
431 "Qualis artifex pereo" were his dying words.
432 See Sueton. _Calig._ 1.
433 Sueton. _Calig._ xxii. A statue of Jupiter is said to have burst out laughing just before the death of this emperor.
434 Seneca, _De Ira_, i. 46; Sueton. _Calig._ xxii.
435 Lampridius, _Heliogab._
436 Senec. _De Clemen._ i. 18.
437 Tacit. _Annal._ iii. 36.
438 Senec. _De Benefic._ iii. 26.
439 Tacit. _Annal._ i. 73. Tiberius refused to allow this case to be proceeded with. See, too, Philost. _Apollonius of Tyana_, i. 15.
440 Suet. _Tiber._ lviii.
441 "Mulier quaedam, quod semel exuerat ante statuam Domitiani, d.a.m.nata et interfecta est."-Xiphilin, lxvii. 12.
442 "Eos demum, qui nihil praeterquam de libertate cogitent, dignos esse, qui Romani fiant."-Livy, viii. 21.
443 Valerius Maximus, iv. 3, -- 14.