it suggestion.

11. From Fronto[C] I learned to observe what envy and duplicity and
hypocrisy are in a tyrant, and that generally those among us who are
called Patricians are rather deficient in paternal affection.

12. From Alexander the Platonic, not frequently nor without necessity to
say to any one, or to write in a letter, that I have no leisure; nor
continually to excuse the neglect of duties required by our relation to
those with whom we live, by alleging urgent occupations.

13. From Catulus[D] not to be indifferent when a friend finds fault,
even if he should find fault without reason, but to try to restore him
to his usual disposition; and to be ready to speak well of teachers, as
it is reported of Domitius and Athenodotus; and to love my children
truly.

[A] Sextus of Chaeronea, a grandson of Plutarch, or nephew, as
some say; but more probably a grandson.

[B] Alexander was a Grammaticus, a native of Phrygia. He wrote
a commentary on Homer; and the rhetorician Aristides wrote a
panegyric on Alexander in a funeral oration.

[C] M. Cornelius Fronto was a rhetorician, and in great favor
with Marcus. There are extant various letters between Marcus
and Fronto.

[D] Cinna Catulus, a Stoic philosopher.

14. From my brother[A] Severus, to love my kin, and to love truth, and
to love justice; and through him I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius,
Cato, Dion, Brutus;[B] and from him I received the idea of a polity in
which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard
to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly
government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed; I
learned from him also + consistency and undeviating steadiness in my
regard for philosophy; and a disposition to do good, and to give to
others readily, and to cherish good hopes, and to believe that I am
loved by my friends; and in him I observed no concealment of his
opinions with respect to those whom he condemned, and that his friends
had no need to conjecture what he wished or did not wish, but it was
quite plain.

[A] The word brother may not be genuine. Antoninus had no
brother. It has been supposed that he may mean some cousin.
Schultz in his translation omits "brother," and says that this
Severus is probably Claudius Severus, a peripatetic.

[B] We know, from Tacitus (_Annal._ xiii., xvi. 21; and other
passages), who Thra