proficiency in rhetoric,
poetry, and the other studies, in which I should perhaps have been
completely engaged, if I had seen that I was making progress in them;
that I made haste to place those who brought me up in the station of
honor, which they seemed to desire, without putting them off with
hope of my doing it some time after, because they were then still
young; that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus; that I received
clear and frequent impressions about living according to nature, and
what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on the gods,
and their gifts, and help, and inspirations, nothing hindered me from
forthwith living according to nature, tho I still fall short of it
through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of the
gods, and I may almost say, their direct instructions; that my body
has held out so long in such a kind of life; that I never touched
either Benedicta or Theodotus; and that, after having fallen into
amatory passions, I was cured; and, tho I was often out of humor with
Rusticus, I never did anything of which I had occasion to repent;
that, tho it was my mother's fate to die young, she spent the last
years of her life with me; that, whenever I wished to help any man in
his need, or on any other occasion, I was never told that I had not
the means of doing it; and that to myself the same necessity never
happened, to receive anything from another; that I have such a wife,
so obedient, and so affectionate, and so simple; that I had abundance
of good masters for my children; and that remedies have been shown to
me by dreams, both others, and against blood-spitting and giddiness;
and that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall into
the hands of any sophist.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 158: From the "Meditations." Translated by George Long.]

[Footnote 159: Annius Verus.]

[Footnote 160: His father's name also was Annius Verus.]

[Footnote 161: His mother was Domitia Calvilla, named also Lucilla.]

[Footnote 162: His mother's grandfather, Catilius Severus, may be
referred to here.]

[Footnote 163: The translator notes that, in the works of Justinus, is
printed a letter from one Diognetus, a Gentile, who wished very much
to know what the religion of the Christians was, and how it had taught
them to believe neither in the gods of the Greeks nor the
superstitions of the Jews. It has been suggested that this Diognetus
may have been the tutor of Marc