own attention he very seldom stood in need of the physician’s art or of medicine or external applications.  He was most ready to give without envy to those who possessed any particular faculty, such as that of eloquence or knowledge of the law or of morals, or of anything else; and he gave them his help, that each might enjoy reputation according to his deserts; and he always acted conformably to the institutions of his country, without showing any affectation of doing so.  Further, he was not fond of change nor unsteady, but he loved to stay in the same places, and to employ himself about the same things; and after his paroxysms of headache he came immediately fresh and vigorous to his usual occupations.  His secrets were not many, but very few and very rare, and these only about public matters; and he showed prudence and economy in the exhibition of the public spectacles and the construction of public buildings, his donations to the people, and in such things, for he was a man who looked to what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man’s acts.  He did not take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he ate, nor about the texture and color of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his slaves.[C] His dress came from Lorium, his villa on the coast, and from Lanuvium generally.[D] We know how he behaved to the toll-collector at Tusculum who asked his pardon; and such was all his behavior.  There was in him nothing harsh, nor implacable, nor violent, nor, as one may say, anything carried to the sweating point; but he examined all things severally, as if he had abundance of time, and without confusion, in an orderly way, vigorously and consistently.  And that might be applied to him which is recorded of Socrates,[E] that he was able both to abstain from, and to enjoy, those things which many are too weak to abstain from, and cannot enjoy without excess.  But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.

    [A] He means his adoptive father, his predecessor, the Emperor
    Antoninus Pius.  Compare vi. 30.

    [B] He uses the word [Greek:  koinonoemosune].  See Gataker’s
    note.

    [C] This passage is corrupt, and the exact meaning is
    uncertain.

    [D] Lorium was a villa on the coast north of Rome, and there
    Antoninus was brought up, and he died there.  This also is
    corrupt.

    [E] Xenophon, Memorab. i. 3, 15.