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 bloodspitting and giddiness[C]...; and that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of any sophist, and that I did not waste my time on writers [of histories], or in the resolution of syllogisms, or occupy myself about the investigation of appearances in the heavens; for all these things require the help of the gods and fortune.

Among the Quadi at the Granua.[D]

    [A] The emperor had no brother except L. Verus, his brother by
    adoption.

    [B] See the Life of Antoninus.

    [C] This is corrupt.

[D] The Quadi lived in the southern part of Bohemia and Moravia; and Antoninus made a campaign against them. (See the Life.) Granua is probably the river Graan, which flows into the Danube.

If these words are genuine, Antoninus may have written this first book during the war with the Quadi.  In the first edition of Antoninus, and in the older editions, the first three sections of the second book make the conclusion of the first book.  Gataker placed them at the beginning of the second book.

II.

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.  All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.  But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me; not [only] of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in [the same] intelligence and [the same] portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him.  For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.[A] To act against one another, then, is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.

    [A] Xenophon, Mem. ii. 3. 18.

2.  Whatever this is that I am, it is a little flesh and breath, and the ruling part.  Throw away thy books; no longer distract thyself:  it is not allowed; but as if thou wast now dying, despise the flesh; it is blood and bones and network, a contexture of nerves, veins, and arteries.  See the breath also, what kind of a thing it is; air, and not always the same, but every moment sent out and again sucked in.  The third, then, is the ruling part; consider thus:  Thou art an old man; no longer let this be a slave, no longer be pulled by the strings like a puppet to unsocial movements, no longer be either dissatisfied with thy present lot, or shrink from the future.