Thoughts Of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (e book free reading TXT) 📖
- Author: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
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Say Of Them That They Die Without Being Martyrs, Even If They
Are Publicly Punished; And They Give Themselves Up To A Death
Which Avails Nothing, As The Indian Gymnosophists Give
Themselves Up Foolishly To Fire." Cave, In His Primitive
Christianity (Ii. C. 7), Says Of The Christians: "They Did
Flock To The Place Of Torment Faster Than Droves Of Beasts That
Are Driven To The Shambles. They Even Longed To Be In The Arms
Of Suffering. Ignatius, Though Then In His Journey To Rome In
Order To His Execution, Yet By The Way As He Went Could Not But
Vent His Passionate Desire Of It 'Oh That I Might Come To Those
Wild Beasts That Are Prepared For Me; I Heartily Wish That I
May Presently Meet With Them; I Would Invite And Encourage Them
Speedily To Devour Me, And Not Be Afraid To Set Upon Me As They
Have Been To Others; Nay, Should They Refuse It, I Would Even
Force Them To It;'" And More To The Same Purpose From Eusebius.
Cave, An Honest And Good Man, Says All This In Praise Of The
Christians; But I Think That He Mistook The Matter. We Admire A
Man Who Holds To His Principles Even To Death; But These
Fanatical Christians Are The Gymnosophists Whom Clemens Treats
With Disdain.
[C] Dr. F.C. Baur, In His Work Entitled "Das Christenthum Und
Die Christliche Kirche Der Drei Ersten Jahrhunderte," &C., Has
Examined This Question With Great Good Sense And Fairness, And
I Believe He Has Stated The Truth As Near As Our Authorities
Enable Us To Reach It.
[D] In The Digest, 48, 19, 30, There Is The Following Excerpt
From Modestinus: "Si Quis Aliquid Fecerit, Quo Leves Hominum
Animi Superstitione Numinis Terrerentur, Divus Marcus Hujusmodi
Homines In Insulam Relegari Rescripsit."
There Is No Doubt That The Emperor's Reflections--Or His Meditations, As
They Are Generally Named--Is A Genuine Work. In The First Book He Speaks
Of Himself, His Family, And His Teachers; And In Other Books He Mentions
Himself. Suidas (V.[Greek: Markos]) Notices A Work Of Antoninus In
Twelve Books, Which He Names The "Conduct Of His Own Life;" And He Cites
The Book Under Several Words In His Dictionary, Giving The Emperor's
Name, But Not The Title Of The Work. There Are Also Passages Cited By
Suidas From Antoninus Without Mention Of The Emperor's Name. The True
Title Of The Work Is Unknown. Xylander, Who Published The First Edition
Of This Book (Zürich, 1558, 8vo, With A Latin Version), Used A
Manuscript Which Contained The Twelve Books, But It Is Not Known Where
The Manuscript Is Now. The Only Other Complete Manuscript Which Is Known
To Exist Is In The Vatican Library, But It Has No Title And No
Inscriptions Of The Several Books: The Eleventh Only Has The
Inscription, [Greek: Markou Autokratoros] Marked With An Asterisk. The
Other Vatican Manuscripts And The Three Florentine Contain Only Excerpts
From The Emperor's Book. All The Titles Of The Excerpts Nearly Agree
With That Which Xylander Prefixed To His Edition, [Greek: Markou
Antôninou Autokratoros Tôn Eis Heauton Biblia Ib.] This Title Has Been
Used By All Subsequent Editors. We Cannot Tell Whether Antoninus Divided
His Work Into Books Or Somebody Else Did It. If The Inscriptions At The
End Of The First And Second Books Are Genuine, He May Have Made The
Division Himself.
It Is Plain That The Emperor Wrote Down His Thoughts Or Reflections As
The Occasions Arose; And Since They Were Intended For His Own Use, It Is
No Improbable Conjecture That He Left A Complete Copy Behind Him Written
With His Own Hand; For It Is Not Likely That So Diligent A Man Would Use
The Labor Of A Transcriber For Such A Purpose, And Expose His Most
Secret Thoughts To Any Other Eye. He May Have Also Intended The Book For
His Son Commodus, Who However Had No Taste For His Father's Philosophy.
Some Careful Hand Preserved The Precious Volume; And A Work By Antoninus
Is Mentioned By Other Late Writers Besides Suidas.
Many Critics Have Labored On The Text Of Antoninus. The Most Complete
Edition Is That By Thomas Gataker, 1652, 4to. The Second Edition Of
Gataker Was Superintended By George Stanhope, 1697, 4to. There Is Also
An Edition Of 1704. Gataker Made And Suggested Many Good Corrections,
And He Also Made A New Latin Version, Which Is Not A Very Good Specimen
Of Latin, But It Generally Expresses The Sense Of The Original, And
Often Better Than Some Of The More Recent Translations. He Added In The
Margin Opposite To Each Paragraph References To The Other Parallel
Passages; And He Wrote A Commentary, One Of The Most Complete That Has
Been Written On Any Ancient Author. This Commentary Contains The
Editor's Exposition Of The More Difficult Passages, And Quotations From
All The Greek And Roman Writers For The Illustration Of The Text. It Is
A Wonderful Monument Of Learning And Labor, And Certainly No Englishman
Has Yet Done Anything Like It. At The End Of His Preface The Editor Says
That He Wrote It At Rotherhithe Near London, In A Severe Winter, When He
Was In The Seventy-Eighth Year Of His Age, 1651--A Time When Milton,
Selden, And Other Great Men Of The Commonwealth Time Were Living; And
The Great French Scholar Saumaise (Salmasius), With Whom Gataker
Corresponded And Received Help From Him For His Edition Of Antoninus.
The Greek Test Has Also Been Edited By J. M. Schultz, Leipzig, 1802,
8vo; And By The Learned Greek Adamantinus Corais, Paris, 1816, 8vo. The
Text Of Schultz Was Republished By Tauchnitz, 1821.
There Are English, German, French, Italian, And Spanish Translations Of
M. Antoninus, And There May Be Others. I Have Not Seen All The English
Translations. There Is One By Jeremy Collier, 1702, 8vo, A Most Coarse
And Vulgar Copy Of The Original. The Latest French Translation By
Alexis Pierron In The Collection Of Charpentier Is Better Than Dacier's,
Which Has Been Honored With An Italian Version (Udine, 1772). There Is
An Italian Version (1675), Which I Have Not Seen. It Is By A Cardinal.
"A Man Illustrious In The Church, The Cardinal Francis Barberini The
Elder, Nephew Of Pope Urban Viii., Occupied The Last Years Of His Life
In Translating Into His Native Language The Thoughts Of The Roman
Emperor, In Order To Diffuse Among The Faithful The Fertilizing And
Vivifying Seeds. He Dedicated This Translation To His Soul, To Make It,
As He Says In His Energetic Style, Redder Than His Purple At The Sight
Of The Virtues Of This Gentile" (Pierron, Preface).
I Have Made This Translation At Intervals After Having Used The Book For
Many Years. It Is Made From The Greek, But I Have Not Always Followed
One Text; And I Have Occasionally Compared Other Versions With My Own. I
Made This Translation For My Own Use, Because I Found That It Was Worth
The Labor; But It May Be Useful To Others Also; And Therefore I
Determined To Print It. As The Original Is Sometimes Very Difficult To
Understand And Still More Difficult To Translate, It Is Not Possible
That I Have Always Avoided Error. But I Believe That I Have Not Often
Missed The Meaning, And Those Who Will Take The Trouble To Compare The
Story 1 (Biographical Sketch Of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) Pg 13Translation With The Original Should Not Hastily Conclude That I Am
Wrong, If They Do Not Agree With Me. Some Passages Do Give The Meaning,
Though At First Sight They May Not Appear To Do So; And When I Differ
From The Translators, I Think That In Some Places They Are Wrong, And In
Other Places I Am Sure That They Are. I Have Placed In Some Passages A
+, Which Indicates Corruption In The Text Or Great Uncertainty In The
Meaning. I Could Have Made The Language More Easy And Flowing, But I
Have Preferred A Ruder Style As Being Better Suited To Express The
Character Of The Original; And Sometimes The Obscurity Which May Appear
In The Version Is A Fair Copy Of The Obscurity Of The Greek. If I Should
Ever Revise This Version, I Would Gladly Make Use Of Any Corrections
Which May Be Suggested. I Have Added An Index Of Some Of The Greek Terms
With The Corresponding English. If I Have Not Given The Best Words For
The Greek, I Have Done The Best That I Could; And In The Text I Have
Always Given The Same Translation Of The Same Word.
The Last Reflection Of The Stoic Philosophy That I Have Observed Is In
Simplicius' Commentary On The Enchiridion Of Epictetus. Simplicius Was
Not A Christian, And Such A Man Was Not Likely To Be Converted At A Time
When Christianity Was Grossly Corrupted. But He Was A Really Religious
Man, And He Concludes His Commentary With A Prayer To The Deity Which No
Christian Could Improve. From The Time Of Zeno To Simplicius, A Period
Of About Nine Hundred Years, The Stoic Philosophy Formed The Characters
Of Some Of The Best And Greatest Men. Finally It Became Extinct, And We
Hear No More Of It Till The Revival Of Letters In Italy. Angelo
Poliziano Met With Two Very Inaccurate And Incomplete Manuscripts Of
Epictetus' Enchiridion, Which He Translated Into Latin And Dedicated To
His Great Patron Lorenzo De' Medici, In Whose Collection He Had Found
The Book. Poliziano's Version Was Printed In The First Bâle Edition Of
The Enchiridion, A.D. 1531 (Apud And. Cratandrum). Poliziano Recommends
The Enchiridion To Lorenzo As A Work Well Suited To His Temper, And
Useful In The Difficulties By Which He Was Surrounded.
Epictetus And Antoninus Have Had Readers Ever Since They Were First
Printed. The Little Book Of Antoninus Has Been The Companion Of Some
Great Men. Machiavelli's Art Of War And Marcus Antoninus Were The Two
Books Which Were Used When He Was A Young Man By Captain John Smith, And
He Could Not Have Found Two Writers Better Fitted To Form The Character
Of A Soldier And A Man. Smith Is Almost Unknown And Forgotten In
England, His Native Country, But Not In America, Where He Saved The
Young Colony Of Virginia. He Was Great In His Heroic Mind And His Deeds
In Arms, But Greater Still In The Nobleness Of His Character. For A
Man's Greatness Lies Not In Wealth And Station, As The Vulgar Believe,
Nor Yet In His Intellectual Capacity, Which Is Often Associated With
The Meanest Moral Character, The Most Abject Servility To Those In High
Places, And Arrogance To The Poor And Lowly; But A Man's True Greatness
Lies In The Consciousness Of An Honest Purpose In Life, Founded On A
Just Estimate Of Himself And Everything Else, On Frequent
Self-Examination, And A Steady Obedience To The Rule Which He Knows To
Be Right, Without Troubling Himself, As The Emperor Says He Should Not,
About What Others May Think Or Say, Or Whether They Do Or Do Not Do That
Which He Thinks And Says And Does.
Story 2 (The Philosophy Of Marcus Aurelius Antonius) Pg 14It Has Been Said That The Stoic Philosophy First Showed Its Real Value
When It Passed From Greece
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