9781945186240

Hadrian, leaving Celer. And Celer.
Where have they gone, the brilliant, the insightful ones, the proud?
Brilliant as Charax and Demetrius the Platonist and Eudaemon and the rest
of them. Short-lived creatures, long dead. Some of them not remembered at
all, some become legends, some lost even to legend.
So remember: your components will be scattered too, the life within you
quenched. Or marching orders and another posting.
26. Joy for humans lies in human actions.
Human actions: kindness to others, contempt for the senses, the
interrogation of appearances, observation of nature and of events in nature.
27. Three relationships:
i. with the body you inhabit;
ii. with the divine, the cause of everything in all things;
iii. with the people around you.
28. Either pain affects the body (which is the body’s problem) or it
affects the soul. But the soul can choose not to be affected, preserving its
own serenity, its own tranquillity. All our decisions, urges, desires,
aversions lie within. No evil can touch them.
29. To erase false perceptions, tell yourself: I have it in me to keep my
soul from evil, lust and all confusion. To see things as they are and treat
them as they deserve. Don’t overlook this innate ability.
30. To speak to the Senate—or anyone—in the right tone, without being
overbearing. To choose the right words.
31. Augustus’s court: his wife, his daughter, his grandsons, his stepsons,
his sister, Agrippa, the relatives, servants, friends, Areius, Maecenas, the
doctors, the sacrificial priests . . . the whole court, dead.
And consider the others . . . not just the deaths of individuals (like the
family of the Pompeys).
That line they write on tombs—“last surviving descendant.” Consider
their ancestors’ anxiety—that there be a successor. But someone has to be