A new Translation, with an Introduction, by Gregory Hays the modern library

To avoid the public schools: Roman aristocrats normally preferred to
have their sons educated by private tutors (often specially trained
household slaves) who were considered safer and more reliable than the
professional schoolmasters who taught all comers for a fee.
1.5 My first teacher: Not named and most likely a slave.
Not to support this side or that: Literally, “not to be a Green or a Blue;
not to support the parmularius [a gladiator with a small shield] or the
scutarius [who carried a larger shield].”
1. 6 the camp-bed and the cloak: Symbols of an ascetic lifestyle. Marcus’s
sleeping arrangements are recorded by the Historia Augusta: “He used
to sleep on the ground, and his mother had a hard time convincing him to
sleep on a cot spread with skins.”
1.7 his own copy: It is unclear whether this refers to Arrian’s Discourses of
Epictetus or to a set of unpublished notes, perhaps taken by Rusticus
himself.
1.13 Domitius and Athenodotus: The anecdote Marcus refers to is unknown.
1.14 My brother: Probably a copyist’s error based on confusion between the
names Verus and Severus.
Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato: For the significance of these three figures as

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Stoic exemplars see the Introduction.
1. 16 My adopted father: Antoninus Pius. The sketch here seems to be a
development and expansion of the briefer assessment in 6.30.
Putting a stop to the pursuit of boys: This may be meant as a critique of
Antoninus’s predecessor, Hadrian (2), whose love affair with the youth
Antinoüs was notorious. Alternatively it might refer to legal restrictions on
pederasty (which was common in upper-class Greek and Roman society),
or to Antoninus’s own self-restraint.
The robe . . . the customs agent’s apology:  These examples of
Antoninus’s modesty are too compressed and allusive to be intelligible to
anyone but Marcus himself.
as they say of Socrates: Marcus may be recalling a similar comment by
Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.3.14; Socrates’ ability to drink heavily without
any apparent effect is celebrated in Plato’s Symposium (179c, 220a).
Maximus’s illness:  For Maximus see the Index of Persons; nothing is
known of his illness.
1.17 someone: Antoninus.
the kind of brother: Verus (3).
the honors they seemed to want: Marcus may be thinking of Herodes
Atticus and Fronto, both of whom held consulships in 143, soon after
Marcus became the heir apparent. Perhaps also of Rusticus, who held a
second consulship in 162.
I never laid a finger: Household slaves were often exposed to sexual
abuse at the hands of their owners.
That I have the wife I do: Faustina.
at Caieta: A seaport on the west coast of Italy. The Greek text adds an

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unintelligible phrase, which some scholars interpret as a reference to “an
oracle.”
“we need the help . . .”: Apparently a quotation, but not from any
surviving work.
2. On the River Gran, Among the Quadi: The notation is transmitted at the end
of Book 1, but is more likely to belong here. The Gran (or Hron) is a
tributary of the Danube flowing through modern-day Slovakia. The
Quadi were a Suebian tribe in the Morava River valley, subdued during
the Marcomannic Wars of the early 170s.
2 . 2 Throw away . . . right now: These words are deleted or transposed
elsewhere by some editors.
2. 10 the ones committed out of desire are worse:  Strictly speaking, this
assessment is in conflict with Stoic doctrine, which holds that there are
no degrees of wrongness; all wrong actions are equally wrong and it
makes no sense to speak of one as being “worse” than another.
2.13 “delving into . . .”: A line from the lyric poet Pindar (frg. 282), quoted also
by Plato, Theaetetus 173e.
3. In Carnuntum: Transmitted at the end of Book 2, but probably meant to head
Book 3. Carnuntum was a fortress on the Danube which housed the
Legio XIV Gemina and served as the seat of the governor of Upper
Pannonia. Marcus is known to have been in the area in 172 and 173.
3 . 3 Chaldaeans: The Chaldaeans (Babylonians) had a special reputation as
astrologers.