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

the man from Salamis: During the brief reign of the “Thirty Tyrants” at
Athens, Socrates was ordered to collaborate with the regime by arresting a
certain Leon, but refused; the story is told in Plato’s Apology (32c).
“swaggered about the streets”:  A line from Aristophanes’ comedy
Clouds (362), which pokes fun at Socrates.
8.25 Verus . . . Lucilla: Marcus’s parents.
Hadrian: Most likely this refers to the rhetorician (Hadrian 1) rather than
the emperor (Hadrian 2).

---

8.35 We have various abilities . . . : The text here appears to be corrupt and the
translation is necessarily uncertain.
8.38 Look at it clearly: The text, meaning and articulation of entries 38 and 39
are very uncertain. Earlier editors printed the opening of 38 as the end
of 37, and took the phrases “Look at it clearly—if you can” and “To the
best of my judgment” as a single unit, though the resulting sentence
yields no coherent sense. I follow J. Dalfen in separating them.
8.39 “To the best of my judgment . . .”: I have placed the entry in quotation
marks on the basis of the opening phrase, which includes a parenthetical
“he [or “someone”] says.” This assumes that the phrase is correctly
transmitted (it is certainly not easy to construe), and that it should be
taken with what follows rather than what precedes, which is far from
certain (see previous note). However, the entry as a whole (an implicit
criticism of the Epicureans’ view of pleasure as the supreme good) does
not strike me as being typical of Marcus’s style, and I suspect he may
indeed be quoting some earlier writer.
8.41 “a sphere . . .”: Empedocles frg. B27, quoted in fuller form at 12.3.
8.57 Its beams get their name . . . : This (false) derivation is a typical example of
ancient etymology, a science in which the early Stoics were much
interested.
9.2 the “next best voyage”: A proverbial phrase meaning having to row when
one cannot sail.
9. 24 “Odysseus in the Underworld”: The reference is to Book 11 of the
Odyssey, in which Odysseus descends to Hades and encounters the
shades of his companions who died at Troy.
9.29 Demetrius of Phalerum: It has been suggested that “of Phalerum” is a later
reader’s (mistaken) addition, and that Marcus had in mind the
Hellenistic monarch Demetrius Poliorcetes (“the city-sacker”). But
there seems no reason to doubt the transmitted text.

---

9.41 “During my illness . . .”: Epicurus frg. 191.
10.10 Sarmatians: One of the barbarian tribes Marcus spent his last decade
fighting.
10.21 “The earth knows longing . . .”: Euripides frg. 898.
10.23 “fencing a sheepfold . . .”: A paraphrase of Plato, Theaetetus 174d, in
which we are told that the philosopher will look down on a king as if the
latter were a humble shepherd.
10.31 When you look . . . : Most of the names mentioned here are mere ciphers
(see the Index of Persons for the best guess as to their identities), but
Marcus’s point does not depend on knowledge of the individuals.
10.33 as a cylinder rolls down: The comparison is taken from Chrysippus frg.
1000.
10.34 “. . . leaves that the wind . . .”: Homer, Iliad 6.147 ff., a very famous
passage.
11. 3 [like the Christians]: This ungrammatical phrase is almost certainly a
marginal comment by a later reader; there is no reason to think Marcus
had the Christians in mind here. (See Introduction.)
11.6 “o Mount Cithaeron!”: Sophocles, Oedipus the King 1391 (Oedipus’s
anguished cry after blinding himself, invoking the mountain he was
abandoned on as a baby.)