Meditations — passage 192

NOTES 3.15 They: See note on 3.4.4. a different sort of vision: See 2.. 13 and note. 3.16 Starting from a tripartite division similar to that in 2.2, this final chapter provides an effective summary and amalgamation of most of the main themes of Book 3. 3.16.1 catamites: See note on 5.10.1. a Phalaris or a Nero: Types of depraved tyranny. Phalaris, tyrant of Acragas in Sicily in the first half of the sixth century BC, was notorious for his sadistic cruelty. Nero, Roman emperor from 54 to his suicide in 68, quickly became a by-word for paranoid excesses of cruelty and vice (including matricide). Compare 6.34: 'As for pleasure, pirates, catamites, parricides, and tyrants have enjoyed it to the full.' BOOK 4 4.1 sets out on its objects in a conditional way: This idea, that the rational man sets out on any object or course of action 'conditionally' (or 'with reservation'), i.e. ready to adapt to cir- cumstances, absorb or circumvent obstacles, and turn the revised situation to a new exercise of virtue, is explored further in 5.20 ('The mind adapts and turns round any obstacle to action to serve its objective: a hindrance to a given work is turned to its furtherance, an obstacle in a given path becomes an advance'), 6.50 ('... so using the obstacle to bring forth a different virtue'), 7.58, 8.32, 8.35, 8.41, 10.33 (and note), 11.37. An 'uncon- ditional aim', ignoring the limits of the possible (6.50), is an offence against reason (8.41). Marcus is here, as often, using a technical term of Stoicism. A similar, simpler, thought in 8.50 ('Brambles in the path? Go round them'). 4.2 No action ... without aim: For this insistent theme in the Medi- tations see note on 2.5. 4.3 Framed in the context of 'retreat into yourself, this chapter gathers and recapitulates many of the themes which are central to Marcus' theoretical, moral, and practical philosophy: the backbone of doctrines (3.13 note), the kinship of men (2.1 note), wrongdoing not deliberate (2.1 note), glad acceptance of one's lot (5.8 note), the universe as community (2.16 note: fully articu- lated in the following chapter, 4.4), the mind/body dualism (6.32 note), the evanescence of fame (3.10 note), the tininess of man's time and place (3.10 note), the immunity of the mind to externals