Forgive your friends. Marcus Aurelius 1.13
Take no umbrage when friends call you out. You can listen to this passage <here>.
Παρὰ
Κατούλου τὸ μὴ ὀλιγώρως ἔχειν φίλου
αἰτιωμένου τι, κἂν τύχῃ ἀλόγως
αἰτιώμενος, ἀλλὰ πειρᾶσθαι καὶ
ἀποκαθιστάναι ἐπὶ τὸ σύνηθες· καὶ
τὸ περὶ τῶν διδασκάλων ἐκθύμως εὔφημον,
οἷα τὰ περὶ Δομιτίου καὶ Ἀθηνοδότου
ἀπομνημονευόμενα· καὶ τὸ περὶ τὰ
τέκνα ἀληθινῶς ἀγαπητικόν.
From
Catulus (†) I learned to receive the blame of friends without
scorn, even when it is offered foolishly, and then to begin the
attempt to repair the relationship. Also to speak well and warmly of
teachers, as tradition does of Domitius (‡) and Athenodotus (*),
and to adopt a genuinely affectionate attitude towards children.
---
(†)
Cinna Catulus appears in the catalogue of Marcus' associates in the
Historia Augusta as one of the Stoics, alongside
Claudius Maximus and Junius Rusticus, but that is all we know of him.
(‡)
Domitius is another mystery. Hammond (Meditations, pub. 2006)
suggests he may be Gnaeus Domitius Afer, the orator whom Quintilian
remembers as the best he ever heard (Institutes 10.1.118; see
also Pliny, Epistles 2.14).
(*)
Marcus' tutor Fronto (see § 1.11 in our text) refers to Athenodotus
as one of his teachers in his letters (ad M. Caesarem 4.12; ad
M. Antoninum de eloquentia 1). He studied under Gaius Musonius
Rufus, the philosophical godfather of the Stoic Opposition, whose
most famous pupil was Epictetus (see § 1.7).