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.

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(†) 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).