evil can touch them.
- To erase false perceptions, tell yourself: I have it in me
to keep my soul from evil, lust and all confusion. To see
things as they are and treat them as they deserve. Don’t
overlook this innate ability. - To speak to the Senate—or anyone—in the right tone,
without being overbearing. To choose the right words. - Augustus’s court: his wife, his daughter, his grandsons,
his stepsons, his sister, Agrippa, the relatives, servants,
friends, Areius, Maecenas, the doctors, the sacrificial priests
... the whole court, dead.
And consider the others... not just the deaths of
individuals (like the family of the Pompeys).
That line they write on tombs—“last surviving
descendant.” Consider their ancestors’ anxiety—that there be
a successor. But someone has to be the last. There, too, the
death of a whole house.
- You have to assemble your life yourself—action by
action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far
as it can. No one can keep that from happening.
—But there are external obstacles....