individual entries begin and end; in some cases this is a
question Marcus himself might not have been able to
answer.^8
A special position is occupied by Book 1, which is
distinguished from the rest of the work by its
autobiographical nature and by the greater impression of
conscious design and ordering apparent in it. It consists of
seventeen entries in which Marcus reflects on what he
learned from various individuals in his life, either directly or
from their example (hence the title I have given the section
here, “Debts and Lessons,” which has no warrant in the
transmitted text). The entries roughly mirror the chronology
of Marcus’s early life, from his older relatives to his
teachers to his adopted father, Antoninus, and ultimately to
the gods.^9 This logical schema, as well as the increasing
length of the entries, suggests deliberate arrangement,
presumably by Marcus himself. If so, then this book, at least,
was conceived as an organic whole. It may be among the
latest portions of the text, if scholars are correct in thinking
(as most do) that the short sketch of Antoninus Pius in
Meditations 6.30 was the starting point for the longer
memoir in 1.16.
Attempts to find organic unity in the remaining books or
development from book to book are doomed to failure.
Wherever one opens the Meditations (with the exception of