exact English equivalent (“pervert,” although overly broad, at least has
the right tone). Marcus is probably using it as a generalized term of
abuse.5.12 “so many goods.. .”: Proverbial: the rich man owns “so many goods he
has no place to shit.” The saying is at least as old as the fourth-century
B.C. comic poet Menander, who quotes it in the surviving fragments of
his play The Apparition.
5.29 If the smoke makes me cough: The metaphor is drawn from Epictetus,
Discourses 1.25.18.
5.31 “wrong and unworthy.. .”: Homer, Odyssey 4.690.
5.33 “gone from the earth.. .”: Hesiod, Works and Days 197.
5.36 Not to be overwhelmed: The remainder of this book is unintelligible in
places, perhaps because the end of the original papyrus roll suffered
accidental damage. I have divided the text into three separate sections,
but without great confidence that this is correct.
Like the old man: The reference is obscure. A scene from a lost tragedy?
6.13 Crates on Xenocrates: The meaning of this reference is unknown.
6.30 Take Antoninus as your model: The sketch that follows seems to be a
preliminary version of the longer portrait at 1.16.
6.34 perverts: See 5.10 note.
6.42 “those who sleep.. .”: Heraclitus frg. B 75.
the bad line in the play: Chrysippus frg. 1181 (= Plutarch, On Stoic Self-
Contradictions 13f.). Chrysippus compared the existence of evil to a
deliberately bathetic line in a comedy—bad in itself, but an essential part of
a good play.