or more remiss in action, with respect to the things which must be done
for the public interest in a manner that befits a ruler. I thank the gods
for giving me such a brother, who was able by his moral character to
rouse me to vigilance over myself, and who at the same time pleased me by
his respect and affection; that my children have not been stupid nor
deformed in body; that I did not make more proficiency in rhetoric,
poetry, and the other studies, in which I should perhaps have been
completely engaged, if I had seen that I was making progress in them;
that I made haste to place those who brought me up in the station of
honor, which they seemed to desire, without putting them off with hope of
my doing it some other time after, because they were then still young;
that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus; that I received clear and
frequent impressions about living according to nature, and what kind of a
life that is, so that, so far as depended on the gods, and their gifts,
and help, and inspirations, nothing hindered me from forthwith living
according to nature, though I still fall short of it through my own
fault, and through not observing the admonitions of the gods, and, I may
almost say, their direct instructions; that my body has held out so long
in such a kind of life; that I never touched either Benedicta or
Theodotus, and that, after having fallen into amatory passions, I was
cured, and though I was often out of humor with Rusticus, I never did
anything of which I had occasion to repent; that, though it was my
mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life with me;
that, whenever I wished to help any man in his need, or on any other
occasion, I was never told that I had not the means of doing it; and that
to myself the same necessity never happened, to receive anything from
another; that I have such a wife, so obedient, and so affectionate, and
so simple; that I had abundance of good masters for my children; and that
remedies have been shown to me by dreams, both others, and against
bloodspitting and giddiness ...; and that, when I had an inclination to