"
To one or two others his obligations were still more characteristic and
important. From Rusticus, for instance, an excellent and able man, whose
advice for years he was accustomed to respect, he had learnt to despise
sophistry and display, to write with simplicity, to be easily pacified,
to be accurate, and--an inestimable benefit this, and one which tinged
the colour of his whole life--to become acquainted with the _Discourses_
of Epictetus. And from his adoptive father, the great Antoninus Pius, he
had derived advantages still more considerable. In him he saw the
example of a sovereign and statesman firm, self-controlled, modest,
faithful, and even tempered; a man who despised flattery and hated
meanness; who honoured the wise and distinguished the meritorious; who
was indifferent to contemptable trifles, and indefatigable in earnest
business; one, in short, "who had a perfect and invincible soul," who,
like Socrates, "was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things
which many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without
excess." [67] Piety, serenity, sweetness, disregard of empty fame,
calmness, simplicity, patience, are virtues which he attributes to him
in another full-length portrait (vi.
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