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Meditations · Marcus Aurelius

XXVIII. Whether thou speak in the Senate or whether thou speak

to any particular, let thy speech In always grave and modest.

But thou must not openly and vulgarly observe that sound

and exact form of speaking, concerning that which is truly good

and truly civil; the vanity of the world, and of worldly men:

which otherwise truth and reason doth prescribe.

XXIX. Augustus his court; his wife, his daughter, his nephews,

his sons-in-law his sister, Agrippa, his kinsmen, his domestics,

his friends; Areus, Maecenas, his slayers of beasts for sacrifice

and divination: there thou hast the death of a whole court together.

Proceed now on to the rest that have been since that of Augustus.

Hath death dwelt with them otherwise, though so many and so stately

whilst they lived, than it doth use to deal with any one particular man?

Consider now the death of a whole kindred and family,

as of that of the Pompeys, as that also that useth to be written

upon some monuments, HE WASS THE LAST OF HIS OWN KINDRED.

O what care did his predecessors take, that they might leave a successor,

yet behold at last one or other must of necessity be THE LAST.

Here again therefore consider the death of a whole kindred.