Question on an excerpt of the Meditations By Marcus Aurelius

[Zangetshumody]

Apollonius... and from him I learned how to receive from friends what are esteemed favours, without being either humbled by them or letting them pass unnoticed.

another translation: and from him I learned how to receive from friends what are esteemed favours, without being either humbled by them or letting them pass unnoticed.


---
So I want to know, what it is that he learnt, since I don't believe I have the patience to read the entire meditations, also I'm afraid he might not even go onto expounding this particular claim.

Does anyone know the answer to the question directly, or know if the answer is contained in "the Meditations"?

 

[Xann]

Is this what you're looking for, are do you want analysis of this? I'm not sure anything exists but this.

V. From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not

to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always, whether in the sharpest pains, or after the loss of a child, or in long diseases, to be still the same man; who also was a present and visible example unto me, that it was possible for the same man to be both vehement and remiss: a man not subject to be vexed, and offended with the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his lectures and expositions; and a true pattern of a man who of all his good gifts and faculties, least esteemed in himself, that his excellent skill and ability to teach and persuade others the common theorems and maxims of the Stoic philosophy. Of him also I learned how to receive favours and kindnesses (as commonly they are accounted) from friends, so that I might not become obnoxious unto them, for them, nor more yielding upon occasion, than in right I ought; and yet so that I should not pass them neither, as an unsensible and unthankful man.

 

[Zangetshumody]

Is this what you're looking for, are do you want analysis of this? I'm not sure anything exists but this.

Perhaps that does answer my question, but that is what I get for trying to craft the question just before going to bed...

I want to understand how to execute WHAT he has already described, your excerpt does offer more clues as to the 'how'; is it most complete account that is actually given in the writing?

Are there any around who might be able to cobble together the missing story I'm asking for, who enjoys extrapolations from character to imagining the mechanics of plot..?

I understand all the caveats he is making, he just doesn't seem to be describing how he gets away with it while actually performing what he claims to have learnt [it's the last part of the claim that brings me to wonder].

---

the last part that brings me to wonder: ..."and yet so that I should not pass them neither, as an unsensible and unthankful man."

 

[Cellmold]

Accept the boons of others without feeling obligated, jealous, inferior embarrassed etc.... Or feeling indifferent and disregarding the favour.

At least from that first part you posted. The whole I've not read.

 

[Zangetshumody]

Accept the boons of others without feeling obligated, jealous, inferior embarrassed etc.... Or feeling indifferent and disregarding the favour.

At least from that first part you posted. The whole I've not read.

Ah thanks AA, I guess I wasn't reading it it like that at all, I thought he implied he was able to manage the other person's expectations and feelings in recognizing that he was still thankful and yet also dispassionate toward any coercive impact which that thanks would never entail.

 

[Raffaella]

In my edition, Penguin Classics 2011, translated by Martin Hammond, it's more lucid:

the lesson of how to take apparent favours from one's friends, neither compromised by them nor insensitive in their rejection

I interpreted this like AA: accept and reject favours with consideration. Hammond's annotation clarifies Apollonius's circumstances and his relation to Marcus.


Apollonius is referenced again in 1.17:

That I was quick to raise my tutors to the public office which I thought they desired and did not put them off, in view of their youth, with promises for the future. That I came to know Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus.

Marcus made Rusticus consul and prefect of the city though little is known of Apollonius's appointed role and he's only mentioned in two aphorisms.

 

[Kas]

I understand it mostly as AffirmitiveAnxiety and Wixiw wrote before. Moderation, not being dependent on others and still being thankful for help.
To stoics it’s not important to manage expectations of the others, but to serve well the society.

 

[Marcus__0()0]

From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not

to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason