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Page 8
[C] Dr. F.C. Baur, in his work entitled "Das Christenthum und
die Christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte," &c., has
examined this question with great good sense and fairness, and
I believe he has stated the truth as near as our authorities
enable us to reach it.
[D] In the Digest, 48, 19, 30, there is the following excerpt
from Modestinus: "Si quis aliquid fecerit, quo leves hominum
animi superstitione numinis terrerentur, divus Marcus hujusmodi
homines in insulam relegari rescripsit."
There is no doubt that the Emperor's Reflections--or his Meditations, as
they are generally named--is a genuine work. In the first book he speaks
of himself, his family, and his teachers; and in other books he mentions
himself. Suidas (v.[Greek: Markos]) notices a work of Antoninus in
twelve books, which he names the "conduct of his own life;" and he cites
the book under several words in his Dictionary, giving the emperor's
name, but not the title of the work. There are also passages cited by
Suidas from Antoninus without mention of the emperor's name. The true
title of the work is unknown. Xylander, who published the first edition
of this book (Z�rich, 1558, 8vo, with a Latin version), used a
manuscript which contained the twelve books, but it is not known where
the manuscript is now. The only other complete manuscript which is known
to exist is in the Vatican library, but it has no title and no
inscriptions of the several books: the eleventh only has the
inscription, [Greek: Markou autokratoros] marked with an asterisk. The
other Vatican manuscripts and the three Florentine contain only excerpts
from the emperor's book. All the titles of the excerpts nearly agree
with that which Xylander prefixed to his edition, [Greek: Markou
Ant�ninou Autokratoros t�n eis heauton biblia ib.] This title has been
used by all subsequent editors. We cannot tell whether Antoninus divided
his work into books or somebody else did it. If the inscriptions at the
end of the first and second books are genuine, he may have made the
division himself.
It is plain that the emperor wrote down his thoughts or reflections as
the occasions arose; and since they were intended for his own use, it is
no improbable conjecture that he left a complete copy behind him written
with his own hand; for it is not likely that so diligent a man would use
the labor of a transcriber for such a purpose, and expose his most
secret thoughts to any other eye. He may have also intended the book for
his son Commodus, who however had no taste for his father's philosophy.
Some careful hand preserved the precious volume; and a work by Antoninus
is mentioned by other late writers besides Suidas.
Many critics have labored on the text of Antoninus. The most complete
edition is that by Thomas Gataker, 1652, 4to. The second edition of
Gataker was superintended by George Stanhope, 1697, 4to. There is also
an edition of 1704. Gataker made and suggested many good corrections,
and he also made a new Latin version, which is not a very good specimen
of Latin, but it generally expresses the sense of the original, and
often better than some of the more recent translations. He added in the
margin opposite to each paragraph references to the other parallel
passages; and he wrote a commentary, one of the most complete that has
been written on any ancient author. This commentary contains the
editor's exposition of the more difficult passages, and quotations from
all the Greek and Roman writers for the illustration of the text. It is
a wonderful monument of learning and labor, and certainly no Englishman
has yet done anything like it. At the end of his preface the editor says
that he wrote it at Rotherhithe near London, in a severe winter, when he
was in the seventy-eighth year of his age, 1651--a time when Milton,
Selden, and other great men of the Commonwealth time were living; and
the great French scholar Saumaise (Salmasius), with whom Gataker
corresponded and received help from him for his edition of Antoninus.
The Greek test has also been edited by J. M. Schultz, Leipzig, 1802,
8vo; and by the learned Greek Adamantinus Corais, Paris, 1816, 8vo. The
text of Schultz was republished by Tauchnitz, 1821.
There are English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish translations of
M. Antoninus, and there may be others. I have not seen all the English
translations. There is one by Jeremy Collier, 1702, 8vo, a most coarse
and vulgar copy of the original. The latest French translation by
Alexis Pierron in the collection of Charpentier is better than Dacier's,
which has been honored with an Italian version (Udine, 1772). There is
an Italian version (1675), which I have not seen. It is by a cardinal.
"A man illustrious in the church, the Cardinal Francis Barberini the
elder, nephew of Pope Urban VIII., occupied the last years of his life
in translating into his native language the thoughts of the Roman
emperor, in order to diffuse among the faithful the fertilizing and
vivifying seeds. He dedicated this translation to his soul, to make it,
as he says in his energetic style, redder than his purple at the sight
of the virtues of this Gentile" (Pierron, Preface).
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