ENGLISH COMMENTARY
The worship of Aesculapius had a great vogue in the second century a.d. He is the saviour and healer of men. This cult is known from literary sources, like the Sacred Orations of Aelius Aristides, with which Marcus would be familiar (he heard with emotion that author's speech on the disaster at Smyrna), and from the excavations at Epidamnus and elsewhere. Pater has drawn a charming picture of this healing art in Marius the Epicurean.
Notice the Stoic rationalization of ancient beliefs, a rationalization which was perhaps easier in the case of Aesculapius, who was originally a man, but a man with divine powers. Notice also the vein of etymology, so characteristic of Marcus, who had a very real interest in semantics.
Ch. 9. Medical treatment reminds the writer that philosophy is the medicine of the soul; that he is himself an invalid, at best a convalescent. Regard your call to philosophy as a call to cure yourself, look on the philosopher as a wise friend, not a pedant.
Ch. 10. Hitherto the temper of the Book has been of sustained cheerfulness; now philosophic doubt combines with disillusionment in a manner strongly contrasting with the brave optimism of ch. 8, and the simple commonsense of ch. 9. Compare the tone of ix. 3. With this vein of half despair the inward deity (ii. 13 and iii. 5) is once more mentioned, being here almost identified with the governing self.
The chapter closes with a reassertion of faith in the Universe, and in the power of the human will.
Ch. 11. This chapter is a pendant to ch. 10, suggested by reflection upon the deity within, and the contrast between it and a corrupted heart.
Moltke seems to have had this and similar passages in the Meditations in mind when he wrote in his Trostgedanken: 'the reason is absolutely sovereign; knows no authority above itself; no power can enforce it to accept as false what it has once recognized to be true.'
Ch. 12. A chapter in the cynical vein, which sits uneasily upon Marcus, to illustrate the contrast between real goods, viz. goods of the soul, and mere possessions, the wealth of the vulgar. There are many stories in the remains of Greek literature which resemble what he alludes to here. The best of these is told of Aristippus,
