S ince I know how anxious you are1 . . . . sheep and doves with wolves and eagles followed the singer, regardless of ambushes and talons and teeth. This legend rightly interpreted surely signifies this, that Orpheus2 was a man of matchless genius and surpassing eloquence, who attached to himself numerous followers, from admiration of his virtues and his power of speech, and that he so trained his friends and followers, that, though met together from different nations and endowed with diverse characteristics, they, nevertheless, lived sociably together in unity and concord, the gentle with the fierce, the quiet with the violent, the meek with the proud, the sensitive with the cruel. Then all of them gradually put off their ingrained faults, went after virtue and learned righteousness, exchanged shamelessness for a sense of shame, self-will for deference, ill-feeling for kindliness. But if ever anyone by his character had so much influence as to unite his friends and followers in mutual love for one another, you assuredly will accomplish this with far greater ease, for you were formed by nature before you were fitted by training for the exercise of all virtues.3 For before you were old enough to be trained, you were already perfect and complete in all noble accomplishments, before adolescence a good man, before manhood4 a practised speaker. But of all your virtues this even more than the others is worthy of admiration, that you unite all your friends in harmony. And I cannot conceal my opinion that this is a far harder task than to charm with the lyre the fierceness of lions and wild beasts: and you will achieve this the more easily, if you set yourself to uproot and utterly to stamp out this one vice of mutual envy and jealousy among your friends, that they may not, when you have shewn attention or done a favour to another, think that this is so much taken from or lost to themselves. Envy among men is a deadly evil and more fatal than any, a curse to enviers and envied alike. Banish it from your circle of friends, and you will keep them, as they now are, harmonious and kindly; but let it in any way spread among them, and it can only be stamped out with immense toil and immense trouble.
But prithee let us talk of better things. I love Julianus—for this discussion originated with him—; I love all who are fond of you; I love the gods who watch over you; I love life for your sake; with you I love letters; like all your friends I take deep draughts of love for you.
Marcus Aurelius to Fronto
? 140–143 A.D.
Hail, my dearest or masters.