Three tenses in one glance. DOGMAπῶς πάντα τοιαῦτα, ὁποῖα νῦν γίνεται, καὶ πρόσθεν ἐγίνετο, καὶ… γενησόμενα — "how all things are such as they now come to be, and came to be before, and will be." Not "everything passes," but something stronger: there will be nothing new. Hence the adverb συνεχῶς — hold the consideration continuously, as a background (cf. 7.49; 6.46).

The theatrical metaphor. ὅλα δράματα καὶ σκηνὰς ὁμοειδεῖς — "whole dramas and stages of one form." The metaphor is exactly chosen: in a theatre what repeats is not the action but the production — the same plot performed by others. The closing formula says as much: πάντα γὰρ ἐκεῖνα τοιαῦτα ἦν, μόνον δι’ ἑτέρων — "for all those were just such, only through others." People are the cast, not the authors.

Five courts, and two of them his own. The series is chosen with calculation: PERSONHadrian and PERSONAntoninus are Marcus's own adoptive grandfather and adoptive father, courts he saw with his own eyes (ἐκ πείρας τῆς σῆς, "from your own experience"); Philip, PERSONAlexander, Croesus come from "the older history" (τῆς πρεσβυτέρας ἱστορίας). Marcus deliberately sets his own dynasty in one row with the copybook examples of reversal: his own court is as much an exhibit to him as the court of Croesus. Cf. 9.29, where Alexander and Philip are summoned and dismissed, and 4.32 (the times of Vespasian).

A note on the translation. Rogovin omits Antoninus: «весь двор Адриана, весь двор Филиппа, Александра, Креза». The loss is not harmless — with Antoninus goes the second half of the device, where Marcus names the court of his own adoptive father. Long keeps the list intact. The modernization restores it. The governing discipline is assent, the sustaining one desire.