The mechanism of substitution. The device is set out in five parallel commands: having seen X, TERMpicture Y. The pairs are built so as to join a living acquaintance with someone long dead; most of the names are unidentifiable, and this does not matter — what counts is the operation itself. The climax is the last pair: εἰς σεαυτὸν ἀπιδών — "having looked at yourself" — picture "one of the Caesars." Marcus places himself in the same series, and anonymously at that: not "Augustus" or "Tiberius" but "some one of them."

Where are they? The question is presented as something that must fall in of itself: συμπροσπιπτέτω σοι (the same verb as at 10.30, of the thought "he is compelled") — it is not deduced but drops in along with the picture. The answer is double, and the more terrible for it: οὐδαμοῦ ἢ ὁπουδή — "nowhere, or somewhere or other." Marcus does not choose between annihilation and another mode of being; for the argument it is enough that they are not here.

Smoke and nothing. DOGMAθεάσῃ τὰ ἀνθρώπινα καπνὸν καὶ τὸ μηδέν — "you will see human things as smoke and as nothing." And an intensification worth noting: TERMτὸ ἅπαξ μεταβαλὸν οὐκέτι ἔσται ἐν τῷ ἀπείρῳ χρόνῳ — "what has once changed will not be again in infinite time." This is the direct opposite of the motif of eternal recurrence (10.27): there the forms repeat, here the individual will never repeat. Marcus keeps both arguments and uses whichever works now.

The second half: a turn of 180°. The first paragraph devalues; the second restores value, but a different one. Οἵαν ὕλην καὶ ὑπόθεσιν φεύγεις — "what material and what assignment you are running from!": what looked like a hindrance is named raw stock. All of it is γυμνάσματα TERMλόγου, EXERCISE"exercises for the reason" that has looked at life ἀκριβῶς καὶ φυσιολόγως — exactly and with the eye of physics.

Two images of assimilation. The close offers a pair: ὁ ἐρρωμένος στόμαχος ("the strong stomach"), which makes everything its own (ἐξοικειοῖ — the οἰκει- root, the same as in oikeiosis), and MOTIFτὸ λαμπρὸν πῦρ — "the bright fire," which turns whatever is thrown in into flame and radiance. The second image is stronger than the first: a stomach assimilates food, but fire transforms even what is useless. The governing discipline is assent, the sustaining one desire.

Textual note. The Greek here reads Σευῆρον ἰδὼν Κρίτωνα ἢ Ξενοφῶντα — "having seen Severus, picture Crito or Xenophon." Both translations reverse the order: the one seen is Xenophon, the ones pictured Crito and Severus (Long, "when thou hast seen Xenophon think of Crito or Severus"; Rogovin, «подумав о Ксенофонте — Критона или Севера»). The modernization restores the order of the Greek.