Place in the book. An examination of conscience under the sign of a completed life: a review of one's conduct toward everyone — and of what one has won over the external. The discipline of action, with a secondary of desire.

A review of relationships. The list covers the whole web of duties: gods, parents, brothers, wife, children, teachers, guardians, friends, kinsfolk, servants — to each its own proper act (καθῆκον). The measure is set by a line of verse, "to have wronged no one in deed or word" (a hexameter of unknown authorship): justice in one's relations as the sum of a life.

Life as already complete. EXERCISE"The history of your life is now full, its service complete" (τελεία ἡ λειτουργία) — to look on one's life as a story already ended and a service already discharged. Not "how much is left," but "what has been done": the memory of death in the form of taking stock.

What has been won over the external. A catalogue of victories: how many pleasures and pains, and honours one has "despised" and "overlooked" (ὑπερεῖδες, παρεῖδες) — that is, denied the indifferent the status of a good or an evil; and — the summit — "to how many ungracious people (ἀγνώμονας) you were gracious (εὐγνώμων)": good returned for ingratitude.

Discipline and parallels. The principal discipline is action (justice toward all); the secondary is desire (contempt of the external, the view of life as complete). Parallel — Seneca's evening review of the day (De ira 3.36); cf. Med. 5.5 (what is in your power — the virtues — is available now).