Flesh — bodily matter. For the Stoics σάρξ belongs to the lowest layer of the human constitution — dense matter (ὕλη), which is in itself passive and moves only by the action of the subtle pneuma. Marcus systematically prefers the diminutive σαρκίον — "a poor scrap of flesh," "a weak little body" — as a stylistic device that strips the body of any claim to be the "I." Σαρκίον is not an organism but a material: blood, bones, the web of nerves and sinews.

SVF I 134, 518; II 458, 716 (the doctrine of pneumatic constitution and of the body as ὕλη). Marcus prefers σαρκίον: Med. 2.2; 4.41; 05-33; 6.13; 06-28 (πρὸς τὴν σάρκα λειτουργία — the service rendered to the flesh ceases at death); 9.36; 10-08 (ὑπέρφρων — the "stretching" of the thinking part above the smooth and the rough motion of the σάρξ); 10-24 (προστετηκὸς καὶ ἀνακεκραμένον τῷ σαρκιδίῳ — the ruling part "stuck fast" to the poor flesh and swinging in time with it); 10.33. In Book XII — 12-01 (the σαρκίδιον "grown about you": its sensation is referred to a separate department — ὄψεται τὸ πάσχον, "the part that suffers will see to it"). And 12-14 (the σαρκίδιον is named first among the things the surge is free to carry off).

In 02-02 σαρκία is the first of the three "parts" of the human being: "a scrap of flesh, a little breath, and the ruling part." The deprecatory morphology carries a philosophical load: the body is not "evil" (the Stoics are not dualists), but neither is it the "I" — it is an "indifferent" (ἀδιάφορον), a material. Its image in the passage is λύθρος καὶ ὀστάρια καὶ κροκύφαντος ("blood-slime, little bones, a weaving"; see flesh-as-network). The same strategy of anatomical dissection appears in Med. 4.41 (the well-known Epictetan "you are a little soul carrying around a corpse" — ψυχάριον εἶ βαστάζον νεκρόν) and in the exercise of physical definition.