Timē is one of the oldest and most capacious words in Greek ethics. In Homer it is a social-material category: "honour" — distributed to warriors in the form of a share of spoils (γέρας), marks of respect from peers, a place in the hierarchy. Already in Plato and Aristotle the term divides into "external timē" (public recognition) and "internal timē" (correctly evaluating one's own worth and that of others, rendering to each what is deserved — what in Stoic ethics is bound up with justice). For the Stoics, external timē is ἀδιάφορον (indifferent): whether the sage receives it or not has no bearing on the status of his virtue. The only valent timē is the one a rational instance renders to itself, recognising the worth of its own nature. As a verb — τιμᾶν τι/τινα: "to esteem as worthy, to take as valuable, to give what is due."

Hom. Il. 1.118–187 (the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon — wholly about timē); Aristot. Eth. Nic. IV 3 (magnanimity and the relation to honour); SVF III 117–124 (the doctrine of timē as a preferred indifferent); Epict. Disc. 1.2.11–18; 4.5.21 (inner timē vs. outer); Ench. 24. In Marcus: Med. 2.6; 4.20; 5.18; 6.16; 6.59; 8.16; 9.14.

In 02-06 τιμᾶν ἑαυτήν ("to honour oneself") and TERMαἰδεῖσθαι ἑαυτήν ("to feel reverent shame before oneself") work as functional equivalents: both describe the rational soul's proper relation to itself. Lexically they are not one: timē comes from the root τιμ- (to value, to render honour); aidōs from the root αἰδ- (inner reverence). The semantic overlap: τιμᾶν ἑαυτόν is an act, aidōs the inner disposition that makes the act possible. In Marcus the pair generates a double register: "having no occasion to honour herself" (the outer / act-aspect) — "having no reverence before herself" (TERMthe inner / dispositional aspect). Linked to the doctrine of self-identity with the ruling part: τιμᾶν ἑαυτόν has a meaning only if I have an ontological "self" to which this relation can apply, and that self is my own reason.