Marcus clearly loved Rusticus dearly as a friend and looked up to him as a teacher, but he also found him exasperating at times, presumably because he frequently drew the young Caesar’s attention to flaws in his character. We can perhaps infer which aspects of Marcus’s character Rusticus challenged based upon comments in The Meditations. For example, Rusticus taught him not to be pretentious, encouraging him to dress like a normal citizen when possible. He also taught Marcus to be a careful and patient student of philosophy, to read attentively rather than just skimming things, and not to be
...more
