It is more likely that Marcus would have been influenced by the language of Epictetus, and if the Discourses and Enchiridion as relayed by Arrian are any clue, the language of Stoicism at this time was quite accessible to the common reason. It is absurd to assume Marcus would have wrote to himself in such a lofty, holier-than-thou, technical and abstract fashion (see: the “standard” George Long translation).
Marcus scolds those who obsess over rhetoric, grammar, syllogisms and logic crunching within the Meditations and for a very clear reason: he is concerned with a human message, primarily centered around ethics and pursuit of virtue, not any abstract theorizing common to the pretensions of imitation philosophy. Why would someone writing to themselves write in a technical manner reminiscent of a modern philosophical treatise? Why? Because that was the style in which ancient philosophy was translated in the early 20th century. Marcus never intended for his journals (which is what the Meditations are) to be published and was writing to himself.
This translation of the Meditations is by far the best stylistically.
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