Dramatis personæ. Getting acquainted with the Stoic teachers for oneself is a distinct pleasure of the study of our subject. For the benefit of those not already familiar with them, here are short introductions to the writers who will appear most often in the pages to come.
1 Major figures. Three Stoic writers dominate this book. On some topics all of them comment; on others, one specializes more than the rest.a. Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annæus Seneca) lived from about 4 BC to 65 AD. He was born in Spain; his father, who had the same name (and so is remembered as Seneca the Elder), was a teacher of rhetoric. The son – our Seneca – was taken to Rome when he was young. After a period spent in Egypt, an early career as a lawyer and politician, and a banishment to Corsica, he became a tutor and advisor to Nero, an emperor of odious reputation. Seneca also became very wealthy.Seneca was accused in 65 AD of joining the Pisonian conspiracy, which had unsuccessfully plotted the murder of Nero. He was ordered by the emperor to commit suicide, which he did; he cut open his veins and sat in a hot bath, though they say it was the steam that finally did him in. The episode is the subject of a fine allusion in The Godfather Part II.Seneca wrote letters, dialogues, and essays on philosophy, and also a number of plays. His writings are the most substantial surviving body of work on Stoicism and the largest source of material for this book. His wealth and political life have sometimes caused him to be condemned as a hypocrite whose life was inconsistent with his teachings; this issue is discussed in a brief essay in Chapter 13.b. Epictetus lived from approximately 55 to 135 AD. He was born in the region we now know as Turkey, and spent most of the first half of his life in Rome. (On that account I sometimes refer to him as one of the Roman Stoics.) When philosophers were banished by the emperor Domitian, Epictetus moved to Greece and established a school there.Epictetus left behind no writings. The words attributed to him are the notes of Arrian, a famous student in his school. From Arrian we have works known as the Discourses of Epictetus, as well as the Enchiridion (or handbook; Arrian wrote in Greek). We also have some fragments of less certain authenticity preserved by Stobæus (c. 500 AD). When you read Epictetus, it is best to imagine that you are seeing a rough transcript of what he said in class.Epictetus led a life very different from those of our other principal writers. He had a crippled leg. He was born a slave, and his later liberation gave him a curious connection to Seneca. As noted a moment ago, Seneca was accused of joining a conspiracy to murder Nero. The conspiracy was revealed in part by Epaphroditos, a secretary to the emperor. Epaphroditos was the owner of Epictetus and may have been responsible for freeing him, though this and much else in the life of Epictetus involves some conjecture. (Epaphroditos was later put to death for failing to prevent Nero’s own suicide. It was an age of hardball.)Epictetus studied in Rome under Musonius Rufus, another Stoic who left behind no writings of his own (but later we will see a couple of fragments from him, too). Musonius Rufus is probably best known now for teaching that women are as suitable for philosophical training as men.c. Marcus Aurelius (in full, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus) (121–180 AD). In 138, the emperor Hadrian selected his own successor, Antoninus Pius, by adopting him. Hadrian also arranged for Antoninus to adopt Marcus Aurelius, who was then a teenager. Antoninus Pius ascended to the throne soon thereafter and was emperor for more than twenty years. Upon his death in 160, Marcus Aurelius became emperor and reigned for nearly twenty years more – for the first eight years in partnership with his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus, and during the last few years in partnership with his son, Commodus, of whom the less said the better. For a stretch of time in the middle, Marcus Aurelius was emperor by himself, an improbable moment in which the most powerful person in the world may have been the wisest.Mostly while on military campaigns during the last decade of his life, Marcus Aurelius wrote philosophical notes to himself in Greek that we call his Meditations. He never described himself as a Stoic in his writings, but he was a devoted student of the philosophy and has long been treated as one of its defining authors.As is apparent from these notes, our Roman Stoics lived overlapping lives, but just barely. The first died when the second was young, and the second died when the third was young. So far as we know, none of them had any contact with each other. Marcus Aurelius does thank one of his Stoic teachers, Junius Rusticus, for giving him a copy of the Discourses of Epictetus, and he occasionally quotes from that work.
2 Supporting classical characters. A few other classical writers – not quite Stoics, but friends or cousins of them – will appear less regularly.a. Epicurus lived from 341 to 270 BC. He is associated, of course, with a philosophy of his own: Epicureanism. By reputation Epicureanism and Stoicism are opposites. The first is said to be a philosophy of sensual enjoyment and indulgence, the second a philosophy of austerity. Both reputations are misleading; the English word “Epicurean” nowadays gives an impression of Epicurus about as inaccurate as the word “Stoicism” does of the Stoics. The two schools of thought do differ in many significant ways, most prominently in the relationships they propose between virtue and happiness. Epicurus regarded pleasure as the only rational motive for mankind, whereas the Stoics thought that our sole rightful purpose is to act virtuously – to live by reason and to help others, from which happiness follows assuredly but incidentally. Despite these differences, however, the Epicurean and the Stoic agree on some important points in their analysis of judgment, desire, and other subjects.Like many other Hellenistic philosophers, Epicurus produced books and essays that have not survived. But we do have a small set of his writings – mostly a few letters and some sets of quotations. One of the larger sets was found in a manuscript in the Vatican Library during the 19th century (the so-called “Vatican Sayings”). Epicurus is also quoted here and there in the writings of other classical authors. Indeed, a number of the entries from Epicurus in this book were preserved by Seneca himself, who saw it as no cause for embarrassment.I shall continue to heap quotations from Epicurus upon you, so that all persons who swear by the words of another, and put a value upon the speaker and not upon the thing spoken, may understand that the best ideas are common property.Seneca, Epistles 12.11
This book will take the same liberty.
1 b. Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) lived from 106 BC–43 BC. He was one of the leading statesmen and philosophers of Rome and the most eloquent of its orators. His life was spent largely in political activity as a lawyer, quæstor, prætor, and consul. After the assassination of Julius Cæsar he advocated the rescue of Rome as a republic; when Mark Antony secured his place as one of the dictators of the Second Triumvirate, he ordered Cicero to be executed and mounted his head and hands in the Forum.Cicero turned to philosophical writing in the last phase of his life. Though much of his aim and achievement was to preserve Greek philosophical learning, he also made contributions of his own. His philosophical books were, until recent times, among the most widely read and influential of all ancient works. The extent to which Cicero can be considered a Stoic has been subject to debate; he shared some of their positions and rejected others. But he agreed with the Stoics on many points of ethics, and described Stoic principles in ways that sometimes are helpful to see.c. Plutarch (Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus) (c. 46–120 AD) was a prolific biographer and philosopher, and the author most notably of Parallel Lives and his essays collected as Moralia. He was born in Greece and lived most of his life there, though at some point he became a citizen of Rome. He also was a priest at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi for his last 25 years. In his philosophical writings he followed Plato and made many direct criticisms of