The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANTONINUS
IT has been said that the Stoic philosophy
first showed
its real value when it passed from Greece to Rome. The
doctrines of Zeno and his successors were well suited
to the gravity and practical good sense of the Romans ;
and even in the Republican period we have an example
of a man, M. Cato Uticensis, who lived the life of a Stoic
and died consistently with the opinions which he professed.
He was a man, says Cicero, who embraced the Stoic
philosophy from conviction ;
not for the purpose of vain
discussion, as most did, but in order to make his life con
formable to its precepts. In the wretched times from
the death of Augustus to the murder of Domitian, there
was nothing but the Stoic philosophy which could console
and support the followers of the old religion under imperial
tyranny and amidst universal corruption. There were
even then noble minds that could dare and endure, sus
tained by a good
conscience and an elevated idea of the
purposes of man s existence. Such were Paetus Thrasea,
Helvidius Priscus, Cornutus, C. Musonius Rufus, 1 and
the poets Persius and Juvenal, whose energetic language
and manly thoughts may be as instructive to us now as
they might have been to their contemporaries. Persius
died under Nero s
bloody reign, but Juvenal had the good
fortune to survive the tyrant Domitian and to see the
better times of Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian. His best
I have omitted Seneca, Nero s preceptor. He was in a sense a
1
Stoic and he has said many good things in a very fine way. There is a
judgment of Gellius (xn, 2) on Seneca, or rather a statement of what
some people thought of his philosophy, and it is not favourable. His
writings and his life must be taken together, and I have nothing
more to say of him here. 35