Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

goSTOICISM.rulers, and Augustus, like his immediate successors,looked with apparent unconcern upon the spread ofthe Stoics, as of other sects.But in the days of Nero the Imperialattitude waswholly changed ;the leading Stoics of the age werestruck down by the strong hand of power, whilephilosophy in general was put under a ban, whichwas renewed from time to time, and was not finallyremoved till the tyranny of Domitian was over. Thepersecution had not in Nero's case at least the excuseof ignorant hatred, for he had been trained himselfin early years to follow the moral speculations ofhis teachers, till his mother stepped in to forbidthe studies as unworthyof a man of rank.His adviser,Seneca, who held the reins for him in his firstyears of government, had drunk deeply at the fountain-headof Stoic thought, and it had been one ofthe first signs of the emperor's wanton humour thathe loved to gather round him at his table professorsof the various schools of thought, and to make merrywith the hot disputes of their interminable dialectic.But in the year 59 a.d. the system of persecution wasbegun. If we may believe the somewhat questionableevidence in the memoirs of Apollonius of Tyana, thecharge of sorcery and magic was brought against theseekers after wisdom, some of whom were draggedbefore the courts, while others fled away from Romebefore the storm ; yet to the honour of the thinkersit is said that most of them stayed bravely at theirand were true to their convictions. One ofpostthe adherents of the Porch, indeed, Egnatius Celer,