Donald J. RobertsonPeople kept asking me to do a video about Stoic philosophy and living through the pandemic so here it is, everyone. I hope you find this entertaining and helpful. May you all be safe and well, fate permitting.
In February, I had the pleasure of being invited to give a talk on Stoicism and mental resilience to the US Marine Corps University in Quantico. While I was there I went into their studio to record an interview for their podcast Eagles, Globes and Anchors. You can listen via any of the links below.
I will describe what I hope will be sufficient for you, and may God protect you from all worries. — Al-Kindi
People often ask me whether there’s any relationship between Stoic philosophy and Islam. Islam probably shares some common themes with Stoicism, as do certain strands in Jewish and Christian thought. There may also be subtle indirect influences, which are hard to trace. However, scholars believe that the writings of arab Muslim scholar Al-Kindi may provide the best example of a more direct link between Islam and Stoicism.
The Stoic school was founded in Athens in 301 BC by a Phoenician merchant called Zeno of Citium. It was always associated with Athens. However, from around the 2nd century BC interest in Stoicism began to grip Rome. We’re told of the last famous Stoic of antiquity, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius:
He conducted many negotiations with kings, and ratified peace with all the kings and satraps of Persia when they came to meet him. He was exceedingly beloved by all the eastern provinces, and on many, indeed, he left the imprint of philosophy. While in Egypt he conducted himself like a private citizen and a philosopher at all the stadia, temples, and in fact everywhere. — Historia Augusta
The Roman provinces being referred to here were probably Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Cappadocia. Marcus appears to have visited some of the major cities in these regions while touring the eastern empire around 176 AD.
Indeed, during the five intervening centuries, while the Stoic school flourished, many of its most important teachers actually came from the near east, particularly the area surrounding the cities of Tarsus, in modern-day Turkey, but also Seleucia and Babylon in modern-day Iraq, Sidon and Tyre in Lebanon, and Alexandria in Egypt. We might potentially find traces of Stoic thought, therefore, among later Islamic thinkers who were born or studied philosophy at the centres of learning in these regions.
The Muslim scholar Al-Kindi has been called “The Father of Arab Philosophy”, although he was actually more of a polymath than simply a philosopher. Al-Kindi was born in Kufa in 801 AD, near the city of Baghdad where he later lived and studied. A thousand years before his time, in the 2nd century BC, two important Stoic philosophers, Diogenes of Babylon and his student, Apollodorus of Seleucia, hailed from this region. Another one of Diogenes’ students, Archedemus of Tarsus, reputedly travelled from Athens to Babylon to found a Stoic school there. It wouldn’t be surprising, therefore, to discover traces of Stoic thought in Al-Kindi’s writings. He was a prolific author and famous for helping to preserve Greek thought by introducing it to the arab world. Indeed, although he’s generally more associated with the teachings of Plato and Aristotle, one of his texts does show clear evidence of having been influenced by Stoic philosophy.
The text is a consolatio type letter offering Stoic-sounding philosophical advice on overcoming life’s sorrows. He says that remedy requires diagnosis and so he begins, in typical Socratic fashion, with a definition. “Sorrow” here refers to emotional pain caused by failing to obtain what we desire, or losing what we love. This concept that emotional distress is a consequence of desire seems to be derived from the Stoic definition below, although the two aren’t identical. The early Stoics taught that desire and fear are the primary irrational emotions or passions:
Pleasure and pain supervene on these, pleasure when we achieve what we desired or escape what we were afraid of, pain when we miss achieving what we desired or meet with what we were afraid of. — Stobaeus
We find this basic premise throughout the main surviving works of Stoicism, especially The Discourses of Epictetus.
Indeed, Al-Kindi sounds very much like Epictetus when he proceeds to emphasize that this definition, of desire as the cause of sorrow, should prompt us to ask to what extent it’s possible for someone to free himself from such desires.
For it is not possible for anyone to attain all that he desires or to be safe from losing all things loved. — Al-Kindi
He concludes that loss is inevitable because nothing material is permanent, everything changes, and permanence only exists in the intellectual realm of ideas. Following Plato, Al-Kindi’s solution is therefore to love only the eternal realm of intellectual things, synonymous with the Mind of God, where nothing changes, and loss is therefore inconceivable. Eternal things are, by definition, not transitory.
As for sensory possessions, sensory objects of love and sensory desires, they are available to everyone and attainable by any hand. It is not possible to safeguard against their decay, extinction and change. — Al-Kindi
What brings consolation, in the material realm, becomes a source of sorrow when it inevitably changes and is lost, as nothing lasts forever. All material things perish eventually. When we desire material things we act as though we wish they could be grasped forever. However, this is against their very nature so we are inevitably frustrated. “Thus he who desires transitory things,” Al-Kindi concludes, “and that his acquisitions and loved objects be of them will be unhappy.”
We must learn to transpose our desires from the realm of perishable material things to the eternal realm of the divine, grasped spiritually and intellectually, as Plato would say. We should enjoy, and be grateful for, material things when they are presented to our senses, but not crave them when they’re absent. “We should not regret what we have missed”, in other words, “and should seek among sensory things only what is accessible.”
Like the Stoics, Al-Kindi, compares this inner state to true kingship. This is the noble attitude of a king: “they enjoy everything that is a present object of observation to them with the Žfirmest action, and with the clearest indication of not needing it.” By contrast, the mean-spirited crave with eager anticipation the coming of every material blessing and bid farewell to every departing one with painful sorrow. The small-minded lack gratitude and acceptance, and can neither receive nor let go of good fortune wisely. We should rather “make ourselves, by means of good habit, content with every situation so as to be always happy.”
People, he says, go to great lengths, even enduring painful medical procedures, to look after the health of their bodies. We should therefore be more willing to endure hardship for the sake of our own minds or souls. Our soul is our true nature, he says, the body merely its instrument. In language, again reminiscent of Epictetus, he says that we should train ourselves to master our desires, building habits, beginning with small things and then progressing “from the smallest to the largest issues.”
The first psychological strategy he recommends consists in dividing our sorrows into two categories, depending on whether they originate in our own actions or the actions of others. Again, this is like Stoicism but slightly different. The Stoics typically employed this general strategy of dividing things into two broad categories, for simple decision-making. Most famously, although this is not the only example, the Handbook of Epictetus begins by advising us to distinguish between things that are “up to us” and things that are not.
Al-Kindi goes on to say regarding the forms of suffering caused by our own actions that we should simply stop doing them. Nobody truly desires to suffer and we therefore involve ourselves in the contradiction of desiring something that we don’t really desire when our own actions are the main source of our sorrow. However, if the cause of our suffering has to do with the actions of another we should ask ourselves whether resolving it is up to us or not. If it is up to us then we should resolve it. If it is something that is up to another person then, at the very least, we should not allow ourselves to be sad in anticipation, before the event happens, because the other person may still resolve what is upsetting us. Moreover, we should remember that time heals all wounds: “Every sorrow is necessarily dispelled by solace in some period of time if the sorrowful one does not die from the sorrow or at the beginning of the sorrow.”
We must remember that wallowing in misery is unnatural and wrong. The wise take measures where possible to remedy their unhappiness.
And we should not accept being miserable when we are able to be happy. One of the good devices for this is to remember the things that saddened us, which we have long forgotten, and the things that saddened others, whose sorrows and their solace from them we have witnessed, and to compare what saddens us with what saddened us in the past, and the things that sadden which we have witnessed, and the manner in which they ended with solace. — Al-Kindi
In order to console ourselves, as Al-Kindi puts it, we should look upon the suffering of others and remind ourselves that it the problems that afflict us are among the common lot of mankind. He illustrates this point with a story about Alexander the Great asking his mother, Olympias, to commemorate his death by inviting only those who have not been afflicted by disaster to attend a feast. When the day came, not a single person arrived, and so she exclaimed:
Oh Alexander! How much your end looks like your beginning! You desired to console me for the disaster of losing you with the perfect condolence, since I am not the Žfirst to suffer disasters and I am not singled out by them from any other human being. — Al-Kindi
Everything we have ever lost, Al-Kindi says, has been lost in the past by many other people. All of them, basically, if they survived, found a way to move on. Even events that seem catastrophic, such as the loss of a child, have been endured by millions of people in the past.
Al-Kindi repeatedly stresses that such sorrow comes from convention rather than nature and as such it could be felt otherwise. The wealthy experience it as catastrophic when they lose their fortune but millions of people have lived in far greater poverty with contentment, never having known anything else.
To desire that misfortune never happens would require desiring that things never change. However, existence requires cycles of generation and decay, the universe is change, so to desire an end to this would be to desire non-existence. If we want to experience life we have to be willing to recognize that change is natural, in other words, and accept the possibility of external misfortune.
The notion that all material things, including our own lives, should be viewed loans, from God or Nature, rather than true possessions, is a recurring theme in Stoicism. We find the same idea expressed here in relation to Islam.
We also should bear in mind that all that we have of common possessions is a borrowing from a lender, the Creator of the possessions, great be His praise, Who may reclaim His loan whenever He wishes and give it to anyone He wishes. — Al-Kindi
If we view things as our possessions, Al-Kindi says, we are bound to feel as though when God “takes it from us by the hands of the enemies that He is harming us”. However, to resent the return of that which has been loaned is petty and indeed, he says, contrary to the virtue of justice. He even says that resenting the fact that our possessions have been siezed by enemies is “silly and childish” because they are as though “messengers” of God, the lender, and it makes no difference when or by whom a loan is recalled. We should rather be grateful for having received it in the first place. The lender reclaims externals, which Al-Kindi calls the sort of things other people share with us. We should therefore also be grateful that he leaves us with that which is most important and valuable in life, our own intellect.
Al-Kindi says that fools entangle themselves in an “outrageous contradiction” because they hate the suffering that comes from the loss of material things, from which it follows that they should seek not to possess them. Yet they also feel sorrow about never having possessed the same things. So their desire to avoid the pain of loss, combined with their hatred of never possessing material things, condemns them to suffering forever.
It is related about the Athenian Socrates that it was said to him: ‘Why is it that you are not sorrowful?’ He responded: ‘Because I do not possess anything for the loss of which I will be sorrowful.’ — Al-Kindi
Al-Kindi contrasts this with a story about the Emperor Nero and his mentor the Stoic philosopher Seneca. It was said that someone gave Nero the exquisite present of a “uniquely crafted, precious, crystal dome”, in the presence of Seneca. Nero was delighted by the object and by how impressed those around him were with its beauty. So he turned to Seneca and asked him what he had to say about it. Seneca replied “I say that it reveals poverty in you and indicates a great disaster will befall you.” Nero, puzzled by this, asked him what he meant. Seneca explained that if Nero were to lose the precious gift then it would be hopeless for him ever to replace it, which highlights his poverty in that regard. He added, moreover, that if it became damaged or Nero lost it he would inevitably experience that as a great disaster.
We’re told that events unfolded precisely as the Stoic had predicted. When Spring came, Nero went to picnic on some nearby islands and ordered that the dome should be brought along with the rest of his baggage. The boat on which it was being carried sank, though, and the dome was lost forever. Everyone around Nero then reacted as though a great catastrophe had befallen him, just as Seneca knew they would. Nero was desperate to replace it but died before he could ever find another one.
“Accordingly”, Al-Kindi adds, “we say: He who desires that his disasters be reduced has to reduce his possessions of the things that are out of his hands”, i.e., he has to be willing to let go of external things. Presumably speaking of a pithos, a huge ceramic storage container of the kind that Diogenes the Cynic reputedly slept in, he writes:
It has further been said about the wise Socrates that one day he was staying in a broken jar in the camp where they were. An artist was present when Socrates said among other things: ‘We ought not to own so as not to be sorrowful.’ The artist then asked him what if the jar he was sitting in breaks? Socrates replied: ‘If the jar breaks, the place will not.’ What the philosopher said is true, because for everything lost there is a replacement. — Al-Kindi
Al-Kindi says that one who is preoccupied with increasing his external possessions, “will not gain eternal life; his temporal life will be disturbed, his illnesses will increase, and his pains will not cease.”
In this ephemeral world, situations are changeable, images are deceiving, and its ends disprove its beginnings — one who trusts is disappointed, and we should feel sorry for those who are dazzled by it. Al-Kindi now elaborates at great length on an allegory that appears to derive from the Stoic Epictetus, who wrote:
As on a voyage when the vessel has reached a port, if you go out to get water, it is an amusement by the way to pick up a shell fish or some bulb, but your thoughts ought to be directed to the ship, and you ought to be constantly watching if the captain should call, and then you must throw away all those things, that you may not be bound and pitched into the ship like sheep: so in life also, if there be given to you instead of a little bulb and a shell a wife and child, there will be nothing to prevent (you from taking them). But if the captain should call, run to the ship, and leave all those things without regard to them. But if you are old, do not even go far from the ship, lest when you are called you make default. — Epictetus, Encheiridion
Al-Kindi says that we resemble those who have boarded a boat heading for their homeland but have disembarked somewhere for a temporary stop. Some return to the boat when ready, without delay, and thus they get to claim the best seats for the remainder of the journey. These are the first type of person.
Others, a second type of person, lingered to survey the beautiful scenery, enjoying pleasant meadows, the scent of flowers, and the sight of trees laden with fruits, while listening to the glorious birdsong. They looked over pretty stones on the land, with bright colours and attractive patterns, and pretty shells with unfamiliar shapes. They could see all of this without straying very far. When they returned to the boat, though, others had already taken the best seats.
A third type of person, busied themselves gathering up the pretty stones and shells and picking the fruit from the nearby trees, and the flowers. They didn’t stray far either but when it was time to leave they returned burdened by the load they had gathered. They were like slaves or servants of the stones and shells, deceived by their beauty, and weighed down by them. The fruits and flowers too would spoil before long. Again, they found that others had taken the best seats on the boat already, and they were left with the cramped and uncomfortable corners of the boat. Moreover, their burden of stones, shells, flowers, and fruits, became a nuisance to them on the remainder of the journey, preventing them from being comfortable. Worse, they were forced to spend the rest of the voyage guarding their new possessions and protecting them from being damaged. Most of their leisure time was now spent worrying about these things, not being able to leave them alone — they found their souls clinging to them. In addition, these possessions caused them much sadness whenever they lost them or they became damaged.
Then come the fourth type of person. They left the boat and went far away into the meadows and thickets. They were too busy picking up pretty stones, shells, and flowers. They wandered deep into the bushes, distracted by their desire to get the best fruits from the trees. They forgot about the boat, the journey they were meant to be making to their homeland, and the sorrow that would result from their own actions. They exposed themselves to successive fears, in fact, fleeing predatory beasts, crawling snakes, terrifying noises, and scratching their faces and the rest of their bodies against hanging branches and cutting their feet on thorns. They became stuck in mud, and spoiled their clothes, struggling for a long time to make their way through the woods.
When the captain called for them to return, as the boat was ready to put to sea, some of them stumbled back onboard laden with their new possessions, as we’ve mentioned. They were the last to find seats, so ended up in the most uncomfortable quarters, and suffered considerably during the voyage, becoming more vulnerable to sickness as a result. However, others who had strayed into the thickets didn’t even hear the captain’s call. The boat sailed without them, leaving them behind on island, deserted and alone in a dangerous foreign land instead of taking them home. Some were preyed upon by wild beasts, some became ensnared by trifling pleasures, some became stuck in quicksand, others were bitten by the snakes. They died there, abandoned rotting cadavers, their limbs torn apart horribly.
Those who made it to the ship with the things they’d scavenged from the island had been deceived into thinking they were worth the trouble. They ended up throwing them into the sea because the flowers soon wilted, the fruits rotted, the shining colours of the stones faded when the seawater dried from their surfaces, and the pretty seashells crumbled and began to smell putrid. These things became a nuisance during the journey and they ended up discarding them and returning empty-handed despite the trouble they took over them. Some became sick during the journey because of their discomfort and because their belongings turned bad. They died before reaching their homeland. However, those who didn’t linger too long on the island returned quickly, found comfortable seats for the journey, and arrived at their destination in good health.
Marcus Aurelius appears to have in mind the same allegory, perhaps from having read Epictetus, when he says:
You climbed aboard, you set sail, and now you have come to port. So step ashore! If to another life, there will be no want of gods even in that other world; but if to insensibility, you will no longer be exposed to pain and pleasure, or be the servant of an earthen vessel as inferior in value as that serving it is superior, the servant being mind and guardian-spirit and the master mud and gore. — Meditations, 3.3
Al-Kindi likewise makes it clear that this story is meant to provide an allegory for “our passing from this world to the ‘world of truth’ and an example of the conditions of all who pass through this world.”
Al-Kindi also concludes by saying some very Stoic-sounding things. We should learn the true nature of evil, that it resides in our own moral errors, and thereby transpose our aversion from external things onto the vicius dispositions of our own soul.
We should bear in mind that we should not hate what is not bad; rather we ought to hate the thing that is bad. If this is Ž fixed in our mind, our capability is increased thereby to dispel sensory sorrows. We think that there is nothing worse than death, though death is not bad; fearing death is bad. As for death, it is the completion of our nature; for if there were no death there would be no human beings existing at all. — Al-Kindi
The saying that death is not bad, but rather our fear of death is bad, is classic Stoicism. This is true more generally: our own passions, such as fear and anger, do us more harm than the things of which we’re afraid or about which we’re angry. The notion that death is natural, and should therefore be viewed with relative indifference, is a recurring theme in Stoicism, particularly in The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
So, oh laudable brother, keep these pieces of advice as a permanent model for yourself and you will be saved from the injuries of sorrow and through them will arrive at the best home, the abode of permanence and the dwelling place of the righteous. — Al-Kindi
This is a dramatized account of the events surrounding the Antonine Plague, which spread across Europe in the late 2nd century AD. It inspired the discussion of these events in relation to Stoic philosophy found in my book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.
A horrific plague has been ravaging the Roman empire for nearly a decade, as the First Marcomannic War begins to draw to a close. Emperor Marcus Aurelius is putting the finishing touches to the journal we call The Meditations. The odor of death still lingers in every corner of the land, albeit less now than during the initial outbreaks, and the air in towns and cities was often thick with smoke and incense. Marcus regularly casts his mind back to the time when the pestilence first appeared… The co-emperor Lucius, his adoptive brother, had persuaded Marcus to accompany him as he rode through the streets of Rome in triumph after his victory in the Parthian War. Behind them followed a train of carts displaying all the treasures seized from conquered cities, including a beautiful statue of Apollo, stolen from a Parthian temple.
To help curb the victorious emperors’ pride two trusted gladiators stood behind them in the imperial chariot, holding laurel wreaths above their heads, whispering: “Remember thou must die.” That particular Roman tradition had become associated with Stoic philosophy. The Romans embraced Greek Stoicism because it seemed to echo the sober-minded values of the old Republic. From the time of Socrates onward, philosophers had meticulously contemplated their own death, as a way of purifying their character, and focusing their attention on the here and now. It was said that when Socrates’ student Xenophon was told that his son had been killed in battle he calmly replied: “I knew that he was mortal.” Five hundred years later, the most famous philosopher in Rome, Epictetus, advised his Stoic students to say to themselves: “I knew that I was mortal”. He taught them that death in itself is neither good nor bad; it’s merely something that happens to us, not something we do. The fear of death does more harm than death itself.
It is not things that disturb men but their judgements about them. For example, death is nothing catastrophic or else Socrates too would have thought so. Rather the judgement that death is catastrophic, this is the catastrophic thing. — Epictetus
The Stoics frequently argued for the indifference of death based on the notion that it is merely a form of non-existence. The man who wishes to live another thousand years is as foolish as one who wishes he was born a thousand years earlier because we are returning to the same state of non-existence we were in before we were born. Death is not a state of suffering because nobody remains to suffer. When death appeared to him to be an evil, Marcus had ready at hand the Stoic argument that only our actions can be good or evil. It is our duty to avoid evils, and yet death is unavoidable — therefore it cannot be an evil.
Epictetus’ Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus used to say: “It is not possible to live well today unless you treat it as your last.” Marcus repeatedly dwells on this theme, reminding himself to live in the present moment as if certain death were looming on the horizon. We will make progress toward virtue and perfect our character, he says in his notes, if we can only carry out every action in life with a sense of purpose while passing through each day as if it were our last, and we could depart at any moment. When a Stoic rises in the morning he tells himself “You may never sleep again” and when retiring to bed “You may not wake again”. He thereby trains himself to be grateful for each day ahead, and contented when it has run its course.
Memento mori… that’s what they said, “Remember thou must die”, but this time the words would come to seem ill-omened. Ironically, alongside all the gold and other spoils of war displayed at Marcus and Lucius’ triumph, the unwitting Roman legions had also brought back death from Parthia. They carried in their bodies an incurable and virulent disease. Like an invisible army, it marched through the empire, laying siege to one city after another, remorseless, merciless, and efficient. It was part of Marcus’ legacy, enveloping the whole empire, and would forever bear his family name: the Antonine Plague.
By the winter of 165 AD, the legions of Avidius Cassius had chased Rome’s enemy, King Vologases, deep into Parthia, down the River Tigris to the twin cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Ctesiphon was the capital of the Parthian Empire but the garrison left behind by the retreating king had no will to fight. After a brief siege, the city fell to the Romans and Vologases’ opulent winter palace was looted by them and razed to the ground. The nearby city of Seleucia was the former capital of the Seleucid Empire, founded by one of Alexander the Great’s successors. It was an ancient Hellenistic city that had been rebuilt in Parthian style after the emperor Trajan had sacked it and burned down many of the original buildings half a century before Cassius arrived. One of the largest cities in the Western world, with a population of roughly half a million of Greek, Jewish, and Syrian descent, its vast wealth was supported by trading goods, including silks from China.
Once Ctesiphon had fallen, the citizens of neighbouring Seleucia immediately surrendered and threw their gates open to Cassius’ legions, agreeing a peace treaty with them, and welcoming the Romans as liberators. However, they were repaid with bloodshed. Cassius let his legionaries run amok in the city, which they sacked like neighbouring Ctesiphon, before burning it completely to the ground. Vologases had fled but it was clear the tide of the war had now turned and before long he would sue for peace.
One of Marcus’ most trusted slaves told him the popular rumour… As Seleucia burned around them, a band of Cassius’ soldiers broke into the Temple of Apollo, it was said. They recklessly tore a magnificent statue of the god from its base, to be carted back to Rome for everyone to see. However, while looting the rest of the building, they came across a mysterious crack in one of the walls, through which they glimpsed a dark chamber. Guessing that something valuable probably lay concealed within, they set about trying to break through the opening into the hidden shrine room beyond. Some say that inside one of their number uncovered a mysterious golden chest, within which were sealed not treasures but fetid vapours cursed with an unholy pestilence by Chaldean sorcerers. Like the mythic Pandora, opening this supernatural casket, the unwitting Roman soldier released a multitude of horrors. The contaminated air flew up into his face, filled his lungs, and billowed out into the room around him, infecting his companions who then helped spread it across the known world — Apollo’s vengeance upon the defilers of his sacred shrine.
When the stolen figure of Apollo arrived in Rome the priests gratefully set it up in the temple to him on the Palatine Hill. However, the superstitious were unnerved by this wanton act of desecration. Apollo, the physician of the gods, was also the bringer of plagues, spread afar by his deadly arrows. So the masses were bound to view an affront against him, preceding the outbreak of the great plague, as more than coincidence. Indeed, Homer’s Iliad opens with Apollo sending a plague to punish the Mycenaean king Agamemnon, head of the Greek armies, who threatened the god’s high priest and refused to return his kidnapped daughter. The old man sent prayers for vengeance to Apollo Smintheus the patron of mice, rats, and plague. Everyone knew the story:
Apollo heard his prayers and came down furious from the summit of mount Olympus, his bow and quiver on his shoulder, and the arrows rattling on his back as the rage shook him. He settled down far from the ships, his face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang out as he shot the arrows of death into their midst. First he shot down their mules and dogs, but soon he took aim at the Greeks themselves, until pyres burned all day long with the bodies of their dead.
For nine long days Apollo shot the deadly arrows of pestilence down upon the Greek army, who were encamped on the beaches of Troy. Achilles complained “we are being cut down by war and pestilence at once” — a plight Rome shared during the first few years of the Marcomannic War. According to Homer’s epic, it was only when the girl was set free and enough ritual sacrifices were offered to Apollo by the Greeks that the plague finally began to relent. Throughout the empire, people were impotent in the face of the current plague. Sacrificing to the gods was virtually all they could think to do. And whatever its origin, it was just like the wrath of a god in its power to overwhelm great nations.
It was certainly true that the plague first infected the Roman army who looted Seleucia. Cassius turned back and marched for over thirty days to his base at Antioch, his troops laden with the spoils of their victory. However, he lost many hundreds of his men to plague and famine along the way. Once Vologases finally conceded defeat and the war ended, Lucius’ armies dispersed back to Rome, Italy, and their provincial bases throughout the empire. Along with Parthian gold they unknowingly brought home the plague. It was carried from Parthia back into the Roman provinces of Syria and Egypt, into Italy and Spain, along the Danube and the Rhine, into Gaul and even across the sea to the distant island of Britain.
The worst affected place was, of course, Rome itself, the destination for thousands of travellers from around the empire. With so many people, from so many parts of the world, living in such proximity, infectious diseases spread through the city like wildfire. As the epidemic peaked there, between 166 and 168 AD, the bodies of Rome’s citizens were being carted out by the wagonload, as many as two thousand per day. The weak fared worst, of course: infants, slaves, the sick and elderly. In Rome alone, perhaps about three quarters of the population contracted the plague, and about one quarter of those died as a result. For a time it was as though the city was turning into a vast necropolis. The infection rate was significantly lower outside the densely-populated major cities and army bases. The pandemic would last fifteen years altogether and at least five million people would die throughout the empire.
Many towns throughout Italy and the provinces were completely depopulated. The army was reduced by one tenth and for several years greatly diminished in its fitness for battle, which left the empire perilously vulnerable to fresh incursions by tribes on the northern frontier. As well as the impact on ordinary citizens, slaves, and soldiers, many Roman politicians and officials were lost to the plague, and Marcus often erected statues in honour of the distinguished men who died at this time. The deaths of so many senators left the Roman elite reeling and it meant that some official positions changed hands more frequently than before. The plague destroyed families, often leaving bereaved survivors lonely and depressed. Loved ones, especially children, often could not approach the dying victim’s deathbed because of the risk of contamination.
Sickness and loss of life on this scale, lasting many years, was also slowly wrecking the economy, by damaging transportation, hampering trade, and weakening the labour force throughout the empire. Many cattle and other domestic animals died, heaping famine on the miseries piling up from the pestilence. Marcus was forced to recruit thousands of gladiators and domestic slaves into the army to face down the Germanic tribes invading Italy across the empire’s northern borders. The emperor decreed that these men, called the Voluntarii or Volunteers, should be provided with weapons and armour at public expense like regular infantry. In reward for their service, they could often earn their freedom. At first these and some of Marcus’ other emergency measures caused unrest among the citizens of Rome. However, over the course of the war it became clear they were prudent.
Whether or not they believed the story about the casket, the Romans were naturally convinced that the current plague, like the one with which Homer’s Iliad opened, was a punishment sent against them by Apollo. However, Marcus knew that could not be true. The plague had, inevitably, spread beyond the northern frontier and infected the barbarian tribes they were fighting. It was probably also spreading through Parthia. If the gods punishing Rome then why infect her enemies as well? No, these were merely superstitions; the evidence contradicted them. After Cassius had taken Seleucia, he then penetrated deep into Parthia, as far as Media. Marcus thereby managed, for the first time, to get emissaries all the way to the far east. There they met the mysterious Seres people, who sold their raw silk to the traders of the Silk Road. The oriental merchants made a positive impression on Marcus’ ambassadors but disappointingly they showed little interest in Roman wares. The Romans also learned, however, that even far beyond Parthia in the distant and exotic land of silk, there were reports of the same plague that blighted Rome.
Nevertheless, every day more charlatans and madmen appeared in Rome, preying on the gullible. One of the most notorious ones had been constantly preaching to the crowds from atop the wild fig-tree on the Campus Martius. He was on the verge of starting looting in the streets of Rome by prophesying that any day the gods were about to send down fire from the heavens to engulf the city and that the end of the world was nigh. He predicted that he would be transformed into a stork when the apocalypse was upon them and tried to dupe the crowds by falling from the tree and releasing a bird concealed beneath his cloak. They saw through this hopeless ruse, though, and he was brought before the emperor for judgement. Marcus quickly surmised that he was touched by madness, and pardoned him without a fuss. The last thing he wanted was to make martyrs out of these religious lunatics.
One of the most bizarre cults had become surprisingly influential. A handsome and charismatic conman called Alexander of Abonoteichus founded a shrine hosting a human-headed snake-god he’d invented called Glycon. Alexander received visitors in a dark room, where he sat with a large serpent, whose head he concealed, exposing only the body to view. He’d constructed a life-like human head for the snake, with long flowing locks, which delivered cryptic oracles. In reality, his assistants made “Glycon” appear to talk by speaking through hidden tubes attached to the glove puppet. Alexander became very wealthy and powerful as a result of receiving payment for his prophecies and magical charms. Coins were even cast in honour of the god “Glycon” and statuettes made of him. During the height of the plague, Alexander was claiming to heal the sick with incantations. A crude verse from his oracle was used on amulets and inscribed over the doors of houses as a protection against the plague: Phoebus, the god unshorn, keepeth off plague’s nebulous onset. He survived the plague but died of gangrene, an old man, around 170 AD. However, his ridiculous cult lived on for many years, exploiting the widespread belief that the sun-god Apollo, also known as Phoebus, was inflicting the plague on the empire.
Marcus had no interest in superstition but it was nevertheless his duty as emperor, and high priest, to enact the outward rituals of the state religion. When the barbarians invaded from the north, at the height of the plague, Rome was gripped with panic. Marcus delayed setting out for war while he summoned foreign priests from all over the empire to purify the city through all manner of religious ceremonies, as a concession to the masses. He was even persuaded to perform the ancient Roman ceremony of the feast of the gods, called the lectisternium. This elaborate ritual, lasting seven days, was first carried out by Romans over five hundred years earlier. It was introduced to alleviate another plague by appeasing the gods, although Marcus mainly hoped to appease the citizens.
Marcus reflected that instead of viewing the pestilence as if it were a punishment from the gods, or as if the people of Rome had been abandoned, he should try to interpret it as a divine prescription. His mind kept returning to a line from Euripides’ Antiope: “If I and my sons are forgotten by the gods, then even this must have a reason.” At first, to be sure, it was difficult to see things this way. However, as the years had passed he’d slowly become more used to the lingering presence of the the pestilence all around him and the constant news of others’ deaths. In short, the plague had become a fact of life for Romans. With daily practice, the emperor had learned to respond as philosophically as could be expected under the circumstances. If this had any meaning it was not as some vengeful punishment but as a daily lesson, from which the gods were challenging him to learn something about the meaning of mortal life.
Every day, he tried, as a Stoic, to accept the hideous reality before him as if it were the prescription of a sage-like physician, necessary to develop his own health and that of the empire, not unlike some bitter medicine or painful surgical procedure. What lessons could he learn from it? That death lurks even in Arcadia, and that the bones of Alexander the Great and his mule-driver now mingle in the same dust. We must face reality, no matter how grim, and learn to expect that life will prescribe us all a mixture of both good and bad fortune.
Marcus only one mentioned the plague itself once in his philosophical notes. That was that however bad the physical disease surely was, one thing was even worse: the mental plague of corruption and vice. Indeed, the plague itself had brought moral decay, particularly at Rome. With so many people dying unexpectedly, society was thrown into turmoil. Inheritances changed hands rapidly, sometimes leaving vast fortunes in the hands of unintended recipients. At Rome, and even in other parts of the empire, criminals seized on the opportunity to carry out paid assassinations under cover of the plague. They smeared thin needles with infected fluids and tried to stab their victims unnoticed. When they contracted the disease, it was hoped nobody would suspect foul play. The plague literally allowed unscrupulous people to get away with murder. Nevertheless, many such men were reputedly exposed and prosecuted. Such people, surrounded by death and suffering, inevitably began to question the rule of law and the value of religion and morality. If you might die any day, then what reason do you have to care about right and wrong? At least that’s how certain individuals responded, showing their true character in the face of adversity. Marcus tried to see things in quite the opposite way. By reflecting on his own mortality, and the uncertainty of life, he tried to find motivation to live honourably in the present moment, at all costs.
Marcus and Galen had one thing in common. They both sought to understand the plague rationally and objectively, as a natural phenomenon. Galen as a physician, and Marcus as a philosopher. The plague was spread mainly by coughing and sneezing. The first symptoms were a raging internal fever and painful swelling in the back of the throat, probably also headaches and muscle pains similar to influenza. By around the ninth to twelfth day, according to Galen, the other symptoms would erupt, and the fever would presumably break. A few individuals died even during this initial stage. Galen described how some victims initially developed catarrh and a slight cough, which became severe as the infection progressed, until they began bringing up blood and tissue from the ulceration inside their windpipe. If the infection spread to their larynx, it could become difficult to speak. Around the same time, a horrific rash would begin spreading over the body, which usually erupted in clusters of raised pustules. The rash would often turn dark, as blood haemorrhaged into the blisters and congealed, sometimes covering the whole body with rough charcoal-coloured patches of scab. These would eventually peel off like coarse scales, exposing the flesh underneath, if the patient was healing.
All Galen’s victims suffered also from internal ulcers, severe stomach pains, and diarrhea. Vomiting and malodorous breath were also common symptoms so that sufferers would often begin actually to smell of the plague. Excrement first became yellowish-red from lesions bleeding into their intestines then, as the other symptoms erupted, it started to turn black and fetid. Galen used this to make a crude prognosis: each patient whose faeces was very black with congealed blood was soon found dead. However, once the more severe symptoms had manifested, the infection would typically only last another three days or so.
The disease tended to run its course within about two or three weeks, by which time roughly one quarter of victims would lie dead. So individual outbreaks would normally last no more than a year or two, although additional outbreaks would appear in different cities and towns, and recur again years down the line, affecting particularly the youngest generation. Those who survived would typically find themselves immune to further infection. Most remained visibly scarred with pockmarks. In many cases the blisters actually spread onto the surface of their eyes and victims were left blind, or partially sighted, as a result. In a few cases, the joints were left arthritic, which could lead to permanent limb deformities.
Marcus observed these symptoms carefully in others and discussed them with Galen and the rest of his court physicians. Everything that befalls a philosopher is potentially an opportunity to move one step closer toward wisdom, self-mastery and freedom. Marcus regularly contemplated his own death, every day, and whenever events seemed to prompt him to do so. The plague certainly made it easy to imagine death and suffering. His duty as a Stoic was to anticipate the worst that could happen to him, as if it were already happening, and his own death as if it were imminent. This ancient philosophical exercise might at first look the same as ordinary worrying but it was quite the opposite. The Stoic embraced misfortune with a philosophical attitude, something he practiced assiduously as part of his constant training regime. If Marcus saw something that horrified him, he made a point of imagining it was happening to him, until his fear naturally abated over time.
When fever comes upon us, said Epictetus, we should be ready with the mind-set and opinions required to endure the symptoms. No true philosopher should forget everything he’s learned about wisdom and strength of character just because of an illness. What use is philosophy if it does not prepare us for misfortune? A philosopher who loses his nerve in the face of the plague would be like a boxer who flees the ring as soon as he takes a punch. “I must die”, said Epictetus, “but must I die groaning?” He frequently told his students that bearing sickness well was part of life and something they should all be prepared for:
If you bear a fever well, you have all that belongs to a man in a fever. What is it to bear a fever well? To blame neither God nor man; to be unperturbed by whatever happens, to anticipate death nobly and well, to do whatever must be done. When the physician comes in, to be neither alarmed by what he says nor overjoyed if he says, “You are doing well”. — Epictetus
Marcus had often imagined the fever spreading through his own body, leaving him frail and bedridden. He closed his eyes and pictured it once again… The raw pain developing in his throat, as he struggled to breathe or to speak. The itchy rash creeping over his flesh, day by day, breaking out in clusters of hideous pustules as he watched helpless, slowly turning into patches of black crust all over his face and body. The nausea, pain, and discomfort. Not knowing if you’ll live through the night, as your body slowly bleeds into your bowels. This was how he had learned to contemplate his own death. Not as an abstract concept but as if he could almost reach out and touch it, as if he could even taste and smell it.
Marcus had seen many things in his life… Bodies torn apart by wild beasts in the Coliseum. Men being swiftly beheaded, slowly crucified, or burned alive at the stake. Bodies hacked to pieces on the battlefield. Men, women, and children, deformed by illness, and contorted with pain and suffering. Nothing really compared to the horrors of the plague, though. Not even the proverbial bull of the tyrant Phalaris, a bronze sculpture in which victims were locked so that a fire could be lit underneath it, slowly roasting them alive. Man had not spared his creativity when it came to torture. The only thing Marcus could think of worse than the suffering of the plague was Persian scaphism, or “the boats”. The victim was stripped naked and nailed inside two wooden boats, one on the top of the other, with their head and limbs protruding. Then they were set afloat in a marsh, under the blazing sun, and force-fed milk and honey each day, which was also smeared on their face and body to attract swarms of insects. The prospect of his own death, however, troubled Marcus less with year that passed.
In the Phaedo, as he awaited execution Socrates was asked by his friends to speak to them as though a little child remained within their minds, fearing death like it was a scary bogeyman. Reassure us there is nothing to fear, they asked. Socrates replied: “You should sing a charm over that child every day until you have charmed away his fears”. The Stoics liked this idea of death as a kind of bogeyman, the analogy with scary masks that frighten small children by their appearance. We should strip away the superstitions and false value-judgements that make death appear like a monster: “Turn it about and learn what it is; see, it does not bite”, as Epictetus put it. In Marcus’ time, death came to wear the grotesque mask of plague everywhere he went, from the palaces and mansions of Rome to the gritty army camps on the Danube.
Even when surrounded by death the majority of people live as if their own demise were somehow uncertain. By continual mental rehearsal Marcus sought to strip away that mask, as Epictetus had taught, and view his own life and death like a Stoic: nakedly, objectively, and philosophically.
“But now it is time to die.” Why say “die”? Don’t make the matter into some sort of tragic show but rather speak of it as it is: “It is now time for the material of which you are composed to be returned to the elements from whence which it came.” And what is so catastrophic about that? — Epictetus
In any case, the plague was far from the only cause of death, and along the northern frontier, men were hacked down often enough in battle. Death can come from any quarter, so if we’re to fear it we should be on our guard at every moment, which is absurd. They say the Greek playwright Aeschylus was killed by a tortoise that was dropped onto his head from the claws of an eagle flying overhead. You can be killed by anything. To be everywhere is to be nowhere, though, and to fear everything is to fear nothing.
Marcus made a point of noting down to himself that in addition to the genuine Stoic arguments concerning the “indifference” of death there was a powerful but “unphilosophical” form of persuasion he liked to use on himself. That’s simply to ask: “Do I really want to emulate the sort of people who most fear their own death?” Go ahead and list the names of people who have tenaciously clung onto life and ask yourself whether they came any closer to genuine fulfilment as a result? No man can have a life worth living as long as he is afraid of dying. And to learn how to face death is to unlearn how to be a slave.
Galen, the most exceptional physician of the period, was in Rome from the first outbreak of the plague there in 166 AD and he studied it at its peak during the following two years. He was one of the few brave souls who observed the dying closely and tried to understand the disease rationally. At the very time when they were most needed, many good physicians were among the first to be lost, as they naively exposed themselves to those contaminated. However, Galen, who believed himself chosen by the gods, was among those who proved immune and as a result he rose to prominence as one of the leading authorities on the nature of the disease.
During the winter of 168 AD, as the initial outbreak at Rome began to abate, Marcus and Lucius summoned Galen to their winter base in the Italian city of Aquileia, to serve as their court physician. However, the following year he was sent back to Rome again to attend to Marcus’ only surviving natural heir, the young Caesar Commodus, merely a boy of seven at this time. Marcus wrote in his notes to himself that while some men pray “How may I save my little boy?” the Stoic should learn instead to pray “How may I be free from worry about losing him?” He also noted to himself that for the heart to say “Oh let my children be safe!” is like the eye wanting only to see pleasant sights — a kind of denial, which goes against our rational nature.
The better physicians, employing reason and careful observation of the disease, advised Marcus to stay far away from Rome, at least until the initial outbreak had subsided. They recommended the fresh air of his beautiful coastal retreat at Laurentum but Marcus was committed to accompanying the army on the northern frontier, where the legionary forts were also experiencing outbreaks of the plague. Physicians recommended keeping to the shade in summer and also noted that the plague tended to take more lives in the winter months.
Galen prescribed the compound known as theriac as a general tonic and preventative medicine to Marcus and others who could afford it. Galen had written at length about this complex, ancient panacea. It contained dozens of supposedly medicinal ingredients, from myrrh to viper flesh. However, it was not entirely a placebo as it also included varying amounts of opium poppy juice, which would at least have alleviated the symptoms of pain, coughing and diarrhea from plague sufferers, and they may also have obtained relief from other ingredients. However, it was too expensive for most ordinary Romans because it contained so many obscure ingredients, and was fermented for up to twelve years before being eaten in chunks or sometimes applied as a salve to the body.
Many doctors advised those remaining in Rome and other infected areas to smear their nostrils and ears with scented oils. Incenses like myrrh hung in the air and bonfires were frequently lit in the towns and cities because it was widely believed that the smoke could purified the atmosphere of pestilent vapours. Of course, this did nothing. Some degree of discomfort was alleviated by applying herbal remedies externally to the pustular rashes of victims. However, ensuring proper burial of the dead was one basic measure the state could take to try to limit the spread of disease. Marcus insisted that funeral ceremonies should be performed for the poor, at the public expense if necessary. The emperors also jointly ratified stringent new laws regulating burial, which prohibited building tombs above ground on country estates. Those who survived, and acquired immunity, were encouraged to tend other sufferers and assist with funerary rites.
Some people believed that certain philosophers were resistant to disease because of their moderate habits and healthy lifestyle. Socrates was said to have been so disciplined in his way of life that when plague broke out among the Athenians, on several occasions, he was the only man who escaped infection, including during his military service in the siege of Potidaea. Since he was a young boy, Marcus had embraced the philosophical way of life, eating and drinking plain food in moderation, taking appropriate daily exercise, sleeping in moderation on a crude military camp bed, and so on. Certain aspects of his Stoic lifestyle, combined with the privileges of his status, probably helped him to survive to the age of nearly sixty, at a time when the average life expectancy at Rome was more like thirty-five, at best. However, others were not so fortunate.
Marcus was surrounded by death and disease, on an almost unprecedented scale. He wished that he could have done more as emperor to alleviate the suffering of the Roman people. He lost many loved ones himself in a short space of time, during the initial spread of the plague. In the winter of 166–167 AD, when the first outbreak at Rome was reaching its peak, his close friend and former Latin rhetoric tutor died, Marcus Cornelius Fronto. Marcus may not have sought to emulate Fronto’s character, the way he did those of his philosophical tutors, but he trusted him, and loved him very dearly. He was old and sickly, so Marcus was prepared for his death, but with the most affectionate of his childhood mentors now gone the emperor was left feeling more alone than ever before.
However, the most publicly conspicuous of all the deaths from plague was that of his adoptive brother and junior co-emperor, Lucius Verus. Marcus and Lucius were returning to their winter base at Aquileia from the initial expedition of the Marcomannic War when news reached them that plague had now also broken out there. They changed course to nearby Altinum, where Lucius soon died of the fever. Lucius had been expected to outlive Marcus, who was prone to chronic health problems and nine years his senior. However, when the plague took Lucius unexpectedly, aged thirty-nine, Marcus was suddenly left sole emperor, and another important piece of his family, another link with his childhood, and his own sense of identity, had been torn away.
Shortly after Lucius, Marcus’ youngest son, Marcus Annius Verus, also died. Aged seven, he had been appointed Caesar three years earlier along with his brother Commodus, his elder by one year. Young Marcus Annius was the sixth of Marcus’ sons to die. Marcus certainly did not have a heart made of stone or iron and Stoics were not taught to suppress natural emotions. He could be moved to tears by bereavement. On one occasion, reminded of his own loss, he was overcome with grief and wept in public when he heard an advocate say in the course of an argument “Blessed are they who died in the plague.”
In his notes to himself, Marcus referred several times to ways of coping with the feared or actual loss of one of his children, clearly a preoccupation with him. Marcus and Faustina had already lost six of their thirteen children before the plague even appeared. He quotes a line from Homer’s Iliad: “Such are the races of men as the leaves that the wind scatters earthward.” Marcus reminded himself to think always of his children in the same brutally honest way, as leaves in the wind, accepting the fact that they are mortal, their lives are transitory and beyond his ability to control. Not to take their lives for granted but to face the stark reality of their vulnerability, and the possibility of losing them, especially during the plague.
Many grains of frankincense on the same altar: one falls before, another falls after; but it makes no difference.
Under the shadow of the plague, the air in Roman towns and cities remained heavy with the smell of medicinal incense, particularly frankincense and myrrh.
The only male child Marcus now had left as heir was Commodus. He was bound to worry that Commodus’ life could be snatched away from him at any moment. He wrote in his notes, “Stick with first impressions. I see that my little boy is sick. That his life is in danger? That I do not see.” His ongoing battle with worries over Commodus’ safety were carefully worked through in writing, in his philosophical journal, and in his daily Stoic meditations.
At that time, with Lucius suddenly gone, Commodus was aged eight and too young to safely take the throne if anything happened to Marcus. There had to be an adult heir in place. So Marcus urgently sought a man he could trust as a potential interim successor. He chose his most faithful general, Claudius Pompeianus, whom he immediately betrothed to Lucius’ widow, Lucilla. Pompeianus now became the most obvious candidate to be acclaimed emperor by the legions should Marcus die of plague or in the wars before Commodus reached manhood. However, his new son-in-law declined Marcus’ offer to make it official by designating him Caesar. Instead Pompeianus would live to see Commodus come of age and be appointed Marcus’ co-emperor.
Marcus had, in fact, learned much about parental love from Stoicism. For the Stoics, Zeus was pre-eminently the father of mankind, who cared for all of his children both individually and collectively. One must learn to emulate Zeus by being wise and dispassionate yet full of natural affection toward others, especially one’s family and children. He thought of his Stoic teacher Apollonius of Chalcedon as someone from whom he could learn steadiness of purpose, constant rationality, and how to cope with pain, illness, or the loss of a child. From another tutor Cinna Catulus he had also learned to love his children in accord with Stoic wisdom. Stoics are taught that such parental love has a special place, as the foundation of ethics. They are to love their children while accepting their mortality, and the fact the lives of others are ultimately beyond our control.
However, it must be reconciled with reason, and our loved ones must be viewed through the lens of their mortality. He learned from Epictetus’ Discourses:
If you kiss your own child, a brother, or friend, never give free reign to the experience, and do not allow your pleasure to run amok. Keep it in check, and restrain it as the slaves do who stand behind generals riding in triumph and remind them that they are mortal. Remind yourself in the same manner that the one you love is mortal, and that what you love is not really your own. It has merely been loaned to you for now, not so that it should never be taken back from you. Neither has it been given to you for all time, but in the same way a fig is given to you or a bunch of grapes during a particular season of the year. However, if you wish for these things in winter, you are a fool. So if you wish for your son or friend when it is not allowed to you, you must know that you are wishing for a fig in winter.
Epictetus asked his students: What harm it can do to mouth the words “Tomorrow you will die” when kissing your child? Yet some superstitious people are afraid that these are words of bad omen, that it’s dangerous to say or even think anything negative. What matters is that facing unpleasant thoughts can be healthy for us. You might as well say that it’s evil for the ears of corn to be reaped but it’s merely a natural process of change. You might as well say that the falling leaves are something negative, or a bad omen, or for a fig that was ripe to become dried up, or grapes to turn to raisins. All these things are merely substances changing from one state into another, nothing is really destroyed. Life is change. For man, travelling away from his home is a small change of state, and death is merely a bigger change. Shall we no longer exist? We will not exist as you are now but as something else, which has its place in the world. And we also first came into existence not when we chose to be born but when the world chose to create us. That was the Stoic teaching Marcus had received from Epictetus via Junius Rusticus.
“Remember thou must die”, the slave had whispered to Marcus as the crowds cheered. The statue of Apollo, seized from Parthia, followed behind them, draped in other looted treasures. Marcus had been persuaded by Lucius to follow him in taking the title Parthicus, conqueror of Parthia. As the plague crippled Rome’s legions, though, King Vologases soon took back most of the Parthian territory he’d lost to Avidius Cassius. Not long after the plague took Lucius, as the Roman hold on Parthia slipped, Marcus chose to drop the title Parthicus from his own name. It seemed dishonest. The legacy of Lucius’ war was death.
The year after he lost his co-emperor Lucius and his son, the young caesar Marcus Annius, Marcus most cherished philosophy tutor, the Stoic Junius Rusticus, also died at Rome. Rusticus was also Marcus’ right-hand man in Rome, where he had served as the urban prefect during the first few years when the plague was at its height. Rusticus was an older man, around Fronto’s age, but his loss still came as a heavy blow, and signalled a kind of death within Marcus himself. Fronto and Rusticus had been rivals, vying to win the young Marcus over to rhetoric and philosophy respectively. Rusticus finally succeeded in converting Marcus to Stoicism in his twenties, and set the pattern for the rest of his life. Having lost his two most beloved tutors in close succession, both close friends and advisors since his childhood, Marcus was now cut adrift, and found himself facing a major change. A new phase of his life would have to begin in which he was more independent, both emotionally and intellectually. He would need to find the inner strength to continue on the same course, without his mentors and allies. Increasingly, he turned to his new friends in the military, and the legionary bases became his home instead of Rome.
Marcus wrote in his notes that he should contemplate his life in terms of distinct stages, and the transition from each to the next, each step in the ladder of change, as a kind of death. As we grow from infants, into children, adolescents, and go through various stages of adult life, many things cease or change for us. The child dies when the man is born. We should repeatedly ask ourselves: “Is there anything catastrophic here?” Marcus the student of philosophy and rhetoric had died, to some extent, along with his childhood tutors. Marcus as sole emperor had been forced to become increasingly self-reliant as he matured into the role of philosopher-king and supreme military commander. The great crisis of Marcus’ reign, the Marcomannic invasion, followed close on the heels of the plague’s initial outbreak, and tested Marcus’ Stoicism even more profoundly.
Marcus Aurelius is famous today as a Roman emperor who was also a Stoic philospher — perhaps the closest history has to the ancient Platonic ideal of the philosopher-king. Marcus lived nearly five hundred years after Alexander died yet he’s still a figure who looms large for him, as he did for most Roman leaders. Indeed, Marcus mentions Alexander five times altogether in The Meditations.
However, Marcus doesn’t revere Alexander and seek to emulate or outdo his military achievements. Instead, he views him from the perspective of Stoic philosophy, with a greater degree of cynicism regarding his love of conquest. Contrast this with the stories about Marcus’ predecessor, Julius Caesar, reported by three Roman historians: Plutarch, Suetonius and Cassius Dio.
Dio says merely that when Caesar beheld a statue of Alexander, in the temple of Hercules, at Gades in Spain, “he had groaned aloud, lamenting that he had performed no great deed as yet.” With the detail in mind that Alexander died at the notoriously young age of thirty-two, Plutarch tells a slightly more elaborate version of the story:
[We are told that] in Spain, when he was at leisure and was reading from the history of Alexander, he was lost in thought for a long time, and then burst into tears. His friends were astonished, and asked the reason for his tears. “Do you not think,” said he, “it is matter for sorrow that while Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet achieved no brilliant success?” — Plutarch, Life of Caesar
Suetonius likewise says that:
Noticing a statue of Alexander the Great in the temple of Hercules, he heaved a sigh, and as if out of patience with his own incapacity in having as yet done nothing noteworthy at a time of life when Alexander had already brought the world to his feet, he straightway asked for his discharge, to grasp the first opportunity for greater enterprises at Rome. — Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
At one point, Marcus possibly implies that in addition to his philosophical notebooks he was writing a historical account of famous Greeks and Romans.
Run astray no longer; for you are not likely to read those notebooks of yours, or your accounts of the deeds of the ancient Romans and Greeks, or the extracts from their writings which you were laying aside for your old age. (3.14)
It may be that this would have focused on some of the historical figures he likes to mention in The Meditations, such as Alexander the Great. However, as we’ll see, Marcus’ appraisal of the deeds of these “ancient Romans and Greeks” would undoubtedly have criticized them, from the perspective of Stoic ethics.
Marcus tends to lump Alexander together with Julius Caesar, and his rival Pompey the Great, as examples of famous military leaders, who are nevertheless viewed with disdain by philosophers. For instance, Marcus says that Alexander, like Julius Caesar and Pompey after him, “often razed whole cities to the ground and slaughtered tens of thousands of horsemen and foot-soldiers on the battlefield.” Nevertheless, he says, “there came a day when they too departed from this life” (3.3).
Indeed, “Alexander the Great and his stable boy were brought to the same level in death”, for they were either dissolved back into the soul of Zeus, or perhaps merely scattered alike among atoms (6.24). Either way, for the Stoics, they were both returned to the same state. The achievements of these rulers impress ordinary people but they’re of little importance in the grand scheme of things. Though remembered for many centuries, they will one day be forgotten.
Indeed, Marcus appears to have viewed Alexander’s legacy as short-lived. According to Herodian, another Roman historian:
This learned man [Marcus Aurelius] was disturbed also by the memory of those who had become sole rulers in their youth. […] The arrogance and violence of Alexander’s successors against their subject peoples had brought disgrace upon his empire.
“Go on, then, and talk to me of Alexander,” says Marcus, and of other celebrated rulers.
If they saw what universal nature wishes and trained themselves accordingly, I will follow them; but if they merely strutted around like stage heroes, no one has condemned me to imitate them. The work of philosophy is simple and modest; do not seduce me into vain ostentation. (9.29)
Marcus likes to remind himself that there’s nothing new under the sun and that the lives of great men like Alexander were essentially the same as other rulers throughout the centuries.
Constantly reflect on how all that comes about at present came about just the same in days gone by, and reflect that it will continue to do so in the future; and set before your eyes whole dramas and scenes ever alike in their nature which you have known from your own experience or the records of earlier ages… (10.27)
For example, he says, think of the entire court of Alexander, or the emperors Marcus knew such as Hadrian or his own adoptive father Antoninus — “in every case the play was the same, and only the actors were different.”
Wisdom is more important than glory. “What are Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Pompey when compared to Diogenes the Cynic, Heraclitus, and Socrates?”, asks Marcus (8.3). The philosophers, he says, were in control of their own minds. They understood all things properly, he says, distinguishing between “cause and matter”. He probably means, as we would say today, that the wise distinguish betweem concepts and the external events to which they refer — by closely observing their own thoughts and feelings.
“As to the others,” Marcus concludes, “consider how many cares they had and to how many things they were enslaved!” Although they were, in their times, the most powerful men in the world, Alexander, Caesar, and Pompey, were enslaved by their own passions, such as the craving for glory. They lacked insight into their own minds and therefore they lacked self-control. It was a familiar paradox of ancient philosophy that Diogenes the Cynic, a penniless exile, a beggar who died as a slave, could look upon Alexander the Great, the most powerful man in the world, as his equal, if not his inferior. Alexander had everything but he always wanted more. Diogenes had only what little would fit in his knapsack but he needed nothing, having mastered his own desires. Hence, the philosopher was, in Stoic terms, more powerful and more kingly even than the Lord of Asia.
Sorry for sounding like a broken record but the fact is, once again, that’s an obvious ad hominem fallacy. The article isn’t claiming that Jefferson is a good man or a role model but that some of the ideas he expresses are valuable. You’re main response does seem to be trying to dispute that by attacking his character, which is obviously not a valid or logical argument — it’s an ad hominem fallacy. You could try to attack countless philosophical theories or practices by questioning the character of their proponents but the consensus among the majority of philosophers is that it’s not a legitimate strategy to do so because the character of someone espousing a theory has no logical bearing on the content of the theory.
When I first became involved in teaching Stoicism, about 25 years ago now, I noticed that the audience at talks and conferences were quite a mixed bunch. At first I encountered mainly classicists and academic philosophers. Then more psychotherapists like myself, and some research psychologists, became interested in Stoic philosophy. Over time, I began to notice quite a few life coaches and individuals involved in corporate training, some sports coaches, and also a number of men and women who were serving in the military.
Each of these groups approaches Stoicism from a different perspective. However, the wonderful thing is that they will all happily sit around and discuss philosophy because they have enough common ground, a shared interest in Stoic literature and ideas. There are also some prominent figures in the modern Stoic community who approach the philosophy from a military perspective.
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Jarrett spoke recently at the Stoicon Modern Stoicism conference in Athens about the Warrior Resilience Training Program he developed, based on Stoicism, and taught to US troops during the Iraq War. Nancy Sherman, who is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University held the Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the United States Naval Academy, from 1997 to 1999. She’s the author of Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind (2007).
Mattis told them that he thinks the one book every American should read is The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Former US Secretary of Defence, General James Mattis has stated that he is a fan of Stoicism. While in office, Mattis explained to an audience of military cadets that the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, though a philosopher, spent much of his reign far from home, fighting the northern tribes along the Danube. Mattis told them that he thinks the one book every American should read is The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. “In combat”, he said, “the reason I kept a tattered copy in my rucksack to pull out at times was it allowed me to look at things with a little distance.”
However, the most obvious of a Stoic in the modern military is arguably Vice Admiral James Stockdale, author of Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot (1995). Stockdale’s plane was shot down forcing him to eject over North Vietnam at the start of the Vietnam War. He was captured, beaten, and taken to the prison camp known as the Hanoi Hilton, where he was repeatedly tortured over the space of seven years, four of which were spent in solitary confinement. Stockdale had read the Stoic Epictetus years earlier and during his imprisonment he found Stoic philosophy invaluable as a way of coping with the extreme situation he faced. When the war ended, he was released and would lecture on Stoic philosophy and its value to the military.
Despite this interest in Stoicism among the modern military, the personnel I meet are often surprised to learn that some of their favourite philosophers also served in, or commanded, ancient armies. It’s an interesting aspect of the history of philosophy that’s often overlooked.
I thought it was about time that I put brought of these stories together in an article. We’ll begin by discussing Socrates’ military career, and that of his immediate circle, because he was the most important precursor of the Stoic school. His followers, the “Socratics”, especially Antisthenes and Xenophon, provide an important link between his original philosophy and the Stoic school. We’ll then look at the original Stoics, the early Greek school, which was linked to the intellectual circle at the court of King Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedonia, the most powerful military ruler of the period.
Then come a number of famous Stoics during the time of the Roman Republic, from the general Scipio Africanus the Younger, who conquered Carthage, to Cato of Utica, who led the shattered remnants of the Republican army in their doomed last stand against Julius Caesar in the Civil War. Finally, we can look at the Roman Imperial period from the first Roman emperor, Augustus, who studied Stoicism, down to the last famous Stoic of the ancient world, the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
People are often surprised to learn that Socrates was, in fact, also a decorated military hero…
Most people think of Socrates (470–399 BC) as a bearded but balding, pot bellied, old philosopher. People are often surprised to learn that Socrates was, in fact, also a decorated military hero, renowned among other army veterans for his courage on the battlefield, and for his extraordinary endurance and self-discipline. He served as an Athenian hoplite, or armored infantryman, and distinguished himself in several important battles during the Peloponnesian war (431–404 BC), in which Athens and its allies fought the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta.
References to Socrates’ military service are scattered through a number of ancient texts, from which we learn that he took part in at least three major battles. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates himself cites his service as a hoplite in the Athenian army during the extended siege of Potidaea (432 BC), the Athenian assault on Delium (424 BC) and the expedition to defend the Athenian colony of Amphipolis (422 BC). Socrates was an older soldier, aged between 38 and 48, when these particular battles took place.
[Socrates] was the first to go out as a soldier, when it was necessary, and in war he exposed himself to danger most unsparingly. — Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1
In Plato’s Laches, the eponymous general is portrayed as describing an eyewitness account of Socrates’ exceptional service in the Battle of Delium. In Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades likewise describes witnessing Socrates’ courage in the battles of Potidaea and Delium. We have a brief mention of Socrates’ service from Xenophon but also a longer portrayal of Socrates discussing military training and tactics, in a manner indicative of his past experience. It’s clear from the surviving writings that Socrates was famous among Athenians for his military endurance, self-discipline, and courage on the battlefield. He is also portrayed as an experienced veteran, whose opinions on military matters are valued by his younger followers.
During the Battle of Potidaea, Socrates single-handedly rescued his friend, the young noble Alcibiades, who had been wounded and disarmed by the enemy. Socrates was awarded the “prize of pre-eminent valour”, which he declined in preference that it should belong to Alcibiades. Plutarch says this award consisted of armor and a crown — it would perhaps be the Athenian equivalent of a US silver star medal. (According to some accounts, though, Socrates was overlooked by the generals in favour of Alcibiades.) Alcibiades was later (c. 416 BC) elected to the rank of Athenian general.
Eight years later, Delium was the first full-scale hoplite battle of the Peloponnesian War, and one of the bloodiest. The Athenians, had attempted unsuccessfully to establish stronghold within enemy territory. Thrown into disarray by the sudden attack of a superior force of Thebans, they made their retreat while being harried by the enemy. The Athenian general Laches had been unhorsed and we’re told Socrates walked by his side, protecting him, so confidently, that none of the enemy dared attack. Plato describes Alcibiades’ account of the story:
I had an even finer opportunity to observe Socrates there [at Delium] than I had had at Potidaea, for I was less in fear because I was on horseback. First of all, how much more sensible he was than Laches; and secondly, it was my opinion… that walking there just as he does here in Athens, ‘stalking like a pelican, his eyes darting from side to side,’ quietly on the lookout for friends and foes, he made it plain to everyone even at a great distance that if one touches this real man, he will defend himself vigorously. Consequently, he went away safely, both he and his comrade; for when you behave in war as he did, then they just about do not even touch you; instead they pursue those who turn in headlong flight. — Symposium
Socrates was a military veteran, approximately 48 years old, with a well-known reputation for his exceptional endurance and courage when the Battle of Amphipolis took place. Diogenes Laertius sounds impressed that he was hardy enough to take to the field once again as a hoplite, despite his age.
He took care to exercise his body and kept in good condition. At all events he served on the expedition to Amphipolis. — Lives and Opinions
Again, the Athenians were defeated. However, we know nothing about Socrates’ role in the battle.
Socrates’ most famous student was Plato, but he was also one of the younger members of his circle. Plato’s school, the Academy, flourished for centuries. However, there were reputedly ten different Socratic schools that appeared in Greece after Socrates’ death. A small group followed one of Socrates’ oldest and most austere students, Antisthenes, who had fought bravely in the Battle of Tanagra (426 BC), during the Peloponnesian War. We don’t know if he and Socrates ever served together, although it’s possible. Antisthenes is usually credited either with founding the Cynic school or at least inspiring Diogenes of Sinope and his followers and in that regard he can be seen as a precursor of the Stoics. Antisthenes lived in poverty and was looked down on by Athenians because his mother was a foreigner, a “barbarian”, from Thrace.
However, another one of Socrates’ favourite students, a young noble called Xenophon, whose writings survive today, makes it clear that Socrates held Antisthenes in particularly high regard. Xenophon himself later rose to the rank of general and as well as being the author of several Socratic dialogues, including the Memorabilia of Socrates, he is also well-known today as the author of the Anabasis, which tells the story of his military exploits in Persia. Xenophon’s dialogues portray Socrates discussing military training, strategy and tactics, with a level of knowledge that would more commonly be associated with the officer class. Indeed, in the Laches, Plato also portrays Socrates being consulted by two generals seeking his advice about whether or not their sons should undergo specialist training to fight in heavy armour. (It’s not made explicit but I think the question bothering them is whether this style of hand-to-hand fighting, for an officer, is courageous or simply reckless.)
Overall, Xenophon’s dialogues portray Socrates in a more down-to-earth manner than Plato’s, and they place greater emphasis on his strength of character and self-discipline. The Stoics were perhaps more influenced by that version of Socrates. We’re told, for instance, by Diogenes Laertius, that it was reading the second book of Xenophon’s Memorabilia that inspired Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, to become a philosopher. Indeed, Socrates, Antisthenes, and Xenophon, all of whom were known for their military service, would influence the later Stoic tradition.
The founder of Stoicism, Zeno, did not serve in the military as far as we know. However, his student, King Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedonia, was one of the most important military commanders of the period. He was a member of the Antigonid dynasty, descended from the successors of Alexander the Great. About seven years after the Stoic school was founded, in 294 BC, Athens was conquered by Demetrius I, Antigonus’ father, who also seized the throne of Macedonia, and went on to conquer most of Greece. Over the following years, Macedonia and much of the Greek territory was lost to rival rulers, and Demetrius died in 283 BC. However, in 277 BC, at the Battle of Lysimachia, Antigonus reconquered Macedonia and claimed the throne.
Antigonus was involved in many battles, with mixed success, but he did have a positive reputation for cultivating the arts. He attracted a circle of philosophers, mainly of the Megarian and Cynic schools, both important influences upon Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, whose follower Antigonus eventually became.
Antigonus also favoured him [Zeno], and whenever he came to Athens would hear him lecture and often invited him to come to his court. — Diogenes Laertius
Zeno was too elderly and frail by this point to travel from Athens to Pella, the capital of Macedonia. Instead he sent two of his favourite students, Persaeus and Philonides the Theban, and thus the Stoics became courtiers to Antigonus. When Zeno died, around 262 BC, Antigonus mourned him, saying that he had lost his favourite audience now the philosopher was gone. Antigonus then became a patron of the Stoic school, under its new head, Cleanthes, donating three thousand drachmas. As a very rough benchmark, a craftsman or a soldier in this period might earn on average about one drachma per day. So this is a huge sum of money, perhaps equivalent to half a million dollars today.
After Antigonus captured Corinth around 244 BC, he appointed Persaeus as Archon of the city. Persaeus died in 243 BC defending the city against an attack led by Aratus of Sicyon, the commander of the Achaean League. About a decade or so later, another of Zeno’s favourite students, Sphaerus, went to Sparta and became courtier to one of the two Spartan kings, Cleomenes III. He accompanied the king into exile in Egypt after Sparta was also defeated by Aratus of Sicyon n the Battle of Sellasia in 222 BC.
So although Zeno himself doesn’t appear to have been a soldier, one of his most famous students, Antigonus, was very prominent military leader of the period, and Stoics went to serve as advisors to King Antigonus and later to King Cleomenes, who was also engaged in war against the Achaean League.
After Zeno, as we’ve seen, Cleanthes became the head (“scholarch”) of the Stoic school, followed by Chrysippus, its most prolific author and greatest intellectual. They were followed by a series of scholarchs, one of the last being Diogenes of Babylon who, along with two other philosophers, took part in an embassy to the Roman Republic in 155 BC. Stoic philosophy appears to have naturally appealed to the Romans and it gradually became popular among their elite.
In particular, the Roman statesman and general Scipio Aemilianus (185–129 BC), also known as Scipio Africanus the Younger, became a student of the last scholarch of the Athenian Stoic school, Panaetius of Rhodes. Like Antigonus before him, Scipio surrounded himself with a circle of cultured intellectuals, including several other Stoics.
Scipio was one of the Republic’s most accomplished generals and lead Rome to victory over her great rival, Carthage, in the Third Punic War, ending in 146 BC with the total destruction of the city. Seneca lists Laelius the Wise, Scipio’s closest friend, and another student of Panaetius, as one of the philosophers he most admires, and Cicero would later portray Laelius discussing Stoic-sounding ideas in On Friendship. Moreover, in what was once one of the most celebrated passages in his writings, known as The Dream of Scipio, Cicero portrays Scipio Africanus experiencing a mystical vision, which the modern-day French scholar Pierre Hadot considered a striking example of the contemplative exercise he called “The View from Above.”
After Athens was sacked by the Roman dictator Sulla, in 86 BC, the Stoic school appears to have fragmented. It split into three branches according to one ancient author, Athenaeus, and the focus of its activity permanently shifts from Athens to Rome.
The next famous example of a Stoic who served in the military would be Cato the Younger, the notoriously stern political opponent of Julius Caesar. In 72 BC, Cato served in the Third Servile War, against the slave uprising started by Spartacus. Five years later, at the age of 28, he was then appointed military tribune, and given command of a legion in Macedonia. Cato was adored by the legionaries because his tough and highly-disciplined personal lifestyle was combined with humility. He dug trenches and built walls, ate military rations alongside his men, and shared their sleeping quarters. Whereas officers normally ride on horseback, Cato reputedly marched on foot alongside the legionaries under his command.
Cato fiercely opposed the rise to power of Julius Caesar, constantly warning that Caesar planned to make himself a tyrant over Rome, something the people greatly feared. In the end, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon river invading Rome, Cato was proven right. At first, during the Civil War, Cato refused to take sides, because he considered Pompey the Great, the general put in charge of the Republican army by the Senate, to be as much of a threat as Caesar.
However, after Pompey’s defeat, and death by poisoning, alongside Metellus Scipio, a relative of Scipio Amelianus, Cato took command of the shattered remnants of the Republican army in order to make a final stand at the fortified city of Utica in North Africa. Cato reputedly knew he couldn’t hope to win but rallied the troops to oppose Caesar and defend the freedom of the Republic as a matter of honour. However, Metellus Scipio’s army was slaughtered at the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC. This effectively ended the Roman Republic, which Caesar now replaced with a dictatorship. Cato took his own life rather than be captured and used by Caesar for bargaining or propaganda.
Cato became a hero to generations of Romans, and to Stoics in particular. A century after his death, Seneca’s nephew, the Stoic poet Lucan, wrote an epic poem about the Civil War called The Pharsalia, in which Cato is portrayed, for want of a better word, as virtually a Stoic superhero. Indeed, in the 18th century, the playwright Joseph Addison’s Cato, a Tragedy, became very popular with the Founding Fathers of the United States. Benjamin Franklin quoted it in a letter and George Washington allegedly had the play performed for his army at Valley Forge.
Roman generals were typically granted a cognomen, an extra name, denoting the location of major military victory, such as the title Africanus (Scipio “of Africa”) given to Scipio Aemelianus after his conquest of Carthage in the region the Romans called Africa. However, as far as I’m aware, Cato is the only Roman commander to be granted a cognomen following a military defeat. He was given the title Uticensis (Cato of Utica) because he was perceived as having won a sort of lasting moral victory, which reverberated throughout Rome, despite giving his life and being defeated in the Civil War by Caesar.
One of the most memorable lines in Addison’s play relates to this and was quoted by George Washington to general Benedict Arnold:
It is not in the power of any man to command success; but you have done more — you have deserved it.
For Stoics, honour, or virtue, is more important than victory.
Amid growing anxiety that he was planning to make himself not only dictator for life but King of Rome, Caesar was, of course, assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 BC. One of the lead assassins was Brutus, the nephew of Cato, and reputedly another Stoic, who had fought against Caesar, under Pompey in the Civil War.
Caesar’s death was followed by a prolonged period of civil war and political upheaval, during which several factions vied for control of the Republic. This came to a conclusion in 31 BC with the naval battle of Actium in which Octavian, Caesar’s adopted nephew, defeated the army of Mark Antony and his lover Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt.
Sick of the conflict, the Romans were happy to grant Octavian more and more powers, in exchange for political stability, until he was eventually named Augustus and Princeps in 27 BC, effectively becoming the first Roman emperor. He went on to become one of Rome’s most militarily successful commanders, or imperatores.
At the start of his career, Octavian was known for his violent temper and reprisals against his political opponents. However, from his youth, Augustus had two well-known Stoic tutors, named Athenodorus Canaanites and Arius Didymus, who reputedly taught him to manage his temper.
The late Emperor Augustus also did and said many memorable things, which prove that he was not under the dominion of anger. — Seneca, On Anger, 3.23
At least according to Seneca, Augustus became more even-tempered in his old age. He would often quote the advice of philosophers in letters to his friends and family and even wrote a (sadly lost) book titled Exhortations to Philosophy. He also perhaps set the precedent for future generations of Roman nobles, in the imperial age, to study Stoic philosophy. This, of course, culminated, in the last famous Stoic of the ancient world: the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Unusually for a Roman noble of his station, Marcus had no military training or experience whatsoever, unless we count a passing reference to him being trained as a youth to fight in armour, while at Rome. Instead, his adoptive father, Hadrian’s successor, the emperor Antoninus, had him focus on his education and a bureaucratic career in the administration of Rome. Marcus excelled in this role and was a studious workaholic, immersing himself in rhetoric, philosophy, and the law.
Under Antoninus, Rome enjoyed a period of remarkable peace, and his dying word Aequanimitas, became emblematic of his reign. However, as soon as Marcus took to throne that all changed. The empire’s “barbarian” enemies had clearly been plotting for years and the Parthian king Vologases IV took the opportunity to invade the Roman client-state of Armenia, and then the Roman province of Syria, instigating the Parthian War.
As soon as he was acclaimed emperor, Marcus asked the senate to appoint his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus, as co-emperor, the first time Rome had ever had joint rulers of this kind, although Lucius was clearly in the subordinate role. Marcus was suffering from chronic health problems by this time — mainly chest and stomach pains — and being obviously more frail he delegated Lucius to assume responsibility for the legions. At the outbreak of the war, it was therefore Lucius who was sent to the east to assume operational command. Unfortunately, he was a hopeless gambler and alcoholic, who depended on his generals to fight the war. After initial setbacks, which unduly lengthened the war perhaps, Rome began making progress. Five years later, they had soundly defeated the enemy whose capital Ctesiphon was sacked by a young general called Avidius Cassius, forcing the Parthian king to sue for peace.
Unfortunately, the returning legionaries brought back the Antonine Plague, probably a form of smallpox, which they spread all across the empire, as they returned to their garrisons. Some scholars estimate that up to five million people died as a result. A massive coalition of northern tribes along the Danube frontier, led by the Marcomanni, seized the opportunity to invade and plunder the Roman provinces. They made their way down the Amber Route, across the Alps, and right into northern Italy, where they besieged the wealthy Roman city of Aquileia, throwing the city of Rome itself into a panic. Marcus no longer trusted Lucius to take sole command so this time they both set out for The First Marcomannic War.
However, Lucius dropped dead suddenly, perhaps from the plague, leaving Marcus sole emperor. With no military training or experience whatsoever, in the middle of a devastating plague, he now took command of the largest army ever massed on a Roman frontier — numbering approximately 140,000 men, including the auxiliaries and naval units sailing on the Danube. At first, it seems Marcus was viewed by some of his general with derision, with Avidius Cassius reputedly calling him nothing but a “philosophical old woman”. However, after initial setbacks, the Romans gradually defeated one enemy tribe after another, securing the frontier. We can see that Marcus’ legions came to revere him because, among other things, they even attributed two famous battlefield miracles to him. About six years on, he was now a respected general, and the veteran legions under his command were fiercely loyal to him.
However, just as Marcus was about to conclude the northern campaign, word reached his camp that his own general Avidius Cassius, had declared himself emperor in the east, instigating a civil war. Marcus rapidly prepared his troops to march southeast and engage the rebel army in Syria. However, remarkably, according to the historian Cassius Dio, Marcus responded by giving a famous speech before the legions, in which he pardoned everyone involved in the uprising, before battle had even commenced. When word of this reached Cassius’ legions, perhaps after some initial setbacks, they concluded there was no more reason to fight. However, Cassius would not step down. Two of his own officers therefore ambushed him and beheaded him, abruptly bringing the civil war to an end before it had even begun.
Marcus therefore managed to conclude a civil war, which threatened to split the empire, with virtually no bloodshed. He was true to his word, and pardoned those involved, apart from a few individuals involved in serious crimes, who were punished leniently. Marcus even protected the wife and children of Avidius Cassius. However, after his death, all of this was reversed by Commodus, who, seeking revenge, had Cassius’ family hunted down and burned alive as traitors.
In his youth, Marcus had been given a thorough education in Stoic philosophy. His main tutor, Junius Rusticus, was a Roman statesman, who had allegedly served in the military, alongside Arrian of Nicomedia, the military governor of the Roman of Cappadocia, who successfully defended his province against the invading Alans. Indeed, Arrian was a highly accomplished Roman general and statesman and general, favoured and repeatedly promoted by the emperor Hadrian.
In addition to being a Roman statesman and general, Arrian was a prolific author, who modelled himself on and was even nicknamed after Xenophon (remember him?). He wrote several books on military training, strategy, and tactics, including The order of battle against the Alans. However, you may recognize his name because his writings also include the Handbook and Discourses of Epictetus. Epictetus himself wrote nothing. The books we normally attribute to him were in fact transcribed and edited by his student, Arrian of Nicomedia, who apparently saw himself very much as the Xenophon to Epictetus’ Socrates.
A generation later, Marcus Aurelius wrote of Junius Rusticus that “it was through him that I came to know the Discourses of Epictetus, as he lent me a copy from his own library” (Meditations, 1.7). Why does Marcus think it’s so noteworthy that this book came from Rusticus’ personal library? It appears to be more precious than a copy. It’s therefore tempting to wonder whether Rusticus received it in person from Arrian, during their military service together.
In a curious passage, written centuries later, the Roman orator Themistius writes that Scipio Africanus and Augustus, only consulted Panaetius and Arius Didymus about private matters, and did not “drag them into the stadium’s dust” of politics.
But this was not the experience of our current emperor’s fathers and the founders of his line [Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius], whose names are great. They pulled Arrian [of Nicomedia] and [Junius] Rusticus away from their books, refusing to let them be mere pen-and-ink philosophers. They did not let them write about courage and stay at home, or compose legal treatises while avoiding the public domain that is law’s concern, or decide what form of government is best while abstaining from any participation in government. The emperors to whom I am now alluding consequently escorted these men to the general’s tent as well as to the speaker’s platform. In their role as Roman generals, these men passed through the Caspian Gates, drove the Alani out of Armenia, and established boundaries for the Iberians and the Albani. — Themistius, 34th Oration
In other words, despite being philosophers, Arrian and Rusticus were committed to public life and had highly-accomplished military careers.