Grice e Trasea

The wide circulation of Stoic ideas among Romans of the upper class from the time of Panaetius in the second century B.C. to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (A.D.

161-80) is a familiar fact. Few Romans of note can indeed be marked down as committed Stoics, and even those like Seneca who avowedly belonged to the school borrowed ideas from other philosophies. Still, even if eclecticism was the mode, the Stoic element was dominant. Stoicism permeated the writings of authors like Virgil and Horace who professed no formal allegiance to the sect, and became part of the culture that men absorbed in their early education. One might think that it exercised an influence comparable in some degree with that which Christianity has often had on men ignorant or careless of the nicer points of systematic theology. It has often been supposed that it did much to humanize Roman law and government. That is a contention of which I should be rather sceptical, but it is not my present theme. I propose to examine the effects that Stoicism had on men's attitudes to the Principate, the essentially monarchical form of government created by Augustus. Prima facie we might expect them to have been significant, yet it is not easy to discern exactly what they were. At the very outset an apparent contradiction confronts us: Stoics seem to be both upholders and opponents of the regime.

The Stoic, Athenodorus of Tarsus, was an honoured counsellor of Augustus,?

Seneca the preceptor of Nero and then one of his chief ministers, Marcus Aurelius a philosopher on the throne. Seneca exalted the autocratic power of the Princeps; under Nero, a ruler vigilant for the safety of each and all of his subjects, anxious to secure their consent, and protected by their affection, Rome (he claims) enjoyed the happiest form of constitution, in which nothing is lacking to our complete freedom but the license to destroy ourselves'. We may always suspect Seneca of insincere rhetoric and special pleading, but his approval of monarchy in principle was shared by the honest Musonius, and Marcus clearly assumed that it was by divine providence that he had been called to exercise absolute power.3

And yet that perfect Stoic, as Seneca called him (Const. Sap. 2, 2), the younger Cato, had died in defence of the old Republic, which Caesar had overthrown and Augustus had replaced, and his conduct was still viewed as exemplary by Stoics of the Principate.* Thrasea Paetus wrote his life,' and he was the centre of a circle, including Helvidius Priscus and Arulenus Rusticus, which offered the most intractable opposition to certain emperors, opposition which was certainly ascribed to Stoic teaching. Nero's suspicions of Rubellius Plautus, a kinsman and potential pretender to the Principate, were enhanced by the allegation that he had adopted the Stoics' presumptuous creed, which made men turbulent and avid for power. Writing soon afterwards, Seneca himself admits that some thought, though erroneously, that the votaries of philosophy were 'defiant and stubborn, men who held in contempt magistrates, kings and all engaged in government', and he advises Lucilius to devote himself to philosophy, but not to boast of it, 'since philosophy itself, associated with arrogance and defiance, has brought many men into danger; let it remove your faults and not reproach those of others, and let it not recoil from social conventions ('publicis moribus"), nor produce the appearance of condemning what it does not practise'? Though Seneca speaks of

'philosophy' in general, the context shows that he has in mind only that philosophy in which he thought the truth resided, the Stoic. The second passage indeed may suggest that what endangered Stoics was not so much resistance to authority as censure of the behaviour common in the world, which made them generally unpopular. Seneca had also admitted earlier that the Stoics had the reputation, in his view undeserved, of excessive harshness, which was held to make them incapable of giving wise advice to rulers.8

It was under Gaius,' Nero, Vespasian and Domitian that Stoics certainly suffered persecution; the last two emperors actually expelled professional philosophers from Rome and Italy; Epictetus was among the exiles. 1º Yet he too repudiates the charge that Stoics were opposed to authority. By reconciling the interests of the individual, truly conceived, with those of society, Stoicism, he claimed, produced concord in a state and peace among peoples; it taught men to obey the laws, but not to despise the authority of 'kings', though in his view neither laws nor kings could give or take away anything essential to a man's blessedness.

On the other hand, the Stoic would not comply with the orders of 'tyrants', which conflicted with his own moral purpose. We might then infer that it was not political authority, nor monarchy as such, that Stoics rejected, but those rulers whose vile conduct made them 'tyrants',"' and that what they admired in Cato was not his fight for the Republic but his rectitude and constancy (cf. n. 5). However, Vespasian was never reproached with tyranny, and Helvidius Priscus at least, whom Dio called a Republican (n. 138), and whom Vespasian put to death, must have had convictions by which an emperor could be judged in political as well as moral terms.

The apparent inconsistency in the Stoic attitude to monarchy is not the only ambiguity in their relations to the state. Seneca meets the charge of political defiance by replying that none are more grateful to rulers who preserve peace than philosophers who have retired from public life to the nobler activity of tranquil contemplation and teaching. Much Stoic writing suggests that their teaching tended to promote not active resistance to government but entire withdrawal from political activity (pp. 19-21 ff.). Quintilian speaks of philosophers as men prone to neglect their civic duties. P. Suillius had contemptuously referred to Seneca's own

'studia inertia'. In the very passage in which Tacitus marks out Helvidius as a Stoic he says that 'from early youth he devoted his brilliant mind to deeper studies, not as so many (plerique') do, to make the high-sounding name (of philosophy) a screen for indolent retirement ('segne otium'), but in order to undertake public duties, while fortified against the strokes of fortune'. Evidently, in his judgement, the general tendency of philosophic training was to render men unfit for public careers by making them prefer the life of contemplation. Hence an ambitious mother, like Agricola's, would restrain her son from drinking too deeply at the philosophic spring.' Indeed all Stoic writings illustrate a certain tension between

the claims of public activity and those of study and meditation (injra). We must of course distinguish sharply between Stoics who deliberately chose 'segne otium' from the start and those like Thrasea who retired from politics in such a way as to manifest their disapprobation of the government, even though such retirement could be justified by arguments that might rather have persuaded the believer never to enter the political arena. The former might by their indifference to the state deprive it of useful talent, but they constituted no danger to the regime. But we may wonder how a creed which encouraged such quietism could also be accused of making men turbulent enemies of the Princeps.

To understand these apparent contradictions in the political attitudes of Stoics under the Principate, we must look more closely than historians generally do at the moral principles they embraced. All I can attempt here is naturally no more than a rather impressionistic sketch of those aspects of Stoic teaching which seem to me most relevant to their actual political behaviour, in office, opposition or retirement. This is no place for a systematic exposition of the logical and physical presuppositions of their moral creed, and indeed the Stoics of our period evinced no keen interest in the dialectical subtleties and doctrinal coherence of the system the earlier masters of their school had evolved. Rhetoric and devotion had largely replaced inquiry and argument. None the less their moral convictions continued to rest on metaphysical dogmata, however uncritically accepted."

•II

Like other ancient philosophers the Stoics assumed that each man does and must pursue his individual happiness. This he can secure only if he conforms his life to nature, his own nature and that of the universe, of which his own is of necessity a part. In the impulses of animals and of children we can see how nature herself directs living beings to seek what is conducive to life and to avoid what is contrary.

Life itself and all that assists the proper functioning of the living creature belong to the category of things that are natural and therefore can be described as 'things of value; they include wealth, health and nearly all that men generally make their objects of endeavour. Now man is endowed with reason, and reason shows that he cannot live in isolation; we are born for one another, and it is proper to our nature to prefer things of value for our fellows as well as for ourselves.

However, experience teaches us that such things may not be in our power. If then our happiness, or that of our fellows, were to depend at all on their possession, it would not necessarily be within our grasp, our minds would be filled with anxiety, and our failures to obtain what we desire would seem to be limitations on our freedom. But no man can be happy if he is not secure from anxiety and free. Now nature must have designed our happiness, for all Being is permeated by a substance the Stoics described as reason or God; this ruling element in the world, which causes all things to work together for good, is also present in our souls, and it is its presence that enables us in some measure to apprehend the providential order of the Universe. Our reason should also be the

ruling element in our own nature, as it must be capable of directing us to that true happiness, security and freedom which nature impels us to seek, and which, given the rationality and beneficence of nature, it must be in our power to attain. Hence the so-called 'things of value cannot be truly good, simply because they are not always and necessarily in our reach. By contrast nothing can ever prevent us from constantly willing to do what is right, even though the resultant actions may fail to produce the effects intended; these effects are external to ourselves and do not or should not affect that permanent disposition of the soul in which our blessedness, security and freedom are to be found.

The only true good, which reason prescribes, lies then in a virtuous disposition and in the activity that flows from it, and the only true evil is the lack of such a disposition, while the 'things of value' and their contraries must alike be classed, to use the technical term, as things 'indifferent' to us. Yet this leaves no criterion for identifying the particular acts the good or wise man will perform, and that criterion has still to be supplied by 'the things of value'. Is The acts which were termed in GreekKaOkovaand in Latin officia, acts incumbent on men, which we may render as 'duties', even though the word has perhaps excessively Kantian overtones, consist in promoting states of affairs which will contain as much as possible of such secondary goods as health, wealth etc., and as little as possible of their contraries. We are bound to make the best calculations we can on the consequences of our acts, and to exert ourselves to the utmost in performing them, but we should always act with the reservation in our minds that what we seek may not be attainable and that its actual attainment is not per se good. A father will jump into deep water to rescue his child; but the goodness of his act is not enhanced if the child is saved, nor diminished if it drowns. Indeed, since the Universe is providentially ordered, the death of the child, if it occurs, must be for the best. Chrysippus is quoted by Epictetus as saying that 'so long as the consequences are not clear to me, I cling to what is best adapted to securing things that accord with nature; for God has created me such that I shall choose these things; but if I actually knew that it was now ordained for me to be ill, I would aim at being ill'. 16

Victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni

As a good Stoic, Cato should not have fought against Caesar, if he could have foreseen Caesar's victory; but lacking this foresight, he could still be subjectively right; and the admiration a Stoic could express for Cato was not in itself incompatible with acceptance of the regime for which Caesar's victory had prepared the way.

For the Stoics only the wise man has an understanding of nature so complete and a disposition so unchangeable that he will never do what is not right, and only his actions are truly 'successful' or good; others may perform the same actions, but in a way that is somehow flawed (cf. n. 15). However, the wise man, as Seneca

remarked, is as rare as the phoenix; not even the great Stoic teachers pretended to the title." Most of their statements about his conduct may then be understood as the presentation of a model for others, and in fact the Stoics did not hesitate from the first to lay down rules for the guidance of ordinary beings. In such prescriptions they continued to attach value only to the purpose of moral activity, and not to success in performance. The fullest discussion we possess of their teaching on men's duties is to be found in Cicero's de officus, the first two books of which are avowedly based on a treatise of Panaetius. But though Panaetius, who departed in various ways from the doctrines of his predecessors, did not care to describe the ideal sage and expressly turned to the duties of men in whom perfect wisdom was not to be found but whose conduct might still manifest 'the semblances of virtue' ('similitudines honesti'), his concern with this topic was certainly not new. Moreover, there are some indications that Stoics extrapolated the concept of perfect virtue from the conduct of ordinary men which commanded universal approval. Horatius on the bridge could not be called truly brave, because he was no sage, yet his heroism gave an idea by analogy of what true courage would be." Thus Stoic practical morality was founded on commonly received opinions.

While every man is bound to be of service to his fellows, the particular services he should render vary with his special relationships to them 20 From the first orthodox Stoic thinkers enjoined specific duties on the husband, father, slave-owner and so forth.? Tacitus alludes to this practice when he describes Helvidius as steady in performing all the duties of life, as citizen, senator, husband, son-in-law and friend.22 Epictetus and others conceive such duties as arising from the place in the world, the station or military post (Tá§is, statio) to which each individual is appointed, and which may limit, as it always defines, the kinds of action incumbent on him; though a life of virtue is open to all, even to slaves, what a man can do determines what he ought to do; for instance, if he is poor, he cannot hold office or endow his city with fine buildings (Ench. 24).

But how do we identify these specific duties, which are given to us by our place in the world? 'If you are a town-councillor' says Epictetus, 'remember that you are one; if you are young, that you are young, if old, that you are old, if a father, that you are a father; on reflection each name invariably suggests the appropriate tasks' 23 These tasks can, I think, only have been regarded as obvious if they were those conventionally expected from the persons so designated, and in fact Stoics seldom recommend acts that would have violated conventions. All that Epictetus himself tells a provincial governor is to render just decisions, to keep his hands off others' property, and to see no beauty in another man's wife or a boy or a piece of gold or silver plate. * He does not go far beyond the maxims of abstinentia and integritas, always accepted, if often infringed, by the Roman ruling class. In fact he adds that we ought to look for doctrines that agree with but give additional strength to such common notions of duty. 'The great mind' as Seneca puts it, 'is intent on honourable and industrious conduct in that station in which it is placed' 25 The good man does not change the rules, but obeys them more strictly.

In another metaphor the Stoics employed the world was viewed as a stage in which each man had to play a part (persona, mpóocov).26 Panaetius exploited this metaphor in connexion with a doctrine he himself seems to have transferred from aesthetic to ethical theory, that there is a kind of moral beauty, called in Greek pétrov and in Latin decorum, which 'shines out' in virtuous activity, even in that of the man still imperfect in wisdom.? It would not be germane to my theme to attempt to expound this doctrine in full, but two points are important. 28

First, just as the physical beauty of a living creature must be attributed to the due relation of all the parts to the whole, so the moral beauty of a man's activity lies in the order and coherence of all his words and deeds, and just as the correct delineation of a figure in a drama depends on the suitability to his character of what he does and says, so in real life men must aim at maintaining the consistency,

'constantia'' or 'aequabilitas,30 of their conduct. But while the dramatist may properly portray the wicked man, on the stage of life we are all bound to play the role of rational beings subject to the moral law. None the less, the manner of the performance must vary from man to man." Besides the role which is common to

all Panatius distinguished three others. The first arises from the individual's special inborn endowments, which he must develop to the full, so far as they are compatible with virtue, and his natural disabilities, which limit what he can do, 32 the second from his position in the world, the third from the choice of a vocation that he is bound to make on the basis of his capacity and of the resources at his disposal, but which tends to commit him for the future. 33 Thus a Roman of rank might choose to be a philosopher or a jurist, an orator or a soldier; having made his decision, he should normally carry it out to the end. For Panaetius it is only by recognizing the potentialities and limitations imposed by his own personality and circumstances that the individual can avoid those inconsistencies in conduct which would mar the moral beauty of his life. 'It is of no avail to contend with nature or to pursue an end you cannot reach'. Similarly in Epictetus' view, 'if you assume a role beyond your ability, the result is that you perform it disgracefully (hoxnuóvndas) and neglect the role you were able to fill': 3*

To thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Secondly, according to Panaetius, moral beauty, like physical, attracts the approval and love of other men. Indeed that approval comes to be regarded as a criterion for determining whether particular actions really do manifest 'decorum'.

We ought to respect the opinions and feelings of others.35 Hence deportment, polite conversation and other matters of social etiquette become the subjects of moral precepts. Manual labour is condemned as unbefitting the free man, and even the liberal professions are pronounced below the dignity of aristocrats.3 In general the conventions of the upper class society to which both Panaetius and Cicero belonged are unquestioningly accepted. We are told that 'for actions to be performed in accordance with custom and civic practices no rules need be prescribed; these practices are the rules, and no one should make the mistake of thinking that he has the same license as Socrates or Aristippus to transgress them; it was only their great and superhuman virtue that gave that privilege to them'. 37

This teaching justified Romans in treating their own traditions as equivalent to moral laws. It is no accident that the Stoic Rubellius Plautus 'respected the maxims of old generations' in the strictness of his household, or that Seneca admires the mores antiqui in which Romans had always tended to find the secret of Rome's greatness. The very use of the term officium to render Kankov had a similar effect. In common speech officum could mean both the kind of service which social conventions expected one man to render another, and the function of a magistrate, for example, or a senator." Its use in ethical theory suggested that such services and functions constituted moral obligations.

Cicero illustrated Panaetius' doctrine of the special duties imposed by a man's individual personality from the suicide of Cato in 46. Not every one would have been right to kill himself in such circumstances, but Cato was justified because he had always held that it was better to die than to set eyes on a tyrant; his

'constantia' left him no choice. Plutarch, who drew directly or indirectly on a firsthand account, shows that Cato consciously acted on this view. For himself death was the only way out; his son might live, but being also a Cato, should not serve Caesar; others might make their peace with the victor and incur no blame. An anecdote in Plutarch's life of Cicero tells us that Cato also held in 49 that while he himself could not honourably have abandoned his consistent opposition to Caesar, Cicero, whose past conduct had been very different, would have done better to remain neutral in the civil war.40

Cato's conceptions were certainly known to the circle of Thrasea, whose own life of the hero may be Plutarch's immediate source. When they debated whether Thrasea should appear in the senate to answer the capital charges against him, the question was essentially what course it was hitting (deceret') for him to take, if he were to 'be true to the course of behaviour he had pursued without a break for so many years'; a younger man even within his circle was not bound to the same intransigence. Similarly, his friend, Paconius, said that any one who so much as thought of going to Nero's games should go, but his own 'persona' did not allow him to consider the possibility.42 As we shall see, Helvidius Priscus was for Epictetus the shining example of a man who was true to his persona. This sort of conception is indeed ascribed to men who are not known to have embraced the Stoic creed, 43 just as the word 'persona' is sometimes used unphilosophically in a

way compatible with Panaetius' doctrine but not derived from it;* these are further indications that his doctrine corresponded closely with the thought and behaviour natural to traditional Romans. The concept is found in Horace (n.48) as well as in all the later Stoic writers, Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus and Marcus (and indeed elsewhere); though sometimes they think more of the special duties that were imposed on the individual by his place in the world or his vocation than of those which flow from his inborn propensities and disabilities, a few texts show that that part of Panaetius' doctrine was not wholly forgotten. 45 The idea of decorum also survives in the attention still devoted to etiquette, to seemly ways of walking, talking, laughing, dressing, behaviour at the table and even in bed, for all such behaviour was considered an outward manifestation of the disposition of the soul.* It is characteristic that Epictetus would rather have died than shaved off the beard that symbolized his role as a philosopher." In all these precepts we find the assumption that the moral law required performance of traditionally accepted duties and respect for conventions. After telling his readers that the poet can discover how to treat his personae appropriately by learning the duties that belong to the citizen, friend, father, brother, host, senator, judge and general, Horace adds:

respicere exemplar vitae morumque iubebo doctum imitatorem et vivas hinc ducere voces. 48

III

For the Stoics a virtuous disposition necessarily issued in virtuous activity. All had to perform their duties within that City of Gods and men which was not a city in any ordinary sense, nor a world-state that might one day be brought into being, but the providentially ordered Universe in which all live here and now. 4 However, political activity could certainly be included among these duties. From the first the Stoic fathers had taught that the wise man would take part in public affairs, if there were no hindrance. Indeed it was a famous Stoic paradox that only the wise man was a king or statesman; he alone possessed the art of ruling, whether or not he had any subjects, just as only the doctor has the art of healing, even if he has no patients.50 His principal aim in politics would be to restrain vice and encourage

virtue, ' although he would also necessarily be concerned with the 'things of value' and would treat wealth, fame, health etc. as if they were goods. But it could hardly fail to influence his attitude to such objects of endeavour that he was always to remember that his efforts to promote them might fail, and that failure or success was unimportant; they were not truly goods. As Epictetus observed, 'Caesar seems to provide us with profound peace... but can he give us peace from love or sorrow or envy? He cannot'. And yet blessedness comes only from such spiritual peace. 53

In the real world, according to Chrysippus, all laws and constitutions were faulty. He once despairingly said that if the wise statesman pursued a bad policy he would displease the gods, if a good policy, he would displease men. So too Seneca could suggest that there was no state which could tolerate the wise man or secure his toleration. 54

However, such pessimism did not represent the final judgement of the Stoa. It was recognized, most emphatically by Panaetius, that the state answered human material needs and fulfilled men's natural and reasonable impulse for co-operation." It would hardly have been consistent with the Stoics' faith in providence if all or most existing states had been irremediably evil. Did not the mere existence of any given form of institutions perhaps imply that those institutions served a worthy purpose in the divine economy? At any rate there is no evidence that Stoics condemned any political system as such; for instance what they disapproved of in the tyrant was not his absolute power but his abuse of it.

We are told that it was particularly (though not exclusively) in states that exhibited some progress towards perfection that the wise man would be active;56 progress must here be construed in a moral sense, of states that tended to imbue their citizens with virtue.

Old Sparta apparently evoked Stoic admiration, because of the strict and simple life prescribed by Lycurgus. Sparta was also most often cited as an instance of that mixed or balanced constitution which won the approval of many ancient thinkers, perhaps above all for its stability. In the individual stability of purpose was for Seneca a mark of moral progress, s and perhaps stability was also a Stoic criterion for judging constitutions. Certainly we are told, without explanation, that the old Stoics preferred a mixed constitution. 6 Panaetius is often held, with no certain proof, to have commended the Republican system at Rome

for its balance,' and the historical work of his illustrious successor, Posidonius, was probably biased in favour of the Roman aristocracy. At Sparta Cleomenes I, who professed to be re-establishing both the old austerities and the old political balance, enjoyed the assistance of a Stoic counsellor. Cato could probably have cited Stoic texts to justify his struggle to preserve the Republic.

On the other hand Stoics did not condemn monarchy in theory. Some scholars even suppose that they gave it their special approbation. 63 No doubt rule by a Stoic sage would have been in their eyes the best form of government. That may be one reason why several of the early Stoic masters wrote treatises on kingship. Yet, given the rarity of the sage, it must have seemed a remote possibility that if he emerged at all, he would also happen to obtain sovereign authority. Probably these treatises were intended to depict the perfect ruler as a model for contemporary kings. Conceivably, like Seneca in the de clementia, their authors did not insist over much on the gulf that divided actual rulers from their ideal. Moreover, a philosopher had the best hope, so it might seem, of effecting what he thought right as the minister of an autocrat, and since kings enjoyed great power in the Hellenistic world, Stoics who were ready to engage in political activity entered their service; this was only natural. However, once the aristocratic Roman Republic had become dominant, they were no less prepared to attend and advise men of influence at Rome. Panaetius was an intimate of Scipio Aemilianus, and Tiberius Gracchus and Cato had their Stoic counsellors. Only after Augustus did monarchy become the one system towards which for practical purposes a Stoic needed to define his attitude. The precepts and examples of the early masters of the school did not require him to reject it on doctrinal grounds; how indeed could he have done so, without impugning the dispensations of Providence? At a merely empirical level Tacitus reluctantly conceded that it was in the interest of peace that all power should be conferred on one man; he had been anticipated, a century earlier, by Strabo, who was an avowed Stoic.6 Seneca argued that the struggle for Republican freedom had been futile (n. 5), and not only his career but those of Thrasea and Helvidius, men of firmer resolution, indicate that their principles did not lead these Stoics to condemn the Principate as such.

The wise man would not be hindered from participating in public life by any form of government, yet under any form he might conceive that he had a higher duty to a vocation of philosophic investigation and teaching his fellows by precept

and example, besides fulfilling the obligations of private life." And under any form he might also see that he had no opportunity for effective political action, because of the wickedness of those in high places at the time. The doctrine that the goodness of every act lay in the disposition from which it was performed and not in its results did not require Stoics to engage in an undertaking doomed to fail ab initio; the wise man would not take a leaking ship to sea, nor, if unfit to fight, enlist in the army. Under a tyranny he simply could not do any service.

As for the ordinary man, there were reasons why he might abstain from public affairs which did not apply to the sage. By definition the latter had already attained to that perfect understanding and virtue to which others at best aspired.

But the pre-occupations of a busy public career might be sufficient of themselves to prevent imperfect men from ever reaching that goal. Seneca could hold at times that it was justifiable for a man to retire from long public service to private duties and to care of his own soul, at times that the whole of his life was not too long for this task, all the more because his example could be beneficial to others. The sage too was impregnable in his virtue, which he could hardly lose, but in other men moral progress might be impeded by what St. Paul calls 'evil communications' (I Cor. xv 33)." Moreover, even when arguing that a man should normally undertake public duties, Seneca concedes, in a way reminiscent of Panaetius' emphasis on individual endowments, that he might be debarred not only by his physical, intellectual or pecuniary resources but also by his temperament; he might be too sensitive or insufficiently pliable for life at court, too prone to indignation, or to untimely witticisms that showed high spirit and freedom of speech but would only do the speaker harm. Again, as Panaetius had also held, he might be suited only to contemplation, not to public affairs; and 'reluctante natura, irritus labor est'. None of these considerations applied to the sage, who was omnicompetent and impervious to what others would regard as insults or injuries. 70

Seneca's views on the propriety of a political career are self-contradictory, but the assumption that these contradictions can be explained simply by the hypothesis that he recommended otium only when his own political prospects were impaired and political activity only when himself engaged in public affairs, hardly fits the fact that we find the same antinomy in the sermons of Epictetus and the Meditations of Marcus. Seneca's advocacy of quietism reflects one important aspect of Stoic influence.

Epictetus recognizes of course that men are bound to perform the duties that arise from their social relationships, but he is much more insistent on the ultimate worthlessness of all those secondary goods to which activity in the world is inevitably directed. A man of a certain station should take office, but it is wrong for him to set his heart either on holding it or on freedom from its cares; it is

significant that he should think it necessary to warn his pupils against yielding to both these kinds of pestic Ofeis i a is les kiy Fallivan my police it c

no doubt because no good man would submit to the humiliations on which advancement depends;? the few whose aim is to bring themselves into a right relation with the divine earn the mockery of the crowd, and they can hardly pursue their aim as procurators of Caesar. Epictetus was himself a former slave with no chance of a public career, but it is plain that his audiences were mainly drawn from the upper class, some of them aspirants to a career at Rome, like the young Arrian who took down his words.' In fact Epictetus' own low social station and the academic character of his way of life may have made him less conscious of the dangers of evil communications than Seneca had been, even though two of his diatribes are devoted to the theme (n. 69). We also find a greater serenity in his teaching than in Marcus' reflections.

When Marcus looked back to the time of Vespasian or of Trajan, he saw a world in which men were engaged in flattery and boasting, suspicions and plots, praying for the death of others, murmuring at their own lot, given to sexual passions, avarice and political ambition. It was the same in his own court. More than once he dwells with loathing on the dark qualities of those who surrounded him, the emptiness of their aims, their longing for the death of 'the schoolmaster', though he had so greatly toiled, prayed and thought on their behalf; indeed death would be a release, the more merciful, the earlier it came. However, Marcus had his duty to perform; he was set over mankind as the ram over the flock or the bull over the herd (ibid). No other vocation (inó®ois) is so suited to philosophy, that is to say, to the exercise of a reason which has accurately established the rationality of nature and of all that life contains. But it is evidently by a conscious effort that Marcus reconciles himself to the place Providence has assigned him, and he can also say that his role impedes him in the pursuit of philosophy." The general character of his Meditations shows that his inclination was to ponder on the divine order and his own relation to it rather than to consume his energies in 'the daily round, the trivial task' which, nonetheless, furnished him on his own principles with all his reason required him to ask. Those principles taught him that the wise man would serve the state, if there were no external hindrance. But an autocrat could plead no hindrance, so long at least as his natural capacities permitted him to render good service. All the same we can see how a man of Marcus' temperament, set in some lower station, must have preferred that life of contemplation which in the end Seneca had pronounced the best.

Thus the more seriously Stoic teaching was accepted, the more ardent in some minds must have been the desire for retirement and meditation, at most combined with the performance of inescapable private duties. Whether Stoics

commonly yielded to this desire, as some of their critics averred (p. 9), we cannot say; our records can hardly be expected to commemorate lives of quiet seclusion; Sextius is a rare example, known by name (n. 10). It is with others that we must henceforth be concerned, men who thought themselves bound by their principles to enter public life, who believed what Seneca once said (ep. 96, 5),

'vivere militare est', and who tried to play the part, or to occupy the station, to which they had been called by birth and ability.

• IV

This Stoic concept of the individual's station was applied, as Koestermann showed long ago, to the emperor himself. Augustus seems consciously to have adopted it, probably under the influence of the Stoic Athenodorus; this was known to such panegyrical writers of the time as Ovid and Velleius. Claudius too appears to have spoken of his station, and in his reign and Nero's the notion is found in Seneca and Lucan. Tacitus referred to Vespasian's station, Pliny to Trajan's. Pius himself also employed the term. It survived into the fourth century.? Curiously, Koestermann failed to observe that the idea is implicit in Marcus' Meditations.

Pius, according to Marcus, always acted in the way which had been appointed for him. He exhorts himself to let the god within him be lord of a living being, who is a male, a Roman, a ruler, who has taken up his post, as one who awaits the signal for retirement from life, fully prepared. He has to carry out the task set him like a soldier storming the breach. Similarly he speaks of his 'place' in the world, or of his

'vocation'; like all men, he has tasks to perform, proper to his own constitution and nature, and 'as Antoninus, my city and fatherland is Rome'; he must be strenuous in doing his duty, acts of piety and benefit to men, like Pius before him. 80 He is a sort of priest and servant of the gods, and this makes him, rather like the Pope, a servant of men; he regards his life as a 'liturgy' or as 'servitude'. Long before, Antigonus Gonatas under Stoic influence had described kingship as 'noble servitude', and Seneca had applied this to Nero's position. 81

But what were the particular duties that Stoics attached to the station or role of the emperor? According to Seneca he is to be 'vigilant for the safety of each and all'. He belongs to the state, not the state to him.® Seneca recommends Nero to win his subjects' consent, respecting public opinion 3 and freedom of speech,* and to observe the laws. Under the good ruler justice, peace, morality ('pudicitia'), security and the hierarchical social order ('dignitas') will be upheld, and economic prosperity will be assured.& The greatest stress is of course laid, for reasons not hard to discern, on clementia. But it is everywhere implicit that the emperor should be guided by traditional standards and objectives accepted by his subjects.

Marcus accepted similar criteria.

Marcus adjures himself to do everything as a pupil of Pius, to emulate his justice, beneficence, clemency, piety, frugality, his respect for the opinions of others combined with firmness and foresight in making his own decisions, the purity of his sexual life, his mildness and cheerfulness, his civilitas, and so forth.

Marcus himself continually reflects on two themes, the providential order of the world and the duty incumbent on all men to perform acts of fellowship (praxeis koinônikai), a duty that springs from man's place in that order." This creed undoubtedly supplied him with a deeper sense of the value of the virtues that Pius had exemplified, not least his untiring devotion to work. 'Rejoice and take thy rest in one thing, proceeding from one social act to another, with God in mind' (VI 7).

There was no novelty

in all this. For instance, Hadrian's procurators had

proclaimed the 'indefatigable care with which he is unceasingly vigilant for the interests of men'. Fergus Millar has illustrated at length the standard of personal industry which was expected of emperors, though (I suspect) not as often reached as his more unwary readers might suppose.88 Dio tells us that Marcus himself was a hard worker who applied himself diligently to all the duties of his office, who never said or wrote or did anything as if it were of small account, but who would spend whole days, without hurrying, on the slightest point, believing that it would bring reproach on all his actions, if he neglected any detail. The assiduity always expected of an emperor was now grounded in Marcus' own philosophic convictions.89

Recently a scholar has censured Marcus for speaking of the obligations we have in the universal city of gods and men without telling us what they are.? But for Marcus each man has his own station in that city: his was that of Rome's ruler.

He was not writing a treatise to instruct others, but meditating privately on his own duties, and he could have learned these, in conformity with Epictetus' teaching, by merely considering the name of emperor which he bore; it told him

that his task was to do what was expected of an emperor. Numerous principles of government are in fact implicit in his account of Pius, for instance in his allusion to Pius' husbandry of financial resources. The same critic rightly observes that Marcus' policy and legislation were largely traditional, and concludes that he was basically a Roman rather than a Stoic." But the antithesis is false. I suppose that it rests on a presupposition that Stoic teaching on the kinship of all men as such ought to have made genuine believers critical of the existing order and ready, when they had the power, to reform it. But at least after Zeno and Chrysippus (n. 37) no Stoic thinker drew any such practical implications from the doctrines of the school: their aim was to amend the spiritual condition of individuals, not their material lot, nor the social structure. Epictetus held that it was man's task not to change the constitution of things - 'for this is neither vouchsafed us nor is it better that it should be' - but to make his will conform with what happens." So too Marcus, vested with autocratic power, tells himself 'not to look for a Utopia, but to be content if the least thing goes forward, and even in this case to count its outcome a small matter. "3

Marcus'

portrait of Pius has special value for two reasons. First, as the

product of intimate familiarity and perfect sincerity, it shows us both what Pius was in the eyes of one who had long worked with him closely and what Marcus himself sought to be." It is thus infinitely more authoritative testimony to the practice of Pius and to the ideals of Marcus than we possess for any other ruler in the judgements of historians or in the propaganda of panegyrics and coins. But, in the second place, if we leave on one side a few merely personal traits and anecdotes, it presents a model that corresponds to the conventional view of the good emperor that we can construct from such evidence. The qualities that Marcus imputes to Pius are precisely those for which other emperors take credit themselves or which are lauded by their admirers or flatterers, and the judgements of later historians such as Tacitus and Dio reflect the extent to which they considered these claims justified. Augustus himself provided the prototype.'5 There is thus no sign that Marcus recognized any objectives that had not been pursued by those among his predecessors who had earned the approval of the upper classes, or that his doctrines either led him to question the established principles of imperial policy or offered him any guidance in determining the objective content of his actions. His philosophy inspired him to do what he thought to be right, but what he thought to be right was fixed by tradition. His convictions made him give the most conscientious attention to even trivial tasks, but that very absorption can have left him the less time to re-examine the content of his duties; probably it never occurred to him that such re-examination could be needed.

The principles and virtues he admired in Pius are almost the same as, for instance, Pliny had ascribed to Trajan, and Pliny admits that they had been attributed to all earlier rulers, Domitian included, though with less sincerity and truth.? To take one example of the traditional character of the ideal, Pius' firmness of purpose, his self-consistency, recalls the 'constantia' of the Stoic wise man," but it was Tiberius who had proclaimed to the senate his wish to be 'far-sighted in your affairs, constant in dangers, fearless of giving offence for the public interest'. And in this same speech Tiberius re-asserted his policy of treating all Augustus' words and deeds as having the force of law. That was known even to a provincial contemporary; Strabo remarked that he had made Augustus the standard for his administration and commands.' It was by that standard that each of peror our or prided, a deo which the syst a uration of y ravis a

adjustments had from time to time to be made, but it developed slowly and almost imperceptibly from a sequence of new expedients rather than from any deliberate pursuit of reform. Deliberate innovation was characteristic only of those emperors whose policy was reversed after they had been overthrown.

There are certain features in Marcus' imperial ideal which are highly relevant to the attitudes that Romans of rank might be expected to adopt towards the emperor and his service. Pius had disliked pomp and adulation and treated his friends as one gentleman treats another; Marcus warned himself not to be 'Caesarified'. This civilitas may seem to be no more than a matter of etiquette, but Panaetius had already elevated sensibility for the feelings of others into a moral obligation (n. 35), and the more indes-tructibly absolute the real power of the emperor appeared, the more the upper class at Rome prized the semblance of his being no more than the first citizen. Perhaps nothing in Domitian's conduct so enraged them as his claim to be 'God and Master' and the behaviour that went with this claim. 100 Moreover, civilitas generally accompanied and conduced to something of more political significance, the emperor's readiness to tolerate free expressions of opinion and to listen to advice. Both Pius and Marcus were notable for respecting such 'libertas' (even though there is no good reason to think that Marcus did not reserve the final decision to himself). 1a Such respect was demanded of emperors by senators, and it could be seen as an indispensable condition of their performing their own role in the service of the state.

In name at least the imperial senate retained the highest responsibilities.

Augustus had pretended to restore the old Republic, 102 and it could even be said of him and of Tiberius that they had revived the maiestas of the senate. 103 On Republican principles, as stated by Cicero, that should have meant that the senate was once again the ruling organ of the state with the magistrates as its servants;1°4 of these the princeps could no doubt be regarded as the first. In theory he was to be the public choice ('vocatus electusque a re publica'), and Tiberius expressly acknowledged that it was the senate which had entrusted him with his wide powers; like Augustus, he would not allow himself to be styled dominus, but actually addressed the senators as his 'bonos et aequos et faventes dominos', 105 In outward appearance the majesty of the senate had been enhanced by new judicial, electoral and legislative prerogatives, and the privileges of its members were sedulously preserved or extended. At his accession Tiberius had professed to desire that the functions of government discharged by Augustus should be more widely shared; later he censured the senate for casting the whole burden on the emperor;10 he disliked flattery, 107 and at least pretended that senators should speak their minds; in his reign, as under Augustus, 108 there remained what Tacitus calls vestiges of free speech in the senate. 109 Tiberius began by consulting it on all matters, however weighty;''° it was still expected to be the great council of state. In A.D. 16 Gnaeus Piso, renowned for his free speaking, urged that it would be proper ('decorum') for the senate and Equites to show that they could assume the burdens of government in the absence of the emperor.!"

The reigns of terror in Tiberius' later years and under several of his successors in the first century cowed most members, but the emperors continued, however insincerely, to treat their constitutional rights as unchanged. Claudius could tell the senate that it was 'minime decorum maiestati huius ordinis' that its members should not all give their considered opinions.112 Pliny tells how Trajan exhorted them to resume their liberty and 'capessere quasi communis imperii curas'; we may be sure that 'quasi' was inserted as discreetly by Pliny as it had tactfully been omitted by Trajan. This was not new, as he remarks; every emperor had said the same, though none had been believed before. 113

Thus in theory the senate remained the great council of state, and just as a conscientious emperor could conceive that he was bound to perform the traditional duties of his station as ruler, so conscientious senators could take seriously the

fulfilment of the responsibilities that the emperors themselves continued to recognise as constitutionally belonging to their order. Under Nero Thrasea Paetus saw it as his duty 'agere senatorem' , to play the role of a senator. 114 At the outset of his reign in 54 Nero declared that the senate should retain its ancient functions, lis and until the conspiracy of Piso in 65 most senators were free from the terror that had hardly abated in the previous generation; Nero's victims in these years consisted almost wholly of the few who stood too near the throne. Thrasea had some ground for hope, not least in the influence of Seneca which lasted till 62, that there was now a place for senatorial freedom.

His first recorded initiative consisted in unsuccessful opposition to a motion permitting Syracuse to exceed the appointed number of gladiators for a show;

Thrasea was standing for the old order. 116 His critics urged that an advocate of senatorial liberty should devote himself rather to great questions of state; Thrasea replied that by attention to the smallest matters the senate would show its competence to deal with the greatest.'' To a Stoic virtue was manifest in every activity alike, and we may recall Marcus' attention to detail and insistence that it was of value if the least thing went forward (n. 93).

Thrasea also showed his care for good government by assisting the Cilicians to obtain the conviction of an oppressive governor in 57;118 yet in 62 he was to inveigh against the 'novam provincialium superbiam', manifested in the power some subjects possessed, to secure or prevent votes of thanks to governors in provincial councils; it was shameful that 'nunc colimus externos et adulamur'.

This solicitude for the superior dignity of senators was no more inconsistent with the Stoic belief in the common humanity of all men, irrespective of their status, than their failure to challenge the institution of slavery, or indeed to promote strict equality before the law among free men. They never expressed disapproval of

'degree, priority and place', which were such marked features of the Roman social structure and which they could not have regarded as incompatible with the providential order of the Universe. Not that Thrasea was showing indifference to the true interests of the provincials. It was the 'praevalidi provincialium et opibus nimiis ad iniurias minorum elati' whom he sought to check. Tacitus makes him aver his care for good government on this very occasion; his sincerity need not be doubted, and in all probability his motion, which was approved after reference to Nero, was beneficial. Once again it only extended the principle of a senatus consultum of Augustus' time. '19

Already in 59 Thrasea had walked out of the senate rather than assent to the

congratulations it proffered to Nero on Agrippina's murder. 120 He also showed less enthusiasm than Nero desired for the ludi luvenales. His enemies suggested that it was inconsistent that he had himself performed in the garb of a tragic actor in his home town of Padua. But the ludi cetasti which he had so honoured were of ancient institution, ascribed to Antenor, and it is very possible that Thrasea had done no more than tradition required.12 By contrast, Nero's histrionic performances were a hated novelty. Ordinary Romans came to detest Nero no less for his breaches of convention than for his crimes; 'I began to hate you' Subrius Flavus told him:

'once you appeared as the murderer of your mother and wife, as charioteer, actor and incendiary' 122 It was typical of a Stoic to disapprove of departures from the old mores. Yet Thrasea still did not despair; what Seneca could excuse, he might overlook. In 62 he advocated a mild penalty for the praetor, Antistius, accused of treason because he had published poems libellous of the emperor; the senate should not impose sentence of death 'egregio sub principe', when it was free to make its own decision and could opt for clemency. Even flattery of Nero was justified in a good cause, and in fact Seneca's old pupil was not yet ready to disregard the maxims of his master. 123

Long assiduous in attending the senate, Thrasea at last withdrew in 63 or 64, though he still performed private duties to his clients in the courts, in the manner Seneca recommended. 124 There is no vestige of evidence that he conspired, but his retirement implied that in his view the regime was irretrievably corrupt, since his previous devotion to public affairs showed that it could not be set down to 'ipsius inertiae dulcedo, 125 It may seem strange that his younger friends, Arulenus Rusticus, tribune in 66, and Helvidius Priscus, did not retire with him; but each Stoic had to make his own decision, true to his own persona.

Thrasea's conduct marked Nero as a tyrant; it could be construed, and genuinely felt, as a threat. Tyrannicide was esteemed in antiquity as not a crime but a noble deed. In an extreme case, according to Seneca, it was an act of mercy to the tyrant himself. 126 The poet, Lucan, who was tinged with Stoicism, had been implicated in Piso's conspiracy,and that was the occasion for the banishment of Musonius, though there was apparently no evidence of his guilt. 12 In general, there is no ground for thinking that Stoics turned to plotting against the emperors

of whom they most profoundly disapproved. Epictetus merely insists that no commands of the tyrant can affect true freedom; a man can always choose to obey God rather than Caesar. Thus he only contemplates passive resistance. 128 Thrasea went no further, and perished on that ground alone. Under Domitian too Arulenus Rusticus, called an ape of the Stoics, is said to have suffered death merely for his laudation of Thrasea, Herennius Senecio for his biography of the elder Helvidius and for failing to pursue the normal senatorial career, and Helvidius' own son for his withdrawal from politics and for alleged libels on the emperor; by what they did not do, and sometimes by what they said, these men had indicated that Domitian was a tyrant, no more, but that was sufficient offence. 129

The elder Helvidius, Thrasea's son-in-law, undoubtedly went further. 130

Exiled by Nero and recalled by Galba, he was encouraged by Vitellius' practice of consulting the senate even on minor matters to controvert the emperor's proposals, 13 and new hope was brought by the accession of Vespasian, a friend of Thrasea. At first Helvidius spoke of him with honour but without insincere adulation. 132 He judged that the time had come for independent action. The senate should indeed 'capessere rem publicam', all the more, as Gnaeus Piso had once held (n. 111) because the emperor was absent. Helvidius proposed that the senate should take immediate measures to remedy the deficiencies of the treasury and to restore the Capitol, a task in which Vespasian might merely be asked to assist. 133 By selecting deputies to congratulate the new ruler it should mark out the men on whom Vespasian should rely for advice.134 Equally the great delators of Nero's reign, such as Thrasea's accuser, Eprius Marcellus, should be punished. Perhaps the motives for this demand made by Helvidius' friends as well as by himself were vindictive; we cannot read their minds. 135 But we may see a justification that went beyond rancour, one of the same kind that lay behind the impeachments and Acts of Attainder that served to promote the development of a constitutional monarchy in our own country; the punishment of wicked ministers of the past might deter their like in the future. Helvidius' aim was surely to ensure that Vespasian and his successors should rule by the advice and consent of the senate and of those it trusted. His initiatives found insufficient support. 136

It was in the same year after Vespasian's return that the fatal conflict

began. 137 According to Dio Helvidius incurred Vespasian's hatred partly for abusing his friends - that is easy to understand, for Eprius was again in high favour - and still more for turbulence in rousing the people with denunciations of monarchy and praise of a Republican system. 138 That is not to be believed. Long ago Helvidius had consented to serve the Principate; he had recently approved of Vespasian's accession, and rabble-rousing was as alien to Stoic practice as it was futile. Probably Dio confused Helvidius' attachment to libertas, an ambiguous word, with Republican allegiance. 139 But the breach was serious: it led first to Helvidius' arrest and then to his banishment and execution, of which Vespasian himself is said to have repented. He must in the emperor's view have been guilty of treason. But in what way?

Dio, in making out that Helvidius appealed to the rabble, probably associates his opposition with the expulsion of Stoic and Cynic philosophers that occurred about the same time (n. 10). It is highly probably that some Cynics under the Principate did assail monarchy and the whole social order. This view indeed hardly fits the notion that there was a 'Cynic-Stoic' theory of kingship, but that notion should surely be discarded. Just as the Cynic 'citizen of the world' was a man who rejected the ties of citizenship in any particular state, so the Cynic 'king' was one who truly possessed the unfettered freedom that was falsely ascribed to autocrats; both conceptions were moral, not political.140 In any case Cynics and Stoics ought not to be confused, though some Stoics, notably Epictetus, undoubtedly admired the true Cynic's indifference to worldly goods; but not even Epictetus held that it was right, except for a few persons with a special vocation, to neglect ordinary social and political obligations. 14 But just because there was a certain measure of agreement between Stoics and Cynics, and because there were a few Stoics who could be called 'paene Cynici' (n. 37), it was easy for the enemies of aristocratic Stoics to resort to malicious misrepresentation of their attitudes.

Thus the accusers of Thrasea had suggested that his attachment to liberty was a mere pretence that concealed anarchic designs inimical to the Roman peace. 142

Tacitus' detailed account of his actions disposes of this calumny. Unfortunately, Tacitus' evidence of Helvidius' quarrel with Vespasian is lacking, and Dio, usually unsympathetic to philosophers, probably adopted uncritically somewhat similar allegations against him. '43 It is not in the least likely that a man of mature age who

had sought to uphold the authority of the senate and had previously been ready to serve emperors now threw over all his past convictions and engaged in attacks on the whole established order. 144 Epictetus (n. 152) and Tacitus (n. 22) depict him as true to the last to his own role as a senator. We must then look for another explanation.

Dio's epitomator collocates Helvidius' quarrel with Vespasian with an incident in which Vespasian left the senate in tears, saying that either his sons would succeed him or no one would. It is an old conjecture, which I would endorse, that Helvidius objected to Vespasian's manifest intention to pass on his power to his sons. 145 Once Titus had actually been invested with imperial power as his father's colleague in 71, Helvidius' protests could plausibly have been construed as treason. If this explanation be true, we can see that there was right on both sides. Constitutionally the choice of a princeps lay with the senate, and a man was to be chosen in the public interest as the person best fitted for the task. There was no reason to think that Titus or Domitian fulfilled this criterion. I* In practice the succession had been dynastic from the first, and it had given Rome a series of rulers, every one of whom in senatorial opinion had proved a tyrant. The crimes and follies of Nero had resulted in civil war that imperilled the very fabric of the empire. Galba (having no heir in his family) had allegedly proclaimed a very different principle: the adoption of the best man to be marked out by consent. 147 Yet from the first Flavian supporters had seen in the fact that Vespasian had two grown sons a guarantee of stability. 148 Dynastic sentiment might count for little in the senate, but it made a powerful appeal to the armies and the provinces. '4) Not one of Vespasian's successors could afford to disregard this factor. Marcus Aurelius admired Helvidius as well as Thrasea; from them he had learned, he says, the conception of a state with one law for all, adminstered by the principles of equality and free speech for all alike, and of a monarchy that valued most highly the liberty of the subjects;150 yet he too made a worthless son his successor. We need not think that this must be explained by Aristotle's dry observation that it would be

 an act above human virtue for an absolute king to disinherit his own son:151 dynastic succession was part of the tradition that Marcus could think it right to accept.

Epictetus illustrates his thesis that every man has his own individual role to play by dramatizing a confrontation between Helvidius and Vespasian. 'When Vespasian forbade him to attend the senate, Helvidius replied, "It lies with you to exclude me from the senate, but while I am a senator, I must attend". "Then attend, but say nothing." "Do not ask my opinion and I will say nothing." "But I am bound to ask your opinion." "And I am bound to say what I think right." "But if you speak, I shall put you to death." "When then did I tell you that I was immortal: You will do your part and I mine. It is your part to put me to death, mine to die without trembling, your part to banish me, mine to depart without repining.'" What good did Helvidius do, asks Epictetus, as he stood alone? 'What good does the red stripe do the mantle? What but this? It shines out (iopÉTTE!) as red, and is there as a fine (koóv) example to the rest. Anyone but Helvidius would simply have thanked Vespasian for excusing his attendance, but then Vespasian would not have had to issue any prohibition; any one else would have sat in the senate, inanimate as a jug, or have heaped on the emperor the flatteries he wished to hear. '152

Helvidius had assumed a role, conscious of what his personality required, had prepared himself to play it, and was resolved to play it to the last. And his conception of that role was determined by constitutional principles, to which indeed most men now rendered only lip service. His stand was unsuccesstul. lo a Stoic that was of no consequence. Similarly it was no valid criticism of Thrasea that in disapproving of Agrippina's murder he imperilled himself without promoting the freedom of the rest. 153 Not all men have the same duties, and in any case you could not prescribe another's conduct, 154 nor could it affect your own blessedness.

CONCLUSIONS

If my contentions are correct, Stoics as such had no theoretical preference for any particular form of government, monarchical or Republican. They acknowledged the value of the state, and they accepted that an individual whose position in the world and natural endowments permitted him to render the state some service had a duty to take part in public life, but only under certain conditions. His preoccupation with political activity must not be such as to impair his spiritual

welfare, and even though the value of every action derived wholly from the agent's state of mind and not at all from the external consequences of the action, it was senseless for a man to involve himself in public cares, if it were certain from the start that he could achieve nothing so long as he acted as a good man should. Thus Stoic teaching may have tended to induce many of its devotees never to emerge from a quiet course of philosophic study and private duties: it certainly led others to retire from public life, or to manifest their opposition to the government, under rulers whose conduct violated moral rules. These rules were, for the Stoics, those which were endorsed by their society. It did not occur to them that the political principles that rulers were commonly expected to observe might need to be reviewed. Each man had a role to perform, a station to fill, the duties of which were fixed by general consent. The good emperor, and the good senator, were bound to carry out these duties conscientiously. It was this way of thinking that united Stoics in power and Stoics in opposition. Hence, as the good ruler, Marcus could easily recognize the merits of good subjects such as Thrasea and Helvidius, who had done their best to play their own, different, parts in public affairs.

If in politics success is the standard of judgment, there was little to commend in men who did not identify outward defeat with sheer futility, who admired above all the 'iustum et tenacem propositi virum' and would have thought it praise enough to say that si fractus illabatur orbis

impavidum ferient ruinae,

without even admitting that there might be something unwelcome in the ruin of the world. Moralists may find some comfort that history occasionally reveals men in high places ready to do or endure anything for what they suppose to be right.

The historian can note that what the Stoics supposed to be right, what they could conscientiously devote or sacrifice their lives to doing, was largely settled by the ideas and practices current in their society, and that a Helvidius or a Marcus was inspired by his beliefs not to revalue or reform the established order, but to fulfil his place within that order, in conformity with notions that men of their time and class usually accepted, at least in name, but with unusual resolution, zeal and fortitude.