Anna Maria Ghersi

You’re my spark of nature’s fire

You’re my sweet complete desire

Luigi Speranza

Il gesto romano

 The Ancient Romans avoided Austin’s performative ‘I acclaim’ as unmanly and resorted to a well-known gesture to implicate it! Adfectus omnes languescant necesse est, nisi voce, vultu, totius prope habitu corporis inardescunt. The Roman forcefully manipulated his body in the act of persuading an addressee. The Roman utterer engages with his addressee. The Roman utterer *communicates* with his addressee. In turn the addressee is able to apply and convey his reaction back to the utterer. A Roman gesture becomes *prescribed* from the delivery of an initially one-off unconventional utterance. Since Roman rhetorical treatises repeatedly stress that the utterer should elicit with his body a specific emotional response from his addressee. A particularised gesture — pointing with the index finger — would from the one-off scenario, later bring home an initially particularised detail to his addressee. The public setting of the utterance provides ample opportunities for the utterer to point at various monuments and buildings in the vicinity. Another range of bodily gesturing involves mimicry. The particularised way in which Antoninus formed and moved his hand when beginning an argument. The emperor (or duce in general) and his responsive crowd behave quasi-contractually. An acclamation by an urban addressee, Antoninus notes, differs in kind from that used by a rustic addresssee. This observation coincides with the disparaging remarks that Antoninus makes about the delivery of provincials. The proper rhetoric, it would seem, is for Antoninus urban — i. e., Roman — rhetoric, as in the gesture of the right arm upheld and left concealed by Ottaviano at Prima Porta. For the utterer’s body to have emotional emotional on the addressee, the reasonable grounds of the one-off scenario suffice. Antonino is more effective when his addressee is *unaware* of the potential mysterious arsenal of rhetorical devices being used in persuasion. If the addressee recognises that certain gesture is aimed at persuasion, the addressee finds the utterer less persuasive. Apuleius cites Antonino when he adds to the overall characterization of his bungling Thelyphron by having him use a vulgar gesture that came naturally to him. The inept vulgar gesture by Thelyphron’s coincides with the expectation of any elite addressee who happened by chance to be in the crowd! Terence’s pointing, clenched fist, pudicitia gesture — are well-known fromreliable contexts, including illustrations. Antoninus recalls Frontone’s advice, don’t be a clown, alluding to the avoidance of the gesturing over-employed by comic actors and dancers in pantomime. The lack of voice amplification, a non-acoustical spaces, and milling crowds present special challenges to Antonino, who must rely on some intricate combination of fingers! On the other hand, by striking the chest with the clenched fist the utterer means grief or anger iin a natural and universal mode. Vitters told Sraffa that, for one, he does not recall ever having used this “natural” gesture himself, but then as Bulwer notes in Chirologia that what’s natural is natural to this or that upbringing. Christians, unlike Romans, do not perform this gesture properly, but are ‘wont mysteriously to mince this natural expression.’ So the gesture *is* ceteris paribus natural — for first-century Romans — but unnaturalised by the Christians! The rhetorical education provided by Fromyone to Antonino was put to use in well-known historical episodes. The counter-conversational move of the vocative acclamation — as in the euphemistic barbarism, ‘Euge’ — on behalf of the addressee exercises a powerful influence on the utterer.. As the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae notes, the performative use of ‘adclamare’ initially carries a sardonic implicature. The *site* for an acclamation ranges from the Forum or the Campus Martius to the circus, arena, or theater. The utterer’s response increases in frequency and becomes more positive in tone as its direct political implicature lessens — from a simple applause to a complex chanted phrase — as in Germanicus POxy. 25 2435r -. A give and take occurs whenever an utterer addressed a set of *Roman citizens* assembled as a mass. An emperor such as Tiberius — who changed the electorate rules — has a relationship with his crowd, determined by the crowd’s reaction which made it virtually obligatory for him to attend this or that game. The impact that public acclamations has on imperial policy is evidenced by the choice of which gladiator to display at a game to more crucial issues such as the price of grain and even his selection as emperor himself! The growing theatricalization of politics which reached its apex with Mussolini and Berlusconi, the flamboyance of gesture bemoaned by Cato the Censor and the increased importance of the acclamation are symptomatic of how the Roman utterer is perceived as a performer soliciting uptake — alla Austin — the roar of the paint, the smell of the crowd. Utterer and addressee are continually negotiating their interdependence. Especially interesting is the way in which the addresee’s reaction is endowed with a power to play a political role not only the utterer’s decision and but in the implementation of this or that policy. A. Vasaly, Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory. R. Brilliant, Gesture and Rank in Roman Art. E. Gunderson, Discovering the Body in Roman Oratory,” in M. Wyke ed., Parchments of Gender. Deciphering the Bodies of Antiquity, Oxford, A. Corbeill, Thumbs in Ancient Rome: Pollex as Index, M. Atkinson, Our Masters’ Voices: the Language and Body Language of Politics; A. Funck, ” Accipiter, acclamatio, acclamo,” Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie und Grammatik. F. Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic.

L’implicatura di Antonino

 “All emotional appeals necessarily lose their force if they are not kindled by the voice, facial expression, and demeanor of practically the entire body” (Quint. Inst. 11.3.2: adfectus omnes languescant necesse est, nisi voce, vultu, totius prope habitu corporis inardescunt). With these words Quintilian introduces his thirty-odd pages on how the Roman orator can most forcefully manipulate the body in the act of persuading an audience. In this revised Michigan dissertation, Aldrete attempts to situate Quintilian’s assertion in a larger context and in so doing provide an analysis of the interaction between crowd and speaker in the late Republic and early Empire. The book falls into the two distinct halves indicated by the title, the first covering gestures in oratory, the second the context and function of acclamations from the crowd. A. sees these two forms of expression as the essential components of how the public speaker at Rome engaged with his hearers: “This work is a study of communication, how Roman speakers communicated with their audiences and how in turn audiences were able to apply and convey their reactions back to the speakers” (xvii). 

Chapter One (3-43) surveys the prescriptions regarding gesture in Roman rhetorical treatises and, to the extent they can be reconstructed, their application in extant oratory. A. begins with a review of the importance placed upon delivery in the Greek and Roman rhetorical tradition and then turns to a selective overview of Quintilian’s detailed discussion of the topic ( Inst. 11.3). Since Roman rhetorical treatises repeatedly stress that the orator should elicit with his body specific emotional responses from his audience, A. is especially interested in how Quintilian’s descriptions are thought to complement the verbal appeals of a speaker. The next and longest section looks at places in extant oratory where the orator could have employed one specific gesture — pointing with the index finger — to bring home a particular detail to his audience. The discussion is necessarily speculative, but A. offers good observations about how the public setting of most speeches would have provided ample opportunities for the orator to point at various monuments and buildings in the vicinity. The bulk of the examples given, however, have less to do with the significance of the gesture — it is, after all, not the speaker’s index finger per se that evokes an emotional response — as with the orator’s use of place, a subject recently explored in greater detail by Ann Vasaly.1 The chapter concludes by considering other ways the orator could have used his body: in mimicry, in keeping time to his words, and in providing signals to the crowd. 

This discussion of gesture assumes throughout that speaker and audience interacted according to “rules and at least a tacit agreement to abide by them” (xvii). A. does a good job of summarizing the rules (relying almost exclusively on the explicit testimony of Cicero and Quintilian), but he does not choose to speculate about the origins of this “tacit agreement.” How, for example, does Quintilian “know” the specific way in which Cicero formed and moved his hand when beginning his defense of Archias (which A. cites without comment on 15) or, even more interestingly, what causes him to believe he knows the gesture of Demosthenes at a specific point in a speech delivered over four hundred years earlier ( Inst. 11.3.97)? The elite orator and responsive crowd seem indeed to have made an agreement, but for what purpose and at whose expense is not a subject that this book chooses to address. A. does, however, cite evidence that may lead at least part way toward an answer when he notes in the second half of his book evidence to suggest that the acclamations of the urban plebs differed in kind from those used in rural Italy (130). A.’s observation here coincides with the disparaging remarks that Roman rhetorical treatises consistently make about the delivery of provincial orators. The proper rhetoric, it would seem, is urban rhetoric. 

The second chapter (“Gesture in Roman Society;” 44-84) covers narrower ground than its title indicates, being restricted primarily to evidence outside of the rhetorical tradition that could indicate the familiarity of the average Roman with the detailed system offered by Quintilian. His consideration of artistic representations of Roman orators, largely dependent on Brilliant,2 includes only one example of a hand gesture (from the reconstructed right hand of the Prima Porta Augustus). Nevertheless, A. confidently concludes that the handbooks “accurately represented the everyday practice of Roman orators” (50), seemingly on the basis of statues that show speakers with right arm upraised and left concealed. A.’s further considerations of the extent to which the handbooks reflect daily practice are not much more satisfying. For the body to have emotional effect on the hearer, Aldrete assumes that the audience would need to have “knowledge” of systems such as Quintilian’s. Although this could seem an intuitive assumption, the existence of a system in use by speakers does not necessitate an awareness of this system on the part of an audience. Modern studies of crowd communication show that in fact speakers are more effective when the audience is unaware of the potential rhetoric being used in persuasion; when hearers recognize that certain gestures are aimed at persuasion, they find the speaker less persuasive.3 A.’s one concrete example of a member of the non-elite employing an oratorical gesture (Apul. Met. 2.21) can be shown to demonstrate that, on the contrary, the precise vocabulary of gesture was mysterious to the crowd (50). In this passage, Apuleius adds to the overall characterization of his bungling Thelyphron by having him use a gesture that is in fact notattested by Quintilian.4 Rather than revealing knowledge, Thelyphron’s inept oratory coincides with the expectations of Apuleius’ elite readers. 

In the next section, A. ably treats the much-discussed topic of the illustrated manuscripts of Terence. His conclusion that the illustrations “make many of the convoluted descriptions in Quintilian intelligible” (67) is again unfortunately overstated, since nearly all the gestures he discusses in this section — pointing, clenched fist, “pudicitia” gesture — are well-known from more reliable contexts than these illustrations, whose date and relevance to antiquity — not to mention to ancient oratory — are much disputed. In this section, as elsewhere, A. assumes on unclear grounds that the gestures employed by comic actors, dancers in pantomime, and orators belong to comparable systems (57; see too 51-52, 77). The chapter concludes with interesting and useful observations on the place of gesture in ancient Rome, where lack of voice amplification, non-acoustical spaces, and milling crowds presented special challenges to the public speaker. I doubt however that gestures can really “be seen at a greater range than words can be heard” (82); can intricate combinations of fingers really be read at such a distance, which A. estimates at 65 meters? The passage from Plutarch ( Pomp.25) cited in support is not strictly relevant, since here the speaker uses gesture not to overcome distance but to be understood over crowd noise, and the gestures required would hardly need to be complex (pace A.). A. certainly demonstrates in these opening chapters the importance of gesture to the Roman orator, but I am not as comfortable with his claims about how these gestures were construed by those members of the crowd not learned in rhetorical theory. 

As is clear from my summary so far, Aldrete is committed to showing bodies in action and not to interrogating the texts that describe those bodies. As a result, do not expect from this book any engagement with the many recent works analyzing constructions of the body in antiquity. A. accepts readily Quintilian’s notions of the natural body and is not concerned with how the rhetorician’s emphasis on the capacity of the hand and gesture to persuade succeeds in creating a realm of the unnatural, into which fall — to name the most common categories — non-Romans, actors, and effeminate men.5 In fact, A. seems comfortable himself in ascribing certain gestures to an unexplained “nature.” Striking the chest with the clenched fist to denote grief or anger is described as seeming “natural and almost universal” (9). He has not chosen to consider instead whether Quintilian is here constructing the natural and that the construction survives as natural today because of direct transmission from Quintilian via rhetorical treatises, acting manuals, and staged melodrama. I, for one, do not recall ever having used this “natural” gesture myself, but then I found in Bulwer’s Chirologia of 1644 (a work which owes much to Quintilian) that the explanation for this lack comes from my upbringing: Roman Catholics do not perform the gesture properly, but “are wont … mysteriously to mince this natural expression” (75). So the gesture isnatural — for first-century Romans and seventeenth-century Anglicans. Despite these reservations — and to stop criticizing A. for a book he did not write —, the first half of Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Romeperforms a useful service in bringing together much of the evidence needed to assess the use of an orator’s body in persuading his audience. 

Chapter Three (85-97), on “Oratory and the Roman Emperors,” provides a nice bridge between the two halves of the book. Here A. briefly surveys what we know about the rhetorical education of the earliest emperors and then recounts specific historical episodes which indicate the importance the emperors placed on their interaction with the people. 

With Chapters Four and Five (101-127 and 128-164; confusingly referred to as Chapters Three and Four in the Introduction xx-xxi), A. shifts his focus to the orator’s audience, wishing to show that acclamations on behalf of the crowd could exercise a powerful influence on individual politicians, especially emperors. The discussion starts out unpromising with a citation of the definition that the Oxford Latin Dictionary provides for acclamo and acclamatio. Consultation of Thesaurus Linguae Latinae would have offered not only a more nuanced examination of the words, but also one more in keeping with A.’s subsequent discussion. As Funck notes in the article cited in TLL, the words acclamo and acclamatio have quite a different development from what OLD implies. They are in fact rarely neutral, and the negative connotations that they originally could possess have largely disappeared by the time of the empire.6 This semantic study supports well A.’s interesting analysis of how the site of acclamations and crowd/politician interaction moves from the politically charged spaces of the Forum and Campus Martius during the republic and into venues for entertainment such as the circus, arena, and theater. Crowd response increases in frequency and becomes more positive in tone as its direct political implications lessen. After offering a convenient typology of the acclamation — they range from simple applause to chanted phrases of surprising complexity —, A. makes fine use of the fragmentary speech of Germanicus delivered at Alexandria (POxy. 25 [1959] 2435r) to demonstrate the extraordinary give and take that must often have occurred whenever a speaker addressed Roman citizens assembled as a mass (115-118). 

The different relationships emperors had with the crowd and how crowd reactions determined these relationships is the primary focus of these pages. Although often repetitive (for example, we are reminded on numerous occasions of the frequent opportunities for plebs/emperor interaction, and on pages 150 and 156 similar points are made about the electoral changes made under Tiberius) and although assertion occasionally replaces proof (e.g., the compulsion for emperors to attend games, which “seems … quite strong” on 120 becomes “obligatory” by 156), A. is at his best here in citing ancient evidence for the impact that public acclamations could have on imperial action, from the relatively trivial choice of which gladiator to display at the games, to more crucial issues such as the price of grain and even the selection of the emperor himself. 

In the “Conclusion” (165-171), A. links his overall theme of gesture and acclamation with the well-worn theme of how the transition from republic to empire witnessed a growing theatricalization of politics: the flamboyance of gesture bemoaned by Quintilian and the increased importance of acclamation are symptomatic of how the public speaker has come to be perceived as more performer than orator. A helpful index of terms closes the book. I would like to have seen also an index locorum. 

Despite its unevenness, Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome offers many individual insights into the ways in which the crowd and speaker were continually negotiating their interdependence. Especially interesting are the ways in which crowd reactions could play a role not only in individual decisions but in the creation of policy. Here lies, I think, the importance of A.’s work, in its attempt to extend into the empire the kind of revisionist views of the populace that has informed recent discussions of the political power of the crowd during the republic.7

Notes

1. A. Vasaly, Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley 1993).

2. R. Brilliant, Gesture and Rank in Roman Art(New Haven 1963) = Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 14.

3. For this type of approach, see E. Gunderson, “Discovering the Body in Roman Oratory,” in M. Wyke ed., Parchments of Gender. Deciphering the Bodies of Antiquity (Oxford 1998) 169-189.

4. A. Corbeill, “Thumbs in Ancient Rome: Pollex as Index,” MAAR 42 (1997) 7.

5. E.g., M. Atkinson, Our Masters’ Voices: the Language and Body Language of Politics (New York 1984) (a work cited in A.’s bibliography).

6.A. Funck, ” Accipiter, acclamatio, acclamo,” Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie und Grammatik 9 (1896) 589-591.

7. See especially F. Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Ann Arbor 1998) for a full discussion of the issue and previous bibliography.

Enea: il primo stoico

 STOICISM IN ROMAN HISTORY AND LITERATURE. ALTHOUGH up to this point it has been our main 

Spread of | Purpose to set forth the doctrines of Stoicism, Stoicisa.: we have seen incidentally that these came to exercise a wide influence in Roman society, and that the later 
teachers are far less occupied in the attainment of truth than in the right guidance of disciples who lean upon them. In the 
present chapter we propose to describe more particularly the practical influence of Stoicism. Our information, whether drawn from history or from poetry, refers generally to the upper classes of Roman society ; as to the influence of the sect amongst the poor we have no sufficient record. But although it is very generally held that the Stoics made no effort to reach the 
working classes of Rome, or met with no success in that direction’, the evidence points rather to an opposite conclusion, at any rate as regards all that development of the system which 
was coloured by Cynism, the philosophy of the poor®. Our actual records are therefore rather of the nature of side-lights upon the system ; the main stream of Stoic influence may well 
have flowed in courses with which we are imperfectly acquainted, and its workings may perhaps come to light first in a period of 
history which lies beyond our immediate scope. 
1 Lightfoot, Phzlippzans, p. 319; Dill, Roman Soctety, p. 334; Warde Fowler, 
Social Life at Rome, p. 27. 2 The practice of street-preaching, as described by Horace and Epictetus, points this way; and the world-wide diffusion of Stoicism, in more or less diluted forms, is hardly reconcileable with its restriction to a single class of society. Individual Romans who professed themselves disciples 
Deeg of the Porch owed their allegiance to the sect to direct and two causes, in varying proportion. On the one hand aie they had attended lectures or private instruction given by eminent Stoic teachers, or had immersed themselves 
in Stoic literature. This influence was in almost all cases the influence of Greek upon Roman, and the friendship between the Stoic Panaetius and Scipio Aemilianus was the type of all 
subsequent discipleship. Scipio himself did not perhaps formally become a Stoic, but he introduced into Roman society the atmosphere of Stoicism, known to the Romans as humanitas: this included an aversion to war and civil strife, an eagerness to appreciate the art and literature of Greece, and an admiration for the ideals depicted by Xenophon, of the ruler in Cyrus, and 
of the citizen in Socrates*. All the Stoic nobles of the time of the republic are dominated by these feelings. On the other hand individuals were often attracted by the existence of a society which proclaimed itself independent of the will of rulers, and offered its members mutual support and consolation. Such men were often drawn into Stoicism by the persuasion of friends, 
without being necessarily well-grounded in philosophical principle; and in this way small groups or cliques might easily be formed in which social prejudice or political bias outweighed the formal doctrine of the school. Such a group was that of the ‘old Romans’ of the first century of the principate; and with the spread of Stoicism this indirect and imperfect method of attachment constantly grows in importance as compared with direct discipleship. Of the first group of Roman Stoics the most notable The Scipionic Was C. LAELIUS, the intimate friend of Scipio, SHS Ec who became consul in 140 B.C. In his youth he had listened to the teaching of Diogenes of Babylon, in later life he was the friend of Panaetius*. He was in his time a 
3 *semper Africanus Socraticum Xenophontem in manibus habebat’ Cic. TZesc. disp. 
ii 26, 62; ‘Cyrus ille a Xenophonte ad effigiem iusti imperi scriptus...quos quidem 
libros Africanus de manibus ponere non solebat’ ad Quznt. 11 8, 23. 4 116 [Laelius] qui Diogenem Stoicum adulescens, post autem Panaetium audi- erat’ Fiz. ii 8, 24.  — notable orator with a quiet flowing style®; his manners were cheerful®, his temper was calm’; and, as we have seen’, he seemed 
to many the nearest of all the Romans to the ideal of the Stoic sage. He is brought on as the chief speaker in Cicero’s de Amicitia. Another close friend of Africanus was Sp. MUMMIUS, the brother of the conqueror of Achaia; his oratory was marked by the ruggedness characteristic of the Stoic school®. Passing mention may be made of L. FURIUS PHILUS, consul in 136 B.C, and a member of the same group, though his philosophical views are not known to us”. From the ‘humane’ movement sprang the GracchanThe Gracchan reforms, which al! alike aimed at deposing from pened power the class to which the reformers by birth belonged. To the temper of mind which made such a desire possible Stoic doctrine had largely contribute. The Greeks had taught their Roman pupils to see in the nascent Roman empire, bearing the watchword of the ‘majesty of the Roman name’ (smatestas nominis Romant), at least an approximation to the ideal Cosmopolis: and many Romans so far responded to this suggestion as to be not unfriendly towards plans for extending their citizenship and equalizing the privileges of those who enjoyed it. C. BLOssIUS of Cumae, a pupil of Antipater of Tarsus, went so far as to instigate Tiberius Gracchus to the schemes which proved his destruction"; whilst other Stoics, equally sincere in their aims, disagreed with the violence shown by Tiberius in his choice of method. Amongst the latter was Q. AELIUS TUBERO, a nephew of Africanus”, who became consul in 118 B.c. He devoted himself day and night to the > “lenitatem Laelius habuit’ Cic. de Or. iii 7, 28; “Ὁ. Laelius et P. Africanus imprimis eloquentes’ Braz. 21, 82. 6 ‘in C. Laelio multa hilaritas’ Of. i 30, 108. 7 *praeclara est aequabilitas in omni vita et idem semper vultus eademque frons, ut de Socrate itemque de C. Laelio accepimus’ 24. 26, go. 8 See above, § 326. 9 «Sp. [Mummius] nihilo ornatior, sed tamen astrictior; fuit enim doctus ex disciplina Stoicorum’ Cic. Brut. 25, 94. 10 “non tulit ullos haec civitas humanitate politiores P. Africano, C. Laelio, L. Furio, qui secum eruditissimos homines ex Graecia palam semper habuerunt’ de Or. ii 37, 154. 1 Cic. Amic. 11, 37. 15. «Ti. Gracchum a Q. Tuberone aequalibusque amicis derelictum videbamus’ 2d. Sip ecrelldl aA yay Ie ? es σῦν, | we he study of philosophy”, and though of no mark as an orator, won himself respect by the strictness and consistency of his life™, Panaetius, Posidonius, and Hecato all addressed treatises to him”; and he is a leading speaker in Cicero’s Republic. After the fall of the Gracchi the Stoic nobles con- Laclius το tittued to play distinguished and honourable parts | eeGU NEE, in public life. A family succession was main- : 
tained through two daughters of Laelius, so that here we may perhaps recognise the beginning of the deservedly famous ‘Stoic marriages. Of the two ladies the elder was married to — 
Q. MUcIUS SCAEVOLA, known as ‘the augur,’ who was consul in 117 B.c. He was a devoted friend of Panaetius, and famous for his knowledge of civil law’. The younger daughter was married 
to C. FANNIUS, who obtained some distinction as a historian”. In C. LUCILIUS we find the Latin poet of Stoicism ; the views which he expresses in his satires on religion and ethics are in the closest agreement with the teaching of Panaetius™, and the large circulation of his poems must have diffused them through wide circles’. At the same time his attacks on the religious institu- tions of Numa and his ridicule of his own childish beliefs may well have brought philosophy into ill odour as atheistic and unpatriotic: and we find the statesmen of the next generation specially anxious to avoid any such imputations. A dominating figure is that of Ὁ. MUCIUS SCAEVOLA, Scaevola‘the COmmonly called ‘the pontifex, who was a nephew pontifex.’ of his namesake mentioned above, and derived from him his interest in civil law; he was consul in 95 B.C. 
He overcame the difficulty about the popular religion by distin- τ ale Of ΠΔ 28%, δὴ- 14 *quoniam Stoicorum est facta mentio, Q. Aelius Tubero fuit illo tempore, nullo in oratorum numero, sed vita severus et congruens cum ea disciplina quam colebat ’ Brut. 31, 117. 15 Fin. iv 9, 23; Off. ili 15, 63. 16 ‘ Panaetii illius tui’ Cic. de Or. 1 11, 45; ‘[Mucius augur] oratorum in numero non fuit: iuris civilis intellegentia atque omni prudentiae genere praestitit’ Brut. 26, 
102. 7 <C, Fannius, C. Laeli gener,...instituto Laelii Panaetium audiverat.  eius 
omnis in dicendo facultas ex historia ipsius non ineleganter scripta perspici potest’ 
2b. 101. 38 Schmekel, A@ittlere Stoa, pp. 444, 445. 19 See especially his praise of virtue, beginning ‘virtus, Albine, est pretium per- 
solvere verum | queis in versamur, queis vivimu’ rebu’ potesse’ fr. 1. neice, — guishing on Stoic lines three classes of deities, (i) mythical deities, celebrated by the poets with incredible and unworthy narrations”; (ii) philosophical deities, better suited for the schools than for the market-place; (iii) civic deities, whose 
ceremonies it is the duty of state officials to maintain™, interpreting them so as to agree with the philosophers rather than with the poets”. In this spirit he filled the position of chief 
officer of the state religion. He was however no time-server ; for being appointed after his consulship to be governor of Asia, he joined with his former quaestor P. RUTILIUS RUFUS in the 
design of repressing the extortion of the pudblicanz. A decisive step taken by him was to declare all dishonourable contracts invalid; and more than a generation later his just and sparing 
administration was gratefully remembered both at Rome and in the provinces*. The eguz¢es took their revenge not on Scaevola but on Rutilius®, whom they brought to trial in 92 B.C., when 
Scaevola pleaded his cause in a simple and dignified way that became a Stoic, but did not exclude some traces of elegance™. He is regarded as the father of Roman law, for he was the first 
to codify it, which he did in eighteen volumes”. He also wrote a special work on definitions, which no doubt reflected the interest which the Stoics took in this part of logic. It seems beyond dispute that the systematic study The Stoic. Of law, which developed in later centuries into lawyers. the science of Roman jurisprudence, and as such has exercised a weighty influence on the development of Western civilisation, had its beginnings amongst a group of men profoundly influenced by Stoic teaching. It does not 
20 «primum genus [poéticum] nugatorium dicit [Scaevola] esse, quod multa de dis 
fingantur indigna’ Aug. Czv. De. iv 27, on the authority of Varro. "1 ¢tertium genus’ inquit Varro ‘quod in urbibus cives, maxime sacerdotes, nosse atque administrare debent’ Aug. Czv. De. vi 5. 22 «maior societas nobis debet esse cum philosophis quam cum poetis’ 2d. 6. 
38. “ego habeo [exceptionem] tectiorem ex Q. Mucii P. F. edicto Asiatico; extra 
quam si tta negotium gestum est, ut co Stari non oporteat ex fide bona; multaque sum 
secutus Scaevolae’ Cic. Azz. vi 1, 15. 
*4 ‘hanc gloriam iustitiae et abstinentiae fore inlustriorem spero.. quod Scaevolae 
contigit? 2d. v 17, 5. 25 See above, § 326. 
6 <dixit causam illam quadam ex parte Q. Mucius, more suo, nullo adparatu, pure 
et dilucide’ Cic. de Or. i 53, 229; ‘Scaevola parcorum elegantissimus’ Avzt. 40, 148. 
27 Ὁ Mucius pontifex maximus ius civile primus constituit, generatim ia libros 
XVIII redigendo’ Pompon. Dzg. i 2, 2, 41. — therefore follow that the fundamental ideas expressed by such terms as 22,5. gentium, lex naturae, are exclusively Stoic in origin. The former phrase appears to have been in common use at this time to indicate the laws generally in force amongst the peoples that surrounded Rome; the latter is a philosophical term derived from the Greek, denoting an ideal law which ought to 
exist amongst men everywhere*. The principle of obedience to nature is not peculiar to the Stoic philosophy, but belongs to the | common substratum of all philosophical thought. It does however seem to be the case that the Stoic theory of the ‘common law’ (κοινὸς νόμος) was in fact the stimulus which enabled the Romans to transform their system of ‘rights, gradually throwing over all that was of the nature of mechanical 
routine or caste privilege, and harmonizing contradictions by the principle of fairness: The successor of Scaevola was C. AQUILIUS GALLUS, praetor in 66 B.C. with Cicero, of whom it is specially noted that he guided his exposition of law by the principle of equity”; and after him . SULPICIUS RUFUS, the contemporary and intimate friend of Cicero. We do not know that he was 
a Stoic, but he was a student of dialectic under L. LUCILIUS BALBUS, who as well as his brother belonged to this school®; and he followed Stoic principles in studying oratory just enough to make his exposition clear#. He was the acknowledged head of his profession, and compiled 180 books on law®. In the civil war he took sides with Caesar*. Amongst men of high rank definitely pledged to Stoics of the Stoicism in the generation preceding Cicero are 
Seo mutter ELMS) SAILO (Cites 1, πὶ ΒΘ swho 
devoted himself to Roman grammar and antiquities, and was *S Ἢ, Nettleship, Zs Gentiwm (Journal of Philology xiii 26, pp. 169 sqq.). 
°9 “qui iuris civilis rationem nunquam ab aequitate seiunxerit’ Cic. Caec. 27, 78. 
30 « C. Aquilio Gallo’ Brit. 42, 1543 cf. de Orat. iii 21, 78. 31 ¢ Servius [mihi videtur] eloquentiae tantum assumpsisse, ut ius civile facile possit 
tueri’ Brut. 40, 150. *2 <[Servius] longe omnium in iure civili princeps’ 7. 41, 151: Pomp. Dzg. i 2, 2, 43. 33 For an interesting account of his career and death see Warde Fowler, Socéa/ 
Life at Rome, pp. 118-121. 34 ‘idem Aelius Stoicus esse voluit’ Cic. Brztes 56, 206. A. 25 
cum discendi causa duobus peritissimis operam dedisset, L. Lucilio Balbo et _ — the teacher of both Cicero and Varro; Q. LUCILIUS BALBUS, 
whose knowledge of this philosophy rivalled that of his Greek teachers”, and who is the exponent of the Stoic view in Cicero’s de Natura Deorum, the scene of which takes us back to about 
76 B.C.; SEXTUS POMPEIUS, uncle of Pompey the Great, and distinguished both as a philosopher and as a jurist®*; and more particularly P. RUTILIUS RUFUS, to whom we have already referred”. A pupil and devoted admirer of Panaetius*, a trained philosopher**, and a sound lawyer*, he brought his career at Rome to an abrupt end by his firm resistance to the publicant, as already recounted*. With true cosmopolitanism he retired to Smyrna, and accepted the citizenship of that town. His stern principles did not prevent him from saving his life in the massacre 
ordered by Mithradates, by assuming Greek dress”; the massacre itself was the ripe fruit of the abuses which he had endeavoured to repress. He is one of the characters in Cicero’s de Republica. Of the Stoics of Cicero’s time the most eminent was | M. Porcius CATO (95-48 B.c.). In him Stoicism received a special colouring by association with the traditions of ancient Roman manners. In his early years he became a pupil of Antipater of Tyre*, and so far adopted the Cynic ideal as to train himself for public life by freely submitting to hunger, cold, and hardship“. After a period of service in the army he made a journey to Asia to secure the companionship of Athenodorus the elder*. He became a practised speaker; and though he adhered firmly to the Stoic tradition of plain language and short sentences“, yet could become eloquent on the great 
Cato. 3° Ὁ, Lucilius Balbus tantos progressus habebat in Stoicis, ut cum excellentibus 
in eo genere Graecis compararetur’ JV. D. i 6, 15. 36 * Sextus frater praestantissimum ingenium contulerat ad summam iuris civilis et 
rerum Stoicarum scientiam’ Brudus 47, 175. a See § 2.n7- 8 *Posidonius scribit P. Rutilium dicere solere, quae Panaetius praetermisisset, 
propter eorum quae fecisset praestantiam neminem esse persecutum’ Cic. Of iii 2, Io. 
89 «TP. Rutilius], doctus vir et Graecis litteris eruditus, prope perfectus in Stoicis’ 
Brutus 30, 114. 40 “multa praeclara de iure’ 2. 41 See above, § 326. 42 Cic. pro Rabir. το, 27. 43 Plut. Cato minor 4, τ. > 4) 2 Wy By Bo 2 WO; τῶν τὶ 46 «Cato perfectus, mea sententia, Stoicus,...in ea est haeresi, quae nullum sequi- 
tur florem orationis neque dilatat argumentum; sed minutis interrogatiunculis, quasi 
punctis, quod proposuit efficit” Cic. Par. Pro. 2. — themes of his philosophy”, and could win the approval of the people even for its paradoxes*. He was resolutely opposed to bribery and extortion. As quaestor in B.C. 66 he introduced reform into the public finances, and put an end to embezzlements by officials. His popularity became very great, and he was elected tribune of the plebs towards the end of the year 63 B.C., 
when his voice decided the senators to decree the death of the associates of Catiline. With his subsequent policy Cicero finds fault, because Cato refused to connive at the extortions of the publicant: and from Cicero’s criticisms has arisen the accepted view that Cato was an unpractical statesman. On the other hand it may weil be held that if the Roman aristocracy had 
included more men like Cato, the republic might have been saved: and towards the end of his life Cicero bitterly lamented that he had not sufficiently valued the sincere friendship which 
Cato offered him®. In the year 54 B.c. the candidates for the office of tribune paid him a singular compliment; each deposited with him a large sum of money, which he was to forfeit if in 
Cato’s opinion he was guilty of bribery”. His whole political life was guided by the strictest moral principle”; even in so _ unimportant a matter as Cicero’s request for a triumph he would | do nothing to oblige a friend™. In private life he attempted to put into practice the principle of the community of women taught in Zeno’s Republic. He had married Marcia, daughter 
of Philippus, and had three children by her: in 56 B.c. he gave her up to his. friend C. Hortensius, whose family was in danger of becoming extinct: finally on the threatening of the civil war in B.C. 50 he took her back to his own home. At a time when the marriage bond was lightly treated by many of his contemporaries he at least rose above petty motives. In the civil 
47 *Cato dumtaxat de magnitudine animi, de morte, de omni laude virtutis, Stoice 
solet, oratoriis ornamentis adhibitis, dicere’ Cic. Pay. Pro. 3. 48 “animadverti Catonem...dicendo consequi ut illa [=loci graves ex philosophia] populo probabilia viderentur’ 2d. 1. 
#9 “Tdoleo] plus apud me simulationem aliorum quam [Catonis] fidem valuisse’ ad Alt. iil 15, 2 (in 8.6. 48). GW is τὰν Ti Fe °l *Catoni vitam ad certam rationis normam dirigenti et diligentissime perpendenti, momenta officiorum omnium’ JZ. 2, 3. 52 Cato apud Cic. ad Fam. xv 5, 2. 
.25--2 — war he took sides strongly against Caesar, his old political opponent. His self-sought death after Pharsalia won him a distinction which he had earned better by his life: and the unmeasured praise bestowed upon him a century later is perhaps due more to political bias than to philosophical respect®. The few words with which Virgil honours his memory are more effective, when he pictures Cato as chosen to be a judge in the world of the blest. Cato represents the Stoic view as to the summum bonum in Cicero’s de Finibus. Contemporary with Cicero and Cato was M. TERENTIUS Varro, Brutus WARRO (B.C; 116-28). In’ his) publicicareer same 

god orci a political principles he was not unlike Cato; in his literary activity he more resembled Cicero. Both Varro and Cicero were deeply influenced by Stoic teaching, but as they 
were by no means professed adherents of this philosophy™, they may be here passed by. In, the) next) @ceneration M. JUNIUS BRUTUS (85-42 B.C.) concerns us more: for by his marriage with PORCIA, Cato’s daughter and an ardent Stoic, he came into a family connexion with the sect, with which his personal views, as we have seen, were not entirely in agreement™. Still Brutus was not altogether unfitted to play the part of Cato’s successor ; he was no mean orator”, and wrote more than one philosophical treatise®; whilst Cicero dedicated several of his philosophical works to him®. But the practical Stoicism of 
Porcia, who stabbed herself in the thigh to show that she was fit to be trusted with a political secret, shines out more brightly 
than the speculations of her husband. In her honour Martial 53 See for instance below, § 441, note 94. 54 ‘his [sc. piis] dantem iura Catonem’ Verg. Aez. viii 670. % <illam ᾿Ακαδημικήν...Δ Varronem transferamus: etenim sunt ᾿Αὐτιόχεια, quae iste valde probat’ Cic. “1270. xiii 12, 3; ‘in iis quae erant contra ἀκαταληψίαν praeclare 
collecta ab Antiocho, Varroni dedi;...aptius esse nihil potuit ad id philosophiae 
genus, quo ille maxime mihi delectari videtur’ 2b. 19, 3 and 5. 56 See above, § 123. 
ὅ7 ‘tu, [Brute,] qui non linguam modo acuisses exercitatione dicendi, sed et ipsam 
eloquentiam locupletavisses graviorum artium instrumento’ Cic. Brutus 97, 331. 
°8 ¢ Brutus in eo libro quem de virtute composuit’’ Sen. Dza/. xii 9, 4; ‘ Brutus in 
eo libro quem περὶ καθήκοντος inscripsit, dat multa praecepta’ 32. 95, 45. There was 
also a treatise de patientia. ; 
ὅ9 The de Finibus, de Natura Deorum, and Tusculanae disputationes.  — has written one of the few epigrams in which he allows himself 
to be caught in a mood of admiration: yet his story of Porcia’s death must be rejected as unhistorical®, After the death of Brutus Stoicism ceases for a while to play a prominent part in Roman history; but its indirect influence is very marked in the two great / poets of the Augustan epoch, Horace and Virgil. Of these HORACE is in the main an Epicurean, and as such is quite entitled to use the Stoic paradoxes as matter for ridicule, and even to anticipate dangerous consequences from their practical application™. But in fact his works show a constantly increasing appreciation of the ethics of Stoicism. He recognises the high ideals and civic activity of its professors”, and he draws a noble picture of the Stoic sage, confident in his convictions, and bidding defiance to the crowd and the tyrant alike®. Of that practical wisdom and genial criticism which has made Horace the favourite poet of so many men eminent in public life, no small part consists of Stoic principles deftly freed from the paradoxical form in which they were conveyed to professed adherents. Horace. 
433. With this picture of Stoicism seen from without we must contrast that given us by VIRGIL, who inherited the Stoic tradition from Aratus®, his model for the Georgics. Virgil's mind is penetrated by Stoic feeling, and his | works are an interpretation of the universe in the Stoic sense ; but like so many of his contemporaries he holds aloof from formal adherence to the sect, and carefully avoids its technical language. Quite possibly too he incorporated in his system elements drawn from other philosophies. In physics he accepts the principle that the fiery aether is the source of all life®; it is identical with the divine spirit® and the all-informing mind”. From this standpoint he is led on to the doctrine of purgatory®, Virgil. 50 Mart. Zp. 1 42. 6i See above, ὃ 374, note 66. 62 “nunc agilis fio et mersor civilibus undis, | virtutis verae custos rigidusque satelles’ 22. i 1, τό and 17. 63 See above, § 316, note 96. 64 See above, § go. 65 «joneus est ollis vigor et caelestis origo | seminibus’ “1672. vi 730, 731- 
66 ‘caelum et terras | spiritus intus alit’ 26. 724, 726. 67 © totamque infusa per artus | mens agitat molem’ 74. 726, 727. 68 See above, §§ 295 to 297. — and from that he looks forward to the time of the conflagration, when all creation will be reconciled by returning to its primitive unity in the primal fire-spirit®. Still Virgil’s picture must be regarded rather as an adaptation than as an exposition of Stoicism ; it lacks the sharp outlines and the didactic tone of 
the poetry of Cleanthes or Lucretius, and other interpretations are by no means excluded. With the problem of the government of the universe Virgil's Virgil’s mind is occupied throughout the dened. theology. He is constantly weighing the relative importance of the three forces, fate, the gods, and fortune, precisely as the 
philosophers do. To each of the three he assigns a part in the affairs of men; but that taken by fate is unmistakably predominant. The individual gods have very little importance in the 
poem; they are to a large extent allegorical figures, representing human instincts and passions; they cannot divert destiny from its path, though with their utmost effort they may slightly delay its work or change its incidence. Above all these little gods Jove towers aloft, a power magnificent and munificent; at his voice the gods shudder and the worlds obey. But the power 
of Jove rests upon his complete acceptance of the irrevocable decrees of fate”. The critic may even describe him as a puppet- king, who wears an outward semblance of royalty, but is really 
obedient to an incessant interference from a higher authority. Virgil however appears truly to hold the Stoic principle that Fate and Jove are one; he thus takes us at once to the final 
problem of philosophy, the reconciliation of the conceptions of Law formed on the one hand by observing facts (the modern ‘Laws of Nature’) and on the other hand by recognising the moral instinct (the modern ‘Moral Law’). As we have seen, a reconciliation of these two by logic is intrinsically impossible. Virgil however shows us how they may be in practice reconciled 
by a certain attitude of mind; and because that attitude is one of resignation to and cooperation with the supreme power, it 9 *donec longa dies, perfecto temporis orbe, | concretam exemit labem, purumque reliquit | aetherium sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem’ «1671. vi 745 to 747. 
70 “desine fata deum flecti sperare precando’ 20. 376. — would seem right to place Virgil by the side of Cleanthes as one of the religious poets of Stoicism. Virgil’s conception of ethics is displayed in the character Virgil's of Aeneas. Much modern criticism revolts against 
ethics: the character of Aeneas exactly as it does against that of Cato, and for the same reason, that it is without sympathy for Stoic ethics. To understand Aeneas we must first picture a 
man whose whole soul is filled by a reverent regard for destiny and submission to Jove, who represents destiny on its personal side. He can therefore never play the part of the hero in revolt ; but at the same time he is human, and liable to those petty weaknesses and aberrations from which even the sage is not exempt. He can hesitate or be hasty, can love or weep; but 
the sovereignty of his mind is never upset. In a happy phrase Virgil sums up the whole ethics of Stoicism : ~ ‘Calm in his soul he abides, and the tears roll down, but in vain*!.’ 
In contrast to Aeneas stands Dido, intensely human and passionate, and in full rebellion against her destiny. She is to him Eve the temptress, Cleopatra the seducer; but she is not destined to win a final triumph. A modern romance would doubtless have a different ending. Amongst writers who adopted much of the formal teaching of Stoicism without imbibing its spirit 
we may reckon OVID (43 B.C.-18 A.D.). Not only 
does he accept the central idea of Stoicism, that it is the divine fire by virtue of which every man lives and moves”, but he opens his greatest work by a description of the creation™ which appears to follow Stoic lines, and in which the erect figure of man is specially recognised as the proof of the pre-eminence which Providence has assigned to him over all the other works of the Creator“. But the tales related in the Wetamorphoses show no Ovid. 71 ‘mens immota manet; lacrimae volvuntur inanes’ Aez. iv 449; the ‘lacrimae inanes’ indicate the ruffling of the soul, in which the intelligence and will take no part. 7 “est deus in nobis: agitante calescimus illo’ Ov. 7. vi 5. 3 “ante mare et terras, et quod tegit omnia caelum, | unus erat toto Naturae vultus in orbe, | quem dixere Chaos, etc.’ 7762. i 5 to 88. 74 ¢os homini sublime dedit, caelumque tueri | iussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus’ 24. 85 and 86. — trace of the serious religious purpose οἵ Virgil; and the society pictured in Ovid’s love poems gives only a caricature of the Stoic doctrines of the community of women, the absence of jealousy, and outspokenness of speech. Finally the plaintive tone of the Z7zstza shows how little Ovid was in touch with Stoic self-control amidst the buffetings of fortune. In the time of the next princeps we first find Gremuatias Stoicism associated with an unsympathetic. atti- conus: tude towards the imperial government. There was nothing in Stoic principles to suggest this opposition. Tiberius himself had listened to the teaching of the Stoic Nestor, and the simplicity of his personal life and the gravity of his manners might well have won him the support of sincere philosophers. But if Stoicism did not create the spirit of opposition, it confirmed it where it already existed. The memory of Cato associated Stoic doctrines with republican views: vague idealisations of Brutus and Cassius suggested the glorification of tyrannicide. CREMUTIUS CORDUS (ob. A.D. 25) had offended Seianus by a sarcastic remark: for when Tiberius repaired the theatre of Pompey, and the senate voted that a statue of Seianus should be erected there, Cordus said that this meant really spoiling the theatre”. Seianus then dropped a hint to his client Satrius, who accused Cordus before the senate of writing a history in which he highly praised Brutus, and declared Cassius to have been ‘the last of the Romans. A word of apology would have saved the life of Cordus; he resolved to die by his 
own act”, to the great annoyance of his prosecutors”. From this time on suicide became an object of political ambition. The Stoic tradition continued in the family of Cordus, and to his 
daughter Marcia, as a fellow-member of the sect, Seneca addressed the well-known Consolatio™,; but the title of ‘old Romans’ 7 ©exclamavit Cordus tunc vere theatrum perire’ Sen. Dad. vi 22, 4. 76 Tac. Ann. iv 34. Tacitus entirely ignores the personal motives underlying the 
story, and quite unnecessarily suggests that Tiberius was adopting the policy of repressing freedom of historical narration. 77 “accusatores queruntur mori Cordum’ Sen. Dead. vi 22, 7. 78 That Cremutius Cordus was a professed Stoic seems a fair inference from the story as a whole, and yet, as in several similar cases, is not expressly stated. — describes far better the true leanings of the men of whom Cordus was the forerunner. In the reign of Gaius (Caligula) we first find philoso ieee phers as such exposed to persecution ; and we may yalins: infer that, like the Jews, they resisted tacitly or openly the claim of the emperor to be worshipped as a god. IULIUS GRAECINUS, according to Seneca, was put to death for no other reason than that he was a better man than a tyrant liked to see alive”. KANUS IULIUS reproved the emperor to his face, and heard with calmness his own doom pronounced. During the ten days still left to him he went quietly on with his daily occupations ; he was engaged in a game of chess when the centurion summoned him. ‘After my death, he said to his opponent, ‘do not boast that you won the game.’ His philosopher accompanied him, and inquired how his thoughts were occupied. ‘I propose,’ said Kanus, ‘to observe whether at the last moment the soul is conscious of its departure. Afterwards, if I discover what the condition of departed souls is, I will come back and inform my friends*’’ In the reign of Claudius we find Stoics engaged in ἈΠ Ης actual conspiracy against the emperor. The name elder: of PAETUS CAECINA introduces us to a famous Stoic family, for his wife was ARRIA the elder. Pliny tells us, on the authority of her granddaughter Fannia, how when her husband and son both fell sick together, and the latter died, she carried out the whole funeral without her husband’s knowledge ; and each time that she entered his sick chamber, assumed a cheerful smile and assured him that the boy was much better. Whenever her grief became too strong, she would leave the room for a few minutes to weep, and return once more calm. When Scribonianus in Illyria rebelled against Claudius, Paetus took his side; upon his fall he was brought a prisoner to Rome. Arria was not allowed to accompany him, but she followed him in a fishing boat. She encouraged him to face death by piercing 7? “quem [Graecinum Iulium] C. Caesar occidit ob hoc unum, quod melior vir erat 
quam esse quemquam tyranno expedit’ Sen. Bev. ii 21, 5. 80. Dial. ix 14, 4-To. — her own breast with a dagger, declaring ‘it doesn’t hurt*!) and upon his death she determined not to survive him. Thrasea, her son-in-law, tried to dissuade her. ‘If I were condemned, would you, said he, ‘wish your daughter to die with me?’ ‘Yes, said Arria, ‘if she had lived with you as long and as happily as I with Paetus.’ Here we have a deliberate justification of the Hindu practice of the Sati. In the reign of Nero the Stoics are still more prominent, and almost always in opposition. SENECA, of Seneca. ὃ a8 : course, the emperor’s tutor and minister, is on the government side; and from his life we can draw the truest ~ picture of the imperial civil servant in high office. We shall certainly not expect to find that Seneca illustrated in his own life all the virtues that he preached ; on the other hand we shall. not readily believe that the ardent disciple of Attalus® and affectionate husband of Paulina was a man of dissolute life or of 
avaricious passions. Simple tastes, an endless capacity for hard work, and scrupulous honesty were the ordinary marks of the Roman official in those days, as they are of members of the 
Civil Service of India to-day*. Seneca, is often accused of having been too supple as a minister; but he was carrying out the principles of his sect better by taking an active part in 
politics than if he had, like many others, held sullenly aloof™. He did not indeed imitate Cato or Rutilius Rufus, who had carried firmness of principle to an extent that laid them open 
to the charge of obstinacy; but in submitting frankly to power greater than his own he still saw to it that his own influence should count towards the better side. For the story of his 
political career we cannot do better than to refer to the latest δὲ ‘casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Paeto, | quem de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis, | ‘‘si qua fides, vulnus quod feci non dolet,”’ inquit, | ‘‘sed quod tu facies, hoc mihi, Paete, dolet”’’ Martial Zp. i14; ‘praeclarum illud eiusdem, ferrum stringere, perfo- 
dere pectus, extrahere pugionem, porrigere marito, addere vocem immortalem et paene divinam ‘‘ Paete, non dolet”’ Pliny Z¢. iii 16, 6. 82 See above, § 126. 83 “non derunt et frugalitatis exactae homines et laboriosae operae’ Sen. Diéa/. x 18, 4. For the British official the authority of the author of Zales from the Hills will 
suffice. - 84 See below, § 448, note 115. i ep eg — historian of his times®; of his work as a philosopher, to which he himself attributed the greater importance, a general account has been given above® and more particular discussions form the central theme of this book. From Seneca we pass naturally to some mention of 

Persius ang the poets Persius and Lucan. A. PERSIUS FLACCUS pyeee: (34-62 A.D.) became at 16 years of age the pupil and companion of the Stoic philosopher Cornutus: he was also a relative of the Arriae already mentioned. He gives us a 
charming picture of his teacher’s ways of life, which were doubtless typical*’: and his summary view of the scope of philosophy: well indicates how its proportions had shrunk at this period. Dialectic is not mentioned, and physics has 
interest only in its bearing upon the position and duty of the individual. : “Go, study, hapless folk, and learn to know The end and object of our life—what are we; The purpose of our being here; the rank Assigned us at the start, and where and when The turn is smoothest round the perilous post ; The bounds of wealth ; life’s lawful aims; the use Of hoards of coin new-minted ; what the claims Of fatherland and kinsfolk near and dear; - The will of God concerning thee, and where Thou standest in the commonwealth of man*® His contemporary M. ANNAEUS LUCANUS (39-65 A.D.), a nephew of Seneca, plunged more deeply both into philosophy and into politics. In both he displayed ardour insufficiently 
tempered with discretion; he had a far keener sense of his personal grievances than became a Stoic,and was much more of a critic than of a reformer. Yet hardly any writer expresses 
more forcibly the characteristic doctrines of Stoicism, as they seized the imagination of young Romans of the upper classes. 85 Henderson’s Vero, pp. 31-38, 30-142, 257-288. 86 See above, 88 127-129. 87 See above, § 125. 88 Persius Saz. iii 66-72. The translations in this section are by Mr W. H. Porter.  — Amongst such doctrines that of the conflagration was clearly 
prominent. ‘So when this frame of things has been dissolved, And the world’s many ages have received Their consummation in one final hour, Chaos recalled shall gain his utmost seat, The constellations in confusion dire Hurled each on each together clash; the stars Flaming shall fall into the deep; the earth No longer shall extend her barrier shores, And fling the waters from her; and the Moon Shall meet the Sun in fratricidal war®®.’ ‘One pyre awaits the Universe; in ruin ’Twill mix with bones of men the heavenly spheres.’ Lucan emphasizes the pantheistic interpretation of the divine nature ; ‘God is all eye can see or heart can feel.’ ‘The powers of heaven are round about us all; And though from out the temple come no voice, Nought can we do without the will of God%.’ To the idealized Cato he addresses the noblest praises ; ‘For sure a consecrated life is thine, The laws of heaven thy pattern, God thy guide®.’ ‘See the true Father of his country, worth The homage of thine altars, Rome; for they Who swear by him shall never be ashamed. If e’er the yoke is lifted from thy neck, Now or hereafter he shall be thy God®.’  The careers of Seneca and Musonius, and the early ets years of Lucan himself, indicate sufficiently that Civil service : Ay x and vole, there was no essential opposition between Stoic 
omans. ΩΝ πὰ τ ΒΕ principles and the Roman principate; in other \ words, that Stoics as such were not ‘republicans.’ Rather the contrary; for nearly all the Greek philosophers had been inclined | 89 Phars. i 72 to 80. 9 76. vii 814 and 815. 91 See above, § 242, note 9. 92 Phars. ix 573 and 574. 93 76. 556 and 557. 84 76. 601 to 604. The force of this tribute is impaired by the similar praise given to Pompey (Pars. vii 682-689) and to Brutus (16. 588 and 580). — to favour monarchy, and the Stoics had been conspicuous in the desire to abolish the distinctions of birth and class upon which the Roman aristocracy laid so much stress, and which the princi- 
pate was disposed to ignore. But in fact Stoicism was the common mould in which the educated youth of Rome were shaped at this period; it produced honest, diligent, and simple-minded men, exactly suited to be instruments of the great 
imperial bureaucracy. Large numbers entered the service of the state, and were heard of no more; such an one (except for Seneca’s incidental account of him) was C. LUCILIUS, Seneca’s correspondent. The great work of Roman government was 
carried on in silence, just as that of India in the present day. This silence was probably on the whole beneficial to society, though it was often felt as a constraint by theindividual. For 
this reason and many others there were at Rome (as everywhere and at all times) many able but disappointed men; they became the critics of the government, and from being critics they might 
at any time become conspirators; but at no period did they seriously aim at restoring the republican system. Their political creed was limited, and did not look beyond the interests of the 
class from which they sprang. They claimed for members of the senate at Rome their ancient personal privileges, and especially that of /zbertas, that is, freedom to criticize and even 
to insult the members of the government ; they sang the praises of Cato, celebrated the birthdays of Brutus and Cassius”, and practised a kind of ‘passive resistance’ based on Oriental 
methods, by quitting life without hesitation when they were baulked in their immediate wishes by the government. When the administration was carried on decently these men were ridiculous; when from time to time it became a scandal they 
were heroes. The early years of Nero’s reign show us plainly that! Republican the true spirit of Stoicism was far more developed prejudices. on the side of the government than on that of the aristocracy. Nothing distinguishes Seneca more honourably Ὁ than his humane attitude towards the slave population ; and he % «quale coronati Thrasea Helvidiusque bibebant | Brutorum et Cassi natalibus’ Juv. Sat. v 36 and 37. See also G. Boissier, Z’ Opposition sous les Césars. — was chief minister of the princeps when in the year A.D. 61 a ‘notable case®’ arose, in which the human rights of slaves were involved. The city prefect, Pedanius Secundus, was killed by 
one of his slaves. It was contended in the senate that by ancient custom the whole household, old and young, guilty and innocent, must be put to death alike; and this view prevailed and was 
carried into effect. Public opinion, according to Tacitus”, was unanimous against such severity; it looked, not unreasonably, to the emperor and his minister to prevent it’. They on the contrary left the decision to the free judgment of the senate. Where now were the men of philosophic principle, of world-wide sympathies, of outspoken utterance? The historian tells us that 
not one was found inthe senate. The honourable men who could defy an emperor’s death-sentence still lacked the courage to speak out against the prejudices of their own class; many indeed uttered exclamations, expressing pity for the women, the young, and the indubitably innocent,  and even voted against the executions ; 
but even in so simple a matter there was not a man to follow the lead of Catiline in Cicero’s days, and take up as his own the cause of the oppressed. The leader of the merciless majority 
was C. Cassius Longinus, a celebrated jurist, and one who regularly celebrated the honours of Cassius the conspirator. But although the administration of which Nero was) Nero andthe ‘he head was largely manned by professed Stoics,) 
Stoics. and stood as a whole for the better sympathies of the Roman people, the course of court intrigue brought about a fierce conflict between the government and a growing force of 
public opinion of which the ‘old Roman’ group of Stoics were sometimes the spokesmen, and at other times the silent representatives. To Nero the consideration of his own safety was predominant over every consideration of justice to individuals and herein he stood condemned (and knew that it was so) by the judgment of all men of philosophic temper. The first of his 
96 Henderson’s /Vero, pp. 90 sqq. 7 Annals xiv be 42, 2. %a The government had in fact appointed an officer for the prevention of cruelty to 
slaves : ‘de iniuriis dominorum in servos qui audiat positus est, qui et saevitiam et 
libidinem et in praebendis ad victum necessariis avaritiam compescat’ Sen. Bem. iii 
22, 3. — victims, and perhaps the most deserving of our admiration, was RUBELLIUS PLAUTUS, accused by Tigellinus because he maintained the irritating cult of the ‘tyrannicides, and had joined the disloyal sect of the Stoics*. The charge of disloyalty against himself and his companions he disproved ; for, advised by his Stoic teachers Coeranus and Musonius, he declined to take part in a rising which might have been successful, and calmly awaited his fate (60 A.D.). In the conspiracy of Piso, which broke out a 
few years later, PLAUTUS LATERANUS is named by the historian as one of the few whose motives were honourable and whose conduct was consistently courageous”. The later years of Nero’s 
reign are illuminated in the pages of Tacitus by the firmness of men like THRASEA PAETUS, PACONIUS AGRIPPINUS, and BAREA SORANUS, and the heroic devotion of women like the younger ARRIA, Thrasea’s wife, and SERVILIA, the daughter of Soranus™. In the persecution of this group the modern historian finds extenuating circumstances, but at Rome itself it appeared as though the emperor were engaged in the attempt to extirpate virtue itself?” Upon the fall of Nero the ‘old Romans’ came for a eaten short time into power under the principate of Galba, PUSSIES and amongst others HELVIDIUS PRISCUS, Thrasea’s son-in-law, returned from exile. From the account of Tacitus he appears to have been a very sincere adherent of the Stoic school. ‘He was not like others who adopt the name of philosopher in order to cloak an idle disposition. He followed those teachers who maintain that only the honourable is good, and only the base is evil; power, nobility, and other things external to the soul being neither good nor evil. He designed so to fortify himself thereby against the blow of fortune that he could play his part in public affairs without flinching !™.’ His first act on returning to Rome was to commence a prosecution of the accuser of Thrasea. The senate was divided 
in opinion as to the wisdom of this step, and when Helvidius % Tac. Azz. xiv 57. *8 See Henderson’s Were, pp. 257-283. 100 Tac. Az. xvi 21-35. 101 * Nero virtutem ipsam exscindere concupivit ’ 26. 21. 105. ΥΥ͂ΣΟΣ 1G Ge — abandoned the suit some praised his charity, whilst others 
lamented his indecision’, He resumed his attempt, as we shall see, at a later time. Vespasian was undoubtedly tolerant in his views: his 
reign began with the restitution of honours to the deceased Galba, and the much-respected Musonius™ seized the opportunity to attack in the senate P. Egnatius Celer, whose treachery had brought about the fall of Soranus™, for 
false evidence. The trial was postponed, but resulted a little later in the condemnation of Celer™. Public opinion took the side of Musonius: but the accused found a champion in Demetrius the Cynic philosopher, and at least defended himself with the ability and courage of his sect. Thereupon Helvidius resumed his prosecution of the accuser of Thrasea; but the emperor, now anxious to let bygones be bygones, refused to 
approve”. This second failure appears to have embittered Helvidius: his opposition to Vespasian became open and insulting, and brought about his death”. The life of his wife FANNIA was worthy of the two Arriae, her grandmother and her mother. Twice she followed her husband into exile; a third time she brought this punishment upon herself, by encouraging his friend Senecio to publish his biography, supplying him with the 
materials, and openly justifying her action. In her private life she had singular charm and affability ; and her death appeared to Pliny to close an era of noble women™. His fall. It seems probable that the Stoic nobles found the low | 

eu aa birth of Vespasian as intolerable as the tyranny of the Stoic Nero; at any rate they soon resumed their attitude’ eos of opposition to the government, and the punishment of Helvidius, if intended as a warning, proved rather a 
provocation. It appears that he and the ‘old Romans’ began a systematic propaganda in favour of what they called ‘democracy™, that is, the government of the Roman empire 103 Tac. Hist. iv 6. 104 See above, §§ 130, 131. 105 See above, § 444. 06 Tac. Hist. iv 40. 107 76. 43 and 44. 
108 Dill, Roman Society, p. 152. . 9 Pliny Zp. vii 19, 7+ 10 +r ὄχλῳ προσέκειτο, βασιλείας Te ἀεὶ κατηγόρει, Kal δημοκρατίαν ἐπήνει Dion 
Cassius Ixvi 12. — by the senatorial class; and they probably involved many |professed philosophers in this impracticable and reactionary 
/movement. Vespasian resolved on expelling all the philosophers ‘from Rome. From this general sentence the best known of all, Musonius, was excepted™, and we must infer that he had shown 
the good sense to keep himself free from political entanglements. \In spite of this act of Vespasian, Stoicism continued to gain ground, and during the greater part of the period of the Flavian dynasty met with little interference. 
448. But towards the end of the reign of Domitian a more | ἘΣ ἜΠΗ violent persecution broke out. ARULENUS RUSTICUS by Domitian. had been tribune of the plebs in 66 A.D., and had then proposed to use his veto in an attempt to save the life of - Thrasea Paetus™. In 69 A.D. he was praetor,and as such headed an embassy sent by the senate to the soldiers under Petilius Cerealis. On this occasion he was roughly handled and wounded, and barely escaped with his life’*. After many years of quiet, he was accused in 93 A.D., when Pliny was praetor, of having written and spoken in honour of Thrasea Paetus, Herennius 
Senecio, and Helvidius Priscus; he was condemned to death and his books were destroyed™. SENECIO was condemned at the same time for having written the biography of Helvidius Priscus, 
and for the further offence that since holding the quaestorship he had not become a candidate for any higher office’. About the same time were banished Artemidorus, the most single-minded 
and laborious of philosophers, whom Musonius had selected out of a crowd of competitors as the fittest to claim his daughter in marriage"; Junius Mauricus, brother of Arulenus Rusticus, who 
had joined Musonius in the attempt to secure the punishment of the delatores of Nero’s time™; Demetrius, and Epictetus™’; and further many distinguished ladies, including Arria and her 
daughter Fannia™. But from the time of the death of Domitian ΠῚ Dion Cassius lxvi 13. U2 See above, § 444. 18 Tac. Hist. iii 80. 14. Agr. 2; Suetonius, Dom. to. 15 Dion Ὁ. Ixvii 13, Tac. Agr. 45. 6 Pliny 422. iii 11, 7. 7 Το. 4715. ἵν 40. 8 A. Gellius VV. A. xv 11, 5 (for Epictetus). 9 Pliny .12. ili 11, 3; ‘tot nobilissimarum feminarum exilia et fugas’ Tac. Agr. 45. A. 26 
ἴῃ A.D. 96 the imperial government became finally reconciled Ϊ . oie . . | with Stoicism, which was now the recognised creed of the great 
iene? ,majority of the educated classes at Rome, of all ages and ranks. As such it appears in the writings of JUVENAL, who not only introduces into serious literature the Stoic principle of ‘straight speaking,’ but actually expounds much of the ethical teaching of Stoicism with more directness and force than any professed 
adherent of the system. Stoicism, received into favour in the second century , A.D., won new opportunities and was exposed to Stoic reform 
pila, new dangers. Its greatest achievement lay in the development of Roman law. As we have just seen™, the ‘old ὦ Romans’ of Nero’s day, in spite of their profession of Stoicism, were unbending upholders of the old law, with all its harshness and narrowness; and we have to go back a hundred years to the great lawyers of the times of Sulla and Cicero™ to meet with men prepared to throw aside old traditions and build anew on the foundations of natural justice. But the larger view had not yet been lost sight of. It remained as the ideal of the more generous- 
minded members of the imperial civil service ; and in the times of the emperors Antoninus Pius (138-161 A.D.) and Marcus | Aurelius (161-180 A.D.) it became the starting-point for a new 
‘development of Roman law, which is one of the great achievements of Roman history. The most eloquent of the historians of the origins of Christianity thus describes this movement. ‘Le stoicisme avait [déja] pénétré le droit romain de ses larges maximes, et en avait fait le droit naturel, le droit philosophique, tel que la raison peut le concevoir pour tous les hommes. Le droit strict cede a Véquité; la douceur l’emporte sur la sévérité; la justice parait inséparable de la bien- faisance. Les grands jurisconsultes d’Antonin continuérent la méme ceuvre. Le dernier [Volusius Moecianus] fut le maitre de Marc-Auréle en fait de jurisprudence, et, a vrai dire, l’ceuvre des deux saints empereurs ne saurait étre séparée. C’est d’eux que datent la plupart de ces lois humaines et sensées qui fléchirent la rigueur du droit ant que et firent, d’une législation primitivement étroite et implacable, un code susceptible d’étre adopté par 
tous les peuples civilisés!*2’ 120 See above, ὃ 443. 121 See above, §§ 428, 429. P 122 Renan, Marc-Auréle, pp. 22, 23; cf. Maine, Ancient Law, pp. 55, 56. +» In the legislation of Antoninus and Aurelius the humane and cosmopolitan principles of Stoic politics at last triumph over | 
Roman conservatism. The poor, the sick, the infant, and the | famine-stricken are protected. The slave is treated as a human being ; to kill him becomes a crime, to injure him a misdemean- 
our; his family and his property are protected by the tribunals. Slavery in fact is treated as a violation of the rights of nature; manumission is in every way encouraged. The time is within | sight when Ulpian will declare that ‘all men, according to natural right, are born free and equal.’ This legislation is not entirely 
the work of professed Stoics; it is nevertheless the offspring of Stoicism. There was in the second century, as there is still, a Repression  SHAarp antagonism between the manners of culti- 
OS σϑεῖ vated society and the ardent profession of intellectual convictions. An anecdote related by Gellius well illustrates the social forces which were now constantly at work to check superfluous enthusiasm. ‘There was with us at table a young student of philosophy who called 
himself a Stoic, but chiefly distinguished himself by an unwelcome loquacity. He was always bringing up in season and out of season recondite philosophical doctrines, and he looked upon all his neighbours as boors because they were 
unacquainted with them. His whole talk was strown with mention of syllogisms, fallacies, and the like, such as the “ master-argument,” the “ quiescent,” and the “heap”; and he thought that he was the only man in the world who could solve them. Further he maintained that he had thoroughly studied the nature of the soul, the growth of virtue, the science of daily duties, and 
the cure of the weaknesses and diseases of the mind. -Finally he considered he had attained to that state of perfect happiness which could be clouded by no disappointment, shaken by no pains of death!4’ Such a man, we may think, might soon have become an apostle of sincere Stoicism, and might have left us a clear and systematic exposition of Stoic doctrine as refined by five 
centuries of experience. It was not tobe. The polished Herodes Atticus crushed him with a quotation from the discourses of Epictetus. Not many offended in the same way. Even Seneca 123 Renan, Marc-Auréle, p. 30. 124 Aulus Gellius 4. A. i 2, 3 to 5. ee had been severe on useless study in the regions of history and antiquity; the new philosophers despised the study even of 
philosophy. The Stoicism of the second century is therefore much anhoniic ka less sharply defined than that of earlier times. Its lishment of doctrines, acquired in childhood, are accepted with te eae ready acquiescence ; but they are not accompanied by any firm repudiation of the opposing views of other schools. Once more, as in the time of Augustus, the ‘ philosopher’ comes to the front; the particular colour of his philosophy seems of less importance”. It is philosophy in general which wins the patronage of the emperors. Nerva allowed the schools of the 
philosophers to be re-opened ; Trajan interested himself in them as providing a useful training for the young. Hadrian went further, and endowed the teachers of philosophy at Rome; Antoninus Pius did the same throughout the provinces. Marcus Aurelius established representatives of each of the philosophic schools at Athens; and amongst later emperors Septimius Severus, aided by his wife Julia Domna, was conspicuous in the 
same direction. The philosophers, who had firmly resisted persecution, gradually sacrificed their independence under the influence of imperial favour. They still recited the dogmas of their respective founders, but unconsciously they became the partisans of the established forms of government and religion. Yet so gentle was the decay of philosophy that it might be regarded as progress if its true position were not illuminated by the attitude of Marcus Aurelius towards the Christians. For Marcus Aurelius was universally accepted as the most admirable practical representative of philosophy in its full ripeness, and no word of criticism of his policy was uttered by any teacher of Stoicism. 125 «nam de illis nemo dubitabit, quin operose nihil agant, qui litterarum inutilium studiis detinentur, quae iam apud Romanos quoque magna manus est...ecce Romanos quoque invasit inane studium supervacua discendi,’ etc. Sen. Dza/. x 13, 1and 3. The condemnation extends to the whole study of history, /V. Q. iii Pr. 126 «In the purely moral sphere to which philosophy was now confined, the natural tendency of the different schools, not even excluding the Epicurean, was to assimila- 
tion and eclecticism’ Dill, Roman Society, p. 343. 

The decay of precise philosophic thought was accom- The pagan  Panied by a strong revival of pagan religious HEU NENc sentiment. The atmosphere in which Marcus Aurelius grew up, and by which his political actions were determined far more than by his philosophic profession, is thus sympathetically described by the latest editor of his Reflections. ‘In house and town, the ancestral Penates of the hearth and the Lares of the streets guarded the intercourse of life ; in the individual breast, a ministering Genius shaped his destinies and responded to each mood of melancholy or of mirth. Thus all life lay under the regimen of spiritual powers, to be propitiated or appeased by appointed observances and ritual and forms of prayer. To this punctilious and devout form of Paganism Marcus was inured from childhood ; at the vintage festival he took his part in chant and sacrifice ; at eight years old he was admitted to the Salian priesthood ; “he was observed to perform all his sacerdotal functions with a constancy and exactness unusual at that age; was soon a master of the sacred music ; and had all the forms and liturgies by heart.” Our earliest statue depicts him as a youth offering incense ; and in his triumphal bas-reliefs he stands before the altar, a robed and sacrificing priest. To him “prayer and sacrifice, and all observances by which we own the presence and nearness of the gods,” are “covenants and sacred ministries” admitting to “intimate communion with the divine !?”.”” The cult thus summarized is not that of the Greek mythology, much less that of the rationalized Stoic theology. It is the primitive ritualism of Italy, still dear to the hearts of the common people, and regaining its hold on the educated in proportion as they spared themselves the effort of individual criticism. It was by no mere accident that Marcus Aurelius State perse. Pe€came the persecutor of the Christians. He was Susie at heart no successor of the Zeno who held as essential the doctrine of a supreme deity, and absolutely rejected the use of temples and images. In the interval, official Stoicism \ had learnt first to tolerate superstition with a smile, next to become its advocate; now it was to become a persecutor in its name. Pontius Pilatus is said to have recognised the innocence 127 Rendall, AZ. Aurelius to himself, Introd. pp. cxxvii, CXXvill. of the founder of Christianity, and might have protected him had his instructions from Rome allowed him to stretch his authority so far; Gallio’* was uninterested in the preaching of Paul; but Aurelius was acquainted with the Christian profession and its adherents™, and opposed it as an obstinate resistance to authority’. The popular antipathy to the new religion, and the official distaste for all disturbing novelties, found in him a willing supporter. Thus began a new struggle between the - power of the sword and that of inward convicion. Because reason could not support the worship of the pagan deities, violence must do so™ It became a triumph of the civil authority and the popular will to extort a word of weakness by two years of persistent torture’. No endowed professor or enlightened magistrate raised his voice in protest; and in this feeble acquiescence Stoicism perished. For the consciences of the young revolted. Trained at Revolt of the ome and in school to believe in providence, in duty, young Stoics. and in patient endurance of evil, they instinctively recognised the Socratic force and example not in the magistrate seated in his curule chair, nor in the rustic priest occupied in his obsolete ritual, but in the teacher on the cross and the martyr on the rack™. In ever increasing numbers men, who had from their Stoic education imbibed the principles of the unity of the Deity and the freedom of the will, came over to the new society which professed the one without reservation, and dis- 128 The connexion (if any) of Gallio the proconsul of Achaia (Acts xviii 12) with the Junius Gallio who adopted Seneca’s elder brother is uncertain. 29 Renan, Marc-Auréle, p. 55, note 2. 130 M. Aurel. Zo himself xi 3. 131 Renan JZ.-A. p. 329. 132 ‘quia ratione congredi non queunt, violentia premunt; incognita causa tanquam nocentissimos damnant’ Lact. 7γ157. Epit. 47 (52), 4- 133 «vidi ego in Bithynia praesidem gaudio mirabiliter elatum tanquam barbarorum gentem aliquam ‘subegisset, quod unus qui per biennium magna virtute restiterat, 
postremo cedere visus esset’ Dzv. 7715. v ΤΙ, 15. 184 “nam cum videat vulgus dilacerari homines et invictam tenere patientiam, 
existimant nec perseverantiam morientium vanam esse nec ipsam patientiam sine deo 
cruciatus tantos posse superare...dicit Horatius: ‘“‘iustum ac tenacem...” quo nihil verius dici potest, si ad eos referatur qui nullos cruciatus nullam mortem recusant’ Ho 15. τ WO 1. — played the other without flinching. With them they brought in large measure their philosophic habits of thought, and (in far more particulars than is generally recognised) the definite tenets which the Porch had always inculcated. Stoicism began a new history, which is not yet ended, within the Christian church; and we must now attempt to give some account of ths after-growth of the philosophy. 

Filosofia romana

 

Philosophy,  on  its  first  introduction  into  Rome  in  the  wake  of 
Greek  literature,  art  and  science,  encountered  fierce  opposition, but  the  personal  influence  of  the  younger  Scipio  and  his      *  hmoeh  of mends  procured  the  nevrleaming  a  hearing;  and  the  teachers,      cuttun. notably  Panaetius,  had  the  tact  to  keep  abstruse  speculation out  of  sight  and  present  their  subject  to  their  Roman  pupils  on  its  practical and  literary  side.  Each  of  the  three  Schools  most  prominent  at  the  time, the  Stoic,  the  Epicurean  and  the  New  Academy,  gained  some  adherents, 
but  the  influence  of  the  first  was  undoubtedly  the  greatest  and  the  most 
permanent  It  has  been  well  said  that  the  heroes  of  the  early  Republic 
were  unconscious  Stoics,  and  no  sooner  was  this  system  of  moral  plillosophy 
made  intelligible  to  cultivated  Romans  than  it  exercised  an  irresistible  attraction. In  a  time  when  religious  belief  was  decaying,  the  best  intellects 
welcomed  in  its  place  a  doctrine  which  had  so  strong  an  affinity  with  the 
national  character:  there  was  a  sort  of  informal  alliance  between  the  public 
policy  and  the  philosophic  convictions  of  such  a  man  as  Cato.  But,  though 
phil(»ophy  had  its  triumphs  at  Rome,  it  never  quite  shook  off  the  national 
prejudice.  Having  been  committed  to  the  Republican  cause  by  Cato,  the 
Stoics  were  Rcnerally  in  opposition  during  the  early  Empire,  and  more  than 
once  the  government,  as  a  precautionary  measure,  banished  philosophers 
from  Rome.  The  educational  value  of  philosophic  study  was,  indeed, 
recognised,  and  its  wide  influence  is  attested  by  much  of  the  best  literature. But  zeal  on  the  part  of  the  pupils  never  supplied  the  lack  of  initiative ;  they had  no  ambition  to  found  new  schools  of  thought,  originality  was  confined either  to  the  choice  of  a  system  (thus  Varro  selected  the  Old  Academy  out of  aS8  possible  systems),  or  to  the  arbitrary  fitting  together  of  various  parts from  different. ^sterns,  according  to  the  individual's  own  caprice.  In  confining their  attention  to  popular  philosophy  and  to  practical  questions,  the Roman  students  conformed  to,  and  by  their  adhesion  strengthened,  a tendency  already  powerful  in  the  later  Greek  schools,  where  the  con- 
troversies of  centuries  had  led  to  scepticism  on  the  one  hand  and  eclecticism on  the  other. The  doctrine  of  Epicurus  at  the  very  outset  excited  general interest  in  Italy  and  was  for  a  time  exceedingly  popular. Cicero  tells  us  that  crude  translations  of  Epicurean  text-  LumtTui!'*"" books,  written  in  a  wretched  style  by  Amafinius  and  others, 
enjoyed  a  wide  circulation  {Acad,  i  5,  6;  l^sc  Dhp.  i  6,  ii  7,  iv  6  f;  Ad 
Fam.  XV  19,  2).  Curiosity  fastened  on  a  theory  which  offered  explanations 
of  all  the  natural  phenomena,  especially  those  which  have  ever  excited  awe 
and  dread  tn  the  popular  mind.  The  poem  of  Lucretius,  Ht  £etuM 
I^atura,  which  superseded  these  earlier  efforts,  was  the  fruit  of  a  thorough 
study  and  complete  assimilation  of  the  system,  which  he  embraced  with  the 
passionate  enthusiasm  of  a  religious  convert.  We  are  compensated.  foLibe 
almost  total  loss  of  the  voluminous  works  of  Epicurus  himself  by  the  match- 
less exposition  of  his  Roman  pupil.  The  first  two  books  lay  down  the 
main  principles  of  the  system  and  trace  the  process  by  which  the  world  was 
formed,  the  next  deals  with  the  soul,  in  Book  iv  the  difficult  problem  of 
perception  is  grappled  with,  and  the  rest  of  the  poem  deals  with  celestial 
phenomena,  and  generally  with  what  is  infrequent  and  obscure  in  the  order 
of  Nature.  One  of  the  most  interesting  f)arts  of  the  poem  is  the  passive 
(v  780  ff)  in  which  is  traced  the  gradual  progress  of  mankind  and  the 
growth  of  civil  society.     (Cp.  §915  i  supra.) Epicimis  adopted  fully  the  common  principle  of  the  Greek 
physicists  that  every  event  has  a  natural  cause  (er  nihiio  nihil),  which'  it'  is the  business  of  the  inquirer  to  discover.     He  fully  recc^nised  that  the  laws of  nature  are  constant  (i  592 — 598).     From  Democritus  he   1 
void!"""'     "fJ^  over  the  atomic  theory,  which  postulates  two  ultimate    1 eidstencffS: — matter,  and  void  space,  both  constant  and  in- 
destructible. Vord^exists  fio  less  than  matter :  all  nature  consists  of  void 
and  matter,  and  nothing  is  ever  added  to  the  sum  of  things,  nothing  is 
annihilated.  But  matter  or  body  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  what 
we  call  '  things'.  Matter  is  the  general  term  for  the  inRnity  of  minute 
indivisible  solids,  which  are"'t]ie  indestructible  constituents  of  'things'. 
'Things',  in  spite  of  their  seeming  solidity,  are  a^egates,  containing  void 
space  within  them  as  well  as  solid  matter.     It  is  from  the atoms  of  solid  matter  within  them  that  sucli  aggregates derive  the  name  of  bodies.  Each  atom  is  a  little  kernel,  perfectly  solid and  therefore  indestructible ;  for,  being  wi^out  void,  it  does  aotadmitxhe 
disintegrating  i^ency  of  wet,  cold  and  fire.  Besides  being  solid,  unchange- 
able, everlasting,  it  has  the  property  of  rebounding  after  impact,  now  known 
as  'elasticity^.  Being  extended,  it  can  be  conceived  as  having  parts,  but 
the  atom  IS  not  a  compound  of  these  parts,  which  are  inseparable  from  it. 
Atoms  differ  in  shape,  size  and  weight,  such  difference  being  due  to  the 
different  disposition  of  their  least  parts.  The  number  of  atoms  of  each 
shape  is  infinite;  the  numbenof  the-diCTerent  shapes,  though  large,  is  finite; 'SOtnetimcs,  as  in  'red',  in  'fire'  and  in  'lightning',  atoms  are  spherical. They  are  too  small  to  be  perceived  by  sense,  we  discern  them  by  reason alone.  The  aggregates,  or  things  which  are  made  up  of  atoms,  have  many 
secondary  qualities,  e.g.  colour,  taste,  hardness  or  softness,  heat  or  cold, 
sound,  and  odour,  but  none  of  these  belong  to  the  atoms.  Lucretius  argues 
that,  if  we  postulate  solid  atoms,  soft,  porous  bodies  can  be  explained  by 
the  presence  in  them  of  void,  and  hard  bodies  by  the  closer  union  of  the 
atoms,  whereas,  on  the  assumption  that  the  first  principles  of  things  are  not 
solid  atoms,  but  porous,  and  therefore  soft,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
explain  the  hardness  of  bodies  (i  565 — 576);  further,  that  the  constancy  of 
the  phenomena  of  nature  necessarily  implies  the  unchangeableness  of  the atoms  (i  584 — S9^)*  Ih?_inQ5t  marvellous  property  of  the  atom  isjts  mo- 
bility. Matter  does  not  cohere  inseparably  massed  together ; 
atoms  are  in  ceasdesS_inQliQirt'  After  collision,  they  can 
neyet  stop,"lait  rebound  in  an  opposite  direction,  with  the  original  velocity 
unaltered.  If  atoms  ever  slopped,  this  would  mean  the  destruction 
matter.  Even  when  combined,  they  are  still  in  motion.  If  some  n  ' 
within  very  narrow  limits,  they  must  move  to  and  fro  oftener  thai 
which  form  more  porous  bodies;  for  the  velocity  of  atoms  i 
stone  or  iron  is  as  great  as  when  they  are  streaming  through  the  vS 
Lucretius,  as  to  modem  science,  heat  is  a  mode  of  motion ;  ind< conceived  life  itself  as  a  mode  of  motion  and  the  difference  of  atomic 
structure  in  any  two  substances  as  sufficient  to  account  for  any  difference  in their  qualities,  even  for  that  between  the  living  and  the  lifeless.  The  inherent motion  of  the  atom  is  in  parallel  lines  downward ;  at  least,  it  would be  so,  but  for  a  capricious  tendency  of  individual  atoms  to  swerve  ever  so slightly  from  the  perpendicular.  This  dinamen  must  be  assumed  in  order 
to  account  for  the  fact  that  atoms  moving  with  uniform  velocity  in  one 
direction  ever  came  into  collision  at  all  (ii  zi6 — 150).  Given  that  collision, the  gradual  process  by  which  a  world  like  ours  was  evolved 
can  be  traced  step  by  step  with  inexorable  consistency.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  Lucretius  refused  to  see  any  evidence  of  design ;  he  held 
firmly  that, Jf  atoms  exist,  the  world  must  have  made  itself.  By  a  'world' 
hS-means  a  system  containing  an  earthi  a  heaven  and  heavenly  bodies,  mth 
the  ether  as  a  barrier  to  protect  it  against  danger  from  withouL  Relatiray, 
the  earth  is  a  large  part  of  this  world  and  occupies  a  large  part  of  the  space within  it ;  for  Epicurus  trusted  his  senses  so  far  as  to  believe  that  the apparent  size  of  the  heavenly  bodies  was  approximately  their  real  size 
(v  564).  From  the  infinite  void,  which  contains  an  infinity  of  worlds,  some 
like  our  world,  others  unlike  it,  there  is  a  constant  stream  of  the  fresh 
atoms  necessary  to  repair  the  waste  which  is  constantly  going  on.  Our; 
world  and  all  worlds  had  a  beginning  and  will  have  an  end,  its  structure  isj already  decaying  and  it  will  one  day  be  once  more  reduced  to  its  con-| 
stituent  and  imperishable  atoms,  The  sou]  is  mortal :  it  is  as  much  corporeal  as  the  body  of  the 

animal,  but  its  matter  is  incoinparabty  finer,  some  of  its  constituents are  not  found  in  inanimate  things,  and  it  is  the unique  character  of  its  composition  which  accounts  for  the  motions  of 
sensation  {sensi/eri  mgtus).  Soulj  as  sentient  (am'ma),  is  diffused_all.  QVer 
the  body,  but  its  principal  part  (animus,  mens)  has  its  seat  in  the  bre^t : the  two,  however,  form  a  single  nature.  Of  the  four  kinds  of  atoms  composing the  soul,  the  first  to  feel  are  those  of  the  fourth  nameless  substance; their  motions  are  the  sensations,  which  are  transmitted  to  the  atoms  of  heat, then  to  those  of  wind,  then  to  those  of  air,  and  finally  to  those  of  the  whole body.  The  beating  of  the  heart  in  fear  or  joy  proves  that,  like  thought  and will,  the  passions  have  their  seat  in  the  animus,  where  soul-atoms  are  condensed  and  give  rise  to  a  greater  variety  of  complex  motions.  The 
PencDtioD  processes  of  sensation  and  intellect  are  alike  explained  on 
the  assumption  of  contact  between  the  material  soul  and  the 
material  object  In  some  of  the  senses  (sight,  hearing  and  smell),  and  in 
^ination,  memory  and  thought,  contact  is  not  directly  with  the  external 
'tself,  but  with  a  film  or  husk  given  off  by  the  object,  which  travels 
khe  intervening  space  and  is  lodged  in  the  sensenji^jan  or  the  mind, 
^sary  to  assume  that  all  bodies  are  constantly  giving  otT  such  iilms 
_  ntions  {simulacra,  ti&oXa)  of  infinitesimal  depth  or  thickness,  but 
preserving  more  or  less  faithfully  the  superiicial  shape  of  the  bodies  which 
discbarge  them.  The  constant  emission  of  particles  by  radium  may  serve 
I  to  illustrate  this  hypothesis.  It  is  in  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the  system 
\  that  Epicurus  derived  all  knowledge  from  the  senses ;  no  one  sense  could 
correct  another,  for  their  objects  are  different ;  nor  could  reason  correct 
impressions  of  sense,  for  reason  is  ultimately  derived  from  sense. .  This 
implicit  trust  in  sense  made  Epicurus  sceptical  of  the  mathematical  sciences, 
which  he  supposed  to  contradict  it;  and  the  current  views  on  astronomy  he 
rejected,  whenever  they  conflicted  with  the  evidence  of  the  senses.  He 
demanded  clear  and  explicit  testimony  for  every  inference;  and,  if  this 
could  not  be  given,  his  conception  of  physical  research  was  limited  to  the 
suggestion  of  means  by  which,  without  contradicting  known  facts,  the 
phenomena  in  question  might  have  come  about.  He  preferred,  where 
possible,  several  explanations,  and  left  us  to  take  our  choice.  In  ethics, 
h(*was  a  hedonist :  the  pleasure  of  the  agent  is  the  only  standard  of  con- 
g    ,  ducL^Cic  De  Finibus,  i  and  ii).    But  pleasure  is  an  ambiguous term,  and  it  is  not  the  excitement  of  the  moment,  but  the 
calm   feeling  of  satisfaction,  which  succeeds  the  removal  of  discomfort, 
which  he  set  up  as  the  end.     Human  misery  springs  largely  from  unsatisfied 
wants:  natural  desires  are  easily  satisfied,  some  desires  are  unnecessary  and ought  not  to  be  gratified.     This  is  still  more  true  of  Che  whole  class  of 
artificial  or  conventional  desires,  which  are  stimulated  by  idle  fancy  and  the 
opinion  of  others,  the  gratification  bringing  the  agent  no  direct  pleasure  at 
all.     Ambition  and  the  love  of  fame  are  illustrations.     Justice  is  entirely 
conventional,  but  the  agent  finds  his  advantage  in  fulfilling  contracts  and 
'obeying  authority,    for   'honesty  is  the  best  policy'.     Virtue  should  be 
pursued,  not  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  as  a  means  (indeed,  as  society  is 
constituted,  a  necessary  and  indispensable  means)  to  happiness,  which,  as we  have  seen,  means  tranquil  pleasure,  /The  existence  of  gods 
*  '    *'         is  guaranteed  by  our  ideas  and  imaginations  of  them,  which 
must  have  an  external  cause.     They  are  blessed  and  immortal  beings, 
inhabiting  the  inttrmundia,  or  interspaces  between  world  and  world,  and 
taking  no  part  in  the  government  of  the  world,  a  task  which  would  effectu- 
ally  interfere  with  their  happiness.     On  friendship  Epicurus 
'"'      laid  especial  stress :    it  guaranteed  the  highest  and  purest 
pleasure.    The  members  of  his  school  were  to  be  a  band  of  brothers  and at  the  cost  of  some  inconsistency,  he  maintained  that  on  behalf  of  a  friend 
the  wise  man  would  even  dare  to  die. 
iosi>    The  interest  of  Cicero  in  philosophic  studies  was  life-long  and 
sincere.    He  had  good  opportunities  for  becoming  acquainted 
with  all  the  schools  and  had  heard  most  of  the  leading  men.  '  ^ His  reading  was  wide  and  directed  by  the  ambition  of  adding  a  ntm 
department  to  Roman  literature.  In  the  proems  or  introductions  toMiis 
dialogues,  he  combats  the  current  opinion  that  the  public  were  not  ii^rested in  philosophy  and  that  it  could  not  be  effectively  expounded  in  Latin.  His own  contributions  were,  as  he  tells  Atticus  (Ad  Alt.  xii  51),  translations: 
'droypa^  sunt,...uerba  tantum  adfero,  quibusabundo'.  He  also  supplied 
the  setting  and  the  numerous  illustrations  from  Roman  life  and  history. He  had  no  original  views  to  publish,  he  merely  expounded  those  of  others, 
taking  them  from  some  received  Greek  authority,  Panaetius  in  De  Officiis, 
and  possibly  H&ato  in  the  De  Finibus.  But,  for  exposition,  he  had  a 
rare  talent  and  uncommon  advant^es ;  and,  for  all  the  haste  with  which  he 
wrote,  he  was  fired  with  enthusiasm  for  his  subject  and  vrith  the  desire  to 
produce  a  really  good  book  upon  it.     (Cp.  §  972  supra.") As  Cicero  professedhimself  an  adherent  of  the  New  Academy,  it 
is  necessary  to  explain  the  meaning  of  the  term  before  we  proceed  to  con- 
sider his  exact  relation  to  contemporary  thought  Plato's  school,  after  the 
death  of  its  founder,  had  passed  through  many  vicissitudes.  /FgL^^tirne 
the  teaching  was  rjngtnntin  nnd  mniply  p^hiral  the  peculiM:  Platonic 
metaphysics  being  either  greatly  modified  or  quietly"  propped.  In  this 
phase  Tl~ft  known  as  Hm  Old  Academy.  TTTis  dogmatic  teaching  was 
abandoned  by  Arc£silas  (died  140  b.c),  under  whose  headship  the  school 
became  the  home  of  scepticism,  by  which  is  meant  free  inquiry,  unbiassed 
by  any  positive  conviction.  As  much  could  be  advanced  for,  as  against, 
any  opinion  under  discussion,  and  the  wise  man,  renouncing  absolute 
knowledge  as  unattainable,  held  his  judgement  in  abeyance 
(iirox^).  This  sceptical  phase  is  known  generally  as  the  New  AMdrmy", 
Academy.  Sometimes,  however,  Arcesilas  and  his  immediate 
successors  are  called  the  Middle  Academy,  and  the  New  Academy  proper  is 
made  to  begin  a  century  later  with  CarnSides  (214 — 129),  the  most  gifted 
of  all  the  successors  of  Plato.     Arcesilas  and  Carneades  both  contended that,  in  their  scepticism,  they  were  the  legitimate  heirs  of  the  Socratic  and 
Platonic  traditio'nT^^ut  it  was  one  thing  to  maintain  with  Arcesilas  the 
abstract  thesis  that  knowledge  is  unattainable :  it  was  another  and  harder 
task  to  prove  by  argument  that  it  had  not  been  attained.  Cameadeji 
essayed  this  task.  He  undertook  to  overthrow  the  existing  dogmatic 
systems  by  a  refutation  of  their  dogmas  in  detail,  and  the  negative  dialectic 
with  which  he  attacked  them  made  him  the  terror  of  all  his  contemporaries, 
jMrticularly  the  Stoics.  At  the  same  time,  he  developed  a  doctrine  of  , 
probability  which,  so  far  as  action  was  concerned,  served  as  a  substitute  for 
the  certainty  which  he  regarded  as  beyond  our  reacK     In  the  long  run, 
however,  simple  agnosticism  failed  to  satisfy  the  tendency  of  the  time,  which 
became  ever  more  distinctively  eclectic  and  sought  to  discover  in  the 
different  schools  a  common  basis  for  practical  morality.  Some  concessions 
to  dogmatism  were  made  by  Philo  of  Larissa  (c.  88) :  things,  he  said,  were 
in  their  own  nature  knowable,  but  not  by  the  standard  of  knowledge  which 
th«  Stoics  proposed.  His  disciple,  Antiochus  of  Ascalon  (^.  78),  weary  of 
a  |ppeless  straggle,  at  length  recanted  his  agnostic  errors  and  declared 
knowle^e  to  be  possible.  In  thus  violently  breaking  with  the  sceptical 
tradition  of  the  past  two  centuries,  he  professed  to  revive  the  Old  Academy, 
but  the  staple  element  of  his  eclectic  doctrine  was  distinctively  Stoic, 
although,  in  defiance  of  plain  historical  fact,  he  accused  the  Stoics  of  having 
borrowed  it  without  acknowledgement  from  the  Academy. In  Cicero's  case  there  is  a  wide  gulf  between  speculative  inquiries in  general  and  (heir  particular  application  to  morals.  On 
Phiiouphic  tjjg  theoretical  issue,  he  remained  loyal  to  the  scepticism,  or 
poillieo  of  ,  .  .         '     „  ,4-,  ..  J, Cicera.  rather  agnosticism,  of  Cameades.     He  was  equally  opposed to  the  compromise  of  Philo  and  the  downright  surrender  of 
Antiochus.  He  valued  highly  the  privilege  of  criticising  all  opinions  without being  committed  unreservedly  to  the  defence  of  any,  a  privilege  which 
a  barrister  above  alt  men  would  appreciate.  Nothing  can  be  known,  but 
one  opinion  may  be  maintained  as  more  probable  than  another.  When, 
however,  we  come  to  questions  of  law  and  morality,  the  case  is  different. 
The  use  which  Cicero  here  makes  of  his  freedom  to  hold  whatever  opinion 
seems  probable,  is  a  singular  one.  He  wholly  dissociates  himself  from  the 
negative  views  of  Cameades.  Nothing  had  done  so  much  to  prejudice  the 
average  Roman  against  philosophy  at  the  very  outset  as  the  versatility  with 
which  Cameades  on  two  successive  days  advocated  arguments,  first  for,  and 
then  against,  the  obligations  of  justice.  With  such  an  attitude  Cicero  had no  sympathy,  any  more  than  with  the  utilitarian  ethics  of  Epicurus.  A 
violent  reaction  against  both  led  him  at  first  to  accept  the  eclecticism  of 
Antiochus,  but  gradually  he  approximated  more  closely  to  the  Stoics,  whose 
rigid  consistency  and  moral  idealism  had  an  attraction  for  him,  as  for  other 
Romans,  in  spite  of  [he  hard  criticism  which  he  passed  upon  them- 
Hence,  in  reviewing  his  opinions,  we  have  to  distinguish  the  pupil  of 
Cameades,  in  the  Academica,  De  Natura  Deorum,  De  Diuinatiom  and  De 
Fate,  from  the  pupil  of  Antiochus,  in  De  Legibus  and  De  Finibus,  and  from 
the  defender  of  Stoic  ethics  in  the  Tusailam  and  t>e  Offidis.  We  can 
never  be  sure,  however,  whether  any  opinion  advanced  in  Cicero's  works  is 
really  his  own,  and  he  protests  emphatically  that  he  is  not  bound  by 
previous  utterances  and  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  fasten  upon  himself  the 
inconsistencies  of  his  different  writings  {Tusc.  v  33  and  82  f)'. '  How  diflicult  ii  is,  in  the  absence  of  a  irualworthy  clue,  (o  infer  from  internal 
evidence  what  authority  he  \%  al  the  time  following  may  be  seen  from  one  instance.  In 
Ihe  Tuieulan  Diipulatiom  the  preference  is  given  lo  the  Stoic  conception  of  emotion,  as 
somelbing,   in  its  own   nature,   vicious,   and  therefore   10  be  eradicated.     The  more 
ro53— loss] In  the  current  view,  there  were  two  great  problems  of  philosophy, 
one  theoretical,  the  criterion  of  truth,  the  other  practical,  the 
end  of  action.  With  the  first  of  these  Cicero  deals  in  the  T'le  ciiurioo 
Acadtmica.  The  question  discussed  is  whether  knowledge  is  Aca^timica. 
possible,  and  the  single  book  of  the  earlier  edition  now  extant 
gives  the  arguments  of  the  dogmatist  for,  and  of  the  agnostic  (in  the  person  of Cicero)  against,  this  possibility.  The  former  points  to  the  body  of  received 
truth  possessed  by  the  arts  and  sciences  and  insists  on  the  suicidal  inconsistency of  the  Sceptic  in  maintaining,  whether  dogmatically  or  otherwise, 
that  knowledge  is  impossible.  Moreover,  such  a  view  paralyses  action, 
brings  man  to  the  level  of  a  machine,  and  renders  definition  impossible. 
But  the  stress  of  the  Carneadean  onslaught  had  reduced  the  dogmatists  to 
the  defensive,  and  much  space  is  devoted  to  an  examination  of  those  facts of  experience  (hallucinations,  dreams,  delusions  of  the  insane)  from  which 
the  inference  was  apparently  irresistible  that  there  was  no  criterion  for 
discriminating  the  true  from  the  false.  On  this  issue,  the  reply  of  the 
agnostic  is  overwhelming.  The  position  of  the  Epicurean,  who  placed 
implicit  faith  in  the  senses,  is  intelligible,  that  of  the  Sceptic,  who  distrusted 
them  all,  is  likewise  intelligible,  but  a  dogmatist  has  to  base  knowledge  on 
the  senses,  while  at  the  same  time  admitting  that  they  are  sometimes 
deceived.  That  this  is  impossible  is  shown  in  detail.  For  action,  again, 
Cicero  insists  that  probability  is  just  as  good  a  guide  as  knowledge. 
Lastly,  in  a  review  of  the  entire  history  of  philosophy,  he  dwells  with 
evident  delight  upon  the  inconsistent  and  sometimes  absurd  opinions  on 
every  conceivable  subject  advanced  by  different  Schools.  What,  then, 
becomes  of  that  body  of  received  truth  which  is  the  common  possession  of 
the  sciences  ?  The  exact  impression  which  the  treatise  De  Natura  Deorum 
was  intended  to  leave  on  the  reader,  is  not  quite  clear.  The  honours  of 
debate  rest  with  the  negative  critic,  although  the  author  professes  his  own 
sympathy  with  the  Stoic  supporter  of  orthodoxy.  The  theological  views  of 
the  two  great  contemporary  Schools,  the  Stoic  and  the  Epicurean,  are  alone 
seriously  expounded,  and  are  in  turn  subjected  to  merciless  criticism  at  the 
hands  of  the  New  Academy,  represented  by  Cotta.  \n  De  Diuinatione 
and  De  Fato  (the  latter  a  fragment)  the  treatment  is  very  similar.  A  Stoic 
doctrine,  in  the  one  case  divination,  in  the  other  fate,  is  first  expounded 
and  then  riddled  with  all  the  skill  and  ingenuity  of  that  negative  criticism 
in  which  Carneades  excelled. The  other  chief  problem  of  philosophy  was  a  practical  one :  what 
is  the  chief  good  ?     This  forms  the  subject  of  De  Finibus. The  Epicurean  doctrine  that  pleasure  is  the  end  of  action  is     ^"/'.viw"?''" ' expounded  in  Book   i  and  refuted  from  Stoic  sources  in Book  II.     Stoicism  finds  a  champion  and  exponent  in  the  person  of  Cato mtxletate  doclrlne  of  Ihe  Academy,  which  permitted  emotion  to  be  indulged  wilhin 
bounds,  is  rejecied.  Vet,  in  spiie  of  ihis  Stoic  linge,  some  scholars  contend  that  this 
treatise  is  modelled  upon  a  work  by  the  Academic  Philo. in  Book  111.  The  reply  of  Cicerd  in  Book  iv  is  on  the  lines  of  Antiochus, 
embodying  his  unhistorical  assumption  that  there  was  no  real  difTerence  on 
ethics  between  the  Stoics  and  the  Old  Academy,  and  that  Zeno  stole  the 
doctrines  of  his  predecessors  and  invented  a  ctabbed  terminology  to 
conceal  the  theft.  The  views  of  Antiochus  on  the  whole  question  of  the 
chief  good  are  presented  as  a  positive  doctrine  in  Book  v.  He  did  not 
hold  with  the  Stoics  that  virtue  alone  is  self-sufficient  for  happiness;  the 
complex  nature  of  man  requires  that  he  should  be  adequately  furnished 
with  corporeal  and  external,  as  well  as  with  mental,  goods.  Nevertheless, 
virtue  is  the  supreme,  though  not  the  only,  good.  In  the  earlier  unfinished 
work,  De  Legiius,  law  is  treated  from  the  same  Antiochean  standpoint  but 
with  closer  approximation  to  Stoicism,  and  the  New  Academy  is  quietly 
snubbed  (i  39).  Cicero  is  sometimes  said  to  have  been  the  first  to  state 
explicitly  that  all  men  have  innate  moral  ideas  (notiones  innatae,  natura 
nobis  insltae),  and  that  the  belief  in  the  existence  and  immortality  of  God  is 
found  in  mankind  everywhere  (eonsensus  gentium).  But,  on  closer  examina- 
tion, we  discover  that  Cicero's  innate  ideas  are  merely  his  somewhat 
rhetorical  way  of  presenting  the  Stoic  conception  of  hvouii  or  rpoK^^tvi, 
and,  as  these  are  similarly  developed  in  normal  man  everywhere,  the  Stoics 
often  employed  the  argument  from  consensus  gentium. Cicero's  accuracy  has  often  been  impugned.  But,'setting  aside 
the  carelessness  ineWtable  in  hasty  writing  {e.g.  Acad.  Post. ecuracy.  .  ^^^^  ^^^  gravei  charge  has  not  been  substantiated.  He  is 
our  earliest  authority  for  the  later  Greek  systems;  at  the  time  he  wrote,  the Stoa  and  the  Academy  had  passed  through  many  phases  of  doctrine,  and, 
except  in  a  few  cases  where  he  cites  his  authority,  it  is  not  easy  to  determine which  phase  or  which  philosopher  he  is  reporting.  As  a  mere 
question  of  probability,  the  chances  are  far  greater  that  his  statements  are 
accurate  than  that  we  have  the  means  of  correcting  them-  His  very 
dependence  upon  his  sources  (of  which  the  translation  of  part  of  Plato's 
Timaeus  for  the  purpose  of  insertion  in  some  work  contemplated,  but  never 
written,  is  a  proof),  makes  his  philosophical  writings  a  treasure-house  of r.luable  fragments  and  testimonia. 
1057.  In  the  history  of  Stoicism  it  is  usual  to  distinguish  three  periods. 
In   the  first,  from   Zeno   (c.   350 — 264)  to  the  death   of 
of'stoic'i^'      Chrysippus  {e.    208-4),   'he  theory  was  elaborated.     The 
next  two  centuries  form  a  period  of  transition,  during  which 
the  older  doctrines  were  modified,  simplified  and  occasionally  relaxed  in  an eclectic  spirit :  it  was  in  this  modified  form  that  they  began  to  be  taught  at 
Rome.    In  the  last  period,  under  the  Empire,  the  practical  Roman  intellect 
made  its  influence  felt  by  a  reaction  against  scientific  theory  altogether. 
1058.    Zeno  (ob.  364),  the  founder  of  .the  school,  adopted  the  famous 
threefold  division  of  philosophy  into  (i)  Iq^ic,  (2)  physics, 
stai!^iiii.         including  psychology  and  theology,  and  (3)  ethics.     Logic  is a  mere  propaedeutic  of  philosophy,  its  most  important  function  being  to  determine  what  is  the  standard  of  truth.  The  Stoics  adopted 
an  empirical  theory  of  knowledge ;  not,  however,  without  concessions  to 
rationalism.  At  lirst,  we  are  told,  they  were  content  with  right  reason  as 
the  standard,  but,  as  their  doctrine  became  definitely  more  materialistic, 
they  looked  for  their  criterion  in  sensation,  empirical  notions  or  pre- 
conceptions, as  well  as  in  vpokij^w  {noiiorus,  ttotitiae).  The  presentations 
or  impressions  (uim,  iJMvTiuriiu),  which  the  senses  convey  to the  mind,  are  often  erroneous  A  certain  peculiar  definite-  ^f'^th'*''"' 
ness,  a  degree  of  force,  in  impressions  is  the  ultimate  test  of 
their  truth,  because  it  satisfies  us,  immediately  and  irresistibly,  that  such  an impression  must  proceed  from  a  real  object  and  agree  with  it  and  could 
not  have  been  produced  by  an  unreal  object.  When  this  is  the  case,  the 
mind,  itself  active,  by  giving  assent  (aiisensio,  miyKaToBtuii)  to  the  im- 
pression, grasps  and  apprehends  a  real  object.  Like  all  the  later  Schools, 
the  Stoics  were  materialists.  Nothing  exists  but  body, 
for  body  alone  is  capable  of  acting  and  being  acted  upon. 
At  the  same  time,  any  mechanical  explanation  of  the  universe,  such  as 
that  of  £[ifi:{iKis/  is  insufficient,  and  must  give  place  lo  a  teleolt^'cal 
explanation.  Everywhere  we  see  the  adaptation  of  means  lo  ends :  as 
in  human  actions,  so  in  nature,  every  event  fulfils  a  purpose.  If  this 
teleolt^y  is  combined  with  dynamic  materialism^  the  result  is  monism  or 
pantheism.  What  ultimately  exists  is  at  once  spirit  and  matter,  or,  in  other 
words,  spirit  is  itself  one,  the  purest,  form  of  matter,  viz.  ether.  We  must 
conceive  it  as  fiery  breath  and  carefully  distinguish  it,  as  the  element  of warmth,  by  which  all  life  is  sustained,  from  the  destroying  fire  which  we know  upon  earth.  This  divine  primitive  substance  may  either  remain  what 
it  is  in  its  purity,  or  it  may  be  transformed  by  perpetual  succession  into  its 
various  modifications,  the  four  elements,  out  of  which  all  particular  things, 
all  bodies,  animate  or  inanimate,  are  formed.  All  of  them  are  permeated 
by  the  divine  ether  or  spirit  in  varying  degrees  of  tension.  This  identical 
essence,  manifested  in  diverse  forms  in  everything  that  exists,  makes  the 
universe  one.  Moreover,  its  unity  is  not  that  of  casual  a^egation :  it 
forms  an  organic  whole,  to  which  all  the  parts  are  so  related  that  they  are 
in  mutual  sympathy;  and,  whatever  directly  affects  one  member,  affects 
them  all.  For  the  world  is  a  living  being,  an  animal,  'whose 
body  Nature  is,  and  God  the  soul".  It  is  both  sentient  and 
intelligent.  By  intelligence  it  conthils  and  directs  all  that  happens ; 
whether  it  be  called 'Reason,  Providence,  Nature,  or  Fate,  makes  no 
difference.  God  is  meant  by  all  these  terms,  and  God  is  the  living 
universe.  The  creation,  development,  and  ultimate  destruction  of  this 
universe,  are  all  phases  in  the  life  of  this  eternal  Being.  By  the  unceasing 
law  of  fate  a  time  will  come  when  the  world  and  all  that  it  contains  will  be 
merged  in  the  primeval  fire,  only  to  be  created  anew,  when  it  will  run 
identically  the  same  course  as  before.  Pope's  Essay  en  Man,  i  968. The  parallel  between   the  individual  and  the  universe,  the 
The  tout         microcosm  and  the  macrocosm,  is  best  seen  in  psychology. As  God  is,  in  essence,  fiery  breath,  the  soul  of  the  universe, 
so  the  soul  which  holds  tc^ether  and  moves  the  human  body  is  a  fiery 
breath  or  sentient  exhalation,  fed  by  exhalations  from  the  blood.  Here 
is  a  striking  contrast  with  the  Epicurean  psychology.  In  both  systems 
the  soul  is  corporeal,  but,  in  that  of  Epicurus,  life,  sensation  and  reason 
are  produced  from  lifeless  atoms,  themselves  devoid  of  sensation  and 
reason.  According  to  the  Stoics,  the  soul  grows  to  the  perfection  of  reason 
with  the  growth  of  the  body.  Its  essence  is  one,  its  varying  functions 
being  conditioned  by  the  varying  degrees  of  tension  in  its  substance. 
There  can  be  no  distinct  parts  of  the  soul,  as  maintained  by  Plato  and 
Aristotle ;  and,  when  the  Stoics  speak  of  eight  parts,  they  are  careful  to 
explain  them  as  currents  or  channels,  permeating  the  whole  body  and 
connecting  the  ruling  principle  {Y/t/iovixuv)  in  the  heart  with  the  extremities. 
The  soul  is  not  immortal,  but  after  separation  from  the  body  the  souls  of 
the  wise  endure  for  a  time,  viz.,  until  the  general  conflagration  at  the  end 
of  the  present  cycle  of  existence. 
On  this  groundwork  of  physics  the  Stoics  based  their  ethical doctrine.  Good,  the  end  of  life,  is  defined  as  agreement 

with  nature — whether  the  individual  nature  of  man  or,  as 
Cleanthes  maintained,  the  nature  of  the  universe,  had  been  left  undefined 
by  Zeno.  Chrysippus  held  that  the  term  'nature'  embraced  both.  This 
harmony  with  nature  consists  in  virtue.  Virtue  is  the  one  unconditional 
good,  good  at  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances.  Similarly,  vicis  is 
absolutely  and  at  all  times  evil.  All  intermediate  things  are  morally 
indifferent  {intiifermiia,  dSuii^opa),  but  have  d^rees  of  worth  and  worth- 
lessness,  positive  and  negative  value  {aestimatio,  inaesHmalio),  according 
as  they  are  in  conformity  with,  or  contrary  to,  nature.  Such  value  as 
belongs  to  things  indifferent,  is  not  a  permanent  attribute,  but  is  contingent 
upon  circumstances:  so  that  what  at  one  time  accords  with  nature,  may  at 
another  time  conflict  with  it  The  emotions  are  not  produced  by  any 
principle  in  the  soul  distinct  from  reason ;  for  the  unity  of  the  soul  would be  sacrificed  by  the  recognition  of  any  such  principle.  They  can  only 
be  defined  as  morbid  states  of  the  reason  itself,  due  to  excessive  Impulse 
and  ultimately  to  an  erroneous  judgement  The  soul  which  forms  a  iaise 
estimate  of  the  value  of  things,  is  hurried  by  a  violent  and  irregular  movement towards  fancied  goods  in  pleasure  and  desire  and  away  from  fancied evils  in  grief  and  fear,  these  being  the  four  leading  species  of  emotion. The  contrast  here  with  the  teaching  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  is  obvious.  So long  as  parts  or  faculties  of  the  soul,  essentially  distinct,  were  recognised, it  was  the  function  of  the  reason  to  regulate  and  control  the  impulses  of 
the  lower  animal  nature,  fiut  the  Stoics  deduce  from  the  unity  of  the 
soul  the  unity  of  its  activity,  whether  in  a  healthy  or  a  morbid  state. 
Hence  they  demanded  no  mere  regulation  of  the  passions,  but  their  entire suppression  and  eradication.  The  absence  of  reason  not  only  renders 
virtue  impossible  in  the  child  or  in  the  brute ;  it  makes  emotion  and  vice 
equally  impossible.  The  truly  'wise'  man  performs  all  his  actions  in 
accordance  with  reason  and  virtue,  being  preserved  by  his  wisdom  from 
intellectual  error,  no  less  than  from  moral  failings.  Mankind  are  sharply 
divided  into  the  two  classes  of  the  'wise'  and  the  'foolish';  and,  as  virtue and  vice  admit  of  no  degrees,  every  action  of  the  former  is  a  right  action 
(rettum,  icoropSui/ui),  of  the  latter  is  wrong  {pueatutn,  dfiapTTj/ta).  Here 
Stoicism  approaches  Christian  ethics :  the  passionless  sage,  like  the  Christian 
saint,  is  set  over  against  a  world  lying  in  wickedness,  The  change  from 
the  state  of  folly  to  the  state  of  wisdom  was  at  first  regarded  as  an 
instantaneous  conversion,  and  the  question-  of  final  perseverance,  or  the 
possibility  of  a  lapse  from  wisdom,  had  as  much  interest  for  the  older 
Stoics  as  for  Christian  theologians. In  the  above  meagre  outline  the  moral  idealism  of  the  earlier 
Stoics  is  as  conspicuous  as  the  optimism  of  their  physics.     Otj^er  creeds and  systems  point  10  a  brighter  future,  whether  on  earth  itself  or  in  a  life 
beyond:  Stoicism  takes  the  world  as  it  is,  and  resolutely  finds  it  here  and 
now  perfect.     It  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  flourished  in  Greece.     Men 
were  repelled   by  its   indifference    to    art   and   culture,  its       swictamin 
pedantic  formalism,  and  uncouth  terminology.     Two  causes       thcHcsnd 
profoundly  altered  its  character  and  prospects;  firstly,  the       P^^od. 
criticism  of  Carneades,  who  fastened  upon  the  many  inconsistencies  of  the 
Stoics  and  compelled  the  more  intelligent  among  them  to  reconsider  their position ;    secondly,   the   necessity  of  modifying  what  was  originally  a 
speculative  doctrine,  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  Romans.     The  two  men 
most  instrumental  in  introducing  philosophy  to  Rome  were  also  the  most 
considerable  figures  in  the  middle  period  of  Stoicism  and  handled  the 
traditional  doctrine  with  great  freedom.  PanaeCius  (180 — in),  the  friend  of  Scipio  and  Laelius,  came  as 
the    missionary   of   Hellenic    culture,    commending    to    his Roman  pupils  the  works  of  Plato,  whom  he  reverenced  and 
admired,  as  readily  as  those  of  his  Stoic  predecessors.  He  himself 
diverged  from  orthodoxy  on  several  points.  He  denied  the  doctrine  of 
a  general  conflagration  and,  in  consequence,  the  limited  immortality 
which  early  Stoics  had  held  out  as  the  privilege  of  the  souls  of  'wise' 
men.  He  rejected  the  old  Stoic  doctrine  of  divination.  In  these  de- 
viations it  is  easy  to  trace  the  influence  of  Carneades.  In  ethics,  he 
adopted  a  terminology  less  calculated  to  offend  common  sense  and 
common  prejudices.  He  divided  virtues  into  two  classes,  theoretical 
and  practical.  Without  altogether  abandoning  the  aspiration  after  perfect 
wisdom  and  virtue,  he  recognised  that  his  business  was  with  those  who 
had  set  out  on  the  road  to  virtue,  and  were  a  long  way  removed  from 
the  ideal  'sage.'  It  was  for  these  he  wrote  his  treatise  ir«pi  roij  mi^ 
ncotTM,  of  which  we  have  a  paraphrase  in  the  first  two  books  of  Cicero's De  Officiis,  dealing  successively  with  the  (MAdK  or  honestum,  and  the 
u^fXifioi'  or  ulile. Poseiddniiis  of  Apimfa  (c.  130 — 46)  was  the  pupil  of  Panaetius, and  the  last  great  Stoic  who  took  an  interest  in  theoretical 
philosophy!  ^nd  busied  himself  with  the  positive  sciences. 
It  is  probable  that  his  work  n-fpi  0(uv  has  been  used  by  Cicero  in  Book  it of  the  De  Natura  Deorvm.  As  regards  divination  and  the  general 
conflagration,  he  fell  back  upon  the  orthodox  Stoic  view.  In  psychology, 
he  abandoned  the  strict  unity  of  the  soul,  finding  it  impossible  to  explain 
the  emotions  as  morbid  conditions  of  the  reason,  and'with  Plato  and 
Aristotle  assumed  an  irrational  part  of  the  soul  (ira^riKdi')  to  account  for 
them.  He  also  maintained  the  immortality,  and,  very  probably,  the  preezistence,  of  the  rational  soul.  Many  tendencies  in  the  later  Stoics,  such 
as  Seneca  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  are  explained  by  his  influence. The  Romans  in  general  cared  little  for  the  ground-work  of  theory. 
Attitude  t*  ''"'  vicx^  profoundly  interested  in  all  which  concerned  religion, 
the  popular  The  Stoics  from  the  first,  while  maintaining  that  the  universe 
"ligion.  j^  God,  had  taken  the  popular  theology  under  their  patronage. Rationalising  and  allegorising  the  myths,  they  could  interpret  the  many divinities  of  the  poets  as  all  manifestations  of  the  one  supreme  Being.  In this  defence  of  the  truth  in  polytheism,  etymology  played  a  large  part. Nor,  again,  if  all  events  happen  by  divine  ordinance,  is  it  at  all  unreasonable to  suppose  that  what  is  fore-ordained  should  be  disclosed  by  God  to  His rational  creatures  through  signs  and  portents  for  their  warning  and instruction.  Upon  this  principle,  and  upon  the  interdependence  and  close sympathy  existing  between  all  parts  of  the  one  universe,  was  based  the philosophic  defence  of  augury,  oracles  and  divination.  This  twofold attitude  of  the  system,  at  once  tolerant  and  critical,  towards  the  popular beliefs  and  cults  attracted  the  Roman  statesmen  who,  anxious,  on  polirical grounds,  to  uphold  the  national  faith,  gladly  accepted  the  assurance  of  the philosophers  that  it  was  an  imperfect  adumbration  of  ultimate  truth.     In the  Second  Book  De  Natura  Deorvm,  we  find  Cicero's  Stoic DcMumii       advancing  the  most   dissimilar   arguments   to    prove   the existence  of  the  gods.  Some  of  them  are  wholly  inconclusive, such  as  the  universal  belief  of  mankind :  for  this  wide-spread belief  in  anthropomorphic  beings,  resting  partly  on  legends  of  their intervention  in  human  affairs,  certainly  could  not  establish  what  the  Stoics wished  to  prove,  viz.,  that  the  universe  itself  is  living,  sentient,  intelligent and  perfect.  Again,  to  argue  from  divination,  auguries  and  oracles  is.  to ai^ue  in  a  circle,  for  the  divine  existence  would  be  assumed  as  the  main argument  in  support  of  divination.  Popular  superstition  might  be  satisfied with  such  grounds  of  belief,  but  the  philosophical  arguments,  cited  from Zeno  and  Chrysippus,  are  of  a  very  different  order.  They  start  with  the assumption  that  the  universe  is  perfect  What  has  reason  is  better  than what  has  not  reason :  therefore  the  universe,  as  the  best  of  things,  must possess  reason.  '  The  universe  as  a  whole  must  be  more  perfect  than  its parts,  it  must  be  sentient,  because  it  has  sentient  parts ;  and  intelligent, because  one  part,  man,  is  intelligent.  The  inference  is  from  the  effect  to the  cause.  We  assume  that  there  are  everywhere  the  marLs  of  adaptation and  design,  such  as  no  human  reason,  or  human  power,  could  produce : the  effects,  and  in  particular  the  phenomena  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  point to  a  cause,  and  this  must  be  an  intelligence  superior  to  that  of  man.  The scale  of  existence  rises  by  gradual  ascent  from  vegetable  to  animal,  from animal  to  human  existence ;  and,  if  the  universe  is  perfect,  this  scale  must be  completed  in  a  Being  who  is  perpetually  virtuous  and  wise,  in  whom the  striving  after  perfection  common  to  all  finite  natures  finds  its  fulfilment. These  a^uments  establish  the  divinity  of  the  whole  universe,  conceived, as  in  Plato's  Timaeus,  as  spherical.  But  its  activity  is  not  limited  to  the eternal  revolution  of  the  heavenly  sphere.  It  is  displayed  in  the  creation and  government  of  the  particular  beings  over  whom  it  exerts  its  providence. The  highest  of  such  individual  existences  are  the  spirits  of  the  stars, inhabiting  the  purest  element,  ether.  From  the  point  of  vantage  obtained by  these  results  the  gods  of  mythology  admit  of  easy  explanation.  They are  personifications  either  of  the  forces  of  nature,  like  Jupiter  and  Neptune ; or  of  benefits  universally  enjoyed,  lite  Ceres  and  Liber ;  of  virtues  and passions,  hke  Concord,  Victory,  Ops  and  Venus ;  or  even  of  departed 

human  benefactors,  like  Hercules,  Aesculapius  and  Quirinus.  Here,  it 
is  easy  to  recognise  two  distinct  lines  of  argument.  The  cosmological 
proof  or  argument  from  design  is  used  explicitly,  the  ontological  used 
implicitly,  when  it  is  assumed  that  the  universe  is  perfect  and  thtrefore 
corresponds  in  actuality  to  our  conception  of  what  is  perfect.  The 
opposition  of  the  Stoics  to  the  Epicureans  was  bitter  and  uncompromising, 
and  many  parts  of  the  system  are  best  explained  by  contrast  with  Epicurean 
tenets.  This  is  the  case  with  the  doctrine  of  providence.  The  working 
of  intelligence,  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  which  the  Stoics  saw  every- 
where, was  fiercely  denied  by  Epicurus.  The  God  of  the  Stoics  foreknows 
and  ordains  all  events,  even  to  the  minutest  details ;  the  Epicureans,  and 
agnostics  like  Carneades,  joined  issue  with  them,  pointing  to  the  calamities 
which  befall  the  innocent  and  the  virtuous  and  to  notorious  examples  of 
prosperous  villainy.  It  was  easy  to  retort  that  external  circumstances  are 
not  the  rewards  of  virtue  or  of  vice.  Still,  a  difficulty  remained  in  the 
familiar  fact  of  '  conquered  good  and  conquering  ill ',  which  is  but  a  part  , of  the  tai^er  problem,  the  existence  of  moral  evil  in  a  perfect  universe. 
This  problem  the  Stoics  were  bound  to  face,  and  they  offered  the  best 
solution  they  could.  Either,  it  may  be  said,  God  is  the  author  of  all 
things  except  wickedness ;  or,  the  very  nature  of  good  presupposes  its 
contrary,  evil ;  or,  there  may  be  a  point  of  view  from  which  what  we  call 
evil  is  not  evil.  The  same  fundamental  difference  of  view  appears,  when  the  two 
Schools,  at  the  outset  of  their  ethical  inquiries,  take  up  the  purely  psychological  question: — what  are  the  objects  of  natural  and  instinctive  desire? 
It  may  seem  absurd  to  assume  that  any  special  importance  for  ethics  can 
attach  to  observations  of  the  unreasoning  actions  of  children  and  the  lower 
animals.     However,  both  Schools  joined  in  making  the  assumption  and 
only  differed  as  to  the  fnterpretation  of  the  facts.     Epicurus  interpreted 
them  as  showing  that  every  movement  and  action  was  directed  to  the 
attainment  of  pleasure.     The  Stoics  asserted,  on  the  contrary,  that,  not 
pleasure   nor  freedom    from    pain,   but    self-preservation,   was    the   end 
instinctively  sought.     The  exposition  of  Stoic  ethics  in  the 
&t  FinibM       •pjjjj.j  gj^jj  j^^  Finibus  starts  from  this  point     In  man,  as 
in  every  other  animal,  from  the  moment  of  birth  natural 
impulse  {appefiius,  ipi^n)  prompts  to  self-preservation,  and  to  the  mun- 
tenance  of  the  physical  frame  in  its  original  integrity.     Thus,  self-love  is 
anterior  in  our  experience  to  pleasure  or  pain  and  is  presupposed  in  all  pursuit 
of  particular  pleasures  or  avoidance  of  particular  pains.     The  objects  of 
these  early  impulses,  the  so-called  prima  naturae  (or  s-piuni  koto  ^vviv), 
are  partly  corporeal,  health  and   bodily  soundness,  partly   mental,   the 
knowledge  which  we  acquire,  either  directly  through  the  senses  or  in- 
directly through  the  arts  and  sciences :  they  do  not  include 
naiune.  pleasure.     The  phrase  prima  naturae  was  adopted  by  the Stoics  from  the  Old  Academy,  and  the  relation  to  virtue  of 
these  primary  natural  advantages  caused  no  little  trouble,  exposing  them 
to  damaging  criticism.  According  to  the  strict  theory  of  the  Older  School, 
these  objects  must  belong  to  the  class  of  things  intermediate,  which  in 
themselves  are  neither  good  nor  evil ;  no  added  value  can  make  them 
good ;  any  such  addition  is  infinitesimal  in  comparison  with  the  absolute 
value  which  attaches  to  virtue.  And  yet,  under  the  pressure  of  con- 
troversy, the  Stoics  of  the  middle  period  endeavoured  to  bring  them  into 
some  sort  of  connexion  with  the  end.  Cicero's  Stoic  speaks  of  them,  like 
all  things  intermediate,  as  the  field  for  the  exercise  of  wisdom.  Though 
not  in  themselves  good,  they  are  secondary  results  procured  by  what  is 
moral,  honeslum,  ro  koXov  (De  Fin.  iii  31,  39.  49).  Thus,  all  or  most  of 
the  things  commonly  judged  to  be  good  (though  the  older  Stoics  had 
refused  to  call  them  so) — such  as  health,  strength,  wealth,  fame — are 
brought  within  the  sphere  of  the  wise  man's  choice,  and  yet  his  real  good 
still  lies  solely  in  the  wisdom  of  the''choice,  and  not  in  the  thing  chosen. 
This  is  illustrated  by  a  simile : — an  archer  aims  at  a  bull's  eye,  but  his  end 
is  not  the  mark  itself,  but  the  manifestation  of  his  skill  in  hitting  it  (16. 
iii  2i).  The  same  tendency  is  shown  in  the  classification  of  actions.  Of 
intermediate  things,  those  which  are  natural  are  to  be  preferred  (praepotita, 
Trporrfi^iva);  their  opposites,  which  are  contrary  to  nature,  are  to  be  rejected 
{reiecta,  a.irtnrpoijyfi.a'a.).  Every  action  connected  with  the  former  is  an 
appropriate  action  {officium,  KoBi^Kov),  which  is  dehned  as 
'any  action,  the  performance  of  which  admitsjof  reasonable 
justilication '.     Reason  requires  us  to  perform  such  actions.     The  wise man  and  the  fool  alike  choose  what  is  natural,  and  reject  what  is  contrary 
to  nature,  so  that  here  they  are  on  common  ground.  Both  may  perform 
the  same  external  act,  e^.  of  faithfully  returning  a  deposit ;  it  is  the  motive 
which  underlies  the  performance  which  makes  the  difference.  The  action 
is  not  virtuous  unless  it  be  done  with  the  right  intention,  which  the 
possession  of  wisdom  can  alone  ensure.  Virtuous  action  is  appropriate 
action  carried  to  perfection,  and  this  implies  the  imperfect  performance 
(in^atum  officiutn  or  simply  efficium,  fMaov  KaBiJKOv).  It  was  inevitable 
that,  as  the  perfect  sage  receded  more  and  more  into  the  region  of  the 
ideal,  moralists  should  take  more  and  more  account  of  these  appropriate 
actions ;  and  this  offiaum  of  the  Stoics,  and  not  the  KaropSioiJM,  forms  (he 
startii^-point  for  the  modern  conception  of  duty.  The  view  thus  taken 
of  appropriate  action  or  inchoate  duty  admits  of  a  very  special  application 
to  the  case  of  suicide,  which  was  regarded  as  permissible,  ^^^^ for  the  wise  and  unwise  alike,  under  stress  of  special  external 
circumstances.  We  must  remember  that  the  Stoics  held  the  good  to  be 
independent  of  time;  the  temporal ,  prolongation  added  no  whit  to 
happiness.  Its  characteristic  is  seasonableness  («wcoipia).  We  must 
further  remember  that  lijjej  and  death  belong  to  the  class  of  things 
intermediate  which  .gj^s'ubmitted  to  the  wise  man's  choice,  and  which 
determine  all  his  plans.  If  anyone,  on  reviewing  his  external  circumstances, 
finds  that  those  in  accord  with  nature  preponderate,  it  is  appropriate  for 
him  to  remain  in  Ufe ;  if  the  balance  inclines  the  other  way,  or  seems 
likely  to  do  so,  it  is  appropriate  to  quit  life  (migrare  de  uila,  tvXnym 
iiaytoYn)-  The  door  is  open ;  nothing  compels  him  to  stay.  The 
principle  here  laid  down  (th.  60,  6t)  covers  the  case  of  Cato  himself, 
and  of  the  host  of  Stoics  who,  particularly  in  the  reign  of  Nero,  followed 
his  example.  It  was  on  the  social  side  of  ethics  that  the  Stoic  theory  presented 
the  greatest  contrast  with  that  of  Epicurus.    The  latter  had     _    ,  .    ,, 
,  ■      ,  ■  ,  r  r      1      •  ,       f  Socl«l  ethlci. 
no  place  in  his  scheme  for  a  mans  duties  to  the  State,  or 
even  10  his  neighbours,  unless  they  were  his  friends.  The  Epicurean 
sage  would  not  marry,  would  not  engage  in  politics,  would  not,  in  fact, 
assume  any  of  the  responsibilities  of  social  life,  from  which,  nevertheless, 
he  strove  to  derive  as  much  advantage  for  himself  and  his  friends  as 
possible.  His  motto  was  Aa'fl<  ^luo-as.  Here,  however,  where  their 
opponents  were  weakest,  the  Stoics  made  their  most  original  contributions 
to  practical  morality.  They  conceived  the  whole  universe  as  a  common- 
wealth embracing  gods  and  men,  under  divine  government  and  with  a 
common  law  in  virtue  of  the  reason  which  man  shares  with  God 
(Dt  Finibus,  iii  64;  De  Ltgibus,  i  33).  They  taught  that  the  general 
interest  must  be  preferred  to  our  own.  They  required  men  to  maintain 
the  obligations  of  the  family  and  the  Slate.  Man  was  made  for  society, 
and  justice  has  a  natural  basis.  Men  are  united  in  social  fellowship :  all 
being  God's  creatures,  they  should  observe  contracts,  abstain  from  mutual 
ham),  and  combine  to  protect  one  another  from  injury.  Even  the  tie  of 
common  humanity  demands,  not  only  just  dealing,  but  an  active  benevolence 
and  kindness.  The  extension  of  the  Roman  Empire  approximately  realised 
the  dream  of  one  world-wide  commonwealth  for  civilised  mankind,  its 
members  bound  each  to  each  by  civil  law,  if  not  by  the  law  of  nature. 
The  idea  of  an  immutable  law,  emanating  from  God,  reason  or  nature,  was clearly  apprehended  and  assimilated  by  the  Roman  Stoics. 
of'naiutc.        ^^  divine  and  eternal,  this  law  of  nature  is  valid  for  all  at all  times  and  places,  and  is  superior  in  authority  to  any 
positive  legislation  that  may  conflict  with  it.  Or  again,  as  Cicero  puts  it, 
it  is  the  utterance  of  that  supreme  reason  which  is  implanted  in  the  mind 
of  each  man  at  birth,  and,  when  duly  developed,  enjoins  unmistakeably 
what  he  should  or  should  not  do  {reda  ratio  in  iubendo  el  uttando,  De 
Legibus,  i  33).  From  Cicero  onwards,  through  a  long  succession  of  lawyers 
more  avowedly  Stoical,  this  conception  guided  Roman  jurisprudence  and 
through  the  praetor's  edict  influenced  legislation.  In  the  ius  gentium, 
developed  to  meet  the  practical  needs  of  intercourse  with  foreigners,  Rome  , 
already  possessed  the  germ  of  a  law  common  to  all  nations.  The  great 
jurists  of  the  Empire  exerted  themselves  to  bring  it  into  conformity  with 
what,  in  their  judgement,  a  universal  code  should  be,  id  quod  naturalis 
ratio  apud  omnes  homines  (onslituit.  Thus,  the  positive  ordinances  and 
customs  of  actual  society  were  gradually  merged  in  the  rational  law  of  an 
ideal  community.  Before  the  rise  of  imperial  Rome  the  narrow  limits  of 
the  City-State  had  been  transcended  in  consequence  of  Alexander's 
conquests,  and  that  cosmopolitan  spirit,  which  external  causes  contributed 
to  foster,  exactly  corresponded  with  the  precepts  of  philosophy. For  the  later  Roman  Stoics  we  have  in  Latin  the  writings  of Seneca  (^991-5)  and  in  Greek  the  discourses  of  Epictetus  reported  by  Arrian  and  the  meditations  of  the  Emperor 
Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus.  Seneca  (who  died  in  65  a.d.)  was,  like 
most  Roman  Stoics,  an  eclectic'.  He  is  our  earliest  authority  (belonging  to 
the  School  itself)  whose  writings  have  come  down  to  us  at  Rrst-hand  and 
not  in  fr^ments  or  translations,  but  they  are  of  little  scientific  value,  partly 
from  his  eclecticism,  partly  from  his  mode  of  treatment.  Under  whatever 
title,  dialogues,  treatises,  epistles,  his  works  are  substantially  moral  essays 
on  practical  themes.  The  Naturales  Quaestiones  form  an  exception :  in 
them,  by  precept  and  example,  the  author  recommends  the  contemplation 
of  the  wonders  of  nature  as  a  means  of  elevating  the  mind.     When  Seneca '  II  is  an  inlere^ting  fad  ihal  two  of  his  philosophical  teachers,  Soiion  and  rapfrius 
Fabianiu,  were 'adherenis  of  the  one  avowedly  independenl  school  which  claimed  lo  be  of 
native  Roman  origin.  Its  founder,  Quintus  Sextius  Niger  {horn  aboul  70  B.C.),  seems  to 
have  confined  his  originality  lo  combining  Pythagorean  elements  with  a  variation  on 
Stoicism,  into  which  he  infused  a  fresh  vigour  of  moral  leal  and  a  conlempl  for  useless 
dialectics.  Seneca,  who  several  limes  mentions  him,  describes  him,  in  spite  of  his  own 
denial,  as  a  Stoic  [Ep.  64). does  touch  upon  the  theoretical  side  of  -  Stoicism,  it  is  in  the  hope  of 
finding  some  novelty  to  interest  his  readers  and  almost  in  the  spirit  of 
antiquarian  research,  quae  scire  magis  iuual  quam  predest  {£pp.  58,  65, 
89,  106).  In  short,  his  mission  was  Co  the  reason  and  conscience  of  men, 
but  it  was  no  part  of  his  ambition  to  be  a  thinker  himself,  or  to  make 
thinkers  of  others.  Indifference  to  exact  scientific  theory  and  willingness 
to  accept  good  moral  teaching  from  any  quarter,  from  Plato  or  Epicurus 
as  readily  as  from  Chrysippus,  is  not  peculiar  to  Seneca,  it  is  the  common 
characteristic  of  all  writers  of  this  period.  To  be  over-curious  on  speculative 
questions  is  generally  regarded  as  reprehensible,  as  diverting  the  attention 
of  the  individual  from  the  all-important  task  of  his  own  moral  improve- 
ment. Here  it  is  worth  while  to  note  how  important  has  become  the 
conception  of  the  moral  life  as  a  pilgrimage,  a  progress  Progremi 
towards  virtue  and  away  from  folly  and  vice  {progressio  ad  «<n™tdi 
uirtutem,  trpoKtnrq).  In  the  eyes  of  the  earlier  Stoics,  who  ^  '""' 
claimed  wisdom  for  themselves  and  expected  others  to  attain  to  it,  such  a state  of  probation  was  a  concession  to  individual  weakness,  and,  after  all, 
the  probationer  was  involved  in  the  same  condemnation  as  the  fool.  How 
diderent  this  is  in  Seneca !  He  does  not  claim  to  be  a  sage  himself,  he  is 
only  progressing  towards  wisdom,  and  he  sadly  recognises  that  this  is  the 
common  condition  of  humanity.  How  are  we  to  emerge  from  the  misery 
and  folly  of  the  world  ?  The  way  to  virtue  is  easy  to  find,  but  the  life 
of  one  who  treads  it  is  a  continual  struggle  with  inward  corruption.  It  is 
a  campaign  in  which  there  is  no  repose,  in  preparation  for  which  a  man 
needs  not  only  ascetic  bodily  exercise,  meagre  diet  and  coarse  raiment, 
but  the  harder  mental  discipline  of  keeping  a  strict  guard  on  his  opinions 
and  notions,  and  controlling  his  affections  and  desires.  Opinions  and 
notions,  affections  and  impulses  are  in  our  own  power  (ru  ii^  ijt^tv) ; 
external  circumstances,  our  bodies,  wealth  and  position  in  the  world  are 
not  in  our  power  (ra  oIk  t'ft  ijnir).  By  constant  effort  alone  can  we  emerge 
victorious  from  the  conflict,  and  build  up  a  fixed  habit  and  rational 
character.  Philosophy,  in  the  view  of  Seneca  and  Epictetus,  comes  to  be 
regarded  as  the  healer  to  whom  men  come  from  a  sense  of  their  weakness 
and  disease,  whose  business  is  'with  the  sick,  not  with  the  whole'.  The 
wisdom  by  which  she  heals,  needs  no  long  dissertations  or  dialectical 
subtleties,  but  rather  continual  meditation  and  self-discipline.  On  the 
religious  side  may  be  noted  a  greater  feeling  of  dependence  upon  God  and 
the  necessity  of  cheerfully  submitting  to  the  Divine  will  and  acquiescing 
in  the  course  of  external  events.  'Endurance  and  renunciation'  is  the 
motto  of  Epictetus,  avixov  vai  iiir(;^ov :  '  everything ',  says  Marcus  Aurelius, 
'  is  harmonious  to  me  which  is  harmonious  to  Thee,  O  Universe '.  The 
duties  of  philanthropy,  mildness,  and  fo^iveness  of  injuries,  are  insisted 
upon.  We  should  love  men  from  the  heart,  love  even  those  who  have 
injured  us,  reflecting  that  they  are  kinsmen  who  err  through  ignorance. 
Tolerant  judgement  will  be  aided,  if  we  bear  in  mind  that  he  who  hurts  us by  word  or  deed  has  acted  on  his  own  opinion,  not  outs,  and  that,  if  he 
does  wrong,  it  is  he  who  suffers,  for  he  is  the  person  deceived.  It  is  not 
surprising  to  find  an  underlying  vein  of  sadness  in  these  Roman  Stoics. 
Their  moral  earnestness  made  them  realise  the  misery  and  folly  of  the 
actual  world  and  the  obstacles  to  a  radical  reform  of  human  nature.  In 
some  directions,  however,  their  efforts  were  not  unsuccessful.  In  particular, 
their  insistence  on  the  duty  of  a  more  humane  treatment  of  slaves  led  the 
way  to  that  gradual  amelioration  of  slavery  throughout  the  Roman  world 
which  Christianity  afterwards  completed. 
Zellet's  Philosophie  der  Griecktn,  Vol.  iii  i  (Dritter  Thcil,  Erstc  Abtheilung), 
has  been  translated  into  English  under  the  tides  The  Stoics, 
Bibiiocnphy.  Epicureans  and  Sceptia,a.'aA  The  History  of  Eclecticism  in  Greek 
Philosophy.  For  Stoicism  consult  also  Grant's  essay  in  The  Ethics  0/  Aristotle, 
Vol.  i;  for  the  ancient  aulhorities  on  Epicurus,  Usener's  Epicures,  1887;  for 
Lucretius,  the  edition  of  H.  A.  J.  .Munra,  the  more  recent  Italian  edition  of 
Giussani,  1896,  Guyau,  La  morale  d'ipicure,  1878,  J.  Masson,  .^/offtiV  Theory 
0/  Lucretius,  1%^^  and  Lucretius,  Epicurean  and  Poet,  1907-9;  for  Cicero, 
Madvig's  De  Finibus,  Reid's  Aeademica,  J.  B.  Mayor's  De  Nalura  Deorum ; 
for  Seneca  and  later  Stoics,  Martha,  £m  moralistes  sous  tempire  romain,  ed.  5, 
1886,  Bonhoefler,  Epictet  und  die  Stoa,  1890,  and  Die  Ethik  des  Stoikers  EpicUt, 
1894,  S.  Dill,  Roman  Society  from  Nero  lo  Marcus  Aurelius,  1904.  For 
Stoicism  and  Epicureanism,  cp.  also  J.  Adam's  Texts. ..on  Greek  Philosophy 
after  Aristotle,  1902,  and  R.  D.  Hicks,  Stoic  and  Epicurean  (with  select  biblio- 
graphy), igio.