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Stoicism and the PrincipateAuthor(s): P. A. BruntSource: Papers
of the British School at Rome, Vol. 43 (1975), pp. 7-35Published
by: British School at RomeStable URL:
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE1
To the memory of Hugh Last
I
The wide circulation of Stoic ideas among Romans of the upper
class from the time of Panaetius in the second century B.C. to the
reign of Marcus Aurelius (a.d. 161-80) is a familiar fact. Few
Romans of note can indeed be marked down as committed Stoics, and
even those like Seneca who avowedly belonged to the school borrowed
ideas from other philosophies. Still, even if eclecticism was the
mode, the Stoic element was dominant. Stoicism permeated the
writings of authors like Virgil and Horace who professed no formal
allegiance to the sect, and became part of the culture that men
absorbed in their early education. One might think that it
exercised an influence comparable in some degree with that which
Christianity has often had on men ignorant or careless of the nicer
points of systematic theology. It has often been supposed that it
did much to humanize Roman law and government. That is a contention
of which I should be rather sceptical, but it is not my present
theme. I propose to examine the effects that Stoicism had on men's
attitudes to the Principate, the essentially monarchical form of
government created by Augustus. Prima facie we might expect them to
have been significant, yet it is not easy to discern exactly what
they were. At the very outset an apparent contradiction confronts
us: Stoics seem to be both upholders and opponents of the
regime.
The Stoic, Athenodorus of Tarsus, was an honoured counsellor of
Augustus,2 1 In substance this paper represents the inaugural
lecture I delivered at Oxford in May 1971 as
Camden Professor of Ancient History. I have omitted the formal
proem required by the occasion, reinstated passages which the clock
compelled me to abbreviate or omit, revised some others and added
the notes and Appendix. My intention was, and is, to incorporate
the material in a book in which some themes will be more fully
expounded and many related matters considered. But this project
advances slowly, and there may be some advantage in the publication
of what is still a sketch. It is dedicated to the great scholar who
stimulated me to investigate the influence of Stoicism at Rome,
when I was a student at the British School at Rome in 1946-7.
On Stoic philosophy M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa, 1948, is fundamental.
There is now a brief, reliable survey in'English by F. H. Sandbach,
The Stoics, 1975, with bibliography. I agree with his view that E.
V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, 1911, 1958, is 'unreliable and often
misleading'; for the best treatment of Panaetius and Cicero, de
officiis^ see M. Pohlenz, Antikes Fiihrertum, = AF, and for the
late Stoa the works of A. Bonhoffer, Epictet u. die Stoa, 1890, and
Die Ethik des Stoikers Epictet, 1894 = Bonhoffer I and II (there is
a common index). E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Gr*, 1909, III 1,
cited as Zeller, is useful inter alia for lists of Romans who were
in some degree Stoics (589 n. 3, 606 n. 1 and 711 n. 2). My
articles in Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
1973, 9 ff. ('Aspects of the Social Thought of Dio Chrysostom and
of the Stoics') and in JRS LXIV, 1974, 1 ff. ('Marcus Aurelius in
his Meditations1) are cited as Brunt I and II. Also cited by
author's name only: J. Branger, Recherches sur r Aspect ideologique
du Principat, 1953; R. Syme, Tacitus, 1958; C. Wirszubski, Libertas
as a Political Idea at Rome, 1950. 1 have been helped by reading
Miriam Griffin's Oxford D.Phil, dissertation on Seneca. 2 PIR2 A
1288, cf. P. Grimal, REA XLVII, 1945, 261 ff.
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8 P. A. BRUNT
Seneca the preceptor of Nero and then one of his chief
ministers, Marcus Aurelius a philosopher on the throne. Seneca
exalted the autocratic power of the Princeps; under Nero, a ruler
vigilant for the safety of each and all of his subjects, anxious to
secure their consent, and protected by their affection, Rome (he
claims) enjoyed 'the happiest form of constitution, in which
nothing is lacking to our complete freedom but the license to
destroy ourselves'. We may always suspect Seneca of insincere
rhetoric and special pleading, but his approval of monarchy in
principle was shared by the honest Musonius, and Marcus clearly
assumed that it was by divine providence that he had been called to
exercise absolute power.3
And yet that perfect Stoic, as Seneca called him {Const. Sap. 2,
2), the younger Cato, had died in defence of the old Republic,
which Caesar had overthrown and Augustus had replaced, and his
conduct was still viewed as exemplary by Stoics of the Principate.4
Thrasea Paetus wrote his life,5 and he was the centre of a circle,
including Helvidius Priscus and Arulenus Rusticus, which offered
the most intractable opposition to certain emperors, opposition
which was certainly ascribed to Stoic teaching. Nero's suspicions
of Rubellius Plautus, a kinsman and potential pretender to the
Principate, were enhanced by the allegation that he had adopted the
Stoics' presumptuous creed, which made men turbulent and avid for
power.6 Writing soon afterwards, Seneca himself admits that some
thought, though erroneously, that the votaries of philosophy were
'defiant and stubborn, men who held in contempt magistrates, kings
and all engaged in government', and he advises Lucilius to devote
himself to philosophy, but not to boast of it, 'since philosophy
itself, associated with arrogance and defiance, has brought many
men into danger; let it remove your faults and not reproach those
of others, and let it not recoil from social conventions ('publicis
moribus'), nor produce the appearance of condemning what it does
not practise'.7 Though Seneca speaks of 'philosophy' in general,
the context shows that he has in mind only that philosophy in which
he thought the truth resided, the Stoic. The second passage indeed
may suggest that what endangered Stoics was not so much resistance
to authority as censure of the behaviour common in the world, which
made them generally unpopular. Seneca had also admitted earlier
that the Stoics had the reputation, in his view undeserved, of
excessive harshness, which was held to make them incapable of
giving wise advice to rulers.8
3 Clem. I 1, 8 cf. 4. Absolute power: 1 passim. Vigilance: 3, 3
cf. n. 88. Consent and affection: 3, 4; 4, 3; 8, 6 f.; 13, 4; 14, 5
f.; 15, 5; cf. Benef. II 20 ('cum optimus status civitatis sub rege
iusto sit'), written after Seneca's fall from power. The necessity
of limiting freedom was a commonplace, cf. Tac, Hist. I 16, 4; Dio
LVI 43, 4. Musonius held that the good king must be a philosopher,
fr. VIII Hense.
4 Const. 2, 2, but cf. Tranqu. 16, 1 : 'Cato ille virtutum viva
imago'. Cato fought for 'libertas' or the 'res publica', a 'bona
causa' (Prov. 3, 14), yet the argument in Benef. II 20, cf. ep. 14,
13 and the fragment in Lactant., Div. Inst. VII 15, 4 suggests that
Seneca thought the cause hopeless. Cf., however, M. Griffin, C(
1968, 373 ff., on ep. 14, 12 f. 3 Flut., Lato Minor b and 36 t. 1
hrasea presumably used the lite o Cato by his tnend, Munatius Rufus
(cf. also Val. Max. IV 3, 2), which Plutarch perhaps knew only from
Thrasea 's work. 6 Tac, Ann. XIV 57, 3, cf. XVI 22, 4 on which see
p. 29. 7 ep. 73, 1 (Seneca assumes that philosophers are persons
living in retirement, 73, 4 and 10); 103, 5.
8 ep. 5 and 14, 7 ff.; Clem. II 5, 2. Despite allegations by
their critics {Ann. XVI 22; Suet., Nero 37), respectable Stoics
like Euphrates and Thrasea were careful to censure vices, not
individuals (Pliny, #.110, 7; VIII 22, 3).
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 9
It was under Gaius,9 Nero, Vespasian and Domitian that Stoics
certainly suffered persecution; the last two emperors actually
expelled professional philosophers from Rome and Italy; Epictetus
was among the exiles.10 Yet he too repudiates the charge that
Stoics were opposed to authority. By reconciling the interests of
the individual, truly conceived, with those of society, Stoicism,
he claimed, produced concord in a state and peace among peoples; it
taught men to obey the laws, but not to despise the authority of
'kings', though in his view neither laws nor kings could give or
take away anything essential to a man's blessedness. On the other
hand, the Stoic would not comply with the orders of 'tyrants',
which conflicted with his own moral purpose. We might then infer
that it was not political authority, nor monarchy as such, that
Stoics rejected, but those rulers whose vile conduct made them
'tyrants',11 and that what they admired in Cato was not his fight
for the Republic but his rectitude and constancy (cf. n. 5).
However, Vespasian was never reproached with tyranny, and Helvidius
Priscus at least, whom Dio called a Republican (n. 138), and whom
Vespasian put to death, must have had convictions by which an
emperor could be judged in political as well as moral terms.
The apparent inconsistency in the Stoic attitude to monarchy is
not the only ambiguity in their relations to the state. Seneca
meets the charge of political defiance by replying that none are
more grateful to rulers who preserve peace than philosophers who
have retired from public life to the nobler activity of tranquil
contemplation and teaching.12 Much Stoic writing suggests that
their teaching tended to promote not active resistance to
government but entire withdrawal from political activity (pp. 19-21
ff.). Quintilian speaks of philosophers as men prone to neglect
their civic duties. P. Suillius had contemptuously referred to
Seneca's own 'studia inertia'. In the very passage in which Tacitus
marks out Helvidius as a Stoic he says that 'from early youth he
devoted his brilliant mind to deeper studies, not as so many
('plerique') do, to make the high-sounding name (of philosophy) a
screen for indolent retirement ('segne otium'), but in order to
undertake public duties, while fortified against the strokes of
fortune'. Evidently, in his judgement, the general tendency of
philosophic training was to render men unfit for public careers by
making them prefer the life of contemplation. Hence an ambitious
mother, like Agricola s, would restrain her son from drinking too
deeply at the philosophic spring.13 Indeed all Stoic writings
illustrate a certain tension between
9 Kanus Iulius (Sen., Tranqu. 14; Plut.fr. 140 Bernadakis);
perhaps Iulius Graecinus (Tac, Agr. 4 with Sen., ep. 29, 6). Seneca
implies that some Stoics had been in trouble before Nero (n. 7). 10
Dio LAVI 13; LXVll 13; Suet., Dom. 13, 3; lac, Agr. 3; niny, ep.
Ill 11. Upictetus lile; t. Millar, J/tfLV, 1965, 141 ff. 11 tpict.
1 12, /; lv, 11 it.; ZV, / it.; IV !), 35; /, 5 t., ci. Loeb index
under 'tyrants . ee Lj. Boissier, LVpposition sous Les Csars, 1875,
102 ff.; Wirszubski, esp. 127; 140. 12 ep. 73, 2 tf. Ct. 14, 14:
hos toicos qui a re publica exclusi (perhaps because they regarded
it as so badly governed as to give them no place in it, cf. p. 18
ff.) secesserunt ad colendam vitam sine ulla potentioris offensa';
98, 13 for Sextius, a near Stoic (Zeller 695 ff.), who 'honores
reppulit' though 'ita natus ut rem publicam deberet capessere'; nn.
7 and 69. Seneca's brother, Mela, at first rejected an official
career, probably for such reasons, Sen., Controv. II pr. 3 ('hoc
unum concupiscentem, nihil concupiscere'); Helv. 18, 2. 13 Quint.,
pr. 15; XII 3, 12 (principally aimed at false philosophers); lac,
Ann. XIII 42, 3; Hist. IV 5; Agr. 4, 3 (with which cf. Suet., Nero
52; Musonius fr. XVI; Epict. Ill, 39; 26, 5). Note Cicero's remark
to Cato (Fam. XV 4, 1 6) : kphilosophiam veram illam et antiquam,
quae quibusdam oti esse et desidiae videtur, in forum atque in
ipsam aciem paene deduximus'.
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10 P. A. BRUNT
the claims of public activity and those of study and meditation
(infra). We must of course distinguish sharply between Stoics who
deliberately chose 'segne otium' from the start and those like
Thrasea who retired from politics in such a way as to manifest
their disapprobation of the government, even though such retirement
could be justified by arguments that might rather have persuaded
the believer never to enter the political arena. The former might
by their indifference to the state deprive it of useful talent, but
they constituted no danger to the regime. But we may wonder how a
creed which encouraged such quietism could also be accused of
making men turbulent enemies of the Princeps.
To understand these apparent contradictions in the political
attitudes of Stoics under the Principate, we must look more closely
than historians generally do at the moral principles they embraced.
All I can attempt here is naturally no more than a rather
impressionistic sketch of those aspects of Stoic teaching which
seem to me most relevant to their actual political behaviour, in
office, opposition or retirement. This is no place for a systematic
exposition of the logical and physical presuppositions of their
moral creed, and indeed the Stoics of our period evinced no keen
interest in the dialectical subtleties and doctrinal coherence of
the system the earlier masters of their school had evolved.
Rhetoric and devotion had largely replaced inquiry and argument.
None the less their moral convictions continued to rest on
metaphysical dogmata, however uncritically accepted.14
II
Like other ancient philosophers the Stoics assumed that each man
does and must pursue his individual happiness. This he can secure
only if he conforms his life to nature, his own nature and that of
the universe, of which his own is of necessity a part. In the
impulses of animals and of children we can see how nature herself
directs living beings to seek what is conducive to life and to
avoid what is contrary. Life itself and all that assists the proper
functioning of the living creature belong to the category of things
that are natural and therefore can be described as 'things of
value'; they include wealth, health and nearly all that men
generally make their objects of endeavour. Now man is endowed with
reason, and reason shows that he cannot live in isolation; we are
born for one another, and it is proper to our nature to prefer
things of value for our fellows as well as for ourselves.
However, experience teaches us that such things may not be in
our power. If then our happiness, or that of our fellows, were to
depend at all on their possession, it would not necessarily be
within our grasp, our minds would be filled with anxiety, and our
failures to obtain what we desire would seem to be limitations on
our freedom. But no man can be happy if he is not secure from
anxiety and free. Now nature must have designed our happiness, for
all Being is permeated by a substance the Stoics described as
reason or God; this ruling element in the world, which causes all
things to work together for good, is also present in our souls, and
it is its presence that enables us in some measure to apprehend the
providential order of the Universe. Our reason should also be
the
14 Works cited in n. 1 document my summary o Stoic morals.
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 11
ruling element in our own nature, as it must be capable of
directing us to that true happiness, security and freedom which
nature impels us to seek, and which, given the rationality and
beneficence of nature, it must be in our power to attain. Hence the
so-called 'things of value' cannot be truly good, simply because
they are not always and necessarily in our reach. By contrast
nothing can ever prevent us from constantly willing to do what is
right, even though the resultant actions may fail to produce the
effects intended; these effects are external to ourselves and do
not or should not affect that permanent disposition of the soul in
which our blessedness, security and freedom are to be found.
The only true good, which reason prescribes, lies then in a
virtuous disposition and in the activity that flows from it, and
the only true evil is the lack of such a disposition, while the
'things of value' and their contraries must alike be classed, to
use the technical term, as things 'indifferent5 to us. Yet this
leaves no criterion for identifying the particular acts the good or
wise man will perform, and that criterion has still to be supplied
by 'the things of value'.15 The acts which were termed in Greek
KccW|kovtcc and in Latin officia, acts incumbent on men, which we
may render as 'duties', even though the word has perhaps
excessively Kantian overtones, consist in promoting states of
affairs which will contain as much as possible of such secondary
goods as health, wealth etc., and as little as possible of their
contraries. We are bound to make the best calculations we can on
the consequences of our acts, and to exert ourselves to the utmost
in performing them, but we should always act with the reservation
in our minds that what we seek may not be attainable and that its
actual attainment is not per se good. A father will jump into deep
water to rescue his child; but the goodness of his act is not
enhanced if the child is saved, nor diminished if it drowns.
Indeed, since the Universe is providentially ordered, the death of
the child, if it occurs, must be for the best. Chrysippus is quoted
by Epictetus as saying that 'so long as the consequences are not
clear to me, I cling to what is best adapted to securing things
that accord with nature; for God has created me such that I shall
choose these things; but if I actually knew that it was now
ordained for me to be ill, I would aim at being ill'.16
Victrix causa deis placuit, sed vieta Catoni As a good Stoic,
Cato should not have fought against Caesar, if he could have
foreseen Caesar's victory; but lacking this foresight, he could
still be subjectively right; and the admiration a Stoic could
express for Cato was not in itself incompatible with acceptance of
the regime for which Caesar's victory had prepared the way.
For the Stoics only the wise man has an understanding of nature
so complete and a disposition so unchangeable that he will never do
what is not right, and only his actions are truly 'successful' or
good; others may perform the same actions, but in a way that is
somehow flawed (cf. n. 15). However, the wise man, as Seneca
15 So Chrysippus argued against Aristn of Chios, cf. SVF I
361-9; III 26 f. For KadifaovTa ibid. Ill ch. VIII: they are
KncxTcc when performed by the wise man; in my judgement these
differ
only in respect of the state of mind in which they are
performed; the objective content of the acts is the same.
16 See e.g. Sen., Benef. IV 33 f.; Chrysippus ap. Epict. II 6, 9
f. ; Epictetus himself continually tells men to act peO*
CnTE^aipoECOS (Bonhoffer II 267).
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12 P. A. BRUNT
remarked, is as rare as the phoenix; not even the great Stoic
teachers pretended to the title.17 Most of their statements about
his conduct may then be understood as the presentation of a model
for others, and in fact the Stoics did not hesitate from the first
to lay down rules for the guidance of ordinary beings. In such
prescriptions they continued to attach value only to the purpose of
moral activity, and not to success in performance.18 The fullest
discussion we possess of their teaching on men's duties is to be
found in Cicero's de ofjciis, the first two books of which are
avowedly based on a treatise of Panaetius. But though Panaetius,
who departed in various ways from the doctrines of his
predecessors, did not care to describe the ideal sage and expressly
turned to the duties of men in whom perfect wisdom was not to. be
found but whose conduct might still manifest 4the semblances of
virtue' ('similitudines honesti'), his concern with this topic was
certainly not new. Moreover, there are some indications that Stoics
extrapolated the concept of perfect virtue from the conduct of
ordinary men which commanded universal approval. Horatius on the
bridge could not be called truly brave, because he was no sage, yet
his heroism gave an idea by analogy of what true courage would
be.19 Thus Stoic practical morality was founded on commonly
received opinions.
While every man is bound to be of service to his fellows, the
particular services he should render vary with his special
relationships to them.20 From the first orthodox Stoic thinkers
enjoined specific duties on the husband, father, slave- owner and
so forth.21 Tacitus alludes to this practice when he describes
Helvidius as steady in performing all the duties of life, as
citizen, senator, husband, son-in- law and friend.22 Epictetus and
others conceive such duties as arising from the place in the world,
the station or military post ( tocis, statio) to which each
individual is appointed, and which may limit, as it always defines,
the kinds of action incumbent on him; though a life of virtue is
open to all, even to slaves, what a man can do determines what he
ought to do; for instance, if he is poor, he cannot hold office or
endow his city with fine buildings {Ench. 24).
17 ep. 42, 1, cf. SVF I 44; III 526; 545; 668; Epict. IV 12, 19.
Cf. Pliny, ep. Ill 11, 5 on Artemidorus, 'virum aut sapientem aut
proximum simillimumque sapienti'. 18 Imitation of the sage: see
e.g. Hierocles ap. Stob. IV 502, 9 f. The early Stoics had
prescribed duties for ordinary men: see Brunt I 23 f. The doctrine
that it was the purpose that counted even in their acts goes back
to Cleanthes, cf. Sen., Bene/. VI 11, 1 f., and is everywhere
implicit in writers from Panaetius onwards, see e.g. n. 24. (For a
contrary view, which I cannot discuss here, see I. G. Kidd in A. A.
Long, Problems in Stoicism, 1971, eh. VII.) From Panaetius Stoics
are mainly concerned with the conduct of imperfect mortals, see
Cic, Off passim, and e.g. Sen., Tranqu. 7, 2; 11, 1; Bene}. II 18
and 31,1, especially those who are making moral progress, a common
theme in Seneca's letters, notably 75, 8 ff. Cf. Bonhoffer II
144-53.
'" Cic, Off. Ill 13. Extrapolation: Cic, Fin III 33 with 37 f.;
Sen., ep. 120; Musonius fr. XVIII Hense; Diog. Laert. VII 91
(Posidonius). Cf. Cic Fin. II 45 (Panaetian according to Pohlenz,
AF2). -" Appendix, paragraph 3 f. -1 See esp. Sen. ep. 94 . 22 Tac,
Hist. IV 5. Tacitus is surely following (and endorsing) the Stoic
laudation on Helvidius by Herennius Senecio {Agr. 2). I would
conjecture {contra O. Murray, Historia XIV, 1965, 57) that this is
also true of his following remark: kerant quibus adpetentior famae
videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima
exuitur'; it was philosophers, rather than ordinary men, who
disapproved of an 'excessive lust for glory' (cf. Agr. 4, 3),
Stoics regarding glory as one of the 'indifferent things', yet even
Marcus Aurelius found it hard to put away 'that last infirmity of
noble mind', cf. Brunt II 14.
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 13
But how do we identify these specific duties, which are given to
us by our place in the world? 'If you are a town-councillor' says
Epictetus, 'remember that you are one; if you are young, that you
are young, if old, that you are old, if a father, that you are a
father; on reflection each name invariably suggests the appropriate
tasks'.23 These tasks can, I think, only have been regarded as
obvious if they were those conventionally expected from the persons
so designated, and in fact Stoics seldom recommend acts that would
have violated conventions. All that Epictetus himself tells a
provincial governor is to render just decisions, to keep his hands
off others' property, and to see no beauty in another man's wife or
a boy or a piece of gold or silver plate.24 He does not go far
beyond the maxims of abstinentia and integritas, always accepted,
if often infringed, by the Roman ruling class. In fact he adds that
we ought to look for doctrines that agree with but give additional
strength to such common notions of duty. 'The great mind' as Seneca
puts it, 'is intent on honourable and industrious conduct in that
station in which it is placed'.25 The good man does not change the
rules, but obeys them more strictly.
In another metaphor the Stoics employed the world was viewed as
a stage in which each man had to play a part (persona, TTpacoTrov
).26 Panaetius exploited this metaphor in connexion with a doctrine
he himself seems to have transferred from aesthetic to ethical
theory, that there is a kind of moral beauty, called in Greek
irpiTov and in Latin decorum, which 'shines out' in virtuous
activity, even in that of the man still imperfect in wisdom.27 It
would not be germane to my theme to attempt to expound this
doctrine in full, but two points are important.28
First, just as the physical beauty of a living creature must be
attributed to the due relation of all the parts to the whole, so
the moral beauty of a man's activity lies in the order and
coherence of all his words and deeds, and just as the correct
delineation of a figure in a drama depends on the suitability to
his character of what he does and says, so in real life men must
aim at maintaining the consistency, 'constantia'29 or
'aequabilitas',30 of their conduct. But while the dramatist may
properly portray the wicked man, on the stage of life we are all
bound to play the role of rational beings subject to the moral law.
None the less, the manner of the performance must vary from man to
man.31 Besides the role which is common to
23 II 10, 10 f.; IV 6, 26; 12, 16. Musonius fr. II implies that
all men know what is right. 24 III 7, 21 f.; Brunt, Historia X,
1961, 215 ff. Epictetus of course attaches importance to the
man's state of mind as well as to his overt actions, in somewhat
the same way as Matthew 5, 27 f. 25 6/7. 120, 18, cf. Benef. V 14,
5. 26 Appendix, paragraphs 5-9 (bpictetus); Z (Seneca;. 27 Off. I
98: ut enim pulchntudo corpons apta compositione membrorum movet
oculos et
delectat hoc ipso, quod inter se omnes partes cum quodam lepore
consentiunt, sic hoc decorum, quod elucet in vita (cf. 102; II 32),
movet adprobationem eorum, quibuscum vivitur, ordine et constantia
et moderatane dictorum omnium atque factorum'. Cf. I 14 f.; 17; 66;
95 f; 126; 130; II 37 (decorum is present in every virtue, and
every action, though most manifest in the control of passions). Ci.
Orator 70-74, and see n. 48. 28 For Panaetius' doctrines see R.
Philippson, Philol. LXXXV 357 ff.; M. Pohlenz, Kl. Schr. I 100 ff.
and AF passim; L. Labowski, Die Ethik des Panaitios, 1934. For
decorum see off. I 93-151 passim.
2y 1 97 t. l(Jonstantia ; 14; 1 /; /I; 1U; en., Lonst. passim,
et. tne old toic use o aneronrrcoros and&pmos(SVF IV
Index).
-i r\ -w * * * t l l ". " 1 a*_ 5." 1_ " .._ ___ _ - A. _ - _ _
_ __ JU 1 1 1 1 : aequauilitas cum universae vitae turn singuiarum
acnonum ; in nis commentary on Tuse. Disp. II 65 Pohlenz suggests
that it represents the Stoic noAoyoiiEVOS pos. 31 I 98; 107, cf.
Epict. Ill 23, 4 ff. (Quint. XI 1, 8-14 is reminiscent of
this.)
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14 P. A. BRUNT
all Panaetius distinguished three others. The first arises from
the individual's special inborn endowments, which he must develop
to the full, so far as they are compatible with virtue, and his
natural disabilities, which limit what he can do,32 the second from
his position in the world, the third from the choice of a vocation
that he is bouncl to make on the basis of his capacity and of the
resources at his disposal, but which tends to commit him for the
future.33 Thus a Roman of rank might choose to be a philosopher or
a jurist, an orator or a soldier; having made his decision, he
should normally carry it out to the end. For Panaetius it is only
by recognizing the potentialities and limitations imposed by his
own personality and circumstances that the individual can avoid
those inconsistencies in conduct which would mar the moral beauty
of his life. 'It is of no avail to contend with nature or to pursue
an end you cannot reach'. Similarly in Epictetus' view, 'if you
assume a role beyond your ability, the result is that you perform
it disgracefully (f|cJxrmvr|CTas) and neglect the role you were
able to fill'.34
To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the
day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Secondly, according to Panaetius, moral beauty, like physical,
attracts the approval and love of other men. Indeed that approval
comes to be regarded as a criterion for determining whether
particular actions really do manifest 'decorum'. We ought to
respect the opinions and feelings of others.35 Hence deportment,
polite conversation and other matters of social etiquette become
the subjects of moral precepts. Manual labour is condemned as
unbefitting the free man, and even the liberal professions are
pronounced below the dignity of aristocrats.36 In general the
conventions of the upper class society to which both Panaetius and
Cicero belonged are unquestioningly accepted. We are told that 'for
actions to be performed in accordance with custom and civic
practices no rules need be prescribed; these practices are the
rules, and no one should make the mistake of thinking that he has
the same license as Socrates or Aristippus to transgress them; it
was only their great and superhuman virtue that gave that privilege
to them'.37
32 I 107 ff.; 119 f. Cf. Epict. Ill 21, 17 ff.; 22, 50-2 and 86.
33 I 1 1 5 ff . ; 1 20 f . 34 I 1 11-14; Epict., Ench. 37. Cic, de
Orai. I 169 illustrates the moral obligations that ensue from
assumine a persona by one's own choice. 35 Cf. n. 27: Cicero
proceeds (I 99): 'adhibenda est igitur quaedam reverenda adversus
homines
et optimi cuiusque et reliquorum. Nam neglegere, quid de se
quisque sentiat, non solum arrogantis est, sed etiam omnino
dissoluti.' His usage of 'reverenda' or 'verecundia' in Off.
implies this view: al8cos, by contrast, in Musonius (e.g. fr.XXX)
and Epictetus means 'self-respect'. 36 I 103 f.; 127; 129-140; 144
f.; 150 f. I believe the last passage to be basically Panaetian
(Brunt I 26-34), but 127 illustrates how Romans could make duties
out of their own conventions, which differed from the Greek. Epict.
I 11, 12 f. could indeed deny that the conventions in some
(non-Greek) societies were KO kccI rrpoon'iKovTa. 37 I 148, cf. Ill
63 (Hecaton); I 128, against Cynics and any Stoics who are 'paene
Cynici', no doubt an animadversion on some views in Zeno's and
Chrysippus' books irspi TroArrelas, cf. Diog. Laert. VII 33 f. ;
SVF III 743-56. Epictetus, who allows men with a special vocation
to become Cynics (III 22), implies everywhere that most men should
follow conventional moral rules. Cf. Hierocles ap. Stob. Ill 733 f.
: one must obey the laws of one s own city and resist any attempt
to violate or overturn them, ou yp ccyaOv TrnT|8evua irXei 8i*
anuas ynevoi vuoi kocI T va irpoKptvuEva tcov irotAaicov. He
approves Zaleucus' law that any one proposing a legislative change
should do so with a rope
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 15
This teaching justified Romans in treating their own traditions
as equivalent to moral laws. It is no accident that the Stoic
Rubellius Plautus 'respected the maxims of old generations' in the
strictness of his household, or that Seneca admires the mores
antiqui in which Romans had always tended to find the secret of
Rome's greatness.38 The very use of the term officium to render
KgcOtjkov had a similar effect. In common speech officium could
mean both the kind of service which social conventions expected one
man to render another, and the function of a magistrate, for
example, or a senator.39 Its use in ethical theory suggested that
such services and functions constituted moral obligations.
Cicero illustrated Panaetius' doctrine of the special duties
imposed by a man's individual personality from the suicide of Cato
in 46. Not every one would have been right to kill himself in such
circumstances, but Cato was justified because he had always held
that it was better to die than to set eyes on a tyrant; his
'constantia' left him no choice. Plutarch, who drew directly or
indirectly on a first- hand account, shows that Cato consciously
acted on this view. For himself death was the only way out; his son
might live, but being also a Cato, should not serve Caesar; others
might make their peace with the victor and incur no blame. An
anecdote in Plutarch's life of Cicero tells us that Cato also held
in 49 that while he himself could not honourably have abandoned his
consistent opposition to Caesar, Cicero, whose past conduct had
been very different, would have done better to remain neutral in
the civil war.40
Cato's conceptions were certainly known to the circle of
Thrasea, whose own life of the hero may be Plutarch's immediate
source. When they debated whether Thrasea should appear in the
senate to answer the capital charges against him, the question was
essentially what course it was fitting ('deceret') for him to take,
if he were to 'be true to the course of behaviour he had pursued
without a break for so many years'; a younger man even within his
circle was not bound to the same intransigence.41 Similarly, his
friend, Paconius, said that any one who so much as thought of going
to Nero's games should go, but his own 'persona' did not allow him
to consider the possibility.42 As we shall see, Helvidius Priscus
was for Epictetus the shining example of a man who was true to his
persona. This sort of conception is indeed ascribed to men who are
not known to have embraced the Stoic creed,43 just as the word
'persona' is sometimes used unphilosophically in a
around his neck. Further,ov8v 5'^ttov twv vpicov kgc r 8t)
(pucncrov t\xkvoav rrvTcov eapoTnoiv. For Marcus see Brunt II
16.
3* Tac, Ann. XIV 57, 3. Cf. Sen., Tranqu. 9, 2. 39 E.g. Caesar,
BC III 90, 1 ; 5, 4. Hence eventually 'office' in our sense, Suet.,
Aug. 37. 4U UJj. 1 112, Flut., Lato Minor W; 66; Lie. 38, 1.
Although Munatius Kutus (n. 6) did not
accompany Cato in the civil war, he obviously could, and surely
would, have obtained first-hand reports on Cato's attitude and
conduct, and Plutarch's testimony may be taken as reliable. Cf.
Sen. Prov. 2,1 Of.
41 Tac, Ann. XVI 26, 5, cf. 25, 1, where friends who recommended
him to defend himself 'securos esse de constantia eius disserunt'.
Tacitus' source may well be Rusticus' Life (Agr. 2), the work of an
eye-witness who shared Thrasea 's ideas. Note also XIV 56, 2.
42 Epict. 12, 12-18. 43 Tac, Ann. Ill 6,1 (Tiberius' edict): '
non enim eadem decora principibus viris et imperatori
populo quae modicis domibus aut civitatibus'; VI 48, 1 (L.
Arruntius justifying his suicide): 'non eadem omnibus decora
respondit.'
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16 P. A. BRUNT
way compatible with Panaetius' doctrine but not derived from
it;44 these are further indications that his doctrine corresponded
closely with the thought and behaviour natural to traditional
Romans. The concept is found in Horace (n.48) as well as in all the
later Stoic writers, Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus and Marcus (and
indeed elsewhere); though sometimes they think more of the special
duties that were imposed on the individual by his place in the
world or his vocation than of those which flow from his inborn
propensities and disabilities, a few texts show that that part of
Panaetius ' doctrine was not wholly forgotten.45 The idea of
decorum also survives in the attention still devoted to etiquette,
to seemly ways of walking, talking, laughing, dressing, behaviour
at the table and even in bed, for all such behaviour was considered
an outward manifestation of the disposition of the soul.46 It is
characteristic that Epictetus would rather have died than shaved
off the beard that symbolized his role as a philosopher.47 In all
these precepts we find the assumption that the moral law required
performance of traditionally accepted duties and respect for
conventions. After telling his readers that the poet can discover
how to treat his personae appropriately by learning the duties that
belong to the citizen, friend, father, brother, host, senator,
judge and general, Horace adds:
respicere exemplar vitae morumque iubebo doctum imitatorem et
vivas hinc ducere voces.48
Ill
For the Stoics a virtuous disposition necessarily issued in
virtuous activity. All had to perform their duties within that City
of Gods and men which was not a city in any ordinary sense, nor a
world-state that might one day be brought into being, but the
providentially ordered Universe in which all live here and now.49
However, political activity could certainly be included among these
duties. From the first the Stoic fathers had taught that the wise
man would take part in public affairs, if there were no hindrance.
Indeed it was a famous Stoic paradox that only the wise man was a
king or statesman; he alone possessed the art of ruling, whether or
not he had any subjects, just as only the doctor has the art of
healing, even if he has no patients.50 His principal aim in
politics would be to restrain vice and encourage
44 E.g. Cic, Har. Resp. 61; Phil. VIII 29; Tac, Agr. 9, 3.
Plin., ep. I 23 does indeed reflect philosophical opinion
('plurimum interest quid esse tribunatum putes, quam personam tibi
imponas; quae sapienti viro ita aptanda est ut perferatur'). 45
Appendix, paragraphs 5-9; 12. 46 See e.g. Sen., ep. 5; 92, 11 f.;
94, 5; Musonius tr. Vili (35, 3 Hense): philosophyT^iv kocI Kaiiov
kccI caxnnoauviiv irepnroieT kccI gos t 4v kiv^cxbi. kccI aycBi
-npnov; Epict., Ench. 33, 2, 8, 11 and 14; 36; 40 f.; 45-8; Marcus
I 7 f. ; 16, 4 f. and 8 etc. Epictetus insists on the duty of
cleanliness, partly for aesthetic reasons (IV 11, 25 ff., cf.
Appendix 11) and partly to avoid offending others (ib. 14 and 32
f.).
47 I 2, 28 f., cf. Musonius 88, 5 ff. (Hense); A.C. van
Geytenbeck, Musonius Rufus V 3. 48 Ars Poetica 304 ff. He names
Panaetius in Odes I 29. 49 E.g. SVF III 333-9; Sen., Otio 4, 1 ff.
It is a misunderstanding to ascribe to this metaphysical
doctrine political and practical import. 50 SVF III 694-700, cf.
61 1-24.
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 17
virtue,51 although he would also necessarily be concerned with
the 'things of value' and would treat wealth, fame, health etc. as
if they were goods.52 But it could hardly fail to influence his
attitude to such objects of endeavour that he was always to
remember that his efforts to promote them might fail, and that
failure or success was unimportant; they were not truly goods. As
Epictetus observed, 'Caesar seems to provide us with profound peace
. . . but can he give us peace from love or sorrow or envy? He
cannot5. And yet blessedness comes only from such spiritual
peace.53
In the real world, according to Chrysippus, all laws and
constitutions were faulty. He once despairingly said that if the
wise statesman pursued a bad policy he would displease the gods, if
a good policy, he would displease men. So too Seneca could suggest
that there was no state which could tolerate the wise man or secure
his toleration.54
However, such pessimism did not represent the final judgement of
the Stoa. It was recognized, most emphatically by Panaetius, that
the state answered human material needs and fulfilled men's natural
and reasonable impulse for co- operation.55 It would hardly have
been consistent with the Stoics' faith in providence if all or most
existing states had been irremediably evil. Did not the mere
existence of any given form of institutions perhaps imply that
those institutions served a worthy purpose in the divine economy?
At any rate there is no evidence that Stoics condemned any
political system as such; for instance what they disapproved of in
the tyrant was not his absolute power but his abuse of it. We are
told that it was particularly (though not exclusively) in states
that exhibited some progress towards perfection that the wise man
would be active;56 progress must here be construed in a moral
sense, of states that tended to imbue their citizens with
virtue.
Old Sparta apparently evoked Stoic admiration, because of the
strict and simple life prescribed by Lycurgus.57 Sparta was also
most often cited as an instance of that mixed or balanced
constitution which won the approval of many ancient thinkers,
perhaps above all for its stability.58 In the individual stability
of purpose was for Seneca a mark of moral progress, 59 and perhaps
stability was also a Stoic criterion for judging constitutions.
Certainly we are told, without explanation, that the old Stoics
preferred a mixed constitution.60 Panaetius is often held, with no
certain proof, to have commended the Republican system at Rome
51 Ibid. 697. 52 Ibid. 698. 53 III 3, 9 ff. 54 SVF III 324; 694;
Sen., 0/w8, 3. 55 Cic, Fin. Ill 62-4; 68 reflects earlier Stoic
teaching; for Panaetius cf. Off I 11 f.; 17; 50-8; II
12-18 and probably (cf. n. 19) Fin. II 45. 56 SrFIII611;690f. 57
Plut., Lye. 31. Cf. Musonius fr. XX (1 13Hense).Epict. I 2, 2
apparently approved of the ritual scourgings. 58 Thus Polyb. VI 3,
7 f. ; 10; 48-50, though critical, admits Sparta to have a mixed
constitution, under which many virtues were instilled into the
citizens and which possessed long stability. In principle his views
are quite traditional, cf. Walbank adlocc. 59 E.g. Otto 1, 2; ep.
35, 4; 120, 19 ff. 60 Diog. Laert. VII 131.
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18 P. A. BRUNT
for its balance,61 and the historical work of his illustrious
successor, Posidonius, was probably biased in favour of the Roman
aristocracy. At Sparta Cleomenes III, who professed to be
re-establishing both the old austerities and the old political
balance, enjoyed the assistance of a Stoic counsellor.62 Cato could
probably have cited Stoic texts to justify his struggle to preserve
the Republic.
On the other hand Stoics did not condemn monarchy in theory.
Some scholars even suppose that they gave it their special
approbation.63 No doubt rule by a Stoic sage would have been in
their eyes the best form of government. That may be one reason why
several of the early Stoic masters wrote treatises on kingship.64
Yet, given the rarity of the sage, it must have seemed a remote
possibility that if he emerged at all, he would also happen to
obtain sovereign authority. Probably these treatises were intended
to depict the perfect ruler as a model for contemporary kings.
Conceivably, like Seneca in the de dementia, their authors did not
insist over much on the gulf that divided actual rulers from their
ideal. Moreover, a philosopher had the best hope, so it might seem,
of effecting what he thought right as the minister of an autocrat,
and since kings enjoyed great power in the Hellenistic world,
Stoics who were ready to engage in political activity entered their
service; this was only natural. However, once the aristocratic
Roman Republic had become dominant, they were no less prepared to
attend and advise men of influence at Rome. Panaetius was an
intimate of Scipio Aemilianus, and Tiberius Gracchus and Cato had
their Stoic counsellors.65 Only after Augustus did monarchy become
the one system towards which for practical purposes a Stoic needed
to define his attitude. The precepts and examples of the early
masters of the school did not require him to reject it on doctrinal
grounds; how indeed could he have done so, without impugning the
dispensations of Providence? At a merely empirical level Tacitus
reluctantly conceded that it was in the interest of peace that all
power should be conferred on one man; he had been anticipated, a
century earlier, by Strabo, who was an avowed Stoic.66 Seneca
argued that the struggle for Republican freedom had been futile (n.
5), and not only his career but those of Thrasea and Helvidius, men
of firmer resolution, indicate that their principles did not lead
these Stoics to condemn the Principate as such.
The wise man would not be hindered from participating in public
life by any form of government, yet under any form he might
conceive that he had a higher duty to a vocation of philosophic
investigation and teaching his fellows by precept
61 Many scholars have assumed that his ideas lie behind those of
Polyb. VI or Cic, Rep. or both. But cf. e.g. Walbank, Commentary on
Polybius I pp. 296, 640 f., 644; V. Poschl, Romischer Staat u. gr.
Staatsdenken bei Cicero, 1962 passim., esp. 23; 118. 62 Plut.,
Cleom. 10 f.; 13; 16 (the Stoic Sphaerus assisted in reorganizing
the agoge; for his books on Sparta cf. SVF I 620; 629 f.; note also
Persaeus' Politela Lakomke, ib, 435, 454 f.).
63 Wirszubski 145 f. is reasonable. 64 Persaeus, Cleanthes and
Sphaerus all wrote such works, SVF I 435, 481, 620, Musonius,
fr.
VIII, may give some idea of their contents. Persaeus actually
served Antigonus Gonatas (SVF I 439- 44) and Sphaerus Ptolemy
Philopator (624 f.) as well as Cleomenes III. .
65 Panaetius (Pohlenz, RE XVIII 422), Blossius of Cumae (D. R.
Dudley, JRS XXXI, 1941, 94 ff.), Athenodorus Cordylio and Antipater
of Tyre (Zeller, 606 n. 1). Cicero too had the Stoic, Diodotus,
livine in his household (Zeller I.e.).
66 Hist. I 1 ; Strabo VI 4, 2, cf. Zeller 608.
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 19
and example, besides fulfilling the obligations of private
life.67 And under any form he might also see that he had no
opportunity for effective political action, because of the
wickedness of those in high places at the time. The doctrine that
the goodness of every act lay in the disposition from which it was
performed and not in its results did not require Stoics to engage
in an undertaking doomed to fail ab initio; the wise man would not
take a leaking ship to sea, nor, if unfit to fight, enlist in the
army.68 Under a tyranny he simply could not do any service.
As for the ordinary man, there were reasons why he might abstain
from public affairs which did not apply to the sage. By definition
the latter had already attained to that perfect understanding and
virtue to which others at best aspired. But the pre-occupations of
a busy public career might be sufficient of themselves to prevent
imperfect men from ever reaching that goal. Seneca could hold at
times that it was justifiable for a man to retire from long public
service to private duties and to care of his own soul, at times
that the whole of his life was not too long for this task, all the
more because his example could be beneficial to others. The sage
too was impregnable in his virtue, which he could hardly lose, but
in other men moral progress might be impeded by what St. Paul calls
'evil communications' (I Cor. xv 33 ).69 Moreover, even when
arguing that a man should normally undertake public duties, Seneca
concedes, in a way reminiscent of Panaetius' emphasis on individual
endowments, that he might be debarred not only by his physical,
intellectual or pecuniary resources but also by his temperament; he
might be too sensitive or insufficiently pliable for life at court,
too prone to indignation, or to untimely witticisms that showed
high spirit and freedom of speech but would only do the speaker
harm. Again, as Panaetius had also held, he might be suited only to
contemplation, not to public affairs; and 'reluctante natura,
irritus labor est'. None of these considerations applied to the
sage, who was omnicompetent and impervious to what others would
regard as insults or injuries.70
Seneca's views on the propriety of a political career are
self-contradictory, but the assumption that these contradictions
can be explained simply by the hypothesis that he recommended otium
only when his own political prospects were impaired and political
activity only when himself engaged in public affairs, hardly fits
the fact that we find the same antinomy in the sermons of Epictetus
and the Meditations of Marcus. Seneca's advocacy of quietism
reflects one important aspect of Stoic influence.
Epictetus recognizes of course that men are bound to perform the
duties that arise from their social relationships, but he is much
more insistent on the ultimate worthlessness of all those secondary
goods to which activity in the world is inevitably directed. A man
of a certain station should take office, but it is wrong for him to
set his heart either on holding it or on freedom from its cares; it
is
61 Panaetius himself defended as well as exemplified this
vocation, cf. Cic, Off. I 69-73; 92 (cf. Pohlenz, AF 55). 68 Sen.,
Otio\ 3.
69 E.g. Otto passim; Brev. Vit. 18-20; ep. 19; 22; 28, 6 ff.;
29, 10 ff.; 41, 8; 53; 68; 72, 3; 73; 103, 4 f.; 'evil
communications': 19, 10 f., cf. Epict. Ill 16; IV 2. 70 Tranq. 6,
cf. 1, 11 {Const. 19, takes a different view). The discussion of
Athenodorus' views in 3 ff. illustrates the diversity and subtle
gradations of Stoic opinion on the problem of political
activity.
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20 P. A. BRUNT
significant that he should think it necessary to warn his pupils
against yielding to both these kinds of desire. Office is like a
dried fig; if it falls into my lap, I take it up and eat it.71 But
in practice the good man is less likely to advance in political
life,72 no doubt because no good man would submit to the
humiliations on which advancement depends;73 the few whose aim is
to bring themselves into a right relation with the divine earn the
mockery of the crowd, and they can hardly pursue their aim as
procurators of Caesar.74 Epictetus was himself a former slave with
no chance of a public career, but it is plain that his audiences
were mainly drawn from the upper class, some of them aspirants to a
career at Rome, like the young Arrian who took down his words.75 In
fact Epictetus' own low social station and the academic character
of his way of life may have made him less conscious of the dangers
of evil communications than Seneca had been, even though two of his
diatribes are devoted to the theme (n. 69). We also find a greater
serenity in his teaching than in Marcus' reflections.
When Marcus looked back to the time of Vespasian or of Trajan,
he saw a world in which men were engaged in flattery and boasting,
suspicions and plots, praying for the death of others, murmuring at
their own lot, given to sexual passions, avarice and political
ambition. It was the same in his own court. More than once he
dwells with loathing on the dark qualities of those who surrounded
him, the emptiness of their aims, their longing for the death of
cthe schoolmaster', though he had so greatly toiled, prayed and
thought on their behalf; indeed death would be a release, the more
merciful, the earlier it came.76 However, Marcus had his duty to
perform; he was set over mankind as the ram over the flock or the
bull over the herd (ibid). No other vocation (CnroOecris) is so
suited to philosophy, that is to say, to the exercise of a reason
which has accurately established the rationality of nature and of
all that life contains. But it is evidently by a conscious effort
that Marcus reconciles himself to the place Providence has assigned
him, and he can also say that his role impedes him in the pursuit
of philosophy.77 The general character of his Meditations shows
that his inclination was to ponder on the divine order and his own
relation to it rather than to consume his energies in 'the daily
round, the trivial task' which, nonetheless, furnished him on his
own principles with all his reason required him to ask. Those
principles taught him that the wise man would serve the state, if
there were no external hindrance. But an autocrat could plead no
hindrance, so long at least as his natural capacities permitted him
to render good service. All the same we can see how a man of
Marcus' temperament, set in some lower station, must have preferred
that life of contemplation which in the end Seneca had pronounced
the best.
Thus the more seriously Stoic teaching was accepted, the more
ardent in some minds must have been the desire for retirement and
meditation, at most combined with the performance of inescapable
private duties. Whether Stoics
71 Appendix paragraph 3 cf. I 29, 44; II 23, 38 f.; Ill 7, 21 ;
24, 99; IV 4, 19-33; 7, 24. 72 III 15, 8-13; IV 3, 8 f. 73 III 7,
31 ; IV 1, 40, 48, 95 and 148; 7, 19-24; 10, 20 ff. 74 II 14, 25
ff.; 11115,1 If. 7S Cf. Brunt, Athenaeum (forthcoming). 76 Brunt II
10 ff. with full documentation. 77 Med. XI 18, 1. cf. XI 7; X 31,
2; VIII 1.
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 21
commonly yielded to this desire, as some of their critics
averred (p. 9), we cannot say; our records can hardly be expected
to commemorate lives of quiet seclusion; Sext'ius is a rare
example, known by name (n. 10). It is with others that we must
henceforth be concerned, men who thought themselves bound by their
principles to enter public life, who believed what Seneca once said
(ep. 96, 5), 'vivere militare est', and who tried to play the part,
or to occupy the station, to which they had been called by birth
and ability.
IV
This Stoic concept of the individual's station was applied, as
Koestermann showed long ago, to the emperor himself. Augustus seems
consciously to have adopted it, probably under the influence of the
Stoic Athenodorus; this was known to such panegyrical writers of
the time as Ovid and Velleius. Claudius too appears to have spoken
of his station, and in his reign and Nero's the notion is found in
Seneca and Lucan. Tacitus referred to Vespasian's station, Pliny to
Trajan's. Pius himself also employed the term. It survived into the
fourth century.78 Curiously, Koestermann failed to observe that the
idea is implicit in Marcus' Meditations. Pius, according to Marcus,
always acted in the way which had been appointed for him. He
exhorts himself to let the god within him be lord of a living
being, who is a male, a Roman, a ruler, who has taken up his post,
as one who awaits the signal for retirement from life, fully
prepared. He has to carry out the task set him like a soldier
storming the breach. Similarly he speaks of his 'place' in the
world, or of his 'vocation'; like all men, he has tasks to
perform,79 proper to his own constitution and nature, and 'as
Antoninus, my city and fatherland is Rome'; he must be strenuous in
doing his duty, acts of piety and benefit to men, like Pius before
him.80 He is a sort of priest and servant of the gods, and this
makes him, rather like the Pope, a servant of men; he regards his
life as a 'liturgy' or as 'servitude'. Long before, Antigonus
Gonatas under Stoic influence had described kingship as 'noble
servitude', and Seneca had applied this to Nero's position.81
78 Philol. LXXXVII, 1932, 358 ff. and 431 ff. Augustus: Geli. XV
7, 3; Claudius: Suet., Cl. 38; Pius: Fronto 168 N. Koestermann also
cited Ovid, Tr. II 219; Veil. II 124, 2; Lucan I 45; Tac, Dial. 17;
Plin., Pan. 7, 3; 86, 3; [10, 4 should be added]; HA Ver. 1, 6;
Comm. 1, 8; Clod. Albin. 2, 3; Avid. Cass. 7, 1 ; Ael. 1,1.;
Eutrop. IX 27; Amm. Marc. XV 8, 14, and he collected much evidence
for the concept that others too had each his statio in a sort of
hierarchy, cf. also H. Emonds, Anhang to the 1963 edition of A. von
Harnack, Militia Christi; it goes back to Plato, Phaedo 61 E; Apol.
28D and probably to the Pythagoreans. For Stoic usage cf. Appendix
9 and 12. Note that Herodian often refers to conduct fitting
(irprov) or unfitting to an emperor, 1 15, 7; II 5, 4; III 13, 1 ;
14, 1 ; V 7, 5. 79 I 16, 9; 111 5; VII 7; 45 (quoting Flato).
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22 P. A. BRUNT
But what were the particular duties that Stoics attached to the
station or role of the emperor? According to Seneca he is to be
'vigilant for the safety of each and all'. He belongs to the state,
not the state to him.82 Seneca recommends Nero to win his subjects'
consent, respecting public opinion83 and freedom of speech,84 and
to observe the laws.85 Under the good ruler justice, peace,
morality ('pudicitia'), security and the hierarchical social order
('dignitas') will be upheld, and economic prosperity will be
assured.86 The greatest stress is of course laid, for reasons not
hard to discern, on dementia. But it is everywhere implicit that
the emperor should be guided by traditional standards and
objectives accepted by his subjects. Marcus accepted similar
criteria.
Marcus adjures himself to do everything as a pupil of Pius, to
emulate his justice, beneficence, clemency, piety, frugality, his
respect for the opinions of others combined with firmness and
foresight in making his own decisions, the purity of his sexual
life, his mildness and cheerfulness, his civilitas, and so forth.
Marcus himself continually reflects on two themes, the providential
order of the world and the duty incumbent on all men to perform
acts of fellowship (praxeis koinomkai), a duty that springs from
man's place in that order.87 This creed undoubtedly supplied him
with a deeper sense of the value of the virtues that Pius had
exemplified, not least his untiring devotion to work. 'Rejoice and
take thy rest in one thing, proceeding from one social act to
another, with God in mind' (VI 7). There was no novelty in all
this. For instance, Hadrian's procurators had proclaimed the
'indefatigable care with which he is unceasingly vigilant for the
interests of men'. Fergus Millar has illustrated at length the
standard of personal industry which was expected of emperors,
though (I suspect) not as often reached as his more unwary readers
might suppose.88 Dio tells us that Marcus himself was a hard worker
who applied himself diligently to all the duties of his office, who
never said or wrote or did anything as if it were of small account,
but who would spend whole days, without hurrying, on the slightest
point, believing that it would bring reproach on all his actions,
if he neglected any detail. The assiduity always expected of an
emperor was now grounded in Marcus' own philosophic
convictions.89
Recently a scholar has censured Marcus for speaking of the
obligations we have in the universal city of gods and men without
telling us what they are.90 But for Marcus each man has his own
station in that city: his was that of Rome's ruler. He was not
writing a treatise to instruct others, but meditating privately on
his own duties, and he could have learned these, in conformity with
Epictetus' teaching, by merely considering the name of emperor
which he bore; it told him
82 C/m. 13, 3; 19,8. Cf.n. 88. 83 See n. 3, cf. Bene . V 4, 3;
Epict. Ill 7, 33. 84 Clem. I 1, 8; 10, 3; in Benef. VI 30-2 he
complains that monarchs seldom permit such liberty.
Cf. n. 150. 85 I 1,4. 86 I 19,8. 8/ Cf. nn. 76, 79 and 80. F1RA
I2 no. 102; Millar, JRS LVU, 1967, 9 ff., cf. Branger 169-217. 89
Dio LXXI 6, 2, cf. Brunt II 18. 90 E. R. Stanton, Historia XVIII,
1969, 570 ff.
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 23
that his task was to do what was expected of an emperor.
Numerous principles of government are in fact implicit in his
account of Pius, for instance in his allusion to Pius' husbandry of
financial resources. The same critic rightly observes that Marcus'
policy and legislation were largely traditional, and concludes that
he was basically a Roman rather than a Stoic.91 But the antithesis
is false. I suppose that it rests on a presupposition that Stoic
teaching on the kinship of all men as such ought to have made
genuine believers critical of the existing order and ready, when
they had the power, to reform it. But at least after Zeno and
Chrysippus (n. 37) no Stoic thinker drew any such practical
implications from the doctrines 'of the school: their aim was to
amend the spiritual condition of individuals, not their material
lot, nor the social structure. Epictetus held that it was man's
task not to change the constitution of things - 'for this is
neither vouchsafed us nor is it better that it should be' - but to
make his will conform with what happens.92 So too Marcus, vested
with autocratic power, tells himself 'not to look for a Utopia, but
to be content if the least thing goes forward, and even in this
case to count its outcome a small matter. '93
Marcus' portrait of Pius has special value for two reasons.
First, as the product of intimate familiarity and perfect
sincerity, it shows us both what Pius was in the eyes of one who
had long worked with him closely and what Marcus himself sought to
be.94 It is thus infinitely more authoritative testimony to the
practice of Pius and to the ideals of Marcus than we possess for
any other ruler in the judgements of historians or in the
propaganda of panegyrics and coins. But, in the second place, if we
leave on one side a few merely personal traits and anecdotes, it
presents a model that corresponds to the conventional view of the
good emperor that we can construct from such evidence. The
qualities that Marcus imputes to Pius are precisely those for which
other emperors take credit themselves or which are lauded by their
admirers or flatterers, and the judgements of later historians such
as Tacitus and Dio reflect the extent to which they considered
these claims justified. Augustus himself provided the prototype.95
There is thus no sign that Marcus recognized any objectives that
had not been pursued by those among his predecessors who had earned
the approval of the upper classes, or that his doctrines either led
him to question the established principles of imperial policy or
offered him any guidance in determining the objective content of
his actions. His philosophy inspired him to do what he thought to
be right, but what he thought to be right was fixed by tradition.
His convictions made him give the most conscientious attention to
even trivial tasks, but that very absorption can have left him the
less time to re-examine the content of his duties; probably it
never occurred to him that such re-examination could be needed.
91 Cf. Wirszubski 138: 'Thrasea acted primarily as a courageous
and upright Roman senator who held Stoic views, not as a Stoic
philosopher who happened to be a senator at Rome', endorsed by Syme
558. In my view Stoicism fortified both Marcus and Thrasea in
performing the duties conventionally attached to their stations. 92
112,17.
93 IX 29; contra Farquharson ad loc. the text should not be
amended, nor is it ironic: Marcus has in mind the Stoic doctrine
that the effect of an action does not determine its value.
94 Brunt II, 1-6. 95 This cannot be shown in detail here.
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24 P. A. BRUNT
The principles and virtues he admired in Pius are almost the
same as, for instance, Pliny had ascribed to Trajan, and Pliny
admits that they had been attributed to all earlier rulers,
Domitian included, though with less sincerity and truth.96 To take
one example of the traditional character of the ideal, Pius'
firmness of purpose, his self-consistency, recalls the 'constantia'
of the Stoic wise man,97 but it was Tiberius who had proclaimed to
the senate his wish to be 'far- sighted in your affairs, constant
in dangers, fearless of giving offence for the public interest '.
And in this same speech Tiberius re-asserted his policy of treating
all Augustus' words and deeds as having the force of law. That was
known even to a provincial contemporary; Strabo remarked that he
had made Augustus the standard for his administration and
commands.98 It was by that standard that each of his successors was
judged, and to which after every aberration of tyranny a new
emperor sought or pretended to return.99 In the system Augustus had
devised adjustments had from time to time to be made, but it
developed slowly and almost imperceptibly from a sequence of new
expedients rather than from any deliberate pursuit of reform.
Deliberate innovation was characteristic only of those emperors
whose policy was reversed after they had been overthrown.
There are certain features in Marcus' imperial ideal which are
highly relevant to the attitudes that Romans of rank might be
expected to adopt towards the emperor and his service. Pius had
disliked pomp and adulation and treated his friends as one gentle-
man treats another; Marcus warned himself not to be 'Caesarified'.
This civilitas may seem to be no more than a matter of etiquette,
but Panaetius had already elevated sensibility for the feelings of
others into a moral obligation (n. 35), and the more indes-
tructibly absolute the real power of the emperor appeared, the more
the upper class at Rome prized the semblance of his being no more
than the first citizen. Perhaps nothing in Domitian 's conduct so
enraged them as his claim to be 'God and Master' and the behaviour
that went with this claim.100 Moreover, civilitas generally
accompanied and conduced to something of more political
significance, the emperor's readiness to tolerate free expressions
of opinion and to listen to advice. Both Pius and Marcus were
notable for respecting such 'libertas' (even though there is no
good reason to think that Marcus did not reserve the final decision
to himself).101 Such respect was demanded of emperors by senators,
and it could be seen as an indispensable condition of their
performing their own role in the service of the state.
In name at least the imperial senate retained the highest
responsibilities.
96 Paneg. 3-4, 1; Trajan really is 'talis quales alii principes
futuros se tantum pollicentur', 24, 1. For Pius this sort of
panegyric was 'tarn trita et adsidua materia' (Fronto 163 N). 97
116, 1(t). |V6Tikv aaXeTCos trr\ tgv ^Tacmvcov KpiOvTcov . . kocI t
rrapccTpTTTCs t kot* gav nrovenTynKOv KaTcp; 3: (t) CrrroiieveTtKOv
ts IttI tg&v toiovtcov tivcov KcrraiTtaecos . . Kal BBcaov, cf.
7 fin.
98 Tac, Ann. IV 37 f .; Strabo VI 4, 2. ''*' See e.g. Suet.,
Nero 10, 1 : 'ex Augusti praescripto imperaturum se professus'. 100
'Civilitas': e.g. I 16, 8; 17, 3; VI 30, 1 ; on the text see A. R.
Birley, Marcus Auretius, 1966, 67 n.
4 against P. Maas, JRS XXXV, 1945, 145. See Pliny, Paneg. 2, 3;
22, 1 ; 23, 1 ; 24, 2 (cf. M. Durry ad loc.) etc. Note Seneca on
Gaius offering his foot to an aged consular to kiss: 'non hoc est
rem publicam calcare?' (Benef. II 12), cf. Epict. IV 1, 17. 1U1
BruntII13f.cf. n. 150.
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STOICISM AND THE PRINGIPATE 25
Augustus had pretended to restore the old Republic,102 and it
could even be said of him and of Tiberius that they had revived the
maiestas of the senate.103 On Republican principles, as stated by
Cicero, that should have meant that the senate was once again the
ruling organ of the state with the magistrates as its servants;104
of these the princeps could no doubt be regarded as the first. In
theory he was to be the public choice (cvocatus electusque a re
publica'), and Tiberius expressly acknowledged that it was the
senate which had entrusted him with his wide powers; like Augustus,
he would not allow himself to be styled dominus, but actually
addressed the senators as his 'bons et aequos et faventes
dminos'.105 In outward appearance the majesty of the senate had
been enhanced by new judicial, electoral and legislative
prerogatives, and the privileges of its members were sedulously
preserved or extended. At his accession Tiberius had professed to
desire that the functions of government discharged by Augustus
should be more widely shared; later he censured the senate for
casting the whole burden on the emperor;106 he disliked
flattery,107 and at least pretended that senators should speak
their minds; in his reign, as under Augustus,108 there remained
what Tacitus calls vestiges of free speech in the senate.109
Tiberius began by consulting it on all matters, however weighty;110
it was still expected to be the great council of state. In ad. 16
Gnaeus Piso, renovyned for his free speaking, urged that it would
be proper ('decorum') for the senate and Equites to show that they
could assume the burdens of government in the absence of the
emperor.111
The reigns of terror in Tiberius' later years and under several
of his successors in the first century cowed most members, but the
emperors continued, hqwever insincerely, to treat their
constitutional rights as unchanged. Claudius could tell the senate
that it was 'minime decorum maiestati huius ordinis' that its
members should not all give their considered opinions.112 Pliny
tells how Trajan exhorted them to resume their liberty and
'capessere quasi communis imperii curas'; we may be sure that
'quasi' was inserted as discreetly by Pliny as it had tactfully
been omitted by Trajan. This was not new, as he remarks; every
emperor had said the same, though none had been believed
before.113
Thus in theory the senate remained the great council of state,
and just as a conscientious emperor could conceive that he was
bound to perform the traditional duties of his station as ruler, so
conscientious senators could take seriously the
102 I am not persuaded by F. Millar, JRS LXIII, 1 973, 50 ff.
Veil. II 89 ('prisca illa et antiqua rei publicae forma revocata')
surely gives the official view.
103 Veil. II 89, 3; 126, 2. 104 Sest. 137. 105 Tac, Ann. I 7, 7
(cf. n. 146); Suet., Aug. 53, 1; Tib. 27; Dio LVII 8, 2. 106 Tac,
Ann. Ill (et. Dio LV11 2); 111 3i). 107 E.g. II 87; III 65, 3; IV
6. 108 Suet.. i4iir. 54. 109 Tac, Ann. I 79, 5. Cf. Ill 60, 1 :
'imaginem antiquitatis senatui praebebat'. 110 IV 6, 2; Suet., Tib.
30-2. 111 Ann. II 35; his 'libertas', I 74; II 43; Dio LVII 15, 9;
cf. Sen. Ira I 18, 13 on his 'rigor' which
he took to be 'constantia'; for the distinction cf. Epict. II
15. 112 FIR A I2 no. 43, cf. Caracalla (!) ap. Dio LXXVII 20.
Tacitus makes Otho call the senate
'caput imperii' {Hist. I 84). 113 Paneg. 66.
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26 P. A. BRUNT
fulfilment of the responsibilities that the emperors themselves
continued to recognise as constitutionally belonging to their
order. Under Nero Thrasea Paetus saw it as his duty cagere
senatorem', to play the role of a senator.114 At the outset of his
reign in 54 Nero declared that the senate should retain its ancient
functions,115 and until the conspiracy of Piso in 65 most senators
were free from the terror that had hardly abated in the previous
generation; Nero's victims in these years consisted almost wholly
of the few who stood too near the throne. Thrasea had some ground
for hope, not least in the influence of Seneca which lasted till
62, that there was now a place for senatorial freedom.
His first recorded initiative consisted in unsuccessful
opposition to a motion permitting Syracuse to exceed the appointed
number of gladiators for a show; Thrasea was standing for the old
order.116 His critics urged that an advocate of senatorial liberty
should devote himself rather to great questions of state; Thrasea
replied that by attention to the smallest matters the senate would
show its competence to deal with the greatest.117 To a Stoic virtue
was manifest in every activity alike, and we may recall Marcus'
attention to detail and insistence that it was of value if the
least thing went forward (n. 93).
Thrasea also showed his care for good government by assisting
the Cilicians to obtain the conviction of an oppressive governor in
57;118 yet in 62 he was to inveigh against the 'novam provincialium
superbiam', manifested in the power some subjects possessed, to
secure or prevent votes of thanks to governors in provincial
councils; it was shameful that 'nunc colimus externos et adulamur'.
This solicitude for the superior dignity of senators was no more
inconsistent with the Stoic belief in the common humanity of all
men, irrespective of their status, than their failure to challenge
the institution of slavery, or indeed to promote strict equality
before the law among free men. They never expressed disapproval of
'degree, priority and place', which were such marked features of
the Roman social structure and which they could not have regarded
as incompatible with the providential order of the Universe. Not
that Thrasea was showing indifference to the true interests of the
provincials. It was the 'praevalidi provincialium et opibus nimiis
ad iniurias minorum elati' whom he sought to check. Tacitus makes
him aver his care for good government on this very occasion; his
sincerity need not be doubted, and in all probability his motion,
which was approved after reference to Nero, was beneficial. Once*
again it only extended the principle of a senatus consultum of
Augustus' time. * 19
Already in 59 Thrasea had walked out of the senate rather than
assent to the 114 Ann. XVI 28, 2: for the metaphor cf. p. 13 and
Appendix 5-9 and 12. 11 > Ibid. X1I1 4, ct. n. 99. 116 Ibid. 49.
(For restrictions imposed at Rome and perhaps elsewhere by Augustus
and
Tiberius see Dio LIV 2; Suet., Tib. 34.) 117 Cf. Sen., Benef. II
18, 2; Dio Chrys. XXXVIII 3; Matthew 25, 21 ; M. Aur. II 16; also
F. lebt. 151; 703. 118 Ann. XIII 33; XVI 21, cf. Pliny, ep. VI 29,
1. 119 Ibid. XV 20-2. Cf. Dio LVI 25, 6; Brunt, Historia X, 1961,
216. Chrysippus' defence of private property (Cic. Fin. Ill 67) is
equally valid as an apologia for social distinctions. 'Stoic
cosmopolitanism' (Wirszubski 140) had no practical implications.
Epictetus (II 23, 24 f.) rates the use of a slave above that of a
domestic animal but below that of a citizen, and that of a citizen
below that of a magistrate.
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 27
congratulations it proffered to Nero on Agrippina 's murder.120
He also showed less enthusiasm than Nero desired for the ludi
luvenales. His enemies suggested that it was inconsistent that he
had himself performed in the garb of a tragic actor in his home
town of Padua. But the ludi celasti which he had so honoured were
of ancient institution, ascribed to Antenor, and it is very
possible that Thrasea had done no more than tradition required.121
By contrast, Nero's histrionic performances were a hated novelty.
Ordinary Romans came to detest Nero no less for his breaches of
convention than for his crimes; 'I began to hate you' Subrius
Flavus told him: 'once you appeared as the murderer of your mother
and wife, as charioteer, actor and incendiary'.122 It was typical
of a Stoic to disapprove of departures from the old mores. Yet
Thrasea still did not despair; what Seneca could excuse, he might
overlook. In 62 he advocated a mild penalty for the praetor,
Antistius, accused of treason because he had published poems
libellous of the emperor; the senate should not impose sentence of
death 'egregio sub principe', when it was free to make its own
decision and could opt for clemency. Even flattery of Nero was
justified in a good cause, and in fact Seneca's old pupil was not
yet ready to disregard the maxims of his master.123
Long assiduous in attending the senate, Thrasea at last withdrew
in 63 or 64, though he still performed private duties to his
clients in the courts, in the manner Seneca recommended.124 There
is no vestige of evidence that he conspired, but his retirement
implied that in his view the regime was irretrievably corrupt,
since his previous devotion to public affairs showed that it could
not be set down to 'ipsius inertiae dulcedo'.125 It may seem
strange that his younger friends, Arulenus Rusticus, tribune in 66,
and Helvidius Priscus, did not retire with him; but each Stoic had
to make his own decision, true to his own persona.
Thrasea 's conduct marked Nero as a tyrant; it could be
construed, and genuinely felt, as a threat. Tyrannicide was
esteemed in antiquity as not a crime but a noble deed. In an
extreme case, according to Seneca, it was an act of mercy to the
tyrant himself.126 The poet, Lucan, who was tinged with Stoicism,
had been implicated in Piso's conspiracy, and that was the occasion
for the banishment of Musonius, though there was apparently no
evidence of his guilt.127 In general, there is no ground for
thinking that Stoics turned to plotting against the emperors
120 Ann. XIV 12. 121 Ibid. XVI 22. Cf. E. Koestermann, Archivio
Veneto, LXXVII, 1965, 5-11. 122 Ann. XV 67. (K. Wellesley, C/?,
XII, 1962, 119 emends 'oderam te' to 'amaveram te', but
vnec' = 'sed non' (Gerber, Lex. Tac. 922 f.), and 'oderam' is
needed as the direct answer to the question and is then taken up by
4odisse' in rhetorical emphasis.) Cf. XV 68; XVI 5; Dio LXIII 22.
123 Ann. XIV 48. Stoics permitted lying for a good purpose, SVF II
132; 197; III 554; Epict. IV 6,33. But Epictetus would hardly have
approved of Thrasea 's flattery, cf. Ill 24, 44-50. 124 XVI 22, 1
cf. Sen., T rang. 3 f. Note Tiberius resentment in a similar case,
Ann. II 34.
125 Agr.y 126 Bene}. VII 20, 3 (I doubt if Seneca meant his
readers to think of Nero), cf. II 19, 2: Here. For. 923; Cic,
Offic. Ill 32. Cf. above all Trajan's reputed direction to his
praetorian prefect, Dio LXVIII 16, l2 Aap toOto to
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28 P. A. BRUNT
of whom they most profoundly disapproved. Epictetus merely
insists that no commands of the tyrant can affect true freedom; a
man can always choose to obey God rather than Caesar. Thus he only
contemplates passive resistance.128 Thrasea went no further, and
perished on that ground alone. Under Domitian too Arulenus
Rusticus, called an ape of the Stoics, is said to have suffered
death merely for his laudation of Thrasea, Herennius Senecio for
his biography of the elder Helvidius and for failing to pursue the
normal senatorial career, and Helvidius' own son for his withdrawal
from politics and for alleged libels on the emperor; by what they
did not do, and sometimes by what they said, these men had
indicated that Domitian was a tyrant, no more, but that was
sufficient offence.129
The elder Helvidius, Thrasea 's son-in-law, undoubtedly went
further.130 Exiled by Nero and recalled by Galba, he was encouraged
by Vitellius' practice of consulting the senate even on minor
matters to controvert the emperor's proposals,131 and new hope was
brought by the accession of Vespasian, a friend of Thrasea. At
first Helvidius spoke of him with honour but without insincere
adulation.132 He judged that the time had come for independent
action. The senate should indeed 'capessere rem publicam', all the
more, as Gnaeus Piso had once held (n. Ill) because the emperor was
absent. Helvidius proposed that the senate should take immediate
measures to remedy the deficiencies of the treasury and to restore
the Capitol, a .task in which Vespasian might merely be asked to
assist.133 By selecting deputies to congratulate the new ruler it
should mark out the men on whom Vespasian should rely for
advice.134 Equally the great delators of Nero's reign, such as
Thrasea 's accuser, Eprius Marcellus, should be punished. Perhaps
the motives for this demand made by Helvidius' friends as well as
by himself were vindictive; we cannot read their minds.135 But we
may see a justification that went beyond rancour, one of the same
kind that lay behind the impeachments and Acts of Attainder that
served to promote the development of a constitutional monarchy in
our own country; the punishment of wicked ministers of the past
might deter their like in the future. Helvidius' aim was surely to
ensure that Vespasian and his successors should rule by the advice
and consent of the senate and of those it trusted. His initiatives
found insufficient support.136
It was in the same year after Vespasian's return that the fatal
conflict
128 E.g. I 29 passim; III 24, 103-7; IV 1, 86-90; 7 passim.
Socrates' refusal to obey the Thirty Tyrants' is exemplary: e.g. IV
1,160. Cf. n.ll. Stoics perhaps recommended suicide rather than
resistance to Rubellius Plautus, see Ann. XIV 59.
129 PIR2 1 730; H 128 and 60. R. S. Rogers, Cl. Ph. LV, 1960, 19
ff. is perverse. 130 PIR2 H 59. 131 Tac, Hist. IV 6; II 91 ; Dio
LXV 7. 132 Hist. IV 3, 3; 4, 3 (cf. Ann. XIV 12, 1 ; Dio LXII 15 on
Thrasea); 7, 2. 133 IV 9. 134 IV 6, 3-8. Cf. Pliny, Paneg. 62. Here
Helvidius admittedly proposed a departure from usual
practice. 135 Hist. II 10; IV 6; 40-4. Eprius: PIR2 E 84. 136
Note Eprius gibe in IV 43, 2, 'senatum tuum ; 45, 1 indicates that
the senate was
disappointed at the failure of Helvidius etc., even though it
feared to support him. Nerva did take his advisers from 'the first
men' (Dio LXVII 2, 3), and Trajan allegedly chose as his friends
those most odious to Domitian (Pliny, Paneg. 45, 2, cf. n.
134).
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STOICISM AND THE PRINCIPATE 29
began.137 According to Dio Helvidius incurred Vespasian's hatred
partly for abusing his friends - that is easy to understand, for
Eprius was again in high favour - and still more for turbulence in
rousing the people with denunciations of monarchy and praise of a
Republican system.138 That is not to be believed. Long ago
Helvidius had consented to serve the Principate; he had recently
approved of Vespasian's accession, and rabble-rousing was as alien
to Stoic practice as it was futile. Probably Dio confused
Helvidius' attachment to libertas, an ambiguous word, with
Republican allegiance.139 But the breach was serious: it led first
to Helvidius' arrest and then to his banishment and execution, of
which Vespasian himself is said to have repented. He must in the
emperor's view have been guilty of treason. But in what way?
Dio, in making out that Helvidius appealed to the rabble,
probably associates his opposition with the expulsion of Stoic and
Cynic philosophers that occurred about the same time (n. 10). It is
highly probably that some Cynics under the Principate did assail
monarchy and the whole social order. This view indeed hardly fits
the notion that there was a 'Cynic-Stoic' theory of kingship, but
that notion should surely be discarded. Just as the Cynic 'citizen
of the world' was a man who rejected the ties of citizenship in any
particular state, so the Cynic 'king' was one who truly possessed
the unfettered freedom that was falsely ascribed to autocrats; both
conceptions were moral, not political.140 In any case Cynics and
Stoics ought not to be confused, though some Stoics, notably
Epictetus, undoubtedly admired the true Cynic's indifference to
worldly goods; but not even Epictetus held that it was right,
except for a few persons with a special vocation, to neglect
ordinary social and political obligations.141 But just because
there was a certain measure of agreement between Stoics and Cynics,
and because there were a few Stoics who could be called 'paene
Cynici' (n. 37), it was easy for the enemies of aristocratic Stoics
to resort to malicious misrepresentation of their attitudes. Thus
the accusers of Thrasea had suggested that his attachment to
liberty was a mere pretence that concealed anarchic designs
inimical to the Roman peace.142 Tacitus' detailed account of his
actions disposes of this calumny. Unfortunately, Tacitus' evidence
of Helvidius' quarrel with Vespasian is lacking, and Dio, usually
unsympathetic to philosophers, probably adopted uncritically
somewhat similar allegations against him.143 It is not in the least
likely that a man of mature age who
137 I infer the date from Suet., Vesp. 15 on the edicts
Helvidius issued as praetor in 70 which ignored Vespasian; his
attitude to the emperor had become colder since Dec. 69 (n. 132).
Syme 212 puts Helvidius' death as late as 74 on the basis of an
argument from Tac, Dial. 2, 1, but cf. n. 145. 138 Dio LXVI 12, 2;
Suet., Vesp. 15. According to Dio he praised democracy , for Dio
this means the Republic, see e.g. L 1, 1 ; LII 9, 5; 14, 4; 15, 5;
LIII 5, 4; 13, 5; 17, 1 1 ; LVI 43, 4. 139 Wirszubski 124-9 and on
Helvidius 148 f.
140 J. Kaerst, St. zur Entwicklung u. theoretischen Begrndung
der Monarchie im Altertum, 1898, 27-33; J. M. C. Toynbee, Greece
and Rome XIII 1944, 43 ff. (with which in general I agree); M. P.
Charlesworth, CAHXl 9 f. This is not a place to discuss rival
views, e.g. R. Hoistad, Cynic King and Cynic Hero, 1948. 141 III 22
passim. Note that Epictetus certainly accepted, though he did not
stress, the orthodox Stoic view, which had no place in Cynic
teaching, that it was right to procure 'the things of value' (n.
15), cf. Bonhoffer, II 42-4.
142 nn. XVI 22, 3 f.; 28, 3. 143 Syme II 550 f. Dio's admiration
for Marcus was, however, profound, LXXII 34-6. In LXVI 13 he
evidently adopts Mucianus' charges against Stoics as well as
Cynics, whom Mucianus did not distinguish.
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30 P. A. BRUNT
had sought to uphold the authority of the senate and had
previously been ready to serve emperors now threw over all his past
convictions and engaged in attacks on the whole established
order.144 Epictetus (n. 152) and Tacitus (n. 22) depict him as true
to the last to his own role as a senator. We must then look for
another explanation.
Dio's epitomator collocates Helvidius' quarrel with Vespasian
with an incident in which Vespasian left the senate in tears,
saying that either his sons would succeed him or no one would. It
is an old conjecture, which I would endorse, that Helvidius
objected to Vespasian's manifest intention to pass on his power to
his sons.145 Once Titus had actually been invested with imperial
power as his father's colleague in 71, Helvidius' protests could
plausibly have been construed as treason. If this explanation be
true, we can see that there was right on both sides.
Constitutionally the choice of a princeps lay with the senate, and
a man was to be chosen in the public interest as the person best
fitted for the task. There was no reason to think that Titus or
Domitian fulfilled this criterion.146 In practice the succession
had been dynastic from the first, and it had given Rome a series of
rulers, every one of whom in senatorial opinion had proved a
tyrant. The crimes and follies of Nero had resulted in civil war
that imperilled the very fabric of the empire. Galba (having no
heir in his family) had allege