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Julian the Apostate was many things: a skillful general, a tireless administrator, and – as
his name suggests – an implacable opponent of Christianity. But in his own mind he seems to
have always been, before all else, a scholar – a philosopher, a theologian, a servant of the muses.
His erudition was displayed to good effect in the Caesars,
perhaps the most interesting bit of historical commentary ever penned by a Roman emperor.
The Caesars imagines a banquet on Olympus, attended by all the emperors of the past.
Julius Caesar enters, followed by Augustus, Tiberius, and all the rest, from Nero – still
strumming his lyre – to Diocletian and the tetrarchs, who enter holding hands.
The gods hold a contest to determine which of the emperors is most worthy. Each emperor
speaks on his own behalf – Caesar boasting of his conquests, Augustus of his prudence,
Trajan of his clemency – but the prize goes to Marcus Aurelius, who is judged worthy of joining
the gods because of his dedication to philosophy. Despite a rich prehistory, the classical tradition
of Greco-Roman philosophy truly began with Socrates, the man, to paraphrase Cicero,
who called philosophy down from the heavens, and applied it to the questions of human existence.
Socrates himself, who wrote nothing, is an elusive figure. But through the dialogues
of Plato, he inspired a series of profound inquiries into morality, justice, and truth.
In the scope of his thought and the means he employed to disseminate his ideas,
Plato shaped the whole subsequent history of philosophy. He was the first classical thinker
to found a school – the famous Academy, located in a sacred grove just outside Athens. Aristotle,
Plato’s most brilliant pupil, spent twenty years at the Academy, and eventually founded
a school of his own at the Lyceum, an exercise yard a short distance beyond the city walls.
Despite many disagreements – which became more acrimonious over time,
as both sides fortified doctrines and sharpened polemics – followers of Plato and Aristotle did
not differ fundamentally with regard to practical ethics. The two philosophical
schools that emerged in the generation after Aristotle’s death, however, proclaimed
antithetical approaches to the virtuous life, and would be rivals for the rest of antiquity.
The Epicurean school – the first philosophical system to emerge from the tumult of the
Hellenistic world – contended that all matter consisted of atoms, invisible and indivisible
particles adrift in an infinite void. Humans were composed of atoms, and dissolved into them,
body and soul, when they died. The gods, also made of atoms, were indifferent to mankind.
There was, therefore, no need to fear either divine wrath or the horrors of an afterlife.
It was wiser to seek pleasure – to retreat to a tranquil place,
enjoy the company of like-minded friends, and avoid the storms and shocks of public life.
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Back to philosophy. The Stoics – the other great Hellenistic school – imagined a universe infused
with an all-encompassing principle variously identified as Nature, Reason, and Fate. This
principle permeated all things, predetermining the course of history. Human decisions, however,
still mattered. It was imperative to act righteously and strive for the most moral end.
But it was equally imperative to accept that many circumstances lay beyond one’s control.
Such acceptance – living in accord with Nature, Reason, and Fate – was the philosopher’s part.
Both Stoicism and Epicureanism came to Roman attention as the legions of the expanding
Republic overran the heart of the Greek world. Epicureanism seems to have won a
number of wealthy Roman converts, as is attested both by Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura – a Latin epic
on the principles of Epicurean philosophy – and by the Epicurean library discovered in
the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. But Stoicism, with its acceptance of
traditional morality and public life, was always the preferred philosophy of the Roman elite. It
became especially prominent in times of political turmoil. Cato the Younger – Caesar’s most
uncompromising opponent – was a dedicated Stoic, as was Caesar’s assassin Brutus. A century later,
a series of senators drew upon Stoic principles in their opposition to the Flavian emperors,
prompting the tyrannical emperor Domitian to temporarily expel all philosophers from Rome.
Stoicism’s broad appeal to the aristocracy is encapsulated by the careers of the best-known
Roman Stoics. Seneca, a wealthy senator from Spain, composed a series of philosophical
treatises while serving as the tutor and advisor of Nero. Epictetus, though born a slave, attracted
the emperor Hadrian and dozens of other notables to his philosophical lectures. Marcus Aurelius,
the philosopher-emperor, famously applied Stoic principles to the governance of the empire itself.
It remains unclear how widespread such convictions were outside the elite,
since only the wealthiest Romans had the wealth and leisure for a philosophical education.
At first glance, the evidence is not encouraging.
In Petronius’ Satyricon, the wealthy freedman Trimalchio tells his guests that he has ordered
the phrase “he never listened to a philosopher” to be inscribed on his mausoleum. And at a bath in
Ostia, Rome’s port, portraits of the seven sages of ancient Greece were captioned with fart jokes.
There are, however, some signs that at least basic philosophical principles reached popular
audiences. Philosophers harangued crowds at street corners, clashed in public disputations,
and – very occasionally – immolated themselves on pyres at festivals.
The absent-minded philosopher was familiar enough to appear both in a late antique joke
book and a popular life of the fable-teller Aesop. Perhaps most tellingly, dozens of
Greek and Latin epitaphs, some associated with modest tombs, reference philosophical themes.
There is no way to quantify how widespread Stoic principles were in any given period or place.
But it seems clear that – even if a profound knowledge of texts and tenets was largely
confined to the elite – Stoic ethics became a buttress and burnishing of popular morality,
available for literary reference and rhetorical appeal. In this sense, as a recurring pattern in
the kaleidoscope of Roman thought, Stoicism was as persistent and ubiquitous as fate.
Check out my two other YouTube channels, Scenic Routes to the Past and Toldinstone Footnotes.
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enjoy my book, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants. Thanks for watching.