“What We Do In Life Echoes in Eternity” part II
October 4, 2009 – 5:29 pmPart 2 of 3… Part I
EPICTETUS: Nero’s court favorites included Seneca, Petronius, Tigellis (who was the undoing of both), and the freedman Epaphroditus, who killed the master of the world. This freedman bought a crippled slave, who, in the time after Nero’s death, was sent to hear the Stoic philosopher Rufius teach. This was Epictetus, whose Discourses and “Enchreidiron” (or, Manual) are still read today. Like Socrates, he wrote nothing; like Socrates, he had a Xenophon (8.) who did. Arrian, a young aristocrat, undertook to set down his precepts as he heard them, and preserve them for posterity.
Epictetus taught that reliance on externals inevitably leads to disappointment. We cannot control externals, which leads to our desires and aversions being affronted, as we think, by Chance and Fortune. A man does well to pay things outside of himself no heed; then they will do him no harm.
The life which is implicated with fortune is like a
winter torrent: for it is turbulent, and full of mud,
and difficult to cross, and tyrannical, and noisy, and
of short duration.
-Epictetus, Fragments, I.
No man is free who is not master of himself.
-Fragments, CXIV
Of things, some are in our power, and others are not.
-Encheiridion, I.
From the above we can see that the goal of a Stoic is to live in conformity to what is, and to be ruled by Reason, not passion. These words ring more true on the lips of a crippled slave than from a Senator, Emperor, or anyone for whom philosophy might be a parlor game. Epictetus is reputed to have survived to a great age, and perhaps to have lived into the reign of Hadrian.
MARCUS AURELIUS: Hadrian, following the practice of his immediate predecessors, named his successor; he did something novel in naming his successor’s heir as well. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, chosen for the Principate, was 17 years old at Trajan’s death. Not wishing to bequeath Empire to one too young, prudence informed Hadrian’s judgement and the elderly but respected Antoninus, surnamed Pius, prominent Senator, was chosen as a stand-in Emperor, to succeed Hadrian for a few years, until Marcus was ready for power.
Prudence also dictated the training of a prince for responsibility, which Hadrian undertook, and Antoninus Pius completed. The Meditations of this most famous Stoic are begun with a chapter thanking the people who influenced his life and conduct. Fronto, the most famous teacher of his generation, tutored the Emperor-to-be, endeavoring to make Plato’s philosopher-king come into being in him. The Emperors, in their turn, were his schoolmasters in the conduct of the government of the civilized world. Junius Rusticus acquainted the younger Antoninus with the Discourses of Epictetus, with whom Marcus shared the same comprehension of the Stoic doctrine.
Marcus Aurelius called the Universe the ‘universal substance,’ and believed it governed by Reason. He so endeavored to conduct his administration that it conformed to Reason as the latter did to the Universe governed thereby. Taking the reins of power in middle age, (Antoninus Pius having lived 23 years beyond Hadrian’s death) with a coregent in Lucius Verus, heading an Empire then at the zenith of it’s prestige, the horizon must have looked bright indeed. Gibbon said of the period which closed with Marcus’ death:
In the second century of the Christian era the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of
the earth and the most civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy
were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle but powerful influence of
laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. …During a happy
period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and
abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. (12)
The era remembered as the fairest in Western history drew to close with Marcus at the helm. Fortune is nothing to a Stoic; nothing lasts forever. Declining population, lax morals – byproduct of long years of peace and prosperity, Parthian and barbarian invasions, the blows of Fortune cannot be laid at Marcus’ feet. He did his able best to meet the danger; he was aided by the best men that the time could offer. So much as the danger was, he met, and left his successor the Empire intact, if not as vigorous as he found it.
Marcus’ policy has been remembered for three defects: enrolling slaves and barbarians in the Legions (perhaps out of necessity), which was later to prove the source of turmoil for other Emperors; the persecution of Christians, an indelible stain on an otherwise morally upright character; and choosing his son as successor. The latter is the crisis that we will examine. Commodus, child of Marcus and Empress Fausta, was given every advantage that birth, wealth, learning and example could bestow upon his mind and spirit. His nature was such that all the nurturing of a busy father, who spent nearly his entire Principate in war on the frontiers of the empire, and all the teachers and councilors in his stead, could not counteract the cruel, greedy, narcissistic nature of the youth. (Fausta was subject of scandal-mongers in the ancient world, and was reputed to be a dissolute, lustful, vile woman, but Marcus affirmed her virtue, and thanked the gods for a wife of such modesty, in Book I of the Meditations.) Whatever the source of his ill disposition, it was apparent long before Marcus’ passing. Marcus’ own writings on the subject of duty abound:
From Anthisthenes: It is royal to do good and to be abused.
-Meditations, VII: 36
The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being
neither violently excited, nor torpid, nor playing the hypocrite.
-Meditations, VII: 69
It is thy duty to leave another man’s wrongful act there where it is.
-Meditations, IX: 20
To look for a fig in winter is a madman’s act: such is he who looks for his child when it is no longer
allowed (Epictetus, iii. 24, 87).
-Meditations, XI: 33
It is clear that Marcus believed that his duty was to see things as they were, not as he wished for them to be. In looking for a successor in Commodus, he sought in vain for that fig in winter. He must have known that he was taking up his child’s wrongful acts and laying them upon the people he ruled. The philosopher could not but have informed the father that his son wanted the perfection of moral character which consists in being neither violently excited, nor torpid, yet the father ignored this, and in so doing, played the hypocrite.
Gibbon reports that the dozen years of Commodus’ misrule were, like Nero’s, unseasonably mild at the beginning, and for the same reason: councilors whose fading respect in the eyes of the youthful prince bought a short time for just government (13). An unsuccessful assassination attempt instigated by his sister Lucillia, widow of Lucius Verus, broke the spell of his father’s virtue, example, and advisors; the impressionable mind was finally and permanently unbalanced, and any hopes for a break with his profligate youth were dashed. The rest is, as they say, history.
One can only wonder why things did not turn out differently. The example of Hadrian, who adopted Antoninus Pius as de facto regent-Emperor until Marcus was ‘of age’ was before him. With age (59) creeping up on him, with ¨self-exhortations to live each day as the last and to be ever-ready for death, and at the head of an army in far-off places, exposed to enemy and elements, why didn’t Marcus take caution for the future? Roman private law provides for a man to name a ‘tutor’ over his estate; agnatic succession to the office of paterfamilias was legally specified. Why would a man whose estate was the fairest portion of the world not take the time to do so much as name an executor to his estate, until
such time as the heir was of legal age? Pertinax might have lasted more than three months had he succeeded Marcus, and not Commodus. For not obeying the dictates of his philosophy, let alone his common sense, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus must be judged a failure in the principle crisis of his life. Mitigating circumstances, like Faustia’s influence, a lack of evidence for the bloodthirstiness which showed itself later, etc., are just that: mitigating. They cannot erase the fact that the philosopher-king left the sceptre of the world knowingly to an unworthy son.
…To be continued.
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