Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living From Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

There is no theme that appears more in Marcus’s writing than death. Perhaps it was his own health issues that made him so acutely aware of his mortality, but there were other sources. In his book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, Donald Robertson tells us that the Romans believed the burning of incense might protect a family from falling ill. Since he did not flee Rome as many other wealthy citizens did during the plague, Marcus woke up to a surreal-smelling city—a mixture of the putrid smell of dead bodies and the sweet aroma of incense. As Robertson writes, “For over a decade the scent of smoke of incense [was] a reminder to Marcus that he was living under the shadow of death and that survival from one day to the next should never be taken for granted.”

His writings reflect this insight, time and time again. “Think of yourself as dead,” he writes. “You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.” On another page he says, “You could leave life right now, let that determine what you do and say and think.” The final two entries in Meditations, which may well have been written as he lay dying, pick up the theme again. What does it matter if you live for this long or that long? he asks. The curtain falls on every actor. “But I’ve only gotten three acts!” he says, giving voice to that part inside all of us that is scared to die.

Yes. This will be a drama in three acts, the length fixed by the power that directed your creation, and now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine. So make your exit with grace—the same grace shown to you.

To do this would be the final test of this philosopher king, as it was for each of the Stoics and every human being. We all die, we don’t control that, but we do influence how we face that death, the courage and poise and compassion we bring to it.

We’re told that Marcus was quite sick toward the end, far away from home on the Germanic battlefields, near modern-day Vienna. Worried about spreading whatever he had to his son, and also to avoid any complications about succession, Marcus bade him a tearful goodbye and sent him away to prepare to rule. Even with his own end moments away he was still teaching, still trying to be a philosopher, particularly to his friends, who were bereft with grief. “Why do you weep for me,” Marcus asked them, “instead of thinking about the pestilence and about death which is the common lot of us all?” Then, with the dignity of a man who had practiced for this moment many times, he said, “If you now grant me leave to go, I bid you farewell and pass on before.”

He would survive a day or so more. Perhaps it was in these last few moments, weak in body but still strong in will, that he jotted down the last words that appear in his Meditations—a reminder to himself about staying true to his philosophy:

So make your exit with grace—the same grace shown to you.

Finally, on March 17, 180, at age fifty-eight, he turned to his guard and said, “Go to the rising sun; I am already setting.” Then he covered his head to go to sleep and never woke up.

Rome—and us, her descendants—would never see such greatness again.

CONCLUSION

A hundred years before Zeno, in what is now known as Pericles’s “Funeral Oration,” the great Athenian statesman set out to mourn the loss of so many thousands of his brave countrymen. As he struggled to find the words to express their sacrifice and heroism, he reminded the grieving people of Athens that the glory of the dead was not in their accomplishments or in the monuments that would be erected in their honor, but in the legacy of what they had done for their country. It was their memory, what they inspired, which was “woven into the lives of others.” Many centuries later, Jackie Robinson would express the idea even more succinctly. “A life is not important,” his tombstone reads, “except in the impact it has on other lives.”

So it goes for the Stoics whose lives we have just detailed, men and women whose influence not only continues to this day, but shaped the lives of the other men and women in this book.

Zeno, driven by shipwreck to philosophy, and thus creating a school that has stood for nearly twenty-five hundred years . . .

Cleanthes, whose hard work and frugality quite literally supported Zeno and his studies . . .

Chrysippus, who cleaned up and codified so many of the early Stoic theories . . .

Cato, whose martyrdom did not save the Republic but inspired Seneca, Thrasea, and Agrippinus when they faced their own deaths, and eventually and most powerfully inspired the American revolutionaries to create their own republic in his image . . .

Porcia, who encouraged her husband to strike a blow against tyranny . . .

Rusticus, who passed that copy of Epictetus to Marcus Aurelius . . .

Musonius Rufus, who taught Epictetus in the first place . . .