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

“The ruin of the ruler and the citizen alike,” Musonius told him, “is wantonness.” And so he spoke to this king at length about the power of self-control, the danger of excess, and the need for justice. These were things that he had experienced firsthand. In fact, it was these exact deficiencies in the parade of incompetent emperors that had brought him to Syria in the first place, so his lessons must have been convincing and deeply personal. No doubt the king listened with the rapt silence that Musonius had long ago defined as the sign of a student whose mind was being blown. “Is it possible for anyone to be a good king unless he is a good man?” Musonius asked. “No, it is not possible. But given a good man, would he not be entitled to be called a philosopher? Most certainly, since philosophy is the pursuit of ideal good.”

When Musonius wrapped up his lectures, the young king was spellbound, and unlike those Roman emperors who had been so cruel to Musonius, he was grateful. As a thanks, he offered him anything—wealth, power, pleasure—that it was in his power to offer. “The only favor I ask of you,” Musonius replied, “is to remain faithful to this teaching, since you find it commendable, for in this way and no other will you best please me and benefit yourself.”

Eventually, Musonius was recalled from exile by Vespasian’s son Titus in 78 AD. Within a year, Titus was emperor, and within three, he was dead. His successor, Domitian, was another king who could have listened to the lessons Musonius had given the Syrian king. Instead Domitian chose to be violent, ruthless, and paranoid. Musonius persevered—now taking Epictetus on as a student and training him to become an equally formidable Stoic teacher.

Yet once again, an emperor had the Stoics in his sights. Eventually, in 93 AD, Domitian ordered a death sentence for Arulenus Rusticus for his support of Thrasea many years earlier. He murdered the son of Helvidius Priscus. He then killed Epaphroditus, the former slave who had owned Epictetus and helped Nero kill himself twenty-five years earlier. Domitian even banished every philosopher from Rome, including Epictetus.

If Musonius was still alive by this point, it would have marked his fourth exile. Whether he survived until this final trial of fate or had died shortly beforehand, we don’t know. Considering the murderous tyrants he had lived under, it is incredible that he survived this long—into his seventies or eighties. Countless people and situations had conspired to break him, but each had failed. He was repeatedly deprived of his country, he said, but no one would take away his “ability to endure exile.”

No one can take away our ability to remain undaunted. Which is why Musonius was committed to what he believed up until he drew his last breath, wherever he drew it—in Rome or on whatever rock he was sent to.

“Philosophy is nothing else than to search out by reason what is right and proper and by deeds put it into practice.” Rufus had said this, but more important he had lived it. As an exile. As a teacher. As a husband and father, and finally as a dying man. However old he lived to be, simple longevity had never been Musonius’s goal. “Since the Fates have spun out the lot of death for all alike,” one of his fragments explains, “he is blessed who dies not late but well.”

Undoubtedly, whenever the end did come for Musonius, he was ready, and ready to die well. The man who had witnessed the end of so many other Stoics, who had advised them in some cases to go when it was their time and others to hold on because they still had work to do, would have known that eventually his number would come up. He had tried to live that way, saying, “It is not possible to live well today unless one thinks of it as his last.”

Now his number was up and Musonius passed—an inspiration to all of us—from this earth with the same dignity and poise with which he had faced all the adversity in his life.

EPICTETUS THE FREE MAN (Epic-TEE-tuss)

Origin: Hierapolis

B. 55 AD

D. 135 AD

There are the Stoics who talked about what it means to be free, and then there is Epictetus.

For nearly half a millennium, from Zeno to Thrasea, these philosophers had written about freedom. They had resisted tyrannical governments and they had faced the prospect of exile. Yet one cannot help but feel the privilege dripping from most of their writings.

Most of these men were rich. They were famous. They were powerful.

Cato was. Zeno had been. Posidonius and Panaetius never had to work a day in their lives.

So when each spoke about freedom, they meant it abstractly. They were not literally in chains. While Seneca would speak, with surprising relatability, about slave owners who became owned themselves by the responsibility and management of their slaves, or other Stoics would congratulate themselves for their humane treatment of their human chattel, Epictetus actually was one.

Freedom was not a metaphor for this Stoic philosopher. It was his daily battle.