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

This time, the Christian would be the brave one. “No one who is right thinking stoops from true worship to false worship,” Justin replied. And in so doing, chose to die for what he believed in rather than compromise and live.

Holding the immense power of the state in his hands, Rusticus chose to use it. “Let those who have refused to sacrifice to the gods and to obey the command of the emperor,” he ordered, “be scourged and led away to suffer capital punishment according to the ruling of the laws.”

In the name of Marcus Aurelius, at the order of Rusticus, this poor man was sent off to be cruelly beaten, whipped until the skin was torn from his body, and then beheaded.*

It would be a stain on two otherwise flawless reputations.

Even if Justin had been totally and indisputably wrong on this matter of religion, might the Stoics instead have considered that idea of sympatheia, which dated back to Zeno and Chrysippus? How could they have forgotten that we are all part of one large body, each with our own role, our own part to play? Marcus Aurelius would write beautifully that even the misinformed, even the selfish, even the shameless and stupid fit in that equation, and that we shouldn’t be surprised when we meet them. It would have been an idea he and Rusticus had discussed countless times.

Was a world of one hundred percent agreement on anything possible? Wasn’t it inevitable that some people would dissent, particularly on matters of religion? What was so shocking about the existence of the occasional heretic? What if—gasp—the heretic knew something you didn’t? What if most people, even the disruptive ones, were genuinely sincere in whatever they were doing?

Okay, Rusticus might have told himself as he presided over Justin’s trial, this man is one of those people who must exist in the world. Let me slap him on the wrist and let him go. But he didn’t. He was too lost in the black-and-whiteness of the legal case in front of him: Justin was refusing to comply with sacrificial ordinances, a daily practice in Roman life. This was civil disobedience and the law was clear. So he ordered one of the most famous executions in Christian history in 165 AD.

But only in retrospect.

This “martyrdom” was barely notable at the time. Rome was in the middle of the Parthian War and a conflict with Germanic tribes on the border was bubbling up. A plague was ravaging the empire. Millions would die. A death sentence for one lawbreaker would not seem like the kind of thing that history would remember.

History is like that. Just as the unremarkable decision to hand Marcus Aurelius a book would have outsize consequences, so too would this tiny case, which probably seemed at the time to be utterly indistinguishable from hundreds of others.

Just as it did not occur to the Stoics to question the institution of slavery, true religious freedom was an utterly inconceivable concept. But to martyr oneself for one cause, to refuse to compromise even under the threat of death? This should have been at least begrudgingly respected by someone as well versed in Stoicism as Rusticus.

Sadly, he could not do so. All he saw was a threat to the public order, a threat to his power. It was, ironically, the same thing that had motivated a paranoid emperor to kill Rusticus’s grandfather.

Duty-bound, Rusticus had done what he believed he had needed to do. Justin Martyr, the same. For the former’s failure to see a bigger picture, he would be a villain to millions of Christians for the rest of history. The latter, the victim, inspires the persecuted to this day.

In 168 AD, Junius left his position as urban prefect. Within two years he would be dead. Even as Marcus waged a brutal war hundreds of miles from Rome, he took the time to order the Senate to confer honors over his longtime teacher and friend, with whom he’d closely spent nearly half of his life. The Historia Augusta says that statues to Rusticus were placed around Rome—honoring a man not given to arguments, spectacles, or sermons, but only to the training of his character and public duty.

But the real monument to Rusticus—outshining even his own infamous court case—would be found in the life of the student he trained, the Stoic who would, finally, be king.

MARCUS AURELIUSTHE PHILOSOPHER KING (Marcus Au-REE-lee-us)

Origin: Rome

B. 121 AD

D. 180 AD

Since Plato, it had been the dream of wise men that one day there might be such a thing as a philosopher king. Although the Stoics had been close to power for centuries, none of them had come close to wielding supreme command themselves. Time and time again they had hoped the new emperor would be better, that this one would listen, that this one would put the people before his own needs. Each one would prove, sadly, that absolute power corrupts absolutely.