Philosophy as a way of life

Marcus differs the least from Epictetus in his presentation of the third theme, the discipline of assent. The discipline Marcus imposes on himself relates, however, not only to the inner logos - that is, to the assent we give to our representations (phantasia1) - but also to the outer logos; that is, our manner of expressing ourselves.1111• Herc, the fundamental virtue is that of truth, understood as rectitude of thought and speech. Lies, even when involuntary, arc the result of the deformation of our faculty of judgment.107

When formulating the triple rule of life, Marcus also likes to insist on the fact that we must concentrate on the prese111 moment: the present representation, the present action, and the present inner disposition (whether of desire or of aversion).

We find nothing of the sort in Epictetus, yet Marcus' attitude here is in complete accord with the fundamental Stoic attitude of attention (prosoche) as directed toward the present moment. 'Oii Nothing must escape the vigilance of consciousness: neither our relationship to destiny and the way of the world - this is the discipline of desire - nor our relationship with our fellow men (discipline of the active will), nor, finally, our relationship to ourselves (discipline of assent).

Elsewhere, Marcus links the three philosophical exercises to their corresponding virtues. We thus have the following schema: Discipline

Corresponding virtue

Of desire

Temperance (sophro�J'1fe); absence of worries (al<1rtu·ia) Of inclinations

Justice (dikaitJ�J'llt')

Of assent

Truth (11/etl1ei<1); 11hi;cncc of hurry (t1prt1ptosi11).

Marcus Aurelius

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Marcus enumerates the three virtues corresponding to the three disciplines in the following terms: "Absence of hurry, love of our fellow-men, obedience to the gods." 109

This vocabulary is totally absent from Epictetus' Discourses. How are we to explain these differences in the way Marcus and Epictetus present the three fundamental exercises of philosophy?

In the first place, it seems certain that Marcus possessed more information about Epictetus' teachings than we do today. In the first book of his Meditations,1 10 Marcus tells us that he came to know the writings of Epictetus thanks to Quintus Junius Rusticus, a statesman who had taught Marcus the fundamentals of Stoic doctrine before going on to become one of his counsellors. Marcus states that Rusticus loaned him his personal copy of Epictetus' hypomnemata; that is, a book of notes taken down at his classes.

This statement can be interpreted in two ways:

The book in question could be a copy of the work by Arrian. In the prefatory letter he placed at the beginning of his edition of Epictetus'

Discourses, Arrian himself describes his work as a collection of hypomnemata: Whatever I heard him say, I tried to write down, using his very words as far as possible, so that I should have in the future some "notes intended to help me remember" [hypomnemata] of his thought and his frankness. As was to be expected, these notes often have the appearance of an improvised, spontaneous conversation between two men, not such as one would write if he was expecting them to be read one day. 11 1

Now, Arrian had come to attend the classes o f Epictetus sometime between AD 107 and 1 09. His prefatory letter to Lucius Gellius was probably written after Epictetus' death, some time between 1 25 and 1 30, and the Discourses themselves were published ca. AD 1 30. Aulus Gellius recountsl lZ

that, in the year he spent studying at Athens - around AD 1 40 he had

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been present at a discussion in the course of which the famous millionaire Herod Atticus had brought to him from a library a copy of what Gellius refers to as the dissertationes of Epictetus, arrangei:l (digestae) by Arrian. He also tells how, on the way from Cassiopeia to Brindisium, he came across a philosopher who had a copy of the same work in his baggage. This shows that is was at least possible that Marcus read a copy of this book, which had been loaned to him by Rusticus.

2 We might also consider another suggestion, which has already been proposed by Farquharson. What Rusticus loaned to Marcus, on this hypothesis, would have been Rusticus' own notes, which he himself had taken durinic Epictetus' lectures. From the chronological point of view, if we Rl'1111t 1 h11 t l•:11i,•1ct us died between AD 1 25 and 1 30, and if Rusticus was

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