This sort of Socratic questioning forms part of an approach called “values clarification,” which has been around since the 1970s but has recently gone through a resurgence of popularity among therapists and researchers.30 By deeply reflecting on our values each day and attempting to describe them concisely, we can develop a clearer sense of direction in life. You might do this by posing questions to yourself such as:
• What’s ultimately the most important thing in life to you?
• What do you really want your life to stand for or represent?
• What do you want to be remembered for after you’re dead?
• What sort of person do you most want to be in life?
• What sort of character do you want to have?
• What would you want written on your tombstone?
These questions are similar to the well-known therapy technique of imagining the eulogies at your own funeral and asking yourself what, ideally, you would want people to remember you for. Think of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, who has a sort of moral epiphany after the Ghost of Christmas Future confronts him with a troubling vision of people reacting to his death and tombstone.
Another useful values clarification technique for students of Stoicism involves making two short lists in side-by-side columns headed “Desired” and “Admired”:
1. Desired. The things you most desire for yourself in life
2. Admired. The qualities you find most praiseworthy and admirable in other people
These two lists are, at first, virtually never identical. Why are they different, and how would your life change if you desired for yourself the qualities you find admirable in other people? As the Stoics might put it, what would happen if you were to make virtue your number one priority in life? The most important aspect of this values clarification exercise for Stoics would be to grasp the true nature of man’s highest good, to elucidate our most fundamental goal, and to live accordingly. Everything in Stoicism ultimately refers back to the goal of grasping the true nature of the good and living accordingly.
Once you clarify your core values, you can compare them to the Stoic cardinal virtues of wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. People find it surprisingly helpful to set aside even a few minutes per day to reflect deeply upon their values. Indeed, values clarification has become an integral part of modern evidence-based treatments for clinical depression. Clarifying our values and trying to live more consistently in accord with them can help us gain a greater sense of direction and meaning in life, leading to greater satisfaction and fulfillment. Try brainstorming small ways in which you can do things that satisfy your core values each day. Don’t be too ambitious; just begin with small changes. Then during your evening meditation, you might literally give yourself “marks out of ten for virtue,” or rather for living up to your core values. This will encourage you to think more deeply about ways you can progress toward embodying your values. Remember: the fundamental goal of life for Stoics, the highest good, is to act consistently in accord with reason and virtue.
In this chapter we’ve looked at the role Junius Rusticus played in Marcus’s life as a Stoic tutor and mentor: he persuaded Marcus, as a young Caesar, that he would benefit from moral training and Stoic therapy of the passions. We’ve reconstructed an account of Stoic therapy (therapeia) based on the description given by Marcus’s personal physician, Galen, which draws on Chrysippus’s lost Therapeutics, and combined this account with relevant passages from The Meditations.
We’ve also described how to benefit from similar practices today, whether or not you have a real mentor you can turn to. The mentor’s role can be seen in terms of modeling both behaviors and attitudes. You can use different writing and visualization exercises to simulate the Stoic process of mentoring. We’ve also seen how “The Golden Verses of Pythagoras” provided Galen, Seneca, and Epictetus with a framework for Stoic therapy by dividing the day into three stages: morning meditation, mindfulness during the day, and evening meditation.
We introduced the concept of values clarification from modern therapy. Reflecting upon and clarifying your core values can help combat depression and other emotional problems, especially once you make a consistent effort to live more in accord with your truest values each day. You can compare these values to the Stoic virtues and explore them from different perspectives by following the daily routine. Keep coming back to the question “What’s the most important thing in life?” Or, as the Stoics would say, “What is the true nature of the good?” Even setting aside a few minutes each day to clarify your values and do things that are consistent with them can be very beneficial. Remember: small changes of this kind can often have surprisingly large effects.
The ideas in this chapter will help you apply the many other Stoic concepts and techniques that you’re about to learn by providing you with a framework for your daily practice. This simple “learning cycle” alone, when used properly, will be enough for many people to see improvements in their character and emotional resilience, especially combined with their own reading and study of the Stoic texts. Self-scrutiny of this kind appears to have been an important aspect of training in ancient Stoicism. As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
4. THE CHOICE OF HERCULES
Marcus put his head in his hands and groaned. It wasn’t the devastation caused by the Antonine Plague or the growing threat of barbarian invasion from the North that made him despair for the future of Rome. Rather, it was a party thrown by his brother, Lucius Verus. Lucius and Marcus had always been quite different characters even though they ruled together, but as the years passed, their lives grew further apart. Whereas Marcus increasingly turned to philosophy as his guide, Lucius became notorious for being a hedonist and something of a hell-raiser.
The family ties of Roman nobles could be convoluted. Lucius was not only Marcus’s adoptive brother but also his son-in-law, having married Marcus’s daughter Lucilla. It was therefore said that Marcus looked on him more like a son than a brother. Upon being acclaimed emperor, Marcus’s first act had been to have Lucius appointed co-emperor to rule jointly with him, the first arrangement of its kind in Roman history. Lucius was given Marcus’s family name, Verus; formerly he had been known as Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus. Lucius was a handsome and charismatic young man who probably looked more comfortable than Marcus in the purple robes of an emperor.
[Lucius] Verus was well-proportioned in person and genial of expression. His beard was allowed to grow long, almost in the style of the barbarians; he was tall, and stately in appearance, for his forehead projected somewhat over his eyebrows. He took such pride in his yellow hair, it is said, that he used to sift gold-dust on his head in order that his hair, thus brightened, might seem even yellower.1
However, although Marcus and Lucius both held the title of emperor, Lucius was clearly subordinate to Marcus and obeyed him in a manner comparable to that of a provincial governor or an army lieutenant.