And if the elements themselves suffer nothing by this, their perpetual conversion of one into another, that dissolution, and alteration, which is so common to them all, why should it be feared by any man? Is this not according to Nature? But nothing that is according to Nature can be evil.3
It must be nearing dawn outside but I can no longer tell. My eyes have grown so feeble, surrounded by darkness on every side. I won’t live to see another sunrise. It doesn’t matter.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Stephen Hanselman and Tim Bartlett for their support and advice with regard to this book. I’d also like to thank my colleagues in the Modern Stoicism organization for sharing their ideas with me over the years and for helping me to arrive at my interpretation of Stoicism.
NOTES
I’ve normally used quotes from Robin Hard’s translation of The Meditations, but in some cases I’ve replaced these with my own translations from the Greek or modified them. INTRODUCTION
1. Spinoza, On the Improvement of the Understanding, 4–5.
2. Plato, Apology, trans. G. M. A. Grube, in Plato: Collected Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), 30b.
3. Beck, Rush, Shaw, and Emery, Cognitive Therapy of Depression, 8.
4. Meditations, 10.16.
1: THE DEAD EMPEROR
1. Watson, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 96.
2. Meditations, 10.31.
3. Historia Augusta, 28.5.
4. Meditations, 10.36.
5. Cassius Dio, 72.34.
6. Diogenes Laertius, 7.1.4.
2: THE MOST TRUTHFUL CHILD IN ROME
1. Historia Augusta, 4.1.
2. Historia Augusta, 15.13.
3. Discourses, 3.23.
4. Meditations, 1.3.
5. Meditations, 8.9; 6.12; 5.16.
6. Meditations, 1.7.
7. Meditations, 5.33.
8. Meditations, 1.5.
9. Meditations, 1.6.
10. Meditations, 7.19.
11. Meditations, 1.17; 6.30.
12. Fronto, Letters, in Meditations (trans. Hard).
13. Fronto, Letters, in Meditations (trans. Hard).
14. Historia Augusta, 10.4.
15. Meditations, 1.8.
16. Fronto, Letters, in Meditations (trans. Hard).
17. On Anger, 2.3–4.
18. Letters, 53.
19. On the Constancy of the Sage, 10.4.
20. Meditations, 7.17.
21. Meditations, 5.26.
22. Meditations, 9.29; 4.51.
23. Meditations, 9.1.
24. Meditations, 3.5; 3.11.
25. Discourses, 3.8.
26. Discourses, 3.8.
27. Handbook, 45.
28. Meditations, 8.49.
29. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 187–88.
30. Discourses, 3.8.
31. Handbook, 45.
32. Beck, Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders.
33. Epictetus, Fragment 21 in Discourses, books 3–4: Fragments, Handbook.
34. Handbook, 5.
35. Alford and Beck, Integrative Power of Cognitive Therapy, 142.
3: CONTEMPLATING THE SAGE
1. Galen, Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul’s Passions.
2. Meditations, 6.12.
3. Themistius, “In Reply to Those Who Found Fault with Him for Accepting Public Office,” Oration 34, in Robert J. Penella, The Private Orations of Themistius (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
4. Meditations, 11.29.
5. Handbook, 46.
6. Fronto, Letters, in Meditations (trans. Hard).
7. Meditations, 6.14.
8. Meditations, 1.13.
9. Meditations, 1.10.
10. Meditations, 8.30.
11. Meditations, 1.9; 5.28; Discourses, 2.12.
12. Meditations, 8.61.
13. Meditations, 6.21.
14. Galen, Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul’s Passions.
15. Meditations, 12.4; 3.4; 10.1; 3.7.
16. Galen, Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul’s Passions.
17. Handbook, 38.
18. Meditations, 8.32.
19. Meditations, 7.7.
20. Meditations, 11.26; 4.38.
21. Meditations, 6.48.
22. Meditations, 1.16; 6.30.
23. Meditations, 6.30.
24. Meditations, 3.4.
25. Meditations, 3.8.
26. Meditations, 11.27; 5.1; 2.1.
27. Discourses, 3.10.
28. Meditations, 4.46.
29. Meditations, 5.11.
30. Simon, Howe, and Kirschenbaum, Values Clarification, 1972.
4: THE CHOICE OF HERCULES
1. Historia Augusta.
2. Meditations, 1.17.
3. Lucian, Philosophies for Sale.
4. Discourses, 1.16 (slightly modified).
5. Meditations, 7.3.
6. Fronto, Letters, in Meditations (trans. Hard), 16.
7. Meditations, 11.22.
8. Meditations, 3.16; 7.68.
9. Meditations, 10.12.
10. Meditations, 9.16.
11. Meditations, 6.7.
12. Meditations, 7.28; 6.48; 7.27.
13. Meditations, 3.16.
14. Meditations, 10.33.
15. Meditations, 8.2.
16. Baudouin and Lestchinsky, The Inner Discipline, 48.
17. Meditations, 10.29.
18. Meditations, 11.2.
19. Meditations, 6.13.
20. Meditations, 6.13.
21. Meditations, 1.17.
22. Meditations, 6.13.
23. Meditations, 8.39.
5: GRASPING THE NETTLE
1. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 72.34.
2. Meditations, 1.17.
3. Fronto to Marcus, Letter 9.
4. Fronto to Marcus, Letter 22.
5. Marcus to Fronto, Letter 8.
6. Meditations, 1.17.
7. Meditations, 3.7; 1.9.
8. Meditations, 1.15.
9. Meditations, 1.16; 6.30.
10. Epicurus, quoted in Meditations, 9.41.
11. Meditations, 9.41.
12. Meditations, 7.33.
13. Meditations, 7.64 (my italics).
14. Meditations, 7.64.
15. Handbook, 9.
16. Meditations, 7.43.