Would Vespasian hold Musonius’s service to Vitellius against him? Would he be exiled once more? Or finally killed for his association with the Stoic threat? None of these considerations had stopped Musonius from trying. None of it would break his commitment to what was right.
This commitment to justice, as it had for Cato, played no favorites. Not long after escaping with his life from the civil conflict between Vitellius and Vespasian, Musonius engaged in civil conflict of his own, in this case against a fellow Stoic. Sometime around 70 AD, he undertook the prosecution of Publius Egnatius Celer, who had been an informant for Nero about other Stoics and contributed to the execution of one named Barea Soranus. It was an epic case that pitted Musonius not only against a Stoic traitor, but also against Demetrius the Cynic, who chose to represent Celer.
It was a hard-won victory for justice, in a time where such a thing had become rare. A remaining fragment from Musonius captures why he would have pursued such a case. “If one accomplishes some good though with toil, the toil passes, but the good remains,” he said. “If one does something dishonorable with pleasure, the pleasure passes, but the dishonor remains.”
We must do the right thing, no matter how difficult, Musonius was saying. A Stoic must avoid doing the wrong thing, even if the reward for it is great.
Musonius must have known that justice against Celer would come at a cost. No matter the verdict, to attack an informant of an emperor—even one as reviled as Nero—was a risky move. Perhaps wishing to be rid of the Stoics entirely, a year or so later Vespasian would issue a blanket banishment to all philosophers. Although Musonius was originally exempted, he would not long after be exiled personally by Vespasian for a term of three years.
The good Musonius had done remained while he himself was sent away.
For what? We do not know, but it is fitting, because Musonius would have shrugged off the reasons anyway. Was he angry? He certainly deserved to be. Now, for the third time, he was being driven away from his home, returning to life as a refugee, and why? Because a despot decreed he must?
Even this, Musonius found a way to be philosophical about. Another surviving fragment gives us a sense of his view: “What indictment can we make against tyrants when we ourselves are much worse than they? For we have the same impulses as theirs but not the same opportunity to indulge them.”
Or perhaps he recalled how his exile had gone before and the good that had come from it. “Do not be irked by difficult circumstances,” he once said, “but reflect on how many things have already happened to you in life in ways that you did not wish, and yet they have turned out for the best.”
Once again in Syria, far away from home, Musonius held court and taught. Once again, he did what a Stoic seeks to always do: make the best of a bad situation.
He might not have been able to reach or help the deranged sovereigns who controlled Rome, but he did find willing royal students abroad. In a lecture, That Kings Also Should Study Philosophy, Musonius refers offhandedly to a Syrian king whom he advised.* Just as comfortable lecturing freed slaves as he was the grandson of Herod the Great, Musonius kept his teachings the same no matter how powerful or powerless his students. As he had learned from his own struggles, there is no position so high or so low that it is not improved by the four virtues: justice, temperance, wisdom, and courage.
“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.