What did he talk about? Courage, and freedom, and that condition of the will that makes a man free—these were his main subjects. “He is free who lives as he wishes to live,” Epictetus says over and over; and how should you wish to live? Why, in such a way that no one can hinder you. And how is that? Desiring those things that are yours alone and that no one can take from you. Are there such things? Yes, one: the freedom of your own will. You can be deprived of everything you possess: your wealth, your wife and children, even your life. But you cannot be made to desire what you do not desire. You alone are able to corrupt your own will.
“Only consider at what price you sell your own will,” Epictetus warns; “if for no other reason, at least for this, that you sell it not for a small sum.” But do you have to sell it at all? Like Socrates, you can refuse and put your tormentors and executioners to shame. You will still die. Yes, none shall avoid that fate. It is better to live long and then die. But in the end, what is the price of this long life? Epictetus himself apparently lived to about eighty.
It is a hard doctrine, that “to study philosophy is to learn to die,” and hard men adhered to it, the noble Romans most of all. It is difficult not to admire them; not to know about their courage is to fail to know how good men can be. In reading Epictetus, ponder the relevance of his sayings to your own life. Pay attention to his admonitions about the will. The next time you justify a mean or cowardly action by saying, “I couldn’t help myself,” ask whether Epictetus would have accepted that explanation.
At the same time, ask yourself whether the Roman philosophy of Stoicism, of which Epictetus was one of the most eloquent spokesmen, is enough, whether it lacks something important. Why, for example, did the early Christians, who were all attracted to Stoicism, all without exception turn away from it and deny its teachings? Is it enough, to gain freedom, merely to desire only those things that no one can take away from you? Or is there not also a more positive aspect to freedom, a striving after goods, both human and divine, that requires a reaching out, a daring, and another kind of courage?
MARCUS AURELIUS
120–180
Meditations
Epictetus was a slave; Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor. Their philosophies were similar. In fact the emperor was a disciple and follower of the slave, living, as he did, only half a century after him. But for which of these two men was it more difficult to be free?
The answer is the emperor. It is harder for a ruler over all mankind to be free than for his meanest subject. The meanest subject might be imprisoned, might be hung in chains at the city gate; in another sense he would certainly not be free. But, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius agreed, in the most important sense of freedom such a prisoner might still be free, that is, his will might still be his own and not at the whim of another. The question is: Is it harder for an emperor or a slave to be free in this sense? It is harder for the emperor, because he lives in a palace and is subject to every temptation, can follow every whim. Perhaps there is not any greater slavery than that.
Epictetus, after he was exiled from Rome, went to Greece and taught philosophy. Marcus Aurelius had to remain at Rome and rule it. When the troubles started that, unknown to him, were the beginning of the fall of the Empire, he had to go where the troubles were and confront them, be they human disasters or natural ones like floods and earthquakes. His life, in short, was more subject than Epictetus’s was to necessity—but only because he was a good man and a good ruler; a bad one would have “fiddled,” like his predecessor Nero, while Rome burned.
It is curious and ironic that Marcus Aurelius, the best man among all Roman emperors, was beset with troubles that he could not control, while Nero, among the worst of men and emperors, handed down to his successors a relatively thriving state. After all, such ironies may be the best confirmation of the value of the Stoic philosophy. If we cannot control the world in which we live—and certainly we cannot—then we should learn to live with that fact and content ourselves with controlling what is in our power. And the only thing that is within our power is our own will.
We do not read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius to learn the Stoic doctrine, which is better stated in the Discourses of Epictetus. We read Marcus Aurelius instead for the light he throws upon his own life and upon the life that must be led by a man such as himself, who was responsible for the peace, safety, and prosperity of all mankind (as he saw it). We read him and are touched by his weakness, which he is very frank to confess. (Probably he never expected anyone to read these private thoughts, which he put down while in his tent, at night, awaiting a battle or resting up from one.) There were even days when he did not want to get out of bed:
In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present—I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?—But this is more pleasant.—Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action and exertion?
We read him, too, for his good advice. Every once in a while, he tells us, when you are doing this or that unpleasant task, “pause and ask yourself, if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of this.” And we remember his famous injunction, “to live every day as if it were your last.”
Most of all, we are curious about what it is like to be an emperor, to be rich beyond limit, powerful beyond limit. Very few men, or women, have handled absolute power and riches well. Marcus Aurelius did. He was acutely aware of the problems of power and he contemplated what was, for him, the greatest obstacle to his living a good life. In the first book of the Meditations he speaks of the good fortune that gave him the strength to overcome his—good fortune! It is a famous and beautiful passage of which I shall quote a small part:
To the gods I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good … Further, I am thankful to the gods that I was not longer brought up with my grandfather’s concubine and that I preserved the flower of my youth, and that I did not make proof of my virility before the proper season but even deferred the time; (and) that I was subjected to a ruler and a father who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace without wanting either guards or embroidered dresses, or torches and statues, and such-like show; but that it is in such a man’s power to bring himself very near to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner in thought, or more remiss in action, with respect to the things which must be done for the public interest in a manner that befits a ruler.