a file in the online version of the kouroo contexture ... · the emperor hadrian adopted antoninus...

MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS

“As the earth is a pinpoint in infinite space, so the life of man is a pinpoint in infinite time — a knife-edge between eternities.” — Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONES

By this point the rise of Alexandria and the growth of Roman power had overshadowed the political and economic importance of the Greek city states. Athens was no longer the philosophical center of the Mediterranean world. The Stoics were still being attracted to their Stoa there, but were coming there from elsewhere. Zeno had come to the Stoa in Athens from Citium on Cyprus, and had been succeeded by Cleanthes from Assos in Asia Minor and Chrysippus from Soli in Asia Minor. The Late Stoa would be entirely Roman, featuring such names as Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The rich scholar Panaetius of Rhodes, who had studied under Crates the Stoic at the library of Pergamum, became a student of Diogenes of Sinope in Athens but then passed on to the capital city of the Mediterranean world, Rome, where he and Scipio the Younger were at the center of a circle of philosophical admirers. After the death of Scipio, he had assumed leadership of the Stoic school and had returned to the Stoa in Athens for the final two decades of his life. His most illustrious student had been Posidonius of Apamea, a city in northern Syria, who died during this year on the island of Rhodes near the southwestern tip of Turkey.

50 BCE

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2 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith

MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS MARCUS AURELIUS

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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who would succeed the Emperor Antonius Pius, was born in Rome.

The Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE) visited England and, to contain the Highlanders (Picts), ordered the construction of Hadrian’s Wall from the Firth of Forth to the mouth of the Clyde.

121 CE

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“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3

MARCUS AURELIUS MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS

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Hyginus (138?-142 CE), a Greek philosopher from Athens, is listed as a Papa of Rome. During his reign (140 CE) the Christian Gnostic Church leaders Valentinus of Egypt and Cerdo of Syria came to Rome.

The Emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius and had Antonius Pius adopt Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (age 17) and Lucius Verus. The Emperor Hadrian died and was succeeded by Antoninus Pius.

At this point (according to the tradition) Juvenal, who had been born (according to the tradition) in 55 CE, although aged, was still alive:

“The precise details of the author’s life cannot be securelyreconstructed based on presently available evidence.”

The only actual evidence is a dedicatory inscription said to have been recovered in conjunction with the writings during the 19th Century at Aquinum:

The problem with the above is that since the Dalmatian legions had not existed prior to 166 CE, the Junius being spoken of would have been not the poet himself but another member of his family bearing that name.

138 CE

...]RI·SACRVM

...]NIVS·IVVENALIS

...] COH·[.]·DELMATARVMII·VIR·QVINQ·FLAMENDIVI·VESPASIANIVOVIT·DEDICAV[...]UESVA PEC

CERE]RI·SACRVMD(ECIMVS) IV]NIVS·IVVENALISTRIB(VNVS)] COH(ORTIS)·[I]·DELMATARVMII·VIR·QVINQ(VENNALIS)·FLAMENDIVI·VESPASIANIVOVIT·DEDICAV[ITQ]UESVA PEC(VNIA)

To Ceres (this) sacred (thing)

(Decimus Junius?) Juvenalis

military tribune of the 1st cohort of the Dalmatian (legions)

Duovir, Quinquennalis, Flamen

of the Divine Vespasian

vowed and dedicated

at his own expense

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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was betrothed to the Emperor Antoninus’s daughter Annia Galeria Faustina.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and the Emperor Antoninus’s daughter Annia Galeria Faustina got married.

139 CE

145 CE

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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was given the powers indicating his position as heir to the throne. At about this point he abandoned rhetoric philosophy for the Stoic philosophy.

The Emperor Antoninus Pius died and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus became Emperor. He requested that the Roman Senate appoint Lucius Aurelius Verus as his co-Emperor:

From this point until 180 CE, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius would be recording MEDITATIONES, presumably as part of his own spiritual discipline rather than for any sort of audience.

“As the earth is a pinpoint in infinite space, so the life of man is a pinpoint in infinite time — a knife-edge between eternities.” — Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONES

146 CE

161 CE

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Lucius Verus ruled from161 CE to 166 or 169 CE.



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The Parthians invaded Syria. Yet another battle involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Ctesiphon and Seleucia the legions of Gaius Avidius Cassius defeated the Parthians, creating the Pax Romana. During the Roman Triumph celebration after defeating the Parthians, Commodus (5-year-old son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius) was proclaimed a Caesar.

Soter, an Italian from the Campania, was listed as Papa of Rome (until 174 CE). As a compromise, Easter would become firmly established during his reign as had been previously recommended by the Asia Minor Churches, albeit not on Nisan 14 during Passover as they had recommended per the Jewish tradition but on the Sunday following. Soter papa of Rome dispatched a letter with gifts to the Corinthian Church, Dionysius papa of Corinth agreed to read his letter at service.

Roman merchants in search of a better price for spices and silk (then worth at least more than their weight in

166 CE

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gold) sailed east from Sri Lanka to reach south China and the Mekong Delta. Marcus Aurelius sent an embassy to China. Meanwhile, other Romans returning home from wars against the Sassanid Persians introduce smallpox into Italy and a quarter of the Imperial Roman population would die within the decade. As if that were not bad enough, Roman soldiers and merchants also spread rubella along the Mediterranean littoral during the 250s. Deaths from this disease in the city of Rome alone were credibly reported at 5,000 persons per day. These body counts are mentioned as a reminder that disease may have hurried the collapse of late Roman civilization more than the military invasions so gleefully described by eighteenth and nineteenth century historians. Speaking of invasions, however, hordes of Marcomanni and kindred tribes from Bohemia were crossing the Danube River and attacking in Austria, locally disrupting the Pax Romana.

GERMANY

Whatgoesaroundkeepscomingaroundandaroundandaround...

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The Emperor Marcus Aurelius returned to Rome from his campaigns.

176 CE

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The Emperor Marcus Aurelius returned toward the Danube again to continue his fighting there.

177 CE

Whatgoesaroundkeepscomingaroundandaroundandaround...

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He granted his son Commodus tribunal power.

Since it was from Lyon that Christianity was spreading to the West, Marcus Aurelius ordered torture of the Christians there. Irenaeus of Lyon visited Rome, speaking of Lyon suffering grievous persecution, and of the New Prophecy on Montanism started in Phrygia.

When the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died of the plague (small pox?), his son Commodus took over as Caesar of the Roman Empire.

There was to be no more Pax Romana. For the following more than a century, until 284 CE, Rome would be enduring a series of soldier-emperors:

• 180-192 CE — Commodus• 193-211 CE — Septimus Severus• 211-217 CE — Caracalla• 253-253 CE — Aemilian• 270-275 CE — Aurelian• 276-282 CE — Probus

180 CE

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Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was to become the subject of James Boswell’s THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D., actually himself wrote a record of his own life, but in the presence of his servant Francis Barber he had destroyed this writing. When Boswell read to him an evaluation in the Critical Review in this year, placing Julius Caesar’s account of his actions in one category, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus’s reflections on his life in a second category, and Huetius’s contexture of the times of his life in a third category, in contradistinction to all these “journalists, temporal and spiritual: Elias Ashmole, William Lilly, George Whitefield, John Wesley, and a thousand other old women and fanatic writers of memoirs and meditations” in a quite derogatory separate category, Johnson commented that few writers have “gained any reputation by recording their own actions.”

THE COMPLETE POETICAL WRITINGS OF J.G. HOLLAND.

Nobody ever reads this now.

Frederic May Holland’s THE REIGN OF THE STOICS. HISTORY. RELIGION. MAXIMS OF SELF-CONTROL, SELF-CULTURE, BENEVOLENCE, JUSTICE. PHILOSOPHY (New York, C.P. Somerby).

(I am pleased to bring you a seven part serialization of FredericMay Holland’s 1879 book entitled THE REIGN OF THE STOICS. HISTORY.

1777

1879

COMPLETE POETICAL WRITINGS

THE REIGN OF THE STOICS

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RELIGION. MAXIMS OF SELF-CONTROL, SELF-CULTURE, BENEVOLENCE, JUSTICE.PHILOSOPHY (New York, C.P. Somerby). This fascinating work focuseson the successive reigns of five Stoic-minded Roman Emperors:Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonine Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. Thefirst chapter looks at the history of each emperor’s reign, andthe six remaining chapters feature Stoic maxims on a variety oftopics, including: religion, self-control, self-culture,benevolence, justice, and philosophy. What truly stands out inthis book is Mr. Holland’s extensive collection of quotes bySeneca, which is by far the largest I have ever seen in print[over 300]. Frederic May Holland was an author and UnitarianClergyman. He is most noted for his 1891 biography of FredericDouglass, the famous American abolitionist and orator. RL.)

PrefaceMuch as the Stoics have been talked about, but little justicehas been done to either their literature or their history.Seneca, in whom, as Macaulay says, “there is hardly a sentencewhich might not be quoted,” is like Dion, the “Golden-mouthed,”accessible to the English reader only in antiquated versions,scarcely to be found in the largest libraries. Their history hasnot, so far as I know, been fully written in any language. Suchis the need of a book like this. Its first chapter speaks of theplace of these philosophers in history. The next five chaptersgive specimens of their noblest sayings about religious truthand moral duty. These I have tried to render accurately, thoughfreely, adding nothing, but omitting much. Of their commonplacesand errors I have made out no list. It is enough for us to seewhat truth Stoicism has still to teach. To show this, I havegiven in the last chapter some of their most characteristicdiscoveries in one of the most difficult, but important, fieldsof human thought. Thus I hope to be of service to the friendsof moral culture and religious progress. F.M.H. Concord, Mass.,1879.

Chapter 1. History.During the greater part of the first Christian century, theRoman Empire was cursed by tyranny, profligacy and anarchy. Thenreigned Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho,Vitellius, and Domitian. But with the latter’s death, A.D. 96,began what Gibbon justly calls “the period in the history of theworld during which the condition of the human race was mosthappy.” These eighty-four years, until A.D. 180, were passedunder the rule of five emperors, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and thetwo Antonines, all of whom, says Gibbon, “delighted in the imageof liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as theaccountable ministers of the laws.” Of the Antonines we arefurther told that “their united reigns are possibly the onlyperiod in which the happiness of a great people was the soleobject of the government.” Archbishop Trench, also, in hislectures on Plutarch, speaks of the accession of Nerva as “theepoch of a very signal recovery and restoration, a finalrallying of whatever energies for good the heathen worldpossessed, and in this way a postponement of its fall (with thetotal collapse of the old order of things), for a good deal more




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than a century.”

One fact about these five good emperors has hitherto escapedproper notice. They were all pupils of Stoicism. Nerva, indeed,was banished as a Stoic by Domitian. Trajan was the intimatefriend and frequent hearer of Dion Chrysostom, the most popularpreacher of a philosophy whose profoundest teacher, Epictetus,gave lessons to Hadrian, as Arrian, the successor of Epictetus,did to Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius, who filled hispalace and offices with Stoics. And Stoicism claims as her mostperfect product the life of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, with whomclosed those eighty-four years of signal happiness and goodgovernment, ever to remembered as the Reign of the Stoics.

How much of our attention this school of philosophers deservesis shown, not only by the success of its emperors, but by theheroism of its martyrs during the reign of terror before itsadvent to power. Trench declares that “the Stoic porch was thelast refuge and citadel of freedom” (Lectures, p. 92) Lecky alsotells us that “in the Roman Empire almost every great character,almost every effort in the cause of liberty, emanated from theranks of Stoicism.”[1] And Champigny acknowledges that “all thatremained of austere patriotism and liberal republicanism wasarrayed under this banner.”[2] The pages of Tacitus show thatthe great example of Cato was nobly imitated by other RomanStoics. Let us recall the lives of these martyrs and emperors,and, if only for their sakes, those of the founders of theirfaith.

And, first, of the founders: Soon after the conquest of Asia byAlexander, Zeno came from Cyprus to Athens, where he was soimpressed by Xenophon’s account of the teachings of Socrates asto become a pupil under the successors of Diogenes and also ofPlato. The destruction of Grecian independence by Philip was sorecent that the love of liberty was still active among theAthenians. Unable to free themselves by force of arms, they wereready to listen to a system which told them that their freedomconsisted in purity of thought, peace of soul, and harmony withthe will the God. Moreover, the union of Greece and Persia underthe Macedonian Empire favored such new views of the unity of thehuman race as opened the way for the recognition of a new codeof duties, based on the obligation of every individual to servethe welfare of all humanity. These two welcome precepts ofphilanthropy and resignation Zeno mingled with earnestexhortations to self-culture and chastity, and also withmetaphysical and theological ideas which he found rapidly cominginto favor, and which were among the highest achievements ofancient thought. His stainless reputation helped to win favorfor this new system of philosophy, which he began to teach about300 B.C., in a painted porch, from the name of which hisfollowers were called Stoics. Of his teachings only a fewfragments remain, but his successor, Cleanthes, has left us thelofty hymn[3] which Paul quoted on Mars’ Hill, as well as theexample of a student who supported himself by grinding meal andcarrying water, and never told of it until questioned by themagistrates. Another of Zeno’s pupils, Ariston of Chios, whencensured for exposing his ideas too freely to all comers,

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replied, “that he could wish that Nature had given understandingto wild beasts, that they too might be his hearers.”[4] All theStoics showed themselves faithful successors to Socrates bytheir zeal for elevating the common people. They held noesoteric views, taught as publicly as they could, and, as weshall see, readily admitted women and slaves among theirpupils.[5] Organization or authorized statement of principlesthey had none. All who chose to take the Stoic name taught, spokeand wrote independently, without any restriction by sectarianismor any fear of loss of fellowship. Stoicism soon showed itselfone of the last and best fruits of liberty in Greece, by makingKing Cleomenes, the worthiest successor of Leonidas, thechampion of the rights of the poor citizens of Sparta, and herlast defender against the tyranny of Macedon. Plutarch tells infull this story, which I speak of mainly because it is oftensaid that this philosophy was barren of practical results untiltransplanted to Rome.

But with him we come to the noble army of Stoic martyrs, mostof whom were Romans. It is two thousand years since TiberiusGracchus was murdered, because he tried to give the plebeianstheir share of the public lands. During the last century of therepublic, every patriotic statesman was either an admirer or afollower of Stoicism.[6] Cicero and Brutus were among theadmirers, but of the followers the most consistent was Cato,whose name has been the watchword of liberty these nineteencenturies. Few of those who repeat it think of the philosophywhich taught him

“Religiously to follow Nature’s laws,

And die with pleasure in his country’s cause;

To think he was not for himself designed,

But born to be of use to all mankind.

To him ’twas feasting hunger to repress,

And homespun garments were his costly dress.

His country was his children and his wife,

That took up all the tend’rest parts of life.

From justice’ righteous lore he never swerved,

But rigidly his honesty preserved.

On universal good his thoughts were bent,

Nor knew what gain or self-affection meant.

And while his benefits the public share,

Cato was always last in Cato’s care.”[7]

So speaks a eulogist of Stoicism. One of its most bitter critics,Plutarch, delights to tell how faithfully the last champion ofthe republic served her, taking care of her treasury withunfailing vigilance; denouncing bribery on the rostrum, whilethe bought-up voters pelted him with stones; losing his ownelection as consul, rather than violate the laws; standing outalone, in spite of wounds and imprisonment, against the joint




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usurpation of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus; and, when civil warcame, forcing his partisans to promise that no Roman city shouldbe plundered and no Roman blood shed except in battle. By meansof this agreement he saved the life of Cicero, and twiceprevented the sack of Utica. And in that city he died, in thestern way prescribed by the national sense of honor, andpermitted but not required by his philosophy. “Nothing would bemore erroneous,” says Merrivale, “than to suppose that this wasa principle of the Stoics, or was the distinguishing practiceof the sect. Suicide, in the view of their professed teachers,was barely excusable in the last resort, when there plainlyremained no other escape from a restraint which denied a man theobject of his existence.”[8] Such teaching simply re-echoedpublic opinion, which had for centuries known of no deaths moreglorious than those of Hercules, Lucretia, Curtius, Codron andthe Decii. Here Stoicism was peculiar only in insisting thatevery man had a post assigned to him in life, which was not tobe deserted so long as it could be nobly filled, and also instriving to train men to such courage and patience as wouldenable them always to fill their posts nobly.

A death more truly stoical than Cato’s was that of the greatlawyer Servius Sulpicius, who died from the fatigue of a journeyto reconcile Mark Antony with the senate; giving his life forhis country so plainly that his statue was erected in therostrum, at the request of Cicero.

Cato’s worthiest successor, however, was his daughter Portia,who was admitted to sit in council with the liberators atAntium.[9] When parting with her husband for the last time, sherestrained all emotion until overcome by a picture of Hector’sleaving Andromache. Brutus afterward repeated the words in whichthe Trojan sends his wife back to her spinning, and declared:“No one would say so to Portia, for she has a mind as valiant,and as active for the good of her country, as the best ofus.”[10]

Caesar and many of his principal adherents were Epicureans, butAugustus sought the friendship of the Stoics, and was withheldfrom many cruelties by the exhortations of their philosophers.One of them consoled the empress Livia for the loss of her sonwith signal success, all the more remarkable because theefficacy of Stoicism is often denied, in spite of what is saidby Tacitus, Seneca, and Dion Chrysostom about the servicesrendered by its teachers in comforting the bereaved, as well asin strengthening dying criminals. The next emperors, Tiberius,Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, found their despotism opposed bythe Stoics with a courage which often rose to martyrdom. Thus,on the failure of a conspiracy in Illyria against Claudius,Arra, the wife of Paetus, its leader, begged the soldiers whohad arrested her husband to take her with him to Rome. “You wouldallow a man of his rank,” said she, “several servants to lookafter his food, his clothes, and his sandals; but I will doeverything alone for him.” She was refused permission, buthastened to Rome in another vessel, and tried her best to saveher husband’s life. She failed, and the day came when, by theRoman law, Paetus could save his property for his children and




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avoid the disgrace of a public execution only by what canscarcely be called suicide. His courage failed, and she offeredto die with him. Her son-in-law said, “Do you wish to have yourdaughter kill herself with me, when my turn shall come?” “If shehave lived as long and as happily with you as I with Paetus, Iam willing,” answered Arria. Her friends wished to restrain her,but she told them, “You cannot prevent me from dying, only fromdying nobly.” At last they let her go to her husband. She foundhim still holding the dagger, which he did not dare to use untilshe plunged it into her own breast, and gave it back with thefamous words, “My Paetus, it does not pain me.” (“Paete, nondolet.”)[11]

During the next twenty-five years her son-in-law, also a Stoic,and named Thrasea, distinguished himself as a wise and patrioticstatesman and an opponent to Nero. He saved the life of asatirist whom the emperor wished to have condemned by thesenate, left its session when Nero’s letter about his murder ofhis mother was read aloud, and never attended after the burningof Rome. For these and similar offenses, among which was writingthe life of Cato, he was accused of treason and impiety. Hescorned to ask the tyrant for mercy, or even to appear at histrial, knowing that he could not save himself and might endangerhis family and friends. One of them offered to veto the trial,as tribune. “This would be useless to me, and fatal to you,”said Thrasea. “My life is finished, and I shall not quit thecourse which I have held for so many years. You are young, andshould take time to think how you may best serve the state.”When the news of his sentence to death came, he was surroundedby friends, who began to lament; but he bade them depart insilence, lest Nero’s jealousy should fall upon them. He rejoicedgreatly at not dragging any one else down with him. His wife,known as the younger Arria, wished to follow his mother’spermission and example, but he persuaded her to live for theirdaughter’s sake. When the centurion came to tell him that thetime had come, he opened his own veins and sprinkled the firstdrops of blood on the ground, saying, “This libation to Jupiter,the Liberator.”

At the same time, and for similar patriotism, were condemnedSoranus and his daughter Servilia. At their trial she besoughtthe senators to spare the best of fathers, for if either wereguilty of treason, it was she alone. But Soranus interruptedher, protested that she was innocent, and begged that he mightdie, and she be left to live. Stoics as they were, the lictorscould scarcely keep them from rushing into each other’s arms.They died together.

Among the victims of the failure of Piso’s conspiracy againstNero were several who, like the poet Lucan, justifiedMerrivale’s statement, that “whatever there was of ardor, ofgenerosity, of self-devotion, among the Roman youth, at this eraof national torpor, was absorbed in the strong current ofStoicism.” And with Lucan perished his uncle Seneca, to whoseinfluence may be attributed the great increase in the number ofStoics at this time--the time of the missionary labors of theapostles. The moral and religious elevation of Seneca’s writing




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has led some of the ancient Fathers, as well as of the modernchampions, of the Church to suppose that he was a Christian.That he was not is proved, not only by his wavering doubtswhether the future state be temporary survival, transmigration,or immediate dissolution, but by his unwavering faith that deathis always a blessing to him who dies, and only a necessary partof the order of nature, which has never been violated bymiracles. Full quotations will be given in subsequent pages,showing his belief, not only in the reign of law, but in theimportance of intellectual culture, the folly of literallygiving to every one that asketh, and the right of women toeducate themselves in the highest studies. He speaks of therotundity of the earth[12] and the causes of rainbows, meteors,thunder and lightning, springs and inundations, snow, winds,earthquakes, and comets, in a way which proves his right to sayfor himself: “I follow those who have gone before me, but I allowmyself to find out more, and to change or abandon much. Iapprove, but I do not serve. They are not masters, but guides.Read my writings as those not of one who knows the truth, butof one who seeks it, and seeks it boldly, giving himself up tono man and taking no man’s name.”[13]

He was no Cato, but as prime minister he gave the Roman empirefive years of proverbially good government, the QuinqueniumNeronis. His charities were famous, his labors for his friend’simprovement diligent, and his indignation at the gladiatorialgames outspoken.[14] He lived purely, temperately and lovingly,and died bravely. He seems to have been too time-serving andfond of money for the later Stoics to acknowledge him as arepresentative of their faith, brilliantly as he taught it inhis writings; but these weaknesses have not prevented his beingclaimed as a convert to a Church with which he shows no sympathy.

More consistent Stoics were Cornutus, who was banished fortelling Nero that nobody would read his poetry, and Rufus, who,when sent for similar boldness to work in chains on a canal atCorinth, said, “I had rather work in this ditch than hear Nerosing at Rome.” This philosopher was wont to tell his pupils, “Ifyou have leisure to praise me, I speak to no purpose.” Amongthem was the lame slave-boy afterward know as Epictetus. Rufustaught the strictest chastity, and seems to have been the firstwho denounced the common sin of infanticide. On Nero’s death hereturned to Rome, and risked his life trying to make peacebetween the partisans of Vespasian and Vitellius, when otherRomans were cheering on the soldiers as if they were gladiators.And he alone was spared when all the other Stoics were banishedby the crafty Vespasian, by whose orders perished Helvidius,son-in-law of Thrasea, for refusing to give up using hissenatorial privileges.

But the last and worst persecutor of the Stoics was Domitian.He promptly “Cleared Rome of what most shamed him.”

Among his other victims perished four authors who wrote inpraise of Cato, Brutus, Thrasea and Helvidius. The latter’swidow, Fannia, daughter of Thrasea and granddaughter of theelder Arria, was banished for furnishing the materials for thememoir of her husband, but she carried a copy with her, and lived




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to circulate it freely. Her name, with those of the two Arrias,Helvidius, Thrasea, and their relative, the blameless satiristPersius, show the character of one of the many Stoic familiesin which Roman virtue survived for better days. Among the exilesunder Domitian was Dion, surnamed Chrysostom, or “golden-mouthed,” for his eloquence, which, together with his earlyopposition to Stoicism, won him the favor of Vespasian, in spiteof his having requested the restoration of the republic. WhenDomitian mounted the throne, Dion fled for his life. He wanderedabout in disguise, sometimes working as a gardener and sometimesbegging his way. Poverty and danger taught him to live thephilosophy he had ridiculed. At last the news of the murder ofDomitian reached the banks of the Danube. The soldiers encampedthere flew to arms, eager to march to Rome and avenge the sonof Vespasian. The frontiers of the empire were about to be thrownopen to the barbarians, and civil war to break forth afresh,when a ragged beggar, who had been strolling about the camp,sprang upon an altar and shouted, “Listen to me. I am DionChrysostom.” The soldiers gathered to hear the famous orator,who began with a text from Homer, telling how Ulysses strippedoff his rags to claim his throne. Then he spoke of his ownsufferings, the vices of Domitian, and the virtues of the newemperor, Nerva, until all his fierce hearers were shouting thedecisive words, “Nerva Imperator!” and the empire was safe.

Thus began the period which, as already stated, should be calledthe Reign of the Stoics. Dion had his share of its honors, anddistinguished himself as a governor, not only in his nativeprovince, Asia Minor, but in Egypt. Trajan may be said to havemade him his private chaplain. They often traveled in the samelitter, and they rode side by side in the same triumphal chariot,at the celebration of those Dacian victories still commemoratedby the famous column. It was in Trajan’s palace that Dion spokeof the duties of a monarch, bidding his imperial hearer devotehimself to the public service and imitate the philanthropy ofthe gods. But the golden-mouthed Stoic found an audience thathe liked still better in the furious mob, which was turned asidefrom driving the philosopher out of Alexandria by his resistlesseloquence. He was wont to call himself the divine messenger andfaithful prophet of Immortal Nature to the common people. By himwere proclaimed three great truths, which that age needed sadlyto hear, and heard from scarcely any one else: the dignity oflabor, the sin of slavery, and the folly of turning hermit.[15]

Euphrates, who, like Dion, was banished by Domitian and returnedwith Nerva, is memorable, because, when his pupil Pliny theYounger complained that his public duties did not leave him timeto become a philosopher, he replied, “To serve the state andexecute justice is the noblest part of philosophy.”[16]

So much has been said about Stoic pride that it is well toremember what Euphrates tells of himself: “For a long time Itried to hide my love of philosophy. And thus, when I did right,I knew that it was not for any spectators, but for myself. Andthen there was no danger of any disgrace coming to philosophy,but only to myself, when I erred. People used to wonder that,much as I kept the company of philosophers, I never wore their




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garb. And what’s the harm, I told them, if I should be known tobe a philosopher by my actions rather than by my dress?”

These words are recorded with high praise by the ablestexpositor of Stoicism, Epictetus. He, too, was banished fromRome, where he had been a slave in Nero’s palace. Later he spentmany years teaching in Nicomedia. Among his pupils was Hadrian,of whose faults, while emperor, he speaks freely.[17] He issaid, despite his utter poverty, to have adopted a little boywho had been left to perish.[18] He tells us himself how hepersuaded one of his friends not to starve himself to death. Theexample of Socrates is held up by him as a prohibition ofsuicide. Indeed, he says that he should tell any pupils who askedleave to kill themselves: “Wait, like men, until God shall givethe signal and dismiss you from his service. For the presentremain where he has placed you. Short is your sojourn here, andeasy for those who think as you do.”[19] “Pagan antiquity,” saysLecky, “has left us no grander example than that of Epictetus,who, while sounding the very abyss of human misery, and lookingforward to death as to simple decomposition, was yet so filledwith the sense of the divine presence that his life was onecontinued hymn to Providence.”[20] The great Stoic himself says,“What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God?”[21]

But the most famous of all the Stoics banished by Domitian wastheir first emperor, Nerva, whose noblest act was his passingover all his own relatives and personal friends in search of hissuccessor, and then appointing Trajan, the very man most neededon the throne. As Dion’s friend mounted it, he gave to thecaptain of his guards the dagger that marked the office, withthe words, “Take this and use it: if I rule justly, for me; ifotherwise, against me.” Trajan’s victories over the Arabs,Parthians, and Dacians secured the safety of the empire. Underhis strict administration of justice, Dion, Pliny, Plutarch, andTacitus rose to the highest honors. His public spirit builtroads, canals and bridges all over the empire; opened a publiclibrary at Rome; attempted to drain the Pontine marshes, muchneglected by the popes; and, best of all, founded the firstorphan asylums in Europe, so that two or three hundred thousandchildren were taken care of and educated,[22] as stands stillrecorded in sculpture. For two hundred and fifty years afterthis emperor’s death, the senators prayed for each new sovereignthat he might be more prosperous than Augustus and more virtuousthan Trajan (“Felicior Augusto melior Trajano”). Centurieslater, Pope Gregory the Great, on reading how Trajan halted hisarmy to do justice to a poor widow, was moved to pray that thisone heathen might be delivered from the hell which held all therest. But where such men go hell cannot be.

The third of these great rulers, Hadrian, was enough of a Stoicto prefer the public good to his own glory. He promptly gave upmost of the conquered territory and himself negotiated treatieswith all his neighbors. He issued an edict checking the workingof an unfortunate one, extorted from Trajan by the popularhatred of the Christians. Other laws forbade that slaves bedegraded into prostitutes or gladiators, or wantonly put todeath. The provincials he tried to make political equals with




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Roman citizens. Lecky says that “the process of renovation,which was begun under Augustus by the Stoic Labeo, was continuedwith great zeal under Hadrian, and there were few departmentsinto which the catholic and humane principles of Stoicism werenot to some degree carried.” But Hadrian’s noblest work was hisjourney through all his provinces. He spent fifteen years,marching on foot and plainly clad, through the snows of Scotlandand the sands of Egypt, hearing complaints, righting wrongs,repairing public edifices and building new ones, with an energywhich made the senate call him the Enricher of the World. InSpain he was attacked, when alone, by a crazy assassin, whom hedisarmed with his own hands, protected against his guards, andplaced under medical treatment. Two-thirds of his reign werespent in a way that reminds us of Peter the Great, but theclosing years showed a magnificence which is still attested bythe famous Bridge and Castle of St. Angelo, and might fitly becompared to

”the golden primeOf good Haroun Alraschid.”

Like the great caliph and czar, Hadrian sometimes sank intosensuality and cruelty; one of his worst attempts at the latterbeing made just before his death, when he was almost insane.Antoninus, whom he had adopted as successor, concealed thenobles sentenced to execution, so that they were supposed tohave perished. On his own accession, he brought them alive, asif in obedience to secret orders from Hadrian, into the senate,which at once decreed to Antoninus the surname Pius. This wordis best translated dutiful. Indeed, he did all the duties ofson, husband, father, friend, citizen, and sovereign, so wellthat he alone of men carries the record of his virtues as partof his full name in history. Seven of his successors calledthemselves Antoninus, in memory of a peaceful and righteousreign in which the Roman power was at its zenith. Its spirit isfurther shown by his speech to his wife at its beginning:“Henceforth we have no property. All belongs to the state.” Atthe same time he declared that he would not remove any ofHadrian’s officials unless proved unworthy. While neglecting nopublic interests, he greatly reduced the taxes by a closeeconomy, which he kept up, regardless of ridicule. His familywas left poor, but his treasury rich. His laws established theright of women to inherit property, protected the chastity ofslaves, and restrained the cruelty of masters. Infidelity waspunished as severely in husbands as in wives--a legalization ofthe precepts of Dion, Rufus, and Seneca. Trajan’s orphan asylumswere kept up, and new ones for girls founded as monuments to theempress Faustina, whom Antoninus Pius loved so tenderly as tosay that he had rather be with her in exile than without her onthe throne. Public lectures on rhetoric and philosophy were alsoliberally provided for. Persecution of the Christians wasprevented by his tolerance. He refused to annex a foreign nationthat wished to become a province of the empire, which he knewto be already large enough. Unnecessary wars he avoidedcarefully, saying, “I had rather keep a single citizen alivethan slay a thousand enemies.” Never did he willingly shedblood. Foreign nations submitted their disputes to his




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arbitration, and his own subjects called him the Father ofMankind.

His wall across Scotland, from the Forth to the Clyde, has nearlyperished, but of his character there still remains thedescription which a member, during twenty years, of both hisfamily and his administration, wrote down for private perusal.Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the adopted son and successor ofAntoninus Pius, speaks with devout thanksgiving of the latter’s“mildness of manners, firmness of purpose, scorn of emptyhonors, freedom from impure desires, and respect for hissubjects as his fellow-citizens. He did not seek to please themob, but shunned flattery, considering not the popularity butthe wisdom of his actions, yet listening gladly to opinions morecorrect than his own. Always satisfied and cheerful, he enjoyedmoderately what he had, but never missed what he had not. Hetook reasonable care of his health, but was not particular aboutfood or clothing. He treated every one as he deserved, and neverenvied even the ablest orators or statesmen, but readily helpedthem win glory. He was no sophist, no pedant, no mere dreamingbookworm; but an active and practical man of the world, able totake care of himself as well as of others.”[23]

All this is true of Marcus Aurelius himself; for the best criticsand historians agree that he was “perhaps the most beautifulfigure in history” (Matthew Arnold); “the purest and gentlestspirit of all the pagan world” (Lecky); “of all the line thenoblest and dearest (Merrivale); “the noblest soul that everlived” (Taine); “he preserved through life not only the mostunblemished justice, but the tenderest heart” (J. S. Mill); “heinspires us with a better feeling to mankind” (Montesquieu); “ifthere is any sublime virtue, it is his. I know no other man whocombined such unaffected kindness, mildness and humility withsuch conscientiousness and severity toward himself. We possessinnumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his time was anxiousto possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an expressionof virtue, it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius”(Niebuhr). A sincere and scholarly clergyman of the Church ofEngland, who has written one of our best books about the Stoics,declares that “a nobler, a gentler, a purer, a sweeter soul, asoul less elated by prosperity or more constant in adversity, asoul more fitted by virtue and chastity and self-denial to enterthe eternal peace, never passed into the presence of itsHeavenly Father.”[24]

Marcus Aurelius was remarkable from childhood for love of hismother, diligence in study, and truth of speech. At twelve hebecame a Stoic, and at seventeen he was adopted as heir to thethrone by Antoninus Pius. The news of this adoption drove himto an outburst of tears.

Well might he weep. The forty years of peace and prosperity whichfollowed Trajan’s victories ended as Antoninus Pius closed hisdying eyes, with “Equanimity”[25] on his lips. Scarcely hadMarcus Aurelius mounted the throne when the Tiber overflowed alarge part of Rome, swept away the public granaries, and causeda famine. At the same time the wild tribes who dwelt beyond theRhine and Danube took up arms, and the terrible Parthians




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crossed the Euphrates, defeated the Roman army, and overranseveral provinces. It took four years of fierce fighting todrive them back, and at the close of the war a pestilence,[26]which had been ravaging the East, was brought by the returningsoldiers to Rome, where it killed so many people that it wasalmost impossible to bury them. Galen’s skill was powerless. Theplague was still raging when Egypt, which supplied Rome withwheat, revolted, and there was another famine, made morecomplete by the ravages of destructive insects in otherprovinces. The Germans had with difficulty been kept at bay, butnow they overran all the northern part of the empire, andactually invaded Italy.

Warfare and disease had already thinned the ranks of thelegions, and the imperial treasury had been emptied in takingcare of the sick and starving. Marcus Aurelius sold the jewelscollected by Hadrian, and everything else of value in thepalace, at public auction, and impressed slaves, criminals, andsavages, until he had men enough to lead, himself, against theGermans. His colleague, whom he took with him, died by his side,but still he kept the field. Year after year he struggled againstfamine, pestilence, rebels, and invaders. These misfortunesfanned into flame that continual expectation of the SecondAdvent which was universal among the early Christians. Theypublicly declared that these were the signs of the coming of theSon of Man and the end of the world. They zealously inculcatedthe book of the Revelation, which predicted that the City of theSeven Hills would perish at once before the wrath of the Lord,and the Roman empire vanish to make way for the reign of thesaints. They even dared to forge, in the dreaded name of theSibyls, lying oracles, still extant, in which Marcus Aureliuswas pointed out as the last emperor, while it was foretold thathis armies would be routed with disgrace.[27] Meantime theRomans had renewed their zeal for the worship of their nationaldivinities, whose oracles now began to speak once more. Thesedeities the apostles and church fathers called devils, as,indeed, does John Milton. The common people thought this suchblasphemy as accounted fully for all the national disasters.There was a furious outcry for the enforcement of that law ofTrajan which punished the confession of Christianity with death.Hadrian and Antoninus Pius had neglected to carry out thisedict. Now, in pestilence, defeat, and famine, the wrath of thegods seemed manifest.

Marcus Aurelius did not share the popular superstition, but heseems to have known little about the Christians, except thattheir various sects charged each other with the worst ofiniquities, that their worship was principally secret, that theythought little of marriage, warlike patriotism, mental culture,or practical industry, and that they hated the establishedreligion, and desired the downfall of the Roman empire, as thewritings just mentioned show. We must take care not to thinkthat the Christianity of the second century was like thoseadvanced forms familiar to us in the nineteenth. Polycarp, acontemporary of Marcus Aurelius, rejoiced at hearing that someof his fellow Christians had broken in pieces a clock that borethe signs of the Zodiac, because “in all these monstrous demons




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is seen an art hostile to God.” Tertullian, whose Apology waswritten at the close of that century, declares that“schoolmasters, and all other professors of literature, are inaffinity with manifest idolatry.”[28]

The activity with which the speedy end of the world was preachedhad already provoked Marcus Aurelius into passing a law by whichall those who stirred up superstitious fears were liable to bebanished. During his absence on the Danube, A.D. 169, hesuffered Trajan’s law to have its course against Polycarp and afew other prominent assailants of the national religion at Rome,and in those seven cities which had first received “the dreadApocalypse,” though the bloodiest scenes took place in Lyons,A.D. 177, when the emperor was in Rome. Farrar says that theshare of Marcus Aurelius in causing persecution “was almostinfinitesimal”; and Tertullian even calls him the protector ofthe Christians.[29] There is no reason to believe that hewitnessed any of the executions, and it is certain that he tooksome pains to protect people falsely accused.

Rightly does John Stuart Mill speak of this shedding ofChristian blood under a Stoic emperor as “one of the mosttragical facts in all history.” It was, indeed, a grievous errorof judgment; but Marcus Aurelius was led by no worse feelingthan excessive desire for the public safety at a time of fearfuldanger. It took fourteen centuries more to teach any Christiancountry greater tolerance. And in our own recent war ourgovernment thought that special restrictions ought to be laidon liberty of speech. The proposition that all utterance ofopinion which does not violate any one’s right to hisreputation, or encourage the commission of any crime, should bepermitted freely, has not yet won that unanimous assent whichit deserves.

No one can suppose that there was any taint of persecution inthe author of those sublime thoughts which Marcus Aurelius wroteout for his own support, during the eight gloomy years which hespent in the camp fighting against the Northern barbarians,while Egypt continued in revolt, and famine and pestilence werelaying waste the empire. This “purest and noblest book ofantiquity” (Farrar), and “masterpiece of morals.” (MathewArnold), is full of passages like these: “If any one can showme that I do not think or act correctly, I will change gladly,for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever harmed.”[30] “Itis not right that I should give myself pain, for I have nevergiven it willingly to another.”[31] “The immortal gods are notangry with the wicked, and why should I be, who am destined toend so soon, and who myself also am a sinner?”[32] “It is a greatthing to live in truth and justice, with kind feelings even tothe lying and unjust.”[33] The best way to avenge myself is notto become like the wicked.”[34] “He who wrongs me is my kinsmanin unity of the spirit and divine sonship, and I cannot be angrywith my brother.”[35] “Let me remember that men exist for eachother, and that they do wrong unwillingly.”[36] “It ispeculiarly human to love even those who do wrong.”[37]

The sincerity of these grand words was fully proved. In thesummer of A.D. 175, Marcus Aurelius succeeded, after painful




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toil and much bloodshed, in closing the German war by a greatbattle, which was turned from his defeat into his victory by atimely thunderstorm. A false rumor that he had been routed andslain spread far and wide, and reached Egypt, which had justbeen re-conquered by Cassius, who had formerly won great fameagainst the Parthians. The soldiers in Asia and Africa agreedto make this general emperor. The army of Europe was furiousagainst the rebels, but Marcus Aurelius showed no anger, thoughhe marched with such promptness, vigor, and dignity againstCassius that the latter was soon put to death by his ownadherents, who then threw down their arms and begged for pardon.The head of the usurper was brought to Marcus Aurelius. Herefused to look at it or at its bearers, but had it buried withhonor. The papers of the rebel chiefs he burned unread. Hisempress urged him to take sweeping vengeance, but he wrote herthus: “My Faustina, your anxiety for your husband and childrenis dutiful. But I shall spare the wife and children of Cassius,and shall ask the senate to be humane.[38] The senators were sosevere that he sent them a letter, saying: “Conscript Fathers,I implore you to keep my mercy and your own unstained. I begthat no one be put to death, but that the banished be recalledand the fines remitted. Would that I could also bid you raisethe dead.”[39] The senators were slow to heed him, until he wroteagain, saying that his dear wife was dead, and the bestconsolation they could give him was to proclaim universalamnesty. Persecution “should be made of sterner stuff.”

His conduct toward the Northern barbarians is fitly representedin that stature before the Capitol which still shows him,mounted on his war-horse, stretching out his hand to protect hiscaptives from the fury of his own soldiers. These prisoners hetook pains to have settled on reservations within the empire.He, further, took advantage of the three years of peace, whichfollowed the suppression of the last rebellion, to forbidgladiators to fight except with blunted weapons, or rope-dancersto perform without nets and mattresses to catch their fall.Slaves were assisted by his laws to emancipate themselves, andregisters of births opened to prevent free children from beingkidnapped. New orphan asylums were built in memory of Faustina,whom such high authorities as Merrivale, Long, Champigny,Suckau, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica[40] agree to thinkreally as loving, modest, and faithful as she is said to havebeen by Marcus Aurelius himself.[41]

But his most characteristic act was to make an impartialdistribution of the lectureships in philosophy--the number ofwhich he appears to have increased greatly--among the four greatschools, so the Platonists, Aristotelians, and Epicureans, werepaid for proclaiming their views, by this follower of Zeno, asliberally as were his own fellow Stoics. This was not becauseMarcus Aurelius did not love Stoicism,[42] but because he lovedfreedom of thought, as no one had done before, and few have donesince.

In A.D. 176, Marcus Aurelius took a questionable step, promptedby fatherly fondness, and also, in all probability, by desireto prevent any second attempt at usurpation: he shared his title




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with his son Commodus, then but fifteen, but who, according tothe contemporary historian Herodian, justified his father’schoice, until he was prematurely deprived of all parentalcontrol.

The enemies in the North had never been completely pacified, andtheir hostilities gradually became so formidable that MarcusAurelius saw the necessity of taking the field himself againstthem once more. So he mustered his legions. He gave, at therequest of his people, public lectures stating his philosophyand religion. Then, in the fall of 178, he left Rome for thelast time. Eighteen gloomy months he battled desperately in thewilderness, mourning over the growing strength of thebarbarians, the rapid decline of Roman virtue, energy, andgenius, and the renewed fury of the pestilence, which finallyfound him ready to lay his heavy burden down.

Long before, he had written down the exclamation, “Come quickly,O Death! lest I, too, forget myself.”[43] Now he said to hisfriends, “Why do you weep for me, and not rather think of thepestilence and the common death?”[44] Thoughtful for others tothe last, he insisted on being left to die alone. It was on the17th of March, A.D. 180, in the twentieth year of his reign andthe fifty-ninth of his life, that both life and reign ended, inthe camp, then pitched near where now stands Vienna, or, as somesay, Belgrade.

With Marcus Aurelius perished the glory of his empire and thepopularity of his philosophy. The prevalence of slave labor hadso far excluded the freemen from all occupations, except war andpolitics, all over the Old World, that not only in each stateconquered by Rome, but in Rome itself, after the establishmentof the empire, the only avenue to fame or stimulus to exertionleft for the citizens, in their exclusion from all independentpolitical activity, had to be sought for in the army. Suchleisure favored culture for a time, as was seen during theAugustan age; but profligacy and mental torpor soon becameprevalent, and increased rapidly in those forty years of peacewhich, during the two reigns before that of Marcus Aurelius,deprived the Romans of the last occupation which had been leftthem. This degeneracy made an intellectual and self-reliantsystem like Stoicism appear unsatisfactory. There was a growingdemand for some religion which should appeal mainly to theemotions. Several such religions now made crowds of proselytes,which multiplied rapidly under the terror caused by the frequentshocks of invasions, pestilence, and rebellion, and thedisclosure of the weakness of the empire. Cowards could notbecome Stoics. Meanwhile the patronage of five successive reignshad given Stoicism a prosperity which was as fatal as that ofPuritanism under Cromwell. Both faiths were glorified bypersecution, but polluted by patronage, and for both of thempollution was death. That Stoicism perished so quickly was due,partly to the failure of its advocates to free it from someinconsistencies and extravagances much ridiculed by moreskeptical philosophers, but mainly to that rapid decline inpatriotism, fortitude, and mental vigor, under the greatcalamities which made Marcus Aurelius the last teacher of a




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faith of which the world was no longer worthy.

NotesEuropean Morals, vol. I, p. 134, Am. Ed.

Les Antonius, vol. I, p. 53.

Another early Stoic, the astronomical poet Aratus, also givesthe hymn referred to, and in a form still more like Paul’squotation than that of Cleanthes.

Plutarch’s Morals, Goodwin’s Ed., vol. ii, p. 369.

Lactantius’ Institutiones Divinae, book iii, chap. xxv.

Niebuhr’s Vortrage uber Romische Geschichte, vol. iii, p. 69.

Lucan’s Pharsalia, book ii, line 380, etc.; and in Rowe’sVersion, lines 591-612.

History of the Romans Under the Empire, vol. vii, chap. lxiv,p. 254.

Drumann’s Geschichte Roms, vol. v, p. 199.

Clough’s Plutarch, vol. v. p. 327, Am. Ed.

Pliny’s Epistles, xvi, book iii.

Libri naturalium Quaestionum, book iv, chap. xi, secs. 2 and 3.

Seneca’s Epistles, xlv, sec. 4, and Ep. lxxx, sec. 1.

Ibid., xxv, secs. 1, 2 and 3.

Champigny’s Les Antonins, vol. I, p. 418; also Otto Fahn’s Ausder Alterthumswissenschaft, p. 51; etc.

Pliny’s Epistles, x, book i.

The Works of Epictetus, Higginson, pp. 226, 298, 368.

Martha’s les Moralistes de l’Empire Romain, p. 159.

Higginson, book i, chap.ix, secs. 16, 17; and book ii, chap. xv,secs. 4-13, pp. 30 and 139.

European Morals, vol. I, pp. 193-4.

Higginson, book i, chap. xvi, sec. 20, p. 50.

Francke’s Geschichte Trajan’s, p. 413.

Meditations, book i, sec. 16, and book vi, sec. 30; translatedwith the aid of Long, Merrivale, and others.

Farrar’s Seekers After God, p. 302.

When the praetorian prefect asked the watchword for the night,the dying emperor answered, “Aequanimitas.”

Supposed to have been the small-pox.

Milman’s History of Christianity (vol. ii, pp. 165-173)translates the passages from the eighth book of the Oracle.

Writings--On Idolatry, vol. i, chap. x, p. 154.

Writings--Apology, vol. i, chap. v, p. 64.

Meditation, book vi, sec. 21.




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Ibid., book viii, sec. 42.

Ibid., book vii, sec. 70.

Ibid., book vi, sec. 47.

Ibid., book vi, sec. 6.

Ibid., book ii, sec. 1.

Ibid., book iv, sec. 3.

Ibid., book vii, sec. 22.

Champigny’s Les Antonins, vol. iii, p. 121.

Vulcatii Gallicanus Avidius Cassius, chap. xiv, p. 304. Vol.iii, p. 88, Ninth Ed.

Meditations, book i, sec. 17.

That he could not trifle with the truth is shown in all hiswritings, and especially in one of his letters to his teacher,Fronto, who had asked him to write on both sides of a questionproposed for discussion. The young student answers, that he isabsorbed in reading the Stoic Ariston, but is willing to let himsleep long enough to take one side. “But to write on both side--Ariston will never sleep long enough to suffer that.”--Frontonis et Antonini Epistula, p. 76.

Meditations, book ix, sec. 3.

“Quid me fletis, et non magis de pestilentia et communi mortecogitatis.” He dismissed at last his attendant with these words:“Turn to the rising sun, for I am setting.”--Castle St. Angelo,etc., W.W. Story, p. 18.




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Bob Pepperman Taylor has remarked, in his AMERICA’S BACHELOR UNCLE: THOREAU AND THE AMERICAN POLITY (Lawrence KA: UP of Kansas, 1996, page 7), that “Thoreau is, on the whole, the political thinker scholars of American political thought love to either ignore or hate.” One of the instances which he has offered of this is Robert Lewis Stevenson, opinioning in this year that:

Frans G. Bengtsson translated WALDEN, somewhat abridged, into Swedish, as SKOGSLIV VID WALDEN (FOREST LIFE AT WALDEN) with a 40-page foreword offered as his Master’s thesis and pointing out that Thoreau had been no Emerson clone: “In comparison with him Emerson is abstract, derived and sophistic.” (An error which needs to be pointed out in this translation is that in translating Thoreau’s “one mile” into the Swedish “en mil,” the distance from the shanty at Walden Pond to the town of Concord was considerably exaggerated, as a Swedish mil amounts to six English miles.)1

1924

1. One is reminded by this of the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte at 5'6" wasn’t all that particularly short. What made him come up contemptibly short was first, that his height was conventionally stated in units of French feet, which were quite a bit more lengthy than the corresponding units of English feet back in those days before international standardization of units of measure, plus second, that the English had for good reason a considerable animus against this man and his agenda and thus needed in one manner or other to reduce him.

Marcus Aurelius found time to study virtue, and between whiles toconduct the imperial affairs of Rome; but Thoreau is so busyimproving himself, that he must think twice about a morning call.




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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2013. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at .

Prepared: December 7, 2013

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdfmailto:[email protected], tomorrow is such and such a date and so it began on that date in like 8000BC? Why 8000BC, because it was the beginning of the current interglacial -- or what?

Bearing in mind that this is America, "where everything belongs," the primary intent of such a notice is to prevent some person or corporate entity from misappropriating the materials and sequestering them as property for censorship or for profit.



HDT WHAT? INDEX

ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.




HDT WHAT? INDEX

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with . Arrgh.

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdfmailto:[email protected]

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus50 BCE121 CE138 CE139 CE145 CE146 CE161 CE166 CE176 CE177 CE180 CE177718791924

a file in the online version of the kouroo contexture ... · the emperor hadrian adopted antoninus...

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