five men (character studies from the roman empire) || ii the philosopher (musonius rufus)

I I

T H E P H I L O S O P H E R

(MUSONIUS RUFUS)

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Romeo. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment. Friar Laurence. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word;

Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, T o comfort thee, though thou art banished.

Romeo. Y e t ' b a n i s h e d ' ? Hang up philosophy !

IT W A S early winter in the year 69, a year of civil

war and of fear for all Italy. In January, Rome's

citizens had seen one emperor, Galba, butchered in

the streets; in April another, Otho, had fallen on his

own sword. A third, Vitellius, was now threatened by

the legions of his rival Vespasian, who were advancing

irresistibly upon Rome; worse, there had been fighting

in the very streets, and the Temple of Jupiter on the

Capitol had gone up in flames. Vitellius had agreed

to send an embassy to parley with his enemy, and

Tacitus recounts a curious incident that befell.

Musonius Rufus, a knight, who had embraced with zeal the pursuit of philosophy and the dogmas of the Stoics, had joined the embassy, and going round among the soldiery began to give advice to these armed men, and to expatiate upon the benefits of Peace and the risks of War. Some found this ridiculous, more found it boring, and there were many who were ready to jostle him and trample him under-foot, had not Musonius, under warnings from the more moderate and threats from the rest, at last given up his un-seasonable preaching.

Such, alas! is often the fate of those who interfere un-

invited in others' quarrels, and such is the rather lud-

icrous misadventure with which C. Musonius R u f u s

comes on the stage.


34 F I V E M E N About his life we have a few scraps of information,

enough to place him in the framework of his times. He came from Vulsinii in Etruria, from a family of good standing. Etruscan blood seems often to have marked out its possessors for distinction; Maecenas was an Etruscan knight, as was the ambitious and sinister Sejanus, and doubtless Musonius, had he wished, could have risen high in a political career. But he turned to philosophy, and to Roman emperors philosophy was rapidly becoming a thing suspect. (We need not go into the reasons here; let us note simply the fact.) In the year 62 Nero, already suspi-cious of any man of nobility or eminence, sent to the aristocrat Rubellius Plautus a message bidding him commit suicide; while some counseled rebellion, two philosophers, one a Greek and the other Musonius, bade him meet death firmly and end, once and for all, a life of fear and uncertainty. Thus already his name was linked with suspected persons. Three years later, a great conspiracy against Nero was detected, and among the victims was Musonius: whether he was really implicated we do not know. However, his pun-ishment was exile to Gyaros. This was a small island in the midst of the Cyclades, barren and with but little water, and so wretchedly poor that the fisher-men living on it had begged Augustus for a remission of the exiguous tribute of 150 drachmas imposed upon them, since 100, that is $25, was as much as they could reasonably manage. It was one of the most dreaded of the penal islands of the Empire, yet Musonius bore his fate without complaining; so great was the fame of


T H E P H I L O S O P H E R 35

his name by now that many voyaged to the island to listen to his discourses and profit by them. Both in his teaching and his practice he showed how little he thought exile an evil. He is said to have discovered a spring of fresh water, and so to have helped the islanders.

Probably he stayed on Gyaros till the suicide of Nero in June, 68, made it possible to return to Rome, though there is an anecdote (I suspect apocryphal) which connects him with Nero's famous project for digging a canal through the isthmus of Corinth. On this work slaves and political prisoners were em-ployed alike, and the story goes that another phi-losopher, to his horror, espied Musonius working in one of the gangs. He expressed himself in a few ap-propriate sentiments; Musonius merely grasped his spade more firmly and thrust it into the ground, then looked up and said, " Y o u are pained, are you, seeing me digging up the isthmus, for the sake of Hellas! Well, suppose you had seen me performing on the harp, like Nero, how would you have felt then?"

After Nero's death, it seemed safe to return, but he returned only to face the horrors of civil war in Italy, even in Rome itself. We have seen how he made one unavailing, rather ludicrous effort to influence the soldiers; it is typical of the man, quite fearless, un-conventional, and honest. I t should be noted too that, unlike the fanatics, he had sufficient sense to withdraw when he saw his words were producing no effect. We hear of another good action : it was he who accused and secured the condemnation of Publius


36 F I V E M E N Celer, who had betrayed his friend the philosopher, Barea Soranus, under Nero. Such conduct is all to his credit; indeed he was soon to receive a tribute to the integrity of his character. Though Vespasian, shortly after his accession in 70, banished all philo-sophers from Rome, he expressly exempted Musonius, and for some years the philosopher lived in Rome, teaching and discoursing; for his instruction was oral only and he left no writings. He had many pupils: we need name only the most famous, the lame slave Epictetus. But apparently he fell into disfavor — how, we do not know — and again suffered exile. In the course of his wanderings he reached Athens, and there made a protest that again does him credit. The Athenians had learnt from the Romans the practice of gladiatorial games, and actually celebrated them in the Theatre of Dionysus, " so that often a gladiator was murdered against the very seats where the hiero-phant and the other priests had to sit." Against the horror of this Musonius protested; it was perhaps a less spectacular action than when the heroic St Te-lemachus, in 404, rushed down into the amphitheatre to part the combatants and sacrificed his own life in order to stop the slaughter, but it shows something of the same fearless and outspoken spirit. In fact, Mu-sonius had to pay for his outspokenness, for the Athenians were annoyed at the rebuke, and so he left their city. We hear that he was recalled to Rome by Titus and lived in friendship with him, but Titus' reign lasted only two years (79-81), and when the autocratic Domitian succeeded him, Musonius can-



not have felt secure. How or when he died we do not know; if we are to put chronological limits to his life we may hazard that he was born some time about A.D. 20 and may have lived to about the year 90. He was married, and he gave his daughter in marriage to a pupil and philosopher, Artemidorus.

Such is, in brief and without arguing controversial points, the outline of Musonius' life. He did not achieve the renown that fell to other Stoics, Seneca or Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius, whose names are household words. Y e t he deserves our kindly study, first because he is such a good specimen of the average philosopher of that time, and secondly because he is more than that: there is in his teachings a certain positive common-sense realistic quality which differ-entiates him from much of the thought of his time, and which (it seems to me) won him the respect of the common-sense Vespasian. Much of his teaching is in strong and deliberate contrast to the anti-everything extravagances of the later Cynics, and reveals a frame of mind far more normal and healthy.

In considering it, however, we must remember that Musonius, like Socrates, left no writings or books of his own, but that his discourses and teaching were re-ported by others, mainly by a mysterious and un-identifiable Lucius. A second point to remember is that by the first century philosophy meant something very different from what it had meant for Plato or Aristotle, or might mean to us. I t is no longer free and fearless investigation, by vigorous argument, careless of the consequences, so long as truth be


38 FIVE M E N reached; rather it has become, under the Empire, the formulation of principles that will enable a man or woman to face a dangerous and difficult world with-out flinching and with proper dignity. Two or three times Musonius lays down his definition of what phi-losophy is; it is, he says, " t o find out by discussion what is fitting and proper, and then carry it out in action"; or again, "philosophy is the enquiry how to live nobly." In fact philosophy has become simply a code of ethical conduct: you must have the right ideas, control yourself, and do the right things; what those right things are will appear presently. Of course, you must be able to argue and reason prop-erly, must have some knowledge of dialectic, but that is not the important thing; it is merely the founda-tion, the only real benefit to be derived from philos-ophy is when a man (or woman) after listening to sound and healthy arguments can then produce ac-tions that agree with them. Both teacher and taught must practise what is preached. No need, then, for lengthy discussions, for multiplicity of demonstra-tions: all that is needed is a few clinching and clear proofs. For it is action and conduct that really count.

This is a narrow view, but we cannot blame Mu-sonius for it. At this time, men were in no mood for abstract speculation: what they needed was some-thing definite, and the love of knowledge for its own sake found little encouragement. Different sects of philosophy had their different ways of meeting the world. You might deny the existence of gods or Providence, retire from public life, and live for your


T H E P H I L O S O P H E R 39 friends and yourself, like the Epicureans. Yet tha t meant a dereliction of civic du ty ; it looked like ig-noble shirking of service. A Liverpool schoolboy, asked to define Unitarianism, seized his pen and wrote, " T h e Unitarians are a church in which it is not necessary to do anything to be any th ing" ; to many earnest Romans Epicureanism must have appeared equally negative. You might, without forsaking your adherence to Roman religious ways and your duty to the State, find additional hope or consolation in one of the new religions from the East , in the worship of the Syrian Goddess, or of Isis. Or you might despair of civilized society and, like the Cynics, preach against all human conventions, — property, mar-riage, decency, •— with a contemptuous arrogance that roused hatred or ridicule in listeners. Lovers of the Belle of New York may remember tha t when the league of social reformers from Kansas City bursts upon the town the burden of its exhortation is:

Of course you can never be like us, But be as like us as you're able to be,

and that couplet, in its complacent arrogance, touches off the Cynic superiority complex very neatly. Of all the sects the Stoics seem to have kept their heads the best: they allowed mankind some belief in Provi-dence or a divine ordering of the universe, and to meet the difficulties of the world, the anger of the Emperor tha t might result in death or exile, or confiscation of property, they counseled a rigorous practice of self-reliance, of cutting down desires, and of self-disci-


4 o FIVE MEN pline. It is to this last school that Musonius belongs, but there is about him a certain common sense and hu-manity that mark him out from the harsher Stoics.

Take first his attitude towards marriage. " Is mar-riage a hindrance to the would-be philosopher?" he was once asked. It was a common question. The Cynic would certainly have replied "Yes." Epic-tetus has an amusing passage in which he points out the distractions and bothers to which a Cynic will be subjected if he marries: he will have to buy furniture, a bed, a kettle to warm the bottle for the baby; he will have to find clothes for his children, and pens, ink, and paper for them when they go to school. "Oh, but," asked a young man, "didn't Crates marry?" — for Crates was one of the heroes of the Cynic school. "Yes," said Epictetus, "but that was a love-mar-riage, and we are talking about ordinary marriages." The story was famous: Crates, the Cynic, ascetic, propertyless, a beggar, won the passionate admiration and love of Hipparchia; for him she gave up every-thing, and the two lived together in poverty. But ordinary marriages were not like that, said Epictetus; in this he was true to Stoic tenets, which regarded all passion as more or less of a disease; in fact, most orthodox Stoics would have assented wholeheartedly to Dr Johnson's startling pronouncement that " i t is commonly a weak man who marries for love."

In contrast, what answer would Musonius give? "Of course marriage is not a hindrance." He points out that famous philosophers of old, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Crates (and he might have added Plato


T H E PHILOSOPHER 4 i and Aristotle), all married, and yet were able to re-main philosophers. "Remember," he said, "Crates had no house, no furniture, no possessions at all, and yet married: and then he had no bedding of his own but spent day and night with his wife in the public colonnades of Athens. Whereas we, who start from a house, and have (some of us) servants to look after us, yet dare pretend that marriage is a hindrance to phi-losophy." Another point: it is admittedly the philos-opher's duty to guide men on the path of nature, and what is more natural than marriage? Then follow the more familiar ideas that marriage is the foundation of the home, and the home that of the State: to destroy marriage is to undermine the foundations of the State, and indeed of mankind. From this he turns to a less hackneyed theme: the love and sympathy that mar-riage brings, the complete and unselfish union of in-terests.

This mention of Musonius' view of marriage may lead us to enquire what was his attitude towards the education of women; here he seems to me definitely in advance of his age. Romans did not believe in women's studying philosophy or enjoying higher edu-cation, and though some women were sufficiently able and strong-minded to break through this convention, society as a whole disapproved of the educated woman and satirists made her their butt. Juvenal complains heavily of the boredom of having a wife who discusses poetry at table or compares Virgil with Homer, and centuries later Dr Johnson adapted this criticism in his own trenchant way: " A man is in general better


42 FIVE M E N pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek." But Musonius was one of the few who really championed the equal rights of women, and it is instructive to look for a moment at the fragments of his discourse on the theme " T h a t Women should study Philosophy"; it is instructive both for his thought and his methods of arguing. First of all, Musonius remarks that from the gods women, as well as men, have received the same faculty of rea-son, the same senses (sight, taste, touch, smell), the same natural longing for virtue. That being so, "why on earth," he asks indignantly, "should it be a duty for men to search and investigate how they can live nobly — for that 's all that philosophy is •— but not for women?" I t is all very ordinary and common-sense, perhaps, but none the worse for that. "Wha t are the qualities needed in a good wife ? " he next asks. She must manage the house, choose out what is good for it, and rule the servants, and — rather surpris-ingly for us •— all these qualities will be found in one who studies philosophy. To Musonius all these things are parts of life, and philosophy is simply knowledge of life and a design for living. Other things, of course, are needed: a wife must be faithful, not enslaved by desires, not quarrelsome, not extrav-agant, not too given to ornamentation. We may re-mark in passing that though this last clause sounds slightly Puritanical, the vulgar display and extrava-gance of some rich society women must have been appalling: the Elder Pliny recounts how, at a wedding banquet, he saw Lollia Paulina, a wife of the Emperor


T H E P H I L O S O P H E R 43 Gaius, covered from head to foot in pearls and emer-alds, which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces; she kept telling people so, and she was even prepared (a beauti-ful touch) to support her assertion by producing the receipts.

But to return to Musonius: the woman who has studied philosophy, he declares, will be just, will make for happiness and concord, will look sedulously after husband and children, will refrain from greed and gainfulness.

Why, she is bound [he goes on], if she has really learnt the lesson of philosophy, to hold wrong-doing worse than being wronged, being robbed better than robbing, and she is bound to love her children more than life itself. For an educated woman is bound to be braver: she will never yield to anything base through fear of death or pain, not even to a tyrant himself. She has practised high thinking, to re-gard death as no evil and life not as a good, not to avoid work or seek relaxation before all else. Here is a wife who could work and endure hardship, suckle her children her-self, help her husband with her own hands, and without hesitation carry out tasks which some think menial.

Would not the founders of Oberlin have recognized a kindred spirit here?

But there comes an objection: women who learn philosophy are apt to be headstrong and arrogant, to give up housekeeping and spinning wool, and to fre-quent men's company, practising argumentation and solving syllogisms. I t is the same cry as Juvenal 's outburst against the bluestocking. Y e t , after all, in some houses the daily spinning and household tasks must have been monotonous enough, and under some


44 F I V E M E N rigorous Roman fathers home might well have been what Bernard Shaw terms it — " t h e girl's prison and the woman's workhouse." T o this age-old conserva-tive cry Musonius' reply is very characteristic:

I would not ask women any more than I would ask men to give up their proper tasks and busy themselves with dis-putation alone: whatever disputation they take in hand I say must be for the sake of practical work. A physician's reasoning is no use unless it tends towards the health of the human body: similarly all the reasoning of a philosopher is useless unless it tends towards the excellence of the human soul. . . . Observe [he says a little further on], I do not mean that women should possess the art of clear definition of terms or uncommon smartness, if they are to philoso-phize as women should: for I don't even like this overmuch for men. But I do say that they must have excellence of disposition and nobility of character: for philosophy is the practice of nobility, and nothing else but that.

Throughout, the task of the teacher is to produce practical results, his teaching must have a bearing upon life; even though that life may be a hard and rugged one, women should be taught how to bear it as well as men.

Naturally, therefore, when Musonius was asked, "Would you give your daughters a similar education to sons?" he replied " Y e s . " I t is true he jibs a little at the thought of women doing gymnastic exercises, on the ground that they are scarcely strong enough for it, but the supreme part of education, the proper use of reasoning powers, that must be given to girls as well as to boys. From youth up they must be taught what is good and bad, what to pursue and


T H E PHILOSOPHER 45 what to avoid; they must have modesty and bravery implanted in them, a bravery that will not shun hard labor, or fear death, or bend before disaster. " T o teach women too to shun greed," he cries, " t o honor equality, to do good and not willingly to do harm to fellow-men —• that is a fine lesson and it will, as well, make its learners just ."

I t is easy to see what Musonius wants: he has no foolish scorn for intellect or for human reasoning, but he holds quite firmly that they must subserve the formation of a definite type of character, firm against indulgences or luxury. For it cannot be de-nied that the evils of the time were very great: the period of the Julio-Claudian rule witnessed an ex-traordinary outburst of "post-war" phenomena. The nobles possessed vast wealth, and households full of slaves and servants, and they used both ex-travagantly and inconsiderately to serve their pleas-ures. " W e sail the seas to their utmost limits for different dainties, cooks are in far higher demand than farm laborers, and we serve dinners that have cost the price of whole estates." This is no mere satirist's ac-cusation: luxury and spending had risen to incredible heights. Otho could offer Nero a banquet that had cost 400,000,000 sesterces; Seneca possessed 500 tables of the valuable citrus wood; Nero lavished on his wife Poppaea's funeral as much Arabian spices as were normally imported in a year.

I t was not merely in money that madness had come: in many things the distinction between right and wrong was ill observed. True, we do not find in


4 6 FIVE M E N Musonius the notable and noble outburst against prostitution and its evils that we have in Dio Chrys-ostom. But he does protest against the practice of a master's using a woman slave as concubine or mis-tress, which, to most, appeared blameless: "Surely a master has absolute power," ran the normal argu-ment; "he 's free to do what he likes with his own slave, isn't he?"

To that I have one simple reply [said Musonius]. If a man thinks there is nothing shameful or unusual in using his own slave this way, let him consider how he would feel if a woman and a mistress of a household used a man-slave for this purpose! Why, it would seem intolerable whether she was a married woman or single. But you surely will not claim that men are weaker than women, less able to control their desires?

Such is Musonius' "simple reply." Yet we must ac-knowledge that we nowhere get a trace of any feeling that slavery in itself is unnatural or wrong. And the same is true of some other evils that cankered life in the ancient world, such as the practice of infanticide, and exposure of children in order to prevent large families. When Musonius was asked, "Should a man rear all his children?" he answered "Yes," but his reasons are not ours; he points out how useful to a man a large family can be, what a fine sight it is to see them all walking together, but there is not a word about the sacredness of human life, not a trace of those humanitarian arguments that would inevitably be produced by moderns. And this is typical of the Stoic attitude to some abuses: instead of advocating


T H E PHILOSOPHER 47 their abolition or denouncing them, the Stoics were rather apt to take the line that the abuse doesn't ex-ist, or if it does exist doesn't really matter, provided that you look at it the right way.

That was all part of the Stoic paradoxical teaching: their ideal man was not only wise, just, virtuous, and the embodiment of all good, but he could not be dam-aged by the assaults of circumstance. For the good cannot be harmed by the bad: in the long run the bad, when they fancy they are injuring the good, by torturing or killing them, are merely hurting them-selves and lowering their own character. When a pupil asked him whether a philosopher should bring an action for assault against an enemy, Musonius' line of argument was perfectly plain: " A philosopher must regard inflicting injury as far worse than suffer-ing it: it's far better to suffer wrong than to do it. If you, a philosopher, can't stand blows or insults, what is the good of you, and what is the use of your phi-losophy? And remember, many of these injuries are due to ignorance!" Ignorance, yes; here Musonius is following the example of Socrates, who, when his friends expressed surprise at his taking ill-treatment so quietly, merely rejoined, "Should I have gone to law with a donkey, supposing it kicked me?" In fact Musonius would have agreed with Plutarch that the best return you can make to your enemy is to make him a better man. For, in any event, to prosecute your enemy is stupid, and bad form; it is inconsistent with your own profession that the good can't be harmed by the bad.


4 8 F I V E M E N The same considerations are used to convince his

learners that exile is no evil. Exile may rob you, but only of seeming goods — wealth, property, comfort, retinues of slaves; it cannot take away from you the real goods — bravery, justice, purity, reasoning power.

If that is so, and if you are a good man and possess these virtues, then exile cannot harm or humble you; if you are bad, it is your own badness that harms you, and not exile; and the grief you feel is brought on by your badness, and not by exile. There are two possibilities: either you have been exiled justly or unjustly. If justly, how can you com-plain? If unjustly, the evils fall on those who have ban-ished us, not upon us.

This is high doctrine indeed, and it must have needed all the vehemence and earnestness of Mu-sonius to convince his hearers. Perhaps it was for the less spiritually-minded that he put forward other arguments which have come down to us.

Exile cannot deprive us of sun and air, water and earth, and of human society: these we can always have, and we soon learn in our exile who are our false and who our true friends. I t gives us leisure to learn and carry out the really good things: we don't need much, our wants can be simple and easily supplied, unless we hanker after luxury and fine living. To some people, moreover, exile has proved a posi-tive boon; they had become soft and nesh and flabby un-der luxury, whereas exile has forced them to live in a more manly fashion and thus strengthened their bodies. Look at Spartiaticus here: he had a bad chest for years, and now plainer living has cured that.


T H E PHILOSOPHER 49 One wonders what Spartiaticus said! To us, it seems a little comic to have exile held up as a cure for chest trouble or for gout, but underneath we discern the same earnest purpose throughout in the philosopher's teaching — the curtailment of wants, a stern disci-pline, and a general simplification of life.

This tendency comes out clearly in three discourses of his called "Food," "Shelter," and "Furniture." On diet he spoke, we are told, often and earnestly, for self-discipline in food and drink seemed to him the foundation of character. He would have agreed heartily with the Chinese saying: "Wine does not make a man drunk; a man makes himself d runk" •— for he believed we should school our appetites. He disapproved of a meat diet as being heavy and a hin-drance to thought; and anyway, to eat flesh made men like wild beasts. No: better to live on a non-flesh diet, and best of all on uncooked things, simple and easy to find; nuts, fresh vegetables, milk, cheese, honey. Man is meant to be like the gods: but they, as is well known, live on the exhalations that come up from earth and sea; the more nearly we attain to this unsubstantial diet the better shall we be! Gluttons are like pigs or dogs, wallowing in their food — a dis-gusting sight. One can appreciate much of this, but a great deal is based on the unfortunate Stoic assump-tion that enjoyment is, in itself, a bad thing. "God gave man food and drink to help keep him alive, not to enjoy himself!" he cries. But men have turned eating into a pleasure, they have even composed


5o FIVE MEN treatises upon cookery, and it is one of the most se-ductive and difficult pleasures, because we encounter it every day, and this pleasure offers many tempta-tions. There is the danger of eating more than you should, or eating too fast, or gloating over dainties, or preferring sweet to wholesome dishes. Modern psy-chology and medical knowledge have done much to rob us of the idea that enjoyment of eating or drinking is a sin or unhealthy; but it is an unfortunate fact that at the back of much Stoic and Cynic philosophy lay the dread of enjoyment, the fear that it might de-moralize you: " I ' d sooner be mad than enjoy myself," said the Cynic Diogenes. For the other extreme, we have merely to turn to Byron's extraordinary out-burst: " A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only truly feminine viands!"

With such views on food, Musonius' doctrine about shelter and furniture can readily be imagined. The purpose of shelter, whether it be clothing or a house, is simply to protect the body: you do not need ex-pensive clothes or showy shoes; the less clothing you can wear the better, and go unshod if you can. The same way with a house: a house is simply meant to keep off extremes of heat and cold, and to give shelter from sun and wind.

In fact [goes on this cheerless gospel], it should only give you as much shelter as a natural cave would, with perhaps a little more to allow for storage of food. What is the need of colonnaded courts ? of varied colourings ? of ceilings fret-ted with gold? of precious stones, some fitted into the


T H E P H I L O S O P H E R 51 floor, others inlaid in the walls, many of them brought at huge expense from a great distance? None of these things are necessary for life and health!

And then his reasoning strikes out along a different path, one much less trodden: these denunciations of ornament and luxury were common enough among ancient satirists, usually on the ground of their need-lessness. But Musonius continues: " A l l these things involve much labor and expense, with which a man could have benefited many of his fellow-creatures, both in public and private. How much more lauda-ble to help many than to be housed expensively! How much more noble to spend money on men rather than on wood and stone!" This conception of spending money on other people, of helping one's fellow-men, is a thing rarely met with in his brother-philosophers, who were often more eager to rebuke the faults of mankind than to suggest schemes of social service; it is something more positive and more practical that we here find in Musonius.

The same cutting down of expense and extrava-gance appears in his remarks about furniture: no need for couches of ivory and silver and gold, for purple coverlets, for goblets fashioned from silver and gold. " Y o u can eat just as pleasantly off a wooden table, and earthenware cups will quench your thirst just as well, and often give the wine a better tas te ! " Your furniture and drinking vessels should be made of cheap stuff, easy to procure, easy to clean, and easy to guard. Needless to say, Musonius disapproves of ornaments for women and of shaving for men! In


52 FIVE M E N all this, there is nothing unusual or out of the way; it is the stock-in-trade of the satirist and moral philos-opher. "There is a certain list of vices committed in all ages," says Sir Thomas Browne, "and declaimed against by all authors, which will last as long as hu-man nature; which, digested into commonplaces, may serve for any theme, and never be out of date till Doomsday." Through every age and generation we get these cries for simplification, for limiting of de-sires and needs, and for retrenchment. Yet they are very dangerous cries. Take the case of Tolstoy as an example: you follow his ideal, you reduce your way of living and your interests to what it allows, and then what happens? Unless you are cast in the same mould as Tolstoy and have a wife like his to arrange everything for you, your life becomes narrow, barren, and uninteresting. For, in more cases than not, it is a retrenchment that arises from no natural joy in the simple things of life, no feeling of contentment, but from a haunting fear that pleasure and enjoyment are somehow evil, and mankind wicked; and that is no way to find a based happiness.

Let us look rather at what is new and unusual in Musonius. He does not demand this simplification merely in order that the simplifier may mortify him-self; no, luxury is a misuse of money, not because it gives the spender pleasure, but because it might have been so much better spent on men and women, in helping and benefiting them. Unfortunately, we hear no more of this and cannot tell how Musonius may have developed the theme; politically he was certainly


T H E PHILOSOPHER 53 no revolutionary, he was prepared to accept most existing institutions, he did not urge the overthrow of slavery, or property, or kingship. Indeed, we have an account of an address he delivered to some Eastern client-king on the age-old theme of kings' needing to be philosophers. Here, too, the arguments are hack-neyed enough: it is a king's duty to save and help his subjects, but how can he unless he knows what is harmful and what beneficial? How again can he allot justice to his subjects, unless he knows what justice really is? And how can he argue and dispute unless he has been taught dialectic? Finally, he must be a philosopher, if he is really to be what a monarch should be, law incarnate. All this is familiar Stoic doctrine. Rather to our surprise, we learn that the king was delighted by this sermon, and in his enthu-siasm cried, " A s k for whatever present you like; I can't refuse you anything." "A l l I ask of you," Musonius replied, " is to fall into line with the pre-cepts you approve so highly: that will be the best present you can give me and the greatest benefit you can confer upon yourself."

But though occasionally Musonius might hope he had persuaded a king to philosophize, all philosophers could not be kings: they must live somehow, and live in practical fashion, not as theorists alone; what, then, was the best form of life to adopt? Musonius recommended a life devoted to agriculture, and we have a long fragment from a very interesting dis-course that he delivered on the subject. First of all, of course, a man must be robust to undertake the life,


54 FIVE M E N but if he is, then no life is better suited to a philo-sopher. The earth gives a fair and justreturnforlabor bestowed on it; planting, ploughing, and sowing are all tasks worthy of a free man; shepherding did no harm to Hesiod's poetry, why should it harm us?

Indeed I regard shepherding as the most attractive of all the tasks connected with farming, because it offers the soul more leisure for pondering and investigating what concerns Culture.1 For all tasks that bend and strain the body over-much, force the soul too to concentrate on them (or nearly so, because it strains with the body) ; but all tasks that do not strain the body too much do not hinder the soul from reasoning out important questions; from such reasoning the soul improves itself, and that is the special aim of every philosopher.

So Musonius praises the life of the hard-working, simple-living farmer above all others. I t is more nat-ural to gain a living from the land than from other sources; it is more manly to live on a farm than to lead an armchair life in the city, like professors; it is more healthy to live out of doors than sheltered in a house; and lastly, it is more dignified to live and sup-port yourself by your own labor than by receiving from others.

But Musonius has to meet an objection, the deep-rooted feeling of most educated Romans of the period against manual labor: how undignified, how degrad-ing! 2 And his answer to it is so unconventional, and

1 What Musonius means here by shepherding is (I fancy) simply the task of watching the sheep as they graze on the mountainside, a task you may see many an Italian or Sicilian boy carrying out to-day. Sheep-dipping and sheep-shearing offer fewer occasions for meditation.

2 Seneca satirizes the indolence and softness of the rich Romans in his



so honest, and also so much in spirit with the ideals of

the early founders and promoters of Oberlin, that I

venture to quote it in full, adapted from the admi-

rable translation by Mr W. E. Heitland:

" B u t come," someone may say, " isn ' t it monstrous for a man of educative power, qualified to lead young men on to philosophy, to till the soil and do bodily labour like rustics?" Yes, it would be monstrous, if tilling the soil really debarred a man from philosophy, or from helping others towards it. But, as things are, if young men could see their teacher at work in the country, demonstrating in practice the principle to which reason guides us — namely, that bodily toil and hardship are preferable to dependence on others for our food — I think it would be more helpful to them than attendance at his lectures in town. What is to hinder a pupil, while he works at his teacher's side, from catching his utterances on self-control or justice or forti-tude? For the right pursuit of philosophy is not promoted by much talking, and young men do not need to learn off the mass of speculation on these topics, although the Pro-fessors are so puffed up by it. Such discourses, indeed, are enough to wear out a man's whole lifetime; but it is possible to pick up the most indispensable and useful points even when engaged on the work of husbandry, especially as they will not be working continuously, but will have periods of rest. Now, I am well aware that few will be willing to re-ceive instruction by this method; but it is better that the majority of youths who profess the pursuit of philosophy should never attend a philosopher at all, I mean those un-sound soft creatures whose presence at the classes is a stain upon the name of philosophy. For of those who have a genuine love of philosophy there is not one who would not

story of the wealthy and enervated Mindyrides, who had never soiled his hands with a day's work and was completely prostrated by seeing a work-man raise his pick vigorously (Dial., IV, 25, 2).


56 F I V E M E N be willing to spend his time with a good man on a farm, even though it should be very difficult to work; seeing that he would reap great advantages from this employment. He would have the company of his teacher night and day; he would be removed from the evils of city-life, which are a stumbling-block to the pursuit of philosophy; his conduct, good or bad, could not escape notice (and nothing benefits a pupil more than this) ; moreover, to be under the eye of a good man when eating and drinking and sleeping, is a great benefit. . . . Under these conditions the pupil enjoys most fully the company of his teacher, while the teacher has the fullest control of his pupil. This being so, it is clear that of the philosopher's resources none is more useful or more be-coming than that drawn from husbandry.

I t may be, as M r Heitland suggests, tha t these ideas were impracticable in the luxurious and slave-ridden society of the time. I am not so sure •— but one cannot help admiring the sturdy originality and unconventionality of Musonius on this topic. The upholding of manual labor as no disgrace, the com-bination of precept and practice, the close and con-s tant association of teacher and taught •— all these things are a credit to Musonius, and would (I venture to say) have won the hearty approbation of the founders of Oberlin College, whose ideal was a colony of families "bound together by a solemn covenant which pledged them to plainest living and highest thinking," in which colony "manua l labor should play a prominent pa r t . "

One curious reflection obtrudes itself, however, when we picture this little band of a teacher and his disciples, working hard and thinking and discoursing.



How often a movement in philosophy starts with high

hopes and reforming zeal: the years pass, and lo!

there is left a small community, a little aloof from the

world, working steadily in its garden. T h e late seven-

teenth and early eighteenth centuries had seen a great

efflorescence in philosophy, and great names; slowly

there comes a less optimistic note, and in the end Vol-

taire sums up the matter in his Candide. Y o u remem-

ber how Candide, Pangloss, and Martin visit an old

T u r k on his estate, who entertains them hospitably:

Candide is greatly impressed. " Y o u must h a v e , "

said he to the T u r k , " a large and superb es tate?" " I

have only twenty acres," replied the Turk . " I farm

them with m y children; work keeps three great evils

away from us: boredom, vice, and pover ty . " Candide

thinks it over, and the whole little community enters

into the spirit of the idea, everyone works busily and

does his or her share, and if sometimes the learned

Pangloss interrupts with a discourse on all being for

the best in the best of possible worlds, and bound by

a chain of causation, the answer is at hand: " ' C e l a

est bien dit, ' répondit Candide, 'mais il faut cultiver

notre jardin. ' "

B u t we have strayed rather far from Musonius. I t

will be obvious, even from this short survey, that he

was not a philosopher in our sense of the word, but as

a moral teacher and preacher he must have stood

high, and he had a high sense of his calling. When a

young man came to him in some distress, because his

father would not allow him to follow the philosophic

life, Musonius did not hesitate to tell him that,


58 FIVE M E N though a son owes obedience to his father, there is a higher obedience still: "Your father may forbid you to philosophize, but the common father of all, gods and men, Zeus himself, bids you and urges you to fol-low philosophy." And this philosophy is nothing so very difficult; there is no need to wear a strange dress, to grow a beard, or to distinguish yourself from or-dinary people; wherever you are and however you are situated, nothing can prevent you from using your mind, and from thinking what is right; and that is philosophy! The thing sounds plain enough, almost banal, but from Musonius, with his impassioned and emphatic utterance, with his own fearless and honor-able personality, himself a living example of the no-bility of life which he preached, it can never have sounded plain or ordinary. Those who came to him in earnest cannot have gone away unrewarded; Epic-tetus himself acknowledges the debt he owes to his master, and we can see for ourselves (if we read the two and compare) how real it was. For, whatever its shortcomings, Musonius' system was not (like some systems) a turning back upon life, a despairing retire-ment. Human beings must play their part in life; let them play it positively and nobly!

So, in the long run, it is God Himself who gives the order to be a philosopher, to be just, good, helpful, modest, high-minded, to rise superior to pains and pleasures, to be unspotted by envy and intrigue. " In a word, God's Law bids you be good, and that is the same as being a philosopher." "On that score a man has a right to praise himself, on that he can properly


T H E PHILOSOPHER 59 think well of himself and be hopeful and confident, and so win for himself cheerfulness and an abiding joy." Wealth and riches will not bring this, only philosophy. I t is a noble and a high creed, inculcat-ing self-control and self-reliance, teaching men and women never to lower themselves by thought or word or deed, to be content with little, to endure. I t pro-duced some fine results, some fine characters. Yet — let us be honest — admirable though it is, it is per-haps too austere for the average: to some extent it is based upon man's pride in himself and on his own high standard: if once self-confidence breaks down or control is loosened, what is left then? Nothing, per-haps, save the possibility of a rather theatrical exit from the world, in the old Roman fashion. And some of the creed is apt to get wrecked on sheer mundane common sense. "Sir ," said Dr Johnson, "all the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, show it to be evidently a great evil. You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune." To declare that poverty and pain are only seeming evils does not help a man very much, unless he has got something to offset them •— a god, an institution, a society — something outside his own being to which he can attach himself; it is no use merely appealing to his own good opinion of himself. One cannot help contrasting this severe and rather negative doctrine with the sudden positive exuberance which is to be found in the writings of a man who was an older con-temporary, St Paul. The Christians, too, are pre-


6o FIVE M E N pared to go without, to disclaim money and luxury, to face torture, exile, and death, but for a very differ-ent reason: "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to sepa-rate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." And it lasted. The same certain and as-sured serenity, the same theme of the renunciation of pleasures and comforts, because of Christ's love, meet us again in John Keble, when he exalts " the trivial round, the common task" :

Seek we no more: content with these, Let present rapture, comfort, ease, As Heaven shall bid them, come and go; The secret, this, of rest below.

The contrast is interesting. Christianity prevailed where Stoicism proved ineffectual: Stoicism could not attract the ordinary man and woman, whereas Chris-tianity could appeal to the mass of people. Yet there remains, to my mind, something noble and attractive in the figure of Musonius, in the simplicity and strength of his character: a man who feared neither death nor exile, did not cower before the anger of an emperor or the resentment of the Athenians, single-minded throughout •—• teaching, working, living hard and nobly. If much of his teaching seems austere and somewhat inhuman, let us remember that in many things — his hatred of bloodshed (whether in war it-self or in the mimic warfare of gladiators), his sym-


T H E P H I L O S O P H E R 6i pa thy towards slaves, his support of women's equality and women's education, his opposition to infanticide and exposure, his respect for manual labor — he was surprisingly in advance of his age. I t was a good life he lived, and he held before his pupils no low or light ideal.

Riches I hold in light esteem And love I laugh to scorn; And lust of fame was but a dream That vanished with the morn. And, if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me Is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear And give me Liberty!' Yea, as my swift days near their goal 'Tis all that I implore: In Life and Death a chainless soul With courage to endure.

The words are from Emily Brontë; Musonius would not have disdained them.


62 F I V E M E N

N O T E S

The fragments of Musonius' discourses on various sub-jects, as written down by his hearers, lay scattered in the work of Stobaeus and of other writers till, in 1905,0. Hense collected and published them for Teubner. In the Preface Hense gives the authorities and texts for a life of Musonius, and discusses points fully. I have drawn mainly upon Hense's work, with some help from the Pauly-Wissowa article on Musonius: I did not see Ch. Favez, Un fémi-niste romain: Musonius Ruf us (Bulletin de la Société des Etudes de Lettres, Lausanne, V I I I , 1933, no. 20) till after this lecture was in proof. A few references are appended.

Musonius and the soldiery, Tacitus, Hist., I l l , 81. An account of the isle of Gyaros in Strabo, X , p. 48 5 and Pliny, Hist. Nat. , V I I I , 104 and 222. Epictetus' exposition of the awkwardness of marriage for a Cynic is in III , xxii, 67. For Lollia Paulina and her ropes of pearls see Pliny, Hist. Nat., I X , 117. Socrates' retort about not going to law with a donkey, which is probably apocryphal, is in Diogenes Laertius, II , 21.

I have taken the translation of Musonius' views on agri-culture as a life for a philosopher from M r W. E. Heitland's great book, Agricola, Cambridge, England, 1920, though with occasional alterations. The other quotations of Mu-sonius' views are free translations or adaptations of Hense's text. I must acknowledge the benefit of conversations on the subjects of later Stoicism and Cynicism with M r F. H. Sandbach of Trinity College, and Mr D. R. Dudley of St John's College, Cambridge.


five men (character studies from the roman empire) || ii the philosopher (musonius rufus)

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