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PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Copyright © 2020 by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
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Illustrations by Rebecca DeField. Used with permission.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Holiday, Ryan, author. | Hanselman, Stephen, author.
Title: Lives of the stoics : the art of living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius / Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, authors of The daily stoic.
Description: New York : Portfolio/Penguin, 2020. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020011797 (print) | LCCN 2020011798 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525541875 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780525541882 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Stoics.
Classification: LCC B528 .H66 2020 (print) | LCC B528 (ebook) | DDC 188—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011797
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011798
Cover design: Sarah Brody
Cover illustrations: Rebecca DeField / © 2020 Ryan Holiday. All rights reserved.
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CONTENTS
Introduction
Zeno the Prophet
Cleanthes the Apostle
Aristo the Challenger
Chrysippus the Fighter
Zeno the Maintainer
Diogenes the Diplomat
Antipater the Ethicist
Panaetius the Connector
Publius Rutilius Rufus the Last Honest Man
Posidonius the Genius
Diotimus the Vicious
Cicero the Fellow Traveler
Cato the Younger, Rome’s Iron Man
Porcia Cato the Iron Woman
Athenodorus Cananites the Kingmaker
Arius Didymus the Kingmaker II
Agrippinus the Different
Seneca the Striver
Cornutus the Common
Gaius Rubellius Plautus the Man Who Would Not Be King
Thrasea the Fearless
Helvidius Priscus the Senator
Musonius Rufus the Unbreakable
Epictetus the Free Man
Junius Rusticus the Dutiful
Marcus Aurelius the Philosopher King
Conclusion
Timeline of the Stoics and the Graeco-Roman World
Sources Consulted and Further Reading
Index of Stoics
INTRODUCTION
The only reason to study philosophy is to become a better person.
Anything else, as Nietzsche said, is merely a “critique of words by means of other words.”
No school of thought believed this—in the power of deeds over ideas—more than Stoicism, an ancient philosophy that dates to Greece in the third century BC.
It was Seneca, a Stoic philosopher of the Roman era, far removed from the academy, who would say quite bluntly that there was no other purpose to reading and study if not to live a happy life.
Yet this is not the role philosophy plays in the modern world. Today it’s about what smart people say, what big words they use, what paradoxes and riddles they can baffle us with.
No wonder we dismiss it as impractical. It is!
This book will be about a different and far more accessible type of wisdom, the kind that comes from people like Seneca, a man who served his country at the highest levels, endured exile and loss, struggled with ambition and personal flaws, and ultimately died tragically and heroically trying to make good on his theories. Unlike the so-called “pen-and-ink philosophers,” as the type was derisively known even two thousand years ago, the Stoics were most concerned with how one lived. The choices you made, the causes you served, the principles you adhered to in the face of adversity. They cared about what you did, not what you said.
Their philosophy, the one that we need today more than ever, was a philosophy not of ephemeral ideas but of action. Its four virtues are simple and straightforward: Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.
It should not surprise us then that we can learn just as much from the Stoics’ lived experiences (their works) as we can from their philosophical writings (their words). The wisdom offered by Cato the Younger’s published works is scant—as a lifelong public servant, he was too busy in office and in battle to write down more than a few sentences. But the story of how he comported himself—with ironclad integrity and selflessness—amid the decline and fall of the Republic teaches more about philosophy than any essay. Along those lines, little survives to us about the theories of Diotimus, an early-first-century BC Stoic, but the legend of his literary fraud shows us how easily even righteous people can go astray. The same goes for the life of Seneca, whose eloquent letters and books survive to us at length, and yet must be contrasted with the compromises required by his job in Nero’s administration.
And it’s not just the lives of the Stoics that teach volumes but also their deaths—every Stoic was born to die, whether it was by assassination, suicide, or, most uniquely, of laughter, as was the case for Chrysippus. Cicero once said that to philosophize is to learn how to die. So the Stoics instruct us wisely not only in how to live, but in how to face the scariest part of life: the end. They teach us, by example, the art of going out well.
The Stoics profiled here are mostly men. This was the curse of the ancients: It was a man’s world. Still, they were diverse. The philosophers in this book hailed from the far-flung corners of the known world, from Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. And though their philosophy would take root in Athens, the Stoics saw the whole earth as their country. The founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Kition, a Phoenician, would famously refuse Athenian citizenship because it conflicted with his sincere belief in cosmopolitanism. Stoicism eventually made its way to Rome, where it loomed large in Roman life, directing the course of one of the biggest and most multicultural empires in history.
Across the first five hundred years of Stoic history, its members form an astonishing spectrum of stations in life, ranging from Marcus Aurelius, the all-powerful emperor, to Epictetus, a lowly slave who was crippled in captivity but whose writings and life were an example that inspired many, including Marcus. Some of their names you may already be familiar with, and others (Aristo, Diogenes of Babylon, Porcia, Antipater, Panaetius, Posidonius, Arius, and Musonius Rufus) likely not. But each is worth knowing about, whether they were merchants or generals, writers or athletes, parents or professors, daughters or diplomats.