Roman Stoicism: Being Lectures on the History of the Stoic Philosophy with Special Reference to its Development within the Roman Empire
E. Vernon Arnold
9781465656872
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The present work treats of a subject of outstanding interest in the literature which is associated with the history of the Roman State, and which is expressed partly in Hellenistic Greek, partly in Latin. In the generations preceding our own, classical study has, to a large extent, attended to form rather than to matter, to expression rather than to content. To-day it is beginning to take a wider outlook. We are learning to look on literature as an unveiling of the human mind in its various stages of development, and as a key to the true meaning of history. The literature of Greece proper does not cease to attract us by its originality, charm, and variety; but the new interest may yet find its fullest satisfaction in Roman literature; for of all ancient peoples the Romans achieved most, and their achievements have been the most enduring. It was the Roman who joined the ends of the world by his roads and his bridges, poured into crowded towns unfailing supplies of corn and perennial streams of pure water, cleared the countryside of highwaymen, converted enemies into neighbours, created ideals of brotherhood under which the nations were united by common laws and unfettered marriage relations, and so shaped a new religion that if it shattered an empire it yet became the mother of many nations. We are the inheritors of Roman civilization; and if we have far surpassed it in scientific knowledge and material plenty, we are not equally confident that we possess better mental balance, or more complete social harmony. In this direction the problems of Roman life are the problems of Western life to-day; and the methods by which they were approached in the Roman world deserve more than ever to be studied by us. Such a study, if it is to be in any true sense historical, must break through the convention by which ancient Greece and Rome have come to be treated as a world apart; it must seek its starting point in the distant past, and count that of chief importance which will bear fruit in the ages that follow. Great achievements are born of strong convictions; and Roman statesmen, jurists, soldiers, and engineers did not learn to ‘scorn delights and live laborious days’ without some strong impulse from within. These inner convictions do not come to the surface everywhere in the Latin literature with which we are most familiar. The Roman orator or poet is generally content to express a conventional view of religion and morals, whilst he conceals his real thoughts in a spirit of reticence and almost of shame. Yet here and there every attentive reader will catch the accent of sincerity, sometimes in the less restrained conversation of the lower classes, sometimes in flights of poetic imagination, or again in instruction designed for the young. In this way we learn that the Romans of the last century of the republic and of the first century of the principate were profoundly concerned, not so much with questions connected with the safety of their empire or the justice of their form of government, as with problems in which all mankind has a common interest. What is truth, and how can it be ascertained? What is this universe in which we dwell, and by whom and how was it made? What are the beings called gods, and do they concern themselves with the affairs of men? What is man’s nature, his duty, and his destiny? These the Romans called the problems of philosophy, and they eagerly sought for definite and practical solutions to them. Such solutions when embodied in theoretical systems we still call ‘philosophies’; but when such systems are developed in a practical form and claim the obedience of large bodies of men they become religions. Stoicism is in the first instance a philosophy, and amongst its many competitors that one which appealed most successfully to the judgment of men who played a leading part in the Roman world; but as its acceptance becomes more general, it begins to assume all the features of a religion.
