Part 18
In practical ethics the Epicureans did not differ much from the other systems of their time. They taught that happiness must be found in the avoidance of pain, and that inasmuch as some pleasures have painful results they were to be rejected, as some pains were to be accepted, for they were followed by pleasure; and they held that in self-control and choice lay the means by which man could attain to his goal, which was ἀταραξία, complete repose of the mind. So the Epicurean tried to reach an end similar to that of the Stoic, although his premises were somewhat different. Epicureanism made a natural appeal to men in a time like the last century and a half of the Republic, when the ancient confidence in the state religion was gone, when the simplicity of the earlier centuries had been replaced by a more elaborate method of living, made possible through the rapid increase of wealth, and when in every department of Roman life rapid changes were taking place.
Yet for various reasons Epicureanism gradually lost its hold. It may be that the passivity which it engendered failed to make a lasting appeal to the Roman mind, or more probably other philosophies may have offered more attractive means of attaining the same goal of happiness. At any rate, as I pointed out in an earlier lecture, the Roman temperament had an especial leaning towards Stoicism. I there spoke of the introduction of Stoicism at Rome by Panaetius during the second century B.C., and I sketched the tendencies of his system so far as popular religion was concerned. It was probably Panaetius who was responsible for that threefold theology which was set forth by the famous Scaevola, who declared that there were three classes of gods—those of the poets, those of the statesmen, and those of the philosophers. The mythical theology of the poets, he said, was full of absurd and degrading stories unworthy of the attention of men; the religion of the state was nothing but a wise device, a useful convention adopted by statesmen as suited to the necessities of the political organism; but the theology of the intelligent man, the philosopher, was alone true, yet naturally it was beyond the power of the common man to grasp. Such was the attitude of the most famous jurist and the head of the state religion at the beginning of the last century before our era.[273] A little later Varro, the famous polyhistor, in writing of the gods and religion in his great Encyclopedia of Roman Antiquities, made a similar distinction between theologies and showed throughout his treatment the pantheistic influence of the Stoic philosophy. In his works he was the first fully to combine the mythological traditions with the philosophic doctrines which the Romans had been learning for over a century.
Yet the Epicurean and the Stoic schools were not the only ones which numbered adherents among the Romans. The representatives of the later Academy, Philo of Larissa and Antiochus of Ascalon, had many pupils. Cicero, Atticus, Brutus, and Varro had all heard the latter lecture at Athens. But the teachings of Plato had been greatly modified, inasmuch as these later Academicians had adopted the greater part of Stoicism into their philosophy. Furthermore the sceptical tendency which is so clearly marked among the Sophists of the fifth century had gradually developed during the fourth and third centuries into something like a philosophic system. The Sceptics, however, can hardly be called a school; they included those men in the various schools who doubted the possibility of attaining to absolute knowledge. Among the Romans they had close affinity with the tenets of the later Academicians on the one hand and with Stoic doctrines on the other. But their keen consciousness of the limitations of human knowledge made them also a factor in producing a certain agnosticism among the educated. As a matter of fact, the majority of the Romans were plain men, not given to speculation, with a fondness for the concrete rather than the abstract. They naturally selected from the various philosophies the elements which appealed to their practical sense, and which fortified them to meet the burdens and responsibilities of their daily life. On the whole Stoicism did this service more than any other of the current systems, and in the end, as we have already seen, Stoicism became the chief philosophy under the early Empire. The Stoics’ interest in grammar and logic also appealed to the legal character of the Roman mind; their system of duties, which were to be met unflinchingly, accorded with the Roman temper, and their cosmopolitan view found favor with a people that were masters of the greater part of the known world. But whatever the system of philosophy or selection of philosophic doctrines the Roman adopted, he found therein no warrant for a belief in the state religion. Philosophy could go no further than it did with Scaevola and Varro. The traditional religion was abandoned by the intellectual Romans; they substituted for it either agnosticism, some form of moral philosophy, or a pantheistic concept of the world. In truth the conquest of Greece over Rome was complete: in literature, art, philosophy, and religion captured Greece had taken her captor captive; by the beginning of our era Greek thought had penetrated to all the great centers of the Roman Empire, and under that long peace, which with comparatively few interruptions lasted for two centuries after the battle for Actium, philosophy and many new religions, including Christianity, travelled the great Roman roads from one end of the ancient world to the other.
The last century of the Republic from the time of the Gracchi to the battle of Actium in 31 B.C. was not only a period of religious change but also a time of political decay. The strength of the Republic was so far gone that democratic government no longer existed, and the rule fell into the hands of political leaders. However much the Gracchi may have been inspired by public spirit and high purpose, they set in motion a train of events that was destined to result in the loss of all public liberty and in the foundation of the Empire. The history of this last century must be read in the history of individuals—Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus; Saturninus; Marius, Cinna, and Sulla; Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus; Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus. These were the political bosses who for good or ill led the state and combined for its control. From the day that Caesar crossed the Rubicon in January 49 to the battle of Actium in September 31 B.C., Italy and many other lands around the Mediterranean were harassed almost continuously by civil war. The Italian peninsula never fully recovered from the disasters of this time. Even with the horrors of the European struggle before us, we in this land can hardly picture to ourselves either these disasters or the joy with which the majority of the inhabitants of the Roman world hailed the pax Romana which the Emperor Augustus established. With peace came a revival of trade and a return of prosperity, to which eloquent witness is given by Virgil and Horace.
The founder of the Empire, Augustus, attempted to revive the old state religion and to introduce certain modifications to the advantage of his own position. In this he was aided by the sense of dissatisfaction which the preceding disasters had increased, and by that inherent belief which always seems to persist, even in times of great religious doubt, that somehow the prosperity of the state is inseparably connected with the rites of religion. Under his direction temples were rebuilt, old priesthoods reestablished, and the ancient ritual performed with a magnificence that men had never before seen. He also magnified the worship of Apollo and of Apollo’s sister Diana; the former god in fact he regarded as his patron divinity, and three years after his victory at Actium he dedicated a magnificent temple to him on the Palatine. But the new worship of Apollo did not attain to the supreme position to which Augustus apparently wished to raise it, and his efforts to recall the old state religion could not bring back men’s belief, although they could restore its practices. Indeed we must bear in mind that the traditional worship of the greater Roman gods continued to exist to the end of antiquity, in spite of the fact that it had lost its vitality centuries before its final downfall.
One important and permanent contribution to religion Augustus did make: as early as the year 42 B.C., the masterful youth had forced an unwilling senate to declare Julius Caesar divine; thereby he established the worship of the deified emperors—a cult which was to last nearly four centuries. The significance for us of this worship of the emperor lies in the fact that now for the first time there was introduced into the entire civilized world a common religion. From the remotest East to the farthest West, from Britain on the north to the edge of the Great Desert on the south, temples to the deified emperors had been erected before a century of the Empire had passed, and these did much to accustom men to the idea of one common worship for the whole world.
* * * * *
Thus far we have been considering almost wholly those forces which were operating in the Roman world first to obscure the original Roman religion and finally to break down faith in that traditional religion which had resulted from the victory of the gods of Greece over those of Rome. Yet the age of Augustus was far from being irreligious. Of the truth of this statement Virgil alone would be sufficient witness if all others were lacking, for the Aeneid owed its immediate popularity and its permanent high place, not only to the unmatched expression which it gave to Roman imperialism, but also to its religious tone, which the poet’s contemporaries and their successors found partly in Virgil’s exact knowledge of Roman ritual and felt still more in the sixth book of the Aeneid, where the current beliefs in a future life with rewards and punishments were set forth in combination with impressive prophecy after the event; all was planned and combined in such a way as to make a strong appeal to the Romans’ national pride and religious sense alike. Moreover under the Empire positive elements tending to elevate religious thought and to purify morals were not lacking. On many of these we have already touched in our last lecture, for they were largely to be found in philosophy, one of the greatest gifts which Greece gave to her conqueror. Even at the risk of repetition, we shall now consider briefly some of these constructive forces.
Although Epicureanism taught that man’s highest good was pleasure, it was far from being a thoroughgoing hedonism, as I pointed out a little while ago. On the contrary its founder taught that the pleasures of the mind were superior to those of the body, and that the cardinal virtue of man was correct insight, that is to say, wisdom, virtue, and justice; and that these three factors—wisdom, virtue, and justice—were necessary for a pleasant life.[274] Such doctrine as this does not properly make for religion, but it does contribute to the welfare and comfort of society. Epicureanism was the most quietistic of the later philosophic schools and so was well adapted to the conditions of the later Republic and the early Empire. We have seen how Pythagoreanism in its revival had something approaching the Christian cult of the Saints, and made sanctity an ideal of human life as well as an object of admiration. Platonism never lost its own religious fervor and missionary zeal, but had indeed communicated them to most of the eclectic later schools. Yet of all the schools perhaps Stoicism made the largest contribution directly to the moral and indirectly to the religious life of the first two centuries of our era.
The Stoic, like the Cynic, his doctrinaire and less effective intellectual cousin, at this time conceived of his task as that of a missionary to a lost world; he was a director of men’s souls. Speculation was by most regarded as unpractical and useless, save as it might help to elevate men’s minds and so contribute to their moral edification. Many of the aristocracy, whose wealth furnished only a splendid cloak for the disorder of their souls within, had in their houses philosophers who served as confessors and private chaplains—physicians to the soul. Such was Seneca, to whose real significance and merit we must not be blinded either by his own weakness or by the monstrosity of the emperor whose minister he was. He was a spiritual director, a confessor, and a guide to many of the aristocracy. His correspondence shows how he endeavored to build up his friends in virtue and moral strength, not by theoretical speculation as to the nature of virtue, but by wise instructions as to the practice of a virtuous life. Epictetus on the other hand was more of a preacher to the masses. Arrian occasionally gives us the dramatic setting of his master’s discourses, as for example: “When a man asked his advice as to the way in which he could persuade his brother to be no longer angry at him, Epictetus said,” etc.[275] These words show that the text of Epictetus’ sermons might often be furnished by the question of an individual, but the sermons themselves make it clear that any one who wished might hear the teacher. Seneca and Epictetus are simply the two examples best known to us of the philosophic director and the missionary, but it is clear that there were many of both classes. Their essential moral and religious teachings were in practical accord.
What were some of the supports and satisfactions which Stoicism offered serious men in the disordered political and social world of the early Empire? First of all, it laid stress on conduct and frankly proposed to give rules by which men could attain to the peace they sought. Both Seneca and Epictetus inculcated daily self-examination, and this practice was not the habit of their school alone. The eclectic Sextius, who belonged to the generation before Seneca, at the end of each day asked his soul: “What fault of yours have you cured today? What vice resisted? In what way are you a better man?” Seneca himself found the same practice helpful; he would say to himself: “In that discussion you spoke with too much warmth. Do not engage again with the ignorant, for they who have never learned do not wish to learn.”[276] Epictetus quoted from the “Golden Words” of Pythagoras and reminded his hearers that the verses were not for recitation but for use: “Never let sleep come to thy languid eyes e’er thou hast considered each act of the day. ‘Where have I slipped?’ ‘What done, what failed to do?’ Begin thus and go through all; and then chide thyself for thy shameful acts, rejoice over thy good.”[277] Such a searching of one’s daily acts Epictetus regarded as an essential exercise to prepare and train a man to meet the vicissitudes of life. In the discourse in which he quotes these Pythagorean verses, he continues with the question: “What is philosophy?” “Is it not a preparation against things which may happen to a man?” He argues that a man who throws away the patience which philosophy teaches him is like an athlete who because of the blows he receives wishes to withdraw from the pancratium—still worse than he, for the athlete may avoid his contest and escape the blows; but no man can escape the buffetings of life. Therefore the preacher says that to give up philosophy is to abandon the one resource against misfortune, the only source of happiness and courage.
The pagan missionary no less than the Christian apostle to the Gentiles regarded life as a battle to be fought and a race to be run. Epictetus often compared human life to a warfare; he said that men were assigned their several places and duties in this world, just as in an army one man is obliged to stand watch, another to spy, and a third to fight, each doing his part in the place in which the great general, God, had set him,—a figure which Socrates had used five centuries earlier in his defence before his judges. In accord with this view of life as a battle or an athletic contest, the philosophers laid much weight on training. Seneca and Epictetus both exhorted their pupils to exercise themselves in the means whereby they could meet misfortune or be ready to perform any duty which the changes of life might bring them. The latter had a discourse “On Exercise,” which was apparently a favorite theme for all Stoic preachers.[278] The purpose of this exercise was to train the individual in right abstentions and the proper use of his desires, so that he would be always obedient to reason and do nothing out of season or place—in short to make him an adept in living so that he could manage his usual life with adroit uprightness and meet the sudden changes of fortune undismayed. In another discourse Epictetus pointed out that the misfortunes of life were tests sent by God to prove the individual’s fidelity in training; “God says to you, ‘Give me proof if you have duly practised athletics, if you have eaten what you should, if you have exercised, if you have obeyed the trainer.’ And then will you show yourself weak when the time for action comes? Now is the time for a fever. Bear it well. Now the time for thirst. Endure thy thirst well.”[279]
In my last lecture I spoke of the doctrine of constant advance in virtue which these later moral teachers magnified. Stoicism had come to recognize the facts of human life and in practice had abandoned the older doctrine of the sudden and complete perfection of man by philosophy. Seneca’s honest words I must quote again: “I am not yet wise, nor shall I ever be. Do not ask me to be equal to the best but rather to be better than the base. This is enough for me—to take away daily something from my faults and daily to rebuke my errors. I have not attained complete moral health, nor shall I ever attain it.”[280] It is unnecessary to point out that such teaching as is given in these words was far more tonic than the uncompromising doctrine of an earlier day, for progress in virtue each man could feel was within his power; sudden perfection he knew was beyond the strength of any man. Furthermore the philosophers gave detailed injunctions as to the ways in which one could further his moral progress, as for example when Seneca, following Epicurus, advised Lucilius to select some person of noble character like a Cato, a Scipio, or a Laelius, and to imagine that he was always present, watching and judging the novice’s every act; then when he had advanced to the point where his self-respect was sufficient to keep him from wrong-doing, he could dismiss his guardian.[281] But if Seneca recognized the limitations of human nature, he still kept clearly in view the ultimate goal of man’s effort—that perfection of the individual which according to the Stoic was attained when his reason was harmoniously developed and had become supreme.[282] Then man was to be wholly independent, happy, and serene; his mind would be like that of God.
Self-examination, self-training, daily advance in virtue, ultimate calm and peace—these were the moral habits and the attainable goals which the later Stoics tried to teach their age. Moreover the Stoic doctrine of the community between the divine and the human reason gave a dignity to man; cut off from activity in the political world he realized that he was dwelling in a world in which God and men were the citizens, that he shared in that divine polity, free in the freedom which his relationship to God gave him. Between man and God for the Stoic there was no gulf fixed; on the contrary as Seneca wrote his younger friend: “God is near you, with you, within you. This I say, Lucilius: a holy spirit sits within us, watcher of our good and evil deeds, and guardian over us. Even as we treat him, he treats us. No man is good without God. Can any one rise superior to fortune save with God’s help?”[283] A nobler concept of the worship of the gods and of man’s duty toward them arose: not by the lighting of lamps, the giving of gifts, the slaying of bullocks, or visitations to the temples were the gods to be worshipped, but by a recognition of their true nature and goodness, by rendering to them again their perfect justice, and by ascribing to them constant praise.[284] In the contemplation of God alone and in loving obedience to his commands lay the means of freeing the mind from sorrow, fear, desire, envy, avarice, and every base thought, and of securing that peace which no Caesar but only God could give.[285]
A belief in the goodness of God and the perfection of his works made the Stoic naturally regard this world as the best of all possible worlds, and urge men to accommodate themselves to the natural order, in which he saw the perfect product of the supreme reason. He could not think that the world was out of joint, but he believed that all was perfect harmony for one who would set himself in tune with the universe. So Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Everything is harmonious to me that is harmonious to thee, O Universe; nothing is too early or too late for me that is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me that thy seasons bring, O Nature; from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. ‘Beloved city of Cecrops,’ sings the poet: Shall I not say, ‘O beloved city of God?’”[286] It is easy to understand from passages like this how stabilizing and how ennobling later Stoicism was. To reverence God, to do nothing that God would not approve, to think ever of God, and to trust in the harmonious purpose of the universe was the Emperor’s constant exhortation to himself. With this purpose was associated a similar desire to help his fellowmen; and yet in spite of the Emperor’s religious devotion and sympathetic interest in humanity, in spite of the exaltation of spirit which appears in his Meditations, there is still a note of sadness which had already been sounded by Seneca and Epictetus; there is a sense of the vanity of all things which makes itself felt again and again as we read his book. For all his belief in the harmony of this universe the Emperor exhorts himself too much to make the best of a sad and wicked world. What Marcus Aurelius felt others had been feeling for generations. The passion for assurance of protection here and salvation hereafter, the longing for union with God, would not be quieted. The West offered little satisfaction; the answers from the East will occupy our next lectures.
FOOTNOTES:
[262] Dionys. Hal. IV, 62.
[263] See p. 370 f. for an example of such a calendar.
[264] 296 B.C., Livy X, 19, 17.
[265] Livy XXII, 10, 2 ff.
[266] Livy XXII, 10, 9.
[267] _Scen._ 316 ff., Vahlen.
[268] Livy XXXIX, 8 ff.
[269] Livy XL, 29; Plin. _N. H._ XIII, 84. ff.
[270] Athen. XII, 547 A; Aelian _V. H._ IX, 12.
[271] Suet. _de rhet._ 1; Aul. Gell. XV, 11, 1.
[272] Plin. _N. H._ VII, 112; Plut. _C. M._ 22.
[273] Augustin. _Civ. Dei_ IV, 27.