Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living From Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

It could be said that the conspicuous lack of credit given to women in the history of Stoicism is actually proof of their philosophical bona fides. Who better illustrates these virtues of endurance and courage, selflessness and duty, than the generations of anonymous wives and mothers and daughters of Greece and Rome who suffered, who resisted tyranny, who lived through wars, who raised families, and who were born and died without ever being recognized for their quiet heroism? Think of what they put up with, think of the indignities they tolerated, and think of the sacrifices they were willing to make.

But that’s sort of the problem. We don’t think about that. We think about Cato and his great-grandfather. We don’t think about his mother or his wife.

The biographer Robert Caro, writing thousands of years after the fall of the Roman Empire about the rise of the American Empire, observed just what this unconscious bias misses. “You hear a lot about gunfights in Westerns,” he said of the history of the frontier. “You don’t hear so much about hauling up the water after a perineal tear.”

While Rutilius Rufus deserves our respect for his brave stand against corruption, what about the forgotten woman who gave birth to him without anesthesia? What about his wife or his daughters, who too lost everything and went without complaint into exile with him? Surely, they deserved at least a mention from Plutarch or Diogenes.

Let us rectify this quickly by looking at the life of Porcia, the daughter of Cato, who seems to rival her father in steely determination and patriotism. Almost two centuries before Musonius Rufus would advocate that women be taught philosophy, Porcia was introduced to Stoicism as a child by her father and quickly dedicated herself to it. Her first marriage was to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, an ally of Cato. Bibulus would serve honorably and bravely with Cato in Rome’s civil war, but would not survive it.

The only good news after the fall of the Republic that her family had so cherished, and the brutal suicide of the father she loved, was that Julius Caesar pardoned Porcia’s brother, Marcus Cato. As the family attempted to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, we are told she remained resolute. Somehow, her heart managed to find affection and she remarried to Brutus, the senator to whom Cicero had dedicated some of his writings. It appears she deeply loved her philosophical and principled husband, who must have reminded her of her father, and together they would have a son, though fate would once again visit tragedy on young Porcia.

As a knowing wife, she quickly intuited that Brutus was planning something in 44 BC, although what she wasn’t sure. Instead of demanding that he explain himself, Porcia decided she would prove her trustworthiness to her husband and fortitude to herself—though one would think that her family tree was sufficient.

Plutarch tells us that Porcia took a small knife and stabbed herself in the thigh, and then waited to see how long she could stand the pain. Bleeding profusely and shaking in near delirium from the wound, when Brutus finally came home, she grabbed him and said:

Brutus, I am Cato’s daughter, and I was brought into thy house, not, like a mere concubine, to share thy bed and board merely, but to be a partner in thy joys, and a partner in thy troubles. Thou, indeed, art faultless as a husband; but how can I show thee any grateful service if I am to share neither thy secret suffering nor the anxiety which craves a loyal confidant? I know that woman’s nature is thought too weak to endure a secret; but good rearing and excellent companionship go far towards strengthening the character, and it is my happy lot to be both the daughter of Cato and the wife of Brutus. Before this I put less confidence in these advantages, but now I know that I am superior even to pain.

Shakespeare renders the same scene quite beautifully as well:

Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose ’em:

I have made strong proof of my constancy,

Giving myself a voluntary wound

Here in the thigh: can I bear that with patience,

And not my husband’s secrets?

As strange and nearly unbelievable as this story is to us today, Roman history is littered with examples of conspiracies revealed under torture and interrogation. It’s not a stretch that Porcia might want to see how much suffering she could endure. Brutus was so moved by what he witnessed that he immediately informed his wife of the plot to kill Caesar and prayed that he would be able to prove himself worthy of her courage.

Of course, Plutarch was not content to show this impressive feat of female power without later counterbalancing it with “evidence” of the fragility of the female mind. We are told that on the Ides of March, Porcia nearly went out of her mind as she waited for word of events. Did her husband succeed? Had he been caught? Was no news good news? Did she need to flee?

“Porcia,” Plutarch writes, “being distressed about what was impending and unable to bear the weight of her anxiety could with difficulty keep to herself at home, and at every noise or cry, like women in Bacchic frenzy, she would rush forth and ask every messenger who came in from the forum how Brutus was faring, and kept sending out others continually.” He writes that she eventually fainted and rumor reached Brutus that she had died, but that with great strength, Brutus resisted rushing home and executed the violent deed to which they were both so committed.

Shakespeare, drawing on Plutarch and centuries of sexism, seems to think that Porcia is mentally strong but physically weak:

I have a man’s mind, but a woman’s might.

How hard it is for women to keep counsel!

It seems unlikely that the same woman who could hide a gushing leg wound, who had stoically endured so much loss and uncertainty in her life, would be unable to control her anxiety for a few hours. After all, Brutus was more trusting of his wife’s ability to keep the secret than he and his conspirators were of Cicero, whom they kept in the dark because of his high-strung nature. But this is what the men who have written our history would have us believe.

In any case, the lessons stands: Deciding on a bold deed takes courage, but the execution matters too. Porcia and her husband would need to add patience and wisdom to the equation as well, for nothing racks the nerves quite like the moments, as Shakespeare would say, between decision and action.

The senators, led by Brutus, descended on Caesar with a savagery that surprised both their victim and themselves. Brutus’s blows landed in Caesar’s thigh and in his groin, another senator stabbed him in the face, another still in the ribs. Several senators wounded themselves in the frenzy, and Brutus himself was struck in the hand. Where was this violence when Cato needed it? When Caesar could have been stopped before he started?

And then, like a fit, the passion subsided and the deed was done. Brutus calmed his conspirators down quickly. No one else was to be killed, not even Caesar’s most prominent supporter, Mark Antony. This seems noble, but it turned out to be a fatal error.

During the Catiline conspiracy, Cicero’s wife urged him to execute his enemies, to destroy the cancer before it spread. We’re told that Brutus, abhorring violence, was reluctant to shed any more blood. Porcia could have reminded him that deeds cannot be only half done—that sometimes mercy to the undeserving is a grave injustice to everyone else. Or perhaps she did and he refused to listen.

This restraint would prove to be the undoing of them and their cause.

As Caesar lay dead, civil war—led by Antony—returned to Rome. It must have been traumatic for Porcia to be experiencing this yet again, particularly since the last one had stolen from her both her husband and her father, as well as countless friends. Parting ways with Brutus, who had to flee to begin what would be the fight of his life, a friend quoted from the famous parting of Hector and his wife in the Trojan War. Brutus in turn quoted from the Odyssey in a way that reveals not just his love for his wife, but also his abiding belief that she was an equal to him in philosophical determination and courage. “But I, certainly, have no mind to address Porcia in the words of Hector,” he said. “‘Ply loom and distaff and give orders to thy maids,’ for though her body is not strong enough to perform such heroic tasks as men do, still, in spirit she is valiant in defence of her country, just as we are.”

Neither of their heroic efforts could stem the tide of history. Perhaps, had her father survived, his superior generalship could have been decisive. Or if Cicero had not vacillated again or danced with Octavian, his help might have saved the Republic for another generation of Catos. But it was not to be.

We have conflicting sources as to whether Porcia died before Brutus or Brutus before Porcia. Plutarch tells us that when Brutus’s ashes were sent home to his mother, Servilia, Porcia resolved to depart from this earth, following the example of her father. Her attendants kept close watch over her, trying to prevent another Cato from suicide. But this was not a family easily stopped from doing what it believed was necessary. When her servants turned their backs, Porcia rushed to a fireplace, picked up glowing red coals, and quickly swallowed them, dying quite literally as the fire-eating lover of freedom her father had raised her to be. Other sources claim she died of illness before Brutus’s death at the second battle of Philippi, while others still that it was illness and loneliness that drove her to suicide.

It would seem that Brutus was aware of his wife’s loss, as there is a letter from Cicero in 43 BC consoling him about it. “You have suffered indeed a great loss (for you have lost that which had not left its fellow on earth),” he wrote, “and must be allowed to grieve under so cruel a blow, lest to want all sense of grief should be thought more wretched than grief itself: but do it with moderation, which is both useful to others and necessary to yourself.”

Cicero’s admonition to be stoic about Porcia’s death is touching considering how wrecked he had been by the death of his daughter, Tullia, in 45 BC. It raises the eternal question of how one ought to respond to the loss of someone they love dearly. Can a philosopher shrug off this pain, like they might a wound in the thigh? Is indifference to grief actually possible? Is it perfectly understandable that such a loss might finally crack the hard exterior of the Stoic, the way it nearly had for Cato when he lost his brother, and when Marcus Aurelius would weep over the loss of his beloved tutor?

Shakespeare, always the astute observer of the human experience, explores this tension, having made his character Brutus a stand-in for all that he believed a Stoic philosopher was supposed to represent.

“I am sick of many griefs,” Brutus tells a contentious ally, Cassius, who attempts to remind him of what the Stoics believed about accepting what was outside our control. “No man bears sorrow better,” Brutus tells him with flat affect. “Portia is dead.”

So is this Stoicism? A man who can spit out those painful words without flinching? My wife is dead, and then get on with a discussion about the upcoming battle? Perhaps.

But Brutus was no Porcia, who had always been all action and no talk. He had a flair for the theatric; he desired to be credited for those virtues that he made sure were conspicuous.

So when, a few minutes later, a messenger named Messala appears with news, Brutus sees an opportunity to perform for history. The word comes that Cicero is dead and a hundred senators have been executed. Have you heard from your wife? the messenger asks. Brutus replies that he hasn’t. Have you heard anything at all? he asks. Again, Brutus pretends he does not know. “Tell me true,” Brutus demands. So prompted, the messenger informs him that Porcia has died.

And then, whether for the sake of his reputation or to inspire others with his Stoic example, we get this:

BRUTUS

Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala.

With meditating that she must die once,

I have the patience to endure it now.

MESSALA

Even so great men great losses should endure.

CASSIUS

I have as much of this in art as you,

But yet my nature could not bear it so.

BRUTUS

Well, to our work alive. What do you think

Of marching to Philippi presently?

Though Porcia departed from this earth as the Republic died its final death, she would live on as a powerful symbol of resistance for men and women forever. She had lived as her father and the Stoics had taught: We must do what needs to be done. We must not waver. We cannot be afraid.

More, she had proved that courage—and philosophy—don’t know gender. They know only the people who are willing to put in what it takes and those who aren’t.