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

The Roman Republic bled out alongside Cato and Cicero. What emerged was the Roman Empire, a new political order that was all about power, increasingly concentrated in a single man. Not Caesar, but a Caesar—the title each successor bore for the next three hundred years. The first was Octavian, Caesar’s nephew. He would begin the process of despotism slowly, refusing every title and power along the way, only to very cleverly usurp them all as his own over time.

One might think that Stoicism, having been born in the cradle of democratic Athens and then nursed for centuries against the backdrop of Alexander’s warring generals, before finally coming of age in Rome’s great Republic, would have trouble in this brave new world.

This is incorrect.

The Stoics were nothing if not resilient, and so it came to be that the new emperor’s closest advisors were Stoics.

It makes sense. At the core of Stoicism is the acceptance of what we cannot change. Cato had given his life to defend the Republic and he had lost. Brutus had not only failed in his attempt to restore liberty to Rome, but had plunged the country into a second civil war. Now a new state had been created and peace had returned, and the Stoics who survived believed it was their obligation to serve this state and ensure it remained the same—and so they set out, as best they could, to mold young Octavian into Augustus Caesar, the emperor.

The first Stoic to occupy that role in Octavian’s life was Athenodorus Cananites, another Tarsian Stoic, born in Canana, in what is today southeastern Turkey, not far from the birthplace of Stoics like Chrysippus and Antipater. Athenodorus studied under Posidonius at his school in Rhodes and then later lived in Athens, where he experimented with oceanographic study like his teacher. He was later a correspondent of Cicero’s, and gave Cicero much of the research on Panaetius that would go into his masterwork On Duties.

After completing his philosophical education under Posidonius, Athenodorus traveled widely as a lecturer, reaching as far as Petra and Egypt, along with other major cities in the Mediterranean, before assuming the role of young Octavian’s teacher in Apollonia, on the coast of modern Albania. It was here that this famous and widely respected teacher, who was not quite thirty years old, became not only Octavian’s tutor but his very close friend. When Caesar was murdered in 44 BC, Octavian returned to Rome as the nineteen-year-old named heir. Athenodorus followed closely behind, charged with developing the kind of mind required for supreme leadership.

Octavian was bright but by no means an easy student. He was deeply superstitious, a trait that would have been repulsive to a rational Stoic . . . and hardly a virtue in a king. We get a sense of Athenodorus’s teaching style—and his calm Stoic demeanor—by way of a ghost story he would have almost certainly passed along to his Caesar. Renting a large mansion in Athens that was purported to be haunted, Athenodorus, undaunted by the stories, set about putting his house in order. Almost immediately, he said, he was visited by a ghost clapped in irons and dragging heavy chains. Not to be disturbed from his writing session, Athenodorus motioned for the ghost to wait and returned to his work. When he finished, he got up and followed the apparition into the courtyard, where it suddenly vanished. Thinking fast, Athenodorus marked the spot where the ghost disappeared and then returned to tidy up his desk and go to bed. In the morning, he had workers return to the spot and ordered them to dig. Beneath the dirt they found ancient bones in chains, which Athenodorus had reburied with honors in a public funeral. The ghost was never seen again, by him or any other resident of the house.

Whether one believed in ghosts or the supernatural, as Octavian likely did, was beside the point. Stoics must always keep their head. Even the scariest situations can be resolved with reason and courage. And even if you believe in silly things like ghosts or superstitions, you can’t let your life be ruled by them. You must be in charge—no excuses.

Temperance and wisdom, as well as diligence, were essential to Athenodorus, and they played an integral part in his teachings to his young emperor. “You will know you’ve been freed from all desires when you’ve reached the place where you will pray to God for nothing but things you’d ask for openly,” he would say. “Live among men as if God were watching, and speak with God as if men were listening.” In his book On Taking Pains and Education, he would speak of spoudes—the zealous effort—required to survive and thrive in life.

Seneca, who would advise emperors himself, studied Athenodorus’s example and is the source for much of our knowledge of him. From him, we learn that Athenodorus balanced out his teachings on sobriety and hard work with a focus on the importance of tranquility, particularly for leaders. Yes, we must carefully follow public affairs, but it was also necessary to leave behind the grind of work and the stress of politics with retreats into the private sphere of friends. Athenodorus would note that Socrates would stop and play games with children in order to rest and have fun. The mind must be replenished with leisure, Athenodorus believed, or it was likely to break under pressure, or be susceptible to vices.

We know that Athenodorus offered similar advice to Octavian’s sister, Octavia, after she lost her son, telling her to busy herself with practical matters rather than give in completely to grief and stress.

The difficulties and corruptions of a busy world made leisure an integral part of euthymia, the well-being of the soul, a core concern of Athenodorus and good advice from a Stoic who was advising a king.

Athenodorus’s final lesson to Augustus was one Seneca would have appreciated. Asking to be relieved of his duties so that he might return to his home, Athenodorus offered one last piece of practical advice to the emperor—something he wanted him to follow always. “Whenever you feel yourself getting angry, Caesar,” he instructed, “don’t say or do anything until you’ve repeated the twenty-four letters of the alphabet to yourself.”

Good advice for the ordinary. Essential for an emperor. And sadly ignored by leaders of all types—to the detriment of those who depend on and work with them.

Augustus knew this was true, which is why, upon hearing the advice, he begged his teacher to stay on for one more year. “I still need your presence here,” he said. And Athenodorus, duty-bound by his philosophy to guide the state and work for his fellow citizens, gladly assented.

After giving Augustus one last year in Rome, Athenodorus returned to Tarsus around 15 BC, where he spent his final years cleaning up the political messes left by less enlightened rulers. Now, no longer the man behind the man, but leading himself, he applied the principles he had spent so long teaching and speaking about.

A lifetime of training prepares us for the moment of our final act. In Athenodorus’s case, he was ready and he served his country well. Enough that the people of Tarsus loved him deeply, and, following his death at age eighty-two, honored him in a public festival every year after.