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

There was more than one great Stoic in Octavian’s life. The other’s name was Arius Didymus, and though we know a bit less about him, we know much more about what he believed and, through his writings, the central teachings of the Stoics.

We know that Arius had come into Octavian’s life sometime around the year 44 BC and that he brought his young sons with him. His sons quickly became Octavian’s “tent-companions,” according to Suetonius, keeping the boy “well-versed in various forms of learning.” Indeed, it was through this close relationship that Octavian would learn to read and appreciate the Greek language.

However Arius came into Octavian’s circle, once in it, he was firmly lodged. He became, in his words, the emperor’s “constant companion, and knew not only what all men were allowed to know, but all the most secret thoughts” of his heart.

When the thirty-three-year-old Octavian triumphantly entered Alexandria in 30 BC, he and Arius were walking literally hand in hand. The long civil war between Octavian and Antony had been violent and bloody, and the people of Alexandria—having been brought into the middle of it through Antony’s obsessive affair with Cleopatra—feared for the worst. Octavian chose to publicly display his affection for Arius not only because it was sincere, but also because by aligning himself with this native Alexandrian, he could reassure the population that he meant no harm. We are told that Octavian delivered a speech in Greek, almost certainly written with Arius’s help, announcing that he would spare the city, for a few reasons. The first, he said, was because Alexandria was great and beautiful. The second, because it had been founded and named after such a great man. “And thirdly,” Octavian said with a smile, and motioning to Arius, “as a favor to my friend here.”

Alexandrians saw immediately how much sway Arius had with their new conqueror. A philosopher named Philostratus who believed himself to be on Octavian’s enemies list took to following Arius around the city, begging to be spared. “A wise man will save a wise man,” he pleaded, “if wise he be.” From Plutarch we hear that Octavian pardoned the man—mostly to save his teacher from the annoyance.

To be used as a symbol of peace is somewhat ironic given Arius’s name (Arius Didymus translates literally as “Warlike Twin”) and darker still given the Machiavellian—though pragmatic—advice that Arius would give his young charge. Whereas Athenodorus seemed to have mainly concerned himself with Octavian’s education and his moral character, Arius instructed him directly on political matters too. The most urgent matter in Alexandria, in Arius’s view, was mopping up the potential threats to the throne. Plutarch says Arius advised Octavian to kill Caesar’s son with Cleopatra, the young Caesarion, telling him that “it’s not good to have too many Caesars.” Octavian would wait until Cleopatra had buried his former ally-cum-rival Antony and until she had poisoned herself to act on Arius’s advice. Then he made the lethal move to eliminate Caesarion, not willing to risk the existence of any rival heirs, even if it meant killing the son of Caesar, whom he had claimed to love. Soon after, the Caesarium temple Cleopatra had built in Alexandria for Julius Caesar would be finished—except it would be dedicated to Augustus instead, his son’s murderer and soon to be the first emperor of Rome.

It was dirty business, but Arius the Stoic advisor believed it needed to be done. With Cato and Cicero and Porcia in mind, he could not countenance another bloody civil war. Nor could Rome.

Since the early Stoic leaders, Stoicism had been moving toward politics and the centers of power, but through their proximity to Octavian, Arius and Athenodorus suddenly wielded more political power than any Stoics in history. Under the reign of Augustus, the empire added more territory than in any preceding period. Its population surged to some forty-five million inhabitants. Augustus now commanded all of it, facing only the most nominal checks and balances, and behind him, as his board of advisors, were two Stoic philosophers. At one point, Arius was offered the position of governor in Egypt but declined it, one suspects because he had far more influence in his informal role with Augustus than he would even governing one of the largest provinces in the empire. He preferred instead to remain within sight of the emperor and help Alexandria from afar, not unlike, Plutarch notes, the way Panaetius helped Rhodes through his friend Scipio.

Augustus had begged Athenodorus to stay another year when he had attempted to resign, but it’s clear that he was deeply reliant on both teachers. We hear from the historian and statesman Themistius that Augustus claimed to value Arius as much as his powerful chief lieutenant, Marcus Agrippa. He valued Arius so much, he says, that he wouldn’t insult or inconvenience the eminent philosopher by dragging him “into the stadium’s dust” to watch the gladiatorial games.

Arius was close to Augustus’s family too, famously writing a consolation—a letter to a grieving person—to Livia, the empress, when she lost her son Drusus, that was more moving, Livia said, than the thoughts and prayers of millions of Romans. “Do not, I implore you,” he had written to her, “take a perverse pride in appearing the most unhappy of women: and reflect also that there is no great credit in behaving bravely in times of prosperity, when life glides easily with a favouring current: neither does a calm sea and fair wind display the art of the pilot: some foul weather is wanted to prove his courage. Like him, then, do not give way, but rather plant yourself firmly, and endure whatever burden may fall upon you from above; scared though you may have been at the first roar of the tempest. There is nothing that fastens such a reproach on Fortune as resignation.” Instead, Arius said, join us in remembering fondly the memories of the young man they had lost and think of the children and grandchildren still living.

The Stoics would have never argued that life was fair or that losing someone didn’t hurt. But they believed that to despair, to tear ourselves apart in bereavement, was not only an affront to the memory of the person we loved, but a betrayal of the living who still needed us.

That’s not an easy message to deliver to a mother who has just buried her son, yet Arius managed to do it with sensitivity and grace and a compassion that she was forever grateful for.

Although we have just an example or two of Arius’s realpolitik, we have much more evidence of his Stoic teachings. Several manuscripts of his writings survive—manuscripts that express not just his beliefs but summaries of centuries of Stoic doctrine. At the core of these writings are discussions of the four cardinal virtues: wisdom (phronesis), self-control (sophrosune), justice (dikaiosune), and bravery (andreia). Marcus Aurelius, very familiar with Arius’s legacy—both politically and philosophically—would put those four virtues on the ultimate pedestal. If we ever find something better than “justice, honesty, self-control, courage . . . if you find anything better than that, embrace it without reservations,” he wrote—they must be very special indeed.

To Arius, there was in fact nothing better than those four virtues. Everything that was evil lacked them and everything that was good contained them. Everything else was indifferent—or irrelevant.

In his writings, Arius sought to systematize all the commonly held virtues under this fourfold schema, as well as to account for their relation to other parts of Stoic doctrine. In doing it, he created a kind of road map for the aspiring Stoic, whether they were an emperor trying to control their passions or an ambitious young person setting out on a career in business.

His definitions were straightforward, essentially defining virtue as types of knowledge. As he simply defines it:

Wisdom is the knowledge of what things must be done and what must not be done and what is neither, or appropriate acts (kathekonta). Within wisdom, we’ll find virtuous qualities like soundness of judgment, circumspection, shrewdness, sensibleness, soundness of aim, and ingenuity.

Self-control is the knowledge of what things are worth choosing and what are worth avoiding and what is neither. Contained within this virtue are things like orderliness, propriety, modesty, and self-mastery.

Justice is the knowledge of apportioning each person and situation what is due. Under this banner Stoics placed piety (giving gods their due), kindness, good fellowship, and fair dealing.

Bravery is the knowledge of what is terrible and what isn’t and what is neither. This included perseverance, intrepidness, greatheartedness, stoutheartedness, and, one of Arius’s most favored virtuous qualities—one he illustrated well in his own life—philoponia, or industriousness.

In contrast to these four virtues, stupidity, lack of restraint, injustice, and cowardice are all the lack of this knowledge. It’s an idea that matches up well with another set of categories Arius attempted to organize the world into, which he claimed came from Zeno. There are only two types of people in this world, he wrote, wise people and fools, or the worthwhile and the worthless. Worthless fools lack the knowledge that the wise use in the pursuit of virtue. It’s black and white without much room for the gray of the world. One is tempted, for instance, to ask Arius which of the four virtues a person falls under—and whether it’s the wise or the foolish—who murders young princes who might someday be rivals. Justice? Wisdom? Or is there perhaps another unlisted category entitled political expediency?

Certainly Zeno never said anything about that.

The point for Arius, though, was that while we have the natural ability to exhibit these virtues, it is in fact an active practice of cultivating and refining them that makes a person wise and good. At the core of it, he felt that living a virtuous life was about achieving a “disposition of the soul in harmony with itself concerning one’s whole life.”

Did he get there himself? We can’t know. Did he and Athenodorus get Octavian—a man who took on absolute power and all the corruptive pressures that come along with it—a bit closer to virtue? Yes.

Augustus was nowhere near perfect, but he was not Nero. The sources show a man who got better over time, certainly not the rule among leaders or human beings, particularly those with absolute power. He seemed to earnestly strive to be great, to be in control of himself, and to live by those cardinal virtues. When, near the end of his life, Augustus remarked that he had inherited a Rome of brick but left the world an empire of marble, he was not wrong. Buildings stand to this day that are a testament to that hard work, and by extension to the philosopher who exhorted him to follow that path.

Could he have done this without the lessons of his teachers and their philosophy? Can anyone? No. We need guidance and we need to love the process of getting better, the Stoics believed, or we will regress to the level of everyone else. Close to Arius’s heart, Octavian was the epitome of philoponia—and seemed to genuinely love to toil on behalf of the good of everyone.

Few men and women who have had the royal life—or power and success—thrust upon them can have that said about them. Because few, then and now, put in the work.

“None of the worthless are industrious,” Arius wrote. “For industriousness is a disposition able to accomplish unhesitatingly what is befitting through toil, and none of the worthless are unhesitating with regard to toil.” Augustus worked hard—no one could accuse him of using the throne for rest. Nor is there any evidence that his teachers were, as Seneca would later be charged, corrupted by their proximity and access to power.

Would the mos maiorum and the libertas of Cato’s Republic have been preferable to this new Augustan age? Almost certainly. Imperial power is good for no one, least of all the person wielding it. But by 27 BC, when Octavian became Augustus, a return to the old ways was no longer in the control of Arius or Athenodorus. All they could do was make the best of what they faced—and mold their charge into the best man they could.

As Arius would write, like Panaetius before him, we each have our own implanted gifts (aphormai), resources that can lead us to virtue. Our personalities suit us differently to different paths of ethical development. We all have different launching points, but these inborn tools together with hard effort will get us to where we want to go.

We must focus on the task at hand, and waste not a moment on the tasks that are not ours. We must have courage. We must be fair. We must check our emotions. We must, above all, be wise.

This is what Arius and Athenodorus attempted to live and attempted to teach. It made them trusted advisors, at the highest level, and helped shape what would become Pax Romana. Their guidance—the proximity of Stoicism to the throne—not only shaped Augustus and then Seneca, but would inspire the philosopher king himself, Marcus Aurelius.

They would also, in the end, for all their power and influence, teach Marcus and us a lesson in humility and mortality. As Marcus wrote, summing up what was then an ancient era:

Augustus’ court: his wife, his daughter, his grandsons, his stepsons, his sister, Agrippa, the relatives, servants, friends, Arius, Maecena, the doctors, the sacrificial priests . . . the whole court, dead . . . someone has to be the last. There, too, the death of the whole house.

Athenodorus died. Arius died. Augustus died . . . and the wheels of time kept turning.