The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

by Daniel S. Richter

  Reardon, B. P., ed. 1989. Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley, CA.

  Repath, I. 2013. “Yours truly? Letters in Achiles Tatius.” In Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, edited by O. D. Hodkinson, P. A. Rosenmeyer, and E. Bracke, 237–262. Leiden.

  Rimell, V., ed. 2007. Seeing Tongues, Hearing Scripts: Orality and Representation in the Ancient Novel. Groningen.

  Robiano, P. 2007. “La voix et la main: La lettre intime dans Chéréas et Callirhoé.” In Seeing Tongues, Hearing Scripts: Orality and Representation in the Ancient Novel, edited by V. Rimell, 201–222. Groningen.

  Rochette, B. 1997. Le latin dans le monde grec: Recherches sur la diffusion de la langue et de lettres latines dans les provinces hellénophones de l’empire romain. Brussels.

  Rösch, Y. forthcoming. “Close encounters with the hetaira—reading Alciphron’s book 4.” In The Letters Of Alciphron: A Unified Literary Work?, edited by M. Biraud and A. Zucker, 179–190. Leiden.

  Rosenmeyer, P. A. 1994. “The Epistolary Novel.” In Greek Fiction: The Greek Novel in Context, edited by J. R. Morgan and R. Stoneman, 146–165. London.

  Rosenmeyer, P. A. 1996. “Love Letters in Callimachus, Ovid, and Aristaenetus, or, The Sad Fate of a Mail-Order Bride.” MD 36: 9–31.

  Rosenmeyer, P. A. 1997. “Ovid’s Heroides and Tristia: Voices from Exile.” Ramus 26: 29–56.

  Rosenmeyer, P. A. 2001. Ancient Epistolary Fictions: The Letter in Greek Literature. Cambridge.

  Rosenmeyer, P. A. 2006. Ancient Greek Literary Letters: Selections in Translation. London.

  Rosenmeyer, P. A. forthcoming. “Greek letters.” Oxford Bibliographies in Classics, edited by D. L. Clayman. New York.

  Russell, D. A. 1988. “The Ass in the Lion’s Skin: Thoughts on the Letters of Phalaris.” JHS 180: 94–106.

  Schmid, W. 1887–1897. Der Atticismus in seinen Hauptvertretern von Dionysius von Halikarnass bis auf den zweiten Philostratus. 5 vols. Stuttgart.

  Schmitz, T. A. 2004. “Alciphron’s Letters as a Sophistic Text.” In Paideia: The World of the Second Sophistic, edited by B. E. Borg, 87–104. Berlin.

  Schmitz, T. A. 2017. “The Rhetoric of Desire in Philostratus’ Letters.” Arethusa 50: 257–282.

  Smith, S. D. 2014. Man and Animal in Severan Rome: The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus. Cambridge.

  Smith, W. D. 1990. Hippocrates: Pseudepigraphic Writings. Leiden.

  Spentzou, E. 2003. Readers and Writers in Ovid’s Heroides. Oxford.

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  Trapp, M. 2006. “Biography in Letters; Biography and Letters.” In The Limits of Ancient Biography, edited by J. Mossman and B. McGing, 335–350. Swansea.

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  Whitmarsh, T. 2013b. “Addressing Power: Fictional Letters between Alexander and Darius.” In Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, edited by O. D. Hodkinson, P. A. Rosenmeyer, and E. Bracke, 169–186. Leiden.

  P A R TVI

  PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOSOPHERS

  CHAPTER 33

  THE STOICS

  GRETCHEN REYDAMS-SCHILS

  TACITUS reports that the Roman Stoic Musonius Rufus (before 30 to ca. 100 CE), who was strongly committed to philosophy (studium philosophiae aemulatus), tried to talk an army of soldiers into peace, only to be met with boredom, ridicule, and even aggression (Hist. 3.81). Musonius Rufus mingled with the troops (permixtus manipulis) and admonished them (monere) in an exposition about the benefits of peace and the risks of war. If he had not given up his attempt at “untimely wisdom” (intempestiva sapientia), listening to the advice of the more temperate and yielding to threats by others, he would have been attacked and trampled under foot.

  That this kind of anecdote could constitute a stock theme is proven by a similar story about Dio Chrysostom (40 CE to ca. 120 CE) in Philostratus (VS 1.23.1; 488 Olearius). Unlike Musonius Rufus, however, Dio was successful. Even after his alleged “conversion” to philosophy, his formidable rhetorical training apparently served him well. According to Philostratus, Dio presented himself as a sage, a sophos, and adopted the role of Odysseus. His persuasiveness (πειθώ) was such that he cast a spell (καταθέλξαι), like Circe in the Odyssey (10.213),1 even on men who did not understand Greek well.

  All we hear about Musonius Rufus from Tacitus is that he was a Stoic and devoted to philosophy; Philostratus, however, carefully stages Dio’s intervention and self-presentation. (This may also point to a difference in perspective between Tacitus and Philostratus as authors.) Musonius Rufus mingles with the troops, holds forth (disserens), and comes across as inept, to put it mildly. Dio in a histrionic gesture tears off his rags, climbs naked onto an altar to deliver his speech, captures his audience by a startling opening line in which he assumes the role of Odysseus (see also his Or. 13, 33), and comes across as a masterful manipulator of crowds, a sorcerer of some sort. But it is also the case that Musonius wants his audience to reflect about the advantages of peace in comparison with war, whereas Dio merely convinces the soldiers that it would be better to go along with the Romans (ἀμείνωφρονεῖντὰ δοκοῦντα Ῥωμαίοιςπράττοντας). Musonius, in other words, wants his listeners to reach a deeper level of understanding, whereas Dio wants to win the day. In this contrast one can capture almost all of the main features that make up the later Stoics’ conscious attempt to set themselves apart from common cultural expectations and social success as measured by traditional standards and embraced by figures such as Dio. The contrast is all the more interesting because Musonius Rufus taught both Epictetus and Dio. (Even though there may have been a polemic between Dio and Musonius Rufus [Synesius Dio 1], Lucian mentions Dio in one breath with Musonius Rufus and Epictetus [De mort. Peregr. 18].) In spite of the fact that they share some similar strategies, the modes of self-presentation adopted by later Stoics such as Seneca (4 BCE/1 CE–65 CE), Musonius Rufus, Epictetus (ca. 50–125 CE), and Marcus Aurelius2 (121–180 CE) are so markedly different from the ones that are predominant in the Second Sophistic3 that we can legitimately infer an intense cultural polemic about what it meant to be a philosopher in this era.4

  The recorded anecdotes about philosophers are very informative because they give us an invaluable glimpse of how such actors were perceived and are meant to reflect these actors’ values, in the broadest sense of the term. In keeping with the above anecdote, Musonius is also on record as having stated that the proper response to a philosophical lecture is reverent silence, not applause, because of the weightiness of the issues at stake—namely, the good life and the sorry state in which we all find ourselves (Gell. NA 5.1). (Epictetus for his part explicitly makes fun of public speakers like Dio who want to command the attention of as large an au
dience as possible; Diss. 3.23.19–21.) Ultimately all human beings, including those who claim to be teachers of philosophy, are judged by how they act and not by what they say or claim to know. And what a Stoic would expect from his audience is indeed a tall order: that they revise their entire scale of values, consider virtue the optimal functioning of reason and thus the sole good, and act accordingly. One could be stunned into silence by less.

  To underscore how far the Stoic ideal is removed from ordinary practice, Musonius Rufus recommends shepherding and farming as the best occupation for a philosopher (11 Hense and Lutz). Away from the bustle and corruption of big cities, pupils would share in this way of life, use leisure hours for instruction, and see their teacher leading the good life, not just lecturing about it. Nothing would be more effective in getting the message across than this active modeling of virtue. Musonius appropriates here a common pastoral theme in the Roman tradition, which goes back at least as far as Cato the Elder, about the benefits of a frugal life in the countryside led by the gentleman farmer.

  Musonius’s pupil Epictetus, for his part, ran a school in Epirus, far away from the centers of political and cultural activity, and he does not shy away from shock therapy to jolt his pupils out of their misguided assumptions. He recommends three types of exercises, which appear also to have had a major influence on Marcus Aurelius. The first concerns correct reasoning, so that we do not commit any fallacies in our thinking and fall prey to erroneous judgments; the second disciplines our desire, so that it is in keeping with the divine providential reason that governs the entire world; and the third is meant to regulate our impulses and actions, so that we do what is right and proper in terms of our social obligations too.5

  But as much as Epictetus took advantage of his pupils’ temporary absence of social attachments to shake them in their complacency and complained, for instance, about the hold that mothers would still have on their sons even from far away (Diss. 3.24.22), it also clear from his extant writings that he intended them eventually to return to their initial social contexts and to apply what they had learned and interiorized to their everyday activities.

  Epictetus enjoins:

  A builder does not step forward and say: “Listen to me give a speech about building,” but takes on a contract for a house, completes it and thus demonstrates that he has the skill. You too should act in this manner: eat like a human being, drink like one, take care of your appearance, marry, beget children, fulfill your political duties. Endure abuse: bear with an unreasonable brother, bear with a father, a son, a neighbor, a travel-companion. Show us these things, so that we may see whether you have truly learned something from the philosophers. (Diss. 3.21.4–6, trans. Oldfather; cf. also Sen. Ep. 108.35–end)

  Or as Musonius Rufus puts it, “philosophy is nothing else than to search out by reason what is right and proper, and by deeds to put it into practice” (14–end Lutz and Hense; cf. also 4, on philosophy as the art of becoming a good human being).

  A number of Epictetus’s discourses are devoted precisely to the necessity and challenges of making the transition from his school back to the social circles from which his pupils originally came.6 And as he astutely points out, it is quite a bit easier to hold on to the tenets of philosophy in a school setting, in which one is surrounded by like-minded people and has a teacher at hand, than in the midst of everyday life: “in theory there is nothing which holds us back from following what we are taught, but in the affairs of life there are many things which draw us away” (Diss. 1.26.3, trans. Oldfather). Thus Stoics like Musonius and Epictetus expected their pupils both to adopt the high standards of Stoic principles and to continue assuming their social roles and responsibilities. Again, no easy feat.

  Given the fragmentary nature of our evidence for the Early Stoa, it is hard to tell to which extent this later Stoic emphasis on social responsibility entails a transformation of earlier doctrine. The assumption that the later Stoic writings merely present some kind of watered-down version in popular moralizing of an originally highly innovative and sophisticated system of thought is no longer tenable: it is clear that the later Stoics still knew their Chrysippus, to name but him (see below), and consciously chose a different mode of philosophical discourse (Reydams-Schils 2010; Sellars 2009). Moreover, the assumption that posits Panaetius and Poseidonius as catalysts for a number of alleged concessions to Roman culture is open for revision as well. For the Early Stoa we already find attested (1) deliberations on whether and under which circumstances the sage should participate in public life (and marry; Reydams-Schils 2005, 84–86), and (2) a strong connection between the theoretical and the practical life, both as subsumed under the “life of reason,” bios logikos (Diog. Laert. 7.130). For Chrysippus specifically we have evidence, for instance, of reservations about (1) the life of pleasure provided by a more permanent attachment to a philosophical school (Plut. De Stoic. repug. 1033c), and (2) theoretical quibbles of logic (directed primarily against Academic and Megarian “abuses” of dialectic; Bénatouïl 2006, 79–91 and 136–139). It is therefore safer to assume that the distinctive features of later Stoic thinking are a matter of emphasis, and in some cases of elaborations of earlier Stoic views, and do not reflect a radical break in the tradition.

  Plutarch (ca. 40–120 CE) makes for an ideal foil to the later Stoic attitude. As recent scholarship, and especially the work of Van Hoof (2010), has pointed out, Plutarch may have been closer than commonly assumed to the Second Sophistic in his works on practical philosophy, such as On Feeling Good, On Exile, On Talkativeness, and On Curiosity, to the extent that in these contexts he is very much concerned about his own social capital, in the traditional sense. In his works of this type, at least, Plutarch, so Van Hoof argues, manages the sensitivities of his upper-class audience. He meets them very much on their own ground and uses their traditional value judgments and their sense of pride to coax them toward better attitudes. Moreover, in doing this, Plutarch is also intent on increasing his own social capital with this elite, using his accounts to create a justification for his interest in philosophy and to present himself as the best counselor for his audience. For instance, when he critiques busybodies or idle curiosity, he also forestalls criticisms that potentially could come his way. Could he himself, as a prolific writer, not be accused of burying himself in abstruse and irrelevant matters and of meddling with other people’s lives (Van Hoof 205–210)? But his interests are truly relevant for the good life, and he, as one of their equals, is the best counselor his elite audience could hope for. By contrast, Musonius Rufus and Epictetus appear hardly to care for such social capital at all, a point to which we will return below, and this may be one the main reasons why they did not leave anything in writing themselves.

  With Epictetus, we can detect an occasional advertisement for his school, as when he gives visitors who are merely passing through a glimpse of what they could learn if they were willing to spend more time with him (Diss. 2.14.10, 20.34–35), but his restraint in not presenting himself as a role model is remarkable.7 This holding back is one of the main reasons why he transfers the image of the ideal sage to a Cynic, not a Stoic. The Cynic would be the scout of the god, and of all human beings comes closest to being godlike. (Seneca takes a similar approach by weaving in praise for the Cynic Demetrius in his On Benefits 7.1.) Epictetus does not call himself a philosopher, but a trainer, παιδευτής (Diss. 2.19.29–34). As I have argued elsewhere (Reydams-Schils 2011) the later Stoics want their pupils and audience to focus on the message, the truth of Stoic teaching, which ultimately needs to be interiorized, not to become permanently attached to individual teachers nor to mistake a knack at expounding the intricacies of Chrysippus’s views, for instance, for the only goal that matters: a fundamental transformation of the manner in which they lead their lives.

  Striking parallels to Epictetus’s self-representation can be found in Seneca’s philosophical writings, though Seneca is, strictly speaking, not a teacher running a school, whereas Epictetus is.
But Seneca does give advice to others, in the first instance to the addressees of his works, but in a broader sense to his entire readership. Like Musonius Rufus, who as a man in exile himself advises another who is struggling with the same plight (9 Lutz and Hense; see also below), Seneca’s writings start from his own existential struggles, and in describing a trajectory of progress for his addressees, he simultaneously addresses himself and maps his own progress. That he includes his own authorial voice among those striving toward the Stoic ideal helps us understand better the shape of the limited biographical material in Seneca’s writings: rather than include information and details that would have been unique to his own life, he focuses only on those difficulties that pose a threat to the philosophical life and situations that can be shared by others. Thus he talks about the challenges of exile (Helv.), ill health (as in Ep. 78 and 104), excessive sorrow (as in Ep. 63.14), and disappointments in a political career (QNat. 3 preface), but always in terms that can be shared with his interlocutors as experiences all too common to the human condition. In Letter 52, for instance, he ranks himself among those who are not quick learners but need to work hard at making progress, and with the assistance of others (7, durum ac laboriosum ingenium).

  One of the striking features of Seneca’s Letters is that he dwells very little on his social position and former success (one exception in a negative sense occurs in Letter 73, in which he stages a request to the emperor to grant him otium and release him from his public responsibilities). To name but a few counterexamples to Seneca’s and Epictetus’s modesty, Cicero, even in his most pessimistic moments, never stops dwelling on his achievements, whereas Plutarch in On Curiosity (522D–E) talks about himself giving a seminar in Rome.