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THE ART OF LIVING
The Stoics on the Nature
and Function of
Philosophy

John Sellars

LON DON • N E W DE L H I • N E W YOR K • SY DN EY

 Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway

London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA

www.bloomsbury.com

First published in 2003 by Bristol Classical Press an imprint of

Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
This Edition 2009

© John Sellers 2003

John Sellers has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing
from the publishers.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on

or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication
can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

IISBN: PB: 978-1-8539-9724-2

Epub: 978-1-4725-2112-5
Epdf: 978-1-4725-2111-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Typeset by John Sellers

 Contents

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Abbreviations xiii

Introduction 1
1 The Topic 1
2 The Structure 7

PART I:  and 

1 Philosophy and Biography 15

1 The Philosopher’s Beard 15
2  and  20
3 The Philosopher’s  21
4 Summary 32

2 The Socratic Origins of the Art of Living 33

1 Philosophy and  33
2 Care of Oneself in the Apology and Alcibiades I 36
3 The Analysis of  in the Gorgias 39
4 Different Types of  42
5 The Role of  47
6 Aristotle’s Interpretation of Socrates 50
7 Summary 53

3 The Stoic Conception of the Art of Living 55

1 The Phrase ‘Art of Living’ 55
2 The Ideal of the Sage 59
3 An Art Concerned with the Soul 64
4 Stoic Definitions of  68
5 The Relationship between  and  75
6 The Stoic Division of Philosophy 78
7 Towards a Definition of Philosophy 81
8 Summary 84

4 Sceptical Objections 86
1 The Sceptical Method 87
2 Sextus Empiricus’ Objections to an Art of Living 88
3 Philosophy and Biography in Scepticism 101
4 Summary 103
vi Contents

PART II:  and 

5 Philosophical Exercises 107

1 The Relationship between  and  107
2 The Concept of a Spiritual Exercise 110
3 The Function of Spiritual Exercises 118
4 The Mechanism of Spiritual Exercises 123
5 The Form of Spiritual Exercises 126

6 Exercises in the Handbook of Epictetus 129

1 Introduction to the Handbook 129
2 Three Types of Spiritual Exercise 133
3 Summary 145

7 Exercises in the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius 147

1 The Literary Form of the Meditations 147
2 The Point of View of the Cosmos 150
3 Summary 165

Conclusion 167
1 Towards a Technical Conception of Philosophy 167
2 Two Conceptions of Philosophical Knowledge 171
3 Philosophy and Biography 171
4 Three Different Types of Philosophical Text 172
5 The Persistence of the Technical Conception of Philosophy 173

Additional Notes 176

Glossary of Greek Words and Phrases 181
Guide to Ancient Philosophers and Authors 184
Bibliography 188
Index Locorum 210
General Index 226
 Preface to the Second Edition

I am delighted that Duckworth is publishing this paperback edition of The Art of

Living, first published in hardback by Ashgate in 2003. I am especially pleased that it
will take its place alongside the many respected volumes already published in the
Bristol Classical Paperbacks series. My hope, of course, is that it will now reach a
much wider audience than it has thus far.
The first edition received a number of careful and thorough reviews that brought
to light both issues about which I might have said more and places where I might
have been clearer. This new preface gives me the welcome opportunity to address
some of the comments that have been made.
As a number of reviewers have noted, this book can be taken on two levels. 1 On
the one hand it is simply an attempt to explicate how the ancient Stoics conceived
philosophy. I argue that they conceived it as an art or craft and the principal
consequence of this is that, like other arts and crafts, mastery of philosophy will
require not only a grasp of theoretical principles but also an element of practical
training designed to digest those principles. As such it may be read as a contribution
to the scholarly history of ancient philosophy. On the other hand it hopes to show how
thinking about ancient conceptions of philosophy might contribute to much wider
debates about the nature and function of philosophy. The remarks in the Introduction
and Conclusion hopefully indicate how this might be so, where I draw a contrast
between a purely theoretical understanding of philosophy and philosophy conceived
as an art or craft, which I call the technical conception of philosophy. There are many
dangers with trying to do two things at once in a single piece of work. There is the
risk that one might fail to reach either target audience or, if one does reach them, to
alienate them both. I certainly hope that this has not been the case. One reviewer did
seem uncomfortable with this two-fold agenda.2 He suggested that my foray into
metaphilosophy ‘seems to depend more closely on the lingering tensions between
continental and analytical traditions in contemporary philosophy than it does on the
evidence from the ancient philosophical tradition which has been so sadly drafted into
a foreign war’. This is indeed an unfortunate impression as I had deliberately tried to
undercut just this sort of reading. In the Introduction I draw a contrast between the
conceptions of philosophy held by Hegel and Nietzsche (both ‘continental’
philosophers) and try to illustrate the same contrast in a debate between Richard
Sorabji and Bernard Williams (both trained in the analytic tradition). These pairings
were chosen precisely to show that the distinction between the two conceptions of
philosophy outlined in the Introduction does not correspond to a distinction between
1
See e.g. Trevor Curnow in Practical Philosophy 8/1 (2006), 61-2; Michael FitzGerald in
Colloquy 11 (2006), 268-70.
2
See Brad Inwood, writing for the online journal Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
(http://ndpr.nd.edu/).
viii Preface

continental and analytic philosophy and, moreover, that both conceptions of

philosophy can be found within both of these two supposed traditions.3
This attempt to undercut the assumption that the distinction I draw maps onto the
analytic-continental division not only failed in its task for one reviewer but also
created a problem for another. This reviewer accused me of setting up Bernard
Williams as a straw man.4 This criticism is not without grounds. In the Introduction I
focus on two short occasional pieces by Williams and do not seriously engage with
his more substantial work, such as Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, despite having
read it. Indeed, in many ways Williams is much more of a philosophical ally than my
passing remarks on him imply and I am happy to acknowledge this here. I would
particularly like to note his essay ‘Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline’, in which
he rejects the attempt to assimilate philosophy to science and situates philosophy
within a wider humanistic enterprise of trying to make sense of our lives, an
enterprise concerned with reflecting on our ideas and acting on the basis of those
ideas.5 The occasional remarks by Williams that I cite in the Introduction certainly do
not do justice to the full range of his reflections on the nature and role of philosophy.
Another philosopher who turned away from the scientistic image of philosophy
towards a humanistic one was Isaiah Berlin.6 A central theme in Berlin’s work that
echoes one of the guiding metaphilosophical ideas in this book is a concern with what
Berlin called the power of ideas. Philosophical ideas are not merely objects of abstract
and idle amusement but rather vital forces that can transform an individual’s life and,
in some cases, impact upon the lives of millions. Berlin’s principal concern was with
the impact of ideas at the social and political level, but the same point may be made at
the level of the individual. I would want to argue, although I do not have the space to
do it here, that this concern with the practical impact of philosophical ideas stands

3
This is not the place to venture into the murky waters of the analytic-continental divide but I
will note two recent books written from very different perspectives which in their own ways
highlight the limitations of both labels: Simon Glendinning, The Idea of Continental
Philosophy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006) and Hans-Johann Glock, What is
Analytic Philosophy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). I should add that when
claiming that both conceptions of philosophy may be found within the analytic tradition, I
understand the term ‘analytic’ broadly, so as to include figures such as Bernard Williams and
Isaiah Berlin, both of whom explicitly rejected the label conceived in a much narrower sense as
an exclusive focus on linguistic analysis.
4
See A. A. Long in Classical Review 56/1 (2006), 81-82.
5
See Bernard Williams, ‘Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline’, Philosophy 75 (2000),
477-96, and repr. in his Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2006), 180-99. I am not suggesting that Williams holds onto any notion of
philosophical exercise though.
6
See in particular Berlin’s essay ‘The Purpose of Philosophy’, in The Power of Ideas (London:
Chatto & Windus, 2000), 24-35, and ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in The Proper Study of
Mankind (London: Chatto & Windus, 1997), 191-242, at 192: ‘the German poet Heine warned
the French not to underestimate the power of ideas: philosophical concepts nurtured in the
stillness of a professor’s study could destroy a civilisation’.
 Preface ix

within the same broad tradition containing the Stoics (and others), the origins of
which may be traced back to Socrates.7
It has been suggested that although I claim to remain impartial with regard to the
two different conceptions of philosophy I outline (see p. 175 below) this may be
slightly disingenuous, given my clear focus on philosophy conceived as an art of
living.8 While I am clearly attracted to the idea that philosophy be conceived as an art
of living, I would like to restate that I do not hold that this is the correct, proper, true,
or only way in which philosophy might be conceived. I do not hold that other
conceptions of philosophy are inevitably misguided, confused, or false. Instead I
should like to propose what I shall call metaphilosophical pluralism. Drawing an
analogy with Isaiah Berlin’s value pluralism, which holds that there exist a number of
equally objective but ultimately incommensurable values, I advocate a
metaphilosophical pluralism in which there may exist a number of equally justifiable
but incompatible conceptions of what philosophy is, and there are no definitive
grounds for ruling that any one of these conceptions deserves to be given priority. My
account of philosophy as an art of living is offered as a contribution to this
metaphilosophical pluralism rather than an attempt to legislate dogmatically on what
philosophy is or should be.
I should also like to stress that the idea that philosophy is concerned with one’s
way of life should not be assumed to imply that practical concerns outweigh a
commitment to truth. Instead it combines a commitment to truth with the claim that
that commitment is not merely theoretical but will also have real-world consequences.
A contrast is sometimes drawn between analytic philosophy committed to ‘truth and
knowledge’ and populist forms of philosophy serving up ‘moral or spiritual
improvement’ or ‘chicken soup for the soul’.9 Yet, as Glock rightly notes, ‘the case of
ancient philosophers like Socrates demonstrates that one can seek moral or spiritual
improvement, yet do so through the reasoned pursuit of truth and knowledge’.10 This
is clearly related to the famous Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge, though it is

7
By claiming this, I am not suggesting any wider affinity between Berlin and either Socrates or
ancient Stoicism. On the contrary, Berlin seems to me to be one of the most incisive
philosophical critics of Stoicism, even though his explicit references to the Stoa are few. I note
in particular his comments in ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (n. 6 above), 210-11, and his essay
‘The Pursuit of the Ideal’, also in The Proper Study of Mankind (London: Chatto & Windus,
1997), 1-16, and ‘The Birth of Greek Individualism’, in Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002), 287-321, esp. 306-10. Berlin may share something at the metaphilosophical level
regarding the power of philosophical ideas while at the same time rejecting any notion of moral
perfectionism.
8
See Curnow (n. 1 above), 62.
9
The first two phrases come from Scott Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth
Century: Volume 1. The Dawn of Analysis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), xiv,
and cited in Glock (n. 3 above), 200. The phrase ‘chicken soup for the soul’ is borrowed from
Simon Blackburn, Being Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 38. Soames goes on to
note that ‘there is very little in the way of practical or inspirational guides in the art of living to
be found’ in twentieth century analytic philosophy.
10
Glock (n. 3 above), 200.
x Preface

not identical to it. One might reject that thesis while remaining committed to the view
that a philosophical pursuit of truth and knowledge will have an impact upon and
express itself in one’s way of life.
Having dealt with some of the issues arising out of the metaphilosophical side of
the book it is now time to turn to its historical side. This is the more substantial side
and I suspect that the majority of readers will be more interested in ancient Stoicism
than abstract metaphilosophy. Yet it is worth stressing the metaphilosophy in order to
keep in focus the nature of the claims I make about Stoicism. One reviewer has
greeted the volume as a contribution to the literature on Stoic practical ethics, while
another has lamented that it fails as a contribution to the literature on Stoic moral
theory.11 The book claims to do neither. It is explicitly not about that narrow part of
philosophy commonly called practical ethics but rather about a wider conception of
philosophy as such, embracing logic, physics, and ethics, both practical and
theoretical. I argue that for the Stoics the traditional view of a tripartite conception of
philosophy (‘logic, physics, ethics’) may need to be complicated. In particular I
suggest we think of six elements within Stoic philosophy: logical, physical, and
ethical discourse, along with corresponding logical, physical, and ethical exercises. 12
This book does not attempt to add to the ever-expanding body of work on Stoic moral
theory either, which is just one of these six parts, but rather to reconstruct the
metaphilosophical architecture within which such moral theory finds its home.
One of the central figures in my account of the nature of Stoic philosophy is
Epictetus. It has been suggested that my account of Epictetus’ understanding of
philosophy does not do full justice to some passages in which he seems to hold an
intellectualist conception of virtue.13 In these passages, Epictetus seems to suggest
that knowledge (of, say, virtue) is on its own enough to impact on a person’s life,
making any sort of philosophical exercise superfluous. Although Epictetus does
elsewhere emphasize the need for exercises, the presence of these intellectualist
passages makes it seem as if Epictetus’ position is more complex than I acknowledge.
Beyond the textual details of the Discourses, one might argue more generally that if
the Stoics truly are follows of Socratic intellectualism then surely philosophical
exercises will serve little purpose. This objection clearly goes right to the heart of the
issues that I discuss in this book (it was first raised by Aristo; see below pp. 76-8).
Yet it also presupposes a conception of knowledge that is precisely what I attempt to
challenge with my central claim that, for the Stoics, knowledge should be conceived
as knowledge of an art or craft. The objection that, as Socratic intellectualists, the
Stoics should have no need for exercises because knowledge should be sufficient on
11
See Christopher Gill in Phronesis 50/2 (2005), 173, and Inwood (n. 2 above), respectively.
12
See pp. 78-81 below. I have elaborated on this point in an article that draws upon material
from this book: ‘Stoic Practical Philosophy in the Imperial Period’, in Richard Sorabji and
Robert W. Sharples, eds, Greek and Roman Philosophy 100 BC – 200 AD: Volume 1, Bulletin
of the Institute of Classical Studies Suppl. 94 (2007), 115-40, esp. at 126.
13
See John Mouracade in Ancient Philosophy 26 (2006), 216-20. Mouracade cites as examples
Epictetus Diss. 3.9.2, 4.6.23, 4.11.8. On this question I have also benefitted from discussions
with M. M. McCabe. I have attempted to respond to this issue elsewhere, in John Sellars,
Stoicism (Chesham: Acumen & Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), esp. 47-9.
 Preface xi

its own assumes that the theoretical principles underpinning an art or craft will on
their own constitute knowledge. In other words, it assumes that philosophical
knowledge should be identified with mastery of philosophical doctrines. But in what I
take to be a key passage (Diss. 1.15.2; key because it is the only explicit definition of
philosophy he offers us) Epictetus does not conceive philosophical knowledge in this
way. Because he conceives philosophy as an art or craft, philosophical knowledge
will require both mastery of philosophical doctrines and a subsequent period of
training or exercise designed to digest those doctrines, just as mastery of other arts
and crafts do. However, Epictetus can remain a Socratic intellectualist while holding
this conception of philosophical knowledge for – like Socrates – he can then argue
that once one does have philosophical knowledge (conceived in this way as
knowledge of a craft) then it will necessarily transform one’s behaviour. In those
passages where Epictetus suggests that correct beliefs or judgements ()
are enough, I would argue that we understand these as instances of craft-type
knowledge.
In order to bring the central issues into focus my analysis may at times appear too
blunt, especially with regard to the division between theoretical arguments and
practical exercises.14 This, I think, is more a matter of presentation than
conceptualization. I do not intend to present these as ‘distinct and competing’ forces;
on the contrary, the whole thrust of the argument throughout the book is that these are
complementary and both necessary components of a technical conception of
philosophy such as the one articulated by the Stoics. Analysis, by its very nature,
involves breaking a thing down into its constituent parts, sometimes at the cost of
artificially isolating those parts. This process of analysis also inevitably involves
neglect of the rhetorical aspects of the texts under discussion. 15 Although I explicitly
hope that the account in this book will have implications for the literary study of
ancient philosophical texts (see e.g. pp. 126-8 below), I do not pretend to engage in a
literary study here. While the rhetorical force of philosophical texts may well be
significant for their potential impact upon readers or listeners, and so their
transformative effect,16 that rhetoric is of far less relevance to the conceptual analysis
of the nature of philosophy of the sort that I am engaged in here.
Another reviewer locates a central issue in the book as the attempt to respond to
the competing characterizations of ancient philosophy by Pierre Hadot and Michel
Foucault (see esp. pp. 115-18).17 While Hadot presents ancient philosophy as a
‘spiritual exercise’, Foucault characterizes it as a ‘technique’, and I suggest that the
latter is closer to the mark, if we understand ‘technique’ etymologically, deriving
from . Hadot’s identification of philosophy with exercise is based upon two
brief doxographical texts, which I suggest are of limited significance and, in any case,
don’t quite say what Hadot implies they do (see p. 116, n. 43). This reviewer

14
See Inwood (n. 2 above).
15
This is a concern raised by Long (n. 4 above).
16
See Long (n. 4 above), 82.
17
Jean-Baptiste Gourinat in Philosophie antique 6 (2006), 223-26.
xii Preface

suggests that I dismiss these texts too quickly.18 I remain sceptical about their
significance, but even if one were to accept them as important sources, it would still
leave open the question of what they actually say, for they also connect philosophy
with the notion of an art or craft, and not just with exercise. The same reviewer
suggests that elsewhere Hadot fully acknowledges the significance of philosophical
discourse alongside spiritual exercises, the implication being that Hadot’s considered
position is closer to mine than my account suggests.19 If this is the case then I am
happy to acknowledge it.

***

Beyond this new Preface, the rest of the book remains unchanged (though the original
Preface has been omitted). One reviewer found the proliferation of both words in
Greek and footnotes distracting.20 I certainly hope they are not too distracting, though
the reviewer is no doubt correct to note that both could be reduced in quantity without
affecting the central argument to any great extent. Yet on balance it seems more
helpful to readers to avoid such changes and so preserve the identity of pagination
between the two editions. A couple of reviewers speculated whether my choice of title
is a deliberate reference to Alexander Nehamas’ book of the same name (cited in the
Bibliography).21 It is not. Given that my aim is to articulate a conception of
philosophy conceived as an art concerned with transforming one’s way of life, The
Art of Living seemed the most natural title and it was chosen before I encountered
Nehamas’ book (which is wonderful, but not about the art of living in the very
specific sense that I use the phrase in this book). My discussion of the philosopher’s
beard (pp. 15-19) is intended as a light-hearted and ‘entertaining’ (p. 20) opening into
proceedings and should not be taken too seriously.22
Finally, I must express my thanks to Deborah Blake at Duckworth for welcoming
the book into Duckworth’s rich and important list of works on ancient philosophy.
The cover image for this new edition, showing Marcus Aurelius writing his
Meditations, reproduces the frontispiece of an early edition of the Meditations in my
possession.23

18
See Gourinat (n. 15 above), 225.
19
See Gourinat (n. 15 above), 226.
20
See Curnow (n. 1 above), 62.
21
See FitzGerald (n. 1 above), 268, and Anna Ntinti in Rhizai 2/1 (2005), 123-9, at 125.
22
With apologies to Inwood (n. 2 above) and Ntinti (n. 21 above) for not making this more
explicit.
23
Marci Antonini Imperatoris Eorum quae ad seipsum Libri XII (Oxoniae, E Theatro
Sheldoniano. MDCCIV).
 Abbreviations

All references to works by ancient authors are by the standard Latin titles (or
abbreviated versions) and details of the editions used are included in the Index
Locorum. References to modern authors are by name and (occasionally shortened)
title only, full details being reserved for the Bibliography. Note also the following
abbreviations:

ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt/Rise and Decline of the
Roman World, Herausgegeban von/Edited by Wolfgang Haase und/and
Hildegard Temporini (Berlin & New York: De Gruyter, 1972-)
BT Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig &
Stuttgart: Teubner)
CAG Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, edita consilio et auctoritate
Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae, 23 vols; ‘Supplementum
Aristotelicum’, 3 vols (Berlin: Reimer, 1882-1909)
CHHP The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, Edited by Keimpe
Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld, Malcolm Schofield (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999)
CPF Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici Greci e Latini, Testi e lessico nei papiri di
cultura greca e latina (Florence: Olschki, 1989-)
CR Classical Review
CUF Collection des Universités de France, publiée sous le patronage de
l’Association de Guillaume Budé (Paris: Les Belles Lettres); also
Collection Byzantine publiée sous le patronage de l’Association de
Guillaume Budé (Paris: Les Belles Lettres)
DC Antisthenis Fragmenta, collegit Fernanda Decleva Caizzi (Milan: Istituto
Editoriale Cisalpino, 1966)
DG Doxographi Graeci, collegit recensuit prolegomenis indicibusque instruxit
Hermannus Diels (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1879; repr. 1965)
DK Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Griechisch und Deutsch von Hermann
Diels, Elfte Auflage Herausgegeben von Walther Kranz, 3 vols (Zürich &
Berlin: Weidmann, 1964)
EK Posidonius, The Fragments, Edited by L. Edelstein and I. G. Kidd,
Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 13 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1972; 2nd edn 1989)
KGW Nietzsche Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Herausgegeben von Giorgio
Colli und Mazzino Montinari (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967-)
LCL The Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann & Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press)
xiv Abbreviations

LS The Hellenistic Philosophers, by A. A. Long & D. N. Sedley; Volume 1

Translations of the principal sources with philosophical commentary;
Volume 2 Greek and Latin texts with notes and bibliography (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987)
LSJ A Greek-English Lexicon, Compiled by Henry George Liddell and Robert
Scott, A New Edition Revised and Augmented throughout by Henry Stuart
Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940)
OCT Oxford Classical Texts – Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis
(Oxford: Clarendon Press)
OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary, Edited by P. G. W. Glare (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1982)
PBerol Papyrus from the collection in Berlin
PG Patrologiae Cursus Completus … Series Graeca, accurante J.-P. Migne,
162 vols (Paris, 1857-66)
PHerc Papyrus from Herculaneum
PL Patrologiae Cursus Completus … Series Latina, accurante J.-P. Migne, 221
vols (Paris, 1844-55)
POxy Papyrus from Oxyrhynchus
PPF Poetarum Philosophorum Fragmenta, edidit Hermannus Diels, Poetarum
Graecorum Fragmenta 3.1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1901)
SSR Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, collegit, disposuit, apparatibus
notisque instruxit Gabriele Giannantoni, 4 vols (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1990)
SVF Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, collegit Ioannes ab Arnim; Volumen I
Zeno et Zenonis discipuli; Volumen II Chrysippi fragmenta logica et
physica; Volumen III Chrysippi fragmenta moralia, Fragmenta
successorum Chrysippi; Volumen IV Quo indices Continentur, conscripsit
Maximillianus Adler (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1903-24; repr. 1978-79)
WH Ioannis Stobaei Anthologium, recensuerunt Curtius Wachsmuth et Otto
Hense, 5 vols (Berlin: Weidmann, 1884-1912)
 Introduction

1. The Topic

In his series of lectures on the history of philosophy Hegel found himself confronted
with a peculiar difficulty when he came to discuss Socrates.1 His problem was that, in
the case of Socrates, Hegel found it difficult to disentangle what he considered to be
merely biographical from what he held to be truly philosophical. He noted, quite
rightly, that with Socrates philosophy and biography are intimately interrelated.2 For
Hegel this devalued Socrates’ philosophy insofar as he thought that philosophy proper
must be removed from the here and now of an individual’s life and developed into an
abstract system.3 In the case of the Cynics, whose philosophy is preserved almost
exclusively in biographical anecdotes and aphorisms, Hegel was even more
dismissive.4 These judgements reflect Hegel’s own conception of the nature and
function of philosophy as it is outlined in his introduction to the lectures; namely as a
matter of universal thought directed towards truth.5 Hegel’s difficulties with Socrates
and the Cynics derive from the inability of this conception of philosophy to consider
the philosophical significance of biographical material.6 Philosophy, as conceived by

1
Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy (Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der
Philosophie), reconstructed by Michelet from lecture notes and first published 1833-36.
Michelet also produced a shortened second edition in 1840-44 upon which Haldane & Simson’s
English translation is based. For discussion of Hegel’s portrait of Socrates see Montuori, De
Socrate Iuste Damnato, pp. 11-15; Socrates: Physiology of a Myth, p. 32; Kierkegaard, The
Concept of Irony, pp. 219-37; Kofman, Socrates: Fictions of a Philosopher, pp. 39-124.
2
See Hegel, Lectures, vol. 1, p. 389: ‘Socrates’ life […] is, however, closely intertwined with
his interest in Philosophy, and the events of his life are bound up with his principles’.
3
See Hegel, Lectures, vol. 1, p. 396: ‘Because the philosophy of Socrates is no withdrawal
from existence now and here into the free, pure regions of thought, but is in a piece with his
life, it does not proceed to a system’.
4
See Hegel, Lectures, vol. 1, p. 479: ‘There is nothing particular to say of the Cynics, for they
possess but little Philosophy, and they did not bring what they had into a scientific system’;
vol. 1, p. 484: ‘Diogenes is only famed for his manner of life; with him, as with the moderns,
Cynicism came to signify more a mode of living than a philosophy’. For discussion see
Niehues-Pröbsting, ‘The Modern Reception of Cynicism’, pp. 330-31.
5
See e.g. Hegel, Lectures, vol. 1, pp. 7-8, 11, 27, 90.
6
By ‘biography’ here and throughout this study I do not mean just the literary genre of written
biography but rather the course and manner of an individual’s life (i.e. what is recorded in a
written biography). This reflects the range of the Greek word
 which primarily means
‘manner of life’ but which also came to be used to signify the literary genre of biography.
While my remarks will hopefully apply to the relationship between philosophy and written
biography, their primary concern is with the relationship between an individual’s philosophy
and the way in which he or she lives.
2 The Art of Living

Hegel, cannot deal adequately with the idea that an individual’s philosophy may be
expressed in his or her way of life.
This difficulty is by no means confined to Hegel. Around a century later C. D.
Broad could not conceive of the possibility that the study of philosophy could impact
upon an individual’s way of life. In particular he claimed that the study of ethical
theory would make as little impact upon someone’s conduct as the study of dynamics
would upon someone’s golf performance.7 He went on to conclude his own study of
ethics with the dismissive remark that ethical theory is ‘quite good fun for those
people who like that sort of thing’.8 More recently, Bernard Williams has dismissed
the claim that the study of philosophical accounts of the emotions could have any
therapeutic value for the individual concerned.9 In particular he has doubted that
philosophy, conceived as rigorous argument and intellectual analysis, could impact
upon how someone leads their life. He says that he cannot himself conceive how the
study of the logical theory of the Stoic Chrysippus, for instance, could make any
difference to an individual’s behaviour.10
At first glance this might suggest some form of ancient–modern dichotomy in
which ancients such as Socrates and Chrysippus thought philosophy was in some way
connected to one’s way of life, while moderns such as Hegel and Williams do not.
However, an attitude similar to that of Hegel and Williams can already be found in
Aristotle. In a series of remarks concerning the philosophy of Socrates, Aristotle
doubted the Socratic claim that the possession of knowledge (
) – a
definition (  ) or rational account (  ) – concerning some particular thing
could have any direct impact upon one’s behaviour ( ) in relation to that thing.11
12
Insofar as Aristotle defines philosophy as a matter of  , this criticism of

7
See Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory, p. 285 (and cited by Sandbach, The Stoics, p. 11):
‘We can no more learn to act rightly by appealing to the ethical theory of right action than we
can play golf well by appealing to the mathematical theory of the flight of the golf-ball. The
interest of ethics is thus almost wholly theoretical, as is the interest of the mathematical theory
of golf or of billiards’.
8
Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory, p. 285.
9
See Williams, ‘Do Not Disturb’ (a review of Nussbaum’s The Therapy of Desire) and ‘Stoic
Philosophy and the Emotions’. Williams’ position has been challenged by Richard Sorabji in
‘Is Stoic Philosophy Helpful as Psychotherapy?’ and Emotion and Peace of Mind, pp. 159-68.
10
See Williams, ‘Do Not Disturb’, p. 26.
11
The key passages are Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1144b28-30 (= SSR I B 30), Eth. Eud. 1216b2-10
(= SSR I B 28), 1246b32-35 (= SSR I B 29), Mag. Mor. 1198a10-13 (= SSR I B 33). These will
be discussed in Chapter 2 § 6.
12
Aristotle defines philosophy in terms of  in Metaph. 981b5-6. He refines his
understanding of  in Int. 16b26-17a7 to    , ‘a statement that shows or
proves something’. The highest form of philosophy for Aristotle will be a matter of such
statements () concerning first principles and causes (     ; see Metaph.
982a1-3, with Alexander of Aphrodisias In Metaph. 6.1-5). These statements are clearly
separable from the behaviour of the individuals who make them. Indeed, Aristotle explicitly
characterizes such knowledge as unconcerned with action (see Metaph. 982b20-21, with
 Introduction 3

Socrates’ thesis may be seen as the foundation for a more general claim that
philosophy – conceived as a matter of  ,13 an activity primarily concerned with
giving a rational account of the world – will not have any direct impact upon an
individual’s actions ( ). Williams, in his remarks concerning Chrysippus, can also
be seen to define philosophy in terms of  when he characterizes it as a subject
primarily understood as ‘rigorous argument’. 14
Moreover, the idea of an ancient–modern dichotomy is further challenged by the
fact that there have been a number of modern philosophers who have affirmed the
idea that philosophy might be primarily expressed in an individual’s behaviour.15 This
is a recurrent theme in the works of Nietzsche and is particularly prominent in his
essay Schopenhauer as Educator:

I attach importance to a philosopher only to the extent that he is capable of setting an

example. […] The philosopher must supply this example in his visible life, and not merely
in his books; that is, it must be presented in the way the philosophers of Greece taught,
through facial expressions, demeanor, clothing, food, and custom more than through what
they said, let alone what they wrote.16

For Nietzsche, the true philosopher must offer an image of a complete way of life
rather than focus upon the abstract notion of attaining ‘pure knowledge’ (reine
Wissenschaft).17 The philosopher is an artist and his life is his work of art. 18 As is well
known, Nietzsche was intimately familiar with ancient philosophy and in particular

Alexander of Aphrodisias In Metaph. 5.16-20, 15.22-30). For further discussion of Aristotle’s

conception of philosophy see Chapter 2 § 1.
13
By  in this context I mean a rational account, explanation, or definition expressed in
discourse (see the substantial entry in LSJ). By using this word I want to capture the twin ideas
of rational explanation and verbal expression ( is a verbal noun of  and literally
means ‘something said’). I shall use ‘philosophy conceived as ’ as shorthand for
philosophy conceived as an activity concerned with developing a rational understanding of the
world that is expressed in discourse or argument (as opposed to a philosophy expressed in
actions ( ) or way of life (
)).
14
Williams, ‘Do Not Disturb’, p. 26.
15
For a preliminary discussion of the significance of the idea of the philosophical life in
modern philosophy see Miller, ‘From Socrates to Foucault’.
16
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as Educator § 3 (KGW III 1, 346; Complete Works 2, 183-84).
Note also § 8 (KGW III 1, 413; Complete Works 2, 246): ‘The only possible criticism of any
philosophy, and the only one that proves anything, is trying to see if one can live by this
philosophy’.
17
See Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as Educator § 3 (KGW III 1, 347; Complete Works 2, 184).
18
See in particular the following from Nietzsche’s Nachlaß: ‘The philosopher’s product is his
life (first, before his works). It is his work of art [Kunstwerk]’ (KGW III 4, 29 [205]; Complete
Works 11, 274-75); ‘One should have a philosophy only to the extent that one is capable of
living according to this philosophy’ (KGW III 4, 30 [17]; Complete Works 11, 299); ‘As long
as philosophers do not muster the courage to advocate a lifestyle [Lebensordnung] structured in
an entirely different way and demonstrate it by their own example, they will come to nothing’
(KGW III 4, 31 [10]; Complete Works 11, 311).
4 The Art of Living

with the anecdotal history of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius.19
More recently, two philosophers greatly influenced by Nietzsche, and also each drawn
to the ancient image of the philosopher, have considered the relationship between
philosophy and biography. The first of these, Michel Foucault, has suggested that
philosophy might be conceived as an activity directed towards turning one’s life into a
work of art:

What strikes me is the fact that, in our society, art has become something which is related
only to objects and not to individuals or to life. […] But couldn’t everyone’s life become a
work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object but not our life?20

The second, Gilles Deleuze, in a reading of Spinoza influenced by his own work on
Nietzsche, has developed the concept of ‘practical philosophy’ conceived as a mode
of living or way of life in which philosophy and life are united.21 Elsewhere, in a
discussion concerning the image of the philosopher drawing upon Diogenes Laertius,
Deleuze has suggested that,

we should not be satisfied with either biography or bibliography; we must reach a secret
point where the anecdote of life and the aphorism of thought amount to one and the same
thing.22

There is, then, an ongoing debate concerning the relationship between philosophy and
biography. In this study my concern is to consider the nature of this relationship and
to examine the conceptions of philosophy involved in the various assessments of this
relationship. Hegel, for example, is quite open concerning the nature of his own
conception of philosophy and it is relatively straightforward to see how this has
shaped his assessment of Socrates. In other cases, the presuppositions concerning the
nature and function of philosophy remain implicit. The aim of this study is to outline
a conception of philosophy that is able to deal adequately with the idea that
philosophy is something that is primarily expressed in one’s way of life. Of course
one may say that none of the major figures in the history of philosophy – Aristotle
and Hegel included – would deny that the study of philosophy would have some

19
Nietzsche’s early philological work focused on Diogenes Laertius: ‘De Laertii Diogenis
fontibus’ (1868-69), ‘Analecta Laertiana’ (1870), and Beiträge zur Quellenkunde und Kritik des
Laertius Diogenes (1870), all in KGW II 1. For a detailed analysis of their philological merit
see Barnes, ‘Nietzsche and Diogenes Laertius’.
20
Foucault, ‘On the Genealogy of Ethics’, in Dits et écrits, vol. 4, pp. 392, 617; Essential
Works, vol. 1, p. 261 (for this and other references to shorter works by Foucault I supply
references to these two collections rather than their original places of publication; note that
some of these shorter works were first published in English). When in this interview Foucault
was questioned about this idea, he explicitly acknowledged Nietzsche’s influence. Foucault’s
account will be discussed further in Chapter 5 § 2.
21
See Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, pp. 3, 122, 130 (Spinoza: Philosophie pratique,
pp. 9-10, 164-65, 175).
22
Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, p. 128 (Logique du sens, p. 153).
 Introduction 5

impact upon the behaviour of the individual concerned. However, in many cases this
is merely an incidental consequence of what is conceived to be primarily a matter of
developing theoretical understanding. The aim here, then, is to explore the possibility
of a conception of philosophy in which philosophical ideas are primarily expressed in
behaviour, a conception in which understanding is developed not for its own sake but
rather in order to transform one’s way of life, a conception of philosophy that would
make biography not merely incidentally relevant but rather of central importance to
philosophy. 23
Those modern philosophers who have been sympathetic to this idea have often
turned to antiquity for inspiration. It is of course a commonplace to proclaim that in
antiquity philosophy was conceived as a way of life. To be a philosopher in antiquity
– a Platonist, a Stoic, an Epicurean, a Cynic, a Neoplatonist, even an Aristotelian –
meant that one would live in a specifically philosophical manner.24 However, on its
own, this claim tells us little concerning how one might understand the relationship
between an individual’s philosophy and his or her way of life. Of those who have
attempted to explore this question, Foucault has been the most explicit, suggesting
that in antiquity philosophy was often conceived as an art of living, a ‘technē tou
biou’.25 As a matter of fact this phrase does not appear in this precise form in the
ancient literature.26 However there are references to a     , an art
concerned with one’s way of life. Almost all of the ancient occurrences of this phrase
derive from sources with Stoic connections and it is with the Stoics that this
conception of philosophy as the art of living came to be developed.27 Insofar as they

23
Thus my concern here is with the idea that biography may be of philosophical relevance
insofar as it expresses philosophical ideas (i.e. the impact of philosophy on one’s biography); I
am not concerned with the idea that certain biographical information may contribute to
understanding the formation of a philosophical position (i.e. not the impact of biography on
one’s philosophy).
24
For general studies of different conceptions of philosophy in antiquity see Hadot, Qu’est-ce
que la philosophie antique?; Jordan, Ancient Concepts of Philosophy; Domański, La
philosophie, théorie ou manière de vivre?; Gauss, Plato’s Conception of Philosophy; Chroust,
‘Late Hellenistic “Textbook Definitions” of Philosophy’.
25
See e.g. Foucault, The Care of the Self, pp. 43-45 (Le souci de soi, pp. 60-63). Note also
Nehamas, The Art of Living, p. 96, who also uses this phrase.
26
This and all of the following data concerning the frequency of phrases derive from the
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae database and the Packard Humanities Institute Latin database.
27
The formulation    
 occurs 4 times, all in Sextus Empiricus (Pyrr.
Hyp. 3.272, 273, Adv. Math. 11.180, 209). Variations on this occur a total of 41 times, of
which 34 occur in Sextus (many in his preferred form   
  ) during his series
of arguments against the idea of an art of living (which will be discussed in Chapter 4 § 2). The
remaining seven occurrences are: Epictetus Diss. 1.15.2, Chrysippus apud Galen Plac. Hipp.
Plat. 3.8.16 (5.352 Kühn = 226.25-29 De Lacy = SVF 2.909, 911), Arius Didymus 2.7.5b10
(2.66.14-67.4 WH = SVF 3.560), Strabo 1.1.1 (= Posidonius test. 75 EK), Philo Leg. Alleg. 1.57
(= SVF 3.202), Plutarch Quaest. Conv. 613b, and Clement of Alexandria Paed. 2.2
(PG 8.420a), the most important of which will be discussed in Chapter 3 § 1. Latin equivalents
would be ars vitae and ars vivendi; these occur in Cicero Fin. 1.42, 1.72, 3.4, 4.19, 5.16, 5.18,
6 The Art of Living

appear to have been the principal ancient philosophical school to explore the nature of
this relationship between philosophy and biography in any detail, it is with them that
this study will be primarily concerned. The Stoic Epictetus describes philosophy thus:

Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be
admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject matter (). For just as wood is
the material () of the carpenter, bronze that of the statuary, so each individual’s own life
(
   !" #) is the material () of the art of living ( $ 
  ).28

Here Epictetus presents his philosophy conceived as an art of living as an activity

directed towards the transformation of one’s way of life ( ). In contrast to the
conception of philosophy as  , this conception is explicitly concerned with the
way in which one lives. The function of philosophy, for Epictetus, is to transform
one’s behaviour, and any development in genuine philosophical understanding will,
for him, always be expressed in one’s actions ( ). This idea of an art ()
concerned with transforming one’s behaviour clearly shares something with the
Socrates of the Apology and the early Platonic dialogues where knowledge of human
excellence ( ) is repeatedly compared to knowledge of an art or craft ( ).29
A provisional generalization would be to say that for philosophers such as
Aristotle, Hegel, and Williams, philosophy is conceived as primarily a matter of
 ; for Socrates, the Stoics, Nietzsche, and Foucault, philosophy is conceived as a
30
, and in particular a  primarily concerned with transforming one’s  .
Insofar as philosophers who conceive philosophy in terms of  appear to be
unable to deal adequately with the philosophical significance of biography and the
more general relationship between philosophy and biography, the aim of this study is
to draw upon primarily Stoic ancient philosophical resources in order to outline a
conception of philosophy that can deal with this relationship.
A common objection to the characterization of philosophy as an art of living is the
claim that, insofar as it downplays the role of  , it makes a philosophical way of
life indistinguishable from other, say, religious ways of life also common in
antiquity. 31 Yet what distinguishes a philosophical way of life from these religious

Tusc. Disp. 2.12, Acad. 2.23, Seneca Epist. 95.7, 95.8, 95.9. Note also Seneca fr. 17 Haase
apud Lactantius Div. Inst. 3.15.1 (PL 6.390-91).
28
Epictetus Diss. 1.15.2.
29
In general I translate   as ‘art’ but occasionally use ‘craft’, ‘skill’, or a combination of
these. Another alternative sometimes used is ‘expertise’ (e.g. Annas & Barnes, Sextus
Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism). I often use ‘expert’ for    rather than ‘artist’ or
‘craftsman’. Socrates’ apparent use of an analogy between   and  % will be discussed
in Chapter 2 § 4.
30
Of course this is merely a generalization in order to contrast two general conceptions of
philosophy. I do not mean to make any substantive claims concerning any of these philosophers
at this stage.
31
See e.g. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire, pp. 353-54, who criticizes Foucault and
‘affiliated writers’ (by which she appears to mean Pierre Hadot). She suggests that their
accounts place too much emphasis upon ‘habits and techniques du soi’ (i.e. &"") and do
 Introduction 7

ways of life is the fact that it is grounded upon, and expresses a desire for, rational
understanding as opposed to, say, mystical insight or unquestioned faith in a system
of beliefs. What makes the concept of an art of living specifically philosophical is the
essential role that rational understanding, analysis, or argument (  ) plays within
it. What distinguishes this conception of philosophy from that held by Aristotle,
Hegel, or Williams is that this rational understanding is not constitutive but rather
simply a necessary condition. It is the philosopher’s distinctively rational way of life
( ) that is constitutive, his actions and behaviour, which are of course an
expression of his rational understanding.
The central task of this study will be to outline a conception of philosophy in
which  is a necessary component but is not the only constitutive element. In
order to accomplish this task I shall draw upon those ancient philosophers who
explicitly conceived philosophy in these terms, namely the Stoics, but also Socrates
insofar as he can be seen to lay the foundations for their conception of an art of living,
a     . Central to this conception of philosophy will be the
significance of philosophical exercise or training ( ) and the role that this
plays alongside rational discourse (  ) in the concept of an art ().32 The
reconstruction of this conception of philosophy will allow two things. Firstly, it will
make it possible to approach those ancient philosophers who conceived philosophy in
these terms with a proper understanding of their implicit presuppositions concerning
what it was that they thought they were engaged in. This is essential in order to avoid
anachronistic judgements.33 Closely related to this is the re-assessment of certain
authors who have often been dismissed as non-philosophical without pausing to
consider the assumptions implicit within such a judgement. Secondly, reconstructing
this conception of philosophy will, it is hoped, form a contribution to the more
general debate concerning the nature of the relationship between philosophy and
biography and the nature and function of philosophy as such.

2. The Structure

The first chapter of this study is devoted to developing an understanding of the

relationship between philosophy and biography as conceived in antiquity. Beginning
with a series of anecdotal stories concerning the status of ‘the philosopher’s beard’ in
the Graeco-Roman world, it will move on to consider the way in which philosophy

not acknowledge the importance of rational argument (i.e. ). I shall discuss this further in
Chapter 5 § 2.
32
It should be noted that this concern with the constitutive elements of   is quite different
to the debate between the rationalist and empiricist medical schools concerning the foundation
of the art of medicine. That debate – concerning the relationship between reason and experience
– was primarily concerned with the acquisition of technical expertise in medicine and, in
particular, how one might come to know the  underpinning a  . For further
discussion see Walzer & Frede, Galen, Three Treatises on the Nature of Science, pp. ix-xxxiv.
33
See Frede in Brunschwig & Lloyd, eds, Greek Thought, p. 4.
8 The Art of Living

was often presented as a matter of actions rather than words (    ). Central
here will be the philosophical significance attached to biographical and anecdotal
literature concerning the lives of ancient philosophers. This first chapter will set the
scene for the subsequent discussion.
In the second chapter I shall begin to develop an understanding of the concept of
an art of living by turning to Socrates as he is portrayed by Plato in the Apology. In
this text Socrates can be seen to outline an embryonic conception of an art ()
concerned with one’s way of life ( ). I shall also consider a number of the early
Platonic dialogues in which this idea is developed, in particular Alcibiades I and the
Gorgias. However my focus will be upon the historical Socrates rather than the
character in Plato’s dialogues.34 Consequently I am less concerned with what these
dialogues may tell us about Plato’s own philosophical position and I shall also draw
upon other Socratic sources, in particular Xenophon.35 I shall also consider what I
take to be a problem with one aspect of Aristotle’s portrait of Socrates insofar as this
will help to bring into focus the issues at hand.36 The main reason for this focus upon
the historical rather than the Platonic Socrates is the fact that the Stoics (and before
them the Cynics) claimed to be followers of Socrates,37 yet, at the same time, clearly
distanced themselves from Plato.38 The Socrates with which I am concerned, then, is

34
For my approach to the ‘problem of Socrates’ see Additional Note 1.
35
As with the Platonic dialogues, I shall make use of Xenophon’s works (primarily the
Memorabilia) only to the extent that they present or elaborate ideas that can be found in Plato’s
Apology (see Additional Note 1). For further discussion of Xenophon as a source for Socrates
see Chroust, Socrates Man and Myth; Cooper, ‘Notes on Xenophon’s Socrates’.
36
Beyond Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle, there are also the portrayal of Socrates by
Aristophanes in the Clouds (for which see Dover, ‘Socrates in the Clouds’; Vander Waerdt,
‘Socrates in the Clouds’; Montuori, ‘Socrates Between the First and Second Clouds’, in
Socrates: An Approach, pp. 85-145) and numerous later testimonia now collected in
Giannantoni’s Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae (many of which are translated in Ferguson,
Socrates: A Source Book). An exemplary example of the sort of work that still needs to be done
can be found in Glucker, ‘Socrates in the Academic Books and Other Ciceronian Works’. For
further discussion see the works referred to in Additional Note 1.
37
See e.g. the judgement of Grote, Plato, and the Other Companions of Sokrates, vol. 3, p. 505:
‘Antisthenes, and his disciple Diogenes, were in many respects closer approximations to
Sokrates than either Plato or any other of the Sokratic companions’; also Hicks, Stoic and
Epicurean, p. 4. For the Cynic appropriation of Socrates see Long, ‘The Socratic Tradition:
Diogenes, Crates, and Hellenistic Ethics’, pp. 28-46. For the Stoic appropriation see Long,
‘Socrates in Hellenistic Philosophy’; Striker, ‘Plato’s Socrates and the Stoics’. This Cynic-Stoic
appropriation of Socrates is particularly clear in the Arabic tradition where he becomes
‘Socrates of the Barrel’; see Alon, Socrates in Mediaeval Arabic Literature, pp. 30-31, 49.
38
On a range of philosophical topics the Stoics can be seen to respond to Platonic positions and
to oppose them. For ancient awareness of this opposition see Numenius apud Eusebius 14.6.11
(732d = SVF 1.12). For their disagreement over ontology see Brunschwig, ‘The Stoic Theory of
the Supreme Genus and Platonic Ontology’, p. 125. For politics see Plutarch Stoic. Rep. 1034e
(= SVF 1.260). For ethics see Striker, ‘Plato’s Socrates and the Stoics’, p. 242. For psychology
see Sedley, ‘Chrysippus on Psychophysical Causality’, p. 313. In the last two cases these
 Introduction 9

the Socrates who inspired Zeno to study philosophy and eventually to begin his
teaching in the Painted Stoa (  ),39 and the Socrates who appears
throughout the works of later Stoics such as Epictetus as the ultimate role model for
the Stoic sage.40 It is clearly beyond the scope of this study (or perhaps any) to
reconstruct fully either the Stoic image of Socrates or the historical Socrates. My
remarks concerning the Socratic conception of an art () concerned with one’s
way of life ( ) are thus to a certain extent provisional and are intended simply to
function as a foundation for an understanding of the Stoic conception of an art of
living.
In the third chapter I shall turn to the Stoics themselves and examine how they
took up Socrates’ scattered remarks concerning the nature of philosophy and used
them to construct a fully-fledged concept of an art of living. Of particular importance
will be the way in which the Stoics developed the Socratic idea of an art ()
concerned with the health of the soul (!"), their more formal attempts to define an
art (), and their discussion of the relationship between philosophical theory
(  ) and exercise ( ). In order to do this I shall draw upon a wide range of
Stoic sources and shall use the term ‘Stoic’ in a fairly broad way.41 However
throughout this study I shall often return to the works of Epictetus. There are a
number of reasons for this. The first is that the texts that have come down to us under
the name of Epictetus constitute the largest collection of documents relating to
Stoicism written in Greek.42 Secondly, these texts derive from a Stoic philosopher
rather than an intellectual with an interest in Stoicism (such as Cicero) or a hostile
member of a different philosophical tradition (such as Plutarch or Philodemus).

responses have been characterized as explicit attempts to rescue Socratic positions from
Platonic criticisms.
39
See Diogenes Laertius 7.2 (= SVF 1.1) who reports that Zeno was inspired to study
philosophy after reading Book 2 of Xenophon’s Memorabilia. For discussion of the
Xenophonic character of the Stoic image of Socrates see Long, ‘Socrates in Hellenistic
Philosophy’, pp. 152-54, 160-64.
40
The sources for Socrates used by Epictetus are difficult to determine. He clearly knew the
works of Plato and often cites him (for which see Jagu, Épictète et Platon). A passage at
Diss. 2.17.35-36 implies that Epictetus also knew the works of Xenophon and Antisthenes, and
at Diss. 4.6.20 he quotes from Antisthenes (although probably from his Cyrus rather than one of
his Socratic works; see fr. 20a DC = SSR V A 86). However, Antisthenes’ Socratic dialogues
appear to have been readily available to Dio Chrysostom – Epictetus’ fellow pupil under
Musonius Rufus – and thus were still in circulation in the late first century AD (on which see
Brancacci, ‘Dio, Socrates, and Cynicism’, pp. 241-54). In the light of this, it would perhaps be
premature to reject certain features of Epictetus’ portrait of Socrates as ‘idealizations’ or
‘distortions’ simply because they do not agree with the other sources that survive. Antisthenes
was older than both Plato and Xenophon and may well have been considerably closer to
Socrates than either of them. If Epictetus drew upon Antisthenes’ now lost portraits then his
presentation of Socrates may well be based, in part, on one of the most important ancient
sources for Socrates.
41
See Additional Note 2.
42
For the authorship and transmission of these texts see Additional Note 3.
10 The Art of Living

Thirdly, in antiquity Epictetus gained a considerable reputation as an important Stoic

philosopher and as a faithful follower of the early Stoa.43 Fourthly, the material in
Epictetus is directly relevant to my concerns here, namely the relationship between
philosophical discourse and one’s way of life. Another important source, especially
for the Stoic concept of an art of living, is Sextus Empiricus, to whom Chapter Four is
devoted. While Epictetus (c. 55-135) was probably at his most active c. 100 (his
Discourses have been dated to c. 108),44 Sextus has been given a floruit of c. 150-
170.45 It is likely that the ‘Stoics’ to whom his polemic is addressed would have been
those influenced by Epictetus and active during a period in which Epictetus’ fame was
at its greatest.46 Thus, if any qualification should be placed on my use of the term
‘Stoic’ it should perhaps be to note this focus upon the Stoicism of the second century
AD. Indeed, a number of the other authors that I shall draw upon – Marcus Aurelius
(121-180), Plutarch (c. 50-120), Galen (c. 129-210), and Aulus Gellius (c. 130-180) –
all belong to this period.
In Chapter 4 I shall consider a series of objections to the idea of an art of living
raised by Sextus Empiricus. By considering each of these objections in turn I shall
attempt to clarify and perhaps refine the Stoic concept. I shall also consider to what
extent Sextus’ scepticism, despite these objections, nevertheless still maintains the
idea that philosophy is something primarily expressed in one’s way of life ( ).
These four chapters constitute Part I, all focusing on the relationship between 
and , and the concept of a  concerned with one’s  . In these chapters I
shall suggest that philosophy conceived as  is able to impact upon one’s 
because it involves not just  but also  .
43
For ancient testimonies see Aulus Gellius 1.2.6 (= test. 8 Schenkl), who calls Epictetus the
greatest of the Stoics (Stoicorum maximus), Celsus apud Origen Cont. Cels. 6.2 (PG 11.1289 =
test. 26 Schenkl) who comments upon his popularity, Fronto Epist. (2.52 Haines) who calls him
a sage (sapiens), Galen Lib. Prop. 11 (19.44 Kühn = test. 20 Schenkl) who devoted a work to
him, and Augustine Civ. Dei 9.4.2 (PL 41.259, following Aulus Gellius 19.1.14 = fr. 9
Schenkl), who says that the doctrines of Epictetus were in harmony with those of Zeno and
Chrysippus. For modern assessments of his orthodoxy see Bonhöffer, Die Ethik des Stoikers
Epictet, pp. iii-iv (= The Ethics of the Stoic Epictetus, pp. 3-4); Bréhier, The Hellenistic and
Roman Age, p. 154; Hadot, The Inner Citadel, p. 82.
44
See Millar, ‘Epictetus and the Imperial Court’, p. 142, and Additional Note 3.
45
See Bett, Sextus Empiricus, Against the Ethicists, p. ix n. 3.
46
Bett, Sextus Empiricus, Against the Ethicists, p. ix, suggests that Sextus’ polemic was
directed towards philosophers who ‘lived centuries before his own time’. However it has been
argued (with regard to Plotinus’ polemic against the Gnostics in Enn. 2.9 and Simplicius’
polemic against the Manichaeans in In Ench. 35) that such polemics were usually a response to
direct contact with adherents of the position under attack (see Tardieu, ‘Sabiens coraniques et
“Sabiens” de Harran’, pp. 24-25 n. 105; Hadot, ‘The Life and Work of Simplicius’, p. 287). It
makes more sense to suppose that Sextus’ polemic was inspired by direct contact with
contemporary followers of Epictetus (who no doubt would have laid great stress on the idea of
an art of living) than with written texts that would have been centuries old. As Hadot notes
(Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 191), it is likely that in the second century Epictetus would
have been the greatest authority for questions concerning Stoic philosophy. Thus, pace Bett, I
suggest that Sextus’ target was probably Epictetus rather than the early Stoa.
 Introduction 11

In Part II I shall move on to explore the relationship between these two

components of  further. Chapter 5 will focus upon the notion of a philosophical
or spiritual exercise ( ), considering its function, mechanism, and form.
Particular attention will be paid to the way in which ancient philosophical exercises
were often expressed in very specific forms of literature. Just as philosophical theory
may be seen to have its own literary genre in the form of the treatise, so philosophical
exercises may be seen to have their own genre; a form of writing that, to a modern
audience, may often appear to be of limited philosophical significance.
Chapters 6 and 7 will explore the relationship between  and  further
by examining two examples of literary genres specific to philosophical  .
These are the Handbook of Epictetus and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Central
here will be the way in which such philosophical exercises are closely connected to
certain literary forms and the significance this may have for an assessment of a text as
‘philosophical’. In particular I shall attempt to show in these chapters that, when
placed within the context of philosophy conceived as a  involving both 
and  , texts such as the Handbook and the Meditations can be seen to be
profoundly philosophical.
In the Conclusion I shall draw upon the ancient philosophical positions I have
discussed in order to sketch the outline of a conception of philosophy that can deal
adequately with the idea that philosophy might be primarily expressed in an
individual’s way of life ( ). In particular I shall draw attention to a number of later
thinkers who can be seen to develop the idea that philosophy is a  concerned
with one’s  in order to emphasize again that the two competing conceptions of
philosophy that I have outlined so far do not form an ancient–modern dichotomy.
This is important in order to show that the Socratic and Stoic conception of
philosophy is not merely an interesting episode in the history of ideas but rather the
foundation of a tradition concerning how one might conceive the nature and function
of philosophy which has existed throughout the history of Western philosophy. What
I am about to present, then, is not only a historical excursion but hopefully also a
contribution to the contemporary debate concerning the nature and function of
philosophy as such.
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 PART I

 and 
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 Chapter 1

Philosophy and Biography

1. The Philosopher’s Beard

In AD 176 the Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius created four
chairs of philosophy in Athens, one for each of the major schools. 1 When, a few years
later, the holder of the Peripatetic Chair died, two equally well qualified candidates
applied for the post.2 One of the candidates, Diocles, was already very old so it
seemed that his rival, Bagoas, would be sure to get the job. However, one of the
selection committee objected to Bagoas on the grounds that he did not have beard
saying that, above all else, a philosopher should always have a long beard in order to
inspire confidence in his students.3 Bagoas responded by saying that if philosophers
are to be judged only by the length of their beards then perhaps the chair of
Peripatetic philosophy should be given to a billy-goat.4 The matter was considered to
be of such grave importance that it was referred to the highest authorities in Rome,
presumably to the Emperor himself.5
From this no doubt apocryphal story one can see that in Graeco-Roman antiquity
the beard came to be seen as the defining characteristic of the philosopher;
philosophers had to have beards, and anyone with a beard was assumed to be a
philosopher.6 Why was it that the beard became so closely associated in the popular
imagination with the figure of the philosopher? What does it say about the nature of
philosophy as it was conceived in antiquity? Before answering these questions, it
might be helpful to consider in a little detail the origin and status of the phenomenon
that came to be know as ‘the philosopher’s beard’.
The cultural phenomenon of ‘the philosopher’s beard’ has a somewhat complex
history. Although when thinking of bearded ancient philosophers one might first turn
to the examples of Socrates and Plato, their beards were not ‘philosophers’ beards’. In
fifth- and fourth-century Athens shaving was not a widespread practice and, as a rule,

1
See Dio Cassius 72.31.3, Philostratus Vit. Soph. 2.2 (566), Lucian Eunuchus 3, with Birley,
Marcus Aurelius, p. 195.
2
The following story derives from Lucian’s Eunuchus and is generally agreed to be fictional.
3
See Lucian Eunuchus 8: ‘One [of the judges] said that presence and a fine physical
endowment should be among the attributes of a philosopher, and that above all else he should
have a long beard that would inspire confidence in those who visited him and sought to become
his pupils’ (trans. Harmon).
4
See Eunuchus 9.
5
See Eunuchus 12.
6
See e.g. Lucian Demonax 13, Cynicus 1.
16 The Art of Living

every adult Greek male wore a beard. The introduction of shaving is generally
credited to Alexander the Great towards the end of the fourth century BC and it seems
to have become very popular. Yet in the period immediately after Alexander
philosophers tended to continue to sport beards in contrast to the newly emerging
fashion. Yet these beards – the beards of Zeno and Epicurus – were still not fully
fledged ‘philosophers’ beards’.
In the third century BC the focus of philosophical activity began to shift from
Athens to Rome. According to tradition, the earliest Romans grew their beards long. 7
However, barbers were first introduced to Rome from Sicily around 300 BC, bringing
with them the custom of shaving.8 One of the first to take up the practice of daily
shaving was Scipio Africanus towards the end of the third century BC.9 If shaving
was common in Hellenistic Greece, it became almost compulsory in Rome. All
respectable Roman citizens were, from that point on, clean-shaven.
Having set the scene it is now possible to turn to the question concerning the
origin of ‘the philosopher’s beard’. In 155 BC an embassy of three Greek
philosophers visited Rome on a diplomatic mission. The three philosophers were
representatives from the three most important philosophical schools of the day:
Carneades, the current head of Plato’s Academy; Critolaus, from Aristotle’s Lyceum;
and Diogenes of Babylon, the current head of the Stoics.10 In contrast to their
beautifully clean-shaven Italian audience, these three intellectuals all sported
magnificent beards. In the mind of the Romans, there seemed to be some form of
inherent connection between the fact that Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes were
philosophers and the fact that they all had beards. At this moment, then, the
specifically Roman concept of ‘the philosopher’s beard’ was formed. After the
Roman conquest of Athens in 87 BC, Rome usurped Athens as the centre of
philosophical activity in the ancient world.11 It was within the urbs of clean-shaven
Rome, then, that the beard first became connected with the figure of the philosopher.
In order to examine the philosophical significance of this cultural phenomenon, it
will be necessary to consider two very different attitudes towards beards. Cicero, the
Roman orator and statesman of the first century BC, was also a keen philosopher and
produced a number of philosophical works. As a respectable Roman citizen, Cicero
was clean-shaven. It appears that he deliberately chose not to sport a ‘philosopher’s
beard’ and it is not too difficult to understand why. If Cicero had grown a beard, he
would have appeared to his contemporaries as a typical Greek philosopher and would
have looked just like the three philosophers who visited Rome a century before. Yet
the only Greek philosophers present in Rome at that time would have been either

7
See Cicero Pro Caelio 33.
8
See Varro De Re Rustica 2.11.10.
9
See Pliny Nat. Hist. 7.211.
10
For ancient reports of the trip see Aulus Gellius 6.14.8-10 (= SVF 3 Diog. 8), Cicero Tusc.
Disp. 4.5 (= SVF 3. Diog. 10), and others collected in SVF 3 Diog. 6-10. For this embassy and
the introduction of Greek philosophy into Rome see Griffin, ‘Philosophy, Politics, and
Politicians at Rome’, pp. 2-5.
11
See Frede in CHHP, p. 790.
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 Wherever he sojourned, dance and song fled;—the former he
accounted a devoting of limbs which God made to the worship of
Satan; the latter he believed to be a sinful meting out of wanton
words to a heathen measure. Satan, he said, leaped and danced, and
warbled and sung, when he came to woo to perdition the giddy sons
and daughters of men. He dictated the colour and the cut of men’s
clothes—it was seemly for those who sought salvation to seek it in a
sober suit; and the ladies of his parish were obliged to humble their
finery, and sober down their pride, before his sarcastic sermons on
female paintings, and plumings, and perfumings, and the
unloveliness of love-locks. He sought to make a modest and sedate
grace abound among women; courtship was schooled and sermoned
into church controversy, and love into mystical professions; the
common civilities between the sexes were doled out with a suspicious
hand and a jealous charity, and the primrose path through the groves
of dalliance to the sober vale of marriage was planted with thorns
and sown with briars.
He had other endowments not uncommon among the primitive
teachers of the Word. In his day, the empire of the prince of darkness
was more manifest among men than now, and his ministry was
distinguished, like the reign of King Saul, by the persecution of
witches, and elves, and evil spirits. He made himself the terror of all
those who dealt in divinations, or consulted the stars, or sought to
avert witchcraft by sinful spell and charm, instead of overcoming it
by sorrowings and spiritual watchings. The midnight times of
planetary power he held as the prime moments of Satan’s glory on
earth, and he punished Hallowmas revellers as chief priests in the
infernal rites. He consigned to church censure and the chastening of
rods a wrinkled dame who sold a full sea and a fair wind to mariners,
and who insulted the apostles, and made a mystical appeal to the
twelve signs of heaven in setting a brood goose with a dozen eggs.
His wrath, too, was observed to turn against all those who
compounded with witches, and people who carried evil influence in
their eyes—this was giving tribute to the fiend, and bribing the
bottomless pit.
He rebuked the venerable dame, during three successive Sundays,
for placing a cream bowl and new-baked cake in the paths of the
nocturnal elves who, she imagined, had plotted to steal her grandson
from the mother’s bosom. He turned loose many Scripture
threatenings against those diminutive and capricious beings, the
fairies, and sought to preach them from the land. He prayed on every
green hill, and held communings in every green valley. He wandered
forth at night, as a spiritual champion, to give battle to the enemies
of the light. The fairies resigned the contest with a foe equipped from
such an armoury, and came no more among the sons and daughters
of men. The sound of their minstrelsy ceased on the hill; their
equestrian processions were seen no more sweeping past at midnight
beneath the beam of the half-filled moon; and only a solitary and
sullen elf or two remained to lament the loss of their immemorial
haunts. With the spirits of evil men and the lesser angels of darkness
he waged a fierce and dubious war; he evoked an ancient ghost from
a ruined tower, which it had shared for generations with the owl; and
he laid or tranquillized a fierce and troubled spirit which had
haunted the abode of a miser in a neighbouring churchyard, and
seemed to gibber and mumble over his bones. All these places were
purified by prayer, and hallowed by the blessing of the gifted pastor
Ezra Peden.
The place of his ministry seemed fitted by nature, and largely
endowed by history, for the reception and entertainment of all
singular and personified beliefs. Part was maritime, and part
mountainous, uniting the aërial creeds of the shepherds with the
stern and more imposing beliefs of the husbandman, and the wild
and characteristic superstitions of the sailors. It often happened,
when he had marched against and vanquished a sin or a superstition
of native growth, he was summoned to wage war with a new foe; to
contend with a legion of errors, and a strange race of spirits from the
haunted coasts of Norway or Sweden. All around him on every side
were records of the mouldering influence of the enemies of faith and
charity. On the hill where the heathen Odin had appeared to his
worshippers in the circle of granite, the pillars of his Runic temple
promised to be immortal; but the god was gone, and his worship was
extinct. The sword, the spear, and the banner, had found sanctuary
from fields of blood on several lofty promontories; but shattered
towers and dismantled castles told that for a time hatred, oppression,
and revenge had ceased to triumph over religion. Persecution was
now past and gone, a demon exorcised by the sword had hallowed
three wild hills and sanctified two little green valleys with the blood
of martyrs. Their gravestones, bedded among heather or long grass,
cried up to heaven against their oppressors in verses which could not
surely fail to elude the punishment awarded by the Kirk against
poesy. Storms, and quicksands, and unskilful mariners, or, as
common belief said, the evil spirits of the deep, had given to the
dangerous coast the wrecks of three stately vessels; and there they
made their mansions, and raised whirlwinds, and spread quicksands,
and made sandbanks, with a wicked diligence, which neither prayer
nor preaching could abate. The forms under which these restless
spirits performed their pranks have unfortunately been left
undefined by a curious and poetical peasantry.
It happened one winter, during the fifteenth year of the ministry of
Ezra Peden, and in the year of grace 1705, that he sat by his fire
pondering deep among the treasures of the ancient Presbyterian
worthies, and listening occasionally to the chafing of the coming tide
against cliff and bank, and the fitful sweep of heavy gusts of wind
over the roof of his manor. During the day he had seemed more
thoughtful than usual; he had consulted Scripture with an anxious
care, and fortified his own interpretation of the sacred text by the
wisdom of some of the chiefs and masters of the calling. A Bible, too,
bound in black oak, and clasped with silver, from the page of which
sin had received many a rebuke, and the abominations of witchcraft
and sorcery had been cleansed from the land, was brought from its
velvet sanctuary and placed beside him. Thus armed and prepared,
he sat like a watcher of old on the towers of Judah; like one who
girds up his loins and makes bare his right arm for some fierce and
dubious contest.
All this stir and preparation passed not unnoticed of an old man,
his predecessor’s coeval, and prime minister of the household; a
person thin, religious, and faithful, whose gifts in prayer were
reckoned by some old people nearly equal to those of the anointed
pastor. To such a distinction Josiah never thought of aspiring; he
contented himself with swelling the psalm into something like
melody on Sunday; visiting the sick as a forerunner of his master’s
approach, and pouring forth prayers and graces at burials and
banquetings, as long and dreary as a hill sermon. He looked on the
minister as something superior to man; a being possessed by a divine
spirit; and he shook his head with all its silver hairs, and uttered a
gentle groan or two, during some of the more rapt and glowing
passages of Ezra’s sermons.
This faithful personage stood at the door of his master’s chamber,
unwilling to go in, and yet loath to depart. “Josiah, thou art called,
Josiah,” said Ezra, in a grave tone, “so come hither; the soul of an evil
man, a worker of iniquity, is about to depart; one who drank the
blood of saints, and made himself fat with the inheritance of the
righteous. It hath been revealed to me that his body is sorely
troubled; but I say unto you, he will not go from the body without the
strong compulsion of prayer, and therefore am I summoned to war
with the enemy; so I shall arm me to the task.”
Josiah was tardy in speech, and before he could reply, the clatter of
a horse’s hoofs was heard at the gate: the rider leapt down, and,
splashed with mire and sprinkled with sleet, he stood in an instant
before the minister.
“Ah, sir,” said the unceremonious messenger, “haste! snatch up the
looms of redemption, and bide not the muttering of prayer, else auld
Mahoun will have his friend Bonshaw to his cauldron, body and soul,
if he hasna him half-way hame already. Godsake, sir, start and fly,
for he cannot shoot over another hour! He talks of perdition, and
speaks about a broad road and a great fire, and friends who have
travelled the way before him. He’s no his lane, however,—that’s one
comfort; for I left him conversing with an old cronie, whom no one
saw but himself—one whose bones are ripe and rotten; and mickle
they talked of a place called Tophet,—a hot enough region, if one can
credit them; but I aye doubt the accounts of such travellers,—they are
like the spies of the land of promise”——
“Silence thine irreverent tongue, and think of thy latter end with
fear and trembling,” said Ezra, in a stern voice. “Mount thy horse,
and follow me to the evil man, thy master; brief is the time, and black
is the account, and stern and inexorable will the summoning angel
be.”
And leaping on their horses, they passed from the manse, and
sought out the bank of a little busy stream, which, augmented by a
fall of sleet, lifted up a voice amid its rocky and desolate glen equal to
the clamour of a mightier brook. The glen or dell was rough with
sharp and projecting crags, which, hanging forward at times from
opposite sides, seemed to shut out all further way; while from
between their dark-gray masses the rivulet leapt out in many divided
streams. The brook again gathered together its waters, and subsided
into several clear deep pools, on which the moon, escaping for a
moment from the edge of a cloud of snow, threw a cold and wavering
gleam. Along the sweeps of the stream a rough way, shaped more by
nature than by the hand of man, winded among the rocks; and along
this path proceeded Ezra, pondering on the vicissitudes of human
life.
At length he came where the glen expanded, and the sides became
steep and woody; amid a grove of decaying trees, the mansion of
Bonshaw rose, square and gray. Its walls of rough granite were high
and massive; the roof, ascending steep and sharp, carried a covering
of red sandstone flags; around the whole the rivulet poured its scanty
waters in a deep moat, while a low-browed door, guarded by
loopholes, gave it the character of a place of refuge and defence.
Though decayed and war-worn now, it had, in former times, been a
fair and courtly spot. A sylvan nook or arbour, scooped out of the
everlasting rock, was wreathed about with honeysuckle; a little pool,
with a margin studded with the earliest primroses, lay at its
entrance; and a garden, redeemed by the labour of man from the
sterile upland, had its summer roses and its beds of lilies, all bearing
token of some gentle and departed inhabitant.
As he approached the house, a candle glimmered in a small square
window, and threw a line or two of straggling light along the path. At
the foot of the decayed porch he observed the figure of a man
kneeling, and presently he heard a voice chanting what sounded like
a psalm or a lyke-wake hymn. Ezra alighted and approached,—the
form seemed insensible of his presence, but stretched his hands
towards the tower; and while the feathery snow descended on his
gray hair, he poured his song forth in a slow and melancholy
manner.
“I protest,” said the messenger, “here kneels old William Cameron,
the Covenanter. Hearken, he pours out some odd old-world malison
against Bonshaw. I have heard that the laird hunted him long and
sore in his youth, slew his sons, burned his house, threw his two
bonny daughters desolate,—that was nae gentle deed, however,—and
broke the old mother’s heart with downright sorrow. Sae I canna
much blame the dour auld carle for remembering it even now,
though the candles of Bonshaw are burning in the socket, and his
light will soon be extinguished for ever. Let us hearken to his psalm
or his song; it is no every night we have minstrelsy at Bonshaw gate, I
can tell ye that.”
The following are the verses, which have been preserved under the
title of “Ane godly exultation of William Cameron, a chosen vessel,
over Bonshaw, the persecutor.” I have adopted a plainer, but a less
descriptive title—
THE DOWNFALL OF DALZELL.

I.

The wind is cold, the snow falls fast,

The night is dark and late,
As I lift aloud my voice and cry
By the oppressor’s gate.
There is a voice in every hill,
A tongue in every stone;
The greenwood sings a song of joy,
Since thou art dead and gone;
A poet’s voice is in each mouth,
And songs of triumph swell,
Glad songs, that tell the gladsome earth
The downfall of Dalzell.

II.

As I raised up my voice to sing,

I heard the green earth say,
Sweet am I now to beast and bird,
Since thou art passed away:
I hear no more the battle shout,
The martyrs’ dying moans;
My cottages and cities sing
From their foundation-stones;
The carbine and the culverin’s mute,—
The death-shot and the yell
Are turned into a hymn of joy,
For thy downfall, Dalzell

III.

I’ve trod thy banner in the dust,

 And caused the raven call
From thy bride-chamber to the owl
Hatched on thy castle wall;
I’ve made thy minstrels’ music dumb,
And silent now to fame
Art thou, save when the orphan casts
His curses on thy name.
Now thou may’st say to good men’s prayers
A long and last farewell:
There’s hope for every sin save thine,—
Adieu, adieu, Dalzell!

IV.

The grim pit opes for thee her gates,

Where punished spirits wail,
And ghastly Death throws wide his door,
And hails thee with a Hail.
Deep from the grave there comes a voice,
A voice with hollow tones,
Such as a spirit’s tongue would have
That spoke through hollow bones:—
“Arise, ye martyred men, and shout
From earth to howling hell;
He comes, the persecutor comes!
All hail to thee, Dalzell!”

V.

O’er an old battle-field there rushed

A wind, and with a moan
The severed limbs all rustling rose,
Even fellow bone to bone.
“Lo! there he goes,” I heard them cry,
“Like babe in swathing band,
Who shook the temples of the Lord,
And passed them ’neath his brand.
Cursed be the spot where he was born,
There let the adders dwell,
And from his father’s hearthstone hiss:
All hail to thee, Dalzell!”

VI.

I saw thee growing like a tree,—

Thy green head touched the sky,—
But birds far from thy branches built,
The wild deer passed thee by;
No golden dew dropt on thy bough,
Glad summer scorned to grace
Thee with her flowers, nor shepherds wooed
Beside thy dwelling-place;
The axe has come and hewed thee down,
Nor left one shoot to tell
Where all thy stately glory grew:
Adieu, adieu, Dalzell!

VII.

An ancient man stands by thy gate,

His head like thine is gray;
Gray with the woes of many years,
Years fourscore and a day.
Five brave and stately sons were his;
Two daughters, sweet and rare;
An old dame, dearer than them all,
And lands both broad and fair;—
Two broke their hearts when two were slain,
And three in battle fell,—
An old man’s curse shall cling to thee,—
Adieu, adieu, Dalzell!

VIII.

And yet I sigh to think of thee,

A warrior tried and true
As ever spurred a steed, when thick
The splintering lances flew.
I saw thee in thy stirrups stand,
And hew thy foes down fast,
When Grierson fled, and Maxwell failed,
And Gordon stood aghast;
And Graeme, saved by thy sword, raged fierce
As one redeemed from hell.
I came to curse thee,—and I weep:
So go in peace, Dalzell!

When this wild and unusual hymn concluded, the Cameronian

arose and departed, and Ezra and his conductor entered the chamber
of the dying man.
 He found him stretched on a couch of state, more like a warrior cut
in marble than a breathing being. He had still a stern and martial
look, and his tall and stalwart frame retained something of that
ancient exterior beauty for which his youth was renowned. His
helmet, spoiled by time of its plumage, was placed on his head; a
rusty corslet was on his bosom; in his arms, like a bride, lay his broad
and famous sword; and as he looked at it, the battles of his youth
passed in array before him. Armour and arms hung grouped along
the walls, and banners, covered with many a quaint and devotional
device, waved in their places as the domestic closed the door on Ezra
and the dying warrior in the chamber of presence.
The devout man stood and regarded his ancient parishioner with a
meek and sorrowful look; but nothing visible or present employed
Bonshaw’s reflections or moved his spirit—his thoughts had
wandered back to earlier years, and to scenes of peril and blood. He
imagined himself at the head of his horsemen in the hottest period of
the persecution, chasing the people from rock to rock, and from glen
to cavern. His imagination had presented to his eye the destruction
of the children of William Cameron. He addressed their mother in a
tone of ironical supplication,—
“Woman, where is thy devout husband, and thy five holy sons? Are
they busied in interminable prayers or everlasting sermons? Whisper
it in my ear, woman,—thou hast made that reservation doubtless in
thy promise of concealment. Come, else I will wrench the truth out of
thee with these gentle catechists, the thumbscrew and the bootikin.
Serving the Lord, sayest thou, woman? Why, that is rebelling against
the king. Come, come, a better answer, else I shall make thee a bride
for a saint on a bloody bed of heather!
Here he paused and waved his hand like a warrior at the head of
armed men, and thus he continued,—
“Come, uncock thy carbine, and harm not the woman till she hear
the good tidings. Sister saint, how many bairns have ye? I bless God,
saith she, five—Reuben, Simon, Levi, Praisegod, and Patrick. A
bonny generation, woman. Here, soldier, remove the bandages from
the faces of those two young men before ye shoot them. There stands
Patrick, and that other is Simon;—dost thou see the youngest of thy
affections? The other three are in Sarah’s bosom—thyself shall go to
Abraham’s. The woman looks as if she doubted me;—here, toss to her
those three heads—often have they lain in her lap, and mickle have
they prayed in their time. Out, thou simpleton! canst thou not
endure the sight of the heads of thine own fair-haired sons, the smell
of powder, and the flash of a couple of carbines?”
The re-acting of that ancient tragedy seemed to exhaust for a little
while the old persecutor. He next imagined himself receiving the
secret instructions of the Council.
“What, what, my lord, must all this pleasant work fall to me? A
reeking house and a crowing cock shall be scarce things in Nithsdale.
Weepings and wailings shall be rife—the grief of mothers, and the
moaning of fatherless babes. There shall be smoking ruins and
roofless kirks, and prayers uttered in secret, and sermons preached
at a venture and a hazard on the high and solitary places. Where is
General Turner?—Gone where the wine is good?—And where is
Grierson?—Has he begun to talk of repentance?—Gordon thinks of
the unquenchable fire which the martyred Cameronian raved about;
and gentle Graeme vows he will cut no more throats unless they wear
laced cravats. Awell, my lords; I am the king’s servant, and not
Christ’s, and shall boune me to the task.”
His fancy flew over a large extent of time, and what he uttered now
may be supposed to be addressed to some invisible monitor; he
seemed not aware of the presence of the minister.
“Auld, say you, and gray-headed, and the one foot in the grave; it is
time to repent, and spice and perfume over my rottenness, and
prepare for heaven? I’ll tell ye, but ye must not speak on’t—I tried to
pray late yestreen—I knelt down, and I held up my hands to heaven—
and what think ye I beheld? a widow woman and her five fair sons
standing between me and the Most High, and calling out, ‘Woe, woe,
on Bonshaw.’ I threw myself with my face to the earth, and what got I
between my hands? A gravestone which covered five martyrs, and
cried out against me for blood which I had wantonly shed. I heard
voices from the dust whispering around me; and the angel which
watched of old over the glory of my house hid his face with his hands,
and I beheld the evil spirits arise with power to punish me for a
season. I’ll tell ye what I will do—among the children of those I have
slain shall my inheritance be divided; so sit down, holy sir, and sit
down, most learned man, and hearken to my bequest. To the
children of three men slain on Irongray Moor—to the children of two
slain on Closeburn-hill—to—no, no, no, all that crowd, that
multitude, cannot be the descendants of those whom I doomed to
perish by the rope, and the pistol, and the sword. Away, I say, ye
congregation of zealots and psalm-singers!—disperse, I say, else I
shall trample ye down beneath my horse’s hoofs! Peace, thou
whiteheaded stirrer of sedition, else I shall cleave thee to the collar!—
wilt thou preach still?”
Here the departing persecutor uttered a wild imprecation,
clenched his teeth, leaped to his feet, waved his sword, and stood for
several moments, his eyes flashing from them a fierce light, and his
whole strength gathered into a blow which he aimed at his imaginary
adversary. But he stiffened as he stood—a brief shudder passed over
his frame, and he was dead before he fell on the floor, and made the
hall re-echo.
The minister raised him in his arms—a smile of military joy still
dilated his stern face—and his hand grasped the sword hilt so firmly
that it required some strength to wrench it from his hold. Sore, sore
the good pastor lamented that he had no death-bed communings
with the departed chief, and he expressed this so frequently, that the
peasantry said, on the day of his burial, that it would bring back his
spirit to earth and vex mankind, and that Ezra would find him
particularly untractable and bold. Of these whisperings he took little
heed, but he became somewhat more grave and austere than usual.
 Chapter II.

It happened on an evening about the close of the following spring,

when the oat braird was flourishing, and the barley shot its sharp
green spikes above the clod, carrying the dew on the third morning,
that Ezra Peden was returning from a wedding at Buckletiller. When
he left the bridal chamber it was about ten o’clock. His presence had
suppressed for a time the natural ardour for dancing and mirth
which characterises the Scotch; but no sooner was he mounted, and
the dilatory and departing clatter of his horse’s hoofs heard, than
musicians and musical instruments appeared from their hiding-
places. The floor was disencumbered of the bridal dinner-tables, the
maids bound up their long hair, and the hinds threw aside their
mantles, and, taking their places and their partners, the restrained
mirth broke out like a whirlwind. Old men looked on with a sigh, and
uttered a feeble and faint remonstrance, which they were not
unwilling should be drowned in the abounding and augmenting
merriment.
The pastor had reached the entrance of a little wild and seldom
frequented glen, along which a grassy and scarce visible road winded
to an ancient burial-ground. Here the graceless and ungodly
merriment first reached his ears, and made the woody hollow ring
and resound. Horse and rider seemed possessed of the same spirit—
the former made a full halt when he heard the fiddle note, while the
latter, uttering a very audible groan, and laying the bridle on his
horse’s neck, pondered on the wisest and most effectual way of
repressing this unseemly merriment—of cleansing the parish of this
ancient abomination. It was a beautiful night; the unrisen moon had
yet a full hour of travel before she could reach the tops of the eastern
hills; the wind was mute, and no sound was abroad save the chafing
of a small runnel, and the bridal mirth.
While Ezra sat casting in his own mind a long and a dubious
contest with this growing and unseemly sin, something like the
shadowy outline of a horse and rider appeared in the path. The night
was neither light nor dark, and the way, grassy and soft, lay broad
and uninterrupted between two hazel and holly groves. As the pastor
lifted up his eyes, he beheld a dark rider reining up a dark horse side
by side with his own, nor did he seem to want any accoutrement
necessary for ruling a fine and intractable steed. As he gazed, the
figure became more distinct; it seemed a tall martial form, with a
slouched hat and feather, and a dark and ample mantle, which was
muffled up to his eyes. From the waist downward all was indistinct,
and horse and rider seemed to melt into one dark mass visible in the
outline alone. Ezra was too troubled in spirit to court the intrusion of
a stranger upon his meditations; he bent on him a look particularly
forbidding and stern, and having made up his mind to permit the
demon of mirth and minstrelsy to triumph for the present, rode
slowly down the glen.
But side by side with Ezra, and step by step, even as shadow
follows substance, moved the mute and intrusive stranger. The
minister looked at his companion, and stirred his steed onward; with
corresponding speed moved the other, till they came where the road
branched off to a ruined castle. Up this way, with the wish to avoid
his new friend, Ezra turned his horse; the other did the same. The
former seemed suddenly to change his mind, and returned to the
path that led to the old burial-ground; the latter was instantly at his
side, his face still hidden in the folds of his mantle.
Now, Ezra was stern and unaccommodating in kirk controversy,
and the meek and gentle spirit of religion, and a sense of spiritual
interest, had enough to do to appease and sober down a temper
naturally bold, and even warlike. Exasperated at this intruding
stranger, his natural triumphed over his acquired spirit, and lifting
his riding-stick, and starting up in his stirrups, he aimed a blow
equal to the unhorsing of any ordinary mortal. But the weapon met
with no obstruction—it seemed to descend through air alone. The
minister gazed with dread on this invulnerable being; the stranger
gazed on him; and both made a halt like men preparing for mortal
fray. Ezra, who felt his horse shuddering beneath him, began to
suspect that his companion pertained to a more dubious state of
existence than his own, and his grim look and sable exterior induced
him to rank him at once among those infamous and evil spirits which
are sometimes permitted to trouble the earth, and to be a torment to
the worthy and the devout.
 He muttered a brief and pithy prayer, and then said,—
“Evil shape, who art thou, and wherefore comest thou unto me? If
thou comest for good, speak; if for my confusion and my harm, even
do thine errand; I shall not fly from thee.”
“I come more for mine own good than for thy harm,” responded
the figure. “Far have I ridden, and much have I endured, that I might
visit thee and this land again.”
“Do you suffer in the flesh, or are you tortured in the spirit?” said
the pastor, desirous to know something certain of his unwelcome
companion.
“In both,” replied the form. “I have dwelt in the vale of fire, in the
den of punishment, hollow, and vast, and dreadful; I have ridden
through the region of snow and the land of hail; I have swam through
the liquid wilderness of burning lava,—passed an illimitable sea, and
all for the love of one hour of this fair green earth, with its fresh airs
and its new-sprung corn.”
Ezra looked on the figure with a steady and a penetrating eye. The
stranger endured the scrutiny.
“I must know of a truth to whom and what I speak—I must see you
face to face. Thou mayest be the grand artificer of deceit come to
practise upon my immortal soul. Unmantle thee, I pray, that I may
behold if thou art a poor and an afflicted spirit punished for a time,
or that fierce and restless fiend who bears the visible stamp of eternal
reprobation.”
“I may not withstand thy wish,” muttered the form in a tone of
melancholy, and dropping his mantle, and turning round on the
pastor, said, “Hast thou forgotten me?”
“How can I forget thee?” said Ezra, receding as he spoke. “The
stern and haughty look of Bonshaw has been humbled indeed.
Unhappy one, thou art sorely changed since I beheld thee on earth
with the helmet-plume fanning thy hot and bloody brow as thy right
hand smote down the blessed ones of the earth! The Almighty doom
—the evil and the tormenting place—the vile companions—have each
in their turn done the work of retribution upon thee; thou art indeed
more stern and more terrible, but thou art not changed beyond the
knowledge of one whom thou hast hunted and hounded, and sought
to slay utterly.”
 The shape or spirit of Bonshaw, dilated with anger, and in a
quicker and fiercer tone, said—
“Be charitable; flesh and blood, be charitable. Doom not to hell-
fire and grim companions one whose sins thou canst not weigh but in
the balance of thine own prejudices. I tell thee, man of God, the
uncharitableness of the sect to which thou pertainest has thronged
the land of punishment as much as those who headed, and hanged,
and stabbed, and shot, and tortured. I may be punished for a time,
and not wholly reprobate.”
“Punished in part, or doomed in whole, thou needs must be,”
answered the pastor, who seemed now as much at his ease as if this
singular colloquy had happened with a neighbouring divine. “A holy
and a blessed spirit would have appeared in a brighter shape. I like
not thy dubious words, thou half-punished and half-pardoned spirit.
Away, vanish! shall I speak the sacred words which make the fiends
howl, or wilt thou depart in peace?”
“In peace I come to thee,” said the spirit, “and in peace let me be
gone. Hadst thou come sooner when I summoned thee, and not
loitered away the precious death-bed moments, hearkening the wild
and fanciful song of one whom I have deeply wronged, this journey
might have been spared—a journey of pain to me, and peril to
thyself.”
“Peril to me!” said the pastor; “be it even as thou sayest. Shall I fly
for one cast down, over whose prostrate form the purging fire has
passed? Wicked was thy course on earth—many and full of evil were
thy days—and now thou art loose again, thou fierce and persecuting
spirit,—a woe, and a woe to poor Scotland!”
“They are loose who never were bound,” answered the spirit of
Bonshaw, darkening in anger, and expanding in form, “and that I
could soon show thee. But, behold, I am not permitted;—there is a
watcher—a holy one come nigh prepared to resist and to smite. I
shall do thee no harm, holy man—I vow by the pains of punishment
and the conscience-pang—now the watcher has departed.”
“Of whom speakest thou?” inquired Ezra. “Have we ministering
spirits who guard the good from the plots of the wicked ones? Have
we evil spirits who tempt and torment men, and teach the maidens
ensnaring songs, and lighten their feet and their heads for the
wanton dance?”
“Stay, I pray thee,” said the spirit; “there are spirits of evil men and
of good men made perfect, who are permitted to visit the earth, and
power is given them for a time to work their will with men. I beheld
one of the latter even now, a bold one and a noble; but he sees I
mean not to harm thee, so we shall not war together.”
At this assurance of protection, the pastor inclined his shuddering
steed closer to his companion, and thus he proceeded:—
“You have said that my sect—my meek and lowly, and broken, and
long persecuted remnant—have helped to people the profound hell;
am I to credit thy words?”
“Credit them or not as thou wilt,” said the spirit; “whoso spilleth
blood by the sword, by the word, and by the pen, is there: the false
witness; the misinterpreter of the Gospel; the profane poet; the
profane and presumptuous preacher; the slayer and the slain; the
persecutor and the persecuted; he who died at the stake, and he who
piled the faggot;—all are there, enduring hard weird and penal fire
for a time reckoned and days numbered. They are there whom thou
wottest not of,” said the confiding spirit, drawing near as he spoke,
and whispering the names of some of the worthies of the Kirk, and
the noble, and the far-descended.
“I well believe thee,” said the pastor; “but I beseech thee to be
more particular in thy information: give me the names which some
of the chief ministers of woe in the nether world were known by in
this. I shall hear of those who built cathedrals and strongholds, and
filled thrones spiritual and temporal.”
“Ay, that thou wilt,” said the spirit, “and the names of some of the
mantled professors of God’s humble Presbyterian Kirk also; those
who preached a burning fire and a devouring hell to their dissenting
brethren, and who called out with a loud voice, ‘Perdition to the sons
and daughters of men; draw the sword; slay and smite utterly.’”
“Thou art a false spirit assuredly,” said the pastor; “yet tell me one
thing. Thy steed and thou seem to be as one, to move as one, and I
observed thee even now conversing with thy brute part; dost thou
ride on a punished spirit, and is there injustice in hell as well as on
earth?”
 The spirit laughed.
“Knowest thou not this patient and obedient spirit on whom I
ride?—what wouldst thou say if I named a name renowned at the
holy altar? the name of one who loosed the sword on the bodies of
men, because they believed in a humble Saviour, and he believed in a
lofty. I have bestrode that mitred personage before now; he is the
hack to all the Presbyterians in the pit, but he cannot be spared on a
journey so distant as this.”
“So thou wilt not tell me the name of thy steed?” said Ezra; “well,
even as thou wilt.”
“Nay,” said the spirit, “I shall not deny so good a man so small a
matter. Knowest thou not George Johnstone, the captain of my
troop,—as bold a hand as ever bore a sword and used it among
fanatics? We lived together in life, and in death we are not divided.”
“In persecution and in punishment, thou mightest have said, thou
scoffing spirit,” said the pastor. “But tell me, do men lord it in
perdition as they did on earth; is there no retributive justice among
the condemned spirits?”
“I have condescended on that already,” said the spirit, “and I will
tell thee further: there is thy old acquaintance and mine, George
Gordon; punished and condemned though he be, he is the scourge,
and the whip, and the rod of fire to all those brave and valiant men
who served those equitable and charitable princes, Charles Stewart,
and James, his brother.”
“I suspect why those honourable cavaliers are tasting the cup of
punishment,” said the pastor; “but what crime has sedate and holy
George done that his lot is cast with the wicked?”
“Canst thou not guess it, holy Ezra?” answered the spirit. “His
crime was so contemptible and mean that I scorn to name it. Hast
thou any further questions?”
“You spoke of Charles Stuart, and James, his brother,” said the
pastor; “when sawest thou the princes for whom thou didst deluge
thy country with blood, and didst peril thine own soul?”
“Ah! thou cunning querist,” said the spirit, with a laugh; “canst
thou not ask a plain question? Thou askest questions plain and
pointed enough of the backsliding damsels of thy congregation—why
shouldst thou put thy sanctified tricks on me, a plain and
straightforward spirit, as ever uttered response to the godly?
Nevertheless, I will tell thee; I saw them not an hour ago—Charles
saddled me my steed; wot ye who held my stirrup?—even James, his
brother. I asked them if they had any message to the devout people
of their ancient kingdom of Scotland. The former laughed, and bade
me bring him the kirk repentance-stool for a throne. The latter
looked grave, and muttered over his fingers like a priest counting his
beads; and hell echoed far and wide with laughter at the two
princes.”
“Ay, ay!” said the pastor; “so I find you have mirth among you:
have you dance and song also?”
“Ay, truly,” answered the spirit; “we have hymns and hallelujahs
from the lips of that holy and patriotic band who banished their
native princes, and sold their country to an alien; and the alien
himself rules and reigns among them; and when they are weary with
the work of praise, certain inferior and officious spirits moisten their
lips with cupfuls of a curious and cooling liquid, and then hymn and
thanksgiving recommence again.”
“Ah, thou dissembler,” said the minister; “and yet I see little cause
why they should be redeemed, when so many lofty minds must
wallow with the sinful for a season. But, tell me; it is long since I
heard of Claud Hamilton,—have you seen him among you? He was
the friend and follower of the alien—a mocker of the mighty minds of
his native land—a scoffer of that gifted and immortal spirit which
pours the glory of Scotland to the uttermost ends of the earth—tell
me of him, I pray.”
Loud laughed the spirit, and replied in scorn—
“We take no note of things so mean and unworthy as he; he may be
in some hole in perdition, for aught I know or care. But, stay; I will
answer thee truly. He has not passed to our kingdom yet; he is
condemned to the punishment of a long and useless life on earth;
and even now you will find him gnawing his flesh in agony to hear
the name he has sought to cast down renowned over all the earth.”
The spirit now seemed impatient to be gone; they had emerged
from the glen; and vale and lea, brightened by the moon, and sown
thick with evening dew, sparkled far and wide.
 “If thou wouldst question me farther,” said the frank and
communicative spirit of Bonshaw, “and learn more of the dead, meet
me in the old burial-ground an hour before moon-rise on Sunday
night: tarry at home if thou wilt; but I have more to tell thee than
thou knowest to ask about; and hair of thy head shall not be
harmed.”
Even as he spoke the shape of horse and rider underwent a sudden
transformation—the spirit sank into the shape of a steed, the steed
rose into the form of the rider, and wrapping his visionary mantle
about him, and speaking to his unearthly horse, away he started,
casting as he flew a sudden and fiery glance on the astonished pastor,
who muttered, as he concluded a brief prayer,—
“There goes Captain George Johnstone, riding on his fierce old
master!”
 Chapter III.

The old burial-ground, the spirit’s trysting-place, was a fair but a

lonely spot. All around lay scenes renowned in tradition for blood,
and broil, and secret violence. The parish was formerly a land of
warrior’s towers, and of houses for penance, and vigil, and
mortification. But the Reformation came, and sacked and crushed
down the houses of devotion; while the peace between the two
kingdoms curbed the courage, and extinguished for ever the military
and predatory glory of those old Galwegian chieftains. It was in a
burial-ground pertaining to one of those ancient churches, and
where the peasants still loved to have their dust laid, that Ezra
trusted to meet again the shadowy representative of the fierce old
Laird of Bonshaw.
The moon, he computed, had a full hour to travel before her beams
would be shed on the place of conference, and to that eerie and
deserted spot Ezra was observed to walk like one consecrating an
evening hour to solitary musing on the rivulet side. No house stood
within half a mile; and when he reached the little knoll on which the
chapel formerly stood, he sat down on the summit to ponder over the
way to manage this singular conference. A firm spirit, and a pure
heart, he hoped, would confound and keep at bay the enemy of man’s
salvation; and he summed up, in a short historical way, the names of
those who had met and triumphed over the machinations of fiends.
Thus strengthened and reassured, he rose and looked around, but he
saw no approaching shape. The road along which he expected the
steed and rider to come was empty; and he walked towards the
broken gate, to cast himself in the way, and show with what
confidence he abode his coming.
Over the wall of the churchyard, repaired with broken and carved
stones from the tombs and altar of the chapel, he now looked, and it
was with surprise that he saw a new made widow kneeling over her
husband’s grave, and about to pour out her spirit in lamentation and
sorrow. He knew her form and face, and the deepest sorrow came
upon him. She was the daughter of an old and a faithful elder: she