“When thou hast seen Satyron the Socratic, think of either Eutyches or Hymen, and when thou hast seen Euphrates, think of Eutychion or Silvanus, and when thou hast seen Alciphron think of Tropaeophorus, and when thou hast seen Xenophon think of Crito or Severus, and when thou hast looked on thyself, think of any other Caesar, and in the case of every one do in like manner. Then let this thought be in thy mind, Where then are those men? Nowhere, or nobody knows where.”
oh, ur faves? pretty much nobody remembers them
“There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen.”
i just feel like if youre going to be really honest with yourself you have to accept that probably some people are going to be REALLY happy at your funeral
also ahh how are you feeling?? are you feeling better? better than from before, or still dying, which will probably make some people pretty happy or at least relieved
“His dress came from Lorium, his villa on the coast, and from Lanuvium generally.”
i guess the nicest things you could say about him is that he makes his own clothes
oh, was that not very nice?
well
“Further, I am thankful to the gods that I was not longer brought up with my grandfather’s concubine, and that I preserved the flower of my youth, and that I did not make proof of my virility before the proper season, but even deferred the time.”
just really grateful to god that i didn’t have to grow up around that slut and that i lost my virginity at a really healthy, really normal age, not like some people, not like some people who lost it way too early because they were anxious about their manliness instead of secure about it, like me, like how i did it
“Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.”
you should probably just start your day by dealing with the fact that all of your friends are kind of shitty
“But as to those who live not so, always bear in mind what kind of men they are both at home and from home, both by night and by day, and what they are, and with what men they live an impure life. Accordingly, do not value at all the praise which comes from such men, since they are not even satisfied with themselves.”
mm but why do you even CARE what your friends think of you because even if they liked you it wouldn’t mean anything because they’re so shitty themselves
“Thou hast existed as a part. Thou shalt disappear in that which produced thee.”
wow its kind of like you’re going to die without ever having been a real person at all
so it’s kind of like you were never really alive
“Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint. “I have been harmed.” Take away the complaint, “I have been harmed,” and the harm itself is taken away.”
hi did you know that if you stopped complaining you wouldn’t have anything to complain about, you should try it
“Hast thou reason? I have. -Why then dost not thou use it?”
ok your brain is not there for like, decoration babe, it’s not just there to weigh your head down
“A black-hearted character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, tyrannical.”
biiitch
“Why do unskilled and ignorant souls disturb him who has skill and knowledge?”
hey so quick question why are you asking ME this
“The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer.”
honestly youre just as bad as he is
“Consider then what Crates says of Xenocrates himself.”
ahhhh did you HEAR what crates said about xenocrates???
no i swear he said it, i heard him himself
“Thou art not dissatisfied, I suppose, because thou weighest only so many litrae and not three hundred. Be not dissatisfied then that thou must live only so many years and not more; for as thou art satisfied with the amount of substance which has been assigned to thee, so be content with the time.”
i honestly barely understand this is supposed to mean but i think the gist is: just because you’re skinny doesn’t mean you’re a good person so stop congratulating yourself
Tags: bitchy classical history, books, marcus aurelius, meditations
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I just remember the first chapter of Meditations being like an Ancient Oscars Speech.
I took the last one to mean, “If you’re skinny and like it then you’ll die early and like it, or else you’re a terrible hypocrite.”
Or alternatively, “Only people who happily weigh 300 litrae get to live forever.”
I take it to mean “i mean, obviously no one would be dissatisfied with their weight, how silly would that be? So weight is probably an excellent metaphor for accepting other aspects of one’s life.”
Marcus Aurelius, champion of body positivity since 180 AD
Yeah, it’s definitely that. “You don’t worry that you can’t control whether or not you are a giant, so why are you worried about not being able to control how long you live?”
Oh moderation in your waistline? Moderation in all things, you’re that kind of guy? Here take some moderation IN YOUR LIFESPAN, see how smug you are now, thin man.
The Meditations is difficult to take seriously. “Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.” Yeah, but you’re an Emperor; you can have them all killed. Easy for you to be Stoic about it.
nooo i love them SO MUUUUUCH, he is like super concerned with right actions and also let someone else be co-emperor with him totally of his own volition, he owned!
I was being a bit (a bit?) facetious. The Meditations are actually kind of cool. Some of the other Stoics could be a bit grim.
There’s this blog that actually tries to apply Stoicism to modern life: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/
But I love Epictetus so hard.
Epictetus, I can dig. He was an ex-slave, wrote the first self-help book. Seneca, though… Seneca was a bit of an asshole.
Cranky old dude itis with Seneca. He has his good points but he lacks Epictetus’ panache.
Also, Seneca? Sucking up to Nero? Total dick move.
Marcus Aurelius, grimly resolved to perform Duty while also making catty asides to people
He’s me!
^^ Also could be my tagline, tbh.
Marcus Aurelius: kind of like your Midwestern grandma
This describes me so well.
what’s great is that pretty much none of these are actually catty and that i have twisted the entire meaning of stoicism to turn this into some sort of boys-in-the-band-style monologue! ahahahah suck it
This translation has been tampered with! All theories are discredited!
I’m imagining this as a Fox News headline – “Noted Misandrist Smears The Western Canon Online: Should America’s Schools Ban The Toast?”
… not even the “someone’s gonna be happy you’re dead” one? Reaaaaally?
Too bad we never got the Meditations of Caligula: “Today, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial AND IMMA WEAR THEIR SKULLS AS HATS LOLZ. Also, impregnate my sister”
Marry me.
(That’s me to you, not me to Caligula or Caligula to anybody else. Gaaaah I made it weird didn’t I? I just mean I laughed out loud and I don’t do that often and that was great.)
You’re too kind
“[A]sk yourself with regard to every present difficulty: ‘What is there in this that is unbearable and beyond endurance?'”
So, like, your problems? Wouldn’t really be problems if you weren’t such a sissy.
What this is making me realize is that, in the past, when the population was so many orders of magnitude smaller than today, you were pretty much stuck with whoever happened to live nearby, or else you became a hermit.
At the risk of being THAT PERSON who doesn’t get the jokes, I have to admit that I kind of needed this today. I’m having the worst bureaucratic week of my life and I’m feeling like a complete and total sadsack. Please deliver several stoic slaps and perhaps a bucket of cold water to the face, so I can stop feeling so self-indulgently emo about this.
Also, does anyone remember which stoic said something about a wooden spoon? Or having a wooden spoon, maybe only? Google is not helping, and I feel like a bad ex-classics major for not remembering.
Diogenes the Cynic? Who lived in a barrel and had a wooden cup, until he saw a child drinking water from his cupped hands. Then Diogenes was like, “ugh, why have i been wasting my time with this stupid totally unnecessary accessory?” and he threw the cup away. Then he probably went back to masturbating in the market place and generally being shocking and edgily ~philosophical~.
The chicks dug him tho
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/…
I think I’d be feeling better right now if I had a barrel to pout in.
HOW DID I MAKE IT THROUGH AN ENTIRE CLASSICS PROGRAM WITHOUT ANYONE EVER MENTIONING THIS PICTURE???
It’s like, “Hi, Diogenes, me and the girlfriends gonna hit the agora, maybe check out some hoplite hotties, buy new chitons, you wanna come?”
“BEGONE! I’M DOING PHILOSOPHY HERE!”
Because, you know, if the Stoics were catty, the Cynics were downright *bitchy*
obligatory Kate Beaton:
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=181
Yes! I conflated cup with spoon, and cynicism with stoicism. I had gone sadly astray. Now I just need to go home, throw out all the vessels/tankards/mugs in my life, and I’ll be back on path to not giving a damn about all these urgent emails.
“Why do unskilled and ignorant souls disturb him who has skill and knowledge?”
LET ME GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU
“Hast thou reason? I have. -Why then dost not thou use it?”
BRB, putting this on my business cards.
Nana, is that you?
“Never esteem of anything as profitable, which shall ever constrain thee either to break thy faith, or to lose thy modesty; to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to dissemble, to lust after anything, that requireth the secret of walls or veils”
Chill, guy. Have some self-respect.
Now do Martial’s epigrams pretty please!
I took the last one to be something like “It makes sense that you don’t have ambition, because you are small and also placid and dumb. So don’t worry about living long, since you weren’t going to do anything with the extra time anyways”
When I win the lottery/stumble across a hoard of ancient coins/seduce an heiress with a thing for pudgy, balding medievalists, I am going to found a university that has Mallory as the chair of its Center for Ancient and Medieval Studies.
It's like, "Hi, Diogenes, me and the girlfriends gonna hit the agora, maybe check out some hoplite hotties, buy new chitons, you wanna come?"
"BEGONE! I'M DOING PHILOSOPHY HERE!"
Because, you know, if the Stoics were catty, the Cynics were downright *bitchy*
Epictetus, I can dig. He was an ex-slave, wrote the first self-help book. Seneca, though… Seneca was a bit of an asshole.
Also, Seneca? Sucking up to Nero? Total dick move.
Okay, so am I the only one dying to know what catty gossip Crates spread about Xenocrate…?