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

It could be said that the conspicuous lack of credit given to women in the history of Stoicism is actually proof of their philosophical bona fides. Who better illustrates these virtues of endurance and courage, selflessness and duty, than the generations of anonymous wives and mothers and daughters of Greece and Rome who suffered, who resisted tyranny, who lived through wars, who raised families, and who were born and died without ever being recognized for their quiet heroism? Think of what they put up with, think of the indignities they tolerated, and think of the sacrifices they were willing to make.

But that’s sort of the problem. We don’t think about that. We think about Cato and his great-grandfather. We don’t think about his mother or his wife.

The biographer Robert Caro, writing thousands of years after the fall of the Roman Empire about the rise of the American Empire, observed just what this unconscious bias misses. “You hear a lot about gunfights in Westerns,” he said of the history of the frontier. “You don’t hear so much about hauling up the water after a perineal tear.”

While Rutilius Rufus deserves our respect for his brave stand against corruption, what about the forgotten woman who gave birth to him without anesthesia? What about his wife or his daughters, who too lost everything and went without complaint into exile with him? Surely, they deserved at least a mention from Plutarch or Diogenes.

Let us rectify this quickly by looking at the life of Porcia, the daughter of Cato, who seems to rival her father in steely determination and patriotism. Almost two centuries before Musonius Rufus would advocate that women be taught philosophy, Porcia was introduced to Stoicism as a child by her father and quickly dedicated herself to it. Her first marriage was to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, an ally of Cato. Bibulus would serve honorably and bravely with Cato in Rome’s civil war, but would not survive it.

The only good news after the fall of the Republic that her family had so cherished, and the brutal suicide of the father she loved, was that Julius Caesar pardoned Porcia’s brother, Marcus Cato. As the family attempted to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, we are told she remained resolute. Somehow, her heart managed to find affection and she remarried to Brutus, the senator to whom Cicero had dedicated some of his writings. It appears she deeply loved her philosophical and principled husband, who must have reminded her of her father, and together they would have a son, though fate would once again visit tragedy on young Porcia.

As a knowing wife, she quickly intuited that Brutus was planning something in 44 BC, although what she wasn’t sure. Instead of demanding that he explain himself, Porcia decided she would prove

her trustworthiness to her husband and fortitude to herself—though one would think that her family tree was sufficient.

Plutarch tells us that Porcia took a small knife and stabbed herself in the thigh, and then waited to see how long she could stand the pain. Bleeding profusely and shaking in near delirium from the wound, when Brutus finally came home, she grabbed him and said:

Brutus, I am Cato’s daughter, and I was brought into thy house, not, like a mere concubine, to share thy bed and board merely, but to be a partner in thy joys, and a partner in thy troubles. Thou, indeed, art faultless as a husband; but how can I show thee any grateful service if I am to share neither thy secret suffering nor the anxiety which craves a loyal confidant? I know that woman’s nature is thought too weak to endure a secret; but good rearing and excellent companionship go far towards strengthening the character, and it is my happy lot to be both the daughter of Cato and the wife of Brutus. Before this I put less confidence in these advantages, but now I know that I am superior even to pain.

Shakespeare renders the same scene quite beautifully as well:

Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose ’em:

I have made strong proof of my constancy,

Giving myself a voluntary wound

Here in the thigh: can I bear that with patience,

And not my husband’s secrets?

As strange and nearly unbelievable as this story is to us today, Roman history is littered with examples of conspiracies revealed under torture and interrogation. It’s not a stretch that Porcia might want to see how much suffering she could endure. Brutus was so moved by what he witnessed that he immediately informed his wife of the plot to kill Caesar and prayed that he would be able to prove himself worthy of her courage.

Of course, Plutarch was not content to show this impressive feat of female power without later counterbalancing it with “evidence” of the fragility of the female mind. We are told that on the Ides of March, Porcia nearly went out of her mind as she waited for word of events. Did her husband succeed? Had he been caught? Was no news good news? Did she need to flee?