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

It would seem that Brutus was aware of his wife’s loss, as there is a letter from Cicero in 43 BC consoling him about it. “You have suffered indeed a great loss (for you have lost that which had not left its fellow on earth),” he wrote, “and must be allowed to grieve under so cruel a blow, lest to want all sense of grief should be thought more wretched than grief itself: but do it with moderation, which is both useful to others and necessary to yourself.”

Cicero’s admonition to be stoic about Porcia’s death is touching considering how wrecked he had been by the death of his daughter, Tullia, in 45 BC. It raises the eternal question of how one ought to respond to the loss of someone they love dearly. Can a philosopher shrug off this pain, like they might a wound in the thigh? Is indifference to grief actually possible? Is it perfectly understandable that such a loss might finally crack the hard exterior of the Stoic, the way it nearly had for Cato when he lost his brother, and when Marcus Aurelius would weep over the loss of his beloved tutor?

Shakespeare, always the astute observer of the human experience, explores this tension, having made his character Brutus a stand-in for all that he believed a Stoic philosopher was supposed to represent.

“I am sick of many griefs,” Brutus tells a contentious ally, Cassius, who attempts to remind him of what the Stoics believed about accepting what was outside our control. “No man bears sorrow better,” Brutus tells him with flat affect. “Portia is dead.”

So is this Stoicism? A man who can spit out those painful words without flinching? My wife is dead, and then get on with a discussion about the upcoming battle? Perhaps.

But Brutus was no Porcia, who had always been all action and no talk. He had a flair for the theatric; he desired to be credited for those virtues that he made sure were conspicuous.

So when, a few minutes later, a messenger named Messala appears with news, Brutus sees an opportunity to perform for history. The word comes that Cicero is dead and a hundred senators have been executed. Have you heard from your wife? the messenger asks. Brutus replies that he hasn’t. Have you heard anything at all? he asks. Again, Brutus pretends he does not know. “Tell me true,” Brutus demands. So prompted, the messenger informs him that Porcia has died.

And then, whether for the sake of his reputation or to inspire others with his Stoic example, we get this:

BRUTUS

Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala.

With meditating that she must die once,

I have the patience to endure it now.

MESSALA

Even so great men great losses should endure.

CASSIUS

I have as much of this in art as you,

But yet my nature could not bear it so.

BRUTUS

Well, to our work alive. What do you think

Of marching to Philippi presently?

Though Porcia departed from this earth as the Republic died its final death, she would live on as a powerful symbol of resistance for men and women forever. She had lived as her father and the Stoics had taught: We must do what needs to be done. We must not waver. We cannot be afraid.

More, she had proved that courage—and philosophy—don’t know gender. They know only the people who are willing to put in what it takes and those who aren’t.

ATHENODORUS CANANITESTHE KINGMAKER (Ah-thee-na-DOOR-us Kah-na-KNEE-tays)

Origin: Tarsus

B. 74 BC

D. 7 AD

The Roman Republic bled out alongside Cato and Cicero. What emerged was the Roman Empire, a new political order that was all about power, increasingly concentrated in a single man. Not Caesar, but a Caesar—the title each successor bore for the next three hundred years. The first was Octavian, Caesar’s nephew. He would begin the process of despotism slowly, refusing every title and power along the way, only to very cleverly usurp them all as his own over time.

One might think that Stoicism, having been born in the cradle of democratic Athens and then nursed for centuries against the backdrop of Alexander’s warring generals, before finally coming of age in Rome’s great Republic, would have trouble in this brave new world.

This is incorrect.

The Stoics were nothing if not resilient, and so it came to be that the new emperor’s closest advisors were Stoics.

It makes sense. At the core of Stoicism is the acceptance of what we cannot change. Cato had given his life to defend the Republic and he had lost. Brutus had not only failed in his attempt to restore liberty to Rome, but had plunged the country into a second civil war. Now a new state had been created and peace had returned, and the Stoics who survived believed it was their obligation to serve this state and ensure it remained the same—and so they set out, as best they could, to mold young Octavian into Augustus Caesar, the emperor.