Musonius Rufus: Philosophy, Quotes & Legacy

Biography

Gaius Musonius Rufus was born around 30 CE in Volsinii, in Etruria, into the Roman equestrian class. He came to Rome in the middle of the first century and established himself as a teacher of philosophy — the most important Stoic teacher of his generation, and the teacher of Epictetus, who carried the Stoic tradition to the next generation. He was known in his own time as the "Roman Socrates," a title he earned not only by his teaching but by his life: like Socrates, he combined philosophy with courage, and like Socrates, he was punished by the powers of his day for what he taught.

Musonius's life was shaped by the politics of the early empire. He was associated with the Stoic opposition to the emperors — the circle of senators and philosophers who resisted the tyranny of Nero and the Flavians. When the conspiracy of Piso against Nero was discovered in 65 CE, Musonius was exiled to the island of Gyaros in the Aegean, a place of banishment so harsh that the tradition reports him teaching there, cultivating the island, and converting its inhabitants. He returned to Rome after Nero's fall, only to be exiled again under Vespasian, when the philosophers were expelled from Rome in 71 CE. He returned once more and lived out his later years as a revered teacher. The date and circumstances of his death are uncertain, but he is thought to have died around 100 CE.

Historical Context

Musonius taught in the Rome of the first century CE, at the height of the imperial crisis that the Stoic opposition faced. The Stoics of this period — the senators Thrasea Paetus and Helvidius Priscus, the philosopher Seneca, and Musonius himself — attempted to live the Stoic doctrine of the good life within an empire they could not control and often could not approve. Their position was the practical consequence of the Stoic ethics: since virtue is the only good and the only thing up to us, the wise man can live well even under a tyrant — and can, when necessary, die well too. Musonius's exile, and his philosophical use of it, made him the model of this Stoic resistance.

His teaching was also a response to the philosophical situation of the age. By the first century, the great systems of the Hellenistic age had hardened into schools, and philosophy in Rome was in danger of becoming a literary accomplishment rather than a way of life. Musonius's insistence that philosophy is training, not talk — that it must be lived in the body and in daily practice, not merely studied in the study — was a protest against this tendency, and it is the doctrine that gives his thought its permanent interest.

Core Ideas

Philosophy as Training for the Whole Life

Musonius's central doctrine is that philosophy is the training of the whole human being: body, character, and mind. He rejected the view, common in his day, that philosophy is a matter of argument and disputation. The philosopher, for Musonius, is not the one who can argue well but the one who lives well — who endures hardship, controls appetite, serves others, and dies without fear. His lectures, as preserved in the collection that bears his name, are organized around this conviction: they treat not the technical questions of the school but the practical questions of life — how to endure hardship, how to treat one's parents, how to train the body, how to marry, how to educate children.

The Necessity of Training

Against the intellectuals who thought philosophy was a matter of understanding, Musonius insisted that the virtues must be trained in the body and the character. The person who wishes to be temperate must practice temperance; the person who wishes to be courageous must practice endurance; the person who wishes to be wise must practice attention. This is why he recommended the training of the body alongside the training of the mind: "He who studies philosophy ought to train his body to be able to follow the mind, and to endure hardship." His famous doctrine — that the philosopher should eat simply, sleep hard, bear cold and heat, and endure manual labor — is not asceticism for its own sake but the training ground of virtue.

The Equality of Women

Musonius was the most radical of the ancient philosophers on the question of women. His lecture "That Women Too Should Study Philosophy" argues that the virtues are the same for men and women, because the human nature is the same: women, like men, are rational beings, and the training of reason — philosophy — belongs to them equally. The lecture defends the education of women not as a luxury but as a duty: since women are the first teachers of children, their education is the foundation of the education of the next generation. The doctrine is remarkable for its age, and it made Musonius a favorite of later readers who sought in antiquity a defense of women's education.

The Practice of Endurance

Musonius's lectures on hardship — "That One Should Disdain Hardships" is the most famous — develop the Stoic doctrine of the indifferent in its practical form. The hardships of life — pain, exile, poverty, loss — are not evils but indifferents: they are the materials on which virtue is exercised, and the wise man receives them as training. Musonius practiced what he taught: his exiles, his poverty, and his physical suffering were, in his own teaching, precisely the opportunities for the philosophy he recommended.

Philosophy

Musonius's philosophy is Stoicism reduced to its practical essence. He took the technical system of the school — the doctrine of the indifferents, the dichotomy of control, the therapy of the passions — and presented it as a way of life, addressed to the concrete situations of daily existence. His lectures are remarkable for their concreteness: he discusses what the philosopher should eat, how he should dress, whether he should marry, how he should treat his father, whether the farmer should philosophize. The effect is to make Stoicism a complete discipline of living, and it is this practical Stoicism, transmitted through Epictetus, that became the Roman Stoicism of the Meditations.

His significance in the history of the school is that of the teacher. He stood between the Greek founders and the Roman practitioners: he was the teacher of Epictetus, and through Epictetus he shaped the Stoicism of the Roman empire, including the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The tradition records that Marcus Aurelius, in his old age, kept the lectures of Musonius at hand, and the practical, disciplined character of the Meditations — its attention to daily training, to endurance, to the duties of life — is the inheritance of the Roman Socrates.

Major Works

None of Musonius's writings survive intact. The collection of his lectures and sayings, preserved by his pupil Lucius and transmitted through the anthologist Stobaeus, contains twenty-one lectures on practical ethics and a collection of sayings. The most famous lectures are "That One Should Disdain Hardships," "That Women Too Should Study Philosophy," "On Training," "On Food," and "On Exile." The modern edition is the translation by Cynthia King, Musonius Rufus: Lectures and Sayings (2011), and the fullest study is J.T. Dillon, Musonius Rufus and Education in the Good Life (2004).

Famous Quotes

Musonius's most quoted sayings state his doctrine of training. "He who studies philosophy ought to train his body to be able to follow the mind, and to endure hardship" is the summary of his method. His answer to the question of what philosophy is: "The only true philosophy is that which teaches us to live without complaining and without fear." And his defense of women's education is stated in the opening of the famous lecture: "Women have received from the gods the same reasoning power as men."

Related Thinkers

Musonius's pupil Epictetus carried his practical Stoicism into the next generation, and through Epictetus it shaped the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. His contemporary Seneca represents the other stream of Roman Stoicism — the literary and political — while Musonius represents the stream of the teacher and the trainer. The tradition of Stoic endurance that runs from the founders Zeno of Citium and Cleanthes through Chrysippus to the Roman Stoics finds in Musonius its most direct and practical expression.

Sources

• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Musonius Rufus" (iep.utm.edu/musonius)
• King, Cynthia. Musonius Rufus: Lectures and Sayings. Createspace, 2011.
• Dillon, J.T. Musonius Rufus and Education in the Good Life. Dallas: University Press of America, 2004.
• Long, A.A. Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.