Stoicism in The Time of Plague

4/4/2020 Stoicism in the Time of Plague - Stoicism — Philosophy as a Way of Life - Medium
Stoicism in the Time of Plague

The Story of Marcus Aurelius and the Antonine Plague
Donald J. Robertson Follow

Mar 11 · 29 min read
This is a dramatized account of the events surrounding the Antonine Plague, which
spread across Europe in the late 2nd century AD. It inspired the discussion of these
events in relation to Stoic philosophy found in my book How to Think Like a Roman
Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.
. . .
A horrific plague has been ravaging the Roman empire for nearly a decade, as the First
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Marcomannic War begins to draw to a close. Emperor Marcus Aurelius is putting the
finishing touches to the journal we call The Meditations. The odor of death still lingers in
every corner of the land, albeit less now than during the initial outbreaks, and the air in
towns and cities was often thick with smoke and incense. Marcus regularly casts his
mind back to the time when the pestilence first appeared… The co-emperor Lucius, his
adoptive brother, had persuaded Marcus to accompany him as he rode through the
streets of Rome in triumph after his victory in the Parthian War. Behind them followed a
train of carts displaying all the treasures seized from conquered cities, including a
beautiful statue of Apollo, stolen from a Parthian temple.
To help curb the victorious emperors’ pride two trusted gladiators stood behind them in
the imperial chariot, holding laurel wreaths above their heads, whispering: “Remember
thou must die.” That particular Roman tradition had become associated with Stoic
philosophy. The Romans embraced Greek Stoicism because it seemed to echo the sober-
minded values of the old Republic. From the time of Socrates onward, philosophers had
meticulously contemplated their own death, as a way of purifying their character, and
focusing their attention on the here and now. It was said that when Socrates’ student
Xenophon was told that his son had been killed in battle he calmly replied: “I knew that
he was mortal.” Five hundred years later, the most famous philosopher in Rome,
Epictetus, advised his Stoic students to say to themselves: “I knew that I was mortal”. He
taught them that death in itself is neither good nor bad; it’s merely something that
happens to us, not something we do. The fear of death does more harm than death itself.
It is not things that disturb men but their

judgements about them. For example, death is
nothing catastrophic or else Socrates too would have
thought so. Rather the judgement that death is
catastrophic, this is the catastrophic thing. —
Epictetus
The Stoics frequently argued for the indifference of death based on the notion that it is
merely a form of non-existence. The man who wishes to live another thousand years is as
foolish as one who wishes he was born a thousand years earlier because we are returning
to the same state of non-existence we were in before we were born. Death is not a state
of suffering because nobody remains to suffer. When death appeared to him to be an
evil, Marcus had ready at hand the Stoic argument that only our actions can be good or
evil. It is our duty to avoid evils, and yet death is unavoidable — therefore it cannot be an
evil.
Epictetus’ Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus used to say: “It is not possible to live well today
unless you treat it as your last.” Marcus repeatedly dwells on this theme, reminding
himself to live in the present moment as if certain death were looming on the horizon.
We will make progress toward virtue and perfect our character, he says in his notes, if we
can only carry out every action in life with a sense of purpose while passing through
each day as if it were our last, and we could depart at any moment. When a Stoic rises in
the morning he tells himself “You may never sleep again” and when retiring to bed “You
may not wake again”. He thereby trains himself to be grateful for each day ahead, and
contented when it has run its course.
Memento mori… that’s what they said, “Remember thou must die”, but this time the
words would come to seem ill-omened. Ironically, alongside all the gold and other spoils
of war displayed at Marcus and Lucius’ triumph, the unwitting Roman legions had also
brought back death from Parthia. They carried in their bodies an incurable and virulent
disease. Like an invisible army, it marched through the empire, laying siege to one city
after another, remorseless, merciless, and efficient. It was part of Marcus’ legacy,
enveloping the whole empire, and would forever bear his family name: the Antonine
Plague.
The Golden Casket

By the winter of 165 AD, the legions of Avidius Cassius had chased Rome’s enemy, King
Vologases, deep into Parthia, down the River Tigris to the twin cities of Seleucia and
Ctesiphon. Ctesiphon was the capital of the Parthian Empire but the garrison left behind
by the retreating king had no will to fight. After a brief siege, the city fell to the Romans
and Vologases’ opulent winter palace was looted by them and razed to the ground. The
nearby city of Seleucia was the former capital of the Seleucid Empire, founded by one of
Alexander the Great’s successors. It was an ancient Hellenistic city that had been rebuilt
in Parthian style after the emperor Trajan had sacked it and burned down many of the
original buildings half a century before Cassius arrived. One of the largest cities in the
Western world, with a population of roughly half a million of Greek, Jewish, and Syrian
descent, its vast wealth was supported by trading goods, including silks from China.
Once Ctesiphon had fallen, the citizens of neighbouring Seleucia immediately

surrendered and threw their gates open to Cassius’ legions, agreeing a peace treaty with
them, and welcoming the Romans as liberators. However, they were repaid with
bloodshed. Cassius let his legionaries run amok in the city, which they sacked like
neighbouring Ctesiphon, before burning it completely to the ground. Vologases had fled
but it was clear the tide of the war had now turned and before long he would sue for
peace.
One of Marcus’ most trusted slaves told him the popular rumour… As Seleucia burned
around them, a band of Cassius’ soldiers broke into the Temple of Apollo, it was said.
They recklessly tore a magnificent statue of the god from its base, to be carted back to
Rome for everyone to see. However, while looting the rest of the building, they came
across a mysterious crack in one of the walls, through which they glimpsed a dark
chamber. Guessing that something valuable probably lay concealed within, they set
about trying to break through the opening into the hidden shrine room beyond. Some
say that inside one of their number uncovered a mysterious golden chest, within which
were sealed not treasures but fetid vapours cursed with an unholy pestilence by
Chaldean sorcerers. Like the mythic Pandora, opening this supernatural casket, the
unwitting Roman soldier released a multitude of horrors. The contaminated air flew up
into his face, filled his lungs, and billowed out into the room around him, infecting his
companions who then helped spread it across the known world — Apollo’s vengeance
upon the defilers of his sacred shrine.
When the stolen figure of Apollo arrived in Rome the priests gratefully set it up in the
temple to him on the Palatine Hill. However, the superstitious were unnerved by this
wanton act of desecration. Apollo, the physician of the gods, was also the bringer of
plagues, spread afar by his deadly arrows. So the masses were bound to view an affront
against him, preceding the outbreak of the great plague, as more than coincidence.
Indeed, Homer’s Iliad opens with Apollo sending a plague to punish the Mycenaean king
Agamemnon, head of the Greek armies, who threatened the god’s high priest and
refused to return his kidnapped daughter. The old man sent prayers for vengeance to
Apollo Smintheus the patron of mice, rats, and plague. Everyone knew the story:
Apollo heard his prayers and came down furious from the summit of mount Olympus,
his bow and quiver on his shoulder, and the arrows rattling on his back as the rage shook
him. He settled down far from the ships, his face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang
out as he shot the arrows of death into their midst. First he shot down their mules and
dogs, but soon he took aim at the Greeks themselves, until pyres burned all day long
with the bodies of their dead.
For nine long days Apollo shot the deadly arrows of pestilence down upon the Greek
army, who were encamped on the beaches of Troy. Achilles complained “we are being
cut down by war and pestilence at once” — a plight Rome shared during the first few
years of the Marcomannic War. According to Homer’s epic, it was only when the girl was
set free and enough ritual sacrifices were offered to Apollo by the Greeks that the plague
finally began to relent. Throughout the empire, people were impotent in the face of the
current plague. Sacrificing to the gods was virtually all they could think to do. And
whatever its origin, it was just like the wrath of a god in its power to overwhelm great
nations.
Apollo’s Deadly Arrows

It was certainly true that the plague first infected the Roman army who looted Seleucia.
Cassius turned back and marched for over thirty days to his base at Antioch, his troops
laden with the spoils of their victory. However, he lost many hundreds of his men to
plague and famine along the way. Once Vologases finally conceded defeat and the war
ended, Lucius’ armies dispersed back to Rome, Italy, and their provincial bases
throughout the empire. Along with Parthian gold they unknowingly brought home the
plague. It was carried from Parthia back into the Roman provinces of Syria and Egypt,
into Italy and Spain, along the Danube and the Rhine, into Gaul and even across the sea
to the distant island of Britain.
The worst affected place was, of course, Rome itself, the destination for thousands of
travellers from around the empire. With so many people, from so many parts of the
world, living in such proximity, infectious diseases spread through the city like wildfire.
As the epidemic peaked there, between 166 and 168 AD, the bodies of Rome’s citizens
were being carted out by the wagonload, as many as two thousand per day. The weak
fared worst, of course: infants, slaves, the sick and elderly. In Rome alone, perhaps about
three quarters of the population contracted the plague, and about one quarter of those
died as a result. For a time it was as though the city was turning into a vast necropolis.
The infection rate was significantly lower outside the densely-populated major cities and
army bases. The pandemic would last fifteen years altogether and at least five million
people would die throughout the empire.
Many towns throughout Italy and the provinces were completely depopulated. The army
was reduced by one tenth and for several years greatly diminished in its fitness for battle,
which left the empire perilously vulnerable to fresh incursions by tribes on the northern
frontier. As well as the impact on ordinary citizens, slaves, and soldiers, many Roman
politicians and officials were lost to the plague, and Marcus often erected statues in
honour of the distinguished men who died at this time. The deaths of so many senators
left the Roman elite reeling and it meant that some official positions changed hands
more frequently than before. The plague destroyed families, often leaving bereaved
survivors lonely and depressed. Loved ones, especially children, often could not
approach the dying victim’s deathbed because of the risk of contamination.
Sickness and loss of life on this scale, lasting many years, was also slowly wrecking the
economy, by damaging transportation, hampering trade, and weakening the labour
force throughout the empire. Many cattle and other domestic animals died, heaping
famine on the miseries piling up from the pestilence. Marcus was forced to recruit
thousands of gladiators and domestic slaves into the army to face down the Germanic
tribes invading Italy across the empire’s northern borders. The emperor decreed that
these men, called the Voluntarii or Volunteers, should be provided with weapons and
armour at public expense like regular infantry. In reward for their service, they could
often earn their freedom. At first these and some of Marcus’ other emergency measures
caused unrest among the citizens of Rome. However, over the course of the war it
became clear they were prudent.
Charlatans and Criminals

Whether or not they believed the story about the casket, the Romans were naturally
convinced that the current plague, like the one with which Homer’s Iliad opened, was a
punishment sent against them by Apollo. However, Marcus knew that could not be true.
The plague had, inevitably, spread beyond the northern frontier and infected the
barbarian tribes they were fighting. It was probably also spreading through Parthia. If
the gods punishing Rome then why infect her enemies as well? No, these were merely
superstitions; the evidence contradicted them. After Cassius had taken Seleucia, he then
penetrated deep into Parthia, as far as Media. Marcus thereby managed, for the first
time, to get emissaries all the way to the far east. There they met the mysterious Seres
people, who sold their raw silk to the traders of the Silk Road. The oriental merchants
made a positive impression on Marcus’ ambassadors but disappointingly they showed
little interest in Roman wares. The Romans also learned, however, that even far beyond
Parthia in the distant and exotic land of silk, there were reports of the same plague that
blighted Rome.
Nevertheless, every day more charlatans and madmen appeared in Rome, preying on the
gullible. One of the most notorious ones had been constantly preaching to the crowds
from atop the wild fig-tree on the Campus Martius. He was on the verge of starting
looting in the streets of Rome by prophesying that any day the gods were about to send
down fire from the heavens to engulf the city and that the end of the world was nigh. He
predicted that he would be transformed into a stork when the apocalypse was upon
them and tried to dupe the crowds by falling from the tree and releasing a bird concealed
beneath his cloak. They saw through this hopeless ruse, though, and he was brought
before the emperor for judgement. Marcus quickly surmised that he was touched by
madness, and pardoned him without a fuss. The last thing he wanted was to make
martyrs out of these religious lunatics.
One of the most bizarre cults had become surprisingly influential. A handsome and
charismatic conman called Alexander of Abonoteichus founded a shrine hosting a
human-headed snake-god he’d invented called Glycon. Alexander received visitors in a
dark room, where he sat with a large serpent, whose head he concealed, exposing only
the body to view. He’d constructed a life-like human head for the snake, with long
flowing locks, which delivered cryptic oracles. In reality, his assistants made “Glycon”
appear to talk by speaking through hidden tubes attached to the glove puppet.
Alexander became very wealthy and powerful as a result of receiving payment for his
prophecies and magical charms. Coins were even cast in honour of the god “Glycon” and
statuettes made of him. During the height of the plague, Alexander was claiming to heal
the sick with incantations. A crude verse from his oracle was used on amulets and
inscribed over the doors of houses as a protection against the plague: Phoebus, the god
unshorn, keepeth off plague’s nebulous onset. He survived the plague but died of
gangrene, an old man, around 170 AD. However, his ridiculous cult lived on for many
years, exploiting the widespread belief that the sun-god Apollo, also known as Phoebus,
was inflicting the plague on the empire.
Marcus had no interest in superstition but it was nevertheless his duty as emperor, and
high priest, to enact the outward rituals of the state religion. When the barbarians
invaded from the north, at the height of the plague, Rome was gripped with panic.
Marcus delayed setting out for war while he summoned foreign priests from all over the
empire to purify the city through all manner of religious ceremonies, as a concession to
the masses. He was even persuaded to perform the ancient Roman ceremony of the feast
of the gods, called the lectisternium. This elaborate ritual, lasting seven days, was first
carried out by Romans over five hundred years earlier. It was introduced to alleviate
another plague by appeasing the gods, although Marcus mainly hoped to appease the
citizens.
Marcus reflected that instead of viewing the pestilence as if it were a punishment from
the gods, or as if the people of Rome had been abandoned, he should try to interpret it as
a divine prescription. His mind kept returning to a line from Euripides’ Antiope: “If I and
my sons are forgotten by the gods, then even this must have a reason.” At first, to be sure,
it was difficult to see things this way. However, as the years had passed he’d slowly
become more used to the lingering presence of the the pestilence all around him and the
constant news of others’ deaths. In short, the plague had become a fact of life for
Romans. With daily practice, the emperor had learned to respond as philosophically as
could be expected under the circumstances. If this had any meaning it was not as some
vengeful punishment but as a daily lesson, from which the gods were challenging him to
learn something about the meaning of mortal life.
Every day, he tried, as a Stoic, to accept the hideous reality before him as if it were the
prescription of a sage-like physician, necessary to develop his own health and that of the
empire, not unlike some bitter medicine or painful surgical procedure. What lessons
could he learn from it? That death lurks even in Arcadia, and that the bones of
Alexander the Great and his mule-driver now mingle in the same dust. We must face
reality, no matter how grim, and learn to expect that life will prescribe us all a mixture of
both good and bad fortune.
Marcus only one mentioned the plague itself once in his philosophical notes. That was
that however bad the physical disease surely was, one thing was even worse: the mental
plague of corruption and vice. Indeed, the plague itself had brought moral decay,
particularly at Rome. With so many people dying unexpectedly, society was thrown into
turmoil. Inheritances changed hands rapidly, sometimes leaving vast fortunes in the
hands of unintended recipients. At Rome, and even in other parts of the empire,
criminals seized on the opportunity to carry out paid assassinations under cover of the
plague. They smeared thin needles with infected fluids and tried to stab their victims
unnoticed. When they contracted the disease, it was hoped nobody would suspect foul
play. The plague literally allowed unscrupulous people to get away with murder.
Nevertheless, many such men were reputedly exposed and prosecuted. Such people,
surrounded by death and suffering, inevitably began to question the rule of law and the
value of religion and morality. If you might die any day, then what reason do you have to
care about right and wrong? At least that’s how certain individuals responded, showing
their true character in the face of adversity. Marcus tried to see things in quite the
opposite way. By reflecting on his own mortality, and the uncertainty of life, he tried to
find motivation to live honourably in the present moment, at all costs.
The Symptoms
Marcus and Galen had one thing in common. They both sought to understand the plague
rationally and objectively, as a natural phenomenon. Galen as a physician, and Marcus as
a philosopher. The plague was spread mainly by coughing and sneezing. The first
symptoms were a raging internal fever and painful swelling in the back of the throat,
probably also headaches and muscle pains similar to influenza. By around the ninth to
twelfth day, according to Galen, the other symptoms would erupt, and the fever would
presumably break. A few individuals died even during this initial stage. Galen described
how some victims initially developed catarrh and a slight cough, which became severe as
the infection progressed, until they began bringing up blood and tissue from the
ulceration inside their windpipe. If the infection spread to their larynx, it could become
difficult to speak. Around the same time, a horrific rash would begin spreading over the
body, which usually erupted in clusters of raised pustules. The rash would often turn
dark, as blood haemorrhaged into the blisters and congealed, sometimes covering the
whole body with rough charcoal-coloured patches of scab. These would eventually peel
off like coarse scales, exposing the flesh underneath, if the patient was healing.
All Galen’s victims suffered also from internal ulcers, severe stomach pains, and
diarrhea. Vomiting and malodorous breath were also common symptoms so that
sufferers would often begin actually to smell of the plague. Excrement first became
yellowish-red from lesions bleeding into their intestines then, as the other symptoms
erupted, it started to turn black and fetid. Galen used this to make a crude prognosis:
each patient whose faeces was very black with congealed blood was soon found dead.
However, once the more severe symptoms had manifested, the infection would typically
only last another three days or so.
The disease tended to run its course within about two or three weeks, by which time
roughly one quarter of victims would lie dead. So individual outbreaks would normally
last no more than a year or two, although additional outbreaks would appear in different
cities and towns, and recur again years down the line, affecting particularly the youngest
generation. Those who survived would typically find themselves immune to further
infection. Most remained visibly scarred with pockmarks. In many cases the blisters
actually spread onto the surface of their eyes and victims were left blind, or partially
sighted, as a result. In a few cases, the joints were left arthritic, which could lead to
permanent limb deformities.
Marcus observed these symptoms carefully in others and discussed them with Galen and
the rest of his court physicians. Everything that befalls a philosopher is potentially an
opportunity to move one step closer toward wisdom, self-mastery and freedom. Marcus
regularly contemplated his own death, every day, and whenever events seemed to
prompt him to do so. The plague certainly made it easy to imagine death and suffering.
His duty as a Stoic was to anticipate the worst that could happen to him, as if it were
already happening, and his own death as if it were imminent. This ancient philosophical
exercise might at first look the same as ordinary worrying but it was quite the opposite.
The Stoic embraced misfortune with a philosophical attitude, something he practiced
assiduously as part of his constant training regime. If Marcus saw something that
horrified him, he made a point of imagining it was happening to him, until his fear
naturally abated over time.
When fever comes upon us, said Epictetus, we should be ready with the mind-set and
opinions required to endure the symptoms. No true philosopher should forget everything
he’s learned about wisdom and strength of character just because of an illness. What use
is philosophy if it does not prepare us for misfortune? A philosopher who loses his nerve
in the face of the plague would be like a boxer who flees the ring as soon as he takes a
punch. “I must die”, said Epictetus, “but must I die groaning?” He frequently told his
students that bearing sickness well was part of life and something they should all be
prepared for:
If you bear a fever well, you have all that belongs to a man in a fever. What is it to bear a
fever well? To blame neither God nor man; to be unperturbed by whatever happens, to
anticipate death nobly and well, to do whatever must be done. When the physician comes in,
to be neither alarmed by what he says nor overjoyed if he says, “You are doing well”. —
Epictetus
Marcus had often imagined the fever spreading through his own body, leaving him frail
and bedridden. He closed his eyes and pictured it once again… The raw pain developing
in his throat, as he struggled to breathe or to speak. The itchy rash creeping over his
flesh, day by day, breaking out in clusters of hideous pustules as he watched helpless,
slowly turning into patches of black crust all over his face and body. The nausea, pain,
and discomfort. Not knowing if you’ll live through the night, as your body slowly bleeds
into your bowels. This was how he had learned to contemplate his own death. Not as an
abstract concept but as if he could almost reach out and touch it, as if he could even taste
and smell it.
Marcus had seen many things in his life… Bodies torn apart by wild beasts in the
Coliseum. Men being swiftly beheaded, slowly crucified, or burned alive at the stake.
Bodies hacked to pieces on the battlefield. Men, women, and children, deformed by
illness, and contorted with pain and suffering. Nothing really compared to the horrors of
the plague, though. Not even the proverbial bull of the tyrant Phalaris, a bronze
sculpture in which victims were locked so that a fire could be lit underneath it, slowly
roasting them alive. Man had not spared his creativity when it came to torture. The only
thing Marcus could think of worse than the suffering of the plague was Persian
scaphism, or “the boats”. The victim was stripped naked and nailed inside two wooden
boats, one on the top of the other, with their head and limbs protruding. Then they were
set afloat in a marsh, under the blazing sun, and force-fed milk and honey each day,
which was also smeared on their face and body to attract swarms of insects. The
prospect of his own death, however, troubled Marcus less with year that passed.
In the Phaedo, as he awaited execution Socrates was asked by his friends to speak to
them as though a little child remained within their minds, fearing death like it was a
scary bogeyman. Reassure us there is nothing to fear, they asked. Socrates replied: “You
should sing a charm over that child every day until you have charmed away his fears”.
The Stoics liked this idea of death as a kind of bogeyman, the analogy with scary masks
that frighten small children by their appearance. We should strip away the superstitions
and false value-judgements that make death appear like a monster: “Turn it about and
learn what it is; see, it does not bite”, as Epictetus put it. In Marcus’ time, death came to
wear the grotesque mask of plague everywhere he went, from the palaces and mansions
of Rome to the gritty army camps on the Danube.
Even when surrounded by death the majority of people live as if their own demise were
somehow uncertain. By continual mental rehearsal Marcus sought to strip away that
mask, as Epictetus had taught, and view his own life and death like a Stoic: nakedly,
objectively, and philosophically.
“But now it is time to die.” Why say “die”? Don’t make the matter into some sort of tragic
show but rather speak of it as it is: “It is now time for the material of which you are
composed to be returned to the elements from whence which it came.” And what is so
catastrophic about that? — Epictetus
In any case, the plague was far from the only cause of death, and along the northern
frontier, men were hacked down often enough in battle. Death can come from any
quarter, so if we’re to fear it we should be on our guard at every moment, which is
absurd. They say the Greek playwright Aeschylus was killed by a tortoise that was
dropped onto his head from the claws of an eagle flying overhead. You can be killed by
anything. To be everywhere is to be nowhere, though, and to fear everything is to fear
nothing.
Marcus made a point of noting down to himself that in addition to the genuine Stoic
arguments concerning the “indifference” of death there was a powerful but
“unphilosophical” form of persuasion he liked to use on himself. That’s simply to ask:
“Do I really want to emulate the sort of people who most fear their own death?” Go
ahead and list the names of people who have tenaciously clung onto life and ask yourself
whether they came any closer to genuine fulfilment as a result? No man can have a life
worth living as long as he is afraid of dying. And to learn how to face death is to unlearn
how to be a slave.
Galen and the Physicians

Galen, the most exceptional physician of the period, was in Rome from the first outbreak
of the plague there in 166 AD and he studied it at its peak during the following two
years. He was one of the few brave souls who observed the dying closely and tried to
understand the disease rationally. At the very time when they were most needed, many
good physicians were among the first to be lost, as they naively exposed themselves to
those contaminated. However, Galen, who believed himself chosen by the gods, was
among those who proved immune and as a result he rose to prominence as one of the
leading authorities on the nature of the disease.
During the winter of 168 AD, as the initial outbreak at Rome began to abate, Marcus and
Lucius summoned Galen to their winter base in the Italian city of Aquileia, to serve as
their court physician. However, the following year he was sent back to Rome again to
attend to Marcus’ only surviving natural heir, the young Caesar Commodus, merely a
boy of seven at this time. Marcus wrote in his notes to himself that while some men pray
“How may I save my little boy?” the Stoic should learn instead to pray “How may I be free
from worry about losing him?” He also noted to himself that for the heart to say “Oh let
my children be safe!” is like the eye wanting only to see pleasant sights — a kind of
denial, which goes against our rational nature.
The better physicians, employing reason and careful observation of the disease, advised
Marcus to stay far away from Rome, at least until the initial outbreak had subsided. They
recommended the fresh air of his beautiful coastal retreat at Laurentum but Marcus was
committed to accompanying the army on the northern frontier, where the legionary
forts were also experiencing outbreaks of the plague. Physicians recommended keeping
to the shade in summer and also noted that the plague tended to take more lives in the
winter months.
Galen prescribed the compound known as theriac as a general tonic and preventative
medicine to Marcus and others who could afford it. Galen had written at length about
this complex, ancient panacea. It contained dozens of supposedly medicinal ingredients,
from myrrh to viper flesh. However, it was not entirely a placebo as it also included
varying amounts of opium poppy juice, which would at least have alleviated the
symptoms of pain, coughing and diarrhea from plague sufferers, and they may also have
obtained relief from other ingredients. However, it was too expensive for most ordinary
Romans because it contained so many obscure ingredients, and was fermented for up to
twelve years before being eaten in chunks or sometimes applied as a salve to the body.
Many doctors advised those remaining in Rome and other infected areas to smear their
nostrils and ears with scented oils. Incenses like myrrh hung in the air and bonfires were
frequently lit in the towns and cities because it was widely believed that the smoke could
purified the atmosphere of pestilent vapours. Of course, this did nothing. Some degree
of discomfort was alleviated by applying herbal remedies externally to the pustular
rashes of victims. However, ensuring proper burial of the dead was one basic measure
the state could take to try to limit the spread of disease. Marcus insisted that funeral
ceremonies should be performed for the poor, at the public expense if necessary. The
emperors also jointly ratified stringent new laws regulating burial, which prohibited
building tombs above ground on country estates. Those who survived, and acquired
immunity, were encouraged to tend other sufferers and assist with funerary rites.
Some people believed that certain philosophers were resistant to disease because of their
moderate habits and healthy lifestyle. Socrates was said to have been so disciplined in
his way of life that when plague broke out among the Athenians, on several occasions, he
was the only man who escaped infection, including during his military service in the
siege of Potidaea. Since he was a young boy, Marcus had embraced the philosophical
way of life, eating and drinking plain food in moderation, taking appropriate daily
exercise, sleeping in moderation on a crude military camp bed, and so on. Certain
aspects of his Stoic lifestyle, combined with the privileges of his status, probably helped
him to survive to the age of nearly sixty, at a time when the average life expectancy at
Rome was more like thirty-five, at best. However, others were not so fortunate.
Marcus’ Bereavements
Marcus was surrounded by death and disease, on an almost unprecedented scale. He

wished that he could have done more as emperor to alleviate the suffering of the Roman
people. He lost many loved ones himself in a short space of time, during the initial
spread of the plague. In the winter of 166–167 AD, when the first outbreak at Rome was
reaching its peak, his close friend and former Latin rhetoric tutor died, Marcus Cornelius
Fronto. Marcus may not have sought to emulate Fronto’s character, the way he did those
of his philosophical tutors, but he trusted him, and loved him very dearly. He was old
and sickly, so Marcus was prepared for his death, but with the most affectionate of his
childhood mentors now gone the emperor was left feeling more alone than ever before.
However, the most publicly conspicuous of all the deaths from plague was that of his
adoptive brother and junior co-emperor, Lucius Verus. Marcus and Lucius were returning
to their winter base at Aquileia from the initial expedition of the Marcomannic War
when news reached them that plague had now also broken out there. They changed
course to nearby Altinum, where Lucius soon died of the fever. Lucius had been expected
to outlive Marcus, who was prone to chronic health problems and nine years his senior.
However, when the plague took Lucius unexpectedly, aged thirty-nine, Marcus was
suddenly left sole emperor, and another important piece of his family, another link with
his childhood, and his own sense of identity, had been torn away.
Shortly after Lucius, Marcus’ youngest son, Marcus Annius Verus, also died. Aged seven,
he had been appointed Caesar three years earlier along with his brother Commodus, his
elder by one year. Young Marcus Annius was the sixth of Marcus’ sons to die. Marcus
certainly did not have a heart made of stone or iron and Stoics were not taught to
suppress natural emotions. He could be moved to tears by bereavement. On one
occasion, reminded of his own loss, he was overcome with grief and wept in public when
he heard an advocate say in the course of an argument “Blessed are they who died in the
plague.”
In his notes to himself, Marcus referred several times to ways of coping with the feared
or actual loss of one of his children, clearly a preoccupation with him. Marcus and
Faustina had already lost six of their thirteen children before the plague even appeared.
He quotes a line from Homer’s Iliad: “Such are the races of men as the leaves that the
wind scatters earthward.” Marcus reminded himself to think always of his children in the
same brutally honest way, as leaves in the wind, accepting the fact that they are mortal,
their lives are transitory and beyond his ability to control. Not to take their lives for
granted but to face the stark reality of their vulnerability, and the possibility of losing
them, especially during the plague.
Many grains of frankincense on the same altar: one falls before, another falls after; but it
makes no difference.
Under the shadow of the plague, the air in Roman towns and cities remained heavy with
the smell of medicinal incense, particularly frankincense and myrrh.
The only male child Marcus now had left as heir was Commodus. He was bound to worry
that Commodus’ life could be snatched away from him at any moment. He wrote in his
notes, “Stick with first impressions. I see that my little boy is sick. That his life is in
danger? That I do not see.” His ongoing battle with worries over Commodus’ safety were
carefully worked through in writing, in his philosophical journal, and in his daily Stoic
meditations.
At that time, with Lucius suddenly gone, Commodus was aged eight and too young to
safely take the throne if anything happened to Marcus. There had to be an adult heir in
place. So Marcus urgently sought a man he could trust as a potential interim successor.
He chose his most faithful general, Claudius Pompeianus, whom he immediately
betrothed to Lucius’ widow, Lucilla. Pompeianus now became the most obvious
candidate to be acclaimed emperor by the legions should Marcus die of plague or in the
wars before Commodus reached manhood. However, his new son-in-law declined
Marcus’ offer to make it official by designating him Caesar. Instead Pompeianus would
live to see Commodus come of age and be appointed Marcus’ co-emperor.
Marcus had, in fact, learned much about parental love from Stoicism. For the Stoics,
Zeus was pre-eminently the father of mankind, who cared for all of his children both
individually and collectively. One must learn to emulate Zeus by being wise and
dispassionate yet full of natural affection toward others, especially one’s family and
children. He thought of his Stoic teacher Apollonius of Chalcedon as someone from
whom he could learn steadiness of purpose, constant rationality, and how to cope with
pain, illness, or the loss of a child. From another tutor Cinna Catulus he had also learned
to love his children in accord with Stoic wisdom. Stoics are taught that such parental
love has a special place, as the foundation of ethics. They are to love their children while
accepting their mortality, and the fact the lives of others are ultimately beyond our
control.
However, it must be reconciled with reason, and our loved ones must be viewed through
the lens of their mortality. He learned from Epictetus’ Discourses:
If you kiss your own child, a brother, or friend, never give free reign to the experience, and do
not allow your pleasure to run amok. Keep it in check, and restrain it as the slaves do who
stand behind generals riding in triumph and remind them that they are mortal. Remind
yourself in the same manner that the one you love is mortal, and that what you love is not
really your own. It has merely been loaned to you for now, not so that it should never be
taken back from you. Neither has it been given to you for all time, but in the same way a fig
is given to you or a bunch of grapes during a particular season of the year. However, if you
wish for these things in winter, you are a fool. So if you wish for your son or friend when it is
not allowed to you, you must know that you are wishing for a fig in winter.
Epictetus asked his students: What harm it can do to mouth the words “Tomorrow you
will die” when kissing your child? Yet some superstitious people are afraid that these are
words of bad omen, that it’s dangerous to say or even think anything negative. What
matters is that facing unpleasant thoughts can be healthy for us. You might as well say
that it’s evil for the ears of corn to be reaped but it’s merely a natural process of change.
You might as well say that the falling leaves are something negative, or a bad omen, or
for a fig that was ripe to become dried up, or grapes to turn to raisins. All these things
are merely substances changing from one state into another, nothing is really destroyed.
Life is change. For man, travelling away from his home is a small change of state, and
death is merely a bigger change. Shall we no longer exist? We will not exist as you are
now but as something else, which has its place in the world. And we also first came into
existence not when we chose to be born but when the world chose to create us. That was
the Stoic teaching Marcus had received from Epictetus via Junius Rusticus.
“Remember thou must die”, the slave had whispered to Marcus as the crowds cheered.
The statue of Apollo, seized from Parthia, followed behind them, draped in other looted
treasures. Marcus had been persuaded by Lucius to follow him in taking the title
Parthicus, conqueror of Parthia. As the plague crippled Rome’s legions, though, King
Vologases soon took back most of the Parthian territory he’d lost to Avidius Cassius. Not
long after the plague took Lucius, as the Roman hold on Parthia slipped, Marcus chose to
drop the title Parthicus from his own name. It seemed dishonest. The legacy of Lucius’
war was death.
. . .
The year after he lost his co-emperor Lucius and his son, the young caesar Marcus
Annius, Marcus most cherished philosophy tutor, the Stoic Junius Rusticus, also died at
Rome. Rusticus was also Marcus’ right-hand man in Rome, where he had served as the
urban prefect during the first few years when the plague was at its height. Rusticus was
an older man, around Fronto’s age, but his loss still came as a heavy blow, and signalled
a kind of death within Marcus himself. Fronto and Rusticus had been rivals, vying to win
the young Marcus over to rhetoric and philosophy respectively. Rusticus finally
succeeded in converting Marcus to Stoicism in his twenties, and set the pattern for the
rest of his life. Having lost his two most beloved tutors in close succession, both close
friends and advisors since his childhood, Marcus was now cut adrift, and found himself
facing a major change. A new phase of his life would have to begin in which he was more
independent, both emotionally and intellectually. He would need to find the inner
strength to continue on the same course, without his mentors and allies. Increasingly, he
turned to his new friends in the military, and the legionary bases became his home
instead of Rome.
Marcus wrote in his notes that he should contemplate his life in terms of distinct stages,
and the transition from each to the next, each step in the ladder of change, as a kind of
death. As we grow from infants, into children, adolescents, and go through various
stages of adult life, many things cease or change for us. The child dies when the man is
born. We should repeatedly ask ourselves: “Is there anything catastrophic here?” Marcus
the student of philosophy and rhetoric had died, to some extent, along with his
childhood tutors. Marcus as sole emperor had been forced to become increasingly self-
reliant as he matured into the role of philosopher-king and supreme military
commander. The great crisis of Marcus’ reign, the Marcomannic invasion, followed close
on the heels of the plague’s initial outbreak, and tested Marcus’ Stoicism even more
profoundly.
What does it mean to be a stoic?

Stoic. Being stoic is being calm and almost without any emotion. When you're stoic, you don't show what
you're feeling and you also accept whatever is happening. The noun stoic is a person who's not very
emotional. The adjective stoic describes any person, action, or thing that seems emotionless and almost
blank.
Is it good to be stoic?
Stoicism type of philosophy is good if you are going through really bad time, midlife crisis or in prison. If
you are confined, alone and mentally tortured — stoicism brings mental toughness. But If you are living in
this practical world then Stoicism doesn't help on how to deal with our times.
What are the 4 virtues of stoicism?

The Stoics often refer to the four cardinal virtues of Greek philosophy: prudence, justice, fortitude, and
temperance. (Or if you prefer: wisdom, morality, courage, and moderation.)
What is the opposite of stoicism?

The modern usage of stoicism is more about personality - meaning resilience and calm acceptance. The
opposite of this would probably be neuroticism - acute sensitivity to emotional disturbance.
What is an antonym for stoic?

Antonyms for (noun) stoic
Main entry: stoic, unemotional person. Definition: someone who is seemingly indifferent to emotions.
Antonyms: emotional person. Definition: a person subject to strong states of emotion.
Are Stoics boring?

If you think Stoics are boring, you're not doing it right!
There's nothing boring about experiencing life and all it has to offer whilst still maintaining control of your
emotions and judgement so you can savour the experience all the more. Soap operas and small-talk are
boring.
What is another word for stoic?

stoic(a.) Synonyms: passionless, apathetic, unimpassioned, imperturbable, philosophic, platonic, cool,
indifferent, cold, cold-blooded.
Why is stoicism important today?

Studying and practicing Stoicism today helps you improve yourself and become a sounder person. It
teaches desirable values such as courage, patience, self-discipline, serenity, perseverance, forgiveness,
kindness, and humility. All those values make our character and are displayed in our chosen actions.
What is stoic behavior?

Stoicism or Stoic Philosophy… ... In short, Stoicism is a tool set that helps us direct our thoughts and
actions in an unpredictable world. We don't control and cannot rely on external events, but we can (to a
certain extent) control our mind and choose our behavior.
Do Stoics have emotions?

Stoics do have emotions, but only for the things in this world that really matter. They are the most real
people alive.
Stoicism Philosophy History Marcus Aurelius Historical Fiction
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4/4/2020 Stoicism in the Time of Plague - Stoicism — Philosophy as a Way of Life - Medium

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Why is stoicism important today?

What is stoic behavior?

Do Stoics have emotions?

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