Stoicism and labour 245 



minds Seneca was the leading preacher. Thus he cites the definition 

 of 'slave' as 'wage-earner for life,' propounded 1 by Chrysippus: he 

 insists on the human quality common to slave and free alike: he re- 

 asserts "the' equality of human rights, only upset by Fortune, who has 

 made one man master of another: he sees that the vices of slaves are 

 very often simply the result of the misgovernment of their owners : he 

 reckons them as humble members 2 of the family circle, perhaps even 

 the former playmates of boyhood : he recommends a kindly considera- 

 tion for a slave's feelings, and admits 3 that some sensitive natures would 

 prefer a flogging to a box on the ear or a harsh and contemptuous 

 scolding. We need not follow up his doctrines in more detail. The 

 general tone is evident and significant enough. But it is the relations 

 of the domestic circle that he has primarily in view. H|s^references to 



agriculture and rustic labour are few, as we might expect from the cir- 



, . . , 



cumstances of his life. But ,we are m a better position to judge their 



value having considered his attitude towards slavery in general. It 

 should be noted, as a specimen of his tendency to Romanize Greek 

 doctrine, that he lays great stress on the more wholesome relations 4 of 

 master and slave in the good old times of early Rome, here too without 

 special reference to the rustic households of the rude forefathers round 

 which tradition centred. 



Judged by a modern standard, a defect in Stoic principles was the 

 philosophic aloofness from the common interests and occupations of 

 ordinary workaday life. To the Wise Man all things save Virtue are 

 more or less indifferent, and in the practice of professions aftd trades 

 there is little or no direct connexion with Virtue. Contempt for manual 

 labour, normal in the ancient world and indeed IffS'H slSVSWUfflS^ 

 societies, took a loftier position under the influence of Stoicism. Hence 

 that system, in spite of its harsh and tiresome features, appealed to 

 many of the better Romans of the upper class, seeming as it did to 



justify their habitual disdain. Seneca's attitude towards handicrafts is 



* -.--- -.-- mm 



much the same as Cicero's, "only with a touch of Stoic priggishness 

 added. Wisdom, he says 5 , is not a mere handworker (ppifex) turning 

 out appliances for necessary uses. Her function is more important: her 

 craft is the art of living, and over other arts she is supreme. The quality 

 of an artist's action 6 depends on his motive: the sculptor may make a 

 statue for money or to win fame or as a pious offering. Arts, as Posi- 

 donius 7 said, range from the 'liberal' ones to the 'common and mean' 

 ones practised by handworkers: the latter have no pretence of moral 



1 de benefiu 22 i, cf Athenaeus 776 b. 2 de benefv 19 9, epist 12 3. 



3 de constant (ad Serenum) 5 i. * epist 47 14. 



5 epist QQ 27, artificem vides vitae etc. *_epist 6fi 6. 



7 epist 8832 1. The contrast of liberalis and sordidits ofteiToccurs. 



