LUCIUS ANJSMEUS SENECA. THE STOICAL 

 PHILOSOPHY. 



FROM B. C. 420 TO A. C. 170. 



STOICISM IN GREECE. 



THE Stoical Philosophy, though of Greek origin, found in Rome the Progress of 

 people to whose disposition and character it was best adapted ; and 2 1 Rome! iy 

 it was only among them, and at a comparatively late period, under 

 the empire, that it attained the height of its development. In the 

 early days of the Republic many glorious examples of Stoical virtue 

 were displayed ; and Cicero, in illustrating the paradoxes of the sect, 

 reverts with patriotic triumph to those memorable instances of practical 

 Stoicism. But such developments of character were rather the result 

 of natural temperament, operated upon by circumstances, than the effect 

 of system or discipline. It was at a later period that the Stoical 

 philosophy may be said to have truly flourished at Rome ; after the 

 literature of Greece had been introduced, and when, according to the 

 habits of individuals, or the temper of the times, the different systems 

 of philosophy prevailed in succession. The manliness of the Roman 

 character for a long time gave the preference to the doctrines of the 

 Porch. Pomponius, indeed, amidst the convulsions attending succes- 

 sive usurpations, cultivated the milder and more soothing sentiments 

 of Epicurus ; but the delicacy of his nature and of his studies was 

 looked upon as scarcely of a Roman mould, and his Attic surname 

 was but an ambiguous compliment to his refinement. Although the 

 practice of Academic disputation captivated the youthful imagination 

 of Cicero, and opened an attractive field for the display of his inex- 

 haustible treasures of eloquence, yet the practical morality of the 

 Stoics seems always to have commanded his respect, and to have had 

 a latent ascendency in his heart. It certainly advanced in his esteem 

 in his declining years ; and his treatises on the Duties of Life, and on 

 the Paradoxes of the Stoics, show an affectionate anxiety to extricate 

 a school, so eminent for virtuous practice, from some of its theoretical 

 extravagances, and if possible to reconcile the dogmas of visionaries to 

 the circumstances of society and the real exigencies of life. 



The Stoical philosophy, hardy and severe as it was in its discipline, Cynicism the 

 traced its descent from a sect still more austere and repulsive ; l and 

 though many of the writers in the Stoical school attempted to ingraft 

 on it the doctrines of other sects, as was the case with Seneca; or 



l Ab Antisthene, qui patientiam et duritiam in Socratico sermone maxime ada- 

 marat, Cynici primum, delude Stoici manarunt. Cic. de Or. 3, 17 ; and Diog. 

 Laert. vi. 103. 



