Stoicism: Philosophy of Empire
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Difference: Geographic Challenge for
Romans
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Athens, Sparta: divided by mountains
> Greek: narrow polis law for locals only
Rome is open to Italian territories along Tiber R.
> Rome: law for others too
Roman stick and carrot creates all Italian army
– Stick: war
– Carrot: Roman citizenship
Reason for differences
• Romans must deal with neighbors from the
start
– “Rape of the Sabine Women”
• Hence Roman law is “cosmopolitan”
• Hence: Rome first unites with others in Italy
creating a powerful army of many nationalities
• Hence: Rome builds a long-lasting empire
• The lasting influence of Greece is cultural, not
political: “the Hellenistic Ecumene” (157)
Polis law and Cosmopolitan Law
• Alexander: Pharaoh in Egypt, King in Persia
• No Greek system of law: = Polis law
– only Athenian, Corinthian, etc.
– Legacy of Greek empire is cultural (philosophy, art
…), not political
• Roman empire is based on Cosmopolitan law
• > Ability to unite different nations by a single
system of law
Republican Institutions
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> Plebian Assembly, Tribune with Veto power
Aristocracy: Senate
Two consuls (Presidents) elected annually
Other assemblies
– Military: Centuriate Assembly
– Assembly of the People: moderates conflict
Limitation of Roman freedom
• Law forbids enslavement of Romans
• Patricians continue to expand wealth using
foreign slaves conquered in Roman wars
• > Pressure to expand, conquer
• Roman peasant dies in battle
• Lands of poor bought up by wealthy
• > Impoverishment > urban proletariat
Irony of History
• Only some are free (Hegel)
• Greece:
– Accept principle of enslaving others
– Romans enslave them
• Rome
– Cheap slave-produced grain ruins small farmer
– = Destruction of free Roman army, eventual fall of
Roman empire
Compare with US system
• House of Representatives: elected based on
population
– More democratic
– Black slaves don’t vote; count 3/5s free citizens
– Women, natives, slaves don’t vote
• Senate at first appointed based on equality of states
– Elitist: 2 senators per state no matter the population; small
state equals large state
• U.S. Constitution as legacy of Roman Law
– Rationally organized code (Justinian)
– V. England: no written constitution
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Some are free
• “Representatives and direct taxes shall be
apportioned among the several States which
may be included within this Union, according
to their respective numbers, which shall be
determined by adding to the whole number of
free persons, including those bound to service
for a term of years, and excluding Indians not
taxed, three-fifths of all other persons.”
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Lessons of History #1
• U.S. imitates Roman system
– Political:
• “checks and balances”
• Excludes women, slaves, and native Americans
– Legal: written system of law
• Some are free.
• > Civil War
• Shows need to go beyond political limitation of
freedom: All are free.
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Second wave of class struggles
• Tiberius Gracchus, about 133 BC: "Wild animals
stalking their prey throughout Italy have dens
and lairs to spend the night in, but people who
fight and die for Italy have nothing but the air
and the light. They wander with their children
and wives like homeless vagabonds. The
warriors fight and die for others' luxury and
wealth; they are called the masters of the
universe, yet they don't have a single plot of
land."
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Self-Defeat of Roman peasant
• New kind of threat: not enslavement but
economic ruin
– Invisible enemy: who to blame?
• Cycle of cause and effect (“karma”)
– 1) Roman peasants in the Roman army enslave Greek
citizens
– 2) Greek slaves produce cheap grain for Roman
aristocrats
– 3) Roman peasants are ruined: become urban
proletariat
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Lessons of History #2
• US trade unions (modern proletariat): strike
– Veto power of Roman plebeians
• What about foreign workers?
• = Only some workers are free
• Corporations employ cheap foreign labor, move
elsewhere where workers rights are not protected
• US workers compete with cheaper foreign labor
– Wages drop; unemployment rises
– Social network declines
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Causes of downfall
• 1) Force: Democratic institutions are
sabotaged
• 2) Fear: threats to physical security of ordinary
people
– >People give to new power to authoritarian
leaders to exercise military power
• 3) Corruption: money undermines over the
political system
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1) Destroy democracy by brute force
• Later Roman farmers face already existing
state made up of their own sons
• Goal of Tribunes, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus:
land to the Roman farmers
• Both are assassinated
– Compare assassination of the Kennedy brothers
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2) By Using Fear: Slave Wars
• Three Servile Wars
• Gladiator Spartacus and 70 others escape
• Army of 120,000 slaves threaten Rome
– Crassus manipulates Spartacus and Rome
– How did Crassus make his money?
• Crucifixion of 6000 on Apian Way
– Why is Crucifixion especially horrible?
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3) By Corruption: Client system of Politics
• Wealthy Romans have “clients”
– Huge wealth from victorious wars
– Individuals raise their own armies
• Clients vote as they are told
• > Corruption of electoral system
• > Fall of Republic
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Lessons of History #3
• Huge cost of running for elections
– “Super PACs”
• > Power of private wealth over politicians
• > Apathy of voters, distrust of the “political
elite”
• Effect on US democracy?
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U theory of History?
• Going from L to U
– End role of money in elections???
• On world level:
– Making environmental and labor laws part of international
trade (all should be free)???
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Why not fight back?
• Strong Roman army (and nowhere to go)
– A powerful State, with a standing army, is now in
existence
• Recall Rousseau’s analysis of early state:
– The outcome was “. . . the most thought-out
project that ever entered the human mind. It was
to use in his favor the very strength of those who
attacked him, to turn his adversaries into his
defenders… to give them other institutions which
were as favorable to him as natural right was
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unfavorable to him.”
Turn to Authoritarian Rule
• Plebs support popular Roman generals
– Gaius Marius, Julius Caesar
– Julius Caesar is assassinated!
• > Generals take more and more power
• Octavian “Augustus” Caesar (adopted son of
Julius Caesar) made Imperator for life (27 BCE
-14 CE)
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How Did Augustus “Seize Power”?
• ‘A grateful Senate, weary of seemingly endless civil
wars, heaped him with honors, including, in 27 BCE,
the title “Augustus,” meaning “sacred” or
“venerable.”’ (Spodek, 180)
• “Augustus rejected the title of monarch, preferring to
be called princeps, or first citizen. This gesture of
humility fooled no one. With Augustus’ reign, the
imperial form of government begins even though the
Senate and the consuls and other magistrates
survived.” (Spodek, 180)
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Fall of the Republic,
Rise of the Empire
• Chancellor Palpatine: “In order to ensure our
security and continuing stability, the Republic
will be reorganized into the first Galactic
Empire, for a safe and secure society which I
assure you will last for ten thousand years. An
empire that will continue to be ruled by this
august body, and a sovereign ruler chosen for
life.”
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How does liberty die?
• Senator Padme Amidala: So this is how liberty
dies, with thunderous applause . . .
– (Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith)
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How democratic was it?
• “In 14 C.E. Augustus Caesar announced that
there were 4,937,000 citizens, about 2 million
of them in the provinces. At that time, the
total population of the empire was between
70 and 100 million.” Spodek, 182. = 5 to 7%
are free citizens
• (Athens: 16%)
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Abstractness of Cosmopolitan Citizenship
• Under the empire, legal citizenship has
become abstract, formal, almost powerless
• > Citizens have formal legal rights but not real
power to control their society
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Greek philosophy of free polis
• Recall Socrates
– Re wealth and virtue
– Re soul and body
– Re choice and destiny: we choose our own fate
• Socrates does not flee
– His life is tied to the Athenian polis
– He is a true citizen
– He has real citizen power
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Stoic philosophy of empire
• Socrates: “virtue does not come from wealth,
but that wealth, and every other good thing
which men have, whether in public, or in
private, comes from virtue.”
• Stoic position: virtue is unrelated to wealth
– Virtue (mind) is in our power
– Wealth (body) is not in our power
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Slave and Emperor
• Two great Stoics
– Epictetus the slave (50-138 AD)
– Marcus Aurelius, the emperor (121-180 AD) (See
film, “Gladiator”)
• = Philosophy that equates master and slave
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What we can and can’t control
• “Under our control are conception, choice, desire,
aversion . . .
• “not under our control are our body, our property,
reputation, office . . .
• “if you think only what is your own to be your own,
and what is not your own to be, as it really is, not
your own, then no one will ever be able to exert
compulsion upon you . . .” #1
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Body and Soul
• Philosophy of Roman empire
– All can be free internally (in mind)
– None can be free externally (in body)
• Philosophy of Greek republic
– Virtue (the rightly ordered soul) brings wealth and
all good things (of the body)
– I.e., we can control our external conditions of life
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Be “realistic”
• “Do not seek to have everything that happens
happen as you wish, but wish for everything
to happen as it actually does happen, and
your life will be serene.” # 8
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How to be free
• “Whoever, therefore, wants to be free, let him
neither wish for anything, nor avoid anything,
that is under the control of others; or else he
is necessarily a slave.” # 14
• Story of Epictetus and his master
• =Freedom of the mind
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Accept your role in life
• “Remember that you are an actor in a play, the
character of which is determined by the Playwright;
if He wishes the play to be short, it is short; if long, it
is long; if He wishes you to play the part of a beggar,
remember to act even this role adroitly; and so if
your role be that of a cripple, an official, or a layman.
For this is your business, to play admirably the role
assigned you; but the selection of that role is
Another’s.” # 17
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The world is in good order
• “In piety towards the gods, I would have you
know, the chief element is this, to have right
opinions about them, as existing and as
administering the universe well and justly—
and to have set yourself to obey them and to
submit to everything that happens, and to
follow it voluntarily, in the belief that it is
being fulfilled by the highest intelligence.” #31
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Is Socrates a Model Stoic?
• See Epictetus #53: “Well, O Crito, if so it is
pleasing to the gods, so let it be.” “Anytus and
Meletus can kill me, but they cannot hurt me.”
• Does Socrates neglect the body? Wealth? Is he
a fatalist?
• Plato on nature of our fate: we freely choose
our lot in life! (NDE of Er)
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