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Aspects of the Social Thought of Dio Chrysostom and of the Stoics1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

P. A. Brunt
P. A. Brunt
Affiliation:
Brasenose College, Oxford
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Extract

On re-reading Dio of Prusa's Euboicus, I formed the impression that his ideas on manual labour and on the respectability of occupations open to the poor are somewhat different from those conventionally adopted by Greeks and Romans of the upper class, to which Dio belonged. Part 1 of this paper discusses these ideas in the Euboicus and in some related works of Dio. It will inter alia afford some conjectural support to von Arnim's hypothesis that the Euboicus was delivered at Rome. Probably Dio's attitude was influenced by his experience in exile, when he had known what it was to be poor and had even propounded Cynic opinions. But the Euboicus is a work of his old age (VII. 1), and his conduct after his restoration to his home in A.D. 96 was conspicuously non-Cynic. If then we find some indication that he was also indebted to some previous theorizing on appropriate occupations for the free poor, we need not think of a Cynic model; indeed we should not, for the Cynics were little given to the kind of casuistry involved. In Part I some evidence will be found that Dio was also influenced by Stoic teaching, and in Part II it will be argued that his discussion of the way in which the poor could decently earn their living goes back to Stoic works on practical morality of the kind illustrated by Panaetius' treatise On Appropriate Action; however, Dio's ideas are not those of the Middle Stoa and more probably derive from Cleanthes or Chrysippus. In this connection I take Cicero, de officiis 1. 150 f., to represent the views of Panaetius, and as I have found that this interpretation can be contested, I have tried to justify it in the Appendix.

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Research Article
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Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 19 , 1973 , pp. 9 - 34
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Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

page 9 note 2 On Dio's life and opinions see von Arnim, H., Dio von Prusa, 1898Google Scholar, passim; on the Euboicus and its autobiographical character, pp. 492ff., cf. pp. 455 f.; 472 f.; he does not discuss the themes of this paper. He took Rome to be the unnamed city in VII. 146:, cf. 142 (ἐκεῑ); 143 (αὐτόθι); Mrs Griffin inclines to think that Dio merely means the kind of place described, one of the ‘luxurious cities’ (147); but there is at least one pretty clear allusion to Rome in 104: .

page 10 note 1 V. Soph. 488. Von Arnim, pp. 224 ff., shows the unreliability of much of Philostratus' account, but rather uncritically accepts this.

page 11 note 1 Much other evidence (cf. p. 13 n. 1) for Greek prejudices against the crafts, trade and working for a wage in Newman, W. L., Politics of Aristotle, 1886, 1, 96–126Google Scholar and in his notes on various texts cited below, and in Bolkestein, H., Wohltätigkeit u. Armenspflege im vorchristlichen Altertum, 1939, pp. 181 ff.Google Scholar; for Rome cf. F. M. de Robertis, Lavoro e lavoratori nel mondo romano, ch. 11 (unfortunately with many false references).

page 11 note 2 Romans too thought this (Cato, de agr. pref.; Livy VIII. 20, 4), and it corresponded to actual Italian recruitment in the Republic (Brunt, , JRS 1962, pp. 73 f.Google Scholar), and doubtless to recruitment in the provinces under the Principate, for which see Forni, G., Il reclutamento delle legioni da Augusta a Diocleziano, 1953, chs. V and VIGoogle Scholar. The platitude is also in Sen., ep. 51, 10Google Scholar; Colum. 1 pr. 17; Gell. III. 1, 9 f.

page 11 note 3 See the valuable discussion by Brake, J., Wirtschaften u. Charakter in der antiken Bildung, 1935, esp. pp. 80 ff.Google Scholar, stressing that Greeks condemned only if it interfered with higher activities, cf. Pindar, , Pyth. III. 54Google Scholar: . See also Festugière, A. J., Ét. de phil.gr. 1971, pp. 117 ff., esp. pp. 148 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 12 note 1 Naturally wealth and poverty are relative terms, and the right nuance has to be detected from the context.

page 12 note 2 He is accepting Panaetius' view, cf. Appendix. See further Brunt, , JRS 1972, pp. 154 fGoogle Scholar.

page 12 note 3 For Cato (pref.) agriculture is quaestus stabilissimus; that was not true for Roman peasants in his time. Aristotle, , Rhet. 1Google Scholar. 5, 7 observes that wealth, as an ingredient in the good life, must be secure. The high social value attached to land in antiquity probably derived from the fact that it was normally the safest investment.

page 13 note 1 In the Republic the third class () has citizen rights only in name. Cf. Laws 741 E; 806 f.; 842 DE; 918 f.; Aristotle, , Pol. 1Google Scholar. 3 passim; 1278 a 1 ff.; VII. 8 passim. See also Appendix.

page 13 note 2 I do not know how far ‘Diogenes’ is always meant to be Dio's mouthpiece; the shameless sayings (von Arnim 263, 267) are probably inserted only for dramatic appropriateness.

page 14 note 1 Wohltägkeit…, 326 ff. He points inter alia to the numerous honorary decrees for traders, but it was a matter of a city's self-interest to win favour of rich men (often foreigners) who could render services. Even in democratic Athens a Cleon or a Demosthenes could be besmirched for his connection with industry.

page 14 note 2 Lavoro e lavoratori, pp. 21 ff., pointing to the immense number of epitaphs and bas-reliefs that allude to the trades practised [or financed] by their subjects; but many were set up for freedmen. In some untypical towns of the Roman empire the highest local offices go to men ‘in trade’. The cities needed the services of the rich as such: dat census honores.

page 15 note 1 Plut., Per. 2, 1 fGoogle Scholar. says that labour with one's hands on low objects attests indifference to higher things; hence no youth of noble nature would wish, because of admiration for their works, to be Phidias or Polyclitus any more than to be Anacreon, Archilochus or Philemon: none is worthy of esteem. Friedländer, , Sittengesch. Roms III9, 102Google Scholar, argues (without regard to the first or last statement) that so far from depreciating artists Plutarch is putting them on the same level as poets; but the poets are chosen with care; the first two at least were regarded as men of bad character. And cf. Cimon 4, 5: Polygnotus is only exempted from description as banausos because he did not charge for painting the Athenian Stoa. Seneca, , ep. 88Google Scholar, 18 excludes painters and sculptors from practitioners of the liberal arts on another ground, that they are luxuriae ministri; Posidonius (ibid. 21 f.) had perhaps described their arts as ludicrae, not liberales; his views may be the basis for Galen, , Protrept. 5, 7f.Google Scholar; Philostr. v. Apoll. VIII.7; Philo, , Spec. leg. I. 331 f.Google Scholar (Stückelberger, A., Senecas 88. Brief, 1965)Google Scholar, where (with various differences) they rank below the liberal arts. At Rome painting, once respectable enough for a noble, Fabius Pictor, had by Cicero's time fallen into disrepute for gentlemen, cf. Tusc. Disp. I. 4Google Scholar; Pliny, , NH xxxv. 19 f.Google Scholar, Valerius Max. VIII. 14, 6, though Cicero would rather have excelled as a sculptor or painter than as a carpenter (!), since the former have the rarer talent (Brut. 257). Much later, Firmicus Maternus was to set the sculptor's art below the painter's and that of others engaged in artes honestae et mundae, because it involved heavy and nasty manual labour (Limentani, I. Calabi, Studi sulla società romana, 1958, pp. 53 ff.Google Scholar). Pliny says that from the 4th century in Sicyon and all Greece painting ranked as a liberal art suitable for honesti (NH xxxv. 77)Google Scholar.

page 15 note 2 On the frauds perpetrated by those occupied in recovering such slaves see Daube, D., Juridical Rev. 1952, 12 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 15 note 3 Cf. Lucian, , Rhet. Praec. 25Google Scholar.

page 15 note 4 Brunt, , Past and Present 1966, pp. 13 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 15 note 5 VI. 128: .

page 16 note 1 Plato, , Laws 918 f.Google Scholar, argues that traders and innkeepers are necessary and only discredited by habitual fraudulence; men of integrity would be respected in such business. But Dio is prescribing ex hypothesi for poor men of integrity.

page 16 note 2 Actors: Friedländer, , Sittengesch. Roms II, 137 ffGoogle Scholar. (cf. RE VIII. 2126 ff.)Google Scholar; musicians: ibid., 175 ff. Dionysiac artists: e.g. Jones, A. H. M., Greek City, pp. 231 ffGoogle Scholar. Aristotle, : Pol. VIII 4 to end, esp. 1341 a 17–b 8Google Scholar; Newman, , Politics of Aristotle, I, 359 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 17 note 1 Sherwin-White, A. N., Letters of Pliny, p. 313Google Scholar; p. 320 for summary statement, cf. p. 15 n. 3; p. 33 n. 3. Kunkel, W., Herkunft u. soziale Stellung der röm. Juristen, 287Google Scholar, says that we do not hear of fees for jurisconsults (as distinct from advocates), but in Cicero's day their expertise contributed ad opes augendas (de offic. II. 65Google Scholar), doubtless in the same indirect way as advocacy, supposedly given free (II. 65), and it would be perilous to argue e silentio that they too did not later take fees, all the more since they increasingly came from a lower station than in the Republic (as shown by Kunkel).

page 17 note 2 Exceptores, RE VI. 1565Google Scholar; scribae, II A. 848 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 17 note 3 However, Posidonius held that animals and children were moved by pleasure (F. 169, cf. 158, 160 Edelstein–Kidd).

page 18 note 1 For Stoic views in Dio, , SVF IV. 196 fGoogle Scholar. Von Arnim, 476 ff., in a generally admirable discussion, does not make clear how loose was his attachment to Stoicism, VII. 135 recalls the religious tone of XII. 76 (Zeus teaches us ).

page 18 note 2 Cf. perhaps the view of Florentinus (mid second century A.D.) that slavery was contrary to natural law (for Stoics the rule of eternal justice, known by the reason that is common to gods and men, SVF III. 76 ff.Google Scholar) and only legitimated iure gentium; Florentinus refers to a natural kinship among men (Dig. I. 5Google Scholar, 4). Ulpian's conception of natural law as ius quod natura omnia animalia docuit, with reference to inborn impulses to procreate and rear progeny, is clearly non-Stoic; reason comes in with ius gentium (I. 1, 1, 3 f., cf. I. 1, 2); Gaius (I. 1, 9) identifies the latter both with naturalis ratio and the common legal usages of all peoples; on this kind of view slavery was rational, and if so, justified by natural law.

page 19 note 1 In Dio's day Roman law gave modest and probably inefficacious protection to ancillae by upholding covenants ne prostituatur in contracts of sale (Buckland, W. W., Roman law of slavery 1908, pp. 70 f., 603 fGoogle Scholar. HA, Hadrian 18, 8 is too sweeping, cf. e.g. Dig. II. 2, 24Google Scholar).

page 19 note 2 See Philippson, R., Philol. LXXXV, 357 ff.Google Scholar; Pohlenz, M., Kl. Schr. 1, 100 ffGoogle Scholar. and Antikes Führertum, 1934, passim; Labowski, L., Die Ethik des Panaitios, 1934Google Scholar. On this subject, van Straaten, M., Panétius, sa vie et son œuvre, 1946, pp. 158 ffGoogle Scholar. adds nothing fresh.

page 20 note 1 Van Straaten (op. cit.) interprets as ‘aspirations’ (140) or ‘appétits’ (158) or ‘whatever incites men to act’ (192), too restrictively. Some instances of Panaetius' usage occur in SVF (see index s.v.); Philippson (op. cit.) showed that doxographic sources transcribed there sometimes reflect Panaetian influence.

page 20 note 2 Athenaeus 186 A refers to ‘Panaetiasts’ in his own day.

page 20 note 3 I hope to elaborate this elsewhere. Cf. de offic. 1. 93–151Google Scholar, Epict. 1, 2 etc.

page 21 note 1 See Appendix.

page 21 note 2 For the last phrase cf. p. 24 n. 3.

page 21 note 3 For other possible evidence of Posidonius' views cf. p. 15 n. 1.

page 22 note 1 Marrou, H. I., Hist, de l'éducation dans l'antiquité3, pp. 244, 378Google Scholar.

page 22 note 2 Cf. 88, 2 non discere debemus ea, sed didicisse.

page 22 note 3 Posidonian language, cf. ep. 88, 24 ff. with F. 18 Edelstein–Kidd, and see Stückelberger, cited in p. 15 n. 1.

page 22 note 4 Cf. p. 23 n. 1. Like the concept of the illiterate sage, this does not at all fit Seneca's own argument in much of ep. 88, 1–20, which I suspect he has largely taken over from Posidonius, who is first cited in s. 21.

page 22 note 5 Cf. Tusc. Disp. II. 61Google Scholar. Zeller, , Die philosophie der Gr. III4, 585Google Scholar argued from these texts that Diogenes was certainly mistaken on Posidonius, and therefore unreliable for Panaetius. In fact Panaetius too equated the bonum and honestum, cf. Appendix VI. But that does not mean that both did not think ‘means’ a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of the good life, cf. Reinhardt, , RE xxii. 760Google Scholar on Sen., ep. 92Google Scholar which he derived from Posidonius. What was required was doubtless ‘enough property for the good life’, not unlimited riches, cf. Ar., Pol. 1256 b 31Google Scholar.

page 23 note 1 de benef. III. 18, 2Google Scholar, cf. e.g. Musonius fr. 2.

page 24 note 1 I do not find Luschnat, O., Philol. 1958, pp. 177 ffGoogle Scholar. illuminating.

page 24 note 2 SVF III 759–63Google Scholar, on suicide. Panaetius held that ordinary men, unlike the sage (ibid. 650 ff.), should avoid ‘love’, Sen., ep. 116, 5.Google Scholar

page 24 note 3 de offic. III. 13Google Scholar, cf. 16; 1. 46.

page 24 note 4 Sen., ep. 94, 1Google Scholar. What follows relates to the dispute between Ariston and Cleanthes. Chrysippus polemized against Ariston, partly for his rejection of the proegmena (SVF III. 27Google Scholar), a connected topic, cf. Sen., ep. 94, 8Google Scholar.

page 24 note 5 ep. 94, 14, cf. ‘personae’ in 35.

page 25 note 1 SVF III, 701Google Scholar, cf. Plutarch's comments, 1043 E–1044 B from a Platonic standpoint. Cf. Lucian, cited pp. 32 f. Quintilian XII. 7, 9 says that Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus took fees. According to Hecato(D.L. VII. 181), Chrysippus' property had been confiscated.

page 26 note 1 Die Ethik des Stoikers Epictet, 1894, pp. 73 fGoogle Scholar.

page 26 note 2 IV. 10, 11.

page 26 note 3 See the index s.v. Chrysippus in Bonhöffer's book, cited in n. 1, which refers also to his Epictet und die Stoa, 1890.

page 26 note 4 Professor Finley's forthcoming Sather lectures take a rather different view.

page 27 note 1 In particular the liberal arts had little relevance for Cicero's circle, even though he can speak of a Greek doctor as Crassus', L. friend (de orat. 1. 62)Google Scholar, cf. para. XI, and for medicine, Pliny, , NH XXIX. 17Google Scholar: solam hanc artium Graecarum nondum exercet Romana gravitas, in tanto fructu paucissimi Quiritium attigere.

page 28 note 1 Cf. Sen., ep. 88, 19 (Posidonius?)Google Scholar.

page 28 note 2 Advocates of every art tended to urge that it included much knowledge of all or most others, cf. Cicero himself on the orator's in his rhetorical works, likewise Quintilian; for painting, Eupompus ap. Pliny, , NH xxxv. 76Google Scholar; for architecture, Vitruvius 1. 1; for agriculture Columella 1, pr. 22 ff.; for medicine, Galen 1. 53 ff. K ().

page 29 note 1 Cf. Sen., ad Polyb., 6 3Google Scholar (in Panaetian context); contrast Dio LXVII passim; Marc. Aur. II. 6 f.; IV. 3, 3 and often.

page 29 note 2 But there are no merchants (or usurers) in Pollux's list, p. 15 n. 5.

page 29 note 3 De Robertis, Lavoro e lavoratori, need not be right for Cicero's time in pressing Dig. VII. 8, 4 pr. (quos loco servorum in operis habet, Ulpian) and the implications of other late texts that hired labourers were under the legal power of employers, and he misinterprets de offic. II. 22Google Scholar on those who subiciunt se imperio alterius…mercede conducti: they are the political hirelings of a Clodius. 1.41 assimilates slaves to mercennarii, but this is not only Panaetius but Chrysippus (SVF, III 351)Google Scholar.

page 30 note 1 Brunt ap. Seager, , Crisis of Roman Rep. pp. 122–8Google Scholar gives the chief evidence; more in Nicolet, C., L'ordre équestre, 1966, pp. 287–387Google Scholar; in pp. 358 ff. he points out that few Romans, and no equites, styled themselves mercatores.

page 30 note 2 So Friedländer, , Sittengesch. Roms III9, 105Google Scholar. But over half of the civilian architects whose inscriptions Limentani, Calabi, Studi sulla società romana collects (pp. 174 ff.Google Scholar) are slaves and freedmen.

page 31 note 1 Cf. de offic. I. 19Google Scholar; though it certainly contains Ciceronian additions, it may reflect Aristotle's influence on Panaetius.

page 31 note 2 Grote, , Hist. of Greece, 1888, VII. 34 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 31 note 3 He claims to take money, only because he had lost his patrimony (XV. 161 f.), and then only from foreigners, and they make him gifts in gratitude (39 f.; 164–6); moreover, neither he nor any sophist has ever made large a fortune (154 ff.). Jaeger's interpretation (Paideia, Eng. tr. III, 141 f.Google Scholar) seems to me perverse. In XIII. 1–8 he criticizes eristic philosophers for taking fees on false pretences.

page 31 note 4 FGH no. 115 F 25. This and other evidence shows that prejudice against teaching for money did not die out after the fifth century, as Dodds, E. R., Plato, Gorgias, p. 365Google Scholar seems to think.

page 32 note 1 RE XIII. 1024, 1027 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 32 note 2 See Cohn-Haft, L., Smith College St. in Hist. 1956Google Scholar; Below, H., Der Arzt im röm. Recht, 1953Google Scholar, for some evidence. When doctors treated slaves, often valuable, the masters presumably paid.

page 32 note 3 Decorum 2 against doctors , cf. 5 and 18; the stress on decorum supports W. H. S. Jones's view that the writer was under Stoic (Panaetius'?) influence (Loeb, ed. of Hippocrates II. 270Google Scholar).

page 32 note 4 Precepts 4–6; here too decorum recurs, 6, 8 and 13.

page 32 note 5 Plato, , Protag, 328 BGoogle Scholar.

page 32 note 6 Ar., Pol. 1258Google Scholar a II had said that it was a perversion of medicine if it subserved money-making. Cf. Quint. 1. 12, 16 on oratory. Charges could be defended on the basis that the professional man needed them for maintenance, though he did not practise his art for pecuniary motives.

page 32 note 7 Philostr. v. Soph. 519, 525, 526, 527, 533, 535, 566, 604, 605, 615; gifts, 521, 533, 538, 574; charges remitted or scaled down for poor, 519, 604, 606. Rhetoricians were suspected of being avaricious, 499, but Ph. argues that men value most what they pay for, in defence of Protagoras, 494.

page 32 note 8 Apology 15.

page 32 note 9 Ibid. 11 f.

page 32 note 10 Ibid. 1, 3 f., 6, 11, cf. Salaried Posts, passim (which recalls Macaulay on chaplains in English noble houses, c. 1700, Hist, of England, ch. III).

page 32 note 11 Apology 8–10.

page 33 note 1 E.g. Hermotimus 9, 59, 80 (cf. 10 for Stoic moneylending; also Philosophies for Sale, 23); Anabiountes 34; Parasite 52, etc. (cf. p. 32 n. 10). Contrast Nigrinus 26. Some criticisms amount to saying that the teachers charged too much or were fraudulent.

page 33 note 2 Diss. I. 1, 10Google Scholar.

page 33 note 3 XII. 7, 8 ff. Cf. p. 31 n. 3, p. 32 nn. 5, 6. Epicurus took ἀπαρχαί from pupils, Plut. 1117D.