499 “There are few men whose minds are not more or less in that state of sham knowledge against which Socrates made war; there is no man whose notions have not been first got together by spontaneous, unexamined, unconscious, uncertified association—resting upon forgotten particulars, blending together disparities or inconsistencies, and leaving in his mind old and familiar phrases and oracular propositions, of which he has never rendered to himself account; there is no man, who, if he be destined for vigorous and profitable scientific effort, has not found it a necessary branch of self-education to break up, disentangle, analyse, and reconstruct this ancient mental compound, and who has not been driven to it by his own lame and solitary efforts, since the giant of the colloquial Elenchus no longer stands in the market place to lend him help and stimulus.”—Grote, History of Greece (1888), vol. vii, pp. 168 f.
500 Quoted by Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen (1882), Bd. ii, S. 396.
501 “His [Socrates’] significancy for moral philosophy lies in his calling attention to rational knowledge as the source of the moral.”—Wuttke, Christian Ethics (1873), vol. i, p. 69.
502 Histoire des théories et des idées morales dans l’antiquité (1879), t. i, pp. 125 f.
503 Cf. Gorgias, 478, 479.
504 Laws, tr. Jowett, xi. 913. Plato saw what the socialist-philosopher Lloyd saw when he wrote, “More searching ... than the Golden Rule is that which commands us to inquire if what we desire for ourselves and others is a right desire” (Man the Social Creator (1906), p. 147).
505 In the Republic Plato reaches the conception of a Greek brotherhood, but beyond this he never advanced.
506 Xen. Mem. ii. 6, 35.
507 Politics, i. 7, sec. 5; 8, sec. 12; vii. 2, sec. 15; 14, sec. 21.
508 Histoire des théories et des idées morales dans l’antiquité (1879), t. i, p. 228.
509 “A moral ideal which was not coextensive with the whole spiritual nature of man was taken by the schoolmen from the Aristotelian ethics, and then the so-called religious virtues were more or less cumbrously and precariously built upon it. Supernaturalism in morals was added to the classic naturalism as a divine appendix to ethics.”—Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics (1892), p. 133.
510 The downfall of the institutions of the free city state was to Greek morality what the downfall of the papal Church would have been to the morality of the medieval ages.
511 Philopœman and Aratus.
512 This ascetic tendency in Stoicism is doubtless to be attributed to the influence of the Orient upon Greek life and thought.
513 Consistently so, since only through self-control and the avoidance of all excesses of passion, appetite, and desires can one maintain that tranquillity of mind which is the condition precedent of happiness.
514 Lecky, History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 228.
515 Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece, p. 264. The author contrasts this humaneness of the laws of the Athenian democracy four centuries before Christ with the atrocious cruelty of the criminal laws of Christian Europe down almost to the nineteenth century.
516 Social Life in Greece (1888), p. 269.
517 Ibid. p. 554.
518 The Apostle Paul at Athens, seeking common ground with his hearers for the doctrine he preached that God hath made of one blood all nations of men, finds it in the familiar line of the Stoic Cleanthes—“We are the offspring of God.”
519 Plutarch died about 40 A.D.
520 “From contact with the Greeks, therefore, Christianity obtained this support, that an ideal long known to the Western world, the Stoic ideal, was found to correspond with it, so that the preaching of the Apostles was in this respect not out of harmony with the wants and aspirations of the higher and better minds of the age.”—Mahaffy, Progress of Hellenism in Alexander’s Empire (1905), p. 146.
521 “The essential oneness of human moral experience has shown itself in the ethical results achieved by these various peoples.”—Toy, Judaism and Christianity (1891), p. 337.
522 Coulanges, The Ancient City, ii, 9.
523 The authority of the father over each and every member of the family was legally absolute, extending to life and death. Not until late in the Empire did the law forbid fathers to kill their grown-up children or to sell them as slaves. Cf. McKenzie, Studies in Roman Law, 6th ed., p. 141; and Sohm, Institutes (1901), p. 53.
524 Inge, Society in Rome under the Cæsars (1888), p. 8.
525 This Roman virtue of obedience to the state has been just such an enduring force in the moral life of the Christian world as has the Jewish virtue of obedience to a revealed law (see Chapter IX). Historically regarded, the Protestant Church, which makes obedience to a written revealed law a necessary virtue, is the inheritor of the ethical feeling and conviction of ancient Israel; while the Roman Catholic Church, which makes submission to ecclesiastical authority an indispensable virtue, is the inheritor of the ethical tradition and spirit of ancient Rome. See H. M. Gwatkin (co-author), Early Ideals of Righteousness (1910), pp. 71 ff.
526 Tacitus, Annals, iii. 16, 17.
527 This legal subjection of the son to the father, while it developed and strengthened the virtue of obedience, seemed to deaden filial affection. “Of all the forms of virtue,” says Lecky, “filial affection is perhaps that which appears most rarely in Roman history” (History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 299).
528 De Off. i. 17.
529 History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, pp. 177 f.
531 The Moral Ideal, 3d ed., p. 148.
532 Cf. Chapter XVIII.
533 The citizen army, which had been the seed plot of those heroic virtues that cast such a halo around the earlier history of Rome, had been replaced by a mercenary force in which only the coarser military virtues could find sphere for exercise.
534 “The unchecked power of the master ... produced those cold hearts which gloated over the agony of gallant men in the arena.”—Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904), p. 12.
535 Friedlander, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms (1888), Bd. i, S. 479–481; English ed., Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire, vol. i, pp. 243 f.
536 “The senator was forbidden down to the last age of the empire, both by law and sentiment, to increase his fortune by commerce.”—Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. 102.
537 De Off. i. 42.
538 Lecky, History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 271.
539 Friedlander, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms (1889), Bd. ii, S. 414; English ed., Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire, vol. ii, p. 77.
540 “The unusual enthusiasm for the shows is expressed in many a rude sketch which has been traced by boyish hands upon the walls.”—Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. 238.
541 In an eloquent passage Lecky thus sums up the demoralizing effects of the spectacles: “Those hateful games, which made the spectacle of human suffering and death the delight of all classes, had spread their brutalising influence wherever the Roman name was known, had rendered millions absolutely indifferent to the sight of human suffering, had produced in many, in the very centre of an advanced civilization, a relish and a passion for torture, a rapture and an exultation in watching the spasms of extreme agony, such as an African or an American savage alone can equal”. (History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 467).
542 The period which witnessed the greatest inequality of fortunes was the last century of the Republic and the first of the Empire.
543 It should be borne in mind that the clients of this period were wholly different from the clients of the earlier times. The relations of the early clients to their patrons were those of clansmen to their chief; the relations of these later clients to their patrons were the degrading relations of idle, needy dependents to newly rich men without family traditions and socially and morally wholly unfit for their elevation.
544 The History of Rome (1888), vol. ii, p. 524.
545 “The deepest feeling of Tacitus about the early Empire seems to have been that it was fatal to character both in prince and subject.”—Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. 29.
546 The Moral Ideal, 3d ed., p. 204.
547 History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, pp. 332 ff.
548 Ibid. 3d ed., vol. i, p. 227.
549 “Men ceased to be adventurous, patriotic, just, magnanimous; but in exchange they became chaste, tender-hearted, loyal, religious, and capable of infinite endurance in a good cause.”—Seeley, Roman Imperialism (1889), p. 33.
550 The Moral Ideal, 3d ed., p. 187.
551 About 40–120 A.D.
552 Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. 64.
553 Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, pp. 231 f.
554 Cf. Ibid. p. 232.
555 Stoicism is second only to Christianity as a moral force in European civilization. “One of the most important expressions of the moral sense for all time,” affirms Professor Clifford, “is that of the Stoic philosophy, especially after its reception among the Romans” (Lectures and Essays (1901), vol. ii, p. 108). Mahaffy declares that the Stoic philosophy, “above all the human influences we know, purified and ennobled the world” (The Silver Age (1906), p. 103). Denis thinks that it was through Stoicism that Rome did most for civilization (Histoire des théories et des idées morales dans l’antiquité (1879), t. ii, p. 5).
556 Taken from Menander.
557 “One of the most emphatic as well as one of the earliest extant assertions of the duty of charity to the human race occurs in the treatise of Cicero upon duties.”—Lecky, History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 240.
558 De Off. iii. 5.
559 Ibid. iii. xi.
560 Ibid. i. 16.
561 De Finibus, v. 23.
562 Meditations, vi. 44. This and the following citations are from Long’s translation, 2d ed.
563 Ibid. iv. 23. The moral element in the conception of the universal city must not be overlooked. There was implied in it the idea of universal brotherhood, of the ethical oneness of mankind. The creation and promulgation of this conception was one of the great services which Stoicism rendered to civilization.
564 Ibid. iii. 4.
565 Ibid. viii. 59.
566 This subject is dealt with by Lecky, History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, pp. 295 ff.; Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, vol. ii, essay xi, “The Law of Nature.”
567 Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence (1901), vol. ii, p. 143.
568 Sophocles, Antigone.
569 Commenting on the consequences of the inspiration of Roman law by this doctrine of Stoicism, Lecky says: “To the Stoics and the Roman lawyers is mainly due the clear recognition of the existence of a law of nature above and beyond all human enactments, which has been the basis of the best moral and of the most influential, though most chimerical, political speculations of later ages, and the renewed study of Roman law was an important element in the revival that preceded the Reformation” (History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 297).
570 History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 129. Lecky instances (vol. i, p. 292) three ways in which Stoicism worked for good in the Empire: (1) it raised up good emperors; (2) it led men to engage in the public service; and (3) it rendered the law more catholic and humane.
571 Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904), p. 376.
572 “In the Stoic emperors ... we find probably the earliest example of great moral principles applied to legislation on a large scale.”—Clifford, Lectures and Essays, vol. ii, p. 108.
573 Public feeling in regard to the exercise of the patria potestas had been slowly changing during the centuries. Seneca relates (De Clem. i. 14) how within his memory the people furiously assaulted in the Forum a certain knight because he had whipped his son to death.
574 “The alleviations of slavery by the imperial law are essentially traceable to the influence of the Greek view.”—Mommsen, Roman Provinces (1887), vol. i, p. 296.
575 “The majority of the free population had probably either themselves been slaves, or were descended from slaves.”—Lecky, History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 237.
576 Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904), p. 3.
577 Lecky, History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 312.
578 De Clem. i. 18.
579 Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 42–45.
580 Manumissions were frequent even in Seneca’s time. Pliny the Elder was a kind master, regarded his slaves as “humble friends,” and manumitted many of them.
581 The client class of the imperial period was made up almost wholly of freedmen.
582 It is surprising that while in the Stoic and other schools there was, during these centuries, great advance in theoretical ethics in various domains, in that of war there was no essential modification of the views and feelings of the teachers and leaders of moral reforms. In the whole range of Roman literature and philosophy there are to be found scarcely any expressions of disapproval of war. The attitude of the Roman moralists in this matter appears to have been altogether like that of the Greek philosophers. The right to wage war for empire and for glory was taught even by Cicero, only such wars, he insisted, should be waged more gently than wars to recover property, to punish insult, or to avenge a wrong (De Off. i. 12).
583 For the ethics of Christian persecution, see below, p. 324.
584 See on this subject Fiske, Excursions of an Evolutionist (1883), pp. 238 ff.; Hardy, Christianity and the Roman Government (1894), p. 17; Pollock, Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics (1882), p. 147.
585 Besides this main motive of the persecutions there were these minor ones: (1) The teachings and practices of the new sect offended the prevailing spirit of luxury and sensuality; (2) families were divided; (3) the business of many, as that of the silversmiths of Ephesus, was threatened (Acts xix. 24–41); and (4) fear on the part of the government of the danger from the growth of such a strong semi-secret organization as the Church was becoming within the Empire (Hardy, Christianity and the Roman Government (1894), p. 165).
586 “Upon the approach of Christianity humanity took a consciousness more alert and sensitive, and during the first three centuries of our era all the ideas, all the sentiments which constitute morality developed on parallel lines and with remarkable force in the growing Church and in expiring paganism.”—Denis, Histoire des théories et des idées morales dans l’antiquité (1879), t. ii, p. 145.
587 De Off. i. 25.
588 Meditations, xi. 18.
589 Ibid. vii. 36.
590 Ibid. ix. 9; cf. vi. 47.
591 Ibid. vi. 6.
592 Fragments, tr. Long, lxviii; cf. lxvii.
593 Meditations, iii. 4.
594 De Prov. i. 1.
595 Meditations, x. 21.
596 Ibid. ii. 11.
597 Ibid. xii. 5.
598 Ibid. ii. 17.
599 Arrian, Epict. ii. 14; quoted by Lecky, History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 246.
600 Meditations, vii. 31.
601 Ethical Essays, v, “On those who are punished by the Deity late.”
602 De Off. ii. 14.
603 Ibid. ii. 5.
604 Ibid. i. 7.
605 Ibid. iii. 6.
606 Ibid. iii. 4. Compare this expression of the ancient Greek and Roman moral consciousness with that of the modern Japanese (see p. 86).
607 Ibid. ii. 12.
608 De Clem. ii. 6. The trouble with this philosophy, as has been said, is that if one does not feel pity for the sufferings of others he will not be likely to help them.
609 Cicero, however, denied the right of self-destruction, and Vergil mildly censured the act. See Æneid, vi. 434.
610 Discourses, i. 9.
611 Meditations, v. 29.
612 Ep. lxx; quoted by Lecky, History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 218.
613 De Prov. i. 2.
614 Zeno, the founder of the school, and Cato, its exemplifier in active life, both committed suicide.
615 Compare the views on this subject of the ancient classical peoples with those of the modern Japanese (see p. 85 and p. 86 n. 1.).
616 Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, 3d ed. (1909), p. 67.
617 History of European Morals, 3d ed., vol. i, p. 324.
618 Paulsen, A System of Ethics, tr. Thilly (1906), pp. 111 f.
619 The cult of Isis when introduced into the Western lands favored illicit love, but by the second century of our era it had, in its new environment, become so far transformed as to be a true moral force in society. “Sacrament and mystery lent their aid to fortify the worshiper [of Isis] in the face of death, but, to derive their full virtue, he must exercise himself in temperance, abjure the pleasures of the senses, and purify himself for the vision of God” (Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904), p. 583).
620 On this subject see Franz Cumont, Les Mystères de Mithra (1892); English ed., The Mysteries of Mithra, tr. McCormack.
621 “It [Mithraism] is perhaps the highest and most striking example of the last efforts of paganism to reconcile itself to the great moral and spiritual movement which was settling steadily, and with growing momentum, toward purer conceptions of God, of man’s relations to Him, and of the life to come.”—Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. 585.
622 “On peut dire que, si le christianisme eût été arrêté dans sa croissance par quelque maladie mortelle, le monde eût été Mithriaste.”—Renan, Marc-Aurèle, 5me ed., p. 579.
623 “Isis and Serapis and Mithra were preparing the Western world for the religion which was to approve the long travail of humanity by a more perfect vision of the divine.”—Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904), p. 574.
624 Acts xvii. 29.
625 New to the multitude. Some of the Stoic philosophers, as we have seen, held and taught this doctrine.
626 The Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece, and some Oriental cults, particularly that of Mithra, imported into the Roman Empire, made the participation in a blessed life beyond the grave dependent upon moral purity of life on earth and through this doctrine exercised a favorable influence upon morality (see p. 254).
627 This thought and conviction of the immortality of the individual was, it is possible, in part the outcome of the decay of the ancient city, whose fancied eternity had satisfied for a time the instinct of immortality. But when some centuries had passed, the “Romans sailed round the Mediterranean and recognized that the cities of the past were not eternal, and with the same waft of conviction came a compensating belief that eternity was the heritage of every son of man. Immortality arose on the horizon of the man, as its last glow faded from the city” (Wedgwood, The Moral Ideal, 3d ed., p. 341). It was the same in Judea; as immortality faded from the political horizon of Israel, it arose on that of the individual soul.
628 Though the account of the fall of man forms the prelude of the Hebrew Scriptures, the conception never influenced to an appreciable degree pre-Christian ethics.