449. Stoicism, received into favour in the second century A.D., won new opportunities and was exposed to new dangers. Its greatest achievement lay in the development of Roman law. As we have just seen[120], the ‘old Romans’ of Nero’s day, in spite of their profession of Stoicism, were unbending upholders of the old law, with all its harshness and narrowness; and we have to go back a hundred years to the great lawyers of the times of Sulla and Cicero[121] to meet with men prepared to throw aside old traditions and build anew on the foundations of natural justice. But the larger view had not been lost sight of. It remained as the ideal of the more generous-minded members of the imperial civil service; and in the times of the emperors Antoninus Pius (138-161 A.D.) and Marcus Aurelius (161-180 A.D.) it became the starting-point for a new development of Roman law, which is one of the great achievements of Roman history. The most eloquent of the historians of the origins of Christianity thus describes this movement.
‘Le stoïcisme avait [déjà] pénétré le droit romain de ses larges maximes, et en avait fait le droit naturel, le droit philosophique, tel que la raison peut le concevoir pour tous les hommes. Le droit strict cède à l’équité; la douceur l’emporte sur la sévérité; la justice paraît inséparable de la bienfaisance. Les grands jurisconsultes d’Antonin continuèrent la même œuvre. Le dernier [Volusius Moecianus] fut le maître de Marc-Aurèle en fait de jurisprudence, et, à vrai dire, l’œuvre des deux saints empereurs ne saurait être séparée. C’est d’eux que datent la plupart de ces lois humaines et sensées qui fléchirent la rigueur du droit antique et firent, d’une législation primitivement étroite et implacable, un code susceptible d’être adopté par tous les peuples civilisés[122].’
In the legislation of Antoninus and Aurelius the humane and cosmopolitan principles of Stoic politics at last triumph over Roman conservatism. The poor, the sick, the infant, and the famine-stricken are protected. The slave is treated as a human being; to kill him becomes a crime, to injure him a misdemeanour; his family and his property are protected by the tribunals. Slavery in fact is treated as a violation of the rights of nature; manumission is in every way encouraged. The time is within sight when Ulpian will declare that ‘all men, according to natural right, are born free and equal[123].’ This legislation is not entirely the work of professed Stoics; it is nevertheless the offspring of Stoicism.
Repression of zeal.
450. There was in the second century, as there is still, a sharp antagonism between the manners of cultivated society and the ardent profession of intellectual convictions. An anecdote related by Gellius well illustrates the social forces which were now constantly at work to check superfluous enthusiasm.
‘There was with us at table a young student of philosophy who called himself a Stoic, but chiefly distinguished himself by an unwelcome loquacity. He was always bringing up in season and out of season recondite philosophical doctrines, and he looked upon all his neighbours as boors because they were unacquainted with them. His whole talk was strown with mention of syllogisms, fallacies, and the like, such as the “master-argument,” the “quiescent,” and the “heap”; and he thought that he was the only man in the world who could solve them. Further he maintained that he had thoroughly studied the nature of the soul, the growth of virtue, the science of daily duties, and the cure of the weaknesses and diseases of the mind. Finally he considered he had attained to that state of perfect happiness which could be clouded by no disappointment, shaken by no pains of death[124].’
Such a man, we may think, might soon have become an apostle of sincere Stoicism, and might have left us a clear and systematic exposition of Stoic doctrine as refined by five centuries of experience. It was not to be. The polished Herodes Atticus crushed him with a quotation from the discourses of Epictetus. Not many offended in the same way. Even Seneca had been severe on useless study in the regions of history and antiquity[125]; the new philosophers despised the study even of philosophy.
State establishment of philosophy.
451. The Stoicism of the second century is therefore much less sharply defined than that of earlier times. Its doctrines, acquired in childhood, are accepted with ready acquiescence; but they are not accompanied by any firm repudiation of the opposing views of other schools. Once more, as in the time of Augustus, the ‘philosopher’ comes to the front; the particular colour of his philosophy seems of less importance[126]. It is philosophy in general which wins the patronage of the emperors. Nerva allowed the schools of the philosophers to be re-opened; Trajan interested himself in them as providing a useful training for the young. Hadrian went further, and endowed the teachers of philosophy at Rome; Antoninus Pius did the same throughout the provinces. Marcus Aurelius established representatives of each of the philosophic schools at Athens; and amongst later emperors Septimius Severus, aided by his wife Julia Domna, was conspicuous in the same direction. The philosophers, who had firmly resisted persecution, gradually sacrificed their independence under the influence of imperial favour. They still recited the dogmas of their respective founders, but unconsciously they became the partisans of the established forms of government and religion. Yet so gentle was the decay of philosophy that it might be regarded as progress if its true position were not illuminated by the attitude of Marcus Aurelius towards the Christians. For Marcus Aurelius was universally accepted as the most admirable practical representative of philosophy in its full ripeness, and no word of criticism of his policy was uttered by any teacher of Stoicism.