[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.