If you want to be physically fit and strong, you must train your body to obey your mind. If you seek to extend your influence through conquest,you must learn the arts of war from expats. To make going to sleep pleasant, you're forced to provide yourself with the softest beds and blankets that money can buy. For it's not work that makes you want to retire to your bed, but boredom. This is the sort of training you offer your so-called friends, exciting their passions by night and putting them to sleep for the best part of the day. Although you are an immortal, she continued, you've been turned out by all of the other gods and are sc
This is the famous speech, which we’re told inspired Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, to embark on a life of philosophy. He came across it in Book Two of Xenophon’s Memorabilia Socratis, where Socrates is portrayed reciting a version of it, which he learned from the celebrated Sophist and orator, Prodicus. It’s an exhortation to philosophy, which uses the legend of Hercules as an allegory to illustrate the choice between a life of virtue and one of vice. This story was illustrated in our graphic novel, Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.
Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Highlights
* Introducing the speech
* Hercules confronted by the choice between two paths in life
* The temptations of Kakia or Vice, to a life of pleasure and idleness
* The exhortation of Arete or Virtue, to temperance and endurance
* The legacy of the speech and influence on Stoicism
Get full access to Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life at
donaldrobertson.substack.com/subscribe