About This Library
Most of Stoicism is lost. For nearly five centuries it was one of the great philosophies of the ancient world, and it produced a vast literature. Almost none of it survives. Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, the founders who wrote hundreds of books between them, come down to us only in fragments and in stray quotations by later writers.
What we can still read whole comes mostly from the Roman Stoics, centuries later. Seneca was one of the richest men in Rome and some of his letters survived. Marcus Aurelius ran the empire and kept a private notebook that was preserved after his death. Epictetus, a former slave, lectured at a school in northwest Greece, and some of his student Arrian’s notes survived. Musonius Rufus, Epictetus’s teacher, got the same treatment from a student named Lucius.
The Stoic Library presents complete public-domain translations of these primary Stoic works. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius appear in translations by George Long (1862) and C. R. Haines (1916). The Enchiridion of Epictetus appears in translations by Elizabeth Carter (1758) and Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1890). Seneca’s Moral Letters to Lucilius are given in Richard M. Gummere’s three-volume translation (1917–1925). The lectures and fragments of Musonius Rufus appear in Cora E. Lutz’s translation (1947). Epictetus’s four surviving books of Discourses and Oldfather’s selected fragments appear in W. A. Oldfather’s translation (1925–1928).
A personal note
I was introduced to Stoicism via a novel: Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full. A character is unjustly imprisoned and, having nothing better to do, uses Epictetus as a blueprint to reformat and reboot himself as an Übermensch. Essentially every man’s secret fantasy. I read and loved Epictetus as well after that, but it took the influence of my cousin Elliot to draw me into Marcus Aurelius.
After Elliot died, I borrowed (stole) some of his essence to perform an arcane ritual, forming a secret society (cult), consecrated to (Our Master) Epictetus and (Heavenly Sovereign) Marcus Aurelius, and this Stoic Library is a byproduct of that. (Unlike our rival Cabals, we do not hoard our doctrines: we share them freely, delighting in the spread of wisdom and virtue!)
For , who found beauty in the foam that flew from the mouths of wild boars.
Printed editions
- Meditations, translated by Gregory Hays (Modern Library) a clear, contemporary rendering of Marcus.
- Epictetus: The Complete Works, translated by Robin Waterfield (University of Chicago Press) a recent, highly readable rendering of the Discourses, the Handbook (Enchiridion), and fragments.
- Seneca: Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius, translated by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long (University of Chicago Press) the first complete modern translation of all 124 letters, scholarly yet readable.
- Musonius Rufus: That One Should Disdain Hardships, translated by Cora E. Lutz (Yale University Press) the Lutz translation hosted here, in a modern Yale edition with a fresh introduction.
Further reading
Two books I personally recommend beyond the primary texts:
- How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, by Donald Robertson My sister gave me this book, but the title cheesed me out, so I didn’t read it for years. I guess I just wasn’t ready for it, because when I finally opened it, I loved it immediately. Meditations is a private journal. This book operationalizes it, and puts it within the context of modern psychology.
- A Man in Full, by Tom Wolfe As above, so below.
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