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The poems of Persius are valuable chiefly as showing a good naturel amid corrupt surroundings, and forming a striking comment on the change which had come over Latin letters. Another Stoic philosopher, probably known to Persius, was C. MUSONIUS RUFUS, like him an Etruscan by birth, and a successful teacher of the young.
It is likely that some new things of Musonius and Seneca have come out. I am looking also for Persius, and a certain edition of the Eclogues of Vergilius, which I do not possess. Oh, how tired I am; and how my hands ache from covers and rings! For when a man is once in a book-shop curiosity seizes him to look here and there.
Born, about the middle of the first century, A.D., in Hierapolis, Phrygia; originally a slave, but became a freedman of Epaphroditus, a favorite of the emperor Nero; a pupil of Musonius Rufus; taught philosophy at Rome; banished with other philosophers by Domitian and settled in Nicopolis, Epirus, where he taught philosophy, his doctrines being compiled by his pupil Arrian, the historian; he wrote nothing himself.
The stoic school produced the lofty characters of Cremutius Cordus, Thraseas, Arria, Helvidius Priscus, Annæus Cornutus, and Musonius Rufus, admirable masters of aristocratic virtue. The rigidity and exaggeration of this school arose from the horrible cruelty of the Cæsars. The continual thought of a good man was how to inure himself to suffering, and prepare himself for death.
In another man these would appear great virtues, but in Artemidorus they appear mere trifles compared with his other noble qualities, which obtained for him the distinction of being chosen by Caius Musonius as his son-in-law amid a crowd of disciples belonging to all ranks of society.
I forbear to mention how patient he is of heat and cold alike, how indefatigable in labour, how abstemious in his food, and what an absolute restraint he puts upon all his appetites; for these qualities, considerable as they would certainly be in any other character, are less noticeable by the side of the rest of those virtues of his which recommended him to Musonius for a son-in-law, in preference to so many others of all ranks who paid their addresses to his daughter.
"Yet on the nimble air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts in sloth and ease. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST, The youth replies, 'I CAN." One more trait of the character of Musonius will show how deeply Epictetus respected him, and how much good he derived from him.
I have not, however, found any authority for this statement. It may be supposed that the young slave showed intelligence, for his master sent or permitted him to attend the lectures of C. Musonius Rufus, an eminent Stoic philosopher.
I had, as far as the differences between our ages would admit, a friendship for his father-in-law Musonius, whom I both loved and esteemed, while Artemidorus himself I entered into the closest intimacy with when I was serving as a military tribune in Syria.
Long before this, Musonius Rufus, an aristocratic Stoic, had admitted slaves to his lectures, and at the risk of his life had preached peace to the armies of Vitellius and Vespasian. And this wide-spread movement had, as we have seen, been continued by men like Dio, and later still by Apuleius. But by thus gaining in width it lost greatly in depth.
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