The Stoicism of Augustus

The Lost Exhortations to Philosophy

The most famous Stoic philosopher is, without doubt, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Countless people have read his book The Meditations since the first English translation appeared in the early 17th century. Many moviegoers also became familiar with Marcus from Richard Harris’ portrayal of him in the Hollywood sword-and-sandals epic Gladiator (2000). However, it’s less well-known that, over a century before Marcus was born, the first Roman emperor was also a student of Stoicism and the author of an essay praising philosophy.

The man we call Augustus (63 BC — 14 AD) was the founder of the Roman empire. Early in his life he was known as Octavian, the grand-nephew of the dictator Julius Caesar. Lacking any legitimate offspring, Caesar adopted Octavian and named him his heir. Following Caesar’s assassination on the Ides of March 44 BC, Rome went through a long period of political instability which culminated in the naval Battle of Actium (30 BC). The fleet of Octavian defeated the combined forces of Mark Antony and his lover, Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt. Octavian was left the sole ruler of Rome and gradually accumulated more and more powers. In 27 BC, the senate granted him the titles Augustus and Princeps, or first citizen, effectively becoming emperor and defining the role that would be occupied by his successors for centuries to come.

Augustus was certainly never remembered as a Stoic philosopher in the sense that Marcus Aurelius was. However, the historian Suetonius claims in Lives of the Caesars that Augustus was the author of numerous writings including a lost work titled Exhortations to Philosophy. We’re told that late in life Augustus would read these to a group of his intimate friends, as though delivering a class in a lecture room. Suetonius also mentions a text by Augustus called “Reply to Brutus on Cato”. We can probably assume this was a response to…

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