The movie The Gladiator tells the story of "The general who became a slave. The
slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor." Terrific as
it is, the tale is but one manifestation of a recurring theme, which I have
observed since coming to the west in 1999, and especially since acquainted
through their writings with a few Greek and Roman sages. The "true" emperor in
the film, Marcus Aurelius, was one of them.
When I am happy and smug, I don't need the Stoics. It is always
when I am in fear, gloom, despair, or otherwise stressed that I consult them.
Like old friends, they don't beat around the bush or confuse to profit but give
it to me straight. They state the truth and tell me what to do about it. In the
movie, Maximus quotes Marcus as saying "Death smiles at us all. All that man can
do is smile back." I can't imagine better instructions on death. They called
teachings like this philosophy.
The four virtues according to Marcus are wisdom, justice, fortitude, and
temperance. The American Heritage Dictionary 4th ed defines the phrase
'cardinal virtue' as
One of the four paramount virtues in classical philosophy:
justice, prudence, fortitude, or temperance.
And the thesarus (an Apple Inc. app, version 2.3.0-268) lists wisdom as the
first synonym of prudence. Therefore, like the 仁义礼智信 for the Chinese, for
thousands of years the virtues have stayed in the western conciousness.
It was in another bout of depression when I opened Marcus's "Meditations" and
before reaching the text, met in the introduction the phrase "virtue above
pleasure." Now that I know what he meant by a virtue, the instruction is clear.
