Walking since the time of Socrates 

Socrates was known for walking barefoot. His student Antisthenes, who inspired the Cynics and Stoics, likewise walked barefoot for miles to listen to him talk each day. It’s said they were both good friends with a shoe-maker called Simon. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes used to say that both mental and physical training are required to become a true philosopher. Constant physical exercise that is in accord with nature leads to a ful-filled life. 

The walking Stoics 

Like their Cynic predecessors, the Stoics had an interesting attitude toward walking. 

• Zeno was renowned for lecturing on phi-losophy while walking briskly up and down the Stoa Poikile or “Painted Porch” where he started his school. (We’re told that prevented lazy students from slouch-ing on the floor.) He disliked being among a crowd of people, such as at a drinking party or dinner, and preferred to spend his evenings either walking alone or with no more than two or three companions. 
• His successor as head of the Stoic school, Cleanthes, walked around all night water-ing gardens to make a living. 
• Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoic school, was a long-distance runner. He warned his students that when they’ were consumed by passionate desires and emo-tions they resembled someone running too quickly to avoid obstacles in their path. The wise man resembles someone walking (or running) slowly enough to be able to stop or change direction whenever he chooses to do so—he’s still in control of his own actions. 
• Cato of Utica, the great Stoic hero of the Roman Civil War, attracted attention be-cause, unusually for a military officer, he generally avoided riding a horse and walked everywhere. Plutarch implies this was part of training himself in “shamelessness” (like a Cynic) as well as a means of developing physical endurance. 
• Seneca, another Roman Stoic, likewise recommends walking in the fresh air as an exercise for Stoics. “We should take wan-dering outdoor walks,” he says, “so that the mind might be nourished and re-freshed by the open air and deep breath-ing.” He frequently says you can judge a man’s character by the way he walks. 

Be careful where you tread 

The ancient philosophers believed that walk-ing barefoot encouraged circumspection. Epictetus says, for instance, that someone walking barefoot must obviously be careful where he treads, in case he steps on a nail or hurts his foot. To walk with wisdom is to walk with self-awareness, mindful of how we are using both our body and our mind, from moment to moment. It’s our ruling faculty, our faculty of judgement, that we have to watch like a hawk. 

Epictetus tells his students about a highly regarded Stoic philosopher called Euphrates of Tyre who spent years secretly living as a philosopher, patiently training himself to eat with moderation and to walk around with mindfulness and in a self-possessed manner. 

Contemplative walking 

Epictetus asks his students: “Do you read when you are walking?” No, he says, if you want to become true philosophers, like Eu-phrates, you should walk alone and silently converse with yourself about the deepest questions in life without paying too much attention to other people’s opinions or what’s written in books: 

Man, if you are anything, both walk alone and talk to yourself, and do not hide yourself in the chorus. 

Get into the habit of examining your own mind and the world around you while walk-ing in deep philosophical contemplation, Epictetus says, so that you may come to know who you really are. 

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Donald Robertson is an author and Cognitive Behaviour Therapist. His latest book is How to Think Like a Roman Emperor 

(https://amzn.to/2SswfJ1) 

 

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