Musonius Rufus, the man who taught Stoicism to Epictetus, was known as the Roman Socrates. He was a highly regarded philospher during his time.

Musonius did not write anything himself, or if he did, it did not survive him. All his teachings were compiled by two of his students. His lectures were collected as Discourses by Lucius (which formed the basis of the extracts by Stobaeus), and the Fragments were compiled by Polio. The following is Musonius’s “Lecture 10.”

If you cannot even despise insults,
how can you despise death?

Consider what people think they are hurt by when they experience them. None of those things – being ridiculed, beaten, and spat upon – can really hurt them or disgrace them. Of these, the worst is assault. When they are whipped in public, Spartan boys revel in it. If a philosopher cannot despise blows and insults when he should despise even death, what good is he?

But, you say, the spirit of the man who does such things – slapping, jeering, being abusive, etc. – is monstrous. Demosthenes believes that people can insult with a simple glance. Such glances are unbearable and, one way or another, people lose control because of them. 

We are concerned about what others think because we can’t tell the really good from the really evil

People who do not know what is really good and what is really shameful, and those who are overly concerned with what others think, believe they are injured if someone looks at them, laughs at them, hits them, or ridicules them. But, the wise and sensible people (what philosophers should be) are not disturbed by any of these things. They don’t believe that being insulted is shameful, but being insulting is.

What wrong did the insulted person do? It is the person who does the insulting who puts himself to shame. The person who suffered the insult did not do anything wrong and had no reason to feel shame or disgrace.

Therefore, a sensible person would not file lawsuits or indictments since he doesn’t believe he is injured. In fact, it is petty to be annoyed by such things. Rather, he will calmly and quietly bear what has happened as this is the right behaviour for someone whose purpose it is to be noble-minded.

Socrates clearly refused to be upset when Aristophanes publicly ridiculed him. When Socrates happened to meet him, he asked Aristophanes if he would like to use him in any other role. It was unlikely that this man would have become angry if he had been the target of some minor insults – he was not upset even when he was ridiculed in the theatre.

Phocion the Good didn’t even think of bringing charges against the insulter when his wife was insulted. In fact, the insulter came to Phocion in fear and asked for his forgiveness saying that he was not aware that the woman was Phocion’s wife. He simply replied, “My wife didn’t suffer anything because of you. Perhaps some other woman has. So you don’t need to apologise to me.” [Phocion was an Athenian politician who lived around 4th Century BCE. He was elected stategos or “general” forty-five times.]

I could name many others who have experienced insult – some by word, others by violence and bodily harm. They appear neither to have defended themselves against the attackers nor have sought revenge; they bore the wrong. To scheme how to bite back the biter and return evil for evil is not the act of a human being, but of a wild beast. A wild beast cannot reason that the majority of the wrongs are done to people through ignorance and misunderstanding. Once people gain this understanding, they will stop doing wrong things.

Be a source of good hope to your attackers

The mark of a compassionate and civilized life is to be a source of good hope to those who offend us and not to be merciless. A philosopher who thinks that anyone who wrongs him is worthy of forgiveness is better than someone who thinks of defending himself with lawsuits. Such a philosopher disgraces himself by acting contrary to his teachings. After all, a philosopher is inconsistent if he says that a good person can ever be wronged by a bad person. Yet, while claiming himself to be a good man, he brings up an indictment of being wronged by a bad man.
 

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