02 - Teles and Musonius on the Exiled Philosopher

Musonius's Discourse Περὶ φυγῆς appeals to the philosopher's own experience on Gyaros; as Whitmarsh has shown (141-55), exile is an element in his self-fashioning. And the contemporary resonance of the topic cannot be doubted in a period when banishment to an island was an option for imperial censure and when philosophers were soon to be removed from Rome by Vespasian's decree. Van Geytenbeek (147) and others have noted, however, that the content of Musonius's work is startlingly close to that of Teles the Cynic, writing on the same subject in the 3rd century BCE.

In the broader context, both discourses belong to the longstanding tradition identified by Cicero in Tusc. 3.81 as a subtype of the consolatio, with other examples in Seneca, Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch, and Favorinus. But the connection between Teles and Musonius is especially close as concerns the nature of the good, just where the similar treatise of Plutarch takes a more Platonic line (Nesselrath 92). A common source has been suspected, perhaps in Stilpo of Megara (so Gieseke 25-26), an associate of Crates and Bion whose lost writings have left traces in Seneca (Graver). Musonius's emphasis on the "city of Zeus," i.e., the community of all rational beings, lacks a direct precedent in Teles, but can easily be tied to other reports of Cynic thought; e.g. Diog. Laert 6.63.

In a 2017 essay, Brad Inwood challenges the tendency of Reydams-Schils and others to treat Musonius as an especially characteristic representative of Roman Stoicism. While conceding the affinities with Cynicism (which indeed have long been recognized, e.g. in Goulet-Cazé and van Geytenbeek), Inwood pushes beyond them to represent Musonius as receptive to a variety of philosophical traditions, "more a pioneer in the development of the role of ‘generic philosopher' than a fundamentally Stoic or even specifically Cynic thinker" (257). Though similarly reluctant to treat Musonius as canonical, I find that Inwood's reading does too little justice to the underlying cohesiveness of his thought. On the basis of these exile discourses, at any rate, I would be more inclined to stress the ongoing appeal of Cynicism, in suitably domesticated form, among Romans with Stoic leanings.

As Valéry Laurand remarks in a perceptive treatment of the issue, it is initially surprising that Musonius, with his deep investment in social relations, should be so little concerned for the Stoic norm of active participation in one's political community (426). Deeper consideration of relevant strands in Stoic political philosophy finds him to be in harmony with other Stoics on such points as the friendship of the wise, relations to the corrupt state, and what may be called philosophical patriotism. Exile becomes a kind of test case, in which the communitarian ideals that are so important throughout his work turn out to have been, all along, ‘inner' or spiritualized notions, ones that continue to matter even in abstraction from pragmatic philosophy.

Presenters

Margaret Graver, Dartmouth College



  SCS-55

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