The Daily Stoic - Cicero on The Paradox of the Fool

Episode Date: March 26, 2023

Ryan presents the first of six readings of Cicero's Stoic Paradoxes. Cicero was considered Rome’s greatest politician, and he has survived as one of history’s most enduring chroniclers of Stoic philosophy and the Stoics themselves. As Ryan explains in Lives of the Stoics, these paradoxes are designed to question commonly held beliefs in order to promote reflection and discussion. In that spirit, the paradox that Cicero examines today, the fourth paradox, explores the idea that “every fool is an exile and the wise person cannot be harmed.”✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, from the Stoic texts, audio books that you like here recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly that you're able to apply it to actual life. Thank you for listening. with life. Thank you for listening. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another Sunday episode of The Daily Stoic podcast. We've been talking about Cicero recently, who's one of the more interesting of the Stoics. Or, you know, I do profile him in lives of the Stookes, but I call him the fellow traveler.

He's very interested in Stoke philosophy. He writes about it eloquently. He writes about it beautifully, but he's not exactly a practitioner. I mean, by our political standards, he is a wise and moral and philosophical man, but compared to, say, a Marcus Aurelius, closer to your ordinary politician. I guess I'm not totally being fair. He's a complicated figure. If you want to read more about Cicero, you can check out his profile in Lives of the Stoics.

Anthony Everett, who was a recent podcast guest, has a fantastic biography on Cicero. But in today's episode, I'm going to bring you more directly from the horse's mouth. Cicero writes many things, many of his speeches survived to us, many of which are quite interesting. He had a very keen eye towards his position in history. We don't need to get into that right now. But in today's episode, I'm going to bring you another chunk of his work which most directly concerns the Stoic and Stoic philosophy. It's a work he titled on the Stoic Paradoxes. And he's basically exploring paradoxes. And he's basically exploring sort of these sayings or epigrams, which encapsulate a stoic idea. They're not exactly paradoxes per se, but they are complex and complicated.

They seem like a contradiction until you understand what the Stoics are really saying, this one is that all fools are mad, or that every fool is a mad man. So, I'll let Cicero explain what he means. We'll get right into it. You'll decide if you agree if it's a paradox or not. And we'll let Cicero take us away. Enjoy. and we'll let Cicero take us away. Enjoy. The Dell Technologies Black Friday in July event is on with limited quantity deals on top business PCs with Windows 11 Pro. Save on select Vostro laptops with built-in OS recovery fingerprint readers and antivirus protections. Plus, you can save on select latitude laptops with a wide range of built-in privacy collaboration and connectivity features. Enjoy unmatched productivity and connectivity with incredible savings on our best tech. Get free shipping and special financing with Dell Business

Credit. Dell Technologies recommends Windows 11 Pro for business. Find the right tech for your needs by calling a Dell Technologies Advisor at 877-Ask-Dell, that's 877-Ask-Dell offered to business customers by Web Bank who determines qualifications for in terms of credit. Paradox 4. That every fool is a madman. Translator note, this paradox takes for a illustration the life of Publius Clodius, a Roman soldier of noble birth, but infamous for the corruption of his morals.

He was ultimately slain by the retinue of Milo, in an encounter which took place between the two as Milo was journeying toward Leneuvium, his native place, and Claudius was on his way to Rome. I will now convict you by infallible considerations, not as a fool as I have often done, nor as a villain as I always do, but as insane and mad. Could the mind of the wise man fortified as with walls by depth of counsel, by patient endurance of human ills, by contempt of fortune, in short, by all the virtues, a mind that could not be expelled out of his community. Shall such a mind be overpowered and taken by storm? For what do we call a community?

Surely, not every assembly of thieves and ruffians, is it then the entire rabble of outlaws and robbers assembled in one place? No, you will doubtless reply. Then this was no community when its laws had no force, when its courts of justice were prostrated, when the custom of the country had fallen into contempt. When the magistrates having been driven away by the sword, there was not even the name of a senate in the state. Could that gang of ruffians, that assembly of villains which you had in the forum,

could those remains of Catalign's frantic conspiracy, diverted to your mad and guilty schemes, be termed a community? I could not therefore be expelled from a community, because no such then existed. I was summoned back to a community when there was a consul in the state, which at the former time there was not, when there was a senate which then had ceased to exist, when the voice of the people was free, and when laws and equity, those bonds of a community had been restored. But see how much I despised the shaft of your villainy. That you aimed your villainous wrongs at me, I was always aware.

But that they reached me, I never thought. It is true, you might think that somewhat belonging to me was tumbling down or consuming when you were demolishing my walls and applying your detestable torches to the roofs of my houses. But neither I nor any man can call that our own which can be taken away, plundered or lost. Could you have robbed me of my God-like constancy of mind, of my application, of my vigilance, and of those measures through which, to your confusion, the republic now exists? Could you have abolished the eternal memory of this lasting service? For more, had you robbed me of that soul from which these designs emanated, then, indeed, I should have confessed that I had received an injury. But as you neither did nor could do this, your persecution rendered my return glorious, but not my departure miserable. I, therefore, was always a citizen of Rome,

but especially at the time when the Senate charged foreign nations with my preservation as the best of her citizens. Life can get you down. I'm no stranger to that. When I find things that are piling up, I'm struggling to deal with something. Obviously, I use my journal, obviously, I turn to stochism, but I also turn to my therapist, which I've had for a long time and has helped me through a bunch of stuff.

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slash stoic to match with a license therapist today, go to talkspace.com slash stoic to get 80 bucks off your first month and show your support for the daily stoic. That's talkspace.com slash stoic. It's funny. I talked to lots of people and a good chunk of those people haven't been readers for a long time. They've just gotten back into it. And I always love hearing that and they tell me how they fall in love with reading. They're reading more than ever and I go, let me guess, you listen audio books, don't you? And it's true.

And almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. And that's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every genre from best sellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs. And of course, ancient philosophy, all my books are available on audio, read by me for the most part. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app. You'll always find the best of what you love, or something new to discover, and as an Audible member, you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites, exclusive new series, and exciting new voices in audio. You can check out Stillness's The Key, The Daily

Dad. I just recorded so that's up on Audible now. Coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the obstacle is the way audio books, so all those are available, and new members can try Audible for free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash daily stoke, or text daily stoke to 500-500. That's audible.com slash daily stoke, text daily stoke to 500 500 that's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500. As to you, you are at this time no citizen unless the same person can be at once a citizen and an enemy. Can you distinguish a citizen from an enemy by the accident of nature and place and not by its affections and actions? You have perpetrated a massacre in the form and occupied the temples with bands of armed

ruffians. You have set on fire the temples of the gods and the houses of private citizens. If you are a citizen, in what sense was Spartacus and enemy? Can you be a citizen through whom, for a time, the state had no existence? And do you apply to me your own designation when all mankind thought that on my departure, Rome herself was gone into exile. Thou most frantic of all madmen will thou never look around thee. Will thou never consider what thou sayest, or what thou doest. Thus thou not know that exile is the penalty of guilt, but that the journey I set out upon was undertaken by me, in consequence of the most illustrious exploits performed by me.

All the criminals, all the profflegates, of whom you avail yourself the leader, and on whom our laws pronounce the sentence of banishment, are exiles, even though they have not changed their locality. At the time when all our laws doomed thee to banishment, will thou not be an exile? Is not the man an enemy who carries about him offensive weapons? A cutthroat belonging to you was taken near the Senate House. Who has murdered a man? You have murdered many. Who is an incendiary? You, for with your own hand, you set fire to the temple of the nymphs.

Who violated the temples? You pitched your camp in the forum, but what do I talk of well-known laws, all which doom you to exile, for your most intimate friend carried through a bill with reference to you, by which you were condemned to be banished? If it was found that you had presented yourself at the mysteries of the goddess, Bona, and you are even accustomed to boast that you did so. As therefore you have by so many laws been doomed to banishment, how is it that you do not shrink from the designation of exile?

You say you are still in room and that you are present at the mysteries too, but a man will not be free of the place where he may be if he cannot be there with the sanction of the laws. Thanks for listening to The Daily Stoke Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in The Daily Stoke Store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The app goes the way. You go as the enemy, still in this is the key.

The leatherbound edition of the Daily Stoke. We have them all in the Daily Stoke Store, which you can check out the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace,

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You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet. honor, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet.