Philosophers Who Lived By Their Words (& One Who Didn't)
Influencers of History
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In the spring of AD 65, an old man in a villa outside Rome drank the same hemlock Athens gave to Socrates. He had kept it hidden for years so he could die exactly the way his hero did. Nothing happened.
To understand why that cup failed him, you have to meet two philosophers whose cups never did.
Diogenes of Sinope lost his citizenship in a scandal over defaced coins, moved into a clay storage jar beside the Athens marketplace, threw away his only cup after watching a boy drink from his hands, walked the streets in broad daylight with a lamp looking for a man, and told Alexander the Great to stand out of his sunlight. Socrates refused an order from the Thirty Tyrants, answered the jury that convicted him by asking for free meals for life, turned down a bribed guard and a hiding place in Thessaly, and drank the hemlock without complaint.
And then there is Seneca, the Stoic who wrote that wealth is a burden and exile can't harm a wise man. He was accused of piling up three hundred million sesterces, begged his way off Corsica, tutored Nero, and may have written the letter that excused the murder of Nero's mother. So was he a liar? He answered that himself, and his answer is either the most honest thing a hypocrite ever wrote or the most convenient excuse in the history of philosophy.
Chapters 0:00 The cup that failed 1:04 Deface the Currency 2:45 The Dog of Athens 5:40 Out of My Sunlight 8:01 The Man Who Knew Nothing 10:04 The Order He Refused 11:07 The Trial 12:57 The Open Door 15:03 The Stoic Millionaire 16:47 Tutor to a Monster 19:31 The Cup, Again 21:39 So, was he a liar?
Sources include Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Eminent Philosophers; Plato's Apology, Crito, Phaedo and Symposium; Tacitus' Annals (Book 15 for Seneca's death); Cassius Dio; and Seneca's own On the Happy Life, his consolations to his mother Helvia and to Polybius, and his Letters to Lucilius. Where the ancient sources disagree or had a grudge, the video says so. That covers the coin scandal, the story that Diogenes and Alexander died on the same day, Suillius' three hundred million, and Dio's account of the Boudica loans.
Every image and clip in this video was created for it. Nothing on screen is a photograph or footage of the events shown.
#Philosophy #Stoicism #History
Philosophers Who Lived By Their Words (& One Who Didn't)
Influencers of History
204 views
In the spring of AD 65, an old man in a villa outside Rome drank the same hemlock Athens gave to Socrates. He had kept it hidden for years so he could die exactly the way his hero did. Nothing happened.
To understand why that cup failed him, you have to meet two philosophers whose cups never did.
Diogenes of Sinope lost his citizenship in a scandal over defaced coins, moved into a clay storage jar beside the Athens marketplace, threw away his only cup after watching a boy drink from his hands, walked the streets in broad daylight with a lamp looking for a man, and told Alexander the Great to stand out of his sunlight. Socrates refused an order from the Thirty Tyrants, answered the jury that convicted him by asking for free meals for life, turned down a bribed guard and a hiding place in Thessaly, and drank the hemlock without complaint.
And then there is Seneca, the Stoic who wrote that wealth is a burden and exile can't harm a wise man. He was accused of piling up three hundred million sesterces, begged his way off Corsica, tutored Nero, and may have written the letter that excused the murder of Nero's mother. So was he a liar? He answered that himself, and his answer is either the most honest thing a hypocrite ever wrote or the most convenient excuse in the history of philosophy.
Chapters 0:00 The cup that failed 1:04 Deface the Currency 2:45 The Dog of Athens 5:40 Out of My Sunlight 8:01 The Man Who Knew Nothing 10:04 The Order He Refused 11:07 The Trial 12:57 The Open Door 15:03 The Stoic Millionaire 16:47 Tutor to a Monster 19:31 The Cup, Again 21:39 So, was he a liar?
Sources include Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Eminent Philosophers; Plato's Apology, Crito, Phaedo and Symposium; Tacitus' Annals (Book 15 for Seneca's death); Cassius Dio; and Seneca's own On the Happy Life, his consolations to his mother Helvia and to Polybius, and his Letters to Lucilius. Where the ancient sources disagree or had a grudge, the video says so. That covers the coin scandal, the story that Diogenes and Alexander died on the same day, Suillius' three hundred million, and Dio's account of the Boudica loans.
Every image and clip in this video was created for it. Nothing on screen is a photograph or footage of the events shown.
#Philosophy #Stoicism #History