Book 1
1
ThraseaThrasea Paetus, a Stoic philosopher, who was ordered in Nero’s time to put himself to death (Tacit. Ann. xvi. 21–35). He was the husband of Arria, whose mother Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, in the time of the Emperor Claudius, heroically showed her husband the way to die (Plinius, Letters, iii. 16.) Martial has immortalised the elder Arria in a famous epigram (i. 14):— When Arria to her Paetus gave the sword, Which her own hand from her chaste bosom drew, This wound, she said, believe me, gives no pain, But that will pain me which thy hand will do. used to say, I would rather be killed to-day than banished to-morrow. What then did RufusC. Musonius Rufus, a Tuscan by birth, of equestrian rank, a philosopher and Stoic (Tacit. Hist. iii. 81). say to him? If you choose death as the heavier misfortune, how great is the folly of your choice? But if, as the lighter, who has given you the choice? Will you not study to be content with that which has been given to you?
