man, M. Cato Uticensis, who lived the life of a Stoic and died
consistently with the opinions which he professed. He was a man, says
Cicero, who embraced the Stoic philosophy from conviction; not for the
purpose of vain discussion, as most did, but in order to make his life
conformable to the Stoic precepts. In the wretched times from the death
of Augustus to the murder of Domitian, there was nothing but the Stoic
philosophy which could console and support the followers of the old
religion under imperial tyranny and amidst universal corruption. There
were even then noble minds that could dare and endure, sustained by a
good conscience and an elevated idea of the purposes of man's existence.
Such were Paetus Thrasae, Helvidius Priscus, Cornutus, C. Musonius
Rufus,[A] and the poets Persius and Juvenal, whose energetic language
and manly thoughts may be as instructive to us now as they might have
been to their contemporaries. Persius died under Nero's bloody reign;
but Juvenal had the good fortune to survive the tyrant Domitian and to
see the better times of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian.[B] His best precepts
are derived from the Stoic school, and they are enforced in his finest
verses by the unrivalled vigor of the Latin language.

[A] I have omitted Seneca, Nero's preceptor. He was in a sense
a Stoic, and he has said many good things in a very fine way.
There is a judgment of Gellius (xii. 2.) on Seneca, or rather a
statement of what some people thought of his philosophy, and it
is not favorable. His writings and his life must be taken
together, and I have nothing more to say of him here. The
reader will find a notice of Seneca and his philosophy in
"Seekers after God," by the Rev. P. W. Farrar. Macmillan and
Co.

[B] Ribbeck has labored to prove that those Satires, which