Sextus Empiricus of Chaeronea
The following is adapted from my book Pyrrho’s Way: The Ancient Greek Version of Buddhism. You can read the book’s introduction here.
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
Marcus Aurelius[1]
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.
Jane Austen
The Marcus Aurelius quote that begins this chapter is wildly popular and frequently repeated, much to the consternation of present-day Stoics, because not only is it not authentic, it represents a view that’s contrary to Stoicism — a Pyrrhonist view. The quote appears to have originated in a paraphrase of the Meditations done by Dan Joseph and published on SpiritSite.com.[i] So, while this quote is not in the Meditations, the paraphraser felt it was, and the many readers of the Meditations who have cited the quote seem to feel it’s there, too. Not in those exact words, but in sentiment. This chapter explores how that may have come about through Marcus having been substantially influenced by the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus.[2]
First, it’s useful to reflect on whether Marcus Aurelius can be either confidently or thoroughly considered a Stoic. Brad Inwood, in Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction, says this about the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius:
The emperor was not a professional philosopher and sometimes expresses views that conflict with what we know about the school from other sources. Some scholars even question whether it is right to count him as a Stoic at all; after all, he credits philosophers from others’ schools with inspiring his thought and even refers to Stoics in the third person (Stoics are “they” not “we”).… For Marcus, Stoic philosophy is often held at arm’s length, as it is by many of us.[ii]
Cassius Dio, the Roman historian and contemporary of Marcus Aurelius, said this about Marcus’ philosophy:
Marcus Antoninus, the philosopher, upon obtaining the throne at the death of Antoninus, his adoptive father, had immediately taken to share his power [with] Lucius Verus, the son of Lucius Commodus. For he was frail in body himself and devoted the greater part of his time to letters. Indeed it is reported that even when he was emperor he showed no shame or hesitation about resorting to a teacher, but became a pupil of Sextus, the Boeotian philosopher, and did not hesitate to attend the lectures of Hermogenes on rhetoric; but he was most inclined to the doctrines of the Stoic school. (Roman History, Book LXXI, Sections 1–3)
Note “most inclined.” That’s indeed what one sees in the Meditations: a writer with a broad interest in philosophy who is simply most inclined to Stoicism. The idea that Marcus might not have been fully Stoic annoys some present-day Stoics. They want to paint him to be as thoroughgoing of a Stoic as Epictetus and Musonius Rufus. But those two writers were teachers. Men such as Marcus and Seneca had to deal with a variety of different people and to be effective in society. They could not afford to be as dismissive and abusive of other philosophies as Epictetus was. They needed be respectful in dealing with people who thought differently. This respect is visible in their philosophical writings, which treat ideas from other philosophies charitably. Indeed, in the Meditations, Marcus approvingly cites more non-Stoic philosophers than he does Stoic philosophers.
Marcus tells us a little about his philosophy teachers in the first book of the Meditations. Several of these teachers are known not to be Stoics. Marcus himself tells us that he appreciates philosophies other than Stoicism and is grateful to philosophers who are not Stoics. Marcus had a keen interest in philosophy, and the resources of the empire at his disposal. Surely, he had access to and considered Pyrrhonist perspectives. I not only think that this happened, but that the “Sextus” of whom Marcus was a pupil is the same Sextus as Sextus Empiricus, and that Pyrrhonist influences appear in the Meditations.
Part of our current uncertainty about whether these two Sextuses are the same person is due to how names were used in ancient Rome. In that naming system, each man had a name composed of three and sometimes four parts. One part is what we would call a first name, which was given to them at birth by their parents. This was the person’s “praenomen.” Unfortunately, only a couple of dozen praenomen were in common use, so praenomen were not good ways of identifying anyone. Another part of the naming convention was the “nomen,” which designated one’s clan or family. Unfortunately these too tended to be common. Therefore, many people shared the same combination of praenomen and nomen, especially over time, as families tended to repeatedly use the same praenomen over generations. The third part was the “cognomen.” The cognomen was a nickname, usually reflecting some distinguishing characteristic of the person. Some people also had a fourth name, an “agnomen,” which was an additional nickname which reflected the holder’s personality, physique, or achievements. This resulted in a messy naming convention in which the same person could be referred to by one name by one writer and another name by another writer. Already in this chapter you’ve seen an example of this. Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Antoninus (which is the name Cassius Dio used in the quote above) are the same person, but if one didn’t know better one would think that they were two different people. This messiness produces many problems in understanding ancient Roman history because of uncertainties about whether two similar names refer to two different people or to the same person because of the different naming conventions different writers used.
We know almost nothing about Sextus Empiricus, except for his philosophy. We know that “Sextus” was his praenomen and “Empiricus” was a cognomen indicating that he was a physician practicing in the Empiric school of medicine. Pyrrhonism was closely aligned with the Empiric school. Many teachers in the Empiric school were also Pyrrhonist teachers. So the cognomen “Empiricus” adds some useful information in the context of teaching Pyrrhonism. We know that Sextus was at one time the head of the Pyrrhonist school. We don’t know where he lived, but based on a reference he made to Athens it appears that he had once been there, but was not writing from there. And if he was not in Athens, then it seems likely he was in one of the other two main centers of Roman intellectual life in that era: Rome or Alexandria. We know that Sextus was Greek because of statements he makes comparing the morals of ethnic groups in which he uses “we” to mean the Greeks.
We know quite a bit about Sextus of Chaeronea, except for his philosophy. We know who he was related to, that he lived in Rome, and that his cognomen or agnomen was a reference to where he was born, as few residents of Rome would have been born in the small town of Chaeronea, in Boeotia, a region of Greece.
The question is whether these are two different philosophers who share a common praenomen, or one philosopher named Sextus who was distinguished by both a cognomen and an agnomen — one for his unusual profession and one for his unusual place of birth.
The Suda, a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world that drew upon ancient sources now lost to us gives a clear answer to this question. Sextus Empiricus and Sextus of Chaeronea are the same person.
A Chaeroneian, a nephew of Plutarch, born in the time of Caesar Marcus Antoninus; a philosopher, and a student of Herodotus of Philadelphia [a teacher of both Pyrrhonism and Empiric medicine]. He adhered to the teachings of Pyrrho and was so esteemed by the emperor that he sat in judgement with him. He wrote Ethica and ten books.
[Marcus Antoninus]…emperor of [the] Romans, the philosopher admirable in every respect. He attended the lectures of many different [instructors], but ultimately ended up as a student of Sextus, a philosopher from Boeotia, in Rome itself, seeking him out and going to [his] house. A certain rhetorician named Lucius, an associate of the rhetorician Herodes Atticus, asked him, as he was going out, where he was going and why. And Marcus responded, “[It is] good even for an aging man to learn. I am on my way to Sextus the philosopher to learn things I do not yet know.” And Lucius lifted up his hand to heaven and said “o Helios, the emperor of Rome in his old age is still taking up his slate and going to his teacher’s house. But my king Alexander died at thirty-two.”
The Suda has many errors in it, and many scholars believe that this is an error. Yet in my research I’ve yet to encounter an explanation about why it should be considered an error. For example in the otherwise apparently carefully-researched book, Sextus Empiricus: The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism, Luciano Floridi states, completely without any substantiation, that identifying Sextus Empiricus with Sextus of Chaeronea “is almost certainly erroneous.”[iii] I not only don’t agree, I think the identification is probably correct, which I demonstrate in the remainder of this chapter.
The first reason to suspect that the two are the same person is that while Sextus of Chaeronea is well attested as having been a famous philosopher, we have no details about what he taught, no books, and almost no quotes. We know who he was but not what he did. Identifying him by his place of birth is about who he was. The opposite is the case for Sextus Empiricus. We know almost nothing about his identity, but he left us many books. We know what he did, but we don’t know who he was. Identifying him by his profession is about what he did. The names the authors chose to identify Sextus appear to fit with what they want to say about Sextus and not necessarily any firm way in which Sextus was known by.
We know that the two Sextuses lived at about the same time, with enough variability in the estimates that they could have been the same person. Since we know when Marcus Aurelius ruled, we can be confident that Sextus of Chaeronea was teaching towards the end of his rule, which was from 161 to 180 CE.
Figuring out when Sextus Empiricus lived is more difficult. The last datable reference in the works of Sextus Empiricus is to Emperor Tiberius, 42 BCE to 38 CE. So, Sextus cannot have lived earlier than that. Diogenes Laertius refers to Sextus Empiricus as being a student of Herodotus of Tarsus (the Suda says Sextus Empiricus was a student of Herodotus of Philadelphia, so presumably the same Herodotus), who was the student of Menodotus of Nicomedia. Enough is known about Menodotus to estimate that he flourished around 80–100 CE. This would suggest that Sextus Empiricus was born circa 140–160 CE and died circa 220–230 CE.[3] We also have reference to Sextus Empiricus in the works of Pseudo-Galen[iv] that suggests that Sextus Empiricus may have flourished between 150 and 170.
The biography of Marcus Aurelius in the Historia Augusta has a passage in it that many people think identifies Sextus of Chaeronea as a Stoic philosopher, which would rule out his being the same person as Sextus Empiricus. While the Historia Augusta is so full of errors it is considered to be unreliable — and this can be considered reason enough to dismiss this evidence — it can be demonstrated that the passage actually indicates that Sextus was not a Stoic. Here’s what that passage says:
Furthermore, his zeal for philosophy was so great that, even after he joined the imperial family, he still used to go to Apollonius’ house for instruction. He also attended the lectures of Sextus of Chaeronea, the nephew of Plutarch, Junius Rusticus, Claudius Maximus and Cinna Catulus, Stoics. He went to lectures by Claudius Severus too, as he was attracted to the Peripatetic School. But it was chiefly Junius Rusticus, whom he admired and followed — a man acclaimed in both private and public life and extremely well practiced in the Stoic discipline.
The above is not the translation commonly used to support the idea that Sextus of Chaeronea was a Stoic. What is given in that translation is “Sextus of Chaeronea, the nephew of Plutarch, Junius Rusticus, Claudius Maximus and Cinna Catulus, all Stoics.” I don’t include “all” in my translation because in the original Latin there’s no “all” in the text.[4] It’s just “Stoics.”
I see four possible ways to interpret this sentence.
1. All four philosophers were Stoics.
2. Marcus attended the lectures of these four philosophers, and some Stoics whose names were not recorded.
3. Sextus of Chaeronea was Plutarch’s nephew and therefore not a Stoic while the other three philosophers were Stoics.
4. Sextus of Chaeronea was Plutarch’s nephew and therefore not a Stoic. Marcus also attended the lectures of these other three philosophers, and some Stoics whose names were not recorded.
The first and third interpretations could be ruled out if we were to know that one of the other three philosophers was not a Stoic. Of the four philosophers in this list, we only know that one of them was a Stoic: Junius Rusticus. We don’t know whether Cinna Catulus and Claudius Maximus were, but there is reason to suspect that Claudius Maximus was not a Stoic. Apuleius mentions Claudius Maximus in regard to defending himself against a charge of magic in a case being judged by Claudius Maximus. According to Apuleius, Maximus was a pious man who shunned ostentatious displays of wealth and was intimately familiar with the works of Plato and Aristotle. Why not Stoic authors, such as Zeno, or Chrysippus, or Epictetus? In his defense Apuleius mentions the sternness of his judge’s philosophy. This might be considered to imply that the judge was a Stoic, as Stoicism is notable for its sternness. On the other hand, Apuleius was clearly trying to flatter his judge. Sternness would seem to be a virtue in a judge, and neither the Platonists nor the Peripatetics were typically accused of being lacking in sternness. Although we cannot be certain, based on what Apuleius tells us Claudius Maximus was more likely a Peripatetic or a Platonist than he was a Stoic.
What’s most notable in the passage is that Sextus gets described as an individual — the “nephew of Plutarch.” The next three names do not get such additional individual descriptions. The author may have intended “Stoics” to apply to just those following three names and not Sextus, as he’d already said something else about Sextus: that he was Plutarch’s nephew, implying that Sextus taught in his uncle’s tradition — which was not Stoicism. Indeed, Plutarch was highly critical of Stoicism.
We have another mention of Sextus connecting him to Plutarch that further informs why this connection is so important. In the introduction to Apuleius’ novel, The Golden Ass, the protagonist says he was:
…descended of the line of that most excellent person Plutarch, and of Sextus the philosopher his nephew, which is to us a great honor….
That the author would have his protagonist be kin to Plutarch and Sextus and have him state this at the beginning of the tale implies that there’s something distinctive about the protagonist’s family and that this foreshadows the story. The Golden Ass happens to be the oldest surviving example of a novel employing magical realism. It whimsically plays on making things we normally think of as being false as being true. Since we know that Plutarch was a Platonist who defended Academic Skepticism, and we know that Academic Skeptics and Pyrrhonists were routinely criticized by the philosophers of other schools as being disconnected from reality, the protagonist’s kinship reads as an inside joke to the philosophical cognoscenti.[5] Plutarch and Sextus see uncertainty between what is real and what is imaginary; hence, the reader can expect the same to be true about the protagonist, being a member of that family. This signals to the philosophically knowledgeable reader that what is going to follow in the novel is a highly sophisticated, outlandish tale that reads like it is real, but is it is imaginary — which is precisely what happens.
It’s a clever joke, assuming, of course that Sextus was a Pyrrhonist. If Sextus had been a Stoic the joke wouldn’t work and therefore it wouldn’t make sense to mention Sextus.
Apuleius, coincidentally, is our source for the proverb that “familiarity breeds contempt; rarity brings admiration.” In Apuleius: A Latin Sophist, scholar S.J. Harrison says that this proverb is “very likely to derive from a previous source … though in fact I can find no earlier source.”[v] Although not stated as a proverb, there is an earlier source. The proverb concisely states the ninth mode of Aenesidemus, which is about how things are perceived as a function of occurrence.
Connecting Sextus with Plutarch implies that Sextus taught in his uncle’s tradition. We know that Plutarch strongly criticized Stoicism, [6] and we know that he defended Arcesilaus and Academic Skepticism, despite the fact that the Academy was no longer inquiryist. We know that Plutarch wrote three now-lost books with titles suggesting an affinity with Pyrrhonism: Whether One Who Suspends Judgment on Everything Is Condemned to Inaction, On Pyrrho’s Ten Modes, and On the Difference between the Pyrrhonians and the Academics. We know that Plutarch was careful to show arguments on both sides of each issue. Like a Pyrrhonist, he attached little importance to theoretical questions and doubted the possibility of ever solving them.
A perhaps meaningful coincidence is that one of Plutarch’s two brothers was named Timon. Perhaps this was in honor of the most famous person to have ever held that name, Timon the Pyrrhonist philosopher. And if not, it at least suggests the family was not repelled by such a connection. According to Plutarch, his brother Timon was particularly likeable. This likeability may have positively disposed young Sextus towards the philosopher who shared the name of his own father or uncle.
Plutarch may have been even more supportive of Academic Skepticism than his surviving works suggest, as most of his Academic Skeptic works did not survive. Plutarch’s student, Favorinus, self-identified as an Academic Skeptic,[vi] despite the fact that the Academy was long-since no longer inquiryist. Favorinus — and perhaps his teacher, too — saw little difference between Academic Skepticism and Pyrrhonism. Aulus Gellius, a student of Favorinus, wrote:
…although the Pyrrhonists and the Academics express themselves very much alike about these matters, yet they are thought to differ from each other both in certain other respects and especially for this reason — because the Academics do, as it were, “comprehend” the very fact that nothing can be comprehended, and, as it were, decide that nothing can be decided, while the Pyrrhonists assert that not even that can by any means be regarded as true, because nothing is regarded as true.[vii]
Galen, in his critique of Favorinus, speaks of the Academics and Pyrrhonists as if they are interchangeable.[viii] Favorinus wrote two now-lost books, the Pyrrhonist Ten Modes and Against Epictetus, indicating his interest in Pyrrhonism and his antipathy to Stoicism.
In the Discourses Epictetus gives the following argument against the Academic Skeptics that alludes to Plutarch, who was a priest of the Pythia — the oracle of Apollo at Delphi — and who served as an interpreter of the oracle’s cryptic messages.
“That there are no gods, and, if there are, they take no care of men, nor is there any fellowship between us and them; and that this piety and sanctity which is talked of among most men is the lying of boasters and sophists, or certainly of legislators for the purpose of terrifying and checking wrong-doers.” Well done, philosopher, you have done something for our citizens, you have brought back all the young men to contempt of things divine. “What then, does not this satisfy you? Learn now, that justice is nothing, that modesty is folly, that a father is nothing, a son nothing.” Well done, philosopher, persist, persuade the young men, that we may have more with the same opinions as you who say the same as you. From such principles as these [D5] have grown our well-constituted states; by these was Sparta founded: Lycurgus fixed these opinions in the Spartans by his laws and education, that neither is the servile condition more base than honorable, nor the condition of free men more honorable than base, and that those who died at Thermopylae died from these opinions; and through what other opinions did the Athenians leave their city? Then those who talk thus, marry and beget children, and employ themselves in public affairs and make themselves priests and interpreters. Of whom? Of gods who do not exist; and they consult the Pythian priestess that they may hear lies, and they repeat the oracles to others. Monstrous impudence and imposture.[ix]
Favorinus struck back for Plutarch in his now-lost book, Against Epictetus, which was an imagined dialogue between Epictetus and one of Plutarch’s slaves, cleverly implying that it was beneath Plutarch’s dignity to rebut the former slave Epictetus, and that the task was appropriately delegated to his slave. To this, we appear to have Epictetus’ retort:
If I were slave to one of these men, even if I had to be soundly flogged by him every day, I would torment him. “Boy, throw a little oil into the bath.” I would have thrown a little fish sauce in, and as I left would pour it down on his head. “What does this mean?” “I had an external impression that could not be distinguished from olive oil; indeed, it was altogether like it. I swear by your fortune.” “Here, give me the gruel.” I would have filled a side dish with vinegar and fish sauce and brought it to him. “Did I not ask for the gruel?” “Yes, master; this is gruel.” “Is not this vinegar and fish sauce?” “How so, any more than gruel.” “Take and smell it, take and taste it.” “Well, how do you know, if the senses deceive us?” If I had three or four fellow-slaves who felt as I did, I would have made him burst with rage and hang himself, or else change his opinion. But as it is, such men are toying with us; they use all the gifts of nature, while in theory doing away with them.[x]
This is Epictetus, author of the famous slogan, “bear and forbear.” This is Epictetus, who says in The Enchiridion: “Remember that it is not he who gives abuse or blows who affronts, but the view we take of these things as insulting. When, therefore, anyone provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes you.”[xi] This is Epictetus totally losing his highly proclaimed Stoic self-control and apatheia to go out of his way to torment someone merely because that person holds a different opinion.
Given that:
1. Plutarch and the Stoics were publicly and bitterly at odds with each other;
2. The differences between Academic Skepticism and Pyrrhonism were generally considered to be minor;
3. Plutarch probably viewed Pyrrhonism favorably; and
4. Support of Academic Skepticism was dying out in the Academy.
It would seem to be both unremarkable and congruent with his family’s philosophical tradition for Plutarch’s nephew to situate himself with the Pyrrhonists; whereas joining the Stoics would have been a remarkable defection to the enemy — a remarkable defection about which we suspiciously have no remarks! Wouldn’t it seem that the mentions we have of Sextus of Chaeronea being Plutarch’s nephew would include something about his shocking repudiation of his famous uncle? The situation would be like Karl Marx having a famous nephew who was a proponent of capitalism. How could all of those mentions we have of Sextus of Chaeronea being Plutarch’s nephew resist adding such a scandalous tidbit that Sextus had devoted his life to repudiating his uncle’s philosophy? It seems just too juicy to omit. Surely some Stoic would want to gloat about this.
There’s also a peculiarity in the works of Sextus Empiricus that suggests Sextus is Plutarch’s nephew. Jonathan Barnes mentions this peculiarity in the introduction to his and Julia Annas’ translation of Outlines of Pyrrhonism.
… in the second century one of the major Dogmatic traditions was Platonism; and in Sextus Platonism plays a very minor role. Where Sextus does not speak promiscuously of “the Dogmatists,” his chief adversaries are always the Stoics.[xii]
The explanation Barnes supposes for this is that Sextus was a mere copyist who assembled the works of others into a new form, and it just so happened that those older works were produced when Stoicism was the dominant philosophy. This is plausible, but unconvincing. The explanation appears more to be just another expression of the contempt in which Barnes holds Sextus. What Barnes did not appear to consider is that if Sextus Empiricus were Plutarch’s nephew, his avoidance of criticizing the Platonists would make complete sense. Sextus would be most inclined to attack the school that attacked his uncle and least inclined to criticize the school his uncle belonged to. This is exactly what Sextus does.
Footnotes:
[1] It is perhaps a meaningful coincidence that this quote itself is not a fact. It’s just an opinion about what Marcus said. See the first paragraph of this chapter for a full explanation.
[2] I dedicate this chapter the late Matthew Neale Ph.D., who introduced me to the argument that Sextus Empiricus and Sextus of Chaeronea were the same person based on Sextus’ biography in the Suda, which inspired me to investigate further.
[3] For a thorough analysis, see Luciano Floridi, Sextus Empiricus: The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism, 2002, pp 3–7.
[4] tantum autem studium in eo philosophiae fuit ut adscitus iam in imperatoriam tamen ad domum Apollonii discendi causa veniret. audivit et Sextum Chaeronensem Plutarchi nepotem, Iunium Rusticum, Claudium Maximum et Cinnam Catulum, Stoicos.
[5] This has been previously noted by others, but attributed to being about Platonism, not Pyrrhonism/Academic Skepticism. See S.J. Harrison, Apuleius: A Latin Sophist, p 217.
[6] Plutarch wrote three books criticizing Stoicism: On Stoic Self-Contradictions; The Stoics Speak More Paradoxically than the Poets; Against the Stoics, on Common Conceptions.
[i] http://www.spiritsite.com/writing/maraur/part1.shtml
[ii] Chapter 2.
[iii] Luciano Floridi , Sextus Empiricus: The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism 2002 p6
[iv] Pseudo-Galen, Introductio 14.683 K
[v] S.J. Harrison Apuleius: A Latin Sophist, p 149
[vi] The observations here about Plutarch, Favorinus, and Epictetus come from Jan Opsome, “Favorinus versus Epictetus on the Philosophical Heritage of Plutarch. A Debate on Epistemology”, in: Judith Mossman (ed.), Plutarch and His Intellectual World, 1997, p. 17–39. Opsome, however, does not connect these arguments to the identity of Sextus Empiricus.
[vii] Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, Book 11, Section 5.
[viii] Galen, De optima doctrina, 1,40–52 K.; Fav. frg. 28
[ix] Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Section 20.
[x] Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Section 20.
[xi] Epictetus, Enchiridion, Section 20.
[xii] Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Skepticism, edited by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, 2000, p xvi
