I couldn’t sleep last night. Or rather, I had fallen asleep, only with the five year old after I’d finished the bedtime story. I’d like to say we were elegantly curled up in an insta-worthy pose… but really when my wife prodded me awake (which was remarkably gentle compared to her usual aggressive shaking tactic) I was lying face-down in my own drool, my arm contorted awkwardly underneath my body and writhing with pins and needles.
I tried, after brushing my teeth and messing around with the Basset hound (who was feeling especially indecisive about where he was going to bed down for the night), going back to sleep… but the great betrayer (ie my mind) was having none of that.
So instead I flipped to the chapter on Cato in Ryan Holidays ‘Lives of the Stoics’ that I’d been saving it for a special occasion. I’m embracing the chaos and reading Lives in a more or less random fashion.
I love Cato. It would be difficult for me to rank my stoics in any order of preference. But Cato is definitely up there near the top.
This rabbit holed me into reading about Porcia, who was Cato’s daughter, who I’d only ever had a vague Shakespearian sense about. She was married to Brutus (of et tu Brute? fame) in case you’re wondering. Which led me to me to read about Cassius (whom I had once played in a school play and always had a soft spot for). Cassius was a follower of teachings of Epicurus, which I never knew before…
… which led me into Dante’s Inferno.
The ninth circle of hell is reserved for the betrayers. This particular sub basement level is actually a frozen lake called Cocytus. People who have performed some sort of treacherous act are frozen in ice here, some partially, some completely. (So really, hell has always been frozen over)
In any event Satan, as you might expect, is right down here at the bottom, (when he’s not managing Facebook) gnawing on Judas Iscariot… and also flaying the skin off his back. BUT… on the left and right of Satan ALSO getting their comeuppance are the other two great betrayers… Brutus and Cassius.
Apparently Dante was particularly fucked off with them for their role in killing Julius Caesar.
Which I thought was really… um… weird.
That someone might imagine Julius Caesar as some sort of good guy I mean.
I suppose there are people out there that have fond imaginings about Alexander the Great. Or Napoleon Bonaparte. Or… Maximilien Robespierre… Or Adolf Hitler… Or Mao. So I guess this really shouldn’t surprise me.
Still, this worries me. In a sense that I can really empathize with Cato, Brutus, Porcia and Cassius and their endeavors to rid themselves of an ego-maniacal tyrant. In the eyes of some at least, this puts you in the same league as the betrayer of Christ.
Apparently some of the senators were so bad at stabbing Julius Caesar they actually stabbed each other or themselves by accident. For some reason I imagine Mitch McConnell trying to stab someone… and I start laughing. So things probably haven’t changed all that much. Which is both reassuring… and also I suppose, not.
Personally I would have sat Caesar down and maybe chatted about his imperial autocratic tendencies, his evisceration of the Republic and his war crimes in Gaul. Choose words not violence!
I can be very persuasive (I decide, quite arbitrarily)
And if that doesn’t work, I can always fall back on my patented high pitched mewling noise. Sometimes combined with throwing myself down on the ground in the middle of the supermarket aisle. Appeal to their better nature by being awful and annoying.
It’s unlikely Cato would have approved of this modus operandi though. He was likely quite stern.
Stoicism is all about practice though… and less about perfection. So I feel I still have a shot.
Go Darke 