This ‘neo-Stoic’ ethics has been reduced
to parody in some contemporary histories.
One recent commentator contends that for
Lipsius the rational life ‘consists neither in
political participation nor the elaboration of
speculative disciplines, but in the cultivation
of an emotional state, that of the unimpassioned
and undespairing observer’ (Tuck,
1993: 52). It is doubtful if Lipsius would
recognise this depiction of the citizen as
early modern étranger. The ‘neo-Stoics’ of
the latter sixteenth century were certainly
preoccupied with the ancient Stoic virtue of
constantia (the cultivated indifference to the
vicissitudes of fortune). Yet constantia was
never intended primarily as a recipe for
passivity: on the contrary, it was intended to
steel the citizen against the bad times which
would reduce other mortals to flight or
despair, as well as against the passionate
temptations which led other men into rebellion
and civil chaos. For Lipsius, to resist
the temptation to civil insurrection was a
greater act of self-discipline than to give in
to it. But this was not a license for passivity.
Lipsius considered writing a study of
Tacitus’ Stoic hero Thrasea, and he was
fond of repeating Thrasea’s dying words at
the very end of the extant text of Tacitus’
Annals: ‘You have been born into such a
time that it is advisable to strengthen your
spirit with examples of constancy.’ It was
imprudent to follow Thrasea in provoking
authority without any tangible benefit to liberty.
Yet only Thrasian constancy enabled
the citizen to live up to the spirit of what
Lipsius terms, generically, ‘ancient morals’
(Morford, 1991: 149–53).