12 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Roman senator condemned by Nero alongside Thrasea Paetus in 66 CE — one of the Stoic martyrs of the Neronian period whose deaths Tacitus recorded as examples of virtue destroyed by tyranny.
Roman senator Gaius Cassius Longinus — the primary organizer of the conspiracy to assassinate Julius Caesar — who is in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar the lean and hungry pragmatist who envies Caesar's greatness and recruits the idealistic Brutus to give the conspiracy moral legitimacy.
Cato the Younger — Roman politician and Stoic who was Caesar's most implacable opponent, and who chose suicide in Utica rather than accept Caesar's pardon — becoming the supreme Roman exemplar of political integrity, philosophical consistency, and the preference for death over servitude.
Roman statesman and writer — Marcus Porcius Cato the Censor — who wrote De Agricultura (On Farming, the oldest surviving Latin prose) and was famous for his austere conservatism and his repeated insistence that Carthage must be destroyed (Carthago delenda est).
Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis — Cato the Younger — Roman senator and Stoic philosopher who was Caesar's most implacable opponent and chose suicide at Utica rather than live under Caesar's dominion, becoming the supreme Roman exemplar of philosophical integrity and republican virtue.
Marcus Favonius — Roman senator and devoted follower of Cato — who appears in Plutarch's life of Brutus as an eccentric Stoic who reproached Brutus and Cassius for quarreling.
Roman senator and Stoic philosopher — son-in-law of Thrasea Paetus — who continued his father-in-law's opposition to imperial tyranny under Vespasian and was ultimately executed by Vespasian for his principled refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the new dynasty.
Roman senator — father-in-law of Julius Caesar — and Epicurean sympathizer who was the target of Cicero's virulent In Pisonem — representing the combination of political power and philosophical materialism that Cicero regarded as the most dangerous Roman type.
Roman general and politician who was Caesar's lieutenant, delivered the famous funeral oration that turned Rome against the conspirators, formed the Second Triumvirate, and died with Cleopatra after defeat by Octavian — and whose 'Friends, Romans, countrymen' speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is the supreme example of rhetorical manipulation.
Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus — Roman consul in 43 BCE who died in battle against Mark Antony's forces at Mutina — and whose death Cicero mentions in the Philippics as part of the crisis that followed Caesar's assassination.
Roman Epicurean who was part of Brutus's philosophical circle — and who refused to join the conspiracy against Caesar on Epicurean grounds that the wise man should not risk himself for an ungrateful people.
Roman Stoic senator under Nero who was famous for his principled opposition to imperial tyranny — walking out of the Senate rather than vote for measures he found unjust — and who was ultimately condemned by Nero and chose death rather than exile.