Musonius Rufus, or

How to Recognize a Roman Stoic?

Prof. Gretchen Reydams-Schils 

University of Notre Dame

November 18, 2021

Starts in New York 12.00 p.m. / Oxford 5.00 p.m. / Budapest 6.00 p.m. / Athens 7.00 p.m.

In this presentation I would like to reexamine how we can tell that Musonius Rufus was a Stoic, in response to a recent claim by Brad Inwood that we should think of Musonius rather as a 'public intellectual' who drew from a wide range of philosophical views. The attached contribution is an excerpt from a draft of a much longer paper I am currently working on for the planned Brill Companion to Musonius Rufus, edited by Liz Gloyn and John Sellars.  (It is still very much a work-in-progress and draft!) I will focus on connections between Musonius Rufus and Epictetus, on the one hand, and Cleanthes, on the other.  In light of these findings we can reassess the purpose of the first extant lecture, 'On Proofs' (attached), as setting the direction for the entire collection of lectures. Time permitting, we will also look at how Musonius Rufus himself may have seen his role in public life.