The Old, Obscure, and Lesser-Known
I have been reading the writings of Gaius Musonius Rufus. Musonius, as he is often called, was a Roman Stoic and the teacher of Epictetus. I’ve been reading a translation of his writings by Cora Lutz, published under the title That One Should Disdain Hardships.
Few of his writings survive. What we have is a collection of summaries of his lectures, most bearing the mark of having been written by a student of Musonius rather than by Musonius himself. (It is similar to writings by Confucius — many of the writings contain phrases like ‘When asked, Musonius would say…’)
Reading them has been extraordinarily profitable. I want to talk about why that is, and then I want to generalize the point a bit to talk about why we read old, obscure books.
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