Imperial residence, Apulum, Dacia, March 179
Marcus Aurelius was having one of his last evening with his friends before going back on the roads for the second year of his journey around the empire. Around him on the couches in the room of his newly built palace were his closest friends, as much as an emperor could have any, and advisors.
His heir was leaning on the couch to his right, while his medicus Gallienus had the honor of the one to his left. The six other guests made for the two wings of the assembly, so that all could easily reach the food in the table in the middle.
The meal was simple, as always when the emperor had no official requirement, but exquisite nonetheless thanks to the talent of his cook. They were currently eating a hypotrimma salad made with local summer honey and plants such as mint and lovage while having an heated argument on philosophy.
“But what is the goal of philosophy ? Why do we study it and train in it for so long ? Is it only to make us better ? But is that not very arrogant ? Because you know the argument that philosophy is what gets us closer to divinity, but is not being closer to the divine an arrogant goal ?”
“True, one could see your point. But the goal of philosophy must be seen as the tool that helps you make good, instead of bad, and thus be in our behaviour closer to the divinity, but without that being a goal in itself, only being good being the goal.”
“But that is only true if you keep looking only at ethics. Yet philosophy has from the earliest day been divided between natural and ethical philosophy. Remember Heraclitus and the other presocratic discussing the nature of the world and which elements is at its basis. And who can say that the work being done at the Academia Practica or at the Library, even if more manual than Aristotle would have considered proper, is not philosophy ?”
“Look even at the book the glassmaker offered you at Colonia Agrippina. His approach, systematic and organize his perception of the world, bringing new ways to see the world by the effect its component can have on each other. His work brings new clarity on the world, it is thus philosophical but not good or bad…”
“I’m not so sure for his advance of our knowledge is good in itself, given that it makes us understand the world, and thus divinity, better”
“You tire me with your arguments, and make me thirsty. It’s lucky that your stewards were able to bring Falernum to this gods forsaken place. But if I’m to give an opinion I’d say that the glassmaker’s work is as philosophical as Gallienus healing, and that is very philosophical because it is doing good and enlightining our understanding of the world. “
“I’ll remember you saying I’m doing good next time I’ll have to try healing you Gaius, but in the meantime to your health !”
“I do wonder, now that we talk of the glassmaker’s work and of the old pre socratic philosophers, whether Epicurus was not right in his depiction of the world and the stoics in error.”
“The unlimited number of atoms of the epicurians ? That would need more research but… can we see it ? Are we not like the men in Plato’s cave, only seeing a shadow of the world and unable to see it in all its glorious truth unless helped by a god…”
“You forget that in Plato’s story it was no god that brought the man to the light but another man who had escaped the cave and then come back to help those still prisoners…”
“Thus doing good…”
“... so that one can say that natural philosophy is an ethical occupation that the men of good must practice !”
Marcus Aurelius had not said a word during this, simply eating his salad with a smile on his face and a cup of wine close at hand. This was the kind of moments he liked the best, when he could escape the tediousness of ruling the empire. Hopefully his plan…
His train of thought was interupted by the intrusion of four slaves carrying the pulum frontonianum. The smell of the chicken in its sauce made all thoughts of philosophy escape the diners, at least for the time being.
