Ethics Under the Empire
A Dialectical Analysis of the Jowett Adaptation, Philological Suppression, and the Silent Hegemony of Stoic Physics. It is a profound irony of Roman scholarship that a dead emperor's (Marcus Aurelius's) unstructured campaign diary is romanticized as the pinnacle of Stoicism, while Hierocles' systematic physicalist thesis is largely ignored.
I. The Institutional Diagnostics Suppression as Imperial Utility
Was the historical fragmentation and eventual loss of Hierocles' systematic text a historical accident, or was it a vital necessity for the preservation of Roman imperial institutions? We analyze the three core dimensions of imperial control: military strategy, domestic patriarchal authority, and the economy of slavery.
1. The Military Diagnostic: Cosmopolitanism vs. Roman Imperium
Hierocles' physicalist model of oikeiosis establishes that human sociability is a fundamental law of physics. This scales to the entire species, culminating in Hans von Arnim's (1906) famous hypothesis of spontaneous friendship between soldiers of opposing armies (Col. XI.20).
For a Roman Empire built on continuous aggressive expansion, defensive border maintenance, and the total dehumanization of non-citizens (barbarians), an ethical treatise proving that soldiers of opposing legions are naturally bound by physical pneuma to be friends represents direct ideological sabotage. If Stoic physics is correct, national warfare is a violent negation of nature. Suppressing this systematic thesis was vital for Roman military morale.
Roman military commanders and emperors (most notably Marcus Aurelius) were themselves devout Stoics who saw no conflict between their philosophy and their military execution. Stoic duty (kathekon) was easily adapted to state preservation: the cosmopolitan citizen must fulfill their assigned civic role, which includes the defense of the state against disorder.
The loss of the text was not the result of imperial censorship, but rather the material decay of papyrus rolls in provincial libraries and the selective transcription preferences of early medieval Christian copyists, who favored ethical self-preservation texts over systematic pagan physics.
2. The Patriarchal Diagnostic: patria potestas vs. Biological Stergê
Traditional Roman domestic authority was anchored in the absolute legal tyranny of the patria potestas—the father's legal right of life and death over his household. Hierocles, however, shifts the grounding of domestic concern from legal power to physicalist, biological instinct (parental sterge).
By arguing that family care is a natural scaling of somatic self-love (primary oikeiosis), Hierocles places moral obligation in the biological mixture of the soul-body (krasis) rather than civil law. In a society where family structure was the blueprint for state governance, replacing patriarchal legal dominance with mutual biological reciprocity threatened the civil hierarchy of male authority.
Hierocles' Stobaean extracts (On Appropriate Acts) explicitly defend marriage, household management, and the honoring of parents. Far from subverting patriarchal family structures, Hierocles attempts to provide them with a firmer foundation in Stoic physics.
The text provides a conservative defense of domestic roles, making it highly compatible with Roman civil ideals. The division of labor within the household is framed as a cosmic duty, aligning perfectly with domestic civil authority.
3. The Economic Diagnostic: The Engine of Slavery vs. Cosmopolitan Brotherhood
Rome's economy was fundamentally dependent on the violent exploitation of millions of slaves. Hierocles' systematic physics demands the contraction of the concentric circles of concern, declaring that we must treat Deme-members as family and the entire human race as brothers (the "Onomastic Stratagem").
If we are physically and soulfully mixed with all rational beings, treating a fellow human being as a mere piece of property (instrumentum vocale) is a physicalist self-mutilation. Unlike Seneca's abstract letters, Hierocles' systematic developmental ethics leaves no room for moral compromises, rendering the text economically dangerous to the slave state.
Mainstream Stoicism historically tolerated the legal existence of slavery by defining it as an "external indifferent" (adiaphoron). The soul remains free even if the body is in chains (as exemplified by Epictetus).
Hierocles' concentric circles are cognitive and linguistic strategies to scale empathy, but they do not advocate for the political or economic restructuring of society. The Stoic cosmopolitanism is an internal, spiritual community of reason, not a program for social revolution.
II. Academic Validity of the Jowett Adaptation The Speculative Reconstruction
J.S. Jowett's adapted reconstruction (Tab II) bridges the abrupt truncation of Column XII by completing the text's argumentative momentum. We examine the validity of this composition against philological standards:
Skeptical classicists argue that Jowett's adaptation introduces anachronistic concepts by mapping ancient Stoic physics to modern sociobiology (kin selection, Hamilton's Rule, and reciprocal altruism). Hierocles did not possess an empirical theory of genetic relatedness or game-theoretic stability.
By introducing allegories like Hercules strangling serpents and the Spartan/Roman wars to explain biological selection, the adaptation departs from the strict textual parameters of the surviving papyrus, risking the projection of modern scientific paradigms onto an ancient theological cosmos.
Stoic physics is fundamentally physicalist: the soul is a material gas (pneuma) mixed with the body, and sensation is a physical feedback loop. Jowett's adaptation recognizes that if Hierocles' physicalist premises are correct, they must scale to meet modern biological systems.
By translating ancient observations (like asp tails and beaver castoreum) into the vocabulary of proprioception, phenotypic plasticity, and reciprocal altruism, the Jowett adaptation rescues the text from historical obscurity. It demonstrates that the text's natural trajectory leads directly to these modern scientific models, validating its philosophical consistency.
Are we better off with the adaptation? Without Jowett's reconstruction, Hierocles' Elements remains an incomplete philological curiosity ending at Column XII. With the adaptation, the text functions as a complete, coherent system of physicalist ethics. The speculative sections (the child's self-preservation, Cleanthes vs. Chrysippus phenotypic variation, and the cosmopolitan soldier) complete the logical transition from physics to moral duty.
III. The Scholar's Boundary Why was Ramelli Amiss to Complete the Text?
In her 2009 SBL edition, Ilaria Ramelli provides a masterclass in classicist commentary. In notes 54 and 55 ad Col. XI-XII, she outlines the three potential completions of the text (Cicero's stergê, von Arnim's enemy armies, and Bastianini & Long's kathekonta). Yet she stops short of creating a unified speculative reconstruction. Why?
Ramelli's restraint is governed by academic classicism. Speculative reconstruction is historically forbidden in classical scholarship. By leaving the text fragmented, the classicist maintains scientific integrity but leaves the text philosophically disabled. Jowett's adaptation completes the work the scholar was amiss to finish, using the scholar's own footnotes as the blueprint.
IV. Comparative Analysis: Jowett's Reconstructions vs. Traditional Hypotheses Col. XII+ Academic Trajectories
Hierocles' text breaks off in Column XII right at the transition to social cosmopolitanism. Traditional Hellenistic classicists outline three competing trajectories for the lost columns. Here we compare J.S. Jowett's adapted reconstruction (Tab II, Sections 5-7) against these three traditional scholarly paths:
1. Cicero’s Parental Stergê Path vs. Phenotypic Variation
Cicero traces the biological origin of social oikeiosis to parental affection (stergê). In the standard classical view, parental stergê is a conservative biological instinct designed to preserve the existing species form and templates.
Jowett's adaptation (Sections 5 & 6) re-interprets parental care as the biological shield for **phenotypic variation and adaptive evolution**. The mother (protecting the baby bird with wider wings or baby Hercules strangling Hera's serpents) safeguards the offspring precisely because they boast *unusual* and *improved* traits, enabling the survival and propagation of new somatic adaptations under environmental selection.
2. Hans von Arnim’s Enemy Armies Path vs. Game-Theoretic ESS
Von Arnim hypothesized that the missing text described spontaneous friendship arising between soldiers of opposing armies (Col. XI.20) as an abstract realization of shared reason and common humanity.
Jowett's adaptation (Sections 6 & 7) frames warfare (the Spartan charge, Roman commanders) as natural resource competition. However, it resolves von Arnim's hypothesis by showing that cooperation between enemies is an **evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS)**: when conflict reaches strategic or metabolic equilibrium, the rational scaling of *oikeiosis* dictates that reciprocal cooperation (Generous Tit-for-Tat) yields greater thermodynamic stability than continuous war.
3. Bastianini & Long’s Deontological Path vs. Sibling Training
Bastianini and Long argue that Column XII transitioned directly into practical moral duties (kathēkonta) and virtues preserved in the Stobaean extracts (marriage, civic behaviour).
Jowett's adaptation (Sections 6 & 7) frames the family as a **physical training ground**. Parental intervention in sibling rivalry physically trains the child's nervous system to manage "difference" and "indifference." The Stobaean *kathēkonta* are not abstract moral laws, but practical homeostatic feedback loops designed to minimize resource conflict and maximize social cohesion within the state and Cosmopolis.