The Stoics — Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus

Three men, three very different lives, one school of thought. The poster brings them together under the title THE STOICS, with a subtitle that says it all: “Emperor · Statesman · Slave”. Marcus Aurelius (121–180) was emperor of Rome from 161 to 180. Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65) was Nero's tutor, then his adviser. Epictetus (c. 50 – c. 135) was born a slave in Hierapolis and later taught at Nicopolis.

One line for each

Each sepia portrait sits in an arch, alternating left and right on an ivory ground, with a short quote and its source:

• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations X.16 (tr. George Long, 1862): “No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.”
• Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 13.4 (tr. Richard M. Gummere, 1917): “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
• Epictetus, Enchiridion V (tr. T. W. Higginson, 1865): “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.”

It reads like a page from an old book: at home above a bookshelf, over a student desk or in a reading corner.

Images: bust of Marcus Aurelius at the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua (Leeppolis, CC0); Seneca at the Antikensammlung, Berlin (photo: Calidius, CC BY-SA 3.0); Epictetus engraved by Michael Burghers after William Sonmans, Oxford 1715, public domain, an imagined portrait, since no ancient likeness of him survives.

The other posters are on the Stoicism page, in the Aura & Quotes world.

Printed in Tunisia, paid on delivery.