Thoreau on Mindfulness

"Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments... By closing the eyes and and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure... Men esteem truth more remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam, and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us."

-Henry David Thoreau 

Thomas Jefferson on Political Parties

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself.  Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven bu with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

Stoic Courage in a Spartan Queen: Cratesicleia

I have posted previously about the mission to Sparta of Zeno's disciple, Sphaerus. He had a great influence on Spartan king Cleomenes III, who was destined to be a great reformer and to attempt to return the soul of Sparta that was formed during the days of Lycurgus.

Not everything went well for Cleomenes militarily. At first he had unprecedented military success and conquered almost all of the Peloponnese, shocking the rest of Greece with his exploits. However, due to political maneuvering and intrigue by his enemies, everything that he gained quickly collapsed and he was abandoned by his allies. He was hemmed into Laconia.

At this point, the Egyptian king Ptolemy offered to help Cleomenes, but demanded that Cleomenes send his mother and children to Egypt as collateral. This request very much upset Cleomenes, which eventually drew the suspicions of his mother, Cratesicleia. She demanded to know what was going on, and he told her.  She laughed.

"Was it this which you frequently meant to tell me, but lacked the courage? Why ever don't you hurry to put me on board ship and send me off wherever you think this body of mine will be of the greatest service to Sparta, before old age disposes of it as it just sits here?"

So Cleomenes set off with her to put her on the ship to Egypt. He was visibly shaken as the moment neared, so Cratesicleia pulled him into the temple of Poseidon.

She embraced and kissed her son and then said: "Come now, king of the Spartans. When we emerge we want no one to see us in tears nor doing anything unworthy of Sparta. This is all that lies in our power; but our fortunes must be as heaven ordains."

And thus she boarded the ship for Egypt and ordered the sailors to make haste.

*Reference: Plutarch's On Sparta

Zeno's Influence on Spartan Kings

In the 3rd Century B.C., Sparta was not the kingdom that she once was. She had turned away from the laws of Lycrugus which had helped her ascend to a dominating position over all of Greece. There was a political movement, at this time, to guide Sparta back to the ascetic ways of their ancient past and to restore the character and honor of the city-state. At this same time, Zeno of Citium was forming the Stoic philosophy in Athens. There was much respect in philosophy for the virtue-centric lifestyle of the ancient Spartans, and it seems that this pollination of ideas came full circle when a follower of Zeno named Sphaerus visited Sparta and influenced the soon-to-be-king Cleomenes III.

This is what the Roman historian Plutarch says about this relationship in his book On Sparta:

"He was certainly not satisfied with the state of affairs in the city, where the citizens had been lulled by inactivity and indulgence, and the king let all business slide so long as no one disturbed him in his desire to live a life of leisure and luxury in affluent circumstances. Public affairs were disregarded as everyone amassed profits for themselves privately. As for training, self-discipline on the part of the young, stamina and equality, it was unsafe so much as to mention these now that Agis and his family were dead. [Agis was a King who had recently been murdered by political rivals because he had very nearly succeeded at returning Sparta back to her roots. He had managed to have all debts erased and was in the process of redistributing all land equally between Spartan peers when he was murdered along with his wife and mother.]

While still a youth, Cleomenes is also said to have taken part in philosophical discussions at the time when Sphaerus from Olbia visited Sparta and devoted a good deal of attention to both the young men and the ephebes. Sphaerus had become one of the leading followers of Zeno of Citium and apparently he was delighted by the manliness of Cleomenes' character and tried to fire his ambition. There is a story that when the Leonidas of ancient times was asked his impression of Tyrtaeus' quality as a poet, he replied: 'A good one for firing the spirits of the young.' For the poems filled them with such excitement that they stopped caring for themselves in battle. But where great and passionate characters are concerned, Stoic doctrine has an element that is unstable and hazardous; it is rather when combined with a profound and mild temperament that it particularly develops towards its intrinsic worth."

Cleomenes III went on to enact great reforms and was greatly respected in Sparta for his plain lifestyle and the example that he set for his people.

The Folly of Trying to Please the Mob

This is an excerpt from Plutarch’s On Sparta. It is the introduction to the section of the work in which he discusses the rule of the Spartan kings Agis and Cleomenes.

When Phocion was asked by Antipater to do something that was not at all honorable, he said to him: ‘You cannot have Phocion both as a friend and as a toady.’ It is this, then, or something like it, which needs to be said to the crowd: ‘The same man cannot be your ruler and your servant.’ When this actually does occur, his situation is like that of the snake in the fable. Its tail rebelled against its head and demanded to take a turn at leading rather than continually following the head. So it took the lead and got into difficulties itself by going off the road as well as bruising the head, which was forced unnaturally to follow a part of the snake that was blind and stupid. We observe this to have been the predicament of those whose sole concern in politics is to win popularity. After making themselves dependent upon capriciously shifting mobs, they have later been unable either to reassert themselves or to control the disorder. 

The True Believer

In wake of the Paris attacks I've been thinking about this quote a lot recently. I also watched a video last night of ISIS in Afghanistan attacking an ANA truck, killing the occupants, and putting one of their heads on a stump with the truck burning in the background.

Evil must be confronted.

"Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.

He knows only The Cause.

Still want to quit?"

As far as I can tell, this quote originated on http://www.professionalsoldiers.com by user NousDefionsDoc.

Lycurgus: Governments are like individuals, happiness and stability comes from virtue...

"All the same it was not Lycurgus' main aim at the time to leave his city as the leader of so many other cities. Instead his view was that happiness in the life of a whole city, as in that of one individual, derives from its own merits and from its internal concord: it was to this end that all his arrangements and his structures were combined, so that Spartans should be free and self-sufficient, and should have the good sense to continue thus for a very long time. This theory of government was adopted by Plato, Diogenes, and Zeno and all those who are praised for their attempts to make some statement about these matters, even though they left only paper theories."

-Plutarch, On Sparta - Lives - Lycurgus - 31

• Though the Spartans were respected as the defacto leaders of Greece at the time of Lycurgus, this was not his aim.
• Lycurgus believed that cities should focus on their own internal virtue and self-sufficiency.
• This will lead to long periods of stability.
• This is similar to the individual philosophies of the Cynics and the Stoics.