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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a

meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight

here in everyday life and on Wednesdays we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy

well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are

and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

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Listen to the lead starting 5 on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast.

Set up your hall of heroes. Whatever you think of him, it's hard to deny that Napoleon achieved a

historic level of greatness. Born paradoxically into both poverty and nobility on an island called Corsica, he managed by the time he was only 34 years old to be the emperor of

territories and client states stretching across most of continental Europe, Asia, South America and the Caribbean Sea. He won the battles of

Osterlist, Friedland and Ravoli. He wrote laws and instituted reforms that in some cases stand even to this day.

How did he do it? What propelled him to achieve this level of glory and touch this kind of greatness, if only for a moment?

According to one childhood friend and longtime aide, he rarely saw the first emperor of France not either pouring over books on strategy or

planning the construction of statues. Moments pleased his imagination, the man wrote in his memoirs to Napoleon statues were glory embodied.

Bonaparte well knew that the fine arts entailed lasting glory on great actions and consecrate the memory of princes who protect and encourage them.

That's what he said. You can disagree as the Stoic certainly would have with Napoleon's endless ambition and thirst for fame.

What you cannot dispute is the power of the motivation that got him there. How he was spurred toward achievement through inspiration and conversation with the dead heroes of history.

Indeed, in 1799, when Napoleon took up residencies in one of his famous royal palaces, his friend tells us of Napoleon's first order of business.

He says he selected statues of great men to adorn the gallery. Among the Greeks, he made the choice of Demosthenes and Alexander thus rendering homage at once to the genius of eloquence and the genius of victory.

The statue of Hannibal was intended to recall the memory of Rome's most formidable enemy and Rome herself was represented in the consular palace by the statues of Cicero, Cipio, Cato, Brutus and Caesar.

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