This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, November 26, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

This year just keeps rolling and whether or not you're reluctantly spending time alone

or reluctantly attending a large family

gathering, the lessons of this year have probably already been learned by the great Stoics of

the past.

Brian Holliday is author of the new book Lives of the Stoics, The Art of Living from

Cino to Marcus Aurelius. We spoke earlier this month. It is at times like this when I feel the need to remind our listeners that the Cato Institute is not named for Cato, but for a series of letters called Cato's Letters that were produced in Great Britain and were

meant to get some more support on that side of the pond for the American Revolution.

So Ryan, thank you for agreeing to sit down and talk with me for a while here.

Let's start with this.

Where was Stoicism born and what were the critical elements at its birth?

It's it's born in ancient Greece. the critical elements at its birth.

It's born in ancient Greece and then it makes its way into Rome as sort of, or you could say Rome sort of absorbs everything from Greece. we get stoicism as kind of a

combination of a personal philosophy as well as a civic philosophy a sort of a sense of duty and courage and strength and wisdom.

It's sort of the guiding, it's the guiding light of Rome's elite essentially and to go to your point about Cato's letters it that

example that sort of brief period of human greatness becomes an inspiration not

just for the American Revolution but for sort of political

revolutions, you know, before and after.

Obviously there were many generations of Stoics, but how did that change?

What were the core elements of the beginning of Stoicism

and how did that change over time?

...