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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation

designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life.

Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy

that has guided some of history's greatest men and women

to help you learn from them, to follow in their example,

and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom.

For more, visitdailystoic.com.

This cannot be taken, only given.

Nero could take their freedom.

He could confiscate their wealth.

He could remove them from their positions.

He was, after all, a tyrant.

And in many cases, he did take those things.

Just ask Seneca, ask Thrasia, ask Agrippinus, all Stoics whom we profile in lives of the Stoics.

But there was something else that not even the most powerful dictator can deprive someone of without their consent, their dignity, their self-respect,

their values. It was this that agrippinists maintained, despite the culture of fear around him,

refusing even to attend Nero's banquets. Thrasia declined to take part in the farce that was so many of Nero's edicts

and policies. He declined to participate in the fiction and the unreality that Nero's

enablers chose to co-sign. Seneca, unfortunately, did give up so much of his dignity and

respectability in order to maintain his position with Nero, as did countless other Romans.

...