all the wealthy—­some sort of respect is always paid to intellectual eminence, and intellectual amusements are cultivated as well as those of a coarser character.  Hence a rich Roman liked to have people of literary culture among his slaves; he liked to have people at hand who would get him any information which he might desire about books, who could act as his amanuenses, who could even correct and supply information for his original compositions.  Such learned slaves formed part of every large establishment, and among them were usually to be found some who bore, if they did not particularly merit, the title of “philosophers.”  These men—­many of whom are described as having been mere impostors, ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites—­acted somewhat like domestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons.  They gratified an amateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative innocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in lassitude or sleep.  It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he wished to have a philosophic slave, than it is to the credit of an illiterate millionaire in modern times that he likes to have works of high art in his drawing-room, and books of reference in his well-furnished library.

Accordingly, since Epictetus must have been singularly useless for all physical purposes, and since his thoughtfulness and intelligence could not fail to command attention, his master determined to make him useful in the only way possible, and sent him to Caius Musonius Rufus to be trained in the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy.

Musonius was the son of a Roman knight.  His learning and eloquence, no less than his keen appreciation of Stoic truths, had so deeply kindled the suspicions of Nero, that he banished him to the rocky little island of Gyaros, on the charge of his having been concerned in Piso’s conspiracy.  He returned to Rome after the suicide of Nero, and lived in great distinction and respect, so that he was allowed to remain in the city when the Emperor Vespasian banished all the other philosophers of any eminence.

The works of Musonius have not come down to us, but a few notices of him, which are scattered in the Discourses of his greater pupil, show us what kind of man he was.  The following anecdotes will show that he was a philosopher of the strictest school.

Speaking of the value of logic as a means of training the reason, Epictetus anticipates the objection that, after all, a mere error in reasoning is no very serious fault.  He points out that it is a fault, and that is sufficient.  “I too,” he says, “once made this very remark to Rufus when he rebuked me for not discovering the suppressed premiss in some syllogism.  ‘What!’ said I, ’have I then set the Capitol on fire, that you rebuke me thus?’ ‘Slave!’ he answered, ’what has the Capitol to do with it?  Is there no other fault then short of setting the Capitol on fire?  Yes! to use one’s own mere fancies rashly, at random, anyhow; not to follow an argument, or a demonstration, or a sophism; not, in short, to see what makes for oneself or not, in questioning and answering—­is none of these things a fault?’”