The movie The Gladiator tells the story of "The general who became a slave. The

slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor." Terrific as

it is, the tale is but one manifestation of a recurring theme, which I have

observed since coming to the west in 1999, and especially since acquainted

through their writings with a few Greek and Roman sages. The "true" emperor in

the film, Marcus Aurelius, was one of them.

When I am happy and smug, I don't need the Stoics. It is always

when I am in fear, gloom, despair, or otherwise stressed that I consult them. 

Like old friends, they don't beat around the bush or confuse to profit but give

it to me straight. They state the truth and tell me what to do about it. In the

movie, Maximus quotes Marcus as saying "Death smiles at us all. All that man can

do is smile back." I can't imagine better instructions on death. They called

teachings like this philosophy.

The four virtues according to Marcus are wisdom, justice, fortitude, and

temperance. The American Heritage Dictionary 4th ed defines the phrase

'cardinal virtue' as

        One of the four paramount virtues in classical philosophy:

        justice, prudence, fortitude, or temperance.

And the thesarus (an Apple Inc. app, version 2.3.0-268) lists wisdom as the

first synonym of prudence. Therefore, like the 仁义礼智信 for the Chinese, for

thousands of years the virtues have stayed in the western conciousness.

It was in another bout of depression when I opened Marcus's "Meditations" and

before reaching the text, met in the introduction the phrase "virtue above 

pleasure." Now that I know what he meant by a virtue, the instruction is clear.