Gaius Musonius Rufus was a Roman Stoic philosopher of the 1st century AD.
15 Facts About Musonius Rufus
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Musonius Rufus taught philosophy in Rome during the reign of Nero and so was sent into exile in 65 AD, returning to Rome only under Galba.
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Musonius Rufus was allowed to stay in Rome when Vespasian banished all other philosophers from the city in 71 AD although he was eventually banished anyway, returning only after Vespasian's death.
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Musonius Rufus is remembered for being the teacher of Epictetus and Dio Chrysostom.
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Musonius Rufus was associated with the Stoic Opposition against the perceived tyranny of Nero.
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Musonius Rufus followed Rubellius Plautus into exile when Plautus was banished by Nero.
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Musonius Rufus returned to Rome after Plautus' death, but as a consequence of his practising and teaching Stoicism, he became an object of suspicion and dislike at Nero's court, and was accordingly banished to the island of Gyaros on a trumped-up charge of participation in the Pisonian conspiracy.
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Musonius Rufus specifically refers to his time in exile in his ninth discourse, pointing out its advantages for a practitioner of Stoicism.
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Musonius Rufus gives only a little attention to the physical doctrines of the Stoics; he asserts that the gods know all things without need of reasoning, since to them nothing can be obscure or unknown.
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Musonius Rufus strongly asserts the liberty of the rational soul.
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Musonius Rufus pays much more attention to ethics than logic or physics; for he holds that philosophy is nothing else than an investigation and practice of what is becoming and obligatory; and philosophy, he says, is merely the pursuit of a virtuous life.
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Musonius Rufus requires that all people, both men and women, should cultivate philosophy as the only sure road to virtue.
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Musonius Rufus agrees that it is easy to follow one's own nature, and the only great impediment which he can find to a truly moral life is the prejudices with which the mind is filled from childhood, and the evil habits confirmed by practices.
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Musonius Rufus forbids meat, and prefers food which is furnished and offered by nature to that which requires the art of cooking.
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Musonius Rufus argued because men's and women's capacity to understand virtue is the same, both should be trained in philosophy.