As Caesar overwhelmed and destroyed the Roman Republic, the Romans had a choice. Neither choice was good, but it was all they had. They could allow it to happen or they could fight. They could ‘accept the bridle,’ as Plutarch put it, and with some humiliation, keep their estates and their status and their life...or they could fight, desperately, hopelessly, against overwhelming odds.
It’s like the lyrics to the Mt Joy Song,
There's two ways it goes now
As our love comes crashing down
You could be the flame the burns out
Or you could turn and burn it down
Cicero chose to quietly go along. Cato refused. Both were powerless, it turned out, to affect much change at that moment. Caesar was too powerful. The Republic had already fallen. But Cato chose to lay down his life, to make the ultimate sacrifice and statement of resistance. In so doing, he sealed Caesar’s fate and made a statement about freedom and liberty loud enough that the Founders in America heard it 1700 years later and formed a new nation around it.
A Stoic doesn’t always win, but they never go quietly along. Keeping their stuff? Keeping their fancy position? At the cost of being a slave? Or a sell out? They’d rather be dead. They’d rather lose it all if there was a 1% chance of making a difference—if not for themselves then for future generations.
A Stoic fights, whether it’s against a hedge fund looting the great company they have worked for for the last decade or it’s against the illegitimate Vichy state. A Stoic doesn’t go quietly into the good night like Cicero, they rage like Cato. They say what needs to be said. They don’t let the light go out. They’d rather burn it down than give in.
Because the Republic—literal, metaphorical—matters. What you stand for, what you believe in, matters. It’s worth fighting for.
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