The Old, Obscure, and Lesser-Known

Gaius Musonius Rufus, my teacher.

I have been reading the writings of Gaius Musonius Rufus. Musonius, as he is often called, was a Roman Stoic and the teacher of Epictetus. I’ve been reading a translation of his writings by Cora Lutz, published under the title That One Should Disdain Hardships.¹

Few of his writings survive. What we have is a collection of summaries of his lectures, most bearing the mark of having been written by a student of Musonius rather than by Musonius himself. (It is similar to writings by Confucius — many of the writings contain phrases like ‘When asked, Musonius would say…’)

Reading them has been extraordinarily profitable. I want to talk about why that is, and then I want to generalize the point a bit to talk about why we read old, obscure books.