Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Plutarch and the Greece of His Age
the written law that binds prince and people alike,
but also that unwritten law that reason has implanted
in the soul of every man of sound mind. Rulers are
in a sense the servants of God whose duty
it is to ap
portion rewards and
punishments according
deserts, to all that are under their authority.
to their
After all, man s first and chief duty
is to himself.
His quest for light, for knowledge, for truth is never to
be intermitted. He is to take his bearings, as it were,
frequently, in order to see what progress he is
making. If his aims are noble, his purposes
right, and his motives pure, he will not only
make daily progress in virtue, but when he is
called to leave this world he can depart in peace be
cause he will have the consciousness that it is the
better for his having lived in it.
Having thus given a short sketch of Plutarch as a
man and a citizen let us proceed to examine briefly
the times in which he lived as supplementary to what
has already been said under this general head in
treating
his country?
of Seneca. "What had Roman rule done for
What was the social and economic con
dition of Greece and Greek lands in the first century
of the Christian era? Unfortunately our information
on these points is exceedingly scanty. In fact, po
litical economy is a recent science; in ancient times
the lot of the poor was little taken note of. It was
everywhere a hard one, and the care of the indigent,
so much insisted on in the New Testament, is almost
the first sign of an awakening in this respect. But
139