ARISTOTLE TO AUGUSTINE he often writes about the relation between soul and body in a manner that is distinctly other-worldly ‘The human heart is never more divine than when it meditates on its own mortality, and realises that a human being is born in order to give up life, and that this body is not a home but a short-term hostelry which one must leave as soon as one sees one is becoming a burden on one’s host’ (120 14) Seneca recognizes the diYculty of the Stoic path to virtue He distinguishes between three stages in moral progress There are those who have given up some vices but not all—they are without avarice, but not without anger; without lust but not without ambition; and so on Then there are those who have given up all passions but are not yet safe from relapse The third class, the closest approximation to wisdom, consists of those who are beyond relapsing, but have not yet acquired secure self-conWdence in their virtue (Ep 75 8–14) Seneca also made popular the distinction in Stoicism between doctrines and precepts The doctrines provided the general philosophical framework; the precepts enabled the true concept of the highest good to Wnd expression in speciWc prescriptions to individuals (Ep 94 2) This distinction enabled Stoics to counter the allegation that their system was too elevated to be of any practical use, and justiWed the philosopher in giving the kind of pastoral advice of which Seneca’s own letters are full Many, in both ancient and modern times, have regarded Seneca as a hypocrite: a man who praised mercy but was implicated in a tyrant’s crimes; a man who preached the worthlessness of earthly goods but piled up a gigantic fortune In his defence it can be said that he acted as a restraining inXuence on Nero, and that in his last years he sought genuine detachment from the world He was under no illusion that he lived up to Stoic standards ‘I am a long way, not only from perfection, but from being a halfway decent person,’ he wrote (Ep 57 3) Seneca was the founding father of the Imperial Stoa Two other prominent members of the school show how wide was the appeal of Stoicism under the empire: the slave Epictetus and the emperor Marcus Aurelius The Stoics of the imperial period were far less interested in logic and physics than their predecessors in Hellenistic times, and like Seneca both Epictetus and Marcus are remembered principally for their moral philosophy.18 18 J Barnes, Logic and the Imperial Stoa (Leiden: Brill, 1997) has made a gallant case for the logical competence of Epictetus 107