Musonius Rufus was banished not once but twice, the second time to Gyaros, a desolate island in the Aegean Sea. He did not respond by becoming depressed or despondent, and he didn’t complain about his situation to those who visited him. In a lecture he subsequently gave, Musonius pointed out that exile does not deprive us of the things that matter most. An exiled person is not prevented from having courage, self-control, wisdom, or any other virtue.1 Furthermore, it is possible to profit from exile. It transformed Diogenes of Sinope, for example, from an ordinary person into one of the most
...more
