ancient philosophy – Emma Williams: Latin tutor

Should somehow the fates allow

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

Carl Jung

“What does he mean by ‘the Fates’ … ?” a student asked me this week. It was while I was helping her to learn the opening of this year’s Virgil set text, which contains the line with which I have titled this blog post.

It was quite the question, and I fear that the explanation I gave at the time was somewhat inadequate. The concept of fate occupied a central place in the intellectual, religious and cultural life of the Romans and the Greeks, so it’s pretty difficult to sum it up in a few words.

To the ancient Greeks, fate was an inexorable power, both mysterious and inevitable and superior even over the will of Zeus himself. For the Romans, who inherited and transformed much of Greek thought, fate was deeply connected to the popular Stoic vision of a rational, ordered cosmos; they also saw it more as synonymous with the will of Jupiter (the Roman counterpart of Zeus). In both civilisations, fate also represented the tension between divine or natural necessity and human free will, raising the perennial and still-relevant question of the extent to which humans have individual agency.

Greek mythology presents fate as a divine force, which governs both gods and mortals, personified as the Moirai. One of the Moirai, named Clotho, spins the thread of life; Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it, ending a life at its appointed time. The Moirai possess these powers beyond the will of Zeus, who may alter much but cannot contravene what has already been “spun” by the Fates. In Homer’s Iliad, Zeus wishes to save his son Sarpedon from death, but his wife Hera reminds him that to do so would be to disrupt the cosmic order by going against the Fates. Zeus reluctantly yields to fate and allows Sarpedon to die, thereby preserving the balance of the universe. The Moirai represent a worldview in which destiny is fixed, human freedom is constrained and even divine will has its limits. Similar beliefs are expressed by the writers of Dr. Who. In the episode entitled “The Fires of Pompeii” (2008), the 10th Doctor explains to his companion that some points in time are fixed (meaning that he is not allowed to change them), while others are in flux (these are events he is allowed to alter). He cites the destruction of Pompeii as a fixed point that cannot be interfered with, contrasting it with other events in which he is allowed to intervene. When his companion asks him how he knows which events are fixed and which are not, he replies, “Because that’s how I see the universe. Every waking second, I can see what is, what was, what could be, what must not … That’s the burden of the Timelord.” This, according to the Greeks, was also how Zeus and the other Olympian gods understood the universe.

The Homeric epics are saturated with such references to fate. In the Iliad, heroes such as Achilles and Hector know that their deaths are inevitable and even foretold, yet the glory they attain depends on how they respond to this certainty. Achilles was told that he could choose between a short, glorious life or a long, obscure one — yet even this choice existed within the framework of a predetermined destiny: would a man such as Achilles ever make a choice other than the one that he did? Was he even capable of doing anything differently? In 2012, the popular atheist thinker Sam Harris wrote a book entitled Free Will. He doesn’t believe that free will exists, and his argument is based on the fact that we act according to our nature and life experiences, both of which are beyond our control.

Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex was the quintessential exploration of fate in Greek thought and I have written about it before. The play dramatises the life of Oedipus, King of Thebes, who attempts to escape a prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. In his efforts to avoid his fate, Oedipus unwittingly fulfills it, thereby bringing plague and ruin to his city. The tragedy lies not simply in the events but in their inevitability. From the beginning, the audience knows the prophecy and it understands that Oedipus’ attempts at escape will be futile: the entire point of the play is to underscore the futility of man’s attempts to resist fate.

Oedipus Rex shows how human intelligence, agency and hubris all in fact drive our destiny. The play also raises profound questions about knowledge and ignorance. Oedipus is a solver of riddles — he famously defeated the Sphinx by answering its riddle — but he cannot solve the riddle of his own life. His relentless pursuit of the truth, motivated by noble intent, leads him to self-destruction. This suggests that fate operates not only through external events but also through the very character and choices of individuals. Oedipus’ determination to know ensures the fulfillment of his destiny. Thus, fate is not an external imposition but an immanent necessity, woven into the fabric of human identity and action. Just as Achilles by his very nature cannot choose anything other than his glorious, short life.

Early Greek philosophy began to transfer the mythological sense of fate into a subject for rational inquiry. Early thinkers such as Heraclitus (for whom we have only fragmentary evidence) reportedly spoke of a universal logos, a rational principle that orders the cosmos, suggesting that he viewed fate as a kind of cosmic law. The Presocratic philosopher Anaximander, likewise known to us only in fragments, saw existence as governed by a principle of necessity, whereby beings pay “penalty and retribution” for their existence in accordance with a cosmic order. The early philosophers thus sought to reconcile human agency with the necessity of fate, a notion that modern philosophers are still wrestling with.

Plato presented a cosmos governed by necessity, but also shaped by the rational will of the divine craftsman. In the Myth of Er at the end of the Republic, souls choose their next lives, but only within the framework of a cosmic order in which the Fates play a central role. Human responsibility remains, but choice occurs within the constraints determined by destiny. Aristotle emphasised causality and the principle of necessity: every event follows from prior causes. He allowed room for contingency and human deliberation, particularly in ethics, where rational choice plays a central role; but even so, Aristotle’s universe is governed by what he calls the Unmoved Mover, and necessity prevails.

The Romans inherited the Greek concept of fate but adapted it to their own religious and political culture. For them, fatum literally meant “what has been spoken,” reflecting its origin in divine speech or decree. Fate was not only the domain of the Parcae, the Roman equivalents of the Moirai, but was also closely tied to Jupiter, the supreme god. Unlike the Greek Zeus, who often appears to be constrained by fate, Jupiter was more frequently depicted as the very source and guarantor of fate in Roman literature. He embodied the sovereignty of divine order, and fate was his will, which was expressed in the unfolding of history. When Jupiter nods his head, stuff happens.

The close link between Jupiter and fate is perhaps as a result of the Roman mindset. The Romans viewed themselves as destined to rule the world. Virgil’s Aeneid, Rome’s great epic of self-definition and indeed the origin of my client’s question, presents the destiny of Rome as the ruling nation as ordained by Jupiter. Aeneas, the dutiful hero, is guided not by personal desire but by obligation to his fated mission, which was to found the Roman race, the future governors of the world. Whenever Aeneas hesitates, wavers from or questions his path, Jupiter and the gods remind him of his destiny, which cannot be avoided. Thus, Roman self-definition entwined the concept of fate with their own historical power, giving it a collective and political dimension absent from the primarily individual focus of fate as viewed by the Greeks. One can only imagine what it must have been like to be a Roman reading Virgil, being told that you are quite literally destined to rule the world.

The Stoics, the Greek philosophers most popular among Roman intelligentsia, gave the most systematic philosophical account of fate in antiquity, one that deeply influenced Roman intellectual life. Fate for the Stoics was synonymous with the rational order of the cosmos, governed by divine reason (logos). Everything that happens is determined by an unbreakable chain of cause and effect, which is itself the expression of divine providence. Fate, then, is not blind necessity but rational order. Chrysippus defined fate as “a rational principle of the things that happen in the world, or the chainlike connection of causes”: nothing occurs by chance; all events follow from prior causes, and the entire universe unfolds according to divine reason. Perhaps strangely, this did not imply fatalism in the sense of resignation; for the Stoics, freedom consisted in aligning one’s will with fate, embracing what happens as necessary and good because it proceeds from divine reason. The Stoics believed that individuals could not control fate but they also argued that individuals had free will. So an individual person is like a dog tied to the back of a wagon. Whatever the dog’s actions, the wagon will go on its way. So how does the dog have free will? Well, he can resist the wagon and be dragged along, impeding the wagon’s progress and damaging himself along the way. Alternatively, he can trot along like a good dog and help the wagon to proceed smoothly. Or, as Sam Harris puts it in his 21st century book on free will that I mentioned earlier, “a puppet is free, as long as he loves his strings.”

Roman Stoics like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius elaborated on the vision of the dog tied to the wagon. Seneca famously wrote, “Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling.” The wise person accepts fate willingly, finding peace in conformity with necessity. Epictetus, a former slave (let’s think about that for a moment, in the context of free will!), emphasised that while external events are determined by fate, individuals retain freedom in their judgments, attitudes and responses. Thus, freedom exists within fate: we cannot change events, but we can choose how to face them. Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, repeatedly counsels acceptance of the order of nature, viewing fate as part of a benevolent cosmic plan. For him, to rebel against fate is to rebel against the universe itself. This approach to life has had a profund influence that resonates to this day and is used by psychologists when working with clients to help them understand what is and is not within their control. It is also expressed rather beautifully in the serenity prayer still used by Christians today and also used by the addiction support group, Alcoholics Anonymous: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Invention and the Shoulders of Giants

Exploring derivatives is a useful tool when learning vocabulary. Yet the connection between the meaning of modern English and the Latin root-word is not always obvious, not least because the usage and commonplace meaning of words can change – sometimes dramatically – over time. Take the example of the Latin adjective clarus, -a, -um, from which we get words like “clarity” and “clarification”. The Latin word did indeed mean “clear” or “bright”, but students are often puzzled by its (if anything more common) meaning of “famous”. But when you think about it, something which is “clear” or “bright” is something which is “easily seen” or “very visible” – hence the word also came to mean “famous”. I find it useful to remind students of English words which carry both a literal and metaphorical meaning: for example, the word “heavy” has the most obvious meaning of an item weighing a great deal, but it can also mean “serious” as in “this is a bit of a heavy subject to be discussing at the dinner table.” It’s useful then to point out that the Latin adjective gravis, -is, -e (from which we get the word “grave”) had this same double meaning, thus it can be translated as “heavy” or “serious”.

My husband and I spent this weekend with a friend who lives in Bristol, and what a fine city it is. If you have any interest in engineering, it’s a bit of a pilgrimage site. Isambard Kingdom Brunel is profoundly connected to the city through his ground-breaking engineering, the work of which left an indelible mark on Bristol’s landscape and infrastructure. Perhaps most visually striking is the Clifton suspension bridge, but he also designed and built Bristol Temple Meads railway station and the SS Great Britain, a steamship which is now preserved in the city’s harbour. Finally, and perhaps most significantly in terms of the city’s outreach, Brunel led the construction of the Great Western Railway, which linked Bristol to London and thus shaped the city’s relationship with the rest of the UK.

Yet Bristol’s engineering feats do not begin and end with Brunel. Bristol has a long and prestigious history as a centre for aircraft design and manufacturing. Perhaps most excitingly of all, the city was instrumental in the design of Concorde, and all ten British-built Concordes were manufactured and assembled at the Filton site in the north of the city. The first British prototype made its maiden flight from Filton and her last journey also ended at Filton, where the aircraft is now displayed at the Bristol Aerospace museum. We visited her in her very own hangar and were thrilled to discover that one can climb inside the fuselage and peer into the cockpit, a rare privilege indeed.

Being prone to labyrinthine thinking when my mind is full of new experiences, I found myself pondering what one might consider to be man’s greatest inventions. My husband would argue, without a shadow of a doubt, that man’s greatest feat of engineering is Concorde. To have designed an aircraft that can travel at a height and speed achieved hitherto only by fighter jets, in which the pilots wear oxygen masks and pressure-suits, and to make that aircraft comfortable enough and the ride smooth enough that the wealthy passengers who swan on board the flight will not spill a drop of their champagne, is a truly mind-blowing achievement. It was wonderful to read the accounts of the pilots who flew this magnificent machine, and one of them sticks in my mind in particular. He said various things about what an extraordinary experience it was to fly the Concorde, but he finished with: “the novelty never wears off.” I love the idea of a pilot simply loving the experience of flying this phenomenal jet, every single time he did so.

Despite my genuine love of Concorde and the engineering innovation and brilliance it signifies, my own candidates for the greatest inventions by man tend to be more prosaic. In this I am influenced by my father, himself an engineer, who used to torture interview candidates with this question. While they floundered in their attempts to come up with the most exciting modern leaps of nano-technology, my father would push them to consider man’s earliest achievements, the ones that defined us as a species different from all others, for better or for worse. The invention of the bow and arrow; the discovery that cooking food with fire not only made it more palatable but released more nutrients; the building of the rafts that enabled us to leave the land mass of Africa, Asia and Europe; the innovations of the ramp, the lever and the wheel, which enabled us to harness unimaginable power and move objects many times our own size and weight; the building of bridges, with which we find ourselves back with Brunel. As I wandered around Bristol, I found myself pondering all of these things, as we blundered in and out of the city’s quite bewildering array of coffee shops and hipster bars.

My brain then looped back around to the very meaning of the word “invention” and thus we are back to etymology. Students are often puzzled as to why the main derivative of the Latin word invenire, which they are taught means “to find”, is “invention”, when an invention is surely an innovation, not a discovery. The Latin verb primarily meant “to discover”, “to find” or “to come upon” but also “to invent” or “to devise”. It is created out of the preposition “in” and the verb “come” so it literally meant “to come into”. I am no philologist, but I have found myself pondering whether this comes down to the ancient beliefs about knowledge and discovery. For a civilisation that pioneered so many ideas and inventions which we now take for granted, the ancient thinkers didn’t actually set much store by innovation and originality. Plato believed that every single human is born with all the scientific and mathematical knowledge that exists in the universe, they simply need to have it uncovered for them via the Socratic method. Likewise, in the arts, novelty and innovation was not particularly valued in the way that it is today. People wanted to see imitation and mimicry: the artistry was in re-telling good stories with great effect, not in making up new ones.

All of this means that, in the ancient world, even those who made the most remarkable leaps of invention, merely saw themselves as uncovering already-existing truths. There is a humility to this that I believe we should cherish. Newton famously said, “if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. He believed that his scientific discoveries were made possible by the knowledge and work of his predecessors, those very pioneers in the ancient world. I think there is something rather beautiful about the fact that those giants would have said the same thing about themselves.

Clifton suspension bridge during a balloon launch. Photo by Nathan Riley on Unsplash

Friendships old and new

This weekend, my husband and I travelled to Suffolk for a close friend’s wedding. I was honoured to be a witness to the marriage, and it was a genuine tonic for the soul to watch a good friend declare her marriage vows, radiant and happy.

The weekend has caused me to think about friendship in general: how some friends come and go while others last the course. The groom had two Best Men, two close friends that he has been tightly bonded to since primary school. Seeing the lasting friendship between them was genuinely moving and there is something undeniably special about friends who have known us since childhood, for they have a perspective on us that nobody else can have. Those two friends not only remember the groom’s mother, who died long before he met and married my friend: they knew her well and spent endless time with her, as you do during childhood friendships. The same is true for me and my oldest friend’s mother, who died 20 years ago, long before my friend met many of the people who are a part of her life now. She reminded me of this fact when we were out together for dinner recently, and we both shed tears at the memory of her. There is immense value in hanging on to at least one or two people that have known you and your family for decades.

The friend who married her husband at the weekend is not someone I have known very long in the grand scheme of life, indeed we first met online during the pandemic when — like so many people — I flirted briefly with some online clubs. As so often in my case, the club proved to be too much of a commitment for me, but the friendship did not. I clocked her from day one as a genuinely interesting and intelligent individual, whom I made every effort to befriend long after I had dispensed with the hassle of the book club. I’ve never been much of a joiner, but friends are desperately important to me.

While our society places huge importance on romantic relationships — whether or not you have found “the one” — I would argue that it consistently undervalues the importance of lasting friendship. Elizabeth Day explored this in her book, Friendaholic, which I read in the hope of finding a kindred spirit, although it actually turned out to be an exploration of one woman’s neurosis rather than a legitimate exploration of friendship itself. For reflections on the value of friendship, one can find much better material in the writings of various ancient thinkers.

Aristotle argued that friendship was a crucial component of a fulfilling life. Ever the fan of definitions and categorisation, he divided friendships into three types: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure and friendships of virtue. I think we can all relate to what he means in the first two categories: some friends you need in your life for practical reasons — perhaps your children play together, or you work closely with that person. Some friends are of value because you share a common interest and/or enjoy a particular activity: perhaps you’ve joined a golf club or a running group. According to Aristotle, the highest form of friendship, and the most enduring, is the friendship of virtue. This type of friendship is based on mutual respect, admiration and a shared commitment to “the good life” (the philosophical ideal of living well, which meant living according to your ethical code). Aristotle argued that such friends grow together and seek each other’s well-being because of their shared pursuit of excellence. I am quite certain that Aristotle — genius as he was — would also acknowledge that a friendship might start in one category and develop into another. You might form a friendship out of utlity that evolves into something much more fundamental. For example, many women meet friends through the NCT that become genuine soulmates over the years.

Aristotle’s talk of the pursuit of excellence and virtue through friendship might sound rather highbrow and off-putting, but it is actually not a million miles away from the things that are said in the modern world about romantic relationships. How often have we heard the mantra “you make me a better person” or “you bring out the best in me”? This is what Aristotle argued was at the heart of a good friendship. He emphasised the role of friendship in personal development and moral growth and suggested that through friendship, an individual can learn to cultivate virtues such as generosity, honesty, and courage. Good friends, he argued, challenge each other: both morally and intellectually.

All of the above is unquestionably true of the friendship I have with the person who got married this weekend. She is someone who has challenged my views on a range of topics and (unlike many) is not hesitant to disagree with me, a characteristic I value enormously. This is the friend who got me into weight training, as I first wrote about all the way back in November 2023, and which I am still doing twice a week, every week. I think it is fair to say that no other friend has had such a concrete and indeed revolutionary effect on my life and my fitness. She has quite literally changed my life for the better. This is by no means the only influence she has had on my life and is just one of many things which we share and talk about on a regular basis, but it remains perhaps the most revelatory for me as an individual. As someone who has eschewed all forms of sport and exercise throughout most of my life, it has been life-changing to find someone who has managed to shift my perspective on something so fundamental.

The Epicureans argued that genuine friendships are essential for achieving ataraxia or peace of mind, which is the ultimate goal of Epicurean philosophy. By surrounding oneself with trustworthy friends, ones who share similar values and interests, Epicurus believed that individuals could create a supportive environment that enhanced their well-being and guarded against the uncertainties of life. For the Epicureans, true friendship is characterised by the absence of strife and the presence of mutual trust and companionship. It is often assumed that the Epicurean approach was seismically different from Aristotle’s emphasis on virtue, but in reality it was not. The only thing that was radical about the Epicureans was their argument that a tranquil and pleasurable life was the ultimate moral goal: friendship was thus a part of their moral attainment, just as it was for Aristotle. Friendship, for the ancients, was not merely a social convention or a means to an end but a fundamental aspect of the good life.