Hadrian decided he could trust Antoninus with absolute power—a man he had no blood relation to—after watching Antoninus, who had no idea anyone was looking, carefully, respectfully guide his ailing father-in-law up a flight of stairs.
Why would this have meant so much to the Emperor of Rome? Perhaps because Rome's founding myth celebrated this exact behavior. Captured in countless statues and paintings and mosaics, but best rendered in Virgil's The Aeneid, generations of Romans were told the story of Aeneas, the founder of Rome, fleeing Troy with his enfeebled father in his arms. For all Rome's obsession with power, it was this beautiful act of compassion that Rome sought to memorialize in bronze and marble and tile.
So we can imagine when Hadrian saw Antoninus helping his father-in-law, he must have thought, this is a man after Rome's heart. It was a minor moment but a revealing one. It was a glimpse into Antoninus's character. As is the way that we treat our elders.
It says something about a person and about their society when the old are mistreated, when people who have served their country or a company are discarded after they've passed their prime. That was just a disturbing part of the pandemic—when people tried to shrug it off as something that was only risky to old people, as if we don't have an obligation to our parents and grandparents. This is the disturbing part about people who talk about getting rid of the social safety net or try to cut benefits to pensioners and retirees.
We are how we treat the vulnerable. We are how we treat people who can't do much for us anymore. We are who we take care of. Aeneas understood this. So did Antoninus and Hadrian. So did Marcus Aurelius, who spent close to two decades learning from and helping Antoninus, never seeing him as a rival or as some old person in his way, but as someone with wisdom and experience he could benefit from.
If you want to cultivate the wisdom to recognize character like Hadrian did, or to embody virtue like Antoninus, it requires consistent effort.
That's what Ryan Holiday's new book Wisdom Takes Work is about: how wisdom isn't passively acquired but actively forged—through habits, through study, through the choices you make every single day.
Preorder Wisdom Takes Worktoday and you'll not only secure exclusive preorder bonuses—you'll also take a powerful step towards cultivating the type of wisdom Rome itself celebrated.
How much is your word worth? For former NBA player turned psychologist John Amaechi, the answer is $17 million. In this episode, John and Ryan unpack why he walked away from that payday, why integrity is his ultimate non-negotiable, and why your job should never define you.
No comments:
Post a Comment