Daily Assignment, Read Tacitus' description of the Death of Seneca and Book One of M. Aurelius' Meditations. Find quotes within those two texts that help explain what Stoicism is all about.

1. “Seneca, quite unmoved, asked for tablets on which to inscribe his will.”
2. “It was brought to him and he drank it in vain, chilled as he was throughout his limbs, and his frame closed against the efficacy of the poison. At last he entered a pool of heated water, from which he sprinkled the nearest of his slaves, adding the exclamation, "I offer this liquid as a libation to Jupiter the Deliverer." He was then carried into a bath, with the steam of which he was suffocated, and he was burnt without any of the usual funeral rites. So he had directed in a codicil of his will, when even in the height of his wealth and power he was thinking of his life's close.”
3. “I received the impression that my character required improvement and discipline; and from him I learned not to be led astray to sophistic emulation, nor to writing on speculative matters, nor to delivering little hortatory orations, nor to showing myself off as a man who practices much discipline, or does benevolent acts in order to make a display; and to abstain from rhetoric, and poetry, and fine writing; and not to walk about in the house in my outdoor dress, nor to do other things of the kind; and to write my letters with simplicity.
4. “I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose; and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason; and to be always the same, in sharp pains, on the occasion of the loss of a child, and in long illness; and to see clearly in a living example that the same man can be both most resolute and yielding, and not peevish in giving his instruction; and to have had before my eyes a man who clearly considered his experience and his skill in expounding philosophical principles as the smallest of his merits; and from him I learned how to receive from friends what are esteemed favours, without being either humbled by them or letting them pass unnoticed.”
5. “Upon this the tribune asserted that he saw no signs of fear, and perceived no sadness in his words or in his looks.”
1. Tacitus: The Death of Seneca, 65 CE
2. Tacitus: The Death of Seneca, 65 CE
3. Marcus Aurelius Antonius: Meditations, 167 CE (Book 1)
4. Marcus Aurelius Antonius: Meditations, 167 CE (Book 1)
5. Tacitus: The Death of Seneca, 65 CE