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of whom stood apart from the violence of war and politics, and needed a philosophy to help them live calmly within the turmoil of their society.
    Lucretius contributed nothing of importance to psychology in
On the Nature of Things;
he merely restated the views of Epicurus and Democritus in a somewhat schoolteacherish manner, adding a few comments designed to patch up weaknesses in each. He is as limited in his outlook as his sources; he says, for instance, that since we feel fears and joys in the “middle region of the breast,” that is where the mind or understanding is located, and that the mind and soul (which he says are united) are composed of particularly small, fast-moving atoms. But elsewhere he is eminently sensible and realistic. Here, for instance, is a sample of Lucretius at his best:
    The nature of the mind and soul is bodily… [and] mortal. If the soul were immortal and made its way into our body at birth, why would we be unable to remember bygone times and retain no traces of previous actions? If the power of the mind has been so completely changed that all remembrance of past things is lost, I regard that as not differing greatly from death; therefore you must admit that the soul which was before has perished and that which is now has been formed. 11
    While we may admire the common sense of the ancient poet, in him psychology is at a standstill; we need not linger here.
Seneca
    Stoicism was more to the taste of the aggressive ruling class of Roman society. From the first century A.D. this doctrine was popular among Roman politicians and military leaders, who led lives of luxury and power but knew that at any moment they might lose everything, including their lives. For them, Stoical dispassion and calmness in the face of personal tragedy was an ideal.
    It is epitomized in the behavior of the philosopher Seneca the Younger (3 B.C. – A.D. 65) in the face of death. The poet, dramatist, statesman, and Stoic philosopher was rumored, probably falsely, to be plotting against the Emperor Nero. When the rumor reached Nero, he dispatched a centurion to Seneca’s country home to tell him that the Emperor desired his death. On hearing this, Seneca quietly called for tablets on which to write his will. The centurion refused permission for this lengthy task, whereupon Seneca told the weeping friends around him, “Since I cannot reward you for your services, I leave you the best thing I have to leave—the pattern of my life.” He calmly opened his veins, lay down in a hot bath, and while dying dictated to his secretaries a letter to the Roman people. 12
Epictetus
    The best-known Stoic philosopher in Rome, Epictetus (60–120)—originally a Greek slave—was, like his Stoic forebears, uninterested in the nature of the universe, matter, or spirit. “What do I care,” he said, “whether all existing things are composed of atoms…or of fire and earth? Is it not enough to learn the true nature of good and evil?” 13 His central concern was to find a way to endure life. The only heed he paid to psychology was to offer a quasi-Platonic rationalization of how to “endure and renounce”:
    Never say about anything, “I have lost it,” but only, “I have given it back.” Is your child dead? It has been given back. Is your wife dead? She has been returned…I must go into exile; does anyone keep me from going with a smile, serene?…“I will throw you in prison.” It is only my body you imprison. I must die: must I then die complaining?… These are the lessons that philosophy ought to rehearse, and write down daily, and practice. 14
    Much the same kind of noble but unenlightening sentiment appears in the famous
Meditations
of the second-century philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Galen
    The only real contributions to psychology by Roman citizens were made by a Greek and an Egyptian.
    The Greek, Galen (130–201), was the most famous physician and anatomist of his time and personal physician to Marcus Aurelius and