Caligula offered the philosopher Demetrius two hundred thousand sesterces, a sum a family could live on for decades. Demetrius laughed and said that if the emperor had really wanted to tempt him, he should have tried it with his whole empire. He did not take the money. Seneca, who knew him personally, tells the story and adds what is remarkable about it: not that Demetrius scorned the money, but that he had first worked out what he needed, so the question was already answered before it was asked.
Demetrius the Cynic lived in Rome in the first century and was a friend of Seneca, who cites him in several works as a living example rather than as a quotation from a book. He was also connected to the circle around Thrasea Paetus, and was later banished by the emperor Vespasian along with the other philosophers. Seneca calls him a man who did not possess wisdom but did practise it, and said he regarded him not as a teacher but as a witness: someone who showed you the teaching could actually be carried out, which on paper always remains doubtful.
A sum that changes your life, offered by someone who has asked nothing in return. Not yet.
The offer came from outside and was not his; whether he accepted it was. His answer also moves the question: he compares the sum not with what he has but with what he needs, and then two hundred thousand turns out to be as irrelevant as two thousand. Whoever does not know his own floor lets every offer set it for him.
At what sum would you say yes to something you would rather not do? And do you know why exactly there?
Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases · Questions or suggestions