July 30, 2026

Draw The Circles Closer

It is the task of a well-tempered man, in his relations to each group, to draw the circles together somehow towards the centre, and to keep zealously transferring those from the enclosing circles into the enclosed ones.

Hierocles was a Stoic teacher active in the second century CE, and his Elements of Ethics survives mainly through excerpts preserved by the anthologist Stobaeus. In this passage he pictures each person standing at the center of circles that widen outward: self, family, neighbors, countrymen, and finally the whole human race. His instruction is active, not just descriptive - pull the outer circles inward, treating distant people with the same care shown to the closest ones. This is Sympatheia made concrete: the Stoics taught that people are built for cooperation the way hands, feet, and eyelids work together as one body. Practicing it meant training attention and habit, deliberately narrowing the felt distance between yourself and a stranger.

A principle of Stoicism: Sympatheia →