A Summer celebration of moderation, community, and freedom
The following are a few thoughts on how to observe Kronia, but also how one could observe any holiday as thoughtful and responsible Stoics.
What is Kronia?
Kronia is the Ancient Greek holiday traditionally celebrated 12 days [inclusive] after the Attic New Years, which itself is tied to the first new moon after the summer solstice. It’s a ‘movable’ holiday that changes every year depending on the summer solstice and the phases of the moon. The Romans appropriated it and called it Saturnalia (which was eventually moved to the winter). Both holidays celebrated their respective “Golden Age” in which Kronos/Saturn reigned and everyone was happy and free.
How do Stoics observe Kronia?
Stoics would not have observed this day as the general public did—with raucous celebrations and overeating. This is Seneca’s point in Letters 18 in regard to Saturnalia. Instead, ancient and modern Stoics can use this holiday as an opportunity to cultivate temperance (sōphrosunē); foster a sense of community (sumpatheia) with others; and contemplate the nature of true freedom (eleutheria).
Temperance
Temperance (sōphrosunē in Greek, temperantia in Latin) is one of the four cardinal virtues that humans manifest insofar as we possess knowledge and exercise reason. Seneca resists describing temperance in the sense that it usually is—that it amounts to restraining our impulses so that we don’t indulge too much in a good thing. No, if too much of anything is ‘bad,’ then that thing was never good to begin with! This is one of the reasons pleasure can’t be good (see Epictetus Discourses 2.11.19-25 for a succinct discussion of this). Nor are any of the emotions (pathē) good (see Seneca Letters 85 especially on this point).
Temperance, rather, is the exercise of reason when using and consuming external things and with an eye towards what is “according to nature.” Temperance is good and the external things it uses are morally indifferent. During Summer vacation, we may be inclined to neglect temperance in favor of activities centered around external things: eating and drinking in particular. The readings below are meant to counteract those inclinations and encourage diligence and discipline. Once we cultivate good habits (i.e., we are disposed to thinking and acting rationally), then there is no need for any restraint.
Readings to cultivate temperance: Musonius Rufus Lectures 18; Seneca Letters 18, 83
Sense of Community
‘Sense of Community’ is a translation of the Greek sumpatheia. It was used to describe “fellow feeling” shared among all sentient beings. It seems to have a connotation shared with the modern English term ‘simpatico’ used to describe a relationship between like-minded people who get along well or work well together. Human beings work especially well with one another because of our shared rational faculties (though misinformation/disinformation can hijack that faculty and keep us in vice). On top of this, Stoics are keen to note that humans work especially well with the cosmos itself because of how our rational faculties let us attend to the rational laws of nature. This is a kind of ‘simpatico’ with the universe.
It’s important to stress that sumpatheia refers to something deep—a deep, intuitive understanding or ‘feeling’ that one has toward the social or natural world. The Summer can be a time to cultivate this feeling by reinforcing that we are all parts of a larger organized whole. Though things can irritate us, expressing gratitude and keeping a bigger picture in mind can help us foster community with other people and with the world at large.
Reading to foster sumpatheia: Marcus Aurelius Meditations Book 6
Freedom
The Stoics often emphasized that we are all slaves to many masters. One of the Stoic ‘paradoxes’ that Cicero explored was the claim that “only the wise person is free” (Paradoxa Stoicorum 5). In his discourse on freedom, Epictetus only cites Socrates and Diogenes the Cynic as truly free (Discourses 4.1.151-169).
What’s fascinating about the Stoic’s notion of freedom (eleutheria in Greek, lībertās in Latin) is that they don’t actually define it differently than how most people would: you are free if you can do whatever you desire without being compelled or impeded. Insofar as you can’t do whatever you want—insofar as you feel compelled or impeded—you are not free. The solution amounts to Stoic practice and especially the so-called ‘discipline of desire’. During Kronia in Ancient times, Greek slaves would get a taste of political freedom (they would be able to celebrate with the rest of the city and dine with their masters); during Kronia today, we can all take this opportunity to contemplate true freedom—moral, psychological freedom—and how we can work toward it.
Readings to help contemplate freedom: Epictetus Discourses 4.1; Also Enchiridion 1; Letters 37; Meditations 1.8
Happy Kronia!
kalē kronia!
BONUS: The Golden Age
Kronia is meant to commemorate and—in some small way—reinstate the “Golden Age” when Kronos reigned.
Here’s Hesoid describing the Golden Age of Arcadia in his Works and Days (Erga kai Hēmerai):
The first race of humanity was Gold;
109–126; trans. A.E. Stallings
The Olympian gods created it of old,
In the time of Kronos, when he ruled the air.
Like gods they lived, with spirits free from care;
And grim old age never encroached. The feast
Where they moved limbs to music never ceased;
Their hands and feet not ageing in the least.
They were free from every evil you could number,
And when death came, it stole on them like slumber.
They had good things galore; a bumper yield
Of corn sprung volunteering from the field.
They shared the harvest, peaceful as you please,
And gentle, willing, dwelt in bounteous ease
[Loved by the gods, their sheep crowding the fold.]
When earth had covered up this race of Gold,
As spirits they remained, by Zeus’s will;
Benevolent, they move among us still,
Guardians who keep watch over men,
All justice and all crimes lie in their ken,
Shrouded with mist, they walk abroad in stealth;
Within their gift, the kingly boon of wealth.
And here’s Socrates in Plato’s Cratylus talking with Hermogenes about the word “spirit” and equivocates it with the word “wise” or “sage,”drawing on Hesiod’s description of the Golden Age:
Do you remember who Hesiod says the spirits are?
I do not recall it.
Nor that he says a golden race was the first race of men to be born?
Yes, I do know that.
Well, he says of it:“But since Fate has covered up this race,
As spirits they remained, by Zeus’s will;
Benevolent, they move among us still,
Guardians who keep watch over men”
(121-123)What of that?
397c-398c; trans. Jowett
Why, I think he means that the golden race was not made of gold, but was good and beautiful. And I regard it as a proof of this that he further says we are the iron race.
True.
Don’t you suppose that if anyone of our day is good, Hesiod would say he was of that golden race?
Quite likely.
But the good are the wise, are they not?
Yes, they are the wise.
This, then, I think, is what he certainly means to say of the spirits: because they were wise and knowing (daēmones) he called them spirits (daimones) and in the old form of our language the two words are the same. Now he and all the other poets are right, who say that when a good man dies he has a great portion and honor among the dead, and becomes a spirit, a name which is in accordance with the other name of wisdom. And so I assert that every good man, whether living or dead, is of spiritual nature, and is rightly called a spirit.
And here’s Socrates providing a more concrete description of his ‘First City’ (before Glaucon prods him to describe the Republic), which sounds suspiciously similar to the “Golden Age” of Kronos:
First, then, let’s see what sort of life our citizens will lead when they’ve been provided for in the way we have been describing. They’ll produce bread, wine, clothes, and shoes, won’t they? They’ll build houses, work naked and barefoot in the summer, and wear adequate clothing and shoes in the winter. For food, they’ll knead and cook the flour and meal they’ve made from wheat and barley. They’ll put their honest cakes and loaves on reeds or clean leaves, and, reclining on beds strewn with yew and myrtle, they’ll feast with their children, drink their wine, and, crowned with wreaths, hymn the gods. They’ll enjoy sex with one another but bear no more children than their resources allow, lest they fall into either poverty or war.
It seems that you make your people feast without any delicacies, Glaucon interrupted.
True enough, I said, I was forgetting that they’ll obviously need salt, olives, cheese, boiled roots, and vegetables of the sort they cook in the country. We’ll give them desserts, too, of course, consisting of figs, chickpeas, and beans, and they’ll roast myrtle and acorns before the fire, drinking moderately. And so they’ll live in peace and good health, and when they die at a ripe old age, they’ll bequeath a similar life to their children.
372 a-d
And, lastly, here’s Ovid describing the Golden Age of Jupiter in his Metamorphoses:
First to be born was the Golden Age. Of its own free will, without laws or enforcement, it did what was right and trust prevailed. Punishment held no terrors; no threatening edicts were published in tablets of bronze; secure with none to defend them, the crowd never pleaded or cowered in fear in front of their stern-faced judges. No pine tree had yet been felled from its home on the mountains and come down into the flowing waves for journeys to lands afar; mortals were careful and never forsook the shores of their homeland. No cities were yet ringed round with deep, precipitous earthworks; long straight trumpets and curved bronze horns never summoned to battle; swords were not carried nor helmets worn; no need for armies, but nations were free to practise the gentle arts of peace. The earth was equally free and at rest, untouched by the hoe, unscathed by the ploughshare, supplying all needs from its natural resources. Content to enjoy the food that required no painful producing, men simply gathered arbutus fruit and mountain strawberries, cornel cherries and blackberries plucked from the prickly bramble, acorns too which they found at the foot of the spreading oak tree. Spring was the only season. Flowers which had never been planted were kissed into life by the warming breath of the gentle zephyrs; and soon the earth, untilled by the plough, was yielding her fruits, and without renewal the fields grew white with the swelling corn blades. Rivers of milk and rivers of nectar flowed in abundance, and yellow honey, distilled like dew from the leaves of the ilex.
1.89-112; trans. D. Raeburn
Simulating the “Golden Age” on Kronos
Inspired by the passages above, here are some activities one can undertake to simulate the “Golden Age” in a fun and celebratory way:
- Walk barefoot, wear wreath crowns
- Sing hymns to the gods or Nature
- Recline in beds strewn with yew and myrtle (or something comparable)
- Drink moderately (with reason and intention)
Here are some simple foods one can partake in:
- Baked goods from wheat and barley flour/meal
- “Honest cakes” (hê maza gennaia) made from dough (of barley or wheat) that are noble, honorable (lit. true to one’s birth) or just excellent (i.e., excellent specimens of their kind
- Loaves placed on reeds or clean leaves (rather than elaborate serving dishes) – avoid paper plates!
- Wine – perhaps deluded with ice or juice
Here are some more complex foods (again, taken from the passages above):
- A simple sauce/relish (opson) and salt is fine
- Olives
- Cheese
- Boiled roots (bolbos; pl. bolboi): the bulbs of various plants, especially onions; Socrates may have been thinking of Muscari comosum. Their bulbs were collected in the wild, cleaned, boiled several times, pickled, and then kept in olive oil… During Roman times, Pliny noted that the bulbs were eaten with vinegar, oil, and garum
- Seasonal vegetables [and garden herbs] (lachana)
- Deserts consisting of figs, chickpeas, and beans
- NOTE: especially enjoy figs since we should not expect them in winter (Mediations 11.33); Zeno was fond of dried figs, perhaps for this reason (DL 7.27)
- Roasted myrtle and acorns
BONUS: 5 Tips for Summer Hygge
Hygge (pronounced ‘hoogah’) is a Danish concept of coziness, relaxation, and quite fun that I think would be everpresent in the “Golden Age.” We usually experience hygge in the winter (i.e., around Saturnalia), but The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking dedicates a chapter to fostering hygge in the Summer (i.e., around Kronia). Here are some suggestions:
- Spending a day at the orchard; perhaps preserving the fruit you picked; perhaps making cider
- Barbecuing with friends and play low-impact yard games (croquet, lawn bowling, lawn darts, cornhole, etc)
- Creating and tending to a community garden (with raised plant beds and imported soil)
- Picnicking with fruit, bread, and cheese; good conversation; reading; and lounging around
- Enjoying slow bicycle rides, perhaps to a picnic location
That’s all I got!
Whatever you do, have a wonderful time and abide in your true nature of reason and congeniality.