Glossary
Ataraxia
ἀταραξία (ataraxia)
Ataraxia, literally the absence of tarachē, disturbance, names the untroubled state that Epicureans and Sceptics also claimed as their goal. The Stoics used the word for the calm that follows when nothing external is judged to be an evil. Elizabeth Carter renders it “Tranquillity” in Enchiridion XII, where it stands beside “Apathy”: the small losses of a household are the purchase paid for both. In the Stoic texts it is not sought for itself. It is what remains when the passions have gone, and the school’s own word for the goal is virtue, not calm.
Marcus Aurelius describes it as a place rather than a feeling. In George Long’s 1862 wording of Meditations, IV, 3, nowhere does a man retire with more quiet or more freedom from trouble than into his own soul, and tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. The passage then lists what disturbs, the badness of men, one’s lot, the body, fame, and answers each in turn, ending each time with the same instruction to be quiet at last.
Seneca, in Aubrey Stewart’s 1889 translation of On a Happy Life, chapter IV, says that a man of Stoic principles must be accompanied by a continual cheerfulness, because he delights in what he has. Tranquillity is presented in all three authors as a consequence: of the right ordering of judgment in Marcus, of the refusal to value what can be lost in Epictetus, of the settled possession of one’s own goods in Seneca. It is the companion of apatheia, not its synonym.
In the texts
Epictetus · Enchiridion, XII
Say to yourself, "This is the Purchase paid for Apathy, for Tranquillity, and nothing is to be had for nothing."
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, IV, 3
For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity; and I affirm that tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.
Seneca · On a Happy Life, IV
A man of these principles, whether he will or no, must be accompanied by a continual cheerfulness, a high happiness, which comes indeed from on high because he delights in what he has, and desires no greater pleasures than those which his home affords.
What the term does not mean
- Not a goal in itself. The Stoic end is virtue; calm is what follows. Epicurus made ataraxia the goal, and the two schools are often merged on this point.
- Not relaxation or the absence of activity. Marcus writes IV, 3 as a serving emperor, and the retreat he describes is inward and brief, taken between two occupations.
- Not the same as apatheia. Apatheia names the absence of passions, ataraxia the absence of disturbance; Carter keeps both words side by side in Enchiridion XII.
Related terms
- Apatheia — ἀπάθεια (apatheia)
- Dichotomy of control — τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν / τὰ οὐκ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν (ta eph’ hēmin, ta ouk eph’ hēmin)
- Amor fati — amor fati (latin)
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