Glossary
Hegemonikon
ἡγεμονικόν (hēgemonikon)
Hegemonikon is the Stoic name for the commanding part of the soul: the faculty that receives impressions, gives or refuses assent to them and sets impulse in motion. George Long, in the Greek glossary that closes his 1862 translation of the Meditations, renders it “the ruling faculty or part” and adds Cicero’s Latin, principatus. His text does not hold to a single English word. Ruling faculty, ruling principle, leading principle and ruling part all stand for it, and at XI, 19 it becomes the superior faculty.
Marcus Aurelius introduces it as a school word. In Meditations, V, 11 he asks what he now has in this part of him which they call the ruling principle, a question to be put on every occasion and answered from a list of possible souls: a child’s, a tyrant’s, a wild beast’s. In Meditations, VIII, 48 the ruling faculty is invincible when self-collected, and the same chapter calls the mind free from passions a citadel. In Meditations, XII, 33 all lies in how the ruling faculty makes use of itself; everything else is lifeless ashes and smoke.
Epictetus uses the same word. In Long’s 1877 selection from the Discourses, the material for the wise and good man is his own ruling faculty, as the body is the physician’s material and the land the husbandman’s. The hegemonikon is where the Stoic line of division runs: what comes from outside reaches it only as an impression, and only its own judgment makes that impression a good or an evil. Epictetus describes the faculty of choice, prohairesis, in closely related terms, and freedom from passion, apatheia, is a condition of this part of the soul.
In the texts
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, V, 11
About what am I now employing my own soul? On every occasion I must ask myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me which they call the ruling principle?
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, VIII, 48
Remember that the ruling faculty is invincible, when self-collected it is satisfied with itself, if it does nothing which it does not choose to do, even if it resist from mere obstinacy.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, XII, 33
How does the ruling faculty make use of itself? for all lies in this. But everything else, whether it is in the power of thy will or not, is only lifeless ashes and smoke.
What the term does not mean
- Not a “higher self” standing apart from the rest of the person. It is the soul’s commanding part, and Long’s several words for it, ruling faculty, ruling principle, leading principle, name a function rather than a second self.
- Not willpower. The ruling faculty governs by judging: at VII, 16 it does not frighten itself or cause itself pain, because it will not turn itself that way by its own opinion.
- Not private reason alone. At IX, 22 Marcus sets his own ruling faculty beside that of the universe and that of his neighbour, and calls the neighbour’s akin to his own.
Related terms
- Inner citadel — ἀκρόπολις (akropolis)
- Prohairesis — προαίρεσις (prohairesis)
- Apatheia — ἀπάθεια (apatheia)
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