Trimming the beard

Sorry for all the life hack Stoics out there but this post is going to deal with an issue a bit further down the rabbit hole :p ... beards.

I recently read a bit of porch and the cross by Kevin Vost and John Sellars art of living and both mention stoics trimming their beards but I don't think the stoics advocated trimming the beard at all from what I've read.

Notice here how Rufus says we should cut hair like we prune a vine but cut nothing of the beard: a man should cut the hair from the head for the same reason that we prune a vine, that is merely to remove what is useless. (But just as the eyebrows or eyelashes which perform a service in protecting the eyes should not be cut, so) neither should the beard be cut from the chin (for it is not superfluous), but it too has been provided for us by nature as a kind of cover or protection. Moreover, the beard is nature's symbol of the male just as is the crest of the cock and the mane of the lion; so one ought to remove the growth of hair that becomes burdensome, but nothing of the beard; for the beard is no burden so long as the body is healthy and not afflicted with any disease for which it is necessary to cut the hair from the chin.

Sellars book also quotes something that mentions a Stoic called Etiocles who had a beard that looked like it needed to be trimmed, to me this further backs up Rufus. EDIT on second reading, is Eteocles the oldster or is that someone else?: There was present, among the foremost, our friend Eteocles the Stoic, the oldster, with a beard that needed trimming, the dirty fellow, with head unkempt, the aged sire, his brow more wrinkled than his leather purse. Present also was Themistagoras of the Peripatetic school, a man whose appearance did not lack charm and who prided himself upon his curly whiskers.

Here's another version of the quote above, seems like the Stoic was the one untrimmed: Amongst those was Euthycles the Stoic, an old man with a long beard, dirty, filthy-headed, decrepit, with more wrinkles in his forehead than a leather pouch. There were also present Themistagoras the Peripatetic, not an unpleasant person to look at, with a fine curly beard; Zenocrates the Epicurean, with carefully trimmed locks, and a long and venerable beard; the “famous” Archibius the Pythagorean, as he is called, with a very pale face, waving hair that reached down to his chest, a long and pointed chin, a turned-up nose, lips drawn in and tightly compressed, an indication of his reserve. Suddenly Pancrates the Cynic, violently thrusting the other aside, forced his way in, leaning on a staff of holm-oak, which, in place of thick knots, was studded with brass nails, and carrying an empty wallet, conveniently slung for carrying away the remains of the feast

As for Epictetus in discourses 3.1 he says let's not take useless pains over what's already right, let a man be man, woman a woman, child a child, beautiful be beautiful and ugly be ugly. Then he follows up with: But observe what Socrates says to Alcibiades, the most handsome and youthfully beautiful of men: "Try, then, to be beautiful." What does he tell him? "Dress your locks and pluck the hairs out of your legs?" God forbid! No, he says, "Make beautiful your moral purpose, eradicate your worthless opinions." How treat your paltry body, then? As its nature is.

So, did I miss a source that said the stoics advocated trimming the beard which makes Sellars say that Stoics believed in trimming it or am I right that they didn't say to trim it?

Submitted December 07, 2018 at 06:04AM by EnvironmentalQuail https://ift.tt/2rm8BkI