Boethius & The Consolation of Philosophy

First published in The Exonian on 4/3/25.

“[Boethius] would have been remarkable in any age, in the age in which he lived, he is utterly amazing.” – Bertrand Russell

To hinge one’s contentment upon what is not theirs would, on all counts, be ludicrous. To demand that one must control the most prominent kingdom and fall in love with the fairest maiden before reaching a state of delight would be irrational. Instead, we must seek our satisfaction from within our hearts and souls. Only there can we discover what is truly ours and be truly happy.

Such were the musings of the Italian statesman and early Christian: Boethius (475 AD – 525 AD). Born to a wealthy family in the storied city of Rome under the reign of the Gothic King Theodoric, Boethius entered the political scene. He received great praise from those in power and was given the high office of consul. Alongside his work for the government, Boethius worked on translations and written works, particularly in the field of philosophy. It is primarily thanks to Boethius that we have access to Plato and Aristotle in the modern age, for without his translations from Greek to Latin, the works of the great philosophers would have been lost to time. The polymath’s wife, renowned for her beauty and virtue, bore two sons who would follow in their father’s footsteps and be handed the office of consul with little expertise. For the Romans, everything was going according to plan — until it wasn’t.

In the spring of 523 AD, Boethius was falsely accused of plotting against the increasingly paranoid Theodoric and was shipped off to Ravenna to await execution. Without warning or time to wish his children and wife well, Boethius’s life of prosperity slipped out from underneath his feet. It was in his Ravennian prison cell, in the two months he awaited his brutal execution through strangulation, that he wrote his most treasured work: The Consolation of Philosophy. Within the book, written in a combination of prose and poetry, Boethius is visited by a woman dressed in a torn gown, and clasping a scepter and books. The woman, tall and proud, introduces herself as Philosophy. The man, awaiting certain death, and the woman, possessing wisdom that mortal men could never hope to internalize, discuss the nature of the human condition.

Lady Philosophy’s message consists of the secret to mortal enjoyment. Happiness, the Lady illustrates, must not be built upon fragile foundations. The wheel of Fortune, or the wishes of the goddess Fortuna, are never stagnant. Boethius writes, “I know the many disguises of that monster, Fortune, and the extent to which she seduces with friendship the very people she is striving to cheat, until she overwhelms them with unbearable grief at the suddenness of her desertion.” Our ambition, our desires, can only be extinguished from within, not by anything “bad luck” can eliminate. In a nod to the Stoics of the past, Boethius believed happiness to be a state of mind, of otherworldly properties. Even love, a part of our lives not typically considered worldly or on par with Golden goblets, Boethius argues, is not to be the basis for our contentment, for Fortuna could take it away at a whim just as she would any other treasure.

Boethius’s Christian faith shines through his desire to seek happiness in God or goodness, two that would become one later in his writing. The God described by Lady Philosophy is most likely a form of goodness, written about by Plato: a form of pure virtue. Only by retreating into ourselves, into our “inner citadel,” can we discover this virtue. By indulging in the qualities Fortuna can never take away, most notably our reason, and pondering the immensity of the universe, our delight is freed from her clutches. “Happiness cannot consist in things governed by chance.” As Exonians, much of our situation lies beyond our control. Although our grades, social perception, and athletic performance appear to depend on our efforts, they are largely influenced by external factors. We must tap into our inner strength and face life with resilience and courage, or risk falling into unnecessary despair.