"Do you not know that life is a soldier's service? One must keep guard, another go out to survey, another fight... So it is with us. Each person's life is a kind of campaign, and a long and varied one."

In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman city of Pompeii under feet of ash and pumice. It was an apocalypse. The sky turned black, the air turned to poison, and buildings collapsed. Most people ran for the boats or fled into the countryside in chaotic panic.

Centuries later, archaeologists began to uncover the city. They found people frozen in moments of terror, huddled in basements or clutching their jewelry. But at the Herculaneum Gate, they found something different The skeleton of a Roman sentry was still standing in his guard box, his hands still clutching his weapon. While the world was ending around him, he hadn't run. He hadn't panicked. He had remained at his post.

Why? Because he hadn't been relieved.

A Roman soldier took a sacred oath called the Sacramentum. It meant that you obeyed your orders until your commander told you to stop, or until you died. The eruption of a volcano wasn't an excuse to abandon your duty. The sentry likely knew he was going to die, but he decided that dying at his post was better than living as a deserter.

Epictetus, who lived shortly after this eruption, uses this military metaphor to describe our lives. We often treat life like a vacation. We want to relax, choose our own activities, and avoid discomfort. If things get hard, we want to quit.

Epictetus corrects this soft thinking. He says life is a "campaign". In an army, you don't get to choose whether you peel potatoes or lead the charge. The General (Nature/God/Fate) assigns you a post. Maybe your post is to be a sick person. Maybe it's to be a parent of a difficult child. Maybe it's to be a leader in a crisis.

Whatever the post is, you must stand there like the sentry at Pompeii. You don't complain that the ash is falling. You don't envy the soldier who is stationed in a safer place. You simply ask, "What are my orders?" and you execute them until you are relieved by death.

Errors & Corrections

• Don't view your difficulties as "bad luck". View them as your specific assignment from headquarters.
• Don't look at other people's lives and say, "I wish I had their job." That's like a sentry wishing he was a cook. It's irrelevant. You have your orders; they have theirs.
• Don't try to go AWOL. Mental escapism, drug addiction, or refusing to face reality are all forms of desertion.

Applications to Modern Life

Work

Sometimes you get assigned a project that is boring, difficult, or below your pay grade. Your ego wants to fight it. But remember the soldier's oath. The team needs this "sentry" duty done. Do it with precision. There is dignity in doing the small, hard things when everyone else is trying to be the "general".

Parenting

When you are up at 3:00 AM with a sick child, you are on night watch. It's exhausting. You want to sleep. But you are the soldier assigned to protect this vulnerable life. You don't complain about the shift. You just hold the line until morning comes.

Crisis Management

When a family crisis hits—a death, a lawsuit, a layoff—everyone else might panic. They run for the boats. The Stoic realizes this is the moment the campaign gets real. You don't run. You stand your ground, organize the resources, and protect the people around you.

Politics

Citizenship is a duty, not a hobby. It requires the boring work of "keeping guard". This means paying attention to local laws, voting in small elections, and holding officials accountable. It's not glamorous, but if the sentries fall asleep, the city falls.

Maxims

• Stand your post.
• Life is a campaign, not a holiday.
• Hold the line.

In-depth Concepts

Taxis (Station/Post)

The Stoics often used the word Taxis to refer to the specific arrangement or order of things. In a military context, it's your assigned rank and position. Socrates famously said that if a human commander assigns us a post, we stay there even if we might die. Therefore, if life assigns us a post (our life situation), we have an even greater duty to stay there.

Sacramentum (The Oath)

This was the legal and religious oath a Roman soldier took. It transformed him from a civilian into a soldier. Epictetus argues that simply by being born into a human community, we have implicitly taken this oath. We have sworn to serve the common good. Ignoring our duty isn't just laziness, it's oath-breaking.