Auxiliary arguments, even if less philosophically compelling than primary Stoic arguments, can serve a practical reinforcing function.

We also see Marcus’ reliance on Stoic physics in his innovative derivation of the Stoic doctrine of the indifference of everything except virtue and vice from providence. Since wealth, reputation, and health are distributed among the virtuous and the vicious indiscriminately, he reasons, they cannot be good, for that would be contrary to providence (ii.11). This does not mean Marcus is generally grounding ethics in physics, however.[6] According to the Stoics, the beliefs of anyone other tha