ABSTRACT
Quite a number of Beethoven’s private opinions and feelings were indebted to notions that were celebrated by dogmatic Hellenistic philosophy, in particular Stoicism and Platonism. Sources widely distributed over time suggest that Beethoven gave his due to themes that had a direct tangent to indwelling principles underlying these lines of thinking. Ideas about controlling passions, things beyond one’s control, facing adversity, necessity and fate, joy and brotherhood, performing duty, receiving gifts etcetera may have been fuelled, at least to some extent, by ancient wisdom. The least that can be said is that the sentences, apothegms and wise sayings encountered in Greco-Roman writings had a bearing on his moral convictions and that they served as a referential basis for his conduct. Beethoven seems to have harnessed ancient wisdom predominantly to adopt a stance with regard to aspects bound up with adversity - in this respect the tenets of Hellenistic philosophy tout court had a lingering effect.
