How to Cope: An Ancient Guide to Enduring Hardship

by Boethius

Overview

A vivid and accessible new translation of essential selections from Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy—a moving classic about facing life’s worst events with courage and hope

What do you do when your life has fallen apart? Fifteen hundred years ago, a Roman nobleman named Boethius (ca. 480–524 CE) asked this question as he was sitting in a prison cell waiting to die, accused—probably unjustly—of treason. Boethius had been a rich and powerful man with all a person could want in life, but now he had lost everything. Shaken, he wondered how such terrible misfortune could have happened to him and why life was so unfair. When Philosophy herself appears in his cell and confronts Boethius, the conversation that follows between the two on the nature of evil and why humans suffer is as powerful and inspiring today as it was to its first readers. In How to Cope, Philip Freeman presents a lively modern translation of essential selections from Boethius’s classic, complete with an introduction and the original Latin on facing pages.

This translation vividly captures Boethius’s journey from bitterness and anger to reconciliation and peace, showing how ancient philosophy, especially Stoicism, can help readers deal with adversity in their own lives. The book reveals the qualities that have made The Consolation of Philosophy one of the most popular and influential works of classical and world literature, and an inspiration to countless writers, including Thomas Aquinas, Dante, and Chaucer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691259161
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	09/30/2025
Series:	Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	4.50(w) x 6.75(h) x (d)

About the Author

Boethius (ca. 480–524 CE) was a Roman philosopher and statesman who lived under the rule of the Ostrogoths after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Accused of treason, he was imprisoned around 523 and tortured and executed in 524. He wrote The Consolation of Philosophy while in prison awaiting his fate. Philip Freeman is the author of more than thirty books on the ancient world, including Julian: Rome’s Last Pagan Emperor and Searching for Sappho: The Lost Songs and World of the First Woman Poet. His other books include six previous volumes in Princeton’s Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series, How to Tell a Story, How to Think about God, How to Be a Friend, How to Grow Old, How to Run a Country, and How to Win an Election. He holds the Fletcher Jones Chair in Humanities at Pepperdine University.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A very welcome new selection of a philosophical must-read in an excellent new English translation. Gentle and amazingly relevant today, this is a handy volume to keep by the bedside.”—Tom Hodgkinson, founder and editor of The Idler

“It is commonplace to say that philosophy is one of the most useless of human activities. This new translation of Boethius by Philip Freeman gives the lie to such nonsense. Read it, reflect on it, practice it. It will change your life for the better.”—Massimo Pigliucci, author of How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life