Why Junius?
Joon-ĭ-us [FPO]
Junius Rusticus was a prominent Stoic philosopher during Roman times. He caught my attention when I realized that Rusticus is the Latin root of my last name Rustici.
Junius Rusticus is known to Stoics as Marcus Aurelius’ mentor and inspiration. Marcus Aurelius was the first philosopher king and likely Rome’s best, kindest and most just emperor. Through Junius, I hope to mentor and inspire entrepreneurs to achieve great things in honorable ways.
Junius Rusticus also appears in Christian theology as the Roman official who sentenced an early Christian named Justin Martyr to death for refusing to worship Roman gods. While widely regarded to be a man of exceptional character, this one deed taints Rusticus’s legacy. Fairly or not, the world (and the market) will often judge us by our worst deeds. As entrepreneurs, we must always be at our best, both personally and professionally.
Martyr’s sentence was a rather unremarkable event in ancient Rome. Junius Rusticius was just a government official upholding the law of the time. Yet when viewed through the lens of contemporary American values, executing a Christian for his religious beliefs seems rather barberic.
Times change, conditions change, values change. As entrepreneurs we ignore change at our peril and capitalize on change to create opportunity. We must constantly scrutinize what we consider routine. We must constantly search for advances that make the impossible practical. Changing circumstances are our achilles heel and our golden goose.