IV. SENECA

The Stoic philosophy found its most doubtful expression in the life, its most perfect expression in the writings, of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Born at Corduba about 4 B.C., he was soon taken to Rome, and received all the education available there. He imbibed rhetoric from his father, Stoicism from Attalus, Pythagoreanism from Sotion, and practical politics from his aunt’s husband, the Roman governor of Egypt. He tried vegetarianism for a year, then gave it up, but remained always abstemious in food and drink; he was a millionaire in his surroundings rather than in his habits. He suffered so much from asthma and weak lungs that he often contemplated suicide. He practiced law, and was chosen quaestor about A.D. 33. Two years later he married Pompeia Paulina, with whom he lived in remarkable continuity until his death.

On inheriting his father’s fortune he abandoned the law and indulged himself in writing. When Cremutius Cordus was forced by Caligula to kill himself (40), Seneca addressed to Cordus’ daughter Marcia a consolatio—an essay of condolence which was a regularly practiced form in the schools of rhetoric and philosophy. Caligula wished to have him executed for his impertinence, but Seneca’s friends saved his life by arguing that he would presently die of consumption in any case. Soon afterward Claudius accused him of improper relations with Julia, daughter of Germanicus; the Senate condemned him to death, but Claudius commuted this to exile in Corsica. On that rugged isle, amid a population as primitive as in Ovid’s Tomi, the philosopher spent eight lonely years (41-49). At first he took his misfortune with true stoic calm, and comforted his mother with a touching Consolatio ad Helviam; but as the bitter years crawled on, his spirit broke, and he addressed to Claudius’ secretary a Consolatio ad Polybium in a humble appeal for pardon. When this failed he tried to dull his sufferings by composing tragedies.

These strange productions, in which almost every character is an orator, were probably intended for the study rather than the stage; we do not hear of any of them being played; at most some brilliant episodes or resounding speeches were put to music and acted by a mime. The gentle philosopher incarnadines the stage with violence, as if he would rival in the theater the blood feasts of the games. Despite these heroic efforts he is too much of a thinker to be a good dramatist: he prefers ideas to men, and loses no chance for reflection, sentiment, or epigram. His plays contain some fine lines, but for the rest they may be forgotten with impunity. It should be added, however, that many good judges have not agreed with this verdict. Scaliger, lord of Renaissance critics, preferred Seneca to Euripides. When ancient literature came back to life it was Seneca who served as model for the first dramas in modern speech; from him came the classic form and unities that marked the plays of Corneille and Racine and dominated the French stage till the nineteenth century. In England, which felt his influence less, the translation of Seneca’s dramas by Heywood (1559) gave an exemplar to the first English tragedy, Gorboduc, and left its mark on Shakespeare.

In 48 the younger Agrippina replaced Messalina in power over Claudius and Rome. Anxious to turn her eleven-year-old son Nero into an Alexander, she looked about for an Aristotle and found him in Corsica. She had Seneca recalled and restored to his seat in the Senate. For five years he tutored the youth and for five more he guided the Emperor and the state. During this decade he wrote for the edification of Nero and sundry some genial expositions of the Stoic philosophy—On Anger, On the Brevity of Life, On the Tranquillity of the Soul, On Clemency, On the Happy Life, On the Constancy of the Sage, On Benefits, On Providence. These formal treatises do not show him at his best. Like his plays they gleam with epigrams; but these, sent forth page after page in a staccato jet, at last weary the mind and lose their charm. Seneca’s public, however, read these essays at intervals, and did not resent the gay wit that displeased the austere Quintilian,¹⁴ or the “sugar plums” and “glaring patches” that would offend Fronto’s archaic taste; it was pleased that their rich premier spoke so amiably, and, like his pupil, tried so hard to win its applause. For many years Seneca was the leading author, statesman, and vinegrower of Italy.

He multiplied his patrimony by investments that apparently took full advantage of his official position and knowledge. If we may believe Dio, he lent money to provincials at such high interest that panic and insurrection broke out in Britain when he suddenly called in his loans there in the sum of 40,000,000 sesterces.¹⁵ His fortune, we are told, rose to 300,000,000 ($30,000,000).¹⁶ In 58 an old delator friend of Messalina, Publius Suilius, publicly attacked the premier as a “hypocrite, an adulterer, and a wanton; a man who denounces courtiers and never leaves the palace; who denounces luxury, and displays 500 dining tables of cedar and ivory; who denounces wealth, and sucks the provinces dry by usury.”¹⁷ Like Caesar, Seneca contented himself with a rebuttal when he might have arranged an execution. In his essay On the Happy Life he repeated the charges, and replied that the sage is not bound to poverty; if wealth comes to him honestly he may take it; but he must be capable of abandoning it at any time without serious regret.¹⁸ Meanwhile he lived ascetically amid his fine furniture, slept on a hard mattress, drank only water, and ate so sparingly that when he died his body was emaciated through undernourishment.¹⁹ “Abundance of food,” he wrote, “dulls the wits; excess of food strangles the soul.”²⁰ The charges of sexual irregularity were probably true of his youth, but he was noted for his unfailing tenderness to his wife. In truth he never made up his mind which he loved better—philosophy or power, wisdom or pleasure; and he was never convinced of their incompatibility. He admitted that he was a very imperfect sage. “I persist in praising not the life that I lead, but that which I ought to lead. I follow it at a mighty distance, crawling”²¹—of which of us is this not true? If he is not sincere in saying that “mercy becomes no man so well as the king or the prince,”²² he at least phrases the sentiment almost as well as Portia. He condemned gladiatorial combats to the death,²⁴ and Nero forbade them. He disarmed much criticism by what Tacitus calls “the grace with which he imparted wisdom.”²⁵ He did not demand, any more than he practiced, perfection.

We have seen that he ruled the Empire well, and that he tarnished his record by condoning the worst of Nero’s crimes, “letting much evil pass in order to have the power of doing a little good.”²⁷ He felt disgraced, and longed to free himself from his imperial servitude; he described the Emperor’s palace as triste ergastulum—“an unhappy prison for slaves.” He began to wish that he had devoted all his life to the study of wisdom and had shunned the dark labyrinths of power. With pleasure he would put aside, now and then, the cares of politics, and at sixty attend like an eager youth the lectures of Metronax on philosophy.²⁸ In the year 62, aged sixty-six, he begged leave to resign his reduced place in the government, but Nero would not let him go. After the great fire of 64, when Nero asked all the Empire to send contributions for the rebuilding of Rome, Seneca donated the greater part of his fortune. Gradually he succeeded in withdrawing from the court; more and more he lived in his Campanian villas, hoping by an almost monastic seclusion to escape the attentions and spies of the Emperor. For a time he lived on wild apples and running water for fear of poison in his food.

It was in this atmosphere of leisurely terror that he wrote (63-65) his studies in natural science (Quaestiones Naturales), and the most lovable of his works, the Epistulae Morales. They were casual, intimate causeries addressed to his friend Lucilius—rich governor of Sicily, poet, philosopher, and frank Epicurean. There are few books in Roman literature more pleasant than these urbane attempts to adapt Stoicism to the needs of a millionaire. Here begins the informal essay, which would be the favorite medium of Plutarch and Lucian, Montaigne and Voltaire, Bacon and Addison and Steele. To read these letters is to be in correspondence with an enlightened, humane, and tolerant Roman who has reached the heights and known the depths of literature, statesmanship, and philosophy. They are Zeno speaking with Epicurus’ lenience and Plato’s charm. Seneca apologizes to Lucilius for the carelessness of his style (it is nevertheless delectable Latin): “I want my letters to you to be just what my conversation would be if you and I were sitting or walking together.”³⁰ “I write this,” he adds, “not for the many but for you; each of us is sufficient audience to the other” (satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus)³¹—though the old diplomat doubtless hoped that posterity would eavesdrop on his talk. He describes his asthma vividly but without self-pity; he cheerfully calls it “practicing how to die” by taking “last gasps” for an hour. He is sixty-seven now, but only in body: “my mind is strong and alert; it takes issue with me on the subject of old age; it declares that old age is its period of bloom.”³² He rejoices that he has time at last to read the good books he has had so long to put aside. Apparently he now reread Epicurus, for he quotes him with a frequency and an enthusiasm scandalous in a Stoic. He is frightened by the excesses of individualism and self-indulgence in Caligula, Nero, and thousands more; he wishes to offer some counterweight to the temptations that beset minds liberated before moral maturity; and he seems resolved to confute the epicureans out of the mouth of the master whose name they abused and whose doctrine they dared not understand.

The first lesson of philosophy is that we cannot be wise about everything. We are fragments in infinity and moments in eternity; for such forked atoms to describe the universe, or the Supreme Being, must make the planets tremble with mirth. Therefore Seneca has little use for metaphysics or theology. One may prove out of his writings that he was a monotheist, a polytheist, a pantheist, a materialist, a Platonist, a monist, a dualist. Sometimes God is to him a personal Providence who watches over all, “loves good men,”³³ answers their prayers, and helps them by divine grace; ³⁴in other passages God is the First Cause in an unbroken chain of causes and effects, and the ultimate force is Fate, “an irrevocable cause which carries along human and divine affairs equally . . . leading the willing and dragging the unwilling along.”³⁶ A like indecision obscures his conception of the soul: it is a finely material breath animating the body; but it is also “a god dwelling as a guest” in the human frame.³⁷ He speaks hopefully of a life beyond death, where knowledge and virtue will be perfected;³⁸ and again he calls immortality “a beautiful dream.”³⁹ In truth Seneca has never thought these matters out to a consistent (or public) conclusion; he talks of them with the cautious inconsistency of a politician who agrees with everybody. He has followed too successfully his father’s oratorical lessons, and expresses every point of view with irresistible eloquence.

The same hesitations mar and grace his moral philosophy. He is too Stoic to be practical, and too lenient to be Stoic. He sees about him an immorality that exhausts the body and debases the soul, never satisfying either; avarice and luxury have destroyed peace and health, and power has made man only an abler brute. How shall one free himself from this ignominious agitation?

I read in Epicurus today: “If you would enjoy real freedom you must be the slave of philosophy.” The man who submits to her is emancipated there and then. . . . The body, once cured, often ails again . . . but the mind, once healed, is healed for good and all. I shall tell you what I mean by health: if the mind is content and confident; if it understands that those things for which all men pray, all the benefits that are sought or bestowed, are of no importance in relation to a life of happiness. ... I shall give you a rule by which to measure yourself and your development: in that day you will come into your own when you realize that the successful are of all men most miserable.⁴⁰

Philosophy is the science of wisdom, and wisdom is the art of living. Happiness is the goal, but virtue, not pleasure, is the road. The old ridiculed maxims are correct and are perpetually verified by experience; in the long run honesty, justice, forbearance, kindliness, bring us more happiness than ever comes from the pursuit of pleasure. Pleasure is good, but only when consistent with virtue; it cannot be a wise man’s goal; those who make it their end in life are like the dog that snaps at every piece of meat thrown to it, swallows it whole, and then, instead of enjoying it, stands with jaws agape anxiously awaiting more.⁴¹

But how does one acquire wisdom? By practicing it daily, in however modest a degree; by examining your conduct of each day at its close; by being harsh to your own faults and lenient to those of others; by associating with those who excel you in wisdom and virtue; by taking some acknowledged sage as your invisible counselor and judge. You will be helped by reading the philosophers; not outline stories of philosophy, but the original works; “give over hoping that you can skim, by means of epitomes, the wisdom of distinguished men.”⁴⁴ “Every one of these men will send you away happier and more devoted, no one of them will allow you to depart empty-handed. . . . What happiness, and what a noble old age, await him who has given himself into their patronage!”⁴⁵Read good books many times, rather than many books; travel slowly, and not too much; “the spirit cannot mature into unity unless it has checked its curiosity and its wanderings.”⁴⁶ “The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.”⁴⁷ Avoid crowds. “Men are more wicked together than separately. If you are forced to be in a crowd, then most of all you should withdraw into yourself.”⁴⁸

The final lesson of the Stoic is contempt and choice of death. Life is not always so joyful as to merit continuance; after life’s fitful fever it is well to sleep. “What is baser than to fret at the threshold of peace?”⁴⁹ If a man finds life grievous, and can leave it without serious injury to others, he should feel free to choose his own time and v/ay. Seneca preaches suicide to Lucilius as if he were Lucilius’ heir:

This is one reason why we cannot complain of life, it keeps no one against his will. . . . You have had veins cut for the purpose of reducing your weight. If you would pierce your heart, a gaping wound is not necessary; a lancet will open the way to freedom, and tranquillity can be purchased at the cost of a pinprick.⁵⁰ . . . Wherever you look, there is an end tc troubles. Do you see that precipice?—it is a descent to liberty. Do you see that river, that cistern, that sea?—freedom is in their depths.⁵¹ . . . But I am running on too long. How can a man end his life if he cannot end a letter? ⁵² . . . As for me, my dear Lucilius, I have lived long enough. I have had my fill. I await death. Farewell.⁵³

Life took him at his word. Nero sent a tribune to seek his answer to the charge that he had plotted to make Piso emperor; Seneca replied that he was no longer interested in politics, and sought nothing but peace and the opportunity to attend to “a weak and crazy constitution.” “He showed no symptom of fear,” reported the tribune, “no sign of sorrow ... his words and looks bespoke a mind serene, erect, and firm.” “Return,” said Nero, “and tell him to die.” “Seneca heard the message,” says Tacitus, “with calm composure.” He embraced his wife, and bade her be comforted by the honorableness of his life and the lessons of philosophy. But Paulina refused to outlive him; when his veins were opened she had hers opened too. He called for a secretary and dictated a letter of farewell to the Roman people. He asked and received a drink of hemlock, as if resolved to die like Socrates. As the physician placed him in a warm bath to ease his pain he sprinkled the nearest servants with the water, saying “a libation to Jove the Deliverer”, and after much suffering he passed away (65). At Nero’s command the physician forcibly bound Paulina’s wrists and stopped the flow of her blood; she survived her husband a few years, but her perpetual pallor recalled her stoic resolution.

Death glorified Seneca and made one generation forget his poses and his inconsistencies. Like all Stoics he underestimated the power and value of feeling and passion, exaggerated the worth and reliability of reason, and trusted too much to a nature in whose soil grow all the flowers of evil as well as of good. But he made Stoicism human, brought it down livably within the scope of men, and formed it into a spacious vestibule to Christianity. His pessimism, his condemnation of the immorality of his time, his counsel to return anger with kindness,⁵⁴ and his preoccupation with death⁵⁵ made Tertullian call him “ours,”⁵⁶ and led Augustine to exclaim, “What more could a Christian say than this pagan has said?”⁵⁷ He was not a Christian; but at least he asked for an end to slaughter and lechery, called men to a simple and decent life, and reduced the distinctions between freeman, freedman, and slave to “mere titles born of ambition or of wrong.”⁵⁸ It was a slave in Nero’s court, Epictetus, who profited most from his teaching. Nerva and Trajan were in some measure molded by his writings and inspired by his example to conscientious and humanitarian statesmanship. To the end of antiquity and through the Middle Ages he remained popular; and when the rebirth came Petrarch placed him next to Virgil and upon Seneca’s prose devotedly modeled his own. Montaigne’s brother-in-law translated him into French, and Montaigne quoted him as fondly as Seneca quoted Epicurus. Emerson read him again and again⁵⁹ and became an American Seneca. There are few original ideas in him; but that may be forgiven, for in philosophy all truth is old, and only error is original. With all his faults he was the greatest of Rome’s philosophers and, at least in his books, one of the wisest and kindliest of men. Next to Cicero he was the most lovable hypocrite in history.