The wisdom of Seneca

[Cú ChulainnParticipant 3910]

Excerpts from his letter Consolation to Helvia written in AD40-45 in Corsica. Helvia is his mother and he had just been exiled from Rome. He was later forced by Nero to drink poison and slit his own wrists and ankles in a bath.

If you have the strength to tackle any one aspect of misfortune you can tackle all. When one virtue has toughened the mind it renders it invulnerable on every side. If greed, the most overmastering plague of the human race, has relaxed its grip, ambition will not stand in your way. If you regard your last day not as a punishment but as a law of nature, the breast from which you have banished the dread of death no fear will dare to enter. If you consider that sexual desire was given to man not for enjoyment but for the propagation of the race, once you are free of this violent and destructive passion rooted in your vitals, every other desire will leave you undisturbed. Reason routs the vices not one by one but all together: the victory is final and complete.

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No man is despised by another unless he is first despised by himself. An abject and debased mind is susceptible to such insult; but if a man stirs himself to face the worst of disasters and defeats the evils which overwhelm others, then he wears those very sorrows like a sacred badge. For we are naturally disposed to admire more than anything else the man who shows fortitude in adversity.

[RemovedParticipant 4676]

Great point. Once we identify what is drawing us into the destructive cycle, we can more easily separate from it and be free men. Until we can do this, we are nothing more than animals.

[Joey AlfioParticipant]

Nothing compares to the wisdom of our ancient ancestors. They were closer to reality than we are today.

Δεν υπάρχει τίποτε αδύνατο γι’ αυτόν που θα προσπαθήσει. - Μέγας Αλέξανδρος

[OldBillParticipant]

Great quotes, Cu. Seneca has long been a favorite of mine.

While I often read his letters and other writings, the manner of his death speaks the loudest to me. As wise and learned as he was, Seneca died as a result of his own hubris.

Once he allowed himself to be co-opted and seduced by those in power, his death was certain. He may have had the best of intentions when he agreed to first tutor and then advise Nero, perhaps believing he’d be Aristotle to Nero’s Alexander. Once he began compromising, once he began playing games for power and wealth, once he set aside the Stoic precepts he himself taught, his doom was nigh.

Seneca was complicit in Agrippina’s murder and even wrote a remarkably dishonest letter to the Senate in which he proclaimed Nero’s innocence of the deed while also explaining why Agrippina had to die. As Seneca slowly lost out to other courtiers for power and influence, Nero “allowed” him to retire. Only a fool would have taken Nero’s gratitude as face value however. Seneca knew too many things, knew where too many bodies were buried, to be allowed to live for long.

Nero wait for a plausible excuse and, when a plot against hi life was uncovered, announced Seneca was part of it. Seneca was then “invited” to commit suicide.

The man who had taught Stoicism for decades had allowed himself to be seduced by the very actions, forces, and desires he warned against.

While Seneca committed suicide by opening his veins in a warm bath, he had already killed who he was, what he believed, and what he stood for long before.

Do not date. Do not impregnate. Do not co-habitate. Above all, do not marry. Reclaim and never again surrender your personal sovereignty.

[Cú ChulainnParticipant 3910]

Yes, he maybe wasn’t as stoic in his own decisions as he was in his writing. His death was grisly and took a long time, maybe his stoicism showed through in the final act of his life.

[Cú ChulainnParticipant 3910]

Seneca’s On Tranquility of Mind is a dialogue he had with his friend Serenus, who opens the dialogue with a series of complaints about maintaining the stoic life while surrounded by so much luxury and extravagance in Roman public office. He says “I am neither ill or well” We would probably call that conflicted today, or under stress. He calls Seneca “my teacher” and mentions Zeno and other stoic philosophers, but he feels applying their philosophy to modern Roman life is difficult.

Seneca offers him advice. I’ll put some of his sentences in the next few posts. I find them inspirational, relevant today, as good philosophy always is. There’s much that could give interest to anyone going his own way in our equally decadent civilization.

[Cú ChulainnParticipant 3910]

it is easier to bear and simpler not to acquire than to lose, so you will notice that those people are more cheerful whom Fortune has never favoured than those she has deserted.

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Do you think a man who has stripped himself of all the gifts of chance is poor, or that he resembles the immortal gods?

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How much happier is the man who owes nothing to anybody except the one he can most easily refuse, himself!

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the ideal amount of money is that which neither falls within the range of poverty nor far exceeds it.

[Cú ChulainnParticipant 3910]

Let us learn to increase our self-restraint, to curb luxury, to moderate ambition, to soften anger, to regard poverty without prejudice, to practice frugality, even if many are ashamed of it, to apply nature’s needs the remedies that are cheaply available, to curb as in fetters unbridled hopes and a mind obsessed with the future, and to aim to acquire our riches from ourselves rather than from Fortune.

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We must restrict our activities so that Fortune’s weapons miss their mark; and for that reason exiles and calamities have proved to benefit us and greater disasters have been mended by lesser ones. When the mind is less amenable to instruction and cannot be cured by milder means, why should it not be helped by having a dose of poverty and disgrace and general ruin – dealing with evil by evil? So let us get used to dining without a mass of people, to being slave to fewer slaves, to acquiring clothes for their proper purpose, and to living in more restricted quarters.

[Cú ChulainnParticipant 3910]

fettered prisoners only at first feel the weight of the shackles on their legs: in time, when they have decided not to struggle against but to bear them, they learn from necessity to endure with fortitude, and from habit to endure with ease. In any situation in life you will find delights and relaxations and pleasures if you are prepared to make light of your troubles and not let them distress you.

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So you have to get used to your circumstances, complain about them as little as possible, and grasp whatever advantage they have to offer: no condition is so bitter that a stable mind cannot find some consolation in it.

[Author]

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