Logos: Lucius Seneca

The Roman philosopher and political advisor to Emperor Nero, was essential reading in the humanities for generations. Although largely ignored in schools today, Seneca does not belong on the ash-heap. Rather, his blending of pragmatics and integrity may be more imperative reading than ever before.

There are two books that when read simultaneously bring out the power of principled pragmatics Seneca exemplifies. One book is biography and the other a collection of the writings he produced in the period covered in the biography. This combination not only gives us the profound maxims that pour out of all his writings, but lets us see the pragmatic circumstances fueling Seneca’s polemics.

Read these two books simultaneously:
Hardship and Happiness, by Lucius Anneus Seneca, translated by Elaine Fantham, 2014, is a recent translation that is wonderfully readable with an intimate style.

The corresponding biography is Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero, by James Romm. This is a biography that lives. It provides us with an excellent exploration of morals and self-preservation.

Seneca is associated with the Stoics, but he is anything but nihilistic. Seneca held that true being is not found in the physicality of things, but their underlying nature. In his treatise, Benefits, he describes how this essence is felt in the world. This illustration of the enduring nature of our life events stresses how the memory and feeling accompanying an event endures long after the actual benefit or injury has dissipated. For example, when we receive something and feel gratitude, that gratitude endures, regardless of what happens to the actual benefit. We can feel forever the gratitude that the benefit evokes in us. This enduring emotional trace underlies our capacity to mourn and be comforted. The memory of what was lost serves to comfort. Our ability to connect to the deeper, essential enduring truth inherent in the events of our lives allows us to let them go, to morn and be comforted. Although Seneca has been read as promoting a Stoic detachment, it is, in truth, that he promotes our capacity to develop an inner emotional world within which our transient life endures.

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