Donald Robertson - Letters from a Stoic

This Capstone edition includes Letters 1–65, which are historically the most published of the three ‘books’ of letters. They provide a full impression not only of Seneca's influences and teachings, but in their details give the modern reader a sense of what it was like to be alive in mid-first-century Rome and its provinces: its climate, geography, food, festivals, government, household management, and not least the relations between the upper classes and their slaves (see Letter 47).

On this last issue, Seneca's view is comparatively enlightened: while he in no way calls for an end to the practice, he does demand that slaves be treated as human beings, and be fed well, praised, entertained, and promoted where appropriate. He includes fascinating details, such as the fact that his household includes Harpasté (see Letter 50), a blind, female clown belonging to his wife who had come to her as the result of a legacy. ‘I particularly disapprove of these freaks’, Seneca ruefully says, yet he also seems amused by the woman, and there's no mention of removing her. He sees the welfare of servants and slaves as a responsibility.

It's striking that Seneca often mentions Epicurus and his philosophy, in seemingly favourable terms, throughout the first thirty or so letters, and occasionally thereafter. Some have taken this to mean that Seneca's thought was eclectic or that he was sympathetic to Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to Stoic teachings only. I think this is mistaken. Seneca elsewhere is just as scathing about the Epicureans as Epictetus and other Stoics were. For instance, in On Benefits , he writes:

In this part of the subject we oppose the Epicureans, an effeminate and dreamy sect who philosophise in their own paradise, amongst whom virtue is the handmaid of pleasures, obeys them, is subject to them, and regards them as superior to itself. ( On Benefits , 4.2)

When he praises Epicurus, it's typically an example of a clever argumentative strategy: to praise the thinker's character before attacking his opinions. (In a sense, this is the opposite of the ad hominem fallacy, which attacks the character in order to try to refute the ideas.) Although Seneca says that Epicurean philosophy contains a few good sayings, he also subtly undermines their value by claiming that they're commonly found also in the writings of other authors. It's as though he's saying, as we would put it today, what's good in Epicurus isn't original and what's original isn't good. In Letter 2, where Seneca says that he's happy to sneak over to the ‘enemy camp’ in order to steal some of their ideas, Epicureans are nevertheless ‘the enemy’. These little nuances are typical of Seneca's style of writing.

It's clear, and in fact one of Seneca's major themes, that he believes Epicurus was wrong to view the goal of life as consisting in pleasure, even when construed as the stable pleasure of total peace of mind ( ataraxia ). The true goal of life, for Seneca, as for all Stoics, is virtue ( arete ), which we could also describe as a form of moral wisdom .

The Moral Letters provide an education in how to live wisely, by seeing beyond the value mistakenly invested in external goods such as wealth and reputation by the majority of people. Instead, the Stoic Sage lives in accord with virtue, which he views as its own reward. Even though Seneca may have failed to embody this philosophy in practice, it is nevertheless the type of person he clearly wished he could have been, and perhaps wanted to become until the end.

1 Bartsch, S., & Schiesaro, A. (2018). The Cambridge Companion to Seneca. New York: Cambridge University Press.

2 Griffin, M. T. (2003). Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics. Oxford: Clarendon.

3 Griffin, M. T. (2016). Nero: The End of a Dynasty. London & New York: Routledge.

4 Inwood, B. (2009). Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome. Oxford: Clarendon.

5 Romm, J. S. (2014). Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

6 Star, C. (2019). Understanding Classics: Seneca. London: Bloomsbury.

7 Wilson, E. (2018). The Greatest Empire: A Life of Seneca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

This Capstone edition, Letters from a Stoic , is based on Richard Mott Gummere's 1917 translation of the Moral Letters to Lucilius . Gummere's footnotes are retained where they help to explain terms, phrases, and people that may be foreign to the contemporary reader. A few additional footnotes have been added for the same reasons. Gummere also includes sources for quotations or texts that Seneca himself includes or mentions.

Donald Robertsonis a writer, trainer, and cognitive behavioural psychotherapist. He specializes in the relationship between ancient philosophy and modern evidence-based psychological therapy. Donald is the author of six books on philosophy and psychotherapy, including Stoicism and the Art of Happiness (2013) and How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius (2019). He provided the Introduction for the Capstone edition of the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Tom Butler-Bowdonis the author of the bestselling 50 Classics series, which brings the ideas of important books to a wider audience. Titles include 50 Philosophy Classics , 50 Psychology Classics , 50 Politics Classics , 50 Self-Help Classics , and 50 Economics Classics . As series editor for the Capstone Classics series, Tom has written Introductions to Plato's The Republic , Machiavelli's The Prince , Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations , Sun Tzu's The Art of War , Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching , and Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich . Tom is a graduate of the London School of Economics and the University of Sydney. www.Butler-Bowdon.com

From Seneca to his friend Lucilius .

Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius – set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands. Make yourself believe the truth of my words – that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness. Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose. What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death's hands.

Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of today's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow's. While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession. What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity – time! And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.