latin · wisdom

Seneca — Letters from a Stoic

c. 62–65 CE · Early Roman Imperial Period (1st century CE) · Rome

Letter I — On Saving Time

1Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius — set yourself free for your own sake;
2gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands.
3Make yourself believe the truth of my words — that certain moments are torn from us,
4that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach.
5The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness.
6Furthermore, 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,
7a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.
8What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day,
9who understands that he is dying daily?
10For we are mistaken when we look forward to death;
11the major portion of death has already passed.
12Whatever years lie behind us are in death's hands.

Letter VII — On Crowds

13Do you ask me what you should regard as especially to be avoided? I say, crowds.
14For as yet you cannot with safety trust yourself to them.
15I shall admit my own weakness, at any rate;
16for I never bring back home the same character that I took abroad with me.
17Something of that which I have forced to be calm within me is disturbed;
18some of the foes that I have routed return again.

Letter IX — On Friendship

19"Does the wise man have need of a friend?"
20Not that he cannot live without one — for the wise man is self-sufficient;
21but he needs a friend that he may practise friendship, in order that his noble qualities may not lie dormant.
22Not, however, for the purpose which Epicurus mentions in the letter I have quoted,
23"that he may have someone to sit by him when he is ill, to help him when he is in prison or in want,"
24but that he may have someone by whose sickbed he himself may sit, someone a prisoner in hostile hands whom he himself may set free.

Letter XVI — On Philosophy the Guide of Life

25It is clear to you, I am sure, Lucilius, that no man can live a happy life,
26or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom.
27You know also that a happy life is reached when our wisdom is brought to completion,
28but that life is at least endurable even when our wisdom is only begun.
29The clear-sighted mind, if only it has been set free from prejudices,
30pursues the same object even in matters where the multitude is astray.

Letter XXIV — On Despising Death

31"Rehearse this thought every day," says Epicurus,
32"that you may be able to depart from life contentedly."
33Perhaps some other master may put the thought better,
34but the sentiment will still be the same:
35"It is a bad thing to live in necessity; but there is no necessity to live under necessity."
36Of course not. On all sides lie many short and simple paths to freedom.
37Let us thank God that no man can be kept in life.
38We may spurn the very necessities of life.

Letter XXVII — On the Good Which Abides

39"So you are giving me advice?" you say.
40"Indeed, have you already advised yourself, already corrected your own faults?"
41"Is this the reason you have leisure to reform other men?"
42No, I am not so shameless as to undertake to cure my fellow-men when I am ill myself.
43I am, however, discussing with you troubles which concern us both,
44and sharing the remedy with you, just as if we were lying ill in the same hospital.
45Listen to me, therefore, as you would if I were talking to myself.
46I am admitting you to my inmost thoughts.

Letter XLVII — On Master and Slave

47I am glad to learn, through those who come from you, that you live on friendly terms with your slaves.
48This befits a sensible and well-educated man like yourself.
49"They are slaves," people declare. Nay, rather they are men.
50"Slaves!" No, comrades. "Slaves!" No, they are unpretentious friends.
51"Slaves!" No, they are our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has equal rights over slaves and free men alike.
52I do not wish to involve myself in too large a question, and to discuss the treatment of slaves,
53towards whom we Romans are excessively haughty, cruel, and insulting.
54But this is the kernel of my advice:
55Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.

Letter LXXVII — On Taking One's Own Life

56As it is with a play, so it is with life —
57what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is.
58It is not important at what point you stop.
59Stop wherever you will — only see to it that the ending is well rounded.
60Farewell.

notes

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BCE–65 CE), the Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist, wrote the Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium ("Moral Letters to Lucilius") in the last three years of his life. The 124 surviving letters were addressed to Seneca's friend Lucilius Junior, procurator of Sicily, and range across ethics, self-mastery, friendship, death, and the practice of philosophy. Seneca's biography is fraught with contradiction: he was tutor and then advisor to the emperor Nero, one of the wealthiest men in the Roman Empire, and yet the author of a philosophy that praises simplicity and independence from external goods. When Nero accused him of complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy in 65 CE, Seneca calmly opened his veins in the manner of Socrates. The letters are the most complete extant document of Roman Stoicism as a lived practice — not the abstract cosmology of Zeno or Chrysippus, but the daily discipline of a self-examined life. Montaigne, whose Essays are unthinkable without Seneca, called him "the most philosophical man who ever lived." Translation: Richard M. Gummere, "Seneca: Epistulae Morales," Loeb Classical Library, London: Heinemann, 1917–1925. The early volumes are public domain.

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