Seneca

How does one attempt to console someone on the destruction of their home, a fate recently visited on so many citizens of Los Angeles? Seneca, the millionaire philosopher and adviser to the emperor Nero, associated consolation with ‘reprimanding, dissuading, exhorting, commending’. He exemplifies that in a letter musing on the reaction which his friend Liberalis had had to the destruction by fire of his beloved Lugdunum (Lyon) in Gaul ad 64. This had caused Liberalis to worry about the strength of his own character, usually so steadfast, when confronted with this disaster. Seneca contended that we should be ready for anything, since there is ‘nothing that Fortune, when it so

What a song and dance about the end of life! Historians assure us that, among human beings, there is a long, well-established tradition of dying and if, after a life well lived, one feels enough is enough, what on earth is the problem? Seneca, the philosopher and adviser to Nero, took a duly stoical approach: birth was a death sentence. We were in fact dying every day. Since death would get us in the end – in his case, Nero ordered him to commit suicide – it was as pointless to fear death as it was useless to run from it (he suggested that would mean simply lengthening your death