Chapter IV: Appendix: List of Plutarch’s Works 218 (2)

“So intense was the craving for blood, that a prince was less unpopular if he neglected the distribution of corn than if he neglected the games; and Nero himself, on account of his munificence in this respect, was probably the sovereign who was most beloved by the Roman multitude.”

“It is well for us to look steadily on such facts as these. They display more vividly than any mere philosophical disquisition the abyss of depravity into which it is possible for human nature to sink. They furnish us with striking proofs of the reality of the moral progress we have attained, and they enable us in some degree to estimate the regenerating influence that Christianity has exercised in the world. For the destruction of the gladiatorial games is all its work. Philosophers, indeed, might deplore them, gentle natures might shrink from their contagion, but to the multitude they possessed a fascination which nothing but the new religion could overcome.”

How deeply the virulent poison of inhumanity and the insatiable thirst for blood had infected the Roman people is further evident, not only from the means employed to make these sanguinary spectacles as fascinating as possible, but also from the impress they made upon the current phraseology. Lecky says further: “No pageant has ever combined more powerful elements of attraction. The magnificent circus, the gorgeous dresses of the assembled court, the contagion of a passionate enthusiasm thrilling almost visibly through the mighty throng, the breathless silence of expectation, the wild cheers bursting simultaneously from eighty thousand tongues, and echoing to the fartherest outskirts of the city, the rapid alternations of the fray, the deeds of splendid courage that were manifested, were all well fitted to entrance the imagination. The crimes and servitude of the gladiator were for a time forgotten in the blaze of glory that surrounded him. Representing to the highest degree that courage which the Romans deemed the first of virtues, the cynosure of countless eyes, the chief object of conversation in the metropolis of the universe, destined, if victorious, to be immortalized in the mosaic and the sculpture, he not unfrequently rose to heroic grandeur.... Beautiful eyes, trembling with passion, looked down upon the fight, and the noblest ladies of Rome, even the empress herself, had been known to crave the victor’s love. We read of gladiators lamenting that the games occurred so seldom, complaining bitterly if they were not permitted to descend into the arena, scorning to fight except with the most powerful antagonists, laughing aloud at their wounds when dressed, and at last, when prostrate in the dust, calmly turning their throats to the sword of the conqueror. The enthusiasm that gathered round them was so intense that special laws were found necessary, and were sometime insufficient, to prevent patricians from enlisting in their ranks, while the tranquil courage with which they never failed to die, supplied the philosopher with his most striking examples. The severe continence that was required before the combat, contrasting vividly with the licentiousness of Roman life, had even invested them with something of a moral dignity; and it is a singularly suggestive fact, that, of all pagan characters, the gladiator was selected by the fathers as the closest approximation to a Christian model. St. Augustine tells us how one of his friends, being drawn to the spectacle, endeavored by closing his eyes to guard against a fascination that he knew to be sinful. A sudden cry caused him to break his resolution, and he never could withdraw his gaze again.”

The Roman people clung with amazing tenacity to this gruesome sport. Nero instituted, in a private way, games after the Grecian model, and Hadrian made a similar effort on a larger scale; but the public took little interest in them while sturdy Romans protested against these Hellenic corruptions.

I have dwelt somewhat at length on this singular institution, both because it was peculiar to ancient Rome and because, above everything else, it throws light on the character of its populace. It is true that men of kindly natures like Virgil and Cicero condemned these atrocious pastimes, or at least took no pleasure in them, but their influence produced no effect on public opinion. Nothing that Seneca has written is more to his credit than the vigorous language he employs in denunciation of the gladiatorial combats.

A life devoted to study and speculation was to a Roman citizen impossible. Cicero, who did more than any of his countrymen to naturalize Greek philosophy on Roman soil through the medium of the Latin language, was a practical statesman. When forced to retire from the service of the state he longed to return to its labors, notwithstanding the dangers to be incurred. Livy and Virgil devoted their lives almost exclusively to the glorification of the past in extolling the heroes by whose toil, endurance, and self-sacrifice, the Rome of their day had become what it was. Though in a sense living in retirement, their thoughts were none the less upon the state; their time and talents not the less devoted to its service. To a Roman the state embodied almost everything worth living for; asceticism was impossible for him. Even when not actively engaged in public affairs he found pleasure in observing, at close range, the machinery of government in action. He longed to live and move in the strife and turmoil of the capital. We need not wonder that Ovid, in exile, was ready to submit with cheerful alacrity to any moral indignity, and to humiliate himself in the dust before his emperor, would he but permit him to return to the city which his spirit had never left. Seneca’s conduct, when in banishment, was even less to his credit than that of Ovid, inasmuch as he professed to be governed by far higher principles. He thought he was a philosopher, yet when compelled to live in Corsica where he had all his time to devote to study and meditation, he was wretched in the extreme; belittled himself by the most degrading exhibition of servility; did not scruple to stoop to the most shameful falsehoods and the most disgusting flattery in order to bring about his recall. His encomium on solitude, and his aversion to crowds, if they are anything more than mere theory, are the result of larger experience and of deeper insight into the human heart. Yet it is hardly open to doubt that he could have gone into voluntary retirement at any period of his life, except perhaps near its close.

It has been said of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, that his mind was more Greek than Roman. While it is true that he loved philosophy, and studied it daily, he did so in the belief that in this way he could the better prepare his mind and heart to perform the duties which his exalted station imposed upon him. He seems never to have seriously entertained the thought that it was in his power at all times to lay down his official burdens in order to follow his natural inclinations. His highest ideal of virtue was to cultivate and strengthen his sense of duty; but this duty was primarily political.

There is little doubt that the conspicuous place occupied by the state in the mind of every Roman citizen prepared the way for the deification of the emperors, a form of adulation that in the course of time wrought untold mischief, and led to the most abject servility on the part of men of whom one would have expected better things. Baumgarten devotes many pages to a discussion of this curious feature of Roman politics. In the nature of the case this deification had no regard whatever to the personal character of the sovereign. It elevated him to the skies, solely as the personification of the largest possible power entrusted to a mortal. When in the course of time all the functions of the government were concentrated in the hands of a single individual, it was natural that he should become an object of worship, at least in a sense, even during his lifetime, and as a matter of course placed among the gods at his death. We shall find this transition easy if we consider further the character of the gods of antiquity. They were not distinguished from mortals by higher attributes, but only by the possession of greater power. A god, in the popular estimation, was not necessarily any better than a man—he was only stronger. His good-will was to be gained and his ill-will averted by precisely the same means that were employed in the case of men. The Roman gods were, in a far larger measure than those of the Greeks, personifications of abstract qualities. There was thus a wide scope for projecting into their character the salient traits of the worshiper.

The gods, then, being an abstraction, and the state being the mightiest visible representation of human power, it required no great effort of the imagination to regard its head as divine, in the sense which the Romans attached to the term. The unthinking multitude naturally fell in with the ideas of their leaders, and even the better class of men rarely protested because they considered the ceremony of little moment, or because protests would have been unavailing.

Strangely, too, the belief in fate, in an inevitable destiny, did much to paralize the free action of many of the bravest men. The fate of the republic, the destiny of the Roman people, regarded as an immutable law of nature, the utter insignificance of the individual either expressed or implied, are ideas that figure prominently in the literature of ancient Rome. It has been truly said that Rome attained its greatness without great men. Almost from its remotest beginnings it was like an organism in which each separate cell, though incapable of life by itself, performs its function as part of a whole and contributes to its life and growth. In this case the cell, as we may designate each individual moral entity, though conscious in a sense of a life apart, was powerless to modify the whole organism.

To what extent the Roman emperors took their apotheosis seriously we have scant means of knowing. It is well established that a few of them regarded it as a huge joke. But it is beyond question that on the great mass of the people it had a most deleterious effect. How could it be otherwise, when some of them reached the lowest depths of degradation to which human nature could sink? When the monarch in his official capacity was recognized not only as the political and military head of the government but also its divine head, it is easy to imagine what the effect of such a recognition must be upon the average Roman, in contracting his spiritual outlook. As long as the gods were mere abstract qualities, or even to some extent personal beings like those of the Greeks, there was a sort of indistinctness in which they were veiled that did not invite imitation. But a deified emperor was, or had been, a creature of flesh and blood; no matter what he might do, there would be many ready to tread in his footsteps, so far as they could. The pernicious influence of the ancient mythology engaged the attention of thoughtful men from the remotest times. How much worse, then, would this influence be when the vilest that tradition reported of the gods was actually done by men in flesh and blood. “Like priest, like people,” is a true saying even when both priest and people are pagans.

Aside from the restraints of religion, there is, in modern times, in all civilized countries, a certain restraining influence exercised by public opinion that keeps the rich, who are inclined to a lax personal morality, within reasonable bounds. But so far as we can discover, the inhibitive force of public opinion in Rome upon the individual in the matter of ethics was very slight, especially under the empire. It is plain then where a debauched public sentiment placed no check upon any form of vice from without, and but few individuals yielded to moral restraints from within, the condition of society was such that it could hardly have been worse.

We are sometimes inclined to wonder that so few protests were made by enlightened Romans against the deification of the emperors. The explanation may be found in the prevailing rationalism of the age. To the majority of those men one religion was just as good as another, and all religions were but forms of superstition. The persecutions directed against the early Christians were urged on the general ground that the failure to follow the multitude was a mark of treason against the government, and for this reason the best men were naturally the instigators. To perform the religious functions enjoined by the state was regarded as a mark of loyalty; to refuse, the badge of disloyalty. It is not necessary to go back to ancient Rome and to heathen religions to find parallels for treating the externals of worship as matters of indifference, or for requiring the subject, under penalties, to conform to the creed of the sovereign.

When we come to speak of the relation of Seneca to Christianity, but especially of his conversion by St. Paul, a thesis laboriously defended by more than one modern writer, we cannot do better than to transcribe a passage from Merivale setting forth clearly the courses that led men into a very natural error. After calling attention to the fact that both Seneca and Paul were moral reformers, he proceeds: “There is so much in their principles, so much even in their language, which agrees together, so that one has been thought, though it must be allowed without adequate reason, to have borrowed directly from the other. But the philosopher, be it remembered, discoursed to a large and not inattentive audience, and surely the soil was not all unfruitful on which this seed was scattered, when he proclaimed that _God dwells not in temples of wood or stone, nor wants the ministration of human hands; that He has no delight in the blood of victims; that He is near to all His creatures; that His spirit resides in men’s hearts; that all men are truly His offspring; that we are members of one body, which is God or nature; that men must believe in God before they can approach Him; that the true service of God is to be like unto Him; that all men have sinned, and none performed all the works of the law; that God is no respecter of nations, ranks, or conditions, but all, barbarian and Roman, bond and free, are alike under His all-seeing providence._ St. Paul enjoined submission and obedience even to the tyranny of Nero, and Seneca fosters no ideas subversive of political subjection. Endurance is the paramount virtue of the Stoic. To forms of government the wise man was wholly indifferent; they were among the external circumstances above which his spirit soared in serene self-contemplation. We trace in Seneca no yearning for a restoration of political freedom, nor does he ever point to the senate, after the manner of the patriots of the day, as a legitimate check to the autocracy of the despot. The only mode, in his view, of tempering tyranny is to educate the tyrant himself in virtue. His was the self-denial of the Christians, but without their anticipated compensation. It seems impossible to doubt that in his highest flights of rhetoric—and no man ever recommended the unattainable with a finer grace—Seneca must have felt that he was laboring to build up a house without foundations; that his system, as Caius said of his style, was sand without lime. He was surely not unconscious of the inconsistency of his own position, as a public man and a minister, with the theories to which he had wedded himself; and of the impossibility of preserving in it the purity of his character as a philosopher or a man. He was aware that in the existing state of society at Rome, wealth was necessary to men high in station; wealth alone could retain influence, and a poor minister became at once contemptible. Both Cicero and Seneca were men of many weaknesses, and we remark them the more because both were pretenders to unusual strength of character: but while Cicero lapsed into political errors, Seneca cannot be absolved of actual crime. Nevertheless, if we may compare the greatest masters of Roman wisdom together, the Stoic will appear, I think, the more earnest of the two, the more anxious to do his duty for its own sake, the more sensible of the claims of mankind upon him for such precepts of virtuous living as he had to give. In an age of unbelief and compromise, he taught that Truth was positive and Virtue objective. He conceived, what never entered Cicero’s mind, the idea of improving his fellow creatures; he had, what Cicero had not, a heart for conversion to Christianity.”

Notwithstanding the many points of contact between the doctrines of the New Testament and the teachings of Seneca, no competent judge now holds that he was a Christian. The wonder is that there should ever have arisen any serious controversy on the subject. The very fact that Seneca’s faith underwent no change from first to last ought to be decisive. He did not pass through the experience of conversion; he shows no vicissitudes of intellectual or moral growth; he never wavered in his faith in philosophy, and in the power of man to attain the supreme good by mere force of will. Yet Seneca is, to the Christian, unquestionably, the most interesting personality that heathen antiquity has produced. His philosophy and his morality show, in a striking way, that a man may approach very close to the boundary line of Christianity without crossing it; without even knowing what is before him. The best thought of the age clearly proves that Greek philosophy had, in a sense, prepared a few noble minds for the reception of the ethical and altruistic precepts of the Gospel; but it was in no sense the harbinger of its spiritual doctrines.

It remains yet to consider briefly an institution which, while not peculiar to Rome, was, nevertheless, here characterized by some features that were unique in their influences for evil. Slavery rested like a horrible incubus upon the ancient world, though few persons seem to have been aware of it. It placed a curse upon labor and almost prevented the development of the mechanic arts. It seriously impeded the growth of the moral sentiments by the hindrances it placed in the way of free discussion, and by the opportunities it afforded the basely inclined for the gratification of carnal lusts. It placed a large part of the population virtually beyond the range of human sympathy by branding the expression of such sympathy as a symptom of treason. While it did these things everywhere, in Rome it made a people that were naturally coarse and brutal still more so, by placing within the easy reach of every slave-owner helpless objects upon which he could vent his rage, and whose services he could exploit in the most unfeeling manner. A lurid light is thrown on the barbarity of the Romans toward their slaves by an occurrence that took place in the later years of Seneca. A plain statement of the facts is more impressive than many pages of theory. A prefect of the city, Pedanius Secundus by name, was murdered by one of his slaves and the criminal could not be apprehended. According to law, all the bondmen of the murdered man, four hundred in number, were to be put to death. The populace, to their honor be it said, more humane than the senators, raised a tumult of protest against the execution of the sentence. Their sympathy availed nothing; the unhappy victims were led away to die. One of the senators even proposed a decree that all the freedmen belonging to the household of the late prefect should be transported beyond the confines of Italy. But the emperor, and that emperor was Nero, more humane than the optimates, alleged that the laws were already severe enough, and that it would be cruel to add to their severity by fresh enactments. The decree of expulsion was not passed. Yet Tacitus, from whom this narrative is taken, a writer who never tires of lamenting the degeneracy of his age, has not a word of compassion for the unfortunate sufferers, nor a syllable of condemnation for an atrocious law.

Still it must be said that some of the Roman philosophers, especially Cicero and Seneca, lay stress in their writings, upon the universal brotherhood of man. They have much to say about the intrinsic worth of the human soul. While these ideas are largely borrowed from the Greeks, or at least suggested by Greek philosophers, the Romans are singularly eloquent in proclaiming them. But slavery is never attacked by name. It is doubtful whether a passage can be found in any Greek or Roman writer explicitly asserting that it is wrong for one man to hold another in bondage. This may be due to the conviction that such a doctrine would be extremely dangerous among a large servile population, even if the government allowed entire freedom of speech. The New Testament is almost silent about slavery. Its authors did not wish to give utterance to any views that could be used by their enemies as the basis for a charge of disaffection with the “powers that be.”

Again, slavery in some form was universal. Servitude was held to be the proper condition of a large part of the human race. No man who lived during the existence of the Roman empire would have ventured to predict the ultimate downfall of slavery. It is interesting to note in this connection that Basil Hall, writing as late as 1828, while admitting everything that could be alleged on the evils of slavery, thought that to do away with it seemed “so completely beyond the reach of any human exertions that I consider the abolition of slavery as one of the most profitless of all possible subjects of discussion.”

On the supposition, then, that slavery must continue indefinitely, if it could ever be abolished, it was the duty of the philanthropist to do what he could to ameliorate the condition of the servile class by educating their masters in the principles of a humane philosophy, rather than to incur the risk of making it worse by the suggestion of emancipation. If the good man is kind to his beast, he cannot fail to treat kindly his bondman. It does not seem inconsistent with the general tenor of Seneca’s writings to assume that he thought the best way to mitigate the condition of the slaves was to indoctrinate their owners with a philosophy that would accord to them kind treatment, rather than to seek to bring about their liberation.

Besides, the slaves themselves were not often conscious of their unfortunate legal status. The best they desired for themselves was that they might fall into the hands of a good master. That such men were not altogether wanting, even among the Romans, is evident from the many instances of rare devotion shown by their slaves.

It is one of the surprising things in the history of mankind that the progress of the anti-slavery sentiment was so rapid when the cause of the slave had obtained a hearing before the bar of public conscience. Slavery had existed from time immemorial. The wrongs it condoned, the evils entailed upon its victims, attracted but little attention until the close of the last century. Within less than a hundred years after the agitation had begun there was not a slave recognized as such by law in Christendom. The contemplation of this fact may well teach political prophets to be careful in their predictions as to what will or will not happen in the future.

* * * * *

In the foregoing essay I have, for the most part omitted such biographical data as may be found in any encyclopedia, and have confined myself chiefly to a study of the society in which Seneca moved, and to a consideration of some of the leading characteristics of the age in which he lived. Every man should be judged by his times, for no man is uninfluenced by them. It is only men of the strongest character that rise far above the manners and thoughts of their contemporaries. Seneca was not one of these. Though endowed with a penetrating intellect and strong moral convictions he sometimes yielded to temptations against the protest of his better judgment. He compelled his intellect to sanction or at least to excuse conduct that he felt to be unworthy of the philosophy he professed and taught. Yet after making all due allowance for his shortcomings, I am persuaded that one cannot long study his writings and his career without reaching the conviction that among the great men of Rome none towered above him in moral grandeur and but few surpassed him in intellectual stature. If I may be allowed to express a personal opinion I do not hesitate to affirm that in the first thousand years of its history no more interesting and attractive character lived and died in the City of the Seven Hills than the philosopher Seneca.

Footnote 1:

It is a noteworthy fact that many of Rome’s great men were Spaniards,
while many others were not natives of the city. Among the former were
the emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius. The two
Senecas, Lucan, Martial and Quintillian were also Spaniards. Vespasian
was born at Reate; Livy, in Padua; Horace, at Venusia; Virgil, in
Mantua; Cicero, at Arpinum; the emperor Claudius, at Lugdunum; the two
Plinys, at Comum, etc.

Footnote 2:

Seneca is generally regarded as the first Roman writer who used
_caro_, flesh, as distinct from, and opposed to, spirit.

The following is a list of Seneca’s extant works:

_De Providentia_, (On Providence).

_De Constantia Sapientis_, (On the Constancy of the Sage).

_De Ira_, (On Anger).

_De Vita beata_, (On a happy life).

_De Otio_, (On Leisure).

_De Tranquillitate Animi_, (On Peace of Mind).

_De Brevitate Vitae_, (On the Shortness of Life).

_De Beneficiis_, (On Beneficence).

_De Clementia_, (On Clemency).

_Ad Marciam de Consolatione_, (A Letter of Condolence to Marcia).

_Ad Polybium de Consolatione_, (A Letter of Condolence to Polybius).

_Ad Helviam matrem de Consolatione._ (A Letter of Condolence to his
mother Helvia).

_Apocolocynthosis_, (Pumpkinfication, as it may be translated by a
parody on Deification; or we may call it Pumpkinosis to correspond
with Apotheosis).

_Epistolae Morales ad Lucilium_, (Letters to Lucilius on the Conduct
of Life).

_Quaestiones Naturales_, (Questions relating to Physical Phenomena).
This is the only work of the kind belonging to Latin literature.
During the Middle Ages it was much used as a text-book.

In the Charpentier-Lemaistre edition the letters to Lucilius fill the first volume and a little more than half of the second. The first Book on Beneficence is in the third volume; the remainder with the Problems in Physics fill the fourth and last. The smaller treatises occupy the rest of the four volumes. A number of Tragedies with Greek titles are also attributed to our Seneca, probably with justice.

Note:—To translate Seneca adequately is not an easy task. While his
meaning is usually plain, the modern reader is not in all cases
certain that he clearly apprehends the exact signification of his
words when taken separately. He is thus in danger of reading into
them ideas that savor more of modern theology than the author
intended,—a common fault of interpreters. It has been demonstrated
that Seneca knew nothing of the Gospels directly, yet he has often
been claimed as a Christian. Evidently, then, there must be a good
deal in his writings that can be used to support such a claim.
Attention has already been called to his use of _caro_. He seems
also to be the first Roman who uses Providentia to designate an
intelligent guide and guardian of the affairs of the world. There
are other terms to which he gives a signification not found in the
profane writers of ancient Rome.

But the chief obstacle the translator has to contend against is his
diction. This is highly rhetorical and very difficult to transfer
into another language, unless the translator has at command all the
resources of his mother tongue. Such a wealth of resources, I do not
hesitate to confess, is not within my reach. If a translation is to
make the same impression on the reader or hearer that is made by the
original, it is as important to preserve the peculiarities of a
writer’s style as to render accurately the meaning of the separate
words. While I flatter myself that I have been fairly successful in
the interpretation of Seneca’s words, I am not equally sanguine as
to his diction. I believe, however, that I have in no case strayed
very far afield and that the reading of the following pages will
convey not only a fairly correct idea of what Seneca thought on many
important problems, but also of the manner in which he expressed
himself. I hope at some future time, if life and health are
vouchsafed to me, to prepare a complete translation of Seneca’s
moral writings.

SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF SENECA, TO WHICH PASSAGES MORE OR LESS
CLOSELY AKIN OCCUR IN THE SCRIPTURES.

FROM THE LETTERS TO LUCILIUS.

A holy spirit dwells within us, the observer and keeper of the evil and the good; it treats us just as it is treated by us.

If you do what is right, let all men know it; if what is wrong, does it matter that no one knows it, since you know it yourself? O what a wretched man you are if you disregard such a witness!

The human mind has come down from the spirit that dwells on high.

Fortune exempts many from punishment; from fear, no one.

It is natural for those who have done wrong to be afraid.

The light is irksome to a bad conscience.

The guilty have sometimes the good fortune not to be found out; never the certainty of it.

Good precepts, if you often reflect upon them, will profit you equally with good examples.

If thou wouldst gain the favor of the gods, be good.

He adequately worships the gods who imitates them.

It suffices God that he be worshiped and loved; love cannot be mixed with fear.

What thou hast learned, confirm by doing.

A great and holy spirit, it is true, holds converse with us, but it cleaves to its origin.

Let the young reverence and look up to their teachers.

How wisely you live is an important matter: not, how long.

It is not a good thing to live; it is, to live wisely.

He who would live for himself must live for others.

He who has much covets more.

No one is worthy of God save him who contemns riches.

Dare to contemn riches and thus to make thyself worthy of God.

The shortest road to riches is to contemn riches.

Not he who has little but he who covets more is poor.

Thin is the texture of a lie; it is easily seen through if closely examined.

The praise is not in the deed but in the way it is done.

To be master of one’s self is the greatest mastery.

One cause of the evils of our time is that we live after the example of others. We are not guided by reason but led astray by custom.

Money never made anybody rich.

Why did God create the world? He is good; a good being feels no aversion to anything that is good. Therefore He made the world as good as possible. _Quoted from Plato._

Some of our time is filched from us, some is stolen outright, some passes unnoticed. But most reprehensible of all things is to lose it by mere negligence; and if you will note carefully, men spend a great part of life in doing evil, the greatest part in doing nothing the whole of it doing something else than they ought. Whom will you name that places any value on time? Who prizes a day? Who realizes that he is dying daily? For we err when we regard death as something in the future; a great part of it has already passed; the portion of our life that is behind us, death holds. Do, therefore, Lucilius, what you write that you are doing, husband every hour; you will be less dependent upon to-morrow if you seize to-day. Everything else belongs to others, time only is ours.

There is a great difference between not wanting to sin and not knowing how.

If thou wouldst get rid of thy vices keep out of bad company.

He worships God who knows Him.

No one commits wrongs for himself alone; he communicates them to others and is in turn led astray by others.

Our minds are dazzled when they look upon truth.

No virtue remains hidden, and it suffers no damage by having been hidden.

Nature has given to all the fundamental principles and seeds of virtue.

Nature does not make us virtuous; it is an art to become good.

If what you are doing is right, all men may know it.

The reward of all the virtues is in the virtues themselves. The recompense of a good deed is to have done it.

Virtue alone brings lasting and sure happiness.

He errs who thinks the gods intentionally inflict injuries on any one; they cannot do so; they can neither receive nor do injury.

So live with men as if God saw thee; so talk with God as if men heard thee.

God has no need of ministering servants: He Himself ministers to men; is present everywhere and in everything.

The gods extend a helping hand to those who would rise. Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God comes to men, and what is more, He comes into men. No mind is good without God.

All men, if they are traced to their first origin, are from the gods.

Every day, every hour, reminds us of our nothingness and, by some fresh admonition, warns those of their frailty who are prone to forget it.

Give heed to each day as if it were your whole life. Nothing will so much enable you to exercise control over yourself in all things as to think often of the uncertainty and brevity of life.

You will grant that the greatest piety toward the gods is a characteristic of a good man; and so whatever may befall him he will bear with equanimity, for he will know that it has happened in harmony with that divine law by which all things are governed.

No one is strong enough to rise by his own strength; every man needs some one to extend a hand, some one to lead him.

So let us live, so let us talk, that our destiny may find us prepared and ready to follow it. Great is the soul that has yielded itself to God; on the other hand, that one is cowardly and degenerate that resists, that finds fault with the order of the world, and is more ready to set the the gods right than itself.

We ought to have before our minds some one whom we revere; some one whose influence makes even our most secret thoughts holier.

Long is a way by precepts; short and effectual, by examples.

Weaker minds, however, have need of some one to go before who shall say, “This avoid, this do.”

The community of which we form a part is very much like an arch built of stone; it would at once fall down if one did not support another.

We are members of an immense body. Nature begat us as kinsmen, since it formed us of the same elements and for the same end.

What is it that draws us in one direction when we would go in another, that urges us on when we want to resist, that strives against our desires and does not permit us to do what we purpose?

If thou wishest to be loved, love!

No one is free that is the slave of his body.

We ought to live in this thought: I was not born for a corner only; my country is this entire world.

The beginning of salvation is the knowledge of sin. _Quoted from Epicurus._

Philosophy sheds its light upon all men.

It is so difficult for us to get well because we do not know that we are sick.

It is the strongest evidence that our mind is directed toward its own improvement when we see faults that we had not before observed.

It is an infirmity of mind not to be able to bear riches.

To live right is in the power of everybody.

The acknowledgement of a fault is the beginning of a better life.

He who does not admit his proneness to do wrong has no desire to be corrected. You must recognize your errors before you can correct them.

The ancients held the first requisite of repentance to be an examination of one’s self, especially since without this, life would not be worth living.

There is no vice without some excuse.

You ask me what you should particularly avoid. (I answer,) a crowd. You cannot with safety to yourself mingle in a large company. I must verily confess my own weakness. I never bring back the same character that I took with me; something which I had banished, returns; something else that I had quieted, is aroused.... But nothing is so damaging to a good character as to spend much time at public spectacles, for with the pleasure we receive vices the more easily creep in unawares.

It is a large part of goodness to desire to become good.

There is a certain fitness in the feeling of sorrow; this the sage ought to heed, and just as in everything else so in grief there is a proper mean.

What fate did not give it did not take away.

To obey God is liberty.

No one is out of the reach of the temptation of vice unless he has banished it wholly from his breast; and no one has banished it wholly until he has put wisdom in its stead.

Great is the praise if man is helpful to man. We admonish you to extend a hand to the shipwrecked; to point out the way to the lost; to share your bread with the hungry.

No one ever renders a service to another without also rendering a service to himself.

Often what is given is a small matter; what follows from it, a great one.

When we reason upon the immortality of the soul, we do not regard as of little weight the universal belief of men who either fear or revere the gods of the lower world.

That day which thou dreadest as if it were thy last is the day of the birth into eternity.

A time will come that shall unite us and bring us into each other’s company.

Then shall our soul have reason to rejoice because, freed from this darkness in which it is involved, it shall see the light, no longer with feeble vision, but in all the brightness of day, and it will have returned to its own heaven since it will again occupy the place which belongs to it by right of birth. Its origin calls it on high.

Let another begin a quarrel, but let reconciliation begin with thee.

What else is nature than God and the divine reason that permeates the whole world and all its parts. Whithersoever thou turnest thou wilt see Him before thee; there is no place where He is not; He Himself fills all His work.

Every crime is committed before the deed is done.

The human mind has come down from the spirit that dwells on high.

Believe me, the creator of this vast universe, whoever he may have been, whether it was a god, master of everything, whether it was an incorporeal intelligence able to bring forth the most brilliant marvels, whether it was a divine spirit diffused with equal energy in the smallest and the largest things, whether it was destiny and an immutable concatenation of causes linked together: this sovereign potentate did not wish to leave us dependent upon any one else even in the smallest matters.

Stars shall impinge upon stars and all matter that now delights us with its beautiful order will burn in one huge conflagration.

How often he who refuses pardon to others begs it for himself!

It is base to say one thing and mean another; it is baser to write one thing and mean another.

A wise man will pardon an injury, though it be great, and if he can do it without breach of piety and fidelity, that is, if the whole injury pertains to himself.

As far as thou canst, accuse thyself, try thyself, discharge the office, first of a prosecutor, then of a judge, lastly of an intercessor.

We can never quarrel enough with our vices, which, I beseech thee, persecute perpetually. Cast from thee everything that corrupts the heart; and if thou canst not otherwise get rid of it, spare not the heart itself.

FROM DE BENEFICIIS.

Nature is not without God nor is God without nature. Both are the same and their functions are the same. So, too, nature, destiny, fortune, are all the names of the same God.

It is the mark of a noble and generous soul to be helpful, to do good; he who confers favors, imitates the gods.

Beneficence always makes haste; what one does willingly one does quickly.

We owe no thanks for a favor that has for a long time adhered to the hands of the giver, as it were; which he seems to have let go with reluctance and which one might almost say had been wrested from him.

Those favors are most gratifying to us that are deliberately and willingly offered, and in connection with which the only hesitancy is on the part of the recipient.

I do not make the favors I confer a matter of public record.

He who intends to be grateful ought to think about requiting a favor as soon as he receives it.

This is the law of beneficence between two persons: the one should forthwith forget that he has given; the other should never forget that he has received.

You buy from the physician a thing that is above price, life and health; from the teacher of belles-lettres, acquaintance with the liberal arts. Yet it is not the value of these things that you pay for but their pains, because when they are serving us they give up their private business to devote themselves to us.

The sun rises for the evil also.

God has given certain benefactions to all men, and from which none are excluded.

Who is so wretched, so despised, who born to so hard and sorrowful a destiny that he has never perceived the munificence of the gods? Seek out even those who bewail their fate and who are always complaining, you will not find among the entire number one who has not experienced the beneficence of heaven; there is not one for whom there has not flowed something from the most inexhaustible of all fountains.

Add, now, that external circumstances do not coerce the gods, but their sempiternal will is their law. They have established an order of events which they do not change. The gods never repent of their first purpose.

Beneficence consists not in what is done or given, but in the spirit of the doer or giver.

It is a most glorious work to save even the unwilling and refractory.

The door to virtue is closed to no one; it is open to all, admits all; virtue invites everybody, free-born, freedmen, slaves, kings and exiles. It selects neither class nor condition, it seeks the man only.

Nature directs us to do good to all men whether bond or free, free-born or emancipated slaves. Wherever there is a human being, there is a place for beneficence.

He who reasons thus (like Epicurus), does not hear the voices of supplicants and the prayers offered everywhere, in public and private, with hands outstretched toward heaven. This could not be, nor is it possible that all men should have willingly consented to the folly of addressing deaf divinities and powerless gods, if they had not recognized their benefactions, sometimes given spontaneously, sometimes in answer to prayer, always great, timely, averting by their intervention impending disasters.

FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

It is easy to form the mind while it is still tender; but it is difficult to root out those vices that have grown up with it.

It is a great thing to know when to speak and when to be silent.

The vices of others we have before our eyes; our own, behind our backs.

Use your ears oftener than your tongue.

Nothing is more out of place in him who is inflicting punishment than anger.

It is not the issue of a thing that ought to be taken into account, but the purpose.

Every crime is committed before the deed is done.

To cupidity nothing is enough; to nature even a little is enough.

Vice takes possession of us unconsciously; virtue is difficult to find, and we need a guide and teacher. Vices are learned without a teacher.

Stars shall impinge upon stars and all matter that now delights us with its beautiful order shall burn in one huge conflagration.

All that is best can neither be given to men nor taken from them.

There are two things, the most precious of all, that attend us whithersoever we turn our steps: common nature and personal virtue. These things are so, believe me, because they were so willed by the creator of the universe, whether it is that God who controls everything, or incorporeal reason, the artificer of great works, or the divine spirit that pervades equally the greatest and the smallest things.

If the dead have any feeling, the soul of my brother, now set free from a long imprisonment, is at length in the full enjoyment of his freedom and his majority; he beholds with delight the nature of things and looks down upon human affairs from his high abode; but things divine, the causes of which he so long sought out in vain, he now beholds at close range. Why then do I pine away in sorrow for him who is either blessed or not all? To mourn for one who is in bliss is envy; for one who is not, folly.

Borne on high, he soars among beatified spirits, and a sanctified company welcomes him—the Scipios, the Catos, released by the beneficence of death. There thy father devotes himself to his grandson, resplendent in the new light even though in that place all are known to each. He explains to him the motions of the stars around him; not from conjectures, but, versed in the knowledge of all things, he gladly inducts him into the arcana of nature.

If you will believe those who have looked more deeply into the truth, our whole life is a punishment.

For those who sail this sea so stormy, so exposed to every tempest, there is no harbor except death.

He now enjoys a serene and cloudless heaven. From this humble and low abode, he has sped swiftly into that region, wherever it may be, where souls, freed from their chains, are received into the abode of the blest. He now roams about at will, and beholds with supremest delight all that is good in the universe.... He has not left us; he has gone before.

DE PROVIDENTIA SIVE QUARE ALIQUA INCOMMODA BONIS VIRIS ACCIDANTCUM
PROVIDENTIA SIT.

NOTE:—This monograph is addressed to the same Lucilius, procurator
of Sicily, to whom Seneca also dedicates his letters and his
Problems in Physics. The date of composition is not known, but it
probably belongs to the later years of the author’s life. The
opening sentences seem to make it a part of a larger work on ethics,
or rather of a theodicy, which was either never completed or has not
come down to us. This is a serious loss both to us and to Seneca: to
us, because such a work would doubtless have placed before us a
complete theory of human conduct as conceived by a man who was
thoroughly conversant with the motives that dominate men; to Seneca,
because it would in all probability have explained if not justified
some of the inconsistencies that have so sadly marred his career.
Indeed the fundamental proposition of the essay is inconsistent,
since the conclusion does not follow from the premises. For if the
patient endurance of tribulation is the supreme test of a good man,
how is he justified in avoiding that test, as our author proposes,
by taking his own life?