Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger is one of the most significant representatives of Roman Stoicism.
He was born in the 1st century BC in Roman Cordoba. From an early age, he showed talent. Under the influence of his teachers, famous stoics and pythagoreans of the time, he acquired a broad education and became a respected speaker, philosopher, and poet. He became involved in Roman politics and, as a member of the Senate, made it to the imperial court. Soon, he fell out of favor with the Emperor Claudius and was sentenced to exile on Corsica.
In exile, Seneca did not give up. He dedicated his life to learning and self-reflection. During this period, he wrote some of his most significant philosophical works: Natural Investigations, Dialogues, On Benefits, On Gentleness, Letters to Lucilius, and others.
After eight years, he was pardoned and returned to Rome. He became the tutor of the eleven-year-old Nero, who inherited the throne at seventeen, choosing Seneca as his advisor. Instead of the underage Nero, Seneca ruled the state, and during those five years of his reign, his influence on the young Emperor was extensive.
Adavine is considered the happiest period of the Roman Empire. However, Nero grew bored of Seneca’s teachings and resisted his influence, while Nero’s debauchery and cruelty became more prevalent. Eventually, he blamed Seneca for a conspiracy and sentenced him to death. As a special mercy, he allowed Seneca to take his own life.
Seneca left behind a series of works: tragedies, satires, and poems, with his moral-philosophical writings being the most striking. The focus of his philosophy is ethics; he emphasizes the practical and therapeutic side of philosophy. He contemplates ethical questions as well as human actions and behavior in such a simple and understandable way that he encourages readers to reflect on their own lives. He also encourages them to strive towards the Stoic ideal of the wise person through thoughtful and right life decisions, despite all the storms and tempests. Seneca subtly, but directly and clearly, speaks to the modern man about the need for character improvement and organizing one’s own life.
The h3 tag is missing at the end of the text and cannot be translated. contentment
Do you think you’re the only one who has experienced this? Are you really surprised as if it hasn’t happened to anyone else before, that such a long journey and such variety of landscapes haven’t helped you to cast off the melancholy and feelings of melancholy? It is a change of character, not a change of environment, that you need. You can sail across the endless ocean, but to use the words of our poet Virgil:
Lands and cities stay behind the stern, wherever you go, your weaknesses will follow you.
Here’s what Socrates said to someone who complained in a similar way: “Why are you surprised that your travels don’t benefit you, when you carry yourself everywhere? You’re loaded with the same thing that took you on the journey.” How could the freshness of distant landscapes and getting to know different surroundings be of any help? All that rushing proves to be completely empty. If you want to know why all this escapism doesn’t help you, the answer is simply this: you’re running away in your own company. You need to lay down the burden that lies on your soul. Until you do that, you won’t be satisfied anywhere. (…)
When Once you free yourself from that suffering, every change of scenery will suddenly become a pleasure. I can exile you to the ends of the earth, and yet, wherever you find yourself in the world, you will have a welcoming home there, no matter how it may be. The place you arrive at doesn’t matter as much as the kind of person you are when you get there. Therefore, we must not tie our hearts forever to any part of the world. We should live with the conviction: “I was not born for any particular corner of the world; the whole world is my homeland.” It’s time for me to finish – but not before I fulfill my usual duty. “Awareness of wrongdoing is the first step towards salvation.” This remark by Epicurus seems very good to me. Because a person who doesn’t know that they are doing wrong has no desire for improvement. You have to catch yourself in the act of wrongdoing in order to be able to correct yourself. (…) Play the role of the prosecutor first, then the judge, and finally the defender. Be occasionally tough on yourself.
On virtue as the only true good
You continue, Lucilius, and hurry so as not to experience what
(…) And even if you know that, everything that people considered difficult, they endure more courageously once they get used to it. That is why a philosopher gets accustomed to future evils and what others endure for a long time, he eases for himself through deep contemplation. Sometimes we hear the words of the ignorant who say, “I knew that was all I had left”; the wise knows that everything remains for him.
About the importance of cultivating the mind as protection against false fear
In today’s day, I have the opportunity to I have not gained popularity through my own merit, but rather through my games, as anyone who was bored was invited to watch spheromachia.
(…) Here, a great uproar is coming from the stadium, but it does not distract me from myself, it leads me to reflect on it. I ponder with myself how many people exercise their bodies, and how few exercise their minds; how much commotion is created for false and worthless performances, and what loneliness surrounds good skills; how weak in spirit are those whose muscles and shoulders we admire. Mostly, I think about this: if the body can be strengthened through exercise to endure simultaneous blows and kicks from more than one opponent, how much easier it would be to strengthen the spirit to withstand the blows of fate and to rise up after being knocked down and trampled upon.
Because the body needs many things to be strong: the spirit grows on its own, it feeds itself and trains itself. Young athletes need a lot of food, a lot of drink, a lot of oil, and finally prolonged exercise: you will achieve virtue without the need for flattery or tribute. Freedom, without expense. Whatever can make you good is within you. What do you need to be good? To want it. And what can you wish for better than to resist this slavery that oppresses everything?
(…)
If you want to measure yourself, take out money, house, honors, and observe yourself from the inside; and now believe others who you are. BE WELL!