Dialogues and Letters

by Seneca

  in the daylight, but that we have entirely created darkness for

  ourselves. We see nothing either to harm us or to do us good. All

  our lives we rush around bumping into things, without pausing

  on this account or treading more carefully. You see how lunatic

  it is to run at something in the dark; yet, goodness me, that’s what

  we are doing, so that we have to be summoned back from further

  away, and though we don’t know whither we are rushing we still

  8 keep on full tilt in our course. Yet daylight can come if we want

  it to, but only if a man has acquired this knowledge of things

  human and divine; if he has not just let it wash over him but has

  become deep-dyed in it; if he has considered over and over again

  the same notions, even though he may have grasped them, and

  has applied them frequently to himself; if he has asked himself

  what things are good and what are bad and what bear one of these

  names falsely; if he has asked himself about things honourable and

  9 disgraceful, and about providence. Nor is the keenness of the

  human intellect restricted within these limits. It can also gaze

  beyond the universe, pondering whither it is being borne, when

  it arose, to what final end all that rushing mass of matter is

  hurtling. From this divine spectacle we have withdrawn our

  minds and dragged them to sordid and lowly areas, to be slaves to

  greed, to abandon the universe and its limits and its all-powerful

  masters, and to explore the earth and see what evils they can dig

  10 out of it, not satisfied with what is freely offered. Whatever was

  to be of benefit to us god, our parent, put within our reach: he

  anticipated our searching for it and gave it unasked. The things

  that would harm us he buried deep down. We have nothing to

  complain of but ourselves. It is we who have brought to light the

  instruments of our destruction against nature’s wishes and when

  she was hiding them from view. We have enslaved our souls to

  pleasure, indulgence in which is the beginning of all evils; we

  have betrayed them to ambition and public opinion, and everything

  else which is equally empty and vain.

  11 So, what am I urging you to do? Nothing new – it isn’t for

  new maladies that we are seeking cures – but this first and foremost,

  that you distinguish clearly for yourself the essential and

  the superfluous. Essentials you will find everywhere; superfluous

  things have to be sought by a constant effort of the whole soul.

  12 But there is no reason to overpraise yourself if you have come to

  despise golden couches and bejewelled furniture: for what virtue

  lies in despising superfluities? You can admire yourself when you

  have come to despise essentials. It’s no great achievement if you

  can live without regal trappings, and do without boars weighing

  a thousand pounds and flamingoes’ tongues, and the other

  extravagances of a luxury which is now disgusted with whole

  animals and only chooses certain parts from individual ones. I

  shall admire you if you come to despise coarse bread, if you can

  persuade yourself that, when necessary, grass grows for man as

  well as beast, if you have realized that shoots from trees can serve

  to fill the belly, which we stuff full of expensive food as though

  it could retain what it receives. No, it must be filled without

  squeamishness; for how can it matter what it accepts, since

  13 it is bound to get rid of all it has accepted? You love to see the

  game taken on land and sea laid out in front of you, some all

  the more desirable if brought fresh to your table, some if force-fed

  and stuffed for so long it scarcely holds the fat it’s overflowing

  with – what you love is the sheen that is thus skilfully imparted

  to it. Yet, goodness me, when those dishes, so anxiously sought

  for and diversely seasoned, have entered the stomach they become

  one uniform horrid mess. Do you want to despise the pleasure of

  food? Look at what happens to it.

  14 I remember Attalus4 winning great admiration from all who

  heard him with these words: ‘For a long time I was impressed by

  riches. I was fascinated in whatever place their brilliance shone

  forth, and I presumed that what lay concealed was similar to

  what was displayed. But I happened to witness a ceremonial display of

  all the city’s wealth: objects carved in gold and silver and in

  materials surpassing the value of gold and silver; choice dyes and

  fabrics imported from beyond not only our boundaries but those

  of our enemies; matching groups of boys and girls conspicuous

  for their adornment and their beauty; and everything else that a

  successful imperial power puts on parade when reviewing its

  15 resources. “What else,” I said to myself, “does all this do but

  kindle men’s greedy passions, already naturally aroused? What is

  the point of that parade of wealth? Have we assembled here only

  to be taught avarice?” Yet, I do assure you I left that sight with

  less capacity for greed than I took to it. I despised riches, not

  because they are superfluous but because they are insignificant.

  16 You saw in how few hours that procession passed by, though

  organized in slow stages? Is that going to fill our whole lives

  which could not fill a whole day? This point too occurred to me,

  that these riches are as superfluous to the possessors as to the

  17 spectators. So, whenever some such sight dazzles my eyes – a

  luxurious house, an elegant troop of slaves, a litter carried by

  handsome servants – I tell myself: “What are you admiring? What

  are you gaping at? It’s only a procession. Those things are for

  show, not for possession, and even as they please us they pass

  18 away.” Turn instead to real wealth; learn to be content with little

  and call out loudly and boldly: we have water, we have barley:

  we may vie with Jupiter himself in happiness. We may, I assure

  you, even if those were lacking. It is disgraceful to base one’s life

  on gold and silver, and equally disgraceful to base it on water and

  19 barley. “Then what am I to do if I don’t have them?” You are

  asking for the remedy for destitution? Hunger ends hunger. In

  any case, what difference does it make if t he things are great or

  scanty which enslave you? What does it matter how trifling is the

  20 amount that Fortune can deny you? This very water and barley is

  under someone else’s control; but the free man is not the one

  over whom Fortune has just a small hold, but the one over whom

  Fortune has no hold at all. So there you are: you must want

  nothing if you wish to challenge Jupiter who himself wants

  nothing.’

  Attalus has told us this; nature has told all men this. If you are willing to meditate on it constantly, you will be on the way to being happy, not just seeming happy, and seeming so not to others but to yourself.

  from NATURAL QUESTIONS

  1 PRAEF. 1–10

  [Seneca urges Lucilius to enjoy the inspiration and benefits of philosophical study]

  1 Lucilius, best of men, it seems to me that there is the same amount

  of difference
between philosophy and the other studies as there is

  within philosophy itself, between that branch which deals with

  mankind and that which deals with the gods. The latter is bolder

  and more elevated, and has allowed itself more licence. It has not

  restricted itself to the visible, assuming that there is something

  greater and more beautiful which nature has put beyond our

  2 vision. In a word, between the two areas of philosophy there is

  as much difference as between god and man. The one teaches us

  what must be done on earth, the other what is done in the

  heavens. The one dispels our mistakes, and affords us a light by

  which to distinguish the uncertainties of life. The other passes far

  above this fog in which we are floundering and, drawing us forth

  from darkness, leads us to where there is light shining.

  3 I myself am grateful to nature, both when I view it in the aspect

  which is open to everyone, and when I have entered into its

  mysteries: when I learn what is the material substance of the

  universe; who is its author or guardian; what god is; whether he

  is entirely wrapped up in himself or sometimes has regard for us

  as well; whether he creates something daily or has created it only

  once; whether he is part of the world or he is the world; whether

  he can make a decision today and modify in some respect the law

  of fate, or whether to have done things that need to be changed

  is a diminution of his grandeur and a confession of his error.

  3 If I had not been admitted to these studies it would not have

  been worth while being born. For what would there be to cause

  me delight in being numbered among the living? Eating and

  drinking? Stuffing this diseased and feeble body, which would die

  if it were not continuously filled, and spending my life in attendance

  on a sick man? Fearing death, for which alone we are born?

  You can have this inestimable boon: life is not worth the agitation

  5 and the sweat. What a pitiful thing is man unless he rises above

  human concerns! As long as we are battling with our passions

  what greatness can we achieve? Even if we get the better of them

  we are only defeating monsters. What reason have we to admire

  ourselves because we are only different from the worst? I cannot

  see why a man should feel satisfied because he is healthier than an

  6 invalid. There is a big difference between vigorous strength and

  just lack of ill-health.

  You have avoided the faults of the soul. You don’t have a deceitful air; your speech is not adapted to someone else’s wishes; your heart is not veiled; you do not suffer from greed, which denies to itself what it has taken from everyone else, nor extravagance, which wastes money shamefully only to recover it even more shamefully, nor ambition, which will raise you to a worthy status only through unworthy means. So far you have achieved nothing; and though you have escaped many evils, you have not yet escaped yourself.

  That particular virtue which we aspire to is magnificent, not because to be free from evil is in itself a blessing, but because it releases the mind, prepares it for the perception of heavenly things, and makes it worthy to associate with god.

  7 The mind enjoys the complete and perfect benefit of its human

  destiny only when it has spurned every evil, seeking the heights

  and entering the secret heart of nature. As it then wanders among

  the very stars it takes pleasure in laughing at the fancy floors of

  rich men’s homes, and the whole earth with the gold it contains.

  I do not mean just the gold which has already been mined and

  used for minting money, but that too which the earth still keeps

  8 hidden for the greed of generations to come. The mind cannot

  despise colonnades, ceilings panelled with gleaming ivory, clipped

  shrubbery, and streams diverted towards mansions, until it travels

  over the whole world, and looking down upon the earth from

  on high – an earth cramped and mostly covered by sea and, even

  where it emerges from the sea, barren or parched or frozen – it

  then says to itself: ‘Is this that pinprick which is divided by fire

  9 and sword among so many nations? How ridiculous are the boundaries of mortal men! Let our empire restrain the Dacians beyond

  the Ister, and confine the Thracians by Mount Haemus; let the

  Danube separate Sarmatian and Roman interests, and the Rhine

  put a limit to Germany; let the Pyrenees raise their slopes between

  the Gauls and the Spains; and let a barren waste of sand lie

  between Egypt and Ethiopia. If you gave ants a human intellect,

  10 would they not also divide a single piece of ground into many

  provinces? Since you have elevated yourself to truly great conceptions,

  whenever you see armies advancing with standards raised

  and cavalry (as if doing something impressive) now scouting far

  afield, now deployed on the flanks, you will enjoy quoting: “A

  dark battle-line moves over the plains.”1 That which you see is

  merely a bustling of ants toiling on their narrow ground. What is

  the difference between the ants and ourselves, apart from the

  measure of a tiny body?’

  4A . 2 . 4–6

  [The Cataracts of the Nile]

  4 The Cataracts receive the Nile, a region famous for its remarkable

  5 spectacle. There it surges through rocks which are steep and

  jagged in many places, and unleashes its forces. It is broken by

  opposing rocks, and struggling through narrows, everywhere it

  either conquers or is conquered as it surges forward. There for

  the first time its waters are stirred up, which had been flowing

  undisturbed along a smooth channel, and in a violent torrent it

  leaps forward through narrow passages. Even its appearance

  changes: up to that point it flows along muddy and murky; but

  after it has lashed against the rocks and sharp boulders, it foams

  and takes its colour not from its own properties but from its

  violent treatment in that locality. Finally it struggles through the

  obstructions in its way, and then, suddenly losing its support, falls

  down an enormous depth with a tremendous crash that echoes

  through the surrounding regions. The people settled there by the

  Persians1 could not endure this noise, as their ears were deafened

  by the constant uproar, and for that reason they transferred their

  abode to a quieter spot.

  6 One of the strange stories I have heard about the river is the

  incredible daring of its inhabitants. They embark on small boats,

  two to a boat, and one rows while the other bails out water. Then

  they are violently tossed about in the raging rapids and backlashing

  waves of the Nile. At length they reach the narrowest channels,

  through which they escape the rocky gorge; and, swept along by

  the whole force of the river, they control the rushing boat by

  hand and plunge head downward to the great terror of the

  onlookers. You would believe sorrowfully that by now they were

  drowned and overwhelmed by such a mass of water, when far

  from the place where they fell they shoot out as from a catapult,

  still sailing, and the subsiding wave does not submerge them but

  carries them on to smooth waters.

  6 . 1 . 4–7

  [T
he terrors of earthquakes]

  4 We must find consolation for anxious people and relieve them of

  their great fear. For what can seem safe enough to anyone if the

  world itself is shaken and its most substantial parts collapse? If the

  one thing in the cosmos which is immovable, and fixed so as to

  support everything that rests on it, starts to sway, and if the earth

  loses its characteristic feature of stability, where will our fears

  eventually subside? What shelter will living creatures find? Where

  will they take refuge in their dismay if the source of their fear is

  5 drawn from the depths below them? Everyone feels panic when

  buildings creak and threaten to fall. Then everybody rushes out

  headlong, abandoning his home and trusting himself to the outdoors.

  What hiding place can we look to, what assistance, if the

  earth itself is causing the ruin, if that which protects and sustains

  us, on which our cities are built, which some have claimed to

  6 be the foundation of the universe, gives way and totters? What

  consolation – I do not say help – can you have when fear has lost

  its way of escape? What, I say, is sufficiently protected? What is

  strong enough to defend others and oneself? I will keep off an

  enemy from a wall, and fortifications on a precipitous height will

  obstruct even large armies by making an approach difficult. A

  harbour protects us from a storm. Roofs ward off the violent

  force of storm clouds and incessant rainfall. Fire does not chase

  people who flee from it. Underground houses and deeply dug

  caves can protect against threatening thunderstorms and skies.

  That fire from the heavens does not penetrate the earth, but is

  deflected by any small obstruction on the ground. During a plague

  we can go and live elsewhere. There is no disaster without some

  7 means of escape. Thunderbolts have never burned up whole

  peoples. A season of plague has emptied cities, not carried them

  off. But the disaster of an earthquake stretches far and wide; it is

  unavoidable, voracious, and deadly to everyone. For it not only

  devours homes, families and individual cities: it submerges whole

  nations and regions. Sometimes it covers them in ruins, sometimes