Rating: 
Summary: As relevant today as it was in Seneca's time
Review: A book to be read and reread. Every page has a wise tone and each letter/essay addresses a specific challenge that people must face in every age. So much of Seneca's ideas have been referenced and incorporated into subsequent works through the ages that the original has a familiar and accessable quality. Excellent bedside or airplane reading.
Rating:
Summary: For Christians as well.
Review: Freethinkers, Deists, Humanists and others who have thrown off the yoke of theism & dogma will find much food for thought here. Especially new freethinkers who are still being warned by well intentioned "true believers" that an ethical, moral life is only possible with a personal deity. Lookng back to the classical pagan world of stoicism, we find Seneca, a philosopher that continues to illuminate the world with insights into conducting ones life according to reason and the affirmation to all that life has to offer without resorting to false piety and religious apologetics. These are views from the real world.
Of interest to anyone examining the classical world of ancient Rome will discover, the intellectuals of the time possessed both a religion and a philosophy to guide their lives. Religion was merely the outward exoteric public display of sentiment (much like our calendar holidays today) and then there was your philosophy, the inner esoteric moral compass that guided deep seated morality and ethical choices. Which can result in a well lived life of fullfillment & happiness. Qualities all too often absent from modern life. Especially for those still trying to juggle and make sense of repressive monotheisms. Read Seneca & celebrate life's rich offerings.
Rating:
Summary: Secular wisdom for today
Review: Freethinkers, Deists, Humanists and others who have thrown off the yoke of theism & dogma will find much food for thought here. Especially new freethinkers who are still being warned by well intentioned "true believers" that an ethical, moral life is only possible with a personal deity. Lookng back to the classical pagan world of stoicism, we find Seneca, a philosopher that continues to illuminate the world with insights into conducting ones life according to reason and the affirmation to all that life has to offer without resorting to false piety and religious apologetics. These are views from the real world.
Of interest to anyone examining the classical world of ancient Rome will discover, the intellectuals of the time possessed both a religion and a philosophy to guide their lives. Religion was merely the outward exoteric public display of sentiment (much like our calendar holidays today) and then there was your philosophy, the inner esoteric moral compass that guided deep seated morality and ethical choices. Which can result in a well lived life of fullfillment & happiness. Qualities all too often absent from modern life. Especially for those still trying to juggle and make sense of repressive monotheisms. Read Seneca & celebrate life's rich offerings.
Rating: 
Summary: A fine balance between idealism and pragmatism.
Review: In this great book Seneca answers several of the questions we face in todays world. His answers seem to be as revelant today as they were in the 4th Century B.C. The reviews on the back cover are perfectly accurate in suggesting the Seneca can be credited with "... spiritualizing and humanising..." a system that can be sometimes viewed as harsh. A must read, to help resolve some of the inevitable conflicts that modern man/society are faced with.
Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Lesson For All Ages!
Review: Probably the best manual on how to live well that I have ever read. As informative today as the day it was written. this book is a series of letters written by Seneca to a dear friend. It offers practical advice on the art of living well as well as dealing with loss, fear of death, surviving sickness (Seneca suffered from severe asthma)and friendship. It should be required reading for all High School students.
Rating:
Summary: A Secular Bible for the 21st Century
Review: Seneca's one hundred and twenty four letters to Lucilius constitute a secular bible, an ethical catechism written in a gnomic and epigrammatic style that sparkles as it enlightens. So impressed were the early church fathers with Seneca's moral insights that they advanced (fabricated?) the speculation that he must have come within the influence of Christian teachings. T.S. Eliot sneers at Seneca's boyish, commonplace wisdom and points out that the resemblances between Seneca's 'stoic philosophy' and Christianity are superficial. For those seeking a practical, modern manual on how to do good and how to do well, written in the 'silver point' style that values brevity, concision and memorable expression, Seneca's letters are indeed the Good Book.
Rating:
Summary: letters about how to live
Review: Seneca's philosophy reads like a series of maxims or advices to re-straighten troubled souls through the philosophy of Stoicism, that he writes in a series of letters addressed to a much less mature disciple, Lucius. Among his recommendations worth following are such as these:
- make it each day your endeavour to become a better man
- seek the enjoyment that comes from wisdom
- avoid crowds. ("I come home more greedy, more ambitious, more voluptuous, and even more cruel and inhuman - because I have been among human beings.")
- associate with those who will make a better man of you
- welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual, for men learn when they teach.
- Shut yourself up and lock de door, so you can be able to help a greater number
- Never spend a day in idleness, study and point the right path to others
- Do not be deceived by tempting hopes
- The gifts of Fortune are snares, they hold us in their grasp
- Nothing except the soul is worthy of wonder
- Those who seem to be busied with nothing are busied with the greatest tasks
- The gifts of chance are not to be regarded as part of our possessions
- Avoid the many, avoid the few, avoid even the individual
- Be alone and take care of your own welfare
- Choose a master a picture him to yourself as your protector or partner
- We must have someone according to whom we may regulate our characters
- Our powers can never inspire in us implicit faith in ourselves except when many difficulties have confronted us on this side and on that, and have occasionally even come to close quarters with us. It is only in this way that the true spirit can be tested - the spirit that will never consent to come under the jurisdiction of things external to ourselves.
- No prize-fighter can go with high spirits into the strife if he has never been beaten black and blue; the only contestant who can confidently enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood.
- We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
- We are in the habit of exaggerating sorrow.
- The wise man will never provoke the anger of those in power (!)
- Without philosophy, the mind is sickly
- A happy life is reached when our wisdom is brought to completion, but life is at least endurable once our wisdom has at least begun.
- Epicurus: "If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich."
- Wisdom is the ability to desire the same things always, and setting definite goals.
- Poverty will keep for you your true and tried friends.
- We should decide what we wish, and abide by the decision
- Make progress and be consistent with yourself
- A shifting of the will indicates that the mind is at sea
- A fact by which you may weigh the worth of a man's character: you will scarcely find anyone who can live with his door wide open - a good conscience welcomes the crowd.
- Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him ACT than when you see him SPEAK.
- The bravest soldier comes from rock-ribbed regions. Being trained in a rugged country strengthens the character and fits it for great undertakings
- All concealed vices are less serious - a disease also is farther on the road to being cured when it breaks forth from concealment and manifests its power
- Joy is moderation
- Endeavour to live every day as if it were a complete life
- Let us so set our minds in order that we may desire whatever is demanded of us by circumstances
- Replace lost friends quickly
Rating:
Summary: For Christians as well.
Review: Stoicism is a great learning tool in helping to understand the early Christian Church. Scholars say that it was the 'bridge' that allowed a smoother transition between Paganism and Christianity during the time of the Roman Empire.Of course, there are some elements in Stoicism that are not compatible with Christian teachings. The way I got around this was by putting 'post-it notes' on four of the letters, that mentions ending your life short, so that I know which ones to skip as I read this most eloquent book over and over again. The remaining 40+ letters are great, and I don't find much that is nefarious about them. The book also mentions about a relationship between St.Paul and Seneca, and although many moderns think it never happened, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. In Philippians 4:22, it says this: "All the saints send you greetings, especially those that belong to Caesar's household." (NIV) This letter was written during the time that St.Peter was in Rome, between 44 AD and 64-67 AD. If anyone says that 'Caesar's Household' had nothing to do with a great lecturer and tutor on ethics like 'Lucius Seneca the younger', than they are mad. People just do not want to believe in such a relationship because they hate the legacy of Christianity. Notice that I didn't even mention the letters between them that historians say came to light in the 3rd century AD. Petrach, I think, re-discovered Cicero's 900 letters around the time of the 'Humanist' movement (1345), so why couldn't a great fire in Rome and the horrible persecution of many countless Christians bring those letters into hiding until the 3rd century? Plus, Seneca, in his 41st letter to Lucilius, talks about the 'Holy Spirit', which Robin Campbell failed to translate accurately (although the rest of his translation is superb)but can be found in the Loeb Classical Library version of Seneca's letters. When all is said and done, I have to say that this is a great book for all peoples and shouldn't be considered one book for any one particular group of persons. To improve yourself in ethics or eloquence, this book is a great tool.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes, yes...sometimes, no...
Review: That title perhaps sounds like "hot" and "cold" running
Seneca -- but it is rather a personal guide to how I believe
one should approach Seneca and his advice in these "Moral
Letters."
My own interest in wanting to know more about him and to
read about him came from two sources -- one of them was
the several mentions of him by Herman Melville in his
works -- and the other was the suggestion in the Oxford
World's Classics edition of Petronius' SATYRICON that
Trimalchio and those of his sort as depicted by Petronius
might be based on the types of individuals pointed out
by Seneca in his letters (p. xxix).
In the first chapter of MOBY-DICK, Ishmael (the narrator)
talks about how he goes to sea -- and how he is able to
bear it. He says: "No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple
sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the fore-
castle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they
rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And, at first
this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's
sense of honor.... The transition is a keen one, I assure
you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong
decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin
and bear it. But even this wears off in time."
According to the Introduction in this edition by Penguin
Classics (translated and with an Introduction by Robin
Campbell), there were 124 letters written to Lucilius
Junior, "a native of Pompeii, a hard-working higher civil
servant (procurator in Sicily at the time) who appears to
have dabbled in literature and philosophy." (p. 12)
There appear to be 42 of the letters included in this
edition. The negative, here, is that the letters are
numbered with Roman numerals, and there is no subtitle or
parenthetical information before the letters to tell what
the subject matter is. One has to "know" the letters by
tradition and familiarity in order to know which number to
go to in order to find Seneca's views and advice on certain
topics.
The translator (Robin Campbell) gives his justification
for the selection of the particular letters in his
"Introduction." He says, "It may be asked what criteria
have been applied in deciding which letters should be
included or omitted. The first has been their interest --
as they set out a philosophy and contribute to a picture
of a man and of his time. The second has been the avoidance
of undue repetition of particular themes or topics of a
moralist who tends towards repetitiveness." (p.28)
The exasperation with Seneca comes with his dual
nature -- he is both "social man," and "thinking (principled)
man." And occasionally he recognizes that those two things
may be in conflict, and may be cause for making choices --
but he also tries to be "practical" in his view of man's
being also a social being, and thus having to have contact
and social interaction with others of his species. Sometimes
his advice on this latter course seems temporizing, tedious,
and questionable. Here is the Seneca who is the temporizer,
the go-along-to-get-along dissembler. He quite rightly tells
his reader not to merely ape the outward disdain of
conventional dress and manners simply to get attention, trying
to convince others of his "better" nature. Perhaps he should
have stopped here, and told his reader that reform of the
self was what he should aim at -- but there seemed to be
the tutor or teacher in Seneca, so he seemed prone to think
he had a mission to reform others as well. "The very name
of philosophy, however modest the manner in which it is
pursued, is unpopular enough as it is: imagine what the
reaction would be if we started dissociating ourselves
from the conventions of society. Inwardly everything
should be different, but our outward face should conform
with the crowd [unh-hunh; strangely this does not synch
with what he says later about how one's individual
attitudes and values can be warped and worsened by
mere association of time with the crowd and its
amusements!]. * * * Let our aim be a way of life not
diametrically opposed to, but better than that of the
mob. Otherwise we shall repel and alienate the very
people whose reform we desire; we shall make them,
moreover, reluctant to imitate us in anything for fear
they may have to imitate us in everything. The first
thing philosophy promises us is the feeling of fellow-
ship, of belonging to mankind and being members of a
community; being different will mean the abandoning of
that manifesto." [Letter V, p. 37.] It is no wonder
that Melville moved away from Seneca after MOBY-DICK,
especially after the crowd (the reading public and the
critics) had rejected him. There was too much of
the alienated, wounded, grieving loner in Melville,
anyway, to feel totally comfortable with someone like
Seneca and his moral/worldly dichotomy.
The letters that appealed the most to me were the
ones concerning "reading" and "the effect of crowds."
Here is some of Seneca's advice on reading: "You should
be extending your stay among writers whose genius is
unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment from them
if you wish to gain anything from your reading that will
find a lasting place in your mind. To be everywhere is
to be nowhere. People who spend their whole life travelling
abroad end up having plenty of places where they can find
hospitality but no real friendships. The same must needs
be the case with people who never set about acquiring
an intimate acquaintanceship with any one great writer,
but skip from one to another, paying flying visits to
them all." [Letter II, p. 33]
And here is his observation about the effect of
"going along with the crowd." "Associating with people in
large numbers is actually harmful: there is not one of
them that will not make some vice or other attractive
to us, or leave us carrying the imprint of it or bedaubed
all unawares with it. * * * But nothing is as ruinous
to the character as sitting away one's time at a show --
for it is then, through the medium of entertainment, that
vices creep into one with more than usual ease. What do
you take me to mean? That I go home more selfish, more
self-seeking, and more self-indulgent? Yes, and what is
more, a person crueller and less humane through having
been in contanct with human beings. * * * When a mind is
impressionalbe and has none too firm a hold on what is
right, it must be rescued from the crowd: it is so easy
for it to go over to the majority. * * * such is the
measure of the inability of any of us, even as we perfect
our personality's adjustment, to withstand the onset of
vices when they come with such a mighty following."
[Letter VII, pp. 41-42.]
Read for yourself -- decide for youself how large or
small a "decoction of Seneca" is salutary for the soul --
or not.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes, yes...sometimes, no...
Review: That title perhaps sounds like "hot" and "cold" running
Seneca -- but it is rather a personal guide to how I believe
one should approach Seneca and his advice in these "Moral
Letters."
My own interest in wanting to know more about him and to
read about him came from two sources -- one of them was
the several mentions of him by Herman Melville in his
works -- and the other was the suggestion in the Oxford
World's Classics edition of Petronius' SATYRICON that
Trimalchio and those of his sort as depicted by Petronius
might be based on the types of individuals pointed out
by Seneca in his letters (p. xxix).
In the first chapter of MOBY-DICK, Ishmael (the narrator)
talks about how he goes to sea -- and how he is able to
bear it. He says: "No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple
sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the fore-
castle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they
rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And, at first
this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's
sense of honor.... The transition is a keen one, I assure
you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong
decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin
and bear it. But even this wears off in time."
According to the Introduction in this edition by Penguin
Classics (translated and with an Introduction by Robin
Campbell), there were 124 letters written to Lucilius
Junior, "a native of Pompeii, a hard-working higher civil
servant (procurator in Sicily at the time) who appears to
have dabbled in literature and philosophy." (p. 12)
There appear to be 42 of the letters included in this
edition. The negative, here, is that the letters are
numbered with Roman numerals, and there is no subtitle or
parenthetical information before the letters to tell what
the subject matter is. One has to "know" the letters by
tradition and familiarity in order to know which number to
go to in order to find Seneca's views and advice on certain
topics.
The translator (Robin Campbell) gives his justification
for the selection of the particular letters in his
"Introduction." He says, "It may be asked what criteria
have been applied in deciding which letters should be
included or omitted. The first has been their interest --
as they set out a philosophy and contribute to a picture
of a man and of his time. The second has been the avoidance
of undue repetition of particular themes or topics of a
moralist who tends towards repetitiveness." (p.28)
The exasperation with Seneca comes with his dual
nature -- he is both "social man," and "thinking (principled)
man." And occasionally he recognizes that those two things
may be in conflict, and may be cause for making choices --
but he also tries to be "practical" in his view of man's
being also a social being, and thus having to have contact
and social interaction with others of his species. Sometimes
his advice on this latter course seems temporizing, tedious,
and questionable. Here is the Seneca who is the temporizer,
the go-along-to-get-along dissembler. He quite rightly tells
his reader not to merely ape the outward disdain of
conventional dress and manners simply to get attention, trying
to convince others of his "better" nature. Perhaps he should
have stopped here, and told his reader that reform of the
self was what he should aim at -- but there seemed to be
the tutor or teacher in Seneca, so he seemed prone to think
he had a mission to reform others as well. "The very name
of philosophy, however modest the manner in which it is
pursued, is unpopular enough as it is: imagine what the
reaction would be if we started dissociating ourselves
from the conventions of society. Inwardly everything
should be different, but our outward face should conform
with the crowd [unh-hunh; strangely this does not synch
with what he says later about how one's individual
attitudes and values can be warped and worsened by
mere association of time with the crowd and its
amusements!]. * * * Let our aim be a way of life not
diametrically opposed to, but better than that of the
mob. Otherwise we shall repel and alienate the very
people whose reform we desire; we shall make them,
moreover, reluctant to imitate us in anything for fear
they may have to imitate us in everything. The first
thing philosophy promises us is the feeling of fellow-
ship, of belonging to mankind and being members of a
community; being different will mean the abandoning of
that manifesto." [Letter V, p. 37.] It is no wonder
that Melville moved away from Seneca after MOBY-DICK,
especially after the crowd (the reading public and the
critics) had rejected him. There was too much of
the alienated, wounded, grieving loner in Melville,
anyway, to feel totally comfortable with someone like
Seneca and his moral/worldly dichotomy.
The letters that appealed the most to me were the
ones concerning "reading" and "the effect of crowds."
Here is some of Seneca's advice on reading: "You should
be extending your stay among writers whose genius is
unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment from them
if you wish to gain anything from your reading that will
find a lasting place in your mind. To be everywhere is
to be nowhere. People who spend their whole life travelling
abroad end up having plenty of places where they can find
hospitality but no real friendships. The same must needs
be the case with people who never set about acquiring
an intimate acquaintanceship with any one great writer,
but skip from one to another, paying flying visits to
them all." [Letter II, p. 33]
And here is his observation about the effect of
"going along with the crowd." "Associating with people in
large numbers is actually harmful: there is not one of
them that will not make some vice or other attractive
to us, or leave us carrying the imprint of it or bedaubed
all unawares with it. * * * But nothing is as ruinous
to the character as sitting away one's time at a show --
for it is then, through the medium of entertainment, that
vices creep into one with more than usual ease. What do
you take me to mean? That I go home more selfish, more
self-seeking, and more self-indulgent? Yes, and what is
more, a person crueller and less humane through having
been in contanct with human beings. * * * When a mind is
impressionalbe and has none too firm a hold on what is
right, it must be rescued from the crowd: it is so easy
for it to go over to the majority. * * * such is the
measure of the inability of any of us, even as we perfect
our personality's adjustment, to withstand the onset of
vices when they come with such a mighty following."
[Letter VII, pp. 41-42.]
Read for yourself -- decide for youself how large or
small a "decoction of Seneca" is salutary for the soul --
or not.
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