Lucilius is traveling around Sicily, and Seneca can’t resist sending him a list of field assignments: report on the whirlpool of Charybdis, climb Mount Etna, check how close the snow sits to the crater. From that playful start he moves to something deeper. Unlike a mountain, virtue can’t shrink or crumble, and those who reach wisdom stand as equals at the top. He ends with a reflection on reputation: fame is the shadow of virtue, sometimes running ahead, sometimes arriving long after we’re gone.
From Seneca to Lucilius
I’ve been waiting for a letter from you telling me what new things your trip around Sicily showed you, and especially giving me more information about Charybdis itself. I know perfectly well that Scylla is a rock, and in fact one sailors don’t fear. But about Charybdis I’d like a full description, to see whether it matches the stories in mythology. And if you happen to have looked into it (it certainly deserves your investigation), please tell me this: is it whipped into a whirlpool by a wind from only one direction, or does every storm stir up its depths alike? Is it true that things dragged down by the whirlpool in that strait are carried underwater for many miles and then surface on the beach near Taormina?
A Request: Climb Etna for Me
If you write me a full account of all this, I’ll be bold enough to ask you for another favor: to climb Etna as well, at my special request. Certain natural scientists have concluded that the mountain is wasting away and gradually sinking, because sailors used to be able to see it from farther away. The reason may not be that the mountain is getting lower, but that the flames have grown dimmer and the eruptions weaker and less plentiful, and for the same reason the smoke is less active by day.
Either explanation is believable: that the mountain is getting smaller because it’s being eaten away day by day, or that it stays the same size because the mountain isn’t devouring itself. Instead, the material that boils out collects in some underground valley and is fed by other matter, finding in the mountain not the fuel it needs but simply a passage out. There’s a well-known place in Lycia, which the locals call Hephaestion, where the ground is full of holes in many spots and surrounded by a harmless fire that does no damage to the plants growing there. So the place is fertile and lush with growth, because the flames don’t scorch; they only glow with a mild, faint force.
A Subject Every Poet Wants
But let’s put off this discussion and look into it once you’ve told me exactly how far the snow lies from the crater, I mean the snow that doesn’t melt even in summer, so safe is it from the fire next door. And don’t charge this work to my account; you were going to indulge your own passion for fine writing anyway, without anyone asking you.
Really, what would I have to offer you not to describe Etna in your poem, and not to touch on a subject that is practically a ritual for every poet? Ovid couldn’t be stopped from using this theme just because Virgil had already covered it fully, and neither of them scared off Cornelius Severus. Besides, the subject has served all of them well, and those who came first seem to me not to have used up everything that could be said, but only to have opened the way.
It makes a big difference whether you take up a subject that’s been exhausted or one where the ground has only been broken. In the second case, the subject grows day by day, and what’s already been discovered doesn’t block new discoveries. Besides, whoever writes last has the best of the bargain: he finds words already at hand which, arranged in a new way, show a new face. And he isn’t stealing them, as if they belonged to someone else, when he uses them, because they’re common property.
Now, if Etna doesn’t make your mouth water, I’ve misjudged you. For some time you’ve wanted to write something in the grand style, on the level of the older writers. Your modesty won’t let you aim any higher. That quality is so strong in you that, it seems to me, you’d likely hold back the force of your natural talent if there were any danger of outdoing others; that’s how much you revere the old masters.
At the Summit, Everyone Is Equal
Wisdom has this advantage, among others: no one can be outdone by another except during the climb. Once you reach the top, it’s a tie; there’s no room to climb higher, and the contest is over. Can the sun grow bigger? Can the moon become fuller than full? The seas don’t grow in volume. The universe keeps the same character and the same limits.
Things that have reached their full height can’t grow taller. So those who have reached wisdom will be equal, standing on the same level. Each will have his own particular gifts: one will be friendlier, another more easygoing, another quicker with words, a fourth more eloquent. But in the quality we’re talking about, the thing that produces happiness, they’re all equal.
I don’t know whether this Etna of yours can collapse and fall to ruin, or whether that lofty summit, visible for many miles across the open sea, is being worn down by the relentless power of its flames. But I do know that virtue won’t be brought low by flames or by ruins. Hers is the only greatness that knows no lowering; for her there’s no further rising or sinking. Her stature, like that of the stars in the sky, is fixed. So let’s work to raise ourselves to that height.
A Glimpse of Light Isn’t Daylight
Much of the task is already done; or rather, if I can bring myself to admit the truth, not much. For being good doesn’t mean merely being better than the worst. Who would boast about his eyesight if he could catch only a glimpse of daylight? Someone who sees the sun shining through a fog may be content for now that he’s escaped darkness, but he doesn’t yet enjoy the blessing of light.
Our souls won’t have reason to celebrate their lot until, freed from this darkness they grope in, they’ve not just glimpsed the brightness with weak eyes but taken in the full light of day and been returned to their place in the sky; until, in fact, they’ve regained the place given them at their birth. The soul is called upward by its very origin. And it will reach that goal even before it’s released from its prison down here, as soon as it has thrown off its faults and, pure and light, has leaped up into the heavenly realms of thought.
Fame Is the Shadow of Virtue
I’m glad, dear Lucilius, that we’re busy with this ideal and pursue it with all our strength, even if few know it, or no one. Fame is the shadow of virtue; it will follow virtue even against her will. But just as a shadow sometimes goes in front, and sometimes follows or even lags behind, so fame sometimes goes ahead of us and shows itself plainly, and sometimes comes behind, and is all the greater the later it arrives, once envy has retreated.
How long people believed Democritus was mad! Glory barely came to Socrates. And how long our country failed to recognize Cato! They rejected him and didn’t know his worth until they had lost him. If Rutilius hadn’t accepted injustice with patience, his innocence and virtue would have gone unnoticed; the hour of his suffering was the hour of his triumph. Didn’t he give thanks for his lot and welcome his exile with open arms? So far I’ve mentioned people to whom fortune brought fame at the very moment of their persecution. But how many there are whose progress toward virtue came to light only after their death! And how many have been ruined, not rescued, by their reputations?
Unknown in Their Own Day
Take Epicurus. See how greatly he’s admired, not only by educated people but by the uneducated crowd as well. Yet he was unknown in Athens itself, near where he had tucked himself away. And so, when he had outlived his friend Metrodorus by many years, he added these last words in a letter, gratefully celebrating the friendship between them: “Metrodorus and I were so blessed that it did us no harm to be unknown, almost unheard of, in this famous land of Greece.”
Isn’t it true, then, that people didn’t discover him until after he was gone? And hasn’t his fame shone out all the same? Metrodorus admits this too in one of his letters: that he and Epicurus weren’t well known to the public. But he declares that after their lifetimes, anyone who wanted to follow in their footsteps would find a great reputation ready and waiting.
Write for the Generations to Come
Virtue is never lost from sight; and yet to have been lost from sight is no loss. A day will come that reveals her, even if she’s been hidden away or suppressed by the spite of her own time. Whoever thinks only of the people of his own generation is born for only a few. Many thousands of years and many thousands of peoples will come after you; those are the ones to keep in mind. Spite may have silenced everyone alive in your day, but people will come who will judge you without prejudice and without favor. If virtue gets any reward from fame, not even that can be lost. We ourselves won’t be touched by what later generations say about us; still, they will cherish and celebrate us even though we won’t know it.
Virtue has never failed to reward anyone, both in life and after death, as long as he has followed her faithfully, as long as he hasn’t dressed himself up or painted himself over, but has always been the same, whether people saw him after he’d been announced or suddenly and without warning. Pretending accomplishes nothing. Few are fooled by a mask that’s easily pulled over the face. Truth is the same all the way through. Things that deceive us have no real substance. Lies are thin stuff; look at them closely and you can see right through them.
Farewell.
Breaking It Down: A Modern Take on Letter 79
Letter 79 starts like a note from a curious friend with a science bucket list. Seneca wants Lucilius to investigate a famous whirlpool, climb an active volcano, and measure the snow line, and he happily debates theories about why Etna seems to be shrinking. Then the volcano becomes a metaphor. Mountains can crumble, but virtue can’t; those who reach wisdom stand as equals; and fame, which we chase so anxiously, is only virtue’s shadow. It’s a letter about curiosity, creativity, humility, and playing the long game with our character.
1. Stay curious about the world
Seneca, the moral philosopher, is also a nature nerd. He wants details about whirlpools, volcanoes, and harmless fires that let plants grow. Curiosity about how the world works is part of a full, alert life at any age.
2. Weigh more than one explanation
Is Etna shrinking, or are its eruptions just weaker? Seneca sets out both possibilities and says either explanation is believable. That’s good thinking in any field: hold competing theories fairly until the evidence settles it.
3. No subject is ever used up
“Those who came first seem to me not to have used up everything that could be said, but only to have opened the way.” If you want to write, paint, or build something on a theme others have covered, go ahead. Earlier work clears the path; it doesn’t close it.
4. Words belong to everyone
“Whoever writes last has the best of the bargain.” Fresh arrangements of shared words and ideas can show a new face. Creativity is often recombination, done honestly.
5. Don’t let modesty shrink your talent
Seneca gently teases Lucilius for revering the old masters so much that he’d hold himself back. Humility is good; hiding your gifts out of fear of outshining others isn’t.
6. At the summit, there’s no competition
“No one can be outdone by another except during the climb.” Comparison belongs to the journey, not the destination. The goal of growth isn’t to beat others, but to reach a place where ranking stops mattering.
7. Different gifts, same goodness
Wise people will still differ, some friendlier, some more eloquent, but they’re equal in what makes a life happy. Character isn’t a contest; everyone can reach it, whatever their talents.
8. Virtue doesn’t erode
“Virtue won’t be brought low by flames or by ruins.” Mountains wear down. Health, money, and status come and go. Goodness, once built, is the one thing that keeps its height.
9. Better than the worst isn’t the goal
“Being good doesn’t mean merely being better than the worst.” It’s easy to feel decent by comparing ourselves with people behaving badly. Seneca asks for a higher standard: not a glimpse of light through fog, but full daylight.
10. Fame follows its own timetable
“Fame is the shadow of virtue; it will follow virtue even against her will.” Sometimes recognition comes early, sometimes late, sometimes after we’re gone. Do the good work anyway.
11. Hardship can reveal character
For Rutilius, unjustly exiled, “the hour of his suffering was the hour of his triumph.” How we handle being wronged often shows who we are more clearly than any success.
12. Obscurity is no loss
Epicurus and his friend Metrodorus were almost unknown in their lifetimes and counted themselves blessed anyway. A quiet life spent with good friends and good work isn’t a lesser life.
13. Think beyond your own generation
“Whoever thinks only of the people of his own generation is born for only a few.” The choices we make about kindness, fairness, and care for the earth ripple out to people we’ll never meet.
14. Be the same all the way through
“Lies are thin stuff; look at them closely and you can see right through them.” Pretending wears out. Integrity means being the same person whether or not anyone announced you were coming.
Key Takeaways from Letter 79
- Stay curious. The natural world is worth investigating.
- Weigh explanations fairly. Hold more than one theory.
- No theme is exhausted. Earlier work opens the way.
- Don’t hide your talent. Modesty shouldn’t mean shrinking.
- Comparison is for the climb. At the summit, all are equal.
- Virtue keeps its height. Everything else erodes.
- Aim higher than “not the worst.” Seek full daylight.
- Fame is a shadow. Focus on the substance.
- Hard times reveal character. Suffering can be a triumph.
- Obscurity is fine. Good friends and good work are enough.
- Live for future generations. Not just your own.
- Drop the mask. Lies are easy to see through.
“Fame is the shadow of virtue; it will follow virtue even against her will.”
— Seneca, Letter 79
Keep Seneca With You
If this letter spoke to you
Pierre Hadot on philosophy as a daily practice, not just a theory.
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Next up: Letter 80 — On Worldly Deceptions
