Letter 94, “On the Value of Advice,” is one of Seneca’s longest and most technical letters — a sustained defense of practical moral advice against the austere Stoic Aristo of Chios, who argued that specific precepts are superfluous if you already have sound doctrine, and useless if you don’t. Seneca thinks Aristo is wrong, and […]
Letter 93 – On the Quality, as Contrasted with the Length, of Life
Letter 93, “On the Quality, as Contrasted with the Length, of Life,” is Seneca’s beautiful follow-up to the closing argument of Letter 92. His friend Lucilius is grieving the philosopher Metronax, who died “too soon” — and Seneca uses the moment to deliver one of the clearest statements of the Stoic view of time and […]
Letter 92 – On the Happy Life
Letter 92, “On the Happy Life,” is one of Seneca’s most ambitious philosophical letters — a sustained argument that the happy life is nothing more or less than the perfection of reason. He takes on rival philosophers who hedge their bets with externals, defends the radical Stoic position that virtue is its own reward, and […]
Letter 91 – On the Lesson to be Drawn from the Burning of Lyons
Letter 91, “On the Lesson to be Drawn from the Burning of Lyons,” was written soon after the Roman colony of Lugdunum — modern Lyons — was wiped out by fire in a single night. Seneca’s friend Liberalis loved the city, and the news has shaken him to the core. Seneca offers him a bracing […]
Letter 90: On the Part Played by Philosophy in the Progress of Man
Letter 90, “On the Part Played by Philosophy in the Progress of Man,” is one of Seneca’s longest and most ambitious letters. It opens with one of his most famous lines: “Life is the gift of the immortal gods, but living well is the gift of philosophy.” From there, Seneca enters an extended argument with […]