The days are getting shorter as Seneca writes, and he uses the season to poke fun at Rome’s fashionable night owls: rich people who sleep through the day and party through the night, not out of need, but to be different and talked about. Underneath the satire is a serious idea. “The way of goodness is simple; the way of wickedness is complicated.” When we fight nature just to stand out, life becomes like rowing against the current.
From Seneca to Lucilius
The days have already begun to shorten. They’ve shrunk quite a bit, but they still leave a good stretch of time if you rise, so to speak, with the day itself. We’re more productive, and better people, if we get ahead of the day and welcome the dawn; but we’re lazy louts if we lie dozing when the sun is high, or wake only at noon, and even then, to many people, it still seems like it isn’t dawn yet.
The People Who Live Backwards
Some have reversed the jobs of light and darkness. They open eyes still heavy from last night’s partying only as night approaches. It’s just like the condition of those peoples whom, according to Virgil, nature has hidden away and placed in a home directly opposite our own:
When in our sky the Dawn’s panting horses breathe,
for them the red evening lights
her late fires.
It isn’t so much their country as their way of life that is “directly opposite” to ours. There may be people on the opposite side of the world living right here in our own city who, in Cato’s words, “have never seen the sun rise or set.” Do you think these people know how to live, if they don’t know when to live? Do they fear death, when they’ve buried themselves alive? They’re as strange as the birds of the night. Though they spend their hours of darkness amid wine and perfumes, though they spend all their unnatural waking hours eating dinners, each course cooked separately to make many, they aren’t really banqueting; they’re holding their own funerals. And at least the dead have their funeral feasts by daylight!
Lengthen Your Life by Living It
But in truth, to someone who is active, no day is long. So let’s lengthen our lives, because the duty and proof of life lie in action. Cut the night short; use some of it for the day’s work.
Birds being prepared for the banquet are kept in the dark so they’ll fatten easily without exercise. In the same way, when people vegetate without physical activity, their idle bodies are buried in flesh, and in their smug retirement the fat of laziness grows on them. Moreover, the bodies of those who’ve sworn allegiance to the hours of darkness look awful. Their complexions are more alarming than those of anemic invalids; they’re listless and puffy with swelling; though still alive, they’re already like corpses. But this, I think, would be among the least of their troubles. How much more darkness there is in their souls! Such a person is dazed inside; his vision is darkened; he envies the blind. And who ever had eyes for the purpose of seeing in the dark?
Every Vice Rebels Against Nature
You ask how this depravity comes over the soul, this habit of turning daylight upside down and handing one’s whole existence over to the night? All vices rebel against nature; they all abandon the appointed order. It’s the motto of luxury to enjoy what is unusual, and not only to depart from what is right, but to leave it as far behind as possible, and finally even to take a stand against it.
Don’t you think people live against nature who drink on an empty stomach, who pour wine into empty veins and come to their food already drunk? And yet this is one of the popular vices of the young: building up their strength so they can drink right at the door of the baths, among the naked bathers; even soaking in wine and then immediately scraping off the sweat they’ve worked up with glass after glass of hot liquor! To them, a glass after lunch or after dinner is bourgeois; it’s what country gentlemen do, who aren’t connoisseurs of pleasure. This unmixed wine delights them precisely because there’s no food for it to float in, because it goes straight into their muscles; this boozing pleases them precisely because the stomach is empty.
Fighting Nature for Its Own Sake
Don’t you think men live against nature who swap styles of dress with women? Don’t men live against nature who try to look fresh and boyish at an age unsuited to the attempt? What could be crueler or more pitiful? Can’t time and adulthood ever carry such a person past an artificial boyhood?
Don’t people live against nature who crave roses in winter, or force a spring flower like the lily to bloom with hot-water heaters and artificial changes of temperature? Don’t people live against nature who plant orchards on top of a wall? Or raise swaying forests on the roofs and battlements of their houses, the roots starting at a height the treetops would be absurd to reach? Don’t people live against nature who lay the foundations of bathhouses in the sea and can’t imagine enjoying a swim unless the heated pool is lashed as if by storm waves?
When people begin to want everything contrary to nature’s ways, they end by abandoning nature’s ways entirely. They cry: “It’s daytime, time for bed! It’s the hour when people rest: now for exercise, now for our drive, now for lunch! Look, dawn is coming: it’s dinnertime! We shouldn’t do what everyone does. It’s low and common to live the usual, conventional way. Let’s abandon the ordinary sort of day. Let’s have a morning that’s our own special feature, all our own!”
“You’ve Woken Up Too Late!”
Such people are, in my view, as good as dead. Aren’t they practically attending their own funeral, and ahead of time too, living among torches and candles? I remember this kind of life was very fashionable at one time, among people like Acilius Buta, a man of high rank, who ran through an enormous fortune and, when he confessed his bankruptcy to Tiberius, got the answer: “You’ve woken up too late!”
Julius Montanus was once reading a poem aloud. He was a middling poet, known for his friendship with Tiberius and also for falling out of favor. He always filled his poems with a generous sprinkling of sunrises and sunsets. So when someone was complaining that Montanus had read all day long and declared that no one should attend any of his readings, Natta Pinarius remarked, “I couldn’t make a fairer bargain: I’m ready to listen to him from sunrise to sunset!”
Montanus was reading, and had reached these lines:
The bright morning begins to spread its clear-burning flames; the red dawn
scatters its light; and the sad-eyed swallow returns to her nestlings,
bringing the chatterers’ food, sharing it out with her sweet bill.
Then Varus, a Roman knight who tagged along after Marcus Vinicius and earned his way into fancy dinners with his cheap wit, shouted: “Bedtime for Buta!” And later, when Montanus recited:
Now the shepherds have folded their flocks, and the slow-moving darkness
begins to spread silence over lands drowsily lulled into sleep,
the same Varus remarked, “What? Night already? I’ll go pay my morning call on Buta!” You see, nothing was more notorious than Buta’s upside-down way of life. But this life, as I said, was fashionable at one time.
Why They Do It
The reason some people live this way isn’t that they think night itself has greater attractions, but that what is normal gives them no particular pleasure. Light is a bitter enemy of a guilty conscience; and when someone craves or scorns everything according to how much or how little it cost, light you don’t have to pay for is beneath contempt. Moreover, the luxurious person wants to be the subject of gossip his whole life; if people are silent about him, he thinks he’s wasting his time. So he’s uncomfortable whenever any of his actions escape notice.
Many people eat up their fortunes, and many keep mistresses. If you want to win a reputation among such people, your program must be not just one of luxury but of notoriety, because in such a busy community, wickedness doesn’t notice the ordinary sort of scandal.
The Man Who Lived by Lamplight
I heard Pedo Albinovanus, that most charming storyteller, describe living above the town house of Sextus Papinius. Papinius belonged to the tribe of those who shun the light. “About nine at night I hear the sound of whips. I ask what’s going on, and they tell me Papinius is going over his accounts. About midnight there’s strenuous shouting; I ask what’s wrong, and they say he’s exercising his voice. About two in the morning I ask what the sound of wheels means; they tell me he’s off for a drive. And at dawn there’s a tremendous flurry, slaves and stewards being called, pandemonium among the cooks. I ask what this means, too, and they tell me he’s called for his honeyed wine and his appetizer after leaving the bath. His dinner,” said Pedo, “never went past the day, because he lived very frugally; he was lavish with nothing but the night. So if you believe the people who call him stingy and mean, you’ll also call him a ‘slave of the lamp.'”
Goodness Is Simple
You shouldn’t be surprised to find so many special forms of vice, because vices vary; they have countless shapes, and not all their kinds can be classified. The way of goodness is simple; the way of wickedness is complicated, with endless opportunities to swerve. The same is true of character. If you follow nature, character is easy to manage, free, and with very slight variations; but the kind of person I’ve described has a badly warped character, out of harmony with everything, including himself.
The main cause of this disease, though, seems to me to be a squeamish revolt against normal life. Just as such people set themselves apart from others by their clothing, or the elaborate arrangement of their dinners, or the elegance of their carriages, so they want to make themselves unusual by how they divide up the hours of their day. They don’t want to be wicked in the ordinary way, because notoriety is the reward for their kind of wickedness. Notoriety is what all such people seek, people who are, so to speak, living backwards.
Don’t Row Against the Current
For this reason, Lucilius, let’s keep to the path nature has laid out for us, and not swerve from it. If we follow nature, everything is easy and unobstructed; but if we fight nature, our life is no different from that of people rowing against the current.
Farewell.
Breaking It Down: A Modern Take on Letter 122
Letter 122 is Seneca in comic mode, telling stories about Roman celebrities who flipped day and night to seem special. His target isn’t people who work nights or simply keep different rhythms; nurses, doctors, and night-shift workers keep our world running in the dark. His target is the person who rejects ordinary life just to be noticed. One line reflects Roman prejudice about men’s clothing, a view we don’t share today; the lasting lesson is about vanity, attention-seeking, and the quiet strength of a simple, natural life.
1. Welcome the dawn
“We’re more productive, and better people, if we get ahead of the day and welcome the dawn.” Morning routines are trendy now, but Seneca was recommending them two thousand years ago.
2. Know when to live
“Do you think these people know how to live, if they don’t know when to live?” Timing matters. Living in tune with natural rhythms of light, rest, and activity supports body and mind.
3. Activity makes days full
“To someone who is active, no day is long.” Boredom and restlessness often come from idleness, not from too much to do.
4. Life is proven by action
“The duty and proof of life lie in action.” Being alive isn’t just breathing. It’s doing, contributing, engaging with the world.
5. Inactivity harms body and soul
Seneca’s description of sedentary, sun-deprived bodies sounds a lot like modern medicine’s warnings about inactivity and disrupted sleep. But he adds: “How much more darkness there is in their souls!”
6. Vice fights nature
“All vices rebel against nature.” Many unhealthy habits share a pattern: they override what the body and mind naturally need.
7. Different just to be different
Roses in winter, forests on rooftops, artificial waves in heated pools. Seneca mocks novelty for its own sake. Some innovation helps people; some just serves vanity.
8. Bored by the normal
People live this way because “what is normal gives them no particular pleasure.” There’s quiet wisdom in learning to enjoy ordinary things: sunlight, meals at mealtime, a good night’s sleep.
9. Free things have value too
Seneca notes that the luxurious person scorns light he doesn’t have to pay for. Some of life’s best gifts, like sunshine, fresh air, and friendship, cost nothing.
10. Craving attention
“If people are silent about him, he thinks he’s wasting his time.” It’s a perfect description of attention-seeking behavior, from Roman parties to social media.
11. Goodness is simple
“The way of goodness is simple; the way of wickedness is complicated.” Honesty doesn’t require a cover story. Kindness doesn’t need a strategy.
12. Don’t row against the current
“If we follow nature, everything is easy and unobstructed; but if we fight nature, our life is no different from that of people rowing against the current.” A life built around show is exhausting. A life in harmony with our nature has an easier flow.
Key Takeaways from Letter 122
- Welcome the morning. An early start helps.
- Know when to live. Respect natural rhythms.
- Stay active. Busy days are never too long.
- Prove life by action. Engage with the world.
- Move your body. Idleness harms body and soul.
- Don’t chase novelty for its own sake. Different isn’t always better.
- Enjoy the ordinary. Normal life has real pleasures.
- Value free gifts. Sunlight costs nothing.
- Let go of the need for attention. Being talked about isn’t living.
- Keep goodness simple. Wickedness is complicated.
- Go with nature’s current. Don’t row against it.
“If we follow nature, everything is easy and unobstructed; but if we fight nature, our life is no different from that of people rowing against the current.”
— Seneca, Letter 122
Keep Seneca With You
If this letter spoke to you
Seneca’s famous essay on time, short enough to read in one evening.
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