This is one of Seneca’s hardest letters to read today. It begins with a harbor scene, ships racing into port with their mail, and Seneca happily unbothered by whatever news they carry. Then it turns to the death of his friend Tullius Marcellinus, and to Seneca’s fierce argument that a life is measured by its quality, not its length. Underneath the ancient views on choosing death, the core of the letter is about living without fear of death, and about asking whether we really know how to live.
A note for readers: this letter describes a man ending his own life and reflects ancient Roman views on choosing death, views that most of us, and modern medicine, see very differently. Its lasting value is in its call to live fully and without fear. If you or someone you love is struggling, please reach out — in the US, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline); help is available in most countries.
From Seneca to Lucilius
Today the “Alexandrian” ships suddenly came into view, the ones usually sent ahead to announce that the fleet is coming; people call them the mail boats. The people of Campania are glad to see them. The whole crowd of Puteoli stands on the docks and can pick out the Alexandrian boats, however many ships are about, by the very trim of their sails. They alone are allowed to keep their topsails spread. Every ship uses topsails out at sea, because nothing drives a ship along as well as its upper canvas; that’s where most of the speed comes from. So when the breeze picks up and gets stronger than is comfortable, crews lower their yards, since the wind has less force close to the water. Accordingly, once they’ve reached Capri and the headland where
tall Pallas keeps watch on the stormy peak,
every other ship is told to make do with the mainsail, and the topsail stands out clearly on the Alexandrian mail boats.
In No Hurry for the News
While everyone was bustling about and hurrying to the waterfront, I took great pleasure in my own laziness. I was soon to get letters from my friends, but I was in no rush to learn how my affairs were going abroad or what news the letters were bringing; for some time now I’ve had no losses, and no gains either. Even if I weren’t an old man, I couldn’t have helped enjoying this; as it is, I enjoyed it far more. However small my means might be, I’d still have more traveling money left than road left to travel, especially since this journey we’ve set out on is one that doesn’t need to be followed to the end.
A trip is incomplete if you stop halfway, or anywhere short of your destination; but a life isn’t incomplete if it’s honorable. Wherever you leave off living, as long as you leave off nobly, your life is whole. Often, though, one must leave bravely, and our reasons for it need not be weighty; for the reasons that keep us here aren’t weighty either.
The Story of Marcellinus
Tullius Marcellinus, a man you knew well, who was a quiet soul in his youth and grew old before his time, fell ill with a disease that was by no means hopeless; but it was long and troublesome and needed a lot of care, and so he began to think about dying. He called many of his friends together. Each one gave him advice: the timid friend urged him to do what he’d already decided; the flattering, wheedling friend gave the advice he thought Marcellinus would like best once he’d thought it over.
But our Stoic friend, a rare man and, to praise him as he deserves, brave and vigorous, gave him the best advice, it seems to me. He began like this: “Don’t torment yourself, my dear Marcellinus, as if you were weighing something important. Living isn’t a great matter; all your slaves live, and so do all animals. What matters is dying honorably, sensibly, bravely. Think how long you’ve been doing the same things: food, sleep, sex; that’s the daily round. The wish to die can be felt not only by the sensible person, or the brave or unhappy one, but even by someone who is simply fed up.”
Marcellinus didn’t need someone to urge him on so much as someone to help him; the people in his household refused to do what he asked. So the Stoic calmed their fears, showing them that the household faced no risk unless it was unclear whether the master’s death was his own choice; besides, it was as wrong to kill one’s master as to stop him by force.
Then he suggested to Marcellinus himself that it would be a kind act to share gifts among those who had served him all his life, now that his life was finished, just as, when a banquet is over, what’s left is divided among the attendants standing around the table. Marcellinus was easygoing and generous by nature, even with his own property, so he gave small sums to his grieving servants and comforted them besides.
He had no need of sword or violence. He fasted for three days, and then, gradually and quietly, he passed away, without pain, as he himself said.
Why I Tell This Story
You won’t mind this little story I’ve wandered into. You’ll see that your friend did not go with difficulty or suffering; though he chose his own death, he left very gently, slipping out of life. The story may also be of some use, because a crisis often calls for examples like this. There are times when we ought to die and don’t want to; sometimes we die and don’t want to.
You Will Not Be, and You Were Not
No one is so ignorant that he doesn’t know he must die someday; yet when death comes near, people turn to run, tremble, and weep. Wouldn’t you think someone an utter fool if he wept because he wasn’t alive a thousand years ago? And isn’t someone just as foolish who weeps because he won’t be alive a thousand years from now? It’s all the same: you will not be, and you were not. Neither stretch of time belongs to you.
You’ve been set down on this one point of time; if you made it longer, how much longer would you make it? Why weep? Why pray? You’re wasting your effort.
Stop hoping that your prayers can bend
the gods’ decrees from their appointed end.
These decrees are fixed and unchangeable; a vast and everlasting necessity governs them. Your goal will be the goal of all things. What’s so strange about that? You were born subject to this law; it came to your father, your mother, your ancestors, and everyone before you, and it will come to everyone after you. An unbroken chain, which no power can break or alter, binds all things together and draws them along.
Think of the crowds of people destined to die who will come after you, and the crowds who will go along with you! You’d die more bravely, I suppose, in the company of many thousands. Yet there are many thousands, of people and of animals, who at this very moment, while you hesitate about death, are breathing their last in their own ways. But you: did you think you’d never reach the goal you’ve always been traveling toward? There is no journey without an end.
The Spartan Boy
You probably expect me to cite some examples of great men now. No, I’ll cite a boy instead. The story of the Spartan boy has come down to us. Captured while still very young, he kept crying in his Doric dialect, “I will not be a slave!” And he kept his word: the very first time he was ordered to do a degrading servant’s task, which was to fetch a chamber pot, he took his own life.
Freedom is that close at hand, and is anyone still a slave? Wouldn’t you rather your own son died like that than reached old age by giving in weakly? Why, then, are you upset, when even a boy can die so bravely? Suppose you refuse to follow; you’ll be led anyway. Take into your own control what is now in someone else’s. Won’t you borrow that boy’s courage and say, “I am no slave”? Poor fellow, you’re a slave to people, a slave to your business, a slave to life. For life, if you lack the courage to die, is slavery.
What Are You Waiting For?
Do you have anything worth waiting for? The very pleasures that hold you back and make you linger, you’ve already used up. None of them is new to you, and every one has become hateful because you’re sick of it. You know the taste of wine and sweet cordials. It makes no difference whether a hundred or a thousand jars pass through your bladder; you’re nothing but a wine strainer. You’re an expert on the flavor of oysters and mullet; your luxury hasn’t left anything untasted for the years to come. And yet these are the things you’re unwilling to be torn away from.
What else would you be sorry to lose? Friends? But who can be a friend to you? Your country? Really? Do you think enough of your country to be late for dinner? The light of the sun? You’d put it out if you could; what have you ever done that was fit to be seen in daylight? Admit it: it isn’t because you long for the senate house or the forum, or even the natural world, that you want to put off dying. It’s because you hate to leave the fish market, though you’ve already emptied it.
Do You Know How to Live?
You’re afraid of death; but how can you scorn it in the middle of a feast of mushrooms? You want to live; well, do you know how to live? You’re afraid to die. But come on: is this life of yours anything but death? Gaius Caesar was passing along the Latin Way when a man stepped out from a line of prisoners, his gray beard hanging down to his chest, and begged to be put to death. “What,” said Caesar, “are you alive now?” That’s the answer to give to people for whom death would come as a relief: “You’re afraid to die; what, are you alive now?”
“But,” someone says, “I want to live, because I’m engaged in many honorable pursuits. I hate to leave life’s duties, which I’m carrying out faithfully and eagerly.” Surely you know that dying is also one of life’s duties? You aren’t deserting any duty, because there’s no fixed number of them you’re bound to complete.
Life Is Like a Play
There is no life that isn’t short. Compared with the whole of nature, even Nestor’s life was short, or Sattia’s, the woman who had carved on her tombstone that she had lived ninety-nine years. Some people, you see, boast of long lives; but who could have stood the old lady if she’d had the luck to reach a hundred? It is with life as it is with a play: what matters is not how long the action runs, but how good the acting is. It makes no difference where you stop. Stop wherever you will; only make sure the closing lines are well delivered.
Farewell.
Breaking It Down: A Modern Take on Letter 77
Letter 77 needs to be read with care. Seneca describes a friend who, facing a long but treatable illness, chose to end his life, and he presents that choice with approval, as many Roman Stoics did. These are ancient views from a very different world, one without modern medicine, pain relief, or mental health care, and we don’t need to adopt them to learn from the letter. It’s worth knowing that Seneca himself, in the very next letter, describes how he once wanted to die as a young man and chose to live for the sake of his elderly father, a choice he came to treasure. What still speaks to us here is his challenge to stop fearing death, to stop living on autopilot, and to make whatever time we have count.
1. Enjoy being unbothered
While the whole town rushes to the docks for news, Seneca says, “I took great pleasure in my own laziness.” There’s freedom in not needing every update the moment it arrives. Try leaving the notifications alone for an afternoon.
2. A good life is a whole life
“A life isn’t incomplete if it’s honorable.” A journey cut short feels unfinished, but a life lived with integrity is complete at any length. That’s a comfort when we grieve someone who died young.
3. Read the Marcellinus story with care
Marcellinus’s illness, Seneca admits, was “by no means hopeless.” Today we’d see a man in that situation as someone who needed treatment, support, and company through a long recovery. If illness or exhaustion ever makes you think about not going on, please tell a doctor or someone you trust; long, hard illnesses often get better, and so do the feelings that come with them.
4. Watch out for advice that tells you what you want to hear
Seneca notes the timid friend who simply agreed and the flatterer who said what would please. Good friends don’t just echo us. They care enough to ask hard questions and stay with us.
5. Generosity at the end
Marcellinus “gave small sums to his grieving servants and comforted them besides.” Whatever we think of his choice, his care for the people who had looked after him is moving. (Seneca’s Rome took slavery for granted; the “servants” here were enslaved people, and the Stoic’s remark that “all your slaves live” shows how little their lives were valued.)
6. Don’t fear the time you won’t exist
“Wouldn’t you think someone an utter fool if he wept because he wasn’t alive a thousand years ago?” We weren’t troubled by the centuries before our birth. Seneca invites us to look at our mortality with the same calm.
7. We all share the same law
“You were born subject to this law.” Every parent, ancestor, and friend has faced death. Knowing we’re part of a shared human story can soften our fear of it.
8. Every journey has an end
“There is no journey without an end.” Accepting this isn’t gloomy. It’s the reason today matters.
9. What are we enslaved to?
“You’re a slave to people, a slave to your business, a slave to life.” Seneca’s harsh examples come from a culture that glorified defiant deaths. The question underneath is still useful: what habits, fears, or cravings run my life?
10. Is this really living?
“You want to live; well, do you know how to live?” Seneca mocks the man who clings to oysters and wine but has never done anything worth seeing in daylight. The challenge is to fill our lives with things worth staying for: friendships, service, love, and work that matters.
11. Every life is short
“There is no life that isn’t short.” Even ninety-nine years is brief against the whole of time. Since none of us gets much, the question is what we do with it.
12. Quality over quantity
“It is with life as it is with a play: what matters is not how long the action runs, but how good the acting is.” We can’t control the length of our part. We can control how kindly, bravely, and honestly we play it.
Key Takeaways from Letter 77
- Read with care. This letter reflects ancient views on choosing death that modern care sees differently.
- Reach out if you’re struggling. In the US, call or text 988.
- Let the news wait. Not every update needs you right away.
- An honorable life is whole. Length isn’t the measure.
- Seek honest friends. Not just ones who agree.
- Be generous to those who care for you. Kindness matters to the end.
- Don’t fear not existing. You weren’t troubled before you were born.
- Mortality is shared. We’re all on the same road.
- Notice what rules you. Habits and cravings can enslave.
- Learn how to live. Fill life with things worth staying for.
- Play your part well. Quality over quantity.
“It is with life as it is with a play: what matters is not how long the action runs, but how good the acting is.”
— Seneca, Letter 77
Next up: Letter 78 — On the Healing Power of the Mind
