From simpleton to sage -- Seneca, pt. 2

All I know of the life of Seneca comes from an opera plot.

In Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, the emperor Nero wishes to exile his own wife in order to marry his mistress. Seneca advises against doing this, so Nero, understandably irritated, executes him. I haven’t seen the opera in a long time, and my recollection of the plot may be fuzzy. But that is the sole foreknowledge I bring to reading Seneca. I didn’t know that he was also exiled from Rome, which was when wrote a letter to his mother, Consolation to Helvia.

Poor Helvia was dealt a bad hand by life. Her mother died in childbirth, and later on she lost her uncle and her husband, too. Twenty days after the additional loss of her three grandchildren, her son, Seneca, was taken into exile. From Seneca’s point of view, this last misfortune was the worst for her. (For the purposes of understanding his letter, we’ll have to accept this assertion.) The “Consolation” he provides Helvia is an explanation of why exile is not so bad. He thinks this will make her feel better.

Some “Great Ideas”:
-- People exile themselves willingly all the time. Most of the population of Rome consists of people who left their homeland to seek the prosperity and excitement of the seat of the Empire. You don’t see them complaining.
-- We lose little in exile, “when the two finest things of all accompany us wherever we go, universal nature and our individual virtue.”
-- “If you have the strength to tackle any one aspect of misfortune you can tackle them all.”

I guess this is why they call Seneca a Stoic Philosopher.

Next time: On Tranquility of Mind