Sean Murray  03:53

Well, maybe we can kind of get into that through the course of our discussion. And before we do, it might be helpful just to give a short bio sketch of, of Seneca. Where did he come from? How did he rise to power, and why are we still talking about him today?

James Romm  04:07

So he was a member of a literary family. His father was the famous rhetorician whose writings are some of his writings are still preserved. He himself was a very gifted writer and thinker, but also wanted to go into politics. And he and his older brother both got elevated to the Senate. They were not of the senatorial class. They were what we would call upper middle class, not aristocrats. But through the intervention of probably the Emperor Tiberius, they got elected to the Senate in the 30s A.D. So he had a political career as well as an intellectual one. The two, as I say, were very awkwardly juxtaposed in many cases. He was exiled by the Emperor Claudius in the 40s A.D. on a political charge, probably just to get him out of the way. The Emperor didn’t like him much, and he spent eight years in exile before the emperor remarried to the mother of Nero, Agrippina was her name, and in order to get her son into a better political position, she insisted on having Seneca brought back to Rome and appointed as Nero’s tutor. He was then about 13 years old. So he got involved with Nero through Agrippina’s intervention and went on to become his chief minister, when he assumed the emperorship himself at age 17, 54 A.D.

Sean Murray  05:31

It’s interesting time in his life, this time of exile, and he, obviously Seneca is known as a great stoic philosopher; a very clear and prolific writer. And it was during this time that he started writing a number of treatises. And I first was exposed to Seneca through his original writing, and he’s always had a big impact on, on stoic philosophy. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the writing at this stage in his life, what he was writing about, and how that’s kind of come down to us today.

James Romm  06:09

So during his exile, he was outside of politics. He claimed in his writings that this was a blessing. He had time to contemplate the night sky, serene air of Corsica, the stars and planets, the motions of the heavenly bodies. He thought of all this as the happiest activity for a philosopher because the stars and planets are virtually divine, so it’s like contemplating divinity. He made that case in two of his works that were written from exile. One of them a consolation to his mother, not to feel any grief over his exile. Of course, at the same time, he was writing to the emperor and trying to get back into the good graces of the imperial administration, and finally succeeded in doing that eight years later.

Sean Murray  06:58

So if Seneca was sort of writing about the stoic sage, right? This life of contemplation of happiness and achieving this flourishing life, the way he describes in his writing, it sounds like of Corsica, it’s kind of a perfect place to live such a life. Why do you think he at the same time is kind of also battling or positioning himself to get back to Rome, back to power? I mean, how do you view that when you look at his, his writing today, which has touched so many people?

James Romm  07:32

Yes, this is the great paradigm that in spite of his embrace of the quiet life and contemplation of nature, he did really want to be at the center of power. And he admits this himself in his letters, the last work that he wrote, when he says that he’s conquered some of his flaws, but ambition is still the one that gives him the most trouble. So he was not immune to the allure of men’s power as most of us are not. And when he was in power, he continued to write in praise of the quiet life, and even left out any mention of his own activities, so it seemed as if he was almost living two different lives. One of them, the one he presented in his essays, and the other one, when he lived inside the palace.

Sean Murray  08:25

I guess if there’s any consolation in that, he sometimes comes across as almost superhuman in his writing; his philosophical writing. And you realize when you get into the biography, and what really was going on his life, he was just human like the rest of us and susceptible to these kinds of challenges.

James Romm  08:44

Yes, exactly right. And the problem of wealth is even a tougher problem for him to deal with because he had a huge fortune, and it got much bigger under Nero. But at the same time, in his writings, he often praises the virtues of poverty and claims that wealth will only make a person unhappy. So he really had to kind of live a schizo frantic existence with regard to, to money. And this was pointed out by some of his critics at the time. If you read Tacitus, his annals, which has a lot of information about Seneca, seen from the political perspective, his critics in the senate were attacking him during Nero’s reign, calling him a tyrant teacher. That is someone who served the autocracy and also asking what he was doing with the fortune of 300 million sesterces, when he was supposedly a stoic sage.

Sean Murray  09:39

In his defense, I guess I will say that the, when he came back to tutor Nero, it sounds like at the early stages of Nero’s reign, things were pretty good in Rome. And you know, if you wanted to paint it with the positive brush, you could say that during the time that Seneca had a good relationship with Nero; kind of a healthy relationship; a tutor relationship things seem to go well. As Nero kind of came more to power and Seneca had less power, it seems as if Rome started to go further and further downhill towards, you know, some of the atrocities that we know of in Nero’s later reign.

James Romm  10:15

That’s true. The first five years were called the Quinquennium Neronis; five years span of Nero. And some Romans thought of that as the high point of the empire. Things were never better than they were in those five years. And that was the time, when Seneca was really kind of in charge. After five years, Nero was in his 20s, and he had already committed a couple of family murders and was especially determined to kill his mother, which he eventually did. Two things began to unravel in the succeeding five years.

Sean Murray  10:51

What can you tell us about his views on death? How they may continue to impact even how humans view death today?

James Romm  10:58

Yeah, death was omnipresent for Seneca. He himself, reportedly by his own report contemplated suicide in his teens because of a congenital respiratory illness, possibly tuberculosis, which made it hard for him to breathe at times. And he suffered with that throughout his life. He’d also witnessed a large number of deaths of his colleagues and comrades. He lived to the reign of Caligula, which resulted in numerous purges of members of the Senate. He himself was marked out for death at one point but Caligula died before he could bring that about. So he has a kind of fixation with the subject but not a morbid one. He regards death as a rite of passage similar to Earth, marriage, maturation. It’s a natural process, and he wants us not to be afraid of it; wants us to think about it; to be prepared for it; and to do it in a way that pays credit to our values; our self control; our devotion to reason; and all the virtues that stoic school preached. Death was sort of the ultimate test for a philosopher.

Sean Murray  12:16

Did Seneca further the philosophy of stoicism? Do you think that he expanded stoicism in any way?

James Romm  12:26

Oh, absolutely. He changed it very much to suit his own times and his own social situation. For the Greeks, who invented stoicism, it was a much more abstract, theoretical school. It had a cosmology. It had a physics; had cognitive science. It was not strictly an ethical philosophy. Seneca concentrated much more on how it affects our day-to-day behaviors and our choices. So he really focused on the ethical side, pragmatic side, which is why it’s become a source today for psychotherapy. Cognitive dissonance behavior therapy originated really out of Seneca and stoicism.

Sean Murray  13:13

And why do you think we’re still talking about Seneca today? Why is he still relevant in our age?

James Romm  13:20

I think because he’s such a relatable figure. He’s a person, who put himself right out there on the page. He talks very candidly about his own failings; his own shortcomings; his daily experience. He’s like Montaigne in that way. Montaigne’s essays, which owe a lot to Seneca and Plutarch. Those were the two principal models for Montaigne, and to read about someone who’s that fully human; that who can be imagined fully based on their writings from a distance of 2000 years, I think is rather remarkable.

Sean Murray  13:56

Seneca wrote a series of letters, he would leave later in his life that had a big impact on stoicism. They’ve had a big impact on me; the letters to Lucilius. Could you tell us a little about those? Where they came from? What was going on with Seneca at that time, and, and what his kind of life story informs as far as those letters?

James Romm  14:17

So the letters of Lucilius or sometimes called, the Moral Epistle, were written in the mid 60s A.D., just before Seneca’s death. So they’re one of his last writings, and the most fully ambitious of his writings. There are 128 of them surviving, and there were more originally. We don’t know quite how many more, but it takes up three volumes of the low classical library; more than any of his other works. There are occasional works. They pretend to be letters to a friend written on a day-to-day basis. In fact, they were more carefully composed than that, and they were intended for publication, but they have the intimate tone of a personal communication; confiding in a friend, a fellow searcher for truth; what his trials and his victories are from day-to-day. As I say there are source for Montaigne, who also use the essay, the personal exploration as a way to, to expound his philosophic values. So they were rather a remarkable document. Seneca invented this form. It wasn’t one, which already existed. He developed it into a, something of his own making.

Sean Murray  15:31

Well, it was a remarkable innovation. And, you know, couple that with his incredible writing skills, it’s truly, you know, one of the amazing works of that Roman era.

James Romm  15:42

Yes, although I have to say, it’s also a little bit long, and some of the letters are much more interesting than others. So a reader today would be well advised to choose selections from rather than try to read the whole thing. There’s very good edition of excerpts from the letters from the Oxford World Classic Series and my book, How to Die, day in selections from the letters that concerned death. So to read the whole thing, I think one would find them a bit tedious and repetitive. Seneca like many good writers didn’t know when to stop, but fortunately, we can edit him today, and make him more accessible.

Sean Murray  16:25

Yeah, the, the original edition that I read was edited. I don’t think it was all 128. It was definitely a smaller number. What I like about the letters–each letter takes on a topic and just kind of expounds that topic. As you mentioned, several of them take on this topic of death. One of the things that I took away from Seneca’s view on death is his advice that we sort of confront it every day. It’s not something that we should leave towards some later stage of our life. That the fact that death is this essential, fundamental human crisis, we’re all facing it. It should be something that you contemplate; consider every day. And by doing that you can actually, rather than being morbid, which may be kind of your initial reaction to that. It can actually enhance your day. It can make it more full, and it can enhance your life; give you a more flourishing life.

James Romm  17:20

Yes.

Sean Murray  17:20

Can you talk a little bit about that and his view on, on death as it relates to getting more out of life?

James Romm  17:27

Yes, I think your listeners, who have had a near death experience, or know of someone who has, or someone who has recovered from a terrible illness, they can all appreciate this paradox that having had a brush with death makes one feel more fully alive; more grateful for life. And Seneca recommended that we think about death all the time precisely for that reason that it will enhance parts of our life, where we’re not dying. In effect, we are all dying all the time. Dying Every Day, my title to my book is taken from his own words. That soon as we’re born, in fact, we’re dying. And we should take account of that fact. And that will make us appreciate life. There’s also the topic of being prepared for death, which is a constant theme that we only have the chance to do it once. And if we make a bunch of it we’ll…we won’t get a do-over. So if one anticipates how one wants to die; the kind of values one wants to express in death, there’s a better chance that you’ll do it well. You wouldn’t think of going through a marriage ceremony without a rehearsal or a bar mitzvah. And death is a rite of passage, too, so it needs to be prepared.

Sean Murray  18:49

Yeah, and it’s certainly a topic that Montaigne takes up as you mentioned earlier in his essays, and sort of takes Seneca, and takes it to the next level. There’s another essay that Seneca wrote. I, I don’t know if it was during the same period as the letters to Lucilius. But it’s called, On the Shortness of Life. And it also deals with death, but it kind of, of the flip side of the coin. It talks about the time that we have in life. And what I sort of took from that essay was that life can appear very short if you don’t know how to use it; if you don’t know how to get the most out of every day. And most people don’t is kind of what Seneca was, was saying. Most people just go about their business activity one thing to the next, and they’re not getting the most out of life. And that sort of relates to our modern world, you know, our phones, our activities, our emails, and when I read Seneca and On the Shortness of Life, I get this sense that he’s saying, “Look,” it’s almost like he’s talking to our modern times, “Look, you got to slow down. You’ve, you’ve got to stand up to those distractions, and be present in the moment.”

James Romm  19:58

That’s right. Yes, he speaks a lot about use of time. It’s not life that’s short, but time if we don’t use it well. One could have a very full life, even dying at what we consider a young age. And conversely, one could live into one’s 90s, but not really experienced life, and therefore, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s the quality not the quantity of life that matters.

Sean Murray  20:25

Yeah, and that’s such a powerful message. Did he write that about the same time as the letters to Lucilius?

James Romm  20:33

Well, you know, it’s very hard to date most of his works. And I believe that On the Shortness of Life is one of those, which can’t be securely dated. But it’s generally thought to have preceded by some years. The letters come at the end of his life. We know that in this mid 60s, along with another word called, The Natural Questions, which is an exploration of physical science and earth science.

Sean Murray  21:00

And sort of brings us to Seneca’s death. Talk a little bit about that. And did he live up to his, his own, you know, moral principles, when it came to his own death?

James Romm  21:12

Yes, so Tacitus records a long scene of Seneca’s suicide. He was forced to commit suicide by Nero. He was surrounded by troops, and it was either kill himself or he would truly have been executed. He didn’t have a very easy time of it. He had to use three different methods before he finally succeeded in ending his life. Tacitus makes almost a black comedy out of the scene, which is hard for a reader to know quite what Tacitus wants us to take away from it. So whether this was just a bungled job that gave the lie to all of Seneca’s preparations, or whether it was a determined act of a man, who faced death bravely and never flinched; never begged for life; accepted his fate. Again, it, it’s a paradox. One can see it as a endorsement of Seneca’s views.

Sean Murray  22:08

Well, one thing I loved about your book is it’s a compelling read. It takes the reader through the time that Seneca was in the court of Nero. And it’s kind of a blow by blow. And it’s never a dull moment for Seneca during this time. And Nero’s a fascinating character, and Agrapinna’s fascinating, and all the politics. It does reveal the human side of this writer, who as I said can come across as a very philosophical writer. You get the idea, when you read Seneca that he is, you know, going through a very peaceful, tranquil day writing, reflecting; as you mentioned, looking at the stars kind of achieving very close to what one might think of as a stoic sage. And then, when you read what was really going on, it was not just the–an average human life with its ups and downs, but I would say somewhere out on the spectrum of extreme swings in fortune and dealing with, you know, issues that were impacting thousands and thousands of lives. So I found that quite fascinating.

James Romm  23:11

So I’m glad. Yeah, it’s a great story because it has so many deaths. That guy, as you know, I titled my chapters after the different kinds of murder that were carried out by Nero or henchmen during the time of Seneca’s alliance with him. So it’s a fascinating story. It’s got blood. It’s got death, and it’s also got stoic philosophy.

Sean Murray  23:36

You know, for my listeners who are interested in, in Seneca and stoic philosophy, I highly recommend Dying Every Day. Also, the book, How to Die. And you also have another book on Seneca, remind me of the title?

James Romm  23:51

How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management. It’s in the same series, which is the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers Series. It’s a set of excerpts from a single essay on anger, which is Seneca’s, I think his most compelling essay directing us to control our anger; to get mastery over it; and not let it derail our minds. And in the age that we now live in, rage all over the Internet, all over the globe, all over the airwaves, I think it’s an important work for us to have in mind.

Sean Murray  24:29

Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap this up on, on Seneca? How we should view him today? What we can learn from him?

James Romm  24:38

Well, I would contrast him with Marcus Aurelius, the author of The Meditations, who is also stoic; Roman stoic. And he’s the source that most people go to when they want to read the ancient sources on stoicism. And he’s in a way a kind of a superhero. He, he was an emperor. He was a very successful emperor. And he writes from that sort of position of lofty authority. And that’s what a lot of people seek out, when they, when they read his work. Seneca is more a person of the middle parts. He’s a human being, and there’s nothing superhuman about him. And to me, that’s what makes him the most appealing. He’s more complex. He doesn’t have sort of, you know, Castle in the Sky kind of tone to his prose. He’s often very dark, but he’s real. And that’s what makes him compelling.

Sean Murray  25:34

James, where else can people find out about your work, and what your projects you’re working on?

James Romm  25:40

Well, they can go to my website, jamesromm.com, R-O-M-M. That’s what I’ve collected all my volumes and some of my book reviews and essays.

Sean Murray  25:50

Great. Well, James, thank you for being on The Good Life.

James Romm  25:53

Oh, it’s a pleasure! Thank you for having me.

Outro  25:56

Thank you for listening to TIP. To access our show notes, courses, or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.