Sénèque the Young person

Biography

It was born in Curduba (current Cordoue) in Bétique (current Andalusia, in Spain) towards 1 before J. - C. the date is vague and the birth is usually given between the year 4 av. J. - C. and 1 a. J. - C. Its family does not seem to have been Spanish, but would have been originating in Italy North. It was the second wire of Helvia and Marcus Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Sénèque Old the), an easy rhetor of equestrian row. Galleon, his/her older brother, was proconsul with Thessalonique in Achaïe, where, according to the Acts of the Apostles (chapter 18, verses 12 to 18), the Apôtre Paul de Tarse appeared before him before 53. Sénèque the Young person was also the uncle of the writer Lucain, wire of his/her younger brother.

It was still very young when its family came to Rome, where his/her father gave him a neat education. It was initially attracted by the pythagorism. Around 20 years, it fell seriously sick and one sent it in Egypt to remake a health there.

Of return to Rome in 31, it begins its Cursus honorum.

To advise at the imperial court under Caligula - which, seems it, jalousait it -, it was later victim of the intrigues of Messaline, the third wife of Claude and, under pretext of adultery with Julia Livilla, sister of Agrippine, relegated in 41 in Corsica, from where it was recalled in 48 or 49 at the request of Agrippine the Young person, the new wife of Claude.

In 50, it is Préteur.

He was the tutor of Néron: it is besides Sénèque which composed the funeral praise marked by Néron with died of Claude, as it composed, thereafter, good number of the first speeches of the new emperor. Later, Sénèque composed a less serious part on the apotheosis of Claude: Apocoloquintose .

With the prefect of the court Sextus Afranius Burrus, Sénèque was one of the principal advisers of Néron during the first five years of the reign of the emperor: the quinquennium Neronis .

In May - June 55, it is consul suffect.

In 56, it publishes the De Clementia .

In 58, Sénèque is defamed by P. Suillius, which reproaches him its immense fortune (300 million Sesterce S) acquired by its friendships, and its attempt to discharge women of the princely house. But the philosopher draws some without damage.

Sénèque manages to break the quasi incestueux bond of Néron and from his/her mother, Agrippine isolates and takes an active part, though indirectly, with its assassination in 59… “Also was not this more Néron, whose monstrosity beyond was very felt sorry for, but Sénèque which the public rumor condemned, to have acknowledged, while making write that, the crime. ”.

But in 62, the star of the philosophical adviser ends up fading:

The death of Burrus broke the power of Sénèque now because the policy of the good did not have any more the same capacity, that one of those which one could call his chiefs had died and which Néron leant towards the men of worst. These same men launch against Sénèque of the varied charges, reproaching him for still seeking to increase its richnesses, already immense, and which exceeded already measurement being appropriate for a private individual, to want to attract the favor of the citizens and, by the beauty of its gardens and the magnificence of its villas, to exceed even the prince. One made him objection also his glory of man of letters and more frequently to compose of the poems since Néron had been put to like them. Posted enemy of the entertainments of the prince, it depreciated his skill to lead the horses, made fun of his voice each time it sang. Until when would be there nothing beautiful in the State which did not pass to be the work of this man? Undoubtedly, Néron had left childhood and was in the force of its youth; that it returned its teacher, since it had to inform it of the sufficiently famous characters, its clean ancêtres.

Following its calling into question, Sénèque requires of Néron to be raised of its load of “friend of the prince” and proposes to restore its fortune to him. Néron refuses.

In 64, although Sénèque was withdrawn from the public life, Néron, which ended up hating it, vainly tries to poison it.

In 65, it is compromised in spite of him in the Conjuration of Rammer and is condemned to die. It gives itself death by opening the veins on the order of Néron. Then iron opens the veins of the arms to him. Sénèque, from which the body weakened by the years and the abstinence too slowly let escape blood, is also made cut the veins of the legs and the bulges. Soon, overcome by dreadful pains, it feared that its sufferings did not cut down the courage of his wife, and that itself, by seeing the torments which she endured, was not let go to some weakness; he requested it to pass in a close room. Then, finding until its last moments all its eloquence, it called secretaries and enough a long discourse dictated to them. As blood ran painfully and that death was slow to come, he requested Statius Annaeus, that he had recognized by an long experience for a sure friend and a skilful doctor, to bring the poison to him with which he had provided himself for a long time, the same one as one employs in Athens against those which a public judgment condemned to die. Sénèque took this beverage in vain: its already cold members and its narrowed vessels refused with the activity of the poison. Finally it entered a hot bath, and spread water on the slaves who surrounded it, while saying: " I offer this drinking to Jupiter Libérateur." It was then made carry in a drying oven, whose vapor suffocated it. Its body was burned without any pump; it had thus ordered it by a codicil, when, still and very powerful rich person, it dealt already with his fin.

Philosophical and moral contribution

(Extrait - and modified - of Histoire of the Roman literature , Albert, Paul)

Sénèque is for us the most complete representative of the stoical doctrines , although he is not judged like most exact, because he is not a simple interpreter. On more than one point it émancipe and substitutes for the authority of the Masters of the Greece his own reflection. In that, one could judge that it was well a Romain, and, indeed, it says itself:

I was made the slave of nobody, I do not bear the name of anybody. ( Not me cuiquam mancipavi, nullius nomen fero .)

In addition to the fact that it preserved its own originality, its work does not have the unit of a system. The various aspects of his thought will thus be presented.

Design of the religion

A long time before Sénèque, the old Religion had fallen in disuse: there was not undoubtedly with Rome an enlightened spirit which accepted the fables of the Polythéisme or the practices of Superstition borrowed from the worships of the Orient. Sénèque mistakes all these puerilities deeply: “I am not enough stupid to accept such twaddle. ” It is extremely regrettable that we lost his work on the superstition, from which Lactance and holy Augustin drew so much from arguments against the polytheism.

The Théologie of the poets appears also absurd to him and disrespectful. As for the superstitious practices, he condemns them in two words: they substitute for the Amour fear; instead of being a Worship, they are an insult. But the religion is then an institution of the State, institution necessary, and which maintained with men like Cicéron and Varron. Sénèque deals little with the official polytheism: from its time the religion, like all the aspects of the Roman life, was in the hand of only one, and it had lost much of its importance like political instrument. However it approves that the Sage subjects to the regulations Cité, not that it looks them like pleasant with the Gods, but because they are ordered by the Loi:

As for the peat of the gods whom a long superstition accumulated, if we, we adore them will not forget whom such a worship has of another base only the coutume.

Remain the natural Théologie, i.e. the religion of the Philosophe: of what does consist it? Sénèque employs indifferently, while speaking about the divine power, the singular and plural, God and the Gods: it is perhaps by a remainder of respect for the popular Croyance. Because for him, there is obviously one God. But this God presents himself so to speak to the Esprit under a crowd of different aspects: from there various names that it received and this species of fractionation of the divine power in a crowd of various beings.

All the names which contain an indication of its power are appropriate him: as much it lavishes benefits, as many names it can receive.

Thus are justified these names of Jupiter, Liber, Hercules, Mercure, etc But it does not stop there, it still grants so that one gives to God broader names.

Do you want to call it nature? You would not be mistaken; because it is of him that all was born, him whose breath makes us live. Do you want to call it world? You have the right of it. Because it is Great Whole that you see; it is entire in its parts, it is supported by its clean force.

One can still call it Destin, “because the destiny is not other thing only the series of the causes which are connected, and it is the first of all the causes, that on which depend all the others. ” “What God? The heart of the universe. He escapes the eyes, it is the thought alone which can reach it. ”

All these Définition S is more or less borrowed from the scientific Stoïcisme. But Sénèque is well beyond that. This god, Natural destiny, , world, is so to speak separate Univers; it dominates it, it controls it, it preserves it, it has concern of the Homme, sometimes even of such or such man in particular ( Interdum curiosi singulorum. ) It lavished on the mankind of innumerable benefits, and ingratitude cannot limit the course of them. Remainder God is forced by his nature to be beneficial: the benevolence is like the condition of sound of being.

Which worship claim the gods?

The first worship to be returned to them, it is to accept their existence, then to recognize their majesty, their kindness, without which there is no majesty, to know that it is them which govern the world, which controls the universe by their power, which are the guards of mankind.

They can neither make nor receive an injustice.

Thus do not seek with you to make them favorable by prayers, offerings, sacrifices. “That one returns a worship to God who knows it. ” ( Deum coluit which novit. )

It would be difficult to draw from all these definitions one théodicée logical and Sénèque it forever tested. It has very high aspirations, and like the feeling of divine in him; but never on this point its ideas took this rigorous precision only requires the Science. This kind of religious enthusiasm is expressed in this passage:

In vain you will raise the hands towards the sky; in vain will obtain you of the guard of the furnace bridges that it approaches you the ear of the show, to be better heard: this God that you beseech is close to you; he is with you, he is in you. Yes, Lucilius, the Holy Spirit resides in our hearts; it observes our defects, it supervises our virtues, and it treats us as we treat it. Not man of good which does not have with the inside of him God. Without would its assistance, which mortal rise above fortune? From him come us the high and strong resolutions. In the center of any virtuous man, I am unaware of which God, but he lives God. If it is offered to your glances a populated forest of ancient trees whose summits go up until the naked ones, and whose branches in a hurry hide you the aspect of the sky; don't this disproportionate height, this major silence, these masses of shade which by far form continuity, so much signs announce the presence of God to you? Won't a cave formed in the rock, if it rises an high mountain, this immense cavity, dug by nature, and not by the hand of the men, strike your heart of a religious terror? One venerates the sources of the large rivers, the sudden eruption of an underground river makes draw up furnace bridges; the fountains of thermal springs have a worship, and opacity, the depth of certain lakes returned crowned them: and if you meet an intrepid man in the danger, inaccessible to the desires, happy in the adversity, quiet within the storms, which sees the other men under its feet, and the gods on his line, wouldn't your heart be penetrated of veneration? Won't you say that it is in him something of too large, of too high, to resemble this weak body which is used to him as envelope? Here the divine breath appears.

While examining close works of Sénèque, we can be made a more precise Idée of than is its God.

It is the Homme, not the vulgar man, but that which it calls the Sage. That one indeed is not only placed on the same line that gods, but it is higher to them:

The wise one differs from God only by the duration. ( Bonus in time tantum has Deo differt. )

If God free from is very feared, the wise one too. If God is freed from fear by the benefit of his Nature, the wise one with the advantage of being it by itself:

Support courageously; it is by there that you exceed God. God is placed out of the attack of the evils, you, above them.

It is there the point by which the religious Philosophie of Sénèque is tied with its moral philosophy. The Métaphysique at his place holds very little of place; he scoffs those which deal with these dreams. Is there the leisure to continue the solution of these oiseuses questions? The unhappy ones call us ( AD miseros advocalus be ). It is of the man that it is necessary to be occupied; it is him whom it is necessary to strengthen, to comfort, to encourage. That miseries weighed then on him! that dangers surrounded it! The hearts had to be strongly soaked, to arm them against all terrors; and since the gods seemed dead or indifferent to the human things, since they tolerated the terrible disorders which were spread out then, and which on this side innocence and the Vertu could not hope for a support, it was necessary to raise the man himself with such a height, which it could face or scorn all miseries, all the dangers, all the enemies, all Césars, all torturers.

Here is the Roman Stoïcisme under the emperors the skies are empty, the gods left, or they are favorable to the scélérats; the noble-hearted man will be made God. He will tend towards a perfect virtue, heart inaccessible to all Passion, severe, serious, inébranlable. It is the ideal which seems to haunt all imaginations then. Indeed the worms celebrates of Lucain:

Victrix caused Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.

Caton is higher than the gods. Design disproportionate, strange, of a colossal pride, expression of the force of a noble heart, which is supported by such a veneration of itself.

Doctrines of the knowledge food well

However this perfect being does not exist, “these are a phoenix which is born only the every five hundred years”. The goal that all Homme must propose, it is to approach this ideal more and more. If one cannot be the Sage arrived to perfection ( perfectus ), one can be the wise one walks from there to arrive there ( proficians ). There is many obstacles on the road.

Sénèque, faithful to the stoical doctrines , place in the forefront the Passion S. the peripateticians were restricted to regulate them, the stoical ones removed them. ( Nostri expellunt, Peripatetici temperate person. ) the heart enjoyed then this happy state which they called insensitivity, serenity ( ataraxia ). Passions are a Mal, because the Vertu as well as the Raison (identical things for the stoical ones), it is the straight line; passions on the contrary are the variation; the Joy and the Douleur raise or lower the heart to excess, make it leave this tension which is the invariable state of the reason. The wise one should thus feel neither the joy, neither the Désir, nor fear. It replaces these excessive movements, disordered, by serenity, the Volonté, circumspection, right measurement.

However, how to entirely banish these involuntary movements which surprise the heart? Sénèque does not deny these fatal impressions: how to deny oneself a movement of fear, if one is transported at the top of a tower and is suspended above an abyss? How to prevent the tears from running when the Mort charms at our sides a expensive being?

In these sudden attacks, the reasonable part of ourselves will feel a light movement. It will test like a shade, a suspicion of passions; but it will remain free about it.

In vain the peripateticians claim that passions have their raison d'être, that they are natural and must help with the virtue. ( has will natura AD virtutem dated. ) Sénèque does not want these dangerous auxiliaries; it is already well enough that they disturb sometimes the reason of an unforeseen shock. But, him is said, these movements often determine us with the well. Thus the Colère can produce the value, fear can form prudence; it is enough to contain and direct the impulse first.

Sénèque pushes back them like Maladie S: once allowed, they would invade all the to be; their dash is that of a carried Cheval, of a body trained on a fast slope: consequently more rest for the wise one. He banishes even the Pitié. It is a painful feeling which disturbs the heart. But, him is said, this feeling pushes us to relieve the unhappy one. The wise one does not need to be thorough there by a painful impression: it knows what it owes with its similar; it will come to their assistance, but it will not test pity. ( Succurret, not miserebitur .)

Thus armed, the wise one goes down in the arena. It does not stick to any the alleged goods where the Homme S make consist their happiness, it does not fear any the evils which frighten them. There is of other well and other badly only the moral good and the Mal. No one cannot harm that which is not harmed itself. One fears the exile, poverty, death: it should be proven with these cowards that these objects of their terror are only of vain phantoms. What imports the place assigned for residence with the man of good? Can't it be virtuous everywhere? The Paix of its heart it depends on the climate? What poverty? lack of superfluous, absolutely useless things; it is necessary if little thing to live. What is this finally that death? a need for the Natural . What imports the hour for which it will be necessary to pay the debt? What! a woman who is confined, a gladiator in the arena, will face death, and the wise one would be frightened some! Such are the reflections of Sénèque.

Why this luxury of eloquent demonstrations, impassioned, feverish often? Montaigne was struck by it and reproached him:

To see the efforts that Sénèque is given to prepare against death, to see it sweating of ahan to roidir themselves and to ensure themselves and struggle so a long time in this pole, I had shaken his reputation, if it by dying very valiantly had maintained it.

We point out time when Sénèque writes. No one was not sure following day: the whim of César, the hatred of one freed, the resentment of a Femme could be each day a stop of exile, confiscation, Mort. A ceaseless danger threatened any man who was, had been or could be somebody of influential. One thus had to expect all. One saw rich person who were exerted from time to time with living misérablement; they left their palates, were going to settle in galetas, slept on a grabat, nourished cheapper food, finally prepared not to more have this opulence which could each day be to them delighted. Itself had tried to strip these goods which Néron had imposed to him, feeling well that they would be later one of the causes of its loss. From where eloquence in its words:

Ah! what can't they consult the rich person, those which wish the richness?

As for death, it is enough to point out the continual ones and summary executions which were done each day. It was thus necessary to be always ready, to strengthen, encourage the ones the others. One pointed out the good examples of courage, the heroic demises; it was not to exert its spirit, like known as Sénèque, Non in hoc exempla nunc congero C ingenium exerceam , but to strengthen the heart. When one had there little by little accustomed his Pensée, one tested a true contempt for the tyrants, the torturers and their instruments of torture. It is necessary to represent Néron deliberating with Tigellinus or Locuste on the fate on the first citizens on Rome, the centurion with the door, awaiting the sentence, and the Romain at his place writing his will. Sénèque the met with the challenge nothing to imagine which can disconcert its Cœur.

It was necessary to be aguerrir against this always suspended danger. But the stoical of this time had in hands the delivery: they all were decided not to await the order to die. The Suicide, here is their last surest weapon and of all. One can be astonished by the facility with which the best hastened to leave the Vie. Sénèque fights sometimes, but slightly what it invites “imagination to die” ( libido moriendi ): “The wise one should not flee of the life, but leave there. ”

But in which circumstances? One often gave oneself death to escape from the troubles and the inconveniences from the Vieillesse. They should be supported, known as Sénèque, as long as the heart will not be decreased by it or the threatened Intelligence. But if the torments, if the ignominie threaten us, we become again free to escape from it by death, because we have the Droit to withdraw to us from all that disturbs our rest. It goes even until granting this right the day “where fortune will start to be suspect. ” It is there that for him true freedom resides.

To contemplate death, it is to contemplate freedom; that which can die, cannot be slave any more. ” And elsewhere, “the wise one lives as much as it owes it, not as much as it can it. ” ( Sapiens vivit quantum debit balance, not quantum potest. ) “what the life has of better, it is that it does not force anybody to undergo it.

Sorry doctrines which, in this universal degradation of all and all, by this certainty to escape the infamy, with the torment, kept the heart S of any stain. When one is always ready to leave the life, one makes no lowness to preserve it.

It would be an error and an injustice to treat vain declamations, the ceaseless exhortations of Sénèque. The pure Théorie holds little place in Sénèque. It is a practical moralist, but he teaches the indifference rather that the use of the life. In one of its first letters in Lucilius , it presses it to give up dignities, employment, all the foreign concerns with wisdom, or quite simply to give up the life itself.

Censeo aut ex vita ista exeundum, aut E vita exeundum.

However, all should be seized seconds of our time. To preserve it, Sénèque concretely invites us for example to read the letters of Lucilius. There remains very Roman all the same in its approach of the dead one: the life is for him a good with the patrimonial direction of the term. To lose the life is to only lose although one will not be able to regret having lost since one will not be there any more to realize it. In that, the heir to Zénon de Citium brings a patrimonial resolution to the metaphysical anguish of humanity.

Works

He is the author of:

Consolations :

Consolation in Marcia ( AD Marciam of consolatione )
Consolation with my mother Helva ( AD Helviam matrem of consolatione )
Consolation in Polybius ( AD Polybium of consolatione )

Dialogs :

the Constancy of wise the ( Of constantia sapientis )
On the peace of the heart ( Of tranquillitate animi )
idleness ( Of otio )
On the happy life ( Of uita beata )
Of the brevity of the life ( Of brevitate vitæ )
On anger ( Of will go )
On providence ( Of providentia )
On leniency ( Of clementia )
Benefits ( Of beneficiis )

Letters in Lucilius ( Epistulae morals AD Lucilium )
Apocoloquintose : ( the transformation of the emperor Claude into pumpkin )
Tragedies :

Médée
Oedipus
Agamemnon (a tragedy, written in 53)
Octavie
Phèdre
Thyestes
furious Hercules
Troades

See too

"Sénèque, last jour" , concerto for reciting and orchestrates of Eric Tanguy (Type-setter of the year to the Victories of the Music 2004), on a booklet of Xavier Couture.

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