Every artwork entails magnification. It blows some aspects of reality out of proportion to underline their significance from the creator’s viewpoint. Other aspects are minimized, ignored, distorted or blurred.

Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) was a playwright before becoming a Stoic philosopher. It is enlightening to study his plays because they announce the principles of Stoicism, magnify its powerful insights, and attempt to cover up its deficiencies.

The plays written by Seneca fall in the category “tragedies” and, to a great extent, they recreate historical or religious tales from Ancient Greece. In the first century of our era, educated Romans were familiar with those tales although few of them could actually read Greek.

Seneca was already forty-five years old when he wrote his play “Medea,” the story of a married woman who is betrayed by her husband, Jason. When he goes away with his new love, Medea takes revenge by killing their two sons.

At the end of the play, Medea escapes, leaving behind Jason to suffer for the loss. Her physical escape doesn’t mean that she doesn’t suffer herself. Emotionally, she experiences even more pain than Jason because she had committed double infanticide.

Seneca’s plays “Medea” and “Phaedra”

“Medea” condemns exaggerated emotions by showing their destructive power. In his philosophical works, Seneca will do exactly the same: He will condemn all kind of feelings, calling for moderation or resignation.

According to Stoicism, Medea should have quietly accepted her abandonment by Jason. She should have regarded her fate as inevitable, as a dictate of destiny, and focused her efforts on rebuilding her life without Jason.

I must however disagree with the Stoic interpretation of the story. Indeed, Medea should not have killed her children, but the ultimate cause of her suffering had been her decision to marry Jason.

If Medea had taken the trouble to assess Jason properly, she would have discovered the weakness of his character. Instead of marrying Jason, she should have looked for a better man.

Two years later, Seneca wrote “Phaedra,” the story of a married woman who makes false rape accusations against her stepson. After a hefty family quarrel, the stepson will suffer an accident and die.

Phaedra repents from her false accusations, confesses to her husband, and commits suicide. The play ends with the husband sad, lonely and confused. If he had asked Phaedra to prove her accusations, he might have prevented the family’s destruction.

The play is indirectly promoting the Stoic virtues of serenity and equanimity. If the husband had remained calm, the stepson would not have suffered an accident, and Phaedra would not have been driven to commit suicide.

I must express my profound disagreement with the Stoic interpretation of “Phaedra.” I fail to see how the husband could have stayed calm upon hearing the rape accusations.

Only thoroughly evil persons make false accusations against other people. Phaedra had concocted the rape story to harm her stepson. The consequences of her crime proved devastating.

Instead of blaming the husband for his justifiable emotions, I would blame him for having married Phaedra without first assessing her character. She must have been a damn liar all the way. How could he possibly miss that flaw in her character?

Seneca’s play “Oedipus”

When Seneca turned fifty, he wrote the play “Oedipus.” It is a story that reinforces the idea of destiny. Each person is driven by invisible forces that determine his present and future. There is no way to avert or delay one’s destiny.

Seneca’s version of “Oedipus” mirrors Ancient Greek plays on the same subject except in one aspect: its streamlined plot. I find it remarkable that Seneca managed to condense the story and maintain a tight continuity.

The hero, Oedipus, becomes king of Thebes while trying to escape an old prophecy that had predicted that he would marry his mother and kill his father.

Eventually, the prophecy is fulfilled, although Oedipus does it unknowingly. He hadn’t known that his bride was his mother, and that a man he had killed in a quarrel was his father. When Oedipus realizes what he has done, he blinds himself and goes into exile.

In “Oedipus,” Seneca is conveying a key principle of Stoic philosophy, namely, that human life is dominated by destiny. That’s why Oedipus couldn’t avoid fulfilling the prophecy. On this basis, the Stoics recommended acceptance and resignation.

In this area, I must contest the Stoic logic from beginning to end. Oedipus’ story is so far-fetched that it disqualifies the idea that our lives are driven by destiny.

In fact, the opposite is true: Through our voluntary actions, we shape our own future. The best way to influence our future positively is to make better decisions now. In contrast, passive acceptance and resignation can render us blind to opportunity.

Seneca’s play “Agamemnon”

Four years later, Seneca wrote “Agamemnon,” which gives a confused ethical message, even for Stoic standards. After the Trojan War, King Agamemnon returns home victorious, only to be killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, to avenge their daughter Iphigenia.

Indeed, Agamemnon had killed Iphigenia before the Trojan War, in a sacrificial ritual to gain support from the gods. The play ends with Clytemnestra pondering about the future, which will soon turn dark for her, when Agamemnon’s son, Orestes, returns home to avenge his father.

“Agamemnon” portrays a chain of revenge devoid of ethical meaning. Agamemnon had behaved despicably in killing his daughter, but should the chain of revenge continue forever?

To render things even more confusing, Clytemnestra had a lover, Aegisthus. Thus, her motivation for killing Agamemnon went beyond avenging Iphigenia.

When Aeschylus (525-455 BC) had written the original play “Agamemnon,” his goal was to recount semi-historical events. In contrast, Seneca’s version emphasises that we cannot escape our destiny, even when it consists of a chain of murders.

The play’s message is absurd, pointless and demotivating. I can only assume that it reflects Seneca’s fearful state of mind at that time. After Claudius’ death, Nero had become the Roman Emperor, and Seneca was already expecting the worst.

“Thyestes,” “Hercules insane,” and “Trojan women”

In the ensuing years, Seneca kept writing plays in which the protagonists kill each other. In “Thyestes,” the main character wants to avenge his brother, who had been killed by Thyestes.

His revenge consists of killing Thyestes’ children, cooking them, inviting Thyestes for dinner, and serving the children as main course.

In his next play “Hercules Insane,” Seneca recounts that the semi-god Hercules is affected by temporary insanity, during which he kills his own wife and children, apparently for no reason. When he regains consciousness, he is so horrified that he wants to commit suicide.

Finally, Seneca’s play “Trojan Women” recounts the destiny of three aristocratic Trojan women after the war. They become slaves to the Greeks and endure all sorts of humiliations, but eventually come to accept their situation.

I’m going to refrain from passing judgement on “Thyestes,” “Hercules Insane” and “Trojan Women” because of their bitter and gruesome plots. Philosophically, they convey a message of resignation to evil or adversity, as though we could not expect anything better from life.

Seneca himself was living under extreme pressure when he wrote those plays. I understand why he might have viewed evil as all-powerful and adversity as insurmountable.

Fortunately, we know that history proved him wrong. Nero would not last long as Roman Emperor, and after some bumpy decades, we would see the illustrious Antoninus Pius (86-161 AD) and Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) become emperors.

If you are interested in putting rational ideas into practice in all kinds of situations, I recommend my book “The philosophy of builders.”