When a philosopher spends his life telling others what to do, it’s fair to ask if his own life has been a success. In the case of Seneca, the fact that he committed suicide at sixty-nine makes it hard to categorize his life as success.
Emperor Nero had decided Seneca’s execution, but giving him first the order to commit suicide. If Seneca had refused, a Roman soldier would have killed him right away, decapitated him, and taken his head to Rome.
In the Roman Empire, it wasn’t considered a sign of cruelty to decapitate the victim. It was the normal procedure to prove to the Roman Emperor that his orders had been carried out.
Seneca knew what awaited him if he refused to kill himself. Very wisely, he committed suicide in front of witnesses, so that decapitation would become unnecessary. The witnesses would constitute sufficient proof of Seneca’s death.
Despite the glorification of Seneca’s suicide by practitioners of Stoicism, I can only view it as gruesome and pointless. The mistakes made by Seneca in the prior years were dragging him down into the gutter. His suicide was a sign of total defeat, not a philosophical victory.
Could Seneca have avoided his tragic ending?
If Seneca had been an external observer, he would have regarded the last decade of his life as a cumulation of dire mistakes. I am sure that he would have quoted extensively from his Letters to Lucilius and from his essay “On the Constancy of the Wise.”
Seneca was a great philosopher and his ending turned into a tragedy of the first magnitude. The people who had witnessed his suicide were familiar with his doctrines, especially with his call for moral consistency.
In his 69th Letter to Lucilius, Seneca condemned individuals who say one thing, but then do something else. He demanded a constant, assiduous implementation of Stoic philosophy. Virtue is to be practised all the time, so that it can deliver its benefits.
In retrospect, history shows that Seneca could have adopted countermeasures to steer away from Nero’s machinations. If he had done so, I would gladly praise him as a hero of Stoicism. If he had failed, he would at least have done the right thing.
In his 69th Letter to Lucilius, Seneca seems to have written an indictment against himself. From reading it, I concluded that, if we choose to stand still on our path to virtue, it is the equivalent of going backwards, and that we should not regard ourselves as good until we have gone all the way.
Why did Seneca fail to follow through?
The above-mentioned 69th Letter is not the only indictment written by Seneca against inconsistency, hypocrisy and virtue-signalling. His 106th Letter to Lucilius goes exactly in the same direction by implying that virtues should be consistent.
Words aren’t worth much if they are not followed by actions that carry them out. He condemned people who speak highly about virtue but display erratic behaviour, which they will then blame on external factors.
Why did Seneca fail so spectacularly at putting his insights into practice? Why did he prove unable to pass the test that he had defined in his 106th Letter to Lucilius, namely, that virtue is to be demonstrated by action, not only by speech or thought?
I am going to answer this question by pointing to the actions of someone who, in contrast to Seneca, remained aligned with his professed ideals. I am referring to Benedict of Nursia (480-547 AD).
Like Seneca, Benedict had been born into a wealthy family and sent to Rome to study law. Also like Seneca, Benedict was faced with a severe personal crisis in his twenties. Seneca had overcome the crisis by staying loyal to Stoic principles. In the case of Benedict, it took him years to find the right path.
Comparing Seneca to Benedict of Nursia
When Benedict was in his twenties, he retired to live as a hermit in a cave in the woods, near a hermitage inhabited by a monk named Romanus. Three years later, Benedict became a monk himself, joined a monastery, and led a simple lifestyle.
Benedict’s commitment to a humble lifestyle elicited the admiration of some monks, but others found it too demanding. Eventually, Benedict founded a monastery, where he could put his ideas into practice.
The new monastery, Monte Cassino, attracted vocations and donations that enabled Benedict to found a second monastery. Until his death, seventeen years later, he expanded his reach in Italy, France and other European countries.
Benedict possessed only a fraction of Seneca’s resources. In fact, he didn’t own anything himself. All his assets belonged to the monasteries he had founded. His main goal was to spread his philosophy and lifestyle, and he succeeded spectacularly.
Seneca’s ending marks a sad contrast with Benedict’s lasting success. If Benedict had met Seneca, he would have prompted him to stay loyal to the principles he had himself established.
I suspect that Benedict would have warned Seneca against inconsistency and duplicity. Those can destroy individuals fast and organizations even faster.
Would Seneca have paid attention to the warnings? I do not think so. Benedict had the vision and motivation to carry on in good and bad times. He had the commitment to planting seeds, watering the plants, and seeing them blossom. I wish I could say the same about Seneca.
If you are interested in putting rational ideas into practice in all kinds of situations, I recommend my book “Against all odds: How to achieve great victories in desperate times.”
Related articles
Seneca’s warning against Stoicism
Key Seneca’s insights to implement today
How to use Seneca’s philosophy today
Philosophical lessons from Seneca’s life (Part 3)