We know we are mortal but, as the Stoics note, we prefer to imagine otherwise. We forget the things we enjoy in life are gifts of fortune, and plan for a life we have no guarantee we will live; engaging with the simple and unarguable fact of our mortality often spirals us into a panic. Seneca explicitly confronts our tendency to shrink away from the nature of existence in Moral Epistle 4, as part of his general advice for achieving internal equilibrium. In our modern world, where aging and death are sequestered away in nursing homes and hospitals, we can imagine that we are immortal – but we can only pretend for so long. To move beyond the constant ping-pong between denial and terror, Seneca counsels us to come to terms with our mortal condition. 

The central reason for facing the fear of death is that it is the only way we can truly enjoy life and grow into spiritual maturity. Seneca draws a parallel with the toga virilis ceremony, in which Roman men formally donned the toga, an item of clothing associated with adulthood (4.2); this took place at some point between fourteen and eighteen. Seneca encourages his readers to put down childish behaviour, including trifling and false fears along with children’s clothes. Such an argument may feel alien in a cultural setting which prioritises maintaining the illusion of youth for as long as possible – who wants to look their age? But, as Seneca points out, holding on to childish beliefs means we cannot become wise. 

Among these, Seneca includes fearing death, which would be a terrible thing if it lasted, but actually either does not come, or comes and passes away (4.3). Someone who worries about living as long as possible cannot ever be at peace (4.4); people who cling to life are fighting against the flow of the stream of time. The paradox, as Seneca sees it, is that people do not want to live, but don’t know how to die (4.5) – that is, they suffer the hardships of life but fear death all the same. Seneca’s advice is to remember that no good thing makes the person who has it happy unless they are also ready to lose it: such misfortunes happen to everybody. In this way, Moral Epistle 4 agrees with other Stoic advice on possessions and wealth more generally, but here the advice applies to the gift of life itself. 

Such things happen suddenly and without warning. Just as the sea which seems calm can swallow ships, so Fortune can end life suddenly (4.7). You probably know at least one person – a relative, a close friend, a co-worker – who never planned to die, who had a lengthy to-do list that they never got to complete. It may have been a heart attack, an aneurysm, a stroke which came out of the blue. But, of course, it wasn’t out of the blue. We are all heading towards our deaths from the moment we are born (4.9); all that is uncertain is when we will reach them. For Seneca, the key to mental clarity and calm is remembering our mortality and reflecting on it, rather than living our lives in denial. Being quietly mindful of the reality of our lives and their inevitable end helps us consider what we should be focusing our energies on, rather than panicking about how to achieve the impossible or the superfluous. Rather than filling us with terror, being aware that our lives are finite and unpredictable helps us to keep what really matters in perspective. 

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Dr. Liz Gloyn, Senior Lecturer in Classics, Royal Holloway, University of London

 

 

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