Seneca, a proponent of Roman Stoicism, calmly committed suicide when ordered to do so by Emperor Nero. In AD 59, Nero ordered the murder of his mother. This was the start of a reign of terror that caused the deaths of many others, including his wife Octavia. In AD 64, a fire destroyed much of Rome and Nero put the blame for the conflagration on the small Christian community of the city. Nero further cemented his reputation as an uncaring despot when he decided that the ruined centre of Rome would be an ideal location to build the Domus Aurea, the “Golden House” that would serve as his palace. A large group of powerful people in Rome had had enough. In AD 65, the stage was set for a coup. Gaius Calpurnius Piso, handsome and well-liked, intended to have Nero assassinated, leaving the way clear for him to be declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard. Unfortunately, Piso’s plot was betrayed. Things unravelled quickly. More than forty men were accused of having conspired against Nero. Some of them were banished. Others were executed. Members from the upper echelons of society were, according to ancient Roman custom, ordered to commit suicide, including Piso himself. Tangled up in this web of deceit, somehow, was Seneca the Younger (ca. 4 BC–AD 65), the man who had served as Nero’s leading adviser. Seneca is considered one of the foremost proponents of (Roman) Stoicism, originally an Hellenistic philosophy founded in the third century BC in Athens by Zeno of Citium. Roman Stoics believed that the gods determined one’s fate: one should simply accept that whatever happened was the result of divine will. At the same time, this didn’t mean that one shouldn’t get involved in earthly matters: Stoics believed that one had to uphold the moral order whenever possible. Seneca tried to influence Nero for the better and he embraced the Stoic ideal that the entire world was a community, advocating, for example, the humane treatment of slaves. Lest we look at the Stoics with too kindly an eye, it should be pointed out that Seneca never advocated slavery be abolished. That would have been inconceivable as regards to the economic realities of the ancient world, which saw no need to develop machines to take over from cheap and plentiful human labour, nor did they have any moral objections to the very idea of slavery. Furthermore, a Stoic would have embraced a division of the human race between masters and slaves as natural: masters would have to be humane, while slaves had to simply endure their fate.

Edit: I mean, Seneca appears to have considered suicide (“slipping the anchor”, in his words) to be a virtuous act, so he himself would not have considered suicide (in general) to represent the “commission of a crime”; or (in his own circumstance) to have been a virtuous act (which requires voluntariness); and, Socrates drank the hemlock himself, so was not killed by the authorities. Edit 2: I’m interested in questioning both the philosophical system of Stoicism as a therapeutic personal endeavour, and the political philosophies of direct democracy v. concentrated power. (Socrates, obviously, is too good to question!) Edit 3: For completeness, I should have written that Socrates was sentenced to death “by the male Citizens of Athens” Archived post. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Welcome to . Please read our rules before commenting and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns. Socrates was judged by a court, it was a proper trial as it was customary in Athenes at the time. There was no trial in Seneca's case, only a personal order by Nero. Seneca was charged with complicity in the conspiracy to murder Nero and was ordered "kill yourself." That's why scholars say that Seneca was ordered to kill himself: namely, he received orders to kill himself. Socrates was sentenced to death. The manner of death was drinking hemlock. He chose to drink it. His decision to drink it, rather than run away or resist, was discussed in Plato's dialogues. If you want to say that Socrates was forced by the jurors to commit suicide by drinking hemlock, you can. That's why there's a whole discussion of suicide in the Phaedo. If you want to say that Seneca was sentenced to death, you definitely cannot because there was no sentencing, but you could say that he was ordered to die by Nero, which is true. And so on. The vocabulary doesn't reflect their philosophical systems because this isn't how the philosophers talked about themselves. This vocabulary also doesn't reflect the views of scholars because scholars speak in many different ways about their deaths. That being said, you could of course look at Plato on death in the Phaedo and Axiochus (which might or might not be spurious) and Seneca on suicide. The Roman Stoics are OK with suicide, and there's a long tradition of it among Roman statesman dating back at least to Cato the Younger. But I personally wouldn't read anything into the way that people speak about the deaths of these thinkers. We say that Socrates was sentenced to death because he was.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman philosopher, orator, politician and tutor to the Emperor Nero, stands in a bowl of warm water, preparing for death. Though retired from public life, the Spanish-born ‘Roman Socrates’ had been implicated in the Pisonian Conspiracy of AD 65 against his former pupil. As befits a senior Roman figure, he had been ‘invited’ to take his own life. The veins of his arms, wrists and legs were opened and he stepped into the warm water, eventually bleeding to death. It is a dramatic episode, recounted by Tacitus in his Annals. There is, however, far more to Rubens’ widely imitated masterpiece of 1614 than meets the eye: the origins of this visual image of Seneca’s suicide trace a tortuous path. In the 16th century a classical marble statue was unearthed in Rome, which is now on display in the Louvre. Carved from shimmering black stone, it appeared to show an elderly man, grimacing with pain, the veins of his limbs bulging. It was claimed straight away that this was an image of the dying Seneca, the name by which the work came to be known. Rubens was among the many who were dazzled by it and it inspired him to paint his own version of the scene. Seneca was a figure who transcended the shift from pagan to Christian Europe. He appeared, always somewhat heroically, in the works of the great writers of medieval Europe – Dante, Chaucer, Petrarch – and later influenced the school of neostoic philosophers, among whom Justius Lipsus was an influential figure. This Flemish philologist and humanist, who was a friend of Rubens, sought to make the ancient teachings of the Stoics, of whom Seneca was the most famous, compatible with Christian teachings. But, given that in a Christian society in the 17th century suicide was a mortal sin, Seneca’s fate is massaged. It is another hand that takes his life – and so this proto-Christian hero may yet be saved from eternal damnation. The young man to Seneca’s right records his last words, as two soldiers in the background ensure the deed is done. The identity of the classical sculpture that inspired The Death of Seneca was soon called into question. Doubts were raised in the 1760s by the German J.J. Winckelmann, a key figure in the development of art history, who thought the sculpture might depict a comic figure of the Roman theatre. Nowadays, it is often referred to as the Old Fisherman, a figure believed to be wading through water, hence the absence of legs below the calves: the ‘bowl’ was simply a Renaissance addition. Such is the convoluted course of artistic inspiration and the contingency of historical fact.

Seneca fell out of favour with Nero in 62. He withdrew from public life, and in his remaining years he wrote some of his best philosophical works. In 65 Seneca’s enemies denounced him as having been a party to a conspiracy to murder Nero, and he was ordered to commit suicide. How did Seneca die? Seneca fell out of favour with Nero in 62. He withdrew from public life, and in his remaining years he wrote some of his best phil

Seneca fell out of favour with Nero in 62. He withdrew from public life, and in his remaining years he wrote some of his best philosophical works. In 65 Seneca’s enemies denounced him as having been a party to a conspiracy to murder Nero, and he was ordered to commit suicide. Seneca (born c. 4 bce, Corduba (now Córdoba), Spain—died 65 ce, Rome [Italy]) was a Roman philosopher, statesman, orator, and tragedian. He was Rome’s leading intellectual figure in the mid-1st century ce and was virtual ruler with his friends of the Roman world between 54 and 62, during the first phase of the emperor Nero ’s reign. Seneca was the second son of a wealthy family. His father, Seneca (Seneca the Elder), had been famous in Rome as a teacher of rhetoric. His mother, Helvia, was of excellent character and education. His elder brother was Gallio, who met St. Paul the Apostle in Achaea in 52 ce, and his younger brother was the father of the poet Lucan. An aunt took young Seneca as a boy to Rome, and there he was trained as an orator and educated in philosophy in the school of the Sextii, which blended Stoicism with an ascetic Neo-Pythagoreanism. Seneca’s health suffered, and he went to recuperate in Egypt, where his aunt lived with her husband, the prefect, Gaius Galerius. Returning to Rome about the year 31, he began a career in politics and law. Ordered to commit suicide, he met death with fortitude and composure. The Apocolocyntosis divi Claudii (Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius) stands apart from the rest of Seneca’s surviving works. A political skit, witty and unscrupulous, it has as its theme the deification—or “pumpkinification”—of the emperor. The rest divide into philosophical works and the tragedies. The former expound an eclectic version of middle Stoicism, adapted for the Roman market by Panaetius of Rhodes (2nd century bce) and developed by his compatriot Poseidonius in the 1st century bce. Poseidonius lies behind the books on natural science, Naturales quaestiones (Natural Questions), where lofty generalities on the investigation of nature are offset by a jejune exposition of the facts. Of the Consolationes, Ad Marciam (To Marcia) consoles a lady on the loss of a son; Ad Helviam matrem (To Mother Helvia), Seneca’s mother on his exile; and Ad Polybium (To Polybius), a powerful freedman on the loss of a son but with a sycophantic plea for recall from Corsica. The De ira (On Anger) deals at length with the passion, its consequences, and control. The De clementia (On Mercy), an exhortatory address to Nero, commends mercy as the sovereign quality for a Roman emperor. De tranquillitate animi (On Mental Tranquility), De constantia sapientis (On the Steadfastness of the Wise Man), De vita beata (On the Happy Life), and De otio (On Leisure) consider various aspects of the life and qualities of the Stoic philosopher.

Seneca had been a member of the court of the emperor Claudius before he was accused by the empress Messalina of being the lover of Claudius’s niece; Seneca was condemned to death, but the sentence was changed to banishment to Corsica. Seneca spent eight years in exile on Corsica, where he wrote the Consolations; he was recalled by Agrippina, now married to her uncle Claudius, to become tutor to her son Nero. After Agrippina murdered Claudius and Nero acceded to the throne, Seneca together with the praetorian prefect Burrus exercised considerable political influence. There was a brief period of good government, encouraging fiscal and judicial reforms and a more humane attitude toward slaves. However, in 59, Agrippina was murdered by Nero, with the complicity of Seneca, and other conspiracies were unleashed. Nero began to turn against Seneca; he permitted Seneca to retire from politics in 62, but three years later, accused him of being involved in the Pisonian conspiracy and had him sentenced to death. Seneca committed suicide by exsanguination, opening his veins. According to Tacitus [q.v.], Nero ordered Seneca to commit suicide; other historians maintain, however, that Seneca chose to commit suicide rather than be executed for his alleged part in the conspiracy. Seneca’s writings include the Moral Essays, the Moral Letters to Lucilius (a collection of 124 essays on a wide range of topics, including suicide), several tragedies based on classical Greek drama, dialogues, and seven books of philosophical essays called Natural Questions. He was not so much an original philosopher as a moral teacher and proponent of Stoic thought; his originality rests mainly in the artistic and compelling way he presented his ideas. He urged people to be indifferent to the fleeting things of the world, emphasizing composure, wisdom, goodness, and control of the emotions over false valuations of material goods and external praise, and he viewed the achievement of virtue as the true end of philosophy. Seneca’s influence has been felt in both philosophy and drama, especially in medieval and Renaissance literature. In these selections from the Moral Letters, Seneca argues that it is the quality of life, not the quantity, that is important. He argues against thinking of suicide as an act that inappropriately cuts a life short. Unlike a journey cut short, which is incomplete, life cut short can still be complete if it has been lived well. Freedom and self-determination are of primary importance; suicide is the way for one to retain control and freedom over one’s life, and, in accordance with Stoic thinking, it is the act par excellence of the wise man.

Seneca’s troubles began around age forty-three, when Caligula wanted him put to death out of jealousy, just because he didn’t like the high quality of a speech Seneca gave to the Senate. Fortunately, one of Caligula’s mistresses talked him out of killing Seneca because Seneca was ill, and she thought he would die soon in any case. Later, when Seneca was forty-five years old, the Emperor Claudius had him exiled to the island of Corsica for eight years and took half his estate, on trumped up charges (as an alternative to having him killed). This exile took place only a few weeks after the death of Seneca’s only son, who died as a baby (a common occurrence then), and it entailed a total separation from Seneca’s wife. After spending eight years on Corsica, where he got a fair amount of writing done (because there was nothing else he could do there), he was finally called back to Rome, but only under the condition that he would become a tutor to the young Nero, who at the time was eleven years old. Despite Seneca’s efforts to help Nero develop a good character, the project was a total failure. Nero had no interest in philosophy or ethics. As Nero grew older, he was only interested in self-gratification and power at the expense of others, which turned him into a tyrant and a monster. In the end, Nero had many who surrounded him killed, including Nero’s own mother, his brother, and then his wife (who he found to be boring, compared to his mistress). Nero finally had Seneca killed too, when Seneca was sixty-nine, not to mention many others, including Seneca’s two brothers and his nephew. But despite these serious hurdles, which would psychologically destroy many people today, Seneca’s Stoic philosophy helped him to endure these hardships and to transform these adversities into something positive. Even when Nero forced Seneca to commit suicide as an old man — which was far preferable to the alternate forms of execution available — Seneca used the occasion of his own death to give a final talk about philosophy to several friends who were present, just like Socrates did when he was forced to drink the hemlock poison. Like a good Stoic, Seneca had prepared himself for death over the course of many years, as part of his philosophical practice and training, and didn’t show a single trace of worry or concern when surrendering his life. He is reported to have said, quite matter of factly, “Given the fact that Nero killed his mother and brother, it is not surprising that he should kill his tutor as well.” And while Seneca’s last words about philosophy have not come down to us, it’s easy to imagine him echoing the words of Socrates about his death: “While you can kill me, you can’t harm me.” Or, as we might also put it, “While you might kill me physically, you cannot harm my inner character.” David Fideler holds a PhD in philosophy, is the editor of Stoic Insights, and the author of Breakfast with Seneca, published by W. W. Norton, which is the first clear and faithful guide to the practical teachings of the Stoic philosopher Seneca. You can read more about his work here. Seneca wrote, “Disaster is virtue’s opportunity,” because we can transform negative events into more positive outcomes.

Despite his best efforts and falsely accused of being part of a plot to assassinate the emperor, he was ordered to commit suicide by the increasingly paranoid Nero. Born in Cordoba, Hispania (Spain) in 4 BCE, Seneca came from a wealthy family of Italian stock, which automatically made him a Roman citizen. He had two brothers, a mother, Helvia, and a famous father, Seneca the Elder, an author and teacher of rhetoric. Seneca spent his formative years studying both grammar and rhetoric in Rome, and while there, he developed a life-long interest in philosophy, attending lectures on Stoicism, a Greek philosophy befitting his character and evident throughout his treatises. According to one of its proponents, Epictetus, one must live a life of tranquillity, serenity, and composure, and peace of mind can be achieved through self-control. With Burrus as his ally, they became the young emperor's advisors, attempting to control his indulgences & teach him how to rule wisely. Always of ill health, Seneca traveled to Egypt to live with his aunt, returning to Rome in 31 CE. It was after his return to the city that he gained a reputation as an orator, eventually becoming a quaestor. Unfortunately, he ran afoul of the emperors Caligula (r. 37-41 CE) and Claudius (r. 41-54 CE). Implicated in the Piso conspiracy to assassinate the emperor, Seneca was ordered to commit suicide. In his The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius wrote: When his teacher Seneca repeatedly asked to leave to retire and had surrendered all his estates, Nero swore he had no cause to suspect the old man, whom he would rather die than harm; but he drove him to commit suicide nevertheless. (229) Owing to his strong Stoic beliefs, Seneca died with dignity in 65 CE. Seneca had learned from the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus that one should not fear death. As the day arrived, he spoke to his friends and embraced his wife. She had planned to die with him but Nero gave orders to stop her. His death would not come easily. He slit the arteries in his arms but, owing to his frugal diet and fragile frame, he did not die. He drank poison - as did the famed Greek philosopher Socrates - and was then placed in a hot bath where he was suffocated by the steam. His body was interred without burial rites. According to Tacitus: …Seneca's aged body, lean from austere living, released the blood too slowly. So he also severed the veins in his ankles and behind his knees. Exhausted by severe pain, he was afraid of weakening his wife's endurance by betraying his agony —- or of losing his own self-possession… (376) Although some are lost, his writings have endured through the ages and influenced countless philosophers and authors of prose and poetry.

We have sailed past life, Lucilius, as if we were on a voyage, and just as when at sea, to quote from our poet Vergil, Lands and towns are left astern, [2] even so, on this journey where time flies with the greatest speed, we put below the horizon first our boyhood and then our youth, and then the space which lies between young manhood and middle age and borders on both, and next, the best years of old age itself. Last of all, we begin to sight the general bourne of the race of man. 3. Fools that we are, we believe this bourne to be a dangerous reef; but it is the harbour, where we must some day put in, which we may never refuse to enter; and if a man has reached this harbour in his early years, he has no more right to complain than a sailor who has made a quick voyage. For some sailors, as you know, are tricked and held back by sluggish winds, and grow weary and sick of the slow-moving calm; while others are carried quickly home by steady gales. 4. You may consider that the same thing happens to us: life has carried some men with the greatest rapidity to the harbour, the harbour they were bound to reach even if they tarried on the way, while others it has fretted and harassed. To such a life, as you are aware, one should not always cling. For mere living is not a good, but living well. It is not a question of dying earlier or later, but of dying well or ill. And dying well means escape from the danger of living ill. That is why I regard the words of the well-known Rhodian [4] as most unmanly. This person was thrown into a cage by his tyrant, and fed there like some wild animal. And when a certain man advised him to end his life by fasting, he replied: “A man may hope for anything while he has life.” 7. This may be true; but life is not to be purchased at any price. No matter how great or how well-assured certain rewards may be I shall not strive to attain them at the price of a shameful confession of weakness. Shall I reflect that Fortune has all power over one who lives, rather than reflect that she has no power over one who knows how to die? 8. There are times, nevertheless, when a man, even though certain death impends and he knows that torture is in store for him, will refrain from lending a hand to his own punishment, to himself, however, he would lend a hand. [5] It is folly to die through fear of dying. The executioner is upon you; wait for him. Why anticipate him? Why assume the management of a cruel task that belongs to another? Do you grudge your executioner his privilege, or do you merely relieve him of his task? 9.

The death of Seneca is a set-piece in the historical account. It has the quality of performance (Tacitus, Annales 15.61-64; Dio, 62.25). Seneca performs martyrdom. He ‘witnesses’ the cruelty of Nero. He demonstrates his own braveness. He associates himself with a tradition of philosophical martyrs that looks back to Socrates. On news of his sentence, Seneca asked to revise his will. This was refused. He told his audience that since he could not leave them material wealth, he left them the example of his life. When his friends began to mourn, he rebuked them. There is nothing unexpected here. The character of Nero is well known. One who has killed a mother and a sister will not blanch at killing a tutor. Then he spoke with Paulina, his wife, begging her not to mourn overly. She reported her intent to die. Seneca praised her resolution. He had his veins opened, but changed his mind. His wounds were bound. There was time for one more philosophical treatise, which he dictated. He thereby showed the sound balance of his mind. He opened up his veins once more, but the blood would not flow fast enough. He took poison, hemlock, as Socrates had taken, but the poison would not act on his weakened system. Finally, he was carried into the bath-house, where he died in the steam and water. Seneca could thus be made to stand for many things. There is every reason to think Seneca consciously manipulated his death in building a legend. He demonstrated his stoic lack of emotion in the face of his demise, his rational understanding of the political situation, and his control over pain. He continued to show loyalty to his friends and to his philosophical teachings. His death demonstrated a Roman mode of life: disciplined and rational. He died with his friends around him, for no good man would ever be truly alone. Seneca was not the only one to die in this way. Several of the victims of the Pisonian purge went calmly to their deaths: Lucan, Piso himself, the consul Vestinus. It was a model of dying seen before. Valerius Asiaticus had made a show of arranging his funeral pyre so as not to damage his garden when informed that Claudius wished him dead (Tacitus, Annales 11.1-3) . His death was a symbolic of the tyranny of Messalina, but also that he would be undisturbed by such tyrannical acts. Thrasea Paetus was to follow much the same course. What stems from these deaths? Ethically, the deaths demonstrate and witness the immorality of the emperor. Politically, the oppositional figure is dead and no longer threatens the emperor. Historically, the death leaves a legacy. In demonstrating tyranny, it further weakens any consensus supporting the emperor.