There are revealing moments in the letters where one can see how very privileged Seneca’s position was, even when he is living the “simple life.” Sometimes he himself is conscious of and a little embarrassed by his inability to set aside the values of the elite. When, on one occasion, he rides in a “farmer’s cart,” drawn by mules, with a barefoot, poor driver, his response is to feel ashamed, in case any rich people see him riding in this unimpressive style—although he knows he ought to see this asceticism as superior to flamboyant extravagance: “I can scarcely get myself to wish this cart to be seen as mine” (87.4). He reports at one point that “My friend Maximus and I have had a very happy couple of days, taking very few slaves, only one carriage-full, and no luggage except what we were wearing” (87.2). If a whole carriage load of slaves was “very few,” one can imagine how many slaves Seneca was accustomed to. He goes on to explain that his diet is equally ascetic: “Nothing could have been taken away from our lunch: it took less than an hour to prepare” (87.2). The hour’s labor devoted to baking the master’s bread and preparing the fruit for his lunch was again performed by slaves, allowing the great man plenty of time to contemplate the universe and write about it all.
The minimalist retinue of slaves would have included a secretary or secretaries to note down his thoughts, as well as a doctor to tend to the master’s constant ailments, the little boy to act as his physical trainer and jogging companion, others to wash, massage, and dress him, as well as people to clean his house and at least one cook and baker to prepare his meals. More slaves would have been stationed at each of his villas, taking care of the estate in his absence and ready to care for the master when he stopped by. Seneca vaunts his fine philosophical forbearance for not flying into a rage when he arrives at his Alban villa late at night, finding nothing ready for him. His baker slave has failed to make him fresh bread, but he can fall back on getting inferior bread from one of his other underlings: his tenants, estate manager, or housekeeper can rustle up something, which will be enjoyable if he is hungry enough (123.2). Seneca’s standards of what counts as moderate are clearly formed by comparing himself only with the most privileged sectors of Roman society. He says, for example, that, “everyone [sic] now has mules laden with cups of crystal and myrrhine and hand-carved by the greatest artisans” (123.7); the artisans are not included in “everyone.” Seneca was, even in his difficult last years, a wealthy and pampered gentleman.
As well as his own slaves, he was also accompanied by his wife, Paulina, and her slaves, who would have included maids to wash and dress her and do her hair, as well as an old female clown named Harpaste, inherited by Paulina from a dead relative, who is all the funnier (and all the more useful as a philosophical exemplum) because she is blind and doesn’t realize why the rooms are getting so dark (50).
Just one passage in the Letters evokes Seneca’s relationship with his wife, and it suggests an intimate and affectionate, albeit deeply narcissistic, attitude toward her. Seneca tells Lucilius that he has gone to his villa at Nomentum to escape a fever. He insisted on going, inspired by the example of his older brother, Gallio (Novatus), who got a fever while governor of Achaea and “took ship at once, insisting that his sickness was not in his body, but in his location” (104.1). Paulina, Seneca tells us, tried to stop him, apparently in fear for his health; Seneca overrode her but also acknowledges that her concern for him is important to him:
Because I know that even her breath is turned with mine, I’m starting to be considerate of myself, in order to be considerate of her. And although old age has made me braver in many respects, I’m losing this benefit of age, since it comes to my mind that inside this old man is a young man, who needs compassion. So, since I can’t persuade her to love me more bravely, she manages to persuade me to love myself more devotedly. You see, one must indulge real feelings: and sometimes, even if there are pressing reasons, one must call back one’s breath, even at the cost of torture, in respect for one’s family; breath must be kept back even on the lip. After all, a good man must not live the length of life he wants, but the length he ought. One who doesn’t value his wife or friend so much as to wait longer in life, who insists on dying: that man is a hedonist.
(104.3)
The passage recalls the earlier letter in which Seneca reports that he was tempted to kill himself, due to his coughing and bad health, but restrained only by the pleas of his old father (78). In youth, Seneca stayed alive for the sake of his father; in old age, he stays alive for the sake of his devoted wife. Life is forced upon him by his family; it is not what the death-driven philosopher would have chosen.
Despite claiming to be deeply affected by Paulina’s love and wishes for his safety, Seneca presents himself as having entirely ignored or resisted her actual request, which was for him to stay in the city. Paulina’s anxiety is used as a marker of Seneca’s own thoughtfulness, and also as proof that he himself has no dishonorable desire to live any longer than he should. But the narrative goes on to prove that she was entirely wrong to think that his health would be better if he stayed: rather, as soon as he escaped from the “terrible smell of smoking kitchens” in the city and reached his own beloved vineyards, he felt far better: “I’ve found myself again,” he declares (104.6). The relationship is thus entirely asymmetrical, since Seneca succeeds in taking care of Paulina (by taking care of himself), but she fails to take care of him. Inspired by the lovely villa at Nomentum, Seneca goes on to insist that one should regard all losses, even the death of those we love most dearly, as simply the falling of leaves from a flourishing plant: loved ones cannot grow again like leaves, “but they can be replaced” (104.12). Much though he may love his wife, or at least love her attentiveness to him, Seneca insists that the really important relationship is always with oneself: “The things you run from are inside you” (104.20). We may well wonder whether Paulina was really quite as devoted as Seneca presents her here. It is at least possible that she had other motives for encouraging her rich, pompous, and much-older husband to stay in the city: maybe she feared not his death but his survival.
CURING THE SORES OF THE SOUL
All these details about Seneca’s life in his last years, and many more, come from his last and greatest work: the Moral Letters, also known as the Letters to Lucilius. We have seen how vividly this text evokes the details of Seneca’s external daily routines in his last years; it is time now to consider how the letters present his state of mind as he looked back on his eventful and complicated life.
The first important thing to note about the letters is that they are letters: their form necessarily implies distance from the addressee. Seneca emphasizes the fact that he is communicating with a friend who is separated from himself; he is not writing a diary for his own future self, but a carefully crafted presentation of his life and thoughts for the edification of another particular person. The epistle is an ostensibly personal, private form of communication—although clearly Seneca intended the collection for publication. The fragmentary form, with the opportunity to leap from one topic to another, and the constantly shifting locations are eminently suitable for the last, peripatetic years of Seneca’s life.