On the Shortness of Life

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 49

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Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Younger, was a distinguished Stoic philosopher, statesman, and playwright. Born around 4 BCE in Corduba, Hispania (modern day Córdoba, Spain) into an extremely wealthy family, his privileged upbringing and education in Rome and Egypt enabled the impressive trajectory of his career as a writer and political advisor.

“On the Shortness of Life,” shows how this rich educational foundation enabled Seneca engage critically with the philosophical inquiries of his time and to articulate profound insights into the human condition. His deep understanding of Stoicism, in particular, allowed him to draw from a well-established school of thought that emphasized the pursuit of virtue, self-discipline, and the rational management of one’s life. Further to this, his treatise shows a wide and deep understanding of theories and disciplines current in the Roman world: although primarily a Stoic, Seneca draws on Aristotelianism, Platonism and Epicureanism, showing that he is informed by wider philosophical ideas and able to engage intellectually with them when they are of use.

The didactic nature of “On the Shortness of Life” is reflective of Seneca’s role as tutor to the future emperor Nero. Probably written in 49 CE, when Seneca was returned from exile to become Nero’s tutor, the essay demonstrates Seneca’s ideas of teaching, learning and the dissemination of knowledge at a crucial turning-point in his own life. His reputation as a renowned thinker was key to his return to favour and his treatise may well reflect an increased confidence in his philosophy and his own abilities as its proponent. He was also in a position of great influence over Nero’s life and, by extension, Roman society. In this way, “On the Shortness of Life” may be read as a form of manifesto. While the essay is framed as a letter to Paulinus—and may have originated as one—this is likely to have been a rhetorical conceit on the part of Seneca: “On the Shortness of Life” is clearly intended for a wider audience and, very likely, as a means to influence Nero, the future emperor of Rome and the man on whom Seneca’s—and every Roman’s—life and prosperity relied. While the work is ostensibly a personal letter—and the voice Seneca’s own—it is important to consider that the “Seneca” of the letter is as much a construct as the philosophical arguments themselves.

Seneca’s role as both insider and outsider is an important consideration when exploring his treatise, its audience and purpose. In 49 CE, Seneca had just returned from exile: this would arguably have given him time to explore his philosophy and to put into practice his tenets of acceptance, self-reflection, and detachment from the distractions of social life. Returning to Roman society, he may have felt in a unique position to comment on its temptations. It is also possible to read the presentation of mortality and uncertainty in “On the Shortness of Life” as informed by Seneca’s personal experience. Seneca was condemned to death by three successive emperors—Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—and, in 49 CE, had escaped two of these sentences: the third would end his life in 65 CE. He presumably writes from the authority of personal experience when he exclaims, “how late it is to begin really to live when life must end!” (5).

As “On the Shortness of Life” is a critique on the temptations and distractions of life—especially a life of luxury—Seneca can be seen as a flawed character. Readers—both in Roman times and since—have seen Seneca’s great personal wealth as a source of conflict when approaching his work, leading to accusations of hypocrisy for leading a life of great comfort and influence while in his writings repudiating focus on the achievement of these things.

Paulinus

While Paulinus is the named addressee of Seneca’s essay "On the Shortness of Life," his figure represents more than an individual recipient: he embodies the ideal reader and interlocutor for Seneca’s philosophical discourse. It is not certain who the historical Paulinus was but there is a scholarly consensus that he was Seneca’s father-in-law, a powerful official in control of Rome’s grain supply, a theory supported by the grain-based metaphors of Chapters 18 and 19.

In the absence of a physical description, Paulinus’s significance emerges from his role as a receptive and thoughtful individual eager to engage with Seneca’s philosophical teachings. He represents the curious and contemplative reader who recognizes the value of Seneca’s insights and seeks to apply them to their own life. Paulinus’s inner thoughts and reactions are implied in his willingness to receive Seneca’s advice and reflect upon it. His character traits include a desire for self-improvement, a commitment to philosophical inquiry, and a recognition of the need to extract oneself from the distractions and superficialities of society to achieve inner contentment and wisdom. If Paulinus was a real and powerful person, it is logical that Seneca would have wished to flatter him in the style of his address, but it is also probable that Paulinus’s role and purpose in “The Shortness of Life” is as Seneca’s ideal addressee, as much an imagined, idealized reader as a real person.

Historical Exemplars: Augustus, Cicero, and Livius Drusus

Seneca makes examples of numerous renowned figures from Roman history in order to demonstrate the thesis of “On the Shortness of Life”: the need to reconsider the pursuit of temporal and external achievements in favor of a more profound and enduring understanding of life‘s true value. In particular, Seneca makes extended use of a trio of celebrated Romans whose names would have been known to educated men across the Roman world at the time of writing, and whose achievements were generally celebrated as characteristic of—and contributing to—the greatness of Rome: Augustus, Cicero, and Livius Drusus. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are concerned with each of these great men, respectively.

Augustus was born in 63 BCE as Gaius Octavius or Octavian, the nephew of Julius Caesar. After the assassination of Caesar, Rome was divided by civil war for decades, until Octavian won and declared himself the first Roman emperor in 27 BCE, creating the name Augustus. By 49 CE, he was considered the founder of the Roman Empire as his rule began a period of great imperial expansion, wealth, and the creation of civic infrastructure, administration, and order. Augustus also displayed great personal ambition in seizing power and making himself the absolute—and half-divine—rule of Rome. As Seneca notes, Augustus was lauded for being “the source of fortune for mankind” (6), but Seneca also makes him an object of compassion, as a man driven by ambition and duty and unable to take rest.

Cicero, who lived from 106 BCE to 43 BCE, is known for his exceptional oratory skills, his contributions to Roman law, and his philosophical writings. Many of Cicero’s writing survives and show that he was a staunch defender of the Roman Republic and traditionalism in law and virtue, and that he was deeply engaged in public debates on moral and political matters. His commitment to philosophy, particularly his interest in ethics and the pursuit of the summum bonum (the highest good), reflects his character as a deep thinker and moralist. In “On the Shortness of Life,” Seneca acknowledges Cicero’s importance as a man of learning and virtue but shows that, ultimately, Cicero’s work was in vain, as the Roman Republic came to an end and Cicero himself was executed in 43 BCE.

Marcus Livius Drusus (c. 122-91 BCE) was a politician and social/legislative reformer during the time of the Roman Republic. He is mostly renowned for his attempted expansion of Rome’s legislature—including offering citizenship to Rome’s allies—in order to bolster the security of the Republic. His reforms met with resistance from powerful factions in the Senate and he was assassinated in 91 BCE. Again, Seneca uses Livius Drusus as an example of how a person’s efforts in life, however laudable, are not a substitute for the personal wellbeing that is achieved through eudaimonia.

Seneca’s use of these figures is subtle yet subversive. He does not discredit these great men or say that their achievements were worth nothing; rather, he counts the cost to their personal peace and contentment during their lives. In using these established figures, Seneca is rooting his philosophy in the Roman experience—and demonstrating his own learning—but also challenging the Roman idea of glory and posterity: that one’s mortality is mitigated by one’s great deeds and works which will be remembered. Seneca’s argument is that these great works ultimately brought these men little contentment in their lives because they had no time for rest, self-reflection, and simple pleasures.