Letters from a Stoic

Seneca wrote one hundred and twenty-four letters to Lucilius, a friend and procurator of Sicily, in the last years of his life after withdrawing from public affairs. They are not correspondence in the ordinary sense but essays in letter form, intended for publication, each addressing a specific practical question.

The recurring subjects are the use of time, which Seneca treats as the only thing genuinely owned and the only thing people give away without accounting; the practice of poverty, meaning periodically living on the minimum in order to remove the fear of losing what you have; the preparation for adversity through premeditation of what might happen; the distinction between what is genuinely necessary and what habit has made feel necessary; friendship; and the correct attitude toward death, which he treats as the subject that clarifies everything else.

He writes about wealth without condemning it, arguing that a philosopher may possess wealth provided it is held loosely, which is convenient given that he was one of the richest men in Rome. He was Nero's tutor and adviser, participated in a regime he could not restrain, and was ordered to kill himself in 65 for alleged involvement in a conspiracy.

The gap between his writing and his life is the standard objection, and Seneca addresses it directly, arguing that he describes the destination rather than claiming to have arrived. Readers differ on whether that answers the charge. The letters can be read in any order and most are short, which suits them to occasional reading. Modern selections vary considerably in which letters they include. The material on time and on the practice of poverty is the most immediately usable.