Stoicism

When man is faced with difficult and stressing situations, things tend to go wrong due to distraction from emotional needs. It's hard to go through with the task at hand when horrible things are happening to the ones you love. Around the year 300 B.C., a philosophical belief cropped up among human society, that was formed to do away with these emotional distractions and commitments. This belief was demonstrated by many great leaders at times of great danger and stress, and is referred to as stoicism.  Stoicism is a belief that when one is confronted with hardships one must control his emotions; the events surrounding the death of Seneca are a perfect example of stoicism in action. There are may other written examples of Stoicism in history, and the death of Seneca is not necessarily the best example of that philosophy.

Seneca, a stoic philosopher and advisor to the Roman emperor Niro, had learned one night that he was going to be put to death by the very man he had been guiding and teaching for years before. The night Seneca had been told he was to be killed, his wife told him that she was going to die with him. However, during his execution, Seneca became worried for her sake. “Worn out by cruel anguish, afraid too that his sufferings might break his wife's spirit, and that, as he looked on her tortures, he might himself sink into irresolution, he persuaded her to retire into another chamber.” (Tacitus, 65 CE). Even during his own torturous death, Seneca was still worried for the well-being of those around him, as he wanted to be sure that his wife would not become upset, hearing him struggle. The philosophy of stoicism is that you must put your own emotions aside, to deal with the other situations at hand. Sometimes, this can mean the emotional well-being of those around you. At this time, Seneca was being tortured to death with knives, but the only thing he was worried about was his own wife's well-being. The extreme pain and struggle that he was under was pushed so far to the side that if it weren't for the constant physical reminder of the situation at hand, it might have been possible that Seneca would have forgotten what was happening to him altogether.

Some may look at the piece of evidence above and say that that could just be a demonstration of pure love and devotion to one's spouse. However, it is clear that by the later years of his life, anything, including the legal matters of those around him, seemed to matter more than his own emotions. "...even at the height of his wealth and power, he had been thinking about his life's close…" (Tacitus, 65 CE) Another clear characteristic of a stoic is that he is always looking towards what is happening next, so he can be better prepared. Seneca's wishes for his burial had been written many years before there was even a hint if discomfort between him and Niro, that he might even consider killing such a faithful advisor to him. In order to distract himself from showing any inkling of emotion in a time of great happiness, Seneca chose instead to plan for the future, in case the situation he found himself in ever became bleak or uncertain. Everything Seneca seemed to do was rational beyond comparison, certainly not the typical behavior of  a man who had hit the highest point of his life.

Perhaps one of the most pressing instances of Seneca's stoic behavior occurred the night he was told he was to be put to death. “But he spared himself the anguish of a word or of a look, and merely sent in to Seneca one of his centurions, who was to announce to him his last doom. Seneca, quite unmoved, asked for tablets on which to inscribe his will..” (Tacitus, 65 CE). Right after being told he was going to die a painful and torturous death, the first thing Seneca looked towards was legal business. To him, the fact that his life was not going to last much longer didn't matter nearly as much as what was to happen  after he had been killed. He wasted no time growing upset from this news, but instead simply replied to his troubled colleagues, "'Where,' he asked again and again, 'are your maxims of philosophy, or the preparation of so many years' study against evils to come? Who knew not Nero's cruelty? After a mother's and a brother's murder, nothing remains but to add the destruction of a guardian and a tutor.'"(Tacitus, 65 CE)  Because he was so rational in his thinking, all of this made sense to Seneca. There was no shock, so there was no need for emotion. This is stoicism at its core; pure rationality.

Stoicism was incredibly relevant in the life of Seneca. Especially at the end of his existence, there were many hardships and struggles that he was forced to endure. Throughout all of the pain and torture he had to go through, Seneca made sure of one thing- that the task at hand was complete. The most important thing was not how he felt about what he had to do, but the result of what happened after it was finished. Seneca's death is one of the most relevant cases of this behavior, and is, in essence, what stoicism is all about.

Bibliography:
Tacitus: The Death of Seneca, 65 CE. (1998, May). Retrieved April 6, 2011, from Ancient History Sourcebook: http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/ancient/tacitus-ann15a.html