Ideas and comparisons
Key
Sappho
Ovid
Plato
Seneca
*see glossary
Comparison between poets or philosophers
Comparison across poets and philosophers
Comparison between poets or philosophers and across the two
Desire
Positive views
Negative views
Symptoms of desire
Origins of desire
Solution to desire
Love
Marriage
Friendship
Homoeroticism
Women/gender
Physicality and beauty
The thinkers
Glossary
Desire
Positive views
Loeb 2, Come to me, leave Crete behind: love and desire as an escape, a ‘holy temple’. Beautiful nature imagery to illustrate the rewards of love and desire
Loeb 22, I call upon you, Abanthis: desire as a religious experience ‘the holy queen, Cyprian Aphrodite, once found fault with the way I prayed’
Loeb 24a, You will remember: desire and sex as beautiful ‘you will remember what we did when we were young, many, beautiful things’
Loeb 48, You came, just what I was looking for: desire as a solution, almost medicinal ‘soothed my soul’
Loeb 110, The doorkeeper: desire and sex used for humour, euphemisms (Loeb 111, Raise the roof)
— Ovid does not express negative or positive views of desire, merely what it is, these two sections are just definitions for him —
AA3, Part I, It’s Time to Teach You Girls: Women owe men sex, for men to use ‘don’t deny your delights to loving men’, ‘why waste the water if you’re not going to use it?’
AA3, Part X, Beware of False Lovers: Supports Part I ‘she might as well give her man hemlock and monkshood crushed together, as deny him sex’
AA3, Part XII, Avoid the Vices, Favour the Poets: no one should want to sleep with a woman who does not conform to the ideals ‘I find it hard to believe, though I’m forced to by your children, that you ever slept with your husbands’
AA3, Part XIV, Use Jealousy and Fear: men don’t want love and sex that is given too easily, pretend to take it away, let them take it anyway, ‘what’s easily given nourishes love poorly: mingle the odd rejection with welcome fun’ ‘I don’t love unless I’m hurt’ ‘still safe loving should be mixed with fright lest he consider you hardly worth a night’
Laws: Natural Law as an argument against homosexuality. Republic: eros for the sole purpose of procreation
Republic: seems to permit non-procreative eros* for older couples past fertility
Laws: Sexual attraction and eros* allowed in a pederastic-type context, without physical components aside from visual - procreative of virtues, creates a better ideal state
‘Lust was given to humanity not for the sake of pleasure, but for the propagation of the human race’ - necessary
‘Let food subdue hunger and drink thirst; let lust flow the way in which is necessary’ - desire as a natural appetite to be filled (contradictory)
Negative views
Loeb 121, If you care about me: desire for youth, ‘I never want to be the older one in a relationship’
Loeb 1, Aphrodite, goddess of the embroidered throne: love and desire as the cause of suffering ‘do not overpower my heart with anguish, with affliction’. Takes away personal freedoms.
Loeb 57, What farm girl: desire for the wrong person, social class and materialism plays into it, jealousy?
Loeb 94, Honestly, I want to die: desire as the cause of sadness, finite and can’t last forever ‘weeping, she was leaving me’, sex as not the answer ‘and on a soft bed *...* you satisfied your desire’
Loeb 95, Gongyla: desire as the cause of sorrow ‘I take no pleasure from living! A certain longing to die grips me’
Loeb 114, Virginity: ‘where have you gone? You left me behind’ can’t be restored
AA3, Part XIII, Try Young and Older Lovers: desire for the young ‘no rider rules a horse that’s lately known the reigns’ ‘a fresh prize, must know you only, always cling to you alone. Contradictory. ‘Your older warrior loves sensibly and wisely, suffers much that the beginner won’t endure’
AA3, Part XV, Play Cloak and Dagger: supports Part XIV, don’t want women who are too eager/ too easy ‘she too, who eagerly offers room and bed, believe me, she’s been mine more than once’
AA3, Part XVIII, And So To Bed: women don’t need to feel pleasure ‘you to whom nature denies sexual feeling, pretend to sweet delight with artful sounds’ ‘for whom that sluggish place is numb which man and woman equally should enjoy’
Symposium, Diotima: It is an impossibility that the gods can lack any good thing
Phaedrus: soul has wings to take it to the Forms*, good and honourable acts increase ‘plumage’, bad or shameful acts make wings ‘shrivel’
Phaedrus: if lovers live philosophically they will ascend when they lie, if they just live in honour they may engage in desire and thus will be wingless after death
Republic: neither lover nor boy should have anything to do with sexual pleasure if they are going about their relationship and ‘loving in the right way’
Republic: in Plato’s ideal state, people should not be allowed to indulge in sexual pleasure, only for the means of procreation
Laws: criminalises pederasty, homosexuality, masturbation, incest and adultery - prevent procreation
Laws: people should fear sexual passion and have a dread of lust
Desire is a trait shared with animals, reason makes us human. The gods do not experience lust and desire, so either they lack a good thing or it is not a good thing - If-then-else proposition of desire
Desire as an unnatural form of excess (contradictory)
‘Lust which rips the soul apart’
Passions cause extreme mental upheaval, prevent you from every achieving internal balance or calm (apatheia*) (Sappho is the opposite of this calm. Love Shook My Soul, she is affected by her passions)
Desire ceases to be natural when it becomes an obsessive, irrational passion. Seneca doesn’t disapprove of desire itself but the way it has become twisted into irrationality
Symptoms of desire - direct comparison
Loeb 1, Aphrodite, goddess of the embroidered throne: ‘do not overpower my heart with anguish, with affliction’
Loeb 31, He is as blessed as a god: ‘strikes terror into the heart in my breast’ ‘I can no longer speak’ ‘my tongue breaks’ ‘a delicate fire runs beneath my skin’ ‘I see nothing with my eyes’ ‘there is a buzzing in my ears’ ‘sweat pours over me’ ‘a tremor seizes me all over’ ‘I think that I am on the point of death’
Loeb 130, Love which loosens the limbs: ‘loosens the limbs’ ‘shakes me’
Does not seem to suggest that women really feel desire, but that they are the objects of desire. Desire should be faked by women to please men. There are no female symptoms
Phaedrus: ‘sweating and a high fever’, ‘shuddering’, ‘throbs’, ‘mad with pain’ (sudden growth of wings at the sight of the beautiful)
‘Fiery eyes’, pale, trembling, ‘scarcely hold her head’, ‘heedless of sleep’ - painful and unpleasant
Origins of desire
Loeb 1, Aphrodite, goddess of the embroidered throne: desire from the gods, specifically Aphrodite ‘do not overpower my heart with anguish, with affliction’
AA3, Part XI, Take Care with Letters: ‘waiting always arouses love’
Phaedrus: the soul as a chariot with two horses. Charioteer = reason/wisdom, horse 1 = honour, horse 2 = desire.
The passions caused by incorrect beliefs about what will make us happy, can lead to acts that are not virtuous and not in accordance with reason.
Solution to desire
Desire not something that requires solving
Desire only solved through its satisfaction. Loeb 1, Aphrodite, goddess of the embroidered throne: ‘release me from this great distress’, ‘she will love you soon even if she does not want to’. Loeb 48, You came, just what I was looking for: ‘you soothed my soul which was burning with desire’
Desire not something that requires solving
Desire only important when felt by men. Should be fulfilled. AA3, Part I, It’s Time to Teach You Girls: ‘don’t deny your delights to loving men’, ‘why waste the water if you’re not going to use it?’. AA3, Part X, Beware of False Lovers: ‘she might as well give her man hemlock and monkshood crushed together, as deny him sex’. AA3, Part XI, Take Care with Letters: ‘don’t give in too easily… nor yet deny him what he seeks out of cruelty’ AA3, Part XVIII, And So To Bed: women don’t need to feel pleasure ‘you to whom nature denies sexual feeling, pretend to sweet delight with artful sounds’
Phaedrus: the god a man has chosen to follow determines his response to feelings of eros*. Zeus = self-control, Ares = violence, etc.
‘If reasons succeeds, passions will not even begin’ - Desire should be controlled by reason and intellect (contradictory)
‘If you give any passions to the wise man, his reason will be unequal to them’ ‘vices are never truly tamed’ - Desire can never be controlled fully (contradictory)
One should strive for complete control over their interior selves
Either you have completely controlled desire or else you are controlled by it - analogy of the drowning man
Love
Beauty comes from love. Loeb 16, The most beautiful sight in the whole world: ‘the most beautiful sight in the whole world… I think it is the one you love’
Love as closely linked with nature. Loeb 2, Come to me, leave Crete behind: love and desire as an escape, a ‘holy temple’. Beautiful nature imagery to illustrate the rewards of love and desire. Loeb 34, Around the beautiful moon. Loeb 47, Love shook my soul: metaphor of wind on trees to describe the effect of love. Loeb 96, Often she turned her thoughts here. Loeb 104a, Hesperus!: love brings lost things back. Loeb 105a, Just like the sweet apple. Loeb 105c, Just like the hyacinth. Loeb 168b, Gone are the moon and the Pleiades
Loeb 1, Aphrodite, goddess of the embroidered throne: love and desire as the cause of suffering ‘do not overpower my heart with anguish, with affliction’. Takes away personal freedoms.
AA3, Part XII, Avoid the Vices, Favour the Poets: ‘love is attracted to friendly eyes’
AA3, Part XIV, Use Jealousy and Fear: men don’t want love and sex that is given too easily, pretend to take it away, let them take it anyway, ‘what’s easily given nourishes love poorly: mingle the odd rejection with welcome fun’ ‘I don’t love unless I’m hurt’ ‘still safe loving should be mixed with fright lest he consider you hardly worth a night’
AA3, Part XVI, Make Him Believe He’s Loved: love doesn’t really matter, it’s the appearance of love that is important, fake it ‘make us believe (it’s so easy) that we’re loved’
Loeb 16, The most beautiful sight in the whole world: love as greater than war, in a social context with a large focus on war
Loeb 52, I do not think I can touch the sky with my hands: love as unattainable, just out of reach
Loeb 121, If you care about me: love for youth, ‘I never want to be the older one in a relationship’
Loeb 130, Love which loosens the limbs: love as a ‘bittersweet, invincible creature’
Loeb 168b, Gone are the moon and the Pleiades: love leaves eventually ‘time passes and I sleep alone’
Phaedrus: love/eros* as a form of divine madness. ‘God-sent madness is a finer thing than man-made sanity’. Love/desire as contrary to nature
Lysis: People will only love you if you are useful to them, people love other to gain what they lack - you must have something useful to offer. Symposium, Diotima/Socrates: people desire the good and beautiful because they want to possess them for themselves
Symposium, Phaedrus: love causes people to improve themselves for their lover. Letting your lover change you as one of his four main ideas about how to reach fulfillment
Laws: Sexual attraction and eros* allowed in a pederastic-type context, without physical components aside from visual - procreative of virtues, creates a better ideal state
Lysis: the beautiful is useful for achieving the Forms - love inspired by beauty
Symposium, Eryximachus: Love affects all forms of life and all things, harmonises the body and nature
‘Maddened friendship’ - love as a kind of insanity. Phaedra: love as a ‘madness’. Love/desire as contrary to nature
‘No one loves for the sake of profit’ - love is not selfish or for personal gain
‘What could be more pleasant than to be so dear to a wife that because of this you become dearer to yourself?’ - love for the improvement of the people within it
Stoics defined eros* as a wish to create a friendship with another person based on that person’s moral and physical attractiveness - aroused by the promise of virtue. If you’ve fallen in love with someone because of their inherent potential for virtue, then you are going to use the relationship as an opportunity to develop that potential
Lysis: cultivating love occurs through conversation, reciprocated actions and thoughts, and through shared desire for wisdom and attaining greater knowledge
Lysis: friendship stems from lack and people will only desire or love (philia) someone who can be useful to them in some way - criticising this idea? All definitions fail, Hippothales responds with horror
Symposium, Pausanias: Uranian Aphrodite, virtuous love for boys (pederastic eros*). Pandemian Aphrodite, heterosexual relationships and intercourse
Symposium, Eryximachus: love is aimed at the good and is responsible for human happiness
Symposium, Aristophanes: love is longing for your lost half (Zeus split people into two), being reunited brings happiness
Symposium, Agathon: Eros* as youngest, most beautiful and virtuous of the gods. Through love of beauty good things come to men
Marriage as a preferred indifferent
On Marriage: Discourages and criticises love born out of affectus* - all things should be balanced “its extent was shameful”
‘The wise man should love his wife with discernment, not with passion’ - love not bad as long as it is ruled by reason
‘If you want to be loved, then love’ - love should be mutual
Symposium, Diotima/Socrates: Eros neither beautiful nor ugly. It is because he lacks beauty and good things that he desires them. Neither mortal nor immortal, always between poverty and wealth (desire can never truly be fulfilled). Eros is a philosopher (love is philosophy)
Symposium, Diotima/Socrates: ‘love is of permanent possession of what is good’, immortality through pregnancy of the body or the soul (ideas, can be seen in desire for kleos)
Symposium, Diotima/Socrates: ladder of love - 1) love of individual body, 2) love of all beautiful bodies, 3) love of beautiful souls, 4) love of laws, 5) love of knowledge, 6) love of the beautiful itself (form)
Republic: eros* can cause political corruption and influence
Marriage
.
Loeb 132, I have a beautiful daughter: love for her family, ‘I have a beautiful daughter’.
Sappho often performed at weddings, her poetry may be for entertainment or from the perspectives of the couple, potentially even from her perspective about the couple. May have disliked marriage for taking away friends and lovers
Loeb 30, May the maidens sing: respectful of marriage and masculinity, heterocentric, to the groom ‘sing of your delights and of your bride’
Loeb 112, Lucky bridegroom: jealousy? Respect for love? ‘Aphrodite has honoured you above all others’
AA3, Part I, It’s Time to Teach You Girls: cheating expected of men, women’s fault if men cheat, ‘men often cheat: it’s seldom tender girls’
AA3, Part IX, Be Seen Around: no respect for marriage, ‘often a lover’s found at a husband’s funeral’ (satire?)
AA3, Part XI, Take care with letters: gives advice on how to cheat, evidently does not value marriage very highly.
AA3, Part XV, Play Cloak and Dagger: encourages adultery, ‘I nearly forgot the skilful ways by which you can elude a husband’. Agrees with marriage as control of women ‘let the bride fear her husband: to guard a wife is right’
Symposium, Diotima/Socrates: pederastic relationships are much closer than heterosexual ones because the erastes is inspired by the eromenos to create ideas
Republic: wants to eliminate familial relationships (philia*). Against favouritism in raising children. Even knowing which children are yours goes against this.
‘A man who demands chastity from his wife, while seducing other men’s wives, is a villain’ - critique of hypocrisy and double standards in Roman norms (compare with all of Ovid)
Marriage as a preferred indifferent*. The combination of individuals in a marriage will determine whether or not it is a positive or negative influence on the virtue of stoic disciples
‘The wise man should love his wife with discernment, not with passion’ - love not bad as long as it is ruled by reason
‘What could be more pleasant than to be so dear to a wife that because of this you become dearer to yourself?’ - marriage for the improvement of the individuals within it
On Marriage: V23 ‘it is a serious matter for a wise man to be uncertain about whether he is about to marry a good or a bad woman’
On Marriage: V27 ‘all love for somebody else’s wife is disgraceful as is too much love for one’s own.’ ‘nothing is more vile than to love a wife as if she were an adulteress’ - respect
View of women having the same moral potential as men shifts marriage perspective - not the union of a superior intellectual being to an inferior one, but of two equally competent individuals who are much more likely to be stoic disciples than sages. - marriage is two imperfect but determined people, learning and improving together. Can be seen in Seneca’s own marriage - they support each other in pursuit of virtue
The wise person in a marriage doesn’t have to be the husband
Getting married and having a family is in accordance with nature, because that’s what we see creatures in the wild doing
Friendship
Sappho dwells more on her perceived friendships with the gods rather than between people. Loeb 1, Aphrodite, goddess of the embroidered throne, Loeb 17, Come, Queen Hera
Lysis: considers and dismisses definitions of friendship - beloved and lover, beloved could hate lover; like and like, one gains nothing from it because they are similar; unlike and unlike, good and bad cannot be friends
Lysis primarily about philia*
Lysis: friendship stems lack and people will only desire or love (philia) someone who can be useful to them in some way - criticising this idea? All definitions fail, Hippothales responds with horror
Republic: wants to eliminate familial relationships (philia*). Encourages much broader philia towards all citizens
‘Just as there is an innate pleasantness for us in other things, so there is in friendship’
Stoics defined eros* as a wish to create a friendship with another person based on that person’s moral and physical attractiveness
“He who does not think enough of his wife or his friend to linger longer in life, he who will persist in dying, is spoiled” - We are bound to consider the well-being and benefit of those we love as well as our own interests
The implications of understanding ourselves as part of a wider network of human society, not simply disconnected individuals, is at the core of how Seneca and the Stoics frame understanding our relationships with others
Friends are in order ‘To have someone I can die for, to have someone I can follow into exile, for whose death I might exchange my own and pay the price instead’
Homoeroticism
Sappho focused largely on love of women by women, occasionally discusses heterosexuality
Loeb 102, Sweet mother!: ‘I am smitten by a boy’, heterosexuality?
Loeb 146, Neither the honey: metaphor for Sappho’s homosexuality? ‘Neither the honey nor the bee is for me’
AA3, Part XI, Take Care with Letters: assumes hetersexuality, heterocentric ‘let it be ‘her’ in your letters, instead of ‘him’’
Laws: NaturalLaw as an argument against homosexuality - unnatural. Symposium: much discussion and general approval of pederasty
Symposium, Pausanias: Uranian Aphrodite, virtuous love for boys (pederastic eros*). Pandemian Aphrodite, heterosexual relationships and intercourse. Athenian society approves of any actions carried out in devotion to Uranian Aphrodite.
Symposium, Aristophanes: double-male types split in half by Zeus resulted in men attracted to other men, double-female types briefly mentioned
Symposium, Diotima/Socrates: pederastic relationships are much closer than heterosexual ones because the erastes is inspired by the eromenos to create ideas
Republic: neither lover nor boy should have anything to do with sexual pleasure if they are going about their relationship and ‘loving in the right way’
Republic: does not permit non-procreative eros in a pederastic context
‘Don’t those men who exchange their clothing with women’s seem to you to live contrary to nature?’ - Potentially viewed homoeroticism as unnatural making men like boys or women
Stoic eros* originated as a homoerotic idea, evolved into a heterosexual context.
Not enough to be confident about Seneca’s actual position on same-sex relationships
Women/gender
Loeb 31, He is as blessed as a god: ‘He seems to me equal to a god’ the love of a woman gives him power
Loeb 57, What farm girl: expectations of women, ‘does she even know how to pull up her ragged dress over her ankles?’
AA3, Part I, It’s Time to Teach You Girls: women need to be taught how to be feminine, teach them how to love ‘it’s not fair for armed men to battle with naked girls’ ‘I’ll teach girls the ways of being loved. Women owe men sex, for men to use ‘don’t deny your delights to loving men’, ‘why waste the water if you’re not going to use it?’. Women only valuable while they are young ‘old age will come to you… a wave that’s past can’t be recalled’
AA3, Part X, Beware of False Lovers: enforces masculine stereotypes, ‘what can you do with a man more delicate than you, and one perhaps who has more lovers too?’. Supports Part I ‘she might as well give her man hemlock and monkshood crushed together, as deny him sex’
AA3, Part XII, Avoid the Vices, Favour the Poets: ‘we hate sad girls too’
AA3, Part XV, Play Cloak and Dagger: don’t want women who are too eager/ too easy ‘she too, who eagerly offers room and bed, believe me, she’s been mine more than once’
AA3, Part XVII, Watch How You Eat and Drink: women should be composed at all times, if something bad happens they deserve it ‘shameful a woman lying there, drenched with too much wine: she’s worthy of sleeping with anyone who’ll have her
Symposium, Pausanias: Uranian Aphrodite, virtuous love for boys (pederastic eros*). Pandemian Aphrodite, heterosexual relationships and intercourse. Purest love only for men.
‘Today women equal men in regard to lust, although born to take the passive role’
There was recognition that social convention could mean women did not get the same opportunities to pursue the innate reason within everyone.
View of women having the same moral potential as men shifts marriage perspective - not the union of a superior intellectual being to an inferior one, but of two equally competent individuals who are much more likely to be stoic disciples than sages. - marriage is two imperfect but determined people, learning and improving together
The wise person in a marriage doesn’t have to be the husband
Physicality and beauty
Beauty comes from love. Loeb 16, The most beautiful sight in the whole world: ‘the most beautiful sight in the whole world… I think it is the one you love’
…
Sappo focuses frequently on physicality and aspects of someone’s body or movement, but she rarely describes any actual physical contact. Loeb 22, I call upon you, Abanthis: ‘her dress aroused you as you gazed at it’
Loeb 24a, You will remember: desire and sex as beautiful ‘you will remember what we did when we were young, many, beautiful things’
Loeb 50, A handsome man is only good to look at: physicality and beauty as not the most important factor in love, contradictory
Loeb 81, Put garlands around your lovely hair, O Dika!: physicality and beauty as very important ‘the blessed Graces favour the beautifully floral over the ungarlanded’, contradictory
…
AA3, Part IV, Make-up but in private: Beauty is important and must be enhanced through makeup, but it must appear to be natural, ‘hornless cows are ugly, fields are ugly without grass, and bushes without leaves, and a head without its hair’, contradictory ‘it makes for beauty, but it's not beautiful to watch’ (Part II, Take Care with How You Look)
AA3, Part III, Taste and Elegance in Hair and Dress: ‘beauty’s granted or denied by a hand’s touch’, people who aren’t beautiful are damaged ‘how many ways you have to repair the damage!’ (Part VI, Be Modest in Laughter and Movement: ‘girls must even learn to laugh’ ‘learn to carry yourself in a feminine way’)
AA3, Part V, Conceal Your Defects: ‘conceal your faults and hide your body’s defects as best you may.’ ‘if you’re short sit down, lest, standing, you seem to sit:’
Love as closely linked with nature. Loeb 2, Come to me, leave Crete behind: love and desire as an escape, a ‘holy temple’. Beautiful nature imagery to illustrate the rewards of love and desire. Loeb 34, Around the beautiful moon.
AA3, Part XVII, Watch How You Eat and Drink: beauty and hiding faults must be a priority at all times, ‘even if you’re plain, with drink you’ll seem beautiful’ ‘night itself grants concealment to your failings’
AA3, Part XVIII, And So To Bed: looking as good as possible always important, even during sex ‘Andromache, his Theban bride, was too tall to straddle Hector’s horse’ ‘one layout’s not suitable for all’
Lysis: the beautiful is useful for achieving the Forms - love inspired by beauty
Decode the message of beauty as one of his four main ideas about how to reach fulfillment
Laws: Sexual attraction and eros* allowed in a pederastic-type context, without physical components aside from visual - procreative of virtues, creates a better ideal state
Symposium, Agathon: Eros* as youngest, most beautiful and virtuous of the gods. Through love of beauty good things come to men
Symposium, Diotima/Socrates: Eros neither beautiful nor ugly. It is because he lacks beauty and good things that he desires them. Neither mortal nor immortal, always between poverty and wealth (desire can never truly be fulfilled). Eros is a philosopher (love is philosophy)
Phaedrus: beauty on earth reminds of the Form* of beauty, causes soul to become winged in search of the Forms and disregard earthly things
Pleasure is a ‘lowly thing, coming from the service of out filthy and vile limbs’ - dislike of the physical body
‘You don’t defile your face with paints and cosmetics’ - Opposes emphasising then body with adornments and make-up
‘Great intellects never enjoy lingering in the body’, instead ‘striving towards the transcendent’
The thinkers
Invokes the divine e.g. Loeb 1, Aphrodite, goddess of the embroidered throne, Loeb 17, Come, Queen Hera
Sappho doesn’t understand her own success? Loeb 32, Who gave their works: ‘Who gave their works and made me honoured.’
Puts himself at the centre of his writing. AA3, Part VI, Be Modest in Laughter and Movement: ‘I want to kiss your shoulder, as far as it’s shown’. Part XII, Avoid the Vices, Favour the Poets: ‘Girls, be kind to the poets’
‘Ovid was my master’ - final line of Ars Amatoria 3
Phaedrus: calls on muses to aid him in creation of his speech
Laws as the only dialogue where Socrates is not the main speaker - Plato’s own views
Four main ideas about how to reach fulfillment: think more, let your lover change you, decode the message of beauty, reform society
Intense description and criticism of Hostius Quadra’s sexual practices suggests a potential interest in or knowledge of (potentially participation in) pederasty - hypocrisy
The fragmentary nature of Seneca’s work (esp. On Marriage) cannot be used as certain evidence, but must be used within the broader framework of Stoicism and Seneca’s other work.
‘Even though the wise person loves his friends very deeply… he nonetheless considers every good thing to be bounded within himself’ - should not value anything outside oneself, contradiction?
-Seneca never claims to be a sage, but a proficiens*, even a sage has had to make mistakes to become a sage. Writing meant to help people become better, knowing they will probably never become a sage. Seneca recognises everyone is at their a different stage trying to live as rationally as they can
Glossary
Eros - the part of love consisting of passionate, intense desire, sometimes personified as a god
Philia - friendship/intimacy
Indifferents - neither good nor bad in and of themselves, but can be both depending on how they are used or what they inspire in an individual. E.g. wealth is not bad, but when one gives up one’s morals to attain it, it halts them on their virtue journey and thus would be negative despite the wealth itself not have inherent moral value.
Preferred indifferents - “according to nature” and thus usually commended by reason
Dispreferred indifferents - “contrary to nature” and thus usually to be avoided
Affectus - The irrational drive or passion, amor taken to extreme, when the emotion overtakes reason entirely
Proficiens - ‘tryers’ or ‘disciples’ of stoic philosophy who haven’t mastered their own reason but are trying. Most followers of stoicism fall into this category
Apatheia - a state of mind in which one is not disturbed by the passions.; Complete calm.