Living the strenuous life

Tags: 65, Agrippina, America, American Presidents, Ancient Rome, Apology, Culture, Emperor Nero, Heroism, History, Lifestyle Experiment, Literature, Lucius Seneca, Philosophy, Psychology, Socarates, Theodore Roosevelt

Why do we look up to great men, why do we read the great books? Ultimately, as the Greek Philosopher Epictetus said, we do this to answer the question: ‘how to live our lives’?

How to live our lives?

Rome 65 AD – 4 miles outside of Rome, in an elaborate, lush estate, Lucius Seneca, 69 years old, notes that he is about as old as his hero, Socrates, when he was forced to drink a cup of poison to ‘atone’ for his ideals. And here, today, Seneca also faces the prospects of his own death because he refuses to abandon his ideals.

Seneca is probably the most famous man at this point, after Nero, the Emperor. Seneca has lived a life of power, glory and immense achievement and had worked himself up to become the second most powerful man in the Roman Empire.

Yet today, he waits, stoically, at his home, for his death to arrive in the form of Nero’s soldiers.

A quick history to put things into context

In these days, Rome stretches from the shores of Britain to today’s Iraq, from the North Sea to the Saharan deserts. Rome has brought prosperity and peace across most of the know world, united under one language, one currency and one law.

Seneca was born in 4AD, in Cordoba, Spain, in a wealthy, influential family. Seneca was sent off to study in history and became a student of Stoicism. He was thought in the market places of Greece, by professors who gave their lessons from a porch, as was the habit of the day.

Seneca came back to Rome, and became a famous writer. He wrote a series of tragedies and was part of the revolutionizing of the Roman literary tradition. Tragedies were rewritten and updated for Roman sensibilities. Shakespeare borrowed a lot from their innovations, although he did not know it. You can see the influence of the Roman writers of Seneca’s time in Shakespeare’s melodramatic endings, murders on stage and even the inclusion of ghosts as main characters. Because of his importance to the revitalization of Roman literature, Seneca won great fame.

This at a time when the political landscape of Rome had experienced great changes: Julius Caesar had recreated the Rome as a dictatorship, and his heir to the throne, Augustus Caesar had decided that the only way to insure Rome’s prosperity and strength was to create a dynasty. Augustus saw to it that all his imperial powers were passed to his son, Tiberius.

It pretty soon became clear that once you give power to a dictator, it is hard to lose it again. The Roman people, at least those in power, were smitten with all the rights and power they had gained without having to be responsible for any of them.

However, Tiberius turned out to be a cruel despot, suspicious and greedy. His heirs to the throne, Caligula and Claudius were truly wicked despots.

Claudius ruled Rome as an evil bureaucrat: jealous, suspicious, lending his ear to informants with their own agenda, the Roman people suffered under the emotional up and downs of their emperor.

It was in this court that Seneca became part of public life, at 45 years of age. He found himself quickly outwitted by the intrigues at court and was forced into exile on Corsica.

Seneca was returned to Rome by Agrippina, wife of Claudius and master intrigant. She had been born with a lust for power and tried to gain her power through influence over Claudius. She managed to have Claudius divorce his wife and marry her. They had a son, Nero, which she wanted to be the new emperor, although that place was reserved for Claudius’ first son, Britannicus.

Seneca felt that Britannicus would be a bad emperor for Rome and aligned himself with Agrippina, in an effort to get Nero placed as the next emperor of Rome.

Here a truly downwards slope starts: It was decided that Britannicus was to be poisoned. But Britannicus, aware of the intrigue at the court was a suspicious man (it isn’t paranoia if they are really out to get you) and had all his food tasted by others. Agrippina devised a clever gambit. She brought Britannicus an apple and cut it in half. She proceeded with eating one half, and Britannicus, satisfied, ate the other. He didn’t kno that Agrippina had laced the half of the knife facing Britannicus with poison. Britannicus died, officially of stomach indigestion.

Claudius was also in Agrippina’s sights, and was served poisoned mushrooms. Claudius struggled for his life, but didn’t appear to be dying. Agrippina quickly gathered her wits, dipped a feather in poison and stuck it in his throat, telling bystanders she was trying to open his airways to help Claudius breath better.

Seneca was aware of all these plots. But after a life of intrigue at the court, he had decided that the goal justified the means: one has to accept the lesser evils to achieve the greater good. Why Seneca believed that aligning himself with power-hungry murderers might somehow benefit the Roman Empire is unclear, but we do know that Seneca had a hunger for power himself, having once tasted its glory and then felt the bitterness of losing it in exile.

Still, Seneca told himself that he had aligned himself with the powers of good, and that somehow this intrigue was necessary to put himself and his allies in a position where they could rule Rome and steer it in the right direction.

Nero was young and inexperienced. He lacked statesmanship, and recognizing this, Seneca wrote the speech to be delivered in the Senate that was to confirm him as the next emperor. Today, this seems to us as no big deal, all great leaders have their speeches written for them, but in that day, all emperors wrote their own speeches. And even today, great leaders still direct the spirit and content of their speeches.

All the betrayal at court, all the murders seemed to pay off . Under the rule of Nero, with Agrippina and Seneca tucking at the cords behind the scenes, a golden age settled over Rome: the informers who had lead a series of anonymous accusations were put behind bars, lowering the emotional temperature and division within Roman public life, courts were again held in public, the economy was put in order, a strong foreign policy improved Rome’s standing in the world and an the empire was administered in a more effective, more transparent manner. For 5 years, Rome thrived and all the dirty deeds had somehow whitewashed the political life of Rome.

But young Nero began to rebel more and more against the influence of his mother. Nero had his own ideas, and felt he had a greater destiny than being an emperor, he felt he was also an artist. He felt constrained by the duties of office. He was frustrated by the power sharing with his mother, that went as far as having to share his portrait with that of his mother on the Roman coins. He decided that he had to break free. And the only template for such a move he knew from his youth, and perhaps the only real option left to him, was to kill his mother. Freud would have a field day with this one.

Nero, after another bitter quarrel with his mother, invited her over to a makeup dinner and at the end of it, offered her a yacht as a present. The yacht was especially designed to collapse when it exited the bay. And so it did, but Agrippina managed to swim away, even escaping the murderous attempts of the sailors who tried to beat her on the head before she could escape. Nero, gripped in fear about this turn of events, sent loyal soldiers to her home to finish the job. When the soldiers arrived, Agrippina put her hands on her stomach and said: “Here, strike my womb, for it is my son that is killing me.” The soldiers ‘obliged’.

With his mother out of the way, Seneca was summoned to write a speech for Nero, to explain the death of Agrippina to the Roman people.

And so Seneca was the speech writer, advisor and spin master to the court of Nero. Seneca took on this task with dread. After all, by doing his job, he became more and more a liability to Nero, being the keeper of all Nero’s guilty secrets.

Seneca, at the age of 66, asked for permission to retire and was granted this but asked to always stay near…

What is good, what is evil?

Sometimes we find with men who have achieved great power and fame, that their mind closes off to the alternative lives they could have lead, instead, coming to justify the course they have taken as the righteous one, one of difficult decisions, agonizing trade-offs that somehow created the virtuous world we live in today. That path was more or less closed off to Seneca, who had placed himself in great peril due to the choices he had made in his life.

We also often see that rich, influential people become to question their legacy in the zenith of their lives, and become champions for social change, immersing themselves in moral lecturing, charitable causes and what more. They abandon the naked strive for power and instead start to use their influence to create a ‘better’ world for all, to somehow come at peace with their legacy.

Perhaps these forces drove Seneca on his dangerous path.

Seneca, a disillusioned old man, having achieved wealth, power and fame, became to pounder his life and wrote his thoughts down in a series of dialogues. He invoked the memories of the young man he once was, full of ideals.

Seneca judged his life as an error in believing in situational justice: that the world is only a place of trade-offs and that sometimes wrong deeds should be carried out for the greater good. Instead, Seneca started to believe in ‘absolute justice’. That some things are wrong in all circumstances.

How Seneca developed his philosophy

He started with God. Does God exist, he asks himself? Yes, is his resounding answer, and he offers the world, the immaculate beauty of the order of nature, the consistency of the universe as proof. To Seneca, how else could this vast world follow its orderly existence, if not guided by the invisible hand of God?

His next question was: is God ‘good’. Again, the answer is a resounding yes.  How could he not be, having created all this beauty and wonder?

And if God is good, than why does evil exist in sickness, loss and injustice? Confronted with this age old question, compounded when one believes that the Gods aren’t fickle, but fundamentally good, Seneca expresses his belief that God has created the universe as a test to mankind. Adversity is God’s lessons, to teach us like a good father about right or wrong. We cannot fully be human nor achieve our potential if we aren’t truly tested to the core.

Borrowed from Socrates’ apology

This idea was borrowed from Socrates’ apology. When Socrates spoke to his accusers who demanded his death sentence. he stated in his address that he did not hate his accusers, that he accepted their actions as being part of a universe that puts him to the test, as a necessary stage in his life.

Socrates went on to explain that all he had ever control over was his own mind. Hate would destroy this power. Socrates argued that if he were to make the mistake of trying to invoke ‘a greater truth’ where his accusers were absolutely wrong and he was absolutely right, he would fall in a mental ‘trap’, because it would ultimately divorce himself from the reality of his own being. All he could be was himself, and the only way to stay in touch with himself was not to judge, but to carry on being who he was, in the face of adversity, in the face of his own death. The true test was not about the nature of the world, about seeing right or wrong, but about remaining firmly who he was, even in the face of the absolute price. This was the test of (the) God(s), Seneca argued.

The philosophical implications

Seneca moved to a philosophy where he is ultimately responsible for his thoughts and actions. He does not blame Nero for his situation, because Seneca states that everything he does, everything he is, everything he thinks belongs only to him, and the situation he finds himself in is presented by God. His reactions are not and never could be governed by the actions of another, no matter how wicked, because he is the only master of his soul, the only person that can give it direction. It would be wrong to blame circumstances for how Seneca has lived his life, because nobody can force him what to think.

Seneca believes that as long as he does not return evil with evil, then he will not be conquered.

He also believed that no person truly suffers evil: evil, adversity, is simply a test, to help us become ourselves, our highest ideal. Without it we would be impotent to achieve our potential. The only evil that we can inflict on ourselves is that of abandoning ourselves. All the rest are milestones on our road.

On to the end

Nero, worried about Seneca’s state of mind and the potential consequences of his writings, sent his soldiers to order Seneca’s suicide. It was a rather protracted affair  that I will not describe here, suffice to say that Seneca eventually, after numerous suicide attempts, drank hemlock, and finally died.

A life of absolute responsibility

A mantra you hear often today is ‘If I don’t do it, somebody else will’ or ‘I am just doing my job.’ According to Seneca, saying this does not only surrender all control over the little difference you can make in this world, it also means surrendering control and responsibility for your own actions. Seneca would argue that losing your job because you acted according to your own convictions is not hardship: it is simply answering with the potential of your full being to ‘God’s test’ (in the terms of Seneca). Not taking full responsibility of your actions, and instead rationalizing ambiguous actions by arguing that it wouldn’t make a difference, because ‘if I don’t do it, somebody else is sure to do it’ is relinquishing the only control you really have: that over your own actions. This, argues Seneca, is the only evil that can truly befall a man.

Why we surrender responsibility as a society

Of course, we live in more practical, more secular times. Idealism has often been replaced by collective goal setting and metrics within corporations and societies. It is ironic that in a time people believe more than ever in the power and existence of the individual, more individuals believe their own small existence has little capacity for making difference. Our highest value is not to change the world, but to be happy, to take care of the small nucleus that is our family – we have, as individuals, somehow given up control over our societies and the forces that drive it, whether it is corporate, religious, political or any other earthly force. Sure we vote, sure we try to do the best job we can, but somehow we are no longer responsible for the overall result, all those little compromises we made, all the judgments we make without adequately informing ourselves first, all the votes we cast without having educating about the issues, none of these contribute to the overall result. Somehow, individuals today live in a world where they believe they can have their cake and eat it too, somehow aligned with the forces of good while others are mysteriously to blame for the current state of the world.

Of course, I express things rather black and white, but upping the contrast on the issues can sometimes reveal the inconsistencies that somehow slip between the cracks.

The only way to be fully human

But Seneca’s prescription for a good life is simply this: to never absolve ourselves of responsibility. It is not wrong to compromise because compromise is an essential tool in creating consensus and direction. Seneca offers two addendums to compromise: once you compromise, you cannot say the situation made you do so. No, you saw the situation, and made a conscious decision to act or not to act, and you own that decision. And you cannot divorce yourself from the result, even if you are only partially responsible for it or had no power over it at this point. You nevertheless remain in relation with your environment, and always responsible for how it is. He beckons us not to see our limited power as a reason to absolve ourselves of responsibility for the overall result, but to see our limited power as a clear call to action, a call to work harder to make a difference.

And Seneca also offers the ideas that there are some absolute wrongs and absolute rights. That if you conspire with murderers to help them to the throne, can you expect less then murder from the throne? To not tell ourselves fairy tales that if a creature is one day today it might be different tomorrow. Instead we should take the long view, and help the right powers to take hold in society over a longer period of time, instead of going for the quick fix and helping the wrong powers achieve position with the wrong actions – as if somehow, once in position, they would magically change…

Seneca in our own time

Of course, when one centers his debate on the nature of God and why God created the universe the way it is you are bound to get in a sticky argument, exactly because anyone can pretty well make up his answer whether God exists or not and what exactly God’s intentions might have been.

But stripped from the more numinous arguments, Seneca’s observations hold one important truth for our time:

If we don’t take responsibility for the world, we cannot blame the world for what it is today. No matter how small, we are all cogs inside a giant machine, and we perpetuate it, no matter how small, through our own actions. We can play the game, but then we should own the problem. Or we can instead choose to stand up for our ideals, and then we have to work tirelessly to become an answer to the problem. But the idea that we are somehow not connected, somehow have no bearing on the end result, that is simply not a true idea.

Theodore Roosevelt and the practical application of Seneca in our time

Theo Roosevelt inspired America with a powerful call to action, telling each individual that action, not inaction is what will make America strong. Not to shirk responsibility, but to take more of it, and to lead ‘clean, vigorous, healthy lives’, both spiritually and physically.

In the age of consumerism, we often see our role as simply being a cog in a giant machine, but Roosevelt says we are more than that:

No country can long endure if its foundations are not laid deep in the material prosperity which comes from thrift, from business energy and enterprise, from hard, unsparing effort in the fields of industrial activity; but neither was any nation ever yet truly great if it relied upon material prosperity alone.

[…]

A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world. – Theodore Roosevelt

In our next entry we’ll speak about Theodore’s practical solutions for our time, and how he envisioned individuals could take ownership of today’s problems, through living the strenuous life:

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. – Theodore Roosevelt

Tags: 65, Agrippina, America, American Presidents, Ancient Rome, Apology, Culture, Emperor Nero, Heroism, History, Lifestyle Experiment, Literature, Lucius Seneca, Philosophy, Psychology, Socarates, Theodore Roosevelt