Plangent–loud, reverberating, and often melancholy.Īpotheosis–the highest point in the development of something culmination or climax.
Troika–a committee consisting of three members.Ĭoncomitant–naturally accompanying or associated. Sinecure–a position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit. Maladroit–ineffective or bungling clumsy. Modus vivendi–an arrangement or agreement allowing conflicting parties to coexist peacefully, either indefinitely or until a final settlement is reached.Ĭri di coeur- a passionate outcry (as of appeal or protest) Quotes and Anecdotes: Seneca–Man, Sage, and Politicianīuy on Amazon: Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero Seneca’s Letters from a StoicĪbstemious–not self-indulgent, especially when eating and drinking.Ĭursus honorum–the “sequence of offices” in the career of a Roman politician. What the professionals are saying: The New York Times review School of Life’s YouTube video on Stoicism There is no clear answer to that, but his ideas are nonetheless still relevant. The question that burns at the heart of this book is how should Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic be read? Was he a man who cherished sobriety, reason, and moral virtue who, when he found himself at the center of Roman politics, did his best to temper the whims of a deluded despot? Or was he a clever manipulator who connived his way into power for power’s sake, and his moral treatises are merely a distraction from his true intentions. Seneca the writer embraces Stoicism and a quiet, well-examined life, while his city literally burned to the ground under his pupil’s impotent rule. Strangely, Seneca’s lofty moral writing makes no mention of the turmoil of the age. James Romm’s book ‘Dying Every Day’ brings to life the turbulent times of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, who lived from 4 BC to AD 65. He was tutor and close confidant of Emperor Nero, probably the most incompetent and vain ruler in annals of Roman history. We wrongly say that the old and sick are ‘dying,’ when infants and youths are doing so just as certainly. In either case, life, properly regarded, is only a journey toward death. At another, he reckons up the pains of mortal life and claims that, were we offered it as a gift instead of being thrust into it, we would decline. At one point, he extols the beauty of the world, the joys that outweigh all suffering.
Is life on a battlefield, or on death row, worth living? Seneca seems to be of two minds.
0 kommentar(er)
