In defense of Seneca
We need to cut some slack to the most controversial of the ancient Stoics
I spend a significant amount of time discussing all aspects of Stoicism both on and offline. One of the topics that never fails to come up is whether one should really read Seneca, considering his, shall we say mixed reputation as a politician and businessman. Seneca was indubitably sexist, unarguably ultimately failed to rein in Nero, and possibly (though not likely) triggered the bloody Boudica rebellion by suddenly calling in a vast amount of loans he had made to the Britannic aristocracy. How does that square with being a Stoic, let alone with someone at least aspiring to be a Sage?
Even what Seneca looked like has been a matter of dispute. For centuries he was portrayed as the sort of emaciated man in the left side of the image below. But in fact, we now know that he looked rather plump, as in the right side of the same image. The version on the left, known as Pseudo-Seneca, is suspected to actually represent either the playwright Aristophanes or the poet Hesiod, but it was more appealing as Seneca because it simply fit much better with the idea of the philosopher-sage lost in thought and unconcerned with worldly goods. By contrast, the Pergamon Museum version on the right smacks of a well fed patrician who may have been talking the talk but not walking…
