James romm dying every day7/3/2023 ![]() ![]() 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. ![]()
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