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thehappybooker 's review for:
Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, James Romm
Was Seneca a brilliant writer and teacher? An opportunistic hypocrite? How could he live with himself, praising simplicity and poverty while living in eye-popping opulence and wealth? How could he have witnessed, or even advised, matricide, fratricide, and general mayhem and retained any sense of personal morality? Did he came back to himself late in life? Why did he vacillate and accommodate and even write Nero's speeches that veiled murder with the most gossamer fabric? Even his busts show these contrasts: one bust looks like a fleshy bureaucrat, the other like a half-starved ascetic (the second one is known as pseudo-Seneca and may have been sculpted to show his "inner Stoic qualities" rather than his outward form). So who was he, really?
James Romm does an excellent job of not deciding for us how to judge the life of Seneca. As a result, we get to witness the searingly difficult choices of a sane man living in a time of extraordinary madness. I've admired and valued Seneca's writings but had a sort of Wikipedia-depth understanding of his life circumstances. This book made me admire him all the more - admiration mixed with pity, disappointment, and quite a few shocks.
Who knows how bad the reign of Nero would have been without Seneca and Burrus to ameliorate some of his worst impulses? Another way to think about this is: what if Pol Pot had had a Seneca? Could his mitigating influence have saved 1.5 million Cambodian lives? A mad emperor can wreak an awful carnage. One adviser who can turn the emperor's mind even a few degrees can be invaluable.
Thanks to this book, I have a more nuanced understanding of Seneca as an actual human being rather than only a name on the front cover of a collection of intellectual exercises and abstract principles.
James Romm does an excellent job of not deciding for us how to judge the life of Seneca. As a result, we get to witness the searingly difficult choices of a sane man living in a time of extraordinary madness. I've admired and valued Seneca's writings but had a sort of Wikipedia-depth understanding of his life circumstances. This book made me admire him all the more - admiration mixed with pity, disappointment, and quite a few shocks.
Who knows how bad the reign of Nero would have been without Seneca and Burrus to ameliorate some of his worst impulses? Another way to think about this is: what if Pol Pot had had a Seneca? Could his mitigating influence have saved 1.5 million Cambodian lives? A mad emperor can wreak an awful carnage. One adviser who can turn the emperor's mind even a few degrees can be invaluable.
Thanks to this book, I have a more nuanced understanding of Seneca as an actual human being rather than only a name on the front cover of a collection of intellectual exercises and abstract principles.