“To be happy you have to live in war with their own passions and in peace with those of others.” This is one of the appointments that best defines Seneca’s philosophy, one of the Roman thinkers with the greatest influence on the philosophy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Follower of stoicismSeneca focused a good part of his works to offer practical advice to achieve moral virtue, the only way to get happiness According to his doctrine.

But the philosopher born from Córdoba also dedicated a good part of his life to politics, being Senator and counselor of emperors such as Claudio and Nero. Dennated by many of his contemporaries who usually accused him of hypocrisy, Seneca has gone down as one of the most suggestive personalities of the high Roman Empire.

Seneca, a Cordoba in the Rome of Nero

Seneca bust of the Prado Museum (seventeenth century). Source: Wikipedia

You travel to the other side of the world, advisor to the most powerful man in the West, several death sentences, various adulteries and a rugged suicide: Seneca’s life could not be more intense. Born in Córdoba around the year 1 AD within a family of intellectuals with links with the Roman nobility, He moved soon to Rome to live with an auntmoving from the capital of the empire to Egypt a good season where he came into contact with oriental philosophies that would have an important influence on his subsequent thinking.

Grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and oratory: from a young age, Seneca felt passion for letters and thought. But soon he also showed his other face: The ambition. He started Cursus Honoram with his appointment as a questioner around Rome. With the arrival to power of CaligulaSeneca was already the most important speaker in the Senate. And the problems begin.

The fame and influence of Seneca in the Roman Senate awakened the antipathies of the famous emperor who condemned him to death, but the intervention of some friends softened the order. It would be the first of up to three death sentenceswhich demonstrates two things: that Seneca’s intellectual and political activity had great relevance in Rome … And that had many enemies.

‘Seneca and Nero’ by Eduardo Barrón González (Zamora Museum). Fountain. Wikipedia

At the death of Caligula, he reaches Claudio’s power with which Seneca will have a very complex relationship: new death sentence of which he is saved being banished to corsa. The intermediation of Agripina, Claudio’s new wife, causes Seneca to return to Rome to hold a Praetor position.

When Nero reaches power after Claudio’s murder, Seneca breathes relieved. Find the right scenario to unleash your ambitions. For almost a decade, The Cordoba politician becomes the governor in the shadow of the entire empire Betting on practical and moderate measures that would be very celebrated by several later figures, such as Emperor Trajan.

But Nero becomes older, he rejects all the moral advice of his tutor starting his terror government. Seneca is forced to depart from political life but is finally sentenced to death for his alleged participation in a spell against his former pupil. Seneca cuts the veins, takes anxuta and a hot bath that suffocates it: thus achieves its goal of killing before the order of Nero is fulfilled.

Seneca, the balance of moral virtue

‘Seneca’ by Mateo Inurria (Museum of Fine Arts of Córdoba). Source: Wikipedia

Seneca was not a classic philosopher with a great theoretical or metaphysical corpus. On the contrary, the Cordoba thinker He forged a practical philosophy focused on ethics: Seneca does not address the great enigmas of philosophy, but focuses its reflections towards the way to find happiness.

His main works are dialogues in which it deals with a specific topic that develops even conclusions. This simple structure of his philosophical works that precedes the trialit is one of the reasons that explain their subsequent importance: some of his books They have been compared to self -help manuals.

Among the most important works of Seneca is the dialogue Of the tranquility of the soulwhich summarizes a good part of its stoic doctrine. This is where the concept of ataraxia already used by Democritus and that is found as the key to a balanced and happy life.

Ataraxia would be a higher state of equilibrium that the subject would reach when controlling their passionsshowing strength of spirit in the face of adversity. Just guiding us for the principles of reason and virtue we will manage to control passions and desires, achieving that serenity that precedes full happiness. Thus, virtue will derive from rationality, and intelligence should analyze and clarify the passions, eliminating how dark and irrational there are: “The most powerful man is the one who owns himself”.

On the other hand, Seneca also showed some revolutionary ideas for his time, such as the commitment to a Universal Fraternity overcoming the limits of concepts as homeland or city or its rejection of slavery at a time when slaves held the Roman Empire.

Seneca, the contradiction of an influential thinker

Detail of the ‘Suicide of Seneca’ by Manuel Domínguez Sánchez. Source: Wikipedia

The Cordoba philosopher not only reaped numerous followers in life, but it was a long time later when his figure reached its greatest dimension. The rejection of Roman mythology, its tendency to monotheism and its defense of moral virtue They put it in the radar of the first Christian philosophers who sought hard references to incorporate into their new doctrine.

In fact, his life is part of the Christian golden legend narrating his assumptions Encounters and letters with San Pablocontemporary of the Cordoba. It is even claimed that His suicide in the bathroom was actually a baptism in which Pablo de Tarso himself intervened.

Despite the influence he had in the Medievo, it was in the Renaissance, by the hand of figures such as Erasmus of Rotterdamwhen Seneca reaches the zenith of his fame. His anthropocentrism and humanism, The affirmation of the equality of men And, again, his defense of moral virtue in a sober and serene life fit perfectly with the humanistic ideology of the Renaissance.

However, we must not forget that, according to a good part of his biographers, Seneca did not live according to what he advocated. He got carried away by ambition, betrayed several of his defenders to save his life – he did not condemn the murder of his former agripina councilor by his son Nero—,, defended the indefensible to stay in power And he did not reject the luxuries provided by his positions, in addition to maintaining some vices that he himself said.

For all this, he was frequently accused of a hypocritical. But as Seneca would say: “We need the whole life to learn to live”even if you have as good intentions as the great Cordoba thinker.