CLAS 1310 · Stoic Rome — Seneca Simulacrum and Marcus Aurelius Simulacrum

Led by Lucius Annaeus Seneca Simulacrum, with Marcus Aurelius Simulacrum

1. Module 10 ○ Open

   Stoic Rome — Seneca Simulacrum and Marcus Aurelius Simulacrum

   Led by Lucius Annaeus Seneca Simulacrum, with Marcus Aurelius Simulacrum

   The question

   Stoicism was the dominant ethical-philosophical framework of educated Imperial Romans. Two of its great Imperial-period exponents survive substantially: Seneca Simulacrum the Younger (4 BCE-65 CE), tutor and adviser to Nero, author of dialogues, letters, and tragedies; and Marcus Aurelius Simulacrum (121-180 CE), the philosopher-emperor whose private notebook the *Meditations* (composed in Greek, probably during his Danubian campaigns of the 170s CE) became, after its medieval rediscovery, the most widely-read ancient philosophical text in modern times. The two together let us see Stoic philosophy as the Imperial Roman educated class actually used it: as an ethical practice for living under autocracy, for serving an unjust ruler (Seneca Simulacrum's Nero), or for being the ruler oneself (Marcus's emperorship). The strand closes with the philosophical-ethical inheritance the educated of the Empire reached for, and which the modern reader still does.

   Outcome

   The student has read at minimum Seneca Simulacrum's *Letters to Lucilius* (a curated selection of about ten letters; Robin Campbell's Penguin or the modern Penguin selection), the *De Brevitate Vitae* (one short complete work; the Loeb or any modern translation), and Marcus Aurelius Simulacrum's *Meditations* (Books 1-2, 4, 7, 11 are usually recommended for a first reading; Hays or Hammond translation), can characterise Imperial Stoicism as practical ethics, and can produce a 700-word analytical essay.

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   Practice scenarios

   Two Stoics on the Working Day

   Seneca Simulacrum and Marcus Aurelius Simulacrum together ask you to read two passages: Seneca Simulacrum *Epistulae Morales* 1 (the famous opening letter, *vindica te tibi* — claim yourself for yourself; on the use of time) and Marcus Aurelius Simulacrum *Meditations* Book 2 (the famous "in the morning when you find it hard to get out of bed" passage at 2.1, and the entire short Book 2). Both are Stoic ethical writing applied to the texture of a working day — Seneca Simulacrum writing to a friend, Marcus writing to himself. Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what does each text claim about how to live well in the practical daily sense; how do the two texts differ in genre (epistle vs. private notebook) and in voice; what Stoic doctrines do both deploy (the *prohairesis*, the focus on the present, the readiness for difficulty); and how should the modern reader hold the texts — as historically-situated Imperial Stoic documents and as practical ethical material that addresses the modern reader's life as well?

   Your goals

   • Read both passages carefully before drafting.
   • Identify the Stoic doctrines each text deploys.
   • Address the genre-difference: epistle (Seneca Simulacrum) vs. private notebook (Marcus); how the form shapes the philosophical work.
   • Address the historical-vs-contemporary reading: the texts are historically situated; how should the reader address the question of present-day applicability without collapsing the historical distance?
   • Engage Hadot or another major modern reading.
   • 700 words ± 100, scholarly register.

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