Letter 17On Philosophy and Riches

The letter, part by part

7 parts, following the website’s sections. Each has a short explanation and its key line. Open “Read this part in full” for the complete text. Tap a dotted word for its meaning.

1. Part 1

   You don’t yet see what philosophy can do

   Seneca opens at a run: drop all that, race for a sound mind, and untie or cut whatever holds you back. Lucilius objects that he must first arrange his estate so it can keep him later. Seneca says he hasn’t grasped how far philosophy reaches: it helps in the biggest matters and the smallest. Ask wisdom, and she’ll tell you to get up from your ledger.

   If any bond holds you back, untie it, or sever it.

   si quid est quo teneris, aut expedi aut incide.

   If a bond holds you, cut it

   Read this part in full

   Cast away everything of that sort, if you are wise; nay, rather that you may be wise; strive toward a sound mind at top speed and with your whole strength. If any bond holds you back, untie it, or sever it. “But,” you say, “my estate delays me; I wish to make such disposition of it that it may suffice for me when I have nothing to do, lest either poverty be a burden to me, or I myself a burden to others.”

   You do not seem, when you say this, to know the strength and power of that good which you are considering. You do indeed grasp the all-important thing, the great benefit which philosophy confers, but you do not yet discern accurately its various functions, nor do you yet know how great is the help we receive from philosophy in everything, everywhere,—how, (to use Cicero’s language,) it not only succours us in the greatest matters but also descends to the smallest. Take my advice; call wisdom into consultation; she will advise you not to sit for ever at your ledger.

2. Part 2

   What if poverty is worth wanting?

   Lucilius is delaying so he’ll never have to fear poverty. But what if poverty is worth wanting? Riches have kept many from wisdom, while the poor man has nothing to guard: at the war trumpet he knows he isn’t the target, and no retinue crowds the quay when he sails. A few stomachs are easy to fill; it’s squeamishness that costs.

   Hunger costs but little; squeamishness costs much.

   parvo fames constat, magno fastidium.

   Hunger is cheap; fussiness costs a fortune

   Read this part in full

   Doubtless, your object, what you wish to attain by such postponement of your studies, is that poverty may not have to be feared by you. But what if it is something to be desired? Riches have shut off many a man from the attainment of wisdom; poverty is unburdened and free from care. When the trumpet sounds, the poor man knows that he is not being attacked; when there is a cry of “Fire,” he only seeks a way of escape, and does not ask what he can save; if the poor man must go to sea, the harbour does not resound, nor do the wharves bustle with the retinue of one individual. No throng of slaves surrounds the poor man,—slaves for whose mouths the master must covet the fertile crops of regions beyond the sea.

   It is easy to fill a few stomachs, when they are well trained and crave nothing else but to be filled. Hunger costs but little; squeamishness costs much. Poverty is contented with fulfilling pressing needs.

3. Part 3

   Be poor, or live like the poor

   Even a rich man, when sensible, copies philosophy’s plain ways. If you want time for your mind, be poor or live as if you were: plain living is voluntary poverty. So drop the excuse “once I have enough.” Wisdom should come first; earn a living if you must, but learn while you earn.

   If you wish to have leisure for your mind, either be a poor man, or resemble a poor man.

   Si vis vacare animo, aut pauper sis oportet aut pauperi similis.

   Want leisure? Live like a poor man

   Historical note: Roman Stoics held that a person could choose to leave life when living well became impossible; Seneca touches on it here and again in Part 6. The website reads the line as being about inner freedom: dignity stays within reach whatever happens.

   Read this part in full

   Why, then, should you reject Philosophy as a comrade? Even the rich man copies her ways when he is in his senses. If you wish to have leisure for your mind, either be a poor man, or resemble a poor man. Study cannot be helpful unless you take pains to live simply; and living simply is voluntary poverty. Away, then, with all excuses like: “I have not yet enough; when I have gained the desired amount, then I shall devote myself wholly to philosophy.” And yet this ideal, which you are putting off and placing second to other interests, should be secured first of all; you should begin with it. You retort: “I wish to acquire something to live on.” Yes, but learn while you are acquiring it; for if anything forbids you to live nobly, nothing forbids you to die nobly.

4. Part 4

   Not even hunger is a reason to stop

   Not even real want should pull you away from philosophy. Besieged towns have starved just to avoid falling to the enemy; armies have lived on roots to win a kingdom for someone else. Philosophy promises far more: lasting freedom, and fear of neither god nor man. So why balk at poverty, if it frees your mind from madness?

   Will any man hesitate to endure poverty, in order that he may free his mind from madness?

   dubitabit aliquis ferre paupertatem ut animum furoribus liberet?

   Armies starve for another man’s crown

   Read this part in full

   There is no reason why poverty should call us away from philosophy,—no, nor even actual want. For when hastening after wisdom, we must endure even hunger. Men have endured hunger when their towns were besieged, and what other reward for their endurance did they obtain than that they did not fall under the conqueror’s power? How much greater is the promise of the prize of everlasting liberty, and the assurance that we need fear neither God nor man! Even though we starve, we must reach that goal.

   Armies have endured all manner of want, have lived on roots, and have resisted hunger by means of food too revolting to mention. All this they have suffered to gain a kingdom, and,—what is more marvellous,—to gain a kingdom that will be another’s. Will any man hesitate to endure poverty, in order that he may free his mind from madness?

5. Part 5

   Wisdom won’t wait until you’re rich

   So don’t pile up money first: you can reach philosophy without money for the journey. Is wisdom to be the last thing you acquire, a supplement once you own everything else? No: be a philosopher now. If you have something, you may already have too much; if you have nothing, seek understanding before anything else.

   Be a philosopher now, whether you have anything or not.

   sive aliquid habes, iam philosophare

   Wisdom is the base, not the extra

   Read this part in full

   Therefore one should not seek to lay up riches first; one may attain to philosophy, however, even without money for the journey. It is indeed so. After you have come to possess all other things, shall you then wish to possess wisdom also? Is philosophy to be the last requisite in life,—a sort of supplement? Nay, your plan should be this: be a philosopher now, whether you have anything or not,—for if you have anything, how do you know that you have not too much already?—but if you have nothing, seek understanding first, before anything else.

6. Part 6

   “But I’ll go without the necessities”

   You can’t, says Seneca: nature asks for little, and the wise man fits his needs to nature. With scant means he sees to food and clothing and laughs at the rush of people chasing wealth. Why wait for interest, a trading profit, or a place in the will of some wealthy old man? Wisdom pays at once. And whatever the age, enough stays the same.

   But in every age, what is enough remains the same.

   idem est autem omni saeculo quod sat est.

   Interest
   waiting to fall due

   Cargo
   waiting on a profit

   A will
   waiting for a rich man to die

   Read this part in full

   “But,” you say, “I shall lack the necessities of life.” In the first place, you cannot lack them; because nature demands but little, and the wise man suits his needs to nature. But if the utmost pinch of need arrives, he will quickly take leave of life and cease being a trouble to himself. If, however, his means of existence are meagre and scanty, he will make the best of them, without being anxious or worried about anything more than the bare necessities; he will do justice to his belly and his shoulders; with free and happy spirit he will laugh at the bustling of rich men, and the flurried ways of those who are hastening after wealth, and say: “Why of your own accord postpone your real life to the distant future? Shall you wait for some interest to fall due, or for some income on your merchandise, or for a place in the will of some wealthy old man, when you can be rich here and now. Wisdom offers wealth in ready money, and pays it over to those in whose eyes she has made wealth superfluous.”

   These remarks refer to other men; you are nearer the rich class. Change the age in which you live, and you have too much. But in every age, what is enough remains the same.

7. Part 7

   A sick mind takes its sickness everywhere

   Seneca could stop here, but he has spoiled Lucilius with parting gifts: as with Parthian royalty, no greeting without a present. So he borrows from Epicurus: for many, getting rich didn’t end their troubles, it changed them. The fault is in the mind, not the money. Move a sick man from a wooden bed to a golden one and his fever comes too.

   For the fault is not in the wealth, but in the mind itself.

   non est enim in rebus vitium sed in ipso animo.

   Gold bed or wooden, same fever

   Read this part in full

   I might close my letter at this point, if I had not got you into bad habits. One cannot greet Parthian royalty without bringing a gift; and in your case I cannot say farewell without paying a price. But what of it? I shall borrow from Epicurus: “The acquisition of riches has been for many men, not an end, but a change, of troubles.”

   I do not wonder. For the fault is not in the wealth, but in the mind itself. That which had made poverty a burden to us, has made riches also a burden. Just as it matters little whether you lay a sick man on a wooden or on a golden bed, for whithersoever he be moved he will carry his malady with him; so one need not care whether the diseased mind is bestowed upon riches or upon poverty. His malady goes with the man. Farewell.

The modern take

The website breaks Letter 17 into 11 lessons for today. I’ve grouped them into 4 themes; each lesson is summarised in plain words.

Read the website’s own translation and full breakdown

Words

Harder words and names from the letter, in the order they appear.

Lucilius

Seneca’s younger friend, a Roman knight serving as the emperor’s agent in Sicily. All 124 letters are written to him.

estate

Latin res familiaris: the family property, its land, money and household. Lucilius wants it set up to keep him in retirement.

Cicero

Rome’s great orator and statesman (106–43 BC), who also wrote popular books of philosophy.

ledger

Literally “counting pebbles” (calculi): Romans did their sums by moving pebbles on a counting board.

trumpet

The war trumpet (classicum) that signalled an attack. The poor man knows no raider is after him.

“Fire”

Seneca’s Latin has the cry “Water!”, the shout Romans raised when a house caught fire.

retinue

The crowd of slaves, servants and hangers-on that travelled with a rich Roman.

squeamishness

Latin fastidium: a jaded, fussy appetite that turns up its nose at plain food.

voluntary poverty

Seneca’s own definition of frugalitas, plain living: poverty you choose rather than suffer.

comrade

Latin contubernalis, a tent-mate: soldiers who shared a tent. Seneca means philosophy as a live-in companion.

madness

The Stoics called the passions, such as greed and fear, a kind of madness (furor) of the mind.

money for the journey

Latin viaticum: travel money, the allowance you set out on a journey with.

supplement

An add-on tacked on at the end (Latin additamentum).

requisite

Latin instrumentum: the equipment or furnishings of a life. Is wisdom the last thing you kit yourself out with?

interest

Profit on money lent out. Moneylending was a standard way for rich Romans to grow their wealth.

will of some wealthy old man

Legacy-hunting was a notorious Roman pastime: courting rich, childless old men in the hope of being named in their wills.

belly and his shoulders

Food and clothing: the stomach to be filled and the back to be covered.

ready money

Cash paid down on the spot. Wisdom pays now, not at some future date.

rich class

Lucilius was a Roman knight (eques), the wealthy rank just below the senators.

Parthian royalty

The kings of Parthia, Rome’s great rival empire in the east (roughly modern Iran and Iraq). No one approached them without a gift.

Epicurus

Greek philosopher (341–270 BC) who taught that the happy life is a calm one. Seneca ends many of these early letters with a line of his.

whithersoever

Old-fashioned for “wherever”.

malady

An illness or disease.