Seneca's Tenets Of Stoicism Analysis

In the first century of the common era, ancient Rome witnessed the emergence of the new major philosophy of Stoicism. Founded by Zeno in Athens, the tenets of Stoicism focused on the eradication of emotion, and particularly fear, which would lead to a life committed to self-betterment. Seneca and his contemporaries took these ideas and expanding on them, marking a shift from the Epicurean philosophy studied a generation previously. While Seneca lead an active life as tutor to Emperor Nero and friend to many powerful political elites, he spent his retirement expanding on his philosophy and composing his Letters, or moral epistles, which presented the tenets of Stoicism in the form of polite yet firm persuasion, addressed as if to a friend. Though Seneca communicated his message well, with a keen sense of his audience’s emotions and habits, Stoicism would not last to permeate the aristocracy, too unpopular was its message.
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The decay of his home villa is a relatable anecdote that he utilizes to force his audience to confront the prospect of death and aging, showing how all things must end with an example that most people have experience to some degree or another (cite 12). From here, he instructs a fearful audience to absolve their anxiety and accept their inevitable death so that they can focus on the present and improvement in themselves. Further developing this tenet, he admonishes Pacuvius for his nightly funeral procession because Pacuvius wanted only to rectify his sins lest he die, while Stoicism teaches that at any moment a person should be prepared to die as part of the natural decay of the world. The Stoic gentleman is “on the way to death since [he was] born,” the last breath of life being the final act of dying and not the entirety of it, and he accepts each hour of his death calmly and with no exhausted emotion on the subject (cite