Seneca’s Ad Marciam and Ad Helviam matrem

The rather thin egalitarianism of Stoic virtue theory is well known: women, so the theory goes, possess in principle the same capacity for vir­tue as men, though in point of fact, due to bad habit and the inculcation of false opinion, they are almost universally given to vice. Seneca applies this theory rather generously to Marcia in the first lines of his exordium. “If I did not know,” he writes, “that you, Marcia, were as far removed from womanish weakness of mind (ab infirmitate muliebris animi) as from all other vices... I should not dare to assail your grief.” Marcia is able to hear his consolation because she is not a typical woman. Indeed, as he goes on to say, she possesses a “strength of mind and virtue” characteristic of the strongest man.^[908] To put it bluntly, Seneca is able to console Marcia be­cause she is in heart not a woman but a man, and a manly man at that!^[909] He says this despite the fact that Marcia is in her third year of mourning.

Having identified Marcia’s manly qualities, Seneca immediately pro­claims that he is free to offer her traditional philosophical consolation, which is to say, rational arguments fit for a rational mind: “Let others treat you like a woman (molliter)... I will battle (confligere) with your grief” (1.5). But no sooner does he set forth this alleged agenda than he makes immediate concession to her sex in chs. 2-6, first in not beginning directly with praecepta but with exempla: mutari hunc interim morem expedit (2.1), and then in offering examples not of men but of two women: duo tibi ponam ante oculos maxima et sexus et saeculi tui exempla (2.2).

The first example is that of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, whose promising son Marcellus died in 23 b.c.e. According to Seneca, she is an example of what not to do, since she spent the remainder of her life in mourning.^[910] She refused even the most accessible form of consolation, the Epicurean avocatio: ne avocari quidem se passa est (2.4).

The second example, however, is one which Marcia should follow. It is that of Livia, the wife of Augustus, who lost her son Drusus in Germany in 9 B.C.E. Livia mourned for Drusus an appropriate amount of time and then stopped. Unlike Octavia, she took great comfort in Drusus’s memory and therefore had his picture displayed everywhere: ubique illum sibi privatim publiceque repraesentare (3.2). Most importantly, she listened to the phi­losopher Areus, the friend of her husband, who: (1) offered her a variety of technical consolatory arguments,^[911] and (2) then as a practical measure di­rected her find comfort in her surviving son and in her grandchildren by Drusus.^[912] Seneca urges Marcia to listen to his (Seneca’s) consolation as though he were her Areus (6.1).

At this point Seneca moves from exempla to a series of general praecep­ta (chs. 7-11). That he has selected these specifically for Marcia is clear from the way he prefaces them in 7:3-4. The somewhat argument is tech­nical, but it is worth quoting at length:

That you may know that it is not by the will of nature that we are crushed by sorrow, ob­serve, first, that though they suffer the same bereavement, women are wounded more deeply than men, savage people more deeply than the peaceful and civilized, the unedu­cated more deeply than the educated. But the sufferings that derive their force from na­ture have the same effect on all, so that sufferings that vary from person to person are not natural. So for example fire will burn all people alike.... Similarly, iron will exhibit its cutting force on all flesh equally....

Seneca finds it helpful to recover at this point his more strict Stoic sensi­bilities, arguing that by nature women have the same capacity for reason and virtue as men, but that it is only by bad habit (consuetude) and false opinion (opinio) that they fall short. Not surprisingly, the general praecep­ta he deploys in chs. 7-11 to remedy Marica’s grief build on Chrysippus’s Stoic theory that grief is a false opinio: sed plus est quod opinio adicit quam quod natura imperavit (7.1) Even so he does not insist, as a Stoic might, that grief is always irrational and must be thoroughly suppressed. Instead, he follows the more gentle theory of the Peripatetics and allows that grief is an appropriate response to death, provided it is moderate (chs. 7-8).^[914] He also gently reprimands Marcia for not having cultivated the habit, prescribed by the Cyrenaics, of anticipating grief and loss (chs. 9­11).^[915]

The final division of the letter comes at 12.1: Dolor tuus... utrum sua spectat imcommoda an eius qui decessit? Seneca will console Marcia from the perspective of her own loss until 19.3, after which he consoles her re­garding the misfortune that has befallen Metelius. The praecepta adduced here are not tightly organized by theme, but Seneca’s basic strategy will again stop short of a rigorous Stoicism. Rather, following this time the milder technique of the Epicureans, he urges Marcia to distract herself with fond memories from Metelius’s youth (12.2).^[916] He also deploys the topos, common in the consolation of women,^[917] that Marcia seek a substi­tute for Metelius in the latter’s children: habes ex illo duas filias... has nunc Metilii tui filias in eius vicem substitue et vacantem locum expel et unum dolorem geminato solacio leva!^[918] And in her own two surviving daughters: respice tot nepotes, duas filias (16.8).

At 16.1 he reiterates his Stoic principle that women are just as equipped for virtue by nature as men, provided they have cultivated the right habits:

Now who says that nature has dealt grudgingly with women’s natures and has narrowly restricted their virtues? Believe me, they have just as much ability, just as much capacity, if they like, for virtuous action as men; they are just as able to endure suffering and hard­ship, provided they have become habituated (si consuevere) to them.

He supports this with examples of four women: Lucretia, Cloelia, Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi, and Cornelia the wife of M. Livius Drusus (cos. 112 B.C.E.) whose son was mysteriously murdered in his home (16.2-4).

At 19.3 Seneca turns to Metelius’s own misfortune as a possible basis for Marcia’s grief: Scio quid dicas: non movent me detrimenta mea: etenim non est dignus solacio qui filium sibi decessisse sicut mancipium moleste fert, cui quicquam in filio respicere praeter ipsum vacat. He divides this section into two parts: utrum quod filius tuus decessit an quod non diu vixit (19.4). As we might expect, the fact that Marcia is a woman does little to affect Seneca’s consolation here, since strictly speaking he is now focused on Metelius own fate. He simply repeats at length the common topoi on the fate of the departed (either they cease to exist or they are in bliss; cf. Pl., Ap. 40C), and on the much discussed problem of premature death (e.g., life is not measured by length but quality; death delivers the young from lives many temptations and pains, etc.).^[919]

The peroratio of ch. 26 takes the form of a moving npooMUonoiia of Marcia’s father Cremutius Cordus (ch. 26). This is an elegant conclusion since it recalls the description of Cremutius’s fate in the exordium of ch. 1.

II. The Ad Helviam matrem

Let me turn now to the Ad Helviam matrem, Seneca’s letter of consolation to his mother Helvia written on the occasion of his exile.^[920] Seneca was rel­egated to the island of Corsica in 41 c.e.

The exordium is taken up for the most part with the traditional topos of whether or not to write.^[924] Unlike the Ad Marciam, in which he begins by making repeated reference to Marcia’s sex, Seneca makes only passing reference to his mother’s sex: Lamentationes quidem et eiulatus et alia per quae muliebris dolor tumultuatur amove (3.2). Even more unlike the Ad Marciam, Seneca promises a much more rigorous Stoic approach to his mother’s grief, eschewing in particular the Epicurean technique of distrac­tion (caricatured as “deception”): Ecquid videor non timide tecum egisse?... constitui enim vincere dolorem tuum, non circumscribere (4.1).^[925]

Turning to the propositio or thesis statement in 4.1,^[926] Seneca proposes that he will be able to alleviate his mother’s grief if he approaches her pre­dicament from two directions. He writes:

And conquer your grief I shall, if first of all I show that I am suffering nothing for which I could be called miserable, let along make my relations miserable; then if I turn to you and show that your fortune, which depends so much on my own, is also not grievous.

Seneca’s strategy is commonsensical: his mother is grieved by his exile and so he takes as his primary objective to prove to her that his exile is not an occasion for grief, either for himself or for her.^[927] An additional concern is that his exile might be creating hardships for his mother back in Rome, and so he adds as a second objective to show that his mother’s own situa­tion has not been rendered particularly difficult by his exile. He will ad­dress these concerns in order in the probatio in 4.2-19.7.

The probatio (4.2-19.7) is in two parts or headings corresponding to the two elements of the thesis statement. The first heading is in 4.2-13.8. Sen­eca begins by restating more fully, and with considerably more bravado,^[928] the first element of his propositio, namely, that his mother has no reason to be grieved for his sake since nothing bad has happened to him, and he is himself not grieved by his present circumstances:^[929]

First, then, I shall proceed to prove what your love is eager to hear: namely, that nothing bad has happened to me (nihil mihi mali esse).... I am happy (beatus) in circumstances that usually make others miserable.... [Indeed] it is not even possible to make me un­happy (ne fieri quidem me posse miserum)!

He supports this claim with two arguments. The first argument outlines his response to misfortune in general (5.1-6), while the second is more to the point, treating the specific misfortune of exile (6.1-13.8).

With regard to misfortune in general Seneca reports that he has protect­ed himself against grief by two means. His first line of defense is the Stoic distinction between the things that do and do not matter: leve momentum in adventiciis rebus est et quod in neutram partem magnas vires habeat: nec secunda sapientem evehunt nec adversademittunt.⁸ The reason for this, he goes on to explain, is that the wise man endeavors always “to rely entirely upon himself and to derive from himself all of his joy.” Seneca, of course, cannot lay claim to having actually become a Stoic sage, so while retaining the Stoic position as his ideal, he flees to “another camp” (aliena castra), that of the Cyrenaics, where he finds a second more realistic de­fense against grief in their practice of the praemeditatio futuri mali: illis gravis [fortuna] est quibus repentina est; facile eam sustinet qui semper expectat (5.3).^{[930] [931] [932] Seneca assures his mother that, because he has been care­ful to distinguish between the things that do and do not matter, and be­cause in addition he has always kept himself prepared for reversals of For­tune, his present trials have not been inordinately hard to bear.[933]}

This leads to his second and more specific argument regarding exile, which in good Stoic fashion he will insist is a matter of indifference (6.1­13.8). To be sure, common opinion judges exile to be one of the most ex­treme forms of hardship imaginable, involving loss of homeland (patria), enforced poverty (paupertas), and personal disgrace and scorn (ignominia et contemptus). Seneca goes to great length to refute this judgment.^[934] He treats in order each of its alleged evils: (1) the loss of homeland (6.2-9.8), (2) the imposition of poverty (10.1-12.7), and (3) the experience of dis­grace and scorn (13.1-8).^[935] He concludes that whether viewed separately or taken together these alleged evils are all matters of indifference. All that matters for the happiness of a wise man is “his own virtue” (propria virtus) and his access to the goods of “nature broadly conceived” (natura com­munis). Since neither of these is taken away in exile, exile is by definition a matter of indifference to the wise man. At several points Seneca remarks that for those such as himself still making progress in virtue, exile and its hardships can actually work for good, as when, for instance, poverty re­moves the distractions of riches.^[936]

The second heading of the probatio is in 14.1-19.7. Here Seneca takes up the second element in the thesis statement of 4.1: namely, that nothing bad has happened to his mother either: quoniam meo nomine nihil habes, mater carissima, quod te in infinitas lacrimas agat, sequitur ut causae tuae te stimulent (14.1).^[937] Seneca will attempt to maintain his essentially Stoic approach to consolation, even as he turns to his mother. But since his con­cern at this point is not to establish his own equanimity but the consolation of his mother per se, he must by necessity take into account her sex, even while attempting to maintain the Stoic line.

Seneca can imagine two possible sources of grief for his mother: (1) that with his exile she feels that she has “lost some protection,” and (2) that she deeply misses her him. He dismisses the first out of hand as un­worthy of his mother, who has never fretted inordinately for herself (14.2­3). He therefore focuses his consolation exclusively on the second possible source for grief, the fact that his mother misses him: Illo omnis consolatio mihi vertenda est unde vera vis materni doloris oritur: “ergo complexu fili carissimi careo; non conspectus eius, non sermone possum frui” (15.1).

Seneca’s efforts to comfort his mother in 15.1-19.7 may be divided into two pieces of consolation (chs. 16-17 and 18-19), prefaced by brief words of sympathy (ch. 15).^[938] In the first of these (chs. 16-17), Seneca insists that his mother make no compromises with her grief but soundly defeat it: sen­tire desiderium et opprimere. She can do this, he is confident, because she has to date shunned all characteristically female faults, which he lists at length: unchastity, the desire for jewels, greed, abortions designed to pre­serve her girlish figure, the use of makeup, and wearing lewd and revealing garments. Free from such stereotypical womanly vices, she should now al­so be free from womanly grief: tantum debes a feminarum lacrimis abesse quantum a vitiis (16.5).^[939]

There are, however, two hindrances to Helvia’s full consolation. The first is the practice common among grieving women to distract themselves along Epicurean lines with travels and various entertainments. Seneca lik­ens this to self-deception, and urges Helvia to reject it as offering at best a partial and temporary cure.^[940] The second hindrance is more substantial: it is that Seneca’s father, despite his son’s obvious interest in philosophy, never allowed Helvia to engage in philosophical studies (liberalia studia) herself. This “traditionalism” has unquestionably harmed Helvia, for had she been allowed to study philosophy along with her son, she would now be a position to calm her grief completely as he has done. All is not lost, however. Given her quickness of mind, and the fact that she has already learned a few principles from Seneca himself, she can still achieve a level of philosophical insight that will allow her to overcome her grief. But this will take time, and so Seneca advises that his mother undertake such stud­ies immediately.

This brings us to the second piece of consolation that Seneca offers his mother. Since she cannot immediately console herself with the doctrines of the philosophers - something Seneca has earlier assured her that he him­self has done^[941] - she must find some temporary measure to heal her grief while she undertakes her studies: sed quia, dum in illum portum quem tibi studia promittunt pervenis, adminiculis quibus innitaris opus est (18.1). At this point, despite all his bluster, Seneca’s realism^[942] forces him to fall back on a stock consolation of women: Helvia is to find a replacement for him in her other sons (18.1-3), her grandchildren (1.4-8), and especially in her sister, who not only was a kind of second mother to Seneca during a for­mer protracted illness, but who, despite the fact that she too is a woman, has bravely suffered loss herself and therefore offers Helvia a noble exam­ple to follow (19.1-7).^[943]

Seneca concludes his letter of consolation to his mother with a very short peroratio (20.1-2), in which he reiterates his initial Stoic arguments that nothing bad has happened to him, that he is “happy and cheerful as in the best of circumstances,” and that in fact he is actually being benefited by his hardships.

C.