Transcript

0:00
Good morning.
0:01
Before we begin, a word about the subject.
0:06
Today's story is about suicide in ancient Roman history and in ancient Stoic
0:12
argument.
0:14
If this isn't a morning for that, it's completely fine to skip this one,
0:18
and the next episode will be waiting for you.
0:21
I'll keep this to history and ethics.
0:24
There will be no detail about methods, and no account of the final hours of anyone
0:28
we meet.
0:29
And nothing here is advice.
0:32
It's an old argument, and we're looking at it from a distance.
0:36
Last time, we followed Seneca to Pompeii and into Letter 70.
0:42
He compares a life to a voyage, judged by how it is sailed and not by how long it
0:48
lasts.
0:49
We heard him write, in Richard Gummere's translation, "Accordingly,
0:53
the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can."
0:59
And we heard that this letter is one of the most debated in all of Stoicism,
1:03
because Seneca wrote it under Nero, and many readers, ancient and modern,
1:08
reject where it leads.
1:11
Today we stay with that same letter, but we look at one name inside it.
1:16
A name that Seneca drops almost in passing, as if everyone in Rome would know
1:21
exactly what it carried.
1:23
The name is Cato.