James S. Romm is one of the latest Classicists to develop a project that has a public reach, as well as an academic one. His newly translated collection of Seneca’s major works on the theme of death comes in the form of a small, discrete black book. Its antique cover image of the philosopher, depicted as preparing to die, is based on Rubens’s painting on the same theme.

Seneca the Younger has received a revival of late. Several new interpretative works have appeared, as well as new translations. Romm also wrote a biography of the Stoic philosopher and statesman in 2014, which contributed to the renewed interest in this important Roman figure. A prolific author, Seneca covered several genres, from tragedy, dialogues, essays, consolations, and epistles. In each of his works, Seneca explores Stoic principles and ideals, ensuring that even in his tragedies there is moral advice on living well and avoiding evil.

Central to Stoic philosophy is not only the art of living, but also the art of dying. To live a full, meaningful, and ethical life is to willingly participate in the process of dying a little each day. To practise this is to practise acceptance; to practise acceptance is to live at peace; to live at peace is to live happily. It goes without saying that such an economy of life advice is nowhere more pressing than it is today. However, those who have contemplated Seneca’s wisdom would have undoubtedly thought the same over millennia.

If you need advice on how to die well – because, for Seneca and the Stoics, there are several ways to do this, as well as several ways not to do this – then Romm’s small collection may prove beneficial. The book provides translations of passages from Seneca’s works, including the Moral Epistles, which take the form of letters of instruction to his friend Lucilius. Throughout the correspondence, Seneca deals with the theme of death regularly, sometimes devoting entire letters to it. Occasionally, he is densely philosophical. At other times, he is concise and light: ‘I make it so that my day is a small version of my whole life. I don’t, by Hercules, grab at it as though it were my last one, but I look upon it as though it could be my last.’

Romm also includes excerpts from the Consolation to Marcia, an epistle in the form of an essay in the same vein as the correspondence to Lucilius. As the epistles were intended for publication, and therefore for an audience beyond the addressees, Seneca adopts a formal, rhetorical style with didactic purpose. In the Consolation to Marcia, he advises the grieving mother on how to contemplate the death of her adolescent son, Metilius: ‘Death is the undoing of all our sorrows, and end beyond which our ills cannot go; it returns us to that peace in which we reposed before we were born.’

Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, Seneca’s Suicide, 1871 (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, via Flickr)

Other excerpts come from Natural Questions, a collection of seven extant books on natural philosophy, which promote the Stoic dictum of living in harmony with the earth, the heavens, the waters, and the elements. Like the moment of one’s birth, the moment of one’s death is preordained in accordance to the dictum of nature, and to accept this is to accept and therefore shed fear. The message here, as elsewhere in the Senecan canon, is to become part of the whole.

According to Stoics, the only bad death is a cowardly one. Seneca, therefore, saw no problem with suicide, which he equated with freedom. This is clearly articulated in his essay, On Anger, excerpts from which Romm also includes. The endorsement of suicide as an admirable and brave death not only reflects Stoic acceptance, but also the era in which Seneca lived and died. Having experienced the reigns of two of Rome’s most uncontrollable and dangerous emperors, Caligula and Nero, Seneca was witness to several men close to him who took the honourable way out, and ultimately committed suicide himself. In one of the last passages of Romm’s book, in an excerpt from another long essay, On Providence, Seneca clearly found solace in the idea of death by one’s own hand: ‘Death sanctifies those whose exit wins praise even from those in whom it inspires fear.’

In 65 CE, at close to seventy years of age, Seneca opened his veins and embraced death. He did so willingly, on the orders of Nero. Romm’s last section in How to Die is an epilogue entitled ‘Practice What You Preach’, which is an excerpt from Tacitus’s Annals on the last hours of the philosopher’s life. Indeed, as Tacitus records, Seneca did practise what he preached.

Seneca’s works have been somewhat neglected during the last century. Romm’s collection does a service in contributing to bringing the philosopher back, not only to his fellow Classicists, but to every one of us who cares enough to think about how to live and how to die. Romm’s translations are crisp and eloquent. His selections are thoughtful. And for those so inclined, there is an edited Latin text of the excerpts at the end of the collection. Not quite a book to die for, but one to enhance life.