I

September 8th

DO NOT BE DECEIVED BY FORTUNE

“No one is crushed by Fortune, unless they are first deceived by

her... those who aren’t pompous in good times, don’t have their

bubbles burst with change. Against either circumstance, the stable

person keeps their rational soul invincible, for it’s precisely in the

good times they prove their strength against adversity.”

—SENECA, ON CONSOLATION TO HELVIA, 5.4b, 5 b–6

n 41 AD, Seneca was exiled from Rome to Corsica—for what exactly, we
are not sure, but the rumors were that he had an affair with the sister of
the emperor. Shortly afterward, he sent a letter to his mother seeking to
reassure her and comfort her in her grief. But in many ways, he must have
been speaking to himself as well—scolding himself a little for this
unexpected twist he was taking pretty hard.
He’d managed to achieve some measure of political and social success.
He might have chased some pleasures of the flesh. Now he and his family
were dealing with the consequences—as we all must bear for our behavior
and for the risks we take.
How would he respond? How would he deal with it? Well, at the very
least, his instincts were to comfort his mother instead of simply bemoaning
his own suffering. Though some other letters show that Seneca begged and
lobbied for his return to Rome and power (a request eventually granted), he
seems to have borne the pain and disgrace of exile fairly well. The
philosophy that he’d long studied prepared him for this kind of adversity
and gave him the determination and patience he needed to wait it out. When
he found his fortune restored as he returned to power, philosophy prevented
him from taking it for granted or becoming dependent on it. This was good
because fortune had another turn in store for him. When the new emperor