This refusal to lament Campania’s fate exemplifies the Stoic approach to misfortune. Happiness comes not from one’s circumstances but from cultivation of Reason, the Stoics taught; a true sage, a sapiens, would be unharmed by torture or loss, even loss of life. But such acceptance can translate all too easily into passivity, especially in an autocracy where death often arrives by imperial order. By insisting that death is everywhere and cannot be escaped, Seneca seems to relieve himself of the burden of action. For indeed, Seneca was taking very little action in these years to help himself or
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