Seneca’s line of defense relies on his earlier distinction between the sapiens, complete in Stoic wisdom, and others still striving. “I am not a sapiens, nor—let me give you food for your malice!—will I ever be,” he replies to his accusers. “Demand from me not that I be equal to the best, but better than the bad.… I have not attained good health, nor will I; I mix only pain-killers, not cures, for my gout.” Riches do not befit a wise man, Seneca concedes, but since he is not one, the rule doesn’t apply. He argues, in effect, that he need not practice virtue until he has attained it—even if, as
...more
