Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Seneca:
His Character and Environment
estate. There were always groups and coteries of
noble men and women who kept themselves free from
the prevailing corruption. There w;is always a sav
ing remnant that remained uncontaminated. Quintillian
was the center of such a group, and what he
was in Rome, Plutarch was in another part of the
empire, for they were almost exactly contemporaries.
The belief in God. in the immortality of the human
soul, and in man s personal responsibility to a higher
power, kept some, perhaps many, who were not di
rectly under the degrading
influence of the court, or
who had the moral strength to resist it. from deviating
very far from the path
of rectitude. There were
slaves of whom better things could be said than of
their masters.
But what were these among so many?
Seneca and other writers of his time frequently
to be
express contempt for those men who professed
philosophers, and whose lives brought only disgrace
upon the fair name of philosophy. He does not seem
to be aware that, in a measure at least, he is recording
an unfavorable verdict upon himself. Does lie think
that his abstemiousness, his untiring industry, his de
votion to study ought to cover his shortcomings?
ft
looks so. He commends solitude, yet always re
mained in the noonday of publicity. He inveighs
against riches, yet was the possessor of vast estates,
and was not above lending money at usurious rates of
interest. He teaches men to bear with fortitude the
inevitable ills of life, and ends by commending
suicide as a final resort. Compared with Socrates,