De brevitate vitae
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~10,900 words · 52 passages
Cite this work
- APALucius Annaeus Seneca. (n.d.). De brevitate vitae. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/de-brevitate-vitae
- MLALucius Annaeus Seneca. "De brevitate vitae." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/de-brevitate-vitae.
- ChicagoLucius Annaeus Seneca. De brevitate vitae. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/de-brevitate-vitae.
What it is about
Life is not short: we waste it. An essay on time as the only true possession, and on how we lose it serving ambitions, business and waitings that never end.
Context and history
Written around AD 49 and addressed to Paulinus, superintendent of Rome's grain supply — a man buried in other people's business, like the reader Seneca imagines. The author knew what he was talking about: his own life was the opposite of quiet retirement, spanning exile in Corsica, immense power as tutor and minister to Nero, and the suicide Nero ordered him to commit in AD 65. Perhaps that is why it is the essay of his that has aged best: twenty centuries later it reads as if written yesterday.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Maior pars mortalium, Pauline, de naturae malignitate conqueritur, quod in exiguum aevi gignamur, quod haec tam velociter, tam rapide dati nobis temporis spatia decurrant, adeo ut exceptis admodum paucis ceteros in ipso vitae apparatu vita destituat. Nec huic publico, ut opinantur, malo turba tantum et imprudensimprudens inferior MSS.: impudens A. volgus ingemuit; clarorum quoque virorum hic affectus querellas evocavit. Inde illa maximi medicorum exclamatio est: 'vitam brevem esse, longam artem'; inde Aristotelis cum rerum natura exigentis minime conveniens sapienti viro lis: 'aetatis illam animalibus tantum indulsisse, ut quina aut dena saecula educerent, homini in tam multa ac magna genito tanto citeriorem terminum stare.' Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdimus. Satis longa vita et in maximarum rerum consummationem large data est, si tota bene collocaretur; sed ubi per luxum ac neglegentiam diffluit, ubi nulli bonae rei impenditur, ultima demum necessitate cogente quam ire non intelleximus transisse sentimus. Ita est: non accipimus brevem vitam, sed facimus, nec inopes eius sed prodigi sumus. Sicut amplae et regiae opes, ubi ad malum dominum pervenerunt, momento dissipantur, at quamvis modicae, si bono custodi traditae sunt, usu crescunt» ita aetas nostra bene disponenti multum patet. II. Quid de rerum natura querimur? Illa se benigne gessit; vita, si uti scias, longa est. Atat supplied by Pauly. alium insatiabilis tenet avaritia, alium in supervacuis laboribus operosa sedulitas; alius vino madet, alius inertia torpet; alium defatigat ex alienis iudiciis suspensa semper ambitio, alium mercandi praeceps cupiditas circa omnis terras, omnia maria spe lucri ducit; quosdam torquet cupido militiae numquam non aut alienis periculis intentos aut suis anxios; sunt quos ingratus superiorum cultus voluntaria servitute consumat; multos aut affectatio alienae fortunae aut suae querellaquerella Madvig: qua A: cura Haase. detinuit; plerosque nihil certum sequ