Ancient education. Seneca, Epistulae 1.6.4-7

When we think of education, we often think of large groups of strangers memorizing and repeating the same information. Here Seneca offers interesting insight into a very different view from antiquity: education for him requires constant association between individuals who know each other mutually, in a familiar and intimate sense that transcends any reduction to purely abstract information. Ancient students live with their teachers instead of taking degrees, and what they learn is more a manner of behaving than anything else. Seneca might not even recognize what we do in our schools as philosophy, certainly not when we pretend that it can be gotten via information alone. You can hear the Latin <here>.

Concipere animo non potes quantum momenti afferri mihi singulos dies videam. Mitte inquis et nobis ista quae tam efficacia expertus es. Ego vero omnia in te cupio transfundere, et in hoc aliquid gaudeo discere, ut doceam; nec me ulla res delectabit, licet sit eximia et salutaris, quam mihi uni sciturus sum. Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia, ut illam inclusam teneam nec enuntiem, reiciam: nullius boni sine socio iucunda possessio est.

Mittam itaque ipsos tibi libros, et ne multum operae impendas dum passim profutura sectaris, imponam notas, ut ad ipsa protinus quae probo et miror accedas. Plus tamen tibi et viva vox et convictus quam oratio proderit; in rem praesentem venias oportet, primum quia homines amplius oculis quam auribus credunt, deinde quia longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla. Zenonem Cleanthes non expressisset, si tantummodo audisset: vitae eius interfuit, secreta perspexit, observavit illum, an ex formula sua viveret. Platon et Aristoteles et omnis in diversum itura sapientium turba plus ex moribus quam ex verbis Socratis traxit; Metrodorum et Hermarchum et Polyaenum magnos viros non schola Epicuri sed contubernium fecit. Nec in hoc te accerso tantum, ut proficias, sed ut prosis; plurimum enim alter alteri conferemus.

Interim quoniam diurnam tibi mercedulam debeo, quid me hodie apud Hecatonem delectaverit dicam. Quaeris inquit quid profecerim? amicus esse mihi coepi. Multum profecit: numquam erit solus. Scito esse hunc amicum omnibus. Vale. 

 

Your mind is surely incapable of grasping how much I am moved over the course of one day. “Send me the ideas whose power your experience has proven!” you say. I really wish I could pour them all out for you, and it is a joy to me to learn something unexpected, that I am a teacher. There is nothing I would like better, however outstanding or excellent it might be, than to recognize myself in this role. But if wisdom is given here on the understanding that I have her, that I have walled her in and refuse to publish my discovery, then I must reject it. No good comes from holding onto things you cannot share.

So I shall send you books, and to help you avoid wasting time as you search them for useful ideas, I shall include notes, that you may speedily find the passages that have won my approval and admiration. But meeting my voice live in intimate, prolonged conversation is going to help you more than any prepared discourse. It is important to meet your ideas in real life, embodied in people and things close to you—first, because humans rely more on eyes than ears, and second, because the road to wisdom is long when travelled by precept, but short and quick when we go by example. Cleanthes would never have really gotten Zeno (†), if he had only heard him speak. Instead, he became part of his life, observing his behavior and looking carefully at his secrets, to see whether he lived by his own principles, or not. Plato, Aristotle, and all the crowd of other wise men whose wandering took them down many different paths—they took more from Socrates' habits than from anything he said (‡). It was not the school of Epicurus that made Metrodorus, Hermarchus, and Polyaenus into great men, but the constant association they all shared (*). So I invite you here to this task not merely for your own sake, but for mine as well: together we will accomplish the greatest good of which we are capable.

In the meantime I owe you a little something to chew on, so I will share this aphorism from Hecato, which has made my day: “You ask what progress I have made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.” A great achievement: now he will never be alone. This, you should know, is a friend for all seasons. Farewell.

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(†) Zeno of Citium (not Elea! c. 334-262 BCE) was the founder of a philosophical school known as Stoicism, on account of the Stoa Poikile ('Painted Porch') where he taught in the marketplace of Athens. His philosophy, which attempted to represent Nature accurately (logical physics) with the goal of cultivating rational virtue (logical ethics), was developed as a result of his interest in dead sages, including Socrates, and their living heirs, notably Crates of Thebes (c. 365-285 BCE). Crates was famous for renouncing a fortune to live a beggar's life on the streets of Athens, where he and his wife Hipparcheia exemplified and taught others to recognize the difference between needs and wants, nature and luxury. Zeno was impressed, and became one of their students.

(‡) Many different philosophers came out of the circle of students who gathered around Socrates (c. 470-399 BCE), and his pupils. Plato was one of those who knew Socrates personally; Aristotle came later, studying with Plato before going off on his own. Other students who took Socrates' teachings in different directions include Xenophon (who wrote many books we still possess about Socrates and other interesting events), Antisthenes (a founder of the Cynic school that produced ascetics like Crates), and Aristippus (who founded the Cyrenaic school, which embraced a form of life summarizable as ethical hedonism).

(*) Epicurus (341-270 BCE) taught an approach to philosophy that some saw as diametrically opposed to Zeno's Stoicism, because it placed emphasis on accident rather than purpose in physics, and recommended the avoidance of politics in ethics. His students gathered in a school called the Garden, which Seneca describes here as offering the kind of close personal association Roman soldiers had with tent-mates on campaign (contubernium). One interesting thing to notice: the Garden was open to women as well as men. Its most prevalent ethical goal was peace of mind (ἀταραξία), which it identified as the greatest pleasure possible for human beings.