Seneca

• Seneca thought of love as a maddened friendship and desire as a physical longing for the body
• Seneca views love as being about what you can give, rather than what you can take.

  Seneca expresses how love is good as his love for his wife Paulina makes him a better person and take care of himself more
• Paulina - Seneca's wife
• Seneca concedes that some desire and sex is necessary for procreation, but also stresses that these desires must not develop into uncontrollable passion
• DESIRE SHOULD BE CONTROLLED SO THAT REASON CAN RULE
• Lust and gluttony are the worst vices that need to be resisted
• Overindulgence of desire leads to a ruining of the body

  A new wound is created in your soul every time you give in to desire.

  The damage of lust is shown in Seneca's play Phaedra
• “He is wicked, the man who requires chastity from his wife but he himself is a seducer of others’ wives.”

  Seneca points out the hypocrisy of men and claims that everyone should be chaste, except for procreation
• Seneca claims affairs with slaves are the worst showcase of lust
• Abstinence from ALCOHOL can help resistance to unwanted desires

  and true happiness can only be achieved by freeing ourselves from vices like desire
• • SENECA DOES NOT AGREE WITH HOMOEROTIC RELATIONSHIPS 
  • Seneca believed sex was only to be for the continuation of the human race, so giving into homoerotic desires which cannot lead to procreation shows GIVING IN TO LUST.
• Apatheia - immunity to pain and the desired state of mind for stoics
• the 4 pillars of stoicism were:

  1. Justice
  2. Wisdom
  3. temperance
  4. Courage
• Seneca served with 3 emperors and fell out of favour with all of them

  1. Caligula
  2. Claudius - exiled seneca due to accused adultery
  3. Nero - Seneca was his tutor but later ordered to suicide due to implications in a plot
• There were two types of marriage in Rome:

  1. Cum manu = the woman comes under the power of her husband
  2. Sine manu = the woman stays under the power and legal protections of her father

  Sine manu marriages were seen as more advantageous as the wife would still be able to inherit her father's wealth, as well as keep and acquire her own property
• Consent was a crucial part in Roman marriage.

  Both father's had to agree to the marriage and both the bride and groom had to be willing to marry
• Romans married from 18 up rather than from around 14 in Greece
• The Julian laws gave benefits to those who were married and had children, while punishing the unmarried, denying them things like the ability to inherit legacies from wills
• The Julian laws made adultery illegal and the punishment was exile