TY - JOUR AU - Spurio Venarucci, Ivan PY - 2022/11/28 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Father and Son: gli affetti privati nella Lettera 78 di Seneca JF - Lucius Annaeus Seneca JA - LAS VL - 2 IS - SE - DO - 10.13133/2785-2849/2434 UR - https://rosa.uniroma1.it/rosa01/lucius_annaeus_seneca/article/view/2434 SP - 127-158 AB - <p>This article analyses the topic of filial piety and love as it emerges from Seneca’s Letter 78. In the first part of this letter, Seneca recalls a tormenting illness that afflicted him when he was younger: he meditated about suicide, but in the end he decided to live on out of love for his old father. A painful choice, which is nevertheless justified in terms of Stoic philosophy, especially according to the οἰκείωσις theory. Three paradigms are at play behind Seneca’s self-fashioning, namely Aeneas, Hercules, and Socrates. In Letter 78, as well as in Letter 104, Seneca offers himself as an example of reasonable choice between life and death: despite Seneca’ notorious “hymns to suicide”, duties towards the loved ones are a superior reason to go on living.</p> ER -