Note 68 — Chapter XIV · THE LATER AGE OF THE GREEK WORLD PART I PHILOSOPHY

Where Seneca admits more positive conceptions of a life after death he never goes beyond a fortasse, si modo vera sapientium fama est (Ep. 63, 16); a deliberate concession to the consensus hominum (Ep. 117, 6) or the opiniones magnorum virorum rem gratissimam promittentium magis quam probantium (Ep. 102, 3). Following the conventional style of consolatory discourses he gives such expressions a more vivid turn in the Consolationes: e.g. Marc. 25, 1 ff.; Helv. 11, 7; Polyb. 9, 8. But even there the idea of personal immortality hardly seems to be taken seriously. In the same pieces death is commended simply as putting an end to all pain, and, in fact, to all sensation: Marc. 19, 4–5. In death we become again as we were before being born, Marc. 19, 5; cf. Ep. 54, 4, mors est non esse, id quale sit iam scio. hoc erit post me quod ante me fuit; and Ep. 77, 11, non eris: nec fuisti. So that whether death is a finis or a transitus, (Prov. 6, 6; Ep. 65, 24), it is equally welcome to the wise man who has made the most of his life, however short it may have been. Whether he goes then to the gods or whether on the other hand nothing is left of the mortal creature after death aeque magnum animum habebit (Ep. 93, 10); cf. nunquam magis divinum est (pectus humanum) quam ubi mortalitatem suam cogitat, et scit in hoc natum hominem ut vita defungeretur cet., (Ep. 120, 14); ipsum perire non est magnum, anima in expedito est habenda (QN. 6, 32, 5); to be ready is everything.—Of the old Stoic dogmas the only one that seems to remain certain for Seneca is that of παλιγγενεσία at the new creation of the world, Ep. 36, 10–11: mors intermittit vitam, non eripit: venit iterum qui nos in lucem reponat dies; but that is not in any way a consolation: multi recusarent nisi oblitos reduceret. Consciousness ceases with the coming of death in this world-period.