Neostoic Anger: Lipsius's Reading and Use of Seneca's Tragedies And

Chapter 5 Neostoic Anger: Lipsius’s Reading and Use of Seneca’s Tragedies and De ira

Jan Papy

Quid ratio possit? Vicit ac regnat furor, potensque tota mente dominatur deus.

What can reason do? Passion’s conquered and reigns, And a potent god commands my whole heart. Seneca, Phaedra, 184–185

The Roman Stoic Seneca was omnipresent in the humanist Justus Lipsius’s scholarly career and life.1 This life was situated in the middle of the terrors of the religious wars which tore Europe apart; this life was traumatized by the civil unrest and Spanish rule in the Low Countries.2 In Lipsius’s time death was arbitrary, freedom of speech unthinkable, fear and anger daily experi- ence. Stoicism, that philosophy always looked for in periods of crisis, was, so Lipsius argued, the welcome therapy and remedy.3 Seneca’s dramas and prose works staged death and how to face it courageously while, if possible, even strengthening one’s ability to maintain one’s consistent self-command when facing fate’s adversities and calamities.

1 Morford M., Stoics and Neostoics: Rubens and the Circle of Lipsius (Princeton: 1991) 139–80; Lagrée J., Juste Lipse et la restauration du stoïcisme. Étude et traduction des traités stoïciens De la constance, Manuel de philosophie stoïcienne, Physique des stoïciens (extraits) (Paris: 1994). 2 See, for instance, The World of Justus Lipsius: A Contribution Towards his Intellectual Biography, ed. M. Laureys et al. (= Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 68 [1998]); Mouchel C. (ed.), Juste Lipse (1547–1606) en son temps (Paris: 1996). 3 Papy J., “Virtue and Doctrine: Justus Lipsius’s Humanist Programme”, Annales Societatis Litterarum Humaniorum Regiae Upsaliensis—Kungliga Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundets i Uppsala Årsbok 1998 (1999) 197–215; De Bom E. et al. (eds.), (Un)masking the Realities of Power: Justus Lipsius’s Monita et exempla politica and the Dynamics of Political Writing in Early-Modern Europe (Leiden – Boston: 2011).

Besides, in Lipsius’s view the Stoic recipe was not only welcome, it was also simple yet demanding. The individual had to train the Self in order to overcome emotional reactions by the power of reason (ratio). Simultaneously, everyone had to teach that nothing beyond our control, including death, wealth and sickness, is evil or good in se. Moral choices are good or bad, and the only aim of Stoic philosophy is to develop virtue (virtus), including steadfastness, cour- age, goodness. The key to happiness, so Lipsius followed the Stoic doctrine, is obedience to reason, not passion. Maintaining dignity and strength of spirit under oppression, facing death as the ultimate guarantee of liberty: this was the Stoic wise man’s path of true virtue.4 Conversely, when reading Seneca’s “revenge dramas”, Lipsius could not but notice that passions and power corrupt and blind.5 Often, kingship trumps moral considerations, pursuits revenge and spreads terror. Tragic heroes and kings, victim to their passions, seek power and control over others while forget- ting Oedipus’s lines: “I abandoned the kingship gladly, but I keep the kingship over myself”.6 Yet, if the development of an internalised ability to eliminate passions was of central concern to Stoic philosophy and if the devastating effects of out-of-control passions, and especially furor or irrational savagery, have been visualised by Seneca in titanic figures of insatiable appetite for conquest and destruction,7 Lipsius could read the most extensive reflection on self-shaping and self-control in Seneca’s dialogue De ira (On Anger).8 In this dialogue, addressed to his brother Novatus, the provincial governor with virtually unlimited power over non-citizens in his jurisdiction, Seneca called for judgement (iudicium) and careful decisions (arbitria), especially when provocations might elicit over-reactions, while advocating a therapeutic

4 Morford M., “ ‘Theatrum Hodiernae Vitae’: Lipsius, Vaenius and the Rebellion of Civilis”, in Enenkel K. et al. (eds.), Recreating Ancient History: Episodes from the Greek and Roman Past in the Arts and Literatures of the Early Modern Period, (Leiden – Boston – Cologne: 2001) 57–74. On Stoic rationality and the good life, see Inwood B., Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford: 1985). 5 Schiesaro A., “Passion, Reason, and Knowledge in Seneca’s Tragedies”, in Braund S.M. – Gill C. (eds.), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (Cambridge: 1997) 89–111; Id., The Passions in Play: “Thyestes” and the Dynamics of Senecan Drama (Cambridge: 2003); Pypłacz J., The Aesthetics of Senecan Tragedy (Kraków: 2010) 9–13; Winter K., Artificia mali: das Böse als Kunstwerk in Senecas Rachetragödien (Heidelberg: 2014). 6 Seneca, Phoenissae, vv. 104–5: “regna deserui libens; / Regnum mei retineo.” 7 Braden G., Renaissance Tragedy and the Senecan Tradition: Anger’s Privilege (New Haven – London: 1985) 28. 8 Cupaoiolo G., Introduzione al De ira di Seneca (Naples: 1975).