Does Seneca’s financial prosperity negate the validity of Stoic philosophy or does it render every written work of his useless?
The Stoics did not believe in the “evilness” of money; nor do they say, ‘If you have no money, then you are a morally good person.’
However, there exists an insurmountable conflict between Seneca’s wealth, his powerful position of authority within an empire, and his connections to Julius Caesar Augustus (or King of Rome, which was known as Caesar Augustus) and the eventual emperor Nero. Instead of denying this conflict exists, let’s explore it further.
The most honest answer, to the question, to start with, is probably neither that Seneca was a fraud nor his wealth is irrelevant. His philosophy gives us standards by which wealth may be held; the historical record gives us reasons to ask whether he always met those standards.
Let’s the investigation begin!
