Valediction in Seneca's Letters

Yasuko Taoka (Southern Illinois University)

Recent work on the letters of Cicero, Pliny, and Seneca has highlighted the use of specifically epistolary features in the organization of the letter-book and in the construction of an authorial persona (Henderson on Seneca (2004) and Pliny (2002), Beard (2002) and Gunderson (2007) on Cicero). This paper seeks to examine Seneca’s use of a literary feature specific to the epistolary genre: the valediction. I will demonstrate that Seneca's use of vale at the end of a letter is multivalent and imparts philosophical meaning. For Seneca, vale marks both the end of the letter and the end of life, and thus recasts the epistolary leave-taking as death. The use of vale at the end of every letter rehearses, repeats, but fails to realize the ideal death of a Stoic. This ideal is exemplified in the Letters by the figure of Cato the Younger.

Throughout the Letters Seneca often equates his epistolary presence with life. Ep. 61, on the importance of maintaining the proper attitude toward death, best demonstrates this analogy. Seneca believes it crucial that he face death with preparedness rather than fear. He writes that this concern is particularly relevant because, as he is now old, this letter and every letter could be his last. As the letter closes Seneca writes: vixi, Lucili carissime, quantum satis erat; mortem plenus exspecto. Vale. [I have lived, my dearest Lucilius, long enough; I am complete, and I await death. Farewell.] (61.4) These last words of a letter about death read like Seneca’s last words in life: he has lived long enough; he is ready to die; he says goodbye. Indeed, these sentences echo the language of epitaphs. In both Ep. 61 and in epitaphs vale ends the text. Vale in epitaphs may address either the deceased (farewell to the dead) or the reader of the epitaph (well-wishes for the still living). In Ep. 61, then, vale is used in the latter context: the “dying” Seneca wishes the “living” Lucilius well. Thus the formulaic valediction comes to mean more than the traditional “this marks the end of the letter.”

The end of Ep. 92 also illustrates Seneca’s manipulation of the valediction. Seneca quotes Maecenas’ wish that he have no tomb: Diserte Maecenas ait, ‘nec tumulum curo: sepelit natura relictos.’ [Maecenas said eloquently, “and I do not worry about having a tomb: nature buries what is left over.”] (92.35) He then offers a one-sentence obituary of Maecenas and promptly ends the letter with vale. As in Ep. 61 the end of this letter coincides with death. But here Maecenas’ wish to have no tomb becomes, ironically, his epitaph. Vale then means not only “this is the end of the letter,” but also “Maecenas, R.I.P.”, thus echoing the epitaphic use of vale.

But Maecenas is not the only one to die in the Letters. As we have observed above, Seneca himself repeatedly dies, ending his letters with talk of death followed by the valediction. Ep. 58 presents a death unique within the Letters. Seneca dies twice, stating “vale ergo”, then writing another sentence, then finally “vale”. This portrait of a Seneca who resolves to die, is halted, then finally dies, recalls not only Tacitus’ description of Seneca’s death (Annales 15.60ff.), but another famous death, one frequently praised in the Letters: the suicide of Cato. Cato’s death thus serves as an exemplum for Seneca. But there is an important distinction to be made between Cato’s and Seneca’s deaths in the Letters. Whereas Cato—like Maecenas—dies and cements his legacy, Seneca comes back to life with the next letter. Seneca's inability to remain dead at once marks his distance from Stoic sagehood as exemplified by Cato as well as his striving towards that goal through the practice of preparing for death (praemeditatio mortis).

Thus through the use of the valediction Seneca presents himself as a Stoic practitioner who, through his striving for a death worthy of Cato, is on the way (note the Stoic term for a practitioner: proficiens), but has not yet attained, Stoic sagehood.