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Moral Letters Vol III

Seneca

§ Section 1

On care of health and peace of mind

104:1

Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.

Book Description: The final volume of Seneca's moral letters. Common Stoic themes emerge again and again: the unreliability of fortune, the ability to form Stoic resolve, and the importance of virtue.

1.

I have run off to my villa at Nomentum, for what purpose, do you suppose?

To escape the city?

No; to shake off a fever which was surely working its way into my system.

It had already got a grip upon me.

My physician kept insisting that when the circulation was upset and irregular, disturbing the natural poise, the disease was under way.

I therefore ordered my carriage to be made ready at once, and insisted on departing, in spite of my wife Paulina’s efforts to stop me; for I remembered my master Gallio’s words, when he began to develop a fever in Achaia and took ship at once, insisting that the disease was not of the body but of the place.