Seneca, Moral Letters 18.1

Letter 18: On festivals and fasting

It is the month of December, and yet the city is at this very moment in a sweat. License is given to the general merrymaking. Everything resounds with mighty preparations—as if the Saturnalia differed at all from the usual business day! So true it is that the difference is nil, that I regard as correct the remark of the man who said: "Once December was a month; now it is a year." 

 

If I had you with me, I should be glad to consult you and find out what you think should be done—whether we ought to make no change in our daily routine, or whether, in order not to be out of sympathy with the ways of the public, we should dine in gayer fashion and doff the toga. 

 

As it is now, we Romans have changed our dress for the sake of pleasure and holidaymaking, though in former times that was only customary when the State was disturbed and had fallen on evil days.

 

Long before there was a movement to put Christ back into Christmas, there must have been calls to put Saturn back into the Saturnalia. 

 

I know some who assume that human society must inevitably advance to becoming better, and others who take it for granted that every generation can only get worse. These folks over here treat their parents like barbaric fools, while those folks over there elevate them to the status of saints. 

 

I can understand both tendencies, because I have seen people grow stronger as well and wither away, and yet there need be no historical destiny here, simply the fact that each individual will be guided by his own judgments, for benefit or for harm. How I choose to go is a fate that I make. 

 

I can simultaneously cringe at the platitudes of progress and also be saddened by the delusions of nostalgia. Things do fall apart, and then they come right back again, for while the circumstances are always undergoing change, the essence of human nature remains much the same. 

 

I will have to come to terms, in my own way, with the Christmas of modern America, just as Seneca and Lucilius had to come to terms, in their own ways, with the Saturnalia of ancient Rome. 

 

I am a creature of reason and of will, and so I must attend, first and foremost, to the clarity of my estimation and the integrity of my character. Sometimes I may be in line with the fashion, and sometimes I may wildly diverge from it, but I suspect that any conformity or rebellion to what goes on outside of me take a distant second place to working on the wisdom and the virtue that are needed on the inside of me. 

 

Is it better if I stand apart or if I play along? Neither option should be chosen only for its own sake, and whether I join the party or stay at home is a matter of prudence, not to be determined by pressure. 

Written in 8/2012

IMAGE: Antoine Callet, Saturnalia (1783)