How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life by Seneca (edited James Romm)
“Memento Mori” is a beloved refrain whispering its way amid the holistic death care movement but its roots are more ambiguous that you’d expect. “Memento Mori” was a rallying cry a general’s slave would chant after returning triumphant from battle (James Romm). The phrase more common to the Roman school of thought we seem attracted to is “meditare mortem” or “rehearse death” and that reminder is the theme of the work I just finished, Seneca’s “How to Die”.
“How To Die” is a recent compilation of Seneca’s essays and letters on death. This slim little book elucidates Seneca’s prose succinctly and keeps his tendency to rift on mortality-focused rails. Seneca, a stoic Roman philosopher, believed that just as life has inherent sanctity, so too does death. He often espoused belief that death was not something to fear but instead something we must rehearse. This work ties together his teaching on how a good life makes for a better death as well as how important it is to reflect on, prepare for and even practice dying well before your end.
The chief complaint I’ve read about this book is that may glorify suicide. It is important to note that though Seneca does speak to quality of life trumping quantity of days, the suicide that he commends looks closer to what we consider medical aid in dying today. Seneca’s philosophy of suicide is highly rational, just as everything else in his highly ordered system of thought seems to be.
“It takes an entire lifetime to learn how to die,” writes Seneca. James Romm, who edited and compiled this work, summarizes Seneca’s advice to us under five precepts: (1) Prepare Yourself (2) Have No Fear (3) Have No Regrets (4) Set Yourself Free (5) Become Part of the Whole. This tidy volume serves as a handy guide for doing each of those things as we practice dying, every day that we live.
*Seneca himself was forced to test the efficacy of his prescription when he was ordered to commit suicide by his emperor Nero in 65 CE.
