This book develops a new area of focus for the study of Senecan philosophy and for Stoicism more generally. As G. notes, the family is not an area that has received much attention from a philosophical perspective. Indeed, it might seem to be a topic of little interest for the Stoics. According to Stoic theory, like good health or reputation, the family was a preferred indifferent. Epictetus puts its value in stark perspective. Because parents and children are externals, they are not within our power to control and hence are not part of the good (Diss. 1.22.11–12). This degree of detachment is absent in much of Seneca's philosophy. Although the Latin familia could have a considerably wider range of meanings and members than our contemporary understanding of family, G. bases her analyses on Seneca's ‘simple’ notion of the family as comprising relationships between parents, children, brothers, and husbands and wives (pp. 3–4).
Building on an important trend in Senecan scholarship, G. notes that Seneca's philosophical texts mediate between traditional Roman values and Stoicism. G. argues that in the works under investigation, Seneca primarily uses the Stoic theory of oikeiôsis (‘appropriation’) and, to a lesser extent, ‘cosmopolis theory’, to redefine familial relationships. Aside from a brief discussion of how animals and humans are naturally aware of their constitution (Ep. 121), Seneca does not provide an elaborate explanation of oikeiôsis in his philosophy. Thus, G. bases her discussion of it on Hierocles’ metaphor of concentric circles that expand from the smallest around the individual to ever increasing ones encircling family members, fellow citizens and ultimately the entire human race (pp. 28–9). Her hypothesis is that this theory is central to Seneca's ethics of the family because it ‘describes the process which gives the individual the ability to care for others’ (p. 17).
Seneca's texts are investigated in chronological order, moving from the early consolations to the late epistles, but G. does not argue ‘for a chronological development of Seneca's thought’ (p. 9). Rather, her exploration is thematic. Each of the first four chapters treats a discrete element of the family unit, moving from mothers, to brothers, to husbands and wives, to fathers and sons. G. first outlines how the particular familial relationship under investigation was typically viewed in Roman society and then shows how Seneca seeks to redefine it. One method is by moving family members around within the concentric circles of oikeiôsis. In the first two chapters, which treat Seneca's three consolations, G. demonstrates how relationships with dead sons can be appropriated to relationships with dead fathers, as Seneca advises Marcia. Mothers can have closer relationships with their grandchildren to make up for lost (or exiled) sons, as Seneca tells his mother. Brothers should mourn the death of their brother as a sage would, as Seneca suggests to Polybius.
Chapter 3 presents an extended analysis of the fragmentary De matrimonio. G. argues that Seneca sees marriage as an important part of life, even for the Stoic sage. From her reconstruction, G. suggests that, from a Stoic perspective, marriage is a place for stability and that it can be ‘a practical extension of virtue rather than an instrument of personal gain’ (p. 106).
G. then moves in the fourth chapter to the relationship between father and son as discussed in De beneficiis 3.29–37. She points out that this relationship was potentially one of the strictest and most fraught in traditional Roman society. For this reason, Seneca presents a more abstract ideal for how fathers and sons can engage in a competitive exchange of benefits.
G. argues that in Ad Helviam Seneca's family is set up as an ideal one that is harmonious according to both Stoic and traditional Roman tenets (p. 46). The opposite is the case in Seneca's presentation of the imperial family, which G. investigates in the penultimate chapter. G. argues that, while the Julio-Claudians wished to be seen as the exemplary Roman family, Seneca sets them up as an ‘anti-exemplum’ (p. 144). For G., the imperial family represents what happens to the family when ambition is valued over virtue.
The final chapter traces the role of the family in Seneca's Epistles. G. notes that discussion of the family is almost entirely absent in the early letters and then only gradually reintroduced in the later ones. It becomes a more frequent topic in the final surviving letters. G. argues that this ‘removal and gradual reintroduction’ is intentional (p. 163). In contrast to the other texts treated in this book, with the Epistles Seneca is writing to a fellow proficiens, so he can present the stark reality of the true place of the family in Stoicism. Thus Seneca removes all mention of it from his early letters, as this is what a Stoic must do at first. Once the tenets of the philosophy have been internalised, then the philosopher can begin again to live in the world and fulfil his or her traditional roles, now fully aware of the positive and negative potential provided by the family. G. suggests that Seneca's more strict Stoicism in these letters is only a product of his fellow-Stoic addressee. It also seems worth considering if it can be attributed to a change in Seneca's thought that he experienced later in life. Do these letters represent Seneca's own attempts to remove himself from the connections he sought to establish earlier in life?
The book's thematic approach and primary focus on one or two texts in each chapter can lead to problematic aspects of Seneca's works not being fully acknowledged, such as Seneca's different attitudes towards exile in Ad Helviam (p. 34) and Ad Polybium (p. 73). The Apocolocyntosis, Natural Questions and the tragedies are not treated at all, although G. intends to investigate the latter in another book. The Apocolocyntosis adds yet another layer to Senecan discourse on the family, particularly the imperial family. G. argues that Claudius is portrayed as universal reason and has ‘Zeus-like attributes’ in Ad Polybium (p. 64). This notion is severely undercut in Seneca's satire.
Natural Questions encourages a movement from the particular to a universal perspective and intensifies the trend that G. identifies in the letters. As both oikeiôsis and cosmopolitanism are based on viewing oneself as part of the universe and that the entire human race is a member of one's family, Seneca often skips from the first ring around the self to the final one. Unity with all people can paradoxically lead us away from those closest to us. As G. notes, Seneca writes that by being a philosopher we can achieve the impossible and choose our own families. One is not to be blamed for preferring philosophers to blood relations (Ep. 44.3, p. 204).
While there is a strong impetus in Seneca's philosophy towards gaining a detached view from above, G.’s book encourages us to think about the ways in which Seneca used Stoic theory to reshape traditional notions of the family and develop methods for pursuing virtue within it. It skilfully demonstrates how Seneca sought to reconcile the ideal life of the philosopher as a member of the cosmic city with the quotidian life in one's particular family.
