De Ira

De Ira (On Anger) is a Latin work by Seneca (4 BC–65 AD ^[1]). The work offers advice on controlling anger and to make it subject to reason.

Background

It is not clear to scholars who wrote the first work on the subject of passions or emotions (the terms are thought interchangeable), but while Xenocrates (396/5–314/3 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) were students at Plato's Academy, a discussion on emotions took place which provided likely the impetus for all later work on the subject. The Stoic Posidonius of Apamea (c.135 - 51 BCE ^[2]) is considered the main source for Seneca, also the work of Theophrastus, Antipater of Tarsus, Philodemus of Gadara, Sotion of Alexandria, Xenocrates (active sometime after 346 BCE ^[3]) and Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE ^[4]).^[2][5][6] Other influences may have included works On Passions by the Stoic philosophers Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus, Aristo of Chios, Herillus, Hecato of Rhodes, and the Peripatetic philosopher Andronicus of Rhodes (c. 1st century B.C.^[7]).^[6] Works of a similar nature were also written by both Philodemus of Gadara (ca. 110–30 BCE), an Epicurean, and Bion the Cynic from Borysthenes, (fl early 3rd century BC).^[8][9][10]

Dating

The exact date of the writing of the work is unknown, apart from a date being the earliest possible time (terminum post quem), deduced as due to repeated references by Seneca to the episodic anger of the Caesar, Gaius (Caligula), who died 24 January 41 AD.^[6][11][12]

Title and contents

Ira is defined as anger, wrath, rage, ire, passion, indignation - primarily, to be angry (see Lewis & Short in reference).^[13]

De Ira consists of three books.^[12] It is part of Seneca's series of Dialogi (dialogues). The essay is addressed to Seneca's elder brother, Lucius Annaeus Novatus.^[14][15][16] The works first sentence reads:^[6]

You have asked me Novatus to write on how anger can be mitigated

Themes

Within the context of Stoicism, which seeks to aid and guide the person in a development out of a life of slavery to behaviours and ways of the vices, to freedom within a life characterised by virtue, de Ira posits this as achievable by the development of an understanding of how to control the passions, anger being classified as a passion, and to make these subject to reason.^[17][18]

Seneca's thoughts of the relationship of the passions to reason, are that the passions arise in a rational mind as a result of a mis-perceiving or misunderstanding of reality. Inwood describes this as when the mind makes errors about the values of things , R Bett as caused by defective belief (c.f. Bett p. 546). Seneca denied the assertion of Plato and Aristotle who previously considered the passions to arise from roots within the irrational part of the soul.^[19]

The passions are transliterated pathê from Greek.^[20][21]

Later history

The work survives due to being a part of the codex Ambrosian manuscript, dating from the 5th century A.D.^{[22][23][24][25]}

Contemporaneous manifestations of the considerations of de Ira

The National Health Service of Great Britain provides a guide on anger management.^[26]

See also

• Belief

References

External links

• University of Minnesota, Morris - Selections from De Ira - (parts - 1.1 , 2.9 , 2.1 , 1.7 , 1.9 , 1.16)
• Full text of "Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore