HOW TO KEEP YOUR COOL

Seneca frames his essay "On Anger" as a letter to his older brother Novatus, a man who, like Seneca himself, had gone into politics and had become a senator. (Novatus would later change his name to Gallio after being adopted by a wealthy patron of that name, and he appears as Gallio in the biblical book of Acts as the Roman governor of Greece who dealt with the apostle Paul in Corinth). The single addressee is only a fiction, however, for the essay is really directed at Seneca's fellow elite Romans and can be applied even more widely today.

You urged me, Novatus, to write about the way in which anger can be softened, and I think you are right to be most frightened of this emotion, the ugliest and most savage of all emotions. The others have some measure of peace and quiet in them, but this one rages, in turmoil and furious movement — with an eagerness hardly human — for pain, weapons, blood, and torture, until it harms others while discarding its own good. It rushes to arms and greedily seeks a vengeance that will only drag the avenger down with it. Some wise men have called anger a brief madness; in equal degrees, it is unable to govern itself, forgetful of decorum, ignorant of friendships, obstinate and intent on finishing what it begins, deaf to reason and advice, stirred up by empty provocations, unsuited to distinguishing what's just and true; it resembles nothing so much as a collapsing building that breaks apart upon that which it crushes.

But to understand that those in the grips of anger are not sane, look at how they present themselves. For just as madness shows clear signs — a brash and threatening expression, an unhappy face, a wrinkled forehead, an agitated gait, nervous hands, changed skin color, rapid and heavy breathing — just so, angry people display the same signs: their eyes burn and flash, their whole face reddens with blood that boils up from their innermost organs, their lips tremble, their teeth clench, their hair bristles and stands on end, their breath becomes labored and gasping; cracking knuckles in twisting limbs, sighs and groans and speech broken off by unintelligible noises, hands smashed together, feet pounding the earth, body agitated all over and "brandishing anger's mighty threats," an aspect foul to look on and disgusting as the afflicted contort themselves and grow swollen. You'd be hard put to say which is the better word for this fault: "hateful" or "monstrous."

Other things can be hidden away and nurtured in secret, but anger announces itself and comes out onto the face; the greater its degree, the more openly it seethes. Don't you see how all animals, as soon as they have reared up to inflict harm, send forth signals ahead of the attack? How their entire bodies abandon their accustomed calm appearance and whet the edge of their wildness? Boars foam at the mouth, sharpening their tusks by rubbing; bulls toss their horns in the empty air, scattering sand with their hooves; lions roar, prodded snakes puff up their necks, and the faces of rabid dogs become a woeful sight. No animal is so fearsome, so noxious in nature that the onset of new savagery does not show itself as soon as anger has entered in.

Of course, I'm aware that other emotions are also hard to hide, and that lust, and fear, and bravery too give signs of their presence and can be perceived. Indeed, there's no intense arousal that enters us without altering our expressions in some way. Then what's the difference? This: while other feelings stand out, this one towers.

(1.2) But if you truly want to examine its effects, the damages it causes, I say that no plague has done more harm to humankind. You'll see slaughters, poisons, mutual mudslinging of litigants, wreckage of cities, extinctions of whole races, lives of leading men sold at public auction, torches touched to buildings, flames not contained within walls but, held by an enemy host, gleaming over vast spans of territory. Look at the foundation stones of the noblest cities, now barely visible: anger toppled them. Look at the wastelands that stretch empty for many miles, without an inhabitant: anger stripped them clean. Look at leaders preserved in memory as examples of evil fate: anger stabbed this one in his own bed, struck that one down amid the sacred rites of the table, mangled another as the courts and the crowded forum watched; ordered one to offer his blood to his son's parricide, another to bare his royal neck to a slave's hand, another to split his limbs apart on the cross. And these are only the tortures of individuals; what if, looking past those whom anger has scorched one by one, you could glimpse assemblies hacked by the sword, mobs cut to pieces by soldiers sent against them, whole peoples condemned to die through indiscriminate slaughter?

There is a gap in the transmitted Latin text following the above sentence. As we know from other sources, in the missing text Seneca defined anger as a desire to punish a real or perceived wrong. That definition will be important in his later discussion of how anger can be prevented or moderated.

(1.7) But, one might ask, even if anger is unnatural, shouldn't we adopt it because it's useful? After all, it lifts and gives spur to the spirits, and courage achieves no great military feat without it — that is, if its fire is not lit underneath us and its goad does not provoke the bold and send them into perils. Thus some men think it valuable to moderate anger rather than set it aside, to force it to conform to a healthy measure and restrain its overflows, to hold on to that part without which action grows weak and the force and energy of the mind is dissipated. First, however, it's easier to shut out harmful things than to govern them, easier to deny them entry than to moderate them once they have entered. Once they've established residence, they become more powerful than their overseer and do not accept retrenchment or abatement. That is why Reason itself, to which the reins are entrusted, stays potent only so long as it's kept apart from the passions; if it mingles and pollutes itself with them, it can no longer restrain that which it formerly could have rebuffed. Once shaken and overthrown, the mind becomes a slave to that which drives it. In some cases, though the onset of things is in our control, that which follows drags us along by its momentum and allows us no step backward. Just as bodies in freefall have no power over themselves and cannot resist or slow their descent, but the unstoppable downrush cuts off every thought and regret, and they cannot help arriving at a place where they once could have not arrived — so the mind, if it launches itself into anger, or love, or the other emotions, has no chance to check its impetus; its own gravity, and the sloping nature of the vices, naturally seizes it and pulls it down to the bottom.

(1.8) It is best to repel instantly the first prickings of anger, to stamp out its very seedlings, to take pains not to be drawn in. For once it has knocked us off course, the return to health and safety is difficult; no space is left for Reason once passion has been ushered in and given jurisdiction. From that point on it will do what it wants, not what you allow....