LIVING WITH SENECA THROUGH HIS EPISTLES

In a letter famous for outlining the genesis of his work The Prince, Machiavelli responded to his friend's description of his day as a courtier in Rome by describing his own daily routine on his farm. The morning he spent bird-catching, taking a book of poetry to pass the time, 'Dante, Petrarch, or one of the minor poets like Tibullus, Ovid, or some such'. The afternoon was spent at the inn in noisy arguments over games. However, in the evening he goes on: I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their human kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not dread poverty, and I am not terrified by death. I absorb myself into them completely. © 2014 The Classical Association.