How to Die

Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher, returned to death again and again in his writings but never gave it a complete work. Editor and translator James S. Romm gathers those meditations into one volume for the first time. Seneca treats life as a rehearsal for its end, offering advice on preparing for death and on dying well, and on the place a good death holds in a good life. He speaks frankly about accepting death, or under certain conditions seeking it, and stresses that it comes to all and can free a person from pain, slavery or political oppression. New translations sit beside the Latin, with an introduction, notes and an epilogue giving Tacitus's account of Seneca's suicide.

It was part of the Princeton University Press series of translations of Seneca, Epictetus and Cicero that Ryan Holiday named in The (Very) Best Books I Read in 2018.