It’s rarely a good idea to take advice from a philosopher. (And yes, I’m a philosopher offering you that advice.) But when your brother is a leading public intellectual at the heart of the biggest empire the world has ever seen, perhaps it’s OK to make an exception. Or so Lucius Annaeus Novatus might have thought when, sometime after 41 CE, he writes to his brother Seneca the Younger to ask for a spot of philosophical guidance.
Novatus is a public official whose duties include judging t...
