Abstract

The morally aporetic end of Seneca’s Latin Medea puzzles the reader of the play. After having killed her two sons in an act of vengeance against Jason, the mythic female figure is raised to the heavens on a winged chariot toward a triumphal exit. How come that the repudiated and enraged woman turns out to be a kind of heroine for the Stoic playwright? It happens that for him virtus is not measured by good actions in the battlefield, but as a mental disposition to face ill fortune. In a range of occasions Seneca writes about the virtuous human being and his/her consistency of character. We deal in this article with Seneca’s Letter 120 on epistemology, the philosophical piece De providentia and the plays Medea and Hercules Furens in an attempt to elucidate the process through which the barbarous princess regains her identity, far from men, closer to the gods.