ローマのセネカ

スペインから来た少年

The Boy from Spain

ルキウス・アンナエウス・セネカは、キリスト誕生の数年前、スペイン南部の都市コルドバで生まれた。父は有名な弁論術の教師で、一家は裕福で尊敬されていた。少年はやせて病気がちだったが、頭の回転は速かった。

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in Corduba, a city in the south of Spain, a few years before the birth of Christ. His father was a famous teacher of public speaking, and the family was rich and respected. The boy was thin and sickly, but his mind was quick.

彼は街で最高の教師たちにつき、学ぶことを愛するあまり健康を害しかけた。食事はほとんどとらず、よく眠れず、夜通し本を読んだ。父は心配し、セネカをおじとともにエジプトへ送り、そこで海辺で休ませた。彼は生涯ずっとやせて息切れに苦しんだが、その弱さを自分の力に変えた。忍耐を学び、他の人が諦める時も前に進み続けた。

He had the best teachers in the city, and he loved learning so much that he almost ruined his health with it. He barely ate, slept badly and read all night. His father worried and sent him to Egypt with his uncle, where he rested by the sea. All his life he was thin and short of breath, and all his life he made his weakness work for him: he learned to be patient, and to keep going when others stopped.

セネカが幼いころ、おばがローマへと連れて行った。そこで本や法律家、野心に囲まれて育った。彼は二つのこと、上手に話す方法と、良く生きる方法を学んだ。前者は彼を有名にした。後者には、生涯のすべてがかかった。

When he was small, his aunt took him to Rome. There he grew up among books, lawyers and ambition. He studied two things: how to speak well, and how to live well. The first made him famous. The second took him his whole life.

若いころ、彼は重い病気にかかり、命を絶つことさえ考えた。父はそうしないよう懇願した。セネカはのちにこう書いた。「家族の愛が私を生かしてくれた。その時から、私は自分の健康ではなく心を信じるようになった」

As a young man he became so ill that he thought about ending his own life. His father begged him not to. Seneca wrote later: “The love of my family kept me alive, and from that time I trusted my mind, and not my health.”