Abstract

This article is an attempt to understand a phenomenon highlighted by French philosopher Michel Foucault in hisHistory of Sexuality, vols. 2 and 3, namely, that of the positive appreciation of ‘old age’ in the late period of the Roman Empire, particularly in Seneca’s Stoicism. The positive value in the latter’s representation and imagery of old age serves as a focal point of individuals’ existences in their entirety and as a magnetic pole in the lives of individuals who strive to make works of art out of the raw material of their existences—something we call ‘self-building’ practices, following Foucault. Moving beyond his work, we will further show that late Stoicism’s representation of old age is marked by an intellectual and ethical effort to activate another—indeed, opposed—direction for the passage of time, usually experienced as a painful dereliction of self.