What the Stoic Seneca Knew About Ambition, Success, and Happiness
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
Essay substantially revised on 19 August 2026.
When Dionysus, god of wine, was in Phrygia, his teacher Silenus wandered off drunk and was carried to King Midas. When Dionysus came to collect Silenus, he offered Midas any wish. Midas asked for the power to turn whatever he touched into gold. Before dinner, he had turned every bush in his famed rose garden to gold. But he was horrified when his food and wine also turned to gold. His daughter tried to comfort him, but she too suffered the same fate. When Midas begged to be rescued, Dionysus told him to bathe in the River Pactolus, the golden sands of which later became the source of Croesus’ fabulous wealth.
By confusing means and ends, Midas had made one of today’s commonest mistakes.
The Stoic philosopher Seneca was one of the richest men in the Roman Empire. Having risen from provincial origins to become tutor and chief adviser to the emperor Nero, he spent much of his life thinking about Midas’ mistake—and his own.
In his famous letters, this is what he tells his friend Lucilius.
The Dangers of Ambition
To be ambitious is to seek out achievement not for the sake of achievement itself, which is to be high-reaching, but for the sake of distinguishing ourselves from others. Were we the last person on earth, it would make little sense to be ambitious. ‘Ambition, luxury, and caprice need a stage; you will cure them if you keep them from being viewed.’
The dangers of ambition are threefold. First, like Midas, we should be wary of what we wish for. ‘In ordinary speech, we often say that we are overjoyed that one person was elected consul, or that another was married or his wife has given birth, events which, far from being causes of joy, are frequently the beginnings of future sorrow.’ In general, the less we have, the freer, and richer, we are.
Second, ambition is future-focused; to live with ambition is to live in fear and anxiety while discounting the moment that is before us. Because ambition ties us to externals (things that are beyond our control), and, ultimately, to other people, it leaves us subject, and vulnerable, to them. ‘Liberty does not come for free. If you value it highly, you must devalue everything else.’
Third, ambition is often destructive. Great leaders like Caesar, Pompey, and Marius who are driven by ambition are not even in control of themselves, and, as a result, end up doing terrible things: Marius led armies, but ambition led Marius. While these men were whirling down on the entire world, they themselves were in a whirl, just like tornadoes, which spin everything around because they themselves are spinning. No one becomes fortunate at the expense of another’s misfortune.
On Fame and Fortune
The purpose of work is not to further our own interests, even if it is only a house in the middle of the woods that we seek, but to help others and move humanity forward—which is, in any case, the best way of furthering ourselves. The highest wisdom is perhaps that it is not necessary to be ambitious to be high-reaching, or to feel alive. Indeed, it is often our conventional ambitions that are holding us down—even, that are ageing and killing us.
If it is fame that we seek, we will have to adopt the misguided values of the majority. ‘It is by skill in wrongdoing that one cultivates popular acclaim. You must make yourself like them: they will not approve of you unless they recognise you.’
Although we would be foolish to seek out fame, we might nonetheless fall into it by way of our good works, in which case we should utilise it for the greater good.
If it is merely wealth that we seek, we would do well to remember that wealth is not the answer to our problems, since there are many wealthy people who nonetheless feel wretched, and sometimes all the more wretched for being wealthy. Had Cicero had only one house, instead of twenty properties, he would, when exiled, have lost only the one house. And with fewer administrative worries, and less travelling between houses, he might have written more books.
We suppose that wealth increases our pleasures, but the greatest pleasures are in any case simple and easy to obtain if only our mind is open to them: eating, sleeping, bathing, seeing a friend, walking in a beautiful garden. If anything, wealth removes us from our pleasures by habituating us to luxury and shifting our focus onto itself. ‘He enjoys riches most who has least need of riches. While he is thinking about its increase, he is forgetting about its use.’ Midas could possess a golden rose, but he could no longer smell a rose.
On Proper Ends
Even allowing that wealth does increase our pleasures, pleasure is not the be-all and end-all, but, like wealth, distracts from our higher purpose, which is the work of the mind. ‘Maecenas would have provided a fine example of Roman rhetoric, had he not been weakened, even castrated, by his great wealth.’
Just as a horse ought to be judged on its speed rather than its harness, so a man ought to be judged on his mind rather than his property, because it is reason, and not wealth, that is the measure of a man.
Many people have wealth in the same way that people are said to have a fever when it is in fact the fever that has hold of us. If our mind is diseased, what does it matter whether our sickbed is made of wood or gold?
Stoics, by virtue of their virtue, are predisposed to wealth, and, even without seeking it—especially without seeking it—may end up being very wealthy. There is no harm in being wealthy and occasionally enjoying wealth, so long as our money smells good and we are not tied to it.
The real value of money is to buy time for the mind; the real value of fame is to disseminate its fruits. Fame and fortune should never be our masters, but only ever our slaves.
Continue Exploring
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