Seneca (circa 4 BCE - 65 CE) was one of the great Roman philosophers, who along with Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, was instrumental in the promotion of Stoicism. Over at dailystoic.com, Mustapha Itani has a great in-depth piece in how Seneca attempted to comfort his friend Marcia, who lost her son Metilius to death. Lots of great content here, and this one stood out for me particularly:
"In a clear statement of Stoic determinism, Seneca gives an analogy to express the true nature of life, in which he states that life is just like an inn and that all of us will soon leave to make space for another guest. He states that our time here is short and all men and their works have a brief time here, and take no part of infinite time. People always say that someone “died early” and “before their time”, but in actuality, Seneca argues, every man has a time in this life that has been assigned to him, and that no one dies before his time. We always associate death with old men and old age, but death is always floating around everyone, even the youngest of children.
Seneca finishes with an essential reminder, that we should evaluate life not by length and years, but by virtue. One should not measure life by the number of years lived, rather by what has been accomplished and how it was lived..."
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