Seneca credits Epicurus by name, “Epicurus will oblige me with these words”, for “Think on death”, and keeps death in view to judge his own conduct. The gain he stresses is freedom.
by the 2nd c. BCE
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
Psalm 90. Earliest we can find, more than 100 years earlier.
64 CE
“Epicurus will oblige me with these words: ‘Think on death,’”
Full text read.
Seneca, Moral Letters, Letter 26, tr. Richard Mott Gummere (1917).
Seneca says to “begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life”, and credits no one. Maecenas is named only for a different point, a prayer to prolong life.
23 BCE
“A wise deity shrouds in obscure darkness the events of the time to come, and smiles if a mortal is solicitous beyond the law of nature. Be mindful to manage duly that which is present.”
Horace, Odes. Earliest we can find, about 90 years earlier.
64 CE
“For he only is anxious about the future, to whom the present is unprofitable.”
Full text read.
Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 101 ‘On the futility of planning ahead’, tr. Richard Mott Gummere (1917).
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