Seneca · Letters to Lucilius
Letter 7: On crowds
Letter 7 names the crowd as the thing most to be avoided and takes the midday games as proof: Seneca comes home from the arena more cruel for having been among human beings.
The remedy is to withdraw into oneself and to keep company with those who improve us, since one hearer is audience enough.
From the letter
To consort with the crowd is harmful; there is no person who does not make some vice attractive to us, or stamp it upon us, or taint us unconsciously therewith.
In the morning they throw men to the lions and the bears; at noon, they throw them to the spectators.
The young character, which cannot hold fast to righteousness, must be rescued from the mob; it is too easy to side with the majority.
But both courses are to be avoided; you should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you.
Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority.
Coverage
Our editions hold 30 letters of 124 in Richard Mott Gummere’s translation (1917–1925); 29 of them have a page here, those that Joseph Baillard’s French translation (1861) also contains.
Seneca and Epictetus are in Stoic+ — 1 passage of this letter, with its reference; Marcus Aurelius is free in the app.