Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T12:51:00.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Seneca on anger, mercy and sadistic homicide – in 100 words

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2016 

Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE), while writing On Anger and On Mercy, recognised wickedness as requiring proportionate correction. He describes dispassionate punishment as similar to a physician deciding on appropriate remedies according to severity and circumstance. Seneca also described in withering terms those who took pleasure in multiplying and prolonging pain, taking pleasure in cruelty and killing as a delight. He termed this diseased – a condition of utter moral depravity. Having anticipated Krafft-Ebing's account of sadistic homicide, Seneca may also have influenced fictional homicidal psychiatrist Dr Hannibal Lecter, describing a mentally unwell slave who ate the liver of his victim.

Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.