In antiquity, Rome and Greece were self-declared beacons of democracy, civilization, art, and philosophic thought. Nonetheless, they were plagued with problems that any civilization in its infanthood would experience.
Self-help books were at the pinnacle of literature. The most admired thinkers – Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius – all wrote self-help books, whose aim was to teach us to live and die well. Furthermore, they deployed every resource of intelligence, wit and style in writing their manuals so as to ensure that their messages would delight the intellectual as well as the emotional faculties.