In his treatise On Anger (or The Art of Calming Anger), Seneca defines this emotion as a passing madness and the worst of passions, characterized by the desire to punish unjustly. He radically distinguishes it from reason and justice, asserting that it deprives the individual of his ability to think and inevitably leads to personal and social destruction.
Seneca maintains that the wise should never feel angry, even in the face of crime, because justice and the law must guide punishment calmly and measuredly. He proposes a Stoic approach to mastering this passion: prevention by avoiding the causes of irritation and healing by delaying the reaction until reason takes over, thus refusing revenge as a reason for punishment.