Senex is Latin for old man. In Ancient Rome, the title of Senex was only awarded to elderly men with families who had good standing in their village.

Jungian Psychology

In Jungian analytical psychology, examples of the senex archetype in a positive form include the wise old man or wizard. The senex may also appear in a negative form as a devouring father (e.g. Ouranos, Cronus) or a doddering fool.

The antithetical archetype, or enantiodromic opposite, of the senex is the Puer Aeternus.

Senex in literature

Two stock characters of theater are the senex amans, an old man unsuitably in love with a much younger woman, and the senex iratus, an old man who irrationally opposes the love of the young couple.

Senex is also the name of a wise old fara, a subcellular creature inside a mitochondrion, in the novel A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle (1973, ISBN 0-374-38443-6).

Sir Alan Lascelles used the pen-name "Senex" when writing to The Times in 1950 setting out the so-called Lascelles Principles concerning the monarch's right to refuse a prime minister's request for a general election.

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