Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, born at Corduba (Cordova) ca. 4 BCE, of
a prominent and wealthy family, spent an ailing childhood and youth
at Rome in an aunt's care. He became famous in rhetoric,
philosophy, money-making, and imperial service. After some disgrace
during Claudius' reign he became tutor and then, in 54 CE, advising
minister to Nero, some of whose worst misdeeds he did not prevent.
Involved (innocently?) in a conspiracy, he killed himself by order
in 65. Wealthy, he preached indifference to wealth; evader of pain
and death, he preached scorn of both; and there were other
contrasts between practice and principle.
We have Seneca's philosophical or moral essays (ten of them
traditionally called Dialogues)on providence, steadfastness, the
happy life, anger, leisure, tranquility, the brevity of life,
gift-giving, forgivenessand treatises on natural phenomena. Also
extant are 124 epistles, in which he writes in a relaxed style
about moral and ethical questions, relating them to personal
experiences; a skit on the official deification of Claudius,
"Apocolocyntosis" (in Loeb number 15); and nine rhetorical
tragedies on ancient Greek themes. Many epistles and all his
speeches are lost.
The 124 epistles are collected in Volumes IVVI of the Loeb
Classical Library's ten-volume edition of Seneca.
General
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