Beskrivning
Beskrivning
Topics in Stoicism.Seneca, LuciusAnnaeus, born at Corduba (Cordova) ca. 4 BC, of a prominent and wealthyfamily, spent an ailing childhood and youth at Rome in an aunt’s care.He became famous in rhetoric, philosophy, money-making, and imperialservice. After some disgrace during Claudius’ reign he became tutor andthen, in AD 54, advising minister to Nero, some of whose worst misdeedshe did not prevent. Involved (innocently?) in a conspiracy, he killedhimself by order in 65. Wealthy, he preached indifference to wealth;evader of pain and death, he preached scorn of both; and there wereother contrasts between practice and principle. We have Seneca’s philosophical or moral essays (ten of themtraditionally called Dialogues)—on providence, steadfastness, the happylife, anger, leisure, tranquility, the brevity of life, gift-giving,forgiveness—and treatises on natural phenomena. Also extant are 124epistles, in which he writes in a relaxed style about moral and ethicalquestions, relating them to personal experiences; a skit on the officialdeification of Claudius, Apocolocyntosis (in LCL 15); and nine rhetorical tragedies on ancient Greek themes. Many epistles and all his speeches are lost. His moral essays are collected in Volumes I–III of the Loeb Classical Library’s ten-volume edition of Seneca.
