Beskrivning
Beskrivning
Following nature in pursuit of ethics.Seneca,Lucius Annaeus, born at Corduba (Cordova) ca. 4 BC, of a prominent andwealthy family, spent an ailing childhood and youth at Rome in an aunt’scare. He became famous in rhetoric, philosophy, money-making, andimperial service. After some disgrace during Claudius’ reign he becametutor and then, in AD 54, advising minister to Nero, some of whose worstmisdeeds he did not prevent. Involved (innocently?) in a conspiracy, hekilled himself by order in 65. Wealthy, he preached indifference towealth; evader of pain and death, he preached scorn of both; and therewere other 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.The treatises on natural phenomena, Naturales Quaestiones, are collected in Volumes VII and X of the Loeb Classical Library’s ten-volume edition of Seneca.
