BOOKS I-LXV - College of Stoic Philosophers

Complete list of Loeb titles can be
found at the end of each volume
SENECA, Lucius Annaeus, born at
Corduba (Cordova) c.$ or 4 B.C., of a
noble and wealthy family,
after an ailing
childhood and youth at Rome in an aunt's
care, was a victim of life-long
neurosis but
became famous in rhetoric, philosophy,
money-making, and
imperial service.
After some disgrace during Claudius' reign
he became tutor and then, in A. 0.^4,
advising minister to Nero, some of whose
worst misdeeds he did not prevent. Involved
(innocently?) in a conspiracy, he
killed himself by order in A . D . 6 $
.
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.
Wicked himself he was not. Of his works
we have 10 mis-called 'Dialogi', seven
being philosophical on providence,
steadfastness, happy life, anger, leisure,
calmness of mind, shortness of life; 3
other treatises (on money, benefits, and
natural
phenomena); 124 'Epistulae
morales' all addressed to one person; a
skit on the official deification of Claudius;
and 9 rhetorical tragedies (not for acting)
on ancient Greek themes. Many 'Epistulae'
and all his speeches are lost. Much of his
thought is clever father than deep, and his
style is pointed rather than ample.