Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore

—INTRODUCTIONin retirement. Three years later, charged withcomphcity in the conspiracy of Piso, he was forcedto commit suicide, and met death with dignity andStoic fortitude.The special significance of Seneca is, in brief,that he revived the subject of philosophy in Latinhterature, spiritualized and humanized Stoicism, andbecame the exponent of a new style, that exploitedthe short sentence, rhetoric, and declamation. Theartificiahties of his pointed style have found manycritics, both early and late. Cahgula« called hisspeeches—not now extant " prize declamations,sand without hme," the archaist Gelhus ^ condemnshis influence, and Fronto censures his literary '^affectations.QuintiUan** with truer discernment indictsmore severely his taste than his methods, for it isin the excesses of rhetoric that he most often offends.*That he was the most brilliant vvriter, as well as themost independent thinker, of his day fevv will nowdeny.In philosophy Seneca's interests were purelyethical. He was a bold, but inconsistent, moraUsta preacherrather than an exemplar of Stoic virtue.His discourses are, in the end. Stoic sermons, informalin structure, lacking too often the marks of orderedpresentation, but usually effective in the quicknessof their appeal. While ostensibly an adherent ofStoic materiahsm, he shows the independence of aneclectic and becomes particularly noteworthy in his" Suet. Calig. 53. " xii. 2.« Epist. p. 156 (Naber).