Greece & Rome · c. 4 BCE – 65 CE
Seneca
Roman statesman, playwright and tutor to Nero
Wrote practical Stoic ethics on anger, grief and the use of time, insisting that philosophy is training for life, not cleverness. Ordered by Nero to kill himself, he died, by ancient accounts, with Stoic composure.
Life and thought
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in Córdoba in Spain around 4 BCE and raised in Rome, where he became a famous orator and writer. Exiled to Corsica under Claudius, he was recalled in 49 CE to tutor the young Nero and, once Nero was emperor, was for some years among the most powerful and richest men in Rome, which critics then and since have held against him. He withdrew from court in 62, and in 65 was ordered to kill himself after a conspiracy against Nero.
Seneca wrote Stoicism for daily use: essays on anger, grief, mercy and the shortness of life, and above all the Letters to Lucilius. Their message is that philosophy is training of the mind, not a display of cleverness. We suffer more in imagination than in reality; time is our only true possession, so do not waste it; and since fortune can take anything external, rehearse its blows in advance. He quoted Epicurus freely where he found him right. His tragedies also shaped Renaissance drama.