Lucius Annaeus Seneca



Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca, or Seneca the Younger) (c. 4 BC – AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature.

Biography
Born in Corduba, Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula), about 3 B.C., Seneca was the second son of Helvia and Marcus (Lucius) Annaeus Seneca, a wealthy rhetorician known as Seneca the Elder. Both his gens name (Annaeus) and the names of his notable relatives, (e.g., Lucan) indicate his family was originally of Southern Italian, Oscan extraction, most likely hailing from the confluence of modern Apulia, Calabria and Basilicata. Many Southern Italian families, once obtaining Roman citizenship, participated in the colonization of Roman Hispania.

Seneca's older brother, Gallio, became proconsul at Achaia. Seneca was uncle to the poet Lucan by his younger brother Annaeus Mela.

Tradition relates that he was a sickly child and that he was taken to Rome for schooling. He was trained in rhetoric and was introduced into Stoic philosophy by Attalos and Sotion. Due to his illness, Seneca stayed in Egypt (from 25-31) for treatment.

After his return, he established a successful career as an advocate. Around 37, he was nearly killed as a result of a conflict with the Emperor Caligula who only spared him because he believed the sickly Seneca would not live long anyway. In 41, Messalina, wife of the Emperor Claudius, persuaded Claudius to have Seneca banished to Corsica on a charge of adultery with Julia Livilla. He spent his exile in philosophical and natural study and wrote the Consolations. He has greatly influenced people like Maya Angelou and others.

In AD 49, Claudius' new wife Agrippina had Seneca recalled to Rome to tutor her son who was to become the emperor Nero. On Claudius' death in 54, Agrippina secured the recognition of Nero as emperor over Claudius' son, Britannicus.

Seneca acted as Nero's advisor for eight years from 54 to 62. Seneca's influence was said to be especially strong in the first year. Many historians consider Nero's early rule with Seneca and the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus to be quite competent. Over time, Seneca and Burrus lost their influence over Nero. With the death of Burrus in 62 and accusations of embezzlement, Seneca retired and devoted his time to more study and writing.

In 65, Seneca was charged with being a co-conspirator in the Pisonian conspiracy, a plot to kill Nero. Rather than face execution, Seneca slit his wrists, as did his wife who chose to share his fate. Tacitus gives an account of the suicide in his Annals (Book XV, Chapters 60 through 64). Nero ordered that Seneca's wife, Pompeia Paulina, be saved. The wounds were bound up, and she did not make a second attempt. Unfortunately for Seneca, his old age and diet caused the blood to flow slowly, thus causing pain instead of a quick death. He then took poison, but it didn't work. He dictated his last words to a scribe, and then jumped into a hot pool. He did not try to drown, but instead, it appears, tried to make the blood flow faster. Tacitus wrote in his Annals of Imperial Rome that Seneca died from suffocation from the steam rising from the pool.

Reputation
Seneca remains one of the few popular Roman philosophers from that decadent period. His works were celebrated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, John of Salisbury, Erasmus and others. Montaigne was considered to be a "French Seneca" by Pasquier.

Even with the admiration of such intellectual stalwarts, Seneca is not without his detractors. In his own time, he was widely considered to be a hypocrite or, at least, less than "stoic" in his lifestyle. His tendency to engage in illicit affairs with married women and close ties to Nero's excess test the limits of his teachings on restraint and self-discipline. Suillius claims that Seneca acquired some "three hundred million sesterces within the space of four years" through Nero's favor. Robin Campbell, a translator of Seneca's letters writers that the "stock criticism of Seneca right down the centuries [has been]...the apparent contrast between his philosophical teachings and his practice."

Works
Works attributed to Seneca include a satire, a meteorological essay, philosophical essays, 124 letters dealing with moral issues, and nine tragedies. One of the tragedies attributed to him, Octavia, was clearly not written by him. He even appears as a character in the play. His authorship of another, Hercules on Oeta, is doubtful. Seneca's brand of Stoic philosophy emphasized practical steps by which the reader might confront life's problems. In particular, he considered it important to confront the fact of one's own mortality. The discussion of how to approach death dominates many of his letters.

Seneca's Tragedies
Many scholars have thought, following the ideas of the nineteenth century German scholar Leo, that Seneca's tragedies were written for recitation only. Other scholars think that they were written for performance and that it is possible that actual performance had taken place in Seneca's life time (George W.M. Harrison (ed.), Seneca in performance, London: Duckworth, 2000). Ultimately, this issue is not capable of resolution on the basis of our existing knowledge.

The tragedies of Seneca have been successfully staged in modern times. The dating of the tragedies is highly problematic in the absence of any ancient references. A relative chronology has been suggested on metrical grounds but scholars remain divided. It is inconceivable that they were written in the same year. They are not at all based on Greek tragedies, they have a five act form and differ in many respects from extant Attic drama, and whilst the influence of Euripides on some these works is considerable, so is the influence of Virgil and Ovid.

Seneca's plays were widely read in medieval and Renaissance European universities so they strongly influenced tragic drama in that time, such as Elizabethan England (Shakespeare and other playwrights), France (Corneille and Racine) and the Netherlands (Joost van den Vondel).

Tragedies:
 * Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules)
 * Troades (The Trojan Women)
 * Phoenissae (The Phoenician Women)
 * Phaedra
 * Medea
 * Thyestes
 * Agamemnon
 * Oedipus


 * Hercules Oetaeus (Hercules on Oeta) and Octavia closely resemble Seneca's plays in style, but are probably written by a follower.

Dialogues

 * (40) Ad Marciam, De consolatione (To Marcia, On consolation)
 * (41) De Ira (On anger)
 * (42) Ad Helviam matrem, De consolatione (To Helvia, On consolation) - Letter to his mother consoling her in his absence during exile.
 * (44) De Consolatione ad Polybium (To Polybius, On consolation)
 * (49) De Brevitate Vitae (On the shortness of life) - Essay expounding that any length of life is sufficient if lived wisely.
 * (62) De Otio (On leisure)
 * (63) De Tranquillitate Animi (On tranquillity of mind)
 * (64) De Providentia (On providence)
 * (55) De Constantia Sapientiis (On the Firmness of the Wise Person)
 * (58) De Vita Beata (On the happy life)

Other

 * (54) Apocolocyntosis divi Claudii (The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius''), a satirical work. {Also has references to Nero as having a longer life than Nestor at the hands of the three fates--obvious flattery.}
 * (56) De Clementia (On Clemency) - written to Nero on the need for clemency as a virtue in an emperor.
 * (63) De Beneficiis (On Benefits) [seven books]
 * (63) Naturales quaestiones [seven books] of no great originality but offering an insight into ancient theories of cosmology, meteorology, and similar subjects.
 * (64) Epistulae morales ad Lucilium - collection of 124 letters dealing with moral issues written to Lucilius.
 * (370?) Cujus etiam ad Paulum apostolum leguntur epistolae: These letters, allegedly between Seneca and St. Paul, were revered by early authorities, but currently are not believed to be authentic by most scholars.

Seneca as a humanist saint


Medieval writers and works (such as the Golden Legend, which erroneously has Nero as a witness to his suicide) believed that Seneca had been converted to the Christian faith by Saint Paul, and early humanists regarded his fatal bath as a kind of disguised baptism. However, this seems unlikely as Seneca always professed to be Stoic.

Dante, nevertheless, placed Seneca in the First Circle of Hell, or Limbo, a place of perfect natural happiness where good non-Christians like the ancient philosophers had to stay for eternity, due to their lack of the justifying grace (given only by Christ) required to go to heaven.

Seneca the younger also makes an appearance as a character in Monteverdi's opera L'incoronazione di Poppea.