Early life:
● Born Lucius Annaeus Seneca at Corduba between 4 BC and 1 AD.
● Wealthy equestrian family of Italian stock.
● Little known of his life before 41 AD.
● Brought to Rome by mother’s stepsister, the wife of C. Galerius by 5 AD.
● Studied grammar and rhetoric.
● Varied philosophical training: attended lectures by Attalus the Stoic and by Sotion and Papirius Fabianus, both followers of Sextius,
who had founded the only native Roman sect a generation before, which Seneca described as a type of Stoicism.
● At some time he joined his aunt in Egypt, where she nursed him through a period of ill health.
● About 31 AD he returned with her, survivors of a shipwreck in which his uncle died.
● Sometime later through her influence, he was elected quaestor, considerably after the minimum age of 25.
Seneca under Gaius, 37-41 AD
● By the reign of Gaius, he had achieved a considerable reputation as an orator, perhaps also as a writer.
● In 39, according to a story in Cassius Dio, his brilliance so offended the emperor’s megalomania that it nearly cost him his life.
Seneca under Claudius, 41-54 AD
● In 41 AD under Claudius he was banished to Corsica for alleged adultery with Julia Livilla, a sister of Gaius, and he remained in
exile until 49, when he was recalled through the influence of the younger Agrippina and made praetor.
● He was then appointed tutor to her son Nero, then 12 years old and ready to embark on the study of rhetoric.
Seneca under Nero, 54-68 AD
● With Nero’s accession in 54, Seneca’s role became that of political adviser and minister.
● 54-62 AD: Seneca managed to guide and cajole Nero sufficiently to ensure a period of good government, in which his mother’s
influence was reduced and abuses curbed.
● Nero treated the senate with deference and Seneca was a senior senator himself, having been consul for 6 months in 55 or 56.
, ● He wrote Nero’s speeches but his power, though real, was ill-defined.
● Seneca’s reputation was tarnished by the suspected murder of Britannicus in 55 and the certain murder of Nero’s mother in 59.
● Nero fell under the influence of people who flattered him and encouraged his exhibitionism and his crimes. Seneca’s position
became intolerable.
● By 62 Seneca sought to retire and hand over his vast wealth to Nero, but his retirement was refused – although in practice he did
withdraw from public life.
● In 64 after the Great Fire in July, Seneca virtually retired to his chamber and let go of a large part of his wealth. He devoted these
years to philosophy, writing and the company of friends.
● In 65 he was forced to commit suicide for alleged participation in the unsuccessful Pisonian conspiracy.
● His death was explicitly modelled on that of Socrates and is vividly described by Tacitus in Annals 15.62-4.
Seneca's extant works:
● The ten ethical treatises dialogi. They are comparatively short, with the exception of De Ira. Dating controversial.
● De Clementia recommends the practice of clemency to Nero in Dec 55/56 after many suspected he had murdered Britannicus. Only
first and beginning of the second of three books survive.
● Epistulae Morales: 124 letters divided into 20 books, longest prose work, not all of which has survived.
● Apocolocyntosis: satire written in prose and verse, a skit on the deification of Claudius. Contains serious political criticism and clever
literary parody (even of himself).
● Tragedies – Medea, Phaedra, Trojan women, Oedipus, Hercules Furens, Thyestes
● Philosophy – mostly ethics – drawing on the works of earlier Stoics
Criticised in antiquity as a hypocrite:
● Preached the unimportance of wealth but did not surrender his until the very end;
● Compromised the principles he preached by flattering those in power and by condoning many of Nero’s crimes.
