Seneca the Younger

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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. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Reputation 3 Works 3.1 Seneca's Tragedies 3.2 Dialogues 3.3 Other 4 Seneca as a humanist saint 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] 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, after having obtained 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 became a successful advocate and established a reputation as orator and writer. Around 37, he had a severe conflict with the Emperor Caligula who only spared his life 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.

In AD 49, Claudius' new wife Agrippina had Seneca recalled to Rome to tutor her son, then 12 years old, who was to become the emperor Nero. On Claudius' death in 54, Agrippina secured the recognition of Nero as emperor over Claudius' son, Britannicus.

From 54 to 62 Seneca acted as Nero's advisor, together with the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, who had also been a tutor to Nero. Seneca's influence was said to be especially strong in the first year.^[1] Many historians consider Nero's early rule with Seneca and Burrus to be quite competent. Over time, Seneca and Burrus lost their influence over Nero. In 59 they had to reluctantly agree to Agrippina's murder, and afterwards Seneca wrote a dishonest exculpation of Nero to the Senate.^[2] 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 Pompeia Paulina 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 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.

[edit] Reputation

Seneca remains one of the few popular Roman philosophers from the 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. While his ideas are not considered to be original, he was important in making the Greek philosophers presentable and intelligible.^[3]

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. While banished to Corsica, he wrote pleas for restoration rather incompatible with his advocacy of a simple life and the acceptance of fate. In his Pumkinification (54) he ridiculed several behaviors and policies of Claudius that every Stoic should have applauded. Suillius claims that Seneca acquired some "three hundred million sesterces within the space of four years" through Nero's favor.^[4] Robin Campbell, a translator of Seneca's letters, writes that the "stock criticism of Seneca right down the centuries [has been]...the apparent contrast between his philosophical teachings and his practice."^[5]

[edit] Works

Works attributed to Seneca include a dozen philosophical essays, 124 letters dealing with moral issues, nine tragedies, a satire, and a meteorological essay. 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 generally employed a pointed rhetorical style. His writings contain the traditional themes of Stoic philosophy: the universe is governed for the best by a rational providence; contentedness is achieved by a simple, unpertubed life in accordance with nature and the duty to the state; human suffering should be accepted and has a positive effect on the soul; study and learning is important; etc. He 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.

[edit] 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.

His translator Moses Hadas wrote: "Superficially the tragedies look Greek [...] but they are essentically closer to Shakespeare, and not merely because they are stark and rhetorical and use witches and ghosts and clanking chains. True pagan tragedy has no villains because it has no unquestioned code of morality. [...] In this sense Christian tragedy is impossible; when there can be only one right, the man who defies it is a villain. [...] Seneca's Stoic universe is also controlled by an all-pervasive and exigent intelligence and is also sure of its categories of right and wrong."^[6]

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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] Other

• Many Seneca texts can be found in The Latin Library
• (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. [1] [2]

[edit] Seneca as a humanist saint

The early Christian Church was very favorably disposed towards Seneca and his writings, and the church leader Tertullian called him "our Seneca".^[7]

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 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.

[edit] See also

• Loeb Classical Library
• Seneca the Elder
• Theatre of ancient Rome
• Pseudo-Seneca

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Original texts of Seneca's works at 'The Latin Library' [3]
• Works by Seneca the Younger at Project Gutenberg
• Essays by Seneca at Quotidiana.org
• Seneca's essays in English (at Stoics.com)
• John Cunnally, Nero, Seneca, and the Medallist of the Roman Emperors, Art Bulletin, Vol. 68, No. 2 (June., 1986) , pp. 314-317
• Works by Seneca: text, concordances and frequency list
• Many quotes by Lucius Annaeus Seneca via brainyquote.com.
• List of commentaries of Seneca's Letters [4]
• Seneca on Anger - Documentary about Seneca and his philosophy.

v • d • e Stoicism
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