Moral Essays, Volume II: De Consolatione ad Marciam. De Vita Beata. De Otio. De Tranquillitate Animi. De Brevitate Vitae. De Consolatione ad Polybium. De Consolatione ad Helviam

by John W. Basore, Seneca

Overview

Topics in Stoicism.

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, born at Corduba (Cordova) ca. 4 BC, of a prominent and wealthy family, spent an ailing childhood and youth at Rome in an aunt’s care. He became famous in rhetoric, philosophy, money-making, and imperial service. After some disgrace during Claudius’ reign he became tutor and then, in AD 54, advising minister to Nero, some of whose worst misdeeds he did not prevent. Involved (innocently?) in a conspiracy, he killed himself by order in 65. Wealthy, he preached indifference to wealth; evader of pain and death, he preached scorn of both; and there were other contrasts between practice and principle.

We have Seneca’s philosophical or moral essays (ten of them traditionally called Dialogues)—on providence, steadfastness, the happy life, anger, leisure, tranquility, the brevity of life, gift-giving, forgiveness—and treatises on natural phenomena. Also extant are 124 epistles, in which he writes in a relaxed style about moral and ethical questions, relating them to personal experiences; a skit on the official deification of Claudius, Apocolocyntosis (in LCL 15); and nine rhetorical tragedies on ancient Greek themes. Many epistles and all his speeches are lost.

His moral essays are collected in Volumes I–III of the Loeb Classical Library’s ten-volume edition of Seneca.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674992801
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1932
Series:	Loeb Classical Library , #254
Edition description:	9th printing/1st pub.1932
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	554,121
Product dimensions:	4.25(w) x 6.38(h) x 1.10(d)
Language:	Latin

About the Author

John William Basore (b. 1870) was Professor of Classics at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Introduction

De Consolatione Ad Marciam

De Vita Beata

De Otio

De Tranquillitate Animi

De Brevitate Vitae

De Consolatione Ad Polybium

De Consolatione Ad Helviam

Index Of Names