Paperback

$30.00 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Thursday, April 4
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and advisor to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection restores Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson—to his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities.

On Benefits, written between 56 and 64 CE, is a treatise addressed to Seneca’s close friend Aebutius Liberalis. The longest of Seneca’s works dealing with a single subject—how to give and receive benefits and how to express gratitude appropriately—On Benefits is the only complete work on what we now call “gift exchange” to survive from antiquity. Benefits were of great personal significance to Seneca, who remarked in one of his later letters that philosophy teaches, above all else, to owe and repay benefits well.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226212227
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 08/20/2014
Series: The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Pages: 184
Sales rank: 356,660
Product dimensions: 8.40(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BCE-65CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, and advisor to the Emperor Nero.


Miriam Griffin is emeritus fellow in ancient history at Somerville College, Oxford. She is the author of Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics and Seneca on Society: a Guide to “De Beneficiis”, among other books.


Brad Inwood is professor of philosophy and classics at Yale University. He is the author of Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome, among other books.

Read an Excerpt


Hia become one of the adulterers, was exiled and sent banish- into Corsica, I will not say whether it were upon m a just cause, I could wish it were not, and happily Tacitus with me, who when he speaketh of his banishment, ' Seneca was angry with Claudius it was supposed by reason of the injury that was done him.' Note this injury ; he therefore had received some. For who would otherwise be ignorant to interpret the accusations of that impudent harlot (I mean Messaline) and that my son beast Claudius ? For, for the most part they practised no mischief but against good and innocent persons. He lived about some eight years or thereabouts in exile, ay, and constantly too ; yea if we may believe himself, happily intending only the best studies, and the wholesomest meditations. For thus writeth he to his mother, that he is blessed amongst those things which are wont to make other men wretched. And afterwards (but I pray thee observe him) he worthily philosophieth, he addeth in the end and rouseth him self, Conceive what thou shouldest, think me to be joyful and addressed as it were in the best fortunes. But they are the best whenas the mind devoid of all thought intendeth him self, and sometimes delighteth him self in lighter studies, and sometimes mounteth into the consideration of the nature of him self and the whole world being desirous of truth. O man, O honest words which the author of Octavia's tragedy would imitate : for it was not he (God forbid) in these verses in the person of Seneca: ' Far better lay I hid, removed far From envy's storms amidst the Corsic shores, Whereas my mind was far from any jar Fixt on my studies, not on earthly powers : O what content had I! for never nature Allusions Mother of all things, mistress of each creature, in his Could grant no...

Table of Contents

Seneca and His World
Translator’s Introduction

On Benefits


Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
Book 6
Book 7

Notes
Textual notes
Bibliography
Index
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews