Of Consolation: To Marcia, To Helvia, To Polybius

These three `Consolations', written by Seneca to his mother and two friends, have been described as `the crowning achievement in the canon of `consolation letters'. But sentimental they are not, for they emerge from the writer's deep-seated commitment to Stoicism, where individuals are exhorted to inhabit qualities of virtue, positivity, resilience, and indifference. This recording opens with Seneca's consolatory letter to Marcia, who, after three years, was still mourning the death of her ...