Everything you need to know about Seneca for Love and Relationships Classics A-level
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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.
, “Yet, as he says himself, effective exhortation can include preaching higher standards than can be realistically expected, and most moral
teachers have urged attention to their words rather than to their example. Moreover, his teaching is more subtle and complex than is
sometimes appreciated: he does not require the sacrifice of wealth, only the achievement of spiritual detachment from worldly
goods; he advocates giving honest advice to rulers, while avoiding offence and provocation. Moreover, he confesses to having abandoned
his youthful ascetism, to giving in on occasion to grief and anger, to being only on the first rung of moral progress. Above all, he conveys,
as few moralists have, a sympathy with human weakness and an awareness of how hard it is to be good.”
What was Stoicism?
● Stoicism maintained that reason and the soul were far more important than the body and it believed that Virtus was the ultimate
good
Who founded Stoicism?
● Zeno in 4th century BC
What was 'immunity to pain' in Stoicism?
● Apatheia
How did stoic achieve 'immunity to pain'
● By placing reason above the natural desires of the body
How could a stoic man become a sage
● By attaining arete and freeing himself from desires of the body, or vices
What was arete?
● 'Virtue' or 'goodness'- in stoicism, it is the way of life attained by the complete subjugation of bodily desires
Give three Stoic ideas about the concept of ‘virtue’:
● True virtue should be sought by all people
● Virtue could only be achieved through the careful control of emotions
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