Seneca was a philosopher who wrote about living simply, and one of the richest men in Rome. He was exiled, nearly executed by one emperor, tutor to another, and finally ordered to die by his own former student. His life reads like a novel. Here is the story, and twenty facts you probably didn’t know.
- c. 4 BCBorn in Córdoba, Spain
- AD 65Died near Rome, on Nero’s orders
- 300 millionsesterces (roughly $2–10 billion today): one of Rome’s largest fortunes
- 5 emperorslived under, from Augustus to Nero
- 124 lettersto Lucilius, plus essays, plays and science
The story
The life of Seneca, in eight chapters
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c. 4 BC – AD 20
A boy from Spain
Seneca was born in Corduba (modern Córdoba) in the Roman province of Hispania, the middle of three sons in a wealthy equestrian family. His father, Seneca the Elder, was a famous expert on rhetoric. While Seneca was still a small child the family moved to Rome, where he trained in public speaking and fell in love with philosophy, studying under the Stoic Attalus and the Pythagorean Sotion.
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AD 20s – 31
The sickly student
All his life Seneca suffered from a serious breathing illness, probably asthma. In his twenties it grew so bad that he went to Egypt to recover, living with his aunt, whose husband governed the province. He stayed for years, and returned to Rome around AD 31. His uncle died on the voyage home.
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AD 31 – 41
A rising star (who nearly got killed)
Back in Rome, Seneca entered politics and became one of the most admired speakers and writers in the city. That fame was dangerous. The historian Cassius Dio says the emperor Caligula, jealous of a brilliant speech, ordered him killed, and spared him only because someone said the sickly Seneca would soon die anyway.
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AD 41 – 49
Exile on Corsica
When Claudius became emperor, Seneca was accused of adultery with Julia Livilla, the emperor’s niece and Caligula’s sister. Most historians suspect the charge was political. He was banished to the rocky island of Corsica for eight years, where he wrote a famous letter of consolation to his own mother.
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AD 49 – 54
Tutor to a future emperor
Claudius’s new wife, Agrippina, had Seneca recalled to Rome for one job: teaching her 11-year-old son. The boy was Nero. Seneca became his tutor, speechwriter and closest advisor.
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AD 54 – 62
Running the Roman Empire
When Nero became emperor at 16, Seneca and the praetorian prefect Burrus effectively guided the government. The first five years were remembered as good ones. Seneca served as consul, grew enormously rich, and wrote essays on mercy, anger and the happy life. But Nero grew darker, and in AD 59 he had his own mother murdered. Seneca, still at his side, helped write the official explanation, the most troubling moment of his career.
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AD 62 – 65
Retirement and the letters
After Burrus died, Seneca asked to retire and even offered to hand his fortune back to Nero. Nero refused, but Seneca withdrew from court anyway. In those last few years, with time short and danger close, he wrote his finest work: the 124 letters to his friend Lucilius that you can read on this site, along with his Natural Questions on science and nature.
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AD 65
The end
After a failed plot to kill Nero, the emperor accused Seneca of being involved and ordered him to die. The historian Tacitus says he met the order calmly, comforted his weeping friends, and told them that since he could not leave them gifts, he would leave the one thing he had left: “the image of his life.” His wife Paulina wanted to die with him, but Nero ordered her saved, and she lived on for some years, faithful to his memory.
The big contradiction
The millionaire Stoic
Here is the puzzle that has followed Seneca for two thousand years. He wrote beautifully about simple living, about needing little and fearing poverty less. He also had one of the largest fortunes in the Roman world: 300 million sesterces (roughly $2 billion to $10 billion in today’s money, depending on whether you measure by the price of bread or by wages).
His critics noticed in his own lifetime. In AD 58 the senator Suillius asked in public by what kind of wisdom a philosopher had piled up 300 million sesterces in four years of friendship with the emperor (Tacitus, Annals 13.42). Cassius Dio, writing later, says Seneca “found fault with the rich” while owning those famous ivory-legged tables, and even claims Seneca’s aggressive lending in Britain helped spark Queen Boudica’s revolt. That last charge is disputed by many historians.
Seneca’s answer, in his essay On the Happy Life, was that a wise person may own wealth as long as the wealth doesn’t own them:
“Riches are the slave of the wise man, and the master of the fool.”
Was he a hypocrite, or an honest man admitting he was still a work in progress? He seems to have known the question would be asked. Again and again in the letters he calls himself a patient in the same hospital as his reader, not the doctor. Read Letter 17 and Letter 87 and decide for yourself. And if you’re wondering where all that money went: What happened to Seneca’s billions when he died?
Did you know?
20 surprising facts about Seneca
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He was a multimillionaire
Both Tacitus and Cassius Dio put his fortune at 300 million sesterces (roughly $2 billion to $10 billion in today’s money, depending on whether you measure by the price of bread or by wages), enough to make him one of the richest people in Rome. He earned it through imperial gifts, estates and lending.
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He owned 500 identical tables
Dio claims Seneca owned five hundred matching tables of rare citrus wood with ivory legs, at a time when a single citrus-wood table could cost as much as an estate. Dio disliked Seneca, so take it with a grain of salt.
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He was a wine-country investor
Pliny the Elder reports that Seneca paid four times the going price for a vineyard at Nomentum, outside Rome, because it was famous for spectacular harvests.
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He lived under five emperors
Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. Three of them turned against him: one tried to have him killed, one exiled him, and one ordered his death.
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His brother is in the Bible
His older brother Gallio was the Roman governor in Corinth who refused to hear a case against the apostle Paul (Acts 18:12–17).
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His nephew was a famous poet
Lucan, son of Seneca’s younger brother Mela, wrote the epic Pharsalia about Rome’s civil war, and fell in the same purge that took his uncle.
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Caligula hated his writing
Besides nearly having him killed, Caligula sneered that Seneca’s style was “sand without lime,” meaning it had no mortar holding it together (Suetonius).
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He called asthma “rehearsing death”
He wrote about his breathing attacks in Letter 54, treating each one as practice for facing the end calmly.
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He tried going vegetarian
Inspired by his teacher Sotion, the young Seneca gave up meat for about a year and said his mind felt sharper. He stopped at his father’s urging, when foreign customs became politically suspicious in Rome. He tells the story in Letter 108.
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He was a cold-water swimmer
He proudly calls himself a lifelong cold-water bather who once started each new year with a plunge into icy water, though by old age he admits he had moved to warmer baths (Letter 83).
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He spent 8 years in exile
Banished to Corsica in AD 41, he wrote some of his early philosophy there before he was called back to Rome.
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He wrote a roast of a dead emperor
A satire usually credited to Seneca, the Apocolocyntosis, mocks the late Claudius’s attempt to become a god. The title is usually translated as “The Pumpkinification.”
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He was Nero’s ghostwriter
Tacitus notes that people noticed Nero was the first emperor who needed someone else’s eloquence; his early speeches came from Seneca.
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He offered to give it all back
In AD 62 he asked Nero to take back the wealth he had been given so he could retire. Nero refused, embraced him, and (according to Tacitus) privately began to turn against him.
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He wrote about the Pompeii earthquake
In Natural Questions he describes the earthquake that badly damaged Pompeii around AD 62, years before Vesuvius buried the town.
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He predicted we’d know more
Writing about comets, he said a day would come when people would be amazed that the ancients didn’t know things so plain. He was right.
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Shakespeare’s era loved his plays
His bloody tragedies, like Medea, Phaedra and Thyestes, shaped Elizabethan revenge drama and the young Shakespeare.
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Christians thought he was one of them
A set of fake letters between Seneca and Saint Paul circulated by the 4th century, and early Christian writers called him “often one of ours.”
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Dante gave him a good seat
In the Inferno, Dante places “Seneca the moralist” in Limbo among the great pagan thinkers, not in the circles of punishment.
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We only know one true portrait
The only image certainly showing Seneca is a Roman double portrait, back to back with Socrates, now in Berlin. A famous bearded bronze long thought to be him is now called the “Pseudo-Seneca.”
His times
Seneca’s world
Seneca lived through one of the most dramatic stretches of Roman history: the Julio-Claudian emperors, a dynasty of genius, paranoia and murder. Rome ruled from Britain to Egypt. Fortunes were made and lost at the emperor’s whim, and a dinner-party remark could end a career, or a life. That is the backdrop to every letter: when Seneca writes about fear, exile and fortune, he isn’t being theoretical.
- Augustus to AD 14
- Tiberius 14–37
- Caligula 37–41
- Claudius 41–54
- Nero 54–68
After Seneca
Why he still matters
Seneca was read by early Christians, medieval monks, Renaissance humanists and the founders of the modern essay. Montaigne counted him among his favorite authors. Rubens painted his death. Today he is one of the most quoted ancient writers on Earth, and his letters remain the most personal, practical introduction to Stoicism there is.
The best way to know him is to read him. Start with Letter 1, “On Saving Time” →
Read more
The best books on Seneca’s life
Biography
Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
James Romm’s gripping, page-turning account of Seneca’s years beside Nero. The best place to start.
Biography
The Greatest Empire: A Life of Seneca
Classicist Emily Wilson’s sharp, balanced life of Seneca, contradictions and all.
The ancient source
Tacitus, the Roman historian whose account of Seneca’s life and death is the one everyone draws on.
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Sources: Tacitus, Annals books 12–15; Cassius Dio, Roman History books 59–62; Suetonius, Caligula; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 14; Acts 18; and Seneca’s own letters, essays and Natural Questions. Ancient historians had their own agendas, so where a story comes from a hostile source, we say so.
FROM THE ARCHIVE: RICHARD GUMMERE’S 1916 INTRODUCTION
Among the personalities of the early Roman Empire there are few who offer to the readers of to-day such dramatic interest as does Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the author of the Epistles which are translated in this volume.
Born in a province, educated at Rome, prominent at the bar, a distinguished exile, a trusted minister of State, and a doomed victim of a capricious emperor,
Seneca was born in the year 4 B.C., a time of great opportunity, at Corduba, in Spain, son of the talented rhetorician, Annaeus Seneca. We gather that the family moved to Rome during the boyhood of Lucius, that he was educated for the bar, and that he was soon attracted by the Stoic philosophy, the stern nurse of heroes during the first century of the Empire. That his social connexions were distinguished we infer from the prominence and refinement of his brother Gallio, – the Gallio of the New Testament, – from the fact that he himself was noticed and almost condemned to death by the Emperor Caligula soon after he began to speak in public, and especially because his aunt, whom he visited in Egypt, was the wife of the governor of that country.Seneca is so linked with the age in which he lived that in reading his works we read those of a true representative of the most thrilling period of Roman history.
Up to the year 41 he prospered. He makes mention of his children, of his mother who, like the mother of Goethe, seems to have imbued him with idealism and a certain amount of mysticism, and of many valued friends. But during that year, as a result of court intrigue, he was banished to the island of Corsica. The charge against him was a too great intimacy with Iulia Livilla, unfortunate sister of the late emperor, and the arch-foe of Messalina, whose husband, Claudius, had recalled the princess from exile. We may discount any crime on Seneca’s part because even the gossip-laden Suetonius says: “The charge was vague and the accused was given no opportunity to defend himself.”
The eight years of exile were productive of much literary work.
The tragedies, which have had such influence on later drama, are the fruit of this period, besides certain essays on philosophic subjects, and a rather cringing letter to Polybius, a rich freedman at the court of Claudius. In 49, however, Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic so often ridicules, came to his rescue. Agrippina had him recalled and appointed tutor to her young son, later to become the Emperor Nero. Holding the usual offices of state, and growing in prominence, Seneca administered the affairs of the prince, in partnership with Burrus, the praetorian. Together they maintained the balance of power between throne and Senate until the death of Burrus in the year 62. After that time, a philosopher without the support of military power was unable to cope with the vices and whims of the monster on the throne.
The last two years of Seneca’s life were spent in travelling about southern Italy, composing essays on natural history and relieving his burdened soul by correspondence with his friend Lucilius. In the year 65 came his suicide, anticipating an act of violence on the Emperor’s part; in this deed of heroism he was nobly supported by his young wife Paulina. The best account of these dark days is given in Tacitus.
These letters are all addressed to Lucilius. From internal evidence we gather that the native country of this Lucilius was Campania, and his native city Pompeii or Naples. He was a Roman knight, having gained that position, as Seneca tells us, by sheer industry. Prominent in the civil service, he had filled many important positions and was, at the time when the Letters were written, procurator in Sicily. He seems to have had Epicurean tendencies, like so many men from this part of Italy; the author argues and tries to win him over to Stoicism, in the kindliest manner. Lucilius wrote books, was interested in philosophy and geography, knew intimately many persons in high places, and is thought by some to be the author of the extant poem Aetna.
When their friendship began we cannot say. The Naturales Quaestiones and the Letters are the work of Seneca’s closing years. Both are addressed to Lucilius. The essay De Providentia, which was also dedicated to him, is of doubtful date, and may be fixed at any time between the beginning of the exile in Corsica and the period when the Letters were written.
In spite of the many problems which confront us, it may be safely said that the years 63-65 constitute the period of the Letters. We find possible allusions to the Campanian earthquake of 63, a reference to the conflagration at Lyons, which took place either in 64 or in 65, and various hints that the philosopher was travelling about Italy in order to forget politics. The form of this work, as Bacon says, is a collection of essays rather than of letters. The recipient is often mentioned by name; but his identity is secondary to the main purpose. The language at the beginning of the seventy-fifth letter, for example, might lead one to suppose that they were dashed off in close succession: “You complain that you receive from me letters which are rather carelessly written;” but the ingenious juxtaposition of effective words, the balance in style and thought, and the continual striving after point, indicate that the language of the diatribe had affected the informality of the epistle.
The structure of each letter is interesting. A concrete fact, such as the mention of an illness, a voyage by sea or land, an incident like the adventure in the Naples tunnel, a picnic party, or an assemblage of friends who discuss questions from Plato, or Aristotle, or Epicurus, – these are the elements which serve to justify the reflections which follow. After such an introduction, the writer takes up his theme; he deals with abstract subjects, such as the contempt of death, the stout-heartedness of the sage, or the quality of the Supreme Good. We shall not mention the sources of all these topics in footnotes, but shall aim only to explain that which is obscure in meaning or unusual in its import. Plato’s Theory of Ideas, Aristotle’s Categories, Theophrastus on Friendship, Epicurus on Pleasure, and all the countless doctrinal shades of difference which we find in the Stoic leaders, are at least sketched in outline.
But we must give full credit to the philosopher’s own originality. In these letters, it is impossible to ignore the advance from a somewhat stiff and Ciceronian point of view into the attractive and debatable land of what one may fairly call modern ideas. The style of the Epistles is bold, and so is the thought.
Considered en masse, the letters form a fruitful and helpful handbook, of the very widest scope and interest. The value of intelligent reading and the studies which make for culture is presented to Lucilius with frequency, notably in Nos. II. and LXXXVIII. Seneca agrees with the definition of higher studies as “those which have no reference to mere utility.” The dignity of the orator’s profession (XL. and CXIV.) is brought to the attention of a young self-made merchant who seems inclined towards platform display. The modern note is struck when the author protests against the swinish and debasing effects of slavery or gladiatorial combats (XLVII. and LXX.); preaches against the degeneracy of drunkenness (LXXXIII.); portrays the charms of plain living and love of nature (LVII., LXVII., LXXIX., LXXXVI., LXXXVII., XC., XCIV.); recommends retirement (XVIII., LI., LVI., LXXX., CXXII.); or manifests a Baconian interest in scientific inventions (LVII., LXXIX.). Most striking of all is the plea (XCIV.) for the equality of the sexes and for conjugal fidelity in the husband, to be interpreted no less strictly than honour on the part of the wife. The craze for athletics is also analyzed and rebuked (XV.).
The Epistles contain also, of course, the usual literary types which every Roman epistolographer would feel bound to introduce. There is the consolatio; there is the theme of friendship; there are second-hand lectures on philosophy taken from Plato and Aristotle and Theophrastus, as we have indicated above; and several characteristically Roman laudations of certain old men (including the author himself) who wrestle with physical infirmities. But the Stoic doctrine is interpreted better, from the Roman point of view, by no other Latin writer. The facts of Seneca’s life prove the sincerity of his utterances, and blunt the edge of many of the sneers which we find in Dio Cassius, regarding the fabulous sums which he had out at interest and the costly tables purchased for the palace of a millionaire.
Finally, in no pagan author, save perhaps Vergil, is the beauty of holiness (XLI.) so sincerely presented from a Roman standpoint. Although his connexion with the early Church has been disproved, Seneca shows the modern, the Christian, spirit. Three of the ideals mentioned above, the hatred of combats in the arena, the humane treatment of slaves, and the sanctity of marriage, draw us towards Seneca as towards a teacher like Jeremy Taylor.
There is no pretence of originality in the Latin text; the translator has adopted, with very few deviations, that of O. Hense’s second edition. This text he has found to be excellent, and he has also derived assistance from the notes accompanying the Selected Letters of W. C. Summers.
Richard M. Gummere.
Haverford College, May, 1916.