Lucius+Annaeus+Seneca


 * ﻿ ****__Lucius Annaeus Seneca[[image:486px-Seneca-berlinantikensammlung-1.jpg width="262" height="350" align="right"]] __**

**Lucius Annaeus Seneca ** (often known simply as **Seneca**, or **Seneca the Younger**) (c. 1 BC – 65 AD) was a [|Roman] [|Stoic] [|philosopher], [|statesman] , [|dramatist] , and in one work [|humorist] , of the [|Silver Age of Latin literature]. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor [|Nero]. He was later forced to commit suicide for complicity in the [|Pisonian conspiracy] to assassinate this last of the [|Julio-Claudian emperors] ; however, he may have been innocent. [|[1] ] [|[2] ] His father was [|Seneca the Elder] and his older brother was [|Gallio].

In 65, Seneca was caught up in the aftermath of [|a plot to kill Nero]. Although it is unlikely that he conspired, he was ordered by Nero to kill himself. He followed tradition by severing several [|veins] in order to [|bleed to death], and his wife [|Pompeia Paulina] attempted to share his fate. [|Tacitus] (writing in Book XV, Chapters 60 through 64 of his Annals, a generation later, after the Julio-Claudian emperors) gives an account of the suicide, perhaps, in light of Tacitus's Republican sympathies, somewhat romanticized. According to it, Nero ordered Seneca's wife to be saved. Her wounds were bound up and she made no further attempt to kill herself. As for Seneca himself, his age and diet were blamed for slow loss of blood, and extended pain rather than a quick death; taking poison was also not fatal. After dictating his last words to a scribe, and with a circle of friends attending him in his home, he immersed himself in a warm bath, which was expected to speed blood flow and ease his pain. [|Tacitus], however, in his [|//Annals of Imperial Rome//] says that Seneca [|suffocated] by the [|water vapor] rising from the bath. “He was then carried into a bath, with the steam of which he was suffocated, and he was burnt without any of the usual funeral rites. So he had directed in a codicil of his will, even when in the height of his wealth and power he was thinking of life’s close.

(Source: [|http://en.wikiped] __ia.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger)__

**As a humanist saint ** The early Christian Church was very favorably disposed towards Seneca and his writings, and the church leader [|Tertullian] called him "our Seneca". [|[8] ] Medieval writers and works (such as the [|Golden Legend], which erroneously has Nero as a witness to his suicide) believed Seneca had been converted to the Christian faith by [|Saint Paul] , and early [|humanists] regarded his fatal bath as a kind of disguised baptism. However, this seems unlikely as Seneca always professed to be Stoic.  [|Dante] placed Seneca in the [|First Circle of Hell], or [|Limbo] , a place of perfect natural happiness where virtuous non-Christians like the ancient philosophers had to stay for eternity, due to their lack of the justifying grace (given only by Christ) required to go to [|heaven]. Seneca makes an appearance as a character in [|Monteverdi] 's opera [|L'incoronazione di Poppea]. (Source: [])

(Picture Source: ) **Works ** Works attributed to Seneca include a dozen philosophical essays, one hundred twenty-four letters dealing with [|moral] issues, nine [|tragedies], a [|satire] , and a [|meteorological] essay. **Tragedies ****: ** · Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules) · <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Troades (The Trojan Women) · <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Phoenissae (The Phoenician Women) · <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Phaedra · <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Thyestes · <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Hercules Oetaeus (Hercules on Oeta): there is doubt by some scholars whether this tragedy was written by Seneca. · <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Octavia: closely resemble Seneca's plays in style, but is probably written by someone with a keen knowledge of Seneca's plays and philosophical works, a short time after Seneca's death, perhaps in the '70s of the first century A.D.   · <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Agamemnon · <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Oedipus · <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Medea

**<span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Dialogues **
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(40) // [|Ad Marciam, De consolatione] // (//To Marcia, On consolation//) - Consoles her on the death of her son
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(41) // [|De Ira] // (//On anger//) - A study on the consequences and the control of anger
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(42) // [|Ad Helviam matrem, De consolatione] // (//To Helvia, On consolation//) - Letter to his mother consoling her on his absence during exile.
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(44) // [|De Consolatione ad Polybium] // (//To Polybius, On consolation//) - Consoling him on his missing son
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(49) // [|De Brevitate Vitæ] // (//On the shortness of life//) - Essay expounding that any length of life is sufficient if lived wisely.
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(62) // [|De Otio] // (//On leisure//)
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(63) // [|De Tranquillitate Animi] // (//On tranquillity of mind//)
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(64) // [|De Providentia] // (//On providence//)
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(55) // [|De Constantia Sapientis] // (//On the Firmness of the Wise Person//)
 * <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;">(58) // [|De Vita Beata] // (//On the happy life//)

<span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tabstops: list .5in;"> ** <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Links **<span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">: <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[] <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[] <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[] <span style="color: #545417; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">

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