Hercules Oetaeus

SENECA, Ludius Annaeus, born at Corduba (Cordova) c. 5 or 4 B.C., of a noble and wealthy family, after an ailing childhood and youth at Rome in an aunt's care, was a victim of life-long neurosis but became famous in rhetoric, philosophy, money-making, and imperial service. After some disgrace during Claudius' reign he became a tutor and then, in A.D. 54, advising minister to Nero, some of whose worst misdeeds he did not prevent. Involved (innocently?) in a conspiracy, he killed himself by order in A.D. 65. Wealthy, he preached indifference to wealth; evader of pain and death, he preached scorn of both; and there were other contrasts between practice and principle. Wicked himself he was not. Of his works we have 10 mis-called 'Dialogi", seven being philosophical -- on providence, steadfastness, happy life, anger, leisure, calmness of mind, shortness of life; 3 other treatises (on money, benefits, and natural phenomena); 124 "Epistulae morales" all addressed to one person; a skit on the official deification of Claudius; and 9 rhetorical tragedies (not for acting) on ancient Greek themes. Many 'Epistulae' and all his speeches are lost. Much of his thought is clever rather than deep and his style is pointed rather than ample