SENECA, L ucoius Annaeus, a Stoical philosopher, was born at Cordoba, in Spain, about the beginning of the Christian era, of an equestrian family, which had probably been transplanted thither in a colony from Rome. He was the second son of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, commonly called the Rhetorician, whose remains are printed under the title of Suasoria et controversia, cum Declamation urn Excerptis; and his youngest brother Annaeus Mela, for there were three of them, had the honour of being father to the poet Lucan. He was removed to Rome, together with his father and the rest of his family, while he was yet in his infancy. There he was educated in the most liberal manner, and under the best masters. He learned eloquence from his father; but his genius rather leading him to philosophy, he put himself under the stoics Attalus, Sotion, and Papirius Fabianus, men famous in their way, and of whom he has made honourable mention in his writings. It is probable, too, that he travelled when he was young, since we find him, in several parts of his works, particularly in his Quastiones Naturales, making very exact and curious observations upon Egypt and the Nile. But this, though entirely agreeable to his own humour, did not at all correspond with that plan of life which his father had drawn out for him; and therefore he forced him to the bar, and put him upon soliciting for public employments, so that he afterwards became quaestor, praetor, and, as Lipsius will have it, even consul.

In the first year of the reign of Claudius, when Julia the daughter of Germanicus was accused of adultery by Mesgalina, and banished, Seneca was also banished, being charged as one of the adulterers. Corsica was the seat of his exile, where he lived eight years, “happy in the midst of those things which usually make other people miserable” (inter eas res beatus qua solent miseros facere); and he wrote his books of consolation, addressed to his mother Helvia, and to his friend Polybius, and perhaps some of those tragedies which go under his name. Agrippina being married to Claudius upon the death of Messalina, she prevailed with the emperor to recall Seneca from banishment, and afterwards procured his appointment as tutor to her son Nero, whom she designed for the empire. Africanus Bur rhus, a praetorian praefect, was joined with him in tills important charge; and these two preceptors, who were intrusted with equal authority, had each his respective department. By the bounty and generosity of his royal pupil, Seneca acquired that prodigious wealth which rendered him in a manner equal to kings. His houses and walks were the most magnificent in Rome. His villas were innumerable; and he had immense sums of money placed out at interest in almost every part of the world. The historian Dio reports him to have had L.250,000 sterling at interest in Britain alone, and reckons his calling it in all at once as one of the causes of a war with that nation.

All this wealth, however, together with the luxury and effeminacy of the court, does not appear to have had any ill effect upon the temper and disposition of Seneca. He continued abstemious, exact in his manners, and, above all, free from the vices so commonly prevalent in such places, flattery and ambition. “I had rather,” said he to Nero, “offend you by speaking the truth, than please you by lying and flattery” (malucrim veris offendere, quam placere adulando). How well he acquitted himself in quality of preceptor to his prince, may be known from the first five years of Nero’s reign, which have always been considered as a perfect pattern of good government; and if that emperor had but been as observant of his master through the whole course of it as he was at the beginning, he would have been the delight, and not, as he afterwards proved, the curse and detestation, of mankind. But when Poppaea and Tigellinus had got the command of his humour, and hurried him into the most extravagant and abominable vices, he soon grew weary of his master, whose life must indeed have been a constant rebuke to him. Seneca, perceiving that his favour declined at court, and that he had many accusers about the prince, who were perpetually whispering in his ear the great riches of Seneca, his magnificent houses and fine gardens, and what a favourite, through the means of these, he was grown with the people, made an offer of them all to Nero. Nero refused to accept them. This, however, did not hinder Seneca from changing his way of life; for, as Tacitus relates, he “kept no more levees, declined the usual civilities which had been paid to him, and, under pretence of indisposition, or some engagement or other, avoided as much as possible appearing in public.”

In the mean time Nero, who, as it is supposed, had despatched Burrhus by poison, could not be easy till he had also rid himself of Seneca; for Burrhus was the manager of his military concerns, and Seneca conducted his civil affairs. Accordingly, he attempted, by means of Cleonicus, a freedman of Seneca, to take him off by poison; but as this did not succeed, he ordered him to be put to death, upon an information that he was privy to Piso’s conspiracy against his person. Not that he had any real proof of Seneca’s being concerned in this plot, but only that he was glad to lay hold of any pretence for destroying him. He left Seneca, however, at liberty to choose his manner of dying; and the latter caused his veins to be opened immediately. His wife Paulina, who was very young in comparison of himself, had yet the resolution and affection to bear him company, and therefore ordered her veins to be at the same time opened; but as Nero was not willing to make his cruelty more odious and insupportable than there seemed occasion for, he gave orders to have her death prevented. Her wounds were therefore bound up, and the blood stopped, just in time enough to save her; though, as Tacitus says, she looked so miserably pale and wan all her life afterwards, that it was easy to read the loss of her blood and spirits in her countenance. In the mean time, Seneca, finding his death slow and lingering, desired Statius Annaeus, his physician, to give him a dose of poison, which had been prepared some time before in case it should be wanted; but this not having had its usual effect, he was carried to a hot bath, where he was at length[7:20:92] stifled with the steam. He died, as Lipsius conjectures, in the sixty-third or sixty-fourth year of his age, and in about the tenth or eleventh of Nero’s reign. Tacitus, on mentioning his death, observes, that, as he entered the bath, he took of the water, and with it sprinkled some of his nearest domestics, saying, “that he offered these libations to Jupiter the Deliverer.” These words are an evident proof that Seneca was not a Christian, as some have imagined him to have been; and that the thirteen epistles from Seneca to St Paul, and from St Paul to Seneca, are supposititious pieces. The writings of Seneca, excepting his books of Physical Questions, are chiefly of a moral kind. They consist of a hundred and twenty-four epistles, and distinct treatises on Anger, Consolation, Providence, Tranquillity of Mind, Constancy, Clemency, The Shortness of Life, Happiness, Retirement, and Benefits. A number of tragedies are extant under the name of Seneca, and written in a vicious style; but it is uncertain whether the whole or any part of them were his. The first good edition of his acknowledged works was published by Justus Lipsius, which was succeeded by the Variorum, 1672, three vols. 8vo, and others. Of the tragedies, the best are that of Scriverius, 1621, the Variorum, 1651, and Schroeder's, 1728, 4to.