Seneca, Lucius Annaeus

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus

Seneca, marble bust, 3rd century, after an original bust of the 1st century; in the Staatliche …

(credit: Courtesy of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany)

(born c. 4 BC, Corduba, Spain—died AD 65, Rome) Roman philosopher, statesman, and playwright. He was trained as an orator and began a career in politics and law in Rome c. AD 31. While banished to Corsica for adultery (41–49), he wrote the philosophical treatises Consolationes. He later became tutor to the future emperor Nero and from 54 to 62 was a leading intellectual figure in Rome. An adherent of Stoicism, he wrote other philosophical works, including Moral Letters, a collection of essays on moral problems. He also left a series of verse tragedies marked by violence and bloodshed, including Thyestes, Hercules, and Medea. His plays influenced the development of Elizabethan drama during the Renaissance, notably William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (1593–94) and John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (c. 1613).