 | Seneca the Younger: Encyclopedia II - Seneca the Younger - Biography
Seneca the Younger - Biography
Born in Corduba (presently Cordoba, Spain), Seneca was the second son of Helvia and Marcus (Lucius) Annaeus Seneca, a wealthy rhetorician known as Seneca the Elder. Seneca's older brother, Gallio, was proconsul at Achaia (where early Christian documents recall he encountered the apostle Paul about AD 52). Seneca was uncle to the poet Lucan, by his younger brother, Annaeus Mela.
Tradition relates that he was a sickly child, and that he was taken to Rome for schooling. He was trained in rhetoric, and was introduced into the Stoic philosophy by Attalos and Sotion. Due to his illness, Seneca stayed in Egypt from (25-31) for treatment.
After his return, he established a successful career as an advocate. Around 37 he was nearly killed, as a result of a conflict with the Emperor Caligula, who only spared him because he believed the sickly Seneca 'would not live long', anyhow. In 41, Messalina, wife of the Emperor Claudius, persuaded Claudius to have Seneca banished to Corsica on a charge of adultery with Julia Livilla. He spent his exile in philosophical and natural study, and wrote the Consolations.
In 49, Claudius' new wife, Agrippina, had Seneca recalled to Rome to tutor her son, L. Domitius, who was to become the emperor Nero. On Claudius' murder in 54, Agrippina secured the recognition of Nero as emperor over Claudius' son, Britannicus.
For the first five years, the quinquennium Neronis, Nero ruled wisely under the influence of Seneca and the praetorian prefect, Sextus Afranius Burrus. But, before long, Seneca and Burrus had lost their influence over Nero, and his reign became tyrannical. With the death of Burrus in 62, Seneca retired, and devoted his time to more study and writing.
In 65, Seneca was accused of being involved in a plot to murder Nero, the Pisonian conspiracy. Without a trial, Seneca was ordered by Nero to commit suicide. Tacitus gives an account of the suicide of Seneca. His wife, Pompeia Paulina, who intended to commit suicide after Seneca's death, was forced and sentenced to live by Nero.
Other related archives37, 370, 4 BC, 40, 41, 42, 44, 49, 52, 54, 56, 62, 63, 64, 65, Achaia, Ad Marciam, De consolatione, Agamemnon, Agrippina, Britannicus, Caligula, Claudius, Cordoba, De Brevitate Vitae, De Providentia, De Tranquillitate Animi, Elizabethan England, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, Euripides, European, Gallio, Greek tragedy, Julia Livilla, Loeb Classical Library, Lucan, Lucilius, Medea, Messalina, Nero, Octavia, Oedipus, Ovidian, Paul, Phoenissae, Pisonian conspiracy, Renaissance, Roman, Seneca the Elder, Sextus Afranius Burrus, Silver Age of Latin literature, Spain, Stoic, Tacitus, Thyestes, advocate, clemency, cosmology, dramatist, humorist, medieval, meteorological, meteorology, moral, philosopher, philosophy, praetorian prefect, proconsul, rhetoric, rhetorician, satire, statesman, tragic drama, universities, virtue
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
