But again, we have no clear evidence for any of this, since neither Seneca himself nor our other sources provide any explicit account of the marriage.

episodically. This is not a philosophy of abstractions, but of habit formation,

How, then, could Seneca justify accepting a favor from the despised Claudius—such as recall from exile? He has an ingenious answer: one can accept a benefit “as if from Fortune, whom you realize might next minute become unkind.” This is a clever psychological move: whenever you are in the shameful position of being under an obligation to a person

Republic. For Seneca, philosophy was an end in itself. His rhetoric aims to achieve a change in the reader’s individual psyche, not in the institutions of government. In Cicero’s time, there was still a sense that political action could make a difference: Cicero hoped that he really could bring down Caesar and Mark Antony. Seneca, by contrast, had

Seneca cites with horror and condemnation Caligula’s dreadful words: “Let them hate, as long as they fear”: oderint, dum timeant. 38 His central point is that this degree of aggression goes beyond appropriate expression of authority into the merely monstrous.

constant is fear.

This book teases out the relationship of his literary output to the events and actions of his life. I am highly conscious of the dangers of circularity, both in deducing life from art and using the art to illustrate or investigate the life. But I hope to show how each side of this binary illuminates the other. Seneca’s writing constantly resonates

a potion made of asses’ milk mixed with leeks, with the whey mixed up with nasturtium and honey (Pliny, NH, 28.55). Also good for asthma or any kind of shortness of breath was the liver of a fox mixed in red wine, or the gall of a bear taken in water (Pliny, NH, 28.55). Seneca, who was under the care of expensive doctors all his life, presumably

Seneca died in a state of struggle against the political powers that were. The attempt to die, and to attain philosophical calm, takes every nerve and muscle in his body. “Living is fighting,” he declared (Epistle 96.5), and dying, too, involved a battle, as well as a long process of trial and error.