Overview

After centuries of neglect there is renewed interest in the life and works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca (or Seneca the Younger, c 4 BCE-65 CE). At one time an advisor at court to Nero, Seneca and his political career came to ruin when he was implicated in a later plot to kill the capricious and matricidal emperor, and compelled to commit suicide. Discredited through collusion, or at least association, with a notorious and tyrannical regime, Seneca's ideas were for a time also considered derivative of Greek stoicism and thus inferior to the real thing. In this first in-depth introduction to be published for many years, Christopher Star shows what a remarkable statesman, dramatist and philosopher his subject actually was. Seneca's original contributions to political philosophy and the philosophy of the emotions were considerable. He was a favourite authority of Tertullian, who saw Seneca as proto-believer and early humanist. And he is a key figure in the history of ideas and the Renaissance, as well as in literature and drama. This new survey does full justice to his significance.

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9781848858909

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Reviews

"""The obvious comparisons for this volume are C. Mendell, Our Seneca (1941) and M. Griffin, Seneca: a Philosopher in Politics (1976). Both books were great successes and remain highly respected; S.'s admiration is nuanced and laudable"" --The Classical Review"

The obvious comparisons for this volume are C. Mendell, Our Seneca (1941) and M. Griffin, Seneca: a Philosopher in Politics (1976). Both books were great successes and remain highly respected; S.'s admiration is nuanced and laudable --The Classical Review

Author Information

Christopher Star is Associate Professor of Classics at Middlebury College, Vermont. He is the author of The Empire of the Self: Self-Command and Political Speech in Seneca and Petronius (2012).

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