Seneca: works and translated versions

Translated versions, works and life of the Latin philosopher and writer.

SENECA: WORKS AND TRANSLATED VERSIONS

For some of you, Latin is a real tragedy, especially when it comes to having to   do a translation , let alone if the author in question is Seneca . With the right help, however, everything becomes less complicated, even translating a Latin version . Precisely to facilitate your study and put you in a position to study and prepare without too much effort for class assignments and oral tests, we have decided to offer you all our resources on Seneca, a Latin philosopher and writer, certainly one of the richest personalities of the ancient world.
In this section you will find everything about his biography , his works and above all some versions already translated from Latin to Italian.

SENECA: BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE

Full Name : Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Younger

Date of Birth : 4 BC (Cordoba, Spain)

Date of Death : 65 AD (Rome)

Parents : Lucius Annea Seneca the Elder, Hèlvia

SENECA: LIFE

Lucius Annaeus Seneca is one of the most well-known and studied Latin authors: a philosopher, follower of stoicism and playwright, active in many fields, including public life, he was a senator, quaestor and tutor of the future emperor Nero . Let’s look together at the salient points of his intense life to place the author in the historical context:

• 5 BC : Seneca was born in Cordova, Spain, to Seneca the Rhetorician. From a young age he came into contact with a pro-republican and anti-imperial environment because the city of Cordova had sided with Pompey during the civil war.
• He completed his studies in Rome where he studied philosophy and rhetoric. There he joined the sect of the Sestii , which preached an uncompromising morality and rigorous asceticism , but the persecution of Tiberius against this sect forced him to flee to Egypt . Upon his return to Rome he was introduced to the environment of Caligula’s court.
• 31-32 AD : He returns to Rome and becomes a senator. Under Caligula (37-41) he risks the death sentence
• 41 AD : After Caligula’s death, Claudius ascends to the throne . Involved in a court intrigue (he is accused of adultery with Julia Livilla, Caligula’s sister and Claudius’ niece), Seneca is exiled to Corsica by the emperor and remains there for eight years. He returns to Rome thanks to Agrippina , who wants him as a tutor for her son Nero.
• 54 AD : Claudius dies of poisoning and Seneca tries to redeem himself in the eyes of the Romans from the accusation of being involved in the murder by writing the speech of praise that Nero gives in the Senate in honor of the emperor. Seneca follows the young emperor for more than 4 years, supported by Agrippina and the prefect of the praetorium Burrus (54-58 AD = “happy five years”)
• 59 AD : Agrippina dies at the hands of Nero’s assassins. Seneca writes an indictment speech against the deceased and delivers it in the Senate
• 62 AD : Upon the death of the praetorian prefect Burrus, who is replaced by the infamous Tigellinus, Seneca retires to private life especially when Nero, bypassing his tutor, assumes power, following the directives of Poppea. He marries the very young Paulina . He spends the last three years of his life in study and meditation.
• 65 AD : Involved in the Piso conspiracy , he is induced by Nero to kill himself: Seneca, in pursuing his philosophical ideals, chooses the death of the Stoic sage , cutting his veins (the description of his death is reported by Tacitus in the Annales XV, 60-64)

SENECA: THE WORKS

Seneca’s production is vast, but many works are lost , others are known only for some fragments. A part of them has been known since ancient times as Dialogorum libri , but Seneca is a prolific author, who also wrote tragedies, satires and naturalistic works. Here is all of Seneca’s literary and philosophical production:

Philosophical works: The Dialogorum libri

They follow the line of the Cynic-Stoic diatribe since the author, who speaks in the first person, has as interlocutor the recipient of the epistle or a fictitious character. Here is the list of Dialogues:

• De providentia (Epistoles to Paulinus): the question that Seneca poses, and to which he tries to give an answer, is how a providential God can admit the existence of evil. Seneca emphasizes the theme of suffering, which is not evil, but is a sort of testing ground.
• De constantia sapientis (Epistoles to Annaeus Serenus): Seneca sets out the Stoic thesis of the imperturbability of the wise man.
• De ira (in 3 books): to understand these letters we must start from the assumption based on the Stoic principles, according to which the supreme good is the logos , and therefore everything that is not rational is bad and should be avoided. Anger is purposely chosen by Seneca among the emotions to be avoided: the right path is instead a lucid decision matured in cold, rational terms.
• Consolatio ad Marciam : dedicated to Marcia, daughter of Cremutius Cordus, the historian who committed suicide, to console her. Seneca uses it as an opportunity to address the delicate issue of suicide, which, consistently with the principles of Stoic doctrine, is seen as positive if motivated by a rationally made choice.
• De vita beata: the main theme is happiness which, considered the highest good by Hellenistic philosophies, is obtained, according to the Epicureans, through hedonè , pleasure. According to the Stoics, however, pain is not an evil, but rather it is necessary for man to improve himself. Seneca identifies the highest good with virtus , the self-discipline that man must place before his own emotional component.
• De otio (Epistoles to Annaeus Serenus): in this late work Seneca distances himself from rigorous Stoic ethics: when political commitment becomes impossible one must fall back on other activities, such as literature and philosophy.
• De tranquillitate animi (epistles to Anneus Serenus): deals with the serenity of the soul.
• De brevitate vitae (Epistoles to Paulinus): “ longa est vita si plena “, man’s life is never too short if lived intensely.
• Consolatio ad Polybium : dedicated to Polybius, a powerful freedman and advisor to Claudius, on the death of a brother. The intent is evidently flattering towards the princeps , in an attempt to convince him to recall him to Rome from forced exile.
• Consolatio ad Helviam matrem : it is dedicated to his mother for the “loss” of her son, forced into exile in Corsica.

Other philosophical works: the Treatises

• De beneficiis : in 7 books. Seneca addresses himself, with the same ideals, to a new audience: the wealthy class, the only one that can remedy the poverty and misery of the masses, but only if educated to generosity and benevolence.
• De clementia, in 3 books: it dates back to the early years of Nero’s reign, and its aim is the education of the young prince.
• Epistulae morales (Letters to Lucilius) 124 letters in 20 books: Seneca writes to his friend Lucilius, after 62 BC. They are written in private and the themes covered are varied and already present in some Dialogues; there are two recurring motifs: the figure of the stoic sage and death.

Scientific / naturalistic works:

• Naturales quaestiones in 7 books. The work deals with earth science, physics and atmospheric phenomena; the dating refers to a comet that appeared in 60 AD and to an earthquake that damaged Pompeii in 62.

Tragedies and

They are 9 cothurnatae , that is, tragedies set in Greece and intended for reading and not for theatrical performance; probably written when Seneca retired to private life:

• Hercules furens: Hercules, gone mad, kills his wife and children, then, having come to his senses, goes to Athens. The model of this tragedy is that of Euripides’ “Heracles”
• Troades: describes the drama of the Trojan women destined to slavery by the Greeks. The model is Euripides’ “Trojan Women”
• Phoenissae : deals with the myth of Oedipus and the rivalry of his sons Eteocles and Polynices to succeed to the throne. The model is Euripides’ “Phoenicians”
• Medea : The model is Euripides’ “Medea”: the woman, to take revenge for Jason’s abandonment, kills the children she had with him.
• Phaedra: the theme is the incestuous love of Phaedra for her stepson Hippolytus. Critics suppose that the model of this tragedy is the lost “Hippolytus Veiled”, a scandalous drama remade by Euripides with the title of “Hippolytus Crowned”
• Oedipus: the prototype for this tragedy is Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”. Oedipus discovers that he is the murderer of his father Laius and that he has married his mother Jocasta.
• Agamemnon : the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra is represented; the model is Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon”
• Thyestes : it is the most famous of Seneca’s tragedies: it tells the story of the atrocious crime of Atreus, who serves the flesh of his children to Thyestes.
• Hercules Oetaeus : Hercules is killed by the tunic soaked in the poisonous blood of the centaur Nessus. The model is the “Trachiniae” by Sophocles

The Agamemnus and the Hercules Oetaeus are considered spurious by some critics.

• Among the tragedies we find a praetexta, that is a drama set in Latin, certainly spurious, the Octavia, initially attributed to Seneca but the work of one of his imitators, written after the death of Nero.

The Menippenan satire of the Apokolokyntosis

Ludus de morte Claudii, also known by the obscure title Apokolokyntosis : it is a Menippean satire on the fate of Claudius in the realm of the dead, in which all the hatred and contempt that Seneca felt for the emperor who had relegated him to Corsica is manifested.It is the last work of the Senecan corpus, prosimetric, mixed prose and verse. The meaning of the title (Apokolokyntòsis = “inzuccatura”, “transformation into a pumpkin”?) is controversial: according to a widespread hypothesis, it would mean that at his death Claudius, instead of being assumed among the gods, was assumed… among the pumpkins (or courgettes); however, nothing similar happens in the work. For others, the title refers to the fact that since Claudius was never deified, his apotheosis was a fake.