Opening Letters & Consolations — Seneca in Plato Scroll…
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Seneca · R. M. Gummere
Seneca’s letters: the three Consolations (to Marcia, to his mother Helvia, to Polybius) and the 124 Moral Epistles to Lucilius — his masterpiece and the fullest practical handbook of Roman Stoicism: on the shortness of a life well spent, the mastery of fear and anger, friendship, death, and philosophy as daily practice. Translations by Aubrey Stewart (Consolations, 1900) and Richard Mott Gummere (Moral Epistles, Loeb 1917–25); public domain. Corsica, the French island west of Italy. In 41 AD, Claudius succeeded Caligula as Emperor and at the behest of his wife, Messalina, he banished Seneca to Corsica on a charge of adultery with Caligula’s sister, Julia Livilla. Seneca spent his exile in philosophical and natural study, as counselled by Roman Stoic thought and it was here that he composed the Consolations. Composed circa 40 AD, Seneca’s three Consolatory works, De Consolatione ad …
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