000			a
999			_c30643 _d30643
008			220107b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780718193508
082			_a188 _bWIL
100			_aWilson, Emily R.
245			_aSeneca : a life
260			_bPenguin Books, _c2016 _aLondon :
300			_axiii, 253 p. ; _bill., maps. _c20 cm
365			_b699.00 _cINR _d00
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520			_aBy any measure, Seneca (c.4-65AD) is one of the most significant figures in both Roman literature and ancient philosophy. His writings are voluminous and diverse, ranging from satire to disturbing, violent tragedies, from metaphysical theory to moral and political discussions of virtue and anger. Seneca found himself at the turbulent centre of Roman imperial power, making him thus an important witness to the Empire's first dynasty, the Julio-Claudians. Exiled by the emperor Claudius in the wake of a sex scandal, he was eventually brought back to Rome to become tutor and, later, speech-writer and advisor to Nero. Seneca was suspected of plotting against Nero, condemned to die, and ultimately took his own life-an act that is one of the most iconic suicides in Western history. The life and works of Seneca pose a number of fascinating challenges. How can we reconcile the bloodytragedies with the prose works advocating a life of Stoic tranquility? How are we to balance Seneca the man of principle, who counseled a life of calm and simplicity, with Seneca the man of the moment, who amassed a vast personal fortune in the service of an emperor seen by many, at the time and afterwards, as an insane tyrant? In this definitive and moving biography, Emily Wilson presents Seneca as a man destroyed by his times, struggling for compromise in a world of absolutism. The Greatest Empire offers us the portrait of a life lived perilously in the gap between political realities and philosophical ideals, between what we aspire to be and what we are.
650			_aSeneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D
650			_aPhilosophers, Rome, Biography
650			_aAuthors, Latin, Biography
650			_aStatesmen, Rome
650			_aPhilosophers
650			_aRome, Empire
650			_a Ideals, Reality
942			_2ddc _cBK