Description: Exiled to Corsica for alleged adultery with Caligula's sister, Seneca returned to Rome eight years later to become Nero's tutor and embarked on a powerful and turbulent political career. After being accused of conspiring against the emperor, he was commanded to commit suicide by Nero, which he did in characteristic Stoic manner. Included in this volume are the dialogues On the Shortness of Life and On Tranquillity of Mind, which are eloquent classic statements of Stoic ideals of fortitude and self-reliance. This selection also features extracts from Natural Questions, Seneca's exploration of such phenomena as the cataracts of the Nile and earthquakes, and the Consolation to Helvia, in which he tenderly tries to soothe his mother's pain at their separation. Seneca's prose works were admired by Erasmus, Rousseau, and the major literary figures of Elizabethan England, and his tragedies were models for both Shakespeare and Racine.

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