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Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca Minor) was born around 4 BCE in Cordoba in southern Spain. He was a rhetorician, writer, poet and Roman philosopher. Nicknamed “The Philosopher”; he was the son of Seneca the Elder (Seneca Maior), called “Rhetor” (Seneca Rhetor), who went down in history as an outstanding teacher of rhetoric and the author of the work entitled Controversiae et suasoriae. He was a tutor to Emperor Nero; at the beginning of his rule, he had considerable influence in court.
Origin and early life
He was the second son of Helvia and Lucius Anneus Seneca; he was not of Roman origin. His elder brother Junnius Annaus Gallion was proconsul of Achaia in 52 CE. The younger brother’s name was Lucius Anneus Mela, he was a knight and financier; his son Lucan went down in history as an outstanding Roman poet.
There are doubts about the date of his birth. Very little information about Seneca’s early life has survived to this day. According to historian Miriam T. Griffin, he may have been born in 8, 4, or 1 BCE According to Griffin, it is most likely that he was born between 4 and 1 BCE and moved to Rome in 5 CE. Seneca himself stated that he came to Rome in the arms of his mother’s half-sister.
In his youth, Seneca studied rhetoric and philosophy in Rome. His first teacher Attalus instilled in him an interest in Stoic philosophy. In Rome, he was under the care of his aunt (mother’s sister), whose husband Gaius Galerius was the prefect of Egypt. Due to poor health and thanks to the support of his mother and aunt Seneca in 16 CE left for Egypt, where around 32 CE he began his public activity as a court defender. He returned to Rome perhaps around 33 CE and assumed the office of quaestor. With his committed work and beautiful speeches in Egypt and Rome, he gained recognition and popularity among the people. When in 37 CE Caligula took the Roman throne, jealous of Seneca’s popularity, and sentenced him to death. Apparently, he was distracted from the execution of the sentence by voices that Seneca was in poor health anyway and would die naturally soon.
When emperor Claudius took power after the murder of Caligula in 41 CE, Seneca once again had to worry about his future. Under the influence of Claudius’ wife – Messalina – Seneca was exiled to Corsica; allegedly because of a sex scandal in which he was allegedly involved; he was supposed to be the lover of Caligula’s sister. Seneca never forgave the emperor for his decision to exile, and after his death wrote a malicious panegyric in his honour, “The Pumpkinification of (the Divine) Claudius” (Apocolocyntosis divi Claudii). Seneca stayed on the island until 48 CE, when, thanks to another wife of Claudius – Agrippina the Younger – the philosopher was recalled from exile to Rome to care for and raise her son – the future emperor Nero. Seneca’s career and position were strengthened thanks to Agrippina’s clear favouritism. In 50 CE he also became a praetor.
Guardian of Nero
From the beginning, Seneca focused on educating Nero in the spirit of Stoic philosophy. After the death of Claudius in 54 CE Seneca became, together with the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, one of the main advisers of the young, then-only 17-year-old Nero. In the first years of his reign, Nero was not interested in politics and listened to the advice of his tutors. Efforts were made, on the one hand, to instil in him a model of just rule, and on the other, to limit the influence of Agrippina, who often sought bloody solutions to problems in the state.
Tacitus writes about it:
The tendency, in fact, was towards murder, had not Afranius Burrus and Seneca intervened. Both guardians of the imperial youth, and — a rare occurrence where power is held in partnership — both in agreement, they exercised equal influence by contrasted methods; and Burrus, with his soldierly interests and austerity, and Seneca, with his lessons in eloquence and his self-respecting courtliness, aided each other to ensure that the sovereign’s years of temptation should, if he were scornful of virtue, be restrained within the bounds of permissible indulgence.
– Tacitus, Annals, XIII.2
