Seneca, Lucius Annaeus

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus,

Was a teacher, rhetorician, philosopher, poet, essayist, epistolographer, naturalist, advocate, magistrate, and statesman, under the later Roman emperors of the adscititious Julian house. It is in the character of philosopher that his reputation has endured through all subsequent times. This reputation has been preserved, as it was generated, mainly by the piquancy of his style, the terseness of his expression, the incisiveness and the epigrammatic felicity of his phrase, and the constant ostentation of an earnestness which was, in some degree, factitious, and of a profundity which is more apparent than real. By whatever arts his renown was attained, or by whatever accidents it was perpetuated, the name of Seneca has ever continued the most notable and the best known in the scanty catalog of Roman philosophers, and of Romans pretending to philosophy. There, has been no period in which any smattering of letters survived when Seneca was not admired and cited. His own profession, "Nulla dies sine linea," has been applicable to him in many forms. The fathers of the Church, the schoolmen of the Middle Age, the poets of the Renaissance, and their corrivals the Elizabethan dramatists, had all frequent recourse to Seneca, and Shakespeare was reproached with his too ready use of the convenient repertory of gnomes and maxims. In his own day, Seneca occupied a conspicuous station. His abilities merited a very high position, and his accomplishments accorded with his abilities. He obtained the quaestorship and the praetorship in the official hierarchy when these honors were conferred by imperial favor. He was the instructor and chief minister — of an emperor whose excesses and atrocities have made the name of Nero a synonym for all that is brutal and heartless in despotism, despicable in license and vanity, and unparalleled in crime. He lauded frugality and simplicity (De Tranquill. Animi, 1, 5-8; Ep. 2, 2, 9), and echoed the desire of Propertius:

"Utinam Romae nemo esset dives; et ipse Straminea posset dux habitare casa."

But while eulogizing cottage life — "domus haec sapientis angusta; sine cultu, sine strepitu, sine adparatu" (De Constant. 15, 5) — he passed his days in splendid villas and in palaces. He professed the wise man's indifference to the hazards of life, the caprices of fortune, and the conditions of existence, but he dwelt in all the luxury and indulgence of Roman sybaritism. He preached the blessings of obscurity in the press of courtiers, of whom he was the chief. He strenuously commended poverty, but he more sedulously increased his millions, and is charged with provoking the most serious of British revolts by the sudden recall of his usurious loans. These contrasts were human weakness — "mortalibus mos est ex magnis majora cupiendi" (De Benef. 3, 3, 2) — but they were not the sage's triumphs over human infirmities and worldly temptations. He addressed his treatise On Clemency to Nero, but he disguised, if he did not sanction, the poisoning of Claudius; he justified the assassination of Agrippina by her son, and he failed to prevent the divorce and murder of the empress Octavia. He might well exclaim, "Mali inter malos vivimus" (De Ira, 3, 26, 4). Could he find an excuse in another of his sayings, "Mansuete immansueta tractanda?" (ibid. 27, 3). He expatiated on the evil of avarice, and wrote at great length On Beneficence, but he enriched himself by imperial confiscations. He exulted in the perfect freedom of the true philosopher, and cringed to the freedmen and minions of an imbecile and semi-idiotic sovereign (Consol. ad Polyb.; Dion Cass. 61, 10). He was prominent among the Stoics of the time, whom he patronized by his countenance and by his predications; he was chief among the satellites and profligates of the court, whom he rebuked by his precepts, but did not stigmatize by his retirement. In all things he was a rhetorician and an actor. His literary productions glitter with the coruscations of unintermitting paradox and antithesis; but the paradox of his tenets and the antithesis of his style are less novel and less startling than the contrasts between his professions and his career, his doctrine and his practice (πάντα τὰ ἐναντιώτα οις ἐφιλοσόφει ποιῶν ἠλέγχθη [Dion Cass. 61, 10]). The image and example of his life were his bequest to his friends. They should have been accompanied with the epigraph,

"Deficior prudens artis ab arte mea."

At the first contemplation of these strange anomalies we are inclined to say, "tota vita mentitur" (Ep. 5, 4, 10) — his life was all a lie. But much that is contradictory, much that may invite the sternest reprobation, may be palliated by regarding the times, the difficulties of the situation, and the artificial and discolored lights under which all is seen. Such discrepancies, however, between the philosophy and the conduct cannot fail to stimulate curiosity and to require cautious estimation.

1. Life. — L. Annaeus Seneca was the second son of M. Annaeus Seneca, the rhetorician, and the author of the Controversial Exercises for the instruction of students of rhetoric. His elder brother, Gallio, proconsul of Achaia at the time of Paul's visit, had assumed the name of the distinguished advocate Junius Gallio, by whom he had been adopted. His younger brother, L. Annaeus Mela, was the father of Lucan, the poet of the Pharsalia. Marcus, the founder of the distinguished family, was a citizen from Corduba, in Spain, and of the equiestrian order. He was wealthy, reputable, accomplished, and noted for his wonderful memory. He took an eminent position at Rome as a teacher of rhetoric, and lived to be an octogenarian. His illustrious son was born at Corduba. but was transferred to Rome in early life, and was educated there under his father and Papirius Fabianus, Attalus, and Sotion. Fabianus he mentions frequently in his works with respect and affection,. By Sotion he was initiated into the mysteries, vagaries, and asceticism of the Pythagoreans. Seneca was so earnest in his abstinences and in his renunciation of animal food that he became emaciated and endangered his health. By the urgent persuasions of his father he abandoned his fasts and vigils, and turned from the pursuit of severe philosophy to the business of life. He adopted a forensic career. The remains of Seneca attest his abilities, the breadth of his culture, the diversity of his acquirements, the vigor of his fancy, the variety of his reflections, the fluency and perspicuity of his style. He soon rose to eminence and lucrative employment. He became quaestor, at what time is unknown, but probably in the middle of the reign of Tiberius. Under Caius his life was nearly cut short. Jealousy of his talents, envy of his distinction, apprehension of his sentiments, hatred of his opinions and associations, or more adequate provocations, excited that insane and furious emperor's hostility, and he was designated for execution. By adroit intervention he was spared, on the representation that he would soon sink under disease. Two years later Caligula was assassinated, but Seneca survived. The opening of the new reign was inauspicious to him. Claudius banished him to the sterile and inhospitable island of Corsica — "Horrida desertis undique vasta locis." Messalina suspected his intimacy with the emperor's nieces, Agrippina and Julia, and alleged an intrigue with one or both. Seneca was safer and more, innocent on the most inhospitable coast than in the company of any of these infamous sirens. He had already addressed his tractate On Anger to his brother Novatus, who had not yet become Gallio. Little of his fortitude, and nothing of the tranquillity of the philosopher, were displayed by Seneca in his exile. In the first period of his expatriation he achieved a Consolation to Helvia, his mother, to calm her natural grief at the violent and hazardous separation. It abounds in, showy sentiments, in exquisite expressions, in wholesome but exaggerated reflections, which fall upon the expectant ear like the sound of hollow brass. His equanimity is belied by his effort to discover, to multiply, and to adorn reasons for equanimity. The impression is irresistible that the affected contentment of the sage is only the triumph of the rhetorician, and intended to attract public admiration and sympathy. This unfavorable effect is deepened by the Consolation to Polybius, also composed in the Corsican seclusion, and written to the powerful freedman of Claudius to comfort him on the loss of his brother, and to invoke for himself the commiseration of the libertine and the favor of his master. The wise man, who, like Ovid, had bemoaned the miseries of banishment in elegiac verse, declared that, under Claudius, "the life of exiles was more tranquil than that of princes under Caius." He enlarged upon the resplendent qualities of the stupid, misled, blundering pedant on the throne, whose pumpkinification he was to celebrate after his death in bitter satire. The intense servility and adulation of the twenty-sixth chapter of this discreditable Consolation have often attracted remark; but it has high literary merits.

After eight years not unprofitably spent, Seneca was recalled from his exile. The new empress, Agrippina, mindful of old intimacy, or anxious for additional support, summoned him from the sterile rocks of Corsica to the luxury and license of the imperial palace. He was advanced to the praetorship, and appointed tutor to her son, the young, handsome, promising Domitius Nero. Had not Alexander been the pupil of Aristotle? What might not be anticipated from the disciple of Seneca? It was very shortly before the acceptance of this charge that he had written the Consolatio ad Marciam on the death of her son. It was apparently followed by the disquisition On Tranquillity. Unreality of emotion characterizes both works. Marcia was the daughter of Cremutius Cordus, the republican historian of the last civil wars. Her son, for whom she was tardily consoled, had been dead three years. The praise of intellectual calm came with a suspicious air from one who had been fretting and moaning in obscurity for eight years, and was ready to welcome the bustle and extravagance of the court. There seems to have been no hesitation in accepting the proposals of Agrippina to forsake tranquillity. She was scheming to advance to the throne a son of whom his father had said that nothing but a monster could spring from sich parents. The throne was secured by poisoning the old and uxorious emperor. Seneca became prime- minister and chief administrator under Agrippina, with Burrus as head of military affairs. The first service of the political or politic philosopher was to compose for his pupil a fulsome laudation of the murdered prince, whose memory he lampooned himself. The Neronian lauds were so highly appreciated that the senate directed them to be inscribed on a pillar of silver, and to be read by the praetors when they entered on their office. When Nero had been a year upon the throne, his younger colleague, Britannicus, the son and true heir of Claudius, was removed out of his path

— perhaps by poison, though this has been disputed in late years. At this opportune moment, Seneca addresses to his imperial pupil the notable treatise On Clemency. What was the demand for it, unless cruel dispositions had been manifested? How could they have been carried into effect unless by the acquiescence of Seneca, who was now in the height of his power? Tacitus alleges (Ann. 13, 11) that he published Nero's frequent asseverations of his clemency "testificando quam honesta praeciperet, vel jactandi ingenii." Seneca is charged with encouraging and excusing Nero's amour with Acte to prevent worse excesses. The offense was venial in comparison with other subserviences. This liaison, however, irritated Agrippina, and inflamed the growing hostility between the mother and the son. Public affairs continued to be conducted quietly and prosperously, and Seneca has reaped the honor. The calm was only on the surface. A few years later, the indictment of Suillius, under the antiquated Cincian law, brought discredit upon Seneca, who appears to have been active in the prosecution. Suillius, in his defense, turned savagely upon him — charged him with having been the quaestor of Germanicus, and with having corrupted his daughter none the less; demanded by what wisdom or by what precepts of philosophy he had accumulated such a vast estate in four years of imperial friendship; denounced him for catching rich and childless men, as with a net, and for exhausting Italy with his usuries (Tacit. Ann. 13, 43). The arts of the infamous Poppaea Sabina widened the breach between Agrippina and her son, and the trust and influence of Seneca sickened with the declining authority of Agrippina. He was alarmed and jeopardized by the unnatural combat. The mother sustained the rights of the injured empress Octavia; the son yielded to the wiles of the sorceress Poppaea Sabina, whose victory portended the utter overthrow of the maternal supremacy. It was a conflict to be terminated only by the death of Nero or of Agrippina. The mother, by whose crimes he had secured the throne, was the victim. It was generally credited that Seneca and Burrus assented to the matricide, though they devolved the execution on other instruments. Seneca has been accused of suggesting the crime to regain Nero's confidence. That he defended it has never been denied, and admits no exculpation. A later minister of Rome welcomed death rather than stain his conscience by apologizing for a less atrocity; but the meanness of Seneca's complicity in the crime sustained him in his position, if not in his full ascendency, for a few years longer. He was still the first subject in the empire, the most prominent of the imperial ministers, when the "Quinquennium Neronis," the first five years of the new reign, was celebrated by the Quinquennalian games. The imaginary felicity of these years was long a memory and a regret to the Roman world, and posterity has accepted the impression which was then made. To Seneca has been assigned the credit of those halcyon days. Yet Britannicus had been suspiciously removed; Agrippina had been murdered by her son, and Seneca had justified the murder; Poppaea Sabina had supplanted Octavia, and insured her subsequent divorce and assassination. The Quinquennium Neronis was a theatrical illusion — a hypocrisy of brief duration. With the death of Burrus (A.D. 62), the scene rapidly changes. The marriage of Poppaea Sabina to the emperor, the divorce and murder of the young and innocent empress Octavia at the age of nineteen, and the final overthrow of Seneca's influence were nearly simultaneous — "Mors Burri infregit Senecae potentiam" (Tacit. Ann. 14, 52, 1). About the same time, Paul was brought as a prisoner to Rome, on his appeal to Caesar. Signs and portents, on earth and in heaven, terrified the superstitious. Earthquakes and bloody comets spread distress and consternation, and pestilence succeeded. In the second summer after the murder of Octavia, the fearful conflagration which led to the persecution of the Christians and the martyrdom of the apostles Peter and Paul devastated the city for six days and seven nights. During these years, Seneca's influence had vanished, and his peril had been ever before him. The asseverations of Nero "that he would perish rather than injure him" (Sueton. Nero, 35) were scarcely reassuring. A convenient ambiguity maybe detected in the phrase. Seneca begged for his dismissal from court; he proposed to surrender his villas and his vast estates, his five hundred ivory-footed chairs of citron, his three or four millions of substance (Tacit. Ann. 14, 54; Dion Cass. 61, 10). His entreaties and his offers were disregarded, but he sought an ostentatious seclusion. He endeavored to conceal himself under the garb of a philosopher; he returned to the asceticisms of his youth; he seemed oblivious of human affairs, and to hold communion only with philosophy and with his God. "Deo parere, libertas est" (Senec. De Vit. Beat. 15, 7). To these years of solicitous obscurity 'belong his best and most characteristic works — the treatises De Providentia, De Brevitate Vitoe, De Vita Beata, De Beneficiis, the Letters to Lucilius, and the Natural Questions. The danger so long foreseen was not averted by philosophical pretensions or by rhetorical homilies. Seneca, whether justly or not, was believed or declared to be involved in the conspiracy of Calpurnius Piso. Was he guilty? The recorded evidence is wholly inadequate. The probabilities alone convict him, and guilt in this case would be the most innocent of his criminalities. He knew his own peril; he knew the persistent and unscrupulous bloodthirstiness of his pupil; he knew the present and impending miseries of the Roman world when Nero's passions were unleashed; he had been cognizant and acquiescent, perhaps active in some cases, in the murder of Claudius, of Agrippina, of Octavia, and probably in many more assassinations. There is no appeal for him from his suspicious life to his sentimental morality, however lofty, pure, and fascinating. He was ordered to die, and the same decree was issued against his brother Gallio (but see Tacit. Ann 15, 73) and his nephew, the poet Lucan. The fatal mandate was promptly obeyed, but his death was lingering and painful. Nothing in the life of Seneca became him more or was more consistent with his philosophy than his manner of leaving it. There was something of parade — something of the vos plaudite of a classic comedy; but the ancients were always actors, and the ostentation of philosophic calm and indifference had been the habit of Seneca's life, and could not be wholly abandoned in the last act, when the situation was so tragic and imposing, so apt for one of his own dramas. The story of Seneca's serene but lingering death is told by Tacitus (ibid. 15, 59-65) with elaborate art and with the most adroit chiar-oscuro. It is one of the most finished of the numerous delineations in distemper of that consummate artist, and has furnished the exemplar for many inferior copies. The story has been so often repeated, and is so familiar, that it need not be reiterated here; but a suspicion remains that some of the touches of the painter's brush have no better justification than there was for the loose rumor reported by him that the conspirators had designed, if successful, to elevate Seneca to the throne of the Caesars.

2. Writings. — The literary remains of Seneca are in both prose and verse. The prose productions are moral essays, fragments of such essays, one hundred and twenty-four Letters to Lucilius (which are themselves essays), the Ludus de Morte Claudii (or Apocolocynthosis), and seven books of Natural Questions, or speculations in natural history. The Apocolocynthosis is a medley of prose and verse, but its authorship is doubtful. Seneca's poetry consists of nine epigrams — the wail of the exile — and ten tragedies, one of which (the Octavia) cannot have been written by him, while it remains uncertain whether he wrote any of them. The merits and defects of Seneca's style may be gathered from the incidental remarks already made. It may suffice at this time to quote the just censure of the emperor Caius, "Arena sine calce," and to approve the equally brief and accurate criticism of Quintilian," Abundat dulcibus vitiis." It is always affected, it is always pointed, it is always attractive, it is always radiant; but it is a string of artificial gems, not of "Orient pearls at random strung," or of genuine diamonds.

There are some old fabrications ascribed to Seneca, which should not be left altogether unnoticed. One of these is the treatise De Formula Honestoe Vitoe, which was constantly cited as his in the Middle Ages, but is now attributed to Martinus Dumiensis, a Christian writer contemporaneous with Justinian. The other is the imaginary correspondence between Seneca and Paul, which was known to Jerome. These letters are indubitably spurious; but an acquaintance between the pagan moralist and the Christian missionary is not without probability, though it is without evidence. The belief in such acquaintance, and the favorable acceptance of the Letters by Jerome and Augustine, encouraged the fancy that Seneca had been converted to Christianity. More deserving of consideration than the possibility of such intercourse is the close agreement between many passages in the writings of the Roman philosopher and in the Epistles of the apostle, and the singular consonance of the maxims of the Stoic rhetorician with the precepts of the evangelists and apostles. This significant concord has often been noticed, and recently, with especial care, by Dr. Lightfoot, the new bishop of Durham. The parallelisms are most frequent and most startling — of course in ethical rather than in theological matters. Almost equally suggestive is the fact that the ethical productions of Seneca are much after the fashion of sermons and hortatory discourses — preaching a purer faith, a cleaner heart, and virtuous action in the midst of a corrupt and unbelieving generation. An obvious explanation is that which induced the supposititious correspondence between Seneca and Paul. When this is rejected, it is easy to presume the diffusion of Christian doctrine by constant communications of all kinds between the several parts of the empire. It is certain that Christian influence was early discernible at Rome, and has been detected in the contemporaneous Roman law. There was a Christian community in the palace at an early period. But this does not explain all. During the whole lifetime of Seneca there was an earnest and widely extended movement in the line of moral renovation, which was illustrated by the growth of Stoicism at Rome and the expansion of its doctrines, by the tenor of the writings of Philo-Judetus, by Sibylline forgeries, and by the memorable career of Apollonius Tyaneus, which has been disguised and obscured by the fictions of his biographers. It does not conflict with a reverential interpretation of "the ways of God to man" to conjecture that the miseries of the civil wars which had spread from Calpe to the Euphrates; the consequent disintegration of society everywhere, and the general dissoluteness which those wars had engendered, produced, along with the decay of pagan belief, a recognition of the need, a solicitude for the accomplishment, and attempts at the introduction, of a religious regeneration. Such a condition of the mind and heart of the nations would be a natural preparation for the reception and diffusion of Christianity. Nor does it seem alien to the course of Providence, who never effects great changes per saltum, and to whom "a thousand years are but as a day."

3. Philosophy. — No distinct scheme of philosophy can claim Seneca as either its founder or its systematic expositor. He only enlarged the lines, adorned the precepts, and amplified the spirit of the philosophy which he professed. He declared himself a Stoic, has always been so regarded, and is recognized as such by Zeller, Ueberweg, and the other historians of ancient philosophy. It is therefore needless to dwell upon his doctrines. They are those of the Stoics (q.v.).. But Seneca was much more and much less than a Stoic of the old and rigid school, and much of his favor in his own and in later times may be attributed to the excess and the defect. He was thoroughly unsystematic and discontinuous. He indulges in no speculation to establish or to fortify the theory. He employs the current tenets for the practical conduct of life. He had a broader comprehension than Zeno or Chrysippus. He was latitudinarian in his sentiments. He applauds the character, commends the ethical doctrines, and cites the maxims of Epicurus. He inclines to the large intelligence of the Peripatetics, and emulates the spiritual aspirations of the Academics. Philosophy, in his conception, was no abstract and recondite study, of service only in the closet: it was the rule of life in the midst of distractions and temptations, of uncertainties and dangers — a refuge for the troubled mind, a shelter from suspicion and envy, a defense against tyranny, and the balm of a serene conscience (De Beat. Vit. 15).

Philosophy has been, since the Christian revelation, so distinct from religion, or so completely identified with it, that it is not easy to appreciate its character, its charms, and its value in those ages when it was the sole substitute for revealed truth — when from its dark, intricate, and insoluble problems could alone be expected vague hopes and vaguer aspirations, where Christianity affords absolute assurance to all. By the cultivated and inquiring pagan, philosophy was pursued as the guide of life, the moderator of prosperity, the solace in adversity, the oracular response to the eager questions which the earnest heart and intelligent mind are ever asking about here and hereafter — about the world, its origin, and its governance; about man, his duties and his destinies; about all that lies beyond the dark veil of death and the darker veil of birth, This is fully manifested in Seneca's invitation to Paulinus to seek "the shady spaces of divine philosophy" (De Brev. Vitoe, 19, 1, 2).

Philosophy offered many inducements to its pursuit or its pretense under the early empire. It was a discipline of mind and heart to those of gentle disposition and refined tastes whose easy circumstances in life relieved them from the necessity of public or professional vocations. Hence philosophy grew into a fashion, and the fashion, like all fashions, moral or religious, was often perverted into a cloak or a pretense.

Under the pressure of despotic rule, slight differences become symbols of political faith. At Rome, Stoicism associated itself with regrets for the republic, with a mild, inert aversion to the empire, or with a more decided antipathy to the emperor. Lord of himself, the Stoic asserted his independence of all control of man by governments or by fortune. The haughty pretension afforded little offense to the constituted powers. The sole sovereignty of the Stoic had its single throne within his own bosom. There he, too, was emperor; he cared for naught beyond. He had thus the credit of independence, without assuming the complexion of a conspirator or a revolutionary. Every age illustrates the facility with which prevalent principles shrivel up into empty forms. Loud professions may disguise hollow sentiments. Sentiments accordant with the professions may be sincerely entertained, and yet produce neither earnestness of feeling nor constancy of action. Men will more readily die for their avowed faith than live for it. Genuine martyrs may be found who would scarcely practice what they die for. Their faith is in their profession — "Cum verba eruperunt, adfectus ad consuetudinem relabuntur" (Senec. De Brev. Vit. 6, 3). Of such was Seneca. Augustine's comment on his boast of independence may be applied to most of his virtues: "Adfuit scribenti, viventi defuit" (De Civ. Dei, 6, 10). To this danger he was peculiarly exposed. He was courtly in manners and courtly in associations, amiable and impressible in disposition, serene and averse to violent emotions; of affectionate and placid temperament, rather than of deep and solid nature; vain rather than ambitious, and ever mindful of his own interest. His birth, his home influences, his education, his vocation, his career, his experience in either fortune, led him to deem that best which was most plausible or most secure. He was the son of a great rhetorician, brought up in the schools of the rhetoricians, destined for a rhetorician, winning early profit, distinction, and promotion by rhetorical displays. Rhetoric was the passion of the time; he was not constituted to despise it. He declared, "Oratio sollicita philosophum non decet" (Ep. 16, 5, 4); yet his expression was always curious and surprising. He has given us the maxim, "Qualis vir, talis oratio." It may be justly inverted, Qualis oratio, talis vir.

All that remains of Seneca shows that he was nothing if not rhetorical. The tartness of expression, the compression of phrase, the fertility of fancy, the paradox of thought, were ever uppermost in his mind. These things did not make him false, but unreal. They did not make him insincere, but superficial. His predilections were good, but evanescent in action. He had the fragility of the man who looks to form and fashion, not to substance. This may explain the contradiction between the ethical theory and the personal morality of Seneca. An instructive parallel, on a lower plane and with narrower exorbitancies, is furnished by the contrast between the character and the Night Thoughts of Edward Young.

It is a perilous and doubtful task to unveil the depths of the human heart; to reconcile the complex and often unconscious duplicities of human nature; to decide where delusion ends and deception begins; to estimate the force of temptations and the degrees of resistance to them; to discern the subtle harmony which binds all the parts of life together, and may unite general purity and noble appetencies to grievous frailties and ignoble crimes. None but the All-seeing One, "to whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are hid," can pierce the obscure mazes of human motives. The harsh, censorious, confident, sweeping, unrestricted judgment will blunder, whether it praise or blame — "Ut absolvaris, ignosce" (Senec. De Benef. 7, 28, 3). Was it a cry from his own lacerated conscience when Seneca exclaimed so truly and so sadly,

"Magnos humanum pectus recessus habet!" (Fragm. 3, De Amicit.)

4. Literature. — The historians of ancient philosophy and the Works of Seneca, of course. See also Lodge, The Life of L. Annoeus Seneca, described by Justus Lipsius, in The Workes of L. Annoeus Seneca, both Morall and Naturall (Lond. 1614); La Grange, Vie de Seneque (Paris, 1819); Aubertin, De Sap. Doctoribus qui a Cic. Morte ad Neron. Princip.

Romoe Viguerunt (ibid. 1857); Bernhardt, Die Anschauung des Seneca vom Universum (Wittenb. 1861); Seidler, Die religiös-sittliche Weltanschauung des Philosophen L. Annoeus Seneca (Fraustadt, 1863); Dourif, Du Stoicisme et du Christianisme, etc. (Paris, 1863); Montée, Le Stoicisme a Rome (ibid. 1865); Martha, Les Moralistes sous l'Empire Romain (ibid. 1866); Stahr, Agrippina, die Mutter Nero's (Berl. 1867); Lightfoot, Essay on St. Paul and Seneca, ap. Comm. on the Epistle to the Philippians; Westminster Rev. July, 1867, No. 173, art. 2; Merivale, Romans under the Empire (Lond. 1850-62). (G.F.H.)