Four Leading Stoics

Chapter Three ATHENE AND HER OWL: THE WISDOM OF THE GREEKS
2. The Shape and Content of First-Century Philosophy
(iv) Four Leading Stoics
(a) Seneca

Seneca was born around the same time as Jesus of Nazareth. He wrote voluminously, employing a brilliant style which he could adapt into many different forms both of prose and verse. Enough of his work has survived (including particularly his remarkable ‘Moral Letters’) that he occupies ten volumes in the Loeb Classical Library, putting him in the same league as Philo or Josephus and not far behind Plato himself. He remains, in my judgment, one of the more attractive figures of an often murky period. Accusations of hypocrisy (only abandoning wealth and power when effectively forced to do so; self-confessed bouts of anger and grief) may equally be seen as the realistic moral struggles of one who refused the bright moral light of a Cynic-style asceticism, realizing that the human heart is more complicated than easy solutions allow. His lifelong hatred of cruelty makes him stand out in an age, and culture, not noted for such views.80...