- Consolationes
- Ad Marciam consoles a lady on the loss of a son
- Ad Helviam matrem consoles Seneca's mother on his exile
- Ad Polybium consoles freedman Polybius on the loss of a son.
- De ira ("Whom they have injured they also hate.") [Written to his older brother.]
- De clementia on mercy which Seneca approved.
- De tranquillitate animi ("There is no great genius without a tincture of madness")
- De constantia sapientis
- On Stoic virtues:
- De vita beata
- De otio
- De providentia ("Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.") Misfortune but not evil happens to good men.
- De beneficiis on benefits.
- De brevitate vitae on the shortness of life which only philosophers know how to live well and fully.
- Epistulae morales 124 moral essays to Lucilius.
Seneca's philosophy is best known from his letters to Lucilius and his dialogues. Virtue and Reason are, as they are for the other Stoics, the basis of a good life which should be lived simply and in accordance with Nature. But whereas the philosophical treatises of an Epictetus might inspire you to lofty goals you know you'll never meet, Seneca's philosophy is more practical with ideas thrown in from other philosophies. He even coaxes and cajoles, as in the case of his advice to his mother to cease her grieving. "You are beautiful," he says in paraphrase "with an age-defying appeal that needs no make-up, so stop acting like the worst kind of vain woman." [blockquote]You never polluted yourself with make-up, and you never wore a dress that covered about as much on as it did off. Your only ornament, the kind of beauty that time does not tarnish, is the great honour of modesty.
So you cannot use your sex to justify your sorrow when with your virtue you have transcended it. Keep as far away from women's tears as from their faults.
(www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/wlgr/wlgr-privatelife261.html) 261. Seneca to his mother. Corsica, A.D. 41/9.[/blockquote]Another famous example of his pragmatic philosophy comes from a line in Hercules Furens: "Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue."
Parody of the fashion of deifying emperors as well as burlesque of the buffoonish emperor Claudius is the subject of his Apocolocyntosis (The Pumpkinification of Claudius).
On the serious side, because Seneca compared man's being enslaved by emotions and vices with physical slavery, many have thought he held a forward-looking view on that oppressive institution, although his attitude towards women (see quotation above) was less enlightened. He was also thought to have been in correspondence with St. Paul, although this is currently regarded as untrue. This supposed relationship helped in his acceptance by Christian Church leaders and, as consequence, the transmission of his writing.
