Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium [Letters to Lucilius]

Francesca Romana Berno (Independent Scholar - Europe)

Ed. by Jula Wildberger, The American University of Paris
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.2: Ancient Roman Writing and Culture (Republic and Empire), -750-476.
Vol. editors: William John Dominik (University of Otago), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Sophia Papaioannou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Jula Wildberger (The American University of Paris)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. 65

Places

Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Letter(s)

Resources

Introduction

The Epistulae morales ad Lucilium (EM) are perhaps the most famous of Seneca’s works, surely the most attractive, even for non-specialists: 124 letters of various lengths divided into twenty books, the remnants of an original corpus of at least twenty-two books (Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 12.2), written after the author’s retirement (from 62 to 64 CE) to his friend Lucilius, and dealing with moral issues, as indicated by the title itself, which varies, however, in the different strands of the textual transmission (Reynolds 1965, v-xviii; Spallone 1995; Fohlen 2000).

The approximate chronology is based on internal references about events which let us …

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4968 words

Citation: Berno, Francesca Romana. "Epistulae morales ad Lucilium". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 March 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=32192, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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