Work · Hellenistic, Roman & Late Antique
Letters to Lucilius
124 letters on time, death and friendship – often with a quotation from Epicurus as a gift.
Introduction
The letters, in twenty books, are addressed to Lucilius, a friend of Seneca who was then serving as an official in Sicily; whether they were actually sent or written for publication is debated. They date from the last years of Seneca’s life, after his withdrawal from Nero’s court. Each letter starts from an everyday situation – a journey, an illness, a visit to the baths – and leads to a Stoic lesson. The first letter begins with the advice to claim oneself for oneself and to hold on to time. The collection is incomplete: Aulus Gellius quotes from a twenty-second book. Montaigne and many later essayists took the letters as a model.
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Connections
Builds on
- Letter to Menoeceusc. 300 BCE · Epicurus
Taken up in
- Essays1580 · Michel de Montaigne
- On Constancy1584 · Justus Lipsius
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