Author: SENECA
Biography:
SENECA (c. 4 BCE-65 CE: OCD)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Younger, was the son of the historian of the same name (c. 59 BCE-39 CE) and the uncle of the poet Lucan (q.v.). He was born in Cordoba in southern Spain and sent to Rome for his education in grammar and rhetoric before 5 CE. The family was aristocratic and wealthy. At an unknown date he married Pompeia Paulina and with her had one son. His corpus includes highly influential letters, speeches, dialogues, and plays—ten tragedies of which two are doubtful attributions. He is identified primarily as a Stoic philosopher. Banished to Corsica by the emperor Claudius in 41-49 CE, he returned to become the tutor of the young Nero and, after Nero’s succession in 54, his political advisor and minister. But as Nero’s excesses grew, Seneca’s influence waned. In 62 he sought to retire from Rome and to give up his property, but was denied permission. In 65 he was accused of participation in the failed Pisonian conspiracy and was forced to commit suicide: he cut his wrists and slowly bled to death. According to Tacitus his wife attempted to do the same but was prevented by order of the emperor. His plays, typically showy in style and violent in content, were important classical models for writers of the English Renaissance, most notably Shakespeare. Of the two translators here, James Elphinston (q.v.) has his own headnote. Richard Williams, who translated Medea and had previously turned Thomas Gray’s (q.v.) poem The Bard into Latin verse (1775), was baptised on 27 Nov. 1747 at Hawarden, Flintshire, Wales, son of the rector Richard Williams. The family seat was Fron, in Flintshire. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1765 but does not appear to have proceeded to a degree. He was rector of Machynlleth 1789-1805 and of Llanverras (Llanferres) 1805-11. He died suddenly, unmarried, on 4 June 1811; obituaries praised his general knowledge and in particular his knowledge of the history and language of ancient Britain and Wales. (OCD 11 Mar. 2025; Grafton et al., eds., The Classical Tradition [2010]; DWB 11 Mar. 2025; findmypast.com 11 Mar. 2025; Alumni Oxonienses; Chester Chronicle 7 June 1811) HJ