The Greatest Empire: A Life of Seneca

by Emily Wilson

Overview

By any measure, Seneca (4-65AD) is one of the most significant figures in both Roman literature and ancient philosophy. His writings are voluminous and diverse, ranging from satire to disturbing, violent tragedies, from metaphysical theory to moral and political discussions of virtue and anger. Seneca found himself at the turbulent center of Roman imperial power, making him thus an important witness to the Empire's first dynasty, the Julio-Claudians. Exiled by the emperor Claudius in the wake of a sex scandal, he was eventually brought back to Rome to become tutor and, later, speech-writer and advisor to Nero. Seneca was suspected of plotting against Nero, condemned to die, and ultimately took his own life-an act that is one of the most iconic suicides in Western history.

The life and works of Seneca pose a number of fascinating challenges. How can we reconcile the bloody tragedies with the prose works advocating a life of Stoic tranquility? How are we to balance Seneca the man of principle, who counseled a life of calm and simplicity, with Seneca the man of the moment, who amassed a vast personal fortune in the service of an emperor seen by many, at the time and afterwards, as an insane tyrant? In this definitive and moving biography, Emily Wilson presents Seneca as a man under enormous pressure, struggling for compromise in a world of absolutism. The Greatest Empire offers us the portrait of a life lived perilously in the gap between political realities and philosophical ideals, between what we aspire to be and what we are.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190939533
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2018
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her other books include, as translator, Homer's Odyssey and Six Tragedies by Seneca.

Table of Contents

Preface
Timeline
Maps
Introduction: A Rough Road to Greatness
Chapter One: "Parental love is wise"
Chapter Two: Nowhere and Everywhere
Chapter Three: "Vices tempt you by the rewards they offer"
Chapter Four: "There's no easy path from earth to the stars"
Epilogue
Notes
Further Reading
Bibliography
Art Credits
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Wilson offers a carefully balanced narrative of Seneca's life that is derived, as it must be, from partial and often contradictory sources" —Christian Century

"This is a riveting and complete picture of Seneca's complex and compromised life. It is impeccably researched, carefully structured, and written with admirable brio. For good or ill, ours is a Senecan age." —Simon Critchley, The New School for Social Research

"A fresh, perceptive, and in-depth look at the enigmatic Seneca, giving us a nuanced perspective into the conflicted mind and motives of the philosopher who embraced lofty Stoic ideals while serving Nero and amassing great wealth in the process. I honestly could not put it down, it is so insightful and well written and yes-suspenseful, even though we know the ending." —Margaret George, author of Elizabeth I: The Novel and Helen of Troy: A Novel

"Unique as a scholarly book-length treatment of Seneca, this biography should appeal to anyone intrigued by the paradox of struggling to achieve wealth and power-and peace of mind." - Library Journal

"One way to sort out the contradictions of Seneca's life is not even to try. The art critic Robert Hughes labelled Seneca 'a hypocrite almost without equal in the ancient world', and left it at that. Romm and Wilson—and the new wave of Seneca scholars more generally—resist such reductive judgments. It is possible, in their view, to see Seneca as a hypocrite and as a force of moral restraint." —The New Yorker

"Seneca lived in a world where dissimulation was a way of life, and the confusion between reality and failure woven into the very fabric of the state. It is the mirror he holds up to it which makes him such a great and unsettling writer, and which Wilson's fine biography does so much to explicate." —The Telegraph

"Since Miriam Griffin's Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (1976), historians have wondered how Seneca could reconcile being a millionaire courtier and Nero's's adviser with his Stoic principles. For Wilson, the more interesting question is why he preached what he did, when he knew his integrity was so compromised. " —The Guardian

"Wilson finds Seneca's life and work relevant to modern-day western culture, troubled by the psychological pressures that go with material wealth and by the problems attendant on consumerism and globalisation. By quoting in translation and explaining Roman practices she helps the general reader enjoy her well-written and imaginative book." —History Today

"Morally our author is tough on Seneca, contrasting, for example, his lickspittle approach to Nero with Boudicca's resistance. But she is a persuasive extoller of his writing and the final chapter about his diverse legacy is breathtaking." —The Spectator

"...the most famous and poignant example of a philosopher trying and spectacularly failing to improve a ruler, is that of the Roman Stoic Seneca, whose life is wonderfully retold here by the classicist Emily Wilson." —The Sunday Times

From the Publisher

12/01/2014
Wilson (classical studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania; The Death of Socrates) takes a refreshing, critical look at the paradox of Seneca, a first-century Roman patrician and influential Stoic philosopher. Survival hinging on imperial whim, Seneca advocated personal simplicity and self-discipline to attain a state of "untroubled-ness," averring that "the greatest empire is over oneself." Yet Seneca accrued fabulous wealth as chief advisor and speechwriter for the cruel emperor Nero, generating tensions between theory and practice that pervade Seneca's letters and tragic plays. Wilson seeks to make sense of the man by examining his works, which reveal Seneca's fraught, ultimately doomed efforts to "be engaged in the world without losing integrity." This dilemma will continue to resonate in modern societies that, like Imperial Rome's, are beset by anxiety, inequality, consumerism, and moral compromise. The author teases out the nuances of Stoicism and concludes with Seneca's cultural impact, recently evidenced in Hunger Games character Seneca Crane—another PR manager with a fatal sentimental streak. VERDICT Unique as a scholarly book-length treatment of Seneca, this biography should appeal to anyone intrigued by the paradox of struggling to achieve wealth and power—and peace of mind.—Michael Rodriguez, Hodges Univ. Lib., Naples, FL

Library Journal