Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics

by Miriam T. Griffin

The relationship between Seneca's prose works and his career as a first-century Roman statesman is problematic, for while he writes in the first person, he tells little of his external life or of the people and events that formed its setting. In this book, Miriam Griffin addresses the problem by first reconstructing Seneca's career using only outside sources and his de Clementia and Apocolocyntosis. In the second part of the book she studies Seneca's treatment of subjects of political significance, including his views on slavery, provincial policy, wealth, and suicide. Finding that on the whole, the word of the philosopher illuminates the work of the statesman, this book provides an important objective reconstruction of Seneca's political career.

Genres: Classics, Nonfiction, History

532 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Dr Miriam T. Griffin is a classicist at Somerville College, Oxford.

Reviews

[A. Hominid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thought this would serve as a decent foray into the life and thought of Seneca, of whom I know nothing - aside from the hypocritical and sycophantic character in Graves' "I, Claudius." On balance, this book was up to that task. The first part covers the life and political career of Seneca, wherein the authour disentangles what is certain from what is speculation and conjecture. She doesn't fall prey to idolizing her subject and acknowledges the allegations of Seneca's having been a hypocrite. The second part provides synopses of Seneca's (probable) views on several topics (e.g., the demise of the Roman Republic, slaves and the institution of slavery), collected from his disparate writings. Read the first part and browsed the second. Nothing of interest in the appendices. Latin and Greek text is left untranslated. As a word of scholarship it appears solid, but as a word of literature it's middling. Was published in 1976, so it may be dated (but what do I know? I'm not a Seneca scholar).

[James Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not an easy read. Griffin makes no concessions for those whose history is better than their philosophy, cheerfully scattering references to the middle stoa or Epictetus. Nor are quotations translated, which is a pain for those of us lacking total fluency in the Latin.

On the other hand there is a clear unpicking of what Seneca said on a variety of issues and what he can be known or speculated to have done as amicus of Nero and thoughts on possible connections.

There are also useful appendixes on issues such as Seneca's flattery of Polybius and on the dating and meaning of the Quinquennium Neronis.