Product Description

The great stoic philosopher, playwright and Roman statesman of the first century, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, exercised enormous influence for nearly fifteen years as tutor and political advisor to the Emperor Nero until forced to commit suicide by his former pupil. In the hands of Annales School historian Paul Veyne, the dramatic story of his life - one of power, politics and intrigue - becomes a mirror of the time in which he lived.

Seneca's philosophical writings remain our core source for stoic thought, and their immense influence continues to be felt. Veyne's authoritative exposition of stoicism and the interconnections between Seneca's life and thought, make this book ideal reading for anyone interested in Roman history and philosophy. This compact and compelling book is a brilliant introduction to the life and philosophy of one of the ancient world's greatest thinkers by one of the great historians of our own time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #138173 in eBooks
• Published on: 2002-11-27
• Format: Kindle Book
• Number of items: 1

Customer Reviews

Superb scholarship and an exhilarating read
This book is a masterpiece: an exhilaratingly provocative, intellectual tour de force. Contrary to what reviewer EJ Hamm states, there is a complete lack of "sarcasm," "arrogance," or "French" theoretical opacity; to the contrary, this straightforward, superbly translated study of Seneca's work (primarily the letters to Lucilius) is considerably more accessible than, for instance, Paul Veyne's admittedly difficult Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?: An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination, the only other Veyne book I've read.

This wonderful book is free of gratuitous jargon; technical philosophical terms are sparingly used and clearly defined. Furthermore, Veyne in no way denigrates Seneca. (He writes to praise him, not to bury him!) This is an objective critique which treats Seneca as a serious Stoic philosopher-cum-intellectual for the ages. But having said that, caveat lector: The subtitle is, to be fair, a bit misleading, as this is not a straightforward, linear biography. Just "Look inside" at the Contents, and you can tell that the first and third chapters are biographical, whereas the vast bulk of the book, Chapter 2, is a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of Seneca's stoicism in the context of both canonical early Greek stoicism and subsequent intellectual history, all the way up to the present day.

In sum, despite its expensiveness (especially unfortunate for a 191-page book lacking an index!), this is a "must buy" (or at any rate a "must read") for serious (or perhaps just curious) students of Seneca and Stoicism, be they tyros or laics: it is by far the best non-technical modern study of Seneca available. I did not want my review to be ad hominem, yet EJ Hamm's castigation of Veyne's masterpiece is completely unwarranted, and might possibly be explained by a lack of familiarity with Seneca's writings. For although this book is a captivating read (indeed one of the two or three best of the spate of recently published, excellent books on Stoicism), to understand it you need to have already read and absorbed Seneca AND have a modicum of familiarity with Stoic principles. In other words, "Seneca: The Life of a Stoic" is an intermediate-level popular philosophy text. With that qualification, it is nothing short of an irresistible intellectual feast. (Finally -- for the record and apropos of Hamm's comment -- I am neither French NOR have I taken a single course (let alone an advanced degree) in philosophy!)

Whew - An Interesting But Bitter and Very "Advanced" Read
I'm going to spare the efforts to write an erudite and impressive philosophical review, I'm too exhausted after slogging through this book. I don't know what Seneca ever did to Author Veyne, or if this is just the way French professors deal with philosophy, but this book is dripping with bitterness and sarcasm against stoicism and Seneca personally. Add that to the fact that Veyne writes in such a manner that you have to keep going back and re-reading sentences to figure out what he just said (every other word appears to have a mandatory four-syllable requirement), it is really hard to digest this work. The general underlying commentary is interesting, but so badly tainted with an obvious arrogance and dislike, and so hard to wade through - unless perhaps you have an advanced degree in philosophy and are French - that you would do much, much better with almost anything else. Some of the basic Seneca/Stoic premises on which Veyne basis his conclusions stuck me, even as an admitted lay person, as so obviously mistaken in what Seneca was saying, that I really had to question if this book had any objectivity at all. Be warned.