Seneca in His Philosophical Milieu

Abstract

T HE philosophical environment in which Seneca wrote was very different from the one which Cicero knew, and I want to present a somewhat exploratory sketch of that environment, one which will show how distinctive Seneca's philosophical world was. No doubt many of the differences between them were matters of personal temperament and decision,1 and such factors cannot really be understood in a noncircular way. But many other differences were, I think, the result of social and political evolution at Rome; for during the century separating their careers, Roman society underwent a rapid and indeed revolutionary phase of social change. It would be remarkable if such change did not have some impact on the work of pagan Rome's two greatest philosophical writers.2 But we should also recall that there are some more specifically philosophical factors which should be taken into account. For example, in Cicero's youth Athens was still the center of philosophical life in the Mediterranean basin; the traditional schools lived and flourished. By the time the upheavals of the first century were over, not only did Rome rule much more of the Greek east than it had before; but the traditional Athenian schools had been closed,3 philosophical activity there reduced to a shadow of its former self. Alexandria and Rome had become more