Seneca in his Philosophical Milieu

Abstract

Abstract The 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, and such factors cannot really be understood in a non-circular 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.