Seneca (ca. 3 B.C. to A.D. 65) was a Spaniard, whose father was a cultivated man living in Rome.
Seneca adopted a political career, and was being moderately successful when he was banished to
Corsica ( A.D. 41) by the Emperor Claudius, because he had incurred the enmity of the Empress
Messalina. Claudius's second wife Agrippina recalled Seneca from exile in A.D. 48, and
appointed him tutor to her son, aged eleven. Seneca was less fortunate than Aristotle in his pupil,
who was the Emperor Nero. Although, as a Stoic, Seneca officially despised riches, he amassed a
huge fortune, amounting, it was said, to three hundred million sesterces (about twelve million
dollars). Much of this he acquired by lending money in Britain; according to Dio, the excessive
rates of interest that he exacted were among the causes of revolt in that country. The heroic Queen
Boadicea, if this is true, was heading a rebellion against capitalism as represented by the
philosophic apostle of austerity.
Gradually, as Nero's excesses grew more unbridled, Seneca fell increasingly out of favour. At
length he was accused, justly or unjustly, of complicity in a wide-spread conspiracy to murder
Nero and place a new emperor--some said, Seneca himself--upon the throne. In view of his former
services, he was graciously permitted to commit suicide. ( A.D. 65).
His end was edifying. At first, on being informed of the Emperor's decision, he set about making a
will. When told that there was no time allowed for such a lengthy business, he turned to his
sorrowing family and said: "Never mind, I leave you what is of far more value than earthly riches,
the example of a virtuous life"--or words to that effect. He then opened his veins, and summoned
his secretaries to take down his dying words; according to Tacitus, his eloquence continued to
flow during his last moments. His nephew Lucan, the poet, suffered a similar death at the same
time, and expired reciting his own verses. Seneca was judged, in future ages, rather by his
admirable precepts than by his somewhat dubious practice. Several of the Fathers claimed him as
a Christian, and a supposed correspondence between him and Saint Paul was accepted as genuine
by such men as Saint Jerome.
Epictetus (born about A.D. 60, died about A.D. 100) is a very different type of man, though
closely akin as a philosopher. He was a Greek, originally a slave of Epaphroditus, a freedman of
Nero and