Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency

About this book

These eleven essays by the Stoic philosopher Seneca, written as letters or dialogues to friends and family, offer practical guidance for living. Why do good men suffer, if there is a providence? How can we control anger, which he calls a brief madness? What makes a happy life, and how can we find peace of mind? In On the Shortness of Life he argues that life is long enough if we know how to use it, but that we waste it on busy nothings. There are consolations to a mother who has lost her son and to his own mother on his exile, and a treatise on clemency addressed to the young Nero.

Context and significance

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (about 4 BC–AD 65) wrote in exile on Corsica and as Nero's adviser, and his clear, quotable Latin made him one of the most widely read moralists in Europe. This translation is by Aubrey Stewart, who also translated Seneca's On Benefits. For the Stoic emperor's private notes, read the Meditations.

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