Chronology
Every drafted work, year by year, alongside the events of Seneca's life. Runs of consecutive letters are folded into groups so you can skim past them or expand to read.
40 BC
Age ~44. Under Caligula, Seneca is a celebrated senator and orator — so admired that the emperor is said to have envied him. The Consolation to Marcia, on the death of a son, belongs to these years.
phil Consolation to Marcia 40 AD42 BC
Age ~46. Banished to Corsica the year before by Claudius — on a charge of adultery with the emperor's niece — Seneca writes the Consolation to Helvia, consoling his own mother for his exile.
phil Consolation to His Mother Helvia 42 AD44 BC
Age ~48. Still on Corsica, Seneca addresses the Consolation to Polybius to one of Claudius's powerful freedmen — part philosophy, part undisguised plea for recall.
phil Consolation to Polybius 44 AD45 BC
Age ~49. The years of exile give him leisure to write. The tragedy Hercules Furens and the dialogue On Anger, his anatomy of rage and how reason masters it, belong to this period.
phil On Anger 45 AD trag Hercules (Mad) 45 AD46 BC
Age ~50. On Corsica still; the tragedy of the Trojan Women, on the aftermath of Troy's fall, dates to these years.
trag The Trojan Women 46 AD47 BC
Age ~51. The unfinished Phoenician Women, on the doomed house of Oedipus, belongs to the exile period.
trag The Phoenician Women 47 AD48 BC
Age ~52. The Medea — Seneca's study of a woman's revenge taken to its monstrous limit — dates to these years.
trag Medea 48 AD49 BC
Age ~53. Recalled at last through Agrippina's influence, Seneca is made praetor and tutor to her son, the eleven-year-old future Nero. The Phaedra and the dialogue On the Shortness of Life belong near this turn in his fortunes.
phil On the Shortness of Life 49 AD trag Phaedra 49 AD50 BC
Age ~54. Installed at court as Nero's teacher, Seneca shapes the boy who will be emperor; the Oedipus dates to these years.
trag Oedipus 50 AD51 BC
Age ~55. The tragedy Agamemnon belongs to the court years, as Seneca's standing rises with his pupil's prospects.
trag Agamemnon 51 AD52 BC
Age ~56. The Thyestes — the blackest of the tragedies, a banquet of revenge — dates to this period.
trag Thyestes 52 AD53 BC
Age ~57. The Hercules Oetaeus, on the death and apotheosis of Hercules, belongs to these years.
trag Hercules on Oeta 53 AD54 BC
Age ~58. Claudius dies — poisoned — and the sixteen-year-old Nero accedes. Seneca writes the Apocolocyntosis, a savage satire on the dead emperor's 'pumpkinification' instead of deification, even as he and the prefect Burrus begin effectively to govern.
Satire The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius 54 AD55 BC
Age ~59. With Britannicus murdered and Nero secure, Seneca and Burrus run the state. The dialogue On the Firmness of the Wise Man belongs here; the historical drama Octavia, on Nero's wronged wife, is transmitted with his tragedies.
phil On the Firmness of the Wise Man 55 AD trag Octavia 55 AD56 BC
Age ~60. At the height of his power, Seneca addresses On Mercy to the young Nero — a manifesto for clement rule by the man trying to make a tyrant govern well.
phil On Mercy 56 AD58 BC
Age ~62. Attacked for the wealth his position had brought him, Seneca answers in On the Happy Life, defending how a philosopher may hold riches without being held by them.
phil On the Happy Life 58 AD59 BC
Age ~63. Nero has his mother Agrippina murdered, and Seneca writes the letter justifying it to the senate — the moral cost of staying near power. The long treatise On Benefits belongs to these years.
phil On Benefits 59 AD60 BC
Age ~64. As his influence over Nero wanes, Seneca writes On Tranquility of Mind, on keeping the soul steady amid a court turning dangerous.
phil On Tranquility of Mind 60 AD62 BC
Age ~66. Burrus dies and Seneca's protection collapses; he asks Nero's leave to retire, offering back his fortune. On Leisure defends the withdrawn, contemplative life.
phil On Leisure 62 AD63 BC
Age ~67. In retirement at last, Seneca writes his greatest work — the 124 Moral Letters to Lucilius — and the Natural Questions, a survey of the physical world, turning from power to the examined life.
phil Moral Letters to Lucilius 63 AD phil Natural Questions 63 AD64 BC
Age ~68. The Great Fire devastates Rome. Withdrawn from court, Seneca writes On Providence, on why the good suffer — a year before Nero, suspecting him in the Pisonian conspiracy, orders him to die.
phil On Providence 64 AD