person

Socrates

also: Socrates

Athenian philosopher, condemned and imprisoned at Athens. Seneca names his prison as proof that even the wisest are not spared.

Reading notes

Consolation to His Mother Helvia §13 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469-399 BC), condemned and imprisoned; his calm dignity, Seneca says, stripped the disgrace from the prison itself.
Consolation to Marcia §22 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher, condemned and imprisoned at Athens; named as proof that even the wisest are not spared.
On Benefits §1.8.1 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469–399 BC); in the anecdote his poor pupil Aeschines gives him the only gift he has, himself.
On Benefits §5.4.3 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469–399 BC), Seneca's recurring type of the sage indifferent to fortune, whom even a king could not put under obligation.
On Benefits §7.8.2 Socrates
The Athenian sage, cited with Chrysippus and Zeno as a great man who would abominate 'owning' all the world's goods in fact.
On the Shortness of Life §14.2 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469–399 BC), named for the life of dialectical inquiry ('to dispute with Socrates').
On the Firmness of the Wise Man §7.3 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469–399 BC), condemned and executed on charges his accusers trumped up; Seneca uses his case to distinguish doing injury from receiving it.
On Anger §1.15 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469–399 BC); his remark to a slave — 'I would beat you, if I were not angry' — models punishment deferred until calm.
On Leisure §8.2 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469–399 BC), condemned to death by his own city; Seneca cites his conviction as proof that even the best state is unfit for the wise man.
On Providence §3.4 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469–399 BC), condemned at Athens and executed by hemlock; here the example of a wise man who reasoned about death up to the moment of his own.
On Tranquility of Mind §5.2 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469--399 BC), shown walking free and unafraid among the Thirty, consoling and exhorting his fellow citizens; later (XVI) cited among the good men who died unjustly.
On the Happy Life §25.4 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469-399 BC), condemned to death and serene in prison; Seneca's supreme exemplar of the wise man unmoved by slander, who speaks in the dialogue's closing chapters.
Moral Letters to Lucilius §1.6.6 Socrates
Socrates (469–399 BC), the Athenian philosopher whose example, more than any written doctrine, shaped the schools descended from him.
Moral Letters to Lucilius §5.44.3 Socrates
Athenian philosopher (469–399 BC); of humble birth (a stonemason's son), he is Seneca's first example that nobility comes from the soul, not the family.
Moral Letters to Lucilius §7.67.7 Socrates from prison to heaven
Socrates (469--399 BC), condemned at Athens and executed by hemlock; Seneca makes the poisoned cup the vehicle that 'carried him from prison to heaven,' the philosopher's archetypal good death.
Moral Letters to Lucilius §8.70.9 Socrates
Socrates (469--399 BC), held thirty days in the Athenian prison after his condemnation before drinking the hemlock; he refused to escape, in order to honor the laws and to give his friends his company to the end (as in Plato's Crito and Phaedo).
Moral Letters to Lucilius §8.71.7 Socrates
Socrates (469--399 BC), credited with turning philosophy from nature to ethics ('the distinguishing of goods and evils'); Seneca makes him the founding witness for the self-sufficiency of virtue.
Moral Letters to Lucilius §104.7 Socrates
The Athenian philosopher (469–399 BC), Seneca's recurring model of constancy under hardship.