Seneca is a figure of first importance in both Roman politics and literature: a leading adviser to Nero who attempted to restrain the emperor’s megalomania; a prolific moral philosopher; and the author of verse tragedies that strongly influenced Shakespeare and other Renaissance dramatists. This volume completes the Loeb Classical Library®’s new two-volume edition of Seneca’s tragedies. John G. Fitch’s annotated translation, which faces Latin text, conveys the force of Seneca’s dramatic language and the lyric quality of his choral odes.
Seneca’s plots are based on mythical episodes, in keeping with classical tradition. But the political realities of imperial Rome are also reflected here, in an obsessive concern with power and dominion over others. The Octavia is our sole surviving example of a Roman historical play; set at Nero’s court, it was probably written by an admirer of Seneca as statesman and dramatist.
The Loeb Classical Library® edition of Seneca is in ten volumes: his moral essays are collected in Volumes I–III; the 124 epistles in Volumes IV–VI; the tragedies in Volumes VIII and IX; and the treatises on natural phenomena, Naturales Quaestiones, in Volumes VII and X.
