Письма к Луцилию Сенеки

Collection of letters by Seneca

The Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Latin for "Moral Letters to Lucilius"), also known as the Moral Epistles and Letters from a Stoic, is a letter collection of 124 letters that Seneca the Younger wrote at the end of his life, during his retirement, after he had worked for the Emperor Nero for more than ten years. They are addressed to Lucilius Junior, the then procurator of Sicily, who is known only through Seneca's writings. Regardless of how Seneca and Lucilius actually corresponded, it is clear that Seneca crafted the letters with a broad readership in mind. The letters often begin with an observation on daily life, and then proceed to an issue or principle abstracted from that observation. The result is like a diary, or handbook of philosophical meditations. The letters focus on many traditional themes of Stoic philosophy such as the contempt of death, the stout heartedness of the sage, and virtue as the supreme good.

Scholars generally agree that the letters are arranged in the order in which Seneca wrote them. The 124 letters are arranged in twenty manuscript volumes, but the collection is not complete. Aulus Gellius (mid 2nd century) quotes an extract from the "twenty second book", so some letters are missing. However since the fire of Lyon mentioned in letter 91 took place less than a year before Seneca's death (in spring 65) the number of missing letters is not thought to be very many. and are clearly written with a wider readership in mind, in the epistolary genre well known in Seneca's time. Seneca refers to Cicero's letters to Atticus and the letters of Epicurus, and he was probably familiar with the letters of Plato and the epistles of Horace. However, despite the careful literary crafting, there is no obvious reason to doubt that they are real letters. Even if both writers had access to the imperial mail service, a letter from central Italy to Sicily would have taken four to eight days to travel. Letter 18 was written in December, in the run up to the Saturnalia. Letter 23 refers to a cold spring, presumably in 63 AD. Other chronologies are possiblein particular if letters 23 and 67 refer to the same spring, that can reduce the timescale by a full year. Seneca also quotes Publilius Syrus, such as during the eighth letter, "On the Philosopher's Seclusion".

The letters were first printed at Naples in 1475. They were printed in an edition with most of the Seneca's other works, and with works by the elder Seneca. and he modelled his Essays on them. Second was the way Seneca, in complaining about philosophical logic chopping, nevertheless filled his pages with much of that empty quibbling himself, in illustrationprompting Erasmus to second Quintilian's objection to Seneca's own standing as a philosopher. Thirdly, Erasmus felt that the letters were more disguised essays than a real correspondence: "one misses in Seneca that quality that lends other letters their greatest charm, that is that they are a true reflection of a real situation".