Letter To Lucilius By Seneca Essay

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, or better known by history as Seneca the Younger, was son to Seneca the Elder and a staunch follower of Stoic philosophy. He was born in 4 BC in Cordoba Spain and eventually moved to Rome and tutored emperor Nero. He spent many years of exile in Corsica and corresponded with Lucilius, a Roman knight (Vogt). Many of Seneca's works encompassed within a tangled mass of inconsistencies, not to say pure guess-work and actual contradiction yet within those convoluted pieces, he conveyed a greater message of morality. These works are a window in which the world of today can peer into the world of yesterday and obtain a further understanding of humanity. Amongst the many issues surrounding his world, Seneca expressed a special interest to the unrecognized humanity of slaves. In his letter to Lucilius, Seneca conveys a more persuasive tone rather than communal, and in doing so relays to a greater audience not only the treatment of slaves, but some of the reasoning behind those opposing or at least vouching for the betterment of slaves. …show more content…
It is simply to him, the way in which the world is orchestrated. Not only can a person, at any given time, be placed under the whip of another (a creditor, a lover, or a king) but they may also willing fetter their lives to their greed, passions and ambitions. No matter the twists and turns, every person is bound to the subjugation of Fortuna (47.1). Nonetheless, Seneca bisects human slavery into two distinguishable categories. The first type of slavery is familiariter, which is well depicted by the slavery Lucilius engages in (47.1) and in the familial slavery of ancestral Rome (47.14). Here,