Lucius Annaeus Seneca – författare

Denna bok rymmer två antika dialoger. Den första är Ciceros Om ödet i vilken Cicero diskuterar ödet som begrepp och för fram tanken att också den fria viljan är en aspekt av ödet. I princip avfärdar Cicero ställningstagandet att världen är deterministiskt inordnad. Människan kan själv verka för att bli framgångsrik. Om allt vore förutbestämt skulle något sådant inte vara möjligt.

Den andra är Senecas Om försynen i vilken denne argumenterar för att inget ont händer den som är god. Man måste bara förstå vad ond egentligen innebär. Seneca som var stoiker menar att man aldrig får ge efter för motgångar utan att man måste fortsätta kämpa och på så sätt kontrollera sitt öde. Den vise förstår hur ödet yttrar sig och har därför inget att frukta.

De båda texterna kan därför med fördel ställas emot varandra. De speglar två angrepp på samma filosofiska problem. I samtalen möts vi av ett förhållandevis modernt synsätt på den fria viljan. Med en närmast vetenskaplig metod granskar Cicero kritiskt de utsagor som han diskuterar och bemöter argument från andra tänkare, som Demokritos, Herakleitos, Empedokles och Aristoteles.

Ciceros De fato skrevs under våren år 44 f.Kr., strax efter mordet på Julius Caesar. Senecas De providentia tros ha nedtecknats år 64 e.Kr., något knappt år innan hans bortgång. Med inledning och noter av översättaren Lars Nyberg.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and advisor to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection restores Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson—to his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities. On Benefits, written between 56 and 64 CE, is a treatise addressed to Seneca’s close friend Aebutius Liberalis. The longest of Seneca’s works dealing with a single subject—how to give and receive benefits and how to express gratitude appropriately—On Benefits is the only complete work on what we now call “gift exchange” to survive from antiquity. Benefits were of great personal significance to Seneca, who remarked in one of his later letters that philosophy teaches, above all else, to owe and repay benefits well.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and adviser to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in seven accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection restores Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson—to his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities.

Anger, Mercy, Revenge comprises three key writings: the moral essays On Anger and On Clemency—which were penned as advice for the then young emperor, Nero—and the Apocolocyntosis, a brilliant satire lampooning the end of the reign of Claudius. Friend and tutor, as well as philosopher, Seneca welcomed the age of Nero in tones alternately serious, poetic, and comic—making Anger, Mercy, Revenge a work just as complicated, astute, and ambitious as its author.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and adviser to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in seven accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection restores Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson—to his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities.

Written near the end of Seneca’s life, Natural Questions is a work in which Seneca expounds and comments on the natural sciences of his day—rivers and earthquakes, wind and snow, meteors and comets—offering us a valuable look at the ancient scientific mind at work. The modern reader will find fascinating insights into ancient philosophical and scientific approaches to the physical world and also vivid evocations of the grandeur, beauty, and terror of nature.