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 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.
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.