Seneca    4 BC - AD 65
•	Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Younger, was Rome's leading intellectual figure in the mid-1st century AD. 
•	He was philosopher, statesman, orator, and tragedian. 
•	Seneca was the second son of a wealthy family from Spain. The father, Seneca the Elder, had been famous in Rome as a teacher of rhetoric. An aunt took Lucius to Rome; there he was trained as an orator and educated.

•	Seneca's health suffered, and he went to recuperate in Egypt. Returning to Rome about the year 31, he began a career in politics and law. 
•	Soon he fell out of favor with the emperor Caligula, who was deterred from killing him only by the argument that his life was sure to be short. 
•	In 41 the emperor Claudius banished Seneca to Corsica on a charge of adultery with the princess Julia Livilla, the Emperor's niece. 

•	The influence of Agrippina, the Emperor's wife, had him recalled to Rome in 49. 
•	He became praetor in AD 50, married Pompeia Paulina, a wealthy woman, built up a powerful group of friends, including the new prefect of the guard, Sextus Afranius Burrus, and became tutor to the future emperor Nero. 
•	The murder of Claudius in 54 pushed Seneca and Burrus to the top. 
•	 Seneca and Burrus were a tyrant's favourites. 

•	When Burrus died in 62 Seneca received permission to retire, and in his remaining years he wrote some of his best philosophical works. 
•	In 65, Seneca's enemies denounced him as having been a party to the conspiracy of Piso. Ordered to commit suicide, he met death with fortitude and composure. 
•	He wrote 124 brilliant essays on Stoic philosophy treat a range of moral problems. 

•	His tragedies were intended for playreadings rather than public presentation.
•	 The pitch is a high monotone, emphasizing the lurid and the supernatural. 
•	His plays are representatives of classical tragedy known to the Renaissance world.
•	 These plays had a great influence, notably in England. 
•	Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and others with their ghosts, witches, cruel tyrants, and dominant theme of vengeance, are the result of Seneca's tragedies.