2. Works.
His chief works are:—
(1) Dialogorum Libri XII, of which the most important are the De Ira and the Consolatio to his mother Helvia, whom he tenderly loved.
(2) De Clementia, in three Books, addressed to Nero, written in 55-6 A.D., to show the public what sort of instruction Seneca had given his pupil, and what sort of Emperor they had to expect.
(3) De Beneficiis, in seven Books. Seneca proves that a tyrant’s benefits are not kindnesses, and sets forth his views on the giving and receiving of benefits.
(4) Epistulae morales ad Lucilium. 124 letters are extant, and form the most important and most pleasing of his works.
(5) Tragedies. Nine are extant, derived from plays by Sophocles and Euripides. The only extant Latin tragedies.
‘As a moral writer Seneca stands deservedly high. Though infected with the rhetorical vices of the age his treatises are full of striking and often gorgeous eloquence, and in their combination of high thought with deep feeling have rarely, if at all, been surpassed.’—Mackail.
‘Seneca is a lamentable instance of variance between precept and example.’—Cruttwell.