(1) LIFE.
L. Annaeus Seneca, the son of Annaeus Seneca, the rhetor, was born at Corduba in Spain. For information about his family see under ‘Seneca the elder,’ [pp. 226-7]. He was probably born about the beginning of our era, as he seems to have remembered Asinius Pollio, who died A.D. 5, and had passed his boyhood in A.D. 19, when the Jewish and Egyptian rites were expelled from Rome.
Sen. de tranquill. animi, 17, 7, ‘Qualem Pollionem Asinium meminimus, quem nulla res ultra decimam [horam] retinuit.’
Ep. 108, 22, ‘In Tiberii Caesaris principatum iuventae tempus inciderat: alienigena tum sacra movebantur.’
At an early age Seneca was brought to Rome by his mother’s sister, who was probably the wife of Vitrasius Pollio, prefect of Egypt for sixteen years.
Ad Helv. 19, 2, ‘Illius manibus in urbem perlatus sum.’
Seneca’s mother took a great interest in his education, which was conducted under Fabianus Papirius (cf. Ep. 100, 9, etc.) and Sotion the Pythagorean, of Alexandria, pupils of Sextius (for Seneca’s study of whom see Ep. 64).
Ad Helv. 15, 1, ‘Vera vis materni doloris oritur ... “ubi studia, quibus libentius quam femina, familiarius quam mater intereram?”’
Ep. 108, 17, ‘Dicebat [Sotion] quare ille animalibus abstinuisset, quare postea Sextius ... § 22. His ego instinctus abstinere animalibus coepi et anno peracto non tantum facilis erat mihi consuetudo, sed dulcis.’
The elder Seneca put an end to this abstinence, which was associated in the popular view with foreign superstitions (see Ep. 108, 17-23). This must have happened about A.D. 19. The influence of Sotion is seen in passages imitated from his book de ira cohibenda by Seneca. Seneca also studied under Attalus, a Greek Stoic, possibly about A.D. 20.