This book traces the eventful life of Seneca, the Roman philosopher, dramatist, essayist and rhetorician of the first century CE, who came from Spain to Rome, spent his youth in Egypt, was exiled to Corsica under Claudius but recalled after eight years, and rose to dizzying heights of wealth, power and social influence under Nero, before falling from favour and being forced to kill himself. The book analyzes the relationship of Seneca's life story to his literary self-fashioning, and the tensions between the external worlds of politics, consumerism, and social success, with the Stoic ideals of asceticism, virtue and self-control.

Emily Wilson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies. She has a BA from Oxford in Classics, an MPhil, also from Oxford, in English Literature (1500-1660), and a PhD from Yale in Classics and Comparative Literature. Her first book was Mocked with Death: Tragic Overliving from Sophocles to Milton. Her second book was The Death of Sophocles: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint.