Seneca the Younger (4 BC-65 AD) was a Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman who served as a tutor and advisor to the Roman emperor Nero. In 65 AD, he was accused of being complicit in Gaius Calpurnius Piso's plot to assassinate Nero, and he was forced to commit suicide.
Biography[]
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in Corduba, Baetica, Hispania, Roman Republic in 4 BC to a family of Roman equites; he was the son of the writer Seneca the Elder and the brother of the Senator Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus. He was raised in Rome, where he was trained in rhetoric and philosophy; he went on to serve in the Roman Senate and become a noted orator. Caligula was so offended by his success that he ordered him to commit suicide, but, as Seneca grew seriously ill, Caligula elected to let him die of sickness instead. In his writings, Seneca would depict Caligula as a monster. In 41 AD, after Empress Messalina accused Seneca of adultery with Caligula's sister Julia Livilla, Emperor Claudius exiled Seneca to Corsica. However, he was allowed to return in 49 AD to serve as a tutor to Nero, and, when Nero became Emperor in 54 AD, Seneca served as one of his advisors. He and Sextus Afranius Burrus served as his regents for the first five years of his reign, but his influence over Nero declined with time. In 65 AD, after Gaius Calpurnius Piso plotted to murder Nero, Seneca was accused of complicity in the plot, and he was forced to slit his veins in his bathtub, killing himself.