Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in 1 B.C., or shortly before, in Corduba (modern Cordova) in southern Spain, the second of three sons of the cultivated equestrian, Annaeus Seneca (ca. 55 B.C.-ca. A.D. 40--praenomen probably also Lucius), author of a lost history of Rome, Controversiae, and a surviving (but badly mutilated) work on Roman declamation, Suasoriae. The youngest son, Mela, was the father of the epic poet Lucan. Brought to Rome as a young child and given the standard education in rhetoric, Seneca had become by the early years of Tiberius's principate (A.D. 14-37), while still in adolescence, a passionate devotee of philosophy. The focus of his ardor was an ascetic, locally taught form of Stoic-Pythagoreanism with a strong commitment to vegetarianism. Before long he had been dissuaded from this practice by his father (Epistle 108. 17-22). During his youth and throughout his life Seneca suffered from a tubercular condition and on one occasion contemplated suicide when he despaired of recovery. He records that only the thought of the suffering he would have caused his father prevented his death (Epistle 78.1f.).
Ill health presumably delayed the start of Seneca's political career, as did a substantial period of convalescence during the A.D.
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