Seneca the Younger
In Our Time
BBC
4.6 • 9.9K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2017
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Seneca the Younger, who was one of the first great writers to live his entire life in the world of the new Roman empire, after the fall of the Republic. He was a Stoic philosopher, he wrote blood-soaked tragedies, he was an orator, and he navigated his way through the reigns of Caligula, Claudius and Nero, sometimes exercising power at the highest level and at others spending years in exile. Agrippina the Younger was the one who called for him to tutor Nero, and it is thought Seneca helped curb some of Nero's excesses. He was later revered within the Christian church, partly for what he did and partly for what he was said to have done in forged letters to St Paul. His tragedies, with their ghosts and high body count, influenced Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Hamlet, and Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. The image above is the so-called bust of Seneca, a detail from Four Philosophers by Peter Paul Rubens.
With
Mary Beard Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
Catharine Edwards Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck, University of London
and
Alessandro Schiesaro Professor of Classics at the University of Manchester
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:02.0 | Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. |
| 0:05.0 | There's a reading list to go with it on our website. |
| 0:07.0 | And you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. |
| 0:12.0 | I hope you enjoyed the programs. |
| 0:14.0 | Hello, Senna Gideonga, Orator, philosopher and playerite was born in the Roman province of his Spaniard, |
| 0:20.0 | modern Spain, around 4 BC. |
| 0:23.0 | And was the first great Latin writer under the emperors after the fall of the Republic. |
| 0:28.0 | He found a way to live and work under this new autocracy, in which he was exiled by one emperor, Caligula, |
| 0:34.0 | and it had to be called Back to Tew to the Future Emperor, Nero. |
| 0:37.0 | Later, as his advisor, it's thought he curbed Nero's worst successes. |
| 0:42.0 | Senna Gideonga's plays depict the corruptions of absolute power and unchecked emotion. |
| 0:46.0 | And they greatly influenced the revenge-strategies of Shakespeare's age, with body, pile on body. |
| 0:51.0 | His philosophy, stoicism, shows a way to remain happy in the face of the worst misfortunes. |
| 0:56.0 | An idea, Senna Gideonga, put to the test when Nero ordered that he kill himself. |
| 1:01.0 | Widmitted has discussed the life and works of Senna Gideonga are Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, |
| 1:07.0 | Catherine Edwards, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck University of London, |
| 1:12.0 | Susan, and Elizandra Skissar, a professor of Classics, up the University of Manchester. |
| 1:17.0 | Catherine Edwards, what, even anything, do you know of Senna Gideonga's early life? |
| 1:22.0 | Well, given how prolific Senna Gideonga's writings are, we know remarkably little about his early life. |
| 1:27.0 | It's really reconstructed from various stray comments in passing, really, until we get to the year 41, |
| 1:35.0 | which is when he goes into exile. |
... |
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