Our reading for December is from Seneca's Letters, continuing our occasional series of reading a batch of them. This time the set is letters 41-50.
Seneca (also known as Seneca the Younger) (4 BC - AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher living in the first century AD. He was also a dramatist as well as tutor and then advisor to Nero. Among his writings was a collection of 124 letters crafted as a single work ostensibly to his friend Lucilius. It is sometimes called "Moral Letters to Lucilius", the "Moral Epistles", or "Letters from a Stoic".
There are several translations available, and you can read whichever you like.. Unfortunately, most of them are incomplete, and usually don't have the full set. Two suggested translations are:
"Letters on Ethics" by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, translated with an introduction and commentary by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long (University of Chicago Press, https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo20612233.html). It's a very good translation, and I recommend it. Some might think it's a bit pricey, and there are not many copies in the Minuteman Library network.
An older translation is by Richard Gummere for the Loeb series from Harvard, published in 1917. It is easily available in print and online. One site is https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius.
Of course, you can mix and match your readings from different translations if you prefer. A very good translation, for example, is by Elaine Fantham, "Seneca: Selected Letters", but it may not be complete in our range this month.
