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Around the spring of 62 AD Seneca the Younger, in his 60s, retired from Nero’s inner circle after more than a decade as tutor and adviser, knowing the emperor dealt with former allies through forced suicide. In that tense retirement he wrote the Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, 124 surviving letters addressed to Lucilius, the Roman procurator of Sicily, who is known to history almost only through them. Following Cicero’s letters to Atticus and the letters of Epicurus, Seneca wrote open letters meant for posterity, turning daily life into Stoic lessons.

The letters track real time: a cold spring dated to 63 AD, the fire that destroyed Lyon in late summer 64 AD, and the shortening days of autumn as Seneca returns to the brevity of life. His method shifts around letter 33, when he stops ending with daily maxims and tells Lucilius to form his own judgments. The episode covers his mixed prose, Erasmus’ 1529 critique, the medieval split of the letters into two traditions, and their influence on Montaigne and Neo-Stoicism.

• Seneca complained about living above a public bathhouse full of grunting weightlifters, splashing and arrests in the street.
• He described a severe asthma attack as a rehearsal for facing death.
• Letter 7, on a midday gladiatorial show, is the first surviving pre-Christian record of moral objections to blood sports.
• Many early letters end with quotations from Epicurus, founder of a rival school.
• For centuries letters 1 to 88 and 89 to 124 circulated separately until a ninth or tenth century manuscript reunited them.