Selected Letters (Oxford World's Classics)

Seneca’s letters to Lucilius combine philosophical reflection with an unusually vivid sense of personal voice. Written in the final years of Seneca’s life, they address questions central to Stoic ethics—including mortality, friendship, wealth, fear, freedom and the disciplined use of time—while also offering glimpses of daily life and intellectual culture under the Roman Empire.

This Oxford World’s Classics selection, translated by Elaine Fantham, introduces readers to the range and development of Seneca’s epistolary philosophy without requiring the complete surviving collection. The translation and supporting material make the volume an accessible entry point to Roman Stoicism as well as a valuable selection of one of antiquity’s most influential bodies of philosophical writing.