Episode Details

Seneca preached Stoic simplicity while amassing one of the largest fortunes in the Roman Empire. He tutored Nero, helped govern Rome during the emperor's early years, and was eventually ordered to kill himself when Nero turned on him. His death scene, modeled on Socrates, became one of the most famous in antiquity.

This episode confronts the central contradiction of Seneca's life: the gap between his philosophy and his wealth, and whether that gap invalidates his ideas.

• How he became tutor and advisor to the young Nero
• The fortune he built and the hypocrisy charges that followed
• His forced suicide and the deliberate echoes of Socrates
• Why his letters and essays remain among the most read Stoic texts