Selected Dialogues and Consolations

Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by Peter J. Anderson

"Were I to include Seneca in a course on the Renaissance or on the Roman origins of our liberal arts ideal I would use Peter Anderson's new translation. The Introduction is excellent: readable and comprehensive. I especially like his discussion of the challenge of translating what he calls Seneca's six key words and their cognates. His lucid overview of the philosophical ideas that informed Seneca's thinking will help readers ponder nature and humanity, the cosmos and the polis, from within Seneca's mind and times. The translation can on occasion be nicely graphic, and thus likely to engage first-time readers, as for example in one of the opening lines of the Consolation to His Mother Helvia: '. . . I kept crawling along (reptare), trying to bind your wounds while I used one hand to keep pressure on mine (manu super plagam meam imposita).'" —Robert E. Proctor, Joanne Toor Cummings '50 Professor of Italian, Connecticut College

"An excellent tool for students and teachers of Latin literature and Stoic philosophy." —Aldo Dinucci, in Archai