A SKETCH of the LIFE and WRITINGS of LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA; so far as they concern the English Reader.

SECTION I.

L. ANNAEUS SENECA, the author and publisher of the following Epistles, was born at Corduba, an old, flourishing colony in Bætic Spain, which still retains the name of Cordova. It was inhabited originally by a select body of Romans and Spaniards (a). It may be difficult, therefore, to determine whether the Annean (b) race was originally Spanish or belonged to a colony from Italy. But we may be certain of this, from the testimony of Seneca himself, that they were of the equestrian order: "Am I," he says (Tacitus, Annales 1. 14), "one by rank no higher than a knight; by birth no other than a foreigner; am I numbered with the grandees of the Imperial city? Is it so indeed, that my new name, my modern quality, has thus blazed forth amongst the illustrious lords of Rome?" His father, and perhaps his grandfather, were of the equestrian order, but no higher; for he would scarcely have mentioned his "new" name if his ancestors had attained to higher honors.

(a) And was in high repute by means of Marcus Marcellus, the praetor, who governed Spain (according to Livy, 1. 43) in the year 585 from the founding of Rome. It was at that time in peace and quietness; which inclines me, says Lipsius, to believe this was the time when the colony was established and the city greatly enlarged and beautified. We know it was not built anew, as we learn from Silius, who in Hannibal's time called it Corduba.
"Nor did Corduba, land of gold, cease its glory." 3. 406.
It obtained the privilege of being called Colonia Patricia. So Pliny (book 3, chapter 1) expressly states; and on the coin of Augustus it is noted, "By permission of Caesar Augustus"; and on the reverse, "Colonia Patricia," as it was a splendid and rich city that supplied the Roman commonwealth with fathers and senators. For in the age of Augustus, men were selected out of every province to make up the senate. L.

(b) Lipsius observes that this surname was used likewise in another family, the Accian; as, M. Accio. Seneca (Gruter, p. 490).