The Epistles of Lucius Annaeus Seneca

§ VI. With regard to his private life, I find, or rather collect, says Lipsius, that Seneca was some time in Egypt because his uncle was there in the office of præfect. He writes to his mother, setting forth the example of his aunt, of which he was an eye-witness. Hence it is that he intermingles many things so curiously concerning Egypt and the Nile, especially in his books of Natural Questions. Perhaps, too, he went to the coasts of India by the Red Sea, which qualified him to comment on the writings of Pliny relating thereto. But being at Rome, we learn that he took a wife, though her name is not mentioned. By her, he had a son called Marcus, whom, writing to his mother Helvia, he styles with great praise and affection his "dearest boy," and, among other good wishes, prays:

In Epistle 56, he speaks of one Harpeste, his wife’s fool, left as an hereditary burden upon the family. This must relate to a former wife, as he married Paulina after his return from exile—a lady of great ability who vouchsafed to take him in his old age when he had a place at court. This is what Dio (or whoever writes under that name) objects to him: his marrying a young wife in his old age. He seems to have been happy, however, as in Epistle 104: "This I told my Paulina, who always desires me to take care of my health, remembering that in this old person of mine there lives a much younger one in participation of it." She certainly loved her husband, as he boasts in many places, and that unfeignedly; which she expressed at his death, being desirous, as far as was in her power, to accompany him therein. But of this hereafter.

§ VII. As so much has been said with regard to his immense wealth, it will be requisite to communicate a few things relating thereto; and we will take them on his own confession, according to Tacitus: "Thou hast encompassed me about (says Seneca to Nero) with an accumulation of imperial benignity and grace, beyond all expression and limits, and with wealth without measure or end; insomuch that I often reason thus with myself: 'Where is that philosophic spirit, which professes to be satisfied with a scanty lot and humble necessaries? Is Seneca that man? He who thus encloses and adorns such spacious gardens; he who travels in pomp through a variety of seats in Rome, all contrived for magnificence and luxury?'" All this is very great without recourse to the exaggeration of either friends or enemies. There is no doubt but that with regard to fine gardens and pleasure-houses...