Philosophical Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Vol. 2

Note the words "select." For so it was: and I believe that it was for this reason that it was later called the Colonia Patricia. Pliny states openly: "Corduba, surnamed the Colonia Patricia." (Book III, c. 1.) And on the coins of Augustus: PERMISSU. CÆSARIS. AUGUSTI. [By permission of Caesar Augustus], his head; then on the other side, COLONIA. PATRICIA. I think the reason for this title was that, being splendid and wealthy, it gave fathers and senators even to the Roman state. For even in the age of Augustus, men were being chosen for the senate from the provinces everywhere. But Strabo also says the first colony was sent there: which read with caution. For Carteia, in the same Baetica, had been colonized even earlier by the praetor L. Canuleius; but because it was from less than honorable men, it was called a colony of freedmen. You may read this in Livy, at the beginning of Book XLIII. Yet you could, and perhaps should, defend Strabo: that those colonists were not sent from Rome or Italy, but were born there of Roman soldiers and Spanish women, and that with the permission of the Senate, those hybrids were granted liberty and settled in a colony. But Strabo expressly wrote that the first [colony] was sent. Enough about Corduba: and this was his homeland.

Who were his parents? It is clear they were from the Annaean clan: for which, on account of the omen, the name seems to have been formed from anni [years]; and the cognomen Seneca also answers to a good omen. For thus I believe it was first bestowed: although Isidorus thinks that "he who was first so called was born white-haired." Indeed, Seneca, or as the ancients had it, Senica (for it is from Sene, Senicis), signifies a little old man, just as Senecio. See Nonius, under Senica. I add that I find this cognomen in another clan as well, as in the Accian clan, on an ancient stone: "M. Accio. Seneca.... Manlio Planta II vir. Quinq." Whether, however, the Annaean clan is of Spanish stock or was sent into the colony from Italy, I would not affirm: only that it was of equestrian rank as well. Thus Seneca himself says of himself, according to Tacitus: "Am I, who rose from an equestrian and provincial position, numbered among the leaders of the state? Did my newness shine forth among the nobles, who displayed long-standing honors?" (Book XIV.) The father, therefore, and perhaps the grandfather, were among the equites: and nothing further. For he adds concerning his "newness" [i.e., his status as a homo novus] immediately after, which he would not have done if any of his ancestors had reached the honors [of the consulship]. However, the father is also known from his own writings, L. Annaeus Seneca, whom they generally distinguish from the son by the epithet Declamator (in this genre he excelled). There exist, not his own, but works compiled by others from him...