Abstract

Seneca’s De Consolatione ad Polybium is firmly grounded in an underappreciated Stoic theoretical framework. Writing from exile on Corsica, Seneca deliberately uses Stoic language as one of many complex interweaving strategies to offer consolation to the imperial freedman Polybius on the death of his brother, specifically through the text’s portrait of the emperor Claudius. Instead of demonstrating or undermining Seneca’s sincerity, the ad Polybium offers us an insight into the strategies an elite writer might use to engage with the emperor and the power politics behind their relationship.