A report on Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, Seneca the Younger and Epicurus

15th-century illuminated manuscript, Laurentian Library
Ancient bust of Seneca, part of the Double Herm of Socrates and Seneca
Roman marble bust of Epicurus
15th-century illuminated manuscript, Laurentian Library
Modern statue of Seneca in Córdoba
Allocation of key positions and satrapies following the Partition of Babylon in 323 BC after the death of Alexander the Great. Epicurus came of age at a time when Greek intellectual horizons were vastly expanding due to the rise of the Hellenistic Kingdoms across the Near East.
Incipit page of the first printed edition of the Epistles in the "Tuscan" i.e. Italian version (1494).
Nero and Seneca, by Eduardo Barrón (1904). Museo del Prado
Reconstruction by K. Fittschen of an Epicurus enthroned statue, presumably set up after his death. University of Göttingen, Abgußsammlung.
French edition, 1887
Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, The suicide of Seneca (1871), Museo del Prado
Illustration from 1885 of a small bronze bust of Epicurus from Herculaneum. Three Epicurus bronze busts were recovered from the Villa of the Papyri, as well as text fragments.
Lodovico Lana, Death of Seneca, National Gallery of Art
Marble relief from the first or second century showing the mythical transgressor Ixion being tortured on a spinning fiery wheel in Tartarus. Epicurus taught that stories of such punishment in the afterlife are ridiculous superstitions and that believing in them prevents people from attaining ataraxia.
First page of the Naturales Quaestiones, made for the Catalan-Aragonese court
First-century AD Roman fresco from Pompeii, showing the mythical human sacrifice of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon. Epicurus's devoted follower, the Roman poet Lucretius, cited this myth as an example of the evils of popular religion, in contrast to the more wholesome theology advocated by Epicurus.
Woodcut illustration of the suicide of Seneca and the attempted suicide of his wife Pompeia Paulina
The most famous version of the problem of evil is attributed to Epicurus by David Hume (pictured), who was relying on an attribution of it to him by the Christian apologist Lactantius. The trilemma does not occur in any of Epicurus's extant writings, however. If Epicurus did write some version of it, it would have been an argument against divine providence, not the existence of deities.
Naturales quaestiones, 1522
Epicurus, in the Nuremberg Chronicle
Plato, Seneca, and Aristotle in a medieval manuscript illustration (c. 1325–35)
Bust of Epicurus leaning against his disciple Metrodorus in the Louvre Museum
The "Pseudo-Seneca", a Roman bust found at Herculaneum, one of a series of similar sculptures known since the Renaissance, once identified as Seneca. Now commonly identified as Hesiod
Dante Alighieri meets Epicurus in his Inferno in the Sixth Circle of Hell, where he and his followers are imprisoned in flaming coffins for having believed that the soul dies with the body, shown here in an illustration by Gustave Doré.
"Seneca", ancient hero of the modern Córdoba; this architectural roundel in Seville is based on the "Pseudo-Seneca" (illustration above)
Epicurus is shown among other famous philosophers in the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael's School of Athens (1509–1511). Epicurus's genuine busts were unknown prior to 1742, so early modern artists who wanted to depict him were forced to make up their own iconographies.
Baroque marble imaginary portrait bust of Seneca, by an anonymous sculptor of the 17th century. Museo del Prado
The French priest and philosopher Pierre Gassendi is responsible for reviving Epicureanism in modernity as an alternative to Aristotelianism.

The Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Latin for "Moral Letters to Lucilius"), also known as the Moral Epistles and Letters from a Stoic, is a collection of 124 letters that Seneca the Younger wrote at the end of his life, during his retirement, after he had worked for the Emperor Nero for more than ten years.

- Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium

His prose works include a dozen essays and one hundred twenty-four letters dealing with moral issues.

- Seneca the Younger

Seneca refers to Cicero's letters to Atticus and the letters of Epicurus, and he was probably familiar with the letters of Plato and the epistles of Horace.

- Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium

An inscription on the gate to The Garden is recorded by Seneca the Younger in epistle XXI of Epistulae morales ad Lucilium: "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure."

- Epicurus

He frequently quotes Epicurus, especially in his Letters.

- Seneca the Younger
15th-century illuminated manuscript, Laurentian Library

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