Dialogues and On Clemency
Dialogi · De clementia
EditionTranslated from the original Latin
On anger, grief, leisure, and the shortness of life: a Stoic who advised an emperor, talking to friends in plain words.
Also in the library: the complete Korean translation.
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About the book
Seneca was a Stoic philosopher, a famous orator, an exile on Corsica, and for years the chief adviser of the emperor Nero, who in the end ordered him to die. These fourteen works are his short treatises: why good people suffer, how to master anger, how to find calm, how to console a mother or a grieving friend, and why life is long enough if we stop wasting it. The last two books counsel the young Nero to rule by clemency.
This complete English translation is made directly from the Latin. It keeps the traditional order and chapter numbers, sets each of the 438 paragraphs of the source as one paragraph, and identifies the people, quotations, and events a modern reader needs in short notes.
Highlights
- It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
- Fire tests gold; misfortune tests brave men.
- Some wise men, therefore, have said that anger is a brief madness.
Contents
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Colophon
Translated from the original Latin. Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.Full colophon
Dialogues and On Clemency
Original titles · Dialogi · De clementia
Author · Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC–AD 65)
Translator · Ether Library
Composition · Written in Latin between about AD 37 and AD 56.
Source text · A public-domain electronic text published by The Latin Library, descended from the Teubner critical editions. Translated directly from the Latin.
Extent · Complete and unabridged · twelve dialogues and the two surviving books of On Clemency · 438 paragraphs, as in the source · 210 short translator’s notes
Copyright · The author died in AD 65; the original work is in the public domain.
This translation · Translated from the Latin by Ether Library. The English text is © Ether Library and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0): you may copy and share it for noncommercial purposes, with attribution.
Edition · English edition 1.0 · October 2026
Typography · Set in Lora (SIL Open Font License 1.1). Cover painting and design by Ether Library.
Original in the public domain · English translation CC BY-NC 4.0
Ether Library · No. 0013