In Seneca, we encounter a serious reader of philosophy who was at the same time a talented and ambitious writer. Thanks to his excellent collection of books on Stoicism, Epicureanism, and other philosophical systems, Seneca has played a major role in the transmission of Greek thought. But he is much more than a reporter. Deeply invested in his reading on theoretical subjects, he also has much to contribute to the conversation, in his spirited and sometimes satirical interpretations of philosophical arguments and in his active resistance to earlier positions of even his favorite authors. Though he describes himself as merely a student of philosophy, he is now universally recognized as a philosopher in his own right. Yet the word “philosopher” is inadequate to describe what he was, for as a Roman senator well connected within a burgeoning equestrian elite, thoroughly trained in rhetoric, and steeped in poetry, narrative history, and drama, Seneca brings rich cultural resources to the service of philosophical reflection.1 In his way of thinking, the work of philosophy is not done if it cannot also engage the imagination through illustrative analogies, through vivid descriptions of scenes from his own experience, and through the manipulation of literary form. What he produced is not only a literary sort of philosophy; it is philosophy as literature: a distinctively Roman answer to the intellectual artistry of Plato.