Seneca preparing his own death in a bath. Etching by F. Perrier.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-65 AD), Roman philosopher, statesman, orator and tragedian. He was Rome's leading intellectual figure in the first century AD and was virtual ruler with his friends of the Roman world between 54 and 62, during the first phase of the emperor Nero's reign. In 65, Seneca's enemies denounced him as having been a party to the conspiracy of Piso. Ordered to kill himself (by slashing his veins), Seneca met death with fortitude and composure, a noble death by Roman standards