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This Penguin Classic is conducted by Julian Glover, Olivier Award winning actor, also known for his roles in Game of Thrones and Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. This definitive recording includes an Launch by Robin Campbell.

A philosophy that saw self-possession as the key to an existence lived ‘in accordance with character’, Stoicism needed the restraint of animal intuition and the severing of emotional ties. These values were formulated with the about Words from a Stoic: Epistulae Morales Advertisement Lucilium Athenian fans of Zeno in the fourth century BC, but it was in Seneca (c. 4 BC- AD 65) that this Stoics discovered their most eloquent advocate. Stoicism, as expressed in the Words, helped simplicity pagan Rome’s changeover to Christianity, for it upholds upright honest ideals and extols virtuous living, as well as expressing disgust for the severe treatment of slaves and the inhumane slaughters witnessed in the Roman arenas. Seneca’s main contribution to a apparently unsympathetic creed was to change it into a powerfully moving and uplifting declaration from the dignity of the average person mind.

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