Apocolocyntosis

“I am not going to be diverted by either fear or favour. I shall tell the unvarnished truth. If anybody asks me where I got my information, I say at once, I’ll not answer if I don’t want to. Who is going to make me?”

Best known as a philosopher and tragedian, in Apocolocyntosis Seneca also produced one of classical literature’s greatest satires. Depicting a posthumous trial in which the recently deceased Emperor Claudius makes the case for his elevation to the company of the gods, this short work brilliantly skewers the pretensions and corruptions of power.