DON'T BE FOOLED BY BEAUTY - Seneca Quotes To Make You Wiser Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca), by name Seneca the Younger, Roman philosopher, statesman, orator, and tragedian. He was Rome’s leading intellectual figure in the mid-1st century CE 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.