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The Moral Letters, or Letters to Lucilius, are Seneca's best-known writings today. The letters include some of Seneca's most memorable sayings, and remain one of our best sources for understanding Stoic philosophy.

There are 124 letters in total. In Letter 8, Seneca mentions his retirement from politics, which happened in 62 CE following the death of his friend Burrus, Nero's praetorian prefect. So these letters are believed to have been written during the last three years of Seneca's life.

Like his essays on Natural Questions and On Providence, which were written around the same time, they are addressed to a friend called Lucilius. Seneca describes him as an equestrian who was serving as the procurator of Sicily, and it's implied that he came originally from the ill-fated Roman city of Pompeii, in Campania. However, Lucilius is unknown except through Seneca's remarks about him, and it is therefore uncertain whether he was a real person or a character invented for use as a literary device. The consensus among modern scholars is that these letters, probably like all of Seneca's extant writings, were intended for publication.

The Moral Letters are perhaps Seneca's finest writings, written in pithy epigrammatic style and containing his most cherished philosophical reflections. Many letters begin with some reference to an everyday, mundane event, which gives him the pretext to launch into an aspect of Stoic teachings. The discussion proceeds, in an apparently unsystematic and informal way, to cover typical Stoic themes such as the goal of life, dealing with old age and death, the nature of virtue, the passions, sensory pleasures, and the dangers of attachment to external things. How Seneca handles this last theme is of particular interest, given his vast wealth.

This Capstone edition includes Letters 1–65, which are historically the most published of the three ‘books’ of letters. They provide a full impression not only of Seneca's influences and teachings, but in their details give the modern reader a sense of what it was like to be alive in mid-first-century Rome and its provinces: its climate, geography, food, festivals, government, household management, and not least the relations between the upper classes and their slaves (see Letter 47).

On this last issue, Seneca's view is comparatively enlightened: while he in no way calls for an end to the practice, he does demand that slaves be treated as human beings, and be fed well, praised, entertained, and promoted where appropriate. He includes fascinating details, such as the fact that his household includes Harpasté (see Letter 50), a blind, female clown belonging to his wife who had come to her as the result of a legacy. ‘I particularly disapprove of these freaks’, Seneca ruefully says, yet he also seems amused by the woman, and there's no mention of removing her. He sees the welfare of servants and slaves as a responsibility.