Psychology Today | 18.08.2026 21:58
The Stoic Seneca (d. 65 CE) was the master of the "consolation," a letter written for the express purpose of comforting someone who has been bereaved. Seneca wrote at least three consolations, to Marcia, to Polybius, and to Helvia. In the Consolation to Helvia, he comforts his own mother on "losing" him to exile—an unusual case, and literary innovation, of the lamented consoling the lamenter.
