Read more
The author has endeavored in the following pages to give in a popular manner as full an account of the lives and opinions of three great heathen philosophers as is possible. Selected contents: the family and early years of Seneca; the education of Seneca; the state of Roman society; the rein of Caius; the rein of Claudius and the banishment of Seneca; Seneca in exile; Seneca's recall from exile; Nero and his tutor; the beginning of the end; the death of Seneca; the life of Epictetus, and how he regarded it; the discourses of Epictetus; the education of Marcus Aurelius; the "meditations" of Marcus Aurelius. Illustrated.
About the author
Farrar was born in Bombay, India, and attended King William's College on the Isle of Man, King's College, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1852, he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal for Poetry at Cambridge. He was a master at Harrow School for a few years before becoming the headmaster of Marlborough College from 1871 to 1876. Farrar spent much of his career at Westminster Abbey. He was named canon there in 1876, then rector of St Margaret's (the church next door), and finally archdeacon of the Abbey in 1883. He then became Dean of Canterbury and a chaplain in ordinary, which meant he was associated to the Royal Household. Farrar was a classics professor and comparative philologist who applied Charles Darwin's branching descent theory to the relationships between languages, sparking a lengthy argument with anti-Darwinian linguist Max Müller. While Farrar was never convinced by the evidence for evolution in biology, he had no theological objections to the concept and argued that it should be studied only on scientific grounds. Farrar was elected to the Royal Society in 1866, following Darwin's recommendation for his philological work. When Darwin died in 1882, then-Canon Farrar assisted in obtaining church permission for him to be buried at Westminster Abbey and delivered the funeral sermon.
