Seneca’s philosophy did not forbid him to have a share of worldly wealth and honors. At the height of his prosperity he was immensely wealthy, possessing estates in Italy and abroad, and having money out at interest as far away as Britain. His total wealth was estimated at more than $15,000,000. He held all the regular offices, attaining the consulship in 57 A. D. Of his private life little is known. He was twice married, His first wife bore him at least two sons, one of whom died shortly before his father’s banishment. His second wife, Pompeia Paulina, whom he married in 57 A. D., wished to commit suicide at the time of her husband’s death, but was prevented by Nero. Seneca was an extremely voluminous writer, and though many of his works are lost, those that remain still exceed in bulk the extant works of almost any other ancient writer. [Sidenote: Seneca’s tragedies.] They comprise tragedies, philosophical treatises, a satire on the death of Claudius, and a few epigrams. The exact dates of individual works can be established only in comparatively few instances, and no attempt will be made here to treat them in chronological order. Since, however, it is probably that the tragedies are works of his earlier years, they may be mentioned first. Nine of these are extant.[91] The subjects are all derived from Greek mythology, and had all been used as the subjects of tragedies by Greek dramatists. No originality of plot is therefore to be expected in Seneca’s tragedies. Nor is there any great originality of treatment. Seneca imitates Euripides and some of the later Greek tragic poets, not simply translating their work, yet inventing few if any new situations, and differing from the Greek dramatists chiefly in his greater realism and his declamatory rhetoric. In fact, his tragedies are a succession of speeches, hardly interrupted by choral songs, which differ from the speeches of the actors chiefly in metre. In themselves these tragedies are feeble imitations and perversions of their Greek prototypes, though in them, as in his other works, Seneca shows great mastery of language and vigor of expression; but their real importance to the modern reader is due to their great influence upon the English dramatists of the sixteenth century and upon the whole course of the French classical drama. At a time when Latin was far more familiar than Greek these tragedies were regarded as the highest expression of ancient dramatic art, and were studied and imitated by the dramatists of the modern nations.