De Ira

De Ira (On Anger) is a Latin work by Seneca (4 BC–65 AD ). The work offers advice on controlling anger and to make it subject to reason.

It is not clear to scholars who wrote the first work on the subject of passions or emotions (the terms are thought interchangeable), but while Xenocrates (396/5–314/3 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) were students at Plato's Academy, a discussion on emotions took place which provided likely the impetus for all later work on the subject. The Stoic Posidonius of Apamea (c.135 - 51 BCE ) is considered the main source for Seneca, also the work of Theophrastus, Antipater of Tarsus, Philodemus of Gadara, Sotion of Alexandria, Xenocrates (active sometime after 346 BCE ) and Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE ). Other influences may have included works On Passions by the Stoic philosophers Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus, Aristo of Chios, Herillus, Hecato of Rhodes, and the Peripatetic philosopher Andronicus of Rhodes (c. 1st century B.C.). Works of a similar nature were also written by both Philodemus of Gadara (ca. 110–30 BCE), an Epicurean, and Bion the Cynic from Borysthenes, (fl early 3rd century BC).