Seneca describes it in more than one of his epigrams, as a "Terrible isle, when earliest summer glows Yet fiercer when his face the dog-star shows;" and again as a "Barbarous land, which rugged rocks surround, Whose horrent cliffs with idle wastes are crowned, No autumn fruit, no tilth the summer yields, Nor olives cheer the winter-silvered fields: Nor joyous spring her tender foliage lends, Nor genial herb the luckless soil befriends; Nor bread, nor sacred fire, nor freshening wave;-- Nought here--save exile, and the exile's grave!" In such a place, and under such conditions, Seneca had ample need for all his philosophy.

And at first it did not fail him.

Towards the close of his first year of exile he wrote the "Consolation to his mother Helvia," which is one of the noblest and most charming of all his works.
He had often thought, he said, of writing to console her under this deep and wholly unlooked-for trial, but hitherto he had abstained from doing so, lest, while his own anguish and hers were fresh, he should only renew the pain of the wound by his unskilful treatment.

He waited, therefore till time had laid its healing hand upon her sorrows, especially because he found no precedent for one in his position condoling with others when he himself seemed more in need of consolation, and because something new and admirable would be required of a man who, as it were, raised his head from the funeral pyre to console his friends.

Still he now feels impelled to write to her, because to alleviate her regrets will be to lay aside his own.