Endnotes

1. How Seneca came by this “pointed” style will be evident to one who reads the sample speeches given in the handbook of the Elder Seneca. ↩

2. Where the testimony of these later MSS. seems sound, the translator has omitted Hense’s brackets; the headings of the books into which the Letters were originally divided are also omitted. ↩

3. Hesiod, Works and Days, 369. ↩

4. Frag. 475 Usener. ↩

5. I.e., a word which has a special significance to the Stoics; see Letter XLVIII, endnote 214. ↩

6. Frag. 74 Wimmer. ↩

7. A reference to the murder of Caligula, on the Palatine, AD 41. ↩

8. I.e., to death. ↩

9. The Garden of Epicurus. Frag. 477 and 200 Usener. ↩

10. I.e., of the Stoic school. ↩

11. Frag. 25 Fowler. ↩

12. Cf. Herodotus, I 8 ὦτα τυγχάνει ἀνθρώποισι ἐόντα ἀπιστότερα ὀφθαλμῶν. ↩

13. Frag. 26 Fowler. ↩

14. During the luncheon interval condemned criminals were often driven into the arena and compelled to fight, for the amusement of those spectators who remained throughout the day. ↩

15. The remark is addressed to the brutalized spectators. ↩

16. Frag. 302^a Diels². ↩

17. Frag. 208 Usener. ↩

18. As contrasted with the general Stoic doctrine of taking part in the world’s work. ↩

19. See Letter LXXXV, paragraph 13 for the famous saying of the Rhodian pilot. ↩

20. Cernulat, equivalent to Greek ἀναχαιτίζω, of a horse which throws a rider over its head. ↩

21. Cf. the Stoic precept nil admirandum. ↩

22. Frag. 199 Usener. ↩

23. Literally “spun around” by the master and dismissed to freedom. Cf. Persius, V 75 f. ↩

24. Fabulae togatae were plays which dealt with Roman subject matter, as contrasted with adaptations from the Greek, called palliatae. The term, in the widest sense includes both comedy and tragedy. ↩

25. I.e., comedians or mimes. ↩

26. Syri Sententiae, p. 309 Ribbeck². ↩

27. Com. Rom. Frag. p. 394 Ribbeck². ↩

28. Com. Rom. Frag. p. 394 Ribbeck². ↩

29. Frag. 174 Usener. ↩

30. I.e., the Cynics. ↩

31. I.e., the Cynics. ↩

32. I.e., the diurna mercedula; see Letter VI, paragraph 5. ↩

33. Frag. 27 Fowler. ↩

34. Frag. 175 Usener. ↩

35. “Pure love,” i.e., love in its essence, unalloyed with other emotions. ↩

36. Cf. his Fragmenta moralia 674 von Arnim. ↩

37. The distinction is based upon the meaning of egere, “to be in want of” something indispensible, and opus esse, “to have need of” something which one can do without. ↩

38. This refers to the Stoic conflagration: after certain cycles their world was destroyed by fire. Cf. E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, pp. 192 f.; cf. also Chrysippus, Fragmenta physica 1065 von Arnim. ↩

39. Gnomologici Vaticani 515^a Sternberg. ↩

40. Frag. 474 Usener. ↩

41. Cf. paragraph 3. ↩

42. I.e., not confined to the Stoics, etc. ↩

43. Author unknown; perhaps, as Buecheler thinks, adapted from the Greek. ↩

44. Frag. de superstitione 36 H., according to Rossbach. ↩

45. Epicurus, Frag. 210 Usener. ↩

46. Frag. 210 Usener. ↩

47. The figure is taken from the ἄδυτον, the Holy of Holies in a temple. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, VI 10 secreta Sibyllas. ↩

48. A jesting allusion to the Roman funeral; the corpse’s feet pointing towards the door. ↩

49. His former owner should have kept him and buried him. ↩

50. Small figures, generally of terra-cotta, were frequently given to children as presents at the Saturnalia. Cf. Macrobius, I 11. 49 sigila⁠ ⁠… pro se atque suis piaculum. ↩

51. I.e., the old slave resembles a child in that he is losing his teeth (but for the second time). ↩

52. I.e., seniores, as contrasted with iuniores. ↩

53. ὁ σκοτεινός, “the Obscure,” Frag. 106 Diels². ↩

54. I.e., of light and darkness. ↩

55. Usus was the mere enjoyment of a piece of property; dominium was the exclusive right to its control. Possession for one, or two, years conferred ownership. See Leage, Roman Private Law, pp. 133, 152, and 164. Although Pacuvius was governor so long that the province seemed to belong to him, yet he knew he might die any day. ↩

56. Virgil, Aeneid, IV 653. ↩

57. Epicurus, Sprüche, 9 Wokte. ↩

58. Seneca dismisses the topic of “exaggerated ills,” because judgements will differ concerning present troubles; the Stoics, for example, would not admit that torture was an evil at all. He then passes on to the topic of “imaginary ills,” paragraph 4, and afterwards to “anticipated ills,” paragraphs 4 and 5. From paragraph 6 on, he deals with both imaginary and anticipated ills. ↩

59. Cf. Solon’s καὶ με κωτίλλοντα λείως τραχὺν ἐκφανεῖ νόον. ↩

60. Epicurus, Frag. 494 Usener. ↩

61. Cf. Tacitus, Annals, XV 44, describing the tortures practised upon the Christians. ↩

62. Scylla was a rock on the Italian side of the Straits. Charybdis was a whirlpool on the Sicillian side. Servius on Virgil, Aeneid, III, 420 defines the dextrum as the shore “to the right of those coming from the Ionian sea.” ↩

63. Cf. Juvenal, X 22 cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator. ↩

64. Cf. the proverb necesse est multos timeat quem multi timent, which is found in Seneca, de Ira, II 11. 4 and often elsewhere. ↩

65. Literally, “is as good as a (priest’s) fillet.” ↩

66. Cf. Tacitus Histories I 50 inter duos quorum bello solum id scires, deteriorem fore vicisset. ↩

67. See, for example, Letter XXII. ↩

68. Epicurus, Ep. III p. 63. 19 Usener. ↩

69. Named kalendarium because interest was reckoned according to the Kalends of each month. ↩

70. I.e., the prize-ring; the contestants were rubbed with oil before the fight began. ↩

71. Cardiacus meant, according to Pliny, Natural History XXIII 1. 24, a sort of dyspepsia accompanied by fever and perspiration. Compare the man in Juvenal V 32, who will not send a spoonful of wine to a friend ill of this complaint. ↩

72. Named from the Salii, or leaping priests of Mars. ↩

73. The fuller, or washerman, cleansed the clothes by leaping and stamping upon them in the tub. ↩

74. Epicurus, Frag. 491 Usener. ↩

75. Court fools of the period. ↩

76. I.e., have merely advanced in years. ↩

77. Frag. 201 Usener. ↩

78. Perhaps from the Hortensius; see Müller, Frag. 98, p. 326. ↩

79. Literally, “Water!” ↩

80. Frag. 479 Usener. ↩

81. I.e., the whole year is a Saturnalia. ↩

82. For a dinner dress. ↩

83. The pilleus was worn by newly freed slaves and by the Roman populace on festal occasions. ↩

84. The Epicureans. Cf. paragraph 6 and Epicurus, Frag. 158. Usener. ↩

85. Cf. Letter C, paragraph 3 and Martial, III 48. ↩

86. The post which gladiators used when preparing themselves for combats in the arena. ↩

87. Usually identified with Chaerimus, 307⁠–⁠8 BC. But Wilhelm, Öster Jahreshefte, V 136, has shown that there is probably no confusion of names. A Charinus was archon at Athens in 290⁠–⁠89; see Johnson, Class. Phil. IX p. 256. ↩

88. Virgil, Aeneid, VIII 364 f. ↩

89. Frag. 484 Usener. ↩

90. See the Introduction, paragraph 6. ↩

91. The procurator did the work of a quaestor in an imperial province. Positions at Rome to which Lucilius might succeed were such as praefectus annonae, in charge of the grain supply, or praefectus urbi, Director of Public Safety, and others. ↩

92. And therefore could speak with authority on this point. ↩

93. Perhaps a tragedy, although Seneca uses the word liber to describe it. Maecenas wrote a Symposium, a work De cultu suo, Octavia, some stray verse, and perhaps some history. See Seneca, Letters XCII and CI. ↩

94. Seneca whimsically pretends to assume that eccentric literary style and high political position go hand in hand. See also the following sentence. ↩

95. Epicurus, Frag. 542 Usener. ↩

96. A slave kept by every prominant Roman to identify the master’s friends and dependants. ↩

97. Seneca applies to wisdom the definition of friendship, Salust, Catiline, 20. 4 idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est. ↩

98. Frag. 206 Usener. ↩

99. I.e., the life of voluntary poverty. ↩

100. Adapted from the epigram on Alexander the Great, “hic est quem non capit orbis.” See Plutarch, Alexander, §6 ὦ παῖ ζήτει σεαυτῷ βασιλείαν ἴσην. Μακεδονια γάρ σε οὐ χωρεῖ, and Seneca, CXIX, paragraph 4. ↩

101. Epicurus, Frag. 132 Usener. ↩

102. I.e., Cicero’s letters did more to preserve the name of Atticus than such a connection with the imperial house would have done. ↩

103. Aeneid, IX 446 ff. ↩

104. As in the case of Epicurus and Idomeneus, Cicero and Atticus, Virgil and Euryalus and Nisus, and Seneca and Lucilius! ↩

105. Frag. 135 Usener. ↩

106. The first question, “Shall I withdraw from the world?” has been answered, apparently by Lucilius himself. The second was, “How can I accomplish this?” Seneca pretends to answer it, although he feels that this should be done in personal conference rather than by writing. ↩

107. See the preceding letter of Seneca. ↩

108. Frag. 133 Usener. ↩

109. Frag. 495 Usener. ↩

110. I.e., the old man is like the infant in this, also⁠—that he can look back upon nothing which he has finished, because he has always put off finishing things. ↩

111. Death, poverty, temptation, and suffering. ↩

112. By the various sects which professed to teach how happiness is to be obtained. ↩

113. Frag. 493 Usener. ↩

114. Seneca’s theme is suggested by the fear which possesses Lucilius as to the issue of a lawsuit. This fear is taken as typical of all fears, and Seneca devotes most of his letter to the greatest fear of all⁠—fear of death. ↩

115. The foculus in this version of the story was evidently a movable fire, a brazier. ↩

116. The Phaedo, on the immortality of the soul. ↩

117. I.e., to save and bring back to Rome as prisoner. ↩

118. Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal at Zama in 202 BC. Scipio Aemilianus, also surnamed Africanus, was by adoption the grandson of Hannibal’s conqueror. He captured Carthage in the Third Punic War, 146 BC. The Scipio mentioned by Seneca died in 46 BC. ↩

119. He refers to the lawsuit, as again in paragraph 8. ↩

120. An apostrophe to Death and Pain. ↩

121. As mythology describes the treatment of Tityus or of Prometheus. ↩

122. Frag. 496 Usener. ↩

123. Frag. 498 Usener. ↩

124. Frag. 497 Usener. ↩

125. The second friend, whose faults are to be crushed out. He proves to be some forty years old; the other is a youth. ↩

126. Frag. 211 Usener. ↩

127. Frag. 209 Usener. ↩

128. Because “solitude prompts to evil,” paragraph 2. ↩

129. See the twelfth letter. Seneca was by this time at least sixty-five years old, and probably older. ↩

130. This passage is hopelessly corrupt. The course of the argument requires something like this: For it is just as much to my advantage not to be able to do what I do not want to do, as it is to be able to do whatever gives me pleasure. ↩

131. I.e., the money will be brought from home⁠—the saying will be one of Seneca’s own. ↩

132. Epicurus, Frag. 205 Usener. ↩

133. I.e., ordinary studies, or literature, as contrasted with philosophy. ↩

134. Compare with the following the vulgarities of Trimalchio in the Satire of Petronius, and the bad taste of Nasidienus in Horace (Satires II 8). ↩

135. At the salutatio, or morning call. The position of nomenclator, “caller-of-names,” was originally devoted more strictly to political purposes. Here it is primarily social. ↩

136. I.e., all the ideas that dropped out of the head of Sabinus. The slave who picked up the crumbs was called analecta. ↩

137. Epicurus, Frag. 477 Usener. ↩

138. Cf. Horace, Epistles I 11, 27 caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. ↩

139. Aeneid, III 72. ↩

140. Aeneid, VI 78 f. ↩

141. I.e., had you been able to say patria mea totus mundus est. ↩

142. Cf. Horace, Epistles I 11. 28⁠—

     navibus atque
     Quadrigis petimus bene vivere; quod petis, hic est.

     ↩

143. Frag. 522 Usener. ↩

144. I.e., refuse your own intercession. ↩

145. The usual expression is plena manu spargere, “with full hand,” cf. Letter CXX, paragraph 5. In the famous saying of Corinna to Pindar: “Sow with the hand and not with the sack,” the idea is “sparingly,” and not, as here, “bountifully.” ↩

146. The essedarius fought from a car. When his adversary forced him out of the car, he was compelled to continue the fight on foot, like an unhorsed knight. ↩

147. Epicurus, Frag. 187 Usener. ↩

148. I.e., exeas e vita, “depart from life.” ↩

149. The defeated gladiator is supposed to be on his back, his opponent standing over him and about to deliver the final blow. As the blade wavers at the throat, searching for the jugular vein, the victim directs the point. ↩

150. I.e., when on the home stretch. ↩

151. Frag. 503 Usener. ↩

152. The argument is that work is not, in itself, a good; if it were, it would not be praiseworthy at one time and to be deprecated at another. It belongs, therefore, to the class of things which the Stoics call ἀδιάφορα, indifferentia, res mediae; cf. Cicero, De Finibus III 16. ↩

153. Literally, “come to the end of his furrow.” ↩

154. I.e., philosophy. ↩

155. The Great St. Bernard and Little St. Bernard routes over the Alps. ↩

156. A mountain in Illyria, over which the Via Egnatia ran. ↩

157. Dangerous quicksands along the north coast of Africa. ↩

158. The toga praetexta, badge of the official position of Lucilius. ↩

159. For example, Time or Chance. ↩

160. Virgil, Aeneid, VIII 364 f. ↩

161. In the Golden Age, described in Letter XC, when men were nearest to nature and “fresh from the gods.” ↩

162. The text seems to be corrupt. Hense thinks that expectare is to be supplied with nihil sibi⁠—“To expect nothing for oneself”; but the use of the verb in two meanings would be harsh. The thought seems to be “asking for no added years”; and one suspects that the loss of a word like adrogantem before nihil. ↩

163. Stoic as well as Epicurean. ↩

164. Contrasted with alte cinctos. The sleeveless and “girt-up” tunic is the sign of energy; cf. Horace, Satires I 5. 5, and Suetonius, Caligula, 52: the effeminate Caligula would “appear in public with a long-sleeved tunic and bracelets.” ↩

165. Who wore sleeves. ↩

166. I.e., the Epicureans. ↩

167. For the phrase ductu et auspiciis see Plautus, Amphitryon I 1. 41 ut gesserit rem publicam ductu imperio auspicio suo; and Horace, Odes I 7. 27 Teucro duce et auspice Teucro. The original significance of the phrase refers to the right of the commander-in-chief to take the auspices. ↩

168. Ovid, Metamorphoses, XIII 824. ↩

169. Either “maxims” or “outlines,” “themes.” For a discussion of them see Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria I 9. 3 ff. ↩

170. The objector is the assumed auditor. The answer to the objection gives the usual view as to the power of the living voice; to this Seneca assents, provided that the voice has a message of its own. ↩

171. A reference to the act (iniectio) by which a Roman took possession of a thing belonging to him, e.g., a runaway slave⁠—without a decision of the court. ↩

172. I.e., the proverb may apply to tasks which a man performs with his hands, but it is an understatement when applied to the tasks of the soul. ↩

173. The question of Lucilius represents the popular view, which regards love as including friendship. But according to Seneca it is only the perfect love, from which all selfishness has been removed, that becomes identical with friendship. ↩

174. I.e., they are no more correct now, when they called him a trifler, than they were before, when they called him happy. ↩

175. Aristo of Chios, Frag. 388 von Armin. ↩

176. As a Roman, living in an age when philosophy was recommended and prescribed. ↩

177. I.e., if death inspired no terror. ↩

178. And since after death we do not exist, death cannot be harmful to us. Seneca has in mind the argument of Epicurus (Diogenes Laertius, X 124⁠–⁠5): “Therefore the most dread-inspiring of all evils, death, is nothing to us; for when we exist; death is not present in us, and when death is present, then we do not exist. Therefore it does not concern either the living or the dead; for to the living it has no existence, and the dead do not themselves exist.” Lucretius uses this argument, concluding it with (III 830): Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum. ↩

179. For example, in Letter LXXVII. ↩

180. He refers to the famous oath which the gladiator took when he hired himself to the fighting-master; uri, vinciri, verberari, ferroque necari patior; cf. Petronius, Satyricon 117. The oath is abbreviated in the text, probably by Seneca himself, who paraphrases it in Letter LXXI, paragraph 9. ↩

181. Awaiting the signal of “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” Cf. Juvenal, III 36 verso pollice, vulgus Quem iubet occidunt populariter. ↩

182. Virgil, Aeneid, II 494. ↩

183. In the language of Stoicism, ἀμαθία, stultitia, “folly,” is the antithesis of σοφία, sapientia, “wisdom.” ↩

184. The regular method of studying philosophy was, as we infer from this letter, a course of reading in the philosophers. Seneca deprecates the use of the “cram” which is only a memory-help, as a substitute for reading, on the ground that by its use one does not, in the first place, learn the subject, and, in the second place and chiefly, that one loses the inspiration to be derived by direct contact with great thinkers. The request of Lucilius for a cram thus suggests the main topic of the letter, which is taken up in the second paragraph. ↩

185. I.e., the word breviarium, “abridgment,” “abstract,” has displaced the better word summarium, “outline of chief points.” ↩

186. I.e., to do the reading and to review it by means of the summary. The reading will enable Lucilius to identify for himself the authors of the several passages or doctrines. ↩

187. I.e., their pleasures. These ills, by being cultivated, become vices. ↩

188. This person cannot be identified. ↩

189. The explanation of Professor Summers seems sound, that the metaphor is taken from a mountain-torrent. Compare the description of Cratinus’ style in Aristophanes, The Acharnians 526, or that of Pindar in Horace, Odes IV 2. 5 ff. ↩

190. Iliad, III 222 (Odysseus), and I 249 (Nestor). ↩

191. Seneca’s phrase, quae fieri posse non crederes, has been interpreted as a definition of παράδοξα. It is more probable, however, that he is comparing with the juggler’s tricks the verbal performances of certain lecturers, whose jargon one marvels at but does not care to hear again. ↩

192. The Greek texts were still written without separation of the words, in contrast with the Roman. ↩

193. Gradarius may be contrasted with tolutarius, “trotter.” The word might also mean one who walks with dignified step, as in a religious procession. ↩

194. Cf. Martial, XI 27. 7 aut cum perfricuit frontem posuitque pudorem. After a violent rubbing, the face would not show blushes. ↩

195. Virgil, Aeneid, VIII 352,

     Hoc nemus, hune, inquit, frondoso vertice collem,
     Quis deus incertum est, habitat deus,

     and cf. Quintillian, I 10. 88, where he is speaking of Ennius, whom “sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus grandia et antiqua robora iam non tantum habent speciem quantem religionem.” ↩

196. The spectators of the fight, which is to take place between the two lions, applaud the wild lion and bet on him. ↩

197. Seneca doubtless has in mind the famous passage of Simonides, ἄνδρ᾽ ἀγαθὸν μὲν ἀληθῶς γενέσθαι χαλεπόν, discussed by Plato, Protagoras, 339 A. ↩

198. I.e., Rome. ↩

199. Lucilius was at this time the imperial procurator in Sicily. ↩

200. Alluding to seats reserved for the knights at the theatre. ↩

201. Plato, Theaetetus, p. 174 E. ↩

202. Compare with the whole argument Menander, Frag. 533 Kock, ending: ὂς ἂν εὖ γεγονὼς ᾖ τῇ φύσει πρὸς τἀγαθά, κἂν Αἰθίοψ ᾖ, μῆτερ, ἐστὶν εὐγενής. ↩

203. Cf. Gellius, XVIII 2. 9 quod non perdidisti, habes; cornua non perdidisti; habes igitur cornua; cf. also Seneca, Letter XLVIII. ↩

204. E.g. Gellius, XVIII 2. 10 cum mentior et mentiri me dico, mentior an verum dico? ↩

205. A book was unrolled with the right hand; the reader gathered up the part already perused with the left hand. Nearly all books at this time were papyrus rolls, as were letters of any great length. ↩

206. Possibly levis in the sense of light, referring to size. ↩

207. Much of the following is quoted by Macrobius, Saturnalia I 11. 7 ff., in the passage beginning vis tu cogitare eos, quos ios tuum vocas, isdem seminibus ortos eodem frui caelo, etc. ↩

208. Glabri, delicati, or exoleti were favourite slaves, kept artifically youthful by Romans of the more dissolute class. Cf. Catullus, LXI 142, and Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae, 12. 5 (a passage closely resembling the description given above by Seneca), where the master prides himself upon the elegant appearance and graceful gestures of these favourites. ↩

209. The master of Callistus, before he became the favourite of Caligula, is unknown. ↩

210. There is some doubt whether we should not read Variana, as Lipsius suggests. This method of qualifying for senator suits the Empire better than the Republic. Variana would refer to the defeat of Varus in Germany, AD 9. ↩

211. Plato was about forty years old when he visited Sicily, whence he was afterwards deported by Dionysius the Elder. He was sold into slavery at Aegina and ransomed by a man from Cyrene. Diogenes, while travelling from Athens to Aegina, is said to have been captured by pirates and sold in Crete, where he was purchased by a certain Corinthian and given his freedom. ↩

212. I.e., as the praetor himself was normally accustomed to do. ↩

213. The Epicureans, who reduced all goods to “utilities,” could not regard a friend’s advantage as identical to one’s own advantage. And yet they laid great stress upon friendship as one of the chief sources of pleasure. For an attempt to reconcile these two positions see Cicero, De Finibus, I 65 ff. Seneca has inadvertantly used a phrase that implies a difference between a friend’s interest and one’s own. This leads him to reassert the Stoic view of friendship, which adopted as its motto κοινὰ τὰ τῶν φίλων. ↩

214. The sides are given in the reverse order in the two clauses: to the Stoic the terms “friend” and “man” are coextensive; he is the friend of everybody, and his motive in friendship is to be of service; the Epicurean, however, narrows the definition of “friend” and regards him merely as an instrument to his own happiness. ↩

215. In this paragraph Seneca exposes the folly of trying to prove a truth by means of logical tricks, and offers a caricature of those which were current among the philosophers whom he derides. ↩

216. Literally, “or if or if not,” words constantly employed by the logicians in legal instruments. For the latter cf. Cicero, Pro Caecina, 23. 65 tum illud, quod dicitur, “sive nive” irrident, tum aucupia verborum et litterarum tendiculas in invidiam vocant. ↩

217. Literally, “to those who sit studying the praetor’s edicts.” The album is the bulletin-board, on which the edicts of the praetor were posted, giving the formulae and stipulations for legal processes of various kinds. ↩

218. In certain actions the praetor appointed a judge and established a formula, indicating the plaintiff’s claim and the judge’s duty. If the statement was false, or the claim excessive, the plaintiff lost his case; under certain conditions (see last sentence of Seneca in paragraph 8) the defendant could claim annulment of the formula and have the case tried again. Such cases were not lost on their merits, and for that reason the lawyer who purposely took such an advantage was doing a contemptible thing. ↩

219. Virgil, Aeneid, IX 641. ↩

220. Probably the birthplace of Lucilius. ↩

221. The Pythagorean. For his views on vegetarianism, and their influence on Seneca, see Letter CVIII, paragraph 12 ff. ↩

222. Source unknown; perhaps, as Hense thinks, from the Hortensius. ↩

223. An intentional equivocation on the part of Cicero, who intimates that he will “lose no time” in reading them. ↩

224. Virgil, Aeneid, VIII 385 f. ↩

225. An example of syllogistic nonsense, quoted also by Gellius, XVIII 2. 9. See also Letter XLV, paragraph 5. ↩

226. I.e., the timbers of the ship. Compare the same figure in Letter XXX, paragraph 1. ↩

227. Euripides, Phoenissae, 469 ἁπλοῦς ὁ μῦθος τῆς ἀληθείας ἔφυ. ↩

228. Etna was of especial interest to Lucilius. Besides being a Govenor in Sicily, he may have written the poem Aetna. For Seneca’s own curiosity regarding the mountain compare Letter LXXIX, paragraph 1 ff. ↩

229. Not far from Naples, and across the bay from Puteoli. It was a fashionable and dissolute watering place. ↩

230. Situated at the mouth of the westernmost branch of the Nile, and proverbial in Latin literature for the laxity of its morals. ↩

231. There is considerable doubt whether symphonia was vocal or instrumental music. The passage probably refers either to glee-singers (as in Venice today) or to bands of flute-players playing part-music. Cicero (Verrem III 44. 105) mentions them as providing entertainment at banquets. ↩

232. See Letter LXXXVI. ↩

233. The Egyptians used the word φηλητής in the sense of “knave” or “footpad.” The word is found in the “Hecale” of Callimachus. Hesychius defines it as equal to κλώψ “thief.” It was pronounced in the same way as φιλητής “lover,” and in late Greek was spelt in the same way. ↩

234. Frag. 192 Usener. ↩

235. I.e., that of Metrodorus, who had the happier nature. ↩

236. I.e., a representative of this school or that. Seneca’s reply is, in effect, “Upon no present school; go to the ancients.” ↩

237. Circulatores were travelling showmen who performed sword-swallowing and snake-charming feats, or cheap stump speakers who displayed their eloquence at the street-corners in the hope of a few pence. The word is also found in the sense of “pedlar.” ↩

238. This and what follows, to the beginning of the next paragraph, are the words with which a true philosopher is supposed to address his hearers. ↩

239. The scratching of the head with one finger was for some reason regarded as a mark of effeminacy or vice; cf. the charge brought against Pompey, Plutarch, Moralia, 89 E and Ammianus, 17. 11 quod genuino quodam more caput digito uno scalpebat⁠ ⁠… ut dissolutum. Compare also Juvenal, IX 133 scalpere caput digito. ↩

240. The poetical name for Naples; perhaps it was once a town near by which gave a sort of romantic second title to the larger city. Professor Summers thinks that this poetical name, together with tua, indicates a reference to a passage from the verse of Lucilius. Perhaps, however, tua means nothing more than “the place which you love so well,” being in the neighbourhood of Pompeii, the birthplace of Lucilius. ↩

241. An islet near the mouth of the bay wherein Baiae was situated. Puteoli was on the opposite side of the bay from Baiae. ↩

242. Aeneid, VI 3. This was the usual method of mooring a ship in ancient times. ↩

243. Aeneid, III 277. ↩

244. Compare Letter LXXXIII, paragraph 2. ↩

245. Ulysses took ten years on his journey, because of seasickness; Seneca will need twice as many. ↩

246. That is, they are so swollen that left and right look alike. ↩

247. Literally “on sufferance,” whenever other matters permit. Cf. Pliny, Epistulae VII 30 precario studeo⁠—“subject to interruption from others.” ↩

248. I.e., asthma. Seneca thinks that the Latin name is good enough. ↩

249. Celcus (IV 8) gives this disease as the second of those which deal with the respiratory organs; cum vehementior est, ut spirare aeger sine sono et anhelatione non possit. ↩

250. I.e., that the sigh be physical⁠—an asthmatic gasp⁠—and not caused by anguish of the soul. ↩

251. The argument is: I am ready to die, but do not praise me on that account; reserve your praise for him who is not loth to die, though (unlike me) he finds it a pleasure to live (because he is in good health). Yes, for there is no more virtue in accepting death when one hates life, than there is in leaving a place when one is ejected. ↩

252. Cumae was on the coast about six miles north of Cape Misenum. Lake Acheron (see paragraph 4) was a saltwater pool between those two points, separated from the sea by a sandbar; it lay near Lake Avernus and probably derived its name from that fact. The Vatia mentioned here is unknown; he must not be confused with Isauricus. ↩

253. Son of Asinius Pollio; his frankness got him into trouble and he died of starvation in a dungeon in AD 33. Tacitus, Annals I 32. 2, quotes Augustus, discussing his own successor, as saying of Gallus avidus et minor. Sejanus was overthrown and executed in AD 31. ↩

254. I.e., after his fall. ↩

255. I.e., imposes on us. ↩

256. Literally, “like a Euripus,” referring to the narrow strait which divides Euboea from Boeotia at Chalcis. Its current is swift. ↩

257. Pilicrepus probably means “ball-counter,”⁠—one who keeps a record of the strokes. Compare our “billiard-marker.” ↩

258. This was especially true of poets, cf. Horace, Satires I 4. 76 suave locus voci resonat conclusus, and Martial, III 44. ↩

259. It is nowhere else related of the famous Stoic philosopher Chrysippus that he objected to the salutations of his friends; and, besides, the morning salutation was a Roman, not a Greek, custom. Lipsius, therefore, was probably right when he proposed to read here, for Chrysippus, Crispus, one of Seneca’s friends; cf. Epigrams 6. ↩

260. The same story is told in Naturales Quaestiones, IV 2. 5. ↩

261. A cone-shaped fountain, resembling a turning-post (meta) in the circus, from which the water spouted through many jets; hence the “sweating” (sudans). Its remains may still be seen now not far from the Colosseum on the Velia. ↩

262. A fragment from the Argonautica of Varro Atacinus. ↩

263. See Introduction. ↩

264. Paragraph 2 of this letter. ↩

265. An allusion to the Sirens and Ulysses, cf. paragraph 10 below. ↩

266. Aeneas is escaping from Troy, Aeneid, II 726 ff. ↩

267. Aeneas carries Anchises; the rich man carries his burden of wealth. ↩

268. Not merely by stopping their ears with wax, but also by bidding them row past the Sirens as quickly as possible. Odyssey, XII 182. ↩

269. I.e., an “anointing” with mud. ↩

270. A characteristic figure. After anointing, the wrestler was sprinkled with sand, so that the opponent’s hand might not slip. The Naples tunnel furnished a shortcut to those who, like Seneca in this letter, did not wish to take the time to travel by the shore route along the promontory of Pausilipum. ↩

271. Cf. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, p. 61, on the doctrine of interpenetration, explaining the diffusion of the soul throughout the body; and Rohde, Psyche, II 319, on the popular superstition that one who dies in a whirlwind has his soul snatched away by the wind-spirits. The doctrine referred to by Seneca is not, however, a purely Stoic doctrine. ↩

272. For this belief compare Xenophon, Memorabilia IV 3. 14, “No one sees the bolt either on its way down or on its way back.” Seneca himself was much interested in lightning, cf. Natural Questions II 40. 2. ↩

273. This theme was emphasized by Lucretius, I 136 and 832, and III 260. Munro thinks, however, that “Lucretius had too much instead of too little technical language for a poet.” Seneca knew Lucretius; cf. Letters LVIII, paragraph 10, XC, paragraph 12, etc. ↩

274. The gadfly. ↩

275. Georgics, III 146 ff. ↩

276. Aeneid, XII 708 f. ↩

277. Aeneid, XI 467. ↩

278. Cicero usually says natura. The word, according to Quintilian, was first used by a certain Sergius Flavus. It is also found in Apulcius, Macrobius, and Sidonius. ↩

279. See Letter C. Papirius Fabianus, who lived in the times of Tiberius and Caligula, was a pupil of the Sextius of Letter LIX, and was (Pliny, Natural History XXXVI 15. 24) naturae rerum peritissimus. He is praised by the elder Seneca (Controversiae 2. Praef.) who, however, says of him deerat robur⁠—splendor aderat. ↩

280. I.e., I must not use other imported words to explain essentia, which is not a native Latin word, but invented as a literal translation of οὐσία. ↩

281. Cf. paragraph 12. ↩

282. Categories 2 b 11 and often. ↩

283. I.e., the genus beyond “that which exists.” ↩

284. Cf. paragraph 8. Plato’s usual division was threefold⁠—αἰσθητά, μαθηματικά, εἴδη (sensibilia, mathematica, ideae)⁠—a division which is often quoted by Aristotle. ↩

285. Εἶναι κατ΄ ἐξοχήν. After illustrating the poet κατ΄ ἐξοχήν, Homer, he passes to τὸ ὂν κατ΄ ἐξοχήν, God. ↩

286. Ὄντως τὰ ὄντα. “Each idea is a single, independent, separate, self-existing, perfect, and eternal essence”; Adam, The Republic of Plato, II 169. See Zeller’s Plato (p. 237) for a list of Greek words used by Plato to indicate the reality of these ideas. ↩

287. Cf., for example, Parmenides 132 D. What follows is not a direct quotation, and the same thought is found elsewhere. ↩

288. Εἶδος. ↩

289. I.e., the “original.” ↩

290. I.e., κυρίως ὄντα. See above, paragraph 12. ↩

291. Frag. 49^a Diels² ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομεν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἶμεν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν. ↩

292. This idea Seneca has already developed in Letter XXIV, paragraph 10. ↩

293. Diogenes Laertius, III 1, who records also other explanations of the name Plato, which replaced the given name Aristocles. ↩

294. Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 114 D καὶ ἄξιον κινδυνεῦσαι, οἰομένῳ οὕτως ἔχειν· καλὸς γάρ ὁ κίνδυνος, the “chance” being immortality. ↩

295. Since vale means “keep well” no less than “goodbye.” ↩

296. A figure taken from the praetor’s edict, which was posted publicly on a white tablet, album. ↩

297. I.e., grief. ↩

298. Aeneid, VI 278. ↩

299. The wise man, on the other hand, has his emotions under control, and is less likely to be swayed by “an opinion concerning a spurious good.” ↩

300. I.e., in spite of the fact that your style is compact. ↩

301. Q. Sextius was a Stoic with Pythagorean leanings, who lived in the days of Julius Caesar. He is also mentioned in Letters LXIV and LXXIII. A book of moral Sententiae, taken over by the church, is assigned to him, perhaps wrongly. ↩

302. Agmen quadratum was an army in a square formation, with baggage in the middle, ready for battle⁠—as contrasted with agmen iustum (close ranks), and acies triplex (a stationary formation, almost rectangular). Agmen quadratum is first found in the Spanish campaigns of the second century BC. ↩

303. I.e., by the troops of the second line, who in training and quality were inferior to the troops of the legion. ↩

304. I.e., from that of the “fetter” to that of the “dust and dye.” In the previous paragraph Seneca has praised Lucilius for his judicious employment of metaphors. ↩

305. Several similar stories are related about Alexander, e.g. Plutarch, Moralia, 180 E, where he says to his flatterers, pointing to a wound just received: “See, this is blood, not ichor!” ↩

306. Seneca returns to the definition of gaudium given in paragraph 1: “True joy never ceases and never changes into its opposite.” It is not subject to ups and downs. ↩

307. Cf. Seneca, De Ira, III 6. 1. The upper firmament, near the stars, is free from clouds and storms. It is calm, though the lightning plays below. ↩

308. Aeneid, VI 513 f. The night is that which preceeded the sack of Troy. ↩

309. Catiline, I 1. ↩

310. I.e., like animals. ↩

311. I.e., you may put an epitaph upon his dwelling as if it were a tomb. ↩

312. A reminiscence of Lucretius, III 938 f. Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedus Aequo animoque capis securam, stulte, quietem? Cf. also Horace, Satires I 1. 118 f. vitae Cedat uti conviva satur. ↩

313. Demetrius of Sunium, the Cynic philosopher, who taught in Rome in the reign of Caligula and was banished by Nero. ↩

314. I.e., he has achieved the Stoic ideal of independence of all external control; he is a king and has all things to bestow upon others, but needs nothing for himself. ↩

315. Homer, Iliad, XIX 229 and XXIV 602. ↩

316. The teacher of Seneca, often mentioned by him. ↩

317. The reason is, as Lipsius observed, that friendship is essentially a social virtue, and is not confined to one object. The pretended friendship for one and only one is a form of self-love, and is not unselfish love. ↩

318. According to tradition, from the time of Numa Pompilius. ↩

319. An intimate friend of Seneca, probably a relative, who died in the year 63 from eating poisoned mushrooms (Pliny, Natural History XXII 96). Seneca dedicated to Serenus several of his philosophical essays. ↩

320. Cf. the closing chapter of the Agricola of Tacitus: si, ut sapientibus placet, non cum corpore exstinguuntur magnae animae, etc. ↩

321. See on Letter LIX, paragraph 6. As the following sentence indicates, he seems to have considered himself an eclectic in philosophy, and to have been half-Stoic, half-Pythagorean. ↩

322. Virgil, Aeneid, IV 158 f. The boy Ascanius, at Dido’s hunt, longs for wilder game than the deer and the goats. ↩

323. For Seneca’s troubles in this regard see also Letters LIV and CIV. ↩

324. The arbiter was a judge appointed to try a case according to bona fides (equity), as contrasted with the iudex proper, whose duty was defined by the magistrate. ↩

325. See Zeller’s Stoics (translated by Reichel), pp. 139 ff. ↩

326. The statue figure is a frequent one in philosophy; cf. Letter IX, paragraph 3. The “form” of Aristotle goes back to the “idea” of Plato. These four causes are the causes of Aristotle, matter (ὕλη), form (εἶδος), force (τὸ κινοῦν), and the end (τὸ τέλος); when they all concur, we pass from possibility to fact. Aristotle gives eight categories in Physics 225 b 5; and ten in Categories 1 b 25⁠—substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, possession, action, passion. For a definition of εἶδος see Aristotle, Physics 190 b 20 γίγνεται πᾶν ἔκ τε τοῦ ὑποκειμένου καὶ τῆς μορφῆς (i.e. τοῦ εἴδους). ↩

327. Well-known works of Polyclitus, fifth century BC. ↩

328. Explaining the derivation of the Greek word⁠—ιδεῖν, “to behold.” For a discussion of Plato’s “ideas,” those “independent, separate, self-existing, perfect, and eternal essences” (Republic VI and VII) see Adam, The Republic of Plato, II 168⁠–⁠179. According to Adam, Plato owes his theory of ideas to Socrates, the Eleatics, and the study of geometry; but his debt is not so great as his discovery. ↩

329. I.e., the four categories as established by Aristotle, plus the “idea” of Plato. ↩

330. The Stoic view (see paragraph 1 of this letter), besides making the four categories of “substance,” “form,” “variety,” and “variety of relation,” regarded material things as the only things which possessed being. The Stoics thus differ from Aristotle and Plato in holding that nothing is real except matter; besides, they relate everything to one ultimate cause, the acting force or efficient cause. ↩

331. I.e., the λόγος σπερματικός, the creative force in nature, that is, Providence, or the will of Zeus. ↩

332. I.e., restate the question and hear the evidence again. ↩

333. According to the Stoics the soul, which consisted of fire or breath and was a part of the divine essence, rose at death into the ether and became one with the stars. Seneca elsewhere (Consolatio ad Marciam) states that the soul went through a sort of purifying process⁠—a view which may have had some influence on Christian thought. The souls of the good, the Stoics maintained, were destined to last until the end of the world, the souls of the bad to be extinguished before that time. ↩

334. The sequence of elements from the earth outwards and upwards was earth, water, air, and fire. The upper fire was ether. Zeno (quoted by Cicero, Academica I 11. 39) refused to acknowledge a fifth essence: statuebat enim ignem esse ipsam naturam, quae quaeque gigneret, et mentem et sensus. ↩

335. The “prison of the body” is a frequent figure in Stoic as in all philosophy. See, for example, paragraph 6 of this letter, “the soul in bondage.” ↩

336. A restatement of the previous remark made in this letter; see endnote 330. ↩

337. Virgil, Aeneid, V 344. ↩

338. Seneca is not speaking here of the three generic virtues (physical, ethical, logical), nor of the three kinds of goods (based on bodily advantage) which were classified by the Peripatetic school; he is only speaking of three sorts of circumstances under which the good can manifest itself. And in paragraph 12 ff. he shows that he regards only the first two classes as real goods. See Zeller, Stoics, p. 230, n. 3. ↩

339. Siccus (not in the sense of Letter XVIII, paragraph 2) here means “vigorous,” “healthy,” “dry”; i.e., free from dropsy, catarrh, etc. ↩

340. Cf., from among many passages, Letters LXXI, paragraph 8 f. and XCII, paragraph 6 ff. ↩

341. I.e., constancy, fidelity, etc. ↩

342. Ratio (λόγος) is also defined as God, as Absolute Truth, Destiny, etc. The same idea is evident in the definition of sapientia (the object of philosophy) as rerum divinarum et humanarum⁠ ⁠… scientia (Cicero De Officiis II 2. 5, etc.), and nosse divina et humana et horum causas, etc. ↩

343. A Spanish city, reduced and razed to the ground in 133 BC by Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage. ↩

344. Cf. Letter XXXI, paragraph 1 and endnote 152. ↩

345. Cf. Cicero, De Finibus II 14 f. Rackham translates as “moral worth,”⁠—a reminiscence of τὸ καλόν. ↩

346. One of the stock bits of heroism attributed to the ideal wise man. Cf. Epicurus (Frag. 601 Usener), Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes II 7. 17, etc. ↩

347. A slight variation of the idea in Cicero, De Oratore I 196 si nos⁠ ⁠… nostra patria delectat, cuius rei tanta est vis ac tanta natura, ut Ithacam illam in asperrimis saxulis tamquam nidulum adfixam sapientissimus vir immortalitati anteponeret. ↩

348. I.e., of the soul, of the body, and of external goods. ↩

349. Buecheler thinks that this alliterative phrase of Seneca’s is an echo of some popular proverb or line taken from a play. ↩

350. Here Seneca is reminding Lucillius, as he so often does in the earlier letters, that the evidence of the senses is only a stepping-stone to higher ideas⁠—an Epicurean tenet. ↩

351. Another definition, developing further the thought expressed in paragraph 6. ↩

352. Frag. 434 Usener. ↩

353. Frag. 449 Usener. ↩

354. Frag. 138 Usener. ↩

355. See above, in the previous paragraph. ↩

356. Clausula has, among other meanings, that of “a period” (Quintilian VIII 5), and “the rhythmic close of a period” (Cicero De Oratore III 192). ↩

357. For a full discussion of this phrase see Conington, Excursus to Virgil’s Aeneid, IX 641. ↩

358. For the story see Livy, II 12 ff. ↩

359. A rare word⁠—sometimes spelled malacisso⁠—used by Plautus (Bacchides 73) and Laberius, but not in a technical sense. ↩

360. Porsenna and Tarquin. ↩

361. See Introduction (paragraph 9), and the opening sentences of Letters LXXVII, LXXXVII, and others. ↩

362. Seneca had a delicate constitution (see Introduction). In the letters he speaks of suffering from asthma (LIV), catarrh (LXXVIII), and fever (CIV). ↩

363. Cf. LXXV qualis sermo meus esset, si una sederemus aut ambularemus. ↩

364. I.e., the Stoics. ↩

365. Banished from Rome in 92 BC. Cf. Letter XXIV, paragraph 2. ↩

366. Virgil, Aeneid, I 94 ff. ↩

367. Cf. Livy, VII 9. 6 ff.⁠ ⁠… legiones auxiliaque hostium mecum deis manibus Tellurique devoveo. ↩

368. Ut litaret: i.e., that by his sacrifice he might secure an omen of success. Cf. Pliny, Natural History VIII 45, and Suetonius, Augustus, 96: “At the siege of Perusia, when he found the sacrifices were not favourable (sacrificio non litanti), Augustus called for more victims.” ↩

369. Donaria at the doors of temples signified public rejoicing; cf. Tibullus, I 15 f.

     Flava Ceres, tibi sit nostro de rure corona
     Spicea, quae templi pendeat ante fores.

     Myrtle decorated the bridegroom’s house-door; garlands heralded the birth of a child (Juvenal, IX 85). ↩

370. Cf. Pliny, Natural History IV 13. Besides the Dead Sea of Palestine, the term was applied to any sluggish body of water. ↩

371. Cf. Letter LXVI, paragraph 8. ↩

372. Stoicism preached “world-citizenship,” and this was interpreted in various ways at different periods. The Greek teachers saw in it an opportunity for wider culture; the Romans, a more practical mission. For further discussion of this topic see Letter LXXIII, paragraph 1 ff. Seneca’s arguments are coloured by the facts of his life at this time. ↩

373. Cf. Letter LV, paragraph 2 ff. for the retirement of Vatia: ille latere sciebat, non vivere. ↩

374. Causarii (Livy, VI 6) were soldiers on sick leave. ↩

375. For an argument of the same sort see Horace, Epistles I 1. 93⁠–⁠104:

     Si curatus inaequali tonsore capillos
     Occurri, rides⁠ ⁠…
     ⋮
     … quid, mea cum pugnat sententia secum?

     ↩

376. This is a reference to the saying of Epicurus, λαθὲ βιώσας, “live in retirement.” ↩

377. Cf. Horace, Satires II 5. 23 ff.: captes astutus ubique senum and vivet uter locuples sine gnatis⁠ ⁠… illius esto defensor. The captator was a well-known figure at Rome; cf. also Pliny’s notorious enemy Regulus, and Juvenal’s many words of scorn for those who practised the art. ↩

378. I.e., Fortune’s support comes from crowds. ↩

379. Cf. De Ira, II 20 ut nimius ille fervor despumet. ↩

380. Cf. Letter II, paragraph 1 nil aeque sanitatem impedit quam remediorum crebra mutatio. ↩

381. Perhaps the converse idea of “living one’s own life.” It means “dying when the proper time comes,” and is the common man’s argument against suicide. The thought perhaps suggests the subject matter of the next letter. ↩

382. Probably the birthplace of Lucilius. ↩

383. Aeneid, III 72. ↩

384. Although Socrates says (Phaedo, 61 f.) that the philosopher must, according to Philolaus, not take his own life against the will of God, the Stoics interpreted the problem in different ways. Some held that a noble purpose justified suicide; others, that any reason was good enough. Cf. Letter LXXVII, paragraph 5 ff. ↩

385. Telesphorus of Rhodes, threatened by the tyrant Lysimachus. On the proverb see Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum IX 10. 3, and Terence, Heauton Timorumenos 981 modo liceat vivere, est spes. ↩

386. I.e., if he must choose between helping along his punishment by suicide, or helping himself stay alive under torture and practising the virtues thus brought into play, he will choose the latter⁠—sibi commodare. ↩

387. See the imaginary dialogue in Plato’s Crito (50 ff.) between Socrates and the Laws⁠—a passage which develops this thought. ↩

388. And to commit suicide in order to escape poisoning. ↩

389. For a more complete account of this tragedy see Tacitus, Annals, II 27 ff. Libo was duped by Firmius Catus (16 AD) into seeking imperial power, was detected, and finally forced by Tiberius to commit suicide. ↩

390. When the “natural advantages” (τὰ κατὰ φύσιν) of living are outweighed by the corresponding disadvantages, the honourable man may, according to the general Stoic view, take his departure. Socrates and Cato were right in so doing, according to Seneca; but he condemns (Letter XXIV, paragraph 14) those contemporaries who had recourse to suicide as a mere whim of fashion. ↩

391. By means of the cucurbita, or cupping-glass. Cf. Juvenal, XIV 58 caput ventosa cucurbita quaerat. It was often used as a remedy for insanity or delirium. ↩

392. Custodia in the sense of “prisoner” (abstract for concrete) is a post-Augustan usage. See Letter V, paragraph 4, and Summers’ note. ↩

393. I.e., by robbing oneself of life; but the antithesis to Virgil’s phrase (Aeneid IX 613) is artificial. ↩

394. A similar argument is found in Letter LXV, paragraph 3 ff., containing the same figure of thought. ↩

395. For a definition of honestum see Cicero, De Finibus II 45 ff., and Rackham’s note, explaining it as “τὸ καλόν, the morally beautiful or good.” ↩

396. See, for example, the syllogistic display which is ridiculed in Letter XLVIII, paragraph 3. ↩

397. I.e., from being mere wordplay. ↩

398. Hense suggests that Seneca may be rendering the phrase of Simonides⁠—ἀνὴρ ἀληθῶς ἀγαθός. ↩

399. Egypt⁠—47 BC; Africa (Thapsus)⁠—46 BC; Spain (Munda)⁠—45 BC. ↩

400. A sort of serious parody of the senatus consultum ultimum. For a discussion of the history and meaning of the phrase see W. Warde Fowler’s Cicero, pp. 151⁠–⁠158. ↩

401. Plato’s Phaedo. Cato slew himself at Utica, 46 BC, after Scipio’s defeat at Thapsus. ↩

402. Cf. Letter IX, paragraph 8 f. resoluto mundo, etc. ↩

403. For a clear and full discussion regarding Stoic views of the immortality of the soul, and Seneca’s own opinion thereon, see E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, pp. 262 ff. ↩

404. Cf. the end of paragraph 8 of this letter: rigida re quid amplius intendi potest? ↩

405. I.e., knowledge of facts, as Seneca so often says. Cf. Plato, Meno, 87 C ἐπιστήμη τις ἡ ἀρετή, and Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI 13 Σωκράτης⁠ ⁠… λόγους τὰς ἀρετὰς ᾤετο εἶναι, ἐπιστήμας γάρ εἶναι πάσας. ↩

406. This is the accepted Stoic doctrine; see Letter LXVI, paragraph 4. Goods are equal, absolute, and independent of circumstances; although, as Seneca here maintains, circumstances may bring one or another of them into fuller play. ↩

407. E.g., Xenocrates and Speusippus; cf. Letter LXXXV, paragraph 8. For another answer to the objection that the good depends upon outward circumstances cf. Letter XCII, paragraph 6 f. ↩

408. “An oar, though quite whole, presents the appearance of being broken when seen in clear shallow water.” —⁠Seneca, Natural Questions 1. 3 (Clarke and Geikie) ↩

409. This dualism of soul and body goes back to earlier religions, and especially to the Persian. The rational part (τὸ λογιστικόν), though held by most Stoics to be corporeal, or part of the world-stuff, is closely related to the ἡγεμονικόν, or “principate.” ↩

410. I.e., because he has endured and conquered misfortune rather than escaped it. ↩

411. For a similar thought, cf. Letter XI, paragraph 2. ↩

412. Three stages of progress (προκοπή) were defined by Chrysippus. Cf. also Seneca, Letters LXXII, paragraph 2 and LXXV, paragraph 4 f. ↩

413. Ovid, Metamorphoses VI 9, speaks of bibula lana, and Horace, Epistles I 10. 27, of vellera potantia fucum. ↩

414. In which case, he would be completely superior to her. ↩

415. A nomad Scythian tribe east of the Caspian Sea. ↩

416. The context furnishes no clue as to what the subject was. ↩

417. Seneca is fond of legal figures; cf. Letter LXV, paragraph 6. For the dilatio see Pliny, Epistulae I 18. 1 rogas ut dilationem petam. ↩

418. Cf. Letter LIII, paragraph 8 (philosophia) non est res subsiciva (“a matter for spare time”), ordinaria est; domina est, adesse iubet. ↩

419. Cf. Letter XLV, paragraph 5 intrepidus, quem aliqua vis movet, nulla perturbat, quem fortuna⁠ ⁠… pungit, non vulnerat, et hoc raro. ↩

420. Cf. Lucretius, III 971 vita mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu. Our lives are merely loaned to us; Nature retains the dominium. Cf. also Seneca’s frequent figure of life as an inn, contrasted with a house over which one has ownership. ↩

421. The void (inane), or infinite space, as contrasted with the atoms which form new worlds in continuous succession. ↩

422. This letter is especially interesting because of its autobiographical hints, and its relation to Seneca’s own efforts to be rid of court life and seek the leisure of the sage. See the Introduction, paragraph 3 f. ↩

423. Cf. Horace, Satires I 1. 115 f.⁠—

     Instat equis auriga snos vincentibus, illum
     Praeteritum temnens extremos inter euntem.

     ↩

424. For an interesting account of philosophy and its relation to Roman history see E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, chap. XVI. This subject is discussed fully by Cicero, De Officiis I 71 f., and by Seneca, Letter XC. ↩

425. For this figure cf. Letter LXXII, paragraph 3 and endnote 420; see also the similar language of LXXXVIII, paragraph 5 hoc, quod tenes, quod tuum dicis, publicum est et quidem generis humani. ↩

426. During certain festivals, either cooked or raw meat was distributed among the people. ↩

427. Virgil, Eclogue, I 6 f. Virgil owes a debt to the Emperor, and regards him as a “god” because of the bestowal of earthly happiness; how much greater is the debt of the philosopher, who has the opportunity to study heavenly things! ↩

428. Virgil, Eclogue, I 9 f. ↩

429. In the Christian religion, God is everything; among the Stoics, the wise man is equal to the gods. Cf., for example, Letter XLI, paragraph 3. ↩

430. Virgil, Aeneid, IX 641. ↩

431. Cf. Letter XLI, paragraph 1 f. prope est a te deus, tecum est, intus est. ↩

432. A doctrine often expressed in the letters; cf., for example, LXXI, paragraph 2. ↩

433. Cf. Horace, Carmen Saeculare III 16. 28 magnas inter opes inops. ↩

434. For the same thought cf. Letter IV, paragraph 4 Neminem eo fortuna provexit, ut non tantum illi minaretur, quantum permiserat. Noli huic tranquillitati confidere; momento mare evertitur. Eodem die ubi luserunt navigia, sorbentur. ↩

435. I.e., engaged upon something else. Cf. Letter I, paragraph 1. ↩

436. A distribution of coins, etc., at the public games. Food was also doled out to the populace on similar occasions. ↩

437. This figure of the dole as applied to Fortune is sustained to an extent which is unusual in Seneca. ↩

438. This phrase recalls the title of one of Seneca’s philosophical essays: De Providentia, or Quare Bonis Viris Mala Accidant cum sit Providentia. ↩

439. Cf. Letter LXXIII, paragraph 9 Iuppiter uti illis non potest. ↩

440. Producta is a translation of the Stoic term προηγμένα. For a clear exposition of this topic see Cicero, De Finibus III 52 ff. ↩

441. See Letter LXVI, paragraph 4. The Stoics, unlike the Academics and the Peripatetics, maintained that the good must have “an unconditional value” (Zeller). ↩

442. Cf. Itane in geometriae pulvere haerebo? Letter LXXXVIII, paragraph 20 and endnote 671. ↩

443. See the argument in Letter XII, paragraph 2 f., and often elsewhere. ↩

444. See paragraph 12. ↩

445. Called by the early Stoics ὁμολογία; the idea of “conformity with nature” is a fundamental doctrine of the school. See Rackham on Cicero, De Finibus III 21. ↩

446. Cf. Letters XI, paragraph 2 and LXXI, paragraph 10. ↩

447. Perhaps a sort of malaria. ↩

448. For putidum (that which offends the taste, i.e., is too artificially formal) see Cicero De Oratore III 41 nolo exprimi litteras putidius, nolo obscurari neglegentius. ↩

449. Cf. Letter LXVII, paragraph 1 si quando intervenerunt epistulae tuae, tecum esse mihi videor, etc. ↩

450. Cf. Letter CXIV, paragraph 1 talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis vita, and passim in Letters XL, LXXV and CXIV. ↩

451. Eloquence and other arts please mainly by their cleverness; nor does philosophy abjure such cleverness as style; but here in these letters, wherein we are discussing the soul, the graces of speech are of no concern. ↩

452. Chrysippus, however, recognised only the first two classes, as did Epictetus (IV 2). ↩

453. Letter LXXI, paragraph 2. ↩

454. For Seneca’s own struggles with this disease cf. Letter LXXVIII, paragraph 1. ↩

455. The difference between the first and second classes is well described in Letter LXXII, paragraph 2 hoc interest inter consummatae sapientiae virum et alium procedentis, quod inter sanum et ex morbo gravi ac diutino emergentem. ↩

456. This idea is a favourite with Seneca; cf. Letter LIII, paragraph 7 non est quod precario philosopheris, and paragraph 8 (philosophia) non est res subsiciva, “an occupation for one’s spare time.” ↩

457. A mock-heroic nickname for the knights, derived from the town of Trossulum in Etruria, which they captured by a sensational charge. See Persius, I 82, and Seneca, Letter LXXXVII, paragraph 7. ↩

458. See also Letter XCIII. ↩

459. Letter LXXIV. ↩

460. Literally “many masks” of his ancestors. These were placed in the atrium. ↩

461. Literally “the guardian deity”; cf. Horace, Odes I 14. 10. These were images of the gods, carried and invoked by the ancients, in the same manner as St. Nicholas today. ↩

462. The fiscus was the private treasury of the Roman Emperor, as contrasted with the aerarium, which theoretically was controlled by the Senate. ↩

463. I.e., “moral worth.” ↩

464. I.e., peace, the welfare of one’s country, dutiful children, etc. ↩

465. Cf. Letter LXXIV, paragraph 11. ↩

466. Cf. Letter LXXIV, paragraph 9 aut ista bona non sunt, quae vocantur, aut homo felicior deo est, quoniam quidem quae parata nobis sunt, non habet in usu deus. ↩

467. E.g., Letter LXXIV, paragraph 10 summum bonum⁠ ⁠… obsolescit, si ab optima nostri parte ad pessimam transit et transfertur ad sensus, qui agiliores sunt animalibus mutis. ↩

468. Letter LXXIV, esp. paragraph 9. ↩

469. Compare the argument in Letter LXXX, paragraph 4, “This farce of living, in which we act our parts so ill”; paragraph 6, the loudmouthed impersonator of heroes, who sleeps on rags; and paragraph 9 hominem involutum aestimas? ↩

470. As the world-soul is spread through the universe, so the human soul (as fire, or breath) is diffused through the body, and may take its departure in various ways. ↩

471. Virgil, Aeneid, VI 103 ff. (The answer of Aeneas to the Sibyl’s prophecy.) ↩

472. Puteoli, in the bay of Naples, was the headquarters in Italy of the important grain-trade with Egypt, on which the Roman magistrates relied to feed the populace. ↩

473. Author unknown. ↩

474. This thought, found in Letter XII, paragraph 2 and often elsewhere, is a favourite with Seneca. ↩

475. It is not likely that this Marcellinus is the same person as the Marcellinus of Letter XXIX, because of their different views on philosophy (Summers). But there is no definite evidence for or against. ↩

476. A Roman compliment; the Greeks would have used καλὸς κἀγαθός; cf. Horace, Epistles I 7. 46

     Strenuus et fortis causisque Philippus agendis
     Clarus.

     ↩

477. For this frequent “banquet of life” simile see Letter XCVIII, paragraph 8 ipse vitae plenus est, etc. ↩

478. So that the steam might not escape. One thinks of Seneca’s last hours: Tacitus Annals XV 64 stagnum calidae aquae introiit⁠ ⁠… exin balneo inlatus et vapore eius exanimatus. ↩

479. For the same thought cf. Letter XLIX, paragraph 2 punctum est quod vivimus et adhuc puncto minus. ↩

480. Virgil, Aeneid, VI 376. ↩

481. See Plutarch, Moralia 234 b, for a similar act of the Spartan boy captured by King Antigonus. Hense (Rheinisches Museum für Philologie XLVII pp. 220 f.) thinks that this story may be taken from Bion, the third-century satirist and moral philosopher. ↩

482. About 5¾ gallons. ↩

483. Cf. Pliny, XIV 22 quin immo ut plus capiamus, sacco frangimus vires. Strained wine could be drunk in greater quantities without intoxication. ↩

484. Cf. Dio Cassius, XL 54, for the exiled Milo’s enjoyment of the mullets of Marseilles. ↩

485. Probably the strong tone of disapproval used in this paragraph is directed against the Roman in general rather than against the industrious Lucilius. It is characteristic of the diatribe. ↩

486. Seneca may be recalling the death of the Emperor Claudius. ↩

487. A traditional example of old age, mentioned by Martial and the elder Pliny. ↩

488. Compare the last words of the Emperor Augustus: amicos percontatus ecquid iis videretur mimum vitae commode transegisse (Suetonius Augustus 99). ↩

489. To such a degree that Seneca’s enemy Caligula refrained from executing him, on the ground that he would soon die. ↩

490. Cf. Letter XV, paragraph 3 f. ↩

491. I.e., men have become healthier after passing through serious illness. ↩

492. Cf. Epicurus, Frag. 446 Usener. ↩

493. Compare, from among many parallels, Letter XXIV, paragraph 6 (dolor) levis es, si ferre possum, brevis es, si ferre non possum. ↩

494. See also Letter XCV, paragraph 9. The word literally means “maggots,” “bots,” in horses or cattle. ↩

495. Virgil, Aeneid, I 203. ↩

496. Literally, perhaps, “the noble roles which you have played.” Summers compares Letter XIV, paragraph 6 ultimas partes Catonis⁠—“the closing scenes of Cato’s life.” ↩

497. Cf. Letter XIV, paragraph 2 f. and the crucibus adfixi, flamma usti, etc., of Tacitus Annals XV 44. ↩

498. The lacus Lucrinus was a saltwater lagoon, near Baiae in Campania. ↩

499. I.e., to be looked at; there are better dainties on the table. ↩

500. Sanus is used (1) as signifying “sound in body” and (2) as the opposite of insanus. ↩

501. Perhaps a reminiscence of Lucretius I 74 omne immensum peragravit mente animoque. ↩

502. Seneca often quotes Posidonius, as does Cicero also. These words may have been taken from his Προτρεπτικά (or Λόγοι προτρεπτικοί), Exhortations, a work in which he maintained that men should make a close study of philosophy, in spite of the varying opinions of its expositors. ↩

503. Ellis suggests that the poem Aetna, of uncertain authorship, may have been written by Lucilius in response to this letter. His view is plausible, but not universally accepted. ↩

504. See Letter XIV, paragraph 3 and endnote 62. ↩

505. The modern Taormina. ↩

506. Another description of this region is given by Pliny, Natural History II 106, who says that the stones in the rivers were red-hot! The phenomenon is usually explained by supposing springs of burning naphtha. ↩

507. I.e., merely as an episode, instead of devoting a whole poem to the subject. ↩

508. Metamorphoses XV 340 ff. ↩

509. Aeneid, III 570 ff. ↩

510. The usual meaning of paria esse, or paria facere (a favourite phrase with Seneca⁠—see for example Letter CI, paragraph 6), is “to square the account,” “balance even.” ↩

511. “Qualities desirable in themselves, but not essential for the possession of wisdom, the προηγμένα of the Stoics” (Summers). ↩

512. There is an unauthenticated story that the men of Abdera called in Hippocrates to treat his malady. ↩

513. Cf. Letter XXIV, paragraph 2 exilium⁠ ⁠… tulit Rutilius etiam libenter. ↩

514. Frag. 188 Usener. ↩

515. Frag. 43 Körte. ↩

516. Probably a contest in which the participants attached leaden weights to their hands in order to increase the force of the blows. ↩

517. Compare Pliny’s “den” (Epistulae II 17. 21): quae specularibus et velis obductis reductisve modo adicitur cubiculo modo aufertur. ↩

518. Compare the ideas expressed in Letter XV, paragraph 1 f. ↩

519. For this figure see the “lucellum,” “diurna mercedula,” etc., of the opening letters of the correspondence. ↩

520. Authors unknown; Ribbeck, Frag. Trag. pp. 289 and 276. The first passage (with one change) is also quoted by Quintilian, IX 4. 140. See, however, Tyrrell, Latin Poetry, p. 39, who calls this passage the beginning of Attius’s Atreus. ↩

521. Authors unknown; Ribbeck, Frag. Trag. pp. 289 and 276. The first passage (with one change) is also quoted by Quintilian, IX 4. 140. See, however, Tyrrell, Latin Poetry, p. 39, who calls this passage the beginning of Attius’s Atreus. ↩

522. A favourite trick; cf. Quintilian II 15. 25 mangones, qui colorem fuco et verum robur inani sagina mentiuntur. ↩

523. The reader will be interested to compare this letter with the treatise (or essay) Of Benefits, translated by Thomas Lodge in 1614 from Seneca’s work De Beneficiis, which was dedicated to Aebutius Liberalis, the subject of Letter XCI. ↩

524. See De Beneficiis I 1. 9 f. non est autem quod tardiores faciat ad bene merendum turba ingratorum. ↩

525. Calculi were counters, spread out on the abacus, or counting-board; they ran in columns, by millions, hundred thousands, etc. ↩

526. Talio (from talis, “just so much”) is the old Roman law of “eye for eye and tooth for tooth.” As law became less crude, it gave way to fines. ↩

527. This “long-established terminology” applies to the verborum proprietas of philosophic diction, with especial reference to τὰ καθήκοντα, the appropriate duties of the philosopher and the seeker after wisdom. Thus, referre is distinguished from reddere, reponere, solvere, and other financial terms. ↩

528. I.e., the Stoics. ↩

529. E.g., “Only the wise man is king,” “there is no mean between virtue and vice,” “pain is no evil,” “only the wise man is free,” “riches are not a good” etc. ↩

530. Frag. 54 Körte. ↩

531. Literally, “more than the capital and in addition to the rate of interest.” ↩

532. Beneficence is a subdivision of the second cardinal virtue of the Stoics, Justice. Cicero discusses this topic at length in De Officiis I 42 ff. ↩

533. Perhaps a figure from the vintage. For the same metaphor, though in a different connection, see Letter I, paragraph 5, and Letter CVIII, paragraph 19: quemadmodum ex amphora primum, quod est sincerissimum, effluit, gravissimum quodque turbidumque subsidit, sic in aetate nostra quod est optimum, in primo est. ↩

534. Cf. paragraph 3: “The good man so arranges the two sides of his ledger that he voluntarily cheats himself by adding to the benefit and subtracting from the injury.” Cf. also paragraph 7: “The good man will be easygoing in striking a balance; he will allow too much to be set against his credit.” ↩

535. When by law or special enactment novae tabellae were granted to special classes of debtors, their debts, as in our bankruptcy courts, were cancelled. ↩

536. Cf. Letter XXXI, paragraph 3 quid ergo est bonum? rerum scientia. ↩

537. The words are put into the mouth of an imaginary benefactor who fears for his own life. ↩

538. Cf. Tacitus Agricola 42 proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris. ↩

539. One who incurs liability by taking upon himself the debt of another. It is part of the process known as intercessio. ↩

540. Rather than mollis. ↩

541. Conditivum (more frequently and properly conditorium) is a grim jest. The word is mostly found in an adjectival sense applying to fruits and grain stored for later use. ↩

542. Compare Arnold’s nineteenth-century definition of culture. ↩

543. Virgil, Aeneid, VI 261. ↩

544. Frag. 196 von Arnim. ↩

545. Defined by the Greeks as “things which have no direct connection either with happiness or unhappiness.” See Cicero, De Finibus, III 50 ff. ↩

546. I.e., are “indifferent” (cf. paragraph 7 indifferentia ac media dicuntur). ↩

547. Presumably D. Junius Brutus, who finally incurred the enmity of both Octavian and Antony. He was ignominiously put to death by a Gaul while fleeing to join M. Brutus in Macedonia. ↩

548. Media: a technical word in Stoic philosophy, meaning neither good or bad. ↩

549. See Virgil, Aeneid, VI 400 f. and VIII 296 f. ↩

550. Virgil, Aeneid, VI 95 f., the advice of the Sibyl to Aeneas. ↩

551. Cf. paragraph 6. ↩

552. Cf. paragraph 6. ↩

553. Cf. Letter XLVIII, paragraph 2 ff. ↩

554. Cf. Livy, II 49. 1 familiam unam subisse civitatis onus. ↩

555. Οὕτως ἀριστᾶτε ὡς ἐν ᾅδου δειπνήσοντες⁠—quoted by Stobaeus, Plutarch, and Diodorus. Cicero says (Tusculanae Disputationes I 101) hodie apud inferos fortasse cenabimus. ↩

556. Calpurnius, in Sicily, during the first Punic war. Cf. Livy, XXII 60. 11. ↩

557. The soldiers of Leonidas. ↩

558. An especially large machine for assaulting walls; a nickname, like the modern “Long Tom.” ↩

559. Cf. Letter LXXXV, paragraph 1 pudet in aciem descendere pro dis hominibusque susceptam subula armatum. ↩

560. Cf. Letter XLI, paragraph 1 sacer intra nos spiritus,⁠ ⁠… malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos. ↩

561. Cf. Letter I, paragraph 4 ratio constat inpensae (referring to his attempt to employ his time profitably). ↩

562. See Letter XII, paragraph 1 for a similar witticism. ↩

563. Hieran (coronam), as Lipsius thinks, when the result was doubtful, the garland was offered to the gods. From the Greek ἰερός, sacred. ↩

564. Constructed by Marcus Agrippa; now the fountain of Trevi. ↩

565. The same word is used by Seneca in De Tranquillitate Animi XVII 7 quidam medio die interiunxerunt et in postmeridianas horas aliquid levioris operae distulerunt. ↩

566. Cf. Letter LVI, paragraph 2 istum fremitum non magis curo quam fluctum aut deiectum aquae. ↩

567. Zeno, Frag. 229 von Arnim⁠—quoting also Philo’s εἰ τῷ μεθύοντι οὐκ ἄν τις εὐλόγως λόγον ἀπόρρητον παρακατάθοιτο⁠ ⁠… οὐκ ἄρα μεθύει ὸ ἀστεῖος. ↩

568. Cf. Letter XLIX, paragraph 6 quod non perdidisti, habes; cornua autem non perdidisti; cornua ergo habes⁠—and the syllogisms given in Letter XLVIII. ↩

569. In 11 BC, when the Thracians were attacking Macedonia. The campaign lasted for three years, and Piso was rewarded with a triumph at its close. ↩

570. Like anger, which was interpreted by the ancients as “short-lived madness.” ↩

571. For a dramatic account of the murder see Plutarch’s Alexander, ch. 51. ↩

572. This is the firm conviction of Seneca, himself a most temperate man. Paragraph 6 admits that natural genius may triumph over drunkenness; paragraph 7 may allow (with Chrysippus) a certain amount of hilarity; but the general conclusion is obvious. ↩

573. Lipsius quotes Athenaeus as saying that Boeotian silver cups of large size were so called because the Boeotian Hercules drank from them; Servius, however, on Virgil Aeneid VIII 278, declared that the name was derived from the large wooden bowl brought by Hercules to Italy and used for sacrificial purposes. ↩

574. “Antony gave orders to those that were to kill Cicero, to cut off his head and right hand⁠ ⁠… ; and, when they were brought before him, he regarded them joyfully, actually bursting out more than once into laughter, and when he had satiated himself with the sight of them, ordered them to be hung up⁠ ⁠… in the forum” (Clough’s translation of Plutarch’s Antony, p. 172). ↩

575. A plant which possessed cathartic properties and was widely used by the ancients. It was also applied in cases of mental derangement. The native Latin term is veratrum. ↩

576. A considerable part of this letter is found in the preface to the Saturnalia of Macrobius, without any acknowledgement of indebtedness. ↩

577. Aeneid, I 432 f. ↩

578. Cf. mel in harundinibus collectum (from India) in Pliny, Natural History XII 32 (Summers). ↩

579. The same figure is used in reference to reading, in Letter II, paragraph 1 f., non prodest cibus nec corpori accedit, qui statim sumptus emittitur, etc. ↩

580. Commissio means an entertainment, or a concert; cf. Pliny, Panegyric 54, ludis et commissionibus. ↩

581. For such treatment cf. Juvenal III 152 f.⁠—

     Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se
     Quam quod ridiculos homines facit, etc.

     ↩

582. Such as that in Letter LXXXIII, paragraph 4 (constructed, however, by Seneca himself) dormienti nemo secretum sermonem committit, etc. See ad loc. and n. ↩

583. Cf. Letter LXXXII, paragraph 17 subula leonem excipis? ↩

584. E. V. Arnold (Roman Stoicism, p. 333) calls attention to the passion of anger, for example, which the Peripatetics believed should be kept under control, but not stamped out. ↩

585. Virgil, Aeneid, VII 808 ff. The lines describe Camilla, the Volscian warrior-huntress. ↩

586. Seneca uses suffusio of jaundice in Letter XCV, paragraph 9. Celsus, VII 7. 14, explains the cause of cataracts, vel ex morbo vel ex ictu concrescit humor, and outlines the treatment. ↩

587. Another reply to the Peripatetic claim of paragraph 3. ↩

588. For this topic of emotions as possible sources of the vices cf. Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes IV 10 ex perturbationibus autem primum morbi conficiuntur.⁠ ⁠… Hoc loco nimium operae consumitur a Stoicis. ↩

589. Representing the views of the Academic school. ↩

590. Representing the views of the Academic school. ↩

591. Frag. 508 Usener. ↩

592. The happy life constitutes virtue; and virtue, as Seneca says so often, is absolute, permitting neither increase nor diminution. ↩

593. I.e., thereby allowing the aforesaid increase or diminution in virtue. ↩

594. For the argument compare Letter LXXXII, paragraph 4 ff.⁠—the topic, contra mortem te praeparare. ↩

595. Besides this definition (a standard Stoic one) of the third cardinal virtue, we also find “a knowledge of what to choose and what to avoid,” “knowing to endure things,” and finally “the will to undertake great enterprises.” ↩

596. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, II 79 τοὺς τῶν ἐγκυκλίων παιδευμάτων μετασχόντας, φιλοσοφίας δὲ ἀπολειφθέντας, ὁμοίους ἔλεγεν εἶναι τοῖς τῆς Πηνελόπης μνηστῆρσιν. ↩

597. The figure of the pilot is a frequent one in philosophy, from Plato down. See Seneca, Letter VIII, paragraph 2. The same argument, as applied to the musician, is found in Letter LXXXVII, paragraph 8 ff. ↩

598. Cf. De Beneficiis I 5 leonum ora a magistris inpune tractantur. ↩

599. Cf. Suetonius Galba 6: at the Floralia Galba novum spectaculi genus elephantos funambulos edidit; also Suetonius Nero, 11, and Pliny, Natural History VIII 2. ↩

600. See Letter LI, paragraph 4. ↩

601. Cf. Livy XXXVII 53 morientem rure eo ipso loco sepeliri se iussisse ferunt monumentumque ibi aedificari. ↩

602. Herodotus III 25 ἐμμανής τε ἐὼν καὶ οὐ φρενήρης. ↩

603. Livy’s account (see above) dwells more on the unwillingness of Scipio and his friends to permit the great conqueror to suffer the indignities of a trial. ↩

604. A phrase frequent in Roman literature; see Lucretius III 1034 Scipiadas, belli fulmen, Carthaginis horror. ↩

605. Porphyry, basalt, etc. ↩

606. I.e., the so-called giallo antico, with red and yellow tints predominating. ↩

607. A white variety, from Thasos, an island off the Thracian coast. ↩

608. Cf. Pliny, Epistulae II 17. 12 piscina, ex qua natantes mare aspiciunt. ↩

609. E.g., Varro, in the Catus: balneum non cotidianum. ↩

610. Horace calls him Rufillus (Satires I 2. 27): pastillos Rufillus olet, Gargonius hircum. ↩

611. This seems to be the general meaning of the passage. ↩

612. Georgics, II 58. ↩

613. Georgics, I 215 f. ↩

614. In Vitruvius VII 1 G reads pinsatione, referring to the pounding of stones for flooring. ↩

615. An agricultural term not elsewhere found. ↩

616. I.e., on my journey I travelled with almost as meagre an equipment as a shipwrecked man. ↩

617. Cf. Letter LXXXI, paragraph 5 and endnote 529. ↩

618. As Pliny the Elder (a man of the same inquiring turn of mind) did on his journeys, Pliny, Epistulae III 5. 15. ↩

619. Caricas were sent as New Year gifts, implying by their sweetness the good wishes of the sender. ↩

620. Nomen in this sense means primarily the name entered in the ledger; secondarily, the item or transaction with which the name is connected. ↩

621. Virgil, Aeneid, VII 277 ff., describing the gifts sent by King Latinus to Aeneas. ↩

622. For trossuli cf. Letter LXXVI, paragraph 1, and endnote 457. ↩

623. I.e., whether to turn gladiator or bestiarius. ↩

624. “Amblers” from Asturia in Spain. ↩

625. Horses with rapid steps, compared with gradarii, “slow pacers,” cf. Letter XL, paragraph 7. ↩

626. The literal meaning of impedimenta, “luggage.” ↩

627. Cf. Plato, Phaedo 86, where Socrates contrasts the material lyre with the “incorporeal, fair, divine” harmony which makes the music. ↩

628. See Letter LXXXVIII, which is devoted to the development of this thought. ↩

629. I.e., at its own worth. ↩

630. Cf. the argument in LXXVI, paragraph 4 f. ↩

631. I.e., perfect reason and obedience to Nature. ↩

632. Virgil, Georgics I 53 ff. ↩

633. The good is absolute. The Stoics held that virtue and moral worth were identical, although those who followed the argument to its logical conclusion had to explain away many seeming inconsistencies. Cf. Letter LXXXV, paragraph 8. ↩

634. That riches are not a good, but merely an advantage, was one of the Stoic paradoxes. In another passage (Dial. VII 24. 5) Seneca speaks of them in a kindlier manner: divitias nego bonum esse; nam si essent, bonos facerent. Ceterum et habendas esse et utiles et magna commoda vitae adferentis fateor. Cf. paragraph 19 of this letter. ↩

635. The “knot of Hercules” is associated with the caduceus (twining serpents) in Macrobius Saturnalia I 19. 16; and in Pliny, Natural History XXVIII 63, it has magic properties in the binding up of wounds. ↩

636. Frag. 54 von Arnim. ↩

637. Per possessionem translates the Greek καθ᾽ ἕξιν, as per orbationem (or detractionem) translates κατὰ στέρησιν. ↩

638. Seneca here bursts into a diatribe on the corruption of Rome, a habit which we find in many other of his writings, especially in the Naturales Quaestiones. ↩

639. The regular round of education, ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, including grammar, music, geometry, arithmetic, astrology, and certain phases of rhetoric and dialectic, are in this letter contrasted with liberal studies⁠—those which have for their object the pursuit of virtue. Seneca is thus interpreting studia liberalia in a higher sense than his contemporaries would expect. Compare J. R. Lowell’s definition of a university, “a place where nothing useful is taught.” ↩

640. Grammaticus in classical Greek means “one who is familiar with the alphabet”; in the Alexandrian age a “student of literature”; in the Roman age the equivalent of litteratus. Seneca means here a “specialist in linguistic science.” ↩

641. I.e., philosophy (virtue). ↩

642. This theory was approved by Democritus, Hippias of Elis, and the allegorical interpreters; Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Plato himself condemned Homer for his supposed unphilosophic fabrications. ↩

643. The tria genera bonorum of Cicero’s De Finibus V 84. Cf. De Finibus V 18, where the three proper objects of man’s search are given as the desire for pleasure, the avoidance of pain, and the attainment of such natural goods as health, strength, and soundness of mind. The Stoics held that the good was absolute. ↩

644. Summers compares Lucian, Gallus 17. Seneca, however, does not take such gossip seriously. ↩

645. This sentence alludes to Calypso, Circe, the Cyclops, and the Sirens. ↩

646. Unfavourable comment by Lycophron, and by Cicero, De Natura Deorum III 22 (Mercurius) ex quo et Penelopa Pana natum ferunt. ↩

647. With acutae and graves supply voces. ↩

648. Perhaps the equivalent of a “minor.” ↩

649. I.e., for a certain term of years; see R. W. Leage, Roman Private Law, pp. 133 ff. Compare also Lucretius III 971, and Horace, Epistles II 2. 159. ↩

650. Virgil, Georgics I 336 f. ↩

651. Saturn and Mars were regarded as unlucky stars. Astrology, which dates back beyond 3000 BC in Babylonia, was developed by the Greeks of the Alexandrian age and got a foothold in Rome by the second century BC, flourished greatly under Tiberius. Cf. Horace, Odes I 11. 1 f.; Juvenal III 42 f., and F. Cumont, Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans (trans.), esp. pp. 68 ff. and 84 ff. ↩

652. Virgil, Georgics I 424 ff. ↩

653. An allusion to the sand and oil of the wrestling-ring. ↩

654. Cf. Letter XV, paragraph 1 copia ciborum subtleitas inpeditur. ↩

655. In a strict sense; not, as in paragraph 1, as Seneca thinks that the term should really be defined⁠—the “liberal” study, i.e. the pursuit of wisdom. ↩

656. For the πρώτη ἀγωγή see Quintilian, II 1. 4. ↩

657. From what work of Posidonius Seneca is here quoting we do not know; it may be from the Προτρεπτικά, or Exhortations, indicating the training preliminary to philosophy. ↩

658. See endnote 640. ↩

659. I.e., mathematics is a department of philosophia naturalis. ↩

660. This line of argument inversely resembles the criticism by Seneca of Posidonius in Letter XC⁠—that the inventions of early science cannot be properly termed a part of philosophy. ↩

661. See Natural Questions I 4 ff. ↩

662. According to Roman law, superficies solo cedit, “the building goes with the ground.” ↩

663. Except philosophy. ↩

664. I.e., in the more commonly accepted sense of the term. ↩

665. This usage is a not infrequent one in Latin; cf. Petronius, Satyricon 42 neminem nihil boni facere oportet; Petronius, Satyricon 58; Virgil Eclogue V 25, etc. See Draeger, Historische Syntax der Lateinischen Sprache II 75, and Roby, II 2246 ff. ↩

666. Cf. Letters XXXI, paragraph 3 and LXXXI, paragraph 11 aestimare res, de quibus⁠ ⁠… cum rerum natura deliberandum est. ↩

667. The ancient Stoics defined Time as “extension of the world’s motion.” The seasons were said to be “alive” because they depended on material conditions. But the Stoics really acknowledged Time to be immaterial. The same problem of corporeality was discussed with regard to the “good.” ↩

668. Compare the schoolmaster of Juvenal (VII 234 ff.), who must know

     Nutricem Anchisae, nomen patriamque novercae
     Anchemoli, dicat quot Acestes vixerit annis, etc.,

     and Friedländer’s note.

     ↩

669. A tradition, probably begun by the Greek comic-writers, and explained by Professor Smyth (Greek Melic Poets, pp. 227 f.) as due to the more independent position of women among the Aeolians. ↩

670. Marking supposedly spurious lines by the obelus, and using other signs to indicate variations, repetitions, and interpolations. He paid special attention to Homer, Pindar, Hesiod, and the tragedians. ↩

671. The geometricians drew their figures in the dust or sand. ↩

672. Originally, rhapsodists who recited from Homer; in general, “interpreters and admirers⁠—in short, the whole ‘spiritual kindred’⁠—of Homer” (D. B. Monro). ↩

673. An ancient explanation of the (now disproved) authorship by Homer of such poems as the Cypria, Little Iliad, Sack of Troy, etc. ↩

674. In other words, the unchangeable, perfect Being of the universe is contrasted with the mutable Non-Being of opinion and unreality. ↩

675. I.e., the universe. ↩

676. See Plato, especially Symposium 211 ff. ↩

677. I.e., an infinitely small divisio is the same as its opposite⁠—confusio. ↩

678. “Love-of-Wisdom.” ↩

679. Θείων τε καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων ἐπιστήμη, quoted by Plutarch, De Placitis Philosophorum 874 E. ↩

680. Cicero, De Officiis II 2. 5. ↩

681. The ἄσκησις ἀρετῆς of the earlier Stoics. Seneca (Frag. 17) also calls it recta vivendi ratio. ↩

682. I.e., to make a bona mens out of a mala mens. ↩

683. It is doubtful whether this was the name of a real person, or a mere “Joe Miller” type from the Fabula Atellana. The character in Horace, Epistles II 1. 173, is certainly the latter; and the testimony of Pliny (Natural History XIV 15), who quotes a line from a play called Acharistio, is not reliable. ↩

684. I.e., logic. ↩

685. I.e., “the management of the home.” ↩

686. That is, of the various arts which deal with the departments of living, such as generalship, politics, business, etc. ↩

687. Frag. 242 Usener. ↩

688. Seneca by de iudicio is translating the Greek adjective δικανικός, “that which has to do with the courts of law,” and by de regula the word κανονικός, “that which has to do with rules,” here the rules of logic. The Epicureans used for logic κανονική, in contrast with Aristotle and his successors, who used λογική. The Latin rationalis is a translation of the latter. ↩

689. Led by Aristippus of Cyrene. As the Cynics developed into the Stoics, so the Cyrenaics developed into the Epicureans. ↩

690. Frag. 357 von Arnim. ↩

691. Seneca translates θεωρητική. ↩

692. Ὸρμητική; the ὁρμαί, impetus, in the Stoic philosophy, are the natural instincts, which require training and regulation before they can be trusted. ↩

693. Πρακτική. ↩

694. Σωματική and ἀσώματος. ↩

695. Ποιητικά and παθητικά. ↩

696. I.e., has no subdivisions. ↩

697. Virgil, Aeneid, I 342. ↩

698. For the thought compare Petronius, Satyricon 48 nunc coniungere agellis Siciliam volo, ut, cum Africam libuerit ire, per meos fines navigem. ↩

699. I.e., by building embankments, etc. Cf. Horace, Odes II 18. 22 parum locuples continente ripa. ↩

700. Cf. paragraph 12. ↩

701. Cf. Plato, Crito 48, “not life itself, but a good life, is chiefly to be desired.” ↩

702. Compare the “knowledge of things divine and things human” of LXXXIX, paragraph 3. ↩

703. The “Golden Age” motif was a frequent one in Latin literature. Compare, e.g., Tibullus, I 3. 35 ff., the passage beginning:

     Quam bene Saturno vivebant rege, priusquam
     Tellus in longas est patefacta vias!

     Cf. paragraph 33, summing up the message of Seneca’s letter.

     ↩

704. While modern philosophy would probably side with Seneca rather than Posidonius, it is interesting to know the opinion of Macaulay, who holds (“Essay on Bacon”) that there is much in common between Posidonius and the English inductive philosopher, and thinks but little of Seneca’s ideas on the subject. Cf. W. C. Summers, Select Letters of Seneca, p. 312. ↩

705. Cleobulus of Rhodes, Periander of Corinth, Pittacus of Mitylene, Bias of Priene, Thales of Miletus, Chilon of Sparta, and Solon of Athens. For some of these substitutions are made in certain lists. ↩

706. Cf. Letter LXXXVIII, paragraph 12 ad alia multum, ad virtutem nihil. ↩

707. Virgil, Georgics I 144. ↩

708. Cf. Juvenal, III 254 ff.:

     Longa coruscat
     Serraco veniente abies, atque altera pinum
     Plaustra vehunt, nutant alte populoque minantur.

     Compare also the “towering tenements” of paragraph 6.

     ↩

709. Virgil, Georgics I 139 f. ↩

710. Cf. T. Rice Holmes, Ancient Britain, pp. 121 f., who concludes that the discovery of ore-smelting was accidental. ↩

711. Cf. Diogenes Laertius VI 37 θεασάμενός ποτε παιδίον ταῖς χερσὶ ἐξέῤῥιψε τῆς πήρας τὴν κοτύλην, εἰπών, Παιδίον με νενίκηκεν εὐτελεία. ↩

712. Compare the halls of Nero which Seneca may easily have had in mind: (Suetonius Nero 31) cenationes laqueatae tabulis eburneis versatilibus⁠ ⁠… praecipua cenationum rotunda, quae perpetuo diebus ac noctibus vice mundi circumageretur. ↩

713. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses I 121 f.:

     Domus antra fuerunt
     Et densi frutices et vinctae cortice virgae.

     Among many accounts by Roman writers of early man, compare this passage of Ovid, and that in the fifth book of Lucretius.

     ↩

714. Ovid, Metamorphoses VI 55 ff. ↩

715. Professor Summers calls attention to the similarity of this passage and Cicero, De Natura Deorum II 134 ff. dentibus manditur⁠ ⁠… a lingua adiuvari videtur⁠ ⁠… in alvo⁠ ⁠… calore⁠ ⁠… in reliquum corpus dividantur. ↩

716. Besides lapis specularis (window-glass) the Romans used alabaster, mica, and shells for this purpose. ↩

717. Suetonius tells us that a certain Ennius, a grammarian of the Augustan age, was the first to develop shorthand on a scientific basis, and that Tiro, Cicero’s freedman, had invented the process. He also mentions Seneca as the most scientific and encyclopaedic authority on the subject. ↩

718. Possibly either the manes or the indigitamenta of the early Roman religion. ↩

719. I.e., λόγος. ↩

720. Seneca, himself one of the keenest scientific observers in history (witness Naturales Quaestiones, Letters LVII, LXXIX, etc.), is pushing his argument very far in this letter. His message is clear enough; but the modern combination of natural science, psychology, and philosophy shows that Posidonius had some justification for his theories. Cf. also Lucretius, V 1105⁠–⁠7 ff. ↩

721. This Scythian prince and friend of Solon, who visited Athens in the sixth century BC, is also said to have invented the bellows and the anchor. Cf., however, Iliad XVIII 600 f. ὡς ὅτε τις τροχὸν ἄρμενον ἐν παλάμηισιν ἑζόμενος κεραμεὺς πειρήσεται, and Leaf’s comment: “The potter’s wheel was known in pre-Mycenean times, and was a very ancient invention to the oldest Epic poets.” Seneca is right. ↩

722. Seneca (see next sentence) is right again. The arch was known in Chaldaea and in Egypt before 3000 BC. Greek beehive tombs, Etruscan gateways, and early Roman remains, testify to its immemorial use. ↩

723. The ancients judged precious stones merely by their colour; their smaragdus included also malachite, jade, and several kinds of quartz. Exposure to heat alters the colour of some stones; and the alchemists believed that the “angelic stone” changed common flints into diamonds, rubies, emeralds, etc. See G. F. Kunz, The Magic of Jewels and Charms, p. 16. It was also an ancient superstition that emeralds were produced from jasper. ↩

724. I.e., the Epicureans, who withdraw from civil life and regarded the gods as taking no part in the affairs of men. ↩

725. I.e., live according to nature. ↩

726. Virgil Georgics I 125 ff. ↩

727. Cf. Horace, Epistles I 10. 20 f.:

     Purior in vicis aqua tendit rumpere plumbum
     Quam quae per pronum trepidat cum murmure rivum?

     ↩

728. Because virtue depends upon reason, and none but voluntary acts should meet with praise or blame. ↩

729. In spite of the centesimus annus of paragraph 9 (q.v.), the most probable date of this letter, based on Tacitus Annals XVI 13 and other general evidence, is July⁠–⁠September 64 AD. 58 AD would be too early for many reasons⁠—among them that “peace all over the world” would not be a true statement until January of 62. (See the monograph of Jonas, O. Binder, Peiper, and Schultess.) ↩

730. Probably Aebutius Liberalis, to whom the treatise De Beneficiis was dedicated. ↩

731. That Lyons, situated at the junction of the Arar and the Rhone, was of especial prominence in Gaul, may be also gathered from the fact that it boasted a government mint and the Ara Augusti⁠—a shrine established for the annual worship of all the Gallic states. Moreover, the emperor Claudius delivered his famous address in that city (see Tacitus Annals XI 23 f.). ↩

732. Cf. Letter IV, paragraph 4, esp. the words noli huic tranquillitati confidere; momento mare evertitur. ↩

733. The passage bears a striking resemblance to the words of Theseus in an unknown play of Euripides (Nauck, Frag. 964) quoted by Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes III 14. 29, and by Plutarch, Consolation to Apollonius, 112d. ↩

734. Seneca (Natural Questions VI 26) speaks of Paphos (on the island of Cyprus) as having been more than once devastated. We know of two such accidents⁠—one under Augustus and another under Vespasian. See the same passage for other earthquake shocks in various places. ↩

735. Lyons held an exceptional position in relation to the three Gallic provinces; it was a free town, belonging to none and yet their capital, much like the city of Washington in relation to the United States. ↩

736. A fact mentioned merely to suggest Rome with her seven hills. ↩

737. For example, Mycenae and Tiryns. ↩

738. Probably the writer, and intimate friend of Augustus, who began life in Rome as a captive from Egypt. Falling into disfavour with the Emperor, he took refuge with the malcontent Asinius Pollio at Tusculum, and subsequently died in the East. Cf. Seneca, De Ira, III 23. ↩

739. It was in 43 BC that Plancus led out the colonists who were chiefly Roman citizens driven from Vienna. Seneca would have been more accurate had he said “one hundred and eighth (or seventh).” Buecheler and Schultess would (unnecessarily) emend to read centesimus septimus. But Seneca was using round numbers. ↩

740. Ardea, the earliest capital of Latium, and Rome, the present capital of the empire. Seneca probably refers to Ardea’s capture and destruction by the Samnites in the fourth century; Rome was captured by the Celts in 390 BC. The former greatness of Ardea was celebrated by Virgil, Aeneid, VII 411 ff.:

     et nunc magnum manet Ardea nomen,
     Sed fortuna fuit.

     ↩

741. Siremps (or sirempse⁠—Plautus Amphitryon 73), an ancient legal term, is derived by Festus from similis re ipsa; but Corssen explains it as from sic rem pse. ↩

742. I.e., surveying. See Letter LXXXVIII, paragraph 5. ↩

743. I.e., Ὠκεανός, the stream which encircles the earth. ↩

744. This plain-living, plain-speaking philosopher appears also in Letters XX, paragraph 6 and LXII, paragraph 1. Seneca refers to him as seminudum, quanto minus quam stramentis incubantem. ↩

745. The reader will find this topic treated at greater length in Seneca’s De Vita Beata. ↩

746. I.e., the soul. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1. 13: “It is stated that the soul has two parts, one irrational and the other possessing reason.” Aristotle further subdivides the irrational part into (1) that which makes for growth and increase, and (2) desire (which will, however, obey reason). In this passage Seneca uses “soul” in its widest sense. ↩

747. Certain of the Peripatetic and Academic school. ↩

748. Probably due to the criticism of the Stoics by Carneades, who said that everything which is according to nature should be classed among the goods. ↩

749. If we call pleasure a good. ↩

750. Cf. paragraph 1 of this letter. Plato gives three divisions⁠—the λογιστικόν, the ἐπιθυμητικόν, and the θυμοειδές which obeys either the first or the second. See his Republic, 440. ↩

751. Aeneid, III 426 ff. ↩

752. Paragraph 3. ↩

753. Answering the objection raised in paragraph 6. ↩

754. Cf. Letter LXXI, paragraph 7 non intenditur virtus. The Stoic idea of tension may be combined here with the raising of a note to a higher pitch. ↩

755. Frag. 138 Usener. Cf. Seneca, Letter LXVI, paragraph 16. ↩

756. Virgil, Aeneid, V 363. Virgil MSS. read pectore. ↩

757. I.e., to participation in the divine existence. ↩

758. Virgil, Aeneid, IX 485. ↩

759. Cf. Juvenal, X 65 Seianus ducitur unco spectandus. The bodies of criminals were dragged by the hook through the city to the Scalae Gemoniae, down which they were flung. ↩

760. Frag. 6 Lunderstedt. ↩

761. The figure is taken from the Roman dress⁠—one who was “girt high” (alte cinctus), ready for vigorous walking, being contrasted with the loosely-girdled person (discinctus), indolent or effeminate. On the character of Maecenas see Letters CXIV, paragraph 2 ff., XIX, paragraph 3, CXX, paragraph 9. ↩

762. A philosopher of Naples, mentioned as giving lectures there: cf. Letter LXXVI, paragraph 2. ↩

763. I.e., “adequately,” equivalent to ὠς δεῖ. ↩

764. For a complete definition of the Supreme Good cf. Letter LXXI, paragraph 2 ff. ↩

765. I.e., the Metronax mentioned above. ↩

766. For the same phrase see Letter LXVI, paragraph 12 and endnote 349. ↩

767. Cf. Letter LX, paragraph 2 mortem suam antecesserunt. ↩

768. I.e., the Sun. ↩

769. As in the original comitia centuriata, men between the ages of seventeen and forty-six. ↩

770. As riches, health, etc. ↩

771. I.e., Nature herself is eternal. ↩

772. See, however, Seneca, Natural Questions VII 2. 3 sciamus utrum mundus terra stante circumeat an mundo stante terra vertatur. For doubts and discoveries cf. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, pp. 178 f. ↩

773. For technical terms in Letters XCIV and XCV see Appendix II. ↩

774. See Cicero, De Officiis I 3. 7 ff. for a full discussion of principles and duties. As one would expect, the Romans were more interested in practical precepts than were the Greeks. ↩

775. Frag. 358 von Arnim. ↩

776. In other words, that it is one of the “external” things, media, indifferentia. ↩

777. Compare, among similar passages, Letter XXIV, paragraph 6 levis es, si ferre possum, brevis es, si ferre non possum. ↩

778. For the same figure, in the same connection, see Letter LXVIII, paragraph 3 in pectore ipso collectio et vomica est. ↩

779. By means of hellebore, Lat. veratrum, the favourite cathartic of the ancients. ↩

780. This is in harmony with the idea of Socrates; sin is a lack of knowledge regarding what is true and what is false. ↩

781. I.e., Aristo and others. ↩

782. Monitio includes consolatio, dissuasio, obiurgatio, laudatio, and hortatio. Cf. paragraph 21 of this letter. ↩

783. Quoted also by Quintilian, VI 1. 13. Between the years 58 and 54 BC Calvus, a friend of the poet Catullus, in three famous speeches prosecuted Vatinius, one of the creatures of Caesar who had illegally obtained office. ↩

784. Catonis Reliq. p. 79 Iordan. ↩

785. From Publilius Syrus⁠—Frag. 250 Ribbeck. ↩

786. A verse made up from Virgil, Aeneid X 284, and an unknown author. ↩

787. I.e. who would abolish precepts. ↩

788. A further answer to the objection in paragraph 8 above, where all madness is held curable by physical treatment. ↩

789. See, for example, the Fifth Book, which opens with the preliminary remarks of the Athenian Stranger (pp. 726⁠–⁠34 St.). ↩

790. A frequent thought in Seneca, cf. Letters XXV, paragraph 2, LII, paragraph 5, etc. ↩

791. Presumably Phaedo the friend of Plato and pupil of Socrates, author of dialogues resembling those of Plato. ↩

792. Com. incert., Frag. 81 Ribbeck, and Pub. Syrus, Frag. 2 Ribbeck. ↩

793. I.e., belief. ↩

794. From Sallust, Jugurtha, X 6. ↩

795. Cf. Letter XCIV, paragraph 7 exactum indicium de fugiendis petendisque. ↩

796. The last stage of knowledge⁠—complete assent⁠—according to the Stoic view, which went beyond the mere sensation-theory of Epicurus. ↩

797. In this whole discussion Seneca is a much sounder Stoic than Aristo and the opposition. The next letter (Letter XCV) develops still further the preceptive function of philosophy⁠—through προκοπή (progress) to μεταβολή (conversion). ↩

798. This theme is carefully elaborated in Letter VII, “On Crowds”: “There is no person who does not make some vice attractive to us, or stamp it upon us, or taint us unconsciously therewith” (paragraph 1). ↩

799. These are fully discussed in Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones, a work almost contemporary with the Letters. ↩

800. Both literally and figuratively⁠—the sheen of the metal and the glitter of the false idea. ↩

801. I.e., the bundle of rods and axes, carried by the attendants of a Roman magistrate. ↩

802. A name usually applied to the eastern end of the Mediterranean. ↩

803. Especially Thebes in 335 BC, which he sacked. Athens and Sparta were treated with more consideration. ↩

804. I.e., the Hyrcanians, and other tribes attacked during and after 330 BC. ↩

805. Heracles in his various forms hails all the way from Tyre to the Atlantic Ocean; Dionysus from India through Lydia, Thrace, and the Eastern Mediterranean to Greece. ↩

806. 76 BC. ↩

807. 67 BC. ↩

808. Beginning with the passage of the Manilian Law of 66 BC. ↩

809. 107 BC (also 104, 103, 102, 101, 100, and 86). ↩

810. 102 and 101 BC at Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae; the Jugurthine war lasted from 109 to 106 BC. ↩

811. I.e., as Pompeius, Caesar, Marius. ↩

812. I.e., as Pompeius, Caesar, Marius. ↩

813. Literally, to pay money on the spot or perform a task without delay. ↩

814. I.e., the department of “advice by precepts,” discussed in the preceding letter from another angle. The Greek term is nearest to the Latin subdivision hortatio. ↩

815. I.e., the pertness of a home-bred slave (verna). ↩

816. The argument here is similar to Letter LXXXVIII, paragraph 12 hae⁠ ⁠… artes ad instrumenta vitae plurimum conferunt, tamen ad virtutem non pertinent. ↩

817. I.e., philosophy. ↩

818. Hippocrates belonged to the “Clinical” School; Asclepiades and his pupil Themison to the “Methodical.” ↩

819. “Axioms” and “postulates.” ↩

820. I. 54 ff. ↩

821. Whether elementa and membra mean “letters and clauses” or “matter and forms of matter” is difficult to say. ↩

822. I.e., before the advent of any theoretical philosophy. ↩

823. Verminatio, defined by Festus as cum corpus quodam minuto motu quasi a vermibus scindatur. ↩

824. For this sort of Golden Age reminiscence see Letter XC, paragraph 4 ff. and endnote 703. ↩

825. Hippocrates. ↩

826. Mushrooms, as in the case of the Emperor Claudius, were a frequent aid to secret murder. ↩

827. The finest variety of garum was made from Spanish mackerel-roe. ↩

828. Virgil, Aeneid VIII 442. ↩

829. Cf. Letter XXXVII, paragraph 1 uri, vinciri, ferroque necari and note. ↩

830. I.e., not reinforced by general dogmas. ↩

831. The nota was the mark of disgrace which the censor registered when he struck a man’s name off the list of senators or knights. ↩

832. The genius was properly a man’s alter ego or “better self”: every man had his genius. For the colloquial use compare the “indulge genio” of the Roman poets. ↩

833. A frequent vice under the Empire, nicknamed captatio. ↩

834. Περὶ καθήκοντος⁠—a subject handled by Panaetius, and by Cicero (De Officiis). ↩

835. I.e., the significant features of athletics and adornment for men and women respectively. ↩

836. Terence, Heautontimorumenos, 77. ↩

837. Cf. Letter XCIV, paragraph 7. ↩

838. I.e., progressing from a φαντασία in general to a φαντασία καταληπτική. ↩

839. Seneca characteristically ignores the unpleasant half of the proverb: φιλεῖν ὡς μισήσων καὶ μισεῖν ὡς φιλήσων. ↩

840. E.g., in the mysteries of Eleusis, etc. ↩

841. For these terms see Spengel, Rhetores Graeci, passim. Quintilian I 9. 3 says ethologia personis continetur; and Cicero, De Oratore III 205, in a list of figures with which the orator should be familiar, includes characterismos, or descriptio. ↩

842. For the same figure, similarly applied, see Letter LXXX, paragraph 9 and endnote 522. ↩

843. Virgil, Georgics III 75 ff. ↩

844. For example, Cato had from the first opposed any assumption of illegal power⁠—objecting to the consulship of Pompey and Crassus in 55 BC, and to the conduct of Caesar throughout. His disapproval of both simultaneously is hinted in Plutarch’s Cato the Younger, LIV 4. ↩

845. The Latin term can hardly be reproduced, though “he did not regale but regulate” comes near it. Tubero’s act was that of a true censor morum. ↩

846. Cf. the words ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt of Letter CVII, paragraph 5. ↩

847. For the best account of this scandal see Plutarch, Caesar, IX f. ↩

848. From stilla “a drop.” The phrase is equivalent to our proverbial “last straw.” ↩

849. Epistulae ad Atticum, I 16. ↩

850. A plebeian festival, held April 28, in honour of Flora, an Italian divinity connected with Ceres and Venus. For the story of Cato (55 BC) see Valerius Maximus II 10. 8. ↩

851. Epicurus, Frag. 532 Usener. ↩

852. Compare the ἔχω ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἔχομαι of Aristippus, and the (equally Epicurean) mihi res, non me rebus subiungere of Horace, Epistles I 1. 19. ↩

853. Virgil, Aeneid II 428. ↩

854. I.e., a sort of platform for mountebanks or acrobats⁠—figuratively applied to life’s Vanity Fair. ↩

855. Frag. 35 Körte. ↩

856. I.e., when he declined the bribe of Pyrrhus, 280 BC. ↩

857. Cf. Letter XCV, paragraph 34 f. omnibus saeculis Tuberonis fictilio durabunt. ↩

858. Cf. Letter LIX, paragraph 6 and endnote 301. ↩

859. The testimony of an ancient grammarian, and the change of subject in the text, may, as Hense states, indicate that a considerable passage is lost and that another letter begins here. Cf. the senex egregius of paragraph 8. ↩

860. Possibly Iunius Marullus, consul designatus in AD 62 (Tacitus Annals XIV 48). ↩

861. As Lipsius pointed out, the remainder of Seneca’s letter consists of the quoted letter to Marullus. ↩

862. The Roman view differs from the modern view, just as this Letter is rather more severe than Letter LXIII (on the death of Lucilius’s friend Flaccus). ↩

863. Almost identical language with the closing words of Letter LXIII: quem putamus perisse, praemissus est. ↩

864. For a similar argument see Letter XII, paragraph 3 f. ↩

865. I.e., who have had to turn gladiators. ↩

866. I.e., a shroud for the funeral couch, lectus vitalis. ↩

867. This passage, which Buecheler corrected in several places, is omitted in the English, because Seneca has already translated it literally. M. was addressing his sister. ↩

868. I.e., men like Metrodorus. ↩

869. I.e., the Stoics. ↩

870. I.e., the Epicureans. ↩

871. I.e., grief should not be replaced by pleasure; otherwise grief will cease to exist. ↩

872. I.e., his style is like a river rather than a torrent. ↩

873. Concisura: from concido, to “cut into sections,” “distribute” (of water-pipes). ↩

874. Cf. Letter XVIII, paragraph 4, and Martial III 48:

     Pauperis extruxit cellam, sed vendidit Olus
     praedia; nunc cellam pauperis Olus habet.

     Rich men sometimes fitted up in their palaces an imitation “poor man’s cabin” by way of contrast to their other rooms or as a gesture towards simple living; Seneca uses the phrase figuratively for certain devices in composition. ↩

875. Quintilian X 1. 113 says: multa in Asinio Pollione inventio, summa diligentia, adeo ut quibusdam etiam nimia videatur; et consilii et animi satis; a nitore et iucunditate Ciceronis ita longe abest, ut videri possit saeculo prior. ↩

876. The wording here resembles strikingly that of the Elder Seneca, Controversiae II pr. 2 deerat illi (sc. Fabiano) oratorium robur et ille pugnatorius mucro. ↩

877. Virgil, Eclogue I 74. ↩

878. Perhaps a hint to Lucilius, who was at this time procurator in Sicily. ↩

879. Frag. 1, p. 35 Lunderstedt. ↩

880. Horace, his intimate friend, wrote Odes II 17 to cheer the despondent Maecenas; and Pliny (Natural History VII 54) mentions his fevers and his insomnia⁠—perpetua febris.⁠ ⁠… Eidem triennio supremo nullo horae momento contigit somnus. ↩

881. Aeneid XII 646. ↩

882. Infelix lignum (or arbor) is the cross. ↩

883. Seneca, worn out by his political experiences, was at this time not less than sixty-seven years of age. ↩

884. Seneca is perhaps popularizing the Stoic combinations⁠—παράθεσις (juxtaposition), μῖξις (mixture) or κρᾶσις (fusion), and σύγχυσις (chemical mixture). Cf. E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, p. 169. ↩

885. I.e., the arguments of the Stoics. ↩

886. I.e., of the unus vir bonus, as contrasted with the many. ↩

887. I.e., the Stoics. ↩

888. Naevius, quoted by Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes IV 31 (of Hector):

     laetus sum
     laudari me abs te, pater, laudato viro.

     ↩

889. A commonplace sentiment, found e.g., in Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes I 2. 4. ↩

890. Cf. Letter XL, paragraph 3 haec popularis (oratio) nihil habet veri. ↩

891. A metaphor from the arena: decretoria were real decisive weapons with which death was faced, as opposed to lusoria, “sham” weapons. Cf. Seneca, Letter CXVII, paragraph 14. ↩

892. The departure from life is compared to the release from the womb. There is also possibly a double meaning implied in the word venter. ↩

893. Virgil, Aeneid IV 3 f. ↩

894. Compare this with the Seventh letter. ↩

895. Pompeia Paulina, the second wife of Seneca; cf. Tacitus Annals XV 60. Though much younger than her husband, she was a model of devotion, and remained loyal to him through all the Neronian persecution. ↩

896. Elder brother of Seneca, whose name before his adoption by Lucius Iunius Gallio was Annaeus Novatus. He was governor of Achaia from AD July 1, 51 to July 1, 52. See Acts 18:11 ff., and Duff, Three Dialogues of Seneca, p. XLIII. ↩

897. Cf. Letter X, paragraph 1 “Mecum loquor.” “Cave, rogo, et diligenter adtende; cum homine malo loqueris.” ↩

898. Virgil, Aeneid III 282 f. ↩

899. Although Seneca was deeply interested in such matters, as is proved by Letter LXXIX, the Naturales Quaestiones, and an early work on the geography of Egypt. ↩

900. These men are patterns or interpreters of the virtues. The first-named three represent courage, justice, and self-restraint respectively. Socrates is the ideal wise man, Zeno, Chrysippus, and Posidonus are in turn the founder, the classifier, and the modernizer of Stoicism. ↩

901. Aeneid, VI 277. ↩

902. At first a sculptor, then an independent seeker after truth, whose wants were reduced to a minimum. Husband of the shrewish Xanthippe and father of the dull and worthless Lamprocles. Brave soldier at Potidaea, Delium, and Amphipolis. ↩

903. 431⁠–⁠404 BC (the Peloponnesian War). ↩

904. See Plato’s Apology, 23 D. They had previously aimed at him a law forbidding the teaching of dialectic. ↩

905. 399 BC. ↩

906. Triumvirs in 60 BC and rivals in acquiring unconstitutional power. ↩

907. 54 BC. ↩

908. Perhaps a reference to his mission in Cyprus (58⁠–⁠56 BC), and his subsequent arraignment by Clodius. ↩

909. Virgil, Aeneid I 458. ↩

910. At Utica, in 46 BC. ↩

911. I.e., tact. ↩

912. Presumably (cf. Letter CVIII, paragraph 1) into this collection of Epistles. ↩

913. As Lucilius, in his letter, has come from far away. ↩

914. This subject is discussed more fully in Letter CXIII. For a clear account of the whole question of “body” see Arnold, Roman Stoicism, pp. 157 ff. ↩

915. De Rerum Natura I 304. ↩

916. The Romans had a ludus latrunculorum, with features resembling both draughts and chess. The pieces (calculi) were perhaps of different values: the latrunculus may have been a sort of “rover,” cf. Martial, Epigrams VII 72. ↩

917. Virgil, Aeneid VI 274 f. ↩

918. Cleanthes, Frag. 527 von Arnim. In Epictetus (Enchiridion 53) these verses are assigned to Cleanthes (omitting the last line); while St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei V 8) quotes them as Seneca’s: Annaei Senecae sunt, nisi fallor, hi versus. Wilamowitz and others follow the latter view. ↩

919. Cf. Letter CVI, paragraph 1 scis enim me moralem philosophiam velle conplecti, etc. ↩

920. Seneca’s first and most convincing teacher of Stoicism, to whom this letter is a tribute. The ablest of contemporary philosophers, he was banished during the reign of Tiberius. ↩

921. Literally “tenants,” “lodgers,” of a temporary sort. ↩

922. Cf. the dangers of such lusoria (Letter XLVIII, paragraph 4) and a rebus studium transferendum est ad verba (Letter XL, paragraph 8). ↩

923. I.e., mendicant Galli, worshippers of Cybele, the Magna Mater. ↩

924. Syri Sententiae, Frag. 236 Ribbeck. ↩

925. Syri Sententiae, Frag. 234 R. ↩

926. Frag. 487 von Arnim. ↩

927. Pall. Incert. Fab. 65 and 66 Ribbeck. ↩

928. A characteristic Stoic paradox. ↩

929. An almost proverbial saying; cf. the recte olet ubi nil olet of Plautus (Mostellaria 273), Cicero, and Martial. ↩

930. Pythagorean philosopher of the Augustine age, and one of Seneca’s early teachers. ↩

931. AD 19. Cf. Tacitus, Annals II 85 actum de sacris Aegyptiis Iudaicisque pellendis. ↩

932. In this passage Seneca differs (as also in Letter LXXXVIII, paragraph 2) from the earlier Roman idea of grammaticus as poetarum interpres: he is thinking of one who deals with verbal expressions and the meaning of words. Cf. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship I 8 ff. ↩

933. Georgics III 284. ↩

934. Georgics III 66 ff. ↩

935. Aeneid VI 275. ↩

936. Cicero, De re publica, II 18 Numae Pompili nepos ex filia rex a populo est Ancus Marcius constitutus⁠ ⁠… siquidem istius regis matrem habemus, ignoramus patrem. ↩

937. Fl. in the Augustan Age. Provocatio is defined by Greenidge (Roman Public Life, p. 64) as “a challenge by an accused to a magistrate to appear before another tribunal.” ↩

938. A suffix, probably related to the intensive -pte. ↩

939. Literally, the chalk-marked, or lime-marked, goal-line. ↩

940. Vahlen’s Ennius, p. 215. ↩

941. Georgics III 260 f. ↩

942. Vahlen’s Ennius, p. 216. ↩

943. I.e., in possession of a perfect, an encyclopaedic, wisdom. ↩

944. In other words, Wisdom, Justice, Courage, and Self-Restraint, together with the other qualities of simplicity, kindness, etc., being “avatars” of Virtue herself, are interrelated. ↩

945. E.g., certain of the Peripatetic school. ↩

946. Sallust, Catilinae XX 4 idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est. Cf. the Greek “ἴσῳ ζυγῷ,” “yoked equally together.” ↩

947. Cf. Letter CVIII, paragraph 1 and endnote 919. ↩

948. Cf. Letter CIV, paragraph 1. ↩

949. Metamorphoses I 595⁠—a Roman interpretation, along the lines of the Di Indigetes. ↩

950. Every man had his Genius, and every woman her Juno. In the case of the Stoics, God dwelt in every soul. ↩

951. I.e., death, in Stoic language. ↩

952. De Rerum Natura II 55 f. ↩

953. I.e., to the starting-point. ↩

954. I.e., acorns, etc. ↩

955. Seneca was an extensive and prosperous vine-grower. Compare Letter CIV, paragraph 3 f. for his description of his hobby at the country-place near Nomentum. There are many figures which deal with the vine scattered through the Letters. ↩

956. The fulfilment of the promise made in Letter CVI, paragraph 1 (see endnote 914). ↩

957. The allusion is sarcastic. The phaecasium was a white shoe worn by Greek priests and Athenian gymnasiarchs⁠—sometimes aped by Romans. ↩

958. I.e., animal from animus, anima (“breath of life”). ↩

959. I.e., from those who hold that the man, the soul, and the functions of the soul, can be classed as separate entities; or even from those who believe that it is worth while to discuss the matter at all. See paragraph 1 of this Letter. ↩

960. Homer, Iliad VI 181 πρόσθε λέων, ὄπιθεν δὲ δράκων, μέσση δὲ χίμαιρα. This is a frequent illustration of the “whole and the parts” among ancient philosophers. ↩

961. I.e., the form in which it is contained. ↩

962. The soul is “body,” “world-stuff” (not “matter” in the modern sense). It is therefore, according to the Stoics, a living entity, a unit; and Virtue is a διάθεσις ψυχῆς⁠—a “permanent disposition of the soul.” ↩

963. The usual progression was αἴσθησις (sensus), φαντασία (species, “external impression”), συγκατάθεσις (adsensus), and κατάληψις (comprehensio). See Letter XCV, paragraph 29, endnote 838. ↩

964. This problem is discussed from another angle in Letter LVIII, paragraph 12. ↩

965. I.e., the virtues. ↩

966. Cleanthes, Frag. 525 von Arnim; Chrysippus, Frag. 836 von Arnim. The former would seem to be more in accord with general Stoic views. ↩

967. Caecilianum (the reading of the later MSS.) would refer to Statius Caecilius, the comic writer of the second century BC. Caelianum (B and A) would indicate M. Caelius Rufus, the orator and contemporary of Cicero and Catullus. ↩

968. 334⁠–⁠330 BC. ↩

969. See Letter XCIV, paragraph 29 f., and notes. ↩

970. E.g., the execution of Parmenio in Media and the murder of Cleitus in Samarkand. ↩

971. οῖος ὁ βίος, τοιοῦτος καὶ ὁ λόγος. The saying is referred to Socrates by Cicero (Tusculanae Disputationes V 47). ↩

972. I.e., that inborn quality which is compounded of character and intelligence. ↩

973. Cf. Suetonius, Augustus 86, where the Emperor Maecenatem suum, cuius “myrobrechis,” ut ait, “cincinnos” (“unguent-dripping curls” (Rolfe)) usque quaque persequitur et imitando per iocum irridet. Augustus here refers especially to the style of Maecenas as a writer. ↩

974. Terentia. For her charms see Horace, Odes II 12; for her faults see De Providentia III 10, where Seneca calls her “petulant.” ↩

975. Maecenas, Frag. 11 Lunderstedt. ↩

976. Instead of properly girt up⁠—a mark of slackness. ↩

977. For a similar mark of slovenliness, in Pompey’s freedman Demetrius, see Plutarch, Pompey, XL 4. ↩

978. I.e., often repulsed by his wife Terentia, and then restored to grace. ↩

979. E.g., in the Treaty of Brundisium (37 BC), and often during the Triumvirate. ↩

980. I.e., the “ring” of onlookers, the “pit.” ↩

981. Fifth century BC. ↩

982. I.e., from the second and first centuries BC, back to the third century. ↩

983. The latter a reasonable mark of good breeding, the former an ostentatious bit of effeminacy. Summers cites Ovid, Ars Amatoria I 506 “don’t rub your legs smooth with the tight-scraping pumice stone.” ↩

984. As Cicero (see Letter XL, paragraph 7) was an example of the rhythmical in style, so Pollio is the representative of the “bumpy” (salebrosa) manner (Letter C, paragraph 4). ↩

985. Flor. 40 BC. ↩

986. For these Sallust fragments see the edition of Kritz, Nos. 33, Jugurtha 37. 4, and 42; for Arruntius see H. Peter, Frag. Hist. Rom. II pp. 41 f. ↩

987. Literally, “created,” “made.” ↩

988. “Brought to pass flight for our men”; “Hiero, king of the Syracusans brought about war”; “The news brought the men of Panormus” (now Palermo, Sicily) “to the point of surrendering to the Romans.” ↩

989. “Brought to pass flight for our men”; “Hiero, king of the Syracusans brought about war”; “The news brought the men of Panormus” (now Palermo, Sicily) “to the point of surrendering to the Romans.” ↩

990. “Brought to pass flight for our men”; “Hiero, king of the Syracusans brought about war”; “The news brought the men of Panormus” (now Palermo, Sicily) “to the point of surrendering to the Romans.” ↩

991. “Amid the wintry waters”; “The storm suddenly grew wintry”; “The whole year was like winter”; “Then he dispatched sixty transports of light draught besides the soldiers and the necessary sailors amid a wintry storm.” ↩

992. “Amid the wintry waters”; “The storm suddenly grew wintry”; “The whole year was like winter”; “Then he dispatched sixty transports of light draught besides the soldiers and the necessary sailors amid a wintry storm.” ↩

993. “Amid the wintry waters”; “The storm suddenly grew wintry”; “The whole year was like winter”; “Then he dispatched sixty transports of light draught besides the soldiers and the necessary sailors amid a wintry storm.” ↩

994. “Amid the wintry waters”; “The storm suddenly grew wintry”; “The whole year was like winter”; “Then he dispatched sixty transports of light draught besides the soldiers and the necessary sailors amid a wintry storm.” ↩

995. The peculiarity here is the use of the plural instead of the singular form. “Amid civil war he seeks reminders of justice and virtue.” ↩

996. Virgil, Georgics IV 212 f. ↩

997. Elsewhere (Letters LXXVI, paragraph 1 and LXXXVII, paragraph 7) called trossuli, “fops.” ↩

998. Aeneid I 327 ff. ↩

999. Frag. 372 von Arnim. ↩

1000. Ovid, Metamorphoses II 1 f. ↩

1001. Ovid, Metamorphoses II 107 ff. ↩

1002. Cf. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta adesp. 181. 1 and 461. ↩

1003. Cf. Nauck, Eurip. Danaë, Frag. 324, and Hense’s note (ed. of 1914, p. 559). ↩

1004. A play on the compositio of rhetoric. ↩

1005. For a discussion of ἀπάθεια see Letters IX, paragraph 2 ff. and LXXXV, paragraph 3 ff. ↩

1006. Frag. 56 Fowler. ↩

1007. Literally, “out of our possession” (from mancipium, “ownership”). ↩

1008. For this sort of discussion see Letter CXIII, paragraph 1 ff. ↩

1009. This adjective expetibilis is found in Tacitus, Annals XVI 21, and in Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae II 6. ↩

1010. I.e., the Stoics as mentioned above (with whom Seneca often disagrees on minor details). ↩

1011. I.e., the external things; see Letter XCIII, paragraph 5 and endnote 770⁠—defined more specifically in paragraph 6 below. ↩

1012. Presumably an allusion to the syllogistic enthusiasts rather than to Lucillius and his like. ↩

1013. I.e., wisdom or being wise. ↩

1014. Cf. Letter XLVIII, paragraph 6 and endnote 217. ↩

1015. Cf. Letter CVI, paragraph 6 and endnote 916. ↩

1016. I.e., solvendo aeri alieno, “in a position to pay one’s debts.” ↩

1017. Epistulae ad Atticum I 12. 4. ↩

1018. Epistulae ad Atticum I 12. 1: “Even his relatives can’t screw a penny out of Caecilius at less than 12 percent” (Winstedt). ↩

1019. For the character of Vatinius see Letter XCIV, paragraph 13 endnote 783; for a similar comparison of V. with Cato see Letter CXX, paragraph 9. ↩

1020. Discussed in Letters LXXI, paragraph 2 f., LXXIV, paragraph 15, LXXVI, paragraph 6 ff., and especially LXXXVII, paragraph 14: nam idem est honestum et bonum. The Academic school tended to draw more of a distinction than the Stoic, as in Letter LXXXV, paragraph 8 f. ↩

1021. This argument (that complete virtue is a sort of transforming climax of life) is not to be confused with the theory of accessio (a term used also in Roman law), or “addition”; for virtue does not permit of accessio, or the addition of any external advantage. See Letter LXVI, paragraph 5 quid accedere perfecto potest? ↩

1022. Seneca here reverts to the money-metaphors of Letters I⁠–⁠XXXIII⁠—lucellum, munusculum, diurna mercedula, etc. ↩

1023. Frag. p. 79 Iordan. ↩

1024. I.e., “something for one’s spare time”; cf. Letter LIII, paragraph 7 endnote 247, non est quod precario philosopheris. ↩

1025. I.e., of common earthenware. ↩

1026. I.e., had got my coffers ready for the promised wealth. ↩

1027. Alexander the Great. ↩

1028. I.e., a “poverty” which is never satisfied. ↩

1029. Horace, Satires I 2. 114 ff. ↩

1030. I.e., the Peripatetic and Academic schools. ↩

1031. Cf. Letter CXVIII, paragraph 5 and endnote 1020. ↩

1032. Consult Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship I pp. 148 and 175 f. Alexandrian “analogists” opposed Pergamene “anomalists” with reference to the rules affecting the forms of words. Out of the controversy arose the scientific study of grammar. ↩

1033. The two stories refer to the years 280 and 279 BC, during the campaigns of Pyrrhus in Italy. ↩

1034. See Livy, II 10. ↩

1035. Livy (loc cit.) reports him as saying: “Tiberine pater, te sancte precor, haec arma et hunc militem propitio flumine accipias!” Macaulay in his ballad translates Livy’s quotation almost literally. ↩

1036. A chronic disease of Seneca himself. See the autobiographic fragment in Letter LXXVIII, paragraph 1 f. ↩

1037. Seneca is here developing the thought sketched in Letter XII, paragraph 2 unus autem dies gradus vitae est. ↩

1038. For the same contrast cf. Letter CXVIII, paragraph 2 (and endnote 1019). ↩

1039. Horace, Satires I 3. 11⁠–⁠17. ↩

1040. I.e., in addition to myself and confirming my statement. ↩

1041. Frag. 17 von Arnim. ↩

1042. I.e., felicitas becomes infelicitas. ↩

1043. I.e., their physical makeup, the elements of their physical being. ↩

1044. I.e., the “soul of the world,” of which each living soul is a part. The Stoics believed that it was situated in the heart. Zeno called it ἡγεμονικόν, “ruling power”; while the Romans used the term principale or principatus. The principle described above is ὀρμή (impulse) or τόνος (tension). ↩

1045. Seneca is both sound and modern in his account of animal “intelligence.” It is instinct, due to sensory-motor reactions, and depending largely upon type heredity. ↩

1046. A theme developed by Cicero (De finibus III 16): placet⁠ ⁠… simul atque natum sit animal⁠ ⁠… , ipsum sibi conciliari et commendari ad se conservandum. ↩

1047. Virgil, Georgics I 250 ff. ↩

1048. Cato, Frag. p. 110 Jordan. ↩

1049. I.e., owls, of ill omen. ↩

1050. In connection with the Parentalia, Feb. 13⁠–⁠21, and at other anniversary observations, the ceremonies were held in the daytime. ↩

1051. A vice which Seneca especially abhors; cf. Letter XV, paragraph 1 multum potionis altius ieiunio iturae. ↩

1052. By wearing silk gowns of transparent material. ↩

1053. Not literally translated. For the same thought see Letter XLVII, paragraph 4, etc. ↩

1054. The symbols of a Roman funeral. For the same practice, purposely performed, see Letter XII, paragraph 4 (and the note of W. C. Summers). ↩

1055. Called by Tacitus, Annals IV 34, a Seiani cliens. ↩

1056. Baehrens, Frag. Poet. Rom. p. 355. ↩

1057. I.e., Procne, in the well-known nightingale myth. ↩

1058. Son of the P. Vinicius ridiculed in Letter XL, paragraph 6. He was husband of Julia, youngest daughter of Germanicus, and was poisoned by Messalina. ↩

1059. I.e., is punishing his slaves for errors in the day’s work. ↩

1060. I.e., balancing the custom of the ordinary Roman, whose dinner never continued beyond nightfall. ↩

1061. “ ‘A liver by candlelight,’ with a play on the word λίχνος, ‘luxurious’ ” (Summers). ↩

1062. I.e., a dinner given by an official when he entered upon (adeo) his office. ↩

1063. For symphonia see Letter LI, paragraph 2 and endnote 231. Compare also the commissiones, orchestral exhibitions, composed of many voices, flutes, and brass instruments, Letter LXXXIV, paragraph 6. ↩

1064. I.e., to live by Stoicism rather than by Epicureanism. ↩

1065. Meaning, in line with the Stoic paradoxes, that only the sage knows how to be rightly in love. ↩

1066. Virgil, Georgics I 176 f. ↩

1067. I.e., the Epicureans. ↩

1068. I.e., the advocate of the “touch” theory. ↩

1069. According to the Stoics (and other schools also), the “innate notions,” or groundwork of knowledge, begin to be subject to reason after the attainment of a child’s seventh year. ↩

1070. I.e., they are limited to “practical judgment.” ↩

1071. Just as Academic and Peripatetic philosophers sometimes defined as “goods” what the Stoics called “advantages.” ↩

1072. One of the most conspicuous Stoic paradoxes maintained that “the wise man is a God.” ↩