Myrto Garani - Andreas N. Michalopoulos - Sophia Papaioannou - Intertextuality in Seneca's Philosophical Writings

i
Intertextuality in Seneca’s
Philosophical Writings
This volume is the first systematic study of Seneca’s interaction with earlier
literature of a variety of genres and traditions. It examines this interaction
and engagement in his prose works, offering interpretative readings that are at
once groundbreaking and stimulating to further study.
Focusing on the Dialogues, the Naturales quaestiones, and the Moral
Epistles, the volume includes multi-perspectival studies of Seneca’s interaction
with all the great Latin epics (Lucretius, Vergil and Ovid), and discussions of
how Seneca’s philosophical thought is informed by Hellenistic doxography,
forensic rhetoric and declamation, the Homeric tradition, Euripidean tragedy
and Greco-Roman mythology. The studies analyzes the philosophy behind
Seneca’s incorporating exact quotations from earlier tradition (including
his criteria of selectivity) and Seneca’s interaction with ideas, trends and
techniques from different sources, in order to elucidate his philosophical
ideas and underscore his original contribution to the discussion of established
philosophical traditions. They also provide a fresh interpretation of moral
issues with particular application to the Roman worldview as fashioned by
the mos maiorum. The volume, finally, features detailed discussion of the ways
in which Seneca, the author of philosophical prose, puts forward his stance
towards poetics and figures himself as a poet.
Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings will be of interest not
only to those working on Seneca’s philosophical works, but also to anyone
working on Latin literature and intertextuality in the ancient world.
Myrto Garani is Assistant Professor in Latin Literature at the National and

Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is the author of Empedocles
Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in Lucretius (London and New York, 2007) and
co-editor with David Konstan of The Philosophizing Muse. The Influence
of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry, Pierides III (Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
2014). She has also published a number of articles on Empedocles’ reception
in Latin literature, especially in Ovid’s Fasti. Her other publications include
articles on Lucretius, Propertius, Ovid and the Pseudo-Vergilian Aetna. She is
currently working on a monograph on Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones Book 3
and a commentary of Lucretius’ De rerum natura 6.
ii
Andreas N. Michalopoulos is Professor of Latin at the National and

Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has published extensively on Latin lit-
erature of the 1st centuries BC and AD (especially epic, elegy, and drama), he
has edited numerous volumes (more recently Dicite, Pierides. Classical Studies
in Honour of Stratis Kyriakidis, 2017, with Sophia Papaioannou and Andrew
Zissos) and is the author of Ancient Etymologies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: A
Commented Lexicon (2001), Ovid, Heroides 16 and 17: Introduction, Text and
Commentary (2006), and Ovid, Heroides 20 and 21: Introduction, Text and
Commentary (2013). His research interests include Augustan poetry, ancient
etymology, Roman drama, the Roman novel, and the modern reception of
classical literature.
Sophia Papaioannou is Professor of Latin at the National and Kapodistrian

University of Athens, Faculty of Philology. She is the author of numerous
articles and chapters on Augustan literature (especially epic) and on Roman
comedy, as well as two books on Ovid: Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid,
Metamorphoses 13.623–14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid (2005); and
Redesigning Achilles: The ‘Recycling’ of the Epic Cycle in Ovid, Metamorphoses
12.1–13.620 (2007); and a collection of papers on Terence (Terence and
Interpretation, 2014). She has published on the reception of Vergil and Ovid in
the Late Antiquity across various genres and authors, and one of her current
projects includes the tracing of Vergilian and Ovidian influence in the subtext
of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca.
iii
Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies
Titles include:
The Making of Identities in Athenian Oratory
Edited by Jakub Filonik, Brenda Griffith-Williams and Janek Kucharski
Homicide in the Attic Orators

Rhetoric, Ideology, and Context
Christine Plastow
Underworld Gods in Ancient Greek Religion

Ellie Mackin Roberts
Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ

The Virgin and the Otherwordly Bridegroom in Ancient Greece and
Early Christian Rome
Abbe Walker
Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings

Edited by Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos and Sophia Papaioannou
Drama, Oratory and Thucydides in Fifth-Century Athens

Teaching Imperial Lessons
Sophie Mills
The Poetics in its Aristotelian Context

Edited by Pierre Destrée, Malcolm Heath and Dana L. Munteanu
Text and Intertext in Greek Epic and Drama

Essays in Honor of Margalit Finkelberg
Edited by Jonathan J. Price and Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz
For more information on this series, visit: https://www.routledge.com/

classicalstudies/series/RMCS
v
Intertextuality in Seneca’s
Philosophical Writings
Edited by
Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos
and Sophia Papaioannou
vi
First published 2020
by Routledge
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and Sophia Papaioannou; individual chapters, the contributors
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to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the
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vii
Contents
List of contributors ix
Preface and acknowledgements xii
List of abbreviations xiii
Introduction: intertextuality in the philosopher Seneca 1

M YRT O G ARAN I , A N D R EA S N. MI C H A LO PO U LO S AND
S OP H I A PAPAI OANN O U
PART 1 21
1 Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 23

AMAN DA  WI LC OX
2 Myth, poetry and Homer in Seneca philosophus 50

R. SC OT T   S MI TH
3 Seneca and the doxography of ethics 81

J U L A WI L D B E RG ER
PART 2 105
4 Reading Seneca reading Vergil 107

S OP H I A PAPAIOA N N O U
5 Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales 130

AN D RE AS N. M I C H A LO PO U LO S
viii
viii Contents
6 The importance of collecting shells: intertextuality in
Seneca’s Epistle 49 142
F RAN C E S C A RO MA NA BER N O
7 Sub auro servitus habitat: Seneca’s moralizing of

architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 161
T OMMASO G A ZZA R R I
8 Seneca on the mother cow: poetic models and natural

philosophy in the Consolation to Marcia 179
FAB I O T U T RO N E
9 Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum (NQ 3.20–1,

25–6; Ovid Met. 15.270–336) 198
MYRT O  G AR A N I
Index locorum 254

General index 271
ix
Contributors
Francesca Romana Berno is Associate Professor of Latin Language and

Literature at Sapienza University of Rome. Her main interests lie in
Seneca’s prose works, on which she has published three monographs (NQ,
2003; Epistles 53–57, 2006; De constantia sapientis, 2018) and several art-
icles, where she deals with rhetorical tools (metaphors, poetic quotations,
historical examples) and their parenetic function. She is also enquiring on
some philosophical issues in Cicero and Ovid.
Myrto Garani (BA Thessaloniki, MA and PhD London) is Assistant Professor
in Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Greece. She is the author of Empedocles Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in
Lucretius (London and New York, 2007) and co-editor with David Konstan
of The Philosophizing Muse. The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman
Poetry, Pierides III (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2014). She has also published
a number of articles on Empedocles’ reception in Latin literature, espe-
cially in Ovid’s Fasti. Her other publications include articles on Lucretius,
Propertius, Ovid and the Pseudo-Vergilian Aetna. She is currently working
on a monograph on Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones Book 3 and a commen-
tary of Lucretius’ De rerum natura 6.
Tommaso Gazzarri, Yale PhD, is Assistant Professor of Classics at Union
College (Schenectady, NY). He has published on Plautus, Seneca,
Petronius and ancient sexuality. He is currently completing a monograph
on Seneca’s deployment of figural language in his philosophical oeuvre.
His main scholarly interests concern Roman Stoicism, ancient rhetoric and
the relations between Greek and Roman cultures in the years of the late
Republic and early Empire (mainly the Julio-Claudian dynasty).
Andreas N. Michalopoulos, PhD Leeds, is Professor of Latin at the National
and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has published extensively on
Latin literature of the 1st centuries BC and AD (especially epic, elegy and
drama), he has edited numerous volumes (more recently Dicite, Pierides.
Classical Studies in Honour of Stratis Kyriakidis, Newcastle: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing 2017, with Sophia Papaioannou and Andrew Zissos)
x
x Contributors
and is the author of Ancient Etymologies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: A
Commented Lexicon (Leeds: Francis Cairns, 2001), Ovid, Heroides 16
and 17: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Cambridge: Francis Cairns,
2006), and Ovid, Heroides 20 and 21: Introduction, Text and Commentary
(Athens: Papadimas, 2013). His research interests include Augustan poetry,
ancient etymology, Roman drama, the Roman novel, and the modern
reception of classical literature.
Sophia Papaioannou is Professor of Latin at the National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens, Faculty of Philology. She is the author of numerous
articles and chapters on Augustan literature (especially epic) and on Roman
comedy, as well as two books on Ovid: Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid,
Metamorphoses 13.623–14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid (Berlin
2005); and Redesigning Achilles: The ‘Recycling’ of the Epic Cycle in Ovid,
Metamorphoses 12.1–13.620 (Berlin 2007); and a collection of papers on
Terence (Terence and Interpretation, Newcastle 2014). She has published
on the reception of Vergil and Ovid in the Late Antiquity across various
genres and authors, and one of her current projects includes the tracing
of Vergilian and Ovidian influence in the subtext of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca.
R. Scott Smith is Professor of Classics at the University of New Hampshire,
where he has taught since 2000. In addition to a deep and abiding interest
in Seneca the Younger, both prose and poetry, he has published widely in
the field of myth and mythography, including co-authored or co-edited
volumes: Anthology of Classical Myth (Cambridge, MA 2016), Writing
Myth: Mythography in the Greek and Roman World (Leuven 2013), and
Apollodorus’ Library and Hyginus’ Fabulae (Cambridge, MA 2007).
Recently he has been studying the way in which the Greeks and Romans
organized and transmitted their own mythical stories through the medium
of geographical texts, as well as how mythographical material was integrated
into ancient commentaries and scholia. He is currently co-editing the
Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography (forthcoming 2020).
Fabio Tutrone is a Research and Teaching Fellow in Latin literature at the
University of Palermo, where he also obtained his PhD in Greek and Latin
Philology and Culture in 2009. He has held visiting positions in the United
States, Switzerland and Germany, and has recently worked in a nationally
funded project on the ‘anthropology of ancient myth’ directed by Professor
Maurizio Bettini. His research focuses on the history of Roman literature,
science and philosophy, with special regard to Lucretius, Seneca and the
Latin reception of Greek thought. He has particular interest in literary
topics of cognitive and anthropological relevance, such as the representa-
tion of animals and man-animal relationships, the sociology of scientific
knowledge, and the cultural perception of time. His publications include
Filosofi e animali in Roma antica: Modelli di animalità e umanità in Lucrezio
e Seneca (Pisa, ETS, 2012), and Evil, Progress, and Fall: Moral Readings
xi
Contributors xi
of Time and Cultural Development in Roman Literature and Philosophy
(Special Issue of Epekeina, 2014).
Amanda Wilcox is Professor of Classics at Williams College. Her scholarly
interests include Roman philosophical prose, epistolography, gender, and
exemplary discourse, particularly within the works of Cicero and Seneca.
Her book, The Gift of Correspondence in Classical Rome: Friendship in
Cicero’s Ad Familiares and Seneca’s Moral Epistles, appeared from the
University of Wisconsin Press in 2012.
Jula Wildberger is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at the
American University of Paris, France, where she teaches Latin, Greek
and ancient philosophy. Her current research concerns ancient Stoicism,
its sources, its ancient reception, and its impact on modern thought. Her
main publications include: Seneca und die Stoa. Der Platz des Menschen in
der Welt. 2 Vols. (Berlin and New York 2006); Seneca, De ira/Über die Wut.
Lateinisch/Deutsch (Stuttgart 2007); and she has co-edited with M. L.
Colish, Seneca Philosophus (Berlin; New York, 2014). Her more recent
book, The Stoics and the State, appeared from Nomos publishers in 2018.
xii
Preface and acknowledgements
The nine chapters that put together the present collection are thoroughly revised
versions of papers originally delivered at the conference ‘Intertextuality in
Seneca’s Philosophical Writings’ held at the Swedish Archaeological Institute
at Athens (SIA) on 5 and 6 May 2017. The conference was organized by the
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Classics,
home institution of the three co-editors of the volume and it was supported
by the Swedish Institute at Athens. Professor Jenny Wallensten, the director
of the SIA and a superb host, generously offered the space and the facilities
for two days of intense and fruitful discussion. To her and to the staff of the
Swedish Institute the volume editors would like to express their deep appre-
ciation and gratitude.
We are grateful to Routledge for offering an excellent home for this
volume which aspires to offer incisive new perspectives on the diverse ways in
which Seneca’s philosophical writings interact with the earlier literary trad-
ition. Thanks are also due to the anonymous referees for the publisher, who
have made several very helpful suggestions on the individual chapters of the
volume, and to Ella Halstead, assistant editor for Classics at Routledge, for
her support and prompt assistance throughout the publication process.
A certain level of formatting standardization has been imposed to ensure
consistency across the volume, but individual stylistic distinctiveness has been
respected. As editors and fellow students of Seneca, we have been blessed
to join forces with a group of insightful critics who deeply respect Seneca’s
philosophical output, and we are grateful to all contributors for their superb
cooperation and patience.
Athens, October 2019
M. Garani
A. N. Michalopoulos
S. Papaioannou
xiii
newgenprepdf
Abbreviations
DK H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.) Die Fragmente

der Vorsokratiker. Sixth edition. 3 vols.
Berlin: Weidmann, 1951–2.
Edelstein and Kidd L. Edelstein and I. G. Kidd: Posidonius,
vol. I: The Fragments. Revised edition.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
FHS&G W. W. Fortenbaugh, P. M. Huby, R. W. Sharples,
and D. Gutas (eds.) Theophrastus of Eresus.
Leiden: Brill, 1992.
FGrHist F. Jacoby (ed.) Die Fragmente der griechischen
Historiker. In five parts. Berlin: Weidmann,
1926–30; Leiden: Brill, 1954–8.
Giannini A. Giannini, Paradoxographorum Graecorum
Reliquiae. Recognovit, brevibus adnotationibus
criticis instruxit, latine reddidit. Milan: Instituto
Editoriale Italiano, 1965.
Gow-Page, HE A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page (eds.) The Greek
Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams. 2 vols.
Cambridge: University Press, 1965.
Hense O. Hense (ed.) Ioannis Stobaei Anthologii libri duo
posteriores, 3 vols. Berlin: Weidmann, 1894–1912;
reprinted 1958.
Pfeiffer R. Pfeiffer (ed.) Callimachus, vol. i: Fragmenta.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949.
SVF H. von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta.
4 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1903–24.
Wachsmuth C. Wachsmuth (ed.) Ioannis Stobaei Anthologii
libri duo priores, qui inscribi solent Eclogae
physicae et ethicae, 2 vols. Berlin: Weidmann,
1884; reprinted 1958.
Abbreviations for journal titles generally follow the system used in L’Année
Philologique; lists of standard abbreviations for classical authors and works
can be found in LSJ and the OLD.
1
Introduction
Intertextuality in the philosopher Seneca
Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos and
Sophia Papaioannou
Seneca’s poetic work is profoundly defined by ongoing and multilayered

engagement with multiple intertexts, Roman and Greek alike, as this has been
amply illustrated in recent decades by several important studies.1 Seneca’s
philosophical work, on the contrary, to this day has attracted little attention
in terms of its literary merit, and specifically regarding its dialogue with non-
philosophical literature, including poetry. The aspiring student of the philoso-
pher Seneca’s intertextual engagement with earlier tradition is handicapped
by the relative lack of substantial secondary literature. This is surprising given
that throughout the Senecan corpus we come across over 200 direct quotations
from earlier Latin authors, three quarters of them from Vergil and Ovid.
Earlier studies on Senecan intertextuality, while important for illustrating
Seneca’s literary consciousness, are out of date, for they limit their methodo-
logical perspective and range of scope (Setaioli 1965, Mazzoli 1970, Motto
and Clark 1993a). Only a handful of approaches, all of them publications
of the last decade, tackle Seneca’s relationship to earlier literature, specif-
ically poetry.2 In his 2014 book on Senecan Tragedy and the Reception of
Augustan Poetry, Christopher Trinacty explores Seneca’s relationship with
his literary predecessors, in particular the strong influence of the Augustan
poets (Vergil, Horace and Ovid) upon Senecan tragedy. Αs regards Seneca’s
own literary theory, Trinacty underscores the pivotal importance of Epistle
79, that demonstrates ‘the sophistication and the intricacy of Seneca’s inter-
textual technique’ which advises writers to put ‘a new face’ on the words they
inherit (Ep. 79.6). More to the point, Trinacty juxtaposes quotations from the
Augustan poets in Seneca’s prose works with references to the same passages
in his tragedies. A significant case-study of his approach is Seneca’s treatment
of a quotation from Vergil’s first Eclogue (1.6–7), in which the poet-shepherd
Tityrus praises the godlike man who has given him otium. These verses are to
be found recontextualized in three different instances: in Seneca’s Epistle 73
1 Trinacty 2014 with further bibliography.

2 See Papaioannou in the present volume (n. 1 for further bibliography). For Seneca’s reception
of Lucretius in Naturales quaestiones, see Tutrone 2017. For Horace and Seneca’s Epistles, see
also Rimell 2015, 82–147 about the Horatian angulus and its reception in Seneca’s prose.
2
2 Myrto Garani et al.
referring to Nero as another divine Octavian/Augustus; in the De beneficiis
(4.6.4–5), where the god granting philosophical leisure is not Octavian but
the Stoic principle of Nature; and finally in Thyestes (560–6), which refers
to civil war while questioning the nature of peace as a result and the role of
the ‘gods’ who grant it. Trinacty pointedly concludes with the assertion that
‘Seneca very rarely allows a quote to stand unchallenged or uninterrupted by
his philosophical musings. Often one observes an “interpenetration” between
the texts as Seneca strives to develop the quotes within his ethical framework
and finds ways to show his personal understanding of the quoted material’.3
The philosopher Seneca’s forms of intertextuality, even though no less
diverse and sophisticated in their implementation, have received little
attention by comparison. A leading reason for this omission should be
sought in the difficulty of patterning the wide range of forms by which
Seneca employs the literary and philosophical tradition, as direct quotations
are combined with more or less easily detectable allusions. Further, these
intertexts are assessed as operating in isolation; as a result, Seneca’s prose
treatises are considered pastiches of multitextual dialogues that advance
individual points which may or may not interact organically with the leading
theme in the text.
The preparation of the present volume was under way when a valuable
collection of papers entitled Horace and Seneca. Interactions, Intertexts,
Interpretation, edited by M. Stöckinger, K. Winter and A. Zanker (2017)
came out.4 As its title bespeaks, this important work is concerned primarily
with the complex relationship between Horace and Seneca, but the indi-
vidual approaches offer important insight for appreciating more broadly the
interactions between the early Augustan and Neronian periods. Despite the
fact that there are only four direct quotations from Horace in Seneca’s corpus,
the individual contributions thoughtfully redefine intertextual engagement
more broadly, and they successfully identify several complex ways of inter-
action between the imperial philosopher and his lyric predecessor. Also,
Seneca’s interaction with Horace is explored across his entire oeuvre, tra-
gedies and philosophical essays alike.
The present volume builds on these studies, but focusing, as it does, exclu-
sively on Seneca’s prose works, it aims to offer a series of interpretative
readings at once groundbreaking and stimulating further study. The indi-
vidual discussions identify multi-faceted examples of Senecan intertextuality
across the philosopher’s corpus: his dialogues (i.e., De providentia [Wilcox],
De ira [Wilcox, Smith]), De constantia sapientis (Smith), Consolatio ad
Marciam (Tutrone), De clementia (Wilcox), the late natural treatise Naturales
quaestiones (Garani), while considerable and sustained attention is paid to
the Epistles (Papaioannou, Michalopoulos, Berno, Gazzarri, Wildberger).
3 Trinacty 2014, 60.
4 See also Mazzoli 1998.
3
Introduction 3
The contributors address the impact that Seneca’s readings, principally Latin
but also Greek, had on the formation of his ideas and the composition of his
philosophical treatises.
As is illustrated in the volume throughout, Seneca systematically
appropriates earlier literary tradition in order to elucidate his philosophical
ideas and shed light on moral issues. More precisely, different forms of inter-
textual engagement are used in order to discuss in the desired depth specific
issues which are pivotal in Stoic philosophy, such as the fear of death (Berno),
the formation of identity within the context of the social and political changes
taking place during Seneca’s time (Wilcox, Wildberger), his political stance
towards Nero (Gazzari, Wilcox), the therapeutic force of Stoic philosophy
(Wilcox, Tutrone). Furthermore, several contributions are concerned with the
ways in which Seneca puts forward his position on poetics and introduces
himself as a poet, even within his prose. Not least, several contributions
explore how Seneca resorts to poetic citation and allusion, in order to define
his stance towards the previous philosophical tradition, be it Stoic (Posidonius
in Gazzarri, Aristo of Chios in Berno, Doxography B in Wildberger) or
Epicurean (Lucretius in Tutrone).
A characteristic sample of the complex intertextual interweaving noted
above is observed in the composition of Epistle 108. In this letter, Seneca
condenses more than 15 readily detectable intertextual allusions and direct
quotations, of an impressively wide generic provenance. As Gunderson
remarks, ‘the complex microcosm of the letter itself evokes another com-
plexity: the macrocosm of the corpus of Letters’,5 yet with the exception of a
handful of brief and fragmentary discussions Ep. 108 is virtually ignored by
contemporary criticism.6 This surprisingly understudied piece of crosstextually
studded philosophical prose furnishes the ideal case-study through which to
illustrate the methodological tools for the study of intertextuality in Seneca’s
philosophical work, that are employed by the contributions in this volume.
Turning to the letter itself, Lucilius is burning with the desire to learn
(cupiditas discendi, Ep. 108.1). His precise concern, whether the wise man
would benefit another wise man, we only learn in the next letter, Ep. 109,
which strongly suggests that philosophical doctrine is not the leading, or at
least, the only preoccupation for Seneca in Ep. 108. Actually, a careful struc-
tural analysis suggests that the letter is clustered around various intertextual
groups.
The first cluster revolves around an allusion to the oral teachings of the
philosopher Attalus, which serve an originary function given that it aroused
5 Gunderson 2015, 16.
6 For more on this letter and Seneca’s never to be published Books of Moral Philosophy, see
Wildberger (this volume). For a commentary of this notably understudied letter, see von
Albrect 2004, 68–98. See also Trinacty 2014, 29–32; Gunderson 2015, 16–36. Additional dis-
cussion on citations in Seneca’s prose is now to be found in Tischer 2017; cf. also (the much
earlier study of) Mazzoli 1970.
4
Seneca’s early passion for knowledge (Ep. 108.3, 13). Notably, in the case at
hand, the reader does not read a verbatim report of Attalus’ words; rather
he is tempted to review (and, in the modern reader’s, case, to ‘resurrect’)
Attalus’ actual teaching from Seneca’s recollection and re- composition
of Attalus’ views on the interconnected roles of the teacher and the stu-
dent. Attalus’ instruction of the young Seneca imprinted the latter’s soul
with philosophical eagerness on how to integrate moral knowledge into
his behavior.7 The same paradigm he now wishes to set for Lucilius, thus
aspiring to become an Attalus to Lucilius’ Seneca.
Seneca next quotes two lines from Publilius Syrus, the celebrated poet
of the Roman mime, fr. 236 Ribbeck and fr. 234 Ribbeck.8 He will return
to Publilius a little later (Ep. 108.11) and report two more quotations (Pall.
Incert. Fab. 65 and 66 Ribbeck). All four involve moral maxims that target
the same binary of wicked and damnable concupiscence vs. praiseworthy
poverty.
Seneca claims that the theater may help offer valuable moral instruction
through maxims (or sententiae). He suggests that the effect the words of a good
teacher have on the soul of his pupils is analogous to the effect of Publilius’
verses on the audience (provided that they are delivered by a good orator
and are pronounced in the proper intonation of voice [Ep. 108.7]).9 Publilius’
sententiae became very popular among the rhetoricians of the Augustan
age onwards, as is attested by Seneca the Elder (Controversiae 7.3.8).10 The
Younger Seneca’s preference for Publilius in particular is attested in the
wide employment of Publilian sententiae in his writings11 and by Seneca’s
profuse praise for Publilius, so much so that a popular medieval collection
of Publilius’ sententiae was entitled ‘Proverbia Senecae’ and attributed to
Seneca by the medieval codices which transmitted it.12 The recourse to the
moral maxims from Publilius, finally, coincides with the prominence of the
mime (and pantomime), consistently a very popular genre in Rome and an
important component of imperial performance culture. Recent studies have
convincingly demonstrated the influence of sub-performance on Seneca’s tra-
gedies,13 and have repeatedly emphasized the performance structure of his
7 For Seneca’s education, see Braund 2015, especially 25.

8 For Publilius Syrus, see de Lachapelle 2011. Especially for Seneca and Publilius Syrus, see
Mazzoli 1970, 203–5; Giancotti 1967, 291–303.
9 Cf. Cic. De or. 1.5.18.
10 Giancotti 1967, 282–4.
11 Seneca quotes Publilius twice more in the Epistles: in Ep. 8.8, he stresses Publilius’ appropri-
ateness for all types of stage performances (‘What a quantity of sagacious verses he buried in
the mime! How many of Publilius’ lines are worthy of being spoken by buskin-clad actors, as
well as by wearers of the slipper!’), and also in Ep. 94. For the presence of Publilius Syrus in
Senecan tragedy, see Dinter 2014.
12 Giancotti 1967, 335–6.
13 Zanobi 2014; and earlier Zimmermann 1990.
5
Introduction 5
philosophical diatribes,14 while Stoic philosophy, including Seneca himself,
strongly emphasized the importance of the proper use of appearances for the
proper communication of instruction (Epict. Diss. 1.1.7; Sen. Ep. 120.9). In
this respect, Publilius’ sayings enforce the methodological unity of Seneca’s
work overall.
The close connection between poetry and philosophical advice implied in
the employment of the maxims from mime is made clear through the cit-
ation of the Stoic Cleanthes, that affirms precisely the moralizing potential
of poetry, as well as its power to exercise influential instruction by employing
rhythm to render thoughts and concepts more accurately15: Seneca’s descrip-
tion of Cleanthes’ powerful verse is described at 108.10 by the Stoic meta-
phor of the trumpet which renders the sound clearer when it makes the wind
pass through a more narrow channel and then let it go out through a wider
opening (SVF I.487); to this description Seneca appends his own image of the
javelin cast on verse.16
The quotation from Cleanthes appropriately leads to recollection of Sotion
of Alexandria, and though him Pythagoras and Sextius (Ep. 108.17–22)—
three thinkers who exercised an important influence on Seneca’s teachings.
Sotion was Seneca’s teacher: while still a boy (‘puer’, Ep. 49.2), Seneca report-
edly attended his lectures on Pythagorean vegetarianism, the immortality of
the soul and the theory of transmigration. Seneca puts forward a long quota-
tion from Sotion, which ends with a sententia (Ep. 108.20). Sotion was one of
the disciples of Q. Sextius who taught a hybrid version of Neo-Pythagorian
Stoicism at the time of Julius Caesar (Ep. 98.13) and Augustus. Seneca had
studied his writings and was attracted by Sextus’ ability to teach how one may
see the greatness of the happy life without despairing about how to reach it
(Ep. 64.2–3). Seneca’s brief embrace of vegetarianism (Ep. 108.22) may have
been motivated by Sextius’ teachings, Sextius being a lifelong practicing vege-
tarian (Ep. 108.17–18).17 Seneca records his past reaction to Sotion’s saying, as
he forms the latter part of the wider intertextual web, and smoothly embraces
Attalus, his third important teacher (Ep. 108.23).
Vergil, the philosopher Seneca’s favorite literary source for quotations,
dominates the last third of the Epistle, as phrases from the Georgics and
14 Cf. Star’s (2012, 117–39) analysis of the performance elements in the De clementia; also
Nussbaum 1993.
15 Seneca himself had translated Cleanthes’ verse ‘Hymn to Zeus’, which instructs on the Stoic
theory of fate, and addressed Cleanthes’ views in Ep. 107, by noting the version of Cleanthes’
Stoic hymn: ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt (Ep. 107.11). On Epistle 107, Seneca’s
version of the Cleanthes hymn and Cleanthes himself, see Wildberger 2006a, 294–300; Meijer
2007 and Fischer 2008, 202–4. Elsewhere in the Epistles (Ep. 8.8), Seneca states that the poets
have said many things such as those attributed (or could be attributed) to philosophers.
16 Gunderson 2015, 22–3.
17 In Ep. 59.7–8 Seneca refers again to Sextius, and specifically to Sextius’ simile of an army
advancing in square formation to describe the action of the wise man always on guard against
his abstract enemies—torments in his daily existence: poverty, grief, disgrace, pain.
6
the Aeneid are cited in 108.24, 25, 27, 29, 34. Seneca comments on the
contrasting modes of reading Vergil: he approaches a Vergilian passage
from a variety of perspectives, including those of the grammarian and the
philologist, but also of the philosopher who finds in Vergil’s text the lit-
erary means through which to comprehend and prescribe in writing the
supreme Good, virtue. Though philosophical at the core, Seneca’s reading
of Vergil is informed by the complexity that distinguishes Vergilian inter-
textuality in Seneca’s tragedy.18 Seneca’s first Vergilian quotation comes
from the Georgics and concerns the flight of time (Ep. 108.24; cf. Georg.
3.284): Fugit inreparabile tempus, ‘time flees and may not be recovered’. This
half line comes from a transitional moment in Vergil’s poem. Vergil employs
this phrase in a broader, two-line introduction that serves as a subsidiary
preface to the second half of the book.19 Seneca suppresses much of the
original couplet, and then reformulates Vergil’s saying in the following lines
by recontextualizing it (Ep. 108.28: Quod fugit, occupandum est, ‘We must
catch that which flees’).
The significance of the flight of time is enforced by the evocation of a
second Vergilian passage only a few sentences later,20 and the passage recorded
comes from the opening of the Third Georgic (Georg. 3.66–8), an excerpt that
helps contextualize the earlier citation into a new understanding of the con-
cept of the fleeting time (Ep. 108.24; cf. 108.26; 108.29):
Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi

Prima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectus
Et labor, et durae rapit inclementia mortis.
The best days of our lives are the first to flee for the wretched mortals.
Diseases and sad old age and toil come upon us, and until the merciless
cruelty of death snatches us away.
In this excerpt the philosopher elaborates on the fleetingness of time and

deplores the passing of the happy yet brief space of human existence prior to
the longer and much more arduous old age which Seneca associates with duress
and impending death.21 This second Vergilian quotation seems to come to
Seneca naturally from the first; both are famous maxims on the fleeting nature
of time—the unmistakable link is the verb fugit. Linguistic is the link to the next
Vergilian quotation, this time from the Aeneid (6.275), which shares with the
previous Vergilian intertext not just one word but a full half verse: Pallentesque
18 For more on the philosopher Seneca reading Vergil, see Papaioannou (in this volume); on the
dramatist Seneca reading Vergil, see foremost Trinacty 2014.
19 Gunderson 2015, 167 n. 53.
20 Edwards 2004; Armisen-Marchetti 1995.
21 Stöckinger, Winter and Zanker 2017, 7–10. Seneca quotes again these Vergilian verses in his
Brevit. Vit. [10].9.2 (clamat ecce maximus vates et velut instinctus salutare carmen canit…),
while he admonishes his addressee to seize the present. See Williams 2003, 171–2.
7
Introduction 7
habitant morbi tristisque senectus (‘pale diseases and sad old age inhabit [sc. this
place]’). The latter passage comes from the description of the Underworld in
the Aeneid. In this Vergilian intertextual chain, the arrangement of quotations
forges a sequence that leads progressively from life to death with the world of the
dead as the inevitable common destination. For Seneca, the passage of time is
the unvanquished enemy; one may only align one’s activity to this course so that
one’s passage through this life may not be swept away without a trace. Vergil’s
understanding of the original phrase of the Georgics, however, is different—it
does not advance existential polemics but rather is used in order to mark a
new beginning, to issue a call to action. Actually, Seneca’s construction of the
Vergilian sequence is a sample of clever decontextualization of the Vergilian
text.22 Building the sequence on fugit (this is the word that links the second
Vergilian passage to the first) obfuscates the possibility for a second intertextual
sequence based on inreparabile tempus. Though the two expressions address the
flight of time, the latter cluster evokes Aen. 10.467–8, stat sua cuique dies, breve
et inreparabile tempus | omnibus est vitae (‘to each there is a set day, for all a
short span of life without recovery’). The phrase comes from Jupiter’s response
to Hercules’ tears for Pallas’ impending death which shows the former’s com-
passion and underscores the grim fate of mortals. But having acknowledged
this, Jupiter proceeds to add that humans can actually stop time and decay,
and acquire immortality by accomplishing great deeds (10.468–9): sed famam
extendere factis, | hoc virtutis opus ‘but to extend fame by great deeds, this is the
task of valor’. The flight of time has been balanced by the power of fama to
conquer death and secure immortality.
Seneca’s multi-perspectival appreciation of intertextuality moves onto a
more advanced level with the next intertext: in Ep. 108.30–2, the philosopher
refers to a passage from Cicero’s Republic (plausibly from Rep. 2.18, judging
from context), which allegedly is so well-known that he considers unnecessary
to record the exact citation and its place in Cicero’s work. Then, he describes
how three different scholars, a philologist, a grammarian and a philosopher,
may quote this passage in their work for quite different reasons, and offer three
different recontextualizations (the philologist would appreciate the passages
for the information it provides on the early kings of Rome and the technical
details of the early constitution;23 the grammarian would assess Cicero’s use
of reapse for re ipsa and sepse for se ipse; the philosopher will evaluate the
views against justice) that would invite three different interpretations.
22 From a different perspective Vogt-Spira 2017 reads Seneca’s approach of the topic of time
in the context of a diverse and widespread discourse, and in direct engagement with Horace,
even though Seneca almost deliberately avoids quoting Horace in favor of other authors.
23 The reference to Fenestella, a historian of the age of Augustus and Tiberius, who wrote
a lengthy (at least 22 books) chronicle (entitled Annales) of Roman history through the
Late Republic, noted for its tremendous antiquarian detail, which does not survive today,
comprises another intertextual reference; on Fenestella and the surviving fragments from his
work, see now Cornell, Bispham, Rich and Smith 2013, 489–96.
8
Cicero’s exemplary treatment of decontextualization continues and takes
a different form in the next Senecan intertext, an excerpt from Ennius’
funerary poem for Scipio Africanus (Sen. Ep. 108.32–3 = Cic. Rep., fr. 4
Keyes = Enn. Varia 19–20, p. 215 Vahlen2 = Enn. fr. 43 Courtney = Enn.
Epigram 5–6 Warmington; cf. Cic. Leg. 2.57 in which Ennius’ epigram is
partly quoted):24
Deinde transit ad ea, quae consuetudo saeculi mutavit, tamquam ait

Cicero: ‘quoniam sumus ab ipsa calce eius interpellatione revocati.’ Hanc
quam nunc in circo cretam vocamus, calcem antiqui dicebant. Deinde
Ennianos colligit versus et in primis illos de Africano scriptos:
cui nemo civis neque hostis
quibit pro factis reddere opis pretium.
Then he turns his attention to changes in current usage. Cicero, for
example, says: ‘Inasmuch as we are summoned back from the very calx
by his interruption’. Now the line in the circus which we call the creta was
called the calx by men of old time. Again, he puts together some verses
by Ennius, especially those which referred to Africanus:
A man to whom neither a friend nor a foe could ever
Repay for all his efforts and deeds.
(Trans. Gummere 1925, with adaptations)
From this passage the scholar declares that he infers the word opem to have
meant formerly not merely assistance, but efforts. For Ennius must mean that
neither friend nor foe could pay Scipio a reward worthy of his efforts. Seneca,
once again, comments on a passage that elicits more than one reading. The
text, which, as noted, comes from Scipio’s funerary epigram25 employs the rec-
ollection of an exemplum pietatis26 to comment on the ambivalence of praise
vocabulary,27 but also on the appropriation politics of intertexts that originate
in different generic backgrounds.28 The epigram builds on the semantic ambi-
guity of the terms hostis, pretium and opes, and in subtle irony at once praises
24 Morelli 2007, 527–9; for Seneca and Cicero, see Keeline 2018, 196–222 [especially 204–6].
25 According to Morelli 2007, 528, the epigram was actually inscribed on Scipio’s tomb at
Liternum.
26 For Seneca and Scipio, see now Ep. 86; Henderson 2004, 102; Rimell 2013; Edwards 2019,
234–54.
27 According to Henderson (2004, 102), Seneca quotes from Ennius in order to mock the ped-
antry of grammarians; notably, these quotations are all taken from those recontextualized
once already in Cicero, and this suggests that Seneca once again is concerned with the politics
of reappropriation.
28 Morelli 2007, 527: ‘Greek epigram from its beginnings played with similar ideas: the deceased
was “appreciated by citizens and foreigners”; even enemies, by their defeat, testify to the
deceased’s value. There are also traditional motifs that Roman elogium associated with the
deceased’s excellence among his fellow citizens. Ennius re-elaborates, modifies and adapts for
Scipio such ancient topoi, even by inversion’.
9
Introduction 9
and commiserates for Scipio who may not have been rewarded for his services
to the fatherland, both because there was no reward high enough for him and
because he was not alive and in Rome to be concerned with it (he was exiled
by the Romans, who evidently rewarded him for his services by declaring him
an enemy of the very fatherland he saved).29 The political and moral meaning
of the quotation, however, is nicely concealed under an alleged preoccupation
with linguistics. For Seneca, who was not particularly fond of Ennius’ archaic
language,30 stylistics becomes the means to communicate, tongue-in-cheek, a
critique of politics all the while he seems to be elaborating on his embrace of
Pythagorianism, the main subject of his diatribe in the immediately preceding
paragraphs (Ep. 108.17–21).31
The Epistle fittingly concludes with a quotation that sits at the end of a
chain of intertexts—a signature closure to a letter representative of Seneca’
mastery of decontextualization. Vergil’s words are once again evoked,
Georg. 2.260–1, quem super ingens |porta tonat caeli (‘above whom the
great gate of heaven thunders’), but this time as means to reach back to
Ennius through Cicero.32 This true intertextual stemma actually goes back
even further, to Homer (Il. 5.749), Ennius’ original source of inspiration
(Ep. 108.34 = Cic. Rep. fr. 3 Keyes = Enn. Varia 23–4, p. 216 Vahlen2 = fr.
44.3–4 Courtney = Enn. Epigram 3–4 Warmington; cf. Lactant. Div. inst.
1.18.11):
Esse enim apud Ciceronem in his ipsis de Re Publica hoc epigramma Enni:

Si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est,
Mi soli caeli maxima porta patet.
For there is a couplet by Ennius, preserved in this same book of Cicero’s,
On the State:
If it is right for anyone to ascend the regions of the gods,
For me alone the great gate of heaven stands open.
Given the fact that the subject of Cicero’s Rep. 6.29 is the survival of the
soul after death, it turns out that Seneca’s choice of quotation is conditioned
by his Pythagorean interests in the previous paragraphs (Ep. 108.17–21).
29 Morelli 2007, 528: ‘in archaic literary Latin both pretium and ops are voces mediae which
may also have negative connotations. For the hostis, then, what is meant is that none was
able to “make Scipio pay the penalty” of his war exploits, hinting perhaps at Rome’s foe par
excellence in this period, Hannibal. But what does it mean that no citizen could “adequately
reward” Scipio? Ennius is probably critiquing Scipio’s ungrateful fatherland’.
30 For Seneca’s dislike of Ennius and his contempt for his old-fashioned language, see Sen. Ep.
58.5. Cf. also De ira [5]‌.3.37.5; Mazzoli 1970, 189–94.
31 Interestingly, Seneca’s nuanced reading of Ennius is combined with a very conservative
reading of Cicero: motivated by linguistic interests, the grammarian Seneca comments on
Cicero’s precious archaism (calx), by quoting a passage from the Republic otherwise lost.
32 For Ennius’ epigram, see Morelli 2007, 526–9.
10

According to Courtney, however, Ennius’ intertext is an epigram by Alcaeus
of Messene in praise of Philip V of Macedonia (AP 9.518 = Gow-Page, HE
14–17).33 By alluding to this epigram, Seneca continues thinking of the pious
Scipio and enhances his eulogy by assigning to the Roman hero a place among
the gods after death through his comparison to Philip who enters the gates of
heaven as a conqueror.34 Seneca’s choice of Ennius’ epigram enables him to go
back to Stoic doctrine and close the letter with an allusion to the sublimity of
the Stoic sage.35 Once again, he seems to be preoccupied with a grammarian’s
explanation, but in essence he induces his addressee to imitate his own incred-
ibly rich mining of intertexts behind Vergil’s verse, to discover the wisdom
hidden behind and beyond the sterile meaning of words.
As noted at the beginning, the volume consists of nine chapters arranged

in two parts. Part 1 opens with a chapter by Amanda Wilcox (‘Seneca on
Augustus and Roman fatherhood’), which explores a less overt form of inter-
textual positioning, that of exemplary intertextuality, which, as she claims,
is far less identifiable or isolable, in its sources or its effects, than quotation
or allusion. Wilcox underlines that ‘the intertextuality of exemplary dis-
course invokes its intertextual tradition as a collectivity’. While Seneca grants
exempla with rhetorical persuasiveness and philosophically therapeutic force,
he omits the names of his sources possibly for strategic purposes. Wilcox
identifies particular passages in which Seneca depicts exempla of paternal
behavior. By means of these exempla, Seneca induces his readers into deliber-
ation about the ideal paternal behavior in actual and symbolic terms and even-
tually assists them in conquering virtue. Wilcox places the focus at greatest
length on two exemplary episodes, both about intended parricide, from book
1 of Seneca’s De clementia (1.9.1–12, 1.15.1–16.3). In both episodes the pro-
tagonist is Augustus, himself father, adoptive father, stepfather and pater pat-
riae. Drawing our attention to the fact that the treatise is addressed to Nero,
Wilcox discusses the way in which ordinary fatherhood intersects with the
symbolic fatherhood that Augustus exercised over his subjects.
Originally, Seneca narrates an attempt on the life of the emperor. Augustus
figures as a positive exemplar, depicted as the mild father who ‘displayed
his own forbearance and wisdom by choosing to sting his son onto a better
path through words, rather than with harshly punitive action’ (p. 35). In the
second example, Seneca describes an exemplary parent’s response to his son’s
intended parricide, a reaction which is considered an analogue of the ruler’s
clementia. Seneca suggests that the judgment of the good prince supersedes
that of the good father. At the same time, he demonstrates how a ruler should
33 Courtney 1993, 41.
34 Morelli 2007, 527.
35 Cf. Sen. NQ 3 praef. and Garani (in this volume). Seneca here may toy with the deifying
quality of Stoic sublimity, challenging traditional aristocratic views that did not accept post-
mortem apotheosis; cf. Morelli 2007, 529.
11
Introduction 11
act as a father to his subjects, while honoring their own traditional authority
as fathers.
Wilcox then discusses a passage from the second book of Seneca’s De ira,
which touches upon the issue of the abuse of the paternal role, with reference
to Caligula. She closes her chapter with a section comparing the political and
ethical ramifications of father Augustus as represented in Seneca’s exemplary
discourse to Seneca’s metaphorical representation of god as a father to humans
in the De providentia: while Seneca defines the position of the pater patriae in
relation to that of the pater familias and discusses the paternal aspect of the
divine, he recommends paternal leniency and questions autocracy as benevo-
lent paternalism. As Wilcox suggests, Seneca’s recasting of the social practice
of adoption as a therapeutic metaphor available equally to all offers some
alleviation for the tight bonds of actual and symbolic kinship Roman culture
imposed on both sons and subjects.
Next, Scott Smith (‘Myth, Poetry and Homer in Seneca Philosophus’)
explores the way in which Seneca embraces traditional stories and heroic
figures from the so-called Greek ‘mythical time’—both stories belonging
to the broader mythical tradition and those recorded in the Homeric epics.
According to Smith, the mythical world of gods and heroes represents for
Seneca a ‘super-text’ that can be cited, quoted, altered or manipulated.
Smith favors a holistic approach to Seneca’s engagement with the mythical
past, and identifies specific tensions between myth-as-intertext and poetry-
as-intertext. Seneca dissents from the ‘allegorizing’ approaches of his Stoic
predecessors, according to which the earliest humans had some pure notion
of the divine, which was corrupted due to the poets; hence the philosopher
does not accept allegoresis along with allegory through etymology as a valid
interpretative strategy. Further, Seneca rejects the majority of traditional
stories which belong to the ‘mythical time’, due to their inherent unbelievable
narrative elements, which are both alien to the Stoic natural world and distant
from modern world. Regarding the intrinsic implausibility of the narrative
components, it turns out that Seneca’s primary criterion is concerned with
whether these events are consonant with the laws of nature or not, no matter
when they have taken place. By underscoring the temporal chasm between the
gullible past and the enlightened present, Seneca appears to be an advocate
of the human progress in knowledge. Smith draws our attention to such an
example, in De constantia sapientis ([2.] 2.1–2), a case-study in which the ‘text’
of myth provides rhetorical material. Seneca refers to Cato, Hercules and
Ulysses and suggests that ‘the figures and events from the spatium mythicum,
even if rationalized or historicized, have little relevance to the philosophical
mission of the present’. On the other hand, Smith points to certain series
of rhetorical exempla, in which a figure or event drawn from the spatium
mythicum—secundum naturam—is grouped together with historical figures,
to be placed in the same temporal space of the ‘past’. Seneca may elsewhere
employ a mythical figure as an exaggerated rhetorical ‘type’, or in order to
illustrate a complicated philosophical principle.
12

In the remainder of his chapter, Smith shifts his focus upon Seneca’s atti-
tude towards Homer, whom he appears to consider a sensitive reporter of
the human condition. As he claims, Seneca’s citation or quotation from the
Homeric Ur-text often should be seen an act of authority rather than inter-
textual dialogue. Regarding in particular Homer’s Iliad, Seneca’s references
focus on the earliest books. Smith considers Seneca’s Homeric references as
proverbial without the Homeric text in hand and without a clear pattern of
use: some can be considered as ‘moral archetypes of human existence’, others
are chosen so as to comment on oratorical style or as exempla to support a
philosophical argument, still without bearing any deeper associations with
the Homeric text. Last but not least Smith discusses an exception to what he
has described so far as Seneca’s reception of Iliadic ‘myths’, by drawing our
attention to Seneca’s description of the emperor Caligula’s maltreatment of
Pastor at De ira [4.] 2.33, which is compared with the treatment that Priam
received at the hands of Achilles in Iliad 24. Homer’s Odyssey, on the other
hand, or at least the figure of Odysseus and his travels from books 9–12 along
with the information we read in post-Homeric sources, offers Seneca a con-
sistent and singular mytho-literary image from the Odyssean ‘super-text’ to
exploit.
The employment of doxographic literature at the service of Seneca’s eth-
ical philosophy inspires Jula Wildberger to claim in her ‘Seneca and the
Doxography of Ethics’, that the reception of ethical philosophy was a central
element in the project of redefining what it meant to be a member of the
Roman elite, in other words a senator seeking to achieve core values of his
class, such as manly excellence (virtus) and freedom (libertas), and a phil-
osopher, as well. Wildberger further argues that this process of redefinition
took place not in the usual socio-political arena but in the exclusive service
of philosophy, so as to challenge Seneca to engage with it late in his life,
so successfully as to create new authorial literary-philosophical personae as
role models to be advertized in the literary works of that period. To substan-
tiate this claim, Wildberger outlines how the writer of the Epistulae morales
develops as a practitioner of philosophy, by changing in the course of this
work his explicit attitude towards the technical or academic side of phil-
osophy, while showing an increasing interest in theoretical issues with dog-
matic centrality.
Wildberger observes that in the latter part of his epistolary corpus, the
Roman philosopher appears to consider the refining function of dialectic eth-
ical reasoning as beneficial, and offers summaries of ethical tenets in syllo-
gistic form, in order to make important distinctions. As a consequence, this
gives rise to two styles of philosophy,
on the one hand, subtle reduction and concentration and, on the other,
expansion through blunt, paraenetic pushing: not mutually exclusive but
two sides of the same medal. […] Progress is made in an ongoing dialectic
of disorderly accretion and subsequent weeding.
(p. 83)
13
Introduction 13
Wildberger singles out the pivotal importance of Ep.102, as the starting
point of Seneca’s engagement with moralibus rationalia immixta (Ep. 102.4),
marking the transition to a new stage of theoretical refinement and introdu-
cing a new theme, the ontology of the good. Further ontological questions are
discussed in the subsequent epistles (e.g., 106, 113, 117 [116, 121, 124]).
Wildberger points to thematic and structural parallels between the latter
part of the Epistulae morales and Stoic doxography of a particularly technical
nature, as we find in Doxography B excerpted in Stobaeus’ Anthologion (2.7)
and attributed to Arius Didymus. In this doxography remarkable attention is
paid to ontological issues. Wildberger indicates ten parallels regarding tenets
of a more technical nature. Without suggesting necessarily Seneca’s specific
allusion to Doxography B, she argues that these parallels serve to evoke inter-
textually a type of higher-level or academic philosophy curriculum that the
writer of the Epistles partly rejects and partly adopts, along with the kind of
expertise one would need to acquire in order to become a professional in the
field. In Wildberger’s words,
[t]‌he letters help build the persona of a well-educated expert who is dis-
dainful of such recondite fields of the curriculum but also in full control
of the subject matter, capable of seeing complex implications and free in
his judgment like his Stoic predecessors, even beyond the confines of his
school should his sense of what is correct and incorrect demand it.
(p. 100)
The parallels are associated no less with ‘a new project of a systematic,

comprehensive treatment of ethics in a more professional style than the compil-
ation of summaries and reading notes or the composition of moral reflections
in a personal style’ (p. 96).
In the opening section of her chapter, Wildberger points to the shared
general interest in ontological questions and the commonalities regarding the
information provided (such as the ontological distinction between bodies
and incorporeal predicate-effects in Ep. 117). She, then, underscores explicit
assertions that we read in both Seneca and Doxography B (e.g., in association
with the corporeality of the soul and the corresponding corporeality of the
good, they both claim that virtues, the primary goods are bodies and that
they are animals in Ep. 106 and 113; the account about how ‘sayables’ [λεκτά]
are involved in action impulses in Ep. 113, 117; the topic of friendship in Ep.
102; the discussion of mutual benefit exclusively between sages in Ep. 109; the
erotic and sympotic virtues of the Stoic sage in Ep. 123). Wildberger observes
also the correspondence between the sequence of arguments in Doxography B
and the sequence of questions spread out over different letters in the Epistulae
morales. Seneca also elucidates certain ambiguities that lurk in Doxography
B (such as the point about practical wisdom in Ep. 117). More to the point,
she focuses on the way in which Seneca introduces the ontological distinction
in Ep. 117.5, as if he wanted to evoke some such doxographical source, by
means of a short illustration reminiscent of the handbook lists with pairs of
14

verbal adjectives ending in -τος (for the corporeal goods, bads or indifferent)
and -τέος (for the corresponding incorporeal effects). In this connection, it is
highly remarkable that in his translation of the Greek theory, Seneca inverts
the connotation of the two Greek suffixes and then again he slightly distorts
what was intended in the original Greek account, so as to demonstrate his
familiarity with inside knowledge of his target text.
In the last part of her chapter, Wildberger proposes some suggestions about
the content and the structure of Seneca’s lost work, Libri moralis philosophiae,
which is mentioned in the same part of the corpus of the Epistles and which
contained quaestiones, i.e., debated issues in ethics. Her suggestions are based
on the conclusions drawn from what she has observed about Seneca’s recep-
tion of Stoic doxography of ethics. In accordance with this, she argues that
The questions tackled in the Libri moralis philosophiae had this antithetic
structure with the author cast in the role of a judge. [...] [T]he Libri moralis
philosophiae were not a systematic exposition in form of an extended
doxography developing tenets and definitions step by step within a con-
ceptual thematic structure.
(p. 101–2)
The first half of Part 2 consists of three chapters that examine Seneca’s dia-
logue with the leading Latin epics of Vergil and Ovid, and strive to illustrate
the diversity of Seneca’s philosophic embrace and the complexity and depth
of his appropriation methodology. Inspired by the realization that Vergil’s
works comprise the most popular source of intertextual quotations in Seneca’s
prose works, Sophia Papaioannou in ‘Reading Seneca Reading Vergil’ takes
on Vergil’s dominant presence in Seneca’s philosophical prose, evidenced in the
119 direct quotations from Vergil’s poetry and in numerous other less promptly
identified situations of Vergilian interetxuality. Vergil’s poetry is consistently
in Seneca’s mind, much more than any other work, poetic, philosophical, or
otherwise—the second more popular author to merit quotation is Ovid, with
28 quotes (Motto and Clark 1993a, 125)—and this dominance has led critics
generally to argue that the philosopher tends to quote Vergil as an authority
of sorts (usually in a philosophical context), and has found in Vergil ‘the
mastertext for the representation of the human soul and its passions’ (Staley
2013, 98), while Vergil’s Aeneas embodies the perfect wise man of the Stoics. In
light of the uncontested acknowledgment of the Vergilian influence on Seneca’s
prose writings, Papaioannou suggests that the philosopher Seneca’s interaction
with Vergil is distinguished also by poetics. The way poetics works in the
Epistles is best understood upon identifying a special type of dialogue between
Seneca and Vergil, which is marked by irony:36 according to Papaioannou,
Seneca’s echoes of Vergil in the Epistles often are ironic or even dissonant
in comparison, and, further, Seneca’s ironic reading of Vergil is systematic,
36 The notable presence of irony in the Dialogues has been promptly noted in Wilcox 2008,
464–75.
15
Introduction 15
expressed in diverse ways, and identifiable throughout the author’s philosoph-
ical output. To illustrate this diversity in Seneca’s implementation of irony in
his intertextual dialogue with Vergil, Papaioannou examines closely a number
of textual incorporations from the Aeneid (which furnishes the majority of the
Vergilian quotations) in the Epistles. The selection of the passages mindfully
comprises texts from different parts of the corpus (including the first reference
to the Aeneid in Ep. 12.9). Papaioannou’s study shows that, regardless of the
peculiar function of each quotation, on each and every intertextual engage-
ment the evocation of Vergil generates ironic contrast and discloses to the well-
read reader of Seneca several layers of meaning at work, whose interpretation
is too often determined by poetics.
In ‘Seneca Quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales’, Andreas Michalopoulos
focuses on Letters 33 and 110, which include quotations from Ovid, one of
Seneca’s favorite poets. In Letter 33 Seneca discusses the futility of learning
maxims and explains to Lucilius his reasons for not quoting any sayings of
Epicurus since Letter 29. He strengthens his argument with a quotation from
the story of Polyphemus and Galatea in book 13 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Michalopoulos argues that the Ovidian quotation in Letter 33 is not merely
a display of Seneca’s erudition and that Seneca sets a fascinating literary
challenge for his readers: he invites them to go back to the text from which
he draws the quotation and to discover possible associations and similarities.
Michalopoulos reveals the numerous points of contact between the two texts
and shows that Seneca’s Ovidian quotation creates a dense nexus of inter-
textual connections opening a window for multiple interpretations of his text.
Moreover, Seneca’s use of Polyphemus—a mythological creature alien to the
world of philosophy—in a serious discussion about philosophy testifies to his
witty and sophisticated humor.
Michalopoulos then discusses Seneca’s advice to Lucilius in Letter 110
that men should guard themselves against material desires and be at peace
with themselves in order to achieve happiness. Seneca cites line 595 from
the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, from the story of Jupiter and Io.
Michalopoulos explores the reason why Seneca evokes Io’s love affair with
Jupiter in a letter that has absolutely no erotic content whatsoever. He
points out that Seneca wishes to turn his readers’ attention to the intertext
right from the start and make them look there for the proper connections.
Michalopoulos then proceeds with a close, comparative reading of Ovid’s Io
story and Seneca’s Epistle 110 and brings to the fore numerous points of con-
tact between them.
Michalopoulos concludes that the Ovidian quotations in Seneca’s Letters
33 and 110 are important for the whole letters and not just for the sections of
the letters in which they are placed. Seneca requires Lucilius (and his external
readers) to read the source-texts carefully and pick up any possible under-
current links, similarities, and analogies. According to Michalopoulos, these
quotations function as bridges between Seneca’s and Ovid’s texts; the Ovidian
source-text plays the role of a parallel running commentary shedding light
16

on Seneca’s letters and enabling a fuller understanding of Seneca’s ideas and
arguments.
Francesca Romana Berno in ‘The Importance of Collecting Shells:
Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49’ focuses upon the short Epistle 49,
which pertains to the issues of memory, poetry and dialectic, and discusses
the function of the interconnected citations and allusions which are spread
throughout the Epistle. In the first part of her chapter Berno maps the rich
web of intertextual quotations and allusions whereupon Seneca builds his
main argument. The opening of the Epistle is particularly emotional, due
to the separation of dear friends, and thus seems to be charged with elegiac
connotations. Then comes a quotation possibly from Cicero’s Hortensius
(Sen. Ep. 49.5; Cic. fr. 12 Grilli), which responds to the latter’s polemic
against lyric poetry and the poetae novi and itself refers back to Plato’s
criticism of poetry in the Republic. By means of this quotation, while
Seneca associates lyric poetry and dialectic, he introduces the distinction
between useless philosophy, in this case dialectic with deals with paradoxes
and wordplays, and the useful one, which leads to true happiness. Seneca
also quotes from Vergil’s Aeneid (Sen. Ep. 49.7; Verg. Aen. 8.385–6) and
adopts epic phrasing, in order to exhort the reader to fight. Seneca deri-
sively depicts the figure of an idle dialectic philosopher, who, far from
approximating a Stoic sage, erroneously indulges in his linguistic dexterity.
Seneca adds a prose translation from Euripides’ Phoenissae (Ep. 49.12;
cf. Eur. Phoen. 469), in order to convey the contrast between simple and
honest speech vs. complex and false speech. Berno shows how within the
framework of one Epistle Seneca is able to create an intertextual play by
interweaving quotations from epic and tragic poetry as well as philosophical
prose, from both Greek and Latin literature.
Berno then draws attention to an image at the center of the Epistle (Sen.
Ep. 49.6), which depicts a marching soldier who collects little things as he
goes along and then hastily drops them when he finds himself unexpect-
edly under the assault of the enemy. For Berno, this image stands as the
main intertextual philosophical allusion of the Epistle, and leads to the
suggestion that, whereas little things, such as shells, which are considered
to be useless, ‘indifferents’ in Stoic terms, should be identified with dialectic
tools, the urging event that calls for our immediate attention cannot be other
that death. In connection with this image, she points to Seneca’s Epistle 115
in which the philosopher also discusses dialectic and explicitly bestows to
Aristo of Chios an image of children collecting shells (Ep. 115.8). Berno also
spots a parallel image in Epictetus (Ench. 7), where a man collecting shells
is forced to go back to his ship. As she claims, in Epistle 49 Seneca departs
from the orthodox Stoic position, which would appreciate paradoxes and
wordplays, and plausibly alludes to Aristo, whose stance was critical towards
dialectic and thus unorthodox in Stoic terms. Given, however, the fact that
Seneca resorts to rhetorical tools and quotations, which somehow contradicts
Aristo’s radical rejection of dialectic, Berno concludes that Seneca modifies
17
Introduction 17
his predecessor’s stance, so as to offer a more arresting exhortation against
the fear of death.
The three chapters in the second half of Part 2 focus on philosophical
intertextuality, defined either in terms of Seneca’s dialogue with philo-
sophical literature or with interaction with an assortment of literary texts
inside a decidedly philosophical context. Tommaso Gazzarri (‘Sub auro
servitus habitat: Seneca’s Moralizing of Architecture and the Anti-Neronian
Querelle’) focuses on the two contradictory accounts about the Golden Age
that Seneca expounds in his Epistle 90, and argues that, while Seneca resorts
to intertextual dialogue with both Posidonius and Vergil, he is ‘not only
conducting a philosophical discussion, but he is also pursuing a specific pol-
itical target’ (p. 167). As Gazzarri demonstrates, Seneca first defines his pos-
ition towards the Mid-Stoic tradition with particular reference to the image
of the Golden Age and human progress, and conveys pessimistic undertones
concerning the subsequent eras of human history; he then harshly criticizes
Nero’s lifestyle and regime, demythologizes the emperor’s ideal that a new
Golden Age can be associated with the imperial house and eventually
portrays him as a tyrant.
The end of the ‘Golden Age’ constitutes one of the main foci of Epistle
90. Seneca quotes a long excerpt from Posidonius to argue in favor of the
innocence and overall positive connotation of the prelapsarian age, yet pretty
quickly distances himself from the Greek master by expounding a negative
argument concerning the subsequent eras of human history. While Posidonius
considers these primal philosophical tenets the necessary prelude to the devel-
opment of modern artes, Seneca condemns their current status quo and sees
in them the degeneration of the once pure and uncorrupted world; for the
Roman philosopher, benefits brought about by artes should be considered in
philosophical terms as preferable ἀδιάφορα, that is, something not worth pur-
suing. From the artes, architecture provides one of the most pervasive meta-
phorical fields throughout the Epistle.37 Gazzarri traces how Seneca takes
a moralistic slant on architecture, which finds an illustrious antecedent in
Vitruvius, De arch. 2.1.3, and establishes a cogent equivalence between one’s
abode and one’s ethics. The unnecessary luxury of modern adobes clashes
with the simplicity of primitive dwellings, in the same way that modern vices
clash with the innocence and honesty of primitive men.
In particular, at Ep. 90.10, Seneca contrasts the simplicity of primitive
huts, like the casa Romuli, which he had praised in Helv. 9.2–3, with the
immoral sophistication of his time and concludes by saying that sub marmore
atque auro servitus habitat. Gazzarri takes into account the chronology of
the epistle as well as the extant literary evidence concerning the emperor’s
royal palace (Suetonius Ner. 31 and Tacitus Ann. 15.42) and shows that, in
his accurate description of the ceilings and the technical complexity of the
main tricliniar space, the so-called cenatio rotunda, Seneca clearly alludes to
37 Detailed discussion in Armisen-Marchetti 1989.

18

Nero’s architectural achievement, the Domus Aurea and targets its excesses.
Gazzarri further notes that if one traces further the semantic layers of the
adjective aureus, we find that both Vergil, in the sixth book of the Aeneid,
and Calpurnius Siculus in his first Eclogue associate the accessions of new
emperors (respectively Augustus, and, most likely, Nero) with the coming of
a new ‘Golden Age’. Gazzarri calls Seneca’s philosophizing through literature
‘Senecan ex silentio literary strategy’ and shows how it helps the philosopher
erase the link between Golden Age and monarchic power, while prioritizing
the cynic motif of the liberty provided by a simple lifestyle, has significant
political implications. Seneca seems to suggest that the only gold brought by
Nero is the one of his domus. By upending this canonical perspective with
his intertextual deployment of the tradition’s key term (aurus), Seneca clearly
sets himself apart from preceding and contemporary literary tradition and
conveys a far-from-idyllic representation of the political status quo in Rome.
By doing so, he conveys a far-from-idyllic, potentially subversive, image of
Rome’s status quo, in which Nero figures as a tyrant.
In ‘Seneca on the Mother Cow: Poetic Models and Natural Philosophy in
the Consolation to Marcia’, Fabio Tutrone discusses the interaction between
Seneca and Lucretius. Tutrone explores the function of certain thus far
underestimated intertextual allusions to Lucretius’ DRN, which he spots in
Seneca’s Consolatio ad Marciam. In this particular consolatory treatise the
philosopher aims at challenging Marcia’s prolonged, and thus unnatural,
grief for the loss of her son, Metilius, three years after his death, and eventu-
ally at rekindling ‘her interest in communal life, family reciprocity and con-
structive memory’ (p. 180). Taking Seneca’s familiarity with the Epicurean
tradition for granted, Tutrone discusses the appropriation in the Epistles of
Lucretius’ didactic techniques which are in effect also in Seneca with thera-
peutic purposes in a way similar to his Epicurean predecessor. At the same
time, the use of intertextuality in order to persuade the learned addressee, is
considered by itself a rhetorical gesture of didactic ‘coercion’.
Tutrone focuses on Seneca’s digression about the grief of non-human beings
(Marc. [6]. 7), and aims at unveiling the cognitive and physical basis of immod-
erate sorrow. He argues that, although for the Stoics moderate longing for the
dead is natural, being a pre-emotion, i.e., an involuntary ‘bite’ or ‘contrac-
tion’, men should react differently from animals, since they can, and certainly
should, resort to rational judgment when it comes to the interpretation of nat-
ural world, human life and the limits of the self. In other words, Seneca deals
with grief as a wrong rational response to external inputs.
Under the understanding that Stoics and Epicureans share in common
the philosophical idea of inner involuntary ‘bites’ or ‘contractions’ of the
soul, Seneca opts for initiating an intertextual dialogue with both Lucretius’
famous passage on the mother cow (DRN 2.352–66) and Ovid’s reception
thereof within the framework of Persephone’s rape (Fasti 4.417– 620), a
narrative already pregnant with vivid Lucretian connotations and focusing
on maternal grief. In doing so, Seneca uses the Lucretian mother cow-passage,
19
Introduction 19
which is commonly read as a ‘purple’ poetic one, as a means to convey his
Stoic philosophical message.
For Tutrone, both Ovid and Seneca underscore the themes of parental
love, death, grief and lamentation, which lurk in Lucretius’ scientific passage.
Ovid, however, downgrades Lucretius’ anti-religious connotations, which sub-
sequently are completely obscured in Seneca’s treatment. Despite this doc-
trinal differentiation, Seneca embraces Lucretius’ train of thoughts, in order
to show that Marcia’s grief is a cognitive error with behavioral consequences.
What is even more, while Seneca claims that ‘if something maintains variation,
evidently it is not based on nature’, he refutes the Epicurean ‘multiply infinite
and profoundly variegated world of atoms and void’ and counter-proposes his
Stoic doctrine ‘of a uniform, teleologically ordered cosmos’ (p. 181) which
comforts with ‘the indications of the immanent divine nature’ (p. 196).
The concluding chapter by Myrto Garani (‘Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia
aquarum (Nat. Quaest. 3.20–1, 25–6; Ovid Met. 15.270–336)’) revisits Seneca’s
engagement with the philosopher Ovid, and specifically with Ovid’s last and
more sophisticated self-projection in the Metamorphoses, Pythagoras. Garani
zooms in on Seneca’s quotations from Ovid’s Pythagorean list of natural
wonders, the first part of which is devoted to various mirabilia aquarum,
concerning mainly rivers and springs (Met. 15.270–336). As scholars have
already observed, Ovid draws most of his examples from Callimachus’
Collection of Wonders (Ἐκλογὴ τῶν παραδόξων), part of which is reproduced
by Antigonus’ of Carystus Collection of Wondrous Stories (Ἱστοριῶν
παραδόξων συναγωγή). In line with this, Garani explores the ways in which
Seneca responds to Pythagoras’ Callimachean (pseudo)scientific account and
the Callimachean tradition of paradoxography, by offering coherent scientific
explanations and thus rationalizing the paradoxographical examples.
In Garani’s discussion, Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with Ovid’s list of
mirabilia takes place in two stages; whereas in chapters 20 and 21 the engage-
ment with the Ovidian intertext is more intense, with three explicit quotations,
in c hapters 25 and 26 there is only one such quotation. Unlike Ovid, Seneca
does not place the emphasis upon each particular case, but considers them as
instances that demonstrate the general natural laws which regulate nature and
the workings of waters. Seneca challenges Ovid’s account, either by omitting
or by correcting specific examples, in case he regards them as fallacious, espe-
cially when these are explicitly associated with a mythical narrative. In this
demythologizing process, Seneca applauds the reception of gods into the
Ovidian universe, undoubtedly overlapping—at least in his view—with the
Stoic divine providence; at the same time, he adopts a critical stance towards
the Ovidian world of mythical transformation, which—as he suggests—is
erroneously imbued with wonder and fear. In doing so, he follows Lucretius’
corresponding approach towards the natural wonders. At the same time,
whilst he strives to make his account more palatable for his Roman audi-
ence, he produces tangible Italian examples. Seneca’s intertextual dialogue
with Ovid turns out to be a bidirectional process: once Seneca engages with
20

Ovid’s Callimachean list of paradoxa, he unexpectedly places himself within
the Roman tradition of Callimacheanism, with its implications of witty gen-
eric experimentation and subtle—often ironic—intertextual allusions, which
the informed reader should be on the alert to perceive, while reading the last
part of book 3.
21
Part 1
23
1
Seneca on Augustus and Roman
fatherhood
Amanda Wilcox
1 Introduction
Roman literature abounds in depictions of fathers and fatherly deport-
ment, and it is clear that in Roman culture and life, the central role played
by a man’s father and by the head of household, the pater familias, could be
richly supplemented by additional father figures. Near the beginning of his
speech in defense of Marcus Caelius Rufus, for instance, Cicero describes
how the adolescent Caelius was carefully transferred from his father’s house
to Cicero’s own home, and from there to the ‘most pure’ (castissima domo,
Cael. 9) house of Marcus Crassus, who along with Cicero guided his appren-
ticeship in public life. Cicero even encourages the jurors in the case to take a
fatherly attitude toward the defendant. He surveys their options for paternal
models by turning to comedy, first quoting several severe fathers drawn from
the plays of Caecilius Statius before recommending instead that they adopt
the attitude of Micio, the lenient father in Terence’s comedy Adelphoe: ‘He
has broken down the doors, they will be refitted; he has torn his clothing, it
will be mended’ (Fores ecfregit, restituentur; discit vestem, resarcietur Cael.
38 = Ad. 120–1).
Taken as a whole, Cicero’s Pro Caelio richly illustrates the pervasive
Roman preoccupation with fatherhood, both literal and figurative, to which
Seneca was heir. More specifically, the speech exemplifies a Roman presump-
tion that Seneca’s writings also share, namely, that there is a direct connection
between the correct performance of duties in the domestic sphere and bene-
ficial outcomes in the public realm.1 But Cicero’s deft employment of Roman
comedy in service of his persuasive forensic rhetoric also offers a useful point
of comparison for Seneca’s deployment of ideas about fatherhood. Cicero’s
transfer of the severe and lenient fathers from Roman comedy into forensic
oratory engages in the most straightforward kind of intertextuality, namely,
quotation. Cicero refers generically to a vehemens and durus father familiar
from the plays of Caecilius Statius, and then he quotes specifically from sev-
eral of these comedies before unfurling a quote from Terence’s Adelphoe to
1 On this theme in the Pro Caelio, see May 1995.

24
24 Amanda Wilcox
provide a model of the easy-going, forgiving father he encourages his audi-
ence of jurors to emulate. In contrast, Seneca’s borrowing of paternal models,
although it is no less indebted to previous literature than that of Cicero, is
far less susceptible to straightforward source analysis. Seneca certainly does
engage in quotation, allusion and reference to other literary texts in his philo-
sophical works (for many excellent examples, see other contributions to this
volume), but he engages also in less overt forms of intertextual positioning.
In the passages this chapter examines, Seneca depicts paternal behavior that
would be in some cases reassuringly familiar to his original audience, and
sometimes quite unexpected, but he consistently casts these depictions in the
form of exempla.
When Seneca tells an anecdote in the form of an exemplum and installs
it in a work of moral philosophy, he is not only exploiting a familiar means
of advancing an argument but also practicing an art in itself. For Seneca’s
Roman readers, schooled in declamation, the power of an exemplum
well selected and deftly tailored to its immediate context was routinely
measured by its persuasive force.2 Passages that were easily recognized as
exempla in formal terms but departed from conventional expectations in
the moral lesson they promoted had all the greater power to surprise their
readers and to provoke them into deliberation. Just as Cicero recommends
Terence’s character Micio as a model of paternal leniency in his Pro Caelio,
Seneca, in several of his philosophical works, invokes through an exem-
plum a model of paternal behavior that may have the virtue of appearing
fresh and unexpected, but which will also situate his advice firmly within
the mainstream of the Roman literary tradition and mos maiorum. In late
Republican legal oratory or early imperial declamation, exempla were
evaluated for their persuasive force. In Seneca’s philosophical writing,
the value of exempla still resided in their power to persuade the reader,
but the persuasive force that exempla deployed by Seneca possessed
likely stemmed in part from the reassuring familiarity his readers would
have had with argument by means of historical exemplum, thanks to the
emphasis on rhetoric and declamatory practice in Roman elite education.
This familiarity could reassure newcomers to philosophical discourse by
domesticating it, by bringing it closer to genres with which these readers
already felt comfortable.3
Moreover, Roman exemplary discourse was thoroughly intertextual,
though what I will term ‘exemplary intertextuality’ differs in its aims and
effects from literary intertextuality as it is has been most frequently examined
2 On exempla in declamation, see e.g., Sussman 1978, 114. For analysis of exempla in Seneca, see
e.g., Wilcox 2006, Mayer 2008, and Dressler 2012. Langlands 2018 and Roller 2018, both of
which build on prior work by these scholars, include valuable analyses of Senecan exemplary
discourse within wide-ranging discussions of exempla in Roman culture.
3 On the declamatory qualities of Clem. 1.9.1–12, discussed below, see Braund 2009, 258 and
Mortureux 1973, 24–30. For the prominence of father-son relationships in declamation, see
Sussman 1995 and Gunderson 2003.
25
Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 25

in Latin poetry.4 The intertextuality exhibited by Senecan exempla is far less
identifiable or isolable, in its sources or its effects, than quotation or allusion.
This intertextuality is, instead, akin to that of the topos, in Stephen Hinds’
formulation: ‘[R]‌ather than demanding interpretation in relation to a specific
model or models, like the allusion, the topos invokes its intertextual tradition
as a collectivity, to which the individual contexts and connotations of indi-
vidual prior instances are firmly subordinate’.5 Tara Welch has recently used
Hinds’ discussion of the topos as a springboard for her exploration of the
intertextuality of Valerius Maximus’ Memorable Doings and Sayings.6 Welch
characterizes Valerius’ engagement with the texts of previous authors, spe-
cifically Cicero and Livy, as a kind of ‘anti-intertextuality’, which ‘functions
not only aesthetically, as a statement about texts and creation, but also
socially, as a statement about who may participate in Roman culture (79)’.
Valerius privileges the common threads of a story over the particularities
of specific versions. In a conventional sense, he plagiarizes his sources, by
failing to acknowledge extensive quotation.7 But Welch argues that Valerius
saw his role as an author as a ‘conduit… for content: for tradition (75)’ and
so in his telling of exempla, he ‘erases them as texts (76)’ as a means of recu-
perating and advertising ‘the truth [that these stories convey] beyond and
independent of Cicero’s or Livy’s interpretation’ and thus engaging actively
in ‘a process by which communal property becomes available to members
of society at large (77)’.8 This way, Welch shows that Valerian intertext-
uality can neither be described as ‘historiographical intertextuality, valuing
[authority derived from] source texts’ nor as typically ‘declamatory or lit-
erary intertextuality, valuing the destination text (74)’. Instead, Valerius
engages in ‘intertextual streamlining’, that strips his versions of idiosyncratic
stylistic markers or controversial historical details. What Welch discovers
to be true of Valerian intertextuality is in significant measure also true for
4 The circumscribed exploration of Senecan ‘exemplary intertextuality’ here may thus be

considered as one modest response to a comment by Don Fowler (2000, 128), to wit: ‘There is
a tendency… for intertextual criticism to concentrate on poetic literary texts to the neglect of
prose, subliterary, and non-literary texts’. This remark is amplified by Baraz and van den Berg
2013, 3. The articles their collection brings together offer a range of stimulating responses,
including Welch 2013.
5 Hinds 1998, 34. I have also found helpful Lowell Edmunds’ (2001, 143–4) description of ‘system
reference’, in which a poetic text quotes ‘the [non-poetic] language specific to an institution, an
organization, or a customary social practice’. He offers as an example Ovid ‘quot[ing] an insti-
tution of the Roman household when he describes Circe’s supervision of her nymphs’ (Met.
14.268–70).
6 Welch 2013. Cf. Bloomer 1992, 200.
7 Our conventional view of what constitutes plagiarism may well be anachronistic, however. See,
e.g., Peirano 2012, 16 on ‘creative supplementation’, particularly within declamation, in which
previous literary texts were used ‘not simply as a quarry for phrases, but as cues to construct
fictional scenarios that might serve as platforms for rhetorical exercises’.
8 Similarly, see Bloomer 1997, 210–1 on Seneca the Elder’s work and declamation generally as a
means toward social mobility and prestige.
26
26 Amanda Wilcox
Seneca, mutatis mutandis, in his philosophical writings. At times Seneca flags
his borrowing from other authors, whether to appeal to their authority or to
challenge it, or to engage in stylistic homage or rivalry. But more often, the
mission of sharing and handing down the truth (translatio) takes precedence
over crediting individual sources. In fact, Seneca makes this priority explicit
in his Moral Epistles:
‘Epicurus’ inquis ‘dixit: quid tibi cum alieno?’ Quod verum est meum est;
perseverabo Epicurum tibi ingerere, ut isti qui in verba iurant nec quid
dicatur aestimant, sed a quo, sciant quae optima sunt esse communia.
(Ep. 12.11)
You say, ‘Epicurus said this—what are you doing with another person’s
property?’ What is true is mine. I will keep heaping Epicurus on you so
that those who swear by words and do not evaluate what is said but only
who said it may finally learn that what is best is held in common.9
So, like Valerius, Seneca may strategically omit the names of his sources.
Moreover, Seneca is concerned to illustrate that his exempla demonstrate moral
behaviors that will be transferrable and useful for different actors in different
circumstances. If smoothing away contested historical details or otherwise
fictionalizing the episode best serves this aim, Seneca does not hesitate to
do so. The resulting exempla, fashioned by Seneca to most effectively serve
their persuasive and philosophically therapeutic aims, may, at least superfi-
cially, resemble the ‘streamlining’ done by Valerius Maximus. But Seneca’s
‘exemplary intertextuality’ does not relinquish careful literary and rhetorical
shaping. Moreover, Seneca’s frequent choice to omit his sources rather than
advertising them itself has an ethical and didactic purpose. His practice as
a maker and transmitter of exempla itself exemplifies what he recommends
to his readers. At Ep. 84.3, Seneca advises his addressee Lucilius to alternate
reading various authors with writing his own work: ‘We should, as they say,
imitate the bees, who roam around the flowers and snatch from those suitable
for making honey, then whatever they have carried back they dispose and
arrange in the comb’ (Apes, ut aiunt, debemus imitari, quae vagantur et flores
et mel faciendum idoneos carpunt, deinde quidquid attulere disponunt ac per
favos digerunt).10 Seneca digresses briefly to speculate on the process by which
honey is made, a matter of some dispute, but he reins in his digression by
pointing out that although the sources and process for making honey are mys-
terious, the natural end result is one delicious substance. Though discerning
taste buds may differentiate sources for distinct flavors within it, the honey
itself is an indivisible new whole. Seneca explains his analogy further by
9 Translations from Seneca’s works and other ancient texts are mine, unless otherwise noted.
10 Note the playfulness in the non-citation citation accomplished by aiunt here, which is followed
up by a quotation emphatically attributed to Vergil (ut Vergilius noster ait, Ep. 84.3). The bee
simile in Ep. 84.3 is discussed also in the chapter by Papaioannou in the present volume.
27

comparing the correct practice of reading and writing to the incorporation
of food into our bodies:
Quamdiu [alimenta] in sua qualitate perdurant…, onera sunt; at cum

ex eo, quod erant, mutata sunt, tum demum in vires et in sanguinem
transeunt. […] Concoquamus illa; alioqui in memoriam ibunt, non in
ingenium.
(Ep. 84.6)
So long as food remains food in its own identifiable state…, it is a burden.

But when it has changed from what it was, then at length it transforms
into strength of body and into blood. […] Let us thoroughly digest our
sources. Otherwise, they will enter into our memory, but not into our
character.
Further developing the idea, Seneca writes, ‘Let our mind hide away the
sources that have assisted it, and only display what it has produced’ (Hoc faciat
animus noster: omnia quibus est adiutus abscondat, ipsum tantum ostendat quod
effecit, 84.7).11 Welch notes that Quintilian also advises the would-be orator to
make the best his own (quod prudentis est quod in quoque optimum est, si possit
suum facere, Inst. Or. 10.2.4), in words that recall those of Seneca to Lucilius
(quae optima sunt esse communia, Ep. 12.11).12 But crucially, Seneca’s advice in
Epistle 84 does not recommend the assimilation of textual models to achieve
literary or rhetorical excellence for its own sake. Rather, he urges this practice
as a part of progress toward virtue.13 And thus, in keeping with Seneca’s pri-
oritization of practical ethical ends over the display of his models, my discus-
sion below of Augustus’ exemplary fatherhood does not focus on identifying
specific intertexts. In the conclusion of this chapter, however, I do return to
the metaphors that Seneca deploys in Ep. 84, which include not only bees
making honey but also paternity and patrimony. He recasts the natural phe-
nomenon of biological heredity and cultural practices of filiation as resources
we can seize on for generating new texts and also for changing our lives.
Within the body of this chapter, therefore, I investigate Seneca’s treatment
of fatherhood, particularly in exemplary stories featuring Augustus, with
the expectation that in crafting his versions of these stories Seneca largely
11 Henderson (2004, 46–7) aptly paraphrases, ‘We are to put our raw materials under wraps, and
show up our product instead’.
12 Welch 2013, 78.
13 Henderson’s (2004, 46–8) discussion of this letter is well attuned to the ‘imaging of imaging’
or ‘metaphorization’ of its various topics to describe and enact Seneca’s moral pedagogy.
Ep. 84 is discussed more straightforwardly as Seneca’s theory of intertextual practice by
Welch (2013, 73) and Trinacty (2009, 263–5), both of whom are interested (differently) in how
Seneca the Younger responds to his father’s agenda. Langlands (2018, 120–2) and Dressler
(2016, 173) also comment valuably on Ep. 84.
28
28 Amanda Wilcox
overlooks the practice of literary intertextuality narrowly conceived—that
is, as a practice of marking resemblance and difference between source and
target texts—in favor of a more expansive notion of intertextual practice
that collapses the distinction between literary and non-literary reference, and
presses both kinds equally into the service of ethical ends.14 Seneca deploys
this exemplary intertextuality in service of his ‘exemplary ethics’, to use
Rebecca Langlands’ term.15 Langlands contends that ‘the rhetorical and per-
suasive functions of exempla are intimately entwined with the ethical, and not
separable from it’, a position that I take to be emphatically true for Senecan
exempla. Similarly, for Seneca, the textual (and thus also intertextual) is intim-
ately entwined with other parts of life not conventionally regarded as text. In
fact, what can properly be regarded as textual is comprehensive. We find this
view especially in the Epistulae morales, probably Seneca’s last philosophical
writing, in which he suggests repeatedly that reading and writing to absent
friends is not only comparable to living together and engaging in conversa-
tion, but that in fact, they are the same. They are not only identically valuable
practices, but actually identical.16
In crafting this exemplary intertextuality as a vehicle for and demonstration
of his exemplary ethics, Seneca comments on, and also delivers a lesson in,
how to deal with the social and political changes that were at work during his
lifetime. By placing largely traditional moral contents inside the reassuringly
recognizable formal container of exemplary discourse, he commemorates and
recommends the mainstream tradition of paternal leniency. At the same time,
he invites a critique of autocracy that would figure itself as benevolent pater-
nalism. Accepted forms of domestic authority and values were under consid-
erable pressure in Seneca’s day. The dynamics of fatherhood vis-à-vis the state
had already changed and were continuing to evolve. Seneca’s use of exemplary
discourse for modeling actual and symbolic paternal behavior provides ample
illustration that specious continuity in cultural representation can mask real
change on the ground. Moreover, Seneca’s various portrayals of the dynamics
of fatherhood through exempla carry out an exploration of the contours of
autocratic power, dramatizing the position of the pater patriae vis-à-vis the
pater familias.17 They also illuminate the difference between behavior that he
judges commendable for human fathers and the behavior and attitudes he
14 A referee kindly points out that my working notion of Seneca’s exemplary intertextuality here
is closer to that of Julia Kristeva (for which, see Waller 1989) than that of Gian Biagio Conte
(1986), whose work on allusion has thoroughly influenced so much subsequent work on inter-
textuality in Latin poetry (e.g., Hinds 1998, cited above). The comparison of these strands of
criticism in Edmunds 2001, 9–14 is helpful, as are his remarks on the activity of the reader,
who ‘rescues the text from dissolution in the vastness of the diachronic literary tradition
(159)’.
15 Langlands 2018.
16 Various scholars have articulated or intimated this Senecan strategy; see, e.g., Edwards 2018;
Dressler 2012; Wilcox 2012; Too 1994, 214–6; Wilson 2008 [1987].
17 Roller 2001, 243–4, comments on this aspect of ‘modelling the emperor’.
29

attributes to the paternal aspect of the divine, and show how these two kinds
of paternity coincide in the person and powers of the princeps.
2 Augustus the father
Although Seneca certainly avails himself of the familiar comfort that the
formal markers of exempla could induce, he also innovates, not least by
expanding the ranks of exemplary actors. Beyond the catalog of exemplary
Republican Roman fathers that already occur in the pages of Cicero, Livy
and Valerius Maximus, Seneca adds a number of more recent figures to the
roster.18 Among these is the first emperor, Augustus. As a biological father,
Augustus was neither prolific nor successful. His only child was a daughter,
Julia, whom he married successively to her cousin M. Claudius Marcellus,
his close associate M. Agrippa (to whom she bore five children), and
finally his stepson Tiberius, and whom he banished from Rome in 2 BCE
and never recalled.19 In the De beneficiis, Seneca has Augustus lament his
harsh punishment for Julia’s adulteries, though not as an intrinsic mistake.
Rather, he regrets that his wrathful reaction drew greater public attention
to Julia’s crimes.
Divus Augustus filiam ultra inpudicitiae maledictum inpudicam

relegavit et flagitia principalis domus in publicum emisit.… Haec tam
vindicanda principi quam tacenda, quia quarundam rerum turpitudo
etiam ad vindicantem redit, parum potens irae publicaverat. Deinde, cum
interposito tempore in locum irae subisset verecundia, gemens, quod non
illa silentio pressisset.
(Ben. 6.32.1–2)
The divine Augustus sent away his daughter, who was shameless beyond
the common brand of shamelessness, and the scandals of the emperor’s
house he released into public view… Insufficiently in control of his own
anger, he had made her shameful actions widely known—actions which he
in equal measure should have punished and should have hushed up, since
the foulness of those sorts of things damages also the one who punishes
them. Afterward, when some time had passed, and embarrassment had
taken the place of anger, he groaned, since he had not suppressed her
actions in silence.
18 Seneca comments on his practice at Ep. 83.13: ‘Life should be informed by illuminating
examples, and we should not always take refuge in the old ones’ (Instruenda est enim vita
exemplis inlustribus, nec semper confugiamus ad vetera). Roller 2001, 88–97 discusses the
adjustments Seneca made in order to turn traditional Republican exemplars into models for
a new kind of Roman ethics in concord with the political reality of the principate, and notes
Seneca’s expansion of the exemplary catalog (p. 107).
19 For more on Augustus and Julia in Seneca, see Gloyn 2017, 149–55.
30
30 Amanda Wilcox
As an adoptive father and stepfather, Augustus had hardly more success.
He adopted Gaius Iulius Caesar and Lucius Iulius Caesar, the two older sons
of M. Agrippa and Julia, but both died in adolescence. After their deaths,
Augustus adopted his adult stepson Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus, the third
son of Agrippa and Julia, though he later formally removed the latter from
the Julian gens and banished him.20 Tiberius, of course, succeeded Augustus,
though there is scant evidence in our sources of warmth in their relation-
ship or indication that Augustus, as father, wielded a beneficial influence over
Tiberius whether as son or emperor. Ancient and modern historians agree that
Augustus’ adoptions were for specifically dynastic ends, though propertied
Romans already for centuries had used adoption as a ‘strategy of succession’,
in Saller’s phrase,21 and his fellow Romans thus probably regarded Augustus’
assiduity in restocking the Julian gens with adoptive sons as the course any
prudent pater familias would be bound to take. In any case, Seneca’s accounts
of the exemplary fatherhood of Augustus rarely feature his own children,
whether biological or adoptive. Interestingly, in the passage from De beneficiis
quoted above, the rare mention of Augustus the biological father coincides
with the equally rare invocation of Augustus as a negative exemplar. More
frequently, Seneca recounts the interactions of the positively exemplary pater
patriae with his figurative children, that is, his subjects.
3 Fathers, sons and the pater patriae

Seneca offers some straightforward parenting advice in the De ira, where he
devotes several pages to prescribing directly how to bring up children who
can resist and manage their anger. For example, ‘Let [the child’s spirit] endure
nothing low, nothing servile. See that there is never need for him to beg or plead
and that he does not profit by doing so’ (Nihil humile, nihil servile patiatur;
numquam illi necesse sit rogare suppliciter nec prosit rogare, Ira [4]‌.2.21.4).
In contrast to these the straightforward instructions, the lessons that Seneca
derives from exemplary passages featuring Augustus’ imperial paternity are
less direct. But when we closely examine the passages where actual fathers
and the first emperor interact, we see Seneca implicitly charting the inter-
section of ordinary fatherhood and the symbolic fatherhood that Augustus
exercised over his subjects. The figurative paternity of the pater patriae is both
a powerful metaphor and also a real phenomenon that Seneca documents and
describes, and even shapes, or at least may have wished to be seen as shaping,
given his responsibility as advisor to the throne.22 In fact, at the outset of the
De clementia Seneca draws attention acutely to the one aspect of princely
20 On the abdicatio of Agrippa Postumus, see Saller 1991, 118.

21 Saller 1991, 162.
22 On the other hand, Seneca avoids figuring himself as a father figure for Nero, as Gloyn 2017,
119 n. 32 remarks. On Seneca’s refusal to place himself vis-à-vis Nero in the De Clementia, see
Armisen-Marchetti  2006.
31

power that most equates to paternal power, by placing its enunciation in the
mouth of Nero, whom he imagines asking, ‘Have I, of all mortals… been
chosen to act in the part of the gods on earth? I make decisions of life and
death for the peoples…’ (Egone ex omnibus mortalibus… electus sum, qui in
terris deorum vice fungerer? Ego vitae necisque gentibus arbiter, Clem. 1.2).
Accordingly, this chapter considers in detail two exemplary episodes
that occur in fairly close proximity to one another in Book 1 of Seneca’s De
clementia (1.9.1–12, 1.15.1–16.3).23 Both anecdotes are recounted at some
length. The first quietly establishes what it means for a ruler to treat an indi-
vidual subject as though their relationship were that of father and son, and
provides Augustus as a positive exemplar who not only premieres this paternal
role for the emperor but performs it successfully, using a time- honored
script.24 In the second example, Seneca describes a more complex dynamic by
recounting an episode in which the emperor plays his paternal role in tandem
with the part of the primus inter pares, that is, the foremost citizen who none-
theless wielded his influence through auctoritas alone without recourse to any
further, formal powers. This exemplum demonstrates how a hierarchical struc-
ture of authority depending on the metaphor of the state as a domicile, with
the emperor as that household’s pater familias, could interact productively
with the traditional structured authority of an actual private domus and its
actual pater familias. Effectively, under Augustan rule the status of citizen has
become less important than that of subject. But the force of this anecdote
suggests that a pater familias who is also the subject of the pater patriae may
find the latter status can act as a complement to the former, confirming his
authority within the domus rather than displacing it.
Seneca explicitly links these exemplary passages in book 1 of De clementia
by specifying that both are about intended parricide. In the first anecdote, the
intended victim is Augustus himself, which is an indirect way of establishing
that the fatherhood of the pater patriae, while certainly symbolic, is not
merely symbolic. Attempts on the life of the emperor are to be treated, rhet-
orically if not legally, as attempted parricide rather than attempted murder.
Thus, it follows that the punishment for such attempts ought to also be either
analogous or possibly identical to the punishment that would be meted out
to a person who had attempted to kill his actual father. A father who believed
that his child had made or was planning to make an attempt on his life would
have complete discretion over his response. He might opt for any punishment
ranging from immediately executing his child to complete forgiveness.25 The
evidence suggests that the testamentary power wielded by fathers to disin-
herit disobedient sons provided a far more usual means of dealing with filial
23 Berno 2013 offers a more comprehensive view of Augustus as an exemplar in Seneca’s works.

24 On the father-son relationship in De clementia, see also di Garbo 2008.
25 Saller 1991, 114–28 explores the limits of patria potestas and the ius vitae necisque and
concludes that financial control, up to and including disinheritance, was a more usual means
for patres familias to deal with the misbehavior of sons in potestate.
32
32 Amanda Wilcox
misbehavior. Regardless of how an actual father might respond, however, the
accusation of attempted parricide provides Seneca with a dramatic extreme, a
limit case for charting the moral dimensions of family dynamics.26
On learning of a plot against his life led by Lucius Cinna, Augustus
summons a council of his friends to meet on the following day so that he may
solicit their advice.27 But here the story takes a turn: on the night before the
council is scheduled to convene, Augustus frets so ceaselessly that his wife
Livia offers him some advice. He listens to his wife and follows her recommen-
dation, with sterling results. In his history of Rome, Cassius Dio composed a
lengthy version of the same episode, derived either directly or indirectly from
Seneca’s version (Cass. 55.14.1–22.2).28 Dio’s telling focuses on the exchange
between Augustus and Livia, whose lengthy speeches of advice take up the
bulk of the episode. Dio omits the exchange between Augustus and Cinna
altogether. Seneca’s development of the topos of the soft-hearted, mild father,
which is both modified and strengthened by Seneca’s record of Augustus’
participation in it, is notably absent from Dio’s account. On the other hand,
in another post-Senecan portrait of Augustus, the biographer Suetonius’
text suggests that Seneca’s portrayal of Augustus as a mild and even pater-
nally indulgent judge had made its mark. Without specifying the precise role
taken by the emperor, Suetonius reports that Augustus was diligent in his
attendance at trials, and that his conscientiousness extended even to periods
of ill health when he was unable to move from his bed and so heard cases
in his home (Suet. Aug. 33). In the case of a man on trial specifically for
parricide, whose guilt was clear, Augustus sought, through a carefully phrased
leading question, to lessen the likelihood of a sentencing to the traditional,
gruesome punishment for that crime. Suetonius follows this vignette imme-
diately with another, in which Augustus modified court procedure in a case
involving the forgery of wills so as to provide a merciful third alternative to
a binary guilty or innocent verdict. These ad hoc interventions, in one case
directed toward the defendant and in the other to the jury, are reminiscent
of Seneca’s anecdotes about Augustus in the De clementia, respectively, the
interview with Cinna (1.9.7–10), and Augustus’ management of the domestic
trial of Tarius’ son (1.15.3–4). Neither parallel guarantees that Suetonius has
deliberately invoked the Senecan depiction of Augustus in the De clementia,
but both are neatly consonant with the mild judge we encounter there, who
seeks to balance correct observance of the protocols prescribed by law and
custom with a merciful regard for human foibles and the capacity for reform.29
26 Gunderson 2003, 129–33 observes how Seneca the Elder similarly uses cases of attempted or
intended filicide, concluding, ‘[a]‌ny father who uses his power [of life and death] to destroy the
family is mad and does not deserve to have his power at all’.
27 On the consilium, see Lacey 1986, 137–40.
28 For the date of the historical episode on which the exemplum is based, and for Dio’s reliance
on Seneca’s account, see Griffin 1976, 409–11 and Braund 2009, 261–2 and 263–4, with add-
itional references.
29 For Augustus as exemplum in Suetonius, see e.g., Gunderson 2014 and Langlands 2014.
33

A different aspect of this topos, the unfavorable comparison of paternal
severity to paternal leniency, occurs in an exemplary and hortatory vein in a
letter of Pliny (Ep. 9.12), in which Pliny follows up an anecdote recounting
his reprimand of a father who was too hard on his son with an admonition
addressed directly to his correspondent. ‘Remember that [your son] is a boy,
and that you were a boy once, and play the father in such a way as keeps in
mind both that you are a human being and the father of a human being’
(Cogita et illum puerum esse et te fuisse, atque ita hoc quod es pater utere, ut
memineris et hominem esse te et hominis patrem, Ep. 9.12.2).
Within Seneca’s own corpus, Augustus’ nighttime deliberations about Cinna
(1.9.3–5) are paralleled by a passage in Book 3 of De ira, where Seneca reports on
his teacher Sextius’ nightly practice of self-examination and follows his account
of Sextius’ practice with a description of his own. Seneca represents his nightly
ritual as a kind of self-mirroring that is chiefly therapeutic for himself, though
it may also provide a template for his reader.30 Likewise, Augustus’ deliberations
are represented as both intensely domestic and personal. If it were not neces-
sary for us, Seneca’s readers, to overhear Augustus’ train of thought, the debate
he has with himself might have remained entirely internal. In fact, the extensive
self-address that Seneca imagines here for Augustus may be read as an unprac-
ticed version of the methodical self-examinations undertaken by Sextius and
Seneca. Significantly, Seneca mentions that his wife is present during his nightly
deliberations, as Livia is for Augustus. But Seneca’s wife is a silent witness to the
routine Seneca describes in De ira, perhaps precisely because Seneca’s process
of taking stock is routine, the daily inventory of a well-regulated life, a process
whose familiarity does not render it superfluous, but has, by design, removed
its anguish. Augustus, on the other hand, does not appear practiced in the art
of nocturnal self-examination. He spends the night in an increasingly disturbed
state (nox illi inquieta erat), and becomes so distressed that he repeatedly erupts
into self-remonstrations (gemens subinde voces varias emittebat… rursus silentio
interposito maiore multo voce sibi quam Cinnae irascebatur, Clem. 1.9.4–5). These
outbursts eventually prompt Livia’s intervention. Now, certainly for Seneca’s
addressee, the fledgling pater patriae Nero, as much as for an ordinary father
struggling with an intransigent son, this sympathetic depiction of Augustus
might well be more reassuring than an account of a competent, internally
conducted process of deliberate self-examination. But in fact, Augustus would
only have had to wait out one sleepless night before the scheduled meeting of
his consilium, the traditional sounding board for a pater familias, to receive
assistance of the sort that Livia provides. The intervention of Livia may well
be the most innovative aspect of this scene. We can ask what effect Seneca may
have wished to achieve by substituting Augustus’ tormented nighttime self-talk,
resolved by sound counsel from his wife, for the traditional daytime meeting of
30 Ira [5]‌.3.36, on which, see Ker 2009a, 172–82. On the ‘scopic paradigm’ and exemplarity, see
also Bartsch 2006, 119–32.
34
34 Amanda Wilcox
a council of his male peers. Most broadly, Livia’s advice, imagined by Seneca
in direct speech, serves to emphasize the new prominence of women within
the imperial domus, an aspect of its domesticity regularly highlighted by the
Augustan regime.31 The authority of women within the imperial household
had continued to grow over the course of the Julio-Claudian principate. Nero
himself was the great-great grandson of Augustus through the maternal line.
Augustus’ daughter Julia was Nero’s great-grandmother, Agrippina the Elder
his grandmother, and his mother was Agrippina the Younger, who had recalled
Seneca from exile and appointed him the young prince’s tutor, and who was still
alive and actively advising her son the emperor at the time De clementia was
composed. Seneca may well have wished to acknowledge and promote the idea
of consultation with the mater familias as a complement or alternative to the
traditional consilium.32
On the next day, when Augustus meets with Cinna one on one, the mor-
alist ventriloquizes the emperor’s fatherly address, which is stern and mild
by turns. And though he comes down eventually on the side of clemency,
along the way he criticizes Cinna’s failure to keep control of his own house. In
Seneca’s version of Augustus’ speech, the emperor draws an explicit parallel
between the individual household and the commonwealth when he inquires
into Cinna’s intentions:
‘quo’ inquit ‘hoc animo facis? ut ipse sis princeps? male mehercules cum
populo Romano agitur, si tibi ad imperandum nihil praeter me obstat.
Domum tueri non potes, nuper libertini hominis gratia in private iudicio
superatus es’.
(Clem. 1.9.10)
He said: ‘What is your plan? That you yourself might be emperor? By
god, the affairs of the Roman people are in a sad way if nothing but me
stands in the way of you taking command. You aren’t able to look after
your own house—recently you were overcome by a freedman in a private
lawsuit!’
Seneca does not reproduce the entire scolding. But he notes that Augustus
talked for more than two hours, ‘drawing out in this way the sole penalty with
which he was going to rest content’ (diutius enim quam duabus horis locutum
esse constat, cum hanc poenam qua sola erat contentus futurus extenderet, Clem.
1.9.11).33 Seneca does include his imagined conclusion to Augustus’ speech:
31 See Milnor 2005, 80–93, 289–93 on Augustus’ household and on the ‘fundamental femininity
of Julio-Claudian rule’ realized by Nero’s time. For the imperial household under Nero, with
attention to Agrippina’s role as advisor to the emperor, see Mordine 2013.
32 A less positive reading is also possible, in which the details of Augustus receiving advice at
night in his bedroom from a woman could all be taken to suggest his inadequacy or his aban-
donment of Republican norms.
33 The substitution of a lengthy rebuke in place of more severe punishment was a paternal man-
euver familiar to Seneca’s reader, though. In Terence’s Adelphoe, the permissive Micio plays
35

‘vitam’ inquit ‘tibi, Cinna, iterum do, prius hosti, nunc insidiatori ac
parricidae. ex hodierno die inter nos amicitia incipiat; contendamus
utrum ego meliore fide tibi vitam dederim an tu debeas’.
(Clem. 1.9.11)
He said: ‘As previously to an enemy, now to a plotter and parricide,
I give you your life again, Cinna. From this day forward let a friendship
commence between us; let us compete whether in better faith I have given
your life to you, or you, in owing it to me’.
Seneca closes the episode by commenting on the further career of Cinna: he

became a model subject. Augustus later made Cinna a consul, and in his will,
Cinna made Augustus his sole heir (Clem.1.9.12). This exchange of benefits
between the emperor and his subject may prefigure Seneca’s affirmation in De
beneficiis of the capacity for social inferiors, namely sons and slaves, to benefit
their superiors, namely masters and fathers.34 The historical record shows that
Cinna did his best to repay Augustus’ debt. In the De clementia, however, he is
memorialized simply as the beneficiary of a mild father figure, who displayed
his own forbearance and wisdom by choosing to sting his son onto a better
path through words, rather than with harshly punitive action.
In the second passage from De clementia involving an exemplary parent’s
response to his son’s intended parricide, Seneca is explicit in representing ‘the
self-control of a father towards his children as the analog of a ruler’s clementia’,
as Susanna Braund puts it.35 Seneca writes, ‘I give you this particularly as
an example of a good prince, whom you may compare with a good father’
(Hoc ipso exemplo dabo, quem conpares bono patri, bonum principem, Clem.
1.15.3). This passage both reasserts the traditional and legal prerogatives of a
Roman pater familias and comments on their right use, and also suggests—at
first implicitly within the body of the story, then, in the commentary that
follows the narration, explicitly—that the judgment of the good prince prop-
erly supersedes that of the good father. As a prelude to the main, positive
exemplar, however, Seneca offers a negative example. He mentions a father
named Tricho, who had flogged his son to death.36 The reason for Tricho’s
harsh treatment of his son is not given, but the reaction of the Roman crowd
is a telling indication that regardless of whether this father’s punishment of
this son was technically legal, it was considered outrageous.
the situation for laughs, but he still engages in a prolonged scolding of his son Aeschinus
before revealing that he will be allowed to marry the woman he desires.
34 On the possibility of benefits from child to parent, see Ben. 3.29–38, and on slaves to masters,
see Ben. 3.18–28. For a perceptive discussion of these passages, see Gloyn 2017, 120–32.
35 Braund 2009, 319.
36 Tricho is unknown apart from this text (Braund 2009, 319 and Faider et al. 1950, 94), which
leads me to wonder whether he might not be entirely invented. In contrast, Tarius the positive
exemplar with whom Tricho is paired (see below), appears in Pliny the Elder (HN 18.37).
36
36 Amanda Wilcox
Trichonem equitem Romanum memoria nostra... populus graphiis in
foro confodit; vix illum Augusti Caesaris auctoritas infestis tam patrum
quam filiorum minibus eripuit.
(Clem. 1.15.1)
Within living memory, the populace stabbed a Roman knight named
Tricho ... in the forum with their styluses. Scarcely did the authority of
Caesar Augustus rescue this man from threats [of death] just as hostile
from fathers as from sons.
Richard Saller cites this episode, vague as it is, as a possible instance of the
emperor coming to the defense of a father who has exercised his traditional ius
vitae necisque over his son.37 Some legal historians have argued that this right
had already been significantly curtailed by Seneca’s lifetime, rendering Tricho’s
murderous action itself a capital offense. It seems entirely plausible that rather
than the execution itself, it is the method of killing his son, by whipping, a
kind of punishment strongly associated with the disciplining of slaves, that
would be the most offensive aspect of Tricho’s deed for a Roman reader or
spectator.38 The part Augustus plays in this episode of defending a father’s
traditional prerogatives, however, is in fact paralleled by the longer, positive
exemplum about a merciful father named Lucius Tarius Rufus, whose son, like
Tricho’s, was accused of plotting parricide. The exemplum’s beginning is sig-
naled, as is Seneca’s usual practice, by an opening sentence that puts the exem-
plar, or the ostensible exemplar, in first position and succinctly introduces
circumstances that yielded the exemplary deed, thus: ‘As for Tarius, whose
son was caught plotting to kill him, when he had condemned his son, making
use of a council to do so, no one questioned [his decision], since the reason
was known’ (Tarium, qui filium deprensum in parricidii consilio damnavit causa
cognita, nemo non suspexit…, Clem. 1.15.2). Tarius would have been within his
rights to exact a summary capital punishment of his son, but instead, he takes
a more deliberative course, and after consideration, decides merely to banish
his son to Massilia and to continue his annual allowance. To aid in his decision,
he adheres to the same custom Augustus had planned to follow in the case of
Cinna. He calls a council of his friends to come into his home to advise him.
He includes Augustus among those invited. The inclusion of Augustus is key,
for it enables Seneca to take an anecdote that already would have illustrated
the wisdom of acting mercifully rather than harshly as a father, and to make
it into a story whose real focus is not on Tarius, but on Augustus. Seneca’s
37 Saller 1991, 116–7.
38 Seneca suggests that a responsible father ‘may occasionally have recourse to whipping’
(aliquando admonere etiam verberibus, Clem. 1.14.1), but frequent whipping for ‘trivial
reasons’ (levissimus causis) is the mark of ‘the worst father’ (pessimus pater, Clem. 1.16.3).
Saller 1991, 142–50 shows the importance, in Roman child-rearing, of distinguishing freeborn
children from slaves by differentiating punishments, namely, by disciplining one’s children
chiefly by granting or withholding praise (and for older children, money), but whipping slaves.
37

emphasis on the emperor’s respectful observance of custom is echoed by his
own carefully arranged word order. Tarius is the initial grammatical subject of
the sentence, with his name and its modifier, a participle, embracing the object
of his concern (Cogniturus de filio Tarius, Clem. 1.15.3). Nonetheless, the two
parts of Augustus’ name (Caesarem Augustum) prominently anchor the end
of the sentence’s first clause, balancing the two nominatives at its beginning
(Cogniturus… Tarius) and once Augustus has been summoned (advocavit), he
takes over as the grammatical subject (venit in privatos penates). Seneca makes
a point of reporting that Augustus consented to appear in a private house,
rather than moving the proceedings to his own home:
Cogniturus de filio Tarius advocavit in consilium Caesarem Augustum;

venit in privatos penates, adsedit, pars alieni consilii fuit, non dixit: ‘Immo
in meam domum veniat’; quod si factum esset, Caesaris futura erat
cognitio, non patris.
(Clem. 1.15.3)
When Tarius was about to deliberate formally concerning his son, he
invited Caesar Augustus to his council meeting. Augustus came into a
private home, he took a seat, he was part of another man’s council. He
did not say, ‘Rather, let him come into my house’, because if he had done
so, the deliberation would belong to Caesar, not to the father.
And yet, in spite of Seneca’s remarking on Augustus’ conspicuous refusal

to upstage Tarius, as moving this meeting from the father’s house to his own
would have done, even within this opening sentence as a grammatical sub-
ject Augustus displaces Tarius ([Augustus] venit… adsedit… fuit… non dixit).
Tarius’ name occurs twice more in the passage, but both Seneca’s editorial
remarks mid-narration and his praise of Augustus’ behavior at the passage’s
end clearly indicate that the real focus of this exemplum is on the emperor
(Clem. 1.15.4–7):
Audita causa excussisque omnibus, et his, quae adulescens pro se dixerat,

et his, quibus arguebatur, petit, ut sententiam suam quisque scriberet, ne
ea omnium fieret, quae Caesaris fuisset; deinde, priusquam aperirentur
codicilli, iuravit se Tarii, hominis locupletis, hereditatem non aditurum.
Dicet aliquis: ‘Pusillo animo timuit, ne videretur locum spei suae aperire
velle fili damnatione’. Ego contra sentio; quilibet nostrum debuisset
adversus opiniones malignas satis fiduciae habere in bona conscientia,
principes multa debent etiam famae dare. Iuravit se non aditurum
hereditatem. Tarius quidem eodem die et alterum heredem perdidit,
sed Caesar libertatem sententiae suae redemit; et postquam adprobavit
gratuitam esse severitatem suam, quod principi semper curandum est,
dixit relegandum, quo patri videretur. Non culleum, non serpentes,
non carcerem decrevit memor, non de quo censeret, sed cui in consilio
38
38 Amanda Wilcox
esset; mollissimo genere poenae contentum esse debere patrem dixit in
filio adulescentulo inpulso in id scelus, in quo se, quod proximum erat
ab innocentia, timide gessisset; debere illum ab urbe et a parentis oculis
submoveri.
When the case had been heard and all the evidence thoroughly examined,
both in favor of the youth and against him, [Augustus] asked that each
person present write down his own judgment so that Caesar’s opinion
would not be adopted by all. Then, before the ballots were opened, he
took an oath that he would not accept an inheritance from Tarius, who
was a wealthy man. Someone might say, ‘He was afraid that it might seem
that he wished to open up a place for his own expectation by the condem-
nation of the son’. On the contrary, say I. Anyone of us ought to have
had enough trust in our own honorable intentions to resist spiteful inter-
pretations, but rulers ought to give much consideration to their reputa-
tion. [Augustus] took an oath that he would not accept an inheritance. So
Tarius on the same day lost a second heir, but Caesar restored [confidence
in] his freedom of judgment, and after he showed that his own severity
was disinterested, which is always of concern for a ruler, he said that the
son should be banished, to wherever the father thought best. Mindful not
of the man whom he was judging, but the one in whose council he was,
he did not recommend the sack, nor the snakes, nor prison. He said that
the father ought to be content with the mildest kind of punishment in the
case of a young son moved by impulse into a crime which he had acted
timidly, which is the nearest thing to innocence. He ought to be removed
from the city and from his father’s sight.
The shift in the Seneca’s attention from the behavior of Tarius to that of
Augustus can be explained easily by the fact that the De clementia is addressed,
after all, to Nero, who should aspire to exercise his quasi-paternal power
over his subjects as deftly as his ancestor Augustus did. More interesting is
Seneca’s explanation for the mildness of Augustus’ recommendation, which
is credited to the emperor’s greater concern for the father Tarius rather than
his errant son, suggesting that while the proper object of Tarius’ paternal care
was Tarius filius, the object of Augustus’ paternal care was the elder Tarius.
Reinforcing the tacit analogy that the prince is to the subject as the subject is
to his son, in the following section Seneca elaborates a whole list of hierarch-
ical relationships of command that he says are analogous to one another: ‘An
emperor commands his citizens, a father his children, a teacher his pupils, a
military tribune or centurion the common soldiers’ (imperat princeps civibus
suis, pater liberis, praeceptor discentibus, tribunus vel centurio militibus, Clem.
1.16.2).
For the newly minted pater patriae, this episode provides a demonstration
of how to act as a father to his subjects while at the same time honoring
his subjects’ traditional authority as fathers, a lesson which may well have
39

had the power to reassure Seneca’s other readers, a largely male, propertied
audience many of whom may have been patres familias themselves. For these
readers, the phrase in privatos penates would convey the innermost sanctum
or the heart of the house, where the father was traditionally imagined to sit in
unimpeachable judgment on members of his household. By keeping the son’s
hearing in the house of Tarius, Augustus upholds this traditional authority of
the pater familias. This deference is accentuated by Seneca’s prose. He marks
the importance of Augustus by making him the subject of four active verbs
in quick succession, but ends the list by articulating what Augustus refrained
from saying (non dixit). By answering the summons and taking a seat among
the other councilors in another father’s house, Augustus seems to discreetly
affirm a father’s legal and traditional right to pass judgment on his son. On
the basis of this sentence alone, it would be tempting to read the passage
simply as a graceful demonstration of Augustus’ refusal to usurp traditional
authority, by acting both inter patres and inter pares. In the house of Tarius,
the paternal authority belongs to Tarius. But actually, that is not what the
passage says. In spite of the fact that Augustus has been invited to the council
as a consultant, he quickly takes charge. Nonetheless, he wields his authority
so graciously, at least in Seneca’s telling, that rather than resentment from
the father whose patria potestas has been ever so gently superseded in his
own house, Augustus earns praise. Seneca does not, in fact, record the reac-
tion of Tarius. Instead, he closes the passage with his own accolades for the
emperor: ‘One whom fathers worthily call into counsel! One whom worthily
they would designate as co-heirs with their innocent sons!’ (o dignum quem
in consilium patres advocarent! O dignum quem coheredem innocentibus liberis
scriberent! Clem. 1.16.1). This elision of the narrative frame at the end of
the exemplum seems particularly significant given the hortatory framework
of the De clementia overall, since it enables a specific episode from the past to
lapse into a generalized statement on praiseworthy behavior any prince might
aspire to deserve, including Seneca’s addressee Nero.
We can see a similar renovation of the father-son relationship elsewhere in
Seneca’s writings, where the traditional dyadic dynamic is reordered in such a
way as to make room for a third actor, the emperor, who sometimes acts as a
father for the father, and sometimes displaces him. Seneca recounts one such
episode at De beneficiis 2.25.1. In this case, Gaius Furnius has succeeded in
obtaining a benefit from Augustus for his father. He is particularly exemplary,
for Seneca, in the way in which he expresses his gratitude to Augustus. The
father of Furnius never appears or speaks in Seneca’s telling. His import-
ance rests entirely in his needing a pardon, which provides the occasion for
Augustus to make a benefaction for Furnius, and for Furnius to express his
thanks to Augustus. The only authority on display here is that of Augustus,
and it is the authority of a conqueror to either punish or spare the conquered
that is at issue. The anecdote about Tarius and this story about Furnius com-
plement one another, nonetheless. In the first instance, a son’s life is in jeop-
ardy because he has plotted against his father. Augustus consents to advise the
40
40 Amanda Wilcox
father, and in fact takes control of the process, but he does it so graciously that
he wins praise. As for the outcome, the son’s life is saved, though he is deprived
of his home (both domus and patria) and his inheritance (patrimonium). The
father, meanwhile, loses not one but two heirs—his son and Augustus.39 In the
story about Furnius, on the other hand, a father’s life is in jeopardy, and his
son saves it by appealing to the emperor. Both Furnius the father and Furnius
the son become indebted to Augustus. Furnius the son stands to benefit from
this obligation—and in fact we know that he served as consul in 17 BCE,
which must indicate that he continued in Augustus’ favor. We do not hear
what became of his father, but it is not a stretch to interpret Furnius filius’
gratitude toward Augustus as at least a partial transference of the loyalty and
gratitude owed by a child to his progenitor to, instead, his ruler.40
In other words, when a son thanks Augustus fulsomely for judging and
pardoning his father, the traditional allocation of authority has already been
breached, to the detriment of the actual father and the advantage of the sym-
bolic father. This change is made more dramatic by a generational inversion.41
Instead of a father seeking mercy for his son, a son appeals to the father of
the country on behalf of his own, private father.42 The traditional paternal
role of acting both as the judge of his son and also as his advocate is left
out of the transaction altogether. This short-circuiting of an expected pattern
of behavior is indicative of the construction of a new, differently distributed
model of authority, in which sons need not always suffer under the severity
or be relieved by the mildness of their own fathers, but can circumvent their
father’s judgment by applying instead to the emperor.43
Now, so long as the emperor exercises discretion, restraint, good judgment,
and mildness, his possession of paternal authority that supersedes the trad-
itional, domestic model might not seem objectionable. But what happens
when the pater patriae is impulsive, arbitrary in his judgments, cruel and abu-
sive of his paternal role? This question was not hypothetical for Seneca or his
fellow Romans. Seneca offers several examples that illustrate how terrifying it
might be to attract the ‘fatherly’ interest of a bad emperor. The fullest of these
39 Seneca calls attention to this double loss, which surely suggests a diminishment of Tarius’
prestige: no heir, and no reflected glory from offering a benefit to the emperor.
40 On the gratitude owed by children to their parents, see, e.g., Sen. Ben. 5.5.2–3. See also Gloyn’s
discussion of Ben. 3.29.1 and 3.31.3–4 (2017, 116–22).
41 Gunderson 2003, 125–6 analyzes a similar reversal in Seneca the Elder (Contr. 2.6.2), wherein
‘by inverting their proper relationship… the father actually forces the son to become a wise
father himself’.
42 Confirmation that the trope of a father as suppliant was still active comes from Ira [4]‌.2.33.5
(an episode discussed below), where a father who seeks forgiveness of Caligula on behalf of
his condemned son is compared to Priam supplicating Achilles.
43 We might expect that the option to substitute one step higher in a hierarchy of fathers—that
is, turning from one’s actual father, if unsatisfactory, to the emperor—would be continued by
a further option of turning from an unsatisfactory emperor to god. But, as will be discussed
below, this tidy hierarchy of substitution does not harmonize either with Stoic theodicy or
with Seneca’s political circumstances.
41

comes from the second book of De ira, where Seneca recalls that Caligula
imprisoned a young man because he was irritatingly well-groomed. When his
father, named Pastor, came to the emperor to plead for his son’s life, Caligula
had the son led out to execution, and invited his father to dinner. He had
Pastor watched throughout the banquet to see whether he was appropriately
appreciative of the emperor’s hospitality. The anecdote ends with Seneca’s
devastatingly simply explanation for why the father prudently repressed his
grief: he had another son (habebat alterum, Ira [4]‌.2.33.4). The actions that
Caligula takes in this episode, prompted by his extreme albeit whimsical
cruelty, are not labeled by Seneca as explicitly paternal. But the only two men
in Rome with the right to summarily execute Pastor’s sons were Pastor him-
self and the emperor. In a culture where the ius vitae necisque is a quintes-
sential marker of paternal authority, the exercise of that right is unavoidably
an assertion of at least symbolic paternity, even if indirectly so. Liz Gloyn
has recently written trenchantly about another vivid passage in which Seneca
recounts Caligula’s abrupt whipping, torture, and execution of several Roman
senators and equestrians (Ira [5].3.18.3–4); here the outrageous caprice and
thoroughness of the emperor’s cruelty are on full display as emblematic of the
irrational savagery of anger (Non enim Gai saevitiae sed irae, Ira [5].3.19.5).44
It is telling that Seneca postpones a final, terrible detail of this episode. Only
at the very conclusion of the passage does he reveal that after executing these
men, the same night he sent centurions to his victims’ houses to kill their
fathers also.45 Gaius seems compelled to do away with the fathers he has
dispossessed not only of their sons, but also of a quintessential element of
their identity as fathers, as though their paternity lay exclusively in the ius
vitae necisque, and once the power was rendered null, their own lives became
superfluous.
Caligula’s terrible abuses of his paternal role show the perverse turn that
the honorific pater patriae had taken by his reign. During the republic, this
title was sparingly bestowed on men who had preserved the state in moments
of greatest peril from enemies either external or within. Augustus prominently
includes it in his Res Gestae among the honors given him by the Senate.46
But in Seneca’s works, a different, grimmer aspect of Roman fatherhood
dominates the complex of qualities and powers contained in the pater part of
pater patriae. Instead of an emphasis on the pater as protector of his family
and guarantor of the stability of the household, the father’s unchecked power
of life and death over members of that household, now firmly conceived of
as including all of Rome, is represented as the foremost element. The title
of pater patriae has become a conceptual shorthand that both encodes and
reinforces the emperor’s absolute right of life or death over his subjects. Nero
44 Gloyn 2017, 159–62.

45 Sen. Ira [5]‌.3.19.5: Adicere his longum est quod patres quoque occisorum eadem nocte dimissis
per domos centurionibus confecit, id est, homo misericors luctu liberavit.
46 Aug. Res Gestae 35.1.
42
42 Amanda Wilcox
accepted this title around the time that Seneca wrote the De clementia, which
may account somewhat for its prominence in that work.47 Yet even in the De
ira, a substantially earlier work, Seneca seems intrigued by the power this
metaphor held, and interested in promoting a deliberative mode of parenting
in which actual fathers and rulers figured as father could peacefully co-exist
and perhaps productively collaborate.48 This collaboration was undoubtedly
a smoother one when the ruler exercised his authority with a light touch. An
emperor who styled himself as the peer, or even rival, of Olympian gods, was
much less likely to act as a peer or supporter of other, merely mortal Roman
fathers.49
4 God the father
The De providentia takes up a question that Seneca says Lucilius, the essay’s
addressee, has often asked him. If the universe is governed by a beneficent
providence, as the Stoics believed, why do so many misfortunes befall good
men (quid ita… multa bonis viris mala acciderent, Prov. [1]‌.1.1)? In answering
this question, Seneca leans extensively on the paternal aspect of the divine.
Now, when Seneca shows Augustus an exemplary parent, he almost always
acts as a mild, lenient father, who inspires and confirms forbearance in other
fathers and grateful virtue in formerly erring sons. When ‘God the father’ is
doing the parenting, however, the paternal mode is severe, not lenient, and
inspires not merely conventional good behavior, but heroic and often self-
immolating deeds of virtue.50 To put it another way, Augustus the father is
almost always the exemplary agent, the character who displays exemplary
behavior, in Seneca’s treatments of him. In exemplary passages featuring
god, the exemplary agent is the story’s figurative child, that is, the person
on the receiving end of god’s parental actions. This person’s reaction to div-
inely sent misfortune exhibits and confirms his virtue. ‘Are you surprised’,
Seneca writes, ‘if god, the one most loving of good men, who wishes them
to be optimally good and as excellent as possible, assigns a fortune to them
by which they will be tested?’ (Miraris tu, si deus ille bonorum amantissimus,
qui illos quam optimos esse atque excellentissimos vult, fortunam illis cum qua
exerceantur adsignat? Prov. [1].2.7). This logic enables Seneca’s represen-
tation of Cato the Younger as a divine favorite. Blocked by Caesar’s forces
from any means of escape, his assertion of self-determination by suicide
47 N.b., the allusion to ius vitae necisque at Clem. 1.2 also noted above. On the history and signifi-
cance of pater patriae with specific reference to Nero, see Braund 2009, 317. See also Cooley
2009, 273, and for longer treatments, Alföldi 1971; Severy 2003, 158–6; and Stevenson 2009.
48 Lavery 1987 enumerates each of the exemplary father-son-ruler triangles in the De Ira.
49 At Ira [3.]1.20.8–9, Caligula issues a challenge to Jove when a thunderclap interrupts his
enjoyment of a pantomime performance.
50 Setaioli 2007, 362 likens Seneca’s god to the Roman pater familias, ‘very exacting in his
children’s upbringing’.
43

becomes an unsurpassable performance of virtue and a spectacle pleasing to
the gods: ‘How would they not watch happily their progeny departing via so
noble and memorable an end?’ (Quidni libenter spectarent alumnum suum tam
claro ac memorabili exitu evadentem? Prov. [1].2.12).51
Elsewhere in his philosophical writing, as I have noted above, Seneca
does not hesitate to use exemplary anecdotes from more recent history.52 In
the De providentia, however, Seneca avoids naming contemporary or recent
exemplars, whether positive or negative. In the introduction to his translation
of this dialogue, James Ker remarks,
[T]‌his work has an obvious relevance to Seneca and his aristocratic

contemporaries… especially given how easy it was to view the Roman
Empire as coextensive with the world and the emperor as god, [yet]
Seneca discusses misfortune almost exclusively via Cato and other repub-
lican heroes, together with Socrates.53
Ker does not explain the absence of contemporary exemplars in the De

providentia, but the theodicy of the work, taken together with the ease of
imagining the emperor as god, points us toward a plausible explanation. In
the De providentia Seneca has figured god as a father, and a father who delights
in giving good men bad fortune to surmount. But only a bad, cruel emperor
would do the same, intentionally, to his subjects. And if he were to do so, not
only would he show himself to be a bad ruler, his subjects who were good men
would show themselves morally superior to their emperor. Seneca’s treatment
of Caligula in his moral philosophy confirms this problem. In exemplary
passages, Caligula figures frequently as an agent of fate, though not, expli-
citly, as a father.54 Nonetheless, he, like Augustus, performed as pater patriae
to the Roman people, and whereas Augustus during his lifetime circumspectly
styled himself the son of a god (divus filius), Caligula notoriously considered
himself to be already divine. Seneca does not make an explicit connection
between the emperor as ‘God the father’ and the pater patriae, but the link
was available to readers who chose to make it. For those readers, exemplary
passages featuring Augustus’ velvet-gloved usurpation of traditional paternal
authority might be read as equally injurious to their autonomy as Caligula’s
brutal trespasses were, and in both sorts of exempla, Seneca may subtly invite
criticism of autocratic rule, in which one man has the power attributed to a
Roman father over all other men, regardless of how gently he might exercise
it. Seneca’s readers might well feel caught between, on the one hand, the per-
manent status of disempowerment as symbolic filii in patria potestate that
51 All the more striking, given this picture of divine paternal love, is Seneca’s description of
virtus as a gently loving parent at Ep. 66.27.
52 Ep. 83.13, cited above at n. 18. Seneca also draws attention to the practice at Ira [5]‌.3.18.3.
53 Ker 2014b, 278–9.
54 On Caligula as a negative exemplar and catalyst for virtue, see Wilcox 2008.
44
44 Amanda Wilcox
even the deft performance of paternal authority exhibited by a good emperor
entailed for his subjects, or by the extremes of virtuous action that God the
father, albeit ‘most loving of good men’ (bonorum amantissimus), tended
to provoke or require. But for the person aspiring to virtue, thinking and
living out, in Langlands’ terminology, an ‘exemplary ethics’, Seneca’s expan-
sive understanding of textuality can provide a way to take control.55 While
remaining a son and subject, the explicitly figurative and textual practice of
selecting worthy affiliations can enable each of us, Seneca suggests, to become
the heir of worthy parents of our own choosing.
5 Seneca’s example: practicing intertextuality as affiliation

For Furnius, whose actual father required a quasi-paternal intervention by his
son, the availability of a merciful public father supplied the lack of a worthy
private one. The errant son of Tarius benefited from a benevolent, measured
father backed up by an exemplary prince. Pastor, on the other hand, was
only able to save one of his sons from the depredations of an overreaching
emperor. His intervention on behalf of the other seems to have hastened that
son’s demise. The very multiplicity of these examples strongly implies that an
ethics built on exemplarity will engage its participants in ‘creative imitation’.56
But whereas the various possibilities represented by exempla featuring fathers,
sons, and emperors can provide ample means for learning to adjust our
reactions to the actions of our father(s) or our son(s) so as to behave as well
as circumstances permit, our attempts at admirable behavior will nevertheless
be constrained by those circumstances. In short, those suffering the rule of a
difficult father, whether actual or imperial, might require a further resource.
And fortunately, Seneca supplies one. He invites his reader, whether as a son
or as an imperial subject, to recognize the limits of both biological and sym-
bolic parentage, and to recognize and choose the possibility of productively
substituting a more desirable metaphorical parentage in place of the difficult
relation. From a narrowly literal or legal perspective, this philosophical solu-
tion might seem implausible, given the broad scope and inexorable quality of
Roman patria potestas. But as he often does, on this point Seneca uses meta-
phor to achieve a therapeutic end. With the mindset that Seneca recommends,
the relationship of father to son, a bond that appears inescapable in the struc-
ture of Roman society and law, turns out to be either entirely illusory, or,
paradoxically, wholly subject to an individual’s own choice. Knowledge of the
way things really are will enable sons to free themselves from unworthy fathers
just as slaves can emancipate themselves from morally inferior masters.
Moreover, by seriously entertaining the notion that ‘reality is the effect of
the figural’, Seneca’s readers become better able to see and judge received facts
55 Dressler 2012, 172.
56 Langlands 2018, 120. See also Peirano 2012, 13 on the ‘habit of creative supplementation’ in
imperial Roman literary practice.
45

like exile, slavery, or who our true parents are, through the application of a
double procedure. The first step is to strip away conventional understanding,
the second is to ‘recast’ social or even natural facts as metaphors that can aid
our philosophical progress.57 Thus, for example, seeing oneself as in reality a
slave of Fortune, rather than accepting as valid a servile status vis-à-vis another
human being, may, according to Seneca, enable us to envision and accom-
plish our own emancipation.58 Readers of Seneca accustomed to the frequent,
flexible social and legal scope of adoption practices in the Roman world are
well-positioned to accept Seneca’s invitation to recast their understanding of
adoption, and particularly testamentary adoption, as a metaphor, the better
to understand their own radical capacity for choice. Seneca describes this
approach in the De brevitate vitae, asserting that while we do not choose our
actual parents, we are nonetheless able to choose an inheritance from where
we like. He writes,
Solemus dicere non fuisse in nostra potestate quos sortiremur parentes,

forte nobis datos: nobis vero ad nostrum arbitrium nasci licet.
Nobilissimorum ingeniorum familiae sunt: elige in quam adscisci velis;
non in nomen tantum adoptaberis, sed in ipsa bona.
(Brev. vit. [10].15.3)
We are accustomed to say that who our parents are is not in our power,
but falls by chance, and by chance we are given to men. But in fact it
is allowed for us to be born according to our own judgment. There are
households marked by the most noble natures; choose in which of these
you wish to be enrolled; you will be adopted not only in name, but also
in the estate.
This passage invites Seneca’s reader to participate in a philosophical

recasting of the conventional Roman social practice of adoption. If Seneca’s
reader chooses to see himself, figuratively but in reality, as up for adoption,
then he can choose whose heir he will be and what he will inherit. For an
aspirant to wisdom, the recognition that he could choose a truer relation of
paternity and filiation than the father awarded him by Fortune would consti-
tute a significant advance toward achieving a life of freedom and happiness,
regardless of who his pater or his pater patriae happened to be.
Seneca’s Moral Epistles demonstrate this option most fully, and illustrate
most directly what I have argued is also the case for his use of exemplary
discourse in his other prose works, especially the De clementia, namely that
Seneca puts the resources and practices of exemplary intertextuality, along
with intertextuality in all its guises, into the service of illuminating, refining,
57 The foregoing sentences are greatly indebted to Bartsch 2009, from whose discussion I have
borrowed phrases occurring on pp. 193 and 198.
58 Edwards 2009, 143.
46
46 Amanda Wilcox
and practicing his therapeutic moral philosophy. The idea of elective affili-
ation, for instance, recurs in several of Seneca’s Moral Epistles. In Epistle
44, Seneca observes that all humans are descended from gods (omnes… a dis
sunt, 44.1), and that because only a good mind confers nobility, we all qualify
(bona mens omnibus patet; omnes ad hoc sumus nobiles, 44.2). Accordingly,
he urges Lucilius to live in such a way that he can count Socrates, Cleanthes
and Plato among his ancestors (44.3). But he clinches his exhortation with a
striking image: ‘An atrium full of smoky death masks does not make a person
noble; no one has lived his past life for our present glory, and what existed
before us is not ours. The soul makes us noble’ (Non facit nobilem atrium
plenum fumosis imaginibus; nemo in nostram gloriam vixit nec quod ante nos
fuit nostrum est: animus facit nobilem, Ep. 44.5).59 Characteristically, Seneca
reaches for a vivid image deeply familiar to his Roman reader to drive his
point home, and he uses an object, the funeral mask (imago), that is equally
resonant as a symbol.60 Seneca does not even concede in this letter the hor-
tatory efficacy imagines may possess, though elsewhere he emphatically
recommends looking to the images of ‘great men’—not our own ancestors,
but both Catos, Laelius, Socrates, Plato, Zeno and Cleanthes—to stimulate
our emulation of their virtue.61
And so, when Stephen Hinds quotes from the Moral Epistles Seneca’s
encouragement to his friend Lucilius, who is hesitating to begin composing
his planned poem called ‘Aetna’, he risks misrepresenting Seneca.62 In fact,
Seneca does reassure Lucilius that his position as a latecomer to the poetic
treatment of Mt. Aetna is actually advantageous, as Hinds notes, but Seneca’s
point about the advantages of belatedness has a more important application
than encouraging literary emulation. Seneca writes (Ep. 79.6):
Multum interest utrum ad consumptam materiam an ad subactam

accedes: crescit in dies, et inventuris inventa non obstant. Praeterea
condicio optima est ultimi: parata verba invenit, quae aliter instructa
novam faciem habent. Nec illis manus init tamquam alienis. Sunt enim
publica.
It matters a lot whether you are embarking on material that has been
farmed to death or only lightly harrowed: [the latter] increases day by
day, and what has been discovered does not stand in the way of what
will be discovered. Furthermore, he who comes last has the best shot: he
59 Gloyn 2017, 174–6 also discusses how Seneca redraws the idea of family through this letter.
60 For a brief treatment of Seneca’s use of images, see Armisen-Marchetti 2015a; for a compre-
hensive discussion, Armisen-Marchetti 1989.
61 Quidni ego magnorum virorum et imagines habeam incitamenta animi… Marcum Catonem
utrumque et Laelium Sapientem et Socraten cum Platone et Zenonem Cleanthenque in animum
meum… recipiam, Sen. Ep. 64.9–10.
62 Hinds 1998, 41. See also Trinacty 2009, 263.
47

discovers words ready to hand, which, when he has arranged them differ-
ently, will take on a new appearance. Nor does he lay hands on another
person’s property, for [words] are public.
Many of the Moral Epistles offer variations on this reassurance to Lucilius

that ‘there’s lots left to do’. Here, I wish to stress Seneca’s expression of an
idea that he has enunciated before, namely: [verba] sunt enim publica.63 The
clear implication is that imitation, whether literary or moral, as will emerge in
the letter’s later sections, is not theft. In the next sentence, Seneca writes that
although Lucilius may find the prospect of his poetic subject intimidating as
well as appetizing,64 he should proceed confidently in his overarching endeavor,
which is the achievement of virtue. At the beginning of Ep. 79, Seneca asks
Lucilius to climb Aetna in his honor and for the sake of science (79.2), then in
the middle of the letter he discusses Lucilius’ literary aspirations to scale the
heights of a poetic Aetna of his own making (79.4–8), and finally, in the last
and longest part of the letter he reveals that both scientific and poetic endeavor
are properly in service of wisdom, which is the true mountain that Lucilius,
Seneca, and all aspirants to wisdom are required to climb (79.9–18). This
part of this letter leaves literary ambition and scientific investigation behind
in favor of addressing the climb toward virtue directly. This path, which is
open to all of us, has been pioneered by others but the way lies equally open
to latecomers, who should look to their predecessors as valuable exemplars,
but who have an equal claim on what is true, an equal chance of attaining
virtue, and plenty left to accomplish. In the same letter, Seneca moves from
poets who were not deterred by the achievements of their forebears (79.5) to
Greek and Roman exemplars of virtue, whose disregard for their fame among
their contemporaries has yielded to a truer estimation of their value among
posterity.65 Likewise, Seneca asserts, his and Lucilius’ concern for virtue will
keep them in circulation: ‘The talk (sermo) of those who come after matters
not at all to us, yet although we will not be sensible of it, this talk will cultivate
and attend us’.66
63 At Ep. 12.11, cited above.

64 ‘If Aetna does not make your mouth water, then I don’t know you’ (Aut ego te non novi aut
Aetna tibi salivam movet, Ep. 79.7). The prospect is ‘mouth-watering’ because Aetna’s very
rich literary, philosophical, and scientific associations make it a fitting challenge for Lucilius’
ambition to write something elevated (grande aliquid). In keeping with his penchant for
mobilizing both literal and figurative meanings, Seneca also nods here toward the agricultural
richness of Aetna’s slopes.
65 At Ep. 79.5, Vergil, Ovid, Cornelius Severus; at 79.13– 17, Democritus, Socrates, Cato,
Rutilius and finally Epicurus and his correspondent Metrodorus. By ending with a pair of
letter-writing friends, Seneca draws attention to his current project, the correspondence with
Lucilius, and thus to the textual nature of his ethical practice.
66 Ep. 79.17: Ad nos quidem nihil pertinebit posterorum sermo; tamen etiam non sentientes colet ac
frequentabit.
48
48 Amanda Wilcox
The moral imperative to pursue virtue is a project and patrimony that is
equally available and appropriate for all ‘sons’. As he often does, Seneca uses
conventional means to a radical end. In his exemplary discourse, he recognizes
and takes advantage of the persistence of teaching by example as a cultur-
ally central and prestigious practice at Rome. But he endorses a traditional
method to teach a lesson that may well undermine or contradict traditional
mores.67 Seneca wants his readers, ultimately, not to look backward in emula-
tion of the hoary mos maiorum, but rather forward, toward achieving virtue in
their own lives. Rather than striving to become mere replicas of their fathers,
these philosophical sons must choose their fathers, and then focus on what lies
ahead. In Moral Epistle 84, after comparing our work as readers and writers
to the labors of honey-making bees and the body’s natural incorporation of
food, Seneca offers an additional pair of metaphors, one of which shows a way
forward, the other a caution: ‘And if a likeness appears in you of that person
whom admiration has modeled deeply to you, I wish you to resemble a son,
as it were, and not an image. For an image is a lifeless thing’ (Etiam si cuius in
te comparebit similitudo, quem admiratio tibi altius fixerit, similem esse te volo
quomodo filium, non quomodo imaginem: imago res mortua est, Ep. 84.8). In
the passages from both Letter 79 and Letter 84, the literary pursuits Seneca
alludes to in the opening sections act as preludes to the letters’ main lessons.
In the former, Seneca mobilizes Lucilius’ poetic endeavors as a metaphor for
their shared journey toward virtue, an ascent they share with many others,
which will lead them all to the same end (Ep. 79.8–10). In the latter, Seneca’s
abandonment of reading leads him to ‘a broader theorization of how to read
and write,’ which includes both the comparison to bees making honey, and
us making ourselves like sons.68 Strikingly, the conclusion of Letter 84 ends
up in the same metaphorical terrain as Letter 79: ‘Very rocky is the pathway
of a prestigious career; but if you wish to climb that peak below which even
fortune submits, you will see all those things below you which are generally
considered the most exalted attainments, but in the end, you will come to the
highest point as though across a level plain’ (Confragosa in fastigium dignitatis
via est; at si conscendere hunc verticem libet, cui se fortuna summisit, omnia
quidem sub te quae pro excelsissimis habentur aspicies, sed tamen venies ad
summa per planum, Ep. 84.13). The main message both these letters convey
is the simultaneous claim and demonstration that literary pursuits serve the
ethical life, and it is that service which endows literary pursuits with their
greatest value.
Practicing this ethical life as Seneca prescribes it, moreover, will be an
intensely textual and intertextual endeavor. Just as the figures of lineage,
descent, filiation and genealogy have been used among literary theorists and
critics (albeit at times contentiously) as analogs for intertextuality, so too
67 On this point, see now Langlands 2018 and particularly chapter 12, on ‘controversial thinking
through exempla’.
68 The quote is from Dressler 2012, 173–4; see also Langlands 2018, 121.
49

(inter)textuality can serve as an analog for the life of philosophy Seneca urges
on us. Alex Dressler has demonstrated ‘the way in which [for Seneca,] text-
uality, particularly literature, mediates moral transformation’, and Catharine
Edwards has recently drawn attention to the continuous generation of
philosophical community that Seneca envisions happening via epistolary
conversations that include both past exemplars and future readers.69 Taking
Seneca as our example, we may write ourselves into history as the heirs of
whomever we choose, and as the parents of whomever chooses us. Finally, our
task is to increase the patrimony of our self-declaring heirs: ‘Let us act like
the good pater familias; let us make more what we have received. Let a greater
inheritance (hereditas) pass from me to those who come afterward’.70 We will
do so by thinking through exempla and by writing ourselves into their ranks.71
69 Dressler 2012, 172; Edwards 2018.

70 Ep. 64.7: Sed agamus bonum patrem familiae, faciamus ampliora quae accepimus; maior
hereditas a me ad posteros transeat.
71 Ep. 98.13: Nos quoque aliquid et ipsi faciamus animose; simus inter exempla. The stimu-
lating conversation of the audience and fellow attendees of the May 2017 conference on
Intertextuality in Senecan Philosophy gave a felicitous beginning for this piece, and I am very
grateful for the unstinting hospitality and critical generosity of the conference’s organizers,
who are this volume’s editors. This chapter has benefited much from their kind attention,
as well as from the astute comments of two anonymous referees. I had the good fortune
to deliver another early version of this chapter as the 2017 Guttman Memorial Lecture at
Union College. I would like to thank Stacie Raucci, Tommaso Gazzarri, Hans Friedrich
Mueller, their students, and the audience on that happy occasion for their suggestions and
encouragement.
50
2
Myth, poetry and Homer in
Seneca philosophus
R. Scott Smith
1 Introduction
Tackling ‘myth-as-intertext’ in Seneca’s prose works1 entails a demanding and
deep examination of the manifold ways that Seneca engaged with the rich tap-
estry of stories from the spatium mythicum (‘mythical time’), both those that
might be conceived of as a koine mythical tradition as well as those told specific-
ally in the Homeric epics. In the absence of a systematic treatment of Seneca’s use
of what we call ‘myth’, I have decided to preface the intertextual examinations
proper with a comprehensive study of Seneca’s views and employment of stories
from the world of gods and heroes.2 Those interested in my analysis of Seneca’s
engagement with the Homeric texts can find them in section 5 below.
Thus, this chapter has two main goals. First, it attempts to provide a
systematic overview of what we call myth in Seneca’s philosophical works,
including a review of Seneca’s theological concerns on the one hand, and a
new evaluation of the use of figures and events in the spatium mythicum on
the other. Studies of Seneca’s view of ‘myth’3 have primarily focused on the
1 It is impossible to treat here either the tragic corpus (if indeed these are written by our
Seneca: see Kohn 2003, with which I am sympathetic, and footnote 30 below), which exten-
sively employs and rewrites stories from the mythical world (though, see footnote 53 below).
Since these literary constructs are explicitly set in the mythical world, the mode of intertext-
uality is inherently different. Those who wish to consider the Stoic rewriting of myth in the tra-
gedies, see (among many others) Pratt 1983, 78–131; Rosenmeyer 1989, passim but esp. 5–36;
and Star 2016.
2 To promote further study of Seneca and myth an index of references is provided in the
Appendix.
3 Although the concept of ‘myth’ employed widely today did not have a corresponding category
in antiquity, especially in early Greek literature, there are certain indications that the trad-
itional body of stories that we call myth was eventually seen as a distinct collection that could
be subjected to scrutiny. First, Palaephatus’ Unbelievable Tales (4th c. BCE) presents us with
a systematic project of rationalizing these traditional stories, indicating that they were seen
differently from other historical or legendary tales. Furthermore, Apollodorus’ Library (and
less so Hyginus’ Fabulae, both likely 2nd c. CE) presents a coherent set of stories that seem
to be implicitly defined as ‘myth’. Finally, as we will see below, the Roman chronologer Varro
distinguished between a ‘mythical’ and ‘historical’ period, demonstrating that, by Seneca’s day,
there was ancient precedent for thinking of myth as a conceptual whole. As will be elaborated
51
Myth, poetry and Homer 51

theological aspects, especially his rejection of allegoresis as a valid method
to align the traditional gods with Stoic principles. Here, I wish to widen the
lens to look at Seneca’s approach to the mythical past holistically. In doing
so I will show that Seneca’s rejection of the majority of mythical stories is
grounded both in the rejection of unbelievable narrative elements that do not
align with the natural world as understood by the Stoics (as well as his Roman
contemporaries) and in the great temporal gulf that separates his modern
world from the remote, and therefore gullible, past. When Seneca does engage
with the stories from the mythical period, he tends to do in such a way as to
draw the reader’s attention from that past to the present, even when adopting
a literary persona.
Second, the chapter will explore some tensions between myth-as-intertext
and poetry-as-intertext, with special attention to the Homeric texts that
stood at the center of elite Roman education.4 To say that a reference
to Odysseus is automatically to enact an intertextual dialogue with the
Homeric text itself fails to recognize the complicated relationship between
myth and text. To a great extent myth acts according to the rules of quantum
mechanics. At one and the same time, a myth may be coextensive with the
poetical text(s) in which it is embedded, but it may also exist independently,
separate from yet still interacting with texts even from a distance—a sort
of ‘quantum entanglement’. When we encounter a ‘Homer says’, it may, at
one time, be a reference to the text of the Iliad (literary intertextuality), yet
at another it may refer to its quantum twin, the ‘super-text’5 that has grown
up separate from the text of Homer and which may include the scholarly
and mythographic exegesis that has built up around it (cultural or myth-
ical intertextuality). To take one example from outside of Seneca’s corpus,
the Elder Pliny describes the Halizones thus: ‘Homer called these people
Halizones because the nation was surrounded by the sea’ (HN 5.143 hos
Homerus Halizonas dixit, quando praecingitur gens mari). Homer, it turns
out, says no such thing, but simply lists the Halizones without elaboration
further in section 3, I prefer the term spatium mythicum because it reflects the coherency of the
mythical system that took place ‘back then’, regardless of the plausibility of the stories.
4 It is impossible to treat the extensive bibliography on intertextuality, but several foundational
studies have influenced the way that I think about intertextuality. In particular, Pucci 1998,
1–48 is essential reading for a history of the debate about the role of authorial intent in New
Critical and Structuralist approaches to allusion and intertextuality, with a reorientation of
the question toward the ‘full-knowing reader’ that is necessary for the allusion to be activated.
See also Edmunds 2001; Hinds 1998; Fowler 1997. For a recent study of Seneca’s intertextual
relationship with Vergilian and Ovidian poetry in the Natural Questions, see Trinacty 2018.
5 The term ‘supertext’ is used variously by literary critics and has no agreed-upon meaning. By
‘super-text’ here, I mean specifically the life of a textual element, character, episode or idea that
has grown beyond the text itself. For instance, Odysseus may be found in Homer’s text, but he
is also brought into a number of mythical episodes which are not ‘textual’ in the same way but
have somehow become connected to the text or author. This might be called the concept of the
‘mythical super-text’.
52
52 R. Scott Smith
at Il. 2.856. For Pliny’s detail one must look to the scholiastic tradition:6
οὗτοι γὰρ οἰκοῦσι γῆν ὑπὸ θαλάσσης ἐζωσμένην (‘for these occupy a land
girded by the sea’).7 Here, Homer is an authority, but his original text has
been ‘built up’ by subsequent interpretation—becoming ‘Homeric’ by asso-
ciation. To anticipate a bit of what will be covered in section 5, Seneca’s
rewriting of the wandering Odysseus is only meaningful when the geograph-
ical associations—undefined in the original literary text—with Southern
Italy are assumed as part of the mythical tradition.
Likewise, a reference such as Niobe’s ‘remembering to eat’ as told in Iliad
24, can be complicated because the original text has become embedded
in and is part of another cultural context. An example of this occurs at
Ep. 63.2, where Seneca refers specifically to the authority of the ‘greatest
of poets’, who provides guidance for the period of mourning: we should
only grieve for one day (Il. 19.229) and even Niobe thought of food (Il.
24.602). Again, the context of the Homeric lines is are not as important as
is the fact that Homer is an authority for proper human behavior. Even if
Seneca’s lines ‘enact’ an intertextual relationship, the audience’s interpret-
ation of how Seneca’s remark relates to the Homeric Ur-text is obscured
by the fact that the same two passages were commonly evoked at funeral
feasts (thus becoming part of the super-text, and to some extent drawn
into the realm of ‘exemplary intertextuality’ outlined by Amanda Wilcox
in Chapter 1).8 In such contexts, where citation or quotation can be an act
of authority rather than of literary engagement, we should be wary of
envisioning that every reference to Achilles or Bellerophon is to be seen in
dialogue with Homer or Euripides—even when a text or author is expli-
citly mentioned.
Before we consider Seneca’s use of the Homeric epics, it will be important
to examine his views on the traditional stories themselves. If the mythical
world of gods and heroes represents a sort of text that can be cited, quoted,
altered or manipulated, it will be worthwhile to analyze exactly what Seneca
thinks of this text and how he employs or rejects it. Only then can we turn to
the literary versions of those same kind of stories.
6 Erbse 1969–88 ad loc. vol. I 348.

7 All translations in this chapter are my own, unless otherwise noted.
8 Lucian, De luctu 24: ‘Μέχρι μὲν τίνος, ὦ οὗτος, ὀδυρόμεθα; ἔασον ἀναπαύσασθαι τοὺς τοῦ
μακαρίτου δαίμονας εἰ δὲ καὶ τὸ παράπαν κλάειν διέγνωκας, αὐτοῦ γε τούτου ἕνεκα χρὴ μὴ
ἀπόσιτον εἶναι, ἵνα καὶ διαρκέσῃς πρὸς τοῦ πένθους τὸ μέγεθος’. τότε δὴ τότε ῥαψωδοῦνται πρὸς
ἁπάντων δύο τοῦ Ὁμήρου στίχοι καὶ γάρ τ᾽ ἠΰκομος Νιόβη ἐμνήσατο σίτου (Il. 24.602): καὶ γαστέρι
δ᾽ οὔπως ἐστὶ νέκυν πενθῆσαι Ἀχαιούς (Il. 19.225). ‘My dear man, how long are we to lament?
Let the spirits of the departed rest. But if you have absolutely decided to keep on weeping,
for that very reason you must not abstain from food, in order that you may prove equal to the
magnitude of your sorrow’. Then, ah! then, two lines of Homer are recited by everyone: ‘Verily
Niobe also, the fair-tressed, thought of her dinner’ and ‘Mourning the dead by fasting is not to
be done by Achaeans’ (transl. Harmon 1925).
53
2 Theological criticism: rejection of Stoic allegoresis

When speaking of Seneca and ‘myth,’ we must at the outset make a distinc-
tion between theological concerns about the divine on the one hand, and the
vast array of stories that concern the heroic world on the other. In terms of
the former, Seneca’s attitude was obviously influenced by his philosophical
views of the Stoic god, which have been most recently analyzed in a com-
prehensive paper by Aldo Setaioli.9 Other studies have shown that Seneca
rejects the facile ‘allegorizing’ approaches of his Stoic predecessors, especially
Chrysippus, who attempted to bring traditional pantheistic theology into line
with Stoic philosophy (see below). It is worth pointing out here that when
scholars speak of Stoic allegories of myth, they tend to refer to interpretation
of gods and goddesses, not the whole body of traditional stories concerning
heroic events. This tendency mirrors the Stoic practice itself, which is almost
entirely concerned with theological matters.10
Recent studies have persuasively argued that so- called early Stoic
‘allegoresis’11 was not based on the notion that poets somehow had spe-
cial access to the truth, which they purposefully but cryptically embedded
in their poetry, but rather on the idea that the earliest humans, free from
widespread corruption, had some pure notion of the divine.12 The poets, far
from being proto-Stoics, instead were largely responsible for corrupting these
9 Setaioli 2007; see also van Sijl 2010, Wildberger 2006a, 21–48, esp. 30–7; Batinski 1993.
Setaioli (2007, 347) articulates how the traditional pantheon of gods are to be interpreted as
‘ministers’ of the one and true god, Jupiter, who is alone exempt from destruction in the great
conflagration (see Ben. 4.7.1–4.8; cf. Wildberger 2006a, 33–4).
10 The one exception seems to have been Metrodorus of Lampsacus, who supposedly allegorized
heroes alongside the gods in the Iliad. See Tatian Or. ad Gr. 21 (= DK 61 A3), who said that
Metrodorus ‘turned everything into allegory’ (cf. DK 61 A4, where, for example, Agamemnon
is allegorized as aether). See Califf 2003.
11 Employing the term ‘allegory’ for Stoic interpretation of traditional Greek divine myth is
controversial and is used with caution here. An important article by A. Long (1996, 67–76,
82–3), followed by a monograph of van Sijl (2010), persuasively argues that there was no
sustained attempt to see early Greek myth as systematically allegorical, but rather the early
Stoics took an ‘atomic’ approach, focusing on individual names (mostly through etymology)
and narrative elements to bring traditional myth in line with Stoicism. Furthermore, Long
and van Sijl argue that the earliest Stoics did not believe that the earliest mythmakers pur-
posefully embedded secret knowledge in narrative stories. Instead, the earliest humans, free
from widespread corruption, had some pure conceptions of the divine, which were then
corrupted by others, especially poets. By clearing away the corruption one can reclaim the
original natural conception of the divine and thus bring it in line with the Stoic view (contra
Most 1989; Ramelli and Lucchetta 2004, ch. 6.6). If Long and van Sijl are correct, then the
impulse behind the Stoic line of interpretation is akin to rationalizing approaches, which view
the fabulous elements of myth as due to the corruption of an original event or conception.
12 Long 1996; van Sijl 2010, 3–92. That Homer purposefully engaged in allegory is found in later
sources, for instance Strabo 1.2.7 Meineke (cf. Seneca Ep. 88.5) and especially Heraclitus the
Allegorist (Russell and Konstan 2005).
54
54 R. Scott Smith
unadulterated notions of the divine. As Long puts it, the Stoics were ‘interested
in their [the poets’] poems as sources of pre-existing, pre-philosophical views
of the world—what we might call “true myths” ’.13 The poets themselves, in
turn, were responsible for many of the childish superstitions held by human-
kind (Cic. ND 2.36 = SVF 2.1067; cf. Philodemus De pietate 2158–9 Obbink).
Thus, the Stoics ‘were interested in the ancient ideas transmitted in that
poetry rather than in the poets and their poems as such, in myth rather than
poetry’.14 On this reading, since poetry is the sole means to reclaim the ori-
ginal conceptions of the gods, one must use it, but cautiously, by carefully
clearing away poetic distortions. Greek poetry, then, was nothing more than
‘ethnographical material’15 that allowed early Stoics to align their views, based
on the observation of nature, with the original natural conceptions of the
earliest peoples. Thus, early Stoics like Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, and
later Hecato and Cornutus, could employ poetry as a way to gain access the
pure notions of the divine.
Seneca’s own view of the earliest humans is complex, in part because our
main source, Letter 90, is a complicated amalgam of Posidonius’ and Seneca’s
views on the ‘Golden Age’ of humankind. There is no need to revisit the dif-
ficulties in extricating Seneca’s precise position relative to his Stoic prede-
cessor.16 It is enough to point out here that Seneca, in contrast to what appears
to be the Posidonian perspective, did not view the earliest humans as having
particular access to the truth. Even though at Ep. 90.7 Seneca claims ‘to have
agreed with Posidonius up to this point’ that the earliest peoples were ruled
by sapientes, this seems to be a temporary rhetorical position so that he can
later refute Posidonius’ claim that Wise Men were responsible for discovering
artes. Later, Seneca clarifies his real position: ‘I do not believe that that rude
age, which still lacked technical knowledge and learned things by trial and
error, had this sort of philosophy’ (Ep. 90.35, hanc philosophiam fuisse illo rudi
saeculo quo adhuc artificia deerant et ipso usu discebantur utilia non credo; cf.
90.46).17 Furthermore, even though the earliest humans, ‘fresh from the gods’
(a dis recentes), were more innocent and sturdier than modern folk, ‘they were
not Wise Men’ (Ep. 90.44). They were innocent because they did not know
better (Ep. 90.46, ignorantia rerum innocentes erant), but innocence does not
imply philosophy or special knowledge. Unlike Posidonius, Seneca does not
endow the earliest people with any special access to the truth, knowledge or
the divine.
13 Long 1996, 70.
14 Van Sijl 2010, 98.
15 Long 1996, 82.
16 See recently Costa 2013, 141–67 with further bibliography at 141 n. 383, and van Nuffelen and
van Hoof 2013 n. 2.
17 Van Nuffelen and van Hoof 2013 refute the notion that Seneca was defending the early Stoic
position against Posidonius’ radical claims. As we will see, Seneca’s description of the earliest
period is consistent with his own desire to deemphasize the mythical past in favor of the pre-
sent and is not necessarily based on an early Stoic position.
55

Because of his views on the earliest humans, Seneca cannot accept that
allegoresis is a valid interpretative strategy.18 The most systematic rejection is,
of course, his critique of his predecessors’ interpretation of the Graces (Grk.
Χάριτες) at the beginning of De beneficiis (1.3.2–1.4.6).19 Drawing on Hecato and
Chrysippus (cited at 1.3.8, 1.3.9, 1.4.1, 1.4.4),20 Seneca spends several chapters
reviewing his predecessors’ so-called discoveries. Despite his protests that
such interpretations are invalid, Seneca nevertheless goes to great lengths to
provide details about the iconography of the Graces and the Stoics’ interpret-
ation thereof.21 Since the analysis reveals much about Seneca’s view of trad-
itional theology and especially of poetic inventions (see also below, section 4),
a brief review will be worthwhile.
The Greeks (specified at 1.3.6), we are told, present the Graces as three
sisters who are portrayed as holding hands, smiling, youthful, virginal and
wearing loose, translucent clothing. Each element is interpreted: they smile
because people who give and receive beneficia are happy; they are youthful
because memory of a beneficium should be always fresh; they wear loose
clothes because beneficia should be unrestricted (1.3.5). In terms of the
number of Graces, some Greeks propose that one of the Graces symbolizes
the giver of a benefit, another the receiver and the third the one who
reciprocates. Others offer a slightly different version: one stands for the giver,
another for the receiver and the third for the one who gives and receives at
the same time (1.3.3). Here, the very multiplicity of interpretations of the
Graces’ iconography rules out the certainty of a ‘true’ original meaning and
reveals the ridiculous nature of such an attempt to root out the truth about
divine myth. As Batinski points out, ‘Seneca rejects these allegorical readings
of the Graces because the critical methodology produces disparate results’.22
Seneca is similarly critical of allegory through etymology. Since etymology is
the search for a singular etymon, or ‘truth’, multiple interpretations yielding
equally possible truths create an impossible hermeneutic conundrum.23
It is perhaps for this reason that Seneca opts to omit his predecessors’
etymological explanations of most of the Graces’ names, which vary
18 See Gale 1994, 19–45 on Lucretius’ similar rejection of allegory, esp. p. 31, ‘[allegorical
exegesis] must be rejected, since it is based on the (false) assumption that the poets and
mythmakers were either philosophers or else turning the works of genuine philosophers into
poetry’.
19 Griffin 2013a ad loc.; van Sijl 2010, 171–2; Most 1989; cf. Ramelli and Lucchetta 2004, 333–4;
Picone 2013, 70–1.
20 Seneca may have been implicitly criticizing the work of his contemporary Annaeus Cornutus,
the Summary of the Traditions of Greek Theology 15 (Ἐπιδρομὴ τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν
θεολογίαν παραδεδομένων), which includes an allegorical interpretation of the Graces (see
Most 1989; Ramelli and Lucchetta 2004, ch. 6).
21 Griffin 2013a, 179 points out that, even if the discussion of allegory adds nothing to the dis-
cussion, the introduction of the Graces does present the key concepts of giving, receiving and
reciprocating that will form the subject of Seneca’s treatise.
22 Batinski 1993, 75.
23 Cf. Wildberger 2006a, 34–5; Pellizer (forthcoming).
56
56 R. Scott Smith
according to the source. He does, however, include Chrysippus’ interpret-
ation of their mother’s name, Eurynome, who was so called ‘because the
sharing of benefits requires an inheritance that spreads far and wide’ (1.3.9).
One wonders whether Seneca here makes an exception specifically to high-
light the absurdity of the practice and to highlight the inventiveness of poets
(1.3.9). For Seneca exclaims, ‘as if mothers are regularly named after their
daughters, or poets reproduce the real names!’ Names, then, cannot reflect the
real nature of divinity, but are rather the products of poetic ingenuity. Study
of the divine, on the other hand, requires seriousness: ‘let us leave those frivol-
ities to the poets’, Seneca advises, because ‘their job is to please the ears and to
weave a sweet-sounding tale (fabulam)’. For the real work of keeping society
from disintegrating, we must speak seriously and forcefully, unless one ‘thinks
that frivolous fictions and old wives’ tales can prevent the most destructive
possible turn of events, the loss of all beneficia’ (1.4.6). Traditional stories of
gods are forcefully rejected in favor of serious philosophical discussion.
3 Seneca and the spatium mythicum

While many studies have sought to explain Seneca’s view of what may be
called ‘divine myth,’ no study to my knowledge systematically addresses how
Seneca treated the body of traditional stories that are told about the world of
Greek heroes. As we will presently see, Seneca rejects most of the traditional
stories for the same reasons he rejects theological myths, that is, he blames
poetic invention. But before we provide a detailed review of the evidence, it
is important to inquire whether Seneca recognized a category of ‘myth’ that
might be separate from what we call ‘historical stories’. By Seneca’s time, it
seems clear that there was both a temporal and conceptual distinction between
‘mythical time’ and ‘historical time’, one that prioritized the present as a time
of progressive knowledge and potential enlightenment.
A useful, and perhaps authoritative, corpus of traditional Greek stories is
provided by Apollodorus’ Library, probably from the 2nd c. CE. This text,
although written after Seneca’s time, may offer a conceptual structure for what
might have passed for the mythical period in the empire. Organized along major
genealogical lines, the Library begins with Ouranos and culminates with the
Trojan War and the death of Odysseus—establishing the temporal framework
for a separate corpus of ‘myths’ as opposed to a ‘historical period’. This myth-
ical period of time, set in the distant past when gods could roam the earth along
with heroes, is commonly described by the modern term spatium mythicum.24
Since this term avoids the implication of ‘myth-as-fiction’, I will use this term
instead of referring to a general category of ‘myth’ when exploring how Seneca
dealt with those events that were said to have taken place during that time.
There is ancient precedent, prior to Seneca, for recognizing such a category
based on a temporal framework. A few generations before Seneca was born,
Varro (according to Censorinus Die Natali 21.1–2) divided time into three major
24 Piérart 1983, 48.
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periods: 1) an unknown (ἄδηλον) period before the flood, of which nothing is
known; 2) a mythical (μυθικόν) era between the flood and the first Olympiad,
which contains unverifiable stories that contain fantastic accounts; and 3) the
historical (ἱστορικόν) age, the events of which can be confirmed. Where Varro
got this scheme, if anywhere, is anyone’s guess, and it may be his own.25 It is
worth pointing out that the end of Varro’s ‘mythical period’, the first Olympiad,
does not correspond exactly to that implied in Apollodorus’ Library (the death
of Odysseus) or agree with other sources that see the Trojan War or the Return
of the Heraclidae as the fundamental hinge between the mythical and histor-
ical periods.26 Be that as it may, the spatium mythicum (Varro’s second age) is
characterized specifically as a record of the past, but one that was embellished
with fabulous additions (multa in eo fabulosa referuntur; cf. Strabo 1.2.3–10
Meineke, where Homer adds mythical elements to ‘adorn his account’). As we
will see below (on Const. sapient. [2]‌.2.1–2), Seneca too seems to recognize a
difference between the ‘unsophisticated past’, which accepted such fantastic
narratives, and the ‘enlightened present’ that does not—an implicit recognition
of a category of a spatium mythicum.
But not all stories from the spatium mythicum contain fantastic elements.
Indeed, some conform to the biological and physical rules of the natural world,
while others seem to violate the principles of observed reality. In other words,
there is a wide spectrum of plausibility embedded in the stories themselves.27
For instance, that Phaedra fell in love with her stepson is entirely plausible
even according to the rational standards of the historical age. Yet, her half-
brother, the hybrid Minotaur, beggars belief. Likewise, there is a great deal
of conceptual difference between Bellerophon’s taming of a flying horse to
kill a three-headed monster and the ill-starred military campaign of the Seven
against Thebes. This second conceptual distinction is based not on when an
event happened, but on the intrinsic plausibility of the narrative components.
This distinction is the motivation to rationalize fantastic stories as early as
Hecataeus, but by Seneca’s day categories of narratives were also recognized in
Latin rhetorical texts and later in Servius, where we find explicit definitions of
plausible (secundum naturam) and implausible (contra naturam, thus fabulosa)
specifically attributed to narratives from the spatium mythicum.28
25 At Eratosthenes FGrHist 241 fr. 1c (vol. D2, 709) Jacoby suggested that Varro’s source was
Eratosthenes, who, however, seems to have regarded the fall of Troy as the beginning of com-
putable time. See Möller 2005, 248, 255–9, with further discussion and bibliography.
26 For Eratosthenes, see previous note. Ephorus begins his universal history with the Return of
the Heraclidae, precisely the point at which Hellanicus of Lesbos terminated his works. See
Fornara 1983, 8–9.
27 Gale 1994, 95–6; Veyne 1988, 41–3.
28 For the categories fabula (unreal and improbable, characteristic of epic and tragedy),
historia (factual but removed from the present time, complicated by the Greek use of the
same term for a mythical narrative) and argumentum (unreal but possible, characteristic
of comedy), see Cic. Inv. 1.27, Rhet. Her. 1.13, Quint. Inst. Or. 2.4.2, though see already
Xenophanes and Hecataeus, and Arist. Poet. 9, 1451a38–b6. For Servius, see especially
Dietz 1995.
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58 R. Scott Smith
This distinction seems to be Seneca’s litmus test, as it was for many of
his Roman contemporaries.29 He is not concerned as much about when a
story was to have taken place as he was whether it conforms with the laws
of nature or not. Centaurs and Giants, even though they are accorded an
ontological status by some Stoics, are not real in a physical sense, but merely
products of false reasoning (falsa cogitatione, Ep. 58.15). Frequently, but not
always, Seneca highlights the fanciful nature of story with the use of fabula
or fabulosus, which is often employed by Seneca’s contemporaries to denote
a ‘tall tale’ (contra naturam), as it was for Varro’s spatium mythicum above:30
Atlas holding up the sky is a story handed down in tales (Pol. [11].7.1, fabulis
traditus). Elsewhere Seneca tells Lucilius that he is eagerly awaiting letters
from him to see ‘whether Charybdis resembles what the tales say’ (Ep. 79.1,
Charybdis an respondeat fabulis).31
Part of Seneca’s view of myth, however, is due to the temporal gulf between
a gullible past and an enlightened present. Silly ideas such as a monstrous
woman with dogs emerging from her waist might have been believable in the
past, but in the educated present we must not put faith in matters that defy
belief. A passage from the Naturales quaestiones exemplifies Seneca’s view of
human progress in knowledge, even with what might be called the historical
period. Here Seneca presents the view of Euthymenes of Massilia (6th–5th
c. BCE?), who argued that the Nile originated at the Atlantic Ocean, only
to refute the report as an outright lie. There is quite a difference, we must
remember, even between the archaic Greek period and the modern Roman
Empire (NQ 4A 2.24):
Back then one had the opportunity for fabrication. Since foreign lands
were unknown, people could send back ‘tall tales’ (fabulae). But now mer-
chant ships skirt along the coast of the whole outer sea, and none of them
reports the source of the Nile.
Old ideas, in Seneca’s view, can be imprecise and crude: (NQ 6.5.2, opiniones
veteres parum exactas esse et rudes: circa verum adhuc errabatur).32 One may
compare a similar view in Polybius’ Histories, where the historian explicitly
acknowledges that one no longer needs recourse to fabulous stories in order
to make sense out of the world (4.40.2): ‘now that every sea and land has been
29 Pomponius Mela: Smith 2016; Pliny the Elder: Smith 2017.

30 Fabula is, however, not used exclusively for a story that contains unbelievable elements. It
can also denote a theatrical play (Ep. 76.31, 77.20, 108.6, 115.15), a story, sometimes with a
moral lesson (Ben. 5.23.2, 7.21.1, NQ 5.15.1), rumor/gossip (Ben. 3.23.3, Ep. 13.8, 122.14–15),
reports from a distant place (Otio [8]‌.5.1), and finally the historical (Ep. 24.6) or mythical (Ep.
88.3) material learned under a grammaticus.
31 Seneca is particularly interested in the nature of the ‘fabulous’ Scylla and Charybdis: Marc.
[6]‌.17.2, Ep. 45.2, NQ 3.29.7, and see below, section 5. Here, Seneca implies that the nature of
the place gave rise to the myth, that is, he rationalizes the myth itself.
32 See Wildberger 2006a, 32.
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opened up, it is not appropriate (πρέπον) to use poets and mythographers’.33
While our predecessors may be forgiven for their credulity, Seneca and his
contemporaries should know better now that the world has given up most of
its secrets.
Seneca offers a definitive statement concerning the distinction between the
gullible past and the enlightened present at De constantia sapientis [2]‌.2.1–
2.34 At the beginning of the essay our philosopher is at pains to reassure
his addressee, Serenus, that Cato the Younger—despite his vile treatment at
the hands of lesser men—cannot in actuality suffer abuse (iniuria) or insult
(contumelia). Cato, in fact, is a more certified example of a Wise Man than
Hercules and Odysseus were in earlier ages (prioribus saeculis). He goes on to
explain by alluding to myth ([2.]2.1–2):
Cato non cum feris manus contulit, quas consectari venatoris agrestisque
est, nec monstra igne ac ferro persecutus est, nec in ea tempora incidit
quibus credi posset caelum umeris unius inniti: excussa iam antiqua
credulitate et saeculo ad summam perducto sollertiam cum ambitu
congressus, multiformi malo, et cum potentiae inmensa cupiditate, quam
totus orbis in tres divisus satiare non poterat, adversus vitia civitatis
degenerantis et pessum sua mole sidentis stetit solus et cadentem rem
publicam, quantum modo una retrahi manu poterat, tenuit…
Cato did not grapple with wild beasts—pursuing them is a job for hunters
and country folk—nor did he hunt down monsters with fire and sword.
He did not happen to live in those days when it was possible to believe
that heaven was carried on the shoulders of a single man. After old-
fashioned gullibility had long been discarded and humanity had reached
the height of ingenuity, he fought against corruption, a multi-formed evil,
and against the unbridled desire for power—power that the whole world
divided into three parts could not satisfy. Against the vices of a state
in decline and sinking under its own weight he alone stood, and as the
republic was falling, he held it up, at least as much as was possible for it
to be sustained by a single hand.
Seneca’s predecessors (Stoici nostri) had pronounced Odysseus and

Hercules to be Wise Men on the grounds that they had overcome all trials,
rejected pleasures, and conquered all their fears. In this passage the labors of
Hercules, who is portrayed as nothing more than a glorified hunter, comes off
as trivial in comparison to Cato’s.35 Hercules’ exploits are further downplayed
33 Clarke 2007, 95.
34 Berno 2018; Minissale 1977; and Grimal 1953 ad loc.
35 Minissale 1977 ad loc., ‘la qualificazione in senso negativo, rispetto a Catone, dell’operato
dell’eroe del secoli passati…mentre assolve proprio a questo compito, prepara alla visione
della grandezza morale dell’Uticense’. See also Montiglio 2011, 83–4.
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60 R. Scott Smith
by the omission of the names of any of his labors, a technique that Seneca
will repeat at Ep. 88.7 (see below, section 5) to implicitly rationalize unbeliev-
able achievements by removing the unbelievable aspects of the story.36 But not
only was the spatium mythicum a time characterized by simplistic challenges,
but it also was a period of gullibility, a time when people could believe such
fantastic stories as the heavens being supported by a single man.37 But now,
Seneca reminds us, we know better, and furthermore the challenges of our
time are more complex and far more challenging. The modern world faces
complicated political and sociological problems, ones caused by far more
dangerous animals than those Hercules faced: humans. Cato grappled not
with the Hydra, but with corruption (ambitus), which is a real and manifold
evil. Cato also had to contend with the unquenchable desire for power, which
the whole world, divided into three parts like Geryon (unnamed in the com-
parison), could not satisfy. And instead of holding up the sky—a preposterous
notion—Cato sustained, as far as was in his power, the falling Roman republic,
a very real challenge Cato took up without bending.38 As the world becomes
progressively more corrupt, the tools to fight the problems must become
more refined (for the need of more sophisticated cures, see Ep. 95.15–32).39
We need philosophy, not Hercules’ club.
A similar comparison between the complex challenges of the modern world
and those in the mythical past can also be found in Ep. 31. This letter opens
with Seneca’s praise of Lucilius’ determination to make himself better, but he
urges his correspondent to ignore the alluring call of ‘popular goods’. One
has to ‘close off one’s ears’ to the temptation, and it is not enough just to use
wax: ‘there is need of a stronger plug than the one they say (ferunt) Odysseus
used on his comrades’ (Ep. 31.2). The song that Odysseus heard was enticing,
but it only came from one direction. The Siren song in the modern world, by
contrast, ‘echoes from every direction, from every part of the world’ (ex omni
terrarum parte circumsonat). We do not have to pass by (praetervehere) just
one spot with its insidious pleasures, but each and every city (omnes urbes)’.
Again, Seneca’s world needs philosophy, not Odysseus’ wax.
The two passages analyzed above exemplify a crucial point: the ‘text’ of
myth provides rhetorical material to emphasize the gulf between the remote
36 On rationalization of myth, see Hawes 2014.

37 Cf. Sen. Pol. [11].7.1, where the freedman Polybius’ position as advisor to the emperor Claudius
is compared to the mythical (fabulis) Atlas ‘on whose shoulders the heavens (mundus) rest’.
38 Cf. the comment of Hadot 1969, 89 n. 65, ‘Bemerkenswert ist auch in diesem Zusammenhang,
daß die Verkörperungen des Weisen für die griech. Stoa aus der Mythologie stammten
(Herakles und Odysseus); für die römische Stoa dagegen ist es eine historische Gestalt, Cato
Uticensis’.
39 Seneca’s conception of the past and progress is complicated, not least because of the tension
between the conservative position of the mos maiorum and the progressive optimism inherent
in a philosophy that offers a remedy to increasing vices: see Costa 2013, esp. 167–73. As
humanity degenerates, philosophy arises to counter the increase in vice.
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past and the present. The figures and events from the spatium mythicum,
even if rationalized or historicized as they are above, have little relevance to
the philosophical mission of the present. A survey of Seneca’s use of stories
from the spatium mythicum reveals that Seneca is not much interested in the
period. Seneca does not refer to any of the major mythical campaigns (e.g.,
the Argonaut adventure or Calydonian Boar Hunt). There is no mention of
a Phaedra, Medea or Oedipus, even though we have plays on these figures
handed down under his name.40 Hercules, for his part, only appears occa-
sionally and without substantial development (see the Appendix for list of
references to mythical figures).41
Occasionally a figure or event from the spatium mythicum—if secundum
naturam—can be lumped together with historical figures in a set of rhetorical
exempla. Without repeating the lengthy scholarship on rhetorical accumula-
tion of exempla, it will suffice to point to Quintilian’s statement at Inst. Or.
12.4.1, where in addition to historical events one must also ‘not neglect even
the examples invented (ficta) by famous poets’ to ensure that an orator has
an ‘abundance of examples’ (exemplorum copia) at hand.42 When an event
from the spatium mythicum does not contain fabulous elements, it can be
amalgamated with the spatium historicum to exist in the same temporal space
of the ‘past’. Thus, Hercules can be included in a list of unjust sufferers along-
side Regulus and Cato (Tranq. [9]‌.16.4); Hecuba can sit among Croesus, Plato
and Diogenes as someone who became a slave late in life (Ep. 47.12); and
Nestor can be compared to Seneca’s contemporary, Sattia, who was known
for her long life-span (Ep. 77.20; cf. Plin. HN 7.158, Martial 3.93.20, CIL
6.9590). When Seneca, in exile, attempts to console his mother Helvia, he
lists all the Greek and Trojan exiles that migrated to Italy: Antenor, Evander,
Diomedes, and of course Aeneas (Helv. [12].7.6; cf. [12].7.3, an allusion to the
Aeneid).
A mythical figure can also be used as an exaggerated rhetorical ‘type’, to
which a modern person could be compared, often favorably. We have already
noted the comparison of Polybius with Atlas. Alcestis is extolled ‘in the
poems of all’ (carminibus omnium) as a paragon of wifely virtue, outdone
only by Seneca’s aunt during the shipwreck that took the life of her husband
(Helv. [12].19.5). Sometimes, a figure from the spatium mythicum can serve
merely as an illustration of a complicated philosophical principle. In order to
40 Given the extensive knowledge of the mythographic tradition displayed in the tragic corpus
I find it remarkable that more references to myth do not appear in the philosophical works. Of
course, the reluctance to employ mythical examples may be part of the philosophical outlook,
but one wonders whether these are grounds to revisit the attribution of Seneca’s plays to the
philosopher.
41 Cf. the more extensive use in Epict. Diss. 1.6.32–6, 2.16.44–5, 3.22.57, 3.24.14–17, 3.26.31–2,
4.10.10.
42 Quintilian, for his part, asserts that myths have been authorized by their very antiquity
(vetustas) or are ‘believed to have been invented by great men to serve as lessons for human-
kind’ (Inst. Or. 12.4.2; cf. 5.11.17–18). On historical exempla in Seneca, see Mayer 1991.
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explain the principle that all fools have all flaws, even if we cannot see them,
he appeals to a mythical figure: ‘just as a person has all the senses but not
everyone has eyesight as good as Lynceus’, so too fools have all flaws, even
if they are not as intense and extreme as they appear in some’ (Ben. 4.27.3).
Similarly, to exemplify the concept of indifferentia Seneca reminds us that,
although Agamemnon’s and Odysseus’ homes are very different in terms of
wealth and prosperity, both still desire to return home (Ep. 66.26). Elsewhere,
he employs the multi-headed Chimaera and Hydra to illustrate the way in
which virtues, though capable of being separately conceived, are yet part of
the same organism (Ep. 113.9), an image used by philosophers since Plato
(Republic 9.588c). By contrast, Seneca uses the hybrid nature of Scylla to criti-
cize the Epicureans for insisting that pleasure is the highest good, since they
are effectively adding ‘the irrational to the rational’ and ‘the dishonorable
to the honorable’ (Ep. 92.9–10, citing Verg. Aeneid 3.426–8). In combining
these two unlike things, they are creating a ‘mixed and monstrous creature,
composed of different and ill-fitting limbs’.
Occasionally, Seneca rationalizes a myth, whereby the fantastic elements
are removed to uncover the original event that became mythologized. We
have already seen an example of implicit rationalization in our discussion of
Constantia sapientis [2]‌.2.1–2 above. Two other examples: at Ep. 90.14 Seneca
incredulously wonders how anyone can admire Daedalus on equal terms
with Diogenes—the former is nothing more than the inventor of the saw!
Here, Seneca presents Daedalus merely as an inventor, an appeal to the protos
heuretes (first inventory) motif, a common fallback for rationalizers.43 In a
discussion of foul items cast upon the shore by the sea at NQ 3.26.7, Seneca,
doubtlessly drawing on another source, reports that the myth of the cattle
of the Sun was said to take place between Messina and Mylae because of
the dung-like substance left on the shore there by the sea: ‘around Messana
and Mylae the force of the turbulent sea casts onto shore something similar
to dung… this is the origin of the story that the cattle of the Sun are stabled
there’ (circa Messenen et Mylas fimo quiddam simile turbulenti vis maris
profert… unde illic stabulare Solis boves fabula est).44
If we leave aside for the moment the references to mythical characters in
quotations of other texts,45 as well as the unlikely references in the fragments
of Seneca’s De matrimonio (see Appendix), these are the only references
43 Pliny HN 7.198 lists Daedalus as the inventor of carpentry and the tools that go with it,
including the saw (fabricam materiariam Daedalus et in ea serram…). On the protos heuretes
motif as a form of rationalizing, see Hawes 2014, 28; Plin. HN 7.191–209). The Daedalus and
Icarus myth was frequently rationalized as a corruption of their invention of a boat and sails,
which allowed them the ‘fly’ away (Palaephatus 12; Paus. 9.11.4–5).
44 Pliny, perhaps drawing on Seneca, reports the same (HN 2.220, circa Messanam et Mylas
fimo similia expuuntur in litus purgamenta, unde fabula est Solis boves ibi stabulari). See also
Scholia vetera in Ap. Rhod. ad 4.965 p. 299 Wendel, Appian Bellum Civile 5.116, placing it
near Artemisium.
45 E.g., Tethys and Phaethon in quotation of Ov. Met. 2.63–81 at Prov. [1]‌.5.10–11.
63

to the spatium mythicum that do not involve the events and figures in the
Homeric epics. By contrast, figures from the Homeric epics appear more
often: Odysseus (11 times) Achilles (5 times), Priam (3 times), Helen and
Hecuba (2 times each), Nestor (2 times), Ajax (once), as well as numerous
allusions to Odysseus’ adventures. The national hero Aeneas naturally fig-
ures prominently, although he only appears by name occasionally. The greater
attention to figures from the Trojan War is the function, no doubt, of the cen-
tral place Homer held in Roman education, but also of the role of the Trojan
War as the motivation for Aeneas’ migration to Italy.
4 (Greek) poets and myth in Seneca

It is well known that Seneca generally refrains from referring to Greek poetic
texts, vastly preferring the ‘poesia nazionale’, especially the poems of Vergil
and Ovid.46 This is no doubt explained, in part, by his general negative atti-
tude toward the Greeks, already found in Seneca’s father (Contr. 1 pr. 6),47 and
especially toward their excessive subtlety (see Ben. 1.3.1f., discussed above,
and NQ 2.50.1) and interest in trivial matters (Brev. vit. [10].13.3, Ep. 88
passim). Such frivolous attention to explaining every small detail is regarded
as ineptiae (‘absurdities’), a term associated with the Greeks since at least
Cicero (De orat. 2.18; Sen. Ep. 82.8; Ben. 1.3.8). The same word is used in
Seneca’s criticism of allegory in the De beneficiis discussed above to describe
fabulous stories (Ben. 1.4.5–6): ‘We should leave those absurdities (ineptiae)
to the poets’, we are told, ‘whose job it is to charm the ears and weave a
sweet tale’ (dulcem fabulam nectere).48 Although Seneca does not specifically
mention Greek poets here, the context—and direct mention of Homer and
Hesiod in the passage (Ben. 1.3.6–7, 10)—indicates Seneca is thinking pri-
marily of them.
Greek poets are especially targeted for two reasons. The first is their ten-
dency to invent elements of stories, leading them far from the truth, which
of course is the philosophical goal. While this inventive spirit is not exclu-
sively limited to Greek poets,49 Seneca seems to attribute the fantastic stories
46 See Mazzoli 1970, 157–60 and 1991; Setaioli 1988, 48. Somewhat outdated is Maguinness
1956. Papaioannou in this volume persuasively argues that Seneca, despite his frequent use
of Vergil, often does so in an ironic fashion, manipulating the text to create a new network of
associations that subverts the meaning and context of the original lines.
47 Seneca never went to Greece, as might be expected of an educated Roman (Griffin 1976, 37).
48 Poetry and mythical tales are, in his view, fictional and light entertainment at best. At Ira
[5]‌.3.9.1 Seneca warns us not to give hot-headed types overly serious materials, but rather we
should give them more pleasant reading: ‘let [them] be soothed by the reading of poetry and
occupied by stories with their tales’ (lectio illum carminum obleniat et historia fabulis detineat).
49 The underlying concern about the truth-value of poetical texts may be what leads Seneca to
manipulate the text of the Aeneid, often quoting lines in contexts vastly differently from the
original (see the contributions of Papaioannou and Berno in this volume). In other words, if
poetical works are untrustworthy, there is no reason to feel compelled to stay faithful to the
original contexts; the text is ripe to be molded, adapted, changed and refashioned.
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64 R. Scott Smith
from the spatium mythicum—which involves Greeks, after all—to them in
particular. The second reason is that, as we saw in section 3 above, the early
Greeks who created such stories, removed from the modern period of enlight-
enment, were considered a remarkably gullible group, capable of creating and
believing such nonsense. The gulf between Greek poets and modern Rome is
immense. To achieve progress, we must move forward to the Roman present.
It is not only that poetical inventions are frivolous; they can also be detri-
mental to human society.50 At Vit. beat. [7]‌.26.6 Seneca, again using the term
ineptiae, compares fictions about the gods with the hallucinations of someone
who believes that the Wise Man can be harmed (Vit. beat. [7].26.6):
I endure your hallucinations just like the Best and Greatest Jupiter
endures the silliness of poets (ineptias poetarum), one of whom gives him
wings, another horns, while yet another introduces him as an adulterer
and staying out all night. One makes him savage toward the gods and
unjust towards humans, another an abductor of freeborn men and his
relatives at that, and still another a father-killer and sacker of his father’s
and other people’s kingdoms. The result of all this is that, if people believe
that the gods are like this, they will feel less shame in sinning.
In this passage, Seneca explains that poets cannot harm Jupiter with
their inventions any more than someone’s hallucinations can harm the Stoic
sapiens. The theological objections are no different than one would find in
Plato: gods should not have the same base emotions as humans and should not
commit adultery, abduct people, or kill their fathers and take their kingdoms
(Republic 2.376d–380c; cf. Sen. fr. 93 Vottero). In this case, the fictions of
poets effectively give humans, at least the ones that have not reached philo-
sophical perfection, the license to act immorally. A similar view is also seen
at Brev. vit. [10].16.4–5, where ‘the madness of poets serves to nourish human
folly with their ridiculous stories (fabulis)’. There, Seneca insists that the
story of Jupiter doubling the night to extend his pleasure with Alcmene was
invented to authorize human immorality (morbo, lit. ‘disease’) through divine
example. In a later letter (Ep. 115.12), in which he criticizes society’s obsession
with wealth as the measure of success, Seneca suggests that poets contribute
to this madness: ‘Then there are the plays of poets, which inflame our desires
[for money]’ (accedunt deinde carmina poetarum, quae adfectibus nostris facem
subdant). To prove his point he provides several quotations of poets, perhaps
from an anthology.51
50 Mazzoli 1991, 206–7.
51 The series of examples ends with a quotation of Euripides’ Danae (though Seneca seems to
attribute it to his Bellerophon) and an anecdote about its first production in Athens that allows
him to pivot from poets’ praise of money to its condemnation (Ep. 115.15). When the lines in
praise of money were delivered on stage, the whole audience rose in protest, demanding that
both actor and play be dismissed. Euripides leapt onto the stage, begging the audience to wait
to see how the speaker’s life would end: dabat in illa fabula poenas Bellerophontes quas in sua
65

The poets may also have other sinister reasons for their inventions. At
Marc. [6]‌.19.4 Seneca attempts to assuage Marcia’s concern for her deceased
son by asserting that the punishments in the underworld are the invention
of poets: ‘those [punishments] are the poets’ amusements, and they torture
us with empty terrors’ (luserunt ista poetae et vanis nos agitavere terroribus;
see also Ep. 82.16 with comments by Papaioannou in this volume, Case
#2).52 Similarly, at Ep. 24.18 Seneca, citing ‘that old saw of the Epicureans’
(Epicuream cantilenam), returns to the same topic, where he equates belief in
Cerberus and other underworld terrors with a childish mentality—showing
how closely allied the positions of the two schools were on the subject of
poetic invention.53 Poets also fabricated the monsters of the underworld. At
Ira [4].2.35.5, Seneca compares the angry man with various images, among
which are the ‘infernal monsters covered with serpents and spitting fire that
the poets have invented’ (qualia poetae inferna monstra finxerunt succincta
serpentibus et igneo flatu). Here, the physiognomy of human anger is couched
in the seething, shrieking, hissing, howling, glowering, war-inducing, peace-
destroying, torch-bearing goddesses of the underworld. The Furies, then, are
simply exaggerated examples of the enraged person whose internal fury is
represented externally, an implicit rationalizing account of how these mytho-
logical monsters came to be invented (finxerunt).54
5 The ‘myths’ of Homer

As a group, then, poets are categorized as inventors of myth, whose creations
may arise from a number of causes. And yet, Homer, for all of his fanta-
sies (contra naturam), can also be a sensitive reporter of the human condi-
tion (secundum naturam), as nearly all of the action that takes place in the
Iliad and Odyssey can be understood in purely human terms. Such is Seneca’s
point at Pol. [11].8.2, where he advises the freedman Polybius, grieving over
the death of his brother, to turn to the writings of Homer and Vergil, who
have ‘done humanity a great deal of good’ (Pol. [11].8.2), for solace: ‘Among
quisque dat (‘Bellerophon, in that very drama, was to pay the penalty which is exacted of all
men in their own drama [sc. of life]’). Such a pivot, characteristic of Seneca’s writing, should
technically undermine Seneca’s overall point.
52 It is not only poets that can fashion myths to strike fear into humans’ minds; statesmen
wishing to curb sin can as well: see NQ 2.41–6 and Weinstock 1951, Hine 1981, 387–96, and
Williams 2012, 324–32.
53 For Lucretius and Seneca on this motif, see Marković 2010–11; cf. Gale 1994, 93–4.
54 Other poetic inventions: at NQ 6.18.5, after a quotation of Verg. Aen. 1.53–4 on Aeolus’ cave
of winds, Seneca criticizes the poets’ scientific inaccuracy: ‘of course poets wanted to show a
prison in which the winds lie enclosed beneath the earth’, but what they did not realize was
that winds must always be in motion and so cannot be contained (sine dubio poetae hunc
voluerunt videri carcerem in quo sub terra clausi laterent). The inventions of poets apparently
can also be motivated by compassion. Stories that the divine can perish seek to comfort us
by reminding us that death and decay are natural and unavoidable events in the world order
(Marc. [6]‌.12.4). Such positive motivations are rare.
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66 R. Scott Smith
those writings every book will furnish you countless examples of the human
condition, unsettling events, and tears flowing for every possible reason’ (Pol.
[11].11.5, nullus erit in illis scriptis liber qui non plurima varietatis humanae
incertorumque casuum et lacrimarum ex alia atque alia causa fluentium exempla
tibi suggerat). Although Seneca’s praise of Homer here has been viewed as a
rhetorical ploy to flatter his addressee,55 Seneca’s views of Homer elsewhere
are not specifically negative. At Ep. 63.2 Seneca calls Homer the ‘greatest of
the Greek poets’ (poetarum Graecorum maximus).
In viewing Homer as a potential reporter of real human behavior Seneca
may have been following the lead of his Stoic predecessor, Chrysippus. The
second founder of Stoicism had a deep interest in analyzing Greek poetry
and especially the psychology of characters, not for allegorical purposes,
but because Homer and Euripides were attempting to exemplify human
behavior, behavior that could, in turn, be subjected to analysis on Stoic terms.
Cullyer (2008), several years after Gill’s 1983 seminal article on Chrysippus
and Euripides’ Medea,56 has demonstrated that Chrysippus studied Achilles’
interaction with Priam in Iliad 24 through the lens of Stoic psychology. If she
is right that Chrysippus’ interpretation directly influenced Seneca’s consola-
tion of Lucilius in Ep. 63,57 Seneca’s interest in the last book of the Iliad (see
below) may be seen as a function of his own interest in Stoic interpretations
of realistic human behavior when faced with grief and loss.
As an educated member of the élite, of course, Seneca knew Homer well.
Just a generation later his fellow Spaniard Quintilian prefers that students
start with Greek literature before its Roman counterpart (Inst. Or. 1.1.12).
Seneca himself points to the study of Homer at the earliest age: ‘everyone
who has learned their first letters knows that Neptune is called Ἐνοσίχθονα in
Homer’ (NQ 6.23.4). When students learned to write Greek, they were given
difficult words, mainly from the world of Greek myth, to practice.58 Homer
features heavily in the most elementary writing practices for Greeks, whether
word-lists or in short narrative exercises that summarize the epic (Smith,
forthcoming). In Seneca’s day, an intimate knowledge of Homer was an indi-
cation of one’s status as an educated member of the élite. Seneca himself
provides an anecdote about an uneducated freedman, Calvisius Sabinus, a
55 Mazzoli 1970, 164 considers Seneca’s praise of Homer here as perfunctory (‘in ossequio a una
consolidata tradizione’) in contrast to his view of Vergil. Seneca’s admiration of Homer in
‘lo scritto meno sincero del filosofo’ is rhetorically motivated to appeal to Polybius, who had
translated and interpreted Homer’s works.
56 A recent article by J. Müller (2014) unpersuasively attempts to study the surviving Senecan
play Medea as Seneca’s meditation on the Stoic idea of ἀκρασία.
57 Cullyer 2008, 538–9.
58 Quintilian informs us that when a boy sets out to write out words in the usual way, teachers
should make sure ‘that he does not waste his efforts in writing out common, everyday words.
He can quickly learn the explanation of glosses, as the Greeks call them, of the more obscure
words along the way and, while still engaged in the initial steps, acquire what would other-
wise demand special time to be devoted to it’ (Inst. Or. 1.1.34–5). See further Huys 2013 on
complicated names such as Pityokamptes in the pentasyllabic wordlist of the 3rd c. BCE Livre
d’écolier (Guéraud-Jouguet  1).
67

wealthy but uneducated freedman in the mold of Trimalchio, who custom-
arily forgot the names of Odysseus, Achilles and Priam, ‘names that we know
as well as our paedagogi’ (Ep. 27.5). Seneca’s famous criticism of Homeric
quaestiones (‘interpretative problems’) suggests that he was well aware of the
intense scrutiny to which the mythical stories in Homer were subjected in the
Hellenistic and Imperial periods (Ep. 88 passim; Brev. vit. [10].13.2–3, attrib-
uting such pedantry to Graecorum iste morbus)—some of which he may have
experienced in his own education.59 Such debates, of course, reveal how the
text is expanded to include other items—the creation of a ‘super-text’ that
combines text and interpretative exegesis.
Evidence from the papyri, as well as the distribution of Homeric quotations
by later writers, however, suggests that not every part of Homer’s works was
studied equally. Certain books and passages were preferred. The Iliad was far
more popular, but even within this text the focus was uneven: over half of the
papyri are from Iliad 1–6, and the Catalog of Ships was immensely popular,
doubtless because of its geographical and mythographical interest.60 The distri-
bution of Seneca’s references to the Iliad seems to correspond with the emphasis
on the earliest books. Omitted here are those references to Homer that are
reported second hand.61
Iliad 1.39–41: ‘that Homeric priest’ (Chryses, unnamed) reminded the gods

of what he did for them and how he religiously cared for their altars (Ben.
5.25.4, dis… Homericus ille sacerdos allegat officia et aras religiose cultas) ~
τοι χαρίεντ᾿ ἐπὶ νηὸν ἔρεψα.
Iliad 1.249: A reference to speech of Nestor, which was ‘sweeter than honey’
(Ep. 40.2, melle dulcior… profluit) ~ τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ γλώσσης μέλιτος γλυκίων
ῥέεν αὐδή.
Iliad 2.211f.: Philip II, when insulted by the Athenian Demochares, did not
punish him, but merely ‘sent that Thersites away’ (Ira [5]‌.3.23.3). It is unclear
whether this is a quotation of Philip’s ipsissima verba or Seneca’s addition.
Iliad 3.222: A reference to Ulysses’ speech that ‘comes down like snow’
(Ep. 40.2, oratio illa… concitata et sine intermissione in modum nivis
superveniens iuveni data est) ~ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα.62
59 Seneca, Ep. 58.1–6 suggests that he himself lost a great deal of time on such subjects under a
grammaticus (quantum tempus apud grammaticen perdiderim).
60 Cribiore 2001, 194– 7; Morgan 1998, 105– 6, pointing to uneven distribution of papyri,
suggests that less Homer was read among the Romans than in the Hellenistic period, and in
the Byzantine period still less.
61 For instance, at Ep. 90.31, Seneca reports that Posidonius ‘preferred’ (maluit) to view the
lines on the potter’s wheel in Homer as interpolated because it had been invented later by
Anacharsis (Il. 18.599–601). Ira [3]‌.1.20.8 contains the only quotation of Homer in Greek,
but it comes in a quotation of the emperor Caligula.
62 Setaioli 1988, 52 n. 174 suggests that Seneca may have conflated Menelaus and Ulysses if
the first part of Seneca’s description is an echo of Il. 3.213 (ἐπιτροχάδην ἀγόρευε), a possible
‘lapsus mnemonico’. And yet, even though Menelaus is described as ‘younger’ in Homer, a fact
68
68 R. Scott Smith
Iliad 14.268–70: Seneca, critical of the proliferation of etymological
interpretations of the Graces’ names, reports that Homer changes one
of the names to Pasithea and promised her in marriage (Ben. 1.3.7) ~
Χαρίτων μίαν… | δώσω ὀπυιέμεναι καὶ σὴν κεκλῆσθαι ἄκοιτιν | Πασιθέην
(Hera speaking to Hypnos).
Il. 19.229: the greatest Greek poet limits mourning to a maximum of a
single day (Ep. 63.2, cum poetarum Graecorum maximus ius flendi dederit
in unum dumtaxat diem) ~ ἐπ’ ἤματι δακρύσαντας (joined with example of
Il. 24.602 below, but see Lucian, De luctu 24, cited in footnote 8).
Il. 24.10–11 Achilles is compared to the restless soul (Tranq. [9]‌.2.12, qualis
ille Homericus Achilles est, modo pronus, modo supinus, in varios habitus se
ipse componens, quod proprium aegri est, nihil diu pati et mutationibus ut
remediis uti) ~ ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖτε | ὕπτιος, ἄλλοτε δὲ πρηνής. See also the sub-
versive rewriting at Juv. 3.278–80.
Il. 24.478–9 + 506 + 602: Ira [4]‌.2.33.5: Pastor’s enduring of the cruel
banquet of Caligula, who had killed one of his sons, is compared to
Priam’s meeting with Achilles: quid ille Priamus? Non dissimulavit iram et
regis genua complexus est, funestam perfusamque cruore fili manum ad os
suum rettulit, cenavit? Sed tamen sine unguento, sine coronis, et illum hostis
saevissimus multis solaciis ut cibum caperet hortatus est ~ χερσὶν Ἀχιλλῆος
λάβε γούνατα καὶ κῦσε χεῖρας | δεινὰς ἀνδροφόνους… (506) ἀνδρὸς παιδο-
φόνοιο ποτὶ στόματα χεῖρ᾿ ὀρέγεσθαι… (602) and see analysis below.
Il. 24.602: Homer said that ‘even Niobe thought of food’ as a way to urge
mortals to move on after the death of loved ones (Ep. 63.2, cum poetarum
Graecorum maximus… dixerit etiam Niobam de cibo cogitasse) ~ καί
γάρ… Νιόβη ἐμνήσατο σίτου (joined with example of Il. 19.229 above, but
see Lucian, De luctu 24, cited in footnote 8).
Some of these references, even if they correspond to the original Greek,

are clearly proverbial and do not imply that Seneca consulted a text of Homer
(see Il. 19.229 and 24.602 above, also found together at Lucian, De luctu 24).
Mazzoli suggests, perhaps correctly, that all the references are pulled from
Seneca’s memory, which is demonstrably faulty on at least one occasion.63
A review of the examples above shows no clear pattern of use: some are given
as ‘moral archetypes of human existence’;64 others are drawn from different
not mentioned by Setaioli, the poet insists on how little Menelaus says (Il. 3.214 παῦρα… οὐ
πολύμυθος).
63 Mazzoli 1970, 164. At Ben. 1.3.7 Seneca claims that Thalia in Hesiod is one of the Graces,
while in Homer she is a Muse, yet the only Thalia in Homer is one of the Nereids (Il. 18.39).
See Mazzoli 1970, 162 n. 19 and 164; Setaioli 1988, 52 and 469–71.
64 Cf. Tranq. [9]‌.2.12, Ep. 63.2, Ben. 5.25.4; cf. Mazzoli 1991, 197.
69

parts of the epic to comment on oratorical style (Ep. 40.2); still others are used
as exempla to support a philosophical argument (Ben. 1.3.7). All but one do not
seem to trigger a series of deeper associations with the original Homeric text.
The one exception is Seneca’s description of the emperor Caligula’s mal-
treatment of Pastor at Ira [4]‌.2.33 (next to last passage above), where he
compares his actions to the treatment of Priam at the hands of Achilles in
Iliad 24 (see also Wilcox’s treatment of this same passage in the previous
chapter). Here, the resonances are deep and meaningful, and a literary inter-
textual dialogue seems intended by Seneca himself. In fact, Seneca crafts
the story of Pastor’s suffering so as to prepare the reader in subtle ways for
the explicit reference to the Iliad given above: Caligula had Pastor’s son in
custodia (though alive) as Achilles had Hector’s corpse (Ira [4].2.33.3).
Pastor begged Caligula for his son, as Priam would do, but fails; in fact his
request prompts the emperor to kill his son (ibid.). After doing so, Caligula
invites Pastor to a perverse dinner; Seneca describes the invitation as a way
to show that the emperor did not treat Pastor completely inhumane, a per-
verse reflection of the central theme of Iliad 24 (Ira [4].2.33.3–4). Seneca is
emphatic that Pastor’s dead son remained unburied during the cruel dinner
(Ira [4].2.33.4: Eo die quo filium extulerat, immo quo non extulerat. Pastor
is a podagricus senex, now in his 100th year (centesimus), an old man like
Priam. Pastor, of course, succeeds in enduring the monstrous hospitality of
the emperor, so much so that, as Seneca suggests, ‘he deserved to be allowed
to leave the banquet to collect his son’s remains’ (Ira [4].2.33.6, dignus fuit cui
permitteretur a convivio ad ossa fili legenda discedere), just as Priam was able to
do. Yet Caligula, a kindly and even cheerful host, did not allow him to do so.
The similarities, perverted though they may be, are stark. Caligula is the anti-
Achilles, whose morose humanity is contrasted with the emperor’s cheerful
incapacity for human suffering. Furthermore, the human activity of eating
to regain some normalcy in life after grieving is perverted into a spectacle of
inhumanity: Caligula toasts Pastor and tells him to ‘forget about his grief’—a
depraved take on ‘even Niobe remembered to eat’—but the context of cruelty
here is far removed from the Iliadic compassion. One cannot help but wonder
whether Seneca creatively embellished his narrative in De ira so as to rewrite
the Homeric model to accentuate the emperor’s lack of humanity.
Despite this single example, however, there does not seem to be any attempt
to consistently engage with the fabric of Homer’s Iliad systematically in the
way we see, for example, in the Senecan play Troades.65 By contrast, Homer’s
65 To take the clearest examples of the attempt to include nearly all of the Iliad in the play, we
find references to book 1 (clear structural parallels, Agamemnon taking Briseis), book 2 (815–
57, the Catalog of Ships), book 3 (897–8, reference to Helen watching men get slaughtered,
incerta voti); book 6 (reference to the growth of Astyanax into the defender of Troy; cf. 535–
6), book 9 (315–21, the embassy, Achilles playing the lyre), book 15 (444–5, Hector setting
ships on fire; cf. 683–4), book 16 (446–7, ‘taking real spoils from fake Achilles’), book 20 (348,
70
70 R. Scott Smith
Odyssey, or at least the figure of Odysseus, offers Seneca a consistent and sin-
gular mytho-literary image from the Odyssean ‘super-text’ to exploit. First,
there are some references to episodes drawn from the Odyssey, especially those
in the Naturales quaestiones, that are surely drawn from other sources. The
rationalizing account of the cattle of the Sun was mentioned above (section
3). The reference to Pharos being a day’s sail away, likewise, must come from
a source that is shared by contemporary or near-contemporary geographical
writers.66
Beyond these two examples, only Odysseus’ travel narrative from books
9–12 figure at all in Seneca’s prose works.67 The most substantial reference of
the text is found at Ep. 88.7, where Seneca criticizes grammatici who waste
time inquiring into the geographical specifics of the Ithacan’s travels when
we ourselves are wandering morally—a criticism already found in Bion of
Borysthenes:68
Do you ask where Ulysses wandered rather than make sure that we our-
selves do not wander eternally? There’s no time to learn whether he was
buffeted between Italy and Sicily or beyond the known world (surely
such a long wandering could not have occurred in such a small space).
Tempests of the mind rock us daily; our negligence pushes us into every
one of Ulysses’ calamities. We have plenty of beauty to tempt our eyes
and enemies <to assail us;> we face on one side wild monsters reveling
in human blood, on another alluring and treacherous voices, and on yet
another shipwrecks and every kind of misfortune.
In brief compass Seneca alludes, without giving any names, to Scylla and
Charybdis, Circe and Calypso, the Laestrygonians, Polyphemus and the
‘whom no god wanted to face’ [= Il. 20.318, 443), book 21 (185–7, Xanthus creeping tardus),
book 22 (188–9, 413–5, 744 dragging Hector around mound) and book 24 (310–5, supplica-
tion of Achilles by Priam; cf. 691f.; 666, gift of Hector’s body back to Priam). Of course, the
debate between Agamemnon and Pyrrhus early in the play reflects the argument between the
former and Achilles in book 1 of the epic.
66 NQ 6.26.1: Tantum enim, si Homero fides est, aberat a continenti Pharos quantum navis diurno
cursu metiri plenis lata velis potest. ~ Od. 4.356–7 τόσσον ἄνευθ᾿ὅσσον πανημερίη γλαφυρὴ νηῦς
| ἤνυσε ᾗ λιγὺς οὖρος ἐπιπνείῃσιν ὄπισθεν. But see Pomponius Mela Chorograph. 2.104: Pharos
nunc Alexandriae ponte coniungitur, olim, ut Homerico carmine proditum est, ab eisdem
oris cursu diei totius abducta and Plin. HN 5.128: altera iuncta ponte Alexandriae… Pharos
quondam diei navigatione distans ab Aegypto. Cf. Setaioli 1988, 53, Strabo 1.2.23 Meineke.
67 For a synthetic overview of the Stoic-Cynic portrayals of Odysseus, see now Montiglio
2011,  66–94.
68 Bion of Borysthenes Fr. 5a Kindstrand: ‘Bion used to say that grammatici who inquired into
the wandering of Odysseus did not examine their own wandering, and that they did not even
realize that they themselves were wandering on this very point, that they were doing nothing
of importance’. See Stückelberger 1965 ad loc. Strabo’s introductory book (cf. Gell. Noct.
Attic. 14.6.3) offers a clear example of the heated debate as to where Odysseus traveled (Ep.
88.7), perhaps reflecting such discussions in both academic and school contexts.
71

Sirens, but the names are omitted and seem to be couched in purely human
terms. As we saw in Constantia sapientis [2]‌.2.1–2 discussed above, the effacing
of the mythological names both challenges the truth- value of the fabu-
lous creatures and downplays Odysseus’ challenges in comparison to their
modern counterparts. The challenges that face Seneca’s world, by contrast,
are far more complicated than the simpler ones of the past: at Ep. 31.2 Seneca
reminds us that Ulysses only had to worry about an alluring song from one
direction; today we are surrounded by dangerous voices on every side (cf. Ep.
123.12, also voces without reference to the names). Our gaze is drawn away
from the past—and the Odyssean context—to the here and now.69
The turning away from the mythical past to our own wanderings is exem-
plified in another group of letters, Ep. 31–57, which include the ‘epistolary
tour’ of Campania in Ep. 49–57. Seneca’s self-identification with (an anti-
heroic) Odysseus reaches its highest pitch in Letter 53, where he claims to
have suffered shipwreck in the Bay of Naples, and Letter 56, where he equates
the din of the baths to the song of the Sirens, but the resonances run deeper
than those two explicit references. Scholars have long since recognized that
the Epistulae morales are, if not a complete fiction, highly literary and involve
a great deal of self-fashioning on the part of Seneca.70 We must, therefore, be
sensitive to the ways in which Seneca shapes his narrative, especially in Ep.
49–56,71 where he presents himself as ‘the Busy, Futile Traveler’,72 a substan-
tial rewriting of Odyssey 9–12. What inspired Seneca to enter into a sustained
dialogue, if not with Homer’s text itself, with the mythical super-text of the
Homeric figure Odysseus?
Seneca was prompted, I would submit, by the peculiar literary nature of the
letters and the presentation of the geographical relationship between writer
and correspondent. First, if one accepts that the adventures of Odysseus
took place in Sicily and Italy,73 as Seneca himself does, the topography of
Seneca’s and Lucilius’ relationship corresponds almost exactly to the travels
of his epic predecessor—one that can be especially exploited when Seneca
visits the Campanian coast. Second, the physical distance between Seneca and
Lucilius, and the impossibility of a ‘present’ relationship, resembles the very
real distance between Odysseus and his home. Seneca’s ideal conception of a
philosophical relationship is, after all, based on togetherness; at Ep. 6.5, even
as he tells Lucilius that he will send him books, Seneca laments, ‘yet a living
voice and companionship will help you more than a speech’ (plus tamen tibi et
viva vox et convictus quam oratio). It is the separation of Seneca and Lucilius
69 See Wilcox’ ‘Cautionary Postscript’ in the previous chapter.

70 See Griffin 1976, 416–9 for a review of the question up until 1976. See more recently Schafer
2011; Inwood 2005a, esp. 346–8; Henderson 2004, passim; Schönegg 1999; Mazzoli 1989,
1846–55.
71 See Ker 2009b, 345–6; Berno 2006, passim; Hurka 2005; Henderson 2004, 32–5.
72 Motto and Clark 1971, 217.
73 See Phillips 1953 for an overview of the ancient works that situate the travels of Odysseus in
Sicily and southern Italy.
72
72 R. Scott Smith
and the former’s appearance in Campania that initiates the extended literary
engagement with the Odysseus myth.
The main obstacle keeping the two literary friends apart is the strait of
Messina with its fabled and dangerous Scylla and Charybdis, which Seneca
frequently emphasizes.74 Seneca writes early in their correspondence, ‘When
you were heading for Sicily, you passed through the straits’, and takes pains to
describe the dangers of a reckless helmsman choosing to hug the wrong side,
that of Charybdis (Ep. 14.8; cf. Ep. 31.9). In a later letter (Ep. 45.2), Seneca,
in response to Lucilius’ request for yet more books (see Letter 6 mentioned
above), laments that the two cannot be together, and exclaims:
‘If I could, I would bring myself there to you, and if I did not expect
that you were about to gain a release from your office soon, I would have
demanded of myself an old man’s journey. Not even Charybdis and
Scylla, that mythical strait (fabulosum istud fretum), could have stopped
me. I would not only have crossed it, but I would have even swum across
it, provided that I could have embraced you and with my own eyes judge
how much you’ve improved your mind’.
As Seneca tells it, not even old age could have prevented him from attempting
to reunite with Lucilius. Like Odysseus, trying to make his way home, Seneca
imagines that he would even swim if he had to—one is prompted to think of
shipwrecked Odysseus, of course. Lucilius’ public office, furthermore, seems
to have a hold on him as Calypso had on Odysseus. Is there as sense of sus-
picion that Lucilius will go astray without Seneca’s guidance? Indeed, this
is what Seneca seems to imply before the passage above: ‘Whoever wants to
reach their destination ought to follow a single path, not wander over many’
(Ep. 45.1). It is almost as if Seneca is preparing us for the epistolary tour of
Ep. 49–57, to which we will now turn.
In this suite of letters Seneca takes us through his own wanderings
around the Bay of Naples (see already Berno 2006). At Ep. 49, Seneca visits
Campania, whence Lucilius hailed and where Seneca likely had one or more
residences. The very sight of Lucilius’ birthplace drives home how far away the
two are from each other. His mind races back to when the two were together
last. It was as if, Seneca tells us, their tear-filled farewell had taken place just
moments ago: ‘I cannot believe how fresh… the sight of your Naples and
Pompeii has made my longing for you’ (Ep. 49.1). Seneca arrives at Lucilius’
hometown, but he is not there. The rest of the letters in the epistolary tour
emphasize aimless wandering: Seneca compares Lucilius’ surroundings
(Aetna, land of the Cyclopes) with his visit to Baiae, which is nothing more
than a ‘whorehouse for vices’ (Ep. 51.3, deversorium vitiorum). Letter 52 then
opens with a question to Lucilius, ‘What is it, Lucilius, that draws us, who
74 Cf. Henderson 2004, 31–2.

73

want to head in one direction, down another path?’ It is because we ‘fluctuate
(fluctuamur) between different plans’ and cannot settle on one path? In Letter
53, which we will discuss in more detail below, Seneca foolishly sets sail under
threatening conditions and is shipwrecked like Odysseus. In the next letter,
on praemeditatio mortis, are we to envision Odysseus’ trip to the underworld?
In Ep. 55 Seneca narrates his restlessness as he is carried in a litter along the
shore in view of Vatia’s villa. In the following letter Seneca tarries above a
bathhouse and its seductions only to leave immediately (Ep. 56). Then, Seneca
reports his journey through the Crypta Neapolitana through darkness and
terrors (Ep. 57). It is as if Seneca does not know where he wants to be, where
he should go, or how he can get there. He is describing his own wanderings, his
own challenges, his own failings.75
Despite these allusions to wandering, restlessness and absence, it is only
in Letter 53 that we meet an explicit engagement with what we might call an
‘Odyssean’ theme—and yet it is less a reference to the text as it is to the broader
myth that grew up around the text. A parodic rewriting of the story, this letter
opens with Seneca’s vivid description of his own shipwreck. Although clouds
were threatening, the sea was calm, so ‘I thought I could sneak across the few
miles from your Parthenope to Puteoli’; Seneca is as reckless as Odysseus.
To get there faster, he made for open water, heading for the small island of
Nesis. Soon the waves roll in, Seneca is stricken with seasickness, and when
his pleas to the captain to bring the ship to shore are unsuccessful, he leaps
overboard and scrambles onto land. He sums his experience up with a refer-
ence to Odysseus: ‘you should know that it wasn’t because Odysseus was born
under such an angry sea that he was shipwrecked so often. He just got sea-sick
a lot’ (Ep. 53.4).
The tragicomic aspects of this self-portrayal of Seneca-as-a-failed-Odysseus
has been thoroughly examined.76 Here, I would like to focus on an aspect of
the letter that has been missed, that is, the use of ‘Parthenope’ for Naples,
which I would argue establishes the Odyssean inter-or rather super-text at
the beginning of the letter. Only here does Seneca use this term for Naples;
elsewhere, even in the ‘Campanian letters,’ he uses ‘Neapolis’ exclusively (Ep.
49.1, 57.1, 68.5, 76.4; Marc. [6]‌.20.4, NQ 6.1.2). It is true that the word is
commonly found in poetry,77 but here it seems to be signaling to the learned
reader that we are in a specific Odyssean topography: Parthenope is the name
75 Seneca’s position on travel is complicated; the once-held view that Seneca rejected the idea
that travel was helpful for moral improvement has been rightfully revisited and refined: see
Montiglio 2006. Although Seneca finds moral lessons in, say, visiting Vatia’s villa, Seneca’s
own wandering here is depicted as restlessness—perhaps because he is, without Lucilius, in a
sense homeless.
76 Berno 2006, 29–32, 233–8; Motto and Clark 1993a; cf. Montiglio 2006.
77 Verg. Georg. 4.564 (and Servius ad loc.); Columella R.R. 10.1.1; Ov. Met. 15.712; Stat. Silv.
1.2.261, 2.2.84, 3.1.93, 3.1.152, 3.5.79, 4.4.53, 4.8.3, 5.3.105, 5.3.129a; Sil. Ital. Pun. 8.534,
12.28, 12.34.
74
74 R. Scott Smith
of one of the Sirens found in post-Homeric sources.78 But the implications go
beyond a simple announcement of an ‘Odyssean’ context. During Seneca’s
attempt to sail, he decides to ‘leap into the sea’ and head for land despite the
ship captain’s warnings. This image corresponds exactly to what sailors would
do under the spell of the Sirens’ song. Seneca’s jumping into the water, then,
is a literary reenactment of what the fictional Odysseus was able to avoid, and
what Seneca could not.79 Seneca, of course, lives, but he is forced to reflect on
his own failings, his own wandering, his own Odyssean adventure.
Seneca’s portrayal of himself as an Odysseus-as-everyman, fighting not
against fabled monsters but against one’s own failing, undercuts the authority
of the Homeric epic even as Seneca exploits the narrative potential of the
‘idea’ the Ithacan. Odysseus did not confront monsters that shipwrecked him
and his crew. Instead, Seneca sees Odysseus as a purely human character,
one subject to the dangers inherent in aimless wandering no less than we are.
Seneca’s reluctance to name mythical monsters that Odysseus and Hercules
fought is implicit criticism that the stories as presented in Greek mythical
texts are fictional. But lying beneath this criticism is the recognition that these
figures were somehow confronting challenges similar to those Seneca and his
contemporaries were facing, even if less complex and therefore less worth of
admiration or study. The literary nature of these letters, the separation of
Seneca/Odysseus from his friend Lucilius/Laertes/Telemachus/Penelope, and
the geographical context all conspired to prompt Seneca to write himself in
the role of a present-day Odysseus—a decision that has distinct resonances
throughout the presentation of the geography of and movement through
Letters  49–56.
6 Conclusions
Seneca’s interest in the stories about gods and heroes of the past is guided by
his primary concern: a search for a truth that is in accordance with nature.
All narratives that are contra naturam—both the theological absurdities that
diminish the majesty of the Stoic deus and the outlandish claims about the
spatium mythicum—are rejected or implicitly historicized so as to render
them consistent with the laws of nature. Seneca does not consistently attempt
to rationalize or historicize myth because the gulf between the distant past
and the modern world, on which he is solely focused, is so vast as to sever
any ties. When he does draw on the heroes from the spatium mythicum, it is
usually from a rhetorical persona, and he only uses cases that do not break
78 The story is fully told in Lycophron (Al. 717–25): the Siren Parthenope jumps into the sea
after Odysseus’ ship passes by and washes up next to the tower of Phaleros, the founder of
Neapolis. The inhabitants build her a tomb and pay her honors as a bird-goddess.
79 Seneca also rewrites the Siren episode at Ep. 56.15, where, after enduring the din of the
bathhouse, he decides to leave: ‘why do I torture myself longer than I have to? After all,
Odysseus discovered such an easy remedy for his men even against the Sirens’. Here, Seneca
has successfully listened to—and described—the Siren-song of the bathhouse as an Odysseus.
75

the laws of nature. The case is, of course, complicated by the Homeric epics,
which contain absurdities but which can also depict human behavior that may
have relevance to the human condition, even in the Roman empire. Seneca
never subjects the epics to a sustained Stoic analysis, as Chrysippus seems to
have done, but he employs certain scenes in rhetorical and literary contexts
depending on the mode in which he is writing at any one time. Unsurprisingly,
Seneca’s most sustained engagement with a literary figure, Odysseus, albeit
freed from his textual existence, is to be found in his most literary work, the
Epistulae morales, where the search for truth gives way to personal reflection
on distance, wandering, and longing for companionship. Even so, the very fic-
tiveness of Odysseus’ adventures gives Seneca license to rewrite, even subvert,
the Homeric narrative to drive home the point that greater challenges exist for
his own contemporaries in the here and now.
Appendix: references to myth in Seneca philosophus

Note: Two fragments from Seneca’s De matrimonio, which is known only from
Jerome’s polemical Adversus Iovinianum (for which, see Hunter 2007), con-
tain references or allusions to events and figures from the spatium mythicum.
The first had already been identified by Haase in 1853; Bickel in his meticu-
lous and influential, yet misleading, work of 1915 included these two passages
among three fragmenta incerta because they contained references to tragedy and
myth. Vottero, more confident, presented them as frr. 51 and 53 in his edition.80
Recent studies are rightly critical of Bickel’s methodology and have cast doubt
on how much Jerome relied on a work nowhere else mentioned.81 It is the view
of this author that these examples are Jerome’s own, not least because Seneca
philosophus was so reluctant to draw on materials from the mythical period and
especially from Greek tragedies.
fr. 51 Vottero
quidquid tragoediae tument et domos urbes regnaque subvertit, uxorum
paelicumque contentio est. Armantur parentum in liberos manus,
nefandae adponuntur epulae, et propter unius mulierculae raptum Europae
atque Asiae decennalia bella confligunt.82
80 In his introduction (1998, 25) Vottero does not doubt that they derive from De matrimonio, but
he remarks that these three fragments are ‘of uncertain placement’ (di incerta collocazione).
81 Torre 2000; Takács 2000, 325. Most recently, Delarue 2001 has reexamined the evidence and
rightly reduced the number of fragments significantly to a mere 12. Unfortunately, Delarue
does not discuss these incerta fragmenta, but does not include them in the final tally (p. 187).
For a review of the question, with all the putative fragments, see now Gloyn 2017, 207–23.
82 Bickel (1915, 64–5, 338) regards the final clause, marked by italics (mine) as belonging not
to Seneca, based on the late Latin phrase decennale bellum and the fact that Helen only
appears once elsewhere, in the polemical Ep. 88. Vottero notes, however, that muliercula is not
uncommon in Seneca (to be precise, it occurs in three passages: Clem. 2.5.1; Ep. 63.13, 66.53).
76
76 R. Scott Smith
fr. 53 Vottero
Alcestin fabulae ferunt pro Admeto sponte defunctam et Paenelopis
pudicitia Homeri carmen est. Laodamia quoque poetarum ore cantatur
occiso aput Troiam Protesilao noluisse supervivere.
Mythological appendix83
Achilles: Tranq. [9.]2.12 ille Homericus Achilles est, modo pronus, modo
supinus, in varios habitus se ipse componens; Ep. 27.5 Calvisius Sabinus
forgets his name; Ep. 88.6 quaestio among pedants whether Achilles
or Patroclus was older; Ep. 104.31 (in quotation of Aen. 1.458), Cato
resembles Achilles who is stuck in the middle between Agamemnon and
Priam (= Caesar and Pompey); Ben. 4.27.2: a polemical question to the
Stoics, who argue all non sapientes have all vices, ‘so is Achilles fearful’?
Cf. Papaioannou in this volume, case #1.
Aeneas: Helv. [12].7.6 (unnamed) exemplum of someone who has been exiled,
like Seneca, in a list of exiles from Trojan War (cf. Helv. [12].7.3, liberos
coniugesque et graves senio parentes traxerunt. Alii longo errore iactati non
iudicio elegerunt locum sed lassitudine proximum occupaverunt; Ep. 21.5
(in quotation of Aen. 9.446–9) Vergil offers Aeneas and Romulus eternal
glory; Ep. 82.7 (in quotation of Aen. 6.261) example of courage and a
firm heart; Ep. 88.37 Didymus’ books include a discussion of Aeneas’ real
mother, dismissed by Seneca as trivial. Ben. 3.37.1, Aeneas outdoes his
father in generosity by leading him gravem senio through the flames; Ben.
6.36.1, he questions Aeneas is pius if he wanted his town to be captured
so that he could save his father from captivity.
Aeolus: NQ 6.18.5 (after citation of Aen. 1.53–4 on Aeolus’ winds), Seneca is
critical of the mistake poets make: sine dubio poetae hunc voluerunt videri
carcerem in quo sub terra clausi laterent, sed non intellexerunt nec id quod
clusum est esse adhuc ventum, nec id quod ventus est posse iam cludi.
Agamemnon: Ep. 66.26, to exemplify ‘indifferents’ Seneca contrasts rich
Agamemnon with poor Ulysses, suggesting each still wants to return
home; Ep. 104.31 (in quotation of Aen. 1.458, Atriden Priamumque et
saevom ambobus Achillen), in the crisis of the late republic, Caesar and
Pompey are recast as Agamemnon and Priam, with Achilles being the
avatar for Cato, who was hostile to both.
Ajax: Ira [4]‌.2.36.5, exemplum: anger leads to madness, which can lead to
death: Aiacem in mortem egit furor, in furorem ira.
Alcestis: Helv. [12].19.5 (unnamed): exemplum for comparison with Seneca’s
aunt, who compares favorably to the mythical Alcestis.
Alpheus: see Arethusa.
83 Not all the references in the mythological appendix are included in the index locorum listed at
the end of the volume.
77

Antenor: Helv. [12].7.6, founder of Patavium, exiled like Seneca (see Aeneas
above ad loc.).
Apollo: Ira [5]‌.3.14.2: Cambyses, known to drink excessively, was told by a
friend of his to drink less because drunkenness was not befitting a king.
Cambyses said alcohol never affected him, and to prove it he drank even
more heavily, brought out his friend’s son, and shot him right through the
heart. Asked about his aim then, at ille negavit Apollinem potuisse certius
mittere.
Arethusa: NQ 3.26.5, with quotation from Verg. Ecl. 10.4–5; cf. NQ 6.8.2.
Atlas: Pol. [11].7.1: Polybius’ position is compared to Atlas.
Atreus: Ep. 80.7 (cited in quotation of unknown tragic poet).
Bellerophon: Ep. 115.15: character in a play, who apparently praised money
on stage, which caused a near-revolt until Euripides intervened and told
the audience to wait for the end. dabat in illa fabula poenas Bellerophontes
quas in sua quisque dat.
Bellona: Ira [4]‌.2.35.6 (quotation): a quotation of one of the vates: perhaps
an adaptation of Verg. Aen. 8.703 (but cf. Lucan 7.568).
Busiris: Clem. 2.4.1 (in quotation of an unnamed interlocutor) example of
extreme savagery.
Castor: see Dioscuri.
Cattle of the Sun: NQ 3.26.7. At a place near Messene and Mylae the sea
casts up muck on a regular basis ‘with a foul color’, which gave rise to the
story that the cattle of the Sun were stabled here (rationalizing version).
Centaurs: Ep. 58.15: in a section devoted to ontological divisions, he attributes
to ‘some Stoics’ a super-category called ‘quid’.
Cerberus: Ep. 24.18: Seneca equates belief in Cerberus and other underworld
terrors with a childish mentality; Ep. 82.16 (called ingens ianitor Orci in
quotation of Aen. 6.400–1 and 8.296–7).
Charybdis: Marc. [6]‌.17.3; Ep. 14.8; Ep. 31.9, 45, 79.1, frequently rationalized.
Cf. NQ 3.29.7.
Chimaera: Ep. 113.9: Seneca illustrates how virtues are not separate living
beings, but separate parts of a living animal (animus). Cf. Plato, Republic
9, 588c.
Croesus: Tranq. [9].11.12 (mytho-historical, factus non regno tantum, etiam
morti suae superstes).
Cyclopes: NQ 2.44.1 in quotation of Ovid, Met. 3.305–7.
Daedalus: Ep. 90.14: rationalized, through the protos heuretes motif, as the
inventor of the saw.
Danaids (?): Brev. vit. [10].10.6.
Delos: cf. NQ 6.26.2–3, with quotation of Verg. Aen. 3.77.
Diomedes: Helv. [12].17.6, exiled after Trojan War. See Aeneas above ad loc.
Dioscuri: NQ 1.1.13 (St. Elmo’s Fire).
Erinys: NQ 4A praef. 19.
Giants: Ep. 58.15: in a section devoted to ontological divisions, he attributes
to ‘some Stoics’ a super-category called ‘quid’.
78
78 R. Scott Smith
Hecuba: Ep. 47.12: exemplum of someone becoming a slave in old age (along
with Croesus, Darius’ mother, Plato, Diogenes); Ep. 88.6: among a list of
quaestiones regarding the Homeric text: if she was younger than Helen,
why did she appear so much older?
Helen: Ep. 88.6: see Hecuba above, ad loc.
Helle: Ep. 80.7 (cited in quotation of unknown tragic poet).
Hercules: Const. sapient. [2]‌.2.1, see above, section 3; Tranq. [9.]16.4, exem-
plum of someone suffering unjustly, alongside historical examples; Ep.
94.63: Alexander followed in the footsteps of Hercules and Liber; Ben.
1.13.1 Corinthians gave citizenship to Hercules (and then to Alexander);
Ben. 1.13.2 Alexander followed in the footsteps of Hercules; Ben. 4.8.1,
Hercules’ death allegorized as Stoic ἐκπύρωσις.
Hydra: Ep. 113.9: Seneca illustrates how virtues are not separate living
beings, but separate parts of a living animal (animal). Cf. Plato,
Republic 9, 588c.
Ixion: Ep. 24.18: the fears of the underworld are illusory; Ixion does not
revolve on a wheel.
Juno: Ep. 95.47: Seneca criticizes the cult practices of bringing a mirror
to Juno (and a linen cloth and a strigil to Jupiter). God does not need
attendants. Ep. 110.1: guardian spirit of women.
Jupiter: Vit. beat. [7]‌.26.7, Jupiter puts up with insane people’s hallucinations
like Jupiter puts up with the ineptiae poetarum; Brev. vit. [10].16.5, said
to ‘double the night’; Ep. 9.16: equated with Stoic god; Ep. 25.4, refer-
ring to Epicurus: sapiens contends with him in blessedness (cf. Ep. 73.13,
111.18); Ep. 59.12 (in quotation) Alexander, wounded, says, ‘all swear
that I am the son of Jupiter, but this wound declares loudly that I am a
mortal’; Ep. 95.47: Seneca criticizes the cult practices of bringing linen
cloth and a strigil to Jupiter (and a mirror to Juno). God does not need
attendants; Ep. 107.10, citing Cleanthes: Jupiter rules the world; Ep.
119.7: Seneca argues that one ought to be content not to be cold, hungry
and thirsty: this is all that Jupiter has. NQ 2.41–6, manubiae (‘strengths’)
of Jupiter’s thunderbolts. Cf. fr. 93 Vottero apud poetas salacissimus.
Liber: Ep. 94.63: Alexander follows in the path of the conquerors Hercules
and Liber.
Lynceus: Ben. 4.27.3.
Menelaus: Ep. 80.8 (in a quotation from an unknown tragic poet).
Minerva (Pallas): Ep. 77.2 (quotation of an unknown poet): refers to the
promunturium Minervae near Capri.
Minos (?): Marc. [6]‌.13.1, where there is mentioned ‘that father, who was told
of his son’s death in the middle of a sacrifice, commanded the flute-player
to stop playing, took the crown off his head and finished the rest of the
sacrifice scrupulously’ (cf. Apd. 3.15.7).
Neptune: Const. sapient. [2]‌.4.2: could Xerxes have touched Neptune with
chains sunk into the sea? Ep. 73.5: reference to his role as sea-god, to
whom merchants ‘owe more’ if they carried costlier cargo; NQ 6.23.4,
79

land near the sea are so frequently shaken that the power of moving the
sea has been assigned to Neptune.
Nestor: Ep. 40.2 (unnamed), described as having gentle speech and sweeter
than honey (Homer, Il. 1.249); Ep. 77.20, all lives are short, even those of
Nestor and Sattia.
Niobe: Ep. 63.2, even she thought of food in her grief (Il. 24).
Odysseus [Lat. Ulixes]: Const. sapient. [2]‌ .2.1, see discussion above; Ep.
27.5: Calvisius Sabinus forgets his name (see Achilles ad loc.); Ep.
31.2: Seneca urges Lucilius to resist the call of ‘popular goods’. He must
‘close his ears, but it is not enough (parum est) to cover with wax. There
is need of a stronger plug than the one they say (ferunt) Odysseus used
on his comrades’; Ep. 40.2 (unnamed), described as having speech like
snowflakes (Il. 3.222); Ep. 53.4, Odysseus’ shipwrecks caused by sea-
sickness; Ep. 56.15, Odysseus found a way to combat the Sirens’ song;
Ep. 66.26: Ithaca compared with Mycenae, but both Odysseus and
Agamemnon wish to return home; Ep. 88.7: among a list of quaestiones
regarding the Homeric text: where did Odysseus wander? Also contains
allusions to Od. 9–12; Ep. 88.8: among a list of quaestiones regarding the
Homeric text: did Penelope suspect that Odysseus had returned before
she actually knew? Ep. 123.12: our parents’ wishes are similar to the
Sirens’ song; they appear wonderful but are dangerous.
Olympus: cf. NQ 6.25.2.
Ossa: cf. NQ 6.25.2.
Parthenope (Siren): a place name for Naples, leading up to Ulysses theme
later in letter (see Ulysses ad Ep. 53.4); see discussion in section 5.
Patroclus: Ep. 88.6, among a list of quaestiones regarding the Homeric
text: who was older, he or Achilles?
Pelops: Ep. 80.7 (cited in quotation of unknown tragic poet).
Penelope: Ep. 88.8: among a list of quaestiones regarding the Homeric
text: was she unchaste?
Pollux: see Dioscuri.
Priam: Ira [4]‌.2.33.5, a summary of Il. 24, comparing Pastor’s endurance
of the cruelty of Caligula, who had killed his son, to Priam’s kissing
the hands of Achilles; Ep. 27.5: the freedman Calvisius Sabinus forgets
his name; Ep. 104.31 (in quotation of Aen. 1.458, Atriden Priamumque
et saevom ambobus Achillen). In the crisis of the late republic, Caesar
and Pompey are recast as Agamemnon and Priam, with Achilles being
the avatar for Cato, who was hostile to both. Cf. the contribution of
Papaioannou in this volume).
Procrustes: Clem. 2.4.1 (in quotation of an unnamed interlocutor) example
of extreme savagery (those who, not content just with killing, but become
savage).
Prometheus: Ep. 19.9 (title of a literary work of Maecenas).
Scylla: Ep. 31.9; Ep. 45; Ep. 79.1: Seneca ‘knows full well that Scylla is a rock
and not at all fearsome to sailors’; Ep. 92.9–10, the image used to criticize
80
80 R. Scott Smith
Epicurean psychology of a rational and irrational part of the soul. Cf.
NQ 3.29.7.
Silenus: Ira [5]‌.3.22.4 (reported statement by Antigonus), ‘I’d be glad and
expect success if I had a Silenus in the camp!’
Sirens: Ep. 31.2; Ep. 56.15: bathhouse noise equivalent to the song of the
Sirens; Ep. 123.12.
Sisyphus: Ep. 24.18: underworld terrors are illusory.
Sol: Ep. 115.13 (in quotation of Ovid, Met. 2.1–2): his palace (literary); Prov.
[1]‌.5.10–11 (quotation of Ovid).
Tethys: Prov. [1]‌.5.10 (quotation of Ovid).
Thersites: Ira [5.]3.23.3, Philip II endures the Athenian Demochares’ insults
and simply sent ‘that Thersites’ away.
Tityos (unnamed): Ep. 28.14, underworld terrors are illusory.
Underworld: Marc. [6]‌.19.4; Ep. 28.14, the stories of the underworld are
illusory.
Venus: Ep. 115.14 (in a Latin translation of Euripides’ Danae though Seneca
suggests Bellerophon is the speaker of the words): if Venus’ charm shines
as sweet as money is, she rightly moves men and gods to love. Venus
Genetrix: NQ 7.17.2 (festival of).
81
3
Seneca and the doxography of ethics
Jula Wildberger
From beginning to end, Seneca’s Epistulae morales are an expression of

sophisticated Stoic thought. This is a fact implicit in the text and due to the
expertise of its author, L. Annaeus.1 However, the explicit attitude to the tech-
nical or, as one might call it, academic side of philosophy changes in the course
of this work. As I have argued in other publications,2 Seneca’s persona, the
Letter Writer, develops an increasing interest in theoretical issues. He begins
to understand what the author, L. Annaeus, knew all the time, namely that it
is impossible to take philosophy seriously without due attention to the nitty-
gritty details of the craft. By transforming his Letter Writer in this manner,
the author L. Annaeus fashions a new literary-philosophical persona for him-
self. He carves out a unique role model for a modern, Roman philosopher and
member of the elite. This new philosopher negotiates the fine but extremely
sensitive line between the provider and the consumer of cultural capital. The
central concern here is one of losing face by engaging with philosophy in
a manner that would appear unfitting for one’s social position.3 Technical
expertise is the hallmark of the professional, most frequently originating from
1 I would like to thank the anonymous peer referee for extremely valuable suggestions. The name
‘Seneca’ is used when no distinction between author and persona is necessary or to refer to
the author and his personae in other works as well. ‘L. Annaeus’ refers to the man himself in
contrast to his authorial voice and literary personae, such as the Letter Writer in the Epistulae
morales, whose development and changes of mind throughout the corpus are deliberate lit-
erary artefacts (Wildberger 2014a). A similar distinction between the man Lucilius and the
Addressee created with the Epistulae morales is much harder to maintain not least because
of the scarcity of reliable extra-textual information. Luckily, the distinction is not essential to
this chapter, which deals only with the Addressee or with features the man, as far as we know,
shares with the Addressee, and so I use the name ‘Lucilius’ for both.
2 See in particular Wildberger 2006a, ch. 2.4; and 2014a.
3 A related but different type of challenge is the role of philosophy in education. Continued
study might appear as a degrading form of infantilization (see, e.g., Sen. Ep. 25.1; 76.1), and
the student-teacher relation inverts the social hierarchy of the actors involved (e.g., when the
freedman Epictetus lambasts young Roman or provincial principal aristocrats, addressing them
as slaves). Reydams-Schils 2011, for example, demonstrates how foregrounding the agency
of the philosophizing subject, both in Seneca’s writings and those of other Stoics, serves to
address what might otherwise appear as slavish dependency on another’s intellectual authority.
82
82 Jula Wildberger

Greece or one of the Greek speaking provinces, who deals in philosophical
discourse as a form of edifying entertainment and status marker or as an edu-
cational practice shaping elite identity.4 The professional’s senior ‘customer’,
his audience or patron is a noble amateur, a man of dignitas and gravitas,
who cares for his moral persona, fondly remembers his studies as a youth,
and spends some of his free time with a worthy occupation, listening to a
lecture here or there and consulting his house philosopher.5 For the contem-
porary Roman target audience of the Epistulae morales, men of senatorial
or equestrian rank, concerned about their social standing, the Letter Writer
and L. Annaeus’ persona in the Naturales quaestiones are models exempli-
fying how they might strive for expertise in philosophy without turning into a
professional intellectual like those Greeks who serve as companions and trav-
eling performers or provide higher education and a tourist attraction for the
passing administrator.6 Through the authorial roles he assumes in his works,
L. Annaeus shows what it might mean to be a Roman and a senator seeking to
achieve core values of his class such as manly excellence (virtus) and freedom
(libertas) not in the usual socio-political arena but in the exclusive service of
philosophy.7
I will argue that reception of ethical doxography was a central element in
that project of redefining the Roman elite philosopher which L. Annaeus set
himself at the end of his life and for which he created authorial personae as
role models in the works of this period. The kind of intertextuality I wish to
explore in this chapter is of interest not only as a stylistic device or as evi-
dence for possible sources of Seneca’s thought. Intertextuality here is a social
phenomenon of generic transformation. L. Annaeus adapts a kind of writing
that for a member of his class constitutes suitable reading but not something
dignified enough for him to produce himself. This undertaking is part of an
overall agenda of promoting the role of philosophy in the lives of his peers
and those Romans aspiring to attain his rank. The reception of doxography
in Seneca’s later writings exemplifies both the necessity and the possibility of
becoming a philosophy expert if one wishes to live the values that distinguish
a Roman imperial elite.
4 On this social function of philosophy, see Hahn 1989 and 2012. It is important, however, that
Hahn focuses on the second and third rather than the first century.
5 For Thrasea Paetus as an example of the more traditional form of elite Stoicism, see
Wildberger 2014b.
6 For the social type philosophus, see, most importantly, Hahn 1989 and 2012. We can see the
social distinction and hierarchical relation displayed in the Epistulae morales, e.g., when we
read of ‘peddlers’ in philosophy (Ep. 29.7) or that ‘dear Demetrius’ is being ‘carried around’
by Letter Writer (Ep. 62.3). Yes, he admires the man, but socially, Demetrius is part of his
entourage. The example of the Cynic and demonstrably frugal Demetrius also shows that the
hierarchy persists even if the relationship is less overtly economic.
7 Wildberger 2018a, 2018b and 2018c.
83
Seneca and the doxography of ethics 83

To substantiate this claim, I will first summarize some of my earlier
findings and outline how the Letter Writer of the Epistulae morales develops
as a practitioner of philosophy, as far as this development constitutes the
background for the intertextual phenomena to be discussed (1). Second, I will
point to certain parallels between the Epistulae morales and Stoic doxography
of a particularly technical nature (2), and then suggest a possible function
of such parallels in the work (3). Finally, I will pull a few threads together
and venture some suggestions about the third big book Seneca produced at
that time, the Libri moralis philosophiae (4). Unlike the Naturales quaestiones
and the Epistulae morales, only a few testimonies and fragments of this work
have been preserved. Lactantius quotes from it in his Divinae institutiones,
and Seneca himself mentions it in three of his letters, describing it as a sys-
tematic exposition of ethics.8 I will argue that the work did not present this
material in a continuous account of tenets, such as we find it in the exposi-
tory parts of Cicero’s philosophica and in Greek doxographers like Diogenes
Laertius. Rather, Seneca created a series of controversies (quaestiones), thus
assuming a less professorial role, one more in line with his social status and
background: that of an arbiter between different positions in a critical debate.
1 The Letter Writer’s growing acceptance of theoretical philosophy

From the first mention of purely formal logic, the Letter Writer continues
to reject this kind of study, a rejection that is repeated toward the end of the
corpus in Ep. 111.9 However, the Stoics were also famous for summarizing
ethical tenets in syllogistic form, and with regard to this method, the Letter
Writer changes his mind.10 In spite of scathing initial criticism in Ep. 82, he
continues to practice such syllogistic reasoning, which his addressee Lucilius
explicitly demands. Both use it for making important distinctions, and this is
linked to the emergence of a new category of topics in the final part of the
corpus: theoretical issues integral to ethical questions, moralibus rationalia
inmixta, as they are called in Ep. 102.4.
In that same letter it becomes clear that the two styles of philosophy which
were contrasted in previous discussions—on the one hand, subtle reduction
and concentration and, on the other, expansion through blunt, paraenetic
pushing—are not mutually exclusive but two sides of the same medal and
both essential for progress.11 The philosopher concentrates and focuses on
details of an argument in order to refine his concepts but also expands the
arguments in order to grow and strengthen his concepts, especially those with
8 See Vottero 1998, F and T 90–6, with introduction and commentary.

9 For discussion and further literature, see Francesca Romana Berno’s contribution to this
volume.
10 Schofield 1983. A more detailed account of what follows is Wildberger 2006a, ch. 2.4.3.
11 Wildberger 2010.
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motive force. Progress is made in an ongoing dialectic of disorderly accretion
and subsequent weeding.
At the end of book 20, which I believe was the last of the corpus,12 the
Letter Writer explicitly defends his attention to technical issues and points to
their dogmatic centrality. Lucilius needs to understand his own nature to figure
out what he owes it (Ep. 121.3)—an injunction that sounds all the more plaus-
ible since the good was just defined in terms of what is according to nature
(Ep. 118). In Ep. 124 an apparently subtle epistemic point marks the critical
boundary not only between Epicureanism and Stoicism, but also between an
animal nature and the specific nature of rational animals, the kind of nature
that is peculiar to humans and the divine. The letter thus provides exactly that
fine-grained understanding which Lucilius needs to acquire if he wishes to do
justice to his nature (Ep. 121.3), an understanding that is the necessary condi-
tion for a correct definition of what is good (Ep. 118). Dialectic reasoning has
become something extremely beneficial (Ep. 124.21).
Nullo modo prodesse possum magis quam si tibi bonum tuum ostendo, si
te a mutis animalibus separo, si cum deo pono.
In no way can I benefit you more than by showing you what your own
good is, by distinguishing you from speechless animals, by placing you at
the side of God.13
2 The Epistulae morales and the Outline of Stoic Ethics by

Arius Didymus: the parallels
Several parallels to technical doxography can be found in the part of the corpus
that represents the last stage of this development. They begin with the piv-
otal Ep. 102, in a passage that also contains first references to the Libri moralis
philosophiae. Ep. 102 responds to Lucilius’ request for further support of a claim
made in a previous letter (Ep. 102.3), which either is an ad hoc fiction or did exist
but vanished in one of the lacunae in the manuscript tradition. Between Ep. 101
and 110, the incipit of Book 18 has been lost and with it, possibly, that earlier
letter too. Whatever the truth of the matter, as it is, Ep. 102 marks the transi-
tion to a new stage of theoretical refinement. On the one hand, it continues the
syllogistic ethical reasoning begun with Ep. 82 and demonstrates its refining
function in philosophical progress. On the other hand, the letter introduces
a new theme, the ontology of the good. The two friends continue to practice
ontology in Ep. 106 with the question, raised by Lucilius, whether the good is
a body (Ep. 106.4), and similar questions are discussed at Lucilius’ request in
Ep. 113—whether the virtues are animals—and in Ep. 117 about the difference
between goods as bodies and the effect-predicates caused by those goods.
12 Wildberger 2014a, 460–1.
13 Unless indicated otherwise, translations are my own. The Latin text of the Epistulae morales
is quoted from Reynolds 1965.
85

It is with regard to such ontological questions that we can observe striking
similarities to an Outline of Stoic Ethics, whose attention to ontological issues
exceeds by far what we find in other accounts of similar length and detail,
notably by Cicero and Diogenes Laertius. The Outline of Stoic Ethics, also
known as Doxography B, has been transmitted in Stobaeus’ Anthology (Ecl.
2.7) and is generally attributed to Arius Didymus.14 It is a possibility to be
considered that Arius Didymus may have been the same person as the Stoic
Arius associated with Emperor Augustus, whom Seneca introduces in Ad
Marciam ([6]‌.4.2) as the philosopher Areus consoling Livia. We know that
Diogenes Laertius included a man called Arius among the Stoics whose lives
and ideas he reported. This part of Book 7 is lost, but from a table of contents
we know that Arius followed after Antipater of Tyre (a friend of Cato the
Younger who died shortly after 44 BCE) and preceded Seneca’s contemporary
Cornutus, the last philosopher on the full list of authors treated.15 Internal
evidence within Doxography B points to a date not before the later first cen-
tury BCE, e.g., the use of the Posidonian term εὐεμπτωσία for an innate inclin-
ation to ‘fall’ into certain types of passions (Stob. 2.7.10e, p. 93 Wachsmuth).
There are also close parallels to a section in Cicero’s account of passions in
Tusculanae disputationes 4.
Before considering their import, I will first indicate ten parallels between
the Epistulae morales and the Outline of Stoic Ethics that concern tenets of a
more technical nature. A full survey and assessment of all parallels between
the two works is beyond the scope of this chapter and not necessary for my
argument.
1. The distinction between bodies and incorporeal predicate-effects discussed
in Ep. 117 seems to have been a structural principle of at least one layer of
Doxography B, which first discusses bodies (goods, most notably virtues
and indifferents) and then, from p. 85 Wachsmuth, predicates (καθήκοντα,
κατορθώματα and ἁμαρτήματα).16 Even though there are passing references to
bodies and incorporeal effects also in other sources on Stoic ethics, we have no
other continuous text that would equal Doxography B in its lavish attention
to this ontological distinction.17
14 Ioannes Stobaeus, who evidently copied the Outline of Stoic Ethics more or less completely,
does not indicate its author. It is called ‘Doxography B’ because it forms part of three exten-
sive, but anonymous, excerpts in which ethical doctrines are exposed. Stobaeus quotes a
passage from the third of these, Doxography C, later in his Anthology, and there he names
as its author a certain Didymus. The attribution thus rests (a) on the assumption that the
same author wrote both Doxography B, our Outline, and Doxography C on Peripatetic ethics,
and (b) on the identification with the Didymus named by Stobaeus with the doxographer
Arius Didymus cited by name in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica (see, e.g., Hahm 1990 and
Göransson 1995, in particular pp. 205–7. A recent survey of the evidence is Gourinat 2011).
15 On this Index locupletior and what we can learn from it, see Dorandi 1992.
16 Wildberger 2012.
17 A table of terminological distinctions and relevant passages is given in Wildberger 2006a,
vol. 2, 369–75. Unlike Seneca, Cicero, who also uses terms for effect-predicates in De Finibus,
seems not to have understood, or cared, about the ontological implications, as can also be seen
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2. Not only does Doxography B highlight the difference between bodies
and predicates discussed by Seneca in Ep. 117. A second parallel, beyond a
shared general interest in ontological questions, can be found in the explicit
assertion that virtues, the primary goods, are bodies and that they are animals:
Ἀρετὰς δ’ εἶναι πλείους φασὶ καὶ ἀχωρίστους ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων, καὶ τὰς αὐτὰς
τῷ ἡγεμονικῷ μέρει τῆς ψυχῆς καθ’ ὑπόστασιν, καθ’ ὃ δὴ καὶ σῶμα πᾶσαν
ἀρετὴν εἶναί τε καὶ λέγεσθαι, τὴν γὰρ διάνοιαν καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν σῶμα εἶναι·
τὸ γὰρ συμφυὲς πνεῦμα ἡμῖν ἔνθερμον ὂν ψυχὴν ἡγοῦνται. Βούλονται δὲ καὶ
τὴν ἐν ἡμῖν ψυχὴν ζῷον εἶναι, ζῆν τε γὰρ καὶ αἰσθάνεσθαι· καὶ μάλιστα τὸ
ἡγεμονικὸν μέρος αὐτῆς, ὃ δὴ καλεῖται διάνοια. Διὸ καὶ πᾶσαν ἀρετὴν ζῷον
εἶναι, ἐπειδὴ ἡ αὐτὴ διανοίᾳ ἐστὶ κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν. Κατὰ τοῦτο γάρ φασι καὶ
τὴν φρόνησιν φρονεῖν, ἀκολουθεῖ γὰρ αὐτοῖς τὸ οὕτως λέγειν.
They say that there are several virtues and that they are inseparable from
each other. And that in substance they are identical with the leading part
of the soul; accordingly, [they say] that every virtue is and is called a body;
for the mind and the soul are bodies. For they believe that the inborn
pneuma in us, which is warm, is soul. And they also want [to claim] that
the soul in us is an animal, since it lives and has sense-perception; and
especially so the leading part of it, which is called mind. That is why
every virtue too is an animal, since in substance it is the same as the
mind; accordingly, they say also that practical wisdom is wise/acts wisely
(φρονεῖν). For it is consistent for them to speak thus.18
As a whole, the passage in Doxography B provides information very similar

to key tenets discussed in Ep. 106 and 113. Seneca adduces a much larger
number of arguments, and generally the parallels between the two works are
thematic and dogmatic rather than literal. The idea that the mind is pneuma,
spiritus, has already been communicated earlier in the letter corpus,19 but for
the corporeality of the soul and the corresponding corporeality of the good
compare, e.g., Sen. Ep. 106.4, where the capacity of a good to act upon the
corporeal soul is adduced as evidence for the soul’s corporality:
Bonum agitat animum et quodam modo format et continet, quae [ergo]

propria sunt corporis. Quae corporis bona sunt corpora sunt; ergo et
quae animi sunt; nam et hoc corpus est.
A good gets the soul going and, in a way, shapes it and holds it together, all
of which is characteristic of a body. The goods of a body are bodies them-
selves. Therefore also [the goods] of the soul. For [the soul] too is a body.
if one compares the two authors’ treatment of Stoic determinism in Naturales quaestiones and
De fato respectively (Wildberger 2013).
18 Stob. 2.7.5b7, p. 66 Wachsmuth, transl. Gerson and Inwood 1997, with some terms changed
for consistency with the usage in this chapter.
19 See, e.g., Sen. Ep. 41.2: sacer intra nos spiritus sedet; Ep. 50.6: Quid enim est aliud animus quam
quodam modo se habens spiritus?; Ep. 57.8.
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With the word continet Seneca points to cohesive power, the ἕξις, of a soul’s
pneuma. It is this pneuma that makes the soul a single unity and thus a single
existent body in the ontological sense, an idea central to the issue raised in Ep.
102. There, Seneca clarifies that Stoics do not recognize goods ‘of spatially
separated parts’ (ex distantibus): ‘For it is by one single pneuma (spiritus) that
one good must be held together (contineri) and controlled; there must be one
single leading part [of the soul (the ἡγεμονικόν)] for one single good’ (Ep.
102.7).
The first argument reported by Seneca in Ep. 113 for the claim that virtues
are animals is the same as the one reported in Doxography B. It has the
following structure:
Premise 1: The soul is an (ensouled) animal.

Premise 2: The virtues are the same as the [leading part of the] soul.
Conclusion: The virtues are animals.
Seneca presents his version in Ep. 113.2 based on a definition of virtue in

the ‘orthodox’ Chrysippean version according to which the different virtues
are not only different from each other by their relation to different objects
(πρός τί πως ἔχοντα) but also intrinsically different as different states of the
mind (πως ἔχοντα):
Animum constat animal esse, cum ipse efficiat ut simus animalia, cum
ab illo animalia nomen hoc traxerint; virtus autem nihil aliud est quam
animus quodam modo se habens; ergo animal est.
It is undisputed that the soul is an animal, since the soul itself causes us
to be animals, since it is from the soul that animals derive their name.
Now, a virtue is nothing but a soul in a certain state. Therefore, a virtue
is an animal.
The word format in Ep. 106.4, quoted above, probably alludes to the same
definition: the shapes that a good gives to the soul are the various states of a
virtuously disposed mind.
The passage in Doxography B begins with the well-known tenet of the unity
of virtues. However, the doxographer gives it a physical-ontological twist by
stating that they are the same leading part or mind (διάνοια, in Seneca mens
or animus) of a rational soul. This very idea provides an argument why the
virtues cannot be a plurality of animals in Seneca’s account of the standard
Stoic position at Ep. 113.4 and 113.24:
Singula animalia singulas habere debent substantias; ista omnia unum

animum habent; itaque singula esse possunt, multa esse non possunt.
Individual animals must have different substances. All these here
have one single soul. Therefore, they can be individuals, yet cannot be
many.
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‘Nam quemadmodum aliquis et poeta est et orator, et tamen unus, sic
virtutes istae animalia sunt sed multa non sunt. Idem est animus et animus
et iustus et prudens et fortis, ad singulas virtutes quodam modo se habens’.
‘For just as someone is both a poet and an orator, but nevertheless only
one person, so these virtues here are animals, but not many of them.
A soul is the same as a soul which is just, prudent, and at the same time
also brave, being in a certain state with regard to the individual virtues’.
[The speaker here is a representative of the Stoic view.]
How virtues could be united in this way and still be more than one and
different from each other is a core issue in Seneca’s discussion of the arguments
he reports.
3. The commonalities noted so far concern the information provided by
Doxography B. A third parallel is constituted by the sequence in which the
same information is presented. The order of the two premises in the argument
why virtues are animals indicated above is that which we find in Ep. 113.2: the
soul is an animal (animum… animal esse) and a virtue is the soul in a certain
state (virtus autem nihil aliud est quam animus quodam modo se habens). In
Doxography B the order is inverse. The difference is explicable by the fact
that Seneca discusses only one of the tenets that are conjoined in Doxography
B. In this particular Letter 113, Seneca only asks whether virtues are animals,
whereas Doxography B conjoins several claims in the one passage quoted
above (p. [86]). In this passage the premise that the virtues are identical with
the mind has already been used for another argument. Its author asserts that
virtues, the good par excellence (since all other goods are goods by partaking
in virtue), are the same as the mind and then shows which tenets about the
virtues follow from this fact:
Virtues are bodies (like the mind).

Virtues are animals (like the mind).
Virtues produce virtuous actions or effects (i.e., do what a mind does),
e.g., when practical wisdom (φρόνησις) is wise or does wise things
(φρονεῖν).
Now, interestingly, there is a correspondence between this sequence of

arguments in Doxography B and the sequence of questions spread out over
different letters in the Epistulae morales:
Ep. 106 asks whether goods are bodies.

Ep. 113 asks whether virtues are animals.
Ep. 117 asks whether wisdom (sapientia) is a good while being wise
(sapere) is not, according to the Stoic tenet that the first is a body
and cause while the latter is an effect, i.e., an incorporeal sayable or
attribute (accidens).
89

4. A fourth connection between the two works is the fact that Seneca’s Ep.
117 can be adduced to elucidate the point about practical wisdom more hinted
at than reported in the passage from Doxography B. Even the examples,
wisdom and being wise, are the same. Doxography B has undergone some
abbreviation after it was excerpted by Stobaeus,20 and such technical material
was a likely candidate for omission. In any case, the explanation we have is
too fragmentary to see what exactly was meant at the end of the cited passage
by the verb φρονεῖν. As the context is now, the word seems to indicate the
idea that, as animals, virtues are agents performing the corporeal actions and
cognitions that belong to their domain, just like other animals that live and
perceive with their senses. However, in other passages the doxographer uses
the verb φρονεῖν to refer to an achievement or κατόρθωμα, which is not a cor-
poreal action but the predicate-effect of such an action.21
Seneca’s discussion in Ep. 117 addresses this ambiguity by exploring the
possible meanings of φρονεῖν or sapere, respectively. For this purpose it builds
on the ontological concepts developed in Ep. 106 (that goods must be bodies)
and Ep. 113 (that wisdom, whether an animal or not, is nothing else but the
mind). The traditional understanding Seneca reports and then critiques is that
sapere is the effect of being wise (or having wisdom) when there is wisdom
present, just as we find it in an account of Stoic conceptions of causation that
was part of a doxography of Stoic physics possibly by the same author, Arius
Didymus, as Doxography B.22 According to that account, Zeno claimed that
being practically wise (φρονεῖν) happens when its cause, i.e., practical wisdom
(φρόνησις), is present.
The other reading of ‘being or acting wisely’ (sapere) suggested in Ep. 117
is that the word denotes a wise mind in action, namely the corporeal actions
performed by the mind qua wisdom. The concept of such corporeal actions
occurs already in Ep. 113, both when Seneca discusses the possibility of
actions being animals since they are not different from the corporeal mind
(Ep. 113.19–20) and when he distinguishes two conceptions of action, exempli-
fied by the action of walking, both of which imply that the action is, or at least
includes, the mind.23 Accordingly, wisdom would be the state a perfect mind
is in, i.e., a habitus or ἕξις, while being wise is the use of such a perfect mind:24
20 Hahm 1990.
21 Stob. 2.7.8, p. 85 Wachsmuth; 8a, p. 86; 11e, p. 96.
22 Stob. 1.10.16c, p. 138f. Wachsmuth = Ar. Did. fr. 18 = SVF 1.89. See Mansfeld 2001, and for
the parallels to Seneca, Wildberger 2006a, ch. 2.4.5.1–2, and in this paper nn. 11 and 32. We
find excerpts of the doxography on Stoic physics in Eusebius and in Stobaeus.
23 Sen. Ep. 113.23 = SVF 2.836 and 2.525 (= Plut. de comm. not. 1073d–1074a): According to
Chrysippus, the action is only the mind (principale = ἡγεμονικόν); according to Cleanthes
both the mind and the other soul-pneuma are involved in the activity.
24 Sen. Ep. 117.16. A Greek Stoic might also have called it a διάθεσις, i.e., a perfected ἕξις. For
the meaning of the word habitus, compare Ep. 113.7 concerning the virtue iustitia: Haec enim
habitus animi est et quaedam vis. Brad Inwood (2007, 299) points to Ep. 117.12 (Sapientia est
mens perfecta vel ad summum optimumque perducta), which also supports an understanding of
habitus not as possession but as a state or disposition.
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Sapientia habitus perfectae mentis est, sapere usus perfectae mentis.
Wisdom is the state of a perfected mind; being wise is the use of a
perfected mind.
5. The first parallel between Doxography B and the latter, more technical part
of the Epistulae morales discussed in this chapter was the fact that at the heart
of the controversy in Ep. 117 is the ontological distinction so elaborately made
and reported at various places in Doxography B (see p. 85). A fifth link between
the two texts can be seen in the way in which Seneca introduces the ontological
distinction in Ep. 117.5, as if he wanted to evoke some such doxographical
source. He provides a short illustration reminiscent of the neat handbook lists
with pairs of verbal adjectives ending in -τος (for the corporeal goods, bads or
indifferents) and -τέος (for the corresponding incorporeal effects) of which we
find two in Doxography B but none, e.g., in Diogenes Laertius 7:25
Coguntur nostri verba torquere et unam syllabam expetendo interponere

quam sermo noster inseri non sinit. Ego illam, si pateris, adiungam.
‘Expetendum est’ inquiunt ‘quod bonum est, expetibile quod nobis
contingit cum bonum consecuti sumus. Non petitur tamquam bonum,
sed petito bono accedit’.
The proponents of our school are forced to resort to verbal quibbles and
insert one syllable into [the term] expetendum (αἱρετόν), something which
our language does not permit. I’ll add it all the same, if you bear with
me: ‘To be chosen (expetendum)’, they say, ‘is that which is a good, able
to be chosen (expetibile = αἱρετέον) that which we achieve when we have
acquired the good. It is not sought like a good, rather it comes as an
accession to the good that is sought’.
The quoted passage (Ep. 117.5) even reports a rationale for the distinction
similar to what we also find in Doxography B. The objects of choice and of
the other impulses, that which one wants to have, are the corporeal goods
themselves, not the effects achieved with a successful choice or volition:
Διαφέρειν δὲ λέγουσιν, ὥσπερ αἱρετὸν (= expetendum) καὶ αἱρετέον (=

expetibile), οὕτω καὶ ὀρεκτὸν καὶ ὀρεκτέον καὶ βουλητὸν καὶ βουλητέον καὶ
ἀποδεκτὸν καὶ ἀποδεκτέον. Αἱρετὰ μὲν γὰρ εἶναι καὶ βουλητὰ καὶ ὀρεκτὰ
<καὶ ἀποδεκτὰ τἀγαθά· τὰ δ’ ὠφελήματα αἱρετέα καὶ βουλητέα καὶ ὀρεκτέα>
καὶ ἀποδεκτέα, κατηγορήματα ὄντα, παρακείμενα δ’ ἀγαθοῖς. Αἱρεῖσθαι μὲν
γὰρ ἡμᾶς τὰ αἱρετέα καὶ βούλεσθαι τὰ βουλητέα καὶ ὀρέγεσθαι τὰ ὀρεκτέα.
Κατηγορημάτων γὰρ αἵ τε αἱρέσεις καὶ ὀρέξεις καὶ βουλήσεις γίνονται,
ὥσπερ καὶ αἱ ὁρμαί· ἔχειν μέντοι αἱρούμεθα καὶ βουλόμεθα καὶ ὁμοίως
ὀρεγόμεθα τἀγαθά, διὸ καὶ αἱρετὰ καὶ βουλητὰ καὶ ὀρεκτὰ τἀγαθά ἐστι. Τὴν
25 Stob. 2.7.6f., p. 78 Wachsmuth; 11f., p. 97f., collected in SVF 3 as fragments 89–91.

91

γὰρ φρόνησιν αἱρούμεθα ἔχειν καὶ τὴν σωφροσύνην, οὐ μὰ Δία τὸ φρονεῖν
καὶ σωφρονεῖν, ἀσώματα ὄντα καὶ κατηγορήματα.
They say that just as what is to be chosen (αἱρετόν) differs from what
ought to be chosen (αἱρετέον), so also what is to be reached for from what
ought to be reached for and what is to be wanted from what ought to be
wanted and what is to be welcomed from what ought to be welcomed. For
the goods are to be chosen and to be wanted and to be reached for <and
to be welcomed, while beneficial effects (ὠφελήματα) ought to be chosen
and ought to be wanted and ought to be reached for> and ought to be
welcomed, all of which are predicates that accompany the goods. For we
choose what ought to be chosen and want what ought to be wanted and
reach for what ought to be reached for. For our choices and reachings and
volitions are for predicates, just like our impulses. Yet what we choose and
want and likewise reach for is to have the goods, and that is why the goods
are to be chosen and to be wanted to be reached for. For we choose to
have practical wisdom and self-control, but not, by Zeus, to be wise and
self-controlled, which are incorporeal and predicates.26
In order to retain a peculiarity of Seneca’s reception of the Greek theory,

I have used different phrases for the two sets of terms: ‘to be…’ vs. ‘able to
be…’ where Seneca opposes the gerundive with an adjective suffixed with
-ibile, but ‘to be…’ vs. ‘ought to be…’ for the original Greek distinction
between the verbal adjectives in -τόν and -τέον. For interestingly the Roman
philosopher inverts the connotation of the two Greek suffixes. It is the verbal
adjective in -τέος that clearly has a jussive connotation similar to the Latin
gerundive. Partly, Seneca’s choice may be due to the fact that the Latin
gerundive had long since become the standard translation for the Stoic terms
formed as verbal adjectives in -τός.27 The identification of the corporeal goods
as the objects which impulses aim to acquire in the reported explanation may
be another reason for this inversion. One should choose an object if some
volition or motivation is directed at it—or so one would think. Whatever the
reason, Seneca seems more interested in demonstrating his familiarity with
such insider knowledge than a faithful rendering of the original idea.
That he had in mind, or before him, an explanation close to what we
read in Doxography B is also suggested by the parallel descriptions for
the relation between corporeal good and incorporeal predicate. In Seneca
it ‘comes as an accession to the good that is sought’ (petito bono accedit),
whereas in Doxography B the predicates ‘accompany’ or ‘are present with
26 Stob. 2.7.11f, p. 97f. Wachsmuth = SVF 3.91. Because of its repetitiveness, Doxography B
abounds in omission errors due to saut du même au même. The supplemental phrase in angle
brackets was suggested by Heine 1869, who points to Stob. 2.7.11i, p. 101 Wachsmuth, where
the term ὠφέλημα reoccurs together with the characterization of such beneficial predicates as
‘accompanying’ or ‘co-present with the goods’ (παρακείμενα τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς).
27 Concerning expetendum in the sense of αἱρετόν, see for example Cic. Fin. 3.10, 21f.
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the goods’ (παρακείμενα δ’ ἀγαθοῖς). Here again, the Latin version distorts
slightly what was intended in the original Greek account: The predicates
do not follow upon nor are they a—less valuable—addition to the goods.
They are coincident with the goods as that which, according to Zeno’s
account (p. 89), is caused by the good’s presence.28 Those Greek Stoics
who introduced the distinction may also have had a good reason to use
the verbal adjective in -τέος, i.e., the one with unequivocal jussive force,
to denote the predicate. As an existent body a good thing is there for us to
choose; it is available, able to be chosen, desired, valued, etc. The predicate,
on the other hand, is the target effect toward which an impulse is directed
or the result of the activity of some good, i.e., of virtue or what partakes in
it. In both cases it is something an agent thinks ought to be brought about.
6. This takes us to a sixth commonality of the Epistulae morales and
Doxography B: We have only three accounts about how ‘sayables’ (λεκτά) are
involved in action impulses, and two of these come from Seneca’s Epistulae
morales 113 and 117, while the third occurs in Doxography B.29 The parallels
between the two works are not as close as in the other cases discussed above,
and formulations of the statements subsisting at rational action impulses (with
the phrases καθήκει μοι and oportet me respectively) can be found elsewhere.
However, other sources use these formulations in passing as part of the Stoic
vocabulary and do not pause to explain the phenomenon in onto-semantic terms.
7. Further parallels can be found with regard to the topic of friendship.
A seventh is the application of the ontological principle introduced in Ep.
102.7, that there are no goods constituted of separate bodies (ex distantibus,
p. 87), to social relations. Doxography B adduces the same tenet (μηδὲν ἐκ
διεστηκότων ἀγαθὸν εἶναι), in a discussion of different meanings of the term
‘friendship’ (φιλία):
Τριχῶς δὲ λεγομένης τῆς φιλίας, καθ’ ἕνα μὲν τρόπον τῆς κοινῆς ἕνεκ’
ὠφελείας [Wachsmuth, Meineke; ἕνεκα φιλίας codd.], καθ’ ἣν φίλοι εἶναι
λέγονται, ταύτην μὲν οὔ φασι τῶν ἀγαθῶν εἶναι, διὰ τὸ μηδὲν ἐκ διεστη-
κότων ἀγαθὸν εἶναι κατ’ αὐτούς· τὴν δὲ κατὰ τὸ δεύτερον σημαινόμενον
λεγομένην φιλίαν, κατάσχεσιν οὖσαν φιλικὴν πρὸς τῶν πέλας, τῶν ἐκτὸς
λέγουσιν ἀγαθῶν· τὴν δὲ περὶ αὐτὸν φιλίαν, καθ’ ἣν φίλος ἐστὶ τῶν πέλας,
τῶν περὶ ψυχὴν ἀποφαίνουσιν ἀγαθῶν.
[The word] ‘friendship’ has a threefold use, one of them being [the
friendship] for the sake of a shared benefit, according to which men are
said to be friends. This one, they say, does not belong to the goods because
of the fact that nothing composed of separate parts is a good according to
28 Accordingly, Inwood 2007 translates ‘is an adjunct’ and even suggests reading accidit in the
sense of ‘is an attribute of’ (293).
29 Sen. Ep. 113.18 = SVF 3.169; Sen. Ep. 117.12f.; Stob. 2.7.9b, p. 88 Wachsmuth = SVF 3.171.
For Seneca, see Wildberger 2006a, 2.4.4.2 and, e.g., the commentary by Inwood (2007).
Parallel sources, such as Diog. Laert. 7.49, 51, 63 and Sext. Emp. Math. 8.70, discuss the role
of sayables in rational cognition.
93

them. The friendship connoted according to the second meaning, which
is a friendly adherence from the part of those close to one, belongs to the
external goods according to them. The friendship occurring in oneself, by
way of which a man is a friend of those close [to him], is, as they assert,
one of the psychic goods.30
8. One of these meanings denotes friendship as a relation shared by both

friends, which the Stoics do not regard as a good because it consists of sep-
arate bodies (the two friends). Another type of friendship is an external good,
namely the friendly disposition a friend has toward us, and that type provides
parallel number eight, in that it is similar to the good under discussion in Ep.
102: praise by good men, i.e., the praising attitude of others toward the sub-
ject having it as a good. As it turns out in Seneca’s discussion, the benefit is
mutual. The sage enjoys the justified praise of other sages, which is an external
good; the one praising the great man (or, in the case of a fool, just admiring
him) enjoys the appreciation of a model of excellence (Ep. 102.30).
9. A ninth parallel can be found in the discussion of mutual benefit, now
exclusively that between sages, which follows in Doxography B directly after
the distinction of the three types of friendship just quoted. From the same
act, the one benefiting another enjoys perfect benefit just like the one being
benefited. This is so because both benefiting and being benefited are states
and movements according to virtue:
Εἶναι δὲ καὶ καθ’ ἕτερον [Heeren; θάτερον codd., Wachsmuth] τρόπον κοινὰ
τὰ ἀγαθά. Πάντα γὰρ τὸν ὁντινοῦν ὠφελοῦντα ἴσην ὠφέλειαν ἀπολαμβάνειν
νομίζουσι παρ’ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, μηδένα δὲ φαῦλον μήτε ὠφελεῖσθαι μήτε ὠφελεῖν.
Εἶναι γὰρ τὸ ὠφελεῖν ἴσχειν κατ’ ἀρετὴν καὶ τὸ ὠφελεῖσθαι κινεῖσθαι κατ’
ἀρετήν.
There is another sense in which all good things are common. For they
believe that anyone who benefits anyone, by that very fact, receives equal
benefit, but that no base man either benefits or is benefited. For benefiting
is to maintain something in accordance with virtue and being benefited is
to be moved in accordance with virtue.31
These are ideas at the theoretical heart of Ep. 109 about the question
whether a sage can benefit a sage, and the same argument is made in that letter
too. From the definition of benefiting as moving32 or maintaining something
30 Stob. 2.7.11c, p. 94f. Wachsmuth = SVF 3.98.

31 Stob. 2.7.11d, p. 95 Wachsmuth = SVF 3.94; transl. Gerson and Inwood 1997, 220, altered.
32 The definition in the transmitted text of Stobaeus is incomplete. It mentions only ‘maintaining’
but not ‘moving’, which may be the result of a copying error or of deliberate abbreviation.
Wachsmuth considers supplementing the text but leaves the matter open, while Gerson and
Inwood (1997, 220) include the missing word in their translation. The full version is reflected
in the text from Seneca quoted here and is also attested in the parallel account of Diog.
Laert. 7.104.
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according to virtue Seneca deduces that benefit must be beneficial for the one
benefiting too since the beneficent man makes active use of his own virtue
(virtute sua) in the process (Ep. 109.12):
Prodesse autem est animum secundum naturam movere virtute sua. Vt

eius qui movebitur, hoc non sine ipsius quoque qui proderit bono fiet.
Now, to benefit is to move a mind according to nature by one’s own virtue.
Just as this will happen for the good of the man who is being moved, so
also for the good of the very man who is benefiting [the other].
Seneca’s definition is more narrowly aligned with its context and limited to
the active side of beneficence, namely that benefiting is a virtuous movement
of the beneficent man himself. However, the idea that benefiting involves
actively moving someone else and the other being moved, from which derives
a different type of mutual benefit that is only possible between sages, was
introduced earlier in the same letter (Ep. 109.2, 11).
10. A tenth and final parallel concerns the erotic and sympotic virtues of the
Stoic sage. It is a well known tenet that this sage excels in the art of love, and
Seneca makes use of the idea when developing his own concept of a mutu-
ally erotic progressor friendship and when describing the sage as ‘a master
in the art of making friends’ (Ep. 9.5: amicitiarum faciendarum artifex), thus
alluding to the term φιλοποιία in the definition of ἔρως.33 At Ep. 123.15 this
idea appears in tandem with the tenet that the sage is also a party expert:
Hoc enim iactant: solum sapientem et doctum esse amatorem. ‘Solus

aptus est ad hanc artem; aeque conbibendi et convivendi sapiens est
peritissimus. Quaeramus ad quam usque aetatem iuvenes amandi sint’.
Haec Graecae consuetudini data sint…
For this is what they assert: ‘Only the sage is an erudite lover. He alone
is suited for this art. Equally as concerns the art of drinking and reveling
together, the wise is the greatest expert. Let us consider up to which age
young men should be courted’. These things may be granted to Greek
custom …
With this compare in Doxography B the assertion that the sage does every-
thing not only rationally and logically but also like a true party expert and
expert lover:34
33 Wildberger 2018a; more generally on the erotic efforts of sages, see Wildberger 2018b, ch. 6.5.
34 Stob. 2.7.5b9, p. 65–6 Wachsmuth = SVF 3.717, transl. Gerson and Inwood 1997, 206, altered
to agree with my solution for the lacuna. Erotic and sympotic virtue occur as an intimately
connected pair also in Diogenes of Babylon’s treatise On Music. The fragment in SVF 3,
Diog. Bab. 79 = Philod. De musica col. 43.37–45 can be supplemented from Philodemus’ refu-
tation in col. 130 (according to the original counting restored by Delattre 2007).
95

Ἀκολούθως γὰρ τούτοις δογματίζουσι καὶ ὅτι καὶ νουνεχόντως καὶ διαλε
κτικῶς ποιεῖ καὶ συμποτικῶς καὶ ἐρωτικῶς. […] Ὁμοίως δὲ τῇ ἐρωτικῇ τὴν
συμποτικὴν παραλαμβάνουσιν εἰς τὰς ἀρετάς, τὴν μὲν περὶ τὸ ἐν συμποσίῳ
καθῆκον ἀναστρεφομένην ἐπιστήμην οὖσαν τοῦ πῶς δεῖ ἐξάγεσθαι τὰ
συμπόσια καὶ τοῦ πῶς δεῖ συμπίνειν· τὴν δ’ ἐπιστήμην νέων θήρας εὐφυῶν,
προτρεπτικὴν οὖσαν ἐπὶ τὴν κατ’ ἀρετήν <ζωήν> [scripsi; alii alia].
Consistently with this they hold also that [the sage] acts with good sense
and dialectically and sympotically and erotically. […] They understand
virtue exercised at a symposium as similar to virtue in sexual matters,
the one being knowledge which is concerned with what is appropriate at
a symposium, viz. of how one should run symposia and how one should
drink at them; and the other is knowledge of how to hunt for talented
young boys, which encourages them to <a life> according to virtue.
3 Doxography of ethics, references to the Libri moralis philosophiae,

and the Letter Writer’s developing acceptance of advanced-level
ethical theory
The presented parallels are suggestive, but we should not overrate their sig-
nificance for the question of a direct intertextual relation. The popularity
of Arius Didymus’ work is attested by the transmission of other parts of
his doxographic production,35 and L. Annaeus may very well have studied
Stoicism with some version of Doxography B. On the other hand, much
research still needs to be done on the sources of Doxography B itself, and
whole libraries of Stoic service writing are lost to us. Nor should we under-
estimate the impact of oral instruction or targeted research commissioned
by L. Annaeus himself. The fact that a certain tenet is reported only in the
Epistulae morales and in Doxography B does not constitute sufficient proof
that he draws on Doxography B or a lost common source of both. Even literal
echoes may be a reflection of a more widespread usage in the schools of which
we possess no other witnesses.
To be on the safe side, I would suggest that pending further research we
take Doxography B as an example of the contents and manner of a more
technical lecture by a Stoic professor at the time. Wherever it comes from, the
material in Epistulae morales which has parallels in Doxography B must have
evoked a typical higher-level philosophy curriculum and the kind of expertise
one would need to acquire to become a professional in the field, and this effect
seems to have been intended. It is noteworthy, for example, how allusive the
mention of the extra syllable in the suffix -τέος is in Sen. Ep. 117.5. It is hard
to make sense of that passage if one has not yet seen some examples in Greek.
The Letter Writer sounds like an expert speaking to another expert familiar
with such outlandish Stoic terminology and therefore also the curriculum in
which the distinction was taught.
35 See Gourinat 2011 and Viano 2012 for recent discussion and further bibliography.
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96 Jula Wildberger

An explanation of the parallels between Epistulae morales and Doxography
B in this pragmatic sense, irrespective of the genetic relation between the two
texts, is consistent with the selection Seneca has made and how he characterizes
the selected material. We have already seen that the series of ontological
debates begins in Ep. 102, the starting point of engagement with moralibus
rationalia immixta (Ep. 102.4). The question of how post-mortal fame could
be a good (Ep. 102.3) combines two topics that reappear separately in Ep. 106
and Ep. 109. One the one hand, Ep. 102 raises an ontological issue deriving
from the corporeality of the good. This issue is taken up in Ep. 106 with the
question whether the good is a body. On the other hand, it asks how value is
constituted in relations between social agents, which is also the topic of Ep.
109, when Lucilius asks whether a sage can benefit a sage (Ep. 109.1).
The parallels are also associated with a new project of a systematic, com-
prehensive treatment of ethics in a more professional style than a compilation
of summaries and reading notes (Ep. 6.4, Ep. 39) or the composition of moral
reflections in a personal style (Ep. 84).36 Because of the lacuna before Ep.
102 (see p. 84) we cannot preclude that already this letter’s quaestio-topic was
introduced as an example of the new work on ethics that is mentioned in
Epistulae morales 106, 108 and 109. However, the first extant mention of the
Libri moralis philosophiae in Ep. 106.1–3 provides reasons to believe other-
wise. The verb velle marks it as a recently conceived new project rather than
work in progress. More importantly, if the work had been mentioned before,
the amount of detail in the description here would be redundant.37 The later
descriptions are shorter, less detailed, and refer to its composition no longer
as planned but as ongoing in the present.38
When introducing the question of Ep. 106 and when presenting his own
view, the Letter Writer characterizes the topic as irrelevant. It is something
‘entertaining rather than beneficial to know’,39 just a game of superfluous
erudition (Ep. 106.11f.):
Quoniam, ut voluisti, morem gessi tibi, nunc ipse dicam mihi quod
dicturum esse te video: latrunculis ludimus. In supervacuis subtilitas
teritur: non faciunt bonos ista sed doctos. Apertior res est sapere,
immo simplicior: paucis <satis> est ad mentem bonam uti litteris, sed
nos ut cetera in supervacuum diffundimus, ita philosophiam ipsam.
Quemadmodum omnium rerum, sic litterarum quoque intemperantia
laboramus: non vitae sed scholae discimus.
36 On this gradation, but as part of the passive reading program for the student, see Hadot
2014,  116–7.
37 That the Letter Writer only here (Ep. 106.3) promises to share material without invitation
could be explained by the fact that it is the first time that Lucilius shows an interest by raising
a question pertinent to it.
38 Sen. Ep. 108.1: cum maxime ordino; 109.17: complectimur.
39 Sen. Ep. 106.4: quae scire magis iuvat quam prodest.
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Now that I’ve complied with your wishes, I’m going to tell myself that
which, obviously, you’ll say [when you read this]: These are just gaming
competitions! We waste our intelligence (subtilitas) on something com-
pletely superfluous. This stuff doesn’t make us better, it promotes eru-
dition. What it means to be wise is much more evident, or rather less
complicated: Applying just a little study (litterae) is sufficient to achieve
a good, healthy mind, but just as we bloat everything else to superfluous
dimensions, so with philosophy itself. In all things we suffer from lack of
self-control and likewise in our studies. We don’t learn for life but for the
lecture hall (schola).40
In spite of the outspoken criticism, there is an important change of mind in

comparison to earlier rants about academic philosophy. Subtilitas, the ability
to make fine conceptual distinctions, appeared as useless and was the target of
sententious wit, e.g., when a Stoic proposing an ethical syllogism is compared
to someone trying to take on a lion armed with a needle.41 In Ep. 106, how-
ever, subtilitas appears as a positive faculty, and its importance is underscored
again right at the beginning of the next letter (Ep. 107.1). The problem is
only that it is abused for the wrong purpose; it is worn out on the wrong kind
of activity. The Letter Writer suggests that moderation is required, and the
listless, repetitive42 accumulation of syllogisms in answer to Lucilius’ question
may be interpreted as a sign of such moderation, or certainly disapproval.
The reference to litterae, to philosophia as something that can be bloated
beyond good measure, and, most of all, schola in the last sentence confirm
my thesis that the parallels to Doxography B are supposed to be perceived as
gestures toward the academic curriculum. Ep. 109, too, ends with a reflection
about the purpose of discussing such a question from the lecture hall. But
here the Letter Writer’s criticism is less scathing than in Ep. 106. Now the dis-
cussion no longer exhausts and instead trains subtilitas as well as the dialect-
ical skills required for successful conceptual work. The claim is now that there
are more essential things to do first. It is for the one still (adhuc) in need of
therapy that studies of a different type are a necessity and resolving questions
like the one discussed not yet (nondum) useful (Ep. 109.17f.):
Persolvi quod exegeras, quamquam in ordine rerum erat quas moralis

philosophiae voluminibus conplectimur. Cogita quod soleo frequenter
tibi dicere, in istis nos nihil aliud quam acumen exercere. Totiens enim
illo revertor: quid ista me res iuvat? Fortiorem fac me, iustiorem,
40 Note the hedge: The Letter Writer admonishes himself with the words he expects Lucilius to
say, even though Lucilius has raised the question. For the topos of the simplicity of truth in
Ep. 49.12, see Francesca Romana Berno’s contribution in this volume.
41 Ep. 82.24; compare also, e.g., 45.8, 45.13 nimium subtilibus; 48.4 ab istis subtilibus; 49.6; 58.25;
65.16 in hanc subtilitatem inutilem; 88.43.
42 See, e.g., Sen. Ep. 106.5, 10: the good of a corporeal human should be a body too.
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temperantiorem. Nondum exerceri vacat: adhuc medico mihi opus est.
Quid me poscis scientiam inutilem? magna promisisti: exhibe fidem.
Dicebas intrepidum fore etiam si circa me gladii micarent, etiam si mucro
tangeret iugulum; dicebas securum fore etiam si circa me flagrarent
incendia, etiam si subitus turbo toto navem meam mari raperet: hanc
mihi praesta curam, ut voluptatem, ut gloriam contemnam. Postea
docebis inplicta solvere, ambigua distinguere, obscura perspicere: nunc
doce quod necesse est.
I’ve fulfilled your demand, even though it belongs into the sequence of
subjects as part of my comprehensive treatment of ethics in several books.
Consider what I always tell you so frequently, that in such matters we do
nothing but train our sharp wit (acumen). I come back to this point again
and again: How does this help me? Make me more courageous, more just,
more self-controlled! I’m not yet free to train [in the gym]: I still need a
doctor. Why do you demand of me such useless knowledge? What about
the great things that you’ve promised? Show that you’re not a fraud. You
were saying that I’d not tremble even if swords would flash around me,
even if the point were at my neck. You were saying that I’d be carefree
even if blazing fires were to burn down everything around me, even if a
tornado suddenly were to spin my ship all over the sea. This is the care
you must provide me: that I can look down upon pleasure and fame. After
that you may teach me how to unravel convoluted arguments, to analyze
ambiguous terms, to see the logic in what is a mystery to others. For now
teach me what is necessary.
In Ep. 106 Seneca frames the discussion of the technical topic with a short
derogatory remark at the beginning (Ep. 106.4) and a longer final comment
(Ep. 106.11f.). The ratio is inverted for the quaestio of Ep. 109, in that the
whole of Ep. 108 corresponds to the short introductory remarks at Ep. 106.4
and Ep. 109 then provides the answer. In Ep. 108 the Letter Writer first
characterizes Lucilius’ question, the one answered in Ep. 109 (Ep. 108.1, 38),
and his interest in the new Libri moralis philosophiae as a burning desire for
learning and then devotes the rest of this long letter to advice how to use that
desire in a productive manner (Ep. 108.1):
[…] quemadmodum tibi ista cupiditas discendi, qua flagare te video,

digerenda sit, ne ipsa se impediat.
[…] how you should channel your desire for learning, which I see burning
in you, so that it doesn’t trip itself up.
Dogmatically speaking, the passion ‘desire for learning’ (cupiditas discendi)

is an instantiation of the vice ‘lack of self-control with regard to studies’
(litterarum intemperantia) criticized in Ep. 106.12; it is a passion directed at an
99

indifferent that is erroneously perceived as a good. Throughout Ep. 108 it is
clear that Lucilius’ craving to learn something is, indeed, an irrational passion
that drives learners to all kinds of weird and ecstatic behavior.43 However,
the Letter Writer now acknowledges that a learner’s passion can be a motor
of progress, provided it is oriented toward the right overall aim and fostered
by a competent and benevolent teacher. The examples given show that the
Letter Writer thinks of learning in the context of exactly that institution,
the philosopher’s lecture hall, which was derided at the end of Ep. 106. Now
this schola appears as a place for becoming a better person, a place for chan-
ging one’s life, as illustrated by the Letter Writer’s reminiscences about the
impression his teachers made on him44 and, not least of all, the image of well-
meaning, generous Attalus, beleaguered in his school by his students, always
willing to indulge their calls for yet another debate:45
Haec nobis praecipere Attalum memini, cum scholam eius obsideremus

et primi veniremus et novissimi exiremus, ambulantem quoque illum ad
aliquas disputationes evocaremus, non tantum paratum discentibus sed
obvium. ‘Idem’ inquit ‘et docenti et discenti debet esse propositum, ut ille
prodesse velit, hic proficere’.
This is the advice I remember Attalus giving us when we were besieging
his lecture hall, arriving first and leaving last, challenging him to some
discussion even during his afternoon walk—while he was always not
only ready to teach us but inviting: ‘Teacher and learner must have the
same objective: The teacher should wish to benefit, the learner to make
progress’.
Here the philosopher’s school is a model for the didactic relationship

between sender and addressee, with the Letter Writer imparting advice that
he himself has received from his master.
What the triad of quaestiones in Ep. 102, 106 and 109 achieves together
with the commentaries in Ep. 106, 108 and 109 is a differentiation within the
school curriculum. Some topics are more irrelevant than others. The value of
social relations, understanding the meaning of ‘benefiting a friend’ and thus
getting a better sense of what exactly true friends have to offer each other, is
regarded as more important than the mere physics of the good, such as the
question whether it is a body or an incorporeal. The Letter Writer’s attitude
43 See in particular Sen. Ep. 108.7, where a philosopher’s audience is likened to a band of
corybants.
44 Sen. Ep. 108.7, 14–16, 22–3. The Letter Writer emphasizes how many of the changes to his
lifestyle were permanent.
45 Sen. Ep. 108.3. For the academic connotations of disputatio (‘lecture’) in this context compare
Ep. 117.25, quoted in n. 46 below, and Ep. 64.3: Instituunt, disputant, cavillantur, non faciunt
animum quia non habent.
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to ontological topics like that of Ep. 106 remains derogatory. The much more
thorough and sophisticated discussions of Ep. 113 and Ep. 117 appear as
reactions to a request by Lucilius and thus not as part of the material from
the Libri moralis philosophiae the Letter Writer had offered to send on his
own accord in Ep. 106.3. In Ep. 113 and 117, the Letter Writer demonstrates
that he is capable of the exercise, while clearly marking his disapproval. The
letters thus help build the persona of a well educated expert who is disdainful
of such recondite fields of the curriculum but also in full control of the sub-
ject matter, capable of seeing complex implications (Ep. 117.1: dum nescis)
and free in his judgment like his Stoic predecessors (Ep. 113.23), even beyond
the confines of his school should his sense of what is correct and incorrect
demand it (Ep. 117.1).
It is in the context of such rejected topics for study and pointlessly quibbling
debates,46 which happen to coincide with the parallel material in Doxography
B, that the Letter Writer distances his own way of doing philosophy from
what befits a Greek professor. As we have seen, he looks down on the bookish
classroom contests at the end of Ep. 106 (p. 98). In Ep. 113.1 he states his
belief that worrying about the question whether virtues are animals, is one
of the things that are only appropriate for those in the Greek philosopher’s
garb:47
Puto quaedam esse quae deceant phaecasiatum palliatumque.

I believe there are some things befitting only someone in slippers and a
Greek cloak.
The study of erotic and party wisdom, too, he would grant the Greeks
and their foreign customs (Ep. 123.15, quoted on p. 94) but not, we may
supply, accept in a true Roman philosopher like Sextius (Ep. 64)—or himself.
A Roman philosopher may also investigate questions of a more theoretical
nature, such as the epistemology of the good in Epistulae morales 120, 121
and 124, but those questions contribute to progress, and so it is appropriate to
advertise the value of this legitimate form of subtilitas with a quotation from
the Roman Poet:
‘Possum multa tibi veterum praecepta referre, |ni refugis tenuisque piget
cognoscere curas’. Non refugis autem nec ulla te subtilitas abigit: non
est elegantiae tuae tantum magna sectari, sicut illud probo, quod omnia
ad aliquem profectum redigis et tunc tantum offenderis ubi summa
subtilitate nihil agitur.
46 Sen. Ep. 117.25: disputatiunculis inanibus subtilitatem vanissimam agere.

47 Sen. Ep. 113.1. For the outfit and its inappropriateness for a Roman, compare Plut. Ant.
33.7: Mετὰ τῶν γυμνασιαρχικῶν ῥάβδων ἐν ἱματίῳ καὶ φαικασίοις προῄει (‘and he went forth
carrying the wands of a gymnasiarch, in a Greek robe and white shoes’).
101

‘Manifold is the advice of the ancients that I could relate to you /should
you not shy away and disdain the acquaintance with subtle attention’. But
you don’t shy away, nor will any sophistication (subtilitas) deter you. Your
exquisite taste would not let you go exclusively after the big subjects, just
as I approve also of your policy to pare down everything to some pro-
gress, that you are displeased only when utmost sophistication is spent on
nothing at all.48
There is another feature that distinguishes the Roman philosopher as

represented by our Letter Writer from Greek professorial writing as represented
by Doxography B. The doxographer reports tenets and, occasionally, arguments
in support of them. The Letter Writer has a question brought before him, often
qualified as controversial among the experts,49 and is asked to pronounce his
judgment. The result is that the Roman philosopher remains aligned with the
more traditional roles of his class, such as that of a culturally minded patron
listening to the disputes of his hired client intellectuals after dinner. He asserts
his social superiority like someone cast in the role of a magistrate giving his
verdict,50 while at the same time also performing an intellectual act essential
for any progress, namely forming his own opinion.51 The Roman philosopher
thus shows the very quality that distinguishes him from those whose wisdom
consists in parroting textbook phrases (Ep. 33.7–8; Ep. 108.6).
4 The structure and content of Seneca’s Libri moralis philosophiae

Appropriately for such a role, the questions of Ep. 102, 106, 113 and 117 as
well as those of Ep. 116, 121 and 124 all have an antithetic structure such that
one of two alternatives must be chosen. For Ep. 121, the letter about animal
self-cognition, we have a parallel version in the Foundations of Ethics (Ἠθικὴ
στοιχείωσις) by the second-century CE Stoic Hierocles. While Hierocles blends
a developmental account of attachment (οἰκείωσις) with a controversy about
whether animals have self-perception at all, the topic of Seneca’s letter is only
a controversy, namely whether animals have an understanding of their own
constitution or not. I would therefore tentatively suggest that the questions
tackled in Libri moralis philosophiae also had this antithetic structure with the
author cast in the role of a judge. Unlike textbooks of the ilk of Doxography
B and its lost more extended relatives, the Libri moralis philosophiae were not
48 Sen. Ep. 124.1, the quoted lines are Verg. Georg. 1.176–7.
49 For example, in Sen. Ep. 113.1: de hac quaestione iactata apud nostros.
50 In De vita beata and elsewhere, Seneca compares his theoretical choices to voting and
sententiam dicere in the Senate ([7]‌.3.2), thus creating for himself a different expert persona
that does not distinguish between him and the other Stoics, his fellow senators. See De Pietro
2014. On the use of legal language and philosophy conceived in parallel to legal practice, see
also Griffin 2013b.
51 Compare Reydams-Schils 2011.
102
102 Jula Wildberger

a systematic exposition in form of an extended doxography developing tenets
and definitions step by step within a conceptual thematic structure.
We are explicitly told that the Libri moralis philosophiae contained
quaestiones, debated issues in ethics, when the Letter Writer announces his
intention ‘to expound all questions, or controversies, relevant to ethics’.52
In his important paper on the political significance of the other large work
Seneca composed at that time, the Naturales quaestiones, Harry Hine reminds
us that quaestio is also a legal term for certain courts and the cases heard
there and that sometimes ‘the reader is explicitly cast as a judge’.53 Both the
word explicare (Ep. 106.2) and the mode of discussion exemplified in the
letters would point to a mixture of argument summary, explanations of
the arguments, and the author’s assessment. The comprehensiveness of the
work, that the books were ‘to encompass the whole ethical part of phil-
osophy’,54 would then be achieved by its systematic structure, i.e., the order
in which the various controversies are presented,55 and by the range of topics
treated, so that actually all main issues (Ep. 106.2: ‘omnes […] quaestiones’)
would be covered at one point or other within the work.
The other extant fragments, four quotes in Lactantius’ Divinae
institutiones,56 are too short to draw any conclusions as to their original con-
text. However, they also do not contradict my suggestions about the nature of
the Libri moralis philosophiae. For each of the fragments a debatable quaestio
similar to those in the Epistulae morales can be imagined without difficulty.
The first of these57 could have occurred in a reply to the question whether
humans are children of Zeus or in some controversy about a tenet of Stoic
allegorical interpretation, e.g., of myths concerning Zeus’ affairs with human
women. The second develops an argument from Zeno’s Politeia why there is
no need to build temples for the gods. The passage applies Zeno’s idea to the
statues of gods:58
Simulacra deorum venerantur, illis supplicant genu posito, illa adorant, illis
per totum adsident diem aut adstant, illis stipem iaciunt, victimas caedunt;
et cum haec tanto opere suscipiant, fabros qui illa fecere contemnunt. Quid
inter se tam contrarium quam statuarium despicere, statuam adorare et
eum ne in convictum quidem admittere qui tibi deos faciat?
52 Sen. Ep. 106.2: omnes ad eam [= moralem philosophiam] pertinentis quaestiones explicare.

53 Hine 2006, 54–5, the quote is from p. 55.
54 Sen. Ep. 108.1: libros […] continentis totam moralem philosophiae partem.
55 Sen. Ep. 108.1: ordino; 109.17: ordine rerum […] quas moralis philosophiae voluminibus
complectimur.
56 Sen. frr. 93–6 Vottero; frr. 122–3 Haase do not belong to this work.
57 Lactant. Div. inst. 1.16.10 (= fr. 93 Vottero).
58 Lactant. Div. inst. 2.2.14–15 (= fr. 94 Vottero); see Bees 2011, 247–60, 340f., 350. That one
should worship the gods with virtues rather than statues is attested for Zeno himself (Stob.
4.1.88, p. 27 Hense = SVF 1.266).
103

They worship images of the gods: These they implore with knees bent,
these they pray to, these they court, sitting or standing beside them all
day, these they present with donations and sacrificial animals. And while
they undertake all this with such effort, they regard the artisans who made
those with contempt. What could be more contradictory than despising
the sculptor while adoring the sculpture, and not even to admit that man
into your company who makes your gods for you?
The quaestio here could have been whether Stoics really prohibit the con-
struction of temples and statues for the gods, and in the extant passage Seneca
might develop the arguments of his Stoic predecessors before the author
himself presents his own, less polemical and more nuanced answer.59 If the
next quote did not come from the same context (lambasting the childishness
of worshipers who need statues like children their dolls and teddy bears, as
it were),60 it could have occurred in a discussion of the idea that, properly
speaking, all men except the sage are boys.61 The fourth and last quotation62
also allows us to imagine a wide range of original contexts from which it
might have been taken:
Hic est ille homo honestus, non apice purpurave, non lictorum insignis
ministerio, sed nulla re minor: qui cum mortem in vicinia vidit, non sic
perturbatur tamquam rem novam viderit, qui sive toto corpore tormenta
patienda sunt sive flamma ore rapienda sive extendendae per patibulum
manus, non quaerit quid patiatur sed quam bene.
This is the one of [true] nobility, not distinguished by purple or a priest’s
tiara, nor by the attendances of a magistrate’s guard. In no respect is he
a lesser man. When he sees death nearby, it does not disturb him like
something unheard of and unseen. When he must suffer torture with all
his body or imbibe fire with his open mouth or stretch out his hands on
the cross, he does not ask what he is suffering but how well he suffers it.
The stark contrast between the extremely humiliating physical punishments

the truly honorable man would bear unflinching and the insignia of social
status characterizing a nobleman, a vir honestus, in the ordinary sense would
have been well placed in a discussion of the question whether a sage loses his
honor or honestas, and with it his perfect happiness, when undergoing such
59 For some considerations what this answer might have been, see Wildberger 2018b, ch. 3.1.2.
60 Lactant. Div. inst. 2.4.14 (= fr. 95 Voterro). On the question, see Lausberg 1970, 189–92; for
the context of the quote also Voterro 1998, 438.
61 Lausberg 170, 188–9; Vottero 1998, 349; Wildberger 2006a, vol. 2: 848–50.
62 Lactant. Div. inst. 4.17.28 (= fr. 96 Vottero).
104
104 Jula Wildberger

debasing punishments fit for a slave or criminal.63 A quaestio of this kind
would allow for a rich and nuanced discussion of indifferents.
Of course, we cannot do more than speculate. The point I wish to make
is that the extant fragments of the Libri moralis philosophiae64 do not pre-
clude a format of the kind I have suggested for the whole work: Ethical tenets
were discussed as controversies one after the other, such that Seneca first
expounded the Stoic reasoning (as possibly in fr. 94 Vottero) and then took
a stance of his own. This format would allow for a systematic treatment of
all aspects of Stoic ethics by choosing the right issues in the right order and
gradually differentiating important concepts in the course of the various con-
troversies, just as the later Epistulae morales build on concepts introduced
earlier in the corpus.65
If the quaestiones were similar in content to the samples in the Epistulae
morales and to the questions we could suggest, speculatively, for the extant
fragments, they would feature Stoic ideas that at first sight might appear out-
landish and implausible. In this respect then, the Libri moralis philosophiae
would have been reminiscent of Cicero’s Paradoxa Stoicorum66 and, like that
work, allow for some display of Roman eloquence. Thus continuing the trad-
ition of Roman philosophical oratory, the format of the work would have
enabled an authorial stance that both embraces serious academic philosophy
and hedges the author’s persona against the unsavory degradation to the
status of a professor.
63 Dig. 47.14.1.3: Quamquam autem Hadrianus metalli poenam, item operis vel etiam gladii
praestituerit, attamen qui honestiore loco nati sunt, non debent ad hanc poenam pertinere, sed
aut relegandi erunt aut movendi ordine; 48.8.3.5: sed solent hodie capite puniri, nisi honestiore
loco positi fuerint, ut poenam legis sustineant: humiliores enim solent vel bestiis subici, altiores
vero deportantur in insulam.
64 The discussed fragments are those that can be attributed to the Libri moralis philosophiae with
reasonable certainty. Lausberg 1970,193f. also considers Lactant. Div. inst. 5.13.20 = fr. 78
Vottero, which could have occurred in another quaestio illustrating the concept of indifferents,
e.g., in a discussion of the somewhat surprising tenet that suicide may be a rational choice
for the sage in all his perfect beatitude but not for the fool (see, e.g., Plut. De Stoic. repugn.
1063c–d = SVF 3.759). Concerning the overall structure and content of the work, possible
further references and connections to the letters and De beneficiis, see also Mazzoli 2016.
65 As demonstrated for the beginning of the work by Hachmann 1995.
66 See also Lausberg 1970, 185–6 on the role Stoic paradoxes may have played in the Libri
moralis philosophiae.
105
Part 2
107
4
Reading Seneca reading Vergil
Sophia Papaioannou
Vergil’s works comprise the most popular source of quotations in Seneca’s

prose works. With 119 quotations Vergil is Seneca’s preferred author for
quoting; Ovid, who holds the second place is quoted only 28 times (Motto
and Clark 1993a, 125).1 The length of these quotations varies, but the leading
criterion determining this length is one and the same: to identify the desired
Vergilian subtext and successfully elicit, as a result, an elaborate network of
associations, which affects and determines the way the Senecan text is to be
received.
The frequency of the Vergilian quotations and the clout of the great poet
has convinced recent critics that Seneca reaches back to Vergil, an author
taught in the schools already under Augustus and by Seneca’s time held as
an authority on various topics2 including philosophical gravity, because he
has found in Vergil’s works, especially the Aeneid, ‘the mastertext for the
representation of the human soul and its passions’.3 At the foundation of
the philosophical reading of the Aeneid stands the conviction that Vergil’s
Aeneas embodies the exemplum of the Stoic proficiens (‘progressor’).4 I would
1 The earliest systematic treatment of all Vergilian quotations in Seneca’s prose works is Batinski
1983. Earlier studies include Doppioni 1939; Setaioli 1965; Mazzoli 1970, 215–32. More
recently, see André 1982, 219–33; Motto and Clark 1993b; Berno 2006, 304–6.
2 Cf. Fantham 1982, 21: ‘Vergil was now [in Seneca’s era] universally known, guaranteeing to
the writer who introduced a Vergilian allusion into his argument the full understanding of
quotation and context by his readers’. On Vergil’s dominant presence in the Roman school cur-
riculum, see Bonner 1977, 213–4; Mayer 1982 (by Nero’s time Vergil and Horace are universal
classics); and more recently Horsfall 1995, 250–3; and Milnor 2009 (as evidenced in the graffiti
on the walls of Pompeii).
3 Staley 2013, 98.
4 Ker 2015, 114: ‘There is a convenient affinity between the overall quest of Aeneas as a hero
struggling to make progress in Aeneid and the progressing student of philosophy who is the
main concern of Epistulae morales’. The symbolic depiction of Aeneas is best seen in Ep. 56,
where in the same paragraph (56.13) commenting on Aeneas’ trepidation for the safety of his
family at Aen. 2.726–9, that may compromise his fearlessness (the text listed in 56.12), states
that Aeneas may be both a sapiens (when he appeared calm and composed by the din of the
battle during the night of Troy’s fall) and imperitus (when he gives in to fear as he leads his
family out of the burning Troy).
108
108 Sophia Papaioannou

like to suggest that the philosopher Seneca’s interaction with Vergil should
be appreciated in light of the inevitable influence of the reception and inter-
pretation politics established by the numerous Vergilian echoes in Senecan
tragedy,5 and also by the routine integration of literary allusions specifically
to Vergil in post-Vergilian literature as part of defining one’s own literary
authenticity.6
In Seneca’s philosophical writings the intertextual engagement with
Vergil (and the Augustan poets more generally) is both explicit and accom-
panied by analysis more or less detailed. Literary politics in the philoso-
pher Seneca is best understood upon identifying a special type of dialogue
between Seneca and Vergil, which is set inside a principally ethical framework
but operates broadly and beyond Stoic doctrine: this dialogue is marked
by irony—Seneca’s echoes of Vergil often are ironic or even dissonant in
comparison. This ironic contrast of the Senecan text vs. Vergil’s text has
been noted in Seneca’s tragedy.7 More recently, in a study by Andrew Zissos
(on Seneca’s Troades) and in the PhD Dissertation by Timothy Hanford,
it has been shown that Seneca’s ironic reading of Vergil is systematic and
sustained. For Zissos, Seneca uses Vergil as a counter-text or foil.8 It is my
contention that ironic contrast also influences, and on occasion determines,
the dialogue with Vergil in Seneca’s prose works, and I will set out to prove
this by looking closely at a selection of textual incorporations from the
Aeneid in Seneca’s Epistles. Even as Seneca’s moral treatises advance their
own, philosophically-determined thematics, and as a result the Vergilian
excerpt is adjusted to new referents, Seneca revisits the spirit of the original,
because this recollection is intended to forge an ideological bridge between
5 Ter Haar Romeny 1887 is the earliest study that discusses Vergilian quotations in Seneca’s
tragedies. Since Batinski’s dissertation (n. 1 above), a number of influential studies on the
tragic Seneca receiving Vergil have explored in depth the multiformity of Vergilian reception in
Seneca’s plays; these studies include Fantham 1975 (for Vergil’s Dido and Seneca’s Phaedra);
Putnam 1995; Tarrant 1997; Schiesaro 2003, passim; Trinacty 2014; Hanford 2014.
6 Cf. e.g., Seneca the Elder, Suas. 3.7, speaking about Ovid quoting phrases from Vergil not with
the intention to steal them, but to emulate them and at the same time ascertain that his readers
could understand the emulation: non subripiendi causa, sed palam mutuandi, hoc animo ut vellet
agnosci.
7 Putnam 1995, 278–9; Schiesaro 2003, 223, observes a ‘continuous, even obsessive confron-
tation’ between Seneca and his models; several dissonances between the two authors have
been identified in the individual commentaries on the plays but a systematic study of the phe-
nomenon in Seneca’s tragic corpus is still a desideratum, though see recently Hanford 2014
(next note).
8 Zissos 2009, 191: ‘Though its plot does not follow the pattern of the Aeneid, … the Troades’
program of allusion establishes the epic as a persistent, often ironic counterpoise to its own
dramatic action’; and on p. 194 ‘Seneca’s persistent recourse to Vergilian allusion makes avail-
able a strategy of ‘ghost reading’ that signals notions of historical progress: the circularity
of tragic iteration is implicitly set against the linearity of teleological epic, as articulated
in the Aeneid’. Hanford 2014 is the first systematic study on ironic contrast between Vergil
and Seneca, limiting his scope on Seneca’s tragedy (specifically Agamemnon, Medea and
Troades).
109
Reading Seneca reading Vergil 109

(Augustan) past and (post- Augustan) future.9 The Vergilian moments
selected to help forge this bridge ultimately are ignored, misinterpreted or
being juxtaposed, or they generate humor in a context that calls for the
opposite.
According to Wilcox,10 irony in moral philosophy is particularly suited to
Stoicism, which typically dealt in paradoxes as a mode of communicating
ideas. Wilcox refers to the theory of two types of literary irony advanced by
Muecke, verbal and situational irony. Verbal irony implies an ironist who
intentionally creates the irony, while situational irony is ‘a condition of affairs’
that is understood by a third party to be ironic. In the case of verbal ironies,
the focus of interpretation is set on the ironist’s techniques; situational ironies
are explored through analysis of the observer’s ironic sense and attitudes.11
The irony works precisely through the pretense that something that reason
could not invent has been invented.
Embracing irony is a clever way to avoid being specific and expressing
commitment, and thus dissociate oneself from an uncomfortable situation.
In this respect, irony has a strong moral dimension. When irony works from a
moral perspective, which in my view is Seneca’s case in many respects, it sets
out to compromise intellectually two seemingly incongruent things: to define
and defend our living in the context of a cultural frame, political situation
and set of ideals, which nonetheless we have come to doubt and question
under certain circumstances. This case for irony has recently been made by
Jonathan Lear and elaborated upon by a group of prominent contemporary
philosophers and psychotherapists (Lear 2011). Irony in this sense is politically
motivated, and for Lear the catalyst was the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001. Irony, Lear argues, is the most effective means to shake one out of their
comfort zone, show one what to strive for, and force them to reach this goal.
Seneca’s situation is more complex and this complexity is dictated by con-
temporary politics, the imperialistic and increasingly authoritarian regime of
Nero, and Seneca’s pivotal position therein as Nero’s tutor and advisor, which
nonetheless compromises his philosophical worldview. Seneca gradually
comes to realize how difficult it becomes to reconcile his public role at the side
of the emperor with his professed ideals and moral beliefs as a Stoic vir. In
irony he discovers the tool that would allow him to express his true convictions
without being detected by the uninitiated. In the course of Seneca’s career,
irony and evasiveness will become interdependent.12 This embrace of irony as
9 Ker 2015.
10 Wilcox 2008, 464–75.
11 For an excellent introduction to the various forms of irony, see Muecke 1970; also 1969.
12 On Seneca’s elusiveness of opinion as expression of opportunism, rather than political dis-
sidence of the Neronian regime, see Rudich 1993, passim; 1997, 17–106; Rudich employs the
term dissimulatio for Seneca’s adroit concealment of true beliefs and feelings; even though he
believes that Seneca is deeply distressed for his stance and he lived in a permanent state of
despair and fear for his life; Rudich is more sympathetic towards Tacitus; for the use of irony
to construct political polyphony in order to condemn imperial autocracy, see Dressler 2013.
110

a solution to avoid taking sides, accept firmly or outright deny, is not new with
Seneca; it is part of the essence of the elegiac recusatio, and more akin to the
philosophical viewpoint, is at the core of Horace’s employment of irony in his
open closures, observed in the Epodes, especially Epode 2, the Satires (mark-
edly present in both 1.1 and 1.4, two expressly programmatic poems), and in
the Odes (e.g., the ironically incomplete endings of 2.1 and 3.3).13
Intertextuality is a particularly effective way to employ irony, and in order
to understand how this works one may turn to the work of another much-
cited contemporary theorist of irony, Wayne Booth. Booth has advanced a
different distinction, between ‘stable’ and ‘unstable’ irony. For Booth, both
these types of irony involve a ‘mask’, in which the author raises a mental
challenge by putting forward an affirmation that clearly must be rejected, or
at least treated with skepticism. However, with unstable irony, a type of irony
so ambiguous as to be open to virtually limitless interpretations, and where
the reader has a difficult time determining whether the author is expressing
his real views, no reconstruction of the author’s position is possible, because
the ‘universe of discourse’ of the author is one that is ‘inherently absurd’ and
this implies that ‘all statements are subject to ironic undermining’.14 With
the exception of satire,15 the irony identified in literary texts, by contrast,
including Seneca’s treatment of Vergil’s quotes, involves cases of stable irony.
Stable irony is irony in which the author has or takes a position, and where the
irony may function in such a way that the reader who ‘gets it’ at least is offered
the possibility of making that position his or her own.16 Stable irony is, then,
irony that is endowed with a moral purposiveness. When coming to ways to
identify irony in a literary text, one of the most conventional expressions
of the trope is the integration of popular expressions incorrectly or care-
lessly.17 This applies in general to the case of Seneca’s quoting Vergil. As it
will be discussed in the following pages through detailed analysis of selected
cases, incorrectness may appear in various forms. In the literal sense, Seneca
manipulates the text, when he corrects the orthography on a Vergilian passage.
The discrepancy with the manuscript tradition calls for closer attention to
the causes of this intervention (case 1 below). Alternatively, Seneca combines
excerpts from different parts of the Aeneid and produces a new ‘Vergilian’
13 On moral and political irony at the closure of Horace’s poems, especially those of program-
matic significance, see Fowler; on appreciating the elegiac recusatio as a literary expression of
the moral and political irony binary, see Papanghelis 1987; on political irony in Horace, see
Fowler 1993.
14 Booth 1974, 240–1.
15 Griffin 1994, 67 considers most of the irony used in literary satire to be unstable: ‘[T]‌hough we
assume an author in control of the irony, we cannot reconstruct that author’s precise meaning
with any confidence. In some cases we have reason to think that even satirists cannot contain
the irony they have let loose’.
16 ‘Reading irony is in some ways like translating, like decoding, like deciphering, and like
peering behind a mask’ (Booth 1974, 33).
17 See details on how to identify stable irony in Booth 1974, ch. 3.
111

text (case 2). Most cases of incorrectness, including the two just mentioned,
seem to concern semiotics: they involve Vergilian passages of varying size
(the length of the quotations varies from one-half line to five lines), which are
quoted, verbatim or slightly altered but promptly identified, allegedly in order
to illustrate or endorse a statement or an idea discussed in the surrounding
text. The reader, however, realizes that the quotation either is not relevant
to, or contradicts, the ideas it purports to endorse (cases 3, 4 and 5), and on
several occasions is the means to a deeper intertextual relationship with a
non-Vergilian text or texts (cases 1 and 5). A final case of ironic incorrect-
ness comprises the instances of quasi-quotation, that is, allusions to specific
phrases from Vergil, which have undergone more extensive adaptation but,
because they are so famous, they readily come to mind. These well-known
Vergilian echoes prompt Seneca’s audience to undertake a more wholistic
reading of the Vergilian original, beyond the text surrounding the phrase
echoed in Seneca and onto an entire section or episode. This more complex
reading elicits arguments and leads to conclusions, which sharply juxtapose
the context in Seneca’s narrative (case 6)—hence the irony. From the analysis
of the diverse expressions of irony in these representative instances, chosen
for reasons of convenience, I hope to illustrate Seneca’s studied employment
of the trope, thus proving the inspiring force of Vergil’s poetry across genres
and traditions.
Case 1
In Ep. 104 Seneca quotes Vergil three times. I would like to focus on the third
of these quotations, Aen. 1.458, which is part of Ep. 104.31.18 The larger con-
text runs as follows (Ep. 104.30–32):
30 Nemo mutatum Catonem totiens mutata re publica vidit; eundem se in

omni statu praestitit, in praetura, in repulsa, in accusatione, in provincia,
in contione, in exercitu, in morte. Denique in illa rei publicae trepidatione,
cum illinc Caesar esset decem legionibus pugnacissimis subnixus, totis
exterarum gentium praesidiis, hinc Cn. Pompeius, satis unus adversus
omnia, cum alii ad Caesarem inclinarent, alii ad Pompeium, solus Cato
fecit aliquas et rei publicae partes. 31 Si animo conplecti volueris illius
imaginem temporis, videbis illinc plebem et omnem erectum ad res
novas vulgum, hinc optumates et equestrem ordinem, quidquid erat in
civitate sancti et electi, duos in medio relictos, rempublicam et Catonem.
Miraberis, inquam, cum animadverteris
Atriden Priamumque et saevom ambobus Achillen;
Utrumque enim inprobat, utrumque exarmat. 32 Hanc fert de utroque
sententiam: ait se, si Caesar vicerit, moriturum, si Pompeius, exulaturum.
Quid habebat quod timeret qui ipse sibi et victo et victori constituerat
18 Most recent discussion of the intertextuality is Berno 2011, 233–53.

112

quae constituta esse ab hostibus iratissimis poterant? Perit itaque ex
decreto suo.
30. No one ever saw Cato change, no matter how often the state
changed: he kept himself the same in all circumstances—in the praetor-
ship, in defeat, under accusation, in his province, on the platform, in the
army, in death. Furthermore, when the republic was in a crisis of terror,
when Caesar was on one side with ten legions keen for a fight at his call,
aided by so many foreign nations, and when Pompey was on the other,
satisfied to stand alone against all comers, and when the citizens were
leaning towards either Caesar or Pompey, Cato alone established a def-
inite party for the Republic. 31. If you would obtain a mental picture
of that period, you may imagine on one side the people and the whole
populace eager for revolution—on the other the senators and knights,
the chosen and honored men of the commonwealth; and there were left
between them but these two—the Republic and Cato. I tell you, you will
marvel when you see
Atreus’ son, and Priam, and Achilles, angered with both.
Like Achilles, he scorns and disarms each faction. 32. And this is the vote
which he casts concerning them both: ‘If Caesar wins, I slay myself; if
Pompey, I go into exile’. What was there for a man to fear who, whether
in defeat or in victory, had assigned to himself a doom which might have
been assigned to him by his enemies in their utmost rage? So he died by
his own decision.19
Seneca’s rendering of Aen. 1.458 favors the variant Atriden over the variant
adopted unanimously by the manuscripts and all the modern editions of
the epic, Atridas, evidently manipulating tradition, in order to illustrate
better the analogy he crafts in the case at hand. Commentators have sur-
prisingly little to say on the subject. The Vergilian text, readily recognizable,
comes from the opening section to the first ekphrasis of the Aeneid, the
murals in the temple of Juno at Carthage. As Francesca Romana Berno
has observed, Seneca’s text of Ep. 104 engages more broadly with the con-
cept of visualization stressed in the trope of ekphrasis, for it features recur-
ring terminology of vision (accipite Socraten, Ep. 104.27; accipe Marcum
Catonem, 104.29; vide… vides… vides, 104.33), which means to echo Vergil’s
descriptive narrative in the relevant passage (lustro, Aen. 1.453; miror, video,
1.456).20 Hence, the discrepancy with the unanimous (and uncontested)
tradition is impossible to miss. Seneca, thus, succeeds to stress the element
19 The translation of Seneca’s Epistles throughout is that of Gummere with minor changes
(Gummere 1917, for letters 1–65; Gummere 1920, for letters 66–92; Gummere 1925, for
letters 93–124); other translations of Seneca’s prose texts are my own unless otherwise noted.
The translations from the Aeneid and the Georgics follow Fairclough 1999 and 2000, with
adaptations.
20 Berno 2011, 243.
113

of polarization along with the significance of the middle ground held by
Vergil’s Achilles.
In Seneca’s argument, ‘Achilles’ is paralleled to Cato, whereas ‘Priam’ is
the analogue to Pompey and ‘Atriden’ in the singular (meaning Agamemnon)
to Caesar. Along the same lines, the potential exile of Cato (if Pompey had
been victorious) corresponds to Achilles’ withdrawal from the combat, while
both Cato and Achilles chose their own deaths. The association of Caesar to
Agamemnon is enforced by the theme of anger. Still, the death of Cato by
committing suicide (which did happen eventually) does not exactly corres-
pond to Achilles’ situation. Also, why should Pompey correspond to Priam
and Caesar to Agamemnon? Simply because the death of the Trojan king
in Aeneid 2 mirror’s Pompey’s death (on the parallel see more below), while
Agamemnon died at the hands of his wife and cousin, like Caesar, who died
by his own people? Not least, Achilles’ personal anger at Priam is not justified
by the Iliad.
Further, in the Vergilian text the placement of Agamemnon and Priam
side by side and on the same line with the angry Achilles sum up the entire
Iliad: the anger of Achilles is the main theme of the Iliad. This anger breaks
out in Iliad 1 and because of Agamemnon who demands by force Achilles’
prize; and dissolves in Iliad 24, when Priam visits Achilles in his place of
withdrawal—following their encounter Achilles has reconciled with Patroclus’
death and has given away his anger. In Seneca’s text the variant ‘Atriden’ for
Agamemnon is a lectio difficilior, but is at odds with Vergil’s text because
the poet of the Aeneid employs the word in the singular only once, in Aen.
11.262, where it is associated with Menelaus (Atrides Protei Menelaus ad
usque columnas |exulat…).21
In light of the above, Seneca’s emendation of the Vergilian text, as well as
his reading of the Homeric epic are studied, determined by context. And the
main idea of the particular context is not anger but the median place of the
Republican Cato, between the two extremes of Pompey and Caesar, who are
perceived as equal threats to the traditional constitution. Cato’s median pos-
ition is captured, possibly even visually, by the middle place of Achilles on the
ekphrasis, an emblematic depiction in its representation of the middle ground.
At the same time, Seneca’s emphasis on the proverbial immutability of Cato
(Nemo mutatum Catonem totiens mutata re publica vidit; eundem se in omni
statu praestitit. ‘No one ever saw Cato change, no matter how often the state
changed: he kept himself the same in all circumstances’) distances him from
Achilles, who eventually in Iliad 24, and following his meeting with Priam,
sets aside his anger, and brings him closer to another hero of the Trojan
Cycle, the great Ajax. Ajax’s fate and philosophy behind his death are strik-
ingly similar to Cato’s own: both die by their own hand because they refuse to
conform to a changing world around them. Cato’s projection against Achilles
21 On the basis of the Senecan passage, Kraggerud 2017 ad Aen. 1.458, has suggested correcting
the standard edition of the Vergilian text.
114

in the Senecan passage at hand evokes Ajax’s claim to be granted rightfully
the weapons of Achilles, being the mightiest Greek warrior standing after
Achilles’ death and Achilles’ nearest kin. Notably, Cato and Ajax are drawn
together in Cicero, Off. 1.113, one of the leading intertexts behind Seneca’s
De beneficiis, because both Cato and Ajax preferred death to enduring the
indignities suffered by their enemies (Odysseus for Ajax, the other Roman
leaders defeated by Julius Caesar for Cato).22 This proximity of Cato to Ajax
ironically undermines the comparison to Achilles, which the Vergilian quota-
tion was intended to endorse in the first place.
The recollection of the first Vergilian ekphrasis triggers more associations.
Seneca’s identification of Pompey to Priam draws on Vergil’s mourning the
tragic death of the Trojan king in light of the death of Pompey: both leaders
end up as decapitated (anonymous, deprived of historical memory and con-
tinuity) bodies on the beach (Aen. 2.554, 558; esp. 557–8, iacet ingens litore
truncus; |avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus ‘his great trunk lies
on the shore, head torn from shoulders and a nameless corpse’).23 The almost
unavoidable recollection of the Vergilian subtext overshadows a couple of
additional allusions, expected to be identified by those who have studied
Seneca’s larger corpus: Priam in the Troades 162–3 is reportedly lucky not
because he was allotted by fate to depart from life and from his kingdom at
the same time, but because in his death he takes his kingdom with him: felix
quisquis bello moriens |omnia secum consumpta tullit, ‘blessed is anyone
who, dying in war, has taken with him his destroyed world in its entirety’).
Similarly, Cato in Prov. [1]‌.2.9 is observed by Jupiter to stand defiant in the
ruins of the Republic with which he suggestively identifies (Ecce spectaculum
dignum ad quod respiciat intentus opere suo deus, ecce par deo dignum, vir fortis
fortuna mala compositus, utique si provocavit, ‘Look, a spectacle worthy for a
god intent on his work to look at; look, a pair worthy of a god, a brave man
against ill fortune, especially if he has challenged her’).24 More conspicuously,
in Seneca’s Agamemnon, the king is decapitated when Clytemnestra in Ag.
897–901 first strikes him with her axe, just like a priest about to slaughter
the sacrificial victim. Seneca’s description is graphic and macabre—in 901–3
22 Recent criticism has established that De beneficiis has obvious affinities with De officiis, since
among other things both works instruct the members of the Roman governing class on proper
social morality, and both constitute ‘literary responses to political and social change’; see
Griffin 2013a, 7–14 and 46–53; the quote is from p. 10; on the association between Cicero’s
portrayal of Cato and Ajax in De Officiis, see Gill 2008, 41.
23 The depiction of the decapitated trunk of Priam in Aeneid 2 as an allusion to the trunk of
Pompey was noted already by Servius at Aen. 2.557: Pompei tangit historiam. On the topic, see
esp. Bowie 1990, 470–81; Hinds 1998, 8–10.
24 Littlewood 2004, 249–55, discusses the ironic element produced by the comparison of the
aged Cato going down with the Republic to a young man killing a lion (Prov. [1]‌.2.7–10), and
the amplification of the comic (lit. ludic) element through its theatricalization in the com-
bination of the gladiatorial picture in the De providentia and the portrayal of Priam in the
Troades.
115

Agamemnon’s severed head hangs only by a thin piece of skin—and as such,
memorable to the readers of Seneca’s Epistles25
armat bipenni Tyndaris dextram furens,

qualisque ad aras colla taurorum popa
designat oculis antequam ferro petat,
sic huc et illuc impiam librat manum.
habet! peractum est! pendet exigua male
caput amputatum parte et hinc trunco cruor
exundat, illic ora cum fremitu iacent.
(Ag. 897–903)
Now Tyndaris in mad rage snatches the two-edged axe and, as at the altar
the priest marks with his eye the oxen’s necks before he strikes, so, now
here, now there, her impious hand she aims. He has it! The deed is done!
The scarce severed head hangs by a slender part; here blood streams over
his headless trunk, there lie his moaning lips. (Transl. Miller 1917)
The recollection of the decapitated Agamemnon, then, draws also the king
of Mycenae next to the Vergilian Priam, and the likeness of Agamemnon’s
decapitation to the slaughter of bulls on the altar solidifies the association to
the intertext of the Aeneid, for Priam is slaughtered by Neoptolemus on the
altar of Hercean Jupiter, and as such, his murder is explicitly compared to a
sacrifice (Aen. 2.550–3):26
hoc dicens altaria ad ipsa trementem

traxit et in multo lapsantem sanguine nati,
implicuitque comam laeva, dextraque coruscum
extulit ac lateri capulo tenus abdidit ensem.
So saying, to the very altar stones he drew him, trembling and slipping
in his son’s streaming blood, and wound his left hand in his hair, while
with the right he raised high the flashing sword and buried it to the hilt
in his side.
Seneca’s tragic intertext, then, throws Pompey in the light of Cato in

Seneca’s epistle; by the recollection of Troades 162–3 and the tragic portrayal
25 The Agamemnon was published in 55 CE. The Moral Letters to Lucilius and the Natural
Questions are the product of the last years of Seneca’s life, the brief period (62–5 CE) that
Seneca spent in retirement (on the dating of Seneca’s writings, see the introductions in
Cooper/Procopé 1995 and Griffin 1976 [repr. 1992]).
26 Agamemnon explicitly identifies with Priam when he dons Priam’s royal attire at Ag. 881–3;
on the deliberate likeness of the two royal deaths and Seneca’s evocation of Vergil’s account
of Priam’s death as his model, see Schiesaro 2014, 184; and the detailed discussion in
Frangoulidis 2016, 395–409.
116

of Priam therein, Cato’s symbolism is duplicated and Achilles is ironically
drawn next to his enemy, Priam. Finally, the evocation of the tragic descrip-
tion in Seneca’s Agamemnon, of Agamemnon’s decapitation and the associ-
ation to a sacrifice which replicates the death of Vergil’s Priam, Agamemnon
and Priam, the two ends in Vergil’s text, sustaining and defining the middle
position of Achilles, are drawn next to, or rather identify with, one another, in
yet another ironic expression of duplicated symbolism.
Case 2
In Ep. 82 one may detect another conspicuous ironic treatment of Vergilian
excerpts. In this letter Seneca quotes Vergil’s Aeneid three times, and all three
quotations are taken from book 6. The topic of Ep. 82 is the fear of death and
how philosophy should approach it in order to battle it.27 Seneca first rejects
the strategies of Greek philosophers to combat the fear of death by logical
arguments, by calling these strategies ineptias Graecas (‘Greek foolishness’,
Ep. 82.8), and then confesses that even though correct in principle, for the
case at hand these strategies are ineffective, because rationalizing death is very
difficult, not least because of the bad reputation death has acquired in famous
literary texts, including the Aeneid which Seneca hastens to quote (Ep. 82.16):
Descriptus est carcer infernus et perpetua nocte oppressa regio, in qua

Ingens ianitor Orci
ossa super recubans antro semesa cruento
aeternum latrans exsangues terreat umbras.
they have portrayed the prison in the world below and the land
overwhelmed by everlasting night, where
Within his blood-stained cave Hell’s warder huge
Does sprawl his ugly length on half-crunched bones,
And terrifies the disembodied ghosts with never-ceasing bark.
The quotation is introduced with a statement that is irony-ridden and

reproving of Vergil’s description of the Underworld and, more generally, of the
impact Vergil’s genius might have had thereupon: multorum ingeniis certatum
est ad augendam eius infamiam (‘Many great minds have competed to increase
its bad reputation’). Textually, the Vergilian description of the Underworld
produced by Seneca is artificial: a cento of two unrelated Vergilian passages.
This perhaps is one of the earliest and shortest attested Vergilian centos. The
couplet from Vergil’s description of the Underworld (6.400–1) is split, and
in between Seneca inserts one-half line from a second, brief description of
27 The topic of death is central in several epistles: leading perspectives include the rationaliza-
tion and acceptance of death (Ep. 30, 70, 82), the reality of its perpetual proximity (Ep. 1, 12,
26, 101), and the acceptance or not of suicide (Ep. 22, 77); cf. Inwood 2005b, 302–21; Edwards
2007 and 2014; Armisen-Marchetti 2008; Ker 2009b; and Smith 2014, esp. 357–9.
117

the Underworld offered in Aen. 8.296–7, in the context of Evander’s hymn to
Hercules.28 The verb that makes the seamless interfusion of the two passages
possible is ‘terrere’ (sc. Aen. 8.298 … terruit): a verb meaning ‘terror’ brings
together two different descriptions of terror into a new composition of mega-
terror! The artificiality of this new, even more frightening picture of the world
of the dead derides the graphic descriptions of death as a place of terror
produced by all influential epic poets, including Vergil. The humorous irony
thus underlining the horrors of epic death is enforced by the employment
of two additional quotations from Vergil in the same epistle, set one prior
and one after 82.16. At 82.7 Seneca exhorts his reader to overcome the fear
of death by employing the Sibyl’s exhortation to Aeneas: nunc animis opus,
Aeneas, nunc pectore firmo (‘now you need your courage, Aeneas, now your
stout heart!’ Aen. 6.261). And a similar exhortation, again by the Sibyl to
Aeneas, occurs in 82.18: Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audientior ito |Qua tua te
fortuna sinet ‘You-do not give in to troubles but go forth more bravely where
your fortune permits you’). The imitation of both Sibylline statements is
ironic once the reader realizes that Aeneas was alive at the time he was pre-
paring to enter the Underworld and, more importantly, he was destined to
come back alive, and he knew so.
Case 3
Another multidimensional appropriation of Vergil in Seneca’s Letters to
Lucilius is the employment of the famous bee simile in Aen. 1.430–629 in
Ep. 84:
Qualis apes aestate nova per florea rura 430

exercet sub sole labor, cum gentis adultos
educunt fetus, aut cum liquentia mella
stipant et dulci distendunt nectare cellas,
aut onera accipiunt venientum, aut agmine facto
ignavom fucos pecus a praesepibus arcent: 435
fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella.
Just as bees in early summer carry out their tasks
among the flowery fields, in the sun, when they lead out
the adolescent young of their race, or cram the cells
with liquid honey, and swell them with sweet nectar,
28 The composition of this first Vergilian cento may have one other possible cause: The employ-
ment of the phrase ianitor Orci at Aen. 8.296, should call to mind Vergil’s referring to Cerberus
as ianitor of the Underworld in Aen. 6.402. If Seneca is working from memory, he may have
wished to have both passages starting with that key phrase recalled. On the inevitable recollec-
tion of Aen. 8.296 by the reader of Aen. 6.402, cf. Horsfall 2013 (v. 2), 306 ad loc. s.v. ingens
ianitor.
29 This is a particularly influential passage, quoted, paraphrased or summarized by a long series
of authors, from Macrobius to the early Renaissance; see Summers 1910, 284.
118

or receive the incoming burdens, or forming lines
drive the lazy herd of drones from their hives:
the work glows, and the fragrant honey’s sweet with thyme.
In this letter, Seneca compares poetic production with the work of the bees,
stressing the process, which involves reading and digesting a variety of works
prior to composing a new piece of high quality (the ‘honey’). The bee-like
imitator is thought to transform the source materials by a digestive process.
In the course of this process several sources are mixed and the product of this
mixing is more refined than each one of the sources, while the originals are
thoroughly transformed and dissimulated in the process of reforming. The
description of literary production becomes effective by means of evoking
one of Vergil’s famous bee similes, a passage which reproduces nearly ver-
batim Georg. 4.162–9, where the description of the labor of the bees is set in
a broader context, and therein, it is compared to the work of the Cyclopes in
a conspicuous articulation of the Callimachean small vs. large dichotomy.30
The philosophy of the literary digestion of many different sources for the
production of one’s own unique identity in writing, has recently received an
important ontological treatment in Graver 2014, an essay about literary com-
position as a means of giving shape to one’s identity (ingenium), as the latter
is expressed in one’s thoughts and overall intellectual activity. Through this
literary identity, an author’s self-image lives beyond the biological confines
of the body. In my reading, Seneca’s recollection of this important Vergilian
passage furnishes an optimal springboard for elaborate discussions on both
poetics and politics.
In his recent study of Senecan tragedy, Trinacty correctly remarks that
Seneca’s quoting the double Vergilian simile of the bees was determined
partly by the fact that both bee similes are in the context of a metaphor.31
Vergil’s original admittedly does not associate the bee with the process of
creative composition based on the eclectic combination of material from a
variety of sources. In the text of the Aeneid, the bee simile captures expressly
the orderly and feverish labor of the Carthaginians (Aen. 1.423), and the
emphasis is on the systematic process of collecting the material to produce
the honey.32 Yet, the employment of the laboring bee by Callimachus in com-
bination with the theme of eclecticism that is connected with the bees already
30 Most recently Giusti 2014, 37–41, noting (on p. 37 n. 3) Farrell 1991, 243–5; Nelis 2001, 243–
4, Casali 2006, 197–203 (on Aen. 8.449–53); Mac Góráin 2009, 6–7.
31 Trinacty 2014, 14f.
32 According to Jones, Vergil uses bees ‘as a paradigm, in a limited sense, of the perfect society—a
hardworking, patriotic, thrifty, disciplined community of the likeminded all working towards
a single, noble end’ (2011, 137); similarly Leach agrees that the main theme of the simile is ‘the
single minded dedication of a people to their task and the resultant sense of joyous order’ (2).
119

in Aristotle,33 and of the pure-water element in the Hymn to Apollo 110–2,34
to create an imagery with specific reference to poetry,35 offers a distinct model
for imitation by the Roman devotees to Callimacheanism. In this context,
the laboring bees are set at the foundation of a theory of literary emulation
following Callimachus’ reception in Rome. In Latin poetry the eclecticism of
the bees is further attested in their careful selection of flowers, while emphasis
is placed on the output of this laborious process, the fragrant honey: e.g.,
Lucr. DRN 3.10–12 (Lucretius addresses Epicurus and compares himself to
the bee that crops the knowledge from the works of the Greek sage): tuisque
ex…chartis, |floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant, |omnia nos itidem
depascimur aurea dicta ‘From your pages, as bees in flowery glades sip every
blossom, so do I crop all your golden sayings’. Horace echoes these lines in
C. 4.2.27–32, expanding Lucretius’ borrowing from just one authority to a
poet’s borrowing from several authors, while refers to himself as ‘the little
one’ (parvus), rendering the bee an embodiment of the Callimachean ideal of
the small (μικρόν): ego apis Matinae |more modoque |grata carpentis thyma
per laborem |plurimum circa nemus uvidique |Tiburis ripas operosa parvus
|carmina fingo: ‘I, after the custom and manner of the Matinian bee, that
gathers the pleasant thyme with repeated labor around the groves and banks
of the well-watered Tiber, I, the little one, compose my verses with extreme
labor’. Seneca’s employment of Vergil’s bee metaphor, then, means to recall
Callimachean poetics as canonized in Lucretius and Horace, where the ana-
logy of author to bee evolves into the comparison of the composition of
poetry to the sifting and blending stages of honey production:36
We also… ought to copy these bees, and sift [separare] whatever we have
gathered from a varied course of reading…. Then, by applying the super-
vising care with which our nature has endowed us,—in other words, our
33 Arist. Hist. an. 7.11, 596b: ἡ δὲ μέλιττα μόνον πρὸς οὐδὲν σαπρὸν προσίζει, οὐδὲ χρῆται τροφῇ
οὐδεμίᾳ ἀλλ’ ἢ τῇ γλυκὺν ἐχούσῃ χυμόν· καὶ ὕδωρ δ’ ἥδιστα εἰς ἑαυτὰς λαμβάνουσιν ὅπου ἄν
καθαρὸν ἀναπηδᾷ. ‘only the bee does not settle near anything rotten and does not eat any food
except what has a sweet juice; they also take for themselves the most pleasant water wherever
it springs up pure’.
34 Aristotle’s eclectic bees in the previous note are already connected to the pure water element.
35 In the Hymn to Apollo 110–2 the bees are depicted to bring water to Demeter ‘not from
every source but where it bubbles up pure and undefiled from a holy spring, its very essence’.
F. Williams (1978 ad loc.) points out that the bee is often used figuratively to refer to the
poet (listing among others, Pind. Pyth. 10.53–4; Plat. Ion 543a; and Aristoph. Birds 748f.);
see details in F. Williams 1978, 85–99. Especially on the Pindaric text at Pyth. 10.53–4, the
earliest attestation of the bee as symbol for the inspired poet, see Beer 2006, further noting the
Pindaric precedent also in the pure and ambrosian-sweet water symbolism for superior praise
poetry (Isth. 6.74; Isth. 7.20–1; Pyth. 4.289); also Poliakoff 1980, 42.
36 Graver 2014, 287 notes that Seneca is aware of these earlier treatments of the bee simile: the
employment of the phrase ut aiunt (‘as they say’) makes the passage in question ‘a cleverly
self-referential gesture, enacting its own recommendation’.
120

natural gifts,—we should so blend those several flavors into one delicious
compound that, even though it betrays its origin, it nevertheless is clearly
a different thing from whence it came.
Seneca’s initiative is ground-breaking because the rules forged for the

writing of neoteric and meta-neoteric Latin poetry are embraced for the com-
position of a genre little suited to Hellenistic aesthetics, philosophical prose.
The Callimachean essence of Seneca’s prose proves especially pronounced
when the reader of the epistle comes to realize that although the Aeneid
passage is the primary source of inspiration for Seneca’s bees, Vergil’s own
source of inspiration in Aen. 1.430–6, the Ur-passage from the fourth Georgic,
may still be active in the metaphor of the bees. Ten lines further down the
Georgics description of the laboring bees, Vergil reports in detail on the
various routines of the bees noting, at Georg. 4.180–4, that the bees tend to
visit a considerable variety of trees/bushes/flowers: arbusta, salices, casium,
crocum, tiliam, hyacinthus. Although the Aeneid passage focuses mainly on
labor, the Georgics passage combines labor with selectivity and variety secured
by the tasting from many different sources (Georg. 4.180–4):
At fessae multa referunt se nocte minores, 180

crura thymo plenae; pascuntur et arbuta passim
et glaucas salices casiamque crocumque rubentem
et pinguem tiliam et ferrugineos hyacinthos.
Omnibus una quies operum, labor omnibus unus:
But the young return home in weariness, late at night, their thighs loaded
with thyme; far and wide they feed on arbutus, on pale-green willows, on
cassia and ruddy crocus, on the rich linden, and the dusky hyacinth. All
have one season to rest from labor, all one season to toil.
Still, those rules of neoteric poetics have little to do with the bee simile as
articulated in the Aeneid quotation, where the emphasis is solely on labor. In
this respect, the appeal to Vergil seems a red herring! Several other details,
however, in the text of the Vergilian bee metaphor suggest that Seneca engages
in discourse with a different set of themes that are tied to the employment of
the bee imagery as a political symbolism, as this is clearly manifested from the
other uses of the bee simile in the Aeneid.37
37 Additional bee similes in the Aeneid include Book 7.64–7, describing the swarm of bees which
settles on the laurel tree in the palace of Latinus and anticipates the future domination of
the Trojans, and in Aen. 12.587–92, on the Latins soon to be ‘smoked out’ from their walls
like bees from their hive. Their careful arrangement suggests that Vergil considered them sig-
nificant (Leach 1977, 3): in all three occasions the bees carry martial symbolism. Giusti 2014
correctly notes that bees in the Aeneid are to be read ‘as a symbol of both an enlightened and
perfectly organized state and of the military forces that lie at the basis of such perfection’
(p. 47).
121

The springtime setting of the activity of the bees alludes, for Aeneas who
recalls it, to rebirth and regeneration: of the brand-new city of Carthage
which rises under Aeneas’ eyes, and hopefully of Troy, as promised to
Aeneas.38 Since Plato, political philosophers have used bee colonies as a tem-
plate for human society—indeed the ideal expression of the collective body
politic whose anonymous individual members work together for the benefit
of the community.39 The laboring-bees metaphor in the Aeneid is the expres-
sion of Aeneas’ admiration (miratur; Aen. 1.421, 422) more broadly, for
the grand city rising before his eyes as a result of the disciplined toil of an
entire community of workers; the description he provides of Carthage puts
together—appropriately for the founder of Rome—a Roman city.40 Vergil’s
bee metaphor has inspired Seneca’s allegorical justification of imperial rule
in Clem. 1.19.1–6, presented as a lesson to the young Nero (the treatise was
written the year after Nero came to power), and instructing him to behave
like the ‘king bee’, the benevolent leader who rules by authority even though
he has no sting, i.e., weapon to exercise punishment. And yet, benevolence is
only one side of ‘king bee’ conduct; a different reader may detect ominous
military references in the military imagery of the laboring bees, for agmine
facto at 1.434 takes up Aen. 1.82, a line referring to Aeolus’ catastrophic
winds, ac venti velut agmine facto.41 A decade later, shortly before the end
of his life and while removed from politics and alienated from Nero, Seneca
reaches back to Vergil’s bee simile and, in Epistle 84, makes it applicable to the
rules of philosophical writing. Philosophical composition is like the honey—
the product of eclectic cropping and thorough digestion similar to that of
the honeybees. The echoes of Callimachean poetics has replaced the political
origins of the bee metaphor, but the employment of the same Vergilian bees
on both occasions generates irony as the reading of Seneca’s dissertation on
the poetics of philosophical composition seeks credibility at the same time the
philosopher’s earlier political diatribe on the good king in the De clementia
has by then proven a failure.
Case 4
Seneca’s earliest quotation of the Aeneid in the corpus of his Moral Epistles42
is a line taken from Dido’s lament, Aen. 4.653, vixi et quem dederat cursum
fortuna peregi (‘I lived and journeyed the course given to me by fate’), and is
38 Aeneas sees ‘an activity that he himself should be initiating… in the interest of his people’;
thus Polleichtner 2009, 150; also Nelis 1992, 16; Leach 1977, 4.
39 See ‘Bees’ in Thomas and Ziolkowski 2013, 176–7.
40 Giusti 2014, 44–5.
41 On the ominous and threatening connotations of the bee simile, see Giusti 2014 throughout.
42 It is generally agreed that the letters are arranged in the order in which they were written; see
Setaioli 2014a, 193.
122

attested in Ep. 12.9.43 The theme of Ep. 12, the end of one’s life and how not
to be afraid of it, but rather, to be always ready for it (the idea of the letter
is summarized in the opening phrase of 12.8, ‘Hence, every day ought to be
regulated as if it closed the series, as if it rounded out and completed our exist-
ence’), toys with the closural place of the letter in the collection. The selection
of a passage from a famous heroine’s famous last words set also at the close
of a book underscores the closure theme further. And yet, the employment
of Dido’s suicide as a paradigm of a Stoic death is ironic, for Dido’s death is
premature. She chooses to die before her allotted time, and she attributes her
(own voluntary) decision to fate. The broader context of the Vergilian quota-
tion, noted below, amplifies the irony (Ep. 12.8–9):
[8]‌Itaque sic ordinandus est dies omnis tamquam cogat agmen et

consummet atque expleat vitam. Pacuvius, qui Syriam usu suam fecit,
cum vino et illis funebribus epulis sibi parentaverat, sic in cubiculum
ferebatur a cena ut inter plausus exoletorum hoc ad symphoniam
caneretur: ‘Βεβίωται! Βεβίωται’. [9] Nullo non se die extulit. Hoc quod ille ex
mala conscientia faciebat nos ex bona faciamus, et in somnum ituri laeti
hilaresque dicamus,
vixi et quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi.
Crastinum si adiecerit deus, laeti recipiamus. Ille beatissimus est et
securus sui possessor qui crastinum sine sollicitudine exspectat; quisquis
dixit ‘vixi’ cotidie ad lucrum surgit.
8. And so, every day ought to be regulated as if it closed the series, as
if it rounded out and completed our existence. Pacuvius, who by long
occupancy made Syria his own, used to hold a regular burial sacrifice in
his own honor, with wine and the usual funeral feasting, and then would
have himself carried from the dining-room to his chamber, while eunuchs
applauded and sang in Greek to a musical accompaniment: ‘He has lived
his life, he has lived his life!’ 9. Thus Pacuvius had himself carried out to
burial every day. Let us, however, do from a good motive what he used to
do from a debased motive; let us go to our sleep with joy and gladness;
let us say:
I have lived; the course which Fortune set for me |is finished.
And if God is pleased to add another day, we should welcome it with glad
hearts. That man is happiest, and is secure in his own possession of him-
self, who can await the morrow without apprehension. When a man has
said: ‘I have lived!’, every morning he arises he receives a bonus.
43 Aen. 4.653 is a favorite of Seneca’s, for he quotes it three times in three different works (Vit.
beat. [7]‌.19.1; Ben. 5.17.5; Ep. 12.9); on all three occasions it serves the same function: Dido’s
suicide is part of Seneca’s Stoic argument on the acceptance of death; see Doppioni 1939,
133–7 and 154–5; Setaioli 1965, 149–50; Batinski 1983, 149–51; and more recently Berno 2014.
123

Dido has realized that her life as she has constructed it in the aftermath
of her becoming Aeneas’ consort resulted to her falling irretrievably from
her dux femina status—by sharing her power, she loses it. Her new identity
is entwined with Aeneas. Aeneas’ departure equals her death which, in an
unfailingly Stoic reading of the case at hand, becomes part of Fate’s design.
The irony underlying the way in which Seneca employs the situation of Dido,
a woman desperately in love who commits suicide in a state of madness, as an
example of serene acceptance of life and death, has been nicely discussed in
Berno 2014.44 In Berno’s reading, Seneca considers Dido’s decision to become
a Stoic and interpret her initiative to take her own life as the will of Fate; as
if directed by Fate with tactful irony. The heroine’s death, then, at once vol-
untary and dictated by the circumstances, is hardly natural—it is contrary to
the argument built by Seneca in the rest of the epistle, which stresses one’s
preparation for natural death at any given moment.
Berno notes in particular how irony is amplified when considering that
Dido’s suicide, which allegedly was determined by fate, follows immedi-
ately after Seneca’s commenting on the parodying attitude towards death
of a certain Pacuvius in Ep. 12.45 Like Dido, Pacuvius’ conduct is set up
as a negative foil for the Stoic student—of what is not the Stoic approach
of one’s death: with his daily rehearsal of his own funeral rites, Pacuvius
fails to understand Stoic doctrine, even though he claims to follow it: he
is shown to be a fool still obsessed with life (the detail of the mourning
eunuch and the oriental setting appropriately adds a dose of comic exagger-
ation to the tragedy of death, and a very private moment becomes a public
performance).46
Case 5
In Ep. 53, Seneca opens his speech by recalling an adventurous sea trip he
once took. Soon after leaving the shore at Puteoli for nearby Naples, the
weather changes: ‘the ground-swell was on, and the waves kept steadily
coming faster’ and Seneca becomes sea-sick (Ep. 53.1). Anxious, he demands
the boat be driven to shore despite the helmsman’s protest (Ep. 53.2). And
without waiting for the ship to land, he plunges into the water and swims to
the shore (Ep. 53.3):
44 Especially Berno 2014, 131–4. In embracing Berno’s reading and interpreting as ironic the
particular instance of Vergilian intertextuality in Seneca, I disagree with Mann (2006, 103–
22), who argues that Seneca seriously advances Dido’s Stoic point of view and endorses the
heroine’s decision to attribute her suicide to fate by interpreting the course of the events
as fated.
45 Berno 2014, 131–4.
46 Berno 2014, 132–3, keenly observes the similarities between Pacuvius’ obsession with his
death and Petronius’ Trimalchio who likewise combines the spectacular and the macabre, and
this association enhances the ironic character of the situation, including the interpretation of
the Vergilian text in this context.
124

[3]‌Peius autem vexabar quam ut mihi periculum succurreret; nausia enim
me segnis haec et sine exitu torquebat, quae bilem movet nec effundit.
Institi itaque gubernatori et illum, vellet nollet, coegi, peteret litus. Cuius
ut viciniam attigimus, non exspecto ut quicquam ex praeceptis Vergilii fiat,
obvertunt pelago proras. (Aen. 6.3)
aut
ancora de prora iacitur: (Aen. 3.277)
memor artificii mei vetus frigidae cultor mitto me in mare, quomodo
psychrolutam decet, gausapatus.
But I was suffering too grievously to think of the danger, since a sluggish
seasickness which brought no relief was racking me, the sort that upsets
one’s stomach but does not empty it clean. Therefore I laid down the
law to my pilot, forcing him to make for the shore, willy-nilly. When we
drew near, I did not wait for things to be done in accordance with Vergil’s
orders, until
Prow faced seawards
or
Anchor plunged from bow
I remembered my profession as a veteran devotee of cold water, and, clad
as I was in my cloak, let myself down into the sea, just as a cold-water
bather should.
Ep. 53 is part of a group of letters (49–57) whose primary theme is not

Lucilius and his work but Seneca himself, who in advanced age has returned
to Campania and is confronted with the prospect of his nearing death. In
several of these letters Seneca exhibits irony:47 he undertakes short journeys
in and about nearby locations (Baiae, Cuma, Naples), only in order to deride
traveling as therapeutic and educational. Also, in the same letters Seneca often
refers to himself as a fool (fatuus, a term first attested in Ep. 50.2, applying
indirectly to Seneca), and this foolishness is illustrated in a variety of ways in
the letters that follow.48
Seneca uses personal experience in Ep. 53 as a parable, in a philosophical
discussion on the repercussion of underestimating the symptoms of physical
suffering and moral illness. Irony runs through the entire letter, including the
usage of Vergil’s quotations. In 53.3, Seneca quotes the Aeneid twice as he
describes his foolish disembarkation before the boat reaches the shore. The
quotation of part of line 3, obvertunt pelago proras, from the opening section
of Aeneid 6, associates Seneca’s journey and effort to approach the shore to
47 See Motto and Clark 1970, 102–5.

48 On the thematic coherence of Ep. 49–57, see Motto and Clark 1971, 217–20; and more
recently Berno 2004, 7–24, discussing the appropriation of a Vergilian quotation from Aeneas’
flight from Troy (Aen. 2.726–9) in Seneca Ep. 56; in this quotation Aeneas is transformed
from a wise man into a foolish one (imperitus) mirroring Seneca’s state as recorded in all the
Campanian epistles.
125

the arrival of the Trojans in Italy and their landing at the same location (bay
of Naples-Cuma). Yet, contrary to the Trojans who land their ships with tact
and grace, Seneca acts foolishly. The former reach the end of a long journey
after undergoing many adventures and storms at sea; Seneca fails to complete
a short journey by boat along the coast. The ironic overtones are amplified
at the realization that Seneca’s leap into the water presupposes more complex
and less obvious intertextuality: it evokes the plight of Palinurus, the vigilant
Trojan helmsman who plunged headlong into the limpid waters (or, alterna-
tively, was pushed to his death by Sleep) at the very end of Aeneid 5 (and only
a few lines before the quotation from Aen. 6.3), and whose loss nearly wrecked
Aeneas’ ship had Aeneas himself not realized Palinurus’ absence from the keel
and hastened to take his place.49
Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with Vergil on Palinurus continues beyond
the close of Aeneid 5: a little later in the same epistle, Seneca’s description
of how he managed to pull himself successfully onto the shore, by ‘scram-
bling over the rocks, searching out the path, or making one for myself’ (Ep.
52.4: Quae putas me passum dum per aspera erepo, dum viam quaero, dum
facio?), recalls Palinurus’ fate later in the epic, in the episode of the encounter
of his ghost with Aeneas in the Underworld, in Aeneid 6.347–71. In the par-
ticular episode, Palinurus offers a different version of his death. He survived
the plunge into the water, which incidentally happened while ‘on the Libyan
voyage’ (Libyco… cursu 6.338), and after three days in the sea he reached the
shore of Velia and ‘scrambled over the rocks’ (Aen. 6.360 prensantemque uncis
manibus capita aspera montis); he was almost safe when the locals killed him.50
Seneca deliberately recalls the discrepancy in Vergil’s account of the fate of
Palinurus, commonly attributed by Vergilian critics to divergent perspectives,51
because Palinurus’ version has many similarities with Odysseus’ story. Once
in the water, Palinurus clings to the rudder for three days prior to washing up
on the Veian shore; Odysseus in turn clung to pieces of his ship for nine days
49 In the last lines of Aeneid 5 Aeneas laments the fate of Palinurus and utters a statement
that sounds ironic under the circumstances: He believes that Palinurus died through over-
confidence in calm sea and sky, even though the steersman earlier had insisted to stay awake,
because he distrusted the elements (Aen. 5.848–51).
50 The apparent discrepancies between the two versions are well-discussed; for a detailed list, see
R. D. Williams 1960, xxv; and the commentary in Berres 1982, 250–81; and more recently,
Horsfall 2013, ad 337–83.
51 E.g. Quint 1993, 87, who justifies the inconsistencies on the fact that ‘the course of destiny
is experienced by human beings as chance contingency’; see also Fratantuono and Smith
(2015, 695). On the two versions about Palinurus, Thomas (2004) suggests that they are tied to
variant versions of stories about shipwrecked men (nauagika) preserved in the new Posidippus
papyrus. O’Hara 2007, 92–4 ties the divergent versions to the fact that they are connected to
the underworld which ‘contains far too many discrepancies with what is said elsewhere in
the poem for them to have been accidental’; similarly for Horsfall (1995, 151) the problem
is ‘a conflict between “static” and “redemptive” views of the afterlife’. Horsfall, however, in
his Aeneid 6 commentary believes that the discrepancy is due to the unfinished status of the
Aeneid (Horsfall 2013, 276).
126

before washing up on Calypso’s island.52 Seneca’s styling himself immediately
afterwards as the celebrated king of Ithaca is enforced in light of the allusion
to the Vergilian Palinurus. In a way, the association of Seneca to Odysseus
seems to be only natural: the comparison of human experience to wandering
is at the core of the concept of the homo viator, which is central to Stoic phil-
osophy. The Stoic homo viator is a patient and enduring hero who knows that
his lifespan is a sequence of departures which he cannot control, but has to
accept. For the Stoics Odysseus and his persistent, 20-year-long journey to
return home was their model for the homo viator.53 Contrary to the interpret-
ations of Odysseus as the ideal student of the world among Stoic writers, for
Seneca, Odysseus is not a contemplative hero: in Const. sapient. [2]‌.2.1, he
clearly admits that Odysseus has endurance and admires him for his resist-
ance to temptations, but denies him the inquisitive mind that seeks to uncover
and conquer new knowledge. This dissension from the Stoic opinio communis
is wittingly noted by means of irony: Seneca, the Stoic theoretician, projects
himself on Odysseus, the embodiment of the Stoic ideal, but the circumstances
that enforce the assimilation are of contested seriousness because what brings
Seneca and Odysseus together is their common proneness to seasickness (Ep.
54.4, ‘l understood that sailors have good reason to fear the land. It is hard
to believe what I endured when I could not endure myself; you may be sure
that the reason why Ulysses was shipwrecked on every possible occasion
was not so much because the sea-god was angry with him from his birth; he
was simply subject to seasickness’). The irony that permeates this analogy
is identified with the detail of the seasickness, for the Stoic helmsman never
gets seasick (SVF 1.396)!54 This irony, further, is a clear indicator leading the
sensitive reader to detect and appreciate Seneca’s own ambivalence towards
endless traveling as a source of wisdom, rejecting it as unnecessary or even
risky, on the one hand (overtly in Ep. 54.4 just discussed, ironically and by
means of a Vergilian quotation in Ep. 53.3), but in admiration for those who
travel for the pursuit of knowledge and genuinely adhering to the Stoic doc-
trine that travel is the stepping stone to philosophical knowledge. According
to Montiglio, Seneca’s conflicted views about traveling in his philosophical
thought is fed by the identification of traveling in Roman literature with the
imperialistic expansion of Rome. This ambivalence is expressly embraced in
the treatment of the Argonautic expedition in Seneca’s Medea, and his inter-
pretation of Alexander’s conquests in several of his treatises.55 On the other
52 Quint 1993, 87, on Palinurus mirroring Odysseus; also Brenk 1984; recent treatment of the
Palinurus episode and its intertextual subtext in Fratantuono and Smith 2015, 693–8.
53 According to Epictetus (Diss. 2.23.36–9), the purpose of the journey is to return home in
order to perform one’s civic duties. At the same time, a Stoic’s home is internal—his homeland
is within. Thus, reaching the right mental disposition is as important as reaching the home-
land. See Montiglio 2005, 42–61, on the Stoic concept of identifying the life of the Stoic man
with wandering, especially sea traveling, and the employment of the exempla of Odysseus
(especially) and the blind Oedipus.
54 I have taken the reference to the Stoic fragments from Montiglio 2005, 43 n. 5.
55 Montiglio 2006, 569–79.
127

hand, Montiglio notes in the same study, Seneca carefully avoids condemning
all journeys as expansionist, obviously mindful of Nero’s reaction, and he
pointedly praises the emperor’s travels in Egypt and holds them to be along
the line of true quest for knowledge, tactfully silencing his imperialistic aims.
This studied contradiction and the elusiveness it generates regarding Seneca’s
actual views exemplifies the tactful way of expressing political discomfort and
dissidence.
Case 6
The last instance of a Vergilian quotation in Seneca concerns not an actual
quotation but the uncontested evocation of some Vergilian excerpt. I con-
sider it a quotation all the same, because the identification of the Vergilian
intertext is unmistakable, no less because the alluded passage from Vergil is
an emblematic one and occurs more than once in the course of the Aeneid,
in different but functionally kindred passages. The Consolatio ad Marciam
addresses Marica, the daughter of Cremutius Cordus, who mourns her son
for a very long time. Seneca tries to console her, first by engaging her heritage
and her unique mission as a result (daughter and safekeeper of the memory
of the historian Cremutius Cordus), and then by producing two divergent
examples of famous mourning females, one to be avoided (Octavia) and one
to be imitated (Livia) (Marc. [6]‌.4.2–5.6).
Seneca’s emphasis on Marcia’s relationship to her father and her son cast
the daughter of Cremutius Cordus in light of Vergil’s Aeneas: the Aeneid is in
the subtext of the consolation, since the speech’s desideratum, the termination
of suffering (for Marcia) is figured through the overarching desideratum of the
Aeneid, which is the end of suffering (for the Trojans).56 Marcia’s therapy is
seen as at once predicated and destined to go through suffering—the very con-
flict that permeates Aeneas’ quest. Thus, when Seneca already in the opening
chapter of the consolation addresses Marcia with the question, ‘For what end
will there be?’ (quis enim erit finis? Marc. [6]‌.1.6), inquiring about when she
will stop mourning, he evokes ‘the voice of Jupiter upbraiding Juno for her
inconsolable passion that threatens the success of Aeneas’ mission: ‘What
end will there be, my wife?’ (quae iam finis erit, coniunx? Aen. 12.793)’.57 The
Vergilian Jupiter’s question denotes that the end is already predetermined,
and he only offers Juno the time and manner she will concede this to happen.
Slightly rephrased, the same question at Marc. [6].1.6 echoes another Vergilian
intertext, Venus’ complaint to Jupiter about the termination of the labors pla-
guing Aeneas at Aen. 1.240 Quem das finem, rex magne, laborum? On both
occasions the context involves a request, expressed in the form of an inquiry,
56 Ker 2009b, 95–6. Ker is explicit about Marcia’s familiarity with the Aeneid which directs sub-
consciously her behavior towards suffering for the loss of her nearest kin: ‘we may recognize
that Seneca appeals to Marcia as a reader of Augustan literature, and in particular of the
Aeneid’ (p. 95).
57 Ker 2009a, 96.
128

for the deserved, or rather, due termination to suffering that has been going
on for too long.
The Aeneid is full of prayers for the end of suffering, and Seneca takes advan-
tage of this: he constructs a network of Vergilian echoes in order to engage
the authority of Vergil, the epic gods and the great Aeneas to increase the
pressure on Marcia to put an end on her mourning. Thus, Marc. [6]‌.1.6 recalls
another key moment in Vergil’s epic, Aen. 1.198–9, the opening of Aeneas’ first
speech to his men shortly after they have collected their shipwrecked selves
on the shores of Carthage: o socii—neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum—|
o passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem (‘O friends—well, we were not
unknown to trouble before—O you who have endured worse, the god will
grant an end to this too’); Seneca emphatically echoes the closing and more
weighty clause. The recollection of Aen. 1.198–9, in turn, forges an associ-
ation with another passage from the consolation, as part of it is distinctly
evoked in Marc. [6].12.4: occurrent tibi passi ubique maiora; and later also
in 20.1: o ignaros malorum suorum. This intertextually informed consolatory
appeal to Marcia is peppered with Vergilian evocations, because Seneca, as he
himself confesses, has in mind not only the devastated mother, but also, and
even, foremost, the erudite daughter of Cremutius Cordus, who is versed in
Augustan literature including the Aeneid.58 Aware that an emotional appeal
may be ineffective, Seneca tries to reason her by stimulating and engaging
her intellect. As for Seneca, this role as a consoler becomes a refinement of,
indeed I dare say an improvement on, Vergil’s role. Marcia’s recommended
female exemplum, Livia, found consolation to the works and teachings of the
Stoic philosopher Areus; on the contrary, the negative exemplum, Octavia,
refused to console herself, even when Vergil honored and immortalized her
deceased son, Marcellus, by placing him at the most distinguished part of
the Roman heroes’ catalog in Aeneid 6, the conclusion. As a matter of fact,
by a grand display of extreme theatricality (her fainting during Vergil’s reci-
tation of Aeneid 6), she selfishly placed herself, instead of the glory of her
son, at the center of attention, and by fainting, she also refused to listen to
the Aeneid. Seneca’s ironic treatment of Octavia should become a lesson for
Marcia, who should embrace the advice of the Stoic philosopher by following
in the footsteps of Livia.
To a careful reader, Seneca’s consolation of Marcia pales in comparison
with the praise the philosopher bestows on the reputation of Cremutius
Cordus, the fearless intellectual and ‘the most powerful man’ who wrote his
historiography ‘with his blood’ (Marc. [6]‌.1.3). Cremutius Cordus, who wrote
a history of the Civil Wars, was prosecuted by Sejanus and was forced to
commit suicide under the emperor Tiberius because, according to Tacitus
(Ann. 4.34–5), he refused to praise Augustus and instead celebrated Cicero,
Brutus and Cassius—the last of whom he called ‘the last Roman’. Tiberius
also ordered for Cremutius’ work to be burned, but Marcia preserved copies
58 On Marcia’s erudition, see Tutrone in this volume.

129

which she later published in abridged form under Caligula. Rudich has read
Seneca’s unrestrained admiration for Cremutius Cordus as ‘a kind of a quest
for a necessary psychological outlet’, with the praise of a hero who was also
an intellectual but did not hesitate to secede from life and not compromise
his ethical principles. In short, Cremutius is what Seneca feels that he should
be but cannot do.59 In my reading, Marcia’s outstanding example of defiance
of imperial autocracy may offer yet another expression of Seneca’s political
dissimulatio, disclosing an interesting case of a statement of political dissi-
dence, albeit an allusive one.
Conclusion
The six cases discussed above comprise selective expressions of ironic
reception of Vergil’s Aeneid in Seneca’s philosophical epistles. The Aeneid
epitomizes the distinctive cultural identity of the Augustan Age, which
became paradigmatic not only for the generations immediately following,
but for Western culture across time. Seneca’s critical dialogue with Vergil
takes advantage of the universality of the Aeneid as a paradigmatic literary
expression of Roman political philosophy and morality, in order to problem-
atize it. Living in Nero’s time, Seneca comprehends that wit and erudition
has limited power against authoritarian violence; that the cultural messages
communicated by Vergil’s heroes have lost their relevance and appeal. Irony
is a uniquely powerful intellectual weapon in this respect. Ironic speech does
not mean what it says: the meaning it conveys is associated with speech, but
it is different from what it is said, and on several times, is its opposite. More
importantly, this ironic meaning is complex. Seneca’s philosophical speech
is an appropriate testing ground to study the dynamic interaction between
the ‘true’ meaning and the ‘false’ meaning of statements and ideas. The most
complex are statements quoted from other authors, and as such, they already
come into the Senecan text with a set of meanings of their own. Vergil’s
speech on account of its universal appeal and meticulous subjection to study
is a premier ground to test the limits of Seneca’s ironic commentary on the
ambiguities of philosophical speech.
59 Rudich 1997, 22–8 (the quotation is from p. 27).

130
5
Seneca quoting Ovid in the
Epistulae morales
Andreas N. Michalopoulos
In the Epistulae morales Seneca lays out his moral philosophy, personal
wisdom, and life experience, combined with fictitious anecdotes and doctrina
of all sorts. Drawing on his rich life experience and on the vast knowledge he
acquired from his wide range of readings Seneca offers instructions, spiritual
direction, practical advice, and moral paraenesis to his friend Lucilius1 (and
to a wider public). To achieve his goal, Seneca uses various means, styles,
devices, and rhetorical features, such as ironic parataxis, hypotactic periods,
direct speech, sententiae, and quotations of poetry. In this chapter I will dis-
cuss two Ovidian quotations in the Epistulae (Ep. 33 and 110). I intend to
explore the following issues: why and when does Seneca resort to direct quota-
tion? Which criteria govern the choice of particular passages? What is the role
and function of these quotations? How do they serve Seneca’s argumentation,
if at all? What do these quotations tell us about his literary taste? Ηow do they
operate within Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with his predecessors?
1 Philosophical sayings and the flocks of Polyphemus (Ep. 33)

The general subject of Ep. 33 is the futility of learning maxims. Seneca reacts
to Lucilius’ complaint that he has not quoted any sayings of Epicurus since Ep.
29,2 and explains his reasons for doing so. In his favorite habit, he compares
the Stoics with the Epicureans.3 He argues that it is impossible for someone
1 Lucilius is also the addressee of De providentia and Naturales quaestiones. Seneca promises to
send Lucilius: books with certain passages marked for study (Ep. 6.5) and Seneca’s own works
and books by other authors (Ep. 45.1–3). For Lucilius’ devotion to literature and philosophy,
see Sen. NQ 4A praef. 14. Lucilius treated the legend of Alpheus and Arethusa in a poem (NQ
3.26.6).
2 On Seneca’s reception of the Epicurean tradition, see André 1969; Setaioli 1988, 171–248;
Graver 2015; Schiesaro 2015.
3 On Seneca and Stoicism, see among others Fillion-Lahille 1984; Veyne 2003; Hine 2004;
Inwood 2005b; Wildberger 2006a and 2006b; Edwards 2019, 9–15. On Seneca and Epicurus,
see Setaioli 1988, 171–248; Obstoj 1989; Griffin 1976 [repr. 1992], 3–4; Wildberger 2014a;
Schiesaro 2015.
131
Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales 131

to identify the original source of each Stoic motto and attribute it to a single
person. In stark contrast, all the maxims of the Epicureans are credited to one
man, the founder of the school, Epicurus, because he appropriated the wise
words of his followers (Ep. 33.4):
Puta nos velle singulares sententias ex turba separare; cui illas

adsignabimus? Zenoni an Cleanthi an Chrysippo an Panaetio an
Posidonio? Non sumus sub rege; sibi quisque se vindicat. Apud istos
quicquid Hermarchus dixit, quicquid Metrodorus, ad unum refertur.
Omnia quae quisquam in illo contubernio locutus est, unius ductu et
auspiciis dicta sunt. Non possumus, inquam, licet temptemus, educere
aliquid ex tanta rerum aequalium multitudine.
Pauperis est numerare pecus.
Quocumque miseris oculum, id tibi occurret, quod eminere posset, nisi
inter paria legeretur.
Suppose we should desire to sort out each separate motto from the general
stock; to whom shall we credit them? To Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus,
Panaetius, or Posidonius? We Stoics are not subjects of a despot: each of
us lays claim to his own freedom. With them, on the other hand, what-
ever Hermarchus says, or Metrodorus, is ascribed to one source. In that
brotherhood, everything that any man utters is spoken under the leader-
ship and commanding authority of one alone. We cannot, I maintain, no
matter how we try, pick out anything from so great a multitude of things
equally good.
‘Only the poor man counts his flock’.
Wherever you direct your gaze, you will meet with something that might
stand out from the rest, if the context in which you read it were not
equally notable.4
Seneca strengthens his thoughts with a poetic quotation.5 The quotation

is readily recognizable and one can take it for granted that Seneca expected
Lucilius (and the external readers of the Letters) to be able to trace its famous
source: it is drawn from Polyphemus’ speech of amatory persuasion addressed
to the nymph Galatea in the Metamorphoses of Ovid (13.824), one of Seneca’s
favorite poets.6 But what were the reasons that led Seneca to quote this
4 The translations of Seneca’s Epistulae morales are from Fantham 2010.

5 For Seneca’s poetic quotations, see Maguinness 1956; Mazzoli 1970; Dingel 1974; Ker 2015;
Edwards 2019.
6 For Seneca’s engagement with Ovid, see Charlier 1954–5; Ronconi 1984; Goddard Elliott 1985;
Jakobi 1988; Degl’ Innocenti Pierini 1990a; Borgo 1992; Mader 1995; Tarrant 2002; Hinds
2011; Trinacty 2014, 65–126; Vial 2015. For Seneca’s quotations from Ovid’s Metamorphoses
book 15 in the third book of his Naturales quaestiones, see Garani in this volume.
132
132 Andreas N. Michalopoulos

particular Ovidian line? Is this just an ornamental touch, a simple display of
Senecan erudition?
This quotation serves multiple functions. Seneca invites his informed
readers to look a bit further, to go through the text from which he draws
the quotation, and to discover possible underlying associations and simi-
larities. The rereading of the story of Polyphemus and Galatea from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses can shed light on many aspects of Seneca’s Ep. 33. It can
provide the explanation one seeks as to why Seneca chose to cite a line from
Polyphemus’ speech in his discussion on the practices of the Stoics and the
Epicureans, a choice which at first seems odd. This is a fascinating literary
challenge for both Lucilius and us, the external readers of the Letters.
First of all, it is noteworthy that whereas in this letter Seneca denounces
other people’s habit of citing mottoes, and writes about the futility of learning
maxims, at the same time he inserts a quotation in his own statement. In other
words, he consciously commits the ‘crime’ that he denounces. Seneca playfully
comes forward as a teacher who rejects his own practices.
Second, the Ovidian line that Seneca chooses to cite does not come from
a ‘serious’, philosophical passage, but, as already noted, from Polyphemus’
amatory speech to Galatea, which is dotted with many humorous elem-
ents. This is the basic plot of the story as narrated by Ovid in the
Metamorphoses: Polyphemus is in love with Galatea, but she despises him
and lies in the arms of a handsome youth, Acis. Burning with desire, but
unskilled in the arts of love and rhetoric, Polyphemus addresses to Galatea
a crude speech of erotic confession and persuasion, doomed to fail.7 Seneca
focuses on that part of the speech in which Polyphemus brags about his riches
and countless flocks. The Cyclops claims that he does not know their exact
number, because they are too many (Met. 13.821–3):
hoc pecus omne meum est, multae quoque vallibus errant,

multas silva tegit, multae stabulantur in antris,
nec, si forte roges, possim tibi dicere, quot sint.
pauperis est numerare pecus.
All this fine flock is mine, and many more roam in the dales or shelter in
the woods or in my caves are folded; should you chance to ask how many,
that I could not tell: a poor man counts his flocks.8
It is surely striking that in his discussion of philosophers and philosoph-

ical mottoes Seneca inserts the words of Polyphemus, a mythological creature
alien to the world of philosophy. The fact that Seneca criticizes the intellec-
tual poverty of the Epicureans citing words of the uncouth Cyclops renders
the whole situation ironic.9 Seneca’s main intention is clear: he wants to
7 This episode of course has obvious Theocritean origins (Id. 11).

8 The translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses are from Melville 2008.
9 See also Davies 2010, 201.
133

demonstrate that whereas the maxims of Stoic philosophy are countless, the
maxims of the Epicureans are few and countable. This Ovidian line enhances
Seneca’s position. Moreover, the reference to flocks in a discussion about the
Epicureans and their submission to their master is possibly intended to pick
up the well-known description of the Epicureans as the flock of Epicurus.10
Polyphemus’ shadowy presence in Seneca’s Ep. 33 has even more ramifications,
mainly humorous ones,11 which the readers can pick up only if they go back to
the Ovidian source text of the quotation. The points of contact are neither few
nor negligible. Let me begin with a couple of general links between the two texts:
a) In his speech to Galatea Polyphemus constantly speaks about himself; it

is a speech of shameless and tasteless self-promotion. By the same token,
Seneca criticizes in Ep. 33 the tendency of the Epicureans to promote
Epicurus and give all the credit to him.
b) In a similar manner, just like Polyphemus advertises himself, his riches
and his supposed beauty, so does Seneca advertise the wealth of the
sayings of the Stoics (quocumque miseris oculum, id tibi occurret, quod
eminere posset, nisi inter paria legeretur. ‘Wherever you direct your gaze,
you will meet with something that might stand out from the rest, if the
context in which you read it were not equally notable’).
The specific points of contact between Seneca’s Ep. 33 and Polyphemus’

story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses are even more intriguing:
1) Twice in Ep. 33 Seneca mentions the flosculi (33.112 and 33.713). These
flosculi—‘memorable maxims’14 or ‘aphorisms expressed with some rhet-
orical flourish’15—most probably pick up the name of Epicurus’ School,
10 Cf. Horace’s striking depiction of himself as a ‘hog in Epicurus’ herd’ (Epist. 1.4.15–6): me
pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises |cum ridere voles Epicuri de grege porcum. ‘Whenever
you want to enjoy a laugh, I’ll be here—as content as a hog from Epicurus’ herd’ (transl.
Kilpatrick 1986).
11 Fantham 2010, 285 on 33.4 notes the humorous aspect of the quotation but does not
elaborate on it.
12 Sen. Ep. 33.1: Desideras his quoque epistulis sicut prioribus adscribi aliquas voces nostrorum
procerum. Non fuerunt circa flosculos occupati: totus contextus illorum virilis est. ‘You want to
have some sayings of our leading thinkers added to these letters as they were before. Those
men were not concerned with gathering blossoms; their entire argument is manly’.
13 Sen. Ep. 33.7: Ideo pueris et sententias ediscendas damus et has quas Graeci chrias vocant, quia
complecti illas puerilis animus potest, qui plus adhuc non capit. Certi profectus viro captare
flosculos turpe est et fulcire se notissimis ac paucissimis vocibus et memoria stare. ‘That is why
we give boys sayings to memorize and what the Greeks call Chriae, because the child’s mind
can embrace them when it still cannot contain more. But it is shameful for a man who had
made some progress to hunt blossoms and prop himself up with a few famous sayings, and
rely on his memory’.
14 Schiesaro 2015, 244.
15 Graver/Long 2015 on Sen. Ep. 33.1. For the use of philosophical maxims, especially maxims
drawn from Epicurus, compare Sen. Ep.  2.4–5.
134

the Garden.16 In the Metamorphoses Polyphemus addresses Galatea as
floridior pratis (790) ‘more flowery than the meadows’ and also calls her
riguo formosior horto (797) ‘more beautiful than a well-watered garden’.17
2) When Seneca wishes to point Lucilius to the great number of Stoic
maxims, he uses the phrase quocumque miseris oculum, instead of
quocumque miseris oculos (see OLD s.v. 5), which one might expect. The
singular, oculum, instead of the plural, oculos, cleverly conjures up the
one-eyed Polyphemus in the source text of Seneca’s Ovidian quotation.
3) Seneca writes: quod eminere posset ‘something that might stand out from
the rest’. This comment, referring to philosophical maxims and coming
right after the quotation of Polyphemus’ words, could also be a clever hint
to Polyphemus’ enormous height, because of which he was visible even
from a great distance (Hom. Od. 9.187–92): ἔνθα δ’ ἀνὴρ ἐνίαυε πελώριος,
ὅς ῥα τὰ μῆλα | οἶος ποιμαίνεσκεν ἀπόπροθεν· οὐδὲ μετ’ ἄλλους | πωλεῖτ’,
ἀλλ’ ἀπάνευθεν ἐὼν ἀθεμίστια ᾔδη. | καὶ γὰρ θαῦμ’ ἐτέτυκτο πελώριον, οὐδὲ
ἐῴκει | ἀνδρί γε σιτοφάγῳ, ἀλλὰ ῥίῳ ὑλήεντι | ὑψηλῶν ὀρέων, ὅ τε φαίνεται
οἶον ἀπ’ ἄλλων. ‘There a monstrous man spent his nights, who shepherded
his flocks alone and afar, and did not mingle with others, but lived apart,
obedient to no law. For he was created a monstrous marvel and was not
like a man that lives by bread, but like a wooded peak of lofty mountains,
which stands out to view alone, apart from the rest’.18
I hope that it has become clear from the above that in Ep. 33 Seneca’s
quotation of a line from Polyphemus’ address to Galatea in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses creates a dense nexus of intertextual connections. However,
in the contrast between the Stoics and the Epicureans who does Polyphemus
correspond to? Who is he to be identified with, the Stoics or the Epicureans?
By quoting this line from the Metamorphoses Seneca wishes to highlight the
large number of Stoic maxims and mottoes in contrast with the scarceness
of Epicurean ones. On this basis, the Stoics are identified with those who
do not know the exact number of their livestock because they are too many,
while the Epicureans are identified with the poor who are able to count their
animals, precisely because they do not have many. Hence, the Stoics are
matched with Polyphemus and the Epicureans with those who are not as
rich as Polyphemus.
Moreover, Seneca depicts the Epicureans as fully subordinate to their
master, Epicurus, who appropriates all their sayings; on the contrary, the
16 For Epicurus’ Garden, see Long 1986, 15; Sinisgalli 2012, 163 n. 3.
17 At Ep. 21.10 Seneca records the inscription on the gate to Epicurus’ garden: cum adieris
eius hortulos †et inscriptum hortulis† ‘HOSPES HIC BENE MANEBIS, HIC SVMMVM
BONVM VOLVPTAS EST’ ‘When you approach his little garden and its inscription —
‘Stranger, this is a good place to stay: here pleasure is the highest good’.
18 The translations of Homer’s Odyssey are from Murray 1985. Cf. Ov. Met. 13.842–3: adspice,
sim quantus: non est hoc corpore maior |Iuppiter in caelo. ‘See how large I am! No bigger body
Jove himself can boast up in the sky’.
135

Stoics yield to no one and do not belong to anyone’s jurisdiction: non sumus
sub rege; sibi quisque se vindicat ‘We Stoics are not subjects of a despot: each
of us lays claim to his own freedom’. Interestingly, this was exactly the case
with the Cyclopes; already in Homer, Polyphemus proudly and irreverently
declares that the Cyclopes do not recognize any authority above them (Hom.
Od. 9.275–8): οὐ γὰρ Κύκλωπες Διὸς αἰγιόχου ἀλέγουσιν | οὐδὲ θεῶν μακάρων,
ἐπεὶ ἦ πολὺ φέρτεροί εἰμεν· | οὐδ’ ἂν ἐγὼ Διὸς ἔχθος ἀλευάμενος πεφιδοίμην |
οὔτε σεῦ οὔθ’ ἑτάρων, εἰ μὴ θυμός με κελεύοι ‘For the Cyclopes pay no heed to
Zeus, who bears the aegis, nor to the blessed gods, since truly we are better far
than they. Nor would I, to shun the wrath of Zeus, spare either you or your
comrades, unless my own heart should bid me’.19 Hence, when Seneca proudly
declares that the Stoics have no kings, he playfully identifies them with the
Cyclopes, who acknowledge no superior power, human or divine. Seneca’s
analogy is tongue-in-cheek; he is counting on Lucilius’ cleverness and his
ability to appreciate this humorous discrepancy. Seneca’s use of Polyphemus-
the-clumsy-lover in a serious discussion about philosophy testifies to his witty
and sophisticated humor.
2 What’s Io got to do with it? (Ep. 110)

The general theme of Ep. 110 is true and false riches. From his villa at
Nomentum Seneca advises Lucilius that men should guard themselves against
material desires and be at peace with themselves in order to achieve happiness.
This is how the letter begins (Ep. 110.1):
Ex Nomentano meo te saluto et iubeo habere mentem bonam, hoc est

propitios deos omnis, quos habet placatos et faventes quisquis sibi se
propitiavit. Sepone in praesentia quae quibusdam placent, unicuique
nostrum paedagogum dari deum, non quidem ordinarium, sed hunc
inferioris notae ex eorum numero quos Ovidius ait ‘de plebe deos’. Ita
tamen hoc seponas volo ut memineris maiores nostros qui crediderunt
Stoicos fuisse; singulis enim et Genium et Iunonem dederunt.
I send you greetings from my place at Nomentum, and bid you enjoy
a sound mind, that is, the favor of all the gods, whom each man finds
appeased and favoring if he has first propitiated himself. For the time
being set aside the tales that some thinkers like, that a divine escort is
given to each of us, not an official one but one of lower rank such as Ovid
calls ‘gods from the common crowd’. I want you to set this aside while
keeping in mind that our ancestors who believed this were Stoics: indeed,
they gave a Genius and a Juno to each individual.
19 Cf. Ov. Met. 13.856–8: tibi enim succumbimus uni, |quique Iovem et caelum sperno et penetrabile
fulmen, |Nerei, te vereor, tua fulmine saevior ira est. ‘To you [sc. Galatea] alone I yield. I, who
despise Jove and his heaven and his thunderbolt, sweet Nereid, you I fear, your anger flames
more dreadful than his bolt’.
136

Once again Seneca cites a verse in his letter. He actually names his source—
Ovid—and expects Lucilius to locate the exact passage from which the quota-
tion is drawn. This is line 595 from the first book of the Metamorphoses,
from the story of Jupiter and Io. Let us have a close look at the part of the
Io-Jupiter story from which Seneca draws the quotation. Ovid writes about
Io’s first meeting with the god. Jupiter approaches Io and invites her to a
shady grove, reassuring her that she will enjoy the protection (praeside tuta
deo) not of a common, lesser god, but of the most potent of all gods20 (Ov.
Met. 1.587–600):
viderat a patrio redeuntem Iuppiter illam

flumine et ‘o virgo Iove digna tuoque beatum
nescio quem factura toro, pete’ dixerat ‘umbras 590
altorum nemorum’ (et nemorum monstraverat umbras)
‘dum calet, et medio sol est altissimus orbe!
quodsi sola times latebras intrare ferarum,
praeside tuta deo nemorum secreta subibis,
nec de plebe deo, sed qui caelestia magna 595
sceptra manu teneo, sed qui vaga fulmina mitto.
ne fuge me!’ fugiebat enim. iam pascua Lernae
consitaque arboribus Lyrcea reliquerat arva,
cum deus inducta latas caligine terras
occuluit tenuitque fugam rapuitque pudorem.
Io returning from her father’s stream had caught Jove’s eye. ‘You charming
girl’, he said, ‘well worthy of Jove’s love, happy is he, whoever he be, that
wins you for his bed. Go to the deep wood’s shade’—he pointed to the
shady wood—‘the hour is hot; the sun shines in his zenith. If you fear
alone to risk the wild beasts’ lairs, a god will guard you and in the deepest
forest keep you safe—no common god! The scepter of the sky is mine to
hold in my almighty hand; I wield at will the roaming thunderbolts—no,
do not run!’ For now the girl had run; through Lerna’s meadows and the
forest lands of high Lyrceus she sped until the god drew down a veil of
darkness to conceal the world and stayed her flight and ravished her.
The identification, however, of the quotation is not an end in itself. The question
arises again: what is the role of this Ovidian quotation in this part of Seneca’s
letter to Lucilius? Is this a casual quotation without further ramifications? Is this
20 The term praeses is applied to tutelary gods (OLD s.v. 2) and frequently denotes a guardian
god (OLD s.v. 1). It corresponds to the protective daemon that each man supposedly has. The
Stoics accepted the existence of such δαίμονες (lesser deities or semi-divine beings not given
the full rank of gods), who protected men and watched over human affairs. See Diog. Laert.
7.151, Plin. HN 2.16, Costa 1988 on Sen. Ep. 12.2 and 110.1, Algra 2003, 171f., Graver/Long
2015 on Sen. Ep. 110.1.
137

a simple demonstration of Senecan erudition or should we read something more
into it? What is the point of evoking Io’s love affair with Jupiter in a letter that
has absolutely no erotic content whatsoever?
An initial observation: at first sight, this Ovidian quotation by Seneca
is unnecessary. One would not really feel that something was missing, if this
quotation was not there. This makes it even more possible that Seneca put it
there—very early in the letter—for a reason. In fact, it is ironic that whereas
Seneca urges Lucilius to ‘set aside the tales that some thinkers like’ (Sepone in
praesentia quae quibusdam placent), a few lines later he cites a line from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, a poem famous for its tales. He did a similar thing in Ep.
33: while rejecting other people’s habit of citing mottoes, he himself cited a line
from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Seneca wants Lucilius (and his external readers) to go back to the source
of the quotation and look for similarities and analogies. He wishes to turn his
readers’ attention to the intertext right from the start and make them look there
for the proper connections. A close, comparative reading of the Io story and
Seneca’s Ep. 110 brings forward numerous points of contact. Seneca was well
acquainted with the cult of Io-Isis. He spent some time in Egypt in order to cure
a severe illness when his uncle, Gaius Galerius, was prefect there. In fact, Seneca
wrote about Egypt and its cults in his treatise De situ et sacris Aegyptiorum,
which is now lost. Furthermore, the Ovidian story of Io—in which Juno plays
such an important part—fits perfectly well with Seneca’s mention of Juno res-
iding in each woman (singulis enim et Genium et Iunonem dederunt).
Immediately after this Ovidian quotation, in the second paragraph of
the letter (110.2) Seneca raises the question if the gods have so much free
time to deal with the affairs of men: postea videbimus an tantum dis vacet ut
privatorum negotia procurent (‘Next we will consider whether the gods have so
much leisure that they can look after the affairs of private citizens’). A percep-
tive reader, who brings to mind the Ovidian intertext, will surely notice that
Jupiter did what he did to Io, exactly because he had ample free time to come
down to earth from Olympus; and so did Juno right after him.
Seneca continues in the same paragraph (110.2): interim illud scito, sive
adsignati sumus sive neglecti et fortunae dati, nulli te posse inprecari quicquam
gravius quam si inprecatus fueris ut se habeat iratum (‘meantime, be sure of this,
that whether we are allocated to their care or neglected and left to fortune, you
can wish no worse curse on any man than if you curse him with suffering his
own hostility’). This is exactly what happened to Io in the Metamorphoses: she
was abandoned by Jupiter and she suffered badly—though not because of her
own hostility. Only after Io’s many wanderings and hardships did Jupiter pity
and help her.21 In Seneca’s words (110.2): sed non est quare cuiquam quem
poena putaveris dignum optes ut infestos deos habeat: habet, inquam, etiam
21 Ov. Met. 1.668–9: nec superum rector mala tanta Phoronidos ultra |ferre potest natumque
vocat. Cf. Io’s supplication to Jupiter to put an end to her sufferings (Met. 1.733): cum Iove
visa queri finemque orare malorum.
138

si videtur eorum favore produci (‘But there is no reason to wish that anyone
whom you think deserves punishment should have the gods against him. He
has, I tell you, even if he seems to be escorted by their favor’). Again, this is
exactly the case with Io in the Metamorphoses: although initially she enjoyed
Jupiter’s favor, then she suffered badly.22
The Ovidian story of Io continues to be at the back of Seneca’s mind in the
next paragraph of the letter (Ep. 110.3):
Quotiens enim felicitatis et causa et initium fuit quod calamitas vocabatur!

quotiens magna gratulatione excepta res gradum sibi struxit in praeceps
et aliquem iam eminentem adlevavit etiamnunc, tamquam adhuc ibi
staret unde tuto cadunt!
How often something that was at first called a blow has proved the origin
and beginning of good fortune! How often an affair welcomed with great
congratulation has built steps up to a precipice and raised further to this
point someone already distinguished, as if he was still standing where a
fall can be safe.
The story of Io fits both cases: on the one hand, her affair with Jupiter—
which can surely be taken as good fortune—caused her significant hardships
and misery; on the other, her sufferings eventually came to an end and she
became a goddess.
Seneca then moves on to discuss the hope and fear of men. He urges
Lucilius to compress both what gives him joy and what gives him fear (110.4).
Quoting Lucretius (110.6: quid ergo? non omni puero stultiores sumus qui in
luce timemus? ‘Well then! Aren’t we more stupid than any child, to fear in the
light?’). Seneca claims that there is absolutely no reason for men to fear any-
thing. The solution that he proposes (110.8) for the redemption of men from
the dark is none other than providentia:
sed lucescere, si velimus, potest. uno autem modo potest, si quis hanc
humanorum divinorumque notitiam [scientia] acceperit, si illa se non
perfuderit sed infecerit, si eadem, quamvis sciat, retractaverit et ad se
saepe rettulerit, si quaesierit quae sint bona, quae mala, quibus hoc falso
sit nomen adscriptum, si quaesierit de honestis et turpibus, de providentia.
But the dawn can come, if we only want. There is only one way it can
happen: if a man takes in this knowledge of things human and divine,
and does not just sprinkle it over himself but steeps himself in it; if he
goes over the same things repeatedly, although he knows them and refers
them to himself; if he seeks to know what things are good and what bad,
22 At De providentia [1]‌.4.7 Seneca argues that Fortune puts the good men to the test, not the bad
ones. Also ([1].3.9) that Fortuna wants to prostrate and annihilate her victims, but she only
succeeds in making them better and in offering them as a paradigm of virtue to be admired.
139

the things to which this name is falsely assigned; if he inquires into things
honorable and shameful; if he inquires into providence.
This is where Seneca’s letter and its Ovidian intertext come really close.
First, in the story of Io light and darkness play a significant part. Jupiter
appears at high noon (dum calet, et medio sol est altissimus orbe 592) and asks
Io to seek for shelter in a shady grove (nemorum secreta 594), away from the
heat and the light. He promises that she will be safe in there, because she will
be accompanied by a praeses deus (praeside tuta deo 594). Then, Jupiter covers
the area in a caligo (599) and rapes her. This raises Juno’s suspicions, when
she notices the clouds that created the sensation of the night in the middle of
the day (interea medios Iuno despexit in Argos |et noctis faciem nebulas fecisse
volucres |sub nitido mirata die 601–3).23
Seneca’s emphasis on the need for providentia is even more important for
the association of Ep. 110 with this particular Ovidian intertext. Io-Isis as
a supreme force ruling the Universe, like Fate and Nature,24 is very closely
associated with providentia; Isis had a certain appeal to the Stoics—among
others—because Providence was an important concept in Stoic teaching, and
the Stoics were the true advocates of Πρόνοια in philosophical literature.25 The
association of Providentia with Isis is found mainly in Apuleius,26 in book 11
of the Metamorphoses, in which providentia is one of the main characteristics
of the goddess.27
23 On the contrast between light and darkness in the story of Io cf. also Ovid’s address to the
dead Argos (Met. 1.720–1): Arge, iaces, quodque in tot lumina lumen habebas, |exstinctum
est, centumque oculos nox occupat una. ‘Argus, you lie dead, and that light which you used
to have for so many eyes, has been put out: one night has taken complete control over a
hundred eyes’.
24 On πρόνοια-providentia, see Sharples 1987, esp. 1216–8; Dragona-Monachou 1994; Ferrari
1999; Graverini 2012, 99–102. Cf. e.g., Cic. Div. 1.117: esse deos, et eorum providentia mundum
administrari, eosdemque consulere rebus humanis, nec solum universis, verum etiam singulis;
Plin. Paneg. 10.4: Iam te providentia deorum primum in locum provexerat; Sen. NQ 2.45.2: Vis
illum [scil. Iovem] fatum vocare, non errabis; hic est ex quo suspensa sunt omnia, causa causarum.
Vis illum providentiam dicere, recte dices; est enim cuius consilio huic mundo providetur, ut
inoffensus exeat et actus suos explicet. Vis illum naturam vocare, non peccabis; hic est ex quo
nata sunt omnia, cuius spiritu vivimus; Gell. Noct. Att. 7.1.7: providentia, quae compagem hanc
mundi fecit. See ThLL X.2 2320,46–2321,16 s.v. providentia.
25 Graverini 2012, 99. Several Stoics (Chrysippus, Panaetius, Seneca, Epictetus) wrote treatises
De providentia.
26 On Seneca as a model for Apuleius’ philosophical works, see Harrison 2000, 166f.; Harrison/
Hilton/Hunink 2001, 189 with n. 14, 193, and 213f. nn. 72 and 75 (on Socr. 21, 168 and
22–23,  172).
27 Graverini 2012, 97 claims that such a strong and sustained connection between Isis and
Providence can only be found in Apuleius and is unprecedented in previous literature, how-
ever, he admits that (p. 97f.) ‘even if it is an innovation, it is clearly not a revolutionary one’,
because ‘Isis is commonly identified with Felicitas or Fortuna, and Felicitas especially (which
properly means God’s protection) is extremely close to the idea of Providentia’. On the asso-
ciation of Isis with providentia in book 11 of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, see also Finkelpearl
140

A bit further down in Ep. 110 Io returns, indirectly, to the mind of the
informed reader, who continues to follow the Ovidian parallel intertext.
Referring to royal riches, Seneca claims that avoiding them is not to be
commended, because these riches are nothing but superfluities anyway. On
the other hand, the avoidance of really necessary things is certainly com-
mendable. In his argument Seneca refers to grass, tree leaves, and cattle (Ep.
110.12), which feature prominently in Io’s story in the Metamorphoses:
Non est autem quod te nimis laudes si contempseris aureos lectos et

gemmeam supellectilem; quae est enim virtus supervacua contemnere?
Tunc te admirare cum contempseris necessaria. Non magnam rem facis
quod vivere sine regio apparatu potes, quod non desideras milliarios apros
nec linguas phoenicopterorum et alia portenta luxuriae iam tota animalia
fastidientis et certa membra ex singulis eligentis: tunc te admirabor si
contempseris etiam sordidum panem, si tibi persuaseris herbam, ubi
necesse est, non pecori tantum sed homini nasci, si scieris cacumina
arborum explementum esse ventris in quem sic pretiosa congerimus
tamquam recepta servantem. Sine fastidio implendus est; quid enim ad
rem pertinet quid accipiat, perditurus quidquid acceperit?
Now you have no reason to praise yourself excessively for despising
golden couches and jeweled equipment: for what is the virtue in despising
superfluities? Admire yourself when you despise necessities. You are not
scoring any great achievement if you can live without a king’s equipment,
if you don’t hanker after wild boars weighing a thousand pounds or
the tongues of flamingoes and other monstrosities of a luxury that now
disdains complete animals and singles out specific parts from each var-
iety; but I will admire you when you despise even cheap bread, if you
persuade yourself that grass, when it is necessary, grew not just for cattle
but for humankind, if you know that the tips of trees can serve to fill the
belly into which we have heaped up such costly products.
After her transformation into a heifer, Ovid’s Io is forced to feed only on grass,
which she despises. Her life changes dramatically; she used to be a princess
living in riches, and she is now forced to eat grass and sleep in the mud (Met.
1.632–4): frondibus arboreis et amara pascitur herba. | proque toro terrae non
semper gramen habenti |incubat infelix limosaque flumina potat. She browsed
on leaves of trees and bitter weeds, and for her bed, poor thing, lay on the
ground, not always grassy, and drank the muddy streams.28 The significance
of Seneca’s Ovidian quotation at the beginning of Ep. 110 again re-emerges.
2012, 94 on Apul. Met. 11.1.2. On the association of Isis with Felicitas or Fortuna, see also
Allison 2006 for an early Empire amulet from the House of Menander in Pompeii linking
Fortuna to Isis, as Isis-Fortuna.
28 Cf. also Ov. Met. 1.645: decerptas senior porrexerat Inachus herbas. ‘Old Inachus picked grass
and held it out’.
141

To conclude:
I hope to have shown that the two Ovidian quotations in Seneca’s Ep. 33
and 110 are far from random or superfluous. They are not just a display of
Seneca’s erudition or casual learned references. They are important for the
whole letter and not just for the particular part of the letter in which they
are placed. Seneca requires Lucilius (and his external readers) to go back to
the source-texts, read them carefully and try to detect any possible under-
current links, similarities, and analogies. These Ovidian quotations come
with ramifications; they open a window for multiple and nuanced interpret-
ations of Seneca’s letters. They join the two texts together and open a dia-
logue between them. The Ovidian source text sheds light on Seneca’s letter,
strengthens its argumentation, without Seneca needing to refer to it con-
stantly. Seneca says little, but means a lot. In essence, via these quotations
Seneca attaches his letter with a parallel running commentary, so to speak,
which remains in the background. It is up to the reader to carry forward the
memory of the original text and make the proper associations. Understanding
the underlying associations with the source-texts of the quotation is a key to a
deeper understanding of Seneca’s ideas and arguments in his Letters.29
29 In the words of Ker 2015, 114 ‘Seneca’s quotations are often the tips of icebergs’.
142
6
The importance of collecting shells
Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 491
Francesca Romana Berno
1 Introduction: Epistle 49
Seneca’s Epistle 49 is a quite short letter, which fills only three pages in the
Oxford edition: nevertheless, it deals with key issues such as memory, poetry
and dialectic, and it contains a significant number of citations, plus, as we
will see, allusions. The main topics of this letter, and in particular the critic of
dialectic,2 were already present in Epistles 45 and 48: the critique of subtilitas
as rhetorical skill was already in Epistle 45 and 48; the paradox of the horned
man3 comes from Epistle 45, the employment of the rare term vafer/vafritia
for ‘cleverness’ from 48. So, the three letters have a sort of thematic unity,
in which Epistle 49 represents the final stage of Seneca’s considerations. My
aim in this chapter is to offer an analysis of this text from the point of view
of intertextuality: in other words, an interpretation based on citations and
allusions.
First, I will transcribe and briefly summarize the content and the struc-
ture of the letter; then, I will focus on the quotations, which are to be read,
in my opinion, as allusions to a Stoic image in the center of the text. My
point is that this image, where a man collects little things found on his way,
represents the interpretative key of the letter, in that it alludes to Aristo of
Chios. He was a Stoic (fl. 260 BCE), pupil of Zeno, and his views on key
theoretical issues of Stoic philosophy contributed significantly to the transi-
tion to the so-called Middle Stoa. Seneca quotes him several times, especially
in the Epistles.4 Apparently, Aristo was the first Stoic who tried to reform
the dialectic of his school, sharply criticizing syllogisms and paradoxes
while showing a charming force of persuasion (below, section 6). It is my
aim to show that Seneca’s statements against lyric poetry and a certain kind
1 I am truly grateful to Catharine Edwards for her carefully reading and editing of my English,
and to Francesco Caruso for some suggestions about Plato.
2 Wildberger 2006b, 137–52; Armisen-Marchetti 2009; Torre 2016.
3 On which, see Schulthess 1996; below, n. 22.
4 Ioppolo 1980; Porter 1996; Boeri- Salles 2014, 16; 539– 40; 558; 651–2; Ranocchia 2011;
Prost 2012.
143
Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 143

of dialectic in Epistle 49 could reasonably have been inspired by Aristo, and
represent Seneca’s personal reading of this philosopher:
Sen. Ep. 49
1. Est quidem, mi Lucili, supinus et neglegens qui in amici memoriam ab
aliqua regione admonitus reducitur; tamen repositum in animo nostro
desiderium loca interdum familiaria evocant, nec extinctam memoriam
reddunt sed quiescentem inritant, sicut dolorem lugentium, etiam si
mitigatus est tempore, aut servulus familiaris amisso aut vestis aut domus
renovat. Ecce Campania et maxime Neapolis ac Pompeiorum tuorum
conspectus incredibile est quam recens desiderium tui fecerint: totus mihi
in oculis es. Cum maxime a te discedo; video lacrimas conbibentem et
adfectibus tuis inter ipsam coercitionem exeuntibus non satis resistentem.
2. Modo amisisse te videor; quid enim non ‘modo’ est, si recorderis? Modo
apud Sotionem philosophum puer sedi, modo causas agere coepi, modo
desii velle agere, modo desii posse. Infinita est velocitas temporis, quae
magis apparet respicientibus. … 4. Modo te prosecutus sum; et tamen
hoc ‘modo’ aetatis nostrae bona portio est, cuius brevitatem aliquando
defecturam cogitemus. Non solebat mihi tam velox tempus videri: nunc
incredibilis cursus apparet, sive quia admoveri lineas sentio, sive quia
adtendere coepi et conputare damnum meum. 5. Eo magis itaque indignor
aliquos ex hoc tempore quod sufficere ne ad necessaria quidem potest,
etiam si custoditum diligentissime fuerit, in supervacua maiorem partem
erogare. Negat Cicero, si duplicetur sibi aetas, habiturum se tempus quo
legat lyricos: eodem loco <pono> dialecticos: tristius inepti sunt. Illi ex
professo lasciviunt, hi agere ipsos aliquid existimant. 6. Nec ego nego
prospicienda ista, sed prospicienda tantum et a limine salutanda, in hoc
unum, ne verba nobis dentur et aliquid esse in illis magni ac secreti boni
iudicemus. Quid te torques et maceras in ea quaestione quam subtilius
est contempsisse quam solvere? Securi est et ex commodo migrantis
minuta conquirere: cum hostis instat a tergo et movere se iussus est miles,
necessitas excutit quidquid pax otiosa collegerat. 7. Non vacat mihi verba
dubie cadentia consectari et vafritiam in illis meam experiri.
Aspice qui coeant populi, quae moenia clusis
ferrum acuant portis.
Magno mihi animo strepitus iste belli circumsonantis exaudiendus est.
8. Demens omnibus merito viderer, si cum saxa in munimentum murorum
senes feminaeque congererent, cum iuventus intra portas armata signum
eruptionis expectaret aut posceret, cum hostilia in portis tela vibrarent
et ipsum solum suffossionibus et cuniculis tremeret, sederem otiosus et
eiusmodi quaestiunculas ponens: ‘quod non perdidisti habes; cornua autem
non perdidisti; cornua ergo habes’ aliaque ad exemplum huius acutae
delirationis concinnata. 9. Atqui aeque licet tibi demens videar si istis
inpendero operam: et nunc obsideor. Tunc tamen periculum mihi obsesso
externum inmineret, murus me ab hoste secerneret: nunc mortifera mecum
144
144 Francesca Romana Berno

sunt. Non vaco ad istas ineptias; ingens negotium in manibus est. Quid
agam? mors me sequitur, fugit vita. 10. Adversus haec me doce aliquid;
effice ut ego mortem non fugiam, vita me non effugiat. … 11. … Erras, si in
navigatione tantum existimas minimum esse quo <a> morte vita diducitur;
in omni loco aeque tenue intervallum est. Non ubique se mors tam prope
ostendit: ubique tam prope est. Has tenebras discute, et facilius ea trades
ad quae praeparatus sum… 12. De iustitia mihi, de pietate disputa, de
frugalitate, de pudicitia… Si me nolueris per devia ducere, facilius ad id
quo tendo perveniam; nam, ut ait ille tragicus, ‘veritatis simplex oratio est’,
ideoque illam inplicari non oportet; nec enim quicquam minus convenit
quam subdola ista calliditas animis magna conantibus. Vale.
1. A man is indeed lazy and careless, my dear Lucilius, if he is reminded

of a friend only by seeing some landscape which stirs the memory; and
yet there are times when the old familiar haunts stir up a sense of loss that
has been stored away in the soul, not bringing back dead memories, but
rousing them from their dormant state, just as the sight of a lost friend’s
favorite slave, or his cloak, or his house, renews the mourner’s grief, even
though it has been softened by time.
Now, lo and behold, Campania, and especially Naples and your
beloved Pompeii, struck me, when I viewed them, with a wonderfully
fresh sense of longing for you. You stand in full view before my eyes. I am
on the point of parting from you. I see you choking down your tears and
resisting without success the emotions that well up at the very moment
when you try to check them. 2. I seem to have lost you but a moment ago.
For what is not ‘but a moment ago’ when one begins to use the memory?
It was but a moment ago that I sat, as a lad, in the school of the philoso-
pher Sotion, but a moment ago that I began to plead in the courts, but a
moment ago that I lost the desire to plead, but a moment ago that I lost
the ability. Infinitely swift is the flight of time, as those see more clearly
who are looking backwards. … 4. It was but a moment ago that I saw
you off on your journey; and yet this ‘moment ago’ makes up a goodly
share of our existence, which is so brief, we should reflect, that it will soon
come to an end altogether. In other years, time did not seem to me to go
so swiftly; now, it seems fast beyond belief, perhaps because I feel that the
finish-line is moving closer to me, or it may be that I have begun to take
heed and reckon up my losses.
5. For this reason I am all the more angry that some men claim the major
portion of this time for superfluous thing,—time which, no matter how
carefully it is guarded, cannot suffice even for necessary things. Cicero
declared that if the number of his days were doubled, he should not have
time to read the lyric poets. And you may rate the dialecticians in the
same class; but they are foolish in a more melancholy way. The lyric poets
are avowedly frivolous; but the dialecticians believe that they are them-
selves engaged upon serious business. 6. I do not deny that one must cast
145

a glance at dialectic; but it ought to be a mere glance, a sort of greeting
from the threshold, merely that one may not be deceived, or judge these
pursuits to contain any riddle matters of great worth.
Why do you torment yourself and lose weight over some problem
which is more clever to have scorned than to solve? When a soldier is
undisturbed and traveling at ease, he can hunt for trifles along his way;
but when the enemy is closing in on the rear, and a command is given to
quicken the pace, necessity makes him throw away everything which he
picked up in moments of peace and leisure. 7. I have no time to investigate
disputed inflections of words, or to try my cunning upon them.
‘behold the gathering clans, the fast-shut gates,
and weapons whetted ready for the war’.
8. I need a stout heart to hear without flinching this din of a battle
which sounds round about. And all would rightly think me mad if, when
greybeards and women were heaping up rocks for the fortifications,
when the armor-clad youths inside the gates were awaiting, or even
demanding, the order for a sally, when the spears of the foemen were
quivering in our gates and the very ground was rocking with mines
and subterranean passages,—I say, they would rightly think me mad if
I were to sit idle, putting such petty posers as this: ‘What you have not
lost, you have. But you have not lost any horns. Therefore, you have
horns’. Or other tricks constructed after the model of this piece of
steer silliness. 9. And yet I may well seem in your eyes no less mad, if
I spend my energies on that sort of thing; for even now I am in a state
of siege. And yet, in the former case it would be merely a peril from
the outside that threatened me, and a wall that sundered me from the
foe; a sit is now, death-dealing perils are in my very presence. I have
no time for such nonsense; mighty undertaking is on my hands. What
am I to do? Death is on my trail, and life is fleeting away; 10. Teach
me something with which to face these troubles. Bring it to pass that
I shall cease trying to escape from death, and that life might cease to
escape from me. … 11. … You are mistaken if you think that only on
an ocean voyage there is a slightly space between life and death. No,
the distance between is just narrow everywhere. It is not everywhere
that death shows himself so near at hand: yet everywhere he is as near
at hand.
Rid me of these shadowy terrors; then you will more easily deliver to
me the instruction for which I have prepared myself. … 12. Discuss for me
justice, duty, thrift, and purity… If you will only refuse to lead me along
by-paths, I shall more easily reach the goal at which I am aiming. For, as
the tragic poet says:
‘The language of truth is simple’.
We should not, therefore, make that language intricate; since there is
nothing less fitting for a soul of great endeavor than such crafty cleverness.
(Transl. Gummere 1917)
146

Let us start from an abstract of the letter. Epistle 49, as it is usually the
case in Seneca’s epistles, opens with a biographical episode, that of the separ-
ation of Seneca from his dearest friend Lucilius (we can guess, because of his
departure for Sicily where he held the office of procurator). This memory is
renewed by the sight of Naples and Pompeii, place of birth of the addressee
of the letters. The scene is rich in pathetic details, with Lucilius weeping des-
pite his efforts to hold back tears, and it is described in terms of a discidium,
such as the parting of lovers (§ 1).
Section 2 shifts to philosophy: from the idea of ‘memory’ Seneca extracts
a general reflection on time and its quick passing, based on the idea of ‘a
while ago’ (modo) which can be applied both to recent facts and to distant
memories because of the brevity of a man’s life (§§ 2–4). Then, the philoso-
pher starts to criticize anything which involves wasting time, focusing on lyric
poetry and, most of all, dialectic. Here we find a quotation from Cicero (§ 5).
The examples which follow refer to military imagery,5 with a citation from
the Aeneid and the scene of a siege where everyone does his best to rescue the
others, except for an idle philosopher who remains seated and meditating on
dialectic paradoxes (§§ 6–8). Our daily situation is not different from that of
a war: death is looming over us. Accordingly, we should not lose time with
wordplays. We need a clear, simple, direct exhortation against the fear of
death. This final consideration is supported by the translation of a sentence
from Euripides (§§ 10–12).
The structure of the Epistle may be described as follows: § 1: introduction-
autobiographical episode (themes: memory, friendship/tears); §§ 2–4: argu-
mentative section, I (theme: the brevity of life/rapidity/life as a narrow
space); §§ 5–6 and 7–9 argumentative section, II (against lyric poetry and
dialectic/
military imagery: siege, pursuit); §§ 10– 2 conclusion- parenetic
section (what really works against the fear of death/making life a bigger
space/the path towards virtue). The individual links between the sections
are evident: the vividness of distant memories suggests the brevity of life, in
that all of our past lies at the same depth of our consciousness. In turn, the
brevity of life suggests the necessity of avoiding useless occupations, such
as reading lyric poetry and dialectic works. Finally, the pars construens: the
philosopher suggests the authentic way to make someone’s life long, that
is, by learning real philosophy, not philosophy based on wordplay, but one
grounded in virtues. From a lexical point of view, apart from the semantic
field of brevity in the first part, the letter is characterized by the opposition
between uselessness, laziness, waste of time on one side (supervacua, inepti,
lasciviunt § 5, minuta conquirere, pax otiosa, vacat § 6; sederem otiosus, § 8,
vaco, ineptias § 9), which define the cleverness of connecting words (dubie
cadentia, vafritia etc. § 7, per devia, inplicari, subdola calliditas § 12), and use-
fulness, urgency, necessity on the other (necessaria § 5, instat, necessitas § 6,
5 On the relevance in Senecan prose writings, see Lavery 1980; Cermatori 2014. A context very
similar to that of Letter 49 is to be found in Ep. 82.21–2 (Armisen-Marchetti 2009, 178–83).
147

magno animo § 7, ingens negotium § 9, magna conantibus § 12) which describe
the simple exhortation to fight against the fear of death. To the first field
corresponds the habit of the fools (demens § 8–9, deliratio § 8); to the second,
that of the sage.
Despite its declarations against stylistic complexity, the text is enriched by
three citations: in § 5, we find the quotation from Cicero against lyrics, pre-
sumably from his lost protreptic work Hortensius; in § 7, a Vergilian citation
from Aeneid book 8; in § 12, a quotation from Euripides rendered in Latin.
The total includes two poetic quotations (epic and tragedy), and one prose
quotation (a philosophical essay); two come from Latin authors, one from a
Greek work. Even more amazing is the web of allusions intertwined with the
citations. Let us follow the narrative of the letter and identify these quotations
one by one.
2 An elegiac opening (Ep.  49.1–2)

In the first section, the milieu is that of an elegiac poem:6 the emotional power
of memory, the separation of dear friends for a long time, tears uselessly
restrained. It is not surprising that we find some peculiar poetic allusions.
First, the expression dolorem… renovat, referring to things which recall the
memory of our lost beloved ones, clearly alludes to Aen. 2.3, Infandum, regina,
iubes renovare dolorem, ‘Too deep for words, O queen, is the grief you bid me
renew’ (transl. Goold 1999), words pronounced by Aeneas and directed to
Dido, while recalling the end of Troy.7 In the same first section the image of
things that previously belonged to a beloved one who has passed away and
renew the grief for his loss, may recall a Platonic image where the subject is
the lover: ‘Well, you know what happens to lovers, whenever they see a lyre or
cloak or anything else their loves are accustomed to use: … they get in their
mind, don’t they, the form of the boy whose lyre it is?’ (Phaedo 73d; transl.
Gallop 1980).
Lucilius is unable to hold back his tears: video lacrimas conbibentem (Sen.
Ep. 49.1 ‘I see you choking down your tears’). We can find parallels for this
image only in Ovid, in three different passages about grief, sorrow and pain.8
Two additional passages from the Tristia exhibit the same situation of separ-
ation from a dear friend observed in Seneca’s opening (3.5.1–16; 3.4a.37–40;
here the verb is simple, bibo). In 3.4a the overlap is striking:
6 Russo 2013.
7 This same expression will be used by Plin. Ep. 6.10.1 in a similar context.
8 Ov. Ars am. 2.325-6: et videat flentem, nec taedeat oscula ferre | et sicco lacrimas conbibat ore
tuas (grief: ‘And let her see you weeping, and be not weary of living her kisses’; transl. Mozley
1979); Ep. 15.150: grata prius lacrimas conbibit herba meas (sorrow: Sappho about Phaon ‘the
grass I once found gracious has drunk my tears’; transl. Showerman 1977). For conbibo in an
auto-referential sense Ep. 11.54: et cogor lacrimas conbibere ipsa meas ‘and force myself to
drink my very tears’. See also Prop. 4.11.6.
148

Vidi ego te tali vultu mea fata gementem
qualem credibile est ore fuisse meo.
nostra tuas vidi lacrimas super ora cadentes
tempore quas uno fidaque verba bibi.
(Ov. Tr. 3.4a.37–40)
I saw thee lamenting my fate with such a look as I think my own face must
have borne. I saw thy tears fall upon my face, tears that I drank in with
thy words of loyalty.
(Transl. A. L. Wheeler 1988)
The pervasiveness of elegiac memories in this opening can be explained

by the sincere love that Seneca felt for his friend,9 and the sorrow Lucilius
expressed for Seneca’s departure. As these feelings are typical of an elegiac
mood, the elegiac tone is naturally prompted by the context. We also know
from Seneca’s NQ that Lucilius had a poetic preference for Ovid (NQ 4A 2.2),
which suggests that he would appreciate Ovidian echoes. Even so, this poetic
attitude admittedly contrasts sharply with the criticism of lyric poetry which
follows immediately after.
3 The first quotation: Cicero against lyric poetry (Ep. 49.5)

The first quotation of the letter is set in section 5: Negat Cicero, si duplicetur
sibi aetas, habiturum se tempus quo legat lyricos ‘Cicero declared that if the
number of his days were doubled, he should not have time to read the lyric
poets’. The passage quoted by Seneca represents one of the few occasions in
the Epistulae in which the philosopher explicitly quotes a prose work (with
the exception of Epicurus’ sentences); the author is Cicero: Seneca criticizes
him for his political choices and also for his style in the letters, nonethe-
less this criticism shows that he knows Cicero’s philosophical works well.10
The passage against lyric poetry is linked to Cicero’s well-known polemic
against the poetae novi, which is provisionally attributed to Cicero’s lost
work Hortensius (12 Grilli).11 The knowing reader observes that it resembles
another passage, the opening of Cicero, Tusc. 2.27: sed videsne poetae quid
9 On this peculiar kind of friendship, see Wildberger 2018a, esp. 404–9; cf. Schönegg 1999, 33–9;
Wilcox 2012, 115–31. For the wider context of love and passion, see Gill 1997; Inwood 1997.
10 See e.g., Ep. 21.5; 86; 100.9; 118. For an overview on Seneca and Cicero, see Setaioli 2003. For
Seneca’s judgment on lyric poetry, see Mazzoli 1970, 209–11.
11 Grilli 2010, 35 ad loc. and 135. Grilli rightly points out that the Senecan expression is too
harsh: this suggests that the phrase in question is probably a paraphrase, or—in Grilli’s
opinion—that it expresses the thought of Lucullus, a military man with a rough way of
speaking, who was one of the characters of the dialogue. Cf. Stramme/Zimmermann 1976,
88; also Ruch 1958, 74, who maintains that the quotation fits better Hortensius than Rep. 4.9;
and Plasberg 1892, 27–9. About Cicero and lyric poetry, see Alfonsi 1960, 170–7; Watson
1982, 93–110; Lomanto 1998; Spahlinger 2005, 248–53.
149

mali adferant?, ‘But do you note the harm which poets do?’ (Transl. King
1971). In this section Cicero explicitly alludes to Plato’s criticism of poetry in
the Republic:12
Recte igitur a Platone eiciuntur ex ea civitate quam finxit ille, cum optimos
mores et optimum rei p. statum exquireret. (Tusc. 2.27)
Plato was right, then, in turning them out of his imaginary state, when
he was trying to find the highest morality and the best conditions for the
community.
(Transl. King 1971)
In Plato’s original (Rep. 3.398a–b), the philosopher does not censure poetry
tout court, but only that poetry which ‘imitates everything’ (μιμεῖσθαι πάντα).
The other kind, that which ‘imitates the expressions of honest men’13 (ὃς ἡμῖν
τὴν τοῦ ἐπιεικοῦς λέξιν μιμοῖτο), is granted a place in his ideal land. In short,
there are two kinds of poetry: a bad one, which is useless or dangerous, and
a good one, which leads men towards sanctity. It is impossible to prove that
Seneca is alluding to this passage in Ep. 49, but is probable to argue that some-
thing similar to what Plato says of poetry can be said of philosophy from
Seneca’s point of view. In fact, in this letter, where the philosopher introduces
a clear analogy between lyric poetry on one side, and dialectic on the other,
he also maintains that there is a useless philosophy which is focused on lin-
guistic paradoxes and wordplays, and a useful one which can lead us to true
happiness. We can find a more precise correspondence with Seneca’s reasoning
in another Platonic dialogue, Gorgias. Here, Socrates distinguishes different
industries, ‘some of which extend only to pleasure (ἡδονή), procuring that and
no more, and ignorant of better and worse; while others know what is good
(ἀγαθόν) and what bad (κακόν)’ (Grg. 500b, transl. Lamb 1967). Rhetoric
(ῥητορική, 500c), but also flute-playing (500d), dithyrambic compositions,
choral production, harp-playing (501e–502a), tragic poetry (502b), or even
poetry in general14 (502c) belong, in Socrates’ opinion, to the first group;
philosophy to the second (500c). Oratory in particular aims only at flattering
and gratifying their audience (κολακεία, χαρίζεσθαι), not at making them
better (βελτίοι, 502e–503a); on the contrary, a good rhetoric, which evidently
coincides with philosophy, directs listeners to justice and become virtuous
(δικαιοσύνη… καὶ ἡ ἄλλη ἀρετὴ ἐγγίγνηται, 504e).15 The context (public
12 Moretti 1995, 31. A whole section of Plato’s Republic is devoted to the criticism of poetry
(2.377d–398b), first with regards to contents, then to style. About the problematic relationship
between Plato and poetry, see Naddaff 2002. About ‘good’ rhetoric cf. Phdr. 261a; 270b–d.
13 Trans. Emlyn-Jones 2013.
14 The comparison between oratory and poetry is evident: Poetry is a kind of ‘public speaking’
(δημηγορία, Grg. 502c).
15 There is also a possible allusion to Plato near the end of the letter (Ep. 49.12): the exhortation
to deal with justice, duty, thrift, purity, maybe echoes the conclusion to Plato’s Phaedrus,
150

speaking/personal philosophical training), the imagery (medicine/war) and
the peculiar target of the critics (sophistic/dialectic philosophers) are different
in Plato and Seneca; but the basic idea is the same.
4 The second quotation: Vergil, or the philosopher against the rest

of the world (Ep. 49.7)
The distinction between a good and a bad way of leading a philosophical
life is developed and clarified in the Vergilian quotation as in Ep. 49.7—an
example of serious poetry used for a good cause.16 In fact, the lines from the
Aeneid are quoted to exemplify an attitude which is the opposite of vafritia,
the ability to connect words in a peculiar way.17 As seen earlier, Seneca inserted
at the opening of Epistle 49 a Vergilian echo from an emotional episode, the
opening of Aeneas’ narration of the end of Troy. A few sections later, at
Ep. 49.7, he quotes Vergil again, borrowing this time two verses from book 8,
a book Seneca does not usually quote:18
Aspice qui coeant populi, quae moenia clusis |ferrum acuant portis (Aen.
8.385–6)
see what nations are mustering, what cities with closed gates whet
the sword… (Transl. Fairclough 2000)
The lines talk about enemies at the doors, angst, fear; once set in context,
however, they come from a scene of seduction.19 Venus is trying to convince
Vulcan to make divine weapons for Aeneas—the fruit of her adultery. And she
succeeds. The quoted couplet is the only section that deals with war in an epi-
sode dominated by love and tenderness. Seneca, one might say, reaches out for
where Socrates considers worthy of philosophers only speeches which deal with the right,
the good and the beautiful, and excludes from philosophy speeches made only of wordplays
(Phdr. 276e; 278d–e).
16 On this topic in general, see Setaioli 1965; Mazzoli 1970, 215–32; Berno 2012a; Papaioannou
in this volume.
17 The only known recurrence of this abstract noun before Seneca is in Valerius Maximus, in
a passage where vafritia, ‘craftiness’, is only a step away from sapientia: 7.3. Pr. 1: Est aliud
factorum dictorumque genus, a sapientia proximo deflexu ad vafritiae nomen progressum, quod,
nisi fallacia vires adsumpsit, finem propositi non invenit laudemque occulto magis tramite quam
aperta via petit (‘There is another kind of deeds and sayings, advanced to the title of crafti-
ness by the slightest turn from wisdom. This does not succeed, unless deceit will have added
its strength. It seeks praise more greatly by a secret path than by an open road’. Transl. E. L.
Wheeler 1988). The chapter in question is entitled Vafre dicta aut facta. The term vafritia is
effectively a conjecture by Vorst from a script vafriae, of uncertain meaning (see Briscoe 1998
ad loc.). This attitude is assessed positively or negatively, depending on its consequences: if the
deception implies something good for the fatherland, then the vafritia was good. Seneca does
not agree with this common way of thinking.
18 Only nine quotations from a total of 11 lines (Mazzoli 1970, 231).
19 Setaioli 1965, 141.
151

another ‘elegiac’ context, not least a scene that excludes all mention to Aeneas
and his heroism—a passage whose provenance not many readers would readily
identify. Yet, Seneca ignores all these considerations as he chooses to excerpt
just these two lines. Far more fitting in the Senecan context at hand would be
other lines, such as those from book 10 (Verg. Aen. 9.505–6):
Adcelerant acta partier testudine Volsci

et fossas implore parant ac vellere vallum.
Forth the Volscians speed in even line, driving on their roof of shields,
and prepare to fill the moat and pull down the palisade.
(Transl. Fairclough 2000)
from a section that describes the Trojans defending their walls, which is the
image that Seneca uses to comment on the citation. We could assume that
Seneca may have preferred to quote the passage from book 8 because it names
no enemies, which makes it easier to identify them with abstract entities such
as death. It is also likely that he chose those verses because their ‘elegiac’
context created an aesthetic link with the opening. Even more probable, how-
ever, is that he quoted the couplet from memory without having in mind the
broader context of Vulcan’s seduction.
The philosopher extracts from the citation the explicitly quoted themes of
angst, enemies and fear, and opportunely discusses them in depth in his com-
mentary (Ep. 49.8):
Demens omnibus merito viderer, si cum saxa in munimentum murorum

senes feminaeque congererent, cum iuventus intra portas armata signum
eruptionis expectaret aut posceret, cum hostilia in portis tela vibrarent
et ipsum solum suffossionibus et cuniculis tremeret, sederem otiosus et
eiusmodi quaestiunculas ponens: ‘quod non perdidisti habes; cornua
autem non perdidisti; cornua ergo habes’ aliaque ad exemplum huius
acutae delirationis concinnata.
I need a stout heart to hear without flinching this din of a battle which
sounds round about. And all would rightly think me mad if, when
greybeards and women were heaping up rocks for the fortifications, when
the armor-clad youths inside the gates were awaiting, or even demanding,
the order for a sally, when the spears of the foemen were quivering in
our gates and the very ground was rocking with mines and subterranean
passages,—I say, they would rightly think me mad if I were to sit idle,
putting such petty posers as this: ‘What you have not lost, you have. But
you have not lost any horns. Therefore, you have horns. Or other tricks
constructed after the model of this piece of steer silliness’.
In this case Seneca reverts to epic poetry to exhort the reader in a definitely
epic way, as if he were leaving for a war, or even fighting in an actual war. The
152

author amplifies emotionally the battle image: his first sentence (Magno mihi
animo strepitus iste belli circumsonantis exaudiendus est ‘I need a stout heart
to hear without flinching this din of a battle which sounds round about’ Ep.
49.8) recalls the final image of Turnus’ aristeia in the Aeneid (9.808–9: strepit
adsiduo cava tempora circum |tinnitus galea et saxis solida aera fatiscunt
‘Round his hollow temples the helmet echoes with ceaseless clash; the solid
brass gapes beneath the rain of stones’), when the young warrior is described
at the extreme point of resistance to his enemies’ attack. Turnus decides to run
away; on the contrary, the philosopher has to stay and fight to death.
Seneca goes on to add technical terms and descriptions referring to sieges,
such as eruptio (sally), saxa congerere (to heap up rocks), suffossiones (mines)
and cuniculi (subterranean passages),20 and portrays not only brave warriors
in frenzy hardly restraining themselves at the expectation of the battle signal,
but also people of all ages, including old people, women and children, partici-
pating in the defensive works. The accumulation of visual elements, stressed
by the repetition of cum, is balanced by the auditory indications of the enemy
getting nearer and nearer, from all directions, both horizontal, trying to break
the doors down, and vertical, digging subterranean tunnels. The same choice
of summoning visual and auditory elements in describing battles goes back to
Homeric epic. Τhis scene of angst, fear and expectation, dominated by frantic
movements and threatening sounds, radically contrasts the image of the so-
called ‘philosopher’, sitting idly (sederem otiosus), lost inside a world made by
useless wordplays. This is the negative counterpart of the famous Lucretian
image of the sage who watches a shipwreck from the reassuringly dry land of
philosophy (Lucr. DRN 2.1–2):
Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,

e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem…
Pleasant is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze
from shore upon another’s great tribulation…
(Transl. Rouse 1992)
The philosopher is serene because he has gained awareness of the incon-

sistent and vain nature of all things, including possible disgraces, and this has
secured for him a safe distance from any possible negative experience. This
image of the sage who lives in safety, protected from the tempests of life, is a
philosophical commonplace. Seneca’s own examples are even more striking
than those recorded in Lucretius, because they do not simply concern distant
observers but men who have been directly touched by disasters: we can think,
for example, of Stilpo of Megara (Const. sapient. [2]‌.5.6–6.7; Ep. 9.18). The
20 All are military terms, to be found respectively in Caes. BGall. 3.19.3; Curt. 8.2.24; Vitr. Arch.
1.5.5; Caes. BGall. 3.21.3 and 7.22.2.
153

tyrant Demetrius destroyed his town; Stilpo lost all his property as well as
his family, yet when he was asked by the tyrant whether he had lost anything,
the man declared: ‘I have lost nothing: I have all that is mine with me’ (‘nihil,’
‘inquit.’ ‘omnia mea mecum sunt’, transl. Ker 2014a). The reaction of the sage
Stilpo is completely different from that of his fellow citizens (Const. sapient.
[2].6.2):
Inter micantis ubique gladios et militarem in rapina tumultum, inter

flammas et sanguine stragemque inpulsae civitatis, inter fragorem
templorum super deos suos cadentium, uni homini pax fuit.
Amid swords flashing on every side and the uproar of soldiers bent
on pillage, amid flames and blood and the destruction of the smitten
city, amid the crush of temples falling upon their gods, one man alone
had peace
(Transl. Basore 1928)
The passages from De constantia and Epistle 49 are similar also from a
formal point of view: both record an accumulation of war images stitched
together through the repetition of inter in the one text, cum in the other, and
both portray the sage in all these images standing calm and alone, in oppos-
ition to turmoil. In the De constantia, behind Stilpo’s mask Seneca oppor-
tunely dismisses the preoccupations and concerns of his fellow citizens,
who are described as greedy men risking death in their struggle to save their
material wealth ([2]‌.6.7). Stilpo, on the contrary, is seen as the absolute hero.
Epistle 49, however, reverses the situation. Here, the idle protagonist has an
illusory awareness of moral superiority and psychological distance from the
fact, because his skills are limited to linguistic dexterity and he considers that
his ability to craft wordplays suffices to help him reach serenity. It is precisely
this misunderstanding which makes him not a positive example, like that of
Lucretius’ poem or that of Stilpo, but a negative one: in fact, Seneca defines
him as a man that is mentally disturbed (demens, Ep. 49.8), i.e., the opposite
of the sage in Stoic philosophy. From this perspective, Seneca’s foolish idle
man in Ep. 49 has an interesting parallel in a passage from Petronius, where
the protagonists are rescued from a certain death from a shipwreck. As they
prepare to leave the sinking ship, they hear a strange sound; they turn around
and see their friend Eumolpus, the poet of the group, who is writing a poem.
They shout at him to come with them, but he refuses, because, he says, the
poem is not yet finished. Refusing to abandon him, they forcibly carry him
out from the boat, calling him mad and deluded (Petron. 115.1–5):
1. Audimus murmur insolitum et sub diaeta magistri quasi cupientis

exire beluae gemitum. 2. Persecuti igitur sonum invenimus Eumolpum
sedentem membranaeque ingenti versus ingerentem. 3. Mirati ergo
quod illi vacaret in vicinia mortis poema facere, extrahimus clamantem
154

iubemusque bonam habere mentem. 4. At ille interpellatus excanduit et
‘sinite me’ inquit ‘sententiam explere: laborat carmen in fine’. 5. Inicio
ego phrenetico manum iubeoque Gitona accedere et in terram trahere
poetam mugientem.
We heard a curious droning coming from below the master’s cabin. It
sounded like the plaintive utterance of a beast seeking to escape. When
we tracked down the sound, we found Eumolpus sitting there, raining
verses thick and fast on to a massive sheet of parchment. We showed some
surprise at his leisurely composition of poetry when he was at death’s
threshold; we dragged him out shouting, and told him not to worry. But
he flushed with rage at being disturbed, and said: ‘Kindly allow me to for-
mulate my thought. The poem is limping at its close’. I laid my hand on
the lunatic, and bade Giton come to lend help, and to drag the bellowing
poet ashore. (Transl. Walsh 1996)
The analogy between the two scenes is obvious: each describes a situation

of danger and imminent death; in both scenes, all people do their best to
rescue themselves, except a single individual who ignores everything, lost in
his world (note the use of the same verb, vacare, ‘to have free time’, in both
contexts: Sen. Ep. 49.7; Petron. 115.3), and who accordingly is considered by
the rest to be mad (Sen. demens; acuta deliratio; Petron. phreneticus). It is sig-
nificant that the same image in Seneca describes a philosopher, in Petronius
a poet.
The parallels between the passages from Seneca and Petronius show that
this commonplace was applied to both poets and philosophers: both were
recipients of the same philosophical prejudices, which likely originated in
(now lost) diatribic treatises (such as those of Bion of Borysthenes)21 and
were typically cast against the contemplative life in general, and more specif-
ically against those interested in theoretical matters which were perceived as
useless, such as rhetoric and dialectic. Seneca takes his start from this idea,
but he adjusts it as to reflect the juxtaposition of the good philosopher, who
looks for essential things (i.e., living a full life and learning to die), to a bad
one, who gives too much importance to dialectic. It should be pointed out
that the paradox of the ‘horned’ man (i.e., the man who did not lose any
horns because he did not have any to begin with; cf. Ep. 49.8 recorded and
discussed above), used in Seneca’s essay as a symbol of nonsense, was one
favored by Chrysippus.22 In light of the above, it becomes clear that Seneca’s
hostility against rhetoric and dialectic, subjects he considered of little prac-
tical value and therefore useless, must have other roots, which we shall explore
shortly.
21 Oltramare 1926, 263–4. The reference study on the intertextual relationship between Petronius
and Seneca is Sullivan 1968, 193–213.
22 SVF 2.279 = Diog. Laert. 7.186; Moretti 1995, 140–1; above, n. 3.
155
5 The final quotation: Euripides and Stoic rhetoric (Ep. 49.12)
Nam, ut ait ille tragicus, ‘veritatis simplex oratio est’.

(Ep. 49.12)
‘For, as the tragic poet says: the language of truth is simple’. 23
This is one of two cases in the Epistles where the philosopher gives the prose
translation of a Greek verse24 (ἁπλοῦς ὁ μῦθος τῆς ἀληθείας ἔφυ, Eur. Phoen.
469; the other is in Ep. 115, which we will discuss later). The quoted text
transcribes another maxim, and this time belongs to a longer sentence. The
first thing to note is that in this case the original context in Euripides is very
similar to that of the Senecan text that hosts the quotation: an opposition
between simple and honest speech vs. complex and false speech. The line is
part of a speech by Polynices, who goes on to say that ‘justice needs no elab-
orate interpretations’ (ποικίλα ἑρμηνεύματα, l. 470), while he concludes as
follows: ‘I have spoken the precise facts, plain and simple, mother, not mar-
shaling deceitful rhetoric’ (οὐχὶ περιπλοκὰς | λόγων ἀθροίσας εἶπον),25 but ‘only
saying what is just, it seems to me, in the eyes both of the wise and the simple’
(ll. 494–6, transl. Kovacs 2002). Seneca uses a similar image of a simple situ-
ation which should not become complicated (Ep. 49.12: si me nolueris per
devia ducere… inplicari non oportet, ‘if you will only refuse to lead me along
by-paths… We should not make the language intricate’; here the verb implico
corresponds to the Greek attribute περίπλοκος) and talks about a malign dia-
lectic ability (subdola calliditas ‘crafty cleverness’). Accordingly, we can say
that he has in mind not just the Euripidean line, but also its overall context,
and the overlap between the speech of Polynices and Seneca’s intention in the
letter could be the reason why the philosopher chose to quote a Greek poet,
and not a Latin one, in a letter against poetry.
Even more interesting is the fact that Cicero, who as we have seen has his
role as an author in this letter (section 3 above), transfers in Latin Euripides’
exact words to describe Stoic rhetoric. In fact, in the Brutus there is a passage
where the statarii oratores, ‘stationary [i.e., old-fashioned] orators’, such as
M. Aemilius Scaurus and P. Rutilius Rufus, are praised for their simplex in
agendo veritas, non molesta (Brut. 116 ‘simple realism, free from exaggeration’;
transl. Hendrickson 1939). Scaurus is considered an old-fashioned orator,
while Rutilius is explicitly called a Stoic (ibid.) and a pupil of Panaetius (114).26
Cicero apparently approves of this choice of a style of unadorned realism, yet
23 On the passage, see Mazzoli 1970, 174–5; Setaioli 1988, 68; Tosi 2011, 194–6 on Seneca. As
it is well known, the sentence was originally Aeschylean (fr. 176 Radt). See also Mastronarde
1994, 280–1 ad loc. For the alternative ratio/oratio, see Santini 1981.
24 Mazzoli 1970, 171–5.
25 Mastronarde 1994, 287 ad loc.
26 Moretti 2002.
156

he stresses that it is never effective because people do not appreciate it. In
fact, Rutilius was exiled even though he was innocent. In Cicero’s opinion, he
was defeated because he chose to defend himself on his own, without asking
for assistance (115). Yet, his speeches were too bare and unadorned (ieiunae,
114), and even though he told the facts as they were, he lost. The same concept
is expressed in the De oratore (1.229), where Cicero reports again the Rutilius
episode with these words (De or. 1.229):
Non modo supplex iudicibus esse noluit, sed ne ornatius quidem aut
liberius causam dici suam quam simplex ratio veritatis ferebat.
He declined not only to crave mercy of his judges, but also to be defended
more eloquently and elaborately than the plain truth of the matter
permitted.
(Transl. Sutton 1959)
From these words we can understand both the admiration for Rutilius’
immaculate morality and the criticism of Rutilius’ choice not to use rhetoric,
which in his case would have been effective because it would serve a good
cause, that of staving off the condemnation of an innocent person.
6 The allusion to Aristo of Chios (Ep. 49.6)

Let us go back to Seneca. The link with Cicero’s rhetorical essays clearly shows
that Seneca’s quotation from Euripides is in fact an allusion to Stoic rhetoric,
intended to be used as some form of anti-rhetoric which refuses dialectic.
This Stoic rhetoric here receives praise. Nevertheless, if we consider the letter
as a whole, we can see that Seneca from the start is opposed to poetry and
dialectic; he gives the impression that he considers the two to be similar. In
doing so, he tempts the reader to reach back to the old Stoic Chrysippus, who
loved paradoxes. The same Ep. 49, however, with its intertwined quotations,
contradicts this. So, which Stoics are involved here? And how can we justify,
in the same letter, the mounting of praise for the telling of the truth plain and
simple, and the use of stylistic devices?
I think that a clue to answer this question is another allusion, to be located
in section 6 of the epistle (Ep. 49.6):
Securi est et ex commodo migrantis minuta conquirere: cum hostis instat

a tergo et movere se iussus est miles, necessitas excutit quidquid pax
otiosa collegerat.
When someone is undisturbed and traveling at his ease, he can hunt for
trifles along his way; but when the enemy is closing in on the rear, and a
command is given to the soldier to quicken the pace, necessity makes him
throw away everything which he picked up in moments of peace and leisure.
157

The image is that of a lazy traveler who has time to collect little things (like
pebbles, we can imagine, or shells, if he is at the seaside). This image is set
opposite to a scene of hurry and danger, that of a soldier urged by the enemy,
who needs to run and leave every unnecessary thing behind.27
We find a similar image, much richer in details, in Epictetus, Ench. 7. There,
the setting is that of an outing by the sea,28 though not that of a soldier sud-
denly aware of the enemy drawing nearer and nearer. Still, the structure of
the short story is the same: a lazy traveler who collects little useless things is
suddenly confronted with an emergency which forces him to drop everything.
From the Stoic perspective, the little things are our world of ‘indifferents’.
Among them belong money, family and also, of course, poetry and dialectic.
All these are things we turn to and enjoy when we have plenty of time at our
disposal, yet when we understand that this time may be too short, we come to
the realization that we need to focus on the essential. The emergency situation
described in Ep. 49.6 is clearly connected with death; actually, it can be iden-
tified with death (Epict. Ench. 7):
Just as on a voyage when your ship has anchored, if you should go on

shore to get fresh water, you may pick up a small shell-fish or little bulb
on the way (ὁδοῦ μὲν πάρεργον καὶ κοχλίδιον ἀναλέξῃ καὶ βολβάριον),
but you have to keep your attention fixed on the ship, and turn about
frequently for fear lest the captain should call; and if he calls, you must
give up all these things (πάντα ἐκεῖνα ἀφιέναι), if you would escape
being thrown on board all tied up like a sheep. So it is also in life: if
there be given you, instead of a little bulb and a small shell-fish, a little
wife and child, there will be no objection to that; only, if the Captain
calls, give up all these things and run to the ship, without even turning
around to look back (ἐὰν δὲ ὁ κυβερνήτης καλέσῃ, τρέχε ἐπὶ τὸ πλοῖον
ἀφεὶς ἐκεῖνα ἅπαντα μηδὲ ἐπιστρεφόμενος). And if you are an old man,
never even get far away from the ship, for fear that when he calls you
may be missing.
(Transl. Oldfather 1928)
The analogies in structure and meaning in the images of Seneca and

Epictetus, in my opinion, stem from a common source: a source that must
have been famous and well known to Seneca’s contemporaries; a source that
27 Here perhaps there is also an allusion to the ridiculous ‘triumph over the sea’ of Caligula, who
ordered his troops to collect shells to take them to Rome as spolia (Suet. Gaius 46; Brugnoli
1996, 96–104; Armisen-Marchetti 2015b, 267–8).
28 On this passage, see Stephens 2007, 138–40. An illuminating psychoanalytical reading of this
passage is offered in Yalom 2005, 248–68. An allusion to a similar image can be found in Sen.
Ep. 49.11.
158

a brief allusion could readily trigger its recollection. It is Seneca himself who,
in another letter, Ep. 115.8, discloses the clue that helps us identify this source.
In Ep. 115.8, Seneca compares the pebbles collected by children at the seaside
to jewels and luxury houses loved by adults. This comparison is attributed to
Aristo of Chios (Ep. 115.8 = SVF 1.372):29
Quid ergo inter nos intersit, ut Ariston ait, nisi quod nos circa tabulas et
statuas insanimus, carius inepti? Illos reperti in litore calculi leves et aliquid
habentes varietatis delectant, nos ingentium maculae columnarum…
And what then, as Aristo says, is the difference between ourselves and
these children, except that we elders go crazy over paintings and sculp-
ture, and that our folly costs us dearer? Children are pleased by the
smooth and variegated pebbles which they pick up on the beach, while we
take delight in tall columns of veined marble…
(Transl. Gummere 1925)
Here, we find the image of collecting little things, a childish occu-

pation, referring to the adults’ passions for things that the Stoics value
as indifferents. That same correspondence is to be found in the text of
Epictetus, along with the view that one should be able to leave them
aside when necessity calls. Seneca’s employment of the image of an adult
collecting little things may be indebted, and even allude, to a more detailed
image in Aristo, which comprises the earliest record of all the particulars
later contained in the version transmitted in Epictetus’ text. The suggestion
to identify Aristo as the primary source of inspiration for Seneca may be
substantiated if we consider Aristo’s position on the theme of the letter,
i.e., dialectic, which is similar to Seneca’s treatment as recorded in one of
the opening sentences of Ep. 115.1: quaere quid scribas, non quemadmodum,
‘find out what you have to write, not how’. In the same letter we find a
critique of poetry on account of the fact that it contains wrong precepts
such as a eulogy of wealth: this criticism is supported with a quotation
from Euripides (Ep. 115.14). The two letters, thus, have much in common,
including perhaps the same source.
Nothing has survived from Aristo’s work; we have only indirect testi-
mony: we know that he was called ‘the Siren’ for his power of persuasion
(SVF 1.333 = Diog. Laert. 7.160); yet, we are also told that he blamed dia-
lectic as useless for ethical purposes (SVF 1.352 = Stob. Ecl. 2.1.24, p. 8.13
Wachsmuth πρὸς ἡμᾶς μὲν τὰ ἠθικά, μὴ πρὸς ἡμᾶς δὲ τὰ διαλεκτικά: μὴ γὰρ
συμβάλλεσθαι πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν βίου, ‘we care for ethical things, we do not
care for dialectic, because it does not deal with the correct way of living’).
In the testimonia that refer to him he reportedly compared dialectic to
29 Festa 1935 cautiously attributes this fragment to Aristo’s work Against False Opinions. For the
comparison between fools and children, a commonplace in ancient philosophy, see Ioppolo
1980, 320. See also above, p. 142 and n. 4.
159

spiderwebs: both are elaborate but useless (SVF 1.351 = Diog. Laert. 7.161).
Aristo’s rejection of dialectic was peculiar and distinguished him from the
first Stoics, particularly Chrysippus:30 the latter also wrote a treatise in three
books titled Against Dialectics (SVF 1.333 = Diog. Laert. 7.160) and maybe
another treatise against rhetoric.31 He quoted some famous paradoxes, such
as that of the Indian and the Dominator,32 in order to reject them as useless
and physically troublesome exercises (SVF 1.389 = Plut. Tuend. san. 133c).
Given Aristo’s critique of dialectic, his image of collecting little things,
and the similarities between Seneca’s Epistles 49 and 115, where he is expli-
citly quoted, we can infer that Aristo may be the source behind Seneca’s Ep.
49. Maybe the same criticism of lyric poetry, which we find in both Senecan
letters, was in Aristo, too. In another letter, Ep. 89, Seneca, quoting Aristo,
argues for the importance of reducing philosophy, especially dialectic, to
serving a single purpose, moral improvement.33 But he distances himself from
Aristo because the latter was against monitiones, while Seneca considers them
crucial for the moral education of the learner (Sen. Ep. 89.13 = SVF 1.357):
Ariston Chius non tantum suprevacuas esse dixit naturalem et rationalem

sed etiam contrarias; moralem quoque, quam sola reliquerat, circumcidit.
Nam eum locum qui monitiones continent sustulit et paedagogi esse
dixit, non philosophi, tamquam quidquam aliud sit sapiens quam generis
humani paedagogus.
Aristo of Chios remarked that the natural and the rational were not only
superfluous, but were also contradictory. He even limited the ‘moral’,
which was all that was left to him; for he abolished that heading which
embraced advice, maintaining that it was the business of the pedagogue,
and not of the philosopher—as if the wise man were anything else than
the pedagogue of the human race!
(Transl. Gummere 1920)
We can identify, then, in Aristo the whole argument of Ep. 49: the criti-
cism of dialectic, the praise of simple philosophical speeches and the image
of collecting little things as an allegory for wasting time on indifferents. In
Seneca’s text of course these elements are amplified: Seneca has added the
comparison between lyric poetry and dialectic,34 the obsession with the lapse
of time and death pursuing us like an urging enemy, the military images, and
30 Ioppolo 1980, 63–9; Porter 1996, 162; Ranocchia 2011, 345.

31 Ioppolo 1980, 47–50; 68–9.
32 Another Chrysippean paradox: SVF 2.283 (Arrian Epicteti Dissertationes 2.19.1–2); 2.287
(Lucian, Auctio vitarum 22).
33 See Mazzoli 2005b; Boeri/Salles 2014, 558.
34 Aristo’s views on poetry are perhaps to be found in the fragments of Philod. De Poem book
5, where the author argues against an unnamed Stoic (Jensen 1923, 128–45; Ioppolo 1980,
256–60; Mangoni 1993, 61–9; Porter 1996, 162–7). In this text, Philodemus attributes to this
Stoic a distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ poetry (cols. 17.6–10).
160

the ‘elegiac’ opening with the painful memory of the philosopher’s parting
from Lucilius, which triggers the dissertation in the main body of the letter.
The knowing reader may even read the contrast between the criticism of dia-
lectic and lyric on one side, and the use of rhetorical tools and quotations on
the other, as the coexistence of Aristo’s radical theories with Seneca’s personal
reading thereof.
161
7
Sub auro servitus habitat
Seneca’s moralizing of architecture
and the anti-Neronian querelle
Tommaso Gazzarri
In Ep. 90 Seneca tackles the theme of human progress and, more specific-
ally, the relation between human progress and technological development.
The outcome of the analysis is a pessimistic one. The invention of the artes
has fueled luxury and moral vices, by concealing, under the false appearance
of progress, what is in fact a widening of the gap separating contemporary
society from the ideal of bene vivere. The philosophical relevance of the topic
provides Seneca with the opportunity to situate his thought within the lore
of previous philosophical traditions, more specifically to define his position
vis-à-vis the contribution of Middle-Stoicism.1 The result is an epistle which
is rich in doctrinal nuances and highly intertextual.
In Ep. 90 Seneca does not conceal his sources of choice; rather, already at
par. 5, he introduces Posidonius as his main comparandum. In fact, the text of
the epistle constitutes a precious testimony in reconstructing the fragmentary
tradition of the polymath from Apameia.2 Posidonius connects the develop-
ment of the artes to the Golden Age, the traditional cultural myth predicated
on the notion of a forever-lost age of happiness, and situated in a remote
and vanished past. Seneca characterizes it as ‘the so-called Golden Age’, a
clear sign of his intent to shift the discussion from the mythical account of
the poetic tradition to the systematic reasoning of philosophical debate: Illo
ergo, quod aureum perhibent, penes sapientes fuisse regnum Posidonius iudicat.
1 With this well-established label I am referring chiefly to the contributions of Panaetius and
Posidonius, who both influenced Seneca in many respects. We only have one extant Panaetian
quotation in Seneca’s oeuvre (Ep. 116.5), possibly deriving from a later anthology of
apophtegmata, but which nonetheless reflects Panaetius’ shift of focus from the unattainable
perfection of the wise man, to the morals of the average man. Furthermore, following the
1908 pioneering study of Siefert, scholars unanimously acknowledge the profound influence
of Panaetius’ περὶ εὐθυμίας on Seneca’s De tranquillitate animi. As for Posidonius, his emphasis
on human emotions greatly influenced Seneca’s protreptic method of admonitio, as argued by
Setaioli 1985.
2 Cf. Posidon. fr. 284 Edelstein and Kidd which contains the text of Ep. 90, in fact Seneca’s
epistle is the main text to reconstruct Posidonius’ theory of human evolution and culture as
observed by Bees 2005, 15 n. 2.
162
162 Tommaso Gazzarri

‘Therefore, in the age that men call golden Posidonius3 believes that monarchy
belonged to wise men’.4 The Quellenforschung of the Posidonian presence in
the epistle has a long and complex tradition, with multiple attempts to assess
what in the text is to be attributed to Seneca, what is genuinely Posidonian
and, finally, what should be regarded as fundamentally Posidonian, yet modi-
fied by or read through the lens of Seneca. Important though this philological
analysis may be, it is not the aim of the present contribution. For the epistle
certainly contains various textual layers, sometimes hard to tease apart, but
the topics on which Seneca agrees or disagrees with Posidonius are evident,
thanks to the explicitly stated formulas Posidonio adsentio (‘I agree with
Posidonius’) and dissentio a Posidonio (‘I disagree with Posidonius’), respect-
ively at Ep. 90.7 and 90.11.
Both Seneca and Posidonius frame the Golden Age as a time when
power was exerted by kings. The monarchy of these sapientes reges,
Seneca maintains, was the natural consequence of the weaker seeking
the guidance of the better, very much like the most muscular bull or the
most sizable elephant naturally leading their herds (thus, for animals, phys-
ical strength, not moral excellence is the decisive factor for leadership).5
The two philosophers also concur that, after this phase, monarchic power
degenerated into tyranny, due to the increase of vice and the decline of
morality. Thus, an age regulated by the promulgation of leges began and,
again, this was possible thanks to the intervention of the sapientes (sages),
in fact, the men who have gone down in history as the seven sages like, for
instance, Solon (Ep. 90.6). Both Stoic philosophers also agree on the notion
3 The most up-to-date analysis on the philosophical and textual relations between Ep. 90 and the
Posidonian lore is the one of Zago 2012, but a more synthetic overview can be found also in
Setaioli 1988, 322–36 (in particular, for the history of the Quellenforschung, 323 n. 1506) and
Chaumartin 1988. For an analysis of the relation between Posidonius and Seneca in their
deployment of the Golden Age topos and with an emphasis on the role played by Seneca’s own
Roman literary culture, see Feeney 2007, 129–31.
4 Such a rationalizing aim is already present in Dicaearchus’ reading of Hesiod, and his attempt
to eliminate the mythical elements of the Erga’s account, cf. Schütrumpf 2001, 261.
5 Cf. Ep. 90.4: Sed primi mortalium quique ex his geniti naturam incorrupti sequebantur, eundem
habebant et ducem et legem, commissi melioris arbitrio. Naturae est enim potioribus deteriora
summittere. Mutis quidem gregibus aut maxima corpora praesunt aut vehementissima. Non
praecedit armenta degener taurus, sed qui magnitudine ac toris ceteros mares vicit. Elephantorum
gregem excelsissimus ducit; inter homines pro summo est optimum. Animo itaque rector
eligebatur, ideoque summa felicitas erat gentium, in quibus non poterat potentior esse nisi melior.
‘But the first men and those who sprang from them, still unspoiled, followed nature, having one
man as both their leader and their law, entrusting themselves to the control of one better than
themselves. For nature has the habit of subjecting the weaker to the stronger. Even among the
dumb animals those which are either biggest or fiercest hold sway. It is no weakling bull that
leads the herd; it is one that has beaten the other males by his might and his muscle. In the case
of elephants, the tallest goes first; among men, the best is regarded as the highest. That is why it
was to the mind that a ruler was assigned; and for that reason the greatest happiness rested with
those peoples among whom a man could not be the more powerful unless he were the better’
(Transl. Gummere 1920).
163
Architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 163

that a shift in human history from the reign of sapientes reges to the com-
munities regulated by leges coincides with the end of the Golden Age. So
much for the Posidonian lore with which Seneca agrees: to take stock of the
elements of disagreement between the two philosophers, it is worth refer-
ring to the following schematic table, which follows Zago’s interpretation in
outlining the various phases of human civilization according to Posidonius
and Seneca respectively:
Stages of civilization according to Stages of civilization according to

Posidonius Seneca
men γηγενεῖς → διαστροφή (vices) Golden Age: absence of vices /absence
↓ of laws /reges sapientes (= rule of the
phase of cave dwelling best, not of the wise)
↓ ↓
technological development διαστροφή (vices) → end of Golden Age
(tecta)—philosophia—sapientes ↓
↓ technological development
natural submission to the sapientes
↓
government of the sapientes (reges
sapientes)— Golden Age
↓
progressive degeneration:
reges → tyranny → necessity of leges—
end of Golden Age
A first major element of discrepancy between the two philosophers is the

chronological setting of the Golden Age, which Posidonius locates after the
διαστροφή6 (i.e., the turning of mankind towards vice and away from inno-
cence). More specifically, he places the Golden Age at the end of an evolu-
tionary sequence which, beginning with the διαστροφή (and the attendant
assumption is that humankind was plagued by vices from birth), is then
followed by a primitive phase of cave dwelling, then the introduction of tecta,
of philosophia and, finally, the natural submission to the sapientes, whose rule
marks precisely the advent of a blessed time. On the contrary, for Seneca, the
Golden Age, which is characterized by the absence of law and government, is
a prelapsarian one, thus to be positioned before the διαστροφή. The diffusion
6 The διαστροφή λόγου (or perversio rationis) is a fundamental tenet of the Stoic doctrine,
see Bellincioni, 1978, 15–41; Grilli 1963, 87–101, and Zago 2012, 58–61 and 220 n. 58. The
chronological order of these various phases can be analyzed to assess Seneca’s use of the
Posidonian account, and yet, as is the case with mythical lore, a text’s narrative order often
obeys axiological rather than temporal considerations. In the case of the Hesiodic sequence of
races (cf. Op. 106–201) the golden race is qualified as ‘first’, not so much because it was the first
to have appeared but because it was ‘the best’ with respect to the axiological dyad δίκη/ὕβρις, as
outlined by Vernant 1965, 13–41; this chapter had previously appeared as Vernant 1960, 21–54.
164

of vices will eventually disrupt this blissful age, and restless technological
development will follow. This implies that the reign of the sapientes, which for
Posidonius coincides with the Golden Age, bestows the benefits of a good life
upon an already corrupted human race; in contrast, for Seneca there cannot
be a Golden Age without complete purity and absence of vice. Furthermore,
while Posidonius situates the beginning of human technological develop-
ment during the Golden Age and attributes it to the wisdom of the kings,
for Seneca there is a fundamental incompatibility between banausic work and
wisdom. Equally upsetting for Seneca must have been the association, under
the heading of wisdom, of sapientia, leges, and artes. An element of difficulty
derives from the fact that Seneca first maintains to agree with Posidonius on
the idea that the reges sapientes ruled during the Golden Age, but then he
seemingly contradicts himself by stating that these leaders were not really wise.
This contradiction is in fact only apparent on account of the different notion
of ‘wisdom’ that Posidonius and Seneca respectively demonstrate. While the
former attaches sapientia to philosophical speculation and technical develop-
ment, the latter interprets the kings’ political wisdom as the natural leader-
ship of the stronger, and the various technical achievements as the fruit of
sagacitas, ‘not true wisdom’.7 Therefore Seneca does agree with the Posidonian
description of the Golden Age as presented at Ep. 90.5–6, but he does so on
the basis of a different interpretation of the notion of primitive wisdom.
More to the point, unlike Posidonius, Seneca conceives the Golden Age as
a-philosophical.8 Thus, if on the one hand he does not attribute any vices to it,
on the other, at Ep. 90.36, he clearly states that it was not possible to retrieve
any traces of wisdom in it: Non erant illi sapientes viri, etiam si faciebant
facienda sapientibus ‘Those9 were not wise men, even though they did what
wise men should do’.
According to Seneca, the artes do not ensue from wisdom, rather from
shrewdness, and wisdom is not a synonym of innocence because the prelap-
sarian age did not require any form of moral responsibility.10 It is precisely on
account of the fact that wisdom requires ethical involvement that the artes
cannot have possibly been invented by wise men. In fact, technology brought
about benefits which, even if highly enjoyable, remain at the very least prefer-
able ἀδιάφορα, something clearly not worth any moral pursuit. Furthermore,
and in accordance with Stoic orthodoxy, in the same passage Seneca attaches
7 Cf. Sen. Ep. 90.11: Omnia enim ista sagacitas hominum, non sapientia invenit. ‘It was man’s
ingenuity, not his wisdom, that discovered all these devices’ (Transl. Gummere 1920).
8 Cf. Degl’Innocenti Pierini 2008, 108: ‘L’età dell’oro del filosofo non è quindi, paradossalmente,
né nel passato né nel presente, è al di fuori della storia’.
9 The pronoun illi refers to the men living in the prelapsarian age.
10 The actions of these primitive men likely fall under the heading of χαθήοντα, a technical
term of the Stoic school which is rendered as officia by Cic. Fin. 3.20 and designating those
actions performed according to one’s natural instinct and without any ethical connotation, as
is the case, for instance, with animals, cf. Armisen-Marchetti 1998, 205; see also Wildberger
2006a,  315–7.
165

the discovery of the first technical skills to the natural intelligence of men, not
to the gifts bestowed by kings. Thus, for Seneca, the emergence of the τέχναι,
not only has nothing to do with philosophical wisdom, but is a naturally
occurring fact taking place in the prelapsarian age and, in accordance with
Stoic orthodoxy, a direct consequence of human physiology and anatomy.11
Admittedly, Posidonius’ stand is more nuanced than it looks at first sight. At
Ep. 88.21, as part of an extensive analysis on the value of liberal studies, Seneca
quotes and appears to embrace the Posidonian division of the artes in vulgares,
ludicrae, pueriles, and liberales (‘low’, ‘those which serve for amusement’, ‘those
for the education of the boys’, and ‘the liberal arts’) invented by the first wise
kings ad instruendam vitam, ‘with the purpose of providing for daily needs’.12
However, at Ep. 90.25, Seneca distances himself from the Posidonian take on the
artes when he clarifies that the sapientes contribute only the εὕρεσις, the initial
moment of the invention, while the development of the technical skills is imme-
diately entrusted to sordidiores ministri or ‘meaner assistants’.13 Thus, this asso-
ciation of technical development with philosophical wisdom, Posidonian and in
opposition to orthodoxy of the old Stoa, is mitigated by limiting the wise men’s
involvement in τέχναι only to the moment of discovery.14
The last part of Ep. 90 is very problematic. Starting from par. 36 and
extending to par. 46, Seneca introduces15 a second blissful description of the
11 Cf. what attested by Philo Judaeus Aetern. 130 (= SVF 1.106a) and likely to be attributed to
Zeno: εἰκὸς γὰρ μᾶλλον δ’ἀναγκαῖον ἀνθρώποις συνυπάρξαι τὰς τέχνας ὡς ἂν ἰσήλικας, οὐ μόνον
τι λογικῇ φύσει τὸ ἐμμέθοδον οἰκεῖον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅτι ζῆν ἄνευ τούτων οὐκ ἔστιν. ‘For it is obvious,
rather it is necessary, for the arts and the humankind to be coeval, not only because acting
according to a method is typical of a rational being, but also because without the arts the
human race could not survive’.
12 Most scholars agree on considering Posidonius the source of at least Ep. 88.21–8. For a gen-
eral assessment of the issue and overview of the main scholarly contribution, cf. Setaioli 1985,
316–22.
13 Sen. Ep. 90.25: Omnia […] haec sapiens quidem invenit: sed minora quam ut ipse tractaret,
sordidioribus ministris dedit. ‘The wise man did indeed discover all these things; they were,
however, too petty for him to deal with himself and so he entrusted them to his meaner
assistants’. Seneca outlines a hierarchical system dominated by philosophy prevailing not
only over menial activities but also over philology and medicine (cf. respectively Ep. 108 and
95). This subdivision of values hinges on the Ciceronian dichotomy between the honestum
and the artes characterized as sordidae and illiberales, cf. Off. 1.150. On this topic, see also
Romano 2005, 85.
14 It has been argued that Posidonius’ sages invent the τέχναι to find a remedy for the difficulties
brought about by the end of the Golden Age. Therefore, even for Posidonius the wise kings
initially inhabited a pre-technological world, cf. van Nuffelen and van Hoof 2013, 194. The
idea that the artes were invented by the sages, but immediately entrusted to some menial
workers (the sordidiores ministri) is something that Posidonius probably got from Plato, but
which is present also in Cic. Off. 2.11–16 and that therefore, could very likely come from
Panaetius (cf. Pl. Rep. 2.369bf.); cf. Zago 2012, 151–2.
15 The second description of the Golden Age is introduced at Ep. 90.36 by the laconic statement
secutast fortunata tempora (‘Next there came the fortune-favored period’). However, this
interpretation is far from certain. In fact, secutast is Buecheler’s (1879) conjecture for the
nonsensical reading sicutaut transmitted both by B (Codex Bambergenisis) and A (Codex
Argentoratensis). Even if one accepts secutast, the text presents significant interpretative
166

Golden Age, which is in sharp contrast to the first one, the one just analyzed.16
In this second account, Seneca does not mention the reign of the wise kings,
something he had previously stated in agreement with Posidonius. Instead, he
resorts to the more traditional representation of an era of complete innocence,
both a-political and a-philosophical. This kind of Golden Age hinges around
the motif of the αὐτόματος βίος, a topos present both in Hesiod, Op. 117–
20 and Plato, Plt. 271e, but which is also instantiated by Lucretius 5.925–87,
where the earth is said to be producing fruits sponte sua (‘of her own accord’),
a phrase echoed by Seneca respectively at Ep. 90.38 and 90.40 where nature is
compared to a common mother providing for everybody, and the soil is quali-
fied as fertilior, inlaborata, and larga (‘more fertile’, ‘untilled’, and ‘generous’).17
Various scholars have posited different solutions for the presence of this
second description of the Golden Age in Ep. 90, which is, once again, in clear
contrast with the first description, the one containing significant elements of
agreement with Posidonius. The two principal hypotheses advanced so far
are either A) that Seneca is here describing two different ages, which would
have both been present in the text of Posidonius, or B) that Seneca is in fact
resorting to two different sources for the two different characterizations of
the Golden Age, and that the second description would in fact follow Plato,
Laws 676af., a text characterized by elements such as the absence of greed and
rivalry, and a complete lack of banausic skills as a consequence of recurring
cyclical destructions.18
To tackle this conundrum, I am going to venture an approach that diverges
from those followed by the majority of the scholars so far. I do not intend to
explore how or why the accounts presented by Seneca differ, and then, on the
basis of the differences, attempt to reconstruct various genealogies of poten-
tial models. Rather, I am going to insist on what the two Senecan accounts
difficulties, for the verbal form may equally refer to a feminine singular or to a neuter plural
nominative. In the first case the subject would be philosophia, from the end of par. 35, thus
suggesting the idea that ‘philosophy came after the fortune favored times’, with fortunata
tempora working as an accusative. In the second case, the subject ‘favored times’ would refer
to the situation chronologically following what described at the end of par. 35, where Seneca
states that philosophy did not exist illo rudi saeculo, quo adhuc artificia deerant et ipso usu
discebantur utilia, ‘in such a rude age, when the arts and crafts were still unknown and when
useful things could only be learned by use’.
16 Both representations of the Golden Age, the positive and the negative one, are deeply
rooted in Greek culture as observed already by Bignone 1916, 211. In particular, among the
Presocratics, Empedocles shows this duality of perspective by alternating idyllic descriptions,
such as the one at fr. 77, 78 DK, with utterly pessimistic ones, as in the case of fr. 136 DK; cf.
Sacerdoti 1956, 268–9.
17 For a study of the topos also known as ‘Automaton-Motiv’, cf. Ganz 1967, 119.
18 Cf. respectively, Grilli 1953 and Theiler 1982, 388–90. See also Armisen-Marchetti 1998, 201
who maintains that the only solution for the conundrum of the two contrasting descriptions
of the Golden Age in Ep. 90 is to suppose that Seneca, when translating Posidonius, is util-
izing sapientes in a non-technical and non-Stoic sense of the term in the case of the first
description, while he would resort to a use of the word more apposite to Stoic orthodoxy
for the final representation. A similar distinction is present in Cic. Tusc. 5.7–10 where the
sapientes predate the Pythagorean invention of philosophia.
167

have in common, and once I have singled out this common core, I am going
to offer a tentative interpretation of it. I would like to narrow the focus to
Seneca’s motives for disagreement with Posidonius, and concentrate first on
the possible reasons for disagreement inside the first account of the Golden
Age (which Seneca explicitly attributes to Posidonius) and, second, on the
elements of disagreement between the two different accounts of the Golden
Age (occurring at the beginning and at the end of the epistle), the second of
which could possibly have been modeled, once again, on Plato’s Laws. I am
going to predicate my analysis on the hypothesis that in Ep. 90 Seneca is not
only conducting a philosophical discussion, but he is also pursuing a specific
political target: that Ep. 90 is an abrasive moral querelle against Nero’s life-
style and regime. Seneca’s choice to consider Golden Age, monarchic power,
and technical progress as not constituting elements in the same philosophical
line of reasoning reflects a specific political goal.
Since the very beginning of the principate, some of the most celebrated
Roman poets had reworked the myth of the Golden Age to fit the propaganda
needs of the new regime. This is the case with Vergil, who returns to the topic
multiple times, in multiple texts.19 At Aen. 6.791–5 Aeneas, in the course of his
katabasis, is shown the most glorious time of Rome, which is yet to come, and
which will take place under Augustus, thus associating the advent of a new
Golden Age with the principate:
hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis,

Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet
saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva
Saturno quondam, super et Garamantas et Indos
proferet imperium
Here is Caesar and all the seed of Iulus destined to pass under heaven’s
spacious sphere. And this in truth is he whom you so often hear promised
you, Augustus Caesar, son of a god, who will again establish a Golden
Age in Latium amid fields once ruled by Saturn; he will advance his
empire beyond the Garamants and Indians.
(Transl. Fairclough 1999)
Significantly, Seneca at Ep. 90.37 chooses to quote a passage from Georg.

1.125–8 (not the Aeneid), which is modeled on the Hesiodic tradition of the
Erga, and contains no patent allusions to Augustus:20
19 An overview of various literary treatments of the Golden Age mostly in Latin literature,
arranged by theme, can be found in Armisen-Marchetti 1998, 202 n. 24, but also, with a spe-
cific emphasis on Vergil and Calpurnius, in Fabre-Serris 1999, 188–9. An organic overview of
the Golden Age in Latin poetry can be found in Pianezzola 1979. Of the same author, but
centered on Ovid, see Pianezzola 1999, 43–61.
20 Vergil is by far the author that Seneca quotes the most (about one hundred times), for a total
of approximately two hundred lines. In particular, the quotations for the Aeneid amount to
about 75 to 80% of all the overall Vergilian presence in Seneca, cf. Setaioli 1965, 135 and
168

nulli subigebant arva coloni
ne signare quidem ut partiri limite campum
fas erat: in medium quaerebant, ipsaque tellus
omnia liberius nullo poscente ferebat.
No farmers subjugated the fields

and defining boundaries or apportioning land with confines was a
sacrilege people gained from the common fruits, and the Earth herself
was dispensing her gift all the more freely when nobody was asking
for them
Seneca selects this Vergilian passage concerning the primal innocence of

the Golden Age as a backdrop to comment on the corruption of his time. Ep.
90.38, the paragraph immediately following the quotation from the Georgics,
works as commentary of the Vergilian passage and is organized in two almost
symmetrical halves both hinging on the topic of luxuria, namely the complete
lack thereof for the Urmenschen, and the ravaging damage produced by it in
contemporary society, to the point that multa concupiscendo omnia amisit,
‘by desiring many things, it lost everything’.21 Perhaps, Seneca’s decision not
to quote another passage from Georg. 2.513–31 is even more significant on
account of Vergil’s choice to represent the Golden Age as a time of simple,
idyllic rural life, where farming plays a key role: a situation in apparent contra-
diction to what he had canvassed in book 1,22 and which would have presented
Seneca with the conundrum of a positive outlook on agriculture qua τέχνη.
Another major Vergilian text concerning the Golden Age is Aen. 8.319–
27 where Evander recalls the bygone bliss of Saturn’s reign, during which
Mazzoli 1970, 215–32. The lack of an explicit mention of the princeps in Georg. 1.125–8 may
have eased Seneca’s task of dissociating the deployment of the Golden Age motif from Nero.
However, the Georgics were composed in the aftermath of the battle of Actium, and the the-
matic unit of the first book which concerns the human race’s fall (a time following the bygone
blissful reign of Jupiter) reveals the fear that Octavian’s military success, and the attendant
hopes for peace, may not be final, cf. Wallace-Hadrill 1982, 21. For a general assessment of
the Golden Age in the Georgics, cf. Johnston 1980, 41–105.
21 The theme of luxuria mother of all evils is typically Stoic, cf. SVF 3.229b (= Cic. Leg.
1.17.47). Seneca will hammer again on the relation between Golden Age, gold, and luxuria at
Ep. 115.11–13, where the contempt for Nero’s palace and its supposed relation to a new era of
bliss is no longer hinted at; rather, it quite overtly hinges on two quotations from Ov. Met. 2.1–
2 and 107–8 (respectively on Helios’ palace and chariot), which are so commented: Denique
quod optimum videri volunt saeclum aureum appellant. ‘And finally when they would praise
an epoch as the best, they call it the “Golden Age” ’ (Transl. Gummere 1925). According to
Degl’Innocenti Pierini (2008, 108–9) Seneca is here being critical of all poetic illustrations
of the primitive age as golden, i.e., positively linked to the value of gold: the metal which
epitomizes corruption and luxuria.
22 About the many incoherencies harbored in Vergil’s various accounts of the Golden Age, cf.
Perkell 2002, 3–39.
169

previously primitive people were given laws by a king who, very much like
Augustus at Aen. 6.792–3, is fated to bring back the aurea saecula:
primus ab aetherio venit Saturnus Olympio

arma Iovis fugiens et regnis exsul ademptis.
is genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis
composuit legesque dedit, Latiumque vocari
maluit, his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris.
aurea quae perhibent illo sub rege fuere
saecula: sic placida populos in pace regebat,
deterior donec paulatim ac decolor aetas
et belli rabies et amor successit habendi.
First from heavenly Olympus came Saturn, fleeing from the weapons of
Jove and exiled from his lost realm. He gathered together the unruly race,
scattered over mountain heights, and gave them laws, and chose that the
land be called Latium, since in these borders he had found a safe hiding
place. Under his reign were the Golden Ages men tell of: in such perfect
peace he ruled the nations; till little by little there crept in a race of worse
sort and duller hue, the frenzy of war, and the passion for gain.
(Transl. Fairclough 1999)
This passage and Seneca’s attendant decision not to make use of it are
quite telling. Vergil, like Seneca and unlike Posidonius, considers the Golden
Age a prelapsarian one; like Seneca, he deems the διαστροφή a consequence of
the encroaching vices and, in particular, of the belli rabies and amor habendi, a
dyad outlining a morally deteriorating trajectory23 almost identical to the one
at Ep. 90.36: Secutast fortunata tempora, cum in medio iacerent beneficia naturae
promiscue utenda, antequam avaritia atque luxuria dissociavere mortales et ad
rapinam ex consortio discurrere. ‘Next there came the fortune-favored period
when the bounties of nature lay open to all, for men’s indiscriminate use,
before avarice and luxury had broken the bonds which held mortals together,
and they, abandoning their communal existence, had separated and turned to
plunder’ (Transl. Gummere 1920). Yet despite the evident similarities of this
passage to the text of Aen. 8, Seneca chooses not to quote the latter, likely
because the tight relation proposed between the coming back of the aurea
saecula and the concurrent action of the princeps suits Augustus’ regime,
but could not possibly work for Nero. Considering this collection of these
intertextual echoes and references it bears heed in Papaioannou’s argument
that Seneca often recasts the spirit of his Vergilian quotations to generate an
23 This is a topical theme also present in Ov. Met. 1.128–31: protinus inrupit venae peioris in
aevum |omne nefas: fugere pudor verumque fidesque; |in quorum subiere locum fraudesque
dolusque |insidiaeque et vis et amor sceleratus habendi. ‘Straightway all evil burst forth into
this age of baser vein: modesty and truth and faith fled the earth, and in their place came
tricks and plots and snares, violence and cursed love of gain’ (Trans. Miller 1977).
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irony-effect that works as a critical bridge between a bygone Augustan past
and a post-Augustan future.24
Going back to the Vergilian passages which stand out for their not having
been selected, such Senecan, ex silentio literary strategy can be appreciated
also in light of Calpurnius Siculus’ work. At Ecl. 1.33–88, Calpurnius, likely
a contemporary of Seneca, portrays Nero’s reign as a new Golden Age, by
reworking and interweaving two Vergilian texts as his inspiration (Aeneid 6
and the fourth Eclogue) and, though the hyper-celebratory tone of these lines
has been interpreted by some as a form of mockery,25 what is of interest is the
deployment of Vergilian material with the purpose of linking the Golden Age
and the princeps’ political action. Thus, Seneca’s silence on Nero’s regime is
quite telling, especially in the selection of the specific Vergilian quotations for
describing the Golden Age. Deciding not to state that Nero’s age was a new
Golden Age was tantamount to saying explicitly that Nero’s age was not a
golden one; this is especially evident given that other major poets had patently
showcased this association. The doctrinal rebuttal of the link between monar-
chic power and Golden Age is, then, clearly not just a matter of philosophical
debate, but has profound political implications.
In keeping with the epistles’ date of composition following Seneca’s retire-
ment from court, the critique against the Neronian regime becomes yet more
explicit when he refuses the Posidonian coupling of technology with monar-
chic power. In the course of Ep. 90, before introducing the second description
of the Golden Age, Seneca debunks Posidonius’ claim that the τέχναι ought to
be attributed to the philosophers’ wisdom, by instantiating several inventions
and showing how they were brought about by men’s shrewdness (sagacitas
hominum) rather than wisdom (sapientia). Such is the case with iron utensils
and warfare tools (Ep. 90.11), mines, hammer and tongs (Ep. 90.12), the
loom (Ep. 90.20), agriculture (Ep. 90. 21), and baking (Ep. 90. 22). These are
punctual, almost aphoristic exempla, that engage the reader’s attention, while
hammering on the same concept, through subtle thematic variations. The
greatest space is reserved to a history and critique of fabrica or ‘building’.26
24 Cf. Papaioannou (in this volume) 2. More specifically Papaioannou bases, at least partly, her
argument on Booth’s notion of ‘stable irony’, whereby a potential reader can appropriate
the author’s stance which is conspicuous precisely for its ironic potential, or in the words of
Papaioannou: ‘Stable irony is […] irony which is endowed with a moral purposiveness’ (p. 110
above).
25 Cf. Korzeniewski 1971, 5. Calpurnius tackles the association of the Golden Age with the
princeps also in in Ecl. 4 and in the second of the Carmina Einsidelnsia. Several scholars
have underscored the presence of pessimistic tones concerning the principate in Calpurnius’
work, cf. Leach 1973; Newlands 1987; Green 2009. A thorough assessment of the scholarship
concerning these various issues can be found in Karakasis 2016, 110–2.
26 The moralistic deployment of the architectural theme and of one’s private dwelling can be
found elsewhere in Seneca’s oeuvre, in particular in Ep. 86 he praises the sobriety of Scipio’s
customs and attaches them to the austerity of his villa. On the contrary Ep. 55 offers the
description of Vatia’s luxurious estate which functions as an architectural representation of
the man’s ignavia, cf. Berno 2006, 159–231; Costa 2013, 225–61; and Bertoli 1982, 177–9.
171

There are at least four large blocks devoted exclusively to this τέχνη: two
of them (Ep. 90.7–10 and 15–17) follow the first description of the Golden
Age (the Posidonian one); one (Ep. 90.25) is located around the middle of
the letter and, finally, towards the conclusion of the epistle, we find another
large section (Ep. 90.42–3), which is anchored to the second description of the
prelapsarian age (the Hesiodic one) and explicitly references the motif of the
‘retorica della capanna’ or ‘rhetoric of the hut’.27
These descriptions reveal a clear allusion to Nero’s Domus Aurea, espe-
cially when compared to the extant literary evidence concerning the emperor’s
royal palace.
The Domus Aurea was not only a royal palace but also, in Champlin’s
words: ‘a setting which Nero purposefully designed to support and comple-
ment the public roles he chose to act’.28 It was an unprecedented achievement
of architectural grandeur, and even more hideous for the fact that the begin-
ning of its construction was made possible thanks to the fire of 64 CE29 which
wiped out entire regions of the city.30 Only 4 out of the 14 regions of Augustan
Rome remained untouched, thus offering the emperor an unprecedented
opportunity not only to plan his imperial domus from scratch, but also to re-
design the configuration of the entire Urbs. Carandini has calculated that the
whole palatial complex took in a surface of 219 hectares (= 541 acres), while
the residential building itself amounted to more than 150 rooms for a total of
16.500 sm (= 177.604 sf).31
The two main literary sources for the Domus Aurea are Suet. Ner. 31 and
Tac. Ann. 15.42. These texts may well depend, at least partially, on Seneca,
but they also deploy other shared and more extensive sources because both
are richer in details concerning in particular the domus’ hydraulics.32 The
27 I take this definition from Degl’Innocenti Pierini 2008, 115, who points to the likely presence
of Ov. Met. 8.643–54 (the episode of Baucis and Philemon) as a hypotext serving as the
source for the moral contrast between happiness ensuing from paupertas, and the moral ser-
vitude attached to riches.
28 Cf. Champlin 1998, 335.
29 According to Tac. Ann. 16.1–2, after the fire, Nero encouraged the (false) report that the gold
of queen Dido had been found, an occurrence which was reworked by panegyrists to show
how ‘[N]‌ot only were there the usual harvests, and the gold of the mine with its alloy, but the
earth now teemed with a new abundance, and wealth was thrust on them by the bounty of
the gods’.
30 The building of Domus Aurea follows at least two construction phases which precede Nero’s
reign and culminating with what will be the bases of the domus transitoria, Nero’s first palace,
cf. Ball 2003, 28–43. An introduction to the scholarship and main issues concerning Nero’s
palace can be found in Vössing 2004, 341–3; and Beste and von Hesberg 2013, 322–8.
31 Carandini 2010, 285. For more specific dimension of Domus’ various parts, see Fraioli
2017, 293.
32 Suetonius’ account, given the absence of close parallels in other literary works, seems to be a
fully original composition; cf. Bradley 1978, 174. The matter of Suetonius’ and Tacitus’ sources
is a particularly thorny one. Besides the imperial archives, Suetonius likely consulted the no-
longer extant works of both Pollio and Cremutius Cordus. As for Tacitus, he likely consulted
Cluvius Rufus’ shipwrecked Historiae to glean information for his own homonymous work.
172

elements that Suetonius and Tacitus present in common with Seneca con-
cern the ceilings and the technical complexity of the main tricliniar space,
the cenatio rotunda. Seneca provides accurate descriptions of these spaces
without ascribing them to Nero’s royal palace, but it is precisely the overlap-
ping of the descriptions of Ep. 90 with those of later authors who, in contrast,
explicitly attribute them to the Domus Aurea, that leaves little room for doubt.
In particular, at Ep. 90.9, Seneca mentions a vast cenatio with gilded coffered
ceilings,33 while, at Ep. 90.15, he describes some mechanisms to spray saffron
from hidden pipes, the hydraulic systems devised to create sudden fountain-
like effects and, lastly, the revolving ceilings that would offer the possibility of
changing scenes.
These sensationalist features are countered by arguments of Cynic influ-
ence, which are patently acknowledged by Seneca when, at Ep. 90.14, he
evokes and contrasts the figures of Daedalus and Diogenes, whose lifestyles
are epitomized by two symbolic objects, respectively the saw, a clear allusion
to artes, and a cup famously crashed by Diogenes in his quest for the utmost
simplicity. In his 19th Diatribe Musonius Rufus does something similar by
opposing Cynic simplicity to extreme luxury which is, once again, epitomized
by a golden ceiling.34 The repeated targeting of specific architectural details
certainly depended on their being so excessive, but there may be other
supporting reasons.
He also resorted to Fabius Rusticus, notoriously hostile to Nero, as a source for the narration
of Nero’s principate’s last phase.
33 For this detail cf. also Ep. 90.2. A similar description, possibly a parody of the Neronian
achievement can be found in Petron. Sat. 60. Interestingly, the mechanisms of Trimalchio’s
ceiling let down a giant cask surrounded by golden crowns, and this spectacular expedient
is immediately followed by a course of cakes arranged around a bread-made giant Priapus.
Though far from being conclusive, these two details could ironically allude respectively to
Nero’s golden regality, and to his Bacchic interpretation of the Golden Age.
34 Muson. 19.108.5–109.1 Lutz: τί δ’ αἱ περίστυλοι αὐλαί; τί δ’ αἱ ποικίλαι χρίσεις; τί δ’ αἱ
χρυσόροφοι στέγαι; τί δ’ αἱ πολυτέλειαι τῶν λίθων, τῶν μὲν χαμαὶ συνηρμοσμένων, τῶν δ’ εἰς
τοίχους ἐγκειμένων, ἐνίων καὶ πάνυ πόρρωθεν ἠγμένων καὶ δι’ ἀναλωμάτων πλείστων; οὐ ταῦτα
πάντα περιττὰ καὶ οὐκ ἀναγκαῖα, ὧν γε χωρὶς καὶ ζῆν καὶ ὑγιαίνειν ἔστι, πραγματείαν δ’ ἔχει
πλείστην, καὶ διὰ χρημάτων γίνεται πολλῶν, ἀφ’ ὧν ἄν τις ἐδυνήθη καὶ δημοσίᾳ καὶ ἰδίᾳ πολλοὺς
ἀνθρώπους εὐεργετῆσαι; ‘What good are courtyards surrounded by colonnades? What good
are all kinds of colored paints? What good are gold-decked rooms? What good are expensive
stones, some fitted together on the floor, others inlaid in the walls, some brought from a great
distance, and at the greatest expense? Are not all these things superfluous and unnecessary,
without which it is possible not only to live but also to be healthy? Are they not the source of
constant trouble, and do they not cost great sums of money from which many people might
have benefited by public and private charity?’ Seneca, Ep. 114.19 deploys the moralistic topos
of the overly adorned ceiling which becomes indistinguishable from the equally lavish floor,
thus well representing a completely distorted reality, literally upended since what is above and
what is under are no longer distinguishable. On the cynic roots of the architectural moralism
and its proximity to the tradition of the so-called diatribe, cf. Del Giovane 2015, 114–6; on
the contrast between the Domus Aurea’s gilded ceiling, an artificial sky of sort, and the cynic
description of the peaceful starry sky at Ep. 90.42, cf. Degl’Innocenti Pierini 2008, 125.
173

Nero’s fixation on gold was but one manifestation of his desire to be deified.
Indeed, a colossus (destined later to become the namesake of the arena that
under the Flavians would supplant Nero’s sensationalist palace) representing
the emperor as Helios/Apollo stood in the palace’s vestibule.35 The association
with the god could certainly allude to a new Golden Age granted to Rome
by an Apollonian princeps, similar to the one in Vergil’s fourth Eclogue; the
literary allusion would of course reinforce an association between Nero and
Augustus. The colossus, moreover, could simultaneously suggest the emperor’s
love for singing and chariot-racing.36 Also, the cenatio rotunda was famously
structured so that the emperor would sit in the center of it, with the various
planets revolving together with the ceiling and emphasizing his role as the
immobile sun of this small mechanical universe.37 Furthermore, the oculus of
the cenatio, fittingly located above the head of the emperor, would constantly
project light on his persona, thus suggesting the idea that Nero could natur-
ally shine with his own light. Still pertaining to the architecture of the Domus,
Seneca insists much on the gilded lacunaria. Though much faded and almost
no longer visible, we can still form an idea of their original splendor thanks
to the reproductions that were made right after the rediscovery of the site
towards the end of the 15th century, and the works of artists like Pinturicchio,
Michelangelo, and Raphael (the latter famously drew inspiration from the
decorations of the domus to realize the logge vaticane).
Perrin analyzed the connection between the splendid tents utilized by
Alexander the Great and the illusionistic effects of the Domus Aurea’s
lacunaria, and in particular those of the cenatio rotunda.38 Alexander had
adopted the use of Persian tents as a manifestation of his ideology of uni-
versal monarchy; this is largely attested by Herodotus and Plutarch (just
to quote some of the most important sources).39 In particular, among the
Persians, the king of kings was known for his οὐρανίσκος, which was a circular
tent sustained by columns and which purported to be a small-scale recreation
of the sky, with the king sitting centrally beneath it. Before Alexander, an
35 The Colossus, which we can reconstruct thanks to various pictorial records (gems in par-
ticular), was the work of Zenodoros. The height of this theomorphic achievement has been
estimated to range between 100 and 120 feet, while the seven rays on the head measured each
22 feet in length, cf. La Rocca 2017, 200–1.
36 Cf. Toynbee 1947, 132–4.
37 Varro R. R. 3.5.9–17 describes his own mansion’s aviary, which was equipped with a mech-
anical rotating system similar to other installations that can be found in some of the lavish
domed hall of republican villas, cf. Moorman 1998, 354–5. Nero’s cenatio possibly had a false
ceiling set in rotary motion by water operated pipes, cf. Prückner and Storz 1974, 323–39.
Degl’Innocenti Pierini 2008, 127–8 also notices how Seneca’s description and moral condem-
nation of these machinae could in fact also inhere to Nero’s attempt to kill Agrippina through
the engineered accident of her ship’s collapsible cabin, a plot which was orchestrated after
the initial design of a mechanical device to loosen the ceiling of the bedroom where she was
sleeping, cf. Suet. Ner. 34.2–3.
38 Perrin 1990, 221.
39 Cf. Hdt. 8.114; Plut. Alex. 20.8.13.
174

Athenian architect, possibly Ictinos, had completed the construction of the
Odeon of Pericles in 443 BCE. This structure, immediately adjacent to the the-
ater of Dionysus, stood out as an architectural imitation of Mardonios’ tent
which had been seized after Plataea, and eventually reinstalled in Athens.40
If this hypothesis concerning the iconographic provenance of the Domus
Aurea’s lavish decorations is true, that is if the Domus Aurea was decorated
to resemble a tent of a Hellenistic king, or even just Alexander’s tent, then
the splendid lacunaria were yet another element of Nero’s propaganda and
not simple adornments. So much for the cenatio rotunda, which was the most
public space of the emperor’s own residence.
The iconography of the grotesques and mythical creatures, decorating for
the most part the private rooms of the Domus, also lends an additional pro-
grammatic signification to Nero’s architectural achievement, and helps clarify
Seneca’s own selection of elements to describe the Golden Age. Perrin divided
up by categories both mythical beings/mythological hybrids and grotesques
adorning numerous spaces of the palace, and singled out a total of eight types
for the former and six for the latter.41 In particular, the gryphon decoration,
present in multiple rooms (# 18, 19, 32, 34, 36, and 37), conjures up, once
again, the figure of Alexander since, together with the Amazons, gryphons
are commonly associated with the conquest of the Indies, but also on
account of a Persian legend according to which Alexander was brought up by
gryphons.42 Gryphons also symbolize solar vitality, as they often accompany
many Egyptian deities connected to the sun, and to gold, which they zealously
guard.43 Though the political signification of these creatures does not seem to
be fully crystallized before the artistic achievement of Trajan’s forum, where it
alludes to the pacification of the East,44 many possible symbolic layers typical
of this mythical hybrid seem to suggest an association between the Domus
Aurea, Alexander, and gold. Furthermore, the gryphon’s customary presence
in Dionysus’ corteges not only reinforces the link between the animal and the
East (for the relations between Dionysus and the Indies are well-attested),
but as, Perrin maintains, endows this creature with the very specific role of
‘guide of the souls’ and ‘guardian of the Golden Age’.45 Among other myth-
ical creatures, marine thiasos convey a similar message. These menageries of
40 Cf. Plut. Alex. 13.9.20.

41 Perrin 1982, 305–19. Perrin’s study is based on the 18th-century engravings of Bartoli, Mirri,
and Ponce. Specifically devoted to the extant frescos of the Domus’ various rooms is Iacopi
1999, 19–161.
42 Cf. Jucker 1961, 172 n. 1.
43 This detail is mentioned by Hdt. 3.116; 4.13; 4.27 and, in the 4th century, by Ctesias apud
Aelianum NA 4.27 = fr. 45h FGrHist 688 Jacoby.
44 Cf. Eberle 1990, 53–4.
45 Perrin 1982, 307: ‘le griffon véhicule l’âme au-dessus de la matière jusqu’aux splendeurs
éthérées, en psychopompe connaissant le chemin du royaume de Bacchus. Sa position
médiane sur les voutes confirme son rôle de gardien des terres des bienheureux, de gardien de
l’âge d’or; les griffons soutiennent ainsi de leur vieille tradition l’idéologie néronienne’.
175

heterogeneous beings occur both in private and public rooms (# 19, 30, 34,
36, and 78).46 Their bewildering variety, together with the attendant arche-
typal symbol of water, the element of which they all partake, manifest the
generating power of life. Moreover, the recurring presence of Nereids seems
to have an ideological rather than a decorative function. Known for accom-
panying and protecting those who fared by sea,47 with the Hellenistic age
their sphere of influence gradually widened, and the Nereids became escorts
of the dead, as attested by countless representations on Roman sarcophagi.
Their function as psychopomps thus integrates that of the gryphons with
whom they also share a common association with Dionysus.48 Equally related
to the god are the numerous representations of putti (rooms # 19, 34, and
36) which, similar to the extant Pompeian specimens for their composition
and executions, instance the fecundity and the youth-related qualities of the
Golden Age. Additionally, the putti’s well attested childlike and irresponsible
behavior49 evokes praise of a care-free attitude and the critique of too austere
a modus vivendi.
The grotesques, for their part, are compositions of a heterogeneous nature,
selections from multiple objects and creatures combined into one being. Such
is the case with humans sprouting out of goblets, female figures hybridized
with tree branches, or artifacts consisting of objects and natural elements
fused together such as leaved candelabra or pillars in the shape of flowers.
Perrin interprets them as symbols of the ‘crisis of reason’, in favor of a con-
ceptual framing of the world as ‘retour au chaos originel’.50 This fusional
synthesis of multiple objects and beings is predicated on and attests to Nero’s
own vision of the Golden Age: a time of a Bacchic lack of inhibitions in an
undifferentiated natural state and of a lack of rules and hierarchies—a set of
anti-values all the more dangerous if preached by the princeps.51
46 Among the beings represented are horses and bulls with whales’ tails being ridden by tritons,
various types of whale-tailed monsters, ichthyocentaurs and Nereids.
47 Cf. Sapph. fr. 5 Voigt; Eur. Hel. 1584–7; Arr. Anab. 1.11.6. According to Paus. 2.1.8, the
Nereids had their own dedicated cult sites.
48 Barringer 1995, 141–51; Barringer calls attention to Eur. Andr. 1254–68, which seems to
support the idea that the Nereids have the ability to confer immortality, and to Hymni Orphici
24 and Ion 1074–89, where the Nereids dance in celebration of the Bacchic mysteries, thereby
suggesting an association with both Dionysos and Persephone.
49 Among the innumerable literary and visual representations of such attitudes see, for instance
Alcm. fr. 38 and Sapph. fr. 130 V.
50 Perrin 1982, 322.
51 Cf. Fabre-Serris 1999, 195–6 where Nero’s Bacchic-like vision of the Golden Age is associated
with the emperor’s sexuality, which Suet. Ner. 29 overtly critiques when narrating the epi-
sode of his marriage to Doriphorus (suam quidem pudicitiam usque adeo prostituit. ‘He
prostituted his own chastity to such an extent’), while Tac. Ann. 15.37 mentions the wedding
to Pythagoras. Champlin 1998, 340–4 proposes an interpretation of the Golden House as
a stage where Nero, by blending public and private spaces (the domus and the urbs) thus
upending many social conventions, would pursue his political/esthetic project of a ‘year-
round Princeps Saturnalicus’.
176

Nero saw in his royal palace an extraordinary means for giving physical
representation to his ideology. The interpretation of the mythical creatures
decorating the various rooms of the Domus, if correct, demonstrates Nero’s
own association between his reign, its artistic propaganda, and the Golden
Age. The name itself of the Domus could possibly elicit the intention of
making the Golden Age a namesake for the palace. This idea, fascinating
and possibly convincing, is nonetheless controversial, and equally persuasive
scholarship has been produced both in support of and against this hypoth-
esis.52 The architectural principles governing the whole project, however, reveal
a close adherence to Nero’s ideology. As attested, once again, by Suet. Ner.
55 and Tac. Ann. 15.40.3, the emperor was dreaming of Neropolis,53 a new
Alexandria in which grand buildings would alternate with extensive parks,
built according to rational Deinocratean principles.54 Even these spaces, on
account of their resemblance to the παράδεισοι of the Achaemenid dynasty,
conjured up a strong ideal of theocratic kingship. The use of gardens and the
display of specific plants as a form of self-aggrandizement are late repub-
lican phenomena, and would become major means of imperial image-making
during the first century CE.55 According to Pliny HN 12.19–20 and 12.111–3,
Pompey was the first to display a tree—a specimen of ebony, to be precise—as
a trophy during his triumph on Mithridates and the pirates in 62 BCE, thus
making the tree a symbol of the subjugated enemy, and a testament to his
own power. Pliny HN 15.102 also attests that, in a similar fashion, about ten
years earlier L. Licinius Lucullus had imported the cherry tree from Pontus
as a token of his victory over Mithridates in 74 BCE and that, in 43 CE, the
cherry tree was then introduced to Britain. The case of the cherry tree is an
interesting one because of its symbolic trajectory shifting from image of the
conquered to attribute of the conqueror, from triumphal trophy to emblem of
Roman imperium.56 This ‘botanical gesture of supremacy’ is by no means new.
There are long-standing Egyptian and Assyrian traditions of transplantations
charged with symbolic value. The Achaemenid empire soon adopted this
custom to be then followed by Alexander and the Hellenistic kings. In par-
ticular we know from Theophr. (HP 4.4.1 Wimmer; CP 2.3.3 Wimmer), Plin.
(HN 16.144), and Plut. Mor. (Quaest. conv. 3.2.1, 648c-d) that Harpalus,
52 In favor of an allegorical interpretation of the adjective is L’Orange 1942, 68–100. On the

contrary, the hypothesis that the attribute ‘golden’ must refer to the gilded dome of the
rotunda is sustained by Lehmann 1945, 22.
53 Among other examples of Nero renaming cities after himself are Caesarea Philippi becoming
Neronias and Artaxata being changed to Neroneia. This aspect of Nero’s ideology, however,
should not be overemphasized as renaming cities after emperors had been common practice
since Augustus, cf. Bradley 1978, 290–1.
54 A topographical assessment of the palace based on the ancient sources can be found in Peters
1985, 105–17. For the presence of literary topoi in the description of Nero’s gardens, see
Moorman 1998, 359–60.
55 Cf. Marzano 2014, 200–5. For the imperial period, see in particular Beard 1998, 31–2.
56 Both episodes of Pompey and Lucullus are extensively analyzed by Marzano 2014, 204–7.
177

Alexander’s boyhood friend, unsuccessfully tried to transplant ivy in the gar-
dens of Babylon.57 The intent was to provide a biological representation of
European and Asiatic species coexisting since, as Brian phrases it, ‘le paradis
constitue en effet une représentation microcosmique de la variété écologique,
arbustive et animale, de l’espace impérial’. Admittedly, both Suetonius’ and
Tacitus’ descriptions of Nero’s palatial gardens are quite succinct and not
extremely detailed. Suetonius Ner. 31 insists on the microcosm-like quality
of the landscape, by mentioning the fact that the artificial lake looked like a
sea (stagnum instar maris)58 and that the surrounding buildings were similar
to cities complemented with woods, fields, vineyards, vistas and all sorts of
animals. Tacitus’ account is even more succinct and at Ann. 15.42.1 the his-
torian insists on the size of the gardens and the open views offered by the
hortus. The gardens of the Domus Aurea were meant to be a propagandistic
representation of the οἰκουμένη, with the emperor ruling over both spaces
symbolically and de facto, in the guise of a παντοκράτωρ solar deity.59 It was
therefore the emperor himself who, through his architectural and landscape
achievements, and much more dangerously than Posidonius, associated
fabrica, kingship and, in the words of Tacitus, favored the transition from the
vetus to the nova Urbs: the quite literally gilded architectural manifestation of
a new Golden Age.
Thus, in Ep. 90, Seneca surely expresses his disagreement with Posidonius,
but he simultaneously targets Nero’s ideal that a new Golden Age be associated
with the imperial house and its ambitious agenda of urban and residential
architecture.
57 See Schneider 2012, 284–8.

58 The architectural features of the palace and the presence of an ‘artificial sea’ suggest a strong
resemblance between the Domus Aurea and the lavish villae maritimae on the bay of Naples,
so despised by Seneca, cf. Mielsch 1987, 136–7. Champlin 1998, 341 suggests that the many
parties organized throughout the years by Nero, and choreographed to be set on floating
platforms (such as the one organized in 64 on the Stagnum Agrippae, cf. Tac. Ann. 15.33–7
and Cass. 62.15.1–6) or arranged on the banks of rivers or sea shores (Suet. Ner. 27) deliber-
ately conjured up the decadent atmosphere of Baiae. Furthermore, the dome of the octagon
suite bears architectural similarities with the rotunda at Baiae, commonly known as the
‘temple of Mercury’; cf. Ball 2003, 230–2.
59 At Apocol. 4.1.27–32 Seneca compares the young emperor to a rising sun; at Clem. 1.8.3
Nero’s all-encompassing power is equated to omnipresent strength of sun light, and Luc.
1.47–8 loads his description of Nero’s apotheosis with many solar attributes and specific
astronomical references which, it has been argued, instance the Stoic model a god as ‘soul
of the world’; cf. Arnaud 1987, 185–93. The interpretation of the Domus Aurea as the palace
of the emperor κοσμοκράτωρ, charged with solar attributes, was first proposed by L’Orange
(1942, 68–100). In 63 CE, a triumph-like spectacle was staged to celebrate the peace treaty
with the Parthians and the Armenians concluded in 66 CE. According to the account of
Cass. 62.23.3–4, during this celebration, which took place at dawn so that Nero could be
struck by the rising sun’s beams, Tiridates, king of Armenia and brother of the Parthians’
king Vologaeses, pledged his allegiance to the emperor by declaring that he regarded him as
the god Mithras (a solar deity in Zoroastrianism). The study of coins minted after the year
63 confirms the diffusion of such sol-related iconography, with the type of Nero wearing a
corona radiata, cf. L’Orange 1947, 61; Champlin 1998, 336; and La Rocca 2017, 197–202.
178

Looking back at the structure of Ep. 90, we can single out three main
narrative blocks. The first and the last ones consist of the two accounts of the
Golden Age, apparently in contradiction. The first one showcases the presence
of kings, while the second contains no mention of kings and is built around
both the Hesiodic/Lucretian motif of the αὐτόματος βίος, and the topos of the
anaphoric negations.60 In between these two descriptions stands the moralistic
critique of the τέχναι, which is spurred by two major arguments of dissent
from Posidonius: that prelapsarian kings were not wise, and that philosophy
was not the main engine for technological development. Thus, Seneca first
disjoins regal power and wisdom (being the strongest is not tantamount to
being wise); then, he separates wisdom from technological development, and
targets, with purposeful acrimony, the invention of fabrica. Seneca ensures
that the reader recognizes in his description the megalomanic palace of the
young emperor, and gradually guides the reader to the second description of
the Golden Age which contains neither τέχναι nor kings.61 It should not come
as a surprise then that Seneca, by purposely exploiting the Cynic motif of the
liberty provided by a simple lifestyle, calls Nero a tyrant when, at par. 10, he
writes: sub auro servitus habitat (‘under the gold dwells slavery’).
Many private dedications, though undated, call Nero ‘the New Sun God’, cf. SIG3 814, IGRR
3, 345 and SEG 18, 566. Furthermore, the solar connotations described in the passage from
Clem. present structural and formulaic features similar to the ones of many Egyptian reli-
gious hymns, where the Pharaoh’s khâ, namely the action of exiting the palace to be seen in
public, is canonically described as the trajectory of the sun rising in the sky. Still typical of the
Egyptian culture was the practice of placing a statue on a temple’s raised pavilion so that the
ba, or the vital power of the solar disk, could penetrate into the statue before the sunbeams
touching the ground. In this regard, both Suet. Ner. 6.1 and Cass. 61.2.1 attest that, at the
exact moment of Nero’s birth, on December 15 of the year 37 CE, the newborn had been
struck by sunlight before the beams touched the ground, an anecdote whose symbolic power
the young emperor deployed and memorialized through ceremonies organized by Tiberius
Claudius Balbillus, his prefect of Egypt, in order to win the trust of his Egyptian subjects.
The Egyptian influences on Nero’s solar representation have been analyzed by Grimal (1971,
208–11), while the solar omen of Nero’s birth has been discussed in relation to its possible
influence on the orientation of the Domus by Voisin (1987, 509–43).
60 Anaphoric negations are canonically employed to describe the Golden Age against the back-
drop of the present times. In other words, the prelapsarian age is seen as the time when all the
vices (serially listed and described) brought about by the progress of time were not present,
cf. Davies 1987. Seneca deploys this topos in a unique manner by creating an anaphoric chain
of perversions that are not generic, thus leaning toward a rather idealized description of the
Golden Age as an era free from such quasi-archetypal vices; rather, he provides very specific
negative examples of vices, and by doing so polarizes the reader’s attention on the present—
the time he is really interested in and the only arena for pursuing virtue, cf. Maxia 2000, 91–3.
61 This is all the more significant if compared to the text of Clem. 2.1.4, written by Seneca and
delivered by young Nero as his own inaugural speech. There Seneca had purposely related the
new saeculum felix (Nero’s) to the end of the old, long reign of vices (Claudius’), but the years
when the De clementia was composed clearly offered different hopes, and the association
between the Golden Age and the new emperor’s reign was still possible.
179
8
Seneca on the mother cow
Poetic models and natural philosophy
in the Consolation to Marcia
Fabio Tutrone
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak

whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.
(W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene III, 209–210)
1 Introduction: consoling, instructing, and rewriting

According to two contemporary scholars in the sociology of emotions, ‘social
institutions prescribe roles to bereaved persons; however, the newly bereaved
might challenge them—loudly’.1 Albeit different in kind and content, social
expectations were highly influential in ancient Rome as well. As Valerie Hope
points out, ‘the fact that some individuals sort to codify grief and to set a limit
to its expression indicates that others deviated from these codes and limits.
In other words, in their grief people could and did defy what was deemed
acceptable’.2 There is good reason to believe that Marcia, the addressee of
the earliest of Seneca’s extant writings, was one of those bereaved who did
not fear to challenge culturally sanctioned norms. To make things even worse,
she was an educated woman in an anxious ‘city of fathers’.3 Three years after
the death of her son Metilius, she was still grieving for him—too much for a
culture which legally regulated the length of mourning.4 And it was not only
1 Charmaz-Milligan 2007, 526.

2 Hope 2007, 173. For a comprehensive analysis of the Greco-Roman understanding of grief,
calling attention to the culturally constructed character of this and other emotions, see
Konstan 2016.
3 On Rome as a ‘cité de pères’, see Thomas 1986. The importance of gender issues in Seneca’s
Consolations is highlighted by Wilcox 2006. Marcia was skilled and cultured enough to publish
anew the work of her father, the historian Aulus Cremutius Cordus, who was prosecuted by
Sejanus and committed suicide in 25 CE (cf. also Cass., 57.24.4). Seneca claims that Marcia
inherited from her father the love of learning (studia, hereditarium et paternum bonum, [6].1.6)
and ‘performed a superb service to Roman literature’ (optime meruisti de Romanis studiis,
[6].1.3). She was conspicuous for her moral virtue (1.1) and noble-mindedness (magnitudo
animi, [6].1.5), the typically Stoic virtue of μεγαλοψυχία.
4 A Roman funerary law reported by Paulus, Sent. 1.21.2–5, 8–14 (= Bruns 1909, 2.334–5)
prescribes that ‘parents and children over six years of age can be mourned for a year, children
under six for a month. A husband can be mourned for ten months, close blood relations for
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180 Fabio Tutrone

a matter of time. Crushed by sorrow, Marcia appeared to forget her duties
towards her children and grandchildren as well as towards the heritage of her
family’s memory.5
In his philosophical Consolation to this allegedly stubborn noble lady,
Seneca carefully contrasts the positive value of memory with the abnormal
psychology of prolonged grief, arguing that the latter ‘is destructive to the
mourner, the neglected family, the community and the dead’.6 Yet, for all its
perceptive understanding of social variables, Seneca’s therapeutic approach is
primarily focused on the cognitive and physical basis of immoderate sorrow.
The Consolation to Marcia embraces the orthodox Stoic view that, when
unduly protracted, grief reflects a logical misunderstanding of the natural
world, human life, and the limits of the self. Cultural norms are broken and—
what matters much more—social bonds are in danger when the knowing
agent gives his/her assent (συγκατάθεσις) to false impressions. At that very
moment, human rationality loses its battle for the conquest of truth, and the
mind (which the Stoics regard as an entirely material body) is enslaved to
opinion (δόξα).7 Seneca is thus aware that persuading Marcia to leave her
false beliefs is the only way to reawaken her interest in communal life, family
reciprocity and constructive memory. He conceives his consolatory writing as
an intellectually engaging didactic work tailored to the needs and disposition
of his addressee. At the same time, Seneca clearly envisages a wider audience
attending his re-educational sessions and arranges his arguments in such a
way that any learned Roman reader may benefit from his instructions.8
The main purpose of the present chapter is to show that in this and several
other respects the Consolation to Marcia makes a conscious move towards
the different but evidently related genre of didactic poetry. I shall focus on
eight months. Whoever acts contrary to these restrictions is placed in public disgrace’. Cf.
Shelton 1998, 94, Konstan 2006, 252–8, and Hope 2007, 174. See also Seneca’s own warnings
in Helv. [12].16.1, and Ep. 63.13. As early as the 5th century BCE, the Twelve Tables tried to
curb women’s expression of mourning at funerals (Cic. Leg. 2.59).
5 At Marc. [6]‌.16.6–8, Seneca poignantly notes that, while grieving for Metilius, Marcia forgot
another son who had died earlier (prioris oblita). Seneca adds that, in her grief, Marcia tended
to see Metilius’ daughters as ‘great burdens’ (magna onera) rather than as ‘great comforts’
(magna solacia).
6 Shelton 1995, 188. The contrasting exempla of Octavia and Livia presented at the outset
(Marc. [6]‌.2–3) are a case in point.
7 For a rich discussion of the Stoics’ epistemology of emotions, including special notes on the
case of grief, see Graver 2007. A controversy has arisen over the possible changes made to the
earlier Stoic theory by Posidonius and other later thinkers: see e.g., Sorabji 2000, 29–143, and
the different stance of Gill 2006, 207–90.
8 Cf. Manning 1981, 6–7: ‘in the Ad Marciam we find a number of digressions upon the human
situation, dealing with the greater impact of the unexpected (9.1f.), the mutability of for-
tune (9.1–11), the inseparability of life’s pains from its pleasures (17–18), and the evils from
which death can rescue a man (20). The occasional use of the masculine participles in such
sections, even though his addressee is feminine (9.3; 17.1 and 18.4), and a plural imperative
(10.4) strongly suggest that there are times when this wider audience is uppermost in the
author’s mind’.
181
Poetic models and natural philosophy 181

the literarily and philosophically dense section on general praecepta which
follows the opening gallery of exempla.9 At the very start of this section ([6].
7), Seneca embarks on a skillful (yet almost unrecognized) imitatio/aemulatio
of Lucretius’ famous argument on the mother cow (DRN 2.352–66). A closer
analysis of Seneca’s intertextual allusion to Lucretius’ piece of bravura and
its Ovidian afterlife will reveal that the strategies of literary amplification
and rewriting deployed in the Consolation support the construction of a dis-
tinctively Stoic paradigm of natural philosophy. While giving new shape to
his poetic models, Seneca substantially revises the intellectual meanings of
Lucretius’ exposition, in an attempt to replace the Epicurean emphasis on
physical diversity and animal cognition with the Stoic doctrine of a uniform,
teleologically ordered cosmos.
Seneca’s reception of many aspects of the Epicurean tradition has been
thoroughly studied.10 Indeed, Epicurus’ presence in the Senecan corpus, espe-
cially in the Letters to Lucilius, cannot fail to strike any reader, ancient or
modern. What is more, as Alessandro Schiesaro observes, ‘Lucretius, both as
the foremost Roman interpreter of the Greek philosopher and as a master of
Latin poetry, plays a distinctive role in Seneca’s negotiations of Epicureanism
and Stoicism’.11 In the specific context of the Consolation to Marcia, Seneca’s
deep-seated interest in philosophical traditions other than Stoicism is further
increased by genre requirements. As David Kaufman notes in his discussion of
Galen’s newly rediscovered treatise On Freedom from Distress (Περὶ ἀλυπίας),
given its predominantly practical focus, ancient consolation literature is ‘per-
haps the most heterodox of ancient philosophical genres’.12 This heterodox,
eclectic character is eloquently exemplified by Seneca’s most prominent
Roman predecessor, Cicero, whose Tusculan Disputations report that ancient
consolers—including Cicero himself in his lost Consolation to Himself—were
prepared to use therapeutic arguments from a variety of schools for the sake
of effectiveness.13
9 The rhetorical division of the Consolation into several distinct sections, alternating moving
exempla and instructive praecepta, was already noted by Albertini 1923, 53–4, Favez 1928,
LXV–LXXI, Grollios 1956, 15–18, and Abel 1967, 15–46, among others. As Manning 1981,
8, remarks, ‘between the exordium and the peroratio, which is signified by the prosopopoeia
of Cremutius Cordus at 26.1 […] are four main sections: exempla, general precepts, precepts
relating to Marcia’s situation, and precepts relating to Metilius’ situation’. On the set of
exempla put forth at 1–6, see Shelton 1995.
10 See, for instance, the extensive treatments by André 1969, Setaioli 1988, 171–248, Wildberger
2014a, Schiesaro 2015, and Graver 2016.
11 Schiesaro 2015, 239. Seneca’s re-use of Lucretius’ poetic force is also discussed by Mazzoli
1970, 206–9. Although Schiesaro 2015, 240, is right in claiming that, for the most part, Seneca
privileges ‘Epicurus’ teachings on ethics while silencing or criticizing his physics’, the Natural
Quaestions shed interesting light on Seneca’s assimilation of Lucretius’ and Epicurus’ physical
doctrines. See Tutrone 2017.
12 Kaufman 2014, 275. On the ‘fluid’ nature of the consolatory genre, and the need to adopt ‘an
inclusive and flexible attitude’ to the array of social practices it condenses, see Scourfield 2013.
13 Cic. Tusc. 3.76: sunt etiam qui haec omnia genera consolandi colligant—alius enim alio modo
movetur—, ut fere nos in Consolatione omnia in consolationem unam coniecimus; erat enim in
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182 Fabio Tutrone

Seneca’s willingness to employ a number of psychagogic methods and the-
oretical constructs in order to console (and re-educate) Marcia also puts his
work in contact with didactic epic. From a very early date, authors of didactic
poetry endeavored to adapt their rhetorical techniques to their addressees’
character. They were not afraid to use harsh means such as complaint and
rebuke if necessary and never forgot that an external audience witnessed the
salutary lessons they conveyed to their internal addressees.14 In a thought-
provoking survey, Philip Mitsis showed that a sophisticated strategy of
‘didactic coercion’ underlies Lucretius’ poem On the Nature of Things, in so
far as the Epicurean writer tries to arouse in his readers both compassion
for Memmius—the fool or νήπιος ‘who embraces all the conventional and
mistaken attitudes that the poet is out to eliminate’—and allegiance to the
wise teacher.15 A clear echo of this typically poetic-didactic situation can be
perceived in the introductory section of the Consolation to Marcia (Marc.
[6].1.5):
Alii itaque molliter agant et blandiantur, ego confligere cum tuo maerore
constitui et defessos exhaustosque oculos, si verum vis magis iam ex
consuetudine quam ex desiderio fluentis, continebo, si fieri potuerit,
favente te remediis tuis, si minus, vel invita, teneas licet et amplexeris
dolorem tuum, quem tibi in filii locum superstitem fecisti.
So other people may treat you gently and soothingly, but I have decided
to do battle with your grief; I shall bring your weary, exhausted eyes
under control, eyes which, if you want to know the truth, flow more from
habit than from longing; I shall do this, if possible, with your support for
the remedies, but if not, I shall do it even against your will, even if you
embrace and cling to your grief, which you have kept alive in place of
your son.16
With an eye open on his other readers, Seneca declares that the authentic
root of Marcia’s distress is a cognitive error with behavioral consequences: the
transformation of natural longing (desiderium) into a self- induced habit
(consuetudo), and the attachment to grief as a kind of emotional surrogate
of Metilius. This is a rigorous Stoic diagnosis relying on the assumption that
tumore animus, et omnis in eo temptabatur curatio (‘there are those who bring together all these
types of consolation, since different methods work for different people. In my ‘Consolation’,
for instance, I combined virtually all these methods into a single speech of consolation. For
my mind was swollen, and I was trying out every remedy I could’. Transl. Graver 2002, 34).
Cf. also Cic. Att. 12.14.3. On the emotional and philosophical meaning of Cicero’s Consolatio
ad se, see Baltussen 2013.
14 All these features of ancient didactic are suitably illustrated in Schiesaro-Mitsis-Strauss
Clay 1993.
15 Mitsis 1993, 123–8: ‘in winking with the poet behind the back of the fool, we ourselves may
be swallowing more of the poet’s medicine than we suspect’.
16 Here and elsewhere, translations from the Consolation to Marcia are those of Hine 2014.
183

grief is a wrong rational response to external inputs—a concrete instantiation
of opinion (δόξα, opinio). But as David Konstan points out, the Epicureans
agree with the Stoics that, differently from basic perceptions such as pain and
pleasure, grief is essentially cognitive in nature and can be healed through
appropriate rational therapy.17 Mutatis mutandis, the empty and sorrowful
hug of Marcia seeking an impossible reunion with Metilius can be compared
to the unsatisfying quest for love and its deceitful simulacra described in
Lucretius’ book 4.18 Like Lucretius, Seneca believes that it is worth applying
the bitter remedy of didactic coercion to correct the error of those minds
which pervert the meaning of natural experiences.
Still, harsh means are not the core element of Stoic and Epicurean peda-
gogy. First and foremost, both Seneca and Lucretius attempt to enhance the
persuasiveness of their message by appealing to their addressees’ status, back-
ground and preferences. Even Seneca’s intertextual re-use of Lucretius falls
within the scope of a strategy of persuasion. The alluring rewriting of a fine
literary piece and its reinterpretation in light of Stoic thought seem expressly
designed to impress the imagination of a learned woman like Marcia.19
Indeed, the very structure of the Consolation—which, quite unusually,
discusses exempla before praecepta—is presented by Seneca as a rhetorical
device aimed to capture the addressee’s attention. As Seneca makes clear,
‘different people need different treatment: some are guided by reason (ratio);
some need to be confronted with famous names (nomina clara), with pres-
tige (auctoritas) that will constrain their thinking when they are captivated by
superficial appearances’.20 As is well-known, quotations from famous names
of the poetic tradition had figured prominently in ancient consolation lit-
erature since the time of Crantor of Soli, the late fourth-century Academic
author of an influential work On Mourning (Περὶ πένθους) praised by the Stoic
Panaetius.21 Although in his textual commentary Charles Manning claims
17 Konstan 2013, 203: ‘Epicurus preserves the distinction between emotions that depend on
belief (as fears clearly do, as well as joy) and are therefore cognitive in nature, and sensations
such as pleasure and pain that are directly mediated by perception and hence, unlike beliefs,
are incorrigible. Despite a divergence in terminology, Epicurean theory is in this respect con-
sistent with Peripatetic and Stoic views’. Needless to say, my approach in this chapter is in
total disagreement with the claim of Wilson 2013, 94, that the ‘most salient characteristic’ of
Seneca’s Consolations is ‘their abstention from philosophy, and even suppression of it’.
18 See esp. Lucr. DRN 4.1091–114.
19 On Marcia’s erudition and love for literature, see n. 3. Remarking on the similarities between
Cicero’s and Seneca’s hortatory advice to the bereaved, Ker 2009b, 90–1, observes that ‘the
tailoring of this advice to suit the addressee makes the consolation an exercise in the rhetoric
of occasion, and also in the offering of ‘mediating narratives’. […] The therapy comes to be
mediated through cultural and literary representations with their own tales to tell, thereby
amplifying the therapy’s signifying potential’.
20 Cf. Marc. [6]‌.2.1–2. Since Marcia clearly belongs to the latter group of people, the examples
of Octavia and Livia, and the speech of the philosopher Areus, take precedence over general
teachings.
21 Crantor’s long-standing influence upon the consolatory tradition is highlighted by Graver
2002, 187–94. On his admiration for, and quotation of, poetic texts (especially Homer and
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184 Fabio Tutrone

that, compared to other consolers, Seneca ‘shows considerable restraint’ in
referring to literary authorities,22 it has been convincingly argued that ‘Seneca
appeals to Marcia as a reader of Augustan literature, and in particular of
the Aeneid’.23 A deeper exploration of Seneca’s allusivity, with reference to
the less obvious field of Epicurean didactic, shall demonstrate that Marcia’s
acquaintance with the by-then renowned poem of Lucretius serves as the
basis for a forceful restatement of the Stoic conception of death, nature and
parental love.
2 Animal sorrows across the genres: Lucretius and Ovid

Lucretius’ masterpiece On the Nature of Things does not give extensive
treatment to grief, but as a vigorously perturbing emotion connected to the
experience of death, the theme surfaces repeatedly in the poem. Epicurus
showed great concern for the negative consequences of the fear of death,
and there is also evidence that he authored one of the earliest consolatory
epistles in Hellenistic literature.24 As Tim O’Keefe remarks, ‘in so far as the
main Epicurean arguments show that death is not bad for the person who
has died, they should also help greatly lessen our grief at the deaths of
loved ones’.25 Still, the Epicureans recognize that grieving the loss of one’s
friends—even by weeping and groaning—is not only legitimate, but also pref-
erable to freedom from distress (ἀλυπία) carried to the point of indifference
(τὸ ἀπαθές).26 Epicurus’ followers seem to make a sharp distinction between
the physiological manifestations of sorrow due to an incorrigible emotional
‘bite’ (δηγμός) and the pathological prolongation of mourning caused by
false beliefs. All of Lucretius’ remarks are consistent with this view.27 For
instance, whereas grief (luctus) and the tears of those bewailing a loved one
on the point of death are included in Lucretius’ discussion of the natural
Euripides), see Diog. Laert. 4.26–7. On Panaetius’ appreciation of Crantor’s On Mourning

(and apparently of the theory of μετριοπάθεια), see Cic. Luc. 135. Cf. also Sorabji 2000,
106–7.
22 Manning 1981, 13: ‘a citation from Publilius Syrus, another from the Aeneid and an obvious
allusion to that work are the limits of the backing sought in the Ad Marciam from the
“classics” of Seneca’s own day’.
23 Ker 2009b, 95–6.
24 See Plut. Non posse 1101a–b, quoting Epicurus’ letter to Dositheus and Pyrson about the
death of Hegesianax (Dositheus’ son and Pyrson’s brother).
25 O’Keefe 2010, 170. See also Warren 2004, 1–16.
26 Plut. Non posse 1101a. The distance between the Epicurean position and the later Stoic ideal
of the eradication of emotions (culminating precisely in ἀπάθεια and ἀλυπία) is all too clear.
27 An illuminating treatment of this matter is offered by Konstan 2013. On the twinge or δηγμός
which even the Epicurean sage may experience, see Philod. De ir. cols. 40–2; De mort. cols.
20–35. As Tsouna 2007, 32–51, notes, Philodemus’ idea of ‘bite’ has many affinities with
earlier Stoic views, but unlike the Stoics, Philodemus ‘interprets ‘bites’ in terms of evaluative
reactions to events and treats them as genuine emotions’. On the Stoic conception of ‘bites’ as
non-judgmental pre-emotions, see n. 57.
185

affections of the soul (DRN 3.459–71), the inconsolable lamentations of those
indulging in ‘endless mourning’ (aeternus maeror, aeternus luctus) are blamed
as irrational (DRN 3.894–911).
However, one passage captures most poignantly Lucretius’ sympathetic
understanding of grief and its physical basis. And it is this passage that Seneca
alludes to in his Consolation to Marcia. Rather unexpectedly, here Lucretius—
who is a well-known critic of anthropocentric cosmology—does not deal at
length with human sorrow at the death of a dear one, but with the intense
sufferings of an animal mother deprived of her calf (DRN 2.352–66):
Nam saepe ante deum vitulus delubra decora

turicremas propter mactatus concidit aras
sanguinis expirans calidum de pectore flumen;
at mater viridis saltus orbata peragrans 355
quaerit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis,
omnia convisens oculis loca, si queat usquam
conspicere amissum fetum, completque querellis
frondiferum nemus adsistens et crebra revisit
ad stabulum desiderio perfixa iuvenci, 360
nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentes
fluminaque ulla queunt summis labentia ripis
oblectare animum subitamque avertere curam,
nec vitulorum aliae species per pabula laeta
derivare queunt animum curaque levare; 365
usque adeo quiddam proprium notumque requirit.
For example, often before a god’s gracefully ornamented shrine a calf
falls a victim beside the incense-smoking altars, and with its last breath
spurts a hot stream of blood from its breast. Meanwhile the bereaved
mother ranges through green glades searching the ground for the imprint
of those cloven hoofs. With her eyes she explores every place in the hope
that she will be able to spy somewhere the young one she has lost. Now
she halts and fills the leafy grove with her plaintive calls. Time after time
she returns to the cowshed, her heart transfixed with longing for her calf.
Tender willow shoots, and grass freshened by dew, and those familiar
streams brimming their banks as they slide by, fail to soothe her mind and
remove the pang of anguish; and the sight of other calves in the luxuriant
pastures is equally powerless to divert her thoughts into a new channel
and disburden her of care. So deeply does she feel the loss of something
that she knows as her very own.28
As the start of the passage shows (nam, DRN 2.352), this touching descrip-
tion of a cow desperately looking for her lost offspring is introduced by way
28 For the sake of clarity and convenience, I use the prose translation of Smith 2001.
186
186 Fabio Tutrone

of analogy. Lucretius’ philosophical purpose is to elucidate the nature of the
invisible atoms composing all things, ‘the great diversity of their forms, and the
variety of their manifold shapes’ (quam longe distantia formis, […] multigenis
quam sint variata figuris, DRN 2.334–5). It is because of such constitutive diver-
sity, the poet argues, that the individual members of all species—humans as well
as fishes, herds, wild beasts and birds—differ from each other and can be easily
distinguished (DRN 2.342–8). For the very same reason, just like humans (nec
minus atque homines, 351), animals can recognize their young, and vice versa
(DRN 2.349–51).29 The conceptual framework of Lucretius’ didactic argu-
ment makes thus clear three important points: first, as an immediate emotional
response, grief has a solid natural basis; second, the animal kingdom provides
valuable evidence about human feelings and the related ethical issues; third,
the origins of parental love lie in the infinite variety of physical elements and
compounds. We should bear these three points in mind when we go back to
Seneca’s imitatio in the Consolation to Marcia.
Lucretius is unequivocal in stating that the grieving cow is simply following
a natural instinct. In the subsequent section (DRN 2.367–70), after citing the
case of other animal species, he proclaims that the unique relationship between
mother and offspring responds to ‘what nature requires’ (quod natura reposcit,
DRN 2.369). However, already in this basic, physiological form, mourning
appears totally dependent on the inner cognitive world of living beings. Neither
the surrounding bucolic landscape nor the sight of other calves are able to soothe
the cow’s mind (animus, DRN 2.365 and 2.363) and mitigate her anguish (cura,
DRN 2.363 and 365). Like the distressing ‘bites’ mentioned by Philodemus30,
the animal mother’s longing (desiderium, DRN 2.360) is incorrigible.
Indeed, despite the careful inspection of many different spaces (omnia
loca, DRN 2.357) and the inevitable flow of time (crebra revisit, DRN
2.359), Lucretius’ cow remains as inconsolable as the addressees of ancient
consolations. But while the consolatory tradition could appeal to the paci-
fying effect of metaphysical and eschatological visions—the prosopopoeia
of Cremutius Cordus at the end of Seneca’s Consolation to Marcia is a case
in point31—Lucretius identifies in religious beliefs the prime cause of grief.
As Anne Amory points out, ‘for the atomic argument the calf does not
need to be sacrificed on an altar; it could just as well have been killed acci-
dentally, or even just lost, but Lucretius chooses instead a situation which
allows him to attack religion’.32 This deliberate choice appears even more
29 The logical coherence of Lucretius’ analogy between atoms and living beings has been
questioned by some interpreters (cf. e.g., Bailey 1947, I, ad loc.). But see now Konstan 2013,
200: ‘the great variety of atomic shapes permits individuation on the macroscopic level to such
an extent that any given animal can readily identify its own offspring and parents; in turn, since
animals do invariably recognize each other, the possibility that atoms come in a single form, or
in very few, is eliminated by what the Epicureans called counter-witnessing or ἀντιμαρτύρησις’.
30 Cf. n. 27.
31 Sen. Marc. [6]‌.26.
32 Amory 1969, 161. See also Saylor 1972, 307–13, comparing the present passage with the anti-
religious polemic of the sacrifice of Iphigenia (DRN 1.80–101). For further references (and a
wider discussion of Lucretius’ philosophical stance), see Tutrone 2012, 57–72.
187

significant if one considers the poet’s (equally deliberate) insistence on the
cognitive and moral issue of mourning. Here as well as in other sections of
his work,33 Lucretius seems to suggest that religion and the faith in human/
divine interactions (such as those presupposed in ancient sacrifice) do not
alleviate grief. Rather, they cause it.34
Lucretius’ Epicurean lesson was admittedly hard to accept for tradition-
ally minded Romans. And it was visibly at odds with the Stoic worldview that
had been influencing Rome’s ruling class for more than one century. Yet the
poetic charm of Lucretius’ arguments gave them enduring fame and rele-
vance. In the age of Augustus, Ovid proclaims that ‘the verse of the sublime
Lucretius shall perish only when one day consigns the earth to destruction’.35
Interestingly enough, in the intellectually elaborated framework of his Fasti,
Ovid himself embarks on a sustained imitatio of the mother cow episode and
its ‘sublime’ inspiration. That the poetry of the Fasti relies on a wide-ranging
gallery of literary models and a refined negotiation of generic boundaries
has long been acknowledged by scholars. Especially conspicuous is Ovid’s
combination of elegy and epic (both heroic and didactic) in his treatment
of the rape of Persephone (4.417–620), where the imitation of the cow
passage actually occurs.36 As a self-conscious author of aetiological elegy,
Ovid pursues a didactic project which is overtly reminiscent of Lucretius’
challenging lesson—from the opening celebration of Venus’ creative force
(4.1–132) through the description of the Magna Mater cults (4.179–372)
33 See, besides the above-mentioned sacrifice of Iphigenia, the attack on traditional rituals in
Lucr. DRN 4.1233–47; 5.1198–203. In DRN 3.417–869, the belief in the survival of the soul
after death, which plays a central role in Academic and Stoic consolatory writings, is shown
to be dangerously misleading.
34 Lucretius’ polemic against sacrifice appears more radical than that of most Epicureans (cf.
e.g., Philod. De Piet. lines. 790–7; 877–96; 1849–52 Obbink, with the comments of Summers
1995) and reveals the influence of Empedocles (see Furley 1989, 172–82, Sedley 1998, 30, and
Garani 2013). Moreover, Roman readers could hardly fail to spot Lucretius’ allusive references
to the vocabulary of death, lamentation and comfort which characterized funerary contexts
and consolations. Eloquent examples include: amissum, querellis (DRN 2.358), desiderio
perfixa (DRN 2.360), oblectare animum, avertere curam (DRN 2.363), derivare animum, cura
levare (DRN 2.365). Cf. also DRN 3.894–918 for Lucretius’ knowledge of Roman funerary
conventions. An analogous degree of intergeneric allusivity may be detected in the contrasting
depiction of a typically bucolic locus amoenus (DRN 2.355, 359, 361–4, 367–70).
35 Ov. Am. 1.15.23–4 (carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti, |exitio terras cum dabit una
dies), quoting Lucr. DRN 5.95. Ovid’s use of the rather ‘technical’ adjective sublimis captures
Lucretius’ conscious engagement with the rhetoric of the sublime (ὕψος): see Porter 2016,
445–53.
36 A path-breaking discussion of Ovid’s intertextual background has been offered by Hinds
1987, 99–133, who compares the treatment of Persephone’s rape in the Fasti with that
of Metamorphoses 5. See also Hinds 1992, Merli 2000, 69–129, and Pasco-Pranger 2006,
according to whom ‘we might think of the Fasti’s genre as the locus of several distinct but
simultaneous negotiations. On one level, the dynamic opposition between epic and elegy con-
tinues to play a role […]; on another level, the negotiation of the specialized generic status
of etiological elegy as opposed to amatory elegy is played out; and on yet another, this etio-
logical elegy defines its own ways of building meaning in the exposition of the year against the
cultural model of the epigraphical calendars’ (13).
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188 Fabio Tutrone

and the reflection on earth’s generative power underlying the myth of Ceres
and Persephone (4.393–620).37 Since Ovid’s reception of Lucretius is likely
to have influenced Seneca’s own rewriting, it is worth reassessing it briefly
before turning back to the Consolation to Marcia.
The presentation of the games of Ceres (Cereris ludi, 4.393) in Fasti 4
includes a typically didactic instruction about the choice of sacrificial victims
which may have roots in Roman religious symbolism, but acquires fuller
meaning in light of the subsequent aemulatio Lucreti (Fast. 4.413–6):
A bove succincti cultros removete ministri:

bos aret; ignavam sacrificate suem.
Apta iugo cervix non est ferienda securi:
vivat et in dura saepe laboret humo.
You attendants, with tucked up robes, take the knives away from the ox;
let the ox plough; sacrifice the lazy sow. The axe should never smite the
neck that fits the yoke; let him live and often labour in the hard soil.38
As Denis Feeney points out, this and other precepts in the Fasti attest to
Ovid’s negative perception of sacrifice ‘as a token of the loss of the Golden
Age’.39 However, Ovid’s refusal of bovine sacrifice in particular (the offering
of a sow is in fact prescribed) seems also related to the re- appearance
of Lucretius’ disconsolate bovine in the narrative of Persephone’s rape.
According to Ovid, this digressive narrative is made necessary by the
requirements of ‘the subject itself’ (ipse locus, 4.417), that is, by the point of
the calendar and the general setting.40 With a supremely Callimachean move,
readers are informed that they ‘will hear much that they knew before’, while
also ‘learning a few things’.41 What readers already know certainly includes
Lucretius’ didactic poetry, for a first allusion to the Epicurean poet is made in
37 Lucretius’ hymn to the alma Venus (cf. Ov. Fast. 4.1, and Lucr. DRN 1.2) is the well-known
proem to Book 1 (1–43). The cult of the Magna Mater is the subject of a controversial
exposition in Book 2 (600–45). In the same book, the identification of the fruits of the
earth (fruges) with Ceres is rationalistically explained (655–60), and the origins and limits
of agricultural fertility are painstakingly discussed (991–1174). As Schiesaro 2002, 64,
observes, ‘Ovid’s Fasti can be read as an attempt to combine Lucretius’ interest in causae
with Vergil’s ethical and religious concerns’. On the Fasti’s relationship to didactic poetry,
see also Miller 1992.
38 Translations from the Fasti are, with slight modifications, those of Frazer 1959.
39 Feeney 2004, 16: for Ovid, after the advent of farming and animal breeding, ‘human life is
denaturalised, and sacrifice must be endlessly repeated in order to stave off the ever-present
threat of having to pay the full consequences of that denaturalisation’.
40 Cf. Barchiesi 1997, 75–6: ‘ipse locus could be read in two ways: on the one hand as ‘this point
of the calendar’, and on the other as ‘this setting’, the one that is about to be described. […]
Exigit ipse locus is just the kind of formula that a serious historian would use to motivate a
digression’.
41 Ov. Fast. 4.418: plura recognosces, pauca docendus eris. As Hinds 1987, 40, points out, the pen-
tameter ‘implies in the Alexandrian manner that the bulk of the ensuing narrative will consist
of material attested elsewhere’.
189

the epic portrayal of Sicily as the geographical setting of Persephone’s rape.
Indeed, Ovid’s picture of ‘the Trinacrian land’ (Trinacris, 4.420) running
out ‘into the vast sea’ (vastum in aequor) with its ‘three rocky capes’ (tribus
scopulis) is an elegant epitomization of Lucretius’ depiction of Empedocles’
homeland.42 Learned readers cannot escape noticing such a powerful, even if
indirect, re-evocation of Empedocles—a prominent figure in Latin literature
since the time of Ennius and a relentless critic of animal sacrifice.43 Yet, the
most explicit reference to Lucretius’ poetry surfaces at the key moment when
Ovid describes Ceres’ reaction to the rape of her daughter. While picking
flowers in the Sicilian town of Henna, where she had come with her mother
upon invitation of Arethusa, Persephone is abducted by Hades. As soon as
her playmates realize that she is not with them anymore, they display the typ-
ical ancient manifestations of mourning: ‘they fill the mountains with shrieks
and smite their bare bosoms with their sad hands’.44 Ceres’ maternal grief, by
contrast, is markedly Lucretian (Fast. 4.455–66):
Attonita est plangore Ceres (modo venerat Hennam) 455

nec mora, ‘me miseram! filia’ dixit ‘ubi es?’
mentis inops rapitur, quales audire solemus
Threïcias fusis maenadas ire comis.
ut vitulo mugit sua mater ab ubere rapto
et quaerit fetus per nemus omne suos, 460
sic dea nec retinet gemitus, et concita cursu
fertur, et e campis incipit, Henna, tuis.
inde puellaris nacta est vestigia plantae
et pressam noto pondere vidit humum;
forsitan illa dies erroris summa fuisset, 465
si non turbassent signa reperta sues.
Ceres was startled by the loud lament; she had just come to Henna,
and straightway, ‘Woe’s me! my daughter,’ said she, ‘where are you?’
Distraught she hurried along, even as we hear that Thracian Maenads
rush with streaming hair. As a cow, whose calf has been torn from her
udder, bellows and seeks her offspring through every grove, so the goddess
did not stifle her groans and ran at speed, starting from the plains of
Henna. From there she light on prints of the girlish feet and marked the
42 Cf. Ov. Fast. 4.419–22, and Lucr. DRN 1.716–30.

43 In her analysis of Ovid’s account of the Agonalia festival (Fast. 1.317–456), Garani 2013
highlights the impact of Empedocles’ teachings on the Ovidian representation of bull sac-
rifice as a marker of the fall from the Golden Age. According to Garani, ‘Ovid integrates
within his history of sacrifice a double allusion to Empedocles and Lucretius, the so-called
“Empedoclean fingerprint”, and thus brings into his narrative the Empedoclean imagery of
the advent of Strife and the concomitant zoogony’ (259). On the reception of Lucretius as
‘Empedocles Romanus par excellence’ (17) by Latin didactic poets, see also Garani 2007. On
Ovid’s interest in Empedocles and its cultural-historical background, see Pfligersdorffer 1973.
44 Ov. Fast. 4.453–4: montes ululatibus implent, |et feriunt maesta pectora nuda manu.
190
190 Fabio Tutrone

traces of the familiar figure on the ground. Perhaps that day had been the
last of her wanderings if swine had not foiled the trail she found.
By the very act of re-using Lucretius’ analogy in a different analogical con-

text, Ovid urges his audience to spot the metaphorical connections between
Ceres and the mother cow. Both are bereft parents wandering in search
of their offspring with an upset mind, for the cow’s animus (DRN 2.363,
365) finds a telling equivalent in the goddess’ mens (4.457)—mens and animus
being Lucretius’ alternative synonyms for the rational part of the soul in book
3.45 One might object that, differently from the calf chosen as a comparans,
Persephone is not dead. But a young chthonic deity can hardly experience a
state closer to death than this forced stay in the infernal realm of Hades. What
is more, both Ovid’s Ceres and Lucretius’ animal mother react to their loss
by groaning and embarking on a long quest: these two fundamental details
of Lucretius’ atomic argument are purposely selected in Ovid’s rewriting of
the simile (4.459–60)46 and are further expanded in the description of Ceres’
journey (4.461–6). The section on Ceres’ mournful journey is the most densely
allusive in Ovid’s text: here, at the border between animal and human expres-
sivity, the querellae of Lucretius’ cow (DRN 2.358) are transformed into
gemitus (4.461), and readers are reminded of the Lucretian particular of
prints (vestigia, 4.463)—with signa at 4.466 as an elegant variatio and the par-
ticiple of premo now referred to the ground (humus, 4.464).47
Whereas modern interpreters tend to focus on the scientific content and the
anti-religious implications of Lucretius’ argument, Ovid—like Seneca several
years later—puts special emphasis on its relationship to the topics of death, grief
and lamentation. Also during her wandering throughout earth and sky, Ceres
has the typical emotional response of the ancient bereaved: she ‘sits most rueful’
(sedit maestissima, 4.503), is ‘touched by the name of mother’ (mota est dea
nomine matris, 4.513),48 fasts for a long time (longam famem, 4.534), and finally
approaches Jupiter ‘after long moaning to herself, with deep lines of sorrow on
her face’ (questa diu secum, […] maximaque in voltu signa dolentis erant, 4.585–6).
In soothing Ceres and excusing the deed as an act of love (hanc lenit factumque
45 See e.g., Lucr. DRN 3.94–7. Konstan 2013, 203 recalls that Lucretius is not entirely consistent
in his use of animus/mens and anima for the rational and the irrational parts of the soul,
respectively (cf. Lucr. DRN 3.421–4). But the repeated occurrence of animus in the short
sequence of the calf episode seems intended to produce in the addressee an awareness of the
(often overlooked) cognitive faculties of animals. See also Tutrone 2012, 66–72.
46 The two lines composing Ovid’s simile are crowded with lexical reminiscences of Lucretius’
longer treatment: mater (DRN 2.355), nemus (DRN 2.359), uber (DRN 2.370). Quaerit can
be compared with the Lucretian requirit (DRN 2.366), but quaerit is also Bailey’s plausible
conjecture for line 356, which is corrupted in the manuscript tradition of Lucretius. Ovid’s
imitatio may actually serve as an additional argument in support of Bailey’s reading.
47 Cf. Lucr. DRN 2.356. Note also the participial adjective notum, which Ovid refers to
Persephone’s ‘weight’ in contrast with the very general usage of Lucr. DRN 2.365.
48 Cf. e.g., Octavia’s obstinacy in not allowing any mention to be made of her dead son: Sen.
Marc. [6]‌.2.5.
191

excusat amore, 4.597), Jupiter himself plays the role of the consoler. Like many
ancient consolers, the king of heaven cannot do anything else than encourage
his addressee to accept the alternation of life and death perfectly symbolized by
Persephone’s sojourns below and above the earth (4.611–8).
Still, for all their sympathetic reappropriation of Lucretius’ verse, Ovid’s
Fasti ultimately neutralize the potentially destabilizing effects of Epicurean
didactic. Lucretius’ dramatic denunciation of the painful consequences of
traditional rituals and beliefs is condensed into an allusive poetic image at
the very heart of a celebration of traditional deities. For Ovid, the wandering
of the bereaved cow is not different in its essence from the cultic procession
of Dionysus’ maenads (4.458)—one of whom, Agave, famously kills her son
Pentheus and searches for his lost limbs.49 Even more remarkable, Ovid’s cow
simile makes no mention of the theme of sacrifice, as readers are told that the
calf is ‘torn’ from his mother’s udder (vitulo ab ubere rapto, 4.459), but they
hear nothing of the purpose of this violence. They are, of course, expected
to remember Lucretius’ masterpiece—and they might even been led to value
animal suffering more highly than the marginalized ritual of sacrifice—but
for the very same reason they are induced to wonder about the roots of Ovid’s
deliberately elliptical readaptation.50 As Steven Green has shown, Ovid’s atti-
tude towards live sacrifice in the Fasti mirrors the unresolved tension between
an ‘Augustan’ and a ‘Pythagorean’ viewpoint: while the former legitimizes
this solemn tradition of Roman religion revived by Augustus, the latter
‘invites sympathy for the animal victims by inviting us to break down barriers
between human and animal experiences’.51 In the end, however, the bitterly
polemical and radically anti-religious approach of Lucretius’ poem remains
unparalleled in Ovid’s work. And the Epicurean therapy of grief is discarded
ipso facto as a philosophically extraneous and poetically irrelevant exercise
in wisdom. As we shall now see, Seneca seems to have learned from Ovid
49 Cf. Nussbaum 1990, vii, ‘Euripides’ Bacchae ends with a scene in which a mother reassembles
her son’s severed bodily parts, parts that she herself has fatally ripped. She puzzles over the
proper location of each member, weeping for the disunity that she herself has made’. In com-
paring Ceres with the roving maenads, Ovid might even be hinting at Ceres’ agency in what
happened to Persephone. At the beginning of his digression, Ovid makes clear that the future
spouse of Hades had come to Sicily to accompany her mother (423–6).
50 The erasure of explicit mention of sacrifice in Ovid’s imitation is remarked on by Feeney
2004, 13–16, who also analyzes the different perspectives on animal killing emerging from
Fasti 1 and Vergil’s Georgics. According to Feeney, ‘in Book 1 the shocking nature of sacrifice
is overt, and fully stressed, as Ovid concentrates all his efforts on denaturalising his audience’s
familiarity with the institution […]. In book 4 Ovid affects to ignore this perspective and to
give another, more ameliorative view of the patron goddess of modern life, exempt from the
nexus of killing, but the sacrificial imperative behind the life of civilization keeps breaking
through […] in the form of the myth, with the Lucretian sacrificial simile for Ceres’ bereave-
ment, with the reminder of her hatred of pigs, and with the treatment of the Triptolemus
story as an aetiology of agriculture’. See also Fantham 1992.
51 Green 2008, 54, recalling the famous speech of Pythagoras in Metamorphoses 15. Cf. also
Garani 2013, 258. Ovid’s ambiguous and at times provocative response to Augustan discourse
is magisterially investigated in Barchiesi 1997 and Newlands 1995.
192
192 Fabio Tutrone

that Lucretius’ lesson can easily become part of a non-Epicurean teaching
program.
3 Stoicizing the cow: Seneca’s cosmology and philosophical

anthropology
When switching from his initial presentation of hortatory exempla to his
more general discussion of philosophical precepts, Seneca broaches the dif-
ficult question of the extent to which grief is a natural human response. The
adoption of this theoretical perspective is hardly surprising for the follower
of a philosophy whose highest aim is ‘living in accordance with nature, that
is, in accordance with virtue’.52 At the same time, Seneca seems acutely aware
that his learned addressee may legitimately lean towards several alternative
paradigms of nature and natural law, all abundantly represented in the Roman
intellectual debate. Indeed, though sharing a series of ethical premises and
goals, the Epicureans and the Stoics had largely diverging views of nature,
humankind and the cosmos. And the situation was further complicated by
the persisting influence of Academic and Peripatetic thought on the consola-
tory genre. It is thus no accident that Marcia is immediately presented with a
therapeutic argument that, while re-using the insights of other philosophical
schools, reaffirms the kernel of Stoic doctrine (Marc. [6]‌.7):
‘At enim naturale desiderium suorum est’. Quis negat, quam diu modicum
est? Nam discessu, non solum amissione carissimorum necessarius
morsus est et firmissimorum quoque animorum contractio. Sed plus
est quod opinio adicit quam quod natura imperavit. Aspice mutorum
animalium quam concitata sint desideria et tamen quam brevia: vaccarum
uno die alterove mugitus auditur, nec diutius equarum vagus ille
amensque discursus est; ferae cum vestigia catulorum consectatae sunt
et silvas pervagatae, cum saepe ad cubilia expilata redierunt, rabiem
intra exiguum tempus extinguunt; aves cum stridore magno inanes nidos
circumfremuerunt, intra momentum tamen quietae volatus suos repetunt;
nec ulli animali longum fetus sui desiderium est nisi homini, qui adest
dolori suo nec tantum quantum sentit sed quantum constituit adficitur.
‘But grieving for one’s relatives is natural’. Who can disagree, as long as
it is done in moderation? For when we are merely separated from our dear
ones, never mind when we lose them, there is an unavoidable stab of pain,
and a contraction even in the most resolute minds. But what imagination
adds goes beyond what nature commands. In the case of mute animals,
see how agitated their grieving is, and yet how short lived: with cows,
their bellowing is heard for one or two days, and with mares, their erratic,
52 Diog. Laert. 7.87 (τὸ ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν, ὅπερ ἐστὶ κατ’ ἀρετὴν ζῆν), quoting Zeno’s
lost treatise On Human Nature. For an introductory overview of Stoic naturalism and its
ethical-logical corollaries, see Sellars 2006, 125–9.
193

demented charging around lasts no longer; when wild animals have
followed the tracks of their cubs and wandered all through the forests,
when they have returned repeatedly to their ransacked lairs, they extin-
guish their rage within a short time; birds squawk around their empty
nests with loud shrieks, but in a moment they fall silent and resume their
flight. No animals mourn their offspring for long, apart from human
beings; they encourage their own grief, and the duration of their affliction
depends not on what they feel but on what they decide.
With a typical rhetorical (and diatribic) stratagem, Seneca starts by

addressing Marcia’s hypothetical objection that longing (desiderium) for
the dead is natural. As Cicero points out, the Stoics define longing as ‘the
desire to see someone who is not yet present’.53 In the case of grief (which
the Stoics, like their predecessors, call πένθος), a person’s emotional status is
worsened by the perception that ‘untimely death’ (ἄωρος θάνατος) makes the
separation irreparable.54 However, desiderium is also the word employed by
Lucretius in his cow argument (2.360). Seneca has no hesitation in agreeing
with the Epicurean Lucretius that irrational animals can experience parental
love and longing, but he carefully re-defines the boundaries of animal feeling
in strict accordance with the principles of Stoic cosmology and anthropology.
Curiously enough, following the opinion of Constantine Grollios, Charles
Manning contends that the digression about non- human beings in the
Consolation to Marcia ‘has no exact parallel in extant Latin texts’ and assigns
Seneca’s injunction ‘either to the influence of the Peripatetic view he is putting
forward, or to the therapeutic effect of the argument on Marcia’.55 It is true
that (here as well as elsewhere) Seneca appears relatively well-disposed toward
the Peripatetic doctrine of the moderation of the emotions (μετριοπάθεια)—
the doctrine according to which the emotions should not be totally extirpated,
as the Stoics claimed, but brought to some sort of mean. Yet, on closer inspec-
tion Seneca’s reception of this and other non-Stoic traditions does not over-
step the barriers of Stoic orthodoxy.56 After claiming that ‘moderate longing’
(desiderium modicum) is natural, Seneca reinterprets in Stoic terms what may
53 Cic. Tusc. 4.21 (= SVF 3.398): desiderium libido eius, qui nondum adsit, videndi. The πόθοι
καὶ ἵμεροι described by Stobaeus Ecl. 2.7, p. 91 Wachsmuth (= SVF 3.394) as pathological
consequences of desire (ἐπιθυμία) are perfect Greek equivalents. It is interesting to note that
Arius Didymus, whose work is traditionally regarded as the main source of Stobaeus’ epitome,
is probably the same Arius recalled by Seneca in the preceding section of the Consolation to
Marcia  ([6].4–6).
54 On the Stoic definition of πένθος as a special kind of pain (λύπη) caused by the experience
of ἄωρος θάνατος (or τελευτή), see SVF 3.413–4. Untimely death is often recorded as a prime
cause of grief in the consolatory genre—well beyond the tradition of Stoicism. Cf. e.g., Plut.
Cons. Apoll. 110e–113e.
55 Manning 1981, 55–6, referring back to Grollios 1956, 36.
56 In the introduction to his commentary, Manning 1981, 10, himself notes that ‘Peripatetic
moderation of the emotions is not Seneca’s final goal for Marcia, but a step on the way to the
Stoics’ ideal of ἀπάθεια, a necessary step for one who has been grieving with such vehemence
194
194 Fabio Tutrone

at first look like a Peripatetic notion. An involuntary ‘bite’ (morsus) or ‘con-
traction’ (contractio) of the soul is unavoidable, Seneca argues, in so far as
the soul of both humans and animals is a material aggregate subject to the
action of external forces. Such a measured physical response is experienced
also by the wise (firmissimorum quoque animorum), but is clearly limited in
time. Moreover, this is not a real emotion, but a pre-emotion (what the Greek
Stoics call a προπάθεια), for it does not entail the conscious assent of reason
or the arbitrary supplement of opinion.57
Noticeably, Seneca employs the traditional Stoic words contractio and
morsus, which had already been used by Cicero as translations for συστολή
and δηγμός (or δῆξις).58 Yet, as mentioned earlier, the idea of inner ‘bite’ had
also become part of the vocabulary of the Epicureans, who in contrast with
the Stoics considered this kind of immediate responses full-fledged emotions.
If we look at the wider context of the passage, it will not be difficult to realize
that Seneca reshapes the legacy of Epicurean thought at the same time when he
gives new meaning to the ethics of Aristotle’s school. The subsequent section
about the ‘longing of irrational animals’ (mutorum animalium desideria) is
in fact an elegant amplification of, and variation on, the Lucretian theme of
the mother cow—pace Grollios and Manning.59 The rhetorical practice of
imitatio/aemulatio is turned by the writer into an effective tool for philosoph-
ical inquiry, teaching and correction, with the purpose of reaching an audience
well-acquainted with late Republican and Augustan literature.60 Lucretius’
(and Ovid’s) animal mother is directly alluded to at the beginning through
for so long’. On the Peripatetic-Stoic controversy, see e.g., Procopé 1998, 172: ‘the idea
behind the Peripatetic talk of ‘moderate emotion’, μετριοπάθεια, was that of the Aristotelian
mean […]. There are things to which anger is the right reaction, in the same way that some
misfortunes are genuinely grievous, and justifiably objects of grief, or some people are truly
hateful and rightly hated. The Stoic claim was that the judgments of good and evil implicit in
such emotions are always unwarranted’.
57 Seneca’s reference to the Stoic theory of pre-emotions in this passage is acknowledged by
Hine 2014, 38 n. 21, and Konstan 2016, 3–8, who also makes a stimulating comparison
with the universal, non-intentional ‘affects’ of modern psychology. On the Stoic concept of
προπάθεια, see Gill 2006, 279–81, with further references. A sound reappraisal of the extant
evidence is offered by Graver 1999. If we trust Seneca, whose writing On Anger devotes con-
sistent attention to pre-emotions (Sen. Ira [4]‌.2.1–4), the concept goes back to Zeno (Sen.
Ira [3].1.16.7 = SVF 1.215). To be sure, as recorded by Gal. Plac. Hipp. Plat. 4.7.12–18,
Chrysippus dealt with involuntary tears and the progressive abatement of distress in his work
On Passions (see Tieleman 2003, 123–30; 259–60). Seneca makes clear that the wise man will
go through this sort of natural experiences also in Ep. 71.27–9; 99.15–21.
58 On the Stoic use of συστολή, see e.g., SVF 3.386, 394, 412. On δηγμός/δῆξις, see Gal. Plac.
Hipp. plat. 4.3.2 (= SVF 1.209), and Plut. Virt. mor. 449A. Cicero resorts several times to the
verb contrahere (corresponding to the Greek συστέλλειν) as well as to the words contractio
and morsus: see e.g., Cic. Tusc. 4.14 (= SVF 3.393), and 3.83–4, where the idea of pre-emotion
is also expounded. Cf. Tieleman 2003, 282–3, and Graver 2009, 240–4.
59 Seneca’s allusivity is instead noted by Mazzoli 1970, 207 n. 95.
60 In this sense, one can definitely agree with Manning 1981, 56, that Seneca is aware of the
possible therapeutic effect of his argument on Marcia. One might add that the rhetoric of
195

the mention of the cows’ bellowing (vaccarum mugitus). But differently from
Lucretius, whose pathetic use of the term mater (DRN 2.355) creates a delib-
erate overlapping of animal and human feelings, Seneca deploys the agricul-
tural label vacca and describes the practice of searching for one’s offspring as a
very general animal habit. It seems to be no accident that the other three species
chosen by Seneca play a relevant role in Lucretius’ didactic arguments: while
mares (equae) are cited in book 4 for their allegedly passionate character—
a trait that, according to ancient lore, they display as parents and mating
partners61—wild beasts (ferae) and birds (aves), with their natural propension
for love, figure eminently in the first proem.62 Other details of the Lucretian
intertext are also echoed, from the woodland setting (already taken on by
Ovid) to the description of the return to the cowshed63 and the evocative words
vestigium and pervagare.64
Clearly, Seneca’s ultimate objective in rewriting Lucretius’ argument is to
restate his own Stoic paradigm of nature and the human against the com-
peting interpretation of the Epicureans. According to the author, even if the
behavior of irrational animals (ἄλογα ζῷα or muta animalia) exemplifies the
basic reality of physiological instincts and reactions, human addressees should
be aware that their condition is far more complex and delicate. Humans are
subject to the same external stimuli as other living beings, yet the content and
duration of their emotions depend, as Seneca puts it, ‘not on what they feel
but on what they decide’ (nec tantum quantum sentit sed quantum constituit
adficitur), that is, on the beliefs arising from their rational judgments.65
Differently from cows and birds, Marcia is called to go beyond the level of
animal nature (natura) and perception in order to resist the misleading influ-
ence of opinion (opinio), recover from her illness, and fulfill her providential
vocation. The anthropocentric structure of Seneca’s cosmology, with its provi-
dentially established scala naturae, puts humankind in both a privileged and a
challenging position, for although animals may serve as models of naturality,
moral exemplarity pursued by Seneca in the preceding section of his Consolation is now
transformed, more specifically, into a rhetoric of literary exemplarity—to which moral aims
remain fundamental.
61 Cf. Lucr. DRN 4.1197–200. The mares’ passionate (and even lecherous) nature is recalled
by Arist. Hist. an. 6.18, 572a 8–30; 6.22, 575b 30–1; 9.4, 585a 3–4 and Columella R.R. 6.27,
among others. By virtue of their constitution, mares were reputed to produce a powerful
aphrodisiac, the so-called hippomanes (see, besides Aristotle, Verg. Georg. 3.280–3, and Tib.
2.4.57–8). On the mares’ attachment to their young, see e.g., Plin. HN 8.165.
62 Lucr. DRN 1.10–20.
63 The stabulum of Lucretius’ cow (DRN 2.360) is now expanded into the ‘ransacked lairs’
(cubilia expilata) of wild beasts.
64 The Senecan pervagatae is a variation and simplification of Lucretius’ rare peragrans (DRN
2.355). Significantly, peragrare is the verb deployed by Lucretius to characterize Epicurus’ and
his own innovative undertakings in the fields of wisdom and poetry: DRN 1.74; 1.926 (= 4.1).
65 On the strong rationalistic basis of Senecan emotions, see Konstan 2015, 174–7.
196
196 Fabio Tutrone

the difficult tasks involved in the management of belief-based emotions can
be accomplished only by distinctively anthropic means.66
Several years later, when writing his Letters to Lucilius, Seneca will warn
again against the risk of following too closely the example of irrational
creatures. In Epistle 99, Seneca allegedly reports a letter he had previ-
ously written to Marullus for the loss of his baby son.67 Again, the writer is
prepared to heal parental grief with the harsh means of didactic coercion.68
He does not allow his addressee to exceed the measure set by the Stoic doc-
trine of pre-emotions, since, in Seneca’s own words, ‘we should let tears fall,
but we should not command them do so’.69 Even more remarkably, Seneca
embarks on a new anti-Epicurean (and anti-Lucretian) polemic, as his con-
futation of Metrodorus’ tenet that ‘there is a certain pleasure akin to sadness’
(esse aliquam cognatam tristitiae voluptatem)70 is preceded by a criticism of
the attitude of birds (aves) and wild beasts (ferae). According to the author,
albeit wholly natural, the energetic response of such animals to the death of
dear ones lacks the fundamental ingredient of reason and does not permit the
survival of memory over time. As a supremely rational being, the wise man
(prudentem virum) will cultivate the faculty of remembering and shy away
from the imitation of inhuman souls.71
Seneca’s aemulatio completely obscures the anti-religious overtones of
Epicurean didactic, since from a Stoic perspective bringing one’s inner self
to a state of sovereign peace means living in accordance with the indications
of the immanent divine nature. Thus, even though the Consolation to Marcia
66 For an extensive treatment of Stoic cosmology and its approach to human-animal relations,
see Wildberger 2006a, I, 203–43, and 2008. Cf. also Tutrone 2012, 157–291, on Seneca’s
‘ambiguous’ anthropocentrism. On Stoic anthropocentrism, more generally, see Dierauer
1977, 199–252, and Sorabji 1993, 112–33.
67 It is hard to ascertain whether Seneca’s addressee is the same Marullus mentioned by Tac.
Ann. 14.48. Wilson 1997, 66, goes so far as to regard Marullus as a fictional character (cf. also
Wilson 2013, 96–7). But there is good reason to share the view of Setaioli 2014b, 242 n. 28.
68 Cf. Sen. Ep. 99.1–2. As Setaioli 2014b, 242 observes, ‘Seneca adopts the schema plagion, i.e.,
he purports to be scolding Marullus instead of consoling him, following the well-known rhet-
orical mode ostensibly pursuing a goal opposite to the one expected by the listener or reader’.
69 Sen. Ep. 99.16: permittamus illis (scil. lacrimis) cadere, non imperemus. The topic of pre-
emotions is carefully dealt with at Ep. 99. 14–20. Here, too, readers are reminded of the diffe-
rence between involuntary ‘bites’ (morsus) and true sorrow (dolor).
70 The tenet is ascribed by Seneca to Metrodorus and cited in Greek (fr. 34 Körte). On the prob-
lematic reconstruction of Seneca’s Greek quotation, see Setaioli 1988, 249–51.
71 Sen. Ep. 99.24: effusissime flere, meminisse parcissime, inhumani animi est. As a teacher of Stoic
ethics, Seneca constantly tries to arouse in his addressee an awareness of the gap interposed
by divine providence between humans and animals. In Ep. 124.21 he declares to Lucilius: ‘I
can be of no greater benefit to you than by revealing the good that is specifically yours, by
taking you out of the class of irrational animals, and by placing you in the company of God’
(nullo modo prodesse possum magis quam si tibi bonum tuum ostendo, si te a mutis animalibus
separo, si cum deo pono). In the same letter (Ep. 124.13–20) as well as in Ep. 121.3–9; 17–24,
Seneca forcefully contrasts the teleologically determined character of animal life and cogni-
tion with the higher faculties of humankind.
197

reflects a sincere appreciation of Lucretius’ poetic insight and a thorough
understanding of the underlying analogies between Stoic and Epicurean nat-
ural philosophy,72 there can be no doubt that Seneca’s cosmos lies very distant
from the non-teleological, materialistic universe of Lucretius. In the very next
chapter of his Consolation, Seneca further stresses his distance from Lucretius
by observing that the unnaturalness of prolonged grief is shown by the vari-
able effects of this and other emotions on different people and cultures.
Marcia is taught that ‘things that derive their force from nature maintain the
same force in every instance: if something shows variation, evidently it is not
based on nature’ (apparet non esse naturale quod varium est, Marc. [6]‌.7.3).
This is not an uncritical restatement of the Peripatetic idea of physical order
and ‘a sort of inversion of the Stoic doctrine of general consent’, as suggested
by Manning.73 Rather, it is a meditated response to the conceptual system
which lays the foundation of Lucretius’ cow argument: a refutation of the
multiply infinite and profoundly variegated world of atoms and void that,
according to Epicurus, permeates both animals and humans. If Marcia, too,
learns to respond effectively to false beliefs, she will overcome her sadness and
appreciate the difference between pleasing poets and truthful teachers.
72 Elsewhere in his Consolation, Seneca has no difficulty in using other characteristically

Epicurean arguments against the fear of death which had been artistically elaborated by
Lucretius. See, above all, the refutation of the mythical view of the underworld and its
punishments in Marc. [6]‌.19.4–5. Notably, this refutation is accompanied by the claim that
death is nothing to us as well as by a comparison between the dead and the unborn. Cf. Lucr.
DRN 3.830–1023.
73 Manning 1981, 56.
198
9 Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia

aquarum (NQ 3.20–1, 25–6;
Ovid Met. 15.270–336)1
Myrto Garani
1 Introduction
Seneca’s intertextual engagement with Ovid has been repeatedly pointed out,
with particular focus upon his multiple explicit poetic quotations from the
Ovidian corpus within his philosophical treatises.2 At the same time, recent
studies on Ovid’s Metamorphoses have highlighted the philosophical aspects
of his mythological epic poem.3 In my chapter I explore Seneca’s quotations
from Ovid’s Metamorphoses book 15 in the third book of his Naturales
quaestiones, a book which investigates the nature and causes of terrestrial
waters and is commonly considered by recent scholarship to have been origin-
ally the first in Seneca’s natural philosophical project.4 My discussion forms
part of my general claim that Seneca structures this particular book as a reply
to the whole of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which he perceives as an essential
chain within the tradition of natural philosophical epic poetry—ultimately
looking back to Lucretius and Ennius—and hence criticizes through this par-
ticular interpretative prism, while he condenses it into a single book.5
1 I would like to thank Sophia Papaioannou, Frederik Bakker and the anonymous Routledge
readers for their comments and suggestions.
2 Ten out of the 18 citations from Ovid’s Metamorphoses occur in NQ Book 3. For Ovid in
Seneca, see Goddard Elliott 1985; De Vivo 1989 and 1995; Degl’ Innocenti Pierini 1990b;
Borgo 1992; also Michalopoulos in the present volume. Especially for Seneca’s intertextual
engagement with Pythagoras’ speech, see Torre 2007; also Berno 2012b upon the arguments
thereof I build my present discussion. For Ovid’s influence on Seneca’s tragedies, see Charlier
1954–55; Ronconi 1984; Jakobi 1988; Mader 1995; Trinacty 2014, 65–126 and passim; Vial
2015. For other poetic quotations in Seneca, see Lurquin 1947; Maguinness 1956; Mazzoli
1970; Timpanaro 1994. The translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses are from the Loeb edition
by Miller (1977 and 1984; rev. by Goold); the translations of Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones are
from Corcoran 1971 and 1972.
3 For philosophy in Ovid’s Metamorphoses Crahay and Hubaux 1958; Segl 1970; Lafaye 1971,
191–223; Nelis 2009 (and below especially for Pythagoras’ speech).
4 Codoñer Merino 1979, vol. 1, xii–xxi; Hine 1981, 6–19 and 1996, xxiv. For acceptance of the
ordering (3, 4a, 4b, 5, 6, 7, 1 and 2), see Parroni 2002, xlix; Gauly 2004, especially 65–7.
5 As I argue elsewhere [Garani (forthcoming a)], the figure of Phaethon, present explicitly in the
prologue to the book and implicitly in the narration of the cataclysm in the final chapters, is
199
Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum 199

Our— and Seneca’s— point of departure is the last book of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses (Met. 15.1–484), in which Pythagoras teaches Numa, the
second king of Rome about natural law (Met. 15.6 quae sit rerum natura,
requirit ‘he seeks to know what Nature’s general law may be’). In doing so,
Pythagoras assumes Lucretius’ corresponding vatic role in DRN, where he
initiates his pupil, Memmius, into the mysteries of nature.6 Along these lines,
Pythagoras delivers a speech, in the first part of which he attacks meat-eating
and sacrifice (Met. 15.75–142) and explicates his doctrine of metempsychosis
(Met. 15.158–72). Pythagoras, then, goes on to reveal by means of various
examples the principle of cosmic transformation (Met. 15.176–459). He first
refers to the change from land into sea (Met. 15.262–9) and thus calls to mind
the flood Ovid describes in his book 1.
Pythagoras, then, introduces a list of natural wonders, the first part of
which is devoted to various mirabilia aquarum, concerning mainly rivers and
springs (Met. 15.270–336). The notion of water transformation dominates
and thus looks back to the cosmogonic first line of the poem (15.308–9 non
et lympha figuras | datque capitque novas? ‘Why, does not even water give and
receive strange forms?’; 1.1–2 In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas | cor-
pora ‘My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed into new forms’). Scholars have
long pointed out, but then undervalued the fact that Ovid draws most of his
examples from Callimachus’ Collection of Wonders (Ἐκλογὴ τῶν παραδόξων),
part of which is reproduced in Antigonus of Carystus’ Collection of wondrous
stories (Ἱστοριῶν παραδόξων συναγωγή).7 While Callimachus is considered the
oldest reported writer of paradoxography, his collection is a characteristic
example of his experimental style, as this is reflected by his writing of both
proved to be the thread that connects the opening and the closing of the book as well as a piv-
otal figure for Seneca’s intertextual engagement with both Lucretius and Ovid.
6 Hardie 1995 revised in Hardie 2009; Garani 2014, 130–3. For further echoes of Lucretius
in Ovid’s Pythagorean speech, see e.g., Bömer 1986, ad Met. 15.6; Galinsky 1998, 328–30.
For further discussion about Ovid’s Pythagoras account, see Stephens 1957, 62–77, Little
1970, Myers 1994, 133–66, Setaioli 1999, Hardie 2015, Beagon 2009. For arguments for
the parodical or satirical character of the speech, see Segal 1969; Holleman 1969; Galinsky
1975,  104–7.
7 For Ovid’s Greek sources in Pythagoras’ list, see Lafaye 1971, 208–10, 252. For Callimachus
as philologus and paradoxographer, see Krevans 2011, especially 120– 6. Within the
paradoxographical corpus, see in particular Philostephanus of Cyrene’s Περὶ τῶν παραδόξων
ποταμῶν (On wondrous rivers) (Callimachus’ student, 3rd cent. BCΕ); Polemon Periegetes (3rd–
2nd cent. BCE) Περὶ τῶν ἐν Σικελίᾳ θαυμαζομένων ποταμῶν (On the marvelous rivers in Sicily);
Isigonus of Nicaea (1st cent. BCE or 1st cent. CE). Regarding the Latin paradoxographical
tradition, there are fragments from Varro’s Gallus Fundanius de admirandis (belonged in the
series of Logistorici; cf. Arnob. Adv. nat. 6.3) and Cicero’s Admiranda. About Varro and
Cicero, see Schepens and Delcroix 1996, 428–9. Sotion, Seneca’s Stoic teacher, also wrote a
paradoxography (Parad. Gre. Westermann 1839, 183–91). On paradoxography, see Ziegler
1949; Giannini 1964; Jacob 1983; Schepens and Delcroix 1996; Sassi 1993. Specifically on
mirabilia aquarum, see Callebat 1988.
200
200 Myrto Garani

poetry and prose and his exploring the possibilities of crossing the generic
boundaries.8 Callimachus’ special interest for the oddities and wonders of
Italy and Sicily should not go unobserved.9
Following Callimachus’ paradoxographical practice, Ovid as a rule does
not provide scientific explanations about the phenomena he describes. In
doing so, he does not turn down the mythical explanations in favor of the
scientific ones; he rather opts for keeping them both into play.10 What is even
more significant, Ovid’s Pythagoras constantly encourages amazement at the
marvels of nature (Met. 15.317; 321, 408, 410).
In his turn, in the preface to his Naturales quaestiones 3 Seneca introduces the
philosophical topos of the flight of mind (NQ 3 praef. 1 mundum circumire) and
thus offers his Stoic approach to the quest of knowledge; in doing so, he seems to
be transferring to the beginning of book 3—and probably of his whole project—
the vatic figure of Pythagoras from the final book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.11
Contrary to Pythagoras’ stance towards mirabilia, in his Naturales quaestiones
Seneca follows in the Stoic tradition, according to which ‘the wise man never
wonders at any of the things which appear extraordinary, such as Charon’s
mephitic caverns, ebbings of the tide, hot springs or fiery eruptions’ (ἔτι γε τὸν
σοφὸν οὐδὲν θαυμάζειν τῶν δοκούντων παραδόξων, οἷον Χαρώνεια καὶ ἀμπώτιδας
καὶ πηγὰς θερμῶν ὑδάτων καὶ πυρὸς ἀναφυσήματα. SVF 3.642 von Arnim = Diog.
Laert. 7.123).12 We should bear in mind for the discussion to follow that this
demystifying approach towards the natural world is consonant with the
corresponding Epicurean admonition encapsulated in the semi- formulaic
Lucretian phrase non est mirabile (DRN 2.308, 2.898), admonition which Ovid’s
Pythagoras deprecates (cf. Ov. Met. 15.317 quodque magis mirum est).13
Seneca, then, variously diffuses material from Pythagoras’ speech into
the main part of his explanations about waters. On this basis, in this chapter
I will explore the ways in which Seneca responds to Pythagoras’ Callimachean
(pseudo)scientific account and the Callimachean tradition of paradoxography,
by offering coherent scientific explanations and thus rationalizing the
paradoxographical examples. As we will see in detail, Seneca does not place
the emphasis upon each particular case, but considers them as instances that
8 Sistakou 2009 for the inverse process, that of Callimachus’ poeticizing of natural phenomena.
See also Asper 2009.
9 Prioux 2009. One should also bear in mind that Callimachus’ water imagery is burdened
with metaphorical connotations about poetry, which are echoed in Latin poetry, already
in Lucretius’ poem. E.g., Call. Hymn to Apollo 105–13, Ep. 28 Pf. = 2 GP. See Knox 1985
about Callimachus as water-drinker. See also Romano 2011, 320–1. For Callimachean water-
imagery in Lucretius’ DRN, see Brown 1982. For other Callimachean allusions in Pythagoras’
speech, see Knox 1986, 65–83.
10 Cf. a brief adumbration of a cause (Ov. Met. 15.271 tremoribus orbis); a mythical explanation
for the noxious waters of the Anigrus (15.281–4) with Myers 1994, 150.
11 Garani (forthcoming a).
12 Toulze-Morisset  2004.
13 See also Lucr. DRN 2.465, 4.259: minime mirabile; 4.595, 5.592: non est mirandum; 6.654–5: mirari
[…] miratur; Ov. Met. 15.321, 408, 410 with Myers 1994, 158 n. 101; Schrijvers 1970, 262–6.
201

demonstrate the general natural laws which regulate nature and the workings
of waters.14 Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with Ovid’s list of mirabilia takes
place in two stages; whereas in c hapters 20 and 21 the engagement with the
Ovidian intetext is more intense, with three explicit quotations, in chapters 25
and 26 there is only one such quotation.
2 Naturales quaestiones 3.20–1: effects of certain waters upon body

and mind
In chapters 20–1 Seneca explores the variety of properties and tastes in water,
as well as their different effects; in doing so, he turns to Theophrastus’ method
of multiple explanations15 as well as the latter’s scientific theory, according to
which the differences in the properties of water are explained by appealing
to two principles, (a) the differences in temperature and (b) the admixture of
earth.16 In line with this theory, Seneca puts forward four possible causes, all
of which are based on different substances dissolved in water (NQ 3.20.1–2):
At quare aquis sapor varius? Propter quattuor causas. Ex solo prima

est per quod fertur; secunda ex eodem, si mutatione eius nascitur; tertia
ex spiritu qui in aquam transfiguratus est; quarta ex vitio quod saepe
concipiunt corruptae per iniuriam. Hae causae saporem dant aquis
varium, hae medicatam potentiam, hae gravem spiritum odoremque
pestiferum gravitatemque, hae aut calorem aut nimium rigorem.
But why the variety of taste in water? There are four causes. The first is
from the soil through which the water is carried; the second also depends
on the soil if the water is produced by a transmutation of earth into water;
the third comes from the air which was transformed into water; the fourth
from a pollution which water often receives when it has been corrupted
by harmful substances. These cases give water its different taste, its medi-
cinal power, its disagreeable exhalation and pestilential odor, as well as its
unwholesomeness, heat or excessive cold.
The dominant idea is that of transformation of air or earth into water

(transfiguratus est), which echoes Pythagoras’ theory regarding the mutual
transformation of elements (Met. 15.244–51).17 As Francesca Romana Berno
14 On the contrary, Lucretius turns the specific cases of marvelous waters into the principal
objects of his inquiry (DRN 6.848–905). See Lucr. DRN 6.848–78: spring of Hammon; 6.879–
905: spring which kindles tow (cf. Ov. Met. 15.311–2); 6.890–4: sweet spring off Aradus with
Bakker 2016, 159; see also idem 113f. especially 122–3.
15 Steinmetz 1964, 46, 82, 86, 91, 322, 327; Daiber 1992; Kidd 1992, especially 303– 4;
Gottschalk 1998, 287; Sharples 1998, xv. For objections regarding Theophrastus’ use of mul-
tiple explanations as a method, in association with the Syriac Meteorology which allegedly is
assigned to him, see now Bakker 2016, especially 73–6.
16 Sharples 1998, 192. See also Steinmetz 1964, 259–66.
17 Bickel 1957 for Posidonius’ influence regarding the verb transfigurare.
202
202 Myrto Garani

has recently demonstrated in detail, Seneca has introduced this theory earlier
in his book;18 already in NQ 3.10.1 he writes:
Adicias etiam licet quod fiunt omnia ex omnibus, ex aqua aer, ex aere
aqua, ignis ex aere, ex igne aer; quare ergo non ex terra fiat aqua?
You may add, also, the principle that all elements come from all others: air
from water, water from air, fire from air, air from fire. So why not water
from earth?
Then again he argues that ‘and there are the kinds of moisture which
change from liquid to stone. In fact, earth and moisture decay into substances
such as bitumen and other substances like it’ (NQ 3.15.3 et quae in lapidem ex
liquore vertuntur; in quaedam vero terra umorque putrescunt, sicut bitumen et
cetera huic similia) and similarly that ‘the earth itself, if it is easily decomposed,
often dissolves and becomes moisture’ (NQ 3.15.7 Saepe terra, si facilis est in
tabem, ipsa solvitur et umescit).
Then, Seneca discusses the possible effects of water which is polluted due
to various substances, such as sulphur, nitre or bitumen, and thus dangerous
if drunk. As he claims, water with such properties may have intoxicating,
maddening, soporific or even lethal effects upon the body or the mind. In order
to shed light upon this—plausibly Theophrastean—theory, he introduces
three Ovidian quotations, by selectively drawing paradoxographical examples
from Pythagoras’ list and elaborating upon them; while he maintains the
Ovidian distinction between body and mind (Met. 15.317–8 quodque magis
mirum est, sunt, qui non corpora tantum, | verum animos etiam valeant mutare
liquors ‘and, what is still more wonderful, there are streams whose waters have
power to change not alone the body, but the mind as well’), he seems to be
striving to establish a logical thread upon the poetic examples and organize
them into a cohesive whole: as he suggests, all of these changes are due to the
proportion of sulphur in water. While Ovid’s Pythagoras considers the water
as both the agent and the object of metamorphosis (Met. 15.308–9 lympha
figuras |datque capitque novas ‘water give and receive strange forms?’), in his
discussion Seneca shifts the emphasis upon the consequences of the polluted
water. In this way, Seneca subdues Pythagoras’ amazement into Theophrastus’
scientific explanations.
2.1 Effects upon body: petrification

To begin with, Seneca argues that depending on its substance, the adulterated
water may cause petrification. In order to demonstrate this, Seneca quotes an
example from Ovid’s list, that of a river at the Cicones, on the southwestern
18 For the idea of mutual transformation of elements in Seneca’s NQ 3, see Berno’s 2012 thor-
ough discussion.
203

coast of Thrace, which ‘when drunk, turns the viscera to stone and puts a
layer of marble on everything it touches’ (Met. 15.313–4 flumen habent
Cicones, quod potum saxea reddit | viscera, quod tactis inducit marmora rebus).
Ovid’s exact example of petrification of human beings is not found among
Callimachus’ extant explanations; still, Pliny testifies that such properties
were attributed to the river of Cicones (Plin. HN 2.226); its effect, however,
refers to the wood thrown into the water which gets covered with a film of
stone. More references about waters with petrifying effects can be found in
the paradoxographical corpus. According to Paradoxographus Florentinus
(16 p. 318 Giannini = fr. 191 FGrHist 4 Jacoby), Hellanicus wrote about such
a spring near Magnesia at Sipylum, a city in Lydia, that petrifies the belly.
And there are even more examples about waters which either coat things cast
into it with stone or leave deposits, to which we will come back.
Seneca’s first citation is particularly significant, due to the corresponding
bearing of the Ovidian verses within their original context. Ovid’s example
explicitly refers to the effect of water that transforms the body and turns it
into stone. As Bauer has discussed, the stone is a particularly dominant image
within the Metamorphoses; in line with this, the Ovidian example of Cicones
conjures up various transformations recounted throughout the poem.19 To cite
just one example, in book 6 Ovid narrates the myth of Niobe, whom Latona
turned into stone as a punishment for the rejection of her worship.20 These
transformations look back at the reverse process, i.e., the transformation of
the stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha into human bodies (Met. 1.400–
6). So, whereas in the beginning of chapter 20 the emphasis was placed upon
the (Pythagorean) idea of transformation of water due to various factors,
Seneca proceeds with his scientific explanation, as if objecting to the Ovidian
mythical idea of transformation.
In addition, although Seneca had at his disposal various such examples
which he could glean either from the paradoxographers or even directly from
Theophrastus,21 he rather aims at rationalizing the Ovidian example. It is for
this reason that Seneca emphasizes his personal experience, by vaguely adding
Italian examples and thus encouraging his pupil to undertake an experiment
himself (NQ 3.20.4):22
19 Bauer 1962. For Lichas’ metamorphosis into a rock, see Met. 9.211–29 with Myers 1994, 48.
See also von Glinski 2012, 34–40.
20 See especially Ov. Met. 6.204–312, where Ovid describes how Niobe’s daughters were killed
and her fate: 6.309 intra quoque viscera saxum est (‘Within also her vitals are stone’); 6.312 et
lacrimas etiam nunc marmora manant (‘and even to this day tears trickle from the marble’).
21 E.g., Antigonus (Hist. mir. 161 p. 100 Giannini) draws his information from Eudoxus and
Callimachus about water in Cos, which coats irrigation channels with stone; cf. also Antig.
Hist. mir. 135 p. 90 Giannini. As we gather from Paradoxographus Vaticanus 11 p. 334
Giannini (= Antig. fr. 2 p. 108 Giannini), Antigonus reports that there was a hot spring in
Hierapolis in Phrygia, which coated things cast into it with stone. For this spring and its petri-
fying properties, see also Vitruv. Arch. 8.3.9–10. Theophr. 219 FHS&G (= Plin. HN 31.19)
reports about the spring of Marsyas in Phrygia which casts out rocks.
22 For Seneca’s references to Italy, see Hine 2006, 50–1.
204
204 Myrto Garani

Quod in Italia quibusdam in locis evenit: sive virgam, sive frondem
demerseris, lapidem post paucos dies extrahis; circumfunditur enim
corpori limus adliniturque paulatim.
This happens in certain localities in Italy. If you immerse a twig or a
branch, after a few days you take out a stone. For the mud flows around
the object and gradually coats it all over.
Moreover, Seneca gives an example of water with similar chemical com-

position, but without lethal implications, that of the therapeutic water of
Albula near Tivoli, where several springs containing sulphur (sulphuratam
aquam, NQ 3.20.4) were considered to be a cure.23
2.2 Effects upon mind

Seneca, then, turns to the possible effects of polluted water upon the mind.
Although Seneca states that ‘one or another of these causes is present’ (NQ
3.20.5 Aliquam harum habent causam), the important factor turns out to be
sulphur: depending on its sulphuric force, water acts upon mind like wine in
different degrees and thus may cause madness, deep coma, drunkenness, or
even death.
2.3 Madness or deep lethargy

To illustrate the first potential mental consequence, Seneca quotes from Ovid
information regarding the maddening effect of water from the Ethiopian lakes
(NQ 3.20.5):
Aliam harum habent causam illi lacus, ‘quos quisquis faucibus hausit’, ut
idem poeta ait, aut furit aut patitur mirum gravitate soporem. Similem
habent vim mero, sed vehementiorem. Nam, quemadmodum ebrietas,
donec exsiccetur, dementia est et nimia gravitate defertur in somnum, sic
huius aquae sulphurea vis habens quoddam acrius ex aere noxio virus
mentem aut furore movet aut sopore opprimit.
One or another of these causes is present in those lakes so that, as the
same poet says: Whoever lets them go down his throat either goes mad or
suffers a strange deep coma. They have a power similar to neat wine, but
stronger. For, just as drunkenness is madness, until it dries out and results
in a sleep that is excessively heavy, so the sulphuric force of this water
containing a kind of poison, made more severe by the noxious air, either
unhinges the mind with frenzy or oppresses it with sleep.
23 Concoran 1971, 250: ‘The effects described by Seneca are those produced by water which
transfers minerals on to objects, or infuses minerals into objects (which are thus hardened),
often substituting the intruded minerals for the object’s material which is dissolved away; or
deposits minerals free-standing such as stalactites and stalagmites’. Cf. Plin. HN 31.10.
205

Let me quote in full Ovid’s verses (Met. 15.319–21):
cui non audita est obscenae Salmacis undae

Aethiopesque lacus? quos si quis faucibus hausit,
aut furit aut patitur mirum gravitate soporem;
Who has not heard of the ill-famed waves of Salmacis

and of the Aethiopian lakes? Whoever drinks of these waters
either goes raving mad or falls into a strange, deep lethargy.
If we read again into the syntax of the Ovidian verses, the poet seems to
attribute lunacy not only to the Ethiopian lakes, but also to the filthy waters
of the Salmacis spring, which he mentions in the previous line (Met. 15.319),
and whose effeminating power he had treated earlier in the poem in the con-
text of the myth of Hermaphroditus (Met. 4.285–388). By ignoring the spring
of Salmacis, Seneca seems to object to a mythical story.
Regarding the Ethiopian lakes, Ovid plausibly draws his information from
Callimachus (Antig. Hist. mir. 145 p. 94 Giannini = Ctesias fr. 1lα Nichols):24
Κτησίαν δὲ τὴν ἐν Αἰθιοπίᾳ τὸ μὲν ὕδωρ ἔχειν ἐρυθρόν, ὡσανεὶ κιννάβαρι,

τοὺς δ’ ἀπ’ αὐτῆς πιόντας παράφρονας γίνεσθαι. τοῦτο δ’ ἱστορεῖ καὶ Φίλων
ὁ τὰ Αἰθιοπικὰ συγγραψάμενος.
[According to Callimachus], Ctesias mentions a spring in Ethiopia that
has water as red as cinnabar and says that those who drink from it become
deranged. Philon, the author of the Ethiopika, also mentions this in his
history.
(Transl. Nichols 2008)
At this point, it should not go unobserved the fact that Callimachus him-
self quotes Ctesias of Cnidus, the 4th-century BCE historian and personal
physician to the Persian royal family of Artaxerxes II, who was commonly
considered to be unreliable.25 Ovid himself omits an otherwise interesting
detail from what is considered to be Ctesias’ report—which, however, refers to
an Ethiopian spring, not a lake: the color of the water of this spring was said to
be red, like that of cinnabar, this being a color closely associated with madness;
moreover, according to Paradoxographus Florentinus, Ctesias also specified
24 See also Ctesias fr. 1lγ Nichols (=Plin. HN 31.9): sed ibi in potando necessarius modus, ne
lymphatos agat, quod in Aethiopia accidere iis qui e fonte Rubro biberint Ctesias scribit ‘But
there it is necessary to be moderate in one’s drinking, because it brings on madness, which
happens in Ethiopia to those who drink from the Red Spring, according to Ctesias’ (transl.
Nichols 2008). Cf. Isid. Orig. 13.13.4.
25 Aristotle (Hist. an. 7.28, 606a9) thinks him unreliable. Antigonus (Hist. mir. 15b p. 38
Giannini) thinks that his reports are false, incredible and fabulous.
206
206 Myrto Garani

the nature of madness brought about (Ctesias fr. 1lβ Nichols = Paradox. Flor.
17 p. 320 Giannini):
Κτησίας δὲ ἐν Αἰθιοπίᾳ κρήνην ἱστορεῖ τῷ χρώματι κιννάβαρι παραπλησίαν·

τοὺς δὲ πίνοντας ἀπ’ αὐτῆς παραλλάττειν τὴν διάνοιαν, ὥστε καὶ τὰ κρυφίως
πεπραγμένα ὁμολογεῖν.
Ctesias mentions in his history a spring in Ethiopia which has the colour
of cinnabar and that those who drink from it lose their mind so that they
confess even to things done in secret.
The one who drinks from this water was said to reveal the secrets and
accuse oneself of every sin which he had formerly committed in secret. As
compared to Ovid’s partial incorporation of Ctesias and Callimachus’ infor-
mation, Seneca in addition omits the specific name of the place, somehow
dissociating his reference from that of Ctesias. In order to strengthen the
credibility of his report, he points to the sulphuric force of the water (aquae
sulphurea vis). More importantly, Seneca introduces here the image of the
wine and drunkenness, explicitly pointing to the relation of wine with both
madness and sleep. Such a comparison of this wondrous water with old wine,
due to its exceedingly sweet odor and its corresponding effects, is also found
in Diodorus Siculus’ narration about Ctesias’ report of the campaign of
Semiramis against Ethiopia, during which she allegedly saw that particular
Ethiopian lake (Diod. Sic. 2.14.4 = Ctesias fr. 1b Nichols part):
ἀπὸ δὲ τούτων γενομένη τῆς Αἰθιοπίας ἐπῆλθε τὰ πλεῖστα καταστρεφομένη

καὶ τὰ κατὰ τὴν χώραν θεωμένη παράδοξα. εἶναι γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ φασι λίμνην
τετράγωνον, τὴν μὲν περίμετρον ἔχουσαν ποδῶν ὡς ἑκατὸν ἑξήκοντα, τὸ δ’
ὕδωρ τῇ μὲν χρόᾳ παραπλήσιον κινναβάρει, τὴν δ’ ὀσμὴν καθ’ ὑπερβολὴν
ἡδεῖαν, οὐκ ἀνόμοιον οἴνῳ παλαιῷ· δύναμιν δ’ ἔχειν παράδοξον·τὸν γὰρ
πιόντα φασὶν εἰς μανίαν ἐμπίπτειν καὶ πάνθ’ ἃ πρότερον διέλαθεν ἁμαρτήσας
ἑαυτοῦ κατηγορεῖν.
(4) After leaving Egypt she invaded most of Ethiopia, subdued it and
observed the marvels of this land. They say that there is a square lake in
Ethiopia with a perimeter of about 160 feet, the water of which on the
surface resembles cinnabar and has a very pleasing fragrance, not unlike
an aged wine, and it has incredible power: they say that whoever drinks
it falls into madness and confesses to all of the crimes he has previously
committed and gotten away with.
Diodorus, however, concludes by stating that ‘a man may not readily agree
with those who tell such things’ (τοῖς μὲν οὖν ταῦτα λέγουσιν οὐκ ἄν τις ῥᾳδίως
συγκατάθοιτο). In any case, Seneca’s comparison with wine may indicate the
fact that apart from Callimachus’ paradoxographical collection, via its Ovidian
207

versified version, Seneca gleans his material also from other such collections.
What is more, although Seneca does not touch upon the temperature of the
water—as Theophrastus would have done—the metaphorical image of wine
he opts for clearly conveys the notion of heat, this being its intrinsic property.26
2.4 Drunkenness
In cases that the sulphuric force of water is less harsh, Seneca suggests that the
effect upon men is more similar to that of strong undiluted wine, which brings
about drunkenness. As an example, he turns again to Ovid’s list to quote the
latter’s reference to the Lyncestian river (Ov. Met. 15.329–31; Sen. NQ 3.20.6):
Hoc habet mali:
Lyncestius amnis,
quem quicumque parum moderato gutture traxit,
haud aliter titubat, quam si mera vina bibisset.
The following has this harmful effect:

…the river in Lyncestis
Anyone who consumes it with immoderate thirst
staggers, and if he had drunk strong wine.
Ovid’s information is once again found in Antigonus’ Callimachus, who

in turn quotes from Theopompus, the 4th-century historian and disciple of
Isocrates (Antig. Hist. mir. 164 p. 102 Giannini = Theopompus fr. 278(b)
Shrimpton):27
Ἐν δὲ Λυγκήσταις Θεόπομπον φάσκειν τι εἶναι ὕδωρ ὀξύ· τοὺς δὲ ἐκ τούτου

πίνοντας ὥσπερ ἀπὸ τῶν οἴνων ἀλλοιοῦσθαι. Καὶ τοῦθ’ ὑπὸ πλειόνων
μαρτυρεῖται.
26 About Theophrastus on wine, see 425–9 FHS&G; Theophr. CP 6 Wimmer. According to

Plutarch (Adv. Col. 1109e-1110a), when Epicurus is asked in his work the Symposium whether
wine is calorific, he holds a dialogue with Polyaenus about the heating quality (θερμαντικόν)
of wine (cf. Epicur. frr. 58–60 Usener).
27 Cf. also Theopompus fr. 278(c) Shrimpton (=Parad. Vat. 12 p. 335 Giannini): Θεόπομπος ἐν
Λυγκήσταις φησίν τι εἶναι ὕδωρ ὀξύ, ὃ τοὺς πίνοντας μεθύσκει. ‘Theopompus says that there is
harsh water in Lyncestae which intoxicates its drinkers’. Theopompus fr. 278(d) Shrimpton
(=Parad. Florent. 20 p. 320 Giannini): Θεόπομπος ἐν Λυγκήσταις φησὶ πηγὴν εἶναι τῇ
μὲν γεύσει ὀξίζουσαν, τοὺς δὲ πίνοντας μεθύσκεσθαι ὡς ἀπὸ οἴνου. ‘Theopompus says that
in Lyncestum [sic, Lyncestae] there is a spring that tastes like vinegar and makes people
who drink it intoxicated as if from wine’. Theopompus fr. 278(e) Shrimpton (=Plin. HN
2.230): Lyncestis aqua quae vocatur acidula vini modo temulentos facit; item in Paphlagonia et
in agro Caleno. ‘But Theopompus claims that one can get drunk from the springs I mentioned
above—that is, the somewhat acidic water called Lyncestis makes people intoxicated like wine.
The same is found in Paphlagonia and in the region of Cales’. Translations from Theopompus
are by Shrimpton 1991. Cf. Arist. Mete. 2.3, 359b17; Parad. Vat. 22 p. 338 Giannini; Plin. HN
31.16. See also Theophr. 214A FHS&G (=Athen. Deipn. 2.42E Kaibel) about such a spring
in Paphlagonia. Cf. Plin. HN 2.230, Vitruv. Arch.8.3.20. Heraclides of Pontus (fr. 127 Wehrli)
also reports about a spring of sweet wine in Naxos.
208
208 Myrto Garani

And he says that Theopompus claims that in Lyncestae there is [a source
of] harsh water, and people who drink from it are changed as if from
drinking wine. Very many others bear witness to this.
(Transl. Shrimpton 1991)
In both Ovid and Seneca, we do not find any reference to the particular
property of acidity (ὕδωρ ὀξύ), pertaining to its taste, but just to its inebriating
effect.
2.5 Seneca’s (2nd) Ovidian omission

Before we proceed into Seneca’s next category of sulphuric water, we should
briefly discuss Seneca’s second eloquent omission from Ovid’s list, which
concerns the sobering effect of the waters of Clitor’s spring; this water was
said to turn men away from wine, because this is where the herbs, by means of
which Melampus cured the Proetides of a madness inflicted by Bacchus (Met.
15.324–8),28 were thrown. Apart from the fact that this reference would inter-
rupt the logical sequence of Seneca’s explanation about the various effects of
sulphuric water, I think that once again Seneca implicitly reveals his critical
stance towards Ovid’s mythological explanation as well as the implausibility
of the marvelous nature of such water.
2.6 Death
Last but not least, Seneca refers to Averna loca, without actually using this
generic name, i.e., places from which lethal water, which is contaminated due
to locality and atmosphere, is discharged (NQ 3.21):29
In quosdam specus qui despexere moriuntur; tam velox malum est ut

transvolantes aves deiciat. Talis est aer, talis locus ex quo letalis aqua
destillat. Quod si remissior fuit aeris et loci pestis, ipsa quoque temperatior
noxa nihil amplius quam temptat nervos uelut ebrietate torpentes.
People die who have looked down into certain caves. The deadliness is so
swift that it brings down birds flying by. Such is the atmosphere, such is
the place from which lethal water discharges. But if the deadliness of the
atmosphere or of the place is less severe, the poison itself is less harmful
and affects little more than the sinews as though they were asleep because
of drunkenness.
Despite the fact that such a reference is not to be found within Ovid’s
Pythagorean list, still there are various corresponding ones in Antigonus’
28 Cf. Parad. Florent. 12 p. 318 and 24 p. 320 and 322 Giannini (containing a 10-line epigram).
29 See also Sen. NQ 6.28.
209

Callimachus (Antig. Hist. mir. 152a p. 96, 152b p. 98 Giannini; cf. Call. fr. 407
xxiv, xxxi, xxxii Pf.).30 Along these lines, Lucretius offers rational explanations
in atomic terms about various pestilential areas which were observed to
poison overflying birds due to pungent sulphur, which is breathed out of hot
springs (DRN 6.738–839).31 As Brown significantly argues, within the frame-
work of his explanation, Lucretius implicitly objects to the Callimachean
myth associated with Athena and her banishing of crows from the Athenian
Acropolis, which is found in the short epic Hecale narrated by an old crow.32
In light of these associations, Seneca’s Averna loca bring into his discussion
paradoxographical material—drawn from Lucretius or even directly from the
paradoxographical corpus—which is coated with Callimachean color, but has
already been demythologized by Lucretius. Unlike Lucretius, Seneca does not
refer to any specific place or to the extreme heat of these waters; he rather
lays his emphasis upon their venomous force, by resuming as his point of
reference the analogical image of wine, along with its soporific implications.
Seneca claims that there may be an escalation, since in this case the properties
of waters may sometimes be less dangerous, causing just sleep, not death. At
the end of his explanation about such noxious places Seneca reiterates the
theory of elemental transformation which he expounded in the beginning of
chapter 20, stating that ‘there is nothing which does not render traces of that
from which it is derived’ (NQ 3.21.2 Nulla res est quae non eius quo nascitur
notas reddat).
2.7 First conclusions

On the basis of our discussion of the first cluster of Ovidian quotations in
comparison to Pythagoras’ list of wonders, let us draw some preliminary
conclusions. On the one hand, Seneca employs the analogical image of wine
as a connecting thread of his various explanations. On the other, he omits
30 See also Parad. Vat. 13 (p. 334 Giannini) and Parad. Florent. 22 (p. 320 Giannini) both citing
Heraclides of Pontus (fr. 127 Wehrli). As Frederik Bakker rightly pointed out to me, very
much like Antigonus, Seneca distinguishes pestilential waters (Antig. Hist. mir. 152a p. 96,
152b p. 98; Sen. NQ 3.21) from pestilential places (Antig. Hist. mir. 121–3 p. 84, 123 p. 86;
Sen. NQ 6.28). See also Arist. De sensu 5, 444b31ff.; Theophr. CP 6.5.5 Wimmer; [Arist.] De
mundo 4, 395b26–30; Apuleius De mundo 17 (p. 153, 11f. Thomas).
31 Near Cumae: Lucr. DRN 6.747–8, Athenian Acropolis: DRN 6.749–55. For the relevant dis-
cussion, see Bakker 2016, 119–21.
32 According to the myth, a crow reported to Athena that against her orders, out of curiosity
the daughters of Cecrops opened the chest containing the infant Erichthonius, which had
been entrusted to them by the goddess. In return, the goddess banished the crow from the
Acropolis. Cf. iras Palladis acris, Lucr. DRN 6.753 with Call. Hecale fr. 260.41 Pf. βαρὺς
χόλος… Ἀθήνης, Graium ut cecinere poetae, Lucr. DRN 6.754 with Call. Hecale fr. 260.17 Pf.;
cf. also Palladis… Tritonidis, Lucr. DRN 6.750 with Call. Iamb. 12 fr. 202.28 Pf. Τριτωνίς. For
the relevant discussion and further Callimachean echoes in Lucretius’ account about Averna
loca, see Brown 1982, 88–9. The myth also occurs in Antig. Hist. mir. 12 p. 36 Giannini, in a
portion of work which does not derive from Callimachus.
210
210 Myrto Garani

two Ovidian examples which are associated with mythological tales (Salmacis
and Clitorium) and opts for others, such as Averna loca, which are found
neither in Ovid nor presumably in Theophrastus, drawing from the broad
paradoxographical tradition. In doing so, he appears to be following in
Lucretius’ demythologizing approach by laying his own emphasis and omitting
details, such as those ultimately reported by Ctesias about waters with specific
maddening effects, that, albeit fascinating, could easily discredit the scientific
reliability of his account.33 This is also the reason why he suggests self-hand
experiments and points to examples from Italy.
3 Naturales quaestiones 3.25–6: various mirabilia aquarum

Seneca does not quote again explicitly Ovid till chapter 26, which he devotes
to the existence of underground rivers. However, it would be significant to
take a closer look at his discussion in chapters 25 and 26, in which Seneca
pieces together various mirabilia aquarum. As I will demonstrate, not only
does Seneca broaden his scope so as to include other noteworthy instances
from paradoxography, but he also implicitly engages with Pythagoras’ list.
3.1 Styx
In the beginning of chapter 25 Seneca refers to waters which, albeit deadly, are
not distinctive in odor or taste. He mentions two such examples (NQ 3.25.1):
Quaedam aquae mortiferae sunt nec odore notabiles nec sapore. Circa
Nonacrin in Arcadia Styx appellata ab incolis advenas fallit, quia non
facie, non odore suspecta est, qualia sunt magnorum artificum venena
quae deprehendi nisi morte non possunt. Haec autem de qua paulo ante
rettuli aqua summa celeritate corrumpit, nec remedio locus est, quia
protinus hausta duratur nec aliter quam gypsum sub umore constringitur
et alligat viscera.
Some waters are deadly and yet are not distinctive in odor or taste. Near
Nonacris in Arcadia the Styx, as it is called by the inhabitants, fools
strangers because it is not suspected by its appearance or odor. Such
waters are like the poisons of high-and-mighty tricksters, which cannot
be detected except by death. Moreover, this water, which I just referred to,
corrupts with amazing speed. There is no time for an antidote because as
soon as it is drunk it hardens and is congealed by moisture like gypsum
and binds the bowels.
33 For Lucretius’ demythologization, see Hardie 1986, 78–83; Gale 1994, 164–8, 172–3, 181,
185–9; Garani 2007, 118, 122, 136, 140, 150, 174. Owing to space limits, a detailed discussion
of Seneca’s embrace of Lucretius’ demythologizing approach falls beyond the scope of this
study. For more, see now Garani (forthcoming a) and Garani (forthcoming b).
211

The first is Styx, near Nonacris in Arcadia, where the water kills with
amazing speed and there is no antidote. Seneca seems to draw his remark
from Theophrastus, as we gather once again from Antigonus’ Callimachean
account (Call. fr. 407 xxx Pf. = Antig. Hist. mir. 158 p. 100 Giannini = Theophr.
213B FHS&G):34
Περὶ τῶν [αὐτῶν] ὑδάτων Θεόφραστόν φησι τὸ καλούμενον Στυγὸς ὕδωρ

λέγειν, ὅτι ἐστὶν ἐν Φενεῷ, στάζει δ’ ἔκ τινος πετριδίου· τοὺς δὲ βουλομένους
αὐτοῦ ὑδρεύεσθαι σπόγγοις πρὸς ξύλοις δεδεμένοις λαμβάνειν διακόπτειν δὲ
πάντα τὰ ἀγγεῖα πλὴν τῶν κερατίνων. τὸν δὲ ἀπογευσάμενον τελευτᾶν.
Concerning waters (Callimachus) says that Theophrastus says of the so-
called ‘water of Styx’ that it is at Pheneos, and trickles from a certain cliff.
Those who want to collect it catch it in sponges tied to sticks. It breaks
all vessels except those made of horn. The person who tastes of it dies.
(Transl. Fortenbaugh, Huby, Sharples, and Gutas)
In Ovid’ list, however, it is noteworthy that we read different information

about the fatal effect of these waters (Met. 15.332–4):
est locus Arcadiae, Pheneon dixere priores,

ambiguis suspectus aquis, quas nocte timeto:
nocte nocent potae, sine noxa luce bibuntur;
There is a place in Arcadia which the ancients called Pheneus, mistrusted
for its uncertain waters. Shun them by night, for, drunk by night they are
injurious; but in the daytime they may be drunk without harm.
Therefore, it seems that in this particular case, Seneca plausibly draws his
information from Antigonus’ Callimachus or even directly from Theophrastus,
and corrects Ovid: this dangerous water does not cause death only during the
night, but whenever it is drunk. Although, as Sharples notes, Theophrastus
seems to attribute the alleged poisonous qualities of the water to cold or to
an admixture of earthy substance, in Seneca there is no such explicit comment
about the extreme coldness associated with its corrosive properties, apart from
the mention that when this water is drunk, it hardens like gypsum.35 Last but
34 See also Theophr. 213C FHS&G (= Plin. HN 31.26): in Arcadia ad Pheneum aqua profluit
e saxis Styx appellata, quae ilico necat, ut diximus, sed esse pisces parvos in ea tradit
Theophrastus, letales et ipsos, quod non in alio genere mortiferorum fontium. ‘In Arcadia, at
Pheneos, there flows from the rocks water which is called ‘the Styx’. It kills instantaneously, as
we have said. However, Theophrastus records that there are small fish in it, which are them-
selves deadly. This does not happen in any other kind of deadly spring’ (transl. FHS&G).
Cf. also Theophr. 213A FHS&G (Anonymous, on Antimachus of Colophon = Pack2 89 = P.
Milan. 17, col.2.53–8, PRIMI t. 1 p. 53 Vogliano).
35 Sharples 1998, 202. For the fact that the water of Styx was extremely cold, see Plin. HN
31.27: Namque et haec insidiosa condicio est, quod quaedam etiam blandiuntur aspect, ut ad
212
212 Myrto Garani

not least, Seneca adds a brief reference to the poisonous water in Thessaly,
around Tempe (NQ 3.25.2).36
3.2 Waters with colorific force

Seneca then turns to waters that, even though not dangerous, are associated
with a certain marvelous phenomenon. In this case, the presence of
Theophrastus’ influence as his source seems to become increasingly apparent.
Seneca explicitly quotes Theophrastus for the information that there are
rivers which, when drunk, dye flocks of sheep (NQ 3.25.3–4): in Macedonia
he points to the Haliacmon and Peneus rivers;37 he also refers to two rivers
in Boeotia, one of which is the Melas, i.e., ‘Black’;38 he also adds a refer-
ence about horses in Cappadocia, which he draws, as he claims, from auctores
bonos—whoever these might be. Sharples remarks that, while according to
Pliny’s testimony (Theophr. 218A FHS&G [see below quoted] = Plin. HN
31.13–14) Theophrastus refers to an effect to the color of the newborn
animals that drink of the water, Seneca’s corresponding testimony (Theophr.
218D FHS&G) apparently refers to changes in the animals themselves, admit-
tedly over a considerable time.39
Once again, if we turn to the paradoxographical tradition, we may glean
several such references about this strange colorific force of rivers.40 As Prioux
notes, ‘such anecdotes were probably linked with the symbolic aspects of the
relationship between rivers and eschatiai: the role of rivers as geographical
boundaries and lines of expansion for a given territory may account for their
supposed ability to change the appearance of men and animals’.41 However, the
absence from Seneca’s account of any reference to Italian examples is striking
Nonacrim Arcadiae, omnino nulla deterrent qualitate. Hanc putant nimio frigore esse noxiam,
utpote cum profluens ipsa lapidescat. ‘For certain waters have also this insidious property, that
the very prospect is attractive; as at Nonacris in Arcadia, which has nothing at all about it
to serve as a warning. They think that this water harms by its excessive cold, seeing that as
it flows it itself turns to stone’ (transl. Jones 1963). Cf. also Plin. HN 2.231. See also Vitruv.
Arch. 8.3.16 and Plut. (Alex.75–77) for its alleged role in Alexander’s death.
36 Unlike Pliny (HN 31.28) and Vitruvius (Arch. 8.3.15), Seneca does not refer to any plants
around it.
37 Instead of Seneca’s Peneius, Pliny (HN 31.13–14) refers to Axius.
38 According to Pliny (HN 2.230) and Vitruvius (Arch. 8.3.14), the other river is the Cephisus.
Cf. Varro (apud Solinus De mirabilibus mundi 7.27 p. 66.11–15 Mommsen).
39 Sharples 1998, 216.
40 According to Pliny (HN 31.13–14), Eudicus (i.e., Eudoxus) reports that the Euboean
springs Cerona and Neleus make sheep that drink from them black and white respect-
ively. For similar anecdotes about sheep who drink the water of two rivers, see also Arist.
Hist. an. 3.12, 519a10–19; Ps. Arist. Mir. ausc. 170 p. 310 Giannini; Strabo Geogr. 10.1.14
Meineke. Cf. also Paradox. Palat. 15 p. 358 Giannini and Antig. Hist. mir. 78 p. 68 Giannini.
The river Scamander was thought to change the color of hair into yellow (Paradox. Vat.
10 p. 334 and Antig. Hist. mir. 78 p. 68 Giannini). See Prioux 2009, 124 n. 11. See also Öhler
1913, 59–60.
41 Prioux 2009, 124–5.
213

and this Senecan omission becomes even more alarming upon recalling that
there were such references already in Theophrastus about Crathis and Sybaris,
i.e., the two rivers that used to surround the city of Sybaris (Theophr. 218A
FHS&G = Plin. HN 31.13–14):42
Theophrastus Thuriis Crathim candorem facere, Sybarim nigritiam

bubus ac pecori, quin et homines sentire differentiam eam; nam qui e
Sybari bibant, nigriores esse durioresque et crispo capillo, qui e Crathi
candidos mollioresque ac porrecta coma.
Theophrastus (says) that at Thurii the (river) Crati makes cattle and
flocks white, the Coscile black. Moreover, men too are affected differently
by them; for those who drink from the Coscile are darker and more hardy
and have curly hair, those who drink from the Crati are fair-complexioned
and more delicate and have straight hair.
According to Pliny, Theophrastus had claimed that the Crathis and Sybaris
could change the color of a fleece to black or white; but they also had similar
effects upon people’s complexions and the texture of their hair, making their
hair straight or curly.43
Apart from Theophrastus, we may glean similar information about the
ability of these specific rivers to change the pigmentation of hair also from
Nymphodorus of Syracuse, a Greek author of travel literature who wrote a
work entitled Marvels of Sicily in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE (fr. 4 p. 114
Giannini = fr. 11 FGrHist 572 Jacoby = Scholion on Theocritus’ Idyll 5.14–16
[k, p. 161.2–4 Wendel] = Theophrastus 218C FHS&G):44
ὡς Νυμφόδωρος δὲ καὶ Θεόφραστός φασι τοῦ Κράθιδος τὸ ὕδωρ ξανθίζειν.

As Nymphodorus and Theophrastus say, the water of the Crati produces
a golden color.
As Sharples remarks, it is unclear whether this testimony refers to drinking

or bathing, and to people or to animals.45 What is even more, there are
other references according to which, whereas the Crathis affects human hair
42 According to Serbat 1972, 107, Pliny is the only source to attribute exactly opposite properties
to Crathis and Sybaris. Cf. also Theophr. 218B FHS&G (=Ael. Nat. anim. 12.36): Τὸ ὕδωρ ὁ
Κρᾶθις λευκῆς χρόας ποιητικὸν μεθίησι. Τὰ γοῦν πρόβατα πιόντα αὐτοῦ καὶ οἱ βόες καὶ πᾶσα ἡ
τετράπους ἀγέλη, καθά φησι Θεόφραστος, λευκὰ ἐκ μελάνων γίνεται ἢ πυρρῶν. ‘The Crati flows
with water that produces a white color. At any rate sheep that drink of it, and cattle, and every
four-footed herd become white instead of black or red, according to what Theophrastus says’
(Transl. FHS&G).
43 Sharples 1998, 215.
44 About Crathis, see also Isigonus fr. 14 p. 147 Giannini (=Tzetz. Schol. Lyc. 1021
Müller = Sotion fr. 2 p. 167 Giannini); Paradox. Pal. 13 p. 358 Giannini; see also Vitruvius
(Arch. 8.3.14) according to whom Crathis darkens cattle to a greater or lesser extent.
45 Sharples 1998, 216.
214
214 Myrto Garani

in color—making it red, golden or white, i.e., fair—the Sybaris affects the
emotional state of people or animals. For example, Ps. Aristotle (Mir. ausc.
169 p. 310 Giannini) states that:46
Περὶ τὴν Θούριον πόλιν δύο ποταμούς φασιν εἶναι, Σύβαριν καὶ Κρᾶθιν. ὁ
μὲν οὖν Σύβαρις τοὺς πίνοντας ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ πτυρτικοὺς εἶναι ποιεῖ, ὁ δὲ Κρᾶθις
τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ξανθότριχας λουομένους.
People say that two rivers, the Sybaris and the Crathis, flow in the region
of Thourioi. The first one, the Sybaris, makes the horses that drink its
water timorous. The second one, the Crathis, changes to blond the hair
colour of men who wash themselves in its waters.
(Transl. Prioux 2009)
Along these lines, Ovid’s Pythagoras also refers to these rivers, with refer-
ence to the change of hair color (Met. 15.315–6):
Crathis et huic Subaris nostris conterminus oris

electro similes faciunt auroque capillos;
In our own region the Crathis and near it the Sybaris make hair like
amber and gold.
Ovid probably drew his information from Callimachus, who, however,

does not cite Theophrastus, but Timaeus of Tauromenion (Antig. Hist. mir.
134 p. 90 Giannini = Call. fr. 20 p. 17 Giannini = Call. fr. 407 vi Pf. = Timaeus
fr. 46 FGrHist 566 Jacoby):
Τίμαιον δὲ τῶν ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ ποταμῶν ἱστορεῖν Κρᾶθιν ξανθίζειν τὰς τρίχας.

[According to Callimachus], Timaeus reports that, among Italian rivers
the Crathis has the peculiarity of changing the color of hair to blond.
Given the wide range of contradictory information that occurs in our

sources regarding the marvelous effects of these two Italian rivers, it should
not come as a surprise the fact that Seneca differentiates himself from both
Theophrastus and Ovid; by keeping silent about these examples, he subtly
comments on the unreliability of paradoxographical stories associated
with them.
3.3 Floating bricks and floating islands

Seneca discusses the processes of sinking and floating with respect to the rele-
vant weight of waters (NQ 3.25.5–10); more precisely the regulating factors
of these processes are considered to be the density of both the waters and the
46 Flashar 1972, 151. Cf. Strabo Geogr. 6.1.13 Meineke. For more references, see Sharples 1998,
215 n. 619 and n. 620.
215

sinking or floating object. Along these lines, as he suggests, bodies sink or float
according to the proportion of their gravity to the gravity of the water of the
lake. Under the umbrella of the same scientific principle, he discusses people,
objects and then floating islands. Whereas scholars disagree as to whether
Seneca draws his theory only from Theophrastus,47 what is particularly signifi-
cant for our discussion, in this context he unquestionably integrates material
from the paradoxographical tradition.
First, Seneca refers to lakes which support people who do not know
how to swim and in which bricks float. Seneca mentions a pond in Sicily
and another one in Syria (NQ 3.25.5).48 Similar references occur within the
paradoxographical corpus; for example, according to Antigonus, the 4th-
century BCE Pythagorean Xenophilus of Chalcidice reports about the Dead
Sea (Antig. Hist. mir. 151 p. 96 Giannini):49
Ξενόφιλον δὲ ἐν μὲν τῇ πλησίον Ἰόππης οὐ μόνον ἐπινήχεσθαι πᾶν βάρος,

ἀλλὰ καὶ παρὰ τρίτον ἔτος φέρειν ὑγρὰν ἄσφαλτον· ὅταν δὲ γίγνηται τοῦτο,
παρὰ τοῖς ἐντὸς τριάκοντα σταδίων οἰκοῦσιν κατιοῦσθαι χαλκώματα.
A lake near Joppa, where not only every weight [is said to] float, but also
every third year [is said] to bring forth moist asphalt. When this happens,
for those living inside, three stadia [circumference] copper vessels [are
said] to tarnish.
(Transl. Taylor 2012)
Then, Seneca refers to Theophrastus’ testimony about certain islands in

Lydia, the so-called Calaminae islands in Lake Coloe near Sardis, composed
of light, pumice-like stones, which float (NQ 3.25.7). In doing so, he does not
47 Sharples 1998, 180–1 ad Theophr. 206 FHS&G. See also Fensterbuch 1960, especially 375–6,
Steinmetz 1964, 265, Gross 1989, 139.
48 Aristotle (Mete. 2.3, 359a) reports about such a lake in Palestine. For the Lake Asphaltitis,
see also Josephus Bel. Jud. 4.8.4. For floating bricks and porous clay, see Strabo (Geogr.
13.1.67 Meineke = Posidon. fr. 237 Edelstein and Kidd), who reports on Pitane on the Elaitic
Gulf in Mysia and brings in Posidonius for a parallel in Iberia. For floating bricks made
of pumice-like earth which does not sink, see Plin. HN 35.171 and Vitruv. Arch. 2.3.4. As
Kidd 1988, 830, remarks, both Pliny and Vitruvius couple the Pitane bricks with those from
Maxilua and Callet in Further Spain. See also Posidon. fr. 279 Edelstein and Kidd (= Strabo
Geogr. 16.2.42–3 Meineke) about the solidification of asphalt in the Dead Sea with Kidd
1988,  951–2.
49 There were also more incredible stories, such as those narrated by Ctesias (Ctesias fr. 45sα
Nichols = Antig. Hist. mir. 150 p. 96 Giannini). See also e.g., Ctesias (fr. 47a Nichols = Antig.
Hist. mir. 146 p. 94 Giannini) about a spring called the Sila in India in which everything sinks;
Ctesias fr. 47b Nichols (= Plin. HN 31.21) about a pond called the Side in India in which
nothing floats and everything sinks. Cf. also Paradox. Vat. 35 p. 340 Giannini (= Hellanicus
fr. 190 FGrHist 4 Jacoby). See also Paradox. Florent. 3 p. 316 Giannini, about a lake in India
which does not receive anything thrown into it, but it expels it, and a spring which casts
those who dive in back out as from a catapult. About expulsion from such a lake in Sicily,
see Philostephanus fr. 8 p. 23 Giannini (=Tzetz. Chil. 7. 670 Kiessling); Ps.-Arist. Mir. ausc.
112 p. 278 and 280 Giannini; Paradox. Florent. 30 p. 324 Giannini.
216
216 Myrto Garani

refer to Varro’s fanciful version (R. R. 3.17.4), according to which the so-
called Islands of the Nymphs in Lydia at the sound of flutes float from the
bank into the middle of the lake, circle and return to the shore.50 Seneca then
once again appeals to his personal experience, mentioning Italian examples
of floating islands which may or may not contain rocks, all of which can also
be found in the paradoxographical tradition, such as a floating island near
Cutiliae, which has trees and grows plants, as well as another one in Lake
Vadimo (NQ 3.25.8–10).51
Seneca resumes his scientific explanation, referring both to the density of
water which is full of minerals, from which ensues its heaviness, and to the
movable material of the island, which is composed out of hollow and porous
rocks, like those deposited next to mineral springs (NQ 3.25.9–10 aquae grav-
itas medicatae et ob hoc ponderosae, et ipsius insulae materia vectabilis […]
exesa et fistulosa, qualia sunt quae duratus umor efficit, utique circa medicatorum
fontium rivos, ubi purgamenta aquarum coaluerunt et spuma solidatur ‘the
density of the water, which is full of minerals and for this reason heavy; and
the movable material of the island itself, which is not composed of solid sub-
stance […] hollow and porous like those which hardened moisture has formed,
certainly along the banks of mineral springs where the deposits from the water
coalesce and the foam solidifies’). In this way, this explanation looks back to
his earlier discussion about the different flavors of waters depending on their
substance and their petrifying effect upon human body (NQ 3.20.4).
Is somehow Seneca’s discussion about floating islands associated with
Ovid’s Pythagorean list? In order to answer this question, let us read how
Pythagoras proceeds with his speech, once he completes the list of mirabilia
aquarum, wherefrom Seneca has drawn and cited the aforenoted three
examples (Met. 15.336–9):
tempusque fuit, quo navit in undis,

nunc sedet Ortygie; timuit concursibus Argo
undarum sparsas Symplegadas elisarum,
quae nunc inmotae perstant ventisque resistunt.
There was a time when Ortygia floated on the waves, but now she stands
firm. The Argo feared the Symplegades, which at that time clashed
together with high-flung spray; but now they stand immovable and resist
the winds.
50 See also Plin. HN 2.209 about Reed Islands, moved not only by the winds, but even with poles.
Cf. also Theophrastus (HP 4.10.2 Wimmer) on floating islands, not apparently made of stone.
See Irby 2016, 194–5.
51 Paradoxographus Florentinus reports about floating islands that change their place when
pushed by the winds (Paradox. Florent. 37 p. 326 Giannini: Benacus, Cutiliae; 38 p. 326
Giannini: Vadimo; 39 p. 326 Giannini: lake Coloe). Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. Rom.
1.15; Pomponius Mela Chorograph. 1.55 (on the floating island of Chemmis in Egypt), 2.82–3
(about a floating island in a marsh on the Gallic Coast); Plin. Ep. 8.20 (about floating islands
in Lake Vadimo); Macrob. Saturn. 1.7.28–31.
217

By Ortygia, i.e., Delos, Ovid refers to the mythological floating island par
excellence, which now stands firm. One could claim that in this particular case,
given the fact that Seneca does not reproduce somehow the Ovidian verses, he
seems to be tacitly agreeing with Ovid’s report about the mythological trad-
ition. Still, one should bear in mind that a subversive hint at Delos’ alleged
immobility is not absent from Seneca’s work; in his Naturales quaestiones
6, while he discusses the impossibility of Delos being completely free from
earthquakes, Seneca quotes Vergil’s claim that Apollo granted that Delos
would no longer wander afloat but remain fixed in its location (NQ 6.26.2
Sed movetur et Aegyptus et Delos, quam Vergilius stare iussit: ‘Immotamque
coli dedit et contemnere ventos’. ‘But Egypt does have earthquakes, and so
does Delos, which Vergil ordered to stand still: “He arranged that it be tilled,
a land without earthquake and scorning the winds” ’; cf. Verg. Aen. 3.77). As
Williams rightly remarks, ‘in wittingly modifying the Vergilian sense at 6.26.2
and pointedly emphasizing Vergil’s authorial will (stare iussit), Seneca again
targets ‘la poesia mitologica’ as a source of unscientific misinformation that
here stands in contrast to his own strivings, apparently free as they are from
all fictional embellishment’.52
Subsequently Seneca briefly discusses additional material drawn from
paradoxography, in order to challenge its truth (NQ 3.25.11). Along these
lines, Seneca does not hesitate to cast his doubt upon Theophrastus’ claim
that the Nile water should make women more fertile, since he himself cannot
find a persuasive explanation.53 Similarly, he objects to beliefs such as those
attributing to waters in Lycia the propriety of protecting the pregnancy of
women, as unfounded rumors.54
3.4 Disappearing and reappearing rivers

Seneca explicitly returns to Ovid’s Pythagorean list again in c hapter 26, when
he describes the existence of disappearing and reappearing rivers. He first sets
forward his scientific explanation, pointing to the fact that there are vacant
spaces underground and that all liquid by its nature is carried to a lower and
52 Williams 2012, 250, quoting De Vivo 1992, 50–3 about ‘la poesia mitologica’: ‘Even before he
turns to Thucydides and Callisthenes for counter-testimony that Delos did indeed experience
earthquakes, the transparency of his Vergilian distortion surely signals to the knowing reader
the fragility of the evidence for the quake-free Delos; and for the reader who delves deeper, a
similar ambiguity in ἀκίνητον (‘no longer floating’ as opposed to ‘not shaken by earthquake’)
may equally compromise the Pindaric testimony to which Seneca alludes’. Pliny (HN 4.66), in
his list of the Cyclades islands, distinguishes the Delian ‘immovability’ from ‘unshakeability’.
For ancient allusions to Delos’ alleged resistance to earthquakes, see Barchiesi 1994, 440–1;
Lapini 1995; Nishimura-Jensen 2000, Rusten 2013.
53 Athenaeus cites Theophrastus on Waters for the effect on Nile waters (Theophr. 214A
FHS&G = Athen. Deipn. 2.41F Kaibel). Theophrastus (HP 9.18.10 Wimmer) states that
there are places that water is prolific (παιδογόνον), e.g., Thespiae, but in Pyrrha it is sterilizing
(ἄγονον). Cf. Arist. Hist. an. 9.4, 584b7 and 31; Gen. anim. 4.4, 770a36; Plin. HN 7.33.
54 Plin. HN 31.10.
218
218 Myrto Garani

empty space (cf. NQ 3.16.4; cf. Lucr. DRN 6.536–42). Such lists of under-
ground rivers can be found already in Aristotle’s Meteorology (Mete. I 13,
350b36–351a18), so as to illustrate why some people think that the sea itself is
replenished from underground reservoirs.55 In order to demonstrate his point,
Seneca quotes four verses from Ovid (NQ 3.26.3–4; cf. Ov. Met. 15.273–6):56
Quaedam flumina palam in aliquem specum decidunt et sic ex oculis

auferuntur. Quaedam consumuntur paulatim et intercidunt; eadem ex
intervallo revertuntur recipiuntque et nomen et cursum. Causa manifesta
est: sub terra va<cat> locus; omnis autem natura umor ad inferius et ad
inane defertur. Illo itaque recepta flumina cursus egere secreto, sed, cum
primum aliquid solidi quod obstaret occurrit, perrupta parte quae minus
ad exitum repugnavit, repetiere cursum suum.
Sic, ubi terreno Lycus est potatus hiatu,
existit procul hinc alioque renascitur ore.
Sic modo combibitur, tacito modo gurgite lapsus
redditur Argolicis ingens Erasinus in undis.
Idem et in Oriente Tigris facit; absorbetur et desideratus diu tandem
longe remoto loco, non tamen dubius an idem sit, emergit.
Certain rivers fall visibly into some cave and so are carried out of sight.
Other diminish gradually and are lost but return after some distance
and recover their name and course. The reason is obvious: there is a
vacant space underground; moreover, all liquid by its nature is carried
to a lower and empty region. And so the rivers received into that empty
region continue their course out of sight, but as soon as anything solid
meets them so as to obstruct them they burst through the section that
offers the least resistance to their exit and recover their course on the
surface.
Thus, when Lycus is drunk up by the yawning earth
it comes out far from here and is reborn from another source.
Thus, the mighty Erasinus is sometimes drunk up,
sometimes glides along in silent flow and is restored in the
waters of Argos.
Also, in the East the Tigris does the same thing. It is absorbed and after
a long disappearance it finally emerges far away in a remote place yet
undoubtedly the same river.
Seneca adds the example of Tigris, which, as he states, beyond any

doubt remains the same river, once it emerges after its long disappearance.57
Comparing to Ovid, there are two points to which we should draw our
55 Plin. HN 2.225.
56 Cf. also Seneca’s reference to Timavus (NQ 3.1) by quoting Verg. Aen. 1.245–6.
57 About Tigris as well as Alpheus and Arethusa, see also Sen. NQ 6.8 (and discussion below
p. 220–1).
219

attention. To begin with, whereas in Ovid the river Lycus springs forth with a
different appearance, as if it is reborn in a new disguise (alioque renascitur ore,
Met. 15.274), Seneca underlines the fact that the re-emerging river is the same
(eadem ex intervallo revertuntur recipiuntque et nomen et cursum). It seems thus
that once again Seneca disapprovingly comments upon the Ovidian mytho-
logical world of transformation, within which men can get metamorphosed
into rivers.58
This critical stance towards his predecessor is further revealed by the fact
that Seneca quotes only two out of three Ovidian examples of underground
rivers within the list.59 Ovid also refers to the river Mysus, about which ‘they
say that ashamed of his source and former banks, now flows in another region
as Caïcus’ (Met. 15.277–8 et Mysum capitisque sui ripaeque prioris | paenituisse
ferunt, alia nunc ire Caicum).60 What is the reason of Mysus’ shame and who
are those who give this account (paenituisse ferunt, Met. 15.278)? Although to
the best of my knowledge, we cannot retrieve this information from any reli-
able source prior to Ovid,61 it is worth mentioning Pseudo-Plutarch’s treatise
on Rivers. In this work, highly problematic though it may be, the author offers
two mythical versions associated with the river Caïcus (Ps.-Plut. De fluviis 21
Hercher 1851):
Κάϊκος ποταμός ἐστι τῆς Μυσίας· ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ τὸ πρότερον Ἀστραῖος ἀπὸ

Ἀστραίου τοῦ Ποσειδῶνος. Οὗτος γὰρ παννυχίδος Ἀθηνᾷ τελουμένης
Ἀλκίππην τὴν ἀδελφὴν κατὰ ἄγνοιαν βιασάμενος ἔφθειρεν καὶ ἀφείλετο
τῆς προειρημένης τὸν δακτύλιον· τῇ δ’ ἐπιούσῃ τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐπιγνοὺς τὴν
σφραγῖδα τῆς ὁμαίμου, διὰ λύπης ὑπερβολὴν ἔβαλεν ἑαυτὸν εἰς ποταμὸν
Ἄδουρον, ὃς ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ Ἀστραῖος μετωνομάσθη· προσηγορεύθη δὲ Κάϊκος
δι’ αἰτίαν τοιαύτην.
Κάϊκος, Ἑρμοῦ καὶ Ὠκυρρόης παῖς νύμφης, Τίμανδρον ἕνα τῶν εὐγενῶν
φονεύσας καὶ τοὺς προσήκοντας αὐτῷ φοβούμενος, ἑαυτὸν ἔρριψεν εἰς τὸν
Ἀστραῖον, ὃς ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ Κάϊκος μετωνομάσθη.
CAICUS is a river of Mysia, formerly called Astraeus, from Astraeus
the son of Neptune. For he, in the height of Minerva’s nocturnal solem-
nities having deflowered his sister by a mistake, took a ring at the same
time from her finger; by which when he understood the next day the error
which he had committed, for grief he threw himself headlong into the
river Adurus, which from thence was called Astraeus. Afterwards it came
to be called Caïcus upon this occasion.
58 E.g. the story of Galatea who transformed her lover Acis into a river god, Met. 13.870–97; the
story of Alpheus and Arethusa, Met. 5.573–641.
59 Hine 1996, 146 notes the differences, in the text that Seneca cites (Ov. Met. 15.273: epotus—
Sen. potatus; Met. 15.275: tecto—Sen. tacito; Met. 15.276 arvis—Sen. undis).
60 On Ps.-Plutarch, see Cameron 2004, 127–34. Cf. Ov. Met. 2.243. Strabo (Geogr. 13.1.70
Meineke) reports that some take it of two rivers, the Caïcus and the Mysus. See also Thomas
1988, 214 ad Verg. Georg. 4.370.
61 Bömer 1986; Hardie 2015 ad loc.
220
220 Myrto Garani

Caïcus, the son of Hermes and Ocyrrhoe the Nymph, having slain
Timander one of the noblemen of the country, and fearing the revenge of
his relations, flung himself into the river Astraeus, which from that acci-
dent was called Caïcus.
(Transl. Goodwin 1889)
According to this account, Caïcus threw himself into the river Astraeus,
because of a certain crime he had committed (either deflowering his sister or
killing a nobleman); as a consequence, there was a change in the name of the
river. The myth itself, however, does not so much hint at a process of trans-
formation. Given the fact that the name of Caïcus occurs among Callimachus’
fragments (fr. gram. 404 Pf.), one may assume that Ovid may have drawn
his obscure mythological allusion from the—now lost—Callimachean trea-
tise On the rivers of the known world (frr. gram. 457–9 Pf.).62 Whatever the
case may be, Seneca’s omission of Caïcus tellingly demythologizes the phe-
nomenon of underground rivers, offering in reply his scientific explanation.
Demythologization may also turn out to be the reason why Seneca does not
refer in this context to the spring of Arethusa which, however, held a prom-
inent place in the paradoxographical tradition and to which Ovid devotes an
episode in his mythological epic (Met. 5.573–641). Callimachus cites Timaeus
(Call. fr. 407 xii Pf. = Antig. Hist. mir. 140.2 p. 92 Giannini = fr. 41a FGrHist
566 Jacoby):63
φησὶν δὲ καὶ φιάλην ποτ’ εἰς τὸν Ἀλφειὸν ἐμβληθεῖσαν ἐν ἐκείνῃ φανῆναι.
τοῦτο δ’ ἱστορεῖ καὶ Τίμαιος.
And they say that a saucer tossed into the Alpheus once appeared in
Arethusa. Timaeus also reports this.
Therefore, Seneca’s stance is remarkable, given that, as Prioux remarks,

‘Traditions on rivers may also have been used as a means to tighten the links
between south Italy and Sicilian streams and Greek geography’.64
3.5 Self-cleansed  waters

Arethusa, however, is not absent from Seneca’s account of waters: the famous
spring turns up in the paragraphs immediately following, in which Seneca
62 See also the catalogue of 27 rivers in Ov. Met. 2.242–59 (which are to be found just before
Met. 2.264 about Cyclades that Seneca wrongly quotes for the flood in NQ 3.27.13) with
Kyriakidis 2007, 141–2; for the catalogue of eight rivers in Verg. Georg. 4.367–73 with its
plausible Callimachean echoes, see Thomas 1988, 207, 212–5.
63 For Polybius’ criticism regarding Timaeus’ story of Arethusa, see Baron 2013, 74–7. With
reference to Arethusa, Strabo (Geogr. 6.2.4 Meineke) objects that a river cannot flow through
the sea without fresh and salt water mixing.
64 Prioux 2009, 138–9.
221

explains the process of self-purgation of certain springs (NQ 3.26.5–6; cf.
Verg. Ecl. 10.4–5):
Quidam fontes certo tempore purgamenta eiectant, ut Arethusa in Sicilia

quinta quaque aestate per Olympia. Inde opinio est Alpheon ex Achaia eo
usque penetrare et agere sub mari cursum nec ante quam in Syracusano
litore emergere, ideoque his diebus quibus Olympia sunt victimarum
stercus secundo traditum flumini illic redundare.
Hoc et a te creditum est, ut in prima parte dixi, Lucili carissime, et a
Vergilio, qui alloquitur Arethusam:
Sic tibi, cum fluctus subter labere Sicanos,
Doris amara suas non intermisceat undas.
Some springs cast out impurities at a specific time, as the Arethusa does
in Sicily every fifth summer during the Olympic festival. Hence there is
the belief that the Alpheus penetrates all the way to Sicily from Achaia
and maintains its course under the sea and re-emerges only at the coast
of Syracuse. So, on those days when the Olympic festival is held the excre-
ment of sacrificial animals consigned to the current of the River Alpheus
overflows in Sicily. Even you believe this legend, my dear Lucilius, as I said
in the first part of this work; and so does Virgil, who addresses Arethusa:
So when you glide beneath Sicilian waters
may the sea nymph Doris never mingle her bitter waves
with yours.
On the one hand, Seneca appears to testify the fact that in Sicily the spring
Arethusa casts out impurities every fifth summer during the Olympic festival.
On the other, he explicitly states that he considers it to be a legend (opinio
est) the fact that the Alpheus penetrates to Sicily from Achaia and re-emerges
at the coast of Syracuse. Instead of Ovid, Seneca here turns back to both
Lucilius, his addressee, and Vergil, quoting two verses from the latter’s tenth
Eclogue.65 Seneca goes on to add another example of such a spring, the one in
Chersonese, which belongs to the Rhodians. This spring ‘after a long interval
of time becomes stirred up from its depths and pours out some foul stuff, until
it is freed of it and cleansed’ (NQ 3.26.7 post magnum intervallum temporis
foeda quaedam turbidus ex intimo fundat, donec liberatus eliquatusque est).66
65 About Alpheus and Arethusa, see also Sen. NQ 3.1.1, 6.8.2; Lucilius fr. 4 Morel and Büchner
[FPL 4, p. 314 Blänsdorf; pp. 348–9 Courtney]; Verg. Aen. 3.694–6. For a different version of
the myth of Arethusa in Seneca, see Sen. Marc. [6]‌.17.3.1–4.1.
66 Plin. HN 31.55: Et illa miraculi plena, Arethusam Syracusis fimum redolere per Olympia, verique
simile, quoniam Alpheus in eam insulam sub maria permeet. Rhodiorum fons in Cherroneso fons
nono anno purgamenta egerit. ‘The following phenomena too are very wonderful: the Arethusa
at Syracuse smells of dung during the Olympian games, a likely thing, for the Alpheus crosses
to that island under the bed of the seas. A spring in the Rhodian Chersonesus pours out
refuse every ninth year’ (Transl. Jones 1963).
222
222 Myrto Garani

Seneca explains that it is the nature of the sea to ‘wash ashore all impurities
and filth’ (omne immundum stercorosumque litoribus impingat).
Then Seneca refers to an example of a region of the sea in which this pro-
cess has been observed to take place periodically: ‘in the turbulent season of
the equinox the sea around Messena and Mylae throws up something like
excrement and boils and seethes with a vile color’ (NQ 3.26.7 circa Messenen
et Mylas fimo quiddam simile turbulenta aequinoctii vice mare profert fervetque
et aestuat non sine colore foedo). And he goes on to add the legend associated
with this place, i.e., that the cattle of the Sun are allegedly stabled there (unde
illic stabulare Solis boves fabula est).67 In my opinion, Seneca’s hint at this
specific myth is particularly informative regarding his relationship with the
paradoxographical tradition. Mylae, a small Sicilian peninsula on the north-
east coast of the island was considered to be a miraculous place. For example,
Theophrastus in his History of Plants (HP 8.2.8 Wimmer) reports that:
Λέγεται δὲ καὶ ἐν Σικελίᾳ τῆς Μεσσηνίας ἐν ταῖς καλουμέναις Μύλαις

ταχεῖάν τινα γίνεσθαι τὴν τελείωσιν τῶν ὀψίων· τὸν τῶν ὀσπρίων μὲν γὰρ
σπορητὸν ἓξ μῆνας, τὸν δὲ τῷ ὑστάτῳ σπείραντα θερίζειν ἅμα τοῖς πρώτοις·
ἀγαθὴν δὲ διαφερόντως εἶναι τὴν χώραν ὥστε τριακοντάχοα ποιεῖν, ἔχειν δὲ
καὶ νομὰς θαυμαστὰς καὶ ὕλην.
It is said also that in the Messenian district in Sicily at the place called
Mylae the late sown crops mature rapidly; thus the sowing of pulses goes
on for six months, but he that made the last sowing gathers his crop at
the same time as the first: also that the soil is exceedingly good, so that it
yields thirty-fold; and there are also wonderful pastures and forest-land.
(Trans. Hort 1916)
More to the point, a hint at this myth about the cattle of the Sun can be
meaningfully gleaned from two paradoxographical authors, Nymphodorus
and Philostephanus, as we read in the ancient scholia to Odyssey (Schol.
Hom. Od. 12.301, [Oxford 1855] ii, p. 549 Dindorf):68
Νυμφόδωρος ὁ τὴν Σικελίαν περιηγησάμενος καὶ Πολύαινος καὶ Πανύασις

φύλακα τῶν Ἡλίου βοῶν Φυλάκιον φησὶ γενέσθαι, ὃν Φιλοστέφανος
Αἰολιδῶν εἶναί φησι καὶ ἔχειν ἐν Μυλαῖς ἡρῷον.
67 About tidal refuse, see also Plin. HN 2.220: Omnia pleno fluctu maria purgantur, quaedam
et stato tempore. Circa Messanam et Mylas fimo similia expuuntur in litus purgamenta, unde
fabula est Solis boves ibi stabulari. ‘All seas excrete refuse at high tide, some also periodically.
In the neighborhood of Messina and Mylae scum resembling dung is spat out on to the shore,
which is the origin of the story that this is the place where the Oxen of the Sun are stalled’.
(Transl. Rackham 1938).
68 Nymphodorus fr. 6 p. 114 Giannini in his Περίπλοι (fr. 3 FGrHist 572 Jacoby); Philostephanus
fr. 15 FHG iii.31 Müller; Polyaenus fr. 7 FGrHist 639 Jacoby; Panyassis of Halikarnassos
Heraclea fr. 8 Kinkel. Cf. Scholia Vetera in Apol. Rhod. ad 4.965 p. 299 Wendel: Μύλας δέ
φησι χερρένησον εἶναι ἐν Σικελίᾳ, ἐν ᾗ τοῦ Ἡλίου βόες ἐνέμοντο. Ubi ad vocem φησὶ suppleo
Τίμαιος ex antecedentibus.
223

Nymphodorus the author of the Description of Sicily, Polyaenus and
Panyassis say that the guardian of the Sun’s cattle was Phylacius, about
whom Philostephanus says that he was a son of Aiolos and had a cult
at Mylae.
According to this, Phylacius, the herdsman of the Sun’s cattle, had a cult
at Mylae. Therefore, it seems plausible that in this case Seneca looks back
to the broader paradoxographical tradition, in order to demythologize it, by
counter-offering his scientific explanation. Towards this direction, Seneca
repeats his theory that ‘all standing and enclosed water naturally purges itself’
(NQ 3.26.8 omnis aquarum stantium clausarumque natura se purgat).69
4 Conclusions
What is, then, the function of the Ovidian quotations from Pythagoras’ list
within Seneca’s book 3 On Waters? To answer this question, we should first
see what follows next in Seneca’s account. Whereas, as we have already briefly
discussed, Seneca initiates his Stoic physical project by intertextually hinting
at the vatic figure of Pythagoras, brought forward from the last book of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, just after his discussion about the process of self-purgation
of the sea, he culminates book 3 with his account of the cosmic deluge (NQ
3.27–30), in the course of which he turns to the beginning of Ovid’s poem, by
means of a double allusion to the Ovidian story of the cataclysm (Met. 1.262–
312) as well as that of Phaethon and the conflagration (Met. 1.747–2.400).70
To put it differently, right before Seneca’s account about the final destruction
of the world, in which the Ovidian presence is dominant, even if debatable,
Seneca demarcates anew his stance towards his poetic predecessor.
On the one hand, in his effort to demonstrate the Theophrastean theory
as regards the properties of waters, he highlights the philosophizing aspects
of Ovid’s mythological epic, which he considers to be a significant source
of examples which, despite their paradoxographical provenance, may hold
a certain scientific value; in doing so, he proves himself a perceptive Ovidian
reader, anticipating thus the corresponding modern scholarly reception of the
Metamorphoses. On the other, he challenges Ovid’s account, either by omitting
or by correcting specific examples, in case he regards them as fallacious,
especially when these are explicitly associated with a mythical narrative;
in this demythologizing process, although Seneca applauds the reception
69 Cf. Arist. Hist. an. 6.13, 568a4 (about the Black Sea ‘being cleansed’); Posidon. fr. 221
Edelstein and Kidd (FGrHist 87 fr. 91 Jacοby = Strabo Geogr. 1.3.9 Meineke) (about depth of
the sea of Sardinia) with Kidd 1988, 794; Plut. De cohibenda ira 456c (τὴν μὲν γὰρ θάλασσαν,
ὅταν ἐκταραχθεῖσα τοῖς πνεύμασι τὰ βρύα καὶ τὸ φῦκος ἀναβάλλῃ, καθαίρεσθαι λέγουσιν. ‘For
when the sea is disturbed by the winds and casts up tangle and seaweed, they say that it is
“being cleansed” ’).
70 Degl’Innocenti Pierini 1990b; Timpanaro 1994, 309; Berno 2003, 93–6; Mazzoli 2005a;
Williams 2012, 101; Garani (forthcoming b).
224
224 Myrto Garani

of gods into the Ovidian universe, undoubtedly overlapping, at least in his
view, with the Stoic divine providence, he adopts a critical stance towards
the Ovidian world of mythical transformation, which—as he suggests—is
erroneously imbued with wonder and fear; in doing so, he follows Lucretius’
corresponding approach towards the natural wonders. It is through this
double lens, both Lucretian and Ovidian, that he also responds to the broader
paradoxographical tradition. At the same time, whilst he strives to make his
account more palatable for his Roman audience, he brings in tangible Italian
examples. Nevertheless, Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with Ovid turns out
to be a bidirectional process: once Seneca engages with Ovid’s Callimachean
list of paradoxa, he unexpectedly places himself within the Roman tradition
of Callimacheanism, with its implications of witty generic experimentation
and subtle—often ironic—intertextual allusions, which the informed reader
should be on the alert to perceive, while reading the last part of book 3 and
the rest of Seneca’s Natural Questions. In a word, Seneca presents himself as
the ideal Stoic vates with not only therapeutic, i.e., liberating, philosophical
aspirations, but also poetic claims, on the basis of which he emulates Ovid,
even if writing in (didactic) prose.
225
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254
Index locorum
Aelian fr. 2 p. 108 (= Paradox. Vat. 11

De natura animalium p. 334): 203 n21
4.27 (= Ctesias fr. 45h Nichols = fr. 45h Appian
FGrHist 688 Jacoby): 174 n43 Bellum civile
12.36 (= Theophr. 218B FHS&G): 5.116: 62 n44
213 n42 Apuleius
Aeschylus (ed. Radt) De mundo (ed. Thomas)
fr. 176: 155 n23 17 p. 153, 11ff.: 209 n30
Alcaeus of Messene Metamorphoses
AP 9.518 (= Gow-Page, HE 14–17): 10 11: 139, 139 n27
Alcman (ed. Campbell) 11.1.2: 140 n27
fr. 38: 175 n49 Aristo of Chios (SVF, ed. von Arnim,
Antigonus of Carystus (ed. Giannini) vol. i)
Historia mirabilium 1.333 (= Diog. Laert. 7.160): 158, 159
12 p. 36: 209 n32 1.351 (= Diog. Laert. 7.161): 159
15b p. 38: 205 n25 1.352 (= Stob. Ecl. 2.1.24, p. 8.13
78 p. 68: 212 n40 Wachsmuth): 158
121–123 p. 84: 209 n30 1.357 (= Sen. Ep. 89.13): 159
123 p. 86: 209 n30 1.372 (= Sen. Ep. 115.8): 158
134 p. 90 (= Call. fr. 20 Giannini = 1.389 (= Plut. Tuend. san. 133c): 159
Call. fr. 407 vi Pf. = Timaeus of 1.396 (= Stob. Ecl. 2.31.95, p. 218
Tauromenion fr. 46 FGrHist 566 Wachsmuth): 126
Jacoby): 214 Aristophanes
135 p. 90: 203 n21 Birds
140.2 p. 92 (= fr. 41a FGrHist 566 748ff.: 119 n35
Jacoby = Call. fr. 407.49–50 Pf.): 220 Aristotle
145 p. 94 (= Ctesias fr. 1lα Nichols): 205 De generatione animalium
146 p. 94 (= Ctesias fr. 47a Nichols): 4.4, 770a36: 217 n53
215 n49 De sensu
150 p. 96 (= Ctesias fr. 45sα Nichols): 5, 444b31ff.: 209 n30
215, 215 n49 Historia animalium (Books 1–6 ed. Peck;
151 p. 96: 215 books 7–10 ed. Balme)
152a p. 96: 209 3.12, 519a10–19: 212 n40
152b p. 98: 209 6.13, 568a4: 223 n69
158 p. 100 (= Theophr. 213B FHS&G = 6.18, 572a8–30: 195 n61
Call. fr. 407 xxx Pf.): 211 6.22, 575b30–31: 195 n61
161 p. 100: 203 n21 7.11, 596b: 119 n33
164 p. 102 (= Theopompus fr. 278b 7.28, 606a9: 205 n25
Shrimpton): 207 9.4, 584b7: 217 n53
255
Index locorum 255
9.4, 584b31: 217 n53 407 xxiv: 209
9.4, 585a3–4: 195 n61 407 xxxi: 209
Meteorologica 407 xxxii: 209
1.13, 350b36–351a18:  218 407 xxx (= Antig. Hist. mir. 158 p. 100
2.3, 359a: 215 n48 Giannini = Theophr. 213B
2.3, 359b17: 207 n27 FHS&G): 211
Poetica 457–9:  220
9, 1451a38-b6: 57 n28 Iambs
Arius Didymus (ed. Diels) 12 fr. 202.28: 209 n32
fr. 18 p. 457 Diels (Stobaeus 1.10.16c, Hecale
p. 138f. W.-H. = SVF 1.89): 89 n22 260.17: 209 n32
Arrian 260.41: 209 n32
Anabasis Calpurnius Siculus
1.11.6: 175 n47 1.33–88:  170
Epicteti Dissertationes 4: 170 n25
2.19.1–2 (= SVF 2.283): 159 n32 Carmina Einsiedelnsia
Athenaeus (ed. Kaibel) 2: 170 n25
Deipnosophistae Cassius Dio
2.41F (= Theophr. 214A FHS&G): 55.14.1–22.2:  32
217 n53 57.24.4: 179 n3
2.42E (= Theophr. 214A FHS&G): 61.2.1: 178 n59
207 n27 62.15.1–6: 177 n58
Augustus 62.23.3–4: 177 n59
Res Gestae Censorinus
35.1: 41 n46 De Die Natali
Aulus Gellius 21.1–2:  56
Noctes Atticae Chrysippus (SVF, ed. von Arnim, vol. ii)
7.1.7: 139 n24 Logic
14.6.3: 70 n68 2.279 (= Diog. Laert. 7.186): 154 n22
2.283 (= Arrian Epict. Dissert.
Bion of Borysthenes (ed. Kindstrand) 2.19.1–2):  159
fr. 5a: 70 n68 2.287 (= Lucian Vitarum auctio 22): 159
Physics
Caesar 2.525 (= Plut. de comm. not. 1073d-
De bello Gallico 1074a): 89 n23
3.19.3: 152 n20 2.836 (= Sen. Ep. 113.23): 89 n23
3.21.3: 152 n20 2.1067 (= Cic. ND 2.36): 54
7.22.2: 152 n20 Ethics (SVF, ed. von Arnim; vol. iii)
Callimachus 3.89–91 (= Stob. 2.7.6f., p. 78
Hymn to Apollo (ed. Mair) Wachsmuth; 11f, p. 97f.): 90 n25
105–13: 200 n9 3.91 (= Stob. 2.7.11f., p. 97f.
110–2:  119 Wachsmuth): 91, 91 n26
Fragments (ed. Pfeiffer) 3.94 (= Stob. 2.7.11d, p. 95 Wachsmuth):
Epodes 93 n31
28 Pf. (= 2 GP): 200 n9 3.98 (= Stob. 2.7.11c, p. 94f.
fragmenta grammatica Wachsmuth): 93 n30
404: 220 3.169 (= Sen. Ep. 113.18): 92 n29
407 vi (= Antig. Hist. mir. 134 p. 90 3.171 (= Stob. 2.7.9b, p. 88 Wachsmuth):
Giannini = Call. fr. 20 Giannini 92 n29
= Timaeus of Tauromenion fr. 46 3.229b (= Cic. Leg. 1.17.47): 168 n21
FGrHist 566 Jacoby): 214 3.386: 194 n58
407 xii (= Antig. Hist. mir. 140.2 p. 92 3.393 (= Cic. Tusc. 4.14): 194 n58
Giannini = Timaeus of Tauromenion 3.394 (= Stob. Ecl. 2.7, p. 91
fr. 41a FGrHist 566 Jacoby): 220 Wachsmuth): 193 n53, 194 n58
256
256 Index locorum

3.398 (= Cic. Tusc. 4.21): 193 n53 Tusculanae disputationes
3.412 (= Diog. Laert. 7.110–1): 194 n58 2.27: 148–9
3.413–4: 193 n54 3.76: 181 n13
3.642 (= Diog. Laert. 7.123): 200 3.83–4: 194 n58
3.717 (= Stob. 2.7.5b9, p. 65–66 4.14 (= SVF 3.393): 194 n58
Wachsmuth): 94 n34, 95 4.21 (= SVF 3.398): 193 n53
3.759 (= Plut. Stoic. repugn. 1063c-d): 5.7–10: 166 n18
104 n64 CIL (= Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum)
Cicero 6.9590: 61
Ad Atticum Cleanthes (SVF, ed. von Arnim, vol. i)
12.14.3: 182 n13 I.487: 5
Brutus Columella
114–6:  155–6 De re rustica
Pro Caelio 6.27: 195 n61
9: 23 10.1.1: 73 n77
38 (= Ter. Ad. 120–1):  23 Cornutus
De divinatione Epidrome
1.117: 139 n24 15: 55 n20
De oratore Corpus iuris civilis (eds. Mommsen and
1.5.18: 4 n9 Krüger)
1.229: 156 Digesta
2.18: 63 47.14.1.3: 104 n63
De finibus 48.8.3.5: 104 n63
3.10: 91 n27 Ctesias (ed. Nichols 2008; for frr. 45ff.
3.10, 21f.: 91 n27 see Nichols 2011)
3.20: 164 n10 fr. 1b part (= 2.14.4): 206
Hortensius (ed. Grilli) fr. 11a (= Antig. Hist. Mir. 145 p. 94
fr. 12: 16, 148 Giannini): 205
De inventione fr. 1lβ (= Paradox. Flor. 17 p. 320
1.27: 57 n28 Giannini): 206
De legibus fr. 1lγ (= Plin. NH 31.9): 205 n24
1.17.47 (= SVF 3.229b): 168 n21 fr. 45h (= Ael. NA 4.27 = Ctesias fr. 45h
2.57: 8 FGrHist 688 Jacoby): 174 n43
2.59: 180 n4 fr. 45sα (= Antig. Hist. mir. 150 p. 96
Lucullus Giannini): 215 n49
135: 184 n21 fr. 47a (= Antig. Hist. mir. 146 p. 94
De natura deorum Giannini): 215 n49
2.36 (= SVF 2.1067): 54 fr. 47b (= Plin. NH 31.21): 215 n49
De officiis Curtius Rufus
1.113: 114 Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis
1.150: 165 n13 8.2.24: 152 n20
2.11–16: 165 n14
De republica Diodorus Siculus
2.18: 7 2.14.4 (= Ctesias fr. 1b Nichols
4.9: 148 n11 part): 206
6.29: 9 Diogenes Babylonius (SVF, ed. von
fr. 3 (ed. Keyes = Sen. Ep. 108.34 = Arnim; vol. iii)
Enn. Varia 23–4, p. 216 Vahlen2 = fr. 79 (= Philod. De music. col. 43.37–45
44.3–4 Courtney= Enn. Epigram 3–4 Delattre): 94 n34
Warmington): 9 Diogenes Laertius
fr. 4 (ed. Keyes = Sen. Ep. 108.32–3 = 4.26–7: 184 n21
Enn. Varia 19–20, p. 215 Vahlen2 = 7.49: 92 n29
Enn. fr. 43 Courtney = Enn. Epigram 7.51: 92 n29
5–6 Warmington):  8 7.63: 92 n29
257
Index locorum 257
7.104: 93 n32 Galen
7.87: 192 n52 De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis (ed.
7.110–1 (= SVF 3.412): 194 n58 De Lacy)
7.123 (= SVF 3.642): 200 4.3.2 (= SVF 1.209): 194 n58
7.151: 136 n20 4.7.12–18: 194 n57
7.160 (= SVF 1.333): 158, 159
7.161 (= SVF 1.351): 159 Hellanicus (FGrHist 4 Jacoby)
7.186 (= SVF 2.279): 154 n22 fr. 190 (= Paradox. Vat. 35 p. 340
Dionysius of Halicarnassus Giannini): 215 n49
Antiquitates Romanae fr. 191 (= Paradox. Florent. 16 p. 318
1.15: 216 n51 Giannini): 203
Heraclides of Pontus (ed. Wehrli)
Empedocles (eds. Diels -Kranz) fr. 127 (= Paradox. Vat. 13, p. 334
fr. 77: 166 n16 Giannini and Paradox. Florent. 22,
fr. 78: 166 n16 p. 320 Giannini): 207 n27, 209 n30
fr. 136: 166 n16 Herodotus
Ennius (ed. Vahlen2) 3.116: 174 n43
Varia 4.13: 174 n43
19–20, p. 215 (=fr. 43 Courtney = 4.27: 174 n43
Epigram 5–6 Warmington = Sen. 8.114: 173 n39
Ep. 108. 32–33 = Cic. Rep. fr. 4 Hesiod
Keyes): 8 Works and Days
23–4, p. 216 (= fr. 44.3–4 Courtney= 106–201: 163 n6
Epigram 3–4 Warmington = 117–20:  166
Sen. Ep. 108.34 = Cic. Rep. fr. 3 Homer
Keyes): 9 Iliad
Epictetus (ed. Oldfather) 1.39–41:  67
Discourses 1.249: 67
1.1.7: 5 2.211ff.: 67
1.6.32–6: 61 n41 2.815–57: 69 n65
2.16.44–5: 61 n41 2.856: 52
2.23.36–9: 126 n53 3.213: 67 n62
3.22.57: 61 n41 3.214: 68 n62
3.24.14–17: 61 n41 3.222: 67
3.26.31–2: 61 n41 3.897–8: 69 n65
4.10.10: 61 n41 5.749: 9
Encheiridion 6.535–6: 69 n65
7: 16, 157 9.315–21: 69 n65
Epicurus (ed. Usener) 14.268–70:  68
frr. 58–60: 207 n26 15.444–5: 69 n65
Euripides 15.683–4: 69 n65
Andromache 16.446–7: 69 n65
1254–68: 175 n48 18.39: 68 n63
Helen 18.599–601: 67 n61
1584–7: 175 n47 19.225: 52 n8
Ion 19.229: 52, 68
1074–89: 175 n48 20.318: 70 n65
Phoenissae 20.348: 69 n65
469: 16, 155 20.443: 70 n65
470: 155 21.185–7: 70 n65
494–6:  155 22.188–9: 70 n65
Eratosthenes (FGrHist. 241 22.413–5: 70 n65
Jacoby) 22.744: 70 n65
fr. 1c (vol. D2, 709): 57 n25 24.10–11:  68
258
258 Index locorum

24.310–5: 70 n65 Lucilius (eds. Morel and Büchner)
24.478–9:  68 fr. 4 (FPL 4, p. 314 Blänsdorf; pp. 348–9
24.506: 68 Courtney): 221 n65
24.602: 52, 52 n8, 68 Lucretius
24.666: 70 n65 1.1–43: 188 n37
24.691ff.: 70 n65 1.2: 188 n37
Odyssey 1.10–20: 195 n62
4.356–7: 70 n66 1.74: 195 n64
9.187–92:  134 1.80–101: 186 n32
9.275–8:  135 1.716–30: 189 n42
Horace 1.926 (= 4.1): 195 n64
Epistulae 2.1–2:  152
1.4.15–16: 133 n10 2.308: 200
Epodes 2.334–5:  186
2: 110 2.342–8:  186
Odes 2.349–51:  186
2.1: 110 2.352–66: 18, 185
3.3: 110 2.355: 190 n46, 195
4.2.27–32:  119 2.356: 190 n46, 190 n47
Satires 2.358: 187 n34
1.1: 110 2.359: 190 n46
1.4: 110 2.360: 187 n34, 193, 195 n63
2.363: 187 n34, 190
Isidorus 2.365: 187 n34, 190, 190 n47
Origines 2.366: 190 n46
13.13.4: 205 n24 2.367–70:  186
Isigonus (ed. Giannini) 2.370: 190 n46
fr. 14 p. 147 (= Tzetz. Schol. Lyc. 1021 2.465: 200 n13
Müller = Sotion fr. 2 p. 167 Giannini): 2.600–45: 188 n37
213 n44 2.655–60: 188 n37
2.898: 200
Josephus 2.991–1174: 188 n37
Bellum Judaicum 3.10–12:  119
4.8.4: 215 n48 3.94–7: 190 n45
Juvenal 3.417–869: 187 n33
3.278–80:  68 3.421–4: 190 n45
3.459–71:  185
Lactantius (ed. Heck and Wlosok) 3.830–1023: 197 n72
Divinae Institutiones 3.894–911:  185
1.16.10 (= Sen. fr. 93 Vottero): 102 n57 4.1 (= 1.926): 195 n64
1.18.11: 9 4.259: 200 n13
2.2.14–15 (= Sen. fr. 94 Vottero): 102 n57 4.595: 200 n13
2.4.14 (= Sen. fr. 95 Voterro): 103 n60 4.1091–114: 183 n18
4.17.28 (= Sen. fr. 96 Vottero): 103 n62 4.1197–200: 195 n61
5.13.20 (= Sen. fr. 78 Vottero): 104 n64 4.1233–47: 187 n33
Lucan 5.95: 187 n35
Pharsalia 5.592: 200 n13
1.47–8: 177 n59 5.925–87:  166
Lucian 5.1198–203: 187 n33
Auctio vitarum 6.536–42:  218
22 (= SVF 2.287): 159 n32 6.654–5: 200 n13
De Luctu 6.738–839:  209
24: 52 n8, 68 6.747–8: 209 n31
259
Index locorum 259
6.749–55: 209 n31 4.420: 189
6.750: 209 n32 4.423–6: 191 n49
6.753: 209 n32 4.453–4: 189 n44
6.754: 209 n32 4.455–66:  189
6.848–78: 201 n14 4.457: 190
6.848–905: 201 n14 4.458: 191
6.879–905: 201 n14 4.459: 191
6.890–4: 201 n14 4.459–60:  190
Lycophron 4.461–6:  190
Alexandra 4.461: 190
717–25: 74 n78 4.463: 190
4.464: 190
Macrobius 4.466: 190
Saturnalia 4.503: 190
1.7.28–31: 216 n51 4.513: 190
Martial 4.534: 190
3.93.20: 61 4.585–6:  190
Metrodorus (ed. Körte) 4.597: 191
fr. 34: 196 n70 4.611–8:  191
Musonius (ed. Lutz) Metamorphoses
19.108.5–109.1: 172, 172 n34 1.1–2:  199
1.128–31: 169 n23
Nymphodorus of Syracuse (ed. Giannini) 1.262–312:  223
fr. 4 p. 114 (= fr. 11 FGrHist 572 Jacoby 1.400–6:  203
= Scholion on Theocritus Idyll 5.14– 1.587–600: 15, 136
16 [k, p. 161.2–4 Wendel] = Theophr. 1.592: 139
218C FHS&G): 213 1.594: 139
fr. 6 p. 114 (= Περίπλοι fr. 3 FGrHist 572 1.595: 136
Jacoby): 222 n68 1.599: 139
1.601–3:  139
Orphica 1.632–4:  140
Hymni 1.645: 140 n28
24: 175 n48 1.668–9: 137 n21
Ovid 1.720–1: 139 n23
Amores 1.733: 137 n21
1.15.23–4: 187 n35 1.747–2.400:  223
Ars amatoria 2.1–2: 11, 168 n21
2.325–6: 147 n8 2.63–81: 62 n45
Epistulae 2.107–8: 168 n21
11.54: 147 n8 2.242–59: 220 n62
15.150: 147 n8 2.243: 219 n60
Fasti 2.264: 220 n62
1.317–456: 189 n43 4.285–388:  205
4.1: 188 n37 5.573–641: 219 n58, 220
4.1–132:  187 6.204–312: 203 n20
4.179–372:  188 6.309: 203 n20
4.393: 188 6.312: 203 n20
4.393–620:  188 8.643–54: 171 n27
4.413–6:  188 9.211–29: 203 n19
4.417: 188 13.790: 134
4.417–620: 18, 187 13.797: 134
4.418: 188 n41 13.821–3:  132
4.419–22: 189 n42 13.824: 131
260
260 Index locorum

13.842–3: 134 n18 20 p. 320 (=Theopompus fr. 278d
13.856–8: 135 n19 Shrimpton): 207 n27
13.870–97: 219 n58 22 p. 320: 209 n30
14.268–70: 25 n5 24 p. 320 & 322: 208 n28
15.1–484:  199 30 p. 324: 215 n49
15.6: 199 37 p. 326: 216 n51
15.75–142:  199 38 p. 326: 216 n51
15.158–72:  199 39 p. 326: 216 n51
15.176–459:  199 Paradoxographus Palatinus
15.244–51:  201 (ed. Giannini)
15.262–9:  199 13 p. 358: 213 n44
15.270–336: 19, 199 15 p. 358: 212 n40
15.271: 200 n10 Paradoxographus Vaticanus
15.273: 219 n59 (ed. Giannini)
15.273–6:  218 10 p. 334: 212 n40
15.274: 219 11 p. 334 (= Antig. fr. 2 p. 108 Giannini):
15.275: 219 n59 203 n21
15.276: 219 n59 12 p. 335 (= Theopompus fr. 278c
15.277–8:  219 Shrimpton): 207 n27
15.278: 219 13 p. 334: 209 n30
15.281–4: 200 n10 22 p. 338: 207 n27
15.308–9: 199, 202 35 p. 340 (= Hellanicus fr. 190 FGrHist 4
15.311–2: 201 n14 Jacoby): 215 n49
15.313–4:  203 Paulus
15.315–6:  214 Sententiae receptae (ed. Schulting)
15.317: 200 1.21.2–5, 8–14: 179 n4
15.317–8:  202 Pausanias
15.319–21:  205 2.1.8: 175 n47
15.319: 205 9.11.4–5: 62 n43
15.321: 200 Petronius
15.324–8:  208 60: 172 n33
15.329–31:  207 115.1–5:  153–4
15.332–4:  211 115.3: 154
15.336–9:  216 Philo Judaeus (ed. Cohn and Reimer)
15.408: 200 De aeternitate mundi
15.410: 200 130 (= SVF 1.106a): 165 n11
15.712: 73 n77 Philodemus
Tristia De ira (ed. Indelli)
3.4a.37–40:  147–8 cols. 40–2: 184 n27
3.5.1–16:  147 De morte (ed. Henry)
cols. 20–35: 184 n27
Palaephatus De musica (ed. Delattre)
12: 62 n43 col. 43.37–45 (= SVF 3, Diog. Bab.
Panyassis of Halikarnassus (ed. Kinkel) fr. 79): 94 n34
Ἡρακλεία (Heraclea) col. 130: 94 n34
fr. 8: 222 n68 De pietate (ed. Obbink)
Paradoxographus Florentinus (ed. cols. 790–7: 187 n34
Giannini) cols. 877–96: 187 n34
3 p. 316: 215 n49 cols. 1849–52: 187 n34
12 p. 318: 208 n28 cols. 2158–9:  54
16 p. 318 (= Hellanicus fr. 191 FGrHist De poematis (ed. Jensen)
4 Jacoby): 203 Book 5 cols. 17.6–10: 159 n34
17 p. 320 (= Ctesias fr. 1lβ Nichols): 206 Philostephanus
261
Index locorum 261
fr. 8 p. 23 Giannini (= Tzetz. Chil. 7.670 15.102: 176
Kiessling): 215 n49 16.144: 176
fr. 15 FHG iii.31 Müller: 222 n68 18.37: 35 n36
Pindar 31.9 (= Ctesias fr. 11γ Nichols): 205 n24
Isthmian 31.10: 204 n23, 217 n54
6.74: 119 n35 31.13–14 (= Theophr. 218A FHS&G):
7.20–1: 119 n35 212, 212 n37, 212 n40, 213
Pythian 31.16: 207 n27
4.289: 119 n35 31.19 (= Theophr. 219 FHS&G):
10.53–4: 119 n35 203 n21
Plato 31.21 (= Ctesias fr. 47b Nichols):
Gorgias 215 n49
500b-503a:  149 31.26 (= Theophr. 213C FHS&G):
504e: 149 211 n34
Ion 31.27: 211 n35
543a: 119 n35 31.28: 212 n36
Laws 31.55: 221 n66
676a ff.: 166 35.171: 215 n48
Phaedo Pliny the Younger
73d: 147 Epistulae
Phaedrus 6.10.1: 147 n7
261a: 149 n12 8.20: 216 n51
270b-d: 149 n12 9.12: 33
276e: 150 n15 9.12.2: 33
278d-e: 150 n15 Panegyricus
Politicus 10.4: 139 n24
271e: 166 Plutarch
Republic Moralia
2.369bff.: 165 n14 Adversus Colotem
2.376d-380c:  64 1109e-1110a: 207 n26
2.377d-3.398b: 149 n12 Consolatio ad Apollonium
3.398a-b:  149 110e-113e: 193 n54
9.588c: 62 De cohibenda ira
Pliny the Elder 456c: 223 n69
Naturalis Historia De communibus notitiis
2.16: 136 n20 1073d-1074a (= SVF 2.525): 89 n23
2.209: 216 n50 De Stoicorum repugnantiis
2.220: 62 n44, 222 n67 1063c-d (= SVF 3.759): 104 n64
2.225: 218 n55 De tuenda sanitate praecepta
2.226: 203 133c (= SVF 1.389): 159
2.230 (= Theopompus fr. 278e De virtute morali
Shrimpton): 207 n27, 212 n38 449A: 194 n58
2.231: 212 n35 Non posse
4.66: 217 n52 1101a-b: 184 n24
5.128: 70 n66 1101a: 184 n26
5.143: 51 Quaestiones conviviales
7.33: 217 n53 3.2.1, 648c-d:  176
7.158: 61 Vitae parallelae
7.191–209: 62 n43 Alexander
7.198: 62 n43 13.9.20: 174 n40
8.165: 195 n61 20.8.13: 173 n39
12.19–20:  176 75–77: 212 n35
12.111–3:  176 Antonius
262
262 Index locorum

33.7: 100 n47 Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium
Polyaenus (FGrHist 639 Jacoby) (ed. Wendel)
fr. 7: 222 n68 ad 4.965 p. 299: 62 n44, 222 n68
Polybius Scholia in Homeri Iliadem (ed. Erbse)
Histories ad Hom. Il. 2.856, i, p. 348: 52 n6
4.40.2: 58 Scholia in Homeri Odysseam (ed.
Pomponius Mela (ed. Ranstrand) Dindorf)
De chorographia ad Hom. Od. 12.301, ii, p. 549: 222
1.55: 216 n51 Seneca the Elder
2.82–3: 216 n51 Controversiae
2.104: 70 n66 1 pr. 6: 63
Posidonius (eds. Edelstein and Kidd) 2.6.2: 40 n41
fr. 221 (= fr. 91 FGrHist 87 Jacoby = 7.3.8: 4
Strabo Geogr. 1.3.9 Meineke): 223 n69 Suasoriae
fr. 237 (=Strabo Geogr. 13.1.67 3.7: 108 n6
Meineke): 215 n48 Seneca the Younger
fr. 279 (=Strabo Geogr. 16.2.42–3 Apocolocynthosis (Ludus de morte
Meineke): 215 n48 Claudii)
fr. 284: 161 n2 4.1.27–32: 177 n59
Propertius De beneficiis
4.11.6: 147 n8 1.3.1ff.: 63
Ps.-Aristotle 1.3.2–4.6:  55
De mundo 1.3.3: 55
4, 395b26–30: 209 n30 1.3.5: 55
De mirabilibus auscultationibus (ed. 1.3.6: 55
Giannini) 1.3.6–7:  63
112 p. 278 & 280: 215 n49 1.3.7: 68, 68 n63, 69
169 p. 310: 214 1.3.8: 55, 63
170 p. 310: 212 n40 1.3.9: 55, 56
Ps.-Plutarch (ed. Hercher) 1.3.10: 63
De fluviis 1.4.1: 55
21: 219 1.4.4: 55
Publilius Syrus (ed. Ribbeck) 1.4.5–6:  63
fr. 234: 4 1.4.6: 56
fr. 236: 4 2.25.1: 39
Pall. Incert. Fab. 65: 4 3.18–28: 35 n34
Pall. Incert. Fab. 66: 4 3.23.3: 58 n30
3.29.1: 40 n40
Quintilian 3.29–38: 35 n34
Institutio Oratoria 3.31.3–4: 40 n40
1.1.12: 66 3.37.1: 76
1.1.34–5: 66 n58 4.6.4–5:  2
2.4.2: 57 n28, 61 n42 4.7.1–4.8: 53 n9
5.11.17–18: 61 n42 4.27.2: 76
10.2.4: 27 4.27.3: 62, 78
12.4.1: 61 5.5.2–3: 40 n40
12.4.2: 61 n42 5.17.5: 122 n43
5.23.2: 58 n30
Rhetorica ad Herennium 5.25.4: 67, 68 n64
1.13: 57 n28 6.32.1–2:  29
6.36.1: 76
Sappho (ed. Voigt) 7.21.1: 58 n30
fr. 5: 175 n47 De clementia
fr. 130: 175 n49 1.2: 31, 42 n47
263
Index locorum 263
1.8.3: 177 n59 [5].3.9.1: 63 n48
1.9.1–12: 10, 24 n3, 31 [5].3.14.2: 77
1.9.3–5:  33 [5].3.18.3–4:  41
1.9.4–5:  33 [5].3.18.3: 43 n52
1.9.7–10:  32 [5].3.19.5: 41, 41 n45
1.9.10: 34 [5].3.22.4: 80
1.9.11: 34–5 [5].3.23.3: 67, 80
1.9.12: 35 [5].3.36: 33 n30
1.14.1: 36 n38 [5].3.37.5: 9 n30
1.15.1: 35–6 [6] Ad Marciam
1.15.1–16.3:  10, 31 [6].1.1: 179 n3
1.15.2: 36 [6].1.3: 128, 179 n3
1.15.3: 35, 37 [6].1.5: 179 n3, 182
1.15.3–4:  32 [6].1.6: 127–8, 179 n3
1.15.4–7:  37–8 [6].2–3: 180 n6
1.16.1: 39 [6].2.1–2: 183 n20
1.16.2: 38 [6].2.5: 190 n48
1.16.3: 36 n38 [6].4–6: 193 n53
1.19.1–6:  121 [6].4.2: 85
2.1.4: 178 n61 [6].4.2–5.6:  127
2.4.1: 77, 79 [6].7: 18, 181, 192–193
2.5.1: 75 n82 [6].7.3: 197
Dialogi (ed. Reynolds) [6].9.1–11: 180 n8
[1] De providentia [6].9.3: 180 n8
[1].1.1: 42 [6].10.4: 128, 180 n8
[1].2.7: 42 [6].12.4: 65 n54, 128
[1].2.7–10: 114 n24 [6] 13.1: 78
[1].2.12: 43 [6].16.6–8: 180 n5
[1].2.9: 114 [6].17–18: 180 n8
[1].3.9: 138 n22 [6].17.1: 180 n8
[1].4.7: 138 n22 [6].17.2: 58 n31
[1].5.10–11: 62 n45, 80 [6].17.3.1–4.1: 221 n65
[2] De constantia sapientis [6].17.3: 77
[2].2.1–2: 11, 57, 59, 62, 71 [6].18.4: 180 n8
[2].2.1: 78, 79, 126 [6].19.4: 65, 80
[2].4.2: 78 [6].19.4–5: 197 n72
[2].5.6–6.7:  153 [6].20: 180 n8
[2].6.2: 153 [6].20.1: 128
[3–5] De ira [6].20.4: 73
[3].1.16.7 (= SVF 1.215): 194 n57 [6].26: 186 n31
[3].1.20.8: 67 n61 [6].26.1: 181 n9
[3].1.20.8–9: 42 n49 [7] De vita beata
[4].2.1–4: 194 n57 [7].3.2: 101 n50
[4].2.21.4: 30 [7].19.1: 122 n43
[4].2.33: 12, 69 [7].26.6: 64
[4].2.33.3: 69 [7].26.7: 78
[4].2.33.3–4:  69 [8] De otio
[4].2.33.4: 41, 69 [8].5.1: 58 n30
[4].2.33.5: 40 n42, 68, 79 [9] De tranquillitate animi
[4].2.33.6: 69 [9].2.12: 68, 68 n64
[4].2.35.5: 65 [9].11.12: 77
[4].2.35.6: 77 [9].16.4: 61, 78
[4].2.36.5: 76 [10] De brevitate vitae
264
264 Index locorum

[10].9.2: 6 n21 33: 15, 130–5, 137, 141
[10].10.6: 77 33.1: 133, 133 nn12 & 15
[10].13.2–3:  67 33.4: 131
[10].13.3: 63 33.7: 133, 133 n13
[10].15.3: 45 33.7–8:  101
[10].16.4–5:  64 39: 96
[10].16.5: 78 40.2: 67, 69, 79
[11] Ad Polybium 41.2: 86 n19
[11].7.1: 58, 60 n37, 77 44: 46
[11].8.2: 65 44.1: 46
[11].11.5: 66 44.2: 46
[12] Ad Helviam 44.3: 46
[12].7.3: 61, 76, 77 44.5: 46
[12].7.6: 61, 77 45: 77, 79, 142
[12].9.2–3:  17 45.1–3: 130 n1
[12].16.1: 180 n4 45.1: 72
[12].19.5: 61, 76 45.2: 58 n31, 72
Epistulae morales (ed. Reynolds) 45.8: 97 n41
1: 116 n27 45.13: 97 n41
2.4–5: 133 n15 47.12: 61, 78
6.4: 96 48: 142
6: 72 48.4: 97 n41
6.5: 71, 130 n1 49–56:  71, 74
8.8: 4 n11, 5 n15 49–57: 71, 72, 124
9.5: 94 49: 72, 142–60
9.16: 78 49.1–2: 146, 147–8
9.18: 153 49.1: 72, 73, 147
11.54: 147 n8 49.2: 5
12: 121–3, 116 n27 49.2–4:  146
12.2: 136 n20 49.5–6:  146
12.8–9:  121–3 49.5: 16, 146, 148–50
12.9: 15, 122–3, 122 n43 49.6–8:  146–7
12.11: 26, 27, 47 n63 49.6: 16, 97 n41, 146, 156–60
13.8: 58 n30 49.7–9:  146–7
14.8: 72, 77 49.7: 16, 146, 147, 150–4
15.150: 147 n8 49.8: 151–4
19.9: 79 49.10–12:  146
21.5: 76, 148 n10 49.11: 157 n28
21.10: 134 n17 49.12: 16, 97 n40, 146–7, 149 n15, 155
22: 116 n27 50.2: 124
24.6: 58 n30 50.6: 86 n19
24.18: 65, 77, 78, 80 51.3: 72
25.1: 81 n3 52: 72
25.4: 78 52.1
26: 116 n27 52.4: 125
27.5: 67, 76, 79 53: 71, 73, 123–7
28.14: 80 53.1: 123
29: 130 53.2: 123
29.7: 87 n6, 82 n6 53.3: 123–7
30: 116 n27 53.4: 73, 79
31: 60 54.4: 126
31.2: 60, 71, 80 55: 73, 170 n26
31.9: 72, 77, 79 56: 71, 73, 107 n4, 124 n48
31–57:  71 56.12: 107 n4
265
Index locorum 265
56.13: 107 n4 82.24: 97 n41
56.15: 74 n79, 80 83.13: 29 n18, 43 n52
57: 73 84: 27, 27 n13, 48, 96, 117–21
57.1: 72 84.3: 26, 26 n10
57.8: 86 n19 84.6: 27
58.1–6: 67 n59 84.7: 27
58.5: 9 n30 84.8: 48
58.15: 58, 77 84.13: 48
58.25: 97 n41 86: 8 n26, 148 n10, 170 n26
59.7–8: 5 n17 88: 63, 67, 75 n82
59.12: 78 88.3: 58 n30
62.3: 82 n6 88.5: 53 n12
63: 66 88.6: 76, 78
63.2: 52, 66, 68, 68 n64, 79 88.7: 60, 70, 70 n68, 79
63.13: 75 n82, 180 n4 88.8: 79
64: 100 88.21: 165
64.2–3:  5 88.21–8: 165 n12
64.3: 99 n45 88.37: 76
64.7: 49 n70 88.43: 97 n41
64.9–10: 46 n61 89.13 (= SVF 1.357): 159
65.16: 97 n41 90: 17, 54, 161–78
66.26: 62, 76, 79 90.2: 172 n33
66.27: 43 n51 90.4: 162 n5
66.53: 75 n82 90.5–6:  164
68.5: 73 90.5: 161
70: 116 n27 90.6: 162
71.27–9: 194 n57 90.7–10:  171
73: 1 90.7: 54, 162
73.5: 78 90.9: 172
73.13: 78 90.10: 17
76.1: 81 n3 90.11: 162, 164 n7, 170
76.4: 73 90.12: 170
76.31: 58 n30 90.14: 62, 77, 172
77: 116 n27 90.15–17:  171
77.2: 78 90.15: 172
77.20: 58 n30, 61, 79 90.20: 170
79: 1, 47, 48 90.21: 170
79.1: 58, 77, 79 90.22: 170
79.2: 47 90.25: 165, 165 n13, 171
79.4–8:  47 90.31: 67 n61
79.5: 47, 47 n65 90.35: 54, 166 n15
79.6: 1, 46–7 90.36: 164, 165, 165 n15, 169
79.7: 47 n64 90.37: 167
79.8–10:  48 90.38: 166, 168
79.9–18:  47 90.40: 166
79.13–17: 47 n65 90.42–3:  171
79.17: 47 n66 90.42: 172 n34
80.7: 78 90.44: 54
82: 83, 84, 116–7, 116 n27 90.46: 54, 165
82.7: 76, 117 92.9–10:  62, 79
82.8: 63, 116 94: 4 n11
82.16: 65, 77, 116–7 94.10: 77
82.18: 117 94.63: 78
82.21–2: 146 n5 95: 165 n13
266
266 Index locorum

95.15–32:  60 108.28: 6
95.47: 78 108.29: 6
98.13: 5, 49 n71 108.30-2:  7
99: 196 108.32-3 (= Cic. Rep. fr. 4 Keyes = Enn.
99.1–2: 196 n68 Varia 19–20, p. 215 Vahlen2 = Enn.
99.14–20: 196 n69 fr. 43 Courtney = Enn. Epigram 5–6
99.15–21: 194 n57 Warmington): 8
99.16: 196 n69 108.34 (= Cic. Rep. fr. 3 Keyes = Enn.
99.24: 196 n71 Varia 23–4, p. 216 Vahlen2 = fr.
100.9: 148 n10 44.3–4 Courtney= Enn. Epigram 3–4
101: 84, 116 n27 Warmington): 6, 9
102: 13, 84, 87, 93, 96, 99, 101 108.38: 98
102.3: 84, 96 109: 3, 13, 93, 96–99
102.4: 13, 83, 96 109.1: 96
102.7: 87, 92 109.2: 94
102.30: 93 109.11: 94
104: 111–6 109.12: 94
104.27: 112 109.17: 96 n38, 102 n55
104.29: 112 109.17f.: 97–8
104.31: 76, 79, 111–6 110: 15, 84, 130, 135–41
104.33: 112 110.1: 135, 136 n20
106: 13, 84, 86–9, 96–101 110.2: 137
106.1–3:  96 110.3: 138
106.2: 102, 102 n52 110.4: 138
106.3: 96 n37, 100 110.6: 138
106.4: 84, 86, 87, 96 n39, 98 110.8: 138
106.5: 97 n42 110.12: 140
106.10: 97 n42 111: 83
106.11f.: 96–7, 98 113: 13, 84, 86–9, 92, 100, 101
106.12: 98 113.1: 100, 100 n47, 101 n49
107: 5 n15 113.2: 87, 88
107.1: 97 113.4: 87
107.10: 78 113.7: 89 n24
107.11: 5 n15 113.9: 62, 77, 78
108: 3-10, 96, 98, 99, 165 n13 113.18 (= SVF 3.169): 92 n29
108.1: 3, 96 n38, 98, 102 nn54 & 55 113.19-20:  89
108.3: 4, 99 n45 113.23: 89 n23, 100
108.6: 58 n30, 101 113.24: 87–8
108.7: 4, 99 nn43 & 44 114.19: 172 n34
108.10: 5 115: 16, 155, 156, 159
108.11: 4 115.1: 158
108.13: 4 115.8 (= SVF 1.372): 16, 158
108.14–6: 99 n44 115.11-13: 168 n21
108.17–8:  5 115.12: 64, 64 n51
108.17–21:  9 115.14: 80, 158
108.17–22:  5 115.15: 58 n30, 64 n51, 77
108.20: 5 116: 13, 101
108.22: 5 116.5: 161 n1
108.22–3: 99 n44 117: 13, 84–92, 100, 101
108.23: 5 117.1: 100
108.24: 6 117.5: 13, 90, 95
108.25: 6 117.12: 89 n24
108.26: 6 117.12f.: 92 n29
108.27: 6 117.16: 89 n24
267
Index locorum 267
117.25: 99 n45, 100 n46 3.27.13: 220 n62
118: 84, 148 n10 3.29.7: 58 n31, 77, 80
119.7: 78 4A praef. 14: 130 n1
120: 100 4A praef. 19: 77
120.9: 5 4A 2.2: 148
121: 13, 100, 101 4A 2.24: 58
121.3–9: 196 n71 5.15.1: 58 n30
121.3: 84 6.1.2: 73
121.17–24: 196 n71 6.5.2: 58
122.14–15: 58 n30 6.8: 218 n57
123: 13 6.8.2: 77, 221 n65
123.12: 71, 80 6.18.5: 65 n54, 76
123.15: 94, 100 6.23.4: 66, 78
124: 13, 84, 100, 101 6.26.1: 70 n66
124.1: 101 n48 6.26.2–3:  77
124.13–20: 196 n71 6.26.2: 217
124.21: 84 n13, 196 n71 6.28: 208 n29, 209 n30
Naturales quaestiones (ed. Hine) 7.17.2: 80
1.1.13: 77 Tragedies
2.41–6: 65 n52, 78 Agamemnon
2.44.1: 77 881–3: 115 n26
2.45.2: 139 n24 897–901:  114–5
2.50.1: 63 897–903:  115
3 praef.: 10 n35 901–3:  114
3 praef. 1: 200 Thyestes
3.1: 218 n56 560–6:  2
3.1.1: 221 n65 Troades
3.10.1: 202 162–3:  114–5
3.15.3: 202 Fragments (ed. Vottero)
3.15.7: 202 F and T 90–6: 83 n8
3.16.4: 218 51: 75
3.20–1: 19, 201–10 53: 75, 76
3.20.1–2:  201 78 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 5.13.20):
3.20.4: 203, 204, 216 104 n64
3.20.5: 204 93–6: 102 n56
3.20.6: 207 93 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 1.16.10): 64, 78,
3.21: 208, 209 n30 102 n57
3.21.2: 209 94 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 2.2.14–15):
3.25–6: 19, 210–23 102–3, 102 n58, 104
3.25.1: 210 95 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 2.4.14):
3.25.2: 79, 212 103 n60
3.25.3–4:  212 96 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 4.17.28): 103,
3.25.5–10:  214 103 n62
3.25.5: 215 Sextus Empiricus
3.25.7: 215 Adversus mathematicos
3.25.8–10:  216 8.70: 92 n29
3.25.9–10:  216 Silius Italicus
3.25.11: 217 8.534: 73 n77
3.26.3–4:  218 12.28: 73 n77
3.26.5–6:  221 12.34: 73 n77
3.26.6: 77, 130 n1 Solinus (ed. Mommsen)
3.26.7: 62, 77, 221–2 De mirabilibus mundi
3.26.8: 223 7.27 p. 66.11–15: 212 n38
3.27–30:  223 Sotion (ed. Giannini)
268
268 Index locorum

fr. 2 p. 167 (Isigonus fr. 14 p. 147 Gaius
Giannini = Tzetzes Scholia ad 46: 157 n27
Lycophrona 1021 Müller): 213 n44 Nero
Statius 6.1: 178 n59
Silvae 27: 177 n58
1.2.261: 73 n77 29: 175 n51
2.2.84: 73 n77 31: 17, 171
3.1.93: 73 n77 34.2–3: 173 n37
3.1.152: 73 n77 55: 176
3.5.79: 73 n77
4.4.53: 73 n77 Tacitus
4.8.3: 73 n77 Annales
5.3.105: 73 n77 4.34–5:  128
5.3.129a: 73 n77 14.48: 196 n67
Stobaeus 15.33–7: 177 n58
Eclogae (eds. Wachsmuth -Hense) 15.37: 175 n51
1.10.16c, p. 138f. (= Arius Didymus fr. 15.40.3: 176
18 p. 457 Diels = SVF 1.89): 89 n22 15.42: 17, 171
2.1.24, p. 8.13 (= SVF 1.352): 158 15.42.1: 177
2.7, p. 37–152: 13, 85 16.1–2: 171 n29
2.7, p. 91 (= SVF 3.394): 193 n53, Tatian
194 n58 Oratio ad Graecos (ed. Diels-Kranz)
2.7.5b7, p. 66: 86 21 (= DK 61 A3): 53 n10
2.7.5b9, p. 65–6 (= SVF 3.171): 94 n34 Terence
2.7.6f., p. 78: 90 n25 Adelphoe
2.7.8, p. 85: 89 n21 120–1 (= Cic. Cael. 38): 23
2.7.8a, p. 86: 89 n21 Theocritus
2.7.9b, p. 88 (= SVF 3.171): 92 n29 Idylls
2.7.10e, p. 93: 85 11: 132 n7
2.7.11c, p. 94f. (= SVF 3.98): 92–3, Theophrastus
93 n30 Fragments (ed. Fortenbaugh, Huby,
2.7.11d, p. 95 (= SVF 3.94): 93, 93 n31 Sharples, and Gutas)
2.7.11f, p. 97f.: 90 n25, 91, 91 n26 213A (Anonymous, on Antimachus of
2.7.11i, p. 101: 91 n26 Colophon = Pack2 89 = P. Milan.
2.31.95, p. 218 (= SVF 1.396): 126 17, col.2.53–8, PRIMI t. 1 p. 53
4.1.88, p. 27 (= SVF 1.266): 102 n58 Vogliano): 211 n34
Strabo (ed. Meineke) 213B (= Antig. Hist. mir. 158 p. 100
Geography Giannini = Call. fr. 407 xxx Pf.): 211
1.2.3–10:  57 213C (= Plin. NH 31.26): 211 n34
1.2.7: 53 n12 214A (= Athen. Deipn. 2.41F Kaibel):
1.2.23: 70 n66 217 n53
1.3.9 (= Posidonius fr. 221 Edelstein & Kidd 214A (= Athen. Deipn. 2.42E Kaibel):
= fr. 91 FGrHist 87 Jacoby): 223 n69 207 n27
6.1.13: 214 n46 218A (= Plin. NH 31.13–14): 212, 213
6.2.4: 220 n63 218B (= Ael. Nat. anim. 12.36): 213 n42
10.1.14: 212 n40 218C (= Nymphodorus fr. 4 p. 114
13.1.67 (= Posidonius fr. 237 Edelstein & Giannini = fr. 11 FGrHist 572 Jacoby
Kidd): 215 n48 = Scholion on Theocritus Idyll
13.1.70: 219 n60 5.14–16 [k, p. 161.2–4 Wendel]): 213
16.2.42–3 (= Posidonius fr. 279 Edelstein 218D: 212
& Kidd): 215 n48 219 (= Plin. NH 31.19): 203 n21
Suetonius 425–9: 207 n26
Augustus De causis plantarum (ed. Wimmer)
33: 32 2.3.3: 176
269
Index locorum 269
6: 207 n26 3.77: 77, 217
6.5.5: 209 3.277: 124
Historia plantarum (ed. Wimmer) 3.426–8:  62
4.4.1: 176 3.694–6: 221 n65
4.10.2: 216 n50 4.653: 122 n43
8.2.8: 222 5.848–51: 125 n49
9.18.10: 217 n53 6.3: 124
Theopompus (ed. Shrimpton) 6.261: 76, 117
fr. 278(b) (= Antig. Hist. mir. 164 6.275: 6
p. 102): 207 6.338: 125
fr. 278(c) (= Paradox. Vat. 12 p. 335 6.347–71:  125
Giannini): 207 n27 6.360: 125
fr. 278(d) (= Paradox. Florent. 20 p. 320 6.400–1: 77, 116
Giannini): 207 n27 6.402: 117 n28
fr. 278(e) (= Plin. NH 2.230): 207 n27 6.791–5:  167
Tibullus 6.792–3:  169
2.4.57–8: 195 n61 7.64–7: 120 n37
Timaeus of Tauromenion (566 FGrHist 8.296–7: 77, 117
Jacoby) 8.296: 117 n28
fr. 41a (= Call. fr. 407.49–50 Pf. = Antig. 8.298: 117
Hist. mir. 140.2 p. 92 Giannini): 220 8.319–27:  168–9
fr. 46 (= Antig. Hist. mir. 134 p. 90 8.385–6:  150
Giannini = Call. fr. 20 Giannini = 8.703: 77
Call. fr. 407 vi Pf.): 214 9.505–6:  151
9.808–9:  152
Valerius Maximus 10.467–8:  7
Facta et dicta memorabilia 10.468–9:  7
7.3 Pr. 1: 150 n17 11.262: 113
Varro 12.587–92: 120 n37
De re rustica 12.793: 127
3.5.9–17: 173 n37 Eclogues
3.17.4: 216 1.6–7:  1
Vergil 4: 170, 173
Aeneid 10: 221
1.53–4:  76 10.4–5: 77, 221
1.82: 121 Georgics
1.198–9:  128 1.125–8:  167–8
1.240: 127 1.176–7: 101, 101 n48
1.245–6: 218 n56 2.260–1:  9
1.421: 121 2.513–31:  168
1.422: 121 3.66–8:  6
1.423: 118 3.280–3: 195 n61
1.430–6: 117, 120 3.284: 6
1.434: 121 4.162–9:  118
1.453: 112, 121 4.180–4:  120
1.456: 112 4.367–73: 220 n62
1.458: 76, 79, 111–6 4.564: 73 n77
2.3: 147 Vitruvius
2.550–3:  115 De architectura
2.554: 114 1.5.5: 152 n20
2.557–8:  114 2.1.3: 17
2.557: 114 n23 2.3.4: 215 n48
2.558: 114 8.3.9–10: 203 n21
2.726–9: 107 n4, 124 n48 8.3.14: 212 n38, 213 n44
270
270 Index locorum

8.3.15: 212 n36 1.106a (= Philo Judaeus Aetern. 130):
8.3.16: 212 n35 165 n11
8.3.20: 207 n27 Ethics
1.209 (=Galen Plac. Hipp. Plat. 4.3.2
Zeno Citieus (SVF, ed. von Arnim, vol. i) De Lacy): 194 n58
Physics 1.215 (=Sen. Ira [3].1.16.7): 194 n57
1.89 (= Stob. 1.10.16c, p. 138f. 1.264f. (=Lactant. Div. inst. 2.2.14–15
Wachsmuth = Ar. Did. fr. 18 Diels): =Sen. fr. 94 Vottero): 102 n58
89 n22 1.266 (=Stob. 4.1.88, p. 27 Hense): 102
n58
271
General index
Acis 132, 219n58 corporeality (of soul, of good) 13, 86, 96

adoption 11, 30, 45 cosmology 185, 192–3, 195, 196n66
Alexander the Great 78, 126, 173–4, cow 18, 179, 181, 185–7, 189–93,
176–7, 212 195, 197
allegoresis, allegory (allegorizing, Cyclops (Cyclopes) 72, 77, 118,
allegorized) 11, 51, 53, 55, 63, 66, 78, 132, 135
102, 121, 159, 176n52.
animal(s) (living animal, virtues as declamation 24, 25n7, n8
animals, primary goods as animals) Delos 77, 217
13, 18, 60, 77–8, 84, 86–9, 100–1, 103, demythologization (demythologizing,
134, 140, 162, 164n10, 174, 177, 181, demythologized) 17, 19, 209–10,
184–6, 188n39, 189–97, 212–4, 221 220, 223
anthropocentrism 196n66 dialectic (dialectical, dialecticians) 12,
anthropology 192–3 16, 84, 97, 142–6, 149–50, 154–60
Antipater of Tyre 85 didactic 18, 26, 99, 180, 182–4, 186–9,
Apollo 77, 173, 217 191, 195–6, 224
Arethusa 76–7, 130n1, 189, 218n57, Dido 108 n5, 121–3, 147, 171
219n58, 220–1 Domus Aurea 18, 171–4, 177
Aristo of Chios 16, 142–3, 156, 158–60 doxography (doxographic,
Arius Didymus 13, 84–5, 89, 95, 193 doxographical, doxographer,
Artes 17, 54, 161, 164–5, 172 Doxography B, Doxography C, of
Averna loca 208–10 ethics) 81–104.
Baiae 72, 124, 177n58 Egypt (Egyptian) 127, 137, 174, 176,

bee simile 26n10, 117–21 178n59, 206, 216n51, 217
benefit (mutual) 13, 93–4 elusiveness 109n12, 127
emotion(s) 64, 144, 161n1, 179, 180n7,
Caïcus 219–20 183n17, 184n26, 193–7
Callimachus (Callimachean, Epicurean(s) 3, 18–9, 62, 65, 78, 80,
Callimacheanism) 19–20, 118–21, 130–4, 181–4, 200
188, 200, 203, 205–7, 209, 211, 214, Epicureanism 84, 181
220, 224 Epicurus 15, 26, 47n65, 119, 130–1,
Campania (Campanian) 71–3, 124, 144 133–4, 148, 181, 183n17, 184,
cattle of the Sun 62, 70, 77, 222–3 195, 207n26
cenatio rotunda 17, 172–4 exemplary discourse 10–11, 24,
colossus 173 28, 45, 48
contractio 194; see also morsus; δηγμός exemplary intertextuality 24, 25n4, 26,
/ δῆξις 28, 45, 52
Cornutus 54, 55n20, 85 exemplum, exempla 10–12, 24
272
272 General index
fabrica 170, 177–8 Mysus 219
fatherhood 10, 23–49 mythical time 11, 50, 56
floating (bricks, islands) 214–7
friendship 13, 35, 92–4, 146, 148n9 Nereids 68 n63, 175
Nero (Neronian, Anti-Neronian) 2–3,
Galatea 15, 131–4, 219n58, 135n19 10, 17–8, 30n22, 31, 33–4, 38–9,
God the father 42–4 41–2, 107n2, 109, 121, 127,
Golden Age 17–8, 54, 161–4, 165n14, 129, 161–78
n15, 166–78, 188–9 Nomentum 135
grief 5n17, 18–9, 41, 66, 69, 79, 144,
147, 179, 180, 182–7, 189–94, 196–7, Odeon of Pericles 174
219; see also πένθος Odysseus 12, 51–2, 56–7, 59–60, 62–3,
grotesques 174–5 67, 70–5, 79, 114, 125–6; see also
gryphons 174–5 Ulixes; Ulysses
otium 1
Hercules 7, 11, 59–61, 74, 78, 117
Hierocles 101 Palinurus 125–6
Homer 9, 12, 51–2, 53n12, 57, 63, paradox (Stoic) 16, 104, 109, 142, 146,
65–8, 79, 135, 183n21 149, 154, 156, 159
homo viator (Stoic) 123 paradoxa (Callimachean)
20, 224
imago (imagines) 46, 48 paradoxography (paradoxographer,
incorrectness 110–11 paradoxographical) 19, 199–200,
indifferent(s) 14, 16, 76, 85, 90, 99, 202–3, 206, 209–10, 212, 214–17,
104, 157–9; see also ἀδιάφορα 220, 222–4
inheritance 38, 40, 45, 49, 56 pater familias 11, 23, 28, 30–1, 33, 35, 39,
Io 15, 135–40 42n50, 49
irony (stable and unstable) 110, 170n24 pater patriae 10–11, 28, 30–1, 33, 38,
Isis 137, 139, 140n27 40–1, 42n47, 43, 45
ius vitaenecisque 31n25, 35, 41, 42n47 patria potestas 31n25, 39, 44
patrimony 27, 48–9
Juno 78, 112, 127, 135, 137 pedagogy 27n13, 183
Jupiter 7, 15, 53n9, 64, 78, 114–5, 127, Philodemus 54, 94n34, 159n34, 184n27,
136–9, 168n20, 190–1 186, 187n34
pneuma 86–7, 89n23; see also spiritus
L. Licinius Lucullus 176 Polyphemus 15, 70, 130–5
Libri moralis philosophiae 14, 83–4, 95–6, Pompey 76, 79, 112–15, 176
98, 100–4 Posidonian 54, 85, 162–5, 170–1
Lycus 218–9 Posidonius 3, 17, 54, 67n61, 131,
lyric(s) (poetry, poets) 16, 142–4, 161–7, 169–70, 177–8, 180n7, 201n17,
146–9, 159–60 215n48, 223n69
pre-emotions 184n27, 194n57, 196; see
Marcia 18, 127–8, 179–86, 188, 192–3, also προπάθεια
194n60, 195–7 providentia 138–9; see also
military (imagery, images, terms) 121, πρόνοια
146, 152n20, 159 Pythagoras 5, 19, 175n51, 191,
mirabilia (aquarum) 19, 198–201, 198–202, 209–10, 214, 216, 223
210, 216 Pythagorean 5, 9, 19, 166n18, 191, 199,
Mithridates 176 203, 208, 215–17
morsus 194; see also contractio; δηγμός
/ δῆξις rationalization (rationalize, rationalized,
multiple explanations (in Theophrastus, rationalizing) 11, 19, 50n3, 53n11, 57,
in Seneca) 201 58n31, 60–2, 65, 74, 77, 116, 162n4,
Mylae 62, 77, 222–3 200, 203
273
General index 273
rhetoric 23–4, 132, 149, 154–6, 159, 171, wisdom 10, 13, 35–6, 45, 47, 86, 88–91,
183n19, 187n35, 194n60, 195 100–1, 126, 130, 150, 164–5, 170, 178,
river(s) 202–3, 207, 212n38, n40, 192, 195n64
213, 218–21
Greek philosophical terms
sapiens (sapientes) 54, 64, 76, 78, 107n4,
162–5, 166n18 ἀδιάφορα 17, 164; see also
sayables 13, 86, 96; see also λεκτά indifferent(s)
schola 97, 99 ἀκρασία 66 n56
sons 11, 30–1, 35–6, 39–42, 44, 48, 68 ἀλυπία 184
spiritus 86–7; see also pneuma ἁμαρτήματα 85
statue (of gods) 102–3, 178n59 ἀντιμαρτύρησις 186n29
Stoicism 5, 53n11, 66, 82n5, 84, 95, 109, ἀπάθεια 184n26, 193n56
130n3, 161, 181, 193n54 αὐτόματος βίος 166, 178
Styx 210–11 δηγμός /δῆξις 194; see also contractio;
subtilitas 96–7, 100–1, 142 morsus
διαστροφή 163, 169
textuality 44, 49 δόξα 180, 183
theology (theological) 50–1, 53, 55–6, ἐκπύρωσις 78
64, 74. ἕξις 87, 89n24
Tiberius Claudius Balbillus 178n59 ἔρως 94
Tiridates 177n59 εὐεμπτωσία 85
transformation 19, 49, 82, 140, καθήκοντα 85
182, 199, 201, 202n18, 203, 209, κατορθώματα 85
219–20, 224 λεκτά 13, 92; see also sayables
μετριοπάθεια 184n21, 193–4
Ulixes 79; see also Odysseus; Ulysses οἰκείωσις 101
Ulysses 11, 67, 70–1, 76, 79, 126; πένθος 193; see also grief
see also Odysseus πρόνοια 139n24; see also providentia
προπάθεια 194; see also
vafer, vafritia 142, 146, 150 pre-emotions
virtue(s) 6, 10, 13, 24, 27, 42–4, 46–8, συγκατάθεσις 180
61–2, 77–8, 84–9, 92–5, 100, 102n58, συστολή (συστέλλειν) 194
138n22, 140, 146, 178n60, 179n3, φιλοποιία 94
192, 195n61 χαθήοντα 164n10

Myrto Garani - Andreas N. Michalopoulos - Sophia Papaioannou - Intertextuality in Seneca's Philosophical Writings

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Myrto Garani is Assistant Professor in Latin Literature at the National and

Andreas N. Michalopoulos is Professor of Latin at the National and

Sophia Papaioannou is Professor of Latin at the National and Kapodistrian

Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

Homicide in the Attic Orators

Underworld Gods in Ancient Greek Religion

Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ

Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings

Drama, Oratory and Thucydides in Fifth-​Century Athens

The Poetics in its Aristotelian Context

Text and Intertext in Greek Epic and Drama

For more information on this series, visit: https://​www.routledge.com/​

Introduction: intertextuality in the philosopher Seneca 1

1 Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 23

2 Myth, poetry and Homer in Seneca philosophus 50

3 Seneca and the doxography of ethics 81

4 Reading Seneca reading Vergil 107

5 Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales 130

7 Sub auro servitus habitat: Seneca’s moralizing of

8 Seneca on the mother cow: poetic models and natural

9 Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum (NQ 3.20–​1,

Index locorum 254

Francesca Romana Berno is Associate Professor of Latin Language and

Preface and acknowledgements

DK H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.) Die Fragmente

Seneca’s poetic work is profoundly defined by ongoing and multilayered

1 Trinacty 2014 with further bibliography.

7 For Seneca’s education, see Braund 2015, especially 25.

Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi

In this excerpt the philosopher elaborates on the fleetingness of time and

Deinde transit ad ea, quae consuetudo saeculi mutavit, tamquam ait

Esse enim apud Ciceronem in his ipsis de Re Publica hoc epigramma Enni:

10 Myrto Garani et al.

As noted at the beginning, the volume consists of nine chapters arranged

12 Myrto Garani et al.

The parallels are associated no less with ‘a new project of a systematic,

14 Myrto Garani et al.

16 Myrto Garani et al.

37 Detailed discussion in Armisen-​Marchetti 1989.

18 Myrto Garani et al.

20 Myrto Garani et al.

1 On this theme in the Pro Caelio, see May 1995.

Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 25

4 The circumscribed exploration of Senecan ‘exemplary intertextuality’ here may thus be

Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 27

Quamdiu [alimenta] in sua qualitate perdurant…, onera sunt; at cum

So long as food remains food in its own identifiable state…, it is a burden.

Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 29

Divus Augustus filiam ultra inpudicitiae maledictum inpudicam

3 Fathers, sons and the pater patriae

20 On the abdicatio of Agrippa Postumus, see Saller 1991, 118.

Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 31

23 Berno 2013 offers a more comprehensive view of Augustus as an exemplar in Seneca’s works.

Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 33

Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 35

Seneca closes the episode by commenting on the further career of Cinna: he

Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 37

Cogniturus de filio Tarius advocavit in consilium Caesarem Augustum;

And yet, in spite of Seneca’s remarking on Augustus’ conspicuous refusal

Audita causa excussisque omnibus, et his, quae adulescens pro se dixerat,

Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 39

Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 41

Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ

Drama, Oratory and Thucydides in Fifth-Century Athens

Text and Intertext in Greek Epic and Drama

For more information on this series, visit: https://www.routledge.com/

9 Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum (NQ 3.20–1,

DK H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.) Die Fragmente

7 For Seneca’s education, see Braund 2015, especially 25.

Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi

Esse enim apud Ciceronem in his ipsis de Re Publica hoc epigramma Enni:

10 Myrto Garani et al.

12 Myrto Garani et al.

14 Myrto Garani et al.

16 Myrto Garani et al.

37 Detailed discussion in Armisen-Marchetti 1989.

18 Myrto Garani et al.

20 Myrto Garani et al.

1 On this theme in the Pro Caelio, see May 1995.

20 On the abdicatio of Agrippa Postumus, see Saller 1991, 118.

23 Berno 2013 offers a more comprehensive view of Augustus as an exemplar in Seneca’s works.

44 Gloyn 2017, 159–62.

63 At Ep. 12.11, cited above.

69 Dressler 2012, 172; Edwards 2018.

Myth, poetry and Homer 51

6 Erbse 1969–88 ad loc. vol. I 348.

Myth, poetry and Homer 53

Myth, poetry and Homer 55

Myth, poetry and Homer 57

29 Pomponius Mela: Smith 2016; Pliny the Elder: Smith 2017.

Myth, poetry and Homer 59

36 On rationalization of myth, see Hawes 2014.

Myth, poetry and Homer 61

Myth, poetry and Homer 63

4 (Greek) poets and myth in Seneca

Myth, poetry and Homer 65

5 The ‘myths’ of Homer

Myth, poetry and Homer 67

Iliad 1.39–41: ‘that Homeric priest’ (Chryses, unnamed) reminded the gods

Myth, poetry and Homer 69

Myth, poetry and Homer 71

74 Cf. Henderson 2004, 31–2.

Myth, poetry and Homer 73

Myth, poetry and Homer 75

Myth, poetry and Homer 77

Myth, poetry and Homer 79

Seneca and the doxography of ethics 83

8 See Vottero 1998, F and T 90–6, with introduction and commentary.

Seneca and the doxography of ethics 85

Seneca and the doxography of ethics 87

Virtues are bodies (like the mind).

Seneca and the doxography of ethics 89

25 Stob. 2.7.6f., p. 78 Wachsmuth; 11f., p. 97f., collected in SVF 3 as fragments 89–91.

Seneca and the doxography of ethics 91

Seneca and the doxography of ethics 93