Seneca Selected Letters

354 Pages·2019·15.876 MB·Latin, English

by  Seneca, Catherine Edwards

CAMBRIDGE GREEK AND LATIN CLASSICS
GENERAL EDITORS
P. E. EASTERLING
Regius Professor Emeritus of Greek, University of Cambridge
PHILIP HARDIE
Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College, and Honorary Professor ofL atin,
University of Cambridge
NEIL HOPKINSON
Fellow, Trinity College, University of Cambridge
RICHARD HUNTER
Regius Professor of Greek, University of Cambridge
E. J. KENNEY
Kennedy Professor Emeritus ofL atin, University of Cambridge
S. P. OAKLEY
Kennedy Professor ofL atin, University of Cambridge
l3~aJ,~·)
,sQ_t~
SENECA
SELECTED~
LETTERS
EDITED BY
CATHARINE EDWARDS
Birkbeck, University ofL ondon
UCAMBRIDGE
~ UNIVERSITY PRESS
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DOI: 10.1017/9781139048637
©Cambridge University Press 2019
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First published 2019
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
NAMES: Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D., author. I
· Edwards, Catharine, editor.
TITLE: Seneca: selected letters / edited by Catharine Edwards.
OTHER TITLES: Correspondence I Cambridge Greek and Latin classics.
DESCRIPTION: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. I Series:
Cambridge Greek and Latin classics
IDENTIFIERS: LCCN 2018058449 I ISBN 9780521460118
SUBJECTS: LCSH: Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D. -
Correspondence. I Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D.
CLASSIFICATION: LCC PA666I.E7 A2 20191 DDC 876/.01-dc23
LC record available at https:/ /lccn.loc.govI 2018058449
ISBN 978-o-521-46ou-8 Hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-46583-0 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
CONTENTS
Acknowl.edgements page vii
List ofA bbreviations ix
Introduction
1 Seneca '.s Life and Works
2 The Epistulae morales and their Addressee 3
3 Letters as a Genre 6
4 Stoic Terms and Concepts 9
5 Stoic Background 12
6 Other Philosophical Influences
7 Ethical Focus and Techniques of the Seif
8 Seneca and Earlier Latin Poetic Authors 22
g Senecan Styl.e
1 o Clausulae in Seneca
I I Reception of the Letters
1 2 The Sel.ection
13 The Text
SENECA: SELECTED LETTERS 35
Letter 1 37
Letter 7 37
Letter 12 39
Letter i8 41
Letter 21 42
Letter 24
Letter 33
Letter 34
Letter 46 50
v
vi CONTENTS
Letter 47 50
Letter 53 53
Letter 64 54
Letter 70 56
Letter 86 59
Letter go 62
Letter 114 69
Commentary 75
Bibliography 306
Index ofL atin Words 334
General Index 340
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This commentary has been a remarkably long time in gestation and
numerous debts have been incurred along the way, which it is a great
pleasure to acknowledge.
In Bristol Christopher Rowe first prompted me to consider writ
ing a commentary on the Letters (though the seeds were surely sown
in Cambridge undergraduate supervisions with that doyen of Green &
Yellow commentators, Neil Hopkinson). Other Bristol colleagues, Duncan
Kennedy, Charles Martindale and the late Thomas Wiedemann, offered
important advice at an early stage, as did series editor Ted Kenney. In
more recent years, the support of Shadi Bartsch, Mary Beard, Susanna
Morton Braund, all, in their different ways, exemplary models of scholar
ship, has been invaluable. Mike Trapp very kindly offered detail comments
in relation to Letter go and I am most grateful for his philosophical exper
tise. I have also benefitted immensely from exchanges (sometimes them
selves epistolary) with a number of other distinguished Latinists, Mireille
Armisen-Marchetti, Francesca Romana Berno, Rita Degl'Innocenti
Pierini, Barbara Del Giovane, Alex Dressler, William Fitzgerald, James Ker,
Roland Mayer,Janja Soldo, several of whom have generously shared their
work in advance of publication. Chris Whitton kindly offered patient guid
ance on the intricacies of Latin prose rhythm. Rebecca Langlands and
Marden Nichols were kind enough to let me read preliminary versions of
their splendid books. I owe much to Emily Gowers (my friend since the
days of those undergraduate supervisions), herself a model commentator.
As series editors, Stephen Oakley and Philip Hardie have been unfail
ingly patient and exceptionally generous with their time and their phe
nomenal expertise. I am hugely grateful to them for spurring me to think
further about a whole range of issues and to strive for the kind of precision
a commentary owes its readers. Michael Sharp, Classics Editor at CUP,
and Lisa Sinclair, Senior Content Manager, have provided much help
along the way, while Iveta Adams has been an eagle-eyed and judicious
copy editor. Naturally all remaining errors are my own.
The department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck
has been a hugely stimulating and supportive environment in which to
work (my friends and colleagues Christy Constantakopoulou, Serafina
Cuomo and Jen Baird deserve particular mention). The Institute of
Classical Studies/Hellenic and Roman library, with its supremely helpful
and expert librarians - and virtually all its books on open shelves - is the
commentator's dream. Some crucial work was also done in the wonderful
surroundings of the British School at Rome. I was very fortunate to be
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for 2015-16, which played a
critical role in enabling me to bring this project to a conclusion.
This book is dedicated to my magnificent and much loved daughters,
Isabel and Miranda, who, having refused to study Latin beyond GCSE, will
probably never read it.
ABBREVIATIONS
GIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Berlin 1863-
DK H. Diels and W. Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th
edn, Berlin 1952
G-L G. L. Gildersleeve and G. Lodge, Latin grammar, 3rd
edn, London 1895
KRS G. Kirk,J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, The pre-Socratic phi
losophers: a critical history with a sel.ection of texts, 2nd edn,
Cambridge 1983
K-S R Kuhner and C. Stegmann, Ausjuhrliche Grammatik der
lateinishen Sprache, Hanover 1955
LSJ H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English l.exicon, 9th
edn, rev. H. S.Jones, Oxford 1940
NLG Allen and Greenough's New Latin grammar, rev. edn,
Boston 1903
NLS E. C. Woodcock, A new Latin syntax, London 1959
NP H. Gartner, Paulys Real.encyclopiidie der Altertumswissen
schaft, neue Bearbeitung, Munich 1980-
OCD4 S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth and E. Eidinow (eds.),
Oxford classical dictionary, 4th edn, Oxford 2012
ow
P. W. Glare, Oxford Latin dictionary, Oxford 1968-82
ORF4 E. Malcovati (ed.), Oratorum Romanorum fragmenta liberae
rei publicae, 4th edn, 2 vols., Turin 1976-9
PIR2 E. Groag, A. Stein et al., Prosopographia imperii Romani,
2nd edn, Berlin 1933-
RE A. F. von Pauly, Paulys Real,encyclopiidie der Altertum
swissenschaft, Stuttgart 1893
Schanz-Hosius M. Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Litteratur bis zum
Gesetzgebungwerk des Kaisers Justinian, rev. vols. 14 ( 1927)
and n4 (1935) by C. Hosius; m3 (1922) by G. Kruger;
1v.12 (1914) and 1v.2 (1920) by Schanz, Hosius and
Kruger, Munich
SVF H. von Arnim and M. Adler, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta,
Leipzig 1903-24
Tab. Vindol. II A. K Bowman andJ. D. Thomas, The Vindolanda Writing
Tabl.ets (Tabulae Vindolandenses II), London 1994
TLL Thesaurus linguae Latinae, Munich 1900-
Journal titles are abbreviated in accordance with L'Annee philologique. The
names and titles of classical authors and texts are generally abbreviated
in accordance with OW for Latin and OCD for Greek. Latin authors and
IX
x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
works not included in OW are cited according to the conventions in OCD.
In addition, the following abbreviations are used for works of Seneca (S):
Breu. De breuitate uitae
Clem. De dementia
EM Epistulae moral,es
Marc. Consolatio ad Marciam
Polyb. Consolatio ad Polybium
VB De uita beata
INTRODUCTION
I SENECA'S LIFE AND WORKS
Born at Corduba (modern Cordoba in southern Spain) between 4 BCE
and 1 CE into a wealthy equestrian family, Seneca the Younger (hereafter
S) was the second son of Seneca the Elder, an acclaimed rhetorician who
wrote treatises on declamation, and of Helvia (addressee of Ad Heluiam
matrem, written during S's exile). Though little is known of his life before
41 CE, he studied rhetoric at Rome and claims to have been attracted
to philosophy at an early age, citing as his teachers the Stoic Attalus, as
well as Sotion and Papirius Fabianus. After a period in Egypt, S returned
to Rome in 3 1 CE, where some time later he secured election to the
quaestorship (thus entering tlle senate), and established a reputation as
a brilliant orator. After eight years in exile on the island of Corsica for
alleged involvement in the adultery of Caius' sister Livilla (Dio 60.8), he
was recalled to Rome on the initiative of Claudius' new wife Agrippina to
serve as tutor to her 12-year-old son, the future emperor Nero. 1
S was closely associated with Nero for more than a decade, going on to
serve, when Nero succeeded Claudius in 54 CE, as his adviser and speech
De
writer. S's treatise dementia, addressed to the new emperor, dates from
soon after his accession and offers the young emperor a philosophically
informed model of the proper relationship between ruler and subjects.•
A powerful figure at the imperial court, S held the suffect consulship in
56 CE. The relatively benign rule of Nero's earlier years was attributed to
S's influence, along with that of the praetorian prefect Burrus (Tac. Ann.
13.2, 13.4-5, 14.52 and Dio 6i.4). But he was also implicated in murkier
aspects of Nero's regime, allegedly confecting the emperor's defensive
speech to tlle senate, after the emperor had ordered the murder of his
mother Agrippina in 59 CE. Tacitus attributes to S a remarkable ability to
conceal his true feelings in his dealings with Nero (Ann. 14.56).
S acquired extensive property, including magnificent estates, much of it
as gifts from tlle emperor (Tac. Ann. 14.52).3 He is characterised by botll
Juvenal (10.16) and Tacitus (Ann. 15.64) as praediues and, unsurprisingly,
had his detractors; the accusations of Suillius (a close associate of Nero's
' On S's first fifty years see Griffin 1992: 29-66. Her biography remains the
most comprehensive, but see also Grima! 1978, S0rensen 1984, Wilson 2014.
' See Braund.
3 For the metaphorical significance of allusions to his property holdings see
below, intro. to Ep. 12.
I