Dialogues Essays

298 Pages·2008·2.48 MB·English

by  Tobias Reinhardt

oxford world’s classics
DIALOGUES AND ESSAYS
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c.1bc–ad 65) was born in Corduba,
Spain, and educated in Rome. Plagued all his life by ill health, he
embarked on a political career after a stay in Egypt. In 41 he was
exiled by the emperor Claudius and only returned to Rome in 49,
when he became tutor to the young Nero. Together with the prefect
of the Praetorian Guard Sextus Afranius Burrus, he acted as a senior
adviser to Nero until 62, withdrew to private life, and was forced
to commit suicide in 65. He had taken up writing as a young man.
His earliest extant treatises date from the period before his exile.
He continued to write throughout his life and was particularly
productive in his final years. His treatises are recognized as the most
important body of work on Stoicism in Latin. He also wrote the
Letters to Luciliusand several tragedies, the earliest extant specimens
of the genre in Latin.
John Davie is Head of Classics at St Paul’s School, London. He is
the author of a number of articles on classical subjects and has recently
translated the complete surviving plays of Euripides for Penguin
Classics (four volumes). A member of the Hellenic Society’s and
Roman Society’s Visiting Panel of Lecturers, he divides his time
between London and Oxford, where he teaches Classics to under-
graduates at Balliol and other colleges.
Tobias Reinhardt is Fellow and Tutor in Latin and Greek at
Somerville College, Oxford. He has published books on Aristotle,
Cicero, and (jointly with Michael Winterbottom) on Quintilian.
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
SENECA
Dialogues and Essays
Translated by
JOHN DAVIE
With an Introduction and Notes by
TOBIAS REINHARDT
1
3
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British Library Cataloging in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, ca. 4 B.C.–65 A.D.
[Selections. English. 2007]
Dialogues and essays / Seneca; translated by John Davie; with an
introduction and notes by Tobias Reinhardt.
p. cm. — (Oxford world’s classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978–0–19–280714–4 (alk. paper) 1. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus,
ca. 4 B.C.–65 A.D.—Translations into English. 2. Conduct of
life—Early works to 1800. 3. Ethics—Early works to 1800. I. Davie,
John N. II. Reinhardt, Tobias. III. Title.
PA6661.A7S46 2007
878´.0109—dc22 2007016351
Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
ISBN978–0–19–280714–4
13579108642
CONTENTS
Introduction vii
Note on the Text xxviii
Select Bibliography xxix
Chronology xxxii
DIALOGUES AND ESSAYS
On Providence 3
On Anger, Book3 18
Consolation to Marcia 53
On the Happy Life 85
On The Tranquillity of the Mind 112
On the Shortness of Life 140
Consolation to Helvia 163
On Mercy 188
Natural Questions, Book6: On Earthquakes 219
Explanatory Notes 249
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INTRODUCTION
Seneca’s Life and Career
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born around 1bcas the second of three
sons into a wealthy family of the equestrian class in what is today
Cordoba in southern Spain. His father, likewise born in Spain but of
Italian descent, is known as Seneca the rhetor; he had a keen interest
in rhetorical education and wrote, late in his life, probably between
ad 37and41, summary accounts of performances which he had wit-
nessed in the rhetorical schools as a young man.1 The elder Seneca
mainly pursued the family’s business interests, as was not unusual
for someone of his social order, and apparently did not appear as an
advocate. In his son’s writings he is presented as an educated, old-
fashioned, and down-to-earth Roman, whose attitude to philosophy
was a reserved one, although it appears that practical moral philosophy
had some appeal for him too. Seneca’s mother, Helvia, was probably
of Spanish descent; she is the addressee of one of the consolations
included in this volume. Seneca’s older brother, Annaeus Novatus,
later changed his name due to adoption to Junius Gallio, had a distin-
guished political career, and became a proconsul of Achaia, where he
met the apostle Paul (Acts 18: 12).2 His younger brother, Annaeus
Mela, on whom apparently the elder Seneca’s hopes had rested more
than on his brothers (Controv.2pref. 3–4), withdrew from public life
as a young man; Mela’s son was the poet Lucan, whose epic on the civil
war is extant.
Seneca, along with his brothers, was soon sent to Rome, where he
started the conventional course of education pursued by wealthy young
Romans who were to embark on a career as an advocate or politician;
their father accompanied them in order to oversee their education.
In due course this academic training involved substantial reading of
1 These are partially extant, and known as the ControversiaeandSuasoriae; see the
Loeb edition with translation by Michael Winterbottom (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), and
below, p. xxiv. Such exercises would also represent the standard form of advanced
rhetorical education for the young Seneca.
2 See p. xxvi on the spurious correspondence between Seneca and St Paul, which circu-
lated in the Middle Ages.
viii Introduction
literary and historical texts and rhetorical practice, notably in declama-
tion. In addition, Seneca had a series of teachers in philosophy whom he
later credited with having a formative influence on him;3notably, they
exposed him not just to Stoic moral doctrine, but to a wide range of
other intellectual influences, and this breadth of outlook is reflected in
Seneca’s works. Two of his teachers, Papirius Fabianus and the Greek
Sotion from Alexandria, had been pupils of Q. Sextius, who had
founded Rome’s only native philosophical school,which fused elements
of traditional Stoicism with Pythagoreanism.4Fabianus had started out
as a declaimer (Seneca the elder, Controv.2pref.1), and his speaking
retained its rhetorical power when he turned to philosophy; he had an
interest in science and inquiry into natural phenomena, which might
help to explain Seneca’s interest in these matters. That one’s everyday
habits and customs need to be seen in a broad context was suggested
by the teachings of Sotion, who, like Pythagoras, abstained from the
consumption of meat because of his belief in the transmigration of souls
(Letters108.20–1). Attalus the Stoic, who came perhaps from Pergamum
in Asia Minor, introduced Seneca to mental routines of self-examination
(ibid.108.3), a prominent feature of his treatises and letters; he also had
an interest in divination, which the Stoics saw not as superstition but as
a scientific discipline; according to Seneca’s Natural Questions(2.84.2,
2.50.1), Attalus undertook a study of the Etruscan art of interpreting
sky signs, like lightning. However, what for Seneca might have been
an unequivocally happy period of his life was interrupted by frequent
and at times dangerous bouts of ill health, notably various respiratory
diseases;5 this eventually caused him to spend some time in Egypt,
where the climate was supposed to be conducive to the improvement of
his condition. Seneca took the opportunity to write a treatise about local
customs and religious practices (Natural Questions4.2.7).6
3 By the first century ad it was no longer common for young Romans of Seneca’s
status to go to Athens and study philosophy there, as it had been in the first century bc.
4 Seneca said of Sextius’ books that they were ‘written in Greek, but exhibited Roman
morality’ (Letter59.7); despite his Stoic leanings, Sextius claimed not to be a Stoic (64.2).
On Neo-Pythagoreanism in Rome see C. H. Kahn, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A Brief
History(Indianapolis,2001), ch. 7; on Q. Sextius see E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen
in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung(Leipzig,1880–92), vol. 3.1, pp. 675–82.
5 See M. Griffin,Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics(Oxford,1976),42–3.
6 For details on Seneca’s biography and intellectual context see ibid. ch. 2, and
B. Inwood, Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome(Oxford,2005), ch. 1.
Introduction ix
Following his return to Italy in ad31, Seneca pursued his politi-
cal career for eleven years; nonetheless he managed to write the
Consolation to Marcia, as well as scientific treatises on stones, fish,
and earthquakes, which are, however, not extant. Seneca also wrote
tragedies, and probably started doing so quite early in his career.7
He became quaestor, a high-ranking financial clerk. But in ad 39 a
particularly spectacular performance in court aroused the jealousy of
the emperor Gaius (Caligula); on this occasion Seneca seems to have
escaped execution only because a courtier pointed out that he would
soon die anyway, on account of his bad state of health (at least
according to the third-century historian Cassius Dio, at 59.19.7).
Inad41, after Caligula had been murdered and Claudius had become
the new emperor, Seneca was accused of adultery with Julia Livilla, a
sister of Caligula, and had to go into exile on Corsica until 49. After
Claudius’ death Seneca wrote a vitriolic satire on the deceased emperor,
theApocolocyntosis(‘Pumpkinification [of Claudius]’). It has been sug-
gested that the real reason for his exile was that he favoured and pro-
moted a less autocratic style of government than Augustus’ successors
had adopted. This view is certainly consistent with certain aspects of
two dialogues written during his exile: in his Consolation to Helviahe
praised two high-profile opponents of the dictator Caesar (9.4–8:
Marcus Junius Brutus and Marcus Claudius Marcellus), while in the
Consolation to Polybius, written for a powerful freedman at the im-
perial court, he devised an image of a mild and reasonable emperor.
Inad 49Agrippina, mother of the future emperor Nero, managed
to secure permission for Seneca to return. He became tutor to Nero
as well as praetor, a high judicial office. However, philosophy was
excluded from the curriculum, since Agrippina deemed it unsuitable
for a future emperor (Suetonius, Life of Nero52). Seneca’s teaching
was thus restricted to rhetorical instruction. After Claudius’ death in
ad 54 Seneca, and the well-respected prefect of the Praetorian
Guard, Sextus Afranius Burrus, acted as senior advisers to the young
emperor, who was just 17years old on accession. Seneca wrote speeches
for Nero and exercised influence in connection with important
appointments. In his first declaration in the senate, Nero stated that
7 On the difficulties of dating the tragedies see E. Fantham, Seneca’s Troades(Princeton,
1982), 9–14.