The procurator did the work of a quaestor in an imperial province. Positions at Rome to which Lucilius might succeed were such as praefectus annonae, in charge of the grain supply, or praefectus urbi, Director of Public Safety, and others. ↩
And therefore could speak with authority on this point. ↩
Perhaps a tragedy, although Seneca uses the word liber to describe it. Maecenas wrote a Symposium, a work De cultu suo, Octavia, some stray verse, and perhaps some history. See Seneca, Letters XCII and CI. ↩
Seneca whimsically pretends to assume that eccentric literary style and high political position go hand in hand. See also the following sentence. ↩
Epicurus, Frag. 542 Usener. ↩
A slave kept by every prominant Roman to identify the master’s friends and dependants. ↩
Seneca applies to wisdom the definition of friendship, Salust, Catiline, 20. 4 idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est. ↩
Frag. 206 Usener. ↩
I.e., the life of voluntary poverty. ↩
Adapted from the epigram on Alexander the Great, “hic est quem non capit orbis.” See Plutarch, Alexander, §6 ὦ παῖ ζήτει σεαυτῷ βασιλείαν ἴσην. Μακεδονια γάρ σε οὐ χωρεῖ, and Seneca, CXIX, paragraph 4. ↩
Epicurus, Frag. 132 Usener. ↩
I.e., Cicero’s letters did more to preserve the name of Atticus than such a connection with the imperial house would have done. ↩
Aeneid, IX 446 ff. ↩
As in the case of Epicurus and Idomeneus, Cicero and Atticus, Virgil and Euryalus and Nisus, and Seneca and Lucilius! ↩
Frag. 135 Usener. ↩
The first question, “Shall I withdraw from the world?” has been answered, apparently by Lucilius himself. The second was, “How can I accomplish this?” Seneca pretends to answer it, although he feels that this should be done in personal conference rather than by writing. ↩
See the preceding letter of Seneca. ↩
Frag. 133 Usener. ↩
Frag. 495 Usener. ↩
I.e., the old man is like the infant in this, also—that he can look back upon nothing which he has finished, because he has always put off finishing things. ↩
Death, poverty, temptation, and suffering. ↩
By the various sects which professed to teach how happiness is to be obtained. ↩
Frag. 493 Usener. ↩
Seneca’s theme is suggested by the fear which possesses Lucilius as to the issue of a lawsuit. This fear is taken as typical of all fears, and Seneca devotes most of his letter to the greatest fear of all—fear of death. ↩
The foculus in this version of the story was evidently a movable fire, a brazier. ↩
The Phaedo, on the immortality of the soul. ↩
I.e., to save and bring back to Rome as prisoner. ↩
Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal at Zama in 202 BC. Scipio Aemilianus, also surnamed Africanus, was by adoption the grandson of Hannibal’s conqueror. He captured Carthage in the Third Punic War, 146 BC. The Scipio mentioned by Seneca died in 46 BC. ↩
He refers to the lawsuit, as again in paragraph 8. ↩
An apostrophe to Death and Pain. ↩
As mythology describes the treatment of Tityus or of Prometheus. ↩
Frag. 496 Usener. ↩
Frag. 498 Usener. ↩
Frag. 497 Usener. ↩
The second friend, whose faults are to be crushed out. He proves to be some forty years old; the other is a youth. ↩
Frag. 211 Usener. ↩
Frag. 209 Usener. ↩
Because “solitude prompts to evil,” paragraph 2. ↩
See the twelfth letter. Seneca was by this time at least sixty-five years old, and probably older. ↩
This passage is hopelessly corrupt. The course of the argument requires something like this: For it is just as much to my advantage not to be able to do what I do not want to do, as it is to be able to do whatever gives me pleasure. ↩
I.e., the money will be brought from home—the saying will be one of Seneca’s own. ↩
Epicurus, Frag. 205 Usener. ↩
I.e., ordinary studies, or literature, as contrasted with philosophy. ↩
Compare with the following the vulgarities of Trimalchio in the Satire of Petronius, and the bad taste of Nasidienus in Horace (Satires II 8). ↩
At the salutatio, or morning call. The position of nomenclator, “caller-of-names,” was originally devoted more strictly to political purposes. Here it is primarily social. ↩
I.e., all the ideas that dropped out of the head of Sabinus. The slave who picked up the crumbs was called analecta. ↩
Epicurus, Frag. 477 Usener. ↩
Cf. Horace, Epistles I 11, 27 caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. ↩
Aeneid, III 72. ↩
Aeneid, VI 78 f. ↩
I.e., had you been able to say patria mea totus mundus est. ↩
Cf. Horace, Epistles I 11. 28—
navibus atque
Quadrigis petimus bene vivere; quod petis, hic est.
Frag. 522 Usener. ↩
I.e., refuse your own intercession. ↩
The usual expression is plena manu spargere, “with full
