Well-known works of Polyclitus, fifth century BC. ↩
Explaining the derivation of the Greek word—ιδεῖν, “to behold.” For a discussion of Plato’s “ideas,” those “independent, separate, self-existing, perfect, and eternal essences” (Republic VI and VII) see Adam, The Republic of Plato, II 168–179. According to Adam, Plato owes his theory of ideas to Socrates, the Eleatics, and the study of geometry; but his debt is not so great as his discovery. ↩
I.e., the four categories as established by Aristotle, plus the “idea” of Plato. ↩
The Stoic view (see paragraph 1 of this letter), besides making the four categories of “substance,” “form,” “variety,” and “variety of relation,” regarded material things as the only things which possessed being. The Stoics thus differ from Aristotle and Plato in holding that nothing is real except matter; besides, they relate everything to one ultimate cause, the acting force or efficient cause. ↩
I.e., the λόγος σπερματικός, the creative force in nature, that is, Providence, or the will of Zeus. ↩
I.e., restate the question and hear the evidence again. ↩
According to the Stoics the soul, which consisted of fire or breath and was a part of the divine essence, rose at death into the ether and became one with the stars. Seneca elsewhere (Consolatio ad Marciam) states that the soul went through a sort of purifying process—a view which may have had some influence on Christian thought. The souls of the good, the Stoics maintained, were destined to last until the end of the world, the souls of the bad to be extinguished before that time. ↩
The sequence of elements from the earth outwards and upwards was earth, water, air, and fire. The upper fire was ether. Zeno (quoted by Cicero, Academica I 11. 39) refused to acknowledge a fifth essence: statuebat enim ignem esse ipsam naturam, quae quaeque gigneret, et mentem et sensus. ↩
The “prison of the body” is a frequent figure in Stoic as in all philosophy. See, for example, paragraph 6 of this letter, “the soul in bondage.” ↩
A restatement of the previous remark made in this letter; see endnote 330. ↩
Virgil, Aeneid, V 344. ↩
Seneca is not speaking here of the three generic virtues (physical, ethical, logical), nor of the three kinds of goods (based on bodily advantage) which were classified by the Peripatetic school; he is only speaking of three sorts of circumstances under which the good can manifest itself. And in paragraph 12 ff. he shows that he regards only the first two classes as real goods. See Zeller, Stoics, p. 230, n. 3. ↩
Siccus (not in the sense of Letter XVIII, paragraph 2) here means “vigorous,” “healthy,” “dry”; i.e., free from dropsy, catarrh, etc. ↩
Cf., from among many passages, Letters LXXI, paragraph 8 f. and XCII, paragraph 6 ff. ↩
I.e., constancy, fidelity, etc. ↩
Ratio (λόγος) is also defined as God, as Absolute Truth, Destiny, etc. The same idea is evident in the definition of sapientia (the object of philosophy) as rerum divinarum et humanarum … scientia (Cicero De Officiis II 2. 5, etc.), and nosse divina et humana et horum causas, etc. ↩
A Spanish city, reduced and razed to the ground in 133 BC by Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage. ↩
Cf. Letter XXXI, paragraph 1 and endnote 152. ↩
Cf. Cicero, De Finibus II 14 f. Rackham translates as “moral worth,”—a reminiscence of τὸ καλόν. ↩
One of the stock bits of heroism attributed to the ideal wise man. Cf. Epicurus (Frag. 601 Usener), Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes II 7. 17, etc. ↩
A slight variation of the idea in Cicero, De Oratore I 196 si nos … nostra patria delectat, cuius rei tanta est vis ac tanta natura, ut Ithacam illam in asperrimis saxulis tamquam nidulum adfixam sapientissimus vir immortalitati anteponeret. ↩
I.e., of the soul, of the body, and of external goods. ↩
Buecheler thinks that this alliterative phrase of Seneca’s is an echo of some popular proverb or line taken from a play. ↩
Here Seneca is reminding Lucillius, as he so often does in the earlier letters, that the evidence of the senses is only a stepping-stone to higher ideas—an Epicurean tenet. ↩
Another definition, developing further the thought expressed in paragraph 6. ↩
Frag. 434 Usener. ↩
Frag. 449 Usener. ↩
Frag. 138 Usener. ↩
See above, in the previous paragraph. ↩
Clausula has, among other meanings, that of “a period” (Quintilian VIII 5), and
