Moral Letters to Lucilius

Cf., for example, Letter XLI, paragraph 3. ↩

Virgil, Aeneid, IX 641. ↩

Cf. Letter XLI, paragraph 1 f. prope est a te deus, tecum est, intus est. ↩

A doctrine often expressed in the letters; cf., for example, LXXI, paragraph 2. ↩

Cf. Horace, Carmen Saeculare III 16. 28 magnas inter opes inops. ↩

For the same thought cf. Letter IV, paragraph 4 Neminem eo fortuna provexit, ut non tantum illi minaretur, quantum permiserat. Noli huic tranquillitati confidere; momento mare evertitur. Eodem die ubi luserunt navigia, sorbentur. ↩

I.e., engaged upon something else. Cf. Letter I, paragraph 1. ↩

A distribution of coins, etc., at the public games. Food was also doled out to the populace on similar occasions. ↩

This figure of the dole as applied to Fortune is sustained to an extent which is unusual in Seneca. ↩

This phrase recalls the title of one of Seneca’s philosophical essays: De Providentia, or Quare Bonis Viris Mala Accidant cum sit Providentia. ↩

Cf. Letter LXXIII, paragraph 9 Iuppiter uti illis non potest. ↩

Producta is a translation of the Stoic term προηγμένα. For a clear exposition of this topic see Cicero, De Finibus III 52 ff. ↩

See Letter LXVI, paragraph 4. The Stoics, unlike the Academics and the Peripatetics, maintained that the good must have “an unconditional value”

(Zeller)

. ↩

Cf. Itane in geometriae pulvere haerebo? Letter LXXXVIII, paragraph 20 and endnote 671. ↩

See the argument in Letter XII, paragraph 2 f., and often elsewhere. ↩

See paragraph 12. ↩

Called by the early Stoics ὁμολογία; the idea of “conformity with nature” is a fundamental doctrine of the school. See Rackham on Cicero, De Finibus III 21. ↩

Cf. Letters XI, paragraph 2 and LXXI, paragraph 10. ↩

Perhaps a sort of malaria. ↩

For putidum (that which offends the taste, i.e., is too artificially formal) see Cicero De Oratore III 41 nolo exprimi litteras putidius, nolo obscurari neglegentius. ↩

Cf. Letter LXVII, paragraph 1 si quando intervenerunt epistulae tuae, tecum esse mihi videor, etc. ↩

Cf. Letter CXIV, paragraph 1 talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis vita, and passim in Letters XL, LXXV and CXIV. ↩

Eloquence and other arts please mainly by their cleverness; nor does philosophy abjure such cleverness as style; but here in these letters, wherein we are discussing the soul, the graces of speech are of no concern. ↩

Chrysippus, however, recognised only the first two classes, as did Epictetus (IV 2). ↩

Letter LXXI, paragraph 2. ↩

For Seneca’s own struggles with this disease cf. Letter LXXVIII, paragraph 1. ↩

The difference between the first and second classes is well described in Letter LXXII, paragraph 2 hoc interest inter consummatae sapientiae virum et alium procedentis, quod inter sanum et ex morbo gravi ac diutino emergentem. ↩

This idea is a favourite with Seneca; cf. Letter LIII, paragraph 7 non est quod precario philosopheris, and paragraph 8 (philosophia) non est res subsiciva, “an occupation for one’s spare time.” ↩

A mock-heroic nickname for the knights, derived from the town of Trossulum in Etruria, which they captured by a sensational charge. See Persius, I 82, and Seneca, Letter LXXXVII, paragraph 7. ↩

See also Letter XCIII. ↩

Letter LXXIV. ↩

Literally “many masks” of his ancestors. These were placed in the atrium. ↩

Literally “the guardian deity”; cf. Horace, Odes I 14. 10. These were images of the gods, carried and invoked by the ancients, in the same manner as St. Nicholas today. ↩

The fiscus was the private treasury of the Roman Emperor, as contrasted with the aerarium, which theoretically was controlled by the Senate. ↩

I.e., “moral worth.” ↩

I.e., peace, the welfare of one’s country, dutiful children, etc. ↩

Cf. Letter LXXIV, paragraph 11. ↩

Cf. Letter LXXIV, paragraph 9 aut ista bona non sunt, quae vocantur, aut homo felicior deo est, quoniam quidem quae parata nobis sunt, non habet in usu deus. ↩

E.g., Letter LXXIV, paragraph 10 summum bonum⁠ ⁠… obsolescit, si ab optima nostri parte ad pessimam transit et transfertur ad sensus, qui agiliores sunt animalibus mutis. ↩

Letter LXXIV, esp. paragraph 9. ↩

Compare the argument in Letter LXXX, paragraph 4, “This farce of living, in which we act our parts so ill”; paragraph 6, the loudmouthed impersonator of heroes, who sleeps on rags; and paragraph 9 hominem involutum aestimas? ↩

As the world-soul is spread through the universe, so the human soul (as fire, or breath) is diffused through the body, and may take its departure in various ways. ↩

Virgil, Aeneid, VI 103 ff. (The answer of Aeneas to the Sibyl’s prophecy.) ↩

Puteoli, in the bay of Naples, was