See Letter LI, paragraph 4. ↩
Cf. Livy XXXVII 53 morientem rure eo ipso loco sepeliri se iussisse ferunt monumentumque ibi aedificari. ↩
Herodotus III 25 ἐμμανής τε ἐὼν καὶ οὐ φρενήρης. ↩
Livy’s account (see above) dwells more on the unwillingness of Scipio and his friends to permit the great conqueror to suffer the indignities of a trial. ↩
A phrase frequent in Roman literature; see Lucretius III 1034 Scipiadas, belli fulmen, Carthaginis horror. ↩
Porphyry, basalt, etc. ↩
I.e., the so-called giallo antico, with red and yellow tints predominating. ↩
A white variety, from Thasos, an island off the Thracian coast. ↩
Cf. Pliny, Epistulae II 17. 12 piscina, ex qua natantes mare aspiciunt. ↩
E.g., Varro, in the Catus: balneum non cotidianum. ↩
Horace calls him Rufillus (Satires I 2. 27): pastillos Rufillus olet, Gargonius hircum. ↩
This seems to be the general meaning of the passage. ↩
Georgics, II 58. ↩
Georgics, I 215 f. ↩
In Vitruvius VII 1 G reads pinsatione, referring to the pounding of stones for flooring. ↩
An agricultural term not elsewhere found. ↩
I.e., on my journey I travelled with almost as meagre an equipment as a shipwrecked man. ↩
Cf. Letter LXXXI, paragraph 5 and endnote 529. ↩
As Pliny the Elder (a man of the same inquiring turn of mind) did on his journeys, Pliny, Epistulae III 5. 15. ↩
Caricas were sent as New Year gifts, implying by their sweetness the good wishes of the sender. ↩
Nomen in this sense means primarily the name entered in the ledger; secondarily, the item or transaction with which the name is connected. ↩
Virgil, Aeneid, VII 277 ff., describing the gifts sent by King Latinus to Aeneas. ↩
For trossuli cf. Letter LXXVI, paragraph 1, and endnote 457. ↩
I.e., whether to turn gladiator or bestiarius. ↩
“Amblers” from Asturia in Spain. ↩
Horses with rapid steps, compared with gradarii, “slow pacers,” cf. Letter XL, paragraph 7. ↩
The literal meaning of impedimenta, “luggage.” ↩
Cf. Plato, Phaedo 86, where Socrates contrasts the material lyre with the “incorporeal, fair, divine” harmony which makes the music. ↩
See Letter LXXXVIII, which is devoted to the development of this thought. ↩
I.e., at its own worth. ↩
Cf. the argument in LXXVI, paragraph 4 f. ↩
I.e., perfect reason and obedience to Nature. ↩
Virgil, Georgics I 53 ff. ↩
The good is absolute. The Stoics held that virtue and moral worth were identical, although those who followed the argument to its logical conclusion had to explain away many seeming inconsistencies. Cf. Letter LXXXV, paragraph 8. ↩
That riches are not a good, but merely an advantage, was one of the Stoic paradoxes. In another passage (Dial. VII 24. 5) Seneca speaks of them in a kindlier manner: divitias nego bonum esse; nam si essent, bonos facerent. Ceterum et habendas esse et utiles et magna commoda vitae adferentis fateor. Cf. paragraph 19 of this letter. ↩
The “knot of Hercules” is associated with the caduceus (twining serpents) in Macrobius Saturnalia I 19. 16; and in Pliny, Natural History XXVIII 63, it has magic properties in the binding up of wounds. ↩
Frag. 54 von Arnim. ↩
Per possessionem translates the Greek καθ᾽ ἕξιν, as per orbationem (or detractionem) translates κατὰ στέρησιν. ↩
Seneca here bursts into a diatribe on the corruption of Rome, a habit which we find in many other of his writings, especially in the Naturales Quaestiones. ↩
The regular round of education, ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, including grammar, music, geometry, arithmetic, astrology, and certain phases of rhetoric and dialectic, are in this letter contrasted with liberal studies—those which have for their object the pursuit of virtue. Seneca is thus interpreting studia liberalia in a higher sense than his contemporaries would expect. Compare J. R. Lowell’s definition of a university, “a place where nothing useful is taught.” ↩
Grammaticus in classical Greek means “one who is familiar with the alphabet”; in the Alexandrian age a “student of literature”; in the Roman age the equivalent of litteratus. Seneca means here a “specialist in linguistic science.” ↩
I.e., philosophy (virtue). ↩
This theory was approved by Democritus, Hippias of Elis, and the allegorical interpreters; Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Plato himself condemned Homer for his supposed unphilosophic fabrications. ↩
The tria genera bonorum of Cicero’s De Finibus V 84. Cf. De Finibus V 18, where the three proper objects of man’s search are given as the desire for pleasure, the avoidance of pain, and the attainment of such natural goods as health, strength, and soundness of mind. The
