Moral Letters to Lucilius

the Jugurthine war lasted from 109 to 106 BC. ↩

I.e., as Pompeius, Caesar, Marius. ↩

I.e., as Pompeius, Caesar, Marius. ↩

Literally, to pay money on the spot or perform a task without delay. ↩

I.e., the department of “advice by precepts,” discussed in the preceding letter from another angle. The Greek term is nearest to the Latin subdivision hortatio. ↩

I.e., the pertness of a home-bred slave (verna). ↩

The argument here is similar to Letter LXXXVIII, paragraph 12 hae⁠ ⁠… artes ad instrumenta vitae plurimum conferunt, tamen ad virtutem non pertinent. ↩

I.e., philosophy. ↩

Hippocrates belonged to the “Clinical” School; Asclepiades and his pupil Themison to the “Methodical.” ↩

“Axioms” and “postulates.” ↩

I. 54 ff. ↩

Whether elementa and membra mean “letters and clauses” or “matter and forms of matter” is difficult to say. ↩

I.e., before the advent of any theoretical philosophy. ↩

Verminatio, defined by Festus as cum corpus quodam minuto motu quasi a vermibus scindatur. ↩

For this sort of Golden Age reminiscence see Letter XC, paragraph 4 ff. and endnote 703. ↩

Hippocrates. ↩

Mushrooms, as in the case of the Emperor Claudius, were a frequent aid to secret murder. ↩

The finest variety of garum was made from Spanish mackerel-roe. ↩

Virgil, Aeneid VIII 442. ↩

Cf. Letter XXXVII, paragraph 1 uri, vinciri, ferroque necari and note. ↩

I.e., not reinforced by general dogmas. ↩

The nota was the mark of disgrace which the censor registered when he struck a man’s name off the list of senators or knights. ↩

The genius was properly a man’s alter ego or “better self”: every man had his genius. For the colloquial use compare the “indulge genio” of the Roman poets. ↩

A frequent vice under the Empire, nicknamed captatio. ↩

Περὶ καθήκοντος⁠—a subject handled by Panaetius, and by Cicero (De Officiis). ↩

I.e., the significant features of athletics and adornment for men and women respectively. ↩

Terence, Heautontimorumenos, 77. ↩

Cf. Letter XCIV, paragraph 7. ↩

I.e., progressing from a φαντασία in general to a φαντασία καταληπτική. ↩

Seneca characteristically ignores the unpleasant half of the proverb: φιλεῖν ὡς μισήσων καὶ μισεῖν ὡς φιλήσων. ↩

E.g., in the mysteries of Eleusis, etc. ↩

For these terms see Spengel, Rhetores Graeci, passim. Quintilian I 9. 3 says ethologia personis continetur; and Cicero, De Oratore III 205, in a list of figures with which the orator should be familiar, includes characterismos, or descriptio. ↩

For the same figure, similarly applied, see Letter LXXX, paragraph 9 and endnote 522. ↩

Virgil, Georgics III 75 ff. ↩

For example, Cato had from the first opposed any assumption of illegal power⁠—objecting to the consulship of Pompey and Crassus in 55 BC, and to the conduct of Caesar throughout. His disapproval of both simultaneously is hinted in Plutarch’s Cato the Younger, LIV 4. ↩

The Latin term can hardly be reproduced, though “he did not regale but regulate” comes near it. Tubero’s act was that of a true censor morum. ↩

Cf. the words ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt of Letter CVII, paragraph 5. ↩

For the best account of this scandal see Plutarch, Caesar, IX f. ↩

From stilla “a drop.” The phrase is equivalent to our proverbial “last straw.” ↩

Epistulae ad Atticum, I 16. ↩

A plebeian festival, held April 28, in honour of Flora, an Italian divinity connected with Ceres and Venus. For the story of Cato (55 BC) see Valerius Maximus II 10. 8. ↩

Epicurus, Frag. 532 Usener. ↩

Compare the ἔχω ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἔχομαι of Aristippus, and the (equally Epicurean) mihi res, non me rebus subiungere of Horace, Epistles I 1. 19. ↩

Virgil, Aeneid II 428. ↩

I.e., a sort of platform for mountebanks or acrobats⁠—figuratively applied to life’s Vanity Fair. ↩

Frag. 35 Körte. ↩

I.e., when he declined the bribe of Pyrrhus, 280 BC. ↩

Cf. Letter XCV, paragraph 34 f. omnibus saeculis Tuberonis fictilio durabunt. ↩

Cf. Letter LIX, paragraph 6 and endnote 301. ↩

The testimony of an ancient grammarian, and the change of subject in the text, may, as Hense states, indicate that a considerable passage is lost and that another letter begins here. Cf. the senex egregius of paragraph 8. ↩

Possibly Iunius Marullus, consul designatus in AD 62 (Tacitus Annals XIV 48). ↩

As Lipsius pointed out, the remainder of Seneca’s letter consists of the quoted letter to Marullus. ↩

The Roman view differs from the modern view, just as this Letter is rather more severe than Letter LXIII (on the death of Lucilius’s friend Flaccus). ↩

Almost identical