The Stylus and the Scalpel: Theory and Practice of Metaphors in Seneca’s Prose 9783110673715, 9783110673579

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Tommaso Gazzarri The Stylus and the Scalpel – Theory and Practice of Metaphors in Seneca’s Prose

Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes

Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Associate Editors Stavros Frangoulidis · Fausto Montana · Lara Pagani Serena Perrone · Evina Sistakou · Christos Tsagalis Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck Claude Calame · Jonas Grethlein · Philip R. Hardie Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds · Richard Hunter Christina Kraus · Giuseppe Mastromarco Gregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis Giusto Picone · Tim Whitmarsh Bernhard Zimmermann

Volume 91

Tommaso Gazzarri

The Stylus and the Scalpel – Theory and Practice of Metaphors in Seneca’s Prose

ISBN 978-3-11-067357-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-067371-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-067377-7 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020943770 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Editorial Office: Alessia Ferreccio and Katerina Zianna Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

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Parentibus Optimis

Preface This book applies various angles of analysis to the study of Senecan prose style. Consequently, as I was striving to incorporate findings from scholarship on ancient literature, ancient philosophy, and modern linguistics, I requested the help of many scholars in various fields within Classics. I therefore owe numerous friends a debt of gratitude. Gareth Williams has been a more supportive, generous, and critical reader of my work than I could ever possibly have imagined. Similarly, Mireille ArmisenMarchetti, Ermanno Malaspina, and Emanuele Berti provided me with detailed, much-needed feedback. I wish to thank them for their time, unsurpassed expertise, relentless encouragement, and patience in helping me reassess the scope of my work. I have Kirk Freudenburg to thank for the clear-sighted supervision of my Yale doctoral dissertation and the introduction to the field of Senecan studies: he has been my most valuable interlocutor. Also dating to my years in New Haven, Christina Kraus generously contributed her expertise and helped me become a better writer. To Robert Babcock I owe thanks for his continuous, unconditional support and formidable instruction in philological rigor. Others have sustained my work through much stimulating conversation: among those are Margaret Graver and Brad Inwood, to whom I wish to express my gratitude. My department at Union College has been instrumental in the completion of this book. I am blessed with extraordinary colleagues and with a most serene and supportive work environment. I would therefore like to express my deepest gratitude to Stacie Raucci, Hans-Friedrich Otto Mueller, who also read and commented extensively on the manuscript draft, Mark Toher, Patrick Singy, Angela Commito, Kassandra Miller, Peter Bedford, and Leo Zaibert. Equally supportive have been numerous senior and junior scholars, whom I am privileged to call friends. Among these are Amanda Wilcox, Jesse Weiner, T.-H.-M. Gellar-Goad, James Uden, Alex Dressler, James Romm, Barbara Gold, Michael Arnush, Leslie Mechem, Daniel Curley, Judy Hallett, Jacqueline Fabre-Serris, and Giulia Sissa. The field of Senecan studies is going through a particularly prolific phase. Since so many great scholars are active in various regions of the world, their work and support have enriched me with two cardinal Stoic values: friendship and the distinct feeling of being a citizen of the world. Among these friends, I would like to thank Aldo Setaioli, Francesca Romana Berno, Jula Wildberger, Jean-Christophe Courtil, Sophia Papaioannou, Myrto Garani, and Andreas Michalopoulos. I am indebted, too, to Ernesto Stagni, who never ceases to amaze me with his knowledge, and Ornella Rossi for true camaraderie and affection. Likewise, my https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-202

VIII  Preface thanks go to Linde Brocato for always being available and offering me stimulating comments on various drafts. Gian Biagio Conte, who has been a constant presence in my life, never stopped spurring me on to do more and better, and, with extraordinary patience and affection, accompanied me throughout this endeavor. My gratitude to him extends beyond the present achievement. Finally, I owe much to Elaine Fantham and Remo Bodei, whose encouragements, feedback, and words of advice still resonate with me. They are, and always will be, dearly missed. Financial support for my research, has come from the Dean of Academic Departments of Union College, Schaffer Library at Union College, and the Loeb Classical Library Foundation at Harvard University. I would like to thank wholeheartedly these institutions for their generosity. I dedicate this book to my parents, Roberto Gazzarri and Miranda Mancini. They have unfailingly given me their support throughout many years of life in between two continents and two worlds.

Fig. 1: Mattheus Stomer, The Death of Seneca (c. 1640−45). Museo nazionale di Capodimonte. Naples, Italy. Inv. Q1057. Courtesy of Museo nazionale di Capodimonte.

Preface  IX

Contents Preface  VII Abbreviations  XIII Note on Translations  XVII Introduction  1 The Status Quaestionis  5 The Scope and Structure of This Book  8

Part I: Theory: Seneca's Rhetorical Strategies Between Stoic Tradition and Modern Linguistics  . . . . . . .

Metasemes and the Classical Tradition  17 The Aristotelian Epiphora  18 Interaction, Vision, and Pleasure  20 Functions and Meanings of Pleasure  25 The Ciceronian Problem  27 The Simplicity Effect  32 Socrates and Cato  40 Roman Socrateses  47

 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7

Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System  52 The Substitutive Theory  53 The Comparative Theory  56 The Interactive Theory  58 The Conceptual-Cognitive Theory  60 Materiality, Analogy, and Representation  63 Res, Verba, and Cognition  67 Oculus  79

 . . . . .

Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress  85 Apprenticeship and Pre-emotions  86 Painless Contemplation  90 Praecepta and Decreta  96 Decomposition and The Double Standard of Sight  102 The Visual Reader  109

XII  Contents

Part II: Practice: The Text and the Body  . . . . . .. ..

From Metaphor to Metaphors  123 Accumulation  123 Positional Features of Metaphors  130 Metaphors and Allegories  134 Reversible Metaphors  143 Metaphors and the Senses  156 Multisensory and Intersensorial Metaphors  158 The Cognitive Role of Intersensorial Metaphors  164

 . . . .

Metaphorical Physiology  171 The Patient Seneca  171 Medical and Philosophical Amicitia  174 Sick Body and Philosophical Anamnesis  183 Preaching as Surgery: Ferro et Igne  191

 6.1 6.2 6.3 .. .. 6.4

A Breathing Body  199 Artistic vs. Medical Body  200 The Style’s Vital Breath  206 Aedificium  211 Architecture is Medicine  213 Solidity and Style  219 Vivere Militare Est  222

Epilogue  233 Bibliography  237 Index Rerum  257 Index Locorum  259

Abbreviations – –

–

–

Journal titles are abbreviated according to the Année Philologique. Abbreviations of ancient authors and works are those of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD) 4th ed., supplemented, when needed, by Liddell Scott Jones Greek-English Lexicon (LSJ), and the Oxford Latin Dictionary (OLD). Abbreviations of medical authors (Corpus Hippocraticum and Corpus Galenicum) are those of the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum/Latinorum (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften). Seneca’s Dialogi are not quoted by number but by title, abbreviated thus:

Seneca’s Dialogi Brev. Helv. Ir. Marc. Ot. Polyb. Prov. Tranq. an. VB

De brevitate vitae (Dialogorum lib. X) Ad Helviam matrem de consolatione (Dialogorum lib. XII) De ira (Dialogorum libri III–V) Ad Marciam de consolatione (Dialogorum lib. VI) De otio (Dialogorum lib. VIII) Ad Polybium de consolatione (Dialogorum lib. XI) De providentia (Dialogorum lib. I) De tranquillitate animi (Dialogorum lib. IX) De vita beata (Dialogorum lib. VII)

Abbreviations from the Corpus Hippocraticum De Arte De Arte (Περὶ τέχνης) Epid. Libri epidemiorum (Ἐπιδημίαι) Medic. De medico (Περὶ ἰητροῦ) Vict. De victu (Περὶ διαίτης) VM De vetere medicina (Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς) Abbreviations from the Corpus Galenicum CC De causis contentivis (Περὶ τῶν συνεκτικῶν αἰτιῶν) Diff. Resp. De difficultate respirationis libri III (Περὶ δυσπνοίας βιβλία γ᾽) Dign. Puls. De dignoscendis pulsibus libri IV (Περὶ διαγνώσεως σφυγμῶν λόγοι δ᾽) Loc. Aff. De locis affectis libri VI (Περὶ τῶν πεπονθότων τόπων βιβλία) Meth. Med. Methodi medendi libri XIV (Θεραπευτικῆς μεθόδου βιβλία ιδ᾽) Mot. Musc. De motu musculorum libri II (Περὶ μυῶν κινήσεως βιβλία β᾽) PHP De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis libri IX (Περὶ τῶν Ἱπποκράτους καὶ Πλάτωνος δογμάτων βιβλία ἐννέα) Journals AAntHung AntPhilos ABG AC A&A AJPh

Acta antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Antiquorum Philosophia Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte L’Antiquité classique Antike und Abendland The American Journal of Philology

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XIV  Abbreviations BAGB BJHP BStudLat Bull Hist Med Cogn Psychol CPh CQ CR EL G&R GIF HSPh J Aesthet and Art Crit ICS JHS JTLA LEC MAAR MAT MD MH NNG PhilosAnt Proc Aristot Soc RCCM REL RFIC RhM RHR SIFC TAPhA Trends Cogn Sci

Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé British Journal for the History of Philosophy Bollettino di Studi Latini Bulletin of the History of Medicine Cognitive Psychology Classical Philology The Classical Quarterly The Classical Review Études de lettres Greece and Rome Giornale italiano di filologia Harvard Studies in Classical Philology The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Illinois Classical Studies The Journal of Hellenic Studies Journal of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Tokyo Les Études Classiques Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome Memorie della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici Museum Helveticum Machrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen Philosophie Antique Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Rivista di cultura classica e medioevale Revue des études latines Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica Rheinisches Museum für Philologie Revue de l’Histoire des Religions Studi Italiani di Filologia classica Transactions of the American Philological Association Trends in Cognitive Science

Further abbreviations in alphabetical order ANRW Temporini, H. (ed.) Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Berlin, 1972–. DK Diels, H./Kranz, W. (eds.) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Zürich, 19526. (Originally published 1903). EK Edelstein, I./Kidd, G. (eds.) Posidonius, i-iii. Cambridge, 1972-99. K Kühn, K.G. (ed.) Medicorum Graecorum Opera Quae Exstant, 1–20. Leipzig, 1821–1833. M Marx, F. (ed.) C. Lucilii Carminum Reliquiae. Leipzig, 1904. PIR2 Prosopographia Imperii Romani saec. I. II. III. 2nd ed. Berlin, 1933–. RAC Klauser, T. (ed.) Das Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum und das F. J. Dölger-Institut in Bonn. Berichte, Erwägungen, Richtlinien, i. Stuttgart, 1950.

Abbreviations  XV

RE SVF ThlL Trypho fig.

Paulys Real-Enzyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart, 1894–1980. von Arnim, H. (ed.) Stoicorum veterum fragmenta. i-iii. Leipzig, 1903– 1905. (quoted by volume and fragment number) Thesaurus linguae Latinae. Leipzig, 1900–. Trypho, De figuris, in Spengel, L. (ed.) Rhetores Graeci, iii. Leipzig, 1856.

Note on Translations Most translations are drawn from the Loeb Classical Library. When judged obsolete, more recent, non-Loeb editions have been consulted. When not available in English or available but obsolete, I have provided my own translation of the texts. All translations are attributed accordingly.

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Introduction “The Death of Seneca,” a work of Mattheus Stomer (c. 1600–after 1652), and part of the Museo di Capodimonte’s permanent collection (fig. 1), represents the philosopher’s last moments through a highly symbolic scene where various sequences of the Tacitean account (Ann. 15.60–64) are strung together and chronologically collapsed into a single moment of visual narration. 1 Here Seneca is represented as an old, emaciated man, sporting a typical “philosophical beard,” and offering one of his ankles to a surgeon-like figure, who is dutifully lancing it. Through his skillful, Caravaggesque use of light, Stomer underscores the positional parallelism between the surgeon and a character in the background, who is holding a stilus and seemly writing, under dictation, Seneca’s imaginem vitae suae. The two figures of the surgeon and of the scribe are arranged in such a manner that their respective scalpel and stylus happen to intercept two perpendicular lines, thus suggesting that the death of the physical body (one’s exitus) “meets with,” indeed corresponds to, one’s most telling testament. The value of death as supreme moment of teaching and learning and, in this connection, the privileged object of any meaningful praemeditatio futuri mali, has been the chief topic of much important scholarship. 2 Because of this, in the present book, I need not revisit this particular question. In fact, my focus will be much narrower and will concentrate on the relation subtending this traditional focus, that between writing and the human body. More specifically, I will take up between the material significance of Seneca’s writing and the body’s physiology according to Stoic and pneumatism, a medical theory dear to Roman Stoics. In his work, Ker hints at the importance of this relation and applies the conceptual frame of “coextension between bleeding and dictating” to the pictorial work of Luca Giordano (1634–1705) representing the same scene as Stomer. 3 Here, however, writing is not merely a symbolic gesture, and my focus is on how Seneca’s metaphorical discourse, which cuts across all of his oeuvre, acts on and facilitates cognitive processes in general, and philosophical learning in particular. In this tightly focused sense, rhetoric with its armory of tropes, among which metaphors  1 On the different historical accounts of Seneca’s death and the fortune of the theme in Western art see Ker (2009) 3–62. 2 Among the most important contributions are Hadot (1981), (1991), Grise (1982), and Edwards (2007) 144–160. 3 Cf. Ker (2009) 6: “Without the letting of blood, Seneca’s words would be just like any other words; and without being recorded in ink, Seneca’s bloody death would disappear from memory. To this extent bloodletting is writing, and writing is bloodletting”. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-001

  Introduction traditionally occupy a towering position, can be conceived as a material and materialistic operation, as the honing of a specific set of stylistic tools is engineered to elicit cognitive reactions which are bodily in nature. My title, “The Stylus and the Scalpel. Theory and Practice of Metaphors in Seneca’s Prose,” references precisely this chief aspect of my analysis: the use of writing and of metaphors to produce physical reactions which are relevant to their cognitive content. The scholarship of the past few decades presents two main approaches. On the one hand, much energy has been devoted to a hypermaterialistic investigation of Seneca’s illustrative strategies, which has resulted in analyses that, although logically coherent, appear to be almost paradoxical. In fact, the excessive emphasis on the words’ material nature dissipates any distinction between res and verba to the point of arguing that a word is also the thing it designates. 4 On the other hand, metaphors have often been conceived and analyzed almost exclusively within the larger context of “rhetorical devices” and the “history of classical rhetoric,” largely due to the influential legacy of Leemann and Kennedy’s works, which tackle the role of metaphors as a part of the larger frame of the history of rhetoric. 5 In my estimation, neither of these approaches has been entirely satisfactory, since topics so crucial as the cognitive and stylistic significance of metaphor, especially for an author like Seneca, require much more granular treatment. Thence the first fundamental question: what is a metaphor? The subtitle of the book, “Theory and Practice of Metaphors in Seneca’s Prose,” may suggest that a dedicated group of Senecan passages, or a series of sparse but specific remarks, may provide an answer to that question. Indeed, it would be ideal if Seneca had somewhere in his oeuvre submitted an unequivocal, theoretical definition of metaphor. Not only is such a coveted passage nowhere to be found, but throughout his dialogues and epistles Seneca resorts to a remarkably inconspicuous terminology, whereby a variety of words, whose technical pitch is highly variable, designates a collection of tropes (including not only metaphor, but also synecdoche, synaesthesia, metonymy, and allegory, only to mention the most relevant ones). Coming to the second part of the subtitle concerning “the practice,” it is precisely the use of metaphorical content that provides privileged access to the theoretical part, which although not overtly engineered is nonetheless present and

 4 Such is in my opinion the extreme consequence of the otherwise provocative work of Frischer (1982) on Epicureanism. 5 See Leeman (1963) and Kennedy (1972).

Introduction  

highly original. Seneca uses and manipulates metaphors and other figurative devices in order to convey his philosophical message and enforce his preaching. In nearly every letter of his Epistulae Morales and in all of his moral dialogues Seneca packages much of his doctrinal message in colorfully figurative terms. He draws his preferred tropes from the world of natural phenomena (storms, floods, and so on), technology and science (medicine, masonry, sailing), warfare, law, and the arts (painting, music, the theatre). Seneca manipulates the figurative potential of each of these areas to produce a new kind of philosophical argumentation that is at once an effective means of moral instruction as well as a linguistic expression/figuration (itself a symbol) of the philosopher’s own internal state, i.e. the instancing of an animus that is natural, unassuming, honest and, above all, free. Seen in this way, metaphors in Seneca are not just figures for the things they explicitly reference; they are always also metaphors (ways of figuring and receiving) of the writer’s own soul. As such, they are always multi-referential in being about what they claim to be about while also being an expression of the Stoic writer’s own self; a way of figuring the condition of his soul. Studying Seneca’s construction and deployment of philosophical language, with special emphasis on his habits of figuration, presents several advantages. First, it provides an accurate, controllable means of connecting Seneca’s style of argumentation to his content and to specific ancient rhetorical debates on the style of philosophical content, otherwise dishearteningly vast. Second, it makes it possible to compare Seneca’s metaphorical practices to the theories and practices of those who preceded him, with Aristotle and Cicero taking the lion’s share. This analysis will also show how Seneca adapts and transforms these conceits to make them perform different tasks within his philosophical works. A study of theory and practice of metaphors in Seneca can showcase an all-encompassing explanation of how philosophical lore, literary theory, literary reminiscences and, most crucially, medical notions are not only tightly connected, but also mutually influence each other in a startling manner. One caveat is nonetheless very much in order: these various territories and fields that the books explores should not divert attention from the main purpose and domain of this work: a literary study; a study that owes much to ancient philosophy, modern linguistics, and ancient medicine, but first and foremost a study of Seneca as the author of a literary oeuvre. Furthermore, since the book insists on the importance of Seneca’s illustrations’ medical components, the scholarly significance of this operation merits elaboration. That the human soul can get sick and that philosophy can function as a form of therapy is a locus classicus of ancient thought, and something which is tackled by various authors and philosophical schools. Plato, with his Theaetetus, and the

  Introduction Stoics stand out as two chief authorities imputing the insurgence of a spiritual ailment respectively to a state of ignorance and to the tyranny of passions. This fundamental ancient tradition has enjoyed an equally remarkable Nachleben and, for our purpose, has been addressed by significant scholarship. Entralgo devotes an entire section of his work to the curative value of words in the Hippocratic lore, but he purposely limits the scope of his research to the Greek world, and sets the outmost chronological limit with Aristotle. 6 Both Pigeaud and Nussbaum offer sections exclusively devoted to the Stoic deployment of philosophy as a form of therapy, and Graver’s doctoral dissertation focuses exclusively on Seneca’s Epistles. 7 These landmark studies stand, at least partly, in the tradition of Hadot, in the sense that they focus chiefly (although not exclusively) on the notion of behavior (the preferred cases are the ones of furor/mania and melancholy), and they emphasize the therapeutic role of praemeditatio and defatigatio animi. 8 This behaviorist approach, although it acknowledges the role of physical causes for spiritual illness, is predicated on the assumption that regaining spiritual/psychic health consists in amending one’s life by substituting the healthy habit for the sick one. Therapy thus consists of persuading. This angle of analysis is certainly valid, and I do not mean to supplant its inherently true foundations. That notwithstanding, the more recent contributions of Sorabji and Graver 9 cue us to adopt a more physicalist and, as it were, anatomical approach to the matter: medical notions can in fact function as descriptors for the human psyche’s emotional states. This book is based on the very simple idea that, according to Stoic linguistics and psychology, both words and the human soul are but physical bodies and, as such, can act and be acted upon. Thus, the most fit and heathy style can effect physical modifications on one’s soul and effect a positive therapeutic outcome, which consists not only in the successful substitution of a detrimental habit with a positive one but also in the physical modification of the soul’s material state and, more specifically, of its pneumatic tensional quality. 10 That is, metasemic language simultaneously affects one’s material persona, and words acquire medical value not only because, as argued by  6 Entralgo (1970) 139–170; particularly relevant are the sections where the Hippocratic word is analyzed as a type of prayer, question, and prognostic. 7 Cf. Pigeaud (1981) 246–371, Nussbaum (1994) 316–401, and Graver (1996). 8 Among Hadot’s many works on the subject, cf. his influentianl 1981 contribution. 9 Cf. Sorabji (2000), Graver (2007). The recent work of Dietsche (2014) is also very interesting and tackles the concept of therapy as an attempt on the part of Seneca to reach adepts of diverse philosophical schools (the epicureans in primis) by feeding his readers heterodox notions, to then gradually move to a philosophical discourse totally pivoting on Stoic lore. 10 For the Stoics virtues are but states of the soul (διαθέσεις), cf. DL 7.102.

The Status Quaestionis  

Entralgo, they facilitate a therapeutic dialogue between healer and patient, but also for their being material tools capable of modifying the physiology of the soul, which for Seneca and the Stoics is a body. The stylus then, a metonymic representation of philosophical writing, 11 stands out as the ultimate scalpel, and the only tool capable of shoring up health and promoting virtue.

The Status Quaestionis Seneca’s unmistakable style almost immediately became the object of scholarly interest, admiration, and—of course—harsh critique. Most famously, Quintilian Inst. 10.1.125–131, while acknowledging Seneca’s culture and moral stature, unequivocally reprimanded his vitia, that is, his stylistic and literary downfalls. Firstly, his believing himself able to tackle every topic and every literary genre (but, quite problematically, theater is not mentioned). Secondly, his tendency to break down (frangere) into small pieces even the most complex arguments (rerum pondera). Thirdly, his stylistic idiosyncrasy becoming a dangerous model for imitation, especially among the youth. Admittedly, Quintilian did not limit himself to stigmatizing the philosopher’s writing vitia, but tried also to be fair by signaling some of his virtues. Most importantly, he managed to create a critical, yet accurate, description of what makes Seneca’s style so unique. The juxtaposition of sententiae, as if they were basic modular units, contributes to an incremental rhythm of Seneca’s philosophical prose and transforms it from simple doctrinal enunciation into an instance of preaching and moral direction. 12 Modern scholarship has tackled Seneca’s prose from multiple angles. Stylistic analyses have underlined specific aspects of this “broken style,” and much has been written on Seneca’s metaphors as a fundamental ingredient for his strategy of illustration. More precisely, past analyses have focused either on tracing back preceding literary traditions, or on dissecting specific images (their roles and philosophical genesis). At the beginning of the 20th century, Steyns was the first to attempt a systematic study of Seneca’s metaphors. 13 His work did not have  11 For the metronomic use of stilus to signify writing, cf. Seneca this Ep. 65.2: in locum stili sermo successit “conversation took the place of writing.” Various examples of this use can be found already with Cicero De or. 1.150, Br. 32, Orat. 150, and Fam. 7.25. 12 The gnomic nature of Seneca’s writing made it very palatable for early Christians, and this popularity over-magnified what is but one quality—though an important one—of his style, namely the possibility for a pedagogue to cut out short passages and utilize them as pungent aphorisms. 13 Steyns (1906).

  Introduction a theoretical approach to the problem. It rather provided a descriptive overview of Seneca’s different metaphors according to their types. 14 Although this work certainly shows its age, it still provides the reader with a roundup of Seneca’s most consistently used metaphors and comparisons and, in many respects, it is still a valuable study. Similar in scope to the work of Steyns, is Smith’s dissertation which, published in 1910, but defended in 1906, does not mention Steyns’ work, and relies for the most part on German scholarship. In 1972, Kennedy had published his important work concerning rhetoric in Rome. 15 Although not dealing directly with Seneca, this work remains fundamental to any study of Latin rhetoric. Traina’s 1974 masterpiece is easily the most important contribution of the 20th century to the study of Seneca’s style. One cannot but heavily rely on this landmark study, especially on the notion of “stile drammatico.” In 1989, preceded by some shorter contributions (and followed by many more,) Armisen-Marchetti published Sapientiae Facies, the fundamental work on Seneca’s deployment of imagines and rhetorical tropes. Sapientiae Facies contains a massive study on the notions of image and imagination in Seneca, with rich excursus on how the theoretical tenets emerging from his work relate to and divert from previous rhetorical traditions. This extremely detailed analysis is completed and strengthened by an impressive systematized catalogue of imagery, organized in a schematic and very readable way. Armisen-Marchetti’s work is remarkable not only for the thoroughness of its analysis targeting the philosophical tradition informing Seneca’s textual strategies but also for the richness of the catalogues provided. It was this work, above all, that finally equipped scholars with a clear, fully documented vision of how crucial imagines are in Senecan prose. More recently Bartsch 16 has contributed a study of three specific metaphorical domains. This piece presents new promising methodological hints, but intentionally lacks a general assessment of tropes (and metaphors in particular) as part of a more extensive preaching strategy. Lastly, Sjöbald’s agile volume 17 has the merit of calling attention to findings in linguistics concerning what is known as

 14 The scholar distinguishes twelve categories, namely “vie militaire,” “médecine,” “navigation,” “voyages,” “agriculture et vie des champs,” “métiers,” “mytologie,” “religion,” “philosophie,” “nature,” “moeurs et cotumes.” 15 Kennedy (1972). 16 Bartsch (2009). 17 Sjöblad (2015).

The Status Quaestionis  

“conceptual metaphor,” referring mainly to Lakoff and Johnsons’ contributions. 18 This study, certainly more analytical than conclusive, has the merit of utilizing the Lakoffian model to corroborate Seneca’s tendency to aggregate his tropes around the barycenter of bodily images. And yet, the main downfall of cognitive linguistics lies precisely in the temptation of analyzing a given author “in spite of himself,” thus emphasizing mainly the unconscious, and exclusively biologically-triggered, reasons why a certain image is privileged over others, without the author being aware of the motives for his selection. Because of the scholarly importance of cognitive linguistics, any serious analysis of ancient rhetoric cannot do without it, and the significance of considering human biology the major propelling center for the making of figural language cannot be overlooked. However, for the study of the ancient world one must use the so-called “conceptual metaphors” theory cum grano salis, and instead favor an investigation that considers how ancient science imagined the human body to function. This methodological correction is in order because bodies certainly obey the laws of biology, but they are nonetheless constructed according to philosophical paradigms that demand a more granular assessment. In other words, if we make the functioning of figural language subservient to the immutable laws of biology, we must also consider how these laws, before the coming of modern, Galilean science, were framed according to culturally specific, not universal, coordinates. The risk is otherwise the definition of basic principles which are nonetheless very poor in philological scope. This is a methodological premise particularly necessary for the present book, which ventures an assessment of Seneca’s figural language not only on the basis of literary and philosophical tradition, but also looking at ancient medical lore, and its attendant construction of the body’s physiology. An analysis of the materialistic nature of Stoic linguistic theories opens up the way to a more synoptic interpretation of Seneca’s style. Understanding the implications of considering language and images as physical bodies creates a more unified exegetic focus and posits comprehensive solutions for the menagerie of issues presented by Seneca’s figurative prose. By using metaphors as a selected tool for this research, this study contributes to a well-developed tradition of Senecan scholarship, where much, as yet, remains to be done.

 18 See, for instance, Lakoff and Johnson (1980; 1989; 1999), Johnson (1987), and Lakoff (1995).

  Introduction

The Scope and Structure of This Book The first half of the book (Chapters 1, 2, and 3) is of a theoretical nature and focuses mainly on the relations that Seneca establishes (or purposely rejects) with previous philosophical traditions. In particular, I measure his distance from the Aristotelian theory of metaphors and I account for the selective nature of Seneca’s choices within the Stoic lore. The major focus consists of outlining and describing the materialistic ground of both Stoic cognition and language. I then briefly present the basics of the methods of cognitive linguistics and evaluate their applicability to Senecan prose. More specifically, I discuss which tenets of “conceptual metaphor theory” can deepen our understanding of Seneca’s strategies of illustration. Finally, I investigate the relation between Stoic rhetoric and the tenet of pre-emotions, then to propose a new and original interpretation of Senecan metaphors as a fundamental cognitive tool and indispensable components of his parenetic project. The first chapter explores the relation of Seneca’s illustrative strategy with both Aristotelian (1.1) and Ciceronian (1.4) theoretical lore on metaphors. Moving from Aristoteles’ definition of metaphor as epiphora, I show how Seneca fully comprehends and appropriates the metaphor’s cognitive potential, which results from both his ad hoc strategy of literary visualization (1.2) and the critical notion of pleasure which ensues from the mental processing of metasemes (1.3). I then tackle Seneca’s responses to Cicero’s critique of Stoic style as obscurus and fragmented to the point of producing shocking as much as paradoxical quibbles (1.5). I show how Seneca rebuts this common accusation leveled against Stoic style precisely by enhancing the didactic value of imagines, which, far from functioning as a mere means of ornamentation, can provide an immediate illustration (demonstrare) of a moral or logical conundrum instead of simply commenting on it. I then discuss (1.6) how the figure of Socrates provides Seneca not only with a dialectical model for philosophical preaching but also with a specific stylistic mode, deeply steeped in the dry tradition both of Heraclitus’ writings and Laconism. Such style proves congenial for the Stoic need to create a literary “zero-degree,” i.e. a narration able to flesh out the core of res as much as possible, as if showing the material notion signified by each. I conclude (1.7) by assessing how Seneca’s pursuit of this dry, fragmented, and highly metaphorical style agrees with the late republican and early-imperial need for a balance between Roman mores and Greek philosophy. “The style is the man,” Seneca argues, and the righteous style is but a manifestation of moral virtue. Like classical Athens, Rome

The Scope and Structure of This Book  

too can have its own Socrates, provided that the philosophical debate is channeled through the purposeful method of moral demonstration, which favors metaphors among all tropes. The second chapter is divided into two sections, which are devoted respectively to discussion of the main modern theories of metaphor, and to Stoic epistemology. In the first part I discuss the historical genesis and the tenets of substitutive theory (2.1), comparative theory (2.2.), interactive theory (2.3), and conceptual-cognitive theory (2.4). Each one of these approaches is first described and then applied to some select excerpts from Seneca’s oeuvre with the purpose of gauging possible interpretational perks and shortcomings. In particular, given its success and wide application, I concentrate on the analysis of the cognitive approach and its attempt to interpret metasemes solely on the basis of human biology and neuronal mechanisms. I discuss how the forging of a Latin philosophical language is predicated on a culturally specific approach to science: i.e. the deployment of imagines to both describe and explicate nature through a process of progressive decomposition, which suggests the equivalence of words and worlds. This discussion is based on a comparative analysis of select Lucretian and Senecan passages (2.5). I then move to assessing the specificity of Stoic epistemology by setting it against the “positivist” claims of the cognitive theory. I delve into a discussion of how metaphors (qua images) function within the Stoic system of cognition. I concentrate on the tenet of “kataleptic representation” and its importance for the attendant notion of vision, both ocular and mental (2.6). I conclude with a section entitled “oculus” (2.7) where I bring supplemental arguments against the hyperbiologists slant of cognitivism, and I account for various ancient speculations concerning the functioning of sight. I argue how, in the case of Seneca, this lore contributes to the creation of a specific illustrative style, which favors an original and visual type of interaction between master/author and disciple/reader. By continuously requiring a substantial visual commitment (i.e. a physical stimulus,) Seneca asks his reader to become a visual reader. With the third chapter I explore the connections between metaphorical language and the Stoic theory of emotions. In particular, I focus my analysis on the contentious notion of pre-emotions and first movements (3.1). I show how Seneca postulates the existence of involuntary bodily reactions not only to phenomena that are patently physical, but also to verbal and literary contents: through a skillful (and metasemic) use of language, it is possible to act physically upon and modify one’s body. This angle of analysis proves congenial also for assessing the development of what is a recurring topos of Latin philosophical preaching: wisdom as a venue of painless contemplation (3.2). Lucretius had famously deployed

  Introduction the motif of knowledge qua freedom-from-pain. However, he put this tenet on a footing consistent with Epicurean philosophy and founded on the comprehension of the atomic decomposition of reality. Seneca equally opts for decomposition, but he predicates his method on the fragmentation of reality via literary imagery, with the purpose of eliciting a learning sequence of pre-emotional stimuli. His interpretation of philosophical safety is based on metaphorical, rather than atomistic, decomposition of reality. I submit that this assessment of Seneca’s aphoristic technique and its psychological foundations also allows for an original interpretation of Seneca’s synergetic use of praecepta and decreta (3.3). Often considered as, respectively, the protreptic and doctrinal parts of philosophical teaching, the preceptive component stands out for its metaphorical density, and can be reassessed as the locus where preceptive and pre-emotional stimuli psychologically prepare the disciple’s material soul for the reception of the less practicable decreta. The last two subsections of the chapter deal with the literary implications of Seneca’s deployments of metaphors. I concentrate on the one hand on the rich literary traditions of highly illustrative prose, which is capable of providing ethically sound paradigms but also morally questionable representations (3.4), and I conclude with a discussion of the type of ideal reader cued by Seneca’s metasemic strategy: a visual reader (3.5). While the part I of the book deals with the theory of metaphor, part II (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) is devoted to their practice. I first assess what Senecan metaphors accomplish in context, either when organized in clusters or with respect to the textual relations that they activate within the text. I then transition to the book’s last two chapters, which concern the medical/therapeutic implication of Seneca’s illustrative strategy. After having explained why the materialistic core of Stoic philosophy is a fundamental component of Seneca’s stylistic choices, I build on the most recent studies on the subject (Bartsch (2009), Courtil (2015), and Sjöblad (2015)) to explore the trope of the body. I demonstrate how style and medical practice merge on account of both their shared material nature and their objects of application (the text and one’s mind, the former being no less material than the latter). Health and suffering function as the two foci of moral and spiritual health, but also of stylistic proficiency. The dialectic relationship of health/illness pervades the entire cosmos, which is itself a body in nature. In particular, the deployment of buildings and of military strife as illustrations both point to death as a possible outcome and reaffirm the need for the rational fight. The theme of combat, represented by multiple and highly frequent war-themed metaphors, familiarizes for the reader the wounded, dismembered, and dying body.

The Scope and Structure of This Book  

The manipulation of these images occurs within a Romanized context which familiarizes the reader with a known environment while refusing to disengage from a very dangerous civic call of duty, like the one required in the sixties by the Neronian milieu. The fourth chapter focuses on accumulation (4.1), that is Seneca’s deployment of metaphors in clusters to achieve specific stylistic and cognitive outcomes. I show how this tight-knit body of thought and language on the one hand exercises one’s faculty to achieve righteous judgments and, on the other, effects what in modern linguistics goes under the name of “conceptual blending,” i.e. the combination of multiple domains to achieve new, often unexpected, meanings. The second section (4.2) delves into the matter of Seneca’s metaphors’ positional features. I distinguish between two main categories: contiguous (where tenor and vehicle are adjacent) and contextual (where the two domains are situated among sizeable syntactical units). For each type I assess both the most stylistically relevant features (including their literary traditions) and their import for Seneca’s philosophical preaching. The “contiguous metaphors” type paves the way to section (4.3), which is devoted to the contentious issue of allegory and allegories. In particular, given the Ciceronian definition of allegory as continuae tralationes (“serially organized metaphors”) I tackle the question of whether Seneca’s metaphorical clusters can be considered as types of allegory or, rather, should be described as something different. Sections (4.4) and (4.5) provide two possible answers to the conundrum. At (4.4.) I tackle the two fundamental levels of every figural discourse (the literal and the meta-level) and I describe the unique typology of “reversible metaphor,” whereby a reader is provided with simultaneous, and therefore not-discrete, access to the literal and the figural levels. Finally, at (4.5) I investigate those metaphorical clusters that simultaneously trigger multiple sensory domains and elicit synesthetic reactions. I show how, unlike allegory, which requires hermeneutic initiation, synesthesia favors a cognitive approach which is immediate and all-encompassing and therefore extremely palatable for the teaching of one fundamental Stoic tenet: the universal pervasiveness of logos. Since good style can heal and cure by means of positive impressions (that is, material impressions on a material soul), rhetoric functions as a health repository. In chapter 5 I first establish the necessary background by examining Seneca’s own personal experience with medicine and his knowledge of the medical lore (5.1), then to move to some aspects of this knowledge that resonate with specific Roman societal values. In particular, I concentrate on the notion of medicus amicus and appraise how Seneca utilizes it to re-conceptualize the master/disciple

  Introduction relationship as a form of amicitia (5.2). I then explore how the process of anamnêsis is applied both to the ensouled body and to the bodily soul (5.3). This Platonic and Hippocratic notion enables Seneca not only to couch his philosophical preaching as a form of therapy (hardly a new didactic gambit) but also to explore and mix together different literary genres, as is the case with the philosophical epistle offered as a medical prescription communicated by letter (a typology of well-attested technical medical literature). To follow, I tackle surgery-related metaphors and the recurring dyad ferro et igne (“amputation and cauterization,”) (5.4). This therapeutic process consists in “curing” the patient/disciple by the substitutions of diseased figurations with healthy contents. I maintain that these painful but effective teachings (curative like surgical amputations) cannot be separated from a style which pursues an equally “subtractive” ideal. The dryness of Stoic rhetoric references both the good doctor’s mission, and the fundamental skill of the surgeon who knows how to eliminate the affected bodily parts and leaves only what is healthy. The pervasiveness of surgical metaphors also provides an ideal venue to investigate the relation between the cognitive value of pain and the teaching potential of righteous impressions. I focus on the lexical and conceptual similarity of ictus doloris and ictus animi. I show how the action of pain on one’s body is conceptualized in a mode much like the functioning of cognitive inputs on one’s percipient mind. Thence my contention that the value of surgical metaphors does not reside solely in the harsh ethical notions they allude to, but also in the constructive pain with which they affect and modify one’s mind. In the sixth and last chapter I concentrate on two main topics: 1) how Seneca’s therapeutic ploy concerns not only philosophical conceits, but also style (this operation I term “the medicalization of style”) and 2) how pneumatism can be used to provide an anatomical interpretation of metaphors (most interestingly of those metaphors which, at first sight, appear alien to the chief figuration of the human body). At (6.1) I propose a contrastive analysis of Cicero’s representation of text as body vs. Seneca’s own set of images partaking in the same type of illustrative domain. I argue that for Cicero the text-qua-body metaphor is free from medical concerns and is predicated on human anatomy as the object of artistic observation. On the contrary, Seneca’s textual body is first and foremost a suffering body and, as such, the object of medical interest. At (6.2) I delve into the pneumatic components of this medical intertext. I first discuss the relation between the Stoic tenet of the soul’s tensional states and the pneumatic theory of the three causes. I demonstrate how the latter can provide further scientific ground to argue in favor of Seneca’s modus scribendi which, like a tool (a scalpel), can elicit

The Scope and Structure of This Book  

pre-emotional states (cf. Ch. 3). This angle of analysis I apply also to those metaphors that at first sight cannot claim membership in the group of medical tropes. This is the case with architectural metaphors (6.3). I chiefly concentrate on the illustration of the domus and I organize my argument into two sub-sections. I first show how the house and the body partake of the same pneumatic tonal features, which allow the image of the solid or badly constructed house to signify respectively a healthy or unhealthy body (6.3.a). In the second sub-section (6.3.b), I concentrate on the notion of architectural solidity (once again described through specific pneumatic terminology) as the metaphorical vehicle for a sound style. Lastly, at (6.4) I provide a medical and pneumatic interpretation of Seneca’s illustrations involving warfare, updating and going beyond Lavery’s 1980 largely descriptive article, which remains the most important study to date. In the first part of the section (6.4) I draw a connection between Senecan warfare imagery and the School of the Sestii, in particular the little we know of Q. Sestius’ teaching. The notion of Roman robur (again a gendered concept much sponsored by Sestius) is combined with the Stoic notion of tonos to represent a spiritual ideal, which is predicated on the human soul’s healthy degree of “tension”. The chapter then turns to Ep. 74, which offers a privileged insight into the image of siege. I show how Seneca deliberately re-works and blends models from different traditions: in particular Plato’s notion of the “ethical acropolis”.



Part I: Theory: Seneca’s Rhetorical Strategies Between Stoic Tradition and Modern Linguistics

 Metasemes and the Classical Tradition While Seneca’s illustrations make an original contribution to ancient rhetoric, they do not, of course, exist in isolation from the larger rhetorical tradition. Indeed, while they are grounded in Stoic linguistics, they adhere to a number of fundamental Aristotelian rhetorical guidelines. In particular, while Seneca defines tropes using a terminology that is somewhat fluid, he nonetheless often refers to what Aristotle includes both in the Poetics and in the Rhetoric under the definition of “metaphor.” 1 An understanding of Aristotelian theory is therefore crucial not only for discerning Seneca’s own originality vis-à-vis some of the most universally revered classical tenets, but also for assessing its dominant influence through the centuries and, as a consequence, for seeing how Aristotelian lore may be used to assess Senecan style. 2 Aristotle’s concepts dominated the Western debate on rhetoric until the second half of the twentieth century. Measuring the influence of Aristotle on Seneca is of considerable theoretical interest, not least because exegetes of Aristotle’s work ultimately agreed that the old master broke with rhetorical tradition by denying the heuristic value of metaphors; Seneca, meanwhile—and this is one of this book’s main contentions—deploys metaphors not, or not only, as a means of style but also qua cognitive mechanisms. The idea that Aristotle considers metaphors purely as ornaments that serve only as a sweetener for moral instruction is as widely received as it is fundamentally false. This view appears to have become firmly established by the beginning of the Middle Ages, but signs of it begin to surface as early as the first Hellenistic studies of Aristotle. It certainly did not help that both Cicero and Quintilian, although not expressly denying the cognitive value of metaphors, insisted almost exclusively on their being instrumental to the embellishment of good literature, or to winning the favor of an audience. The consequence of this process is that a gap emerged between Aristotle and his later interpreters. While many generations of Aristotle’s exegetes have proven ready to jettison all trace of any cognitive value that the philosopher may have attributed to metaphor, a close philological reading of both the Poetica and the Rhetorica reveals a much more nuanced discourse. Seneca departs, at least to  1 In particular, Seneca uses the traditional term translatio, but also imago, which is broader in its scope and can often designate simile as well as metaphor. Cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1991)b 109– 111. 2 An overview of the notion of metaphor in pre- and post-Aristotelian rhetoric can be found in Armisen-Marchetti (1990; 1991a). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-002

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition some extent, from the alleged limitations of figural language that have for so long bedeviled Western thought and confined metaphor to the role of ornamentation. Yet the Aristotelian reading is but one of two crucial foci in the assessment of Seneca’s metaphorical language; the other is Cicero’s argument about the deficiency of obscuritas in the Stoic conception of figuration. A close analysis of both the “Aristotelian problem” and the “Ciceronian problem” illustrates the Stoic origin of how Seneca conceived his rhetorical choices, before crafting them into a product that was highly original and new.

. The Aristotelian Epiphora Whether metaphors are embellishment or bear significant cognitive value constitutes the core of a debate that has continued for centuries. The most important coordinates to navigating the wide range of modern critical positions come from the interpretation of key Aristotelian passages. Aristotle, who did not write a specific treatise on metaphor, tackles this topic mostly in the Poetics and in the Rhetoric. First, at Poet. 1457b1–3 he categorizes metaphors as a type of noun (onoma): Ἅπαν δὲ ὄνομά ἐστιν ἢ κύριον ἢ γλῶττα ἢ μεταφορὰ ἢ κόσμος ἢ πεποιημένον ἢ ἐπεκτεταμένον ἢ ὑφῃρημένον ἢ ἐξηλλαγμένον. Every noun is either a standard term, loan word, metaphor, ornament, neologism, lengthening, contraction or modification. (Transl. Halliwell)

A few lines later, he defines metaphor as a transference (epiphora): Μεταφορὰ δέ ἐστιν ὀνόματος ἀλλοτρίου ἐπιφορὰ ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ γένους ἐπὶ εἶδος ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ εἴδους ἐπὶ τὸ γένος ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ εἴδους ἐπὶ εἶδος ἢ κατὰ τὸ ἀνάλογον Metaphor is the application of a word that belongs to another thing either from genus to species, species to genus, species to species, or by analogy. (Transl. Halliwell) 3

 3 The passage also contains the canonical classification of the metaphor into four typologies: 1) genus on genus, 2) species on species, 3) species on species per analogy, 4) and analogical. The literature on this passage is as vast as the history of Western thought. What matters for the study of Seneca is synecdoches and metonymies are not tackled separately, very much like Aristotle who considers both 1) and 2), (respectively a generalizing and a particularizing synecdoche), under the heading of metaphor. For a profile synecdoches and metonymies in Latin, cf. Fruyt (1989)a 251–150 and (1989)b.

The Aristotelian Epiphora  

The definition of metaphor as a type of onoma is instrumental to creating subcategories. Aristotle separates the onoma kyrion, the basic meaning of a term, from the other types of onomata, each of which produces a certain degree of semantic stretch or apparent inappropriateness (xenikon). More specifically, at Poet. 1458a23–28, Aristotle describes the outcome of the glôssa qua xenikon (i.e., the deployment of a secondary use of a given word) as barbarismos (barbarism), while the effect of a metaphor is ainigma: Ἀλλ᾿ ἄν τις ἅπαντα τοιαῦτα ποιήσῃ, ἢ αἴνιγμα ἔσται ἢ βαρβαρισμός· ἂν μὲν οὖν ἐκ μεταφορῶν, αἴνιγμα, ἐὰν δὲ ἐκ γλωττῶν, βαρβαρισμός. αἰνίγματός τε γὰρ ἰδέα αὕτη ἐστί, τὸ λέγοντα ὑπάρχοντα ἀδύνατα συνάψαι· κατὰ μὲν οὖν τὴν τῶν ἄλλων ὀνομάτων σύνθεσιν οὐχ οἷόν τε τοῦτο ποιῆσαι, κατὰ δὲ τὴν μεταφορῶν ἐνδέχεται. But if one composes entirely in this vein, the result will be either a riddle or barbarism—a riddle, if metaphors predominate; barbarism, if loan words. For this is the nature of a riddle, to attach impossibilities to a description of real things. One cannot do this by composing with other terms, but one can with metaphors. (Transl. Halliwell)

Halliwell here translates ainigma as “riddle,” thereby minimizing the cognitive implication suggested by Aristotle and prompting an interpretation of metaphors as “divertissements.” While a glôssa introduces an element of xenikon through a single term, metaphors operate on a larger syntactic scale: words vs. sentences. Furthermore, Aristotle maintains that only the kyrion onoma provides saphêneia (clarity): on the contrary, all degrees of xenikon depart from it, although they simultaneously elevate one’s style. This classification of both glôssa and metaphora as onomata performing similar tasks on tracks of different magnitude (a microcontext for the glôssa, and a macro-context for the metaphora) is still unsatisfactory, precisely because the metaphor is additionally defined as epiphora. As recognized by the majority of modern interpreters, the definition of metaphora as epiphora is problematic in many respects, but chiefly because the two words are almost synonymous. Both terms suggest the action of “transporting” and “shifting,” but the different prepositional prefixes must necessarily point to different meanings, and epi must somehow work as an explanation of meta. Now the Latin translation of metaphora is translatio, with meta = trans and the attendant meaning of “bringing over.” The Latin word, however, offers both an interpretation and a misinterpretation of Aristotle because, while acknowledging a “shifting in meaning,” it does not account for the epiphora component, and reduces the entire rhetorical process to one of substitution whereby an onoma belonging to its “proper” (kyrion) domain is replaced with another onoma taken and

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition “brought over” from a semantically “foreign” (xenikon) domain. This process corresponds to what is a fairly common description of metaphor and constitutes the very basis of the substitutive theory: a metaphor is a simile minus the “like.” On the contrary, an insightful analysis of the epiphora definition reveals a much more complex system of semantic relations. An epiphora is quite literally a “superimposition” or an “overlapping”—an operation describing in visual terms what has become a pivotal element of contemporary tropical approaches; that is, the coexistence, within a metaphor, of two semantic domains. 4 A metaphor is not a movement of substitution of one domain for another; rather it is an epiphora, which is the bringing of a new domain upon the original one, as per vertical superimposition (such is the literal meaning of epi). Aristotle postulates the presence of mutual relations between signs—a presence that anticipates by centuries the very tenets of the interactive theory (the latter being paradoxically based on the rejection of Aristotle as a pure literalist). 5

. Interaction, Vision, and Pleasure An analysis of the first—and possibly the simplest—type of metaphor postulated by Aristotle can shed useful light on the nature of this interactive component. At Poet. 1457b9–10 the following is provided as an example of the “genus-on-species” type of metaphor: Λέγω δὲ ἀπὸ γένους μὲν ἐπὶ εἶδος οἷον “νηῦς δέ μοι ἥδ’ ἕστηκεν”· τὸ γὰρ ὁρμεῖν ἐστιν ἑστάναι τι.

 4 Halliwell’s translation of ἐπιφορά as “transference” does not quite suggest the pregnancy of the term in this context. Fyfe’s (1932) rendering as “application” is a better choice, although it is still not quite on point. 5 To be fair, Ricoeur (1975) 50 n. 4, in his analysis of the bearing of metaphors on philosophical processes, distinguishes himself in stressing how Aristotle’s comprising κατάχρησις under the heading of metaphors is a clear sign of his theory diverging from a substitutive approach (cf. Poet. 1457b25–30). In fact, κατάχρησις is a type of metaphorical crossing that occurs for the lack of a basic non-metaphorical term (Ex. “the legs of a table”), but if a non-metaphorical term is not present (what is the literal version for a table’s leg?) then the metaphorical use is not really substitutive of anything. Ricoeur’s scholarship on the relation between metaphor and philosophical discourse was preceeded by Derrida’s (1971) fundamental contribution, wherein the law of supplementarity, when applied to the supposedly oppositional dyad “concept”/“metaphor,” demonstrates that there is not a non-metaphorical way to designate metaphor and that, therefore, every rhetorical and philosophical discourse is tropical by nature.

Interaction, Vision, and Pleasure  

By “from genus to species” I mean, e.g., “my ship stands here”: mooring is a kind of standing. (Transl. Halliwell)

In this case, “mooring” is a species (a specification or sub-type) of the genus “standing,” and this relation makes the metaphor possible. Yet it would be a mistake to assume that “mooring” is not active in the enunciation “here stands my ship.” For a reader can decipher the metaphorical content of it only by subsuming the meaning of the species under the meaning of the genus. The reader is able to translate “standing” = “mooring” because the metaphor eliminates the kyrion onoma (which is in this case would be “mooring”), but cannot obliterate the analogical relation that makes the replacing genus intelligible. 6 Therefore, the definition of a metaphor as epiphora is predicated on the permanence of the logical kyrion onoma (though textually obliterated) and, more precisely, on the permanence and activation of the analogical relations existing between the two domains kyrion and xenikon. In the Rhetorica, Aristotle offers even more decisive observations outlining the cognitive value of metaphors. At Rh. 1405b16–20 he comments on the specific value of three types of onoma-substitutions: Οὐ γὰρ ὡς ἔφη Βρύσων οὐθένα αἰσχρολογεῖν, εἴπερ τὸ αὐτὸ σημαίνει τόδε ἀντὶ τοῦ τόδε εἰπεῖν· τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι ψεῦδος· ἔστι γὰρ ἄλλο ἄλλου κυριώτερον καὶ ὡμοιωμένον μᾶλλον καὶ οἰκειότερον τῷ ποιεῖν τὸ πρᾶγμα πρὸ ὀμμάτων. ἔτι οὐχ ὁμοίως ἔχον σημαίνει τόδε καὶ τόδε. For it is not the case, as Bryson said, that no one ever uses foul language, if the meaning is the same whether this or that word is used; this is false; for one word is more proper than another, more of a likeness, and better suited to putting the matter before the eyes. Further, this word or that does not signify a thing under the same conditions. (Transl. Freese) 7

 6 This fundamental mechanism of the ἐπιφορά functions even in the extreme case of the κατάχρησις, where the borrowed metaphorical word, although it cannot be substitutive of a κύριον ὄνομα (given it does not exist), nonetheless replaces what can be posited at least in its logical function (if only it existed). For instance, in the case of the “leg of the table” illustration, the catachrestic term “legs” can be understood only because it analogically plays the same logical function (it sustains, it is elongated, it supports etc.) that an existing κύριον ὄνομα would play. Cf. Sozzi (2009) 82. 7 Aristotle is criticizing the sophistic tenet, here propounded by Bryson, according to which it would be impossible to use trivial language (αἰσχρολογεῖν), on account of the need “to call things by their name”. Aristotle here avers that, among the variety of words at one’s disposal, there exist mutual relations that are more proper, and more effective, where effectiveness is measured in terms of “putting the matter before the eyes.”

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition Here, Aristotle dismisses as pseudos (false) the assumption that a substitution of signs is a mere equivalence. This is crucial to deducing that metaphors do not express a literal concept in a figurative way; rather, they elicit new, original meanings that are not active at the literal level. 8 He then moves on to describe the pertinent features of various types of substitutions. One is “more pertinent” (kyriôteron), and this could possibly refer to the use of the kyrion onoma itself. A second is “more similar” (hômoiômenon mallon): this difficult definition possibly alludes to the performative qualities of onomatopoeia, which approximates to true sounds and voices by means of imitation. A final type of substitution is “more fit to put in front of the eyes” (oikeioteron tôi poiein pro ommatôn). This last type of onomata is to be identified with the metaphor on the basis of Rh. 1405b8–12, where Aristotle explicitly endows metasemes with the ability to poiein pro ommatôn; in fact, he maintains, metaphors are the kind of onomata most apt to do so. Significantly, Seneca often makes use of the equivalent expression ante oculos ponere, 9 and so too does Quintilian, who chooses to translate the technical term phantasia as visio. 10 Furthermore, at 1386a29–35 Aristotle comments on the strategy of poiein pro ommatôn as a theatrical expedient to render an impending or recently occurred disgrace. 11 We

 8 These considerations are strikingly similar to the conclusions of Searle (1979)b 111, who comments on the impossibility of paraphrasing a metaphor without losing its semantic content. 9 Cf. Ben. 1.12.1; 4.11.5; Ir. 3.3.2; Marc. 2.2.1; Ep. 11.8; 12.6; 91.8; 94.25; Q Nat. 3 praef. 17. 10 Cf. Inst. 6.2.29–31. 11 Cf. Rh. 1386a29–35: Ἐπεὶ δ᾿ ἐγγὺς φαινόμενα τὰ πάθη ἐλεεινά ἐστι, τὰ δὲ μυριοστὸν ἔτος γενόμενα ἢ ἐσόμενα οὔτ᾿ ἐλπίζοντες οὔτε μεμνημένοι ἢ ὅλως οὐκ ἐλεοῦσιν ἢ οὐχ ὁμοίως, ἀνάγκη τοὺς συναπεργαζομένους σχήμασι καὶ φωναῖς καὶ ἐσθῆτι καὶ ὅλως τῇ ὑποκρίσει ἐλεεινοτέρους εἶναι· ἐγγὺς γὰρ ποιοῦσι φαίνεσθαι τὸ κακὸν πρὸ ὀμμάτων ποιοῦντες, ἢ ὡς μέλλον ἢ ὡς γεγονός. “And since sufferings are pitiable when they appear close at hand, while those that are past or future, ten thousand years backwards or forwards, either do not excite pity at all or only in a lesser degree, because men neither expect the one nor remember the other, it follows that those who contribute to the effect by gestures, voice, dress, and dramatic action generally are more pitiable; for they make the evil appear close at hand, setting it before our eyes as either future or past” (transl. Freese). Aristotle is here focusing on a specific passion: ἔλεος or “pity.” He argues that there are specific strategies that can be deployed to elicit this feeling both in a court of law and on a theatrical stage. Theatre and rhetoric therefore partake of some fundamental features, the most crucial one being the ability to present a given event before one’s eyes. A discussion of rhetorical repertoires aiming at eliciting pity can be found in Stevens (1944), while more recently, Gastaldi (1995) 66–69 has contributed to the study of the relations between Athenian theatre and judicial rhetoric.

Interaction, Vision, and Pleasure  

shall return in due course to the crucial role of vision and the Stoic theory of phantasia, but also to Seneca’s own furnishing of what Traina termed a “stile drammatico”, 12 a prose mode largely based on the skillful deployment of metaphors. Aristotle relies on this definitional semantics of vision not only to describe one of the salient functions of metaphors, but also to gauge the functioning of the mental process that every metaphor demands. At Poet. 1459a3–8 he discusses the impossibility of “learning metaphors” from others, and defines metaphorical processing as a “natural inclination for mental contemplation:” Ἔστιν δὲ μέγα μὲν τὸ ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰρημένων πρεπόντως χρῆσθαι, καὶ διπλοῖς ὀνόμασι καὶ γλώτταις, πολὺ δὲ μέγιστον τὸ μεταφορικὸν εἶναι. μόνον γὰρ τοῦτο οὔτε παρ’ ἄλλου ἔστι λαβεῖν εὐφυΐας τε σημεῖόν ἐστι· τὸ γὰρ εὖ μεταφέρειν τὸ τὸ ὅμοιον θεωρεῖν ἐστιν. It is important to use aptly each of the features mentioned, including double nouns and loan words; but much the greatest asset is a capacity for metaphor. This alone cannot be acquired from another, and is a sign of natural gifts: because to use metaphor well is to discern similarities. (Transl. Halliwell)

The Greek text couches the ability to “see” the similar in terms of a natural disposition (sêmeion euphyias), and therefore as something innate. 13 The verb theôrein, which is still an appurtenance of the semantics of sight, shifts the analysis from the level of language, signified by what the words themselves conjure up (poien pro ommatôn), to the subsequent mental processing thereof; such is the meaning of homoion theôrein, literally “the cognitive ability of grasping similarities.” 14 The tight relation of res to verba via the semantics of sight provides decisive evidence for how metaphors, according to Aristotle, cannot be regarded solely as instruments of rhetorical ornamentation. Furthermore, the dominance of visual means that are charged with fundamentally intellectual tasks is directly attached to the

 12 Traina (1974) 41: “Lo stile senecano riflette un doppio e opposto movimento: dall’esterno all’interno, verso la libertà dell’io – il linguaggio dell’interiorità; dall’interno all’esterno, verso la liberazione dell’umanità – il linguaggio della predicazione: malitia liberatus et liberat (Ep. 94.19). In questo noi sentiamo la sua drammaticità. Dramma di un uomo perennemente oscillante tra la cella e il pulpito; ma forse c’è qualcosa di più, che ci tocca più da vicino: il dramma della saggezza fra l’amore di sé e l’amore degli uomini.” 13 Not only is the ability to grasp metaphors a natural feature, but metaphors themselves are also a natural means of communication, though presenting an evident deviation from the norm (the κύριον level) for cognitive purposes. This is to say that a κύριον ὄνομα is not any more natural than all other types of ὀνόματα, which introduce ξενικά elements. 14 The task of “seizing similarities” is to be intended here as the ability to detecting that similar properties are being predicated about different concepts. Cf. Lo Piparo (2003) 168–173.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition idea that metaphors are privileged tools for teaching. It is not by chance that at Rh. 1410b11–15 Aristotle classifies metaphors as a privileged tool for learning: Τὸ γὰρ μανθάνειν ῥᾳδίως ἡδὺ φύσει πᾶσιν ἐστί, τὰ δὲ ὀνόματα σημαίνει τι, ὥστε ὅσα τῶν ὀνομάτων ποιεῖ ἡμῖν μάθησιν, ἥδιστα. αἱ μὲν οὖν γλῶτται ἀγνῶτες, τὰ δὲ κύρια ἴσμεν. ἡ δὲ μεταφορὰ ποιεῖ τοῦτο μάλιστα· Easy learning is naturally pleasant to all, and words mean something, so that all words which make us learn something are most pleasant. Now we do not know the meaning of strange words, and proper terms we know already. It is metaphor, therefore, that above all produces this effect. (Transl. Freese)

Learning and pleasure are for Aristotle two sides of the same coin. Metaphors naturally facilitate mathêsis, and at Rh. 1410b18–21 he even discusses the different degrees of intellectual reward produced by metaphors as opposed to what is assimilated via similes: Ἔστι γὰρ ἡ εἰκών, καθάπερ εἴρηται πρότερον, μεταφορὰ διαφέρουσα προσθέσει· διὸ ἧττον ἡδύ, ὅτι μακροτέρως· καὶ οὐ λέγει ὡς τοῦτο ἐκεῖνο· οὔκουν οὐδὲ ζητεῖ τοῦτο ἡ ψυχή For the simile, as we have said, is a metaphor differing only by the addition of a word, wherefore it is less pleasant because it is longer; it does not say that this is that, so that the mind does not even examine this. (Transl. Freese)

Not only is Aristotle here maintaining that a simile, by revealing the analogical relations existing between the two domains of a comparison, dislodges a learner’s mental engagement and the pleasure deriving from it; he is also arguing that a simile, precisely on account of its lengthier structure (the presence of the “like” adds at least one word), is a simplified, almost “declassed” type of metaphor. This means 1) that the one which is the more intellectually valuable is the metaphor, and 2) that the less sophisticated product is indeed the simile, which is obtained by means of addition, not subtraction: it is not metaphor that is “a simile minus the “like”,” but simile is “a metaphor plus the “like”.” Metaphors therefore constitute a cognitive starting point, and they can be turned into similes by simplifying their cognitive structure. 15 There is an abyss between what Aristotle is stating here and subsequent interpretations of the Aristotelian text and, in particular, the most recent exegetic approaches (cf. p. 20 n. 5)—which attribute  15 Cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1980) 10: “Aristote ne traite pas la métaphore comme un mode de saisie intuitive du réel, mais comme le condensé d’un rapide raisonnement par analogie susceptible de se développer en comparaison.”

Functions and Meanings of Pleasure  

to the philosopher the origin of the objectivist prejudice according to which a metaphor is but a shortened version of a simile: the exact opposite of what the Aristotelian teaching offers.

. Functions and Meanings of Pleasure The Aristotelian texts are of great importance for the study of Senecan style. Notably, Aristotle singles out “shortness” as one of the most alluring and educationally conducive qualities of metaphors (he actually says that the lengthier nature of a simile reduces its appeal or “sweetness”). Now one of the most prominent features of Seneca’s pointillist style is precisely its brevitas, a quality that scholars have always considered the traditional mark of the Stoic School. Seneca not only appropriates this Stoic affectation but also tries to devise solutions to sidestep the harsh critiques that this genus scribendi elicited, those of Cicero chief among them (cf. pp. 33–34). And yet, if the philosophical foundations of this feature are unmistakably Stoic, the centrality within it of metaphorical language endows it with a didactic relevance very similar to the one that Aristotle imputed to the pleasurable ainigma furnished by epiphorai. I am not here arguing that Aristotle’s praise of shortness and Stoic brevitas are the same thing, nor that the Stoic ideal of brevitas stems necessarily or entirely from Aristotle’s theoretical take on metasemes. However, both Aristotelian and Stoic praise of concise enunciation markedly account for the reader’s involvement and complicity with the text, for both didactic and for parenetic aims. Cicero accounts for both targets and, in the second book of the Orator, he notably analyzes the three main aims of the orator: docere, delectare, movere. Orat. 91–96 is devoted to the genus medium (or “medium style”) as the most apt choice to fulfill the delectare mandate, and the deployment of metaphors turns out to be the pièce de résistance for this rhetorical strategy: Huic omnia dicendi ornamenta conveniunt plurimumque est in hac orationis forma suavitatis. All the ornaments are appropriate to this type of oration, and it possesses charm to a high degree. (Transl. Hubbell)

Cicero then presents the style of Demetrius Phalereus as emblematic of the suavis style and characterizes it, via metaphors, as highly metaphorical: Cuius oratio cum sedate placideque liquitur tum illustrant eam quasi stellae quaedam tralata verba atque mutata.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition His [scil. Demetrius’] oratory not only proceeds in calm and peaceful flow, but is lighted up by what might be called the stars of “transferred” words (or metaphors) and borrowed words. (Transl. Hubbell)

For Cicero, metaphorical language is but a means to achieve an emotional goal. Despite the term suavitas being the Latin equivalent of the Greek and Aristotelian hêdys, Cicero’s perspective is completely different. For him, the sweetness is but a “sweetness-effect,” the result of long-polished oratorical skills that are deployed to create the right emotional disposition in the audience: it is a rhetorical strategy to which the use of metaphors is subservient. For Aristotle, on the contrary, pleasure and knowledge are inseparable; they are two sides of the same coin. It is the pleasure arising from learning that makes learning desirable, and this is part of human nature. Rather than being mere didactic tools, metaphors, more than any other onomata, reveal the rich didactic potential of language and bring forth the sweetness that naturally comes from deciphering the analogical relations on which the epiphorai hinge. In sum, for Cicero there may be pleasure in learning, but for Aristotle learning is pleasure, and the use of metaphors marks the divide between these two stances. The importance of the Ciceronian works produced from the mid-fifties to the mid-forties for the development of Latin literature largely speaks for itself and hardly warrants demonstration here. This oeuvre immediately acquired considerable authority, and Seneca fully acknowledged its fundamental value. 16 It is nonetheless important to investigate the effect of Ciceronian arguments and stylistic standpoints on Seneca. More specifically, it will be useful to gauge which countermeasures Seneca takes to ensure that his Stoic preaching is intelligible— unintelligibility having been a traditional charge leveled at Stoic prose, and one that Cicero vigorously brought against it himself. This contentious issue leads us to “The Ciceronian problem” and the issue of the various perspectives on metaphors that originated from Cicero’s elaboration of the topic.  16 At Ep. 40.11, Seneca not only explicitly praises the rhythmic qualities of Cicero’s style, but he also acknowledges Cicero’s fundamental role in the development of Roman rhetoric: Cicero quoque noster, a quo Romana eloquentia exiluit, gradarius fuit. “Our compatriot Cicero, with whom Roman oratory sprang into prominence, was also a slow pacer” (transl. Gummere). As for Cicero’s philosophical and political personas, Seneca’s judgment is not unambiguous. For instance, in the long tirade at Brev. 5.1–3, Seneca presents him as a shipwrecked individual, unable to take control of his life (public and personal.) On the contrary, at Tranq. an. 9.6.14, Cicero, together with Socrates, Rutilius, Pompeus, and Cato, is portrayed as a bonus who suffered an unjust death. On Seneca’s relation with the figure of Cicero, see Husner (1924), Gambet (1970), Moreschini (1977), Andreoni Fontecedro (2001), Setaioli (2003), Fedeli (2006), and Degl’Innocenti Pierini (2003) and (2012).

The Ciceronian Problem  

. The Ciceronian Problem Both Cicero and Quintilian hold the view that metasemes pertain to ornamentation 17 and that they have little or no cognitive relevance. 18 Both equally wrestle with the unavoidable recurrence of metaphors (not only in everyday speech, but in literary works as well) and they even appear to uphold the principle of metaphors as accessories to something more essential and truth-bearing. In this connection, at De or. 3.155 Cicero argues that: Tertius ille modus transferendi verbi late patet; quem necessitas genuit inopia coacta et angustiis, post autem delectatio iucunditasque celebravit. ut vestis frigoris depellendi causa reperta primo, post adhiberi coepta est ad ornatum etiam corporis et dignitatem, sic verbi translatio instituta est inopiae causa, frequentata delectationis. The third method in our list, the use of metaphor, is of wide application; it sprang from necessity due to the pressure of poverty and deficiency, but it has been subsequently made popular by its agreeable and entertaining quality. Invented to protect us against cold, and afterwards began to be used for the sake of adornment and dignity as well, so the metaphorical employment of words was begun because of poverty, but was brought into common use for the sake of entertainment. (Transl. Rackman)

Similarly, if Quintilian Inst. 3.8.6 praises the use of metaphors as the most apt resource to compensate for the natural deficiencies of language—a position that re-

 17 More specifically, Cicero’s core analysis of the main tropes, which is developed by Crassus throughout De or. 3.149–170, revolves around the notion of ornate dicere, outlined at 3.115. 18 Cf. Cicero De or. 3.152: Tria sunt igitur in verbo simplici quae orator afferat ad illustrandam atque exornandam orationem, aut inusitatum verbum aut novatum aut translatum. “There are then three things which the orator contributes in the matter of mere vocabulary towards the decoration and embellishment of his style—rare words, new coinages, and words used metaphorically” (transl. Rackham). A succinct but systematic analysis of Cicero’s discussion of the main tropes can be found in Innes (1988). A fundamentally ornamental definition of metaphor is provided also by Quintilian Inst. 8.6.5: Quae quidem cum ita est ab ipsa nobis concessa natura ut indocti quoque ac non sentientes ea frequenter utantur, tum ita iucunda atque nitida ut in oratione quamlibet clara proprio tamen lumine eluceat. “This [scil. metaphor] is both a gift which Nature herself confers on us, and which is therefore used even by uneducated persons and unconsciously, and at the same time so attractive and elegant that it shines by its own light however splendid its context” (transl. Russell). This definition is predicated on the Aristotelian notion of metaphors as something given by nature, but Quintilian simultaneously minimizes the cognitive implication of this assumption by insisting on its chief qualities, which he describes with the adjectives iucundus and nitidus. Though Quintilian chronologically follows Seneca, his systematic discussion of metaphors is indebted to Cicero’s analysis, cf. Innes (1998) 308–309.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition veals a more cognitive angle of analysis—he nonetheless resorts to the most ornamental (and trite) definition of metaphor as brevior similitudo (“a shortened simile”). This is a condensed phrase for what Cicero had more extensively explicated at De or. 3.157: similitudinis est ad verbum unum contracta brevitas “A metaphor is a short form of simile, contracted into one word.” In sum, for both Cicero and Quintilian, the distinction between res and verba is sharp and goes hand in hand with the idea that res must be central to an enunciation, with verba being just a vehicle for the given pronouncement and essentially a stylistic means regulated by specific precepts of ornamentation. In fact, at De or. 3.155 Cicero refers to the pleasure that metaphors are able to elicit as an effective means of capturing an audience’s favor. Yet at Br. 262, when commenting on Caesar’s style as the ultimate specimen of clarity, he praises its lack of ornamentation and simultaneously repurposes the trope of clothing to underscore once more the idea that metasemes are additions to a more essential core: Nudi enim sunt, recti et venusti, omni ornatu orationis tamquam veste detracta. Sed dum voluit alios habere parata, unde sumerent qui vellent scribere historiam, ineptis gratum fortasse fecit, qui volent illa calamistris inurere: sanos quidem homines a scribendo deterruit; nihil est enim in historia pura et inlustri brevitate dulcius. They [Caesar’s Commentaries] are like nude figures, straight and beautiful; stripped of all ornament of style as if they had laid aside a garment. His aim was to furnish others with material for writing history, and perhaps he has succeeded in gratifying the inept, who may wish to apply their curling irons to his material; but men of sound judgement he has deterred from writing, since in history there is nothing more pleasing than brevity clear and correct. (Transl. Hendrickson)

Paradoxically, Cicero expresses his appreciation for Caesar’s lack of ornamentation in metaphorical terms. 19 His style showcases nudity (tamquam veste detracta), thus drawing a connection with excessive rhetorical flourishes as constituting too heavy a type of clothing and, quite fittingly, with the text as a body. What for Cicero is just an image will become a central element of Seneca’s literary strategies: namely the exploitation of the Stoic tenet that texts, speeches, and

 19 It is significant that in this passage Cicero utilizes the same image of clothing to argue in favor of, so to speak, a natural anthropology of metaphors as the natural outcome of analogic associations produced by the inopia linguae. This Ciceronian trope is an example of what Devereaux (2019) 170–171 terms “enactive analogy,” i.e. the use of “the body-as-metaphor” to externalize a bodily condition (in this case its nudity). It also bears noticing that Cicero is here commenting on historia, and his considerations need not to be extended to oratory or philosophical prose.

The Ciceronian Problem  

thoughts are all bodies and that, qua bodies, they can suffer from many causes (including medical conditions), and possibly be healed. Cicero’s description of Caesar’s style is a fine example of the “unavoidability of metaphors,” especially when it comes to praising a desirable lack of metaphors. The most radical case of unavoidable metaphors are of course katakhrêseis, which Aristotle considered under the heading of metaphors, thus disrupting the idea that metaphors are mere substitutions of words (cf. p. 20 n. 5). The Latin debate is slightly more variegated, and Quintilian, who is otherwise conspicuously unoriginal in his adherence to both Aristotelian and Ciceronian doctrine, presents subdivisions within the traditional taxonomy of metaphors—a development which raises the question of whether Seneca’s style, otherwise so harshly criticized, 20 may have nonetheless exerted some influence on the author of the Institutio Oratoria. While for Cicero at De or. 3.155 both katachrêseis qua “necessary metaphors” and purely ornamental metaphors are translationes, for Quintilian (Inst. 8.6.34–35) a sharper distinction is to be drawn between translatio (intended as ornamental metaphor) and abusio, which is the Latin equivalent of katachrêsis. The different positions of Cicero and Quintilian with regard to the classification of katakhrêsis reflect two slightly different stances regarding what a metaphor does and, in particular, regarding the theory of primal meanings. According to Aristotelian doctrine a word has but a single primal meaning (kyrion), and every shift from or extension of it is, de facto, xenikon. In particular, certain metaphors can “crystallize” and, over time, become no longer perceptible as such; and yet this process does not change their figurative nature. As observed by Innes, 21 “semantic stretch,” the designation utilized in modern theory for this process, is what, for instance, Varro L.L. 5.13 describes when he likens the metaphorical extension of a primal term to the roots of a tree expanding from the original field into the property of a neighbor. Seneca tackles the mechanism of katachrêsis in a way that stresses in equal measure its grammatical functioning and its cognitive value: Ingens copia est rerum sine nomine, quas non propriis adpellationibus notamus, sed alienis commodatisque. Pedem et nostrum dicimus et lecti et veli et carminis, canem et venaticum et marinum et sidus; quia non sufficimus, ut singulis singula adsignemus, quotiens opus est, mutuamur. (Seneca, Ben. 2.34.2)

 20 Quintilian Inst. 10.1.125 famously and categorically criticizes Seneca’s style as corruptum et omnibus vitiis fractum, “decadent and plagued by all kinds of errors.” 21 Cf. Innes (2003) 11. See also Fruyt (1989)b 248–250, who conducts a thorough analysis of lexicalized and grammaticalized metaphors in Latin.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition There is a vast number of things that have no name, and the terms by which we designate them, instead of being their own, belong to other things from which they are borrowed. We say that we ourselves, a couch, a sail, and a poem, have a “foot,” and we apply the word “dog” to a hound, to a creature of the sea, and to a constellation; since there are not enough words to make it possible for us to assign a separate one to each separate thing, we borrow whenever it becomes necessary. (Transl. Basore)

The fact that names are available only in a limited quantity not only accounts for the innatist Stoic approach to language, 22 but also demonstrates the cognitive value of the vocabulary expansion by means of metaphorical processing. Seneca is here maintaining that similarity is the main mechanism for naming, and he thereby recognizes that seizing on similarities—a process of cognitive functioning—is the core of language expansion and that it enhances communication. Metaphorical extensions belong to language because they first concern thought. 23 As observed by Armisen-Marchetti, when Seneca and Quintilian make a sharp distinction between translatio and katachrêsis/abusio they move the gist of the debate from grammar to style (i.e., away from Cicero’s views). They seem not so much to show an interest in the mechanics of metaphors as to consider them a means of effective communication; that is, as mechanisms to convey thoughts effectively. As Armisen-Marchetti writes: “la métaphore leur importe moins comme phénomène de langue que comme moyen d’expression.” 24 Here Quintilian asserts an element of originality with respect to Cicero. That said, the central element both for Cicero at De or. 3.158 and Quintilian at Inst. 8.6.4 remains the taxonomical subordination of the metaphor to the simile, and the attendant definition of the metaphor as an abridged simile. Seneca, without rejecting the idea that translationes are also grammatical phenomena, unequivocally insists on their cognitive value, thereby distancing himself from Cicero’s theory of metaphors as pure embellishments (which is based on a very rigid interpretation of the Aristotelian teaching).

 22 For a succinct analysis of the many issues concerning the too schematic label “innatist” to characterize the Stoic theory on the origin of language, cf. pp. 69–71. The quasi-deictic quality of Stoic rhetoric ensues from this approach, which Seneca embraces when he repeatedly attacks excessive quibbles in philosophical exposition. However, his position on the alleged wisdom of primitive mankind (and the attendant value of their name-forging activity) is quite nuanced, and far from unproblematic, cf. pp. 136–138. 23 Armisen-Marchetti (1991)b 102–105 and (1996) 79 discusses Seneca’s use of abusio as a fundamentally metaphorical process per similitudinem. 24 Cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 25. On the distinctions concerning the abusio made by Seneca and Quintilian see also Dross (2010) 48–49.

The Ciceronian Problem  

There are two particularly significant instances where Seneca stresses the connection between the visual and the verbal, with the visual being directly connected to the intellectual action of teaching. This theoretical stance produces a style that purports to be didactic as well as illustrative. At Ben. 4.12.1 Seneca justifies the use of metaphors and images demostrandae rei causa, “to make something clear (i.e. clear because visible),” while at Ep. 75.1–7 he maintains that images would be preferable to words, if only it were possible to get rid of words altogether and rely completely on images: si fieri posset, quid sentiam ostendere quam loqui mallem. The two key verbs here are demonstrare and ostendere. They both imply vision, knowledge, and the presence of at least two people (the one “showing” and the other “being shown”), and therefore a dialectical relationship. In particular, demonstrare is an intensive form of monstrare, where the root *mon/*man signifies the action of thinking. 25 This etymology showcases the close connection between thinking and seeing. In ostendere the preposition ob implies the presence of an interlocutor, whose eyes behold an image: ob quite literally signifies the presence of an item “across” one’s face. If thoughts are the results of acts of rational assent to “visions,” then metaphors can also be considered as a means of visualization and, since words cannot be jettisoned in favor of images, they stand as the most valuable means to convey a thought. 26 Words are therefore a means of figuration and, as such, not only do they underpin the centrality of vision, but they also accord well with the Stoic doctrine’s preference for a dry style. In fact, so dry a style as to become the target of many critiques, with the most polemical tirades, not surprisingly, coming from Cicero.

 25 The same root present in monere, which therefore means warning in the sense of making somebody think—and see. 26 To be precise, Stoicism actually rejects even the distinction between content and thought, cf. Baratin (1982) 13–17. Thoughts do not exist except as verbalized; whether the process is actually uttered or remains internal does not matter. Words per se are ambiguous, if only because they are potentially polysemous. Meaning therefore resides in the λόγοι, or “enunciations,” to be intended as a set of relations between the perceiving subject and the perceived entity. Consequently, where one names a given entity he does not name “the entity itself,” but rather the perception of this entity which is produced in the subject by the interaction of the subject himself with this entity. This means that: 1) all acts of signification are enunciations representing verbalizations of interactions and 2) there is no distinction between thought and language because what can be verbalized is only the relation between subject and perceived entity, and more specifically the so-called περίπτωσις, which designates the actual physical moment of contact between percipient subject and entity. World and words correspond, and for the Stoics, there is no room for thinking and not saying (if only internally), or for thinking the unsayable.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition

. The Simplicity Effect Stoic rhetoric, with its insistence on the primacy of content over form, purported to be quintessentially anti-rhetorical. 27 This attitude was the direct consequence of the rhetorical discourse being subordinated to the dialectical one, a process that naturally derives from the taxonomy of Stoic logic, which purposely subordinates rhetoric to dialectic. Certainly, the Platonic heritage is evident in the rejection of sophistic techniques in favor of dialectic rigor, but the Stoics also drew from other traditions to achieve ideal conciseness. In particular, they added to the four Theophrastean virtutes dicendi a fifth, and fundamental, one: syntomia or brevitas (SVF 3.24). The Stoics made this addition with a view to Plato’s argument against Sophistic makrologia, as well as to the brachylogy both of the hepta sophoi (“the seven sages”), and of lakônismos, or the Spartan tradition of compressed dialectic. 28 Heraclitus is likely the common root of aphoristic rhetorical tendencies, which, in the same breath, had a reputation for wisdom as well as for obscurity. 29 In fr. 93 DK , Heraclitus famously states that the god at Delphi οὔτε λέγει οὔτε κρύπτει ἀλλὰ σημαίνει (“neither speaks nor hides, but it gives a sign” or “he signifies”). 30 The aphorism is a testament to the limitations of words, and it is not by  27 Cf. Moretti (1995) 31, who coined the phrase “retorica dell’antiretorica.” On the same subject cf. also Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 43, who speaks of “contingent eloquence:” “Sénèque acceptera que le discours philosophique se fasse éloquent, à condition qu’il s’agisse d’une éloquence contingente, qui ne soit pas à elle-même sa propre fin.” Setaioli (2000) 124 calls attention to Ep. 75.5, where Seneca derails from the teachings of the strictest Stoics: Si tamen contingere eloquentia non sollicito potest, si aut parata est aut parvo constat, adsit et res pulcherrimas prosequatur. “If, however, you can attain eloquence without painstaking, and if you either are naturally gifted or can gain eloquence at slight cost, make the most of it and apply it to the noblest uses” (transl. Gummere). In this regard, Armisen-Marchetti (1996) 76–77 describes Seneca’s constant striving to find a balance between what the scholar terms “l’exigence de technicité” (i.e. the attempt to furnish a Latin repertoire of Stoic technical terminology) and “l’exigence de simplicité” (that is the need to reach out to a potentially uneducated audience). 28 The association of “the seven sages” and Laconic style as paramount example of συντομία, in contrast with sophistic μακρολογία and πολυλαλία, is outlined by Plato in Prot. 342e–343b, where Socrates identifies the brachylogic Spartan style with the purest, oldest, and most effective type of philosophical discourse. Zeno overtly shows his admiration for the Laconic style at SVF 1.261; 263. On the topic of Laconic style cf. Celentano, (1990) 109–129 and Cozzo (1991) 1371–1378. 29 Cf. Moretti (1995) 31. 30 I am here following Snell’s (1926) 371–372 interpretation of σημαίνει as “bedeutet.” On this Heraclitean fragment’s interpretation and the relative history of scholarship, see Marcovich, Mondolfo and Taràn (2007) 411–413, and Diano and Serra (1987) 190. On the relations between Heraclitus and Stoicism cf. Long (1975–76).

The Simplicity Effect  

chance that Stoic theory on the origin of language postulates a natural human inclination for sounds that imitate objects (at least so for the very initial phase of language creation). It is, after all, a theory of the origin of words based on vocal mimesis, which falls under the heading of the Greek concept of sêmainein. Consequently, the Senecan ideal of showing things instead of utilizing words (if only that were possible, cf. p. 31) is not haphazard, but stems from a well-established philosophical and rhetorical brachylogic tradition. The Stoic preference for brevitas as a stylistic trademark and distinctive form of argumentation had major consequences. In the first place, this type of language naturally implied a certain ethical rigor, a moral stance that can be explained in light of the Stoic scientific approach to rhetoric. 31 The School considered the ars dicendi as a form of epistêmê, 32 and when Cicero comments on the matter, he describes what the main outcome of this specific tenet is; namely that, for the Stoics, professional orators are nothing but operarii (“artisans”), while only the wise man, that phoenix-rare apparition, masters epistêmê. 33 Moreover, Cicero Fin. 3.1.3 qualifies Stoic style as subtile and spinosum, while in De or. 3.66 he defines it as certe acutum (“without any doubt penetrating”) but also abhorrens ab auribus vulgi (“unsuited to the ear of the people”), obscurum (“obscure”), inane (“unclear”) and ieiunum (“dry,” “uninteresting”). Cicero identifies the lack of clarity in Stoic style as the direct consequence of its intellectual elitism. More to the point, the active verb abhorreo couches the action of literally “walking away from the ears of the people” as something willfully done.

 31 Cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 38–39. 32 See, for instance, SVF 2.293: Mὲν γὰρ αὐτὴν ἐκάλεσαν ἐπιστήμην ἀπὸ τοῦ μείζονος, ὁριζόμενοι ἐπιστήμην τοῦ εὖ λέγειν, οἱ Στωϊκοί. “The Stoics called [rhetoric] a science because of its value; they actually defined it as the science of speaking well” (transl. Gazzarri). SVF 2.297: Τὴν ῥητορικὴν ὁρίζεται τέχνην περὶ κόσμον εὑρημένου λόγου καὶ τάξιν. “He [scil. Crysippus] defines rhetoric as the science concerning order and structure in the invention of a discourse” (transl. Gazzarri). 33 Cf. Cicero De or. 1.83: Horum alii, sicut iste ipse Mnesarchus, hos, quos nos oratores vocaremus, nihil esse dicebat, nisi quosdam operarios, lingua celeri et exercitata; oratorem autem, nisi qui sapiens esset, esse neminem; atque ipsam eloquentiam, quod ex bene dicendi scientia constaret, unam quamdam esse virtutem, et qui unam virtutem haberet, omnes habere, easque esse inter se aequales et pares: ita, qui esset eloquens, eum virtutes omnes habere, atque esse sapientem. “Some of them were for maintaining, as did your authority Mnesarchus himself, that those whom we called orators were nothing but a sort of artisans with ready and practised tongues, whereas no one was an orator save the wise man only, and that eloquence itself, being, as it was, the science of speaking well, was one type of virtue, and he who possessed a single virtue possessed all of them, and the virtues were of the same rank and equal one with another, from which it followed that the man of eloquence had every virtue and was a wise man” (transl. Sutton).

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition Considering rhetorical discourse as a form of scientific knowledge not only makes eloquence an exceedingly ambitious goal for most, but also favors raw evidence over ornamentation, and demonstration over allusion, with conciseness becoming the mark of truth. Another major consequence of Stoic syntomia that Cicero underscores consists in its prevalence over saphêneia or “clarity,” a phenomenon leading to obscuritas. In other words, for the Stoics, the distance between res and verba ought ideally to be so minimal as to produce an unadorned discourse, virtually indistinguishable from the object that was meant to be signified. Such a voluntary, and at times ostentatious, obliteration of any rhetorical care 34 prompted the topical accusation of obscuritas, to the extent that Stoic rhetoric was traditionally attacked qua repository of paradoxes. 35 With his Paradoxa Stoicorum, Cicero targets precisely this issue: while he acknowledges the solidity of the Stoic school’s moral foundations and dialectic method, he simultaneously adjudges Stoic style to be so cryptic that a hermeneutic work becomes necessary, lest a less equipped audience be prevented from fully understanding what is an already a demanding body of doctrine. 36 While presenting his work as a didactic endeavor, Cicero takes the chance to denounce a critical weakness that he discerns in Stoicism, i.e. its purporting to be universally achievable even as it remains inaccessible to most. Seneca, for his part, stresses the need for clarity and didactic effectiveness at several points within his work and with particular insistence, as if addressing Cic-

 34 Cf. SVF 1.81, where Zeno compares Stoic style to Athenian drachmas, whose manufacture is not as refined as the one of silver Alexandrian coins, but whose value is greater. 35 This mocking attitude towards the apothegmatic nature of Stoic style became itself proverbial and was eventually incorporated into and parodied by the major satirists. Cf. Horace Ep. 1.1.106–108; Sat. 1.3.124–133. 36 Cf. Cicero Parad. 3-4: Ego tibi illa ipsa, quae vix in gymnasiis et in otio Stoici probant, ludens conieci in communes locos. Quae quia sunt admirabilia contraque opinionem omnium [ab ipsis etiam παράδοξα appellantur], temptare volui possent ne proferri in lucem [id est in forum], et ita dici, ut probarentur, an alia quaedam esset erudita, alia popularis oratio, eoque hos locos scripsi libentius, quod mihi ista παράδοξα quae appellant maxime videntur esse Socratica longeque verissima. “I for my part have amused myself by throwing into common form, for your benefit, even those doctrines which the Stoics scarcely succeed improving in the retirement of the schools of philosophy. These doctrines are surprising, and they run counter to universal opinion—the Stoics themselves actually term them paradoxa; so I wanted to try whether it is possible for them to be brought out into the light of common daily life and expounded in a form to win acceptance, or whether learning has one style of discourse and ordinary life another; and I wrote with the greater pleasure because the doctrines styled paradoxa by the Stoics appear to me to be in the highest degree Socratic, and far and away the truest” (trans. Rackham).

The Simplicity Effect  

ero’s harsh assessments. When Seneca showcases and debunks several specimens of bad style, which he selects exempli gratia, he does so in a very conspicuous way and according to a systematic modus operandi. First, he usually selects non-Stoic writers 37 or orators as champions of bad prose. 38 Secondly, he often couches his argument in terms more or less subtly suggesting that these (nonStoic) writers were effeminate (despite his main purpose of distancing himself from the likely accusation of Stoic obscuritas); he then overtly showcases the works of Stoic champions so as to exemplify the balance of harmonious compositions. 39 Thirdly, he couches the ideal style in bodily terms that frequently shift from the metaphorical domain of the sound body to the architectural figuration of the solid building (cf. pp. 211–222). We would do well to bear in mind some instances of this modus operandi. Perhaps the most significant example of the pars destruens, where Seneca offers a merciless critique of bad style, is offered by Ep. 114, where he vehemently targets Maecenas as both man and writer (and naturally so on the basis of the qualis oratio talis vita principle). This epistle has been extensively discussed by Graver, who insists on the passage’s relating gender deviance and unsound style. 40 It will suffice here to quote par. 4 to note a functional overlapping between a debauched body and corrupted writing: Quomodo Maecenas vixerit notius est, quam ut narrari nunc debeat, quomodo ambulaverit, quam delicatus fuerit, quam cupierit videri, quam vitia sua latere noluerit. Quid ergo? Non

 37 Seneca does not hold back when it comes to criticizing Stoic philosophers, but he insists on their abuse of logical quibbles. See, for example Ep. 82.9–12 where Seneca, after arguing that one must fight fear of death not with quibbles but with a well-equipped mind, devotes several paragraphs do debunk Zeno’s syllogism which prove logically coherent, but nonetheless unable to allay men’s fears. 38 Cf. Ep. 45 which is entirely devoted the topic. 39 Admittedly, the “good examples” are not always Stoic, but nonetheless most often revolve around the Stoic moral ground (and attendant style). This is the case, for instance, of the Cynic Demetrius at Ben. 7.8.2–3. 40 Cf. Graver (1998), Connolly (2007) 87–88, Degl’ Innocenti Pierini (2012) 220–229, (2013), and Maruotti (2014). On the relationship between bodily sickness and rhetorical faults see also Gazzarri (2014). Costa (2014) has furnished an edition of Maecenas’ fragments and testimonia, which also provides an overview of the major scholarly assessments of the man’s much debated style. In particular Setaioli (2000) 260–274 has argued that Maecenas’ major fault is a radical interpretation of Epicurus’ doctrine as a form of unbridled hedonism, which is inevitably mirrored by his soft style. More recent contributions have focused on the interpretation of Maecenas as a literary persona utilized by Seneca to lampoon his political and literary targets. According to Takács (2005), Maecenas’ vices relate to those of Nero, while Byrne (1999) and (2006) interprets Seneca’s critiques of Maecenas’ style as a literary rant against Petronius.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition oratio eius aeque soluta est quam ipse discinctus? Non tam insignita illius verba sunt quam cultus, quam comitatus, quam domus, quam uxor? Magni vir ingenii fuerat, si illud egisset via rectiore, si non vitasset intellegi, si non etiam in oratione difflueret. Videbis itaque eloquentiam ebrii hominis involutam et errantem et licentiae plenam. How Maecenas lived is too well-known for present comment. We know how he walked, how effeminate he was, and how he desired to display himself; also, how unwilling he was that his vices should escape notice. What, then? Does not the looseness of his speech match his ungirt attire? Are his habits, his attendants, his house, his wife, any less clearly marked than his words? He would have been a man of great powers, had he set himself to his task by a straight path, had he not shrunk from making himself understood, had he not been so loose in his style of speech also. You will therefore see that his eloquence was that of an intoxicated man—twisting, turning, unlimited in its slackness. (Transl. Gummere)

The three final accusatives involutam, errantem, and licentiae plenam agree with eloquentiam; they are conspicuous, however, for potentially characterizing also the posture of a drunk man, the ebrius, so that at the end of the paragraph the reader, although bombarded by this quasi-climactic series of bad qualities pertaining to style, can simultaneously visualize a staggering man. 41 Indeed, the man is his style, and physical body is conflated with textual body. As for the pars construens, where Seneca outlines the features of good style (even if not exempt from venial faults), Ep. 100.5–6 contains a discussion of Fabianus’ writings 42 and furnishes a good example:  41 The illustration of the ebrietas as a condition that applies both to the physical and to the textual body has a long-standing Stoic tradition and is closely associated to the belief, attested for instance at Plutarch De garr. 503e, that drunk people tend to talk a lot (the infamous πολυλαλία), thus developing what is a physiological hindrance to the marshaling of much coveted συντομία. In this connection, the anecdote of Zeno criticizing his pupil Ariston for his excessive wordiness bears importance for its clear association of μέθυσις and lack of συντομία, cf. SVF 1.302: Ἀρίστωνος δὲ τοῦ μαθητοῦ πολλὰ διαλεγομένου οὐκ εὐφυῶς, ἔνια δὲ καὶ προπετῶς καὶ θρασέως, “ἀδύνατον,” εἰπεῖν, “εἰ μή σε ὁ πατὴρ μεθύων ἐγέννησεν.” ὅθεν αὐτὸν καὶ λάλον ἀπεκάλει, βραχυλόγος ὤν “When his pupil Ariston would speak at length and not conveniently, at times in a headstrong and over-confident manner, he said: ‘Your father must have been drunk when he begat you.’ He would therefore call him a chatterbox, being himself concise in speech.” (transl. Gazzarri). For ebrietas as a condition betokening mental imbalance, cf. Edwards (2019) 294. 42 On the figure of Papirius Fabianus, cf. Hoefig (1852), Kroll (1949), Leeman (1963) 243–259, Lana (1992) 117–122, Guerra (1997) 47–51, Casamento (2002), Garbarino (2003), (2006), Berti (2007; 2014), (2018) 304–380, and Huelsenbeck (2018) 65–15. Seneca the Elder Controv. 2 provides both quotations and extensive commentary on Fabianus’ style. To quote Huelsenbeck (2018) 82: “Seneca uses Fabianus to illustrate the model philosopher, and, to an intermediate degree, descriptions of his style have been fitted to meet the younger Seneca’s presentations of how the philosopher ought to express himself.”

The Simplicity Effect  

Sensus honestos et magnificos habes, non coactos in sententiam, sed latius dictos. Videbimus, quid parum recisum sit, quid parum structum, quid non huius recentis politurae; cum circumspexeris omnia, nullas videbis angustias inanis. Desit sane varietas marmorum et concisura aquarum cubiculis interfluentium et pauperis cella et quicquid aliud luxuria non contenta decore simplici miscet; quod dici solet, domus recta est. There you have honorable and splendid ideas, not fettered into aphorisms, but spoken with greater freedom. We shall of course notice passages that are not sufficiently pruned, not constructed with sufficient care, and lacking the polish which is in vogue nowadays; but after regarding the whole, you will see that there are no futile subtleties of argument. There may, doubtless, be no variety of marbles, no water-supply which flows from one apartment to another, no “pauper-rooms,” or any other device that luxury adds when ill content with simple charms; but, in the vulgar phrase, it is “a good house to live in.” (Transl. Gummere)

To be sure, the overall tone of this paragraph is apologetic. It is remarkable how Seneca, in order to stress the fundamental achievements of Fabianus’ good style, deliberately focuses first and foremost on what this style does not accomplish and on its alleged pitfalls: Fabianus’ style is parum recisum, where the agricultural metaphor alludes to an indifference towards eliminating the superfluous as if it were dead branches. 43 It is also parum structum “not carefully organized,” and almost too spontaneous, in fact lacking what Seneca terms politura, or the tweaking of a text. In chapter 6, I shall examine how the illustrations of the simple abode, in contrast with the luxurious marble-incrusted buildings, not only reference the architectural imaginary but stand squarely within the Hippocratic tradition that treats the human body as one’s main dwelling. To persevere with our analysis of Ep. 100, at par. 8 Seneca stresses another fundamental aspect of Fabianus’ style: Non sunt enim humilia illa sed placida et ad animi tenorem quietum compositumque formata, nec depressa sed plana. Deest illis oratorius vigor stimulique, quos quaeris, et subiti ictus sententiarum. Sed totum corpus videris quam sit comptum; honestum est. Non habet oratio eius, sed dabit, dignitatem. For that style of his is not commonplace, but simply calm and adjusted to his peaceful and well-ordered mind–not on a low level but on an even plane. There is lacking the verve and spur of the orator (for which you are looking), and a sudden shock of epigrams. But look,

 43 This apologetic move on the part of Seneca reflects a tradition which goes back to Seneca the Elder Controv. 2 praef. 2 and, before him, to Cicero Orat. 62–64. Seneca the Elder explicitly states that Fabianus’ style lacks robur et vigor (“oratorical strength and energy”) but that it is precisely this set of features that elicits a sense of overall balance. This same sequence of arguments Cicero had deployed not to address the style of Fabianus, but philosophical style in general, cf. Berti (2018) 349–355 and Huelsenbeck (2018) 73.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition please, at the whole work, how well-ordered it is: there is a distinction in it. His style does not possess, but will suggest, 44 dignity. (Transl. Gummere)

The polysemy of the adjective plana certainly alludes to a form of aurea mediocritas, 45 free from the excesses of too flowery a style. Gummere’s translation of the term as “on an even plane,” and in opposition to depressa “low,” reflects only one possible interpretation of this polysemic dyad. Both depressa and plana, however, may also have the well-established meanings of, respectively, “sloppy” and “clear”. 46 If we press these last connotations, Seneca simultaneously praises Fabianus’ lack of stylistic asperities and the clarity that results from that form of avoidance. Interwoven with the two passages containing the references to Fabianus’ clarity, Seneca establishes a comparison with Cicero. First, at Ep. 100.7, to characterize Cicero’s style (compositio) he argues that una est, pedem curvat lenta et sine infamia mollis (“[his style] is unitary, it moves harmoniously, and it is gentle without being soft”); then, at Ep. 100.9, he maintains that Cicero is without doubt superior, but Fabianus’ work is nonetheless quite good, in that he is only maximo minus (“inferior to the greatest,” the latter obviously being Cicero.) If we revisit the various comments made by Seneca to propound his valueladen description of Fabianus’ style, we encounter at least three lines of reasoning which contribute to a unitary argument. First, Seneca starts off by underlining some of Fabianus’ main stylistic asperities, which render his style purposely unpolished, but—and this is the second main claim—never unpolished at the price of clarity. All of these remarks are set, as it were, against the backdrop of Cicero’s modeling presence. Cicero’s standard of quality, Seneca concedes, cannot be questioned and can hardly be attained; but even when allowance is made for this concession, becoming a second Cicero by matching his stylistic excellence is not

 44 Gummere here accepts and translates dabit, which is Lipsius’ correction, instead of the transmitted reading debet. Setaioli (2000) 117, n. 33 discusses the issue in detail and argues for the correctness of debet. The sentence should be then translated in line with Bourgery (1922) 80, in a way that underscores the dependence of the verba on the res: “son style n’a pas de valeur par lui-même, il le tire tout entier du sujet.” 45 Panaetius already shows particular interest in the peripatetic ideal of μεσότης: cf. Setaioli (2000) 138. 46 On the technical and rhetorical meaning of the dyad depressus and planus, cf. Berti (2018) 351–352. Both Pliny Ep. 9.26.2 and Quintilian Inst. 8.5.32 utilize the adjective planus combined with humilis (a synonym of depresssus) to qualify a bad style. On the contrary, when not combined with other adjectives, planus usually illustrates the clarity of one’s style, as it is the case at Cicero Top. 97 and Quintilian Inst. 4.2.63.

The Simplicity Effect  

Fabianus’ mission because, as anticipated at Ep. 100.3, oratio sollicita philosophum non decet (“An overly elaborate style does not befit a philosopher”). It is as if Seneca were simultaneously pursuing two objectives here. On the one hand, by commenting on the generally positive qualities of his old master Fabianus’ work, he is indicating a suitable model for philosophical writing. On the other, by intentionally distancing Fabianus’ style from the utterly thorough labor limae displayed by Cicero’s oeuvre, he reclaims the independence of a philosophical style which, although not radically anti-rhetorical (as per the most orthodox Stoic requirements), nonetheless convincingly pursues a distinctive level of freedom from the seducing architecture of oratory. As noticed by Setaioli, Seneca considers Fabianus’ style an exemplary specimen of the philosophical sermo’s positive qualities. 47 Tellingly, the stylistic shortcomings that Seneca is willing to acknowledge—again, a certain lack of care and a limited interest in producing an overly polished text—are similar to the charges of sloppiness which Cicero traditionally levels against the Epicureans. Cicero, however, was not accusing the Stoics of sloppiness (i.e. the defect traditionally imputed to the Epicureans), but rather of obscuritas, and Seneca, throughout the epistle, makes it clear time and again that Fabianus’ stylistic shortcomings are a) voluntary and b) never at the expense of clarity. This last aspect Seneca stresses repeatedly in the course of Ep. 100. First, at par. 2, he argues that Fabianus’ discourse is very clear, to the point of being selfevident (ille plane fatetur et praefert). Seneca then references the philosopher’s ability to “capture the eyes” as conducive to clarity and argues that being able to attract an audience at first sight is a great advantage (sed illud quoque multum est primo aspectu oculos occupasse). 48 Also of interest is how Seneca, while referencing the visual appeal of Fabianus’ prose, simultaneously describes the main quality of its modus operandi: it is a style able, as a whole, to sweep one along (te

 47 Cf. Setaioli (2000) 117–120. The main qualities of this philosophical sermo, which is purposely disengaged from the artifices of the rhetors, belongs to a middle Stoic tradition which dates back to Panaetius and what Fiske (1919) 71–75 termed his “plain style.” On Panaetius style, cf. also Leeman (1963) 205. 48 This statement is particularly significant because of the phrase primo aspectu, which Cicero (Fabianus’ main comparandum) utilizes with the exact opposite meaning than the one at Ep. 100.3, cf. De or. 3.98: Quanto colorum pulchritudine et varietate floridiora sunt in picturis novis pleraque quam in veteribus! Quae tamen, etiamsi primo aspectu nos ceperunt, diutius non delectant. “How much more brilliant, as a rule, in beauty and variety of colouring are the contents of new pictures than those of old ones! and nevertheless the new ones, though they captivated us at first sight, later on fail to give us pleasure” (transl. Rackham). For the technical meaning of the phrase cf. Berti (2018) 326.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition summa rapuisset). This definition unequivocally conjures up the parenetic power of emotional involvement: a lesson that Seneca will fully appropriate and deploy (cf. Ch. 3). Lastly, at Ep. 100.11, he stresses once more that the counterpart of a purposeful lack of excessive stylistic care is multum lucis, or “plenty of light,” a traditional allusion to saphêneia. 49 Thus for Seneca, Fabianus, through his “simplicity effect” or “studied simplicity,” offered a venue to shore up the fundamental need for didactic clarity, while simultaneously staying true to the Stoic repudiation of too adorned a style. In this regard, an analysis of the theoretical foundations of this clear, visual style will yield interesting results. I will show how Seneca’s strategy relies much, on the one hand, on Platonic Socratism, however reworked through the filter of Middle Stoicism (in particular through Panaetius and Posidonius) and, on the other, on a systematic stress on the material/ocular appeal of language. Thus, through the visual appeal of the sermo, a stylistic output largely predicated on the skillful use of metaphors, Seneca simultaneously pursues two goals: (i) he maintains his allegiance to a specific kind of philosophical language, which, if it were only possible, would “show” things; and (ii) he develops a formidable didactic style, which ought to be persuasive and therefore clear and easily understandable.

. Socrates and Cato Socrates’ central status as an ethical model for the Roman Stoics has been the object of many detailed studies. 50 By serving both as an exemplum of moral life and as a virtuous specimen of good style, Socrates’ persona worked as the ultimate embodiment of the qualis oratio talis vita principle. 51 Hence Seneca focuses on multiple aspects of Socratism to advance his own moral and stylistic agenda. To be sure, there are at least three facets of the Athenian philosopher that play a role in Seneca’s work and, ultimately, coalesce into a unified vision. The first two pertain to the stylistic and ethical spheres and are mutually dependent, in that Socrates showcases a perfect synergy of ethical virtue and balanced style. The third aspect concerns the transposition of Socrates’ ethical values into the arena  49 Cf. Setaioli (2000) 156, n. 229. 50 On the Stoics’ relation to the Socratic tradition, cf. Alesse (2000) 154–178. On Socrates as an exemplum of wisdom for Seneca, cf. Döring (1979) 18–42, Ficca (1995), Isnardi Parente (2000), von Albrecht (2004) 53–67, and Long (2009). 51 For the Socratic origin of this proverbial expression, cf. Otto (1890) s.v. oratio.

Socrates and Cato  

of Roman history, with the attendant suggestion that even Rome can showcase its own exempla of Socratic virtue. 52 These three levels of Seneca’s treatment of Socrates are hard to tease apart. To paraphrase Ker, we should always bear in mind that Seneca may have purposely selected a specific “Socratic mode” (for instance, dialectic, mythical, or forensic) for his own representation of Socrates’ persona. The same applies to the Socratic influence on Senecan style, which could be reflective of a retroactive assessment and conceptualization of Socrates’ own manner of speaking/writing. 53 To begin with the first two topics of analysis, Socrates’ style was congenial to Stoic thinkers for a variety of reasons. First, as already hinted at p. 32 n. 28, Plato had made Socrates the champion of the fight against makrologia. In particular, at Prot. 334c–d Socrates specifies brevitas as a requisite for clarity: Ὥσπερ οὖν εἰ ἐτύγχανον ὑπόκωφος ὤν, ᾤου ἂν χρῆναι, εἴπερ ἔμελλές μοι διαλέξεσθαι, μεῖζον φθέγγεσθαι ἢ πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους, οὕτω καὶ νῦν, ἐπειδὴἐπιλήσμονι ἐνέτυχες, σύντεμνέ μοι τὰς ἀποκρίσεις καὶ βραχυτέρας ποίει, εἰ μέλλω σοι ἕπεσθαι. So, just as you, in entering on a discussion with me, would think fit to speak louder to me than to others if I happened to be hard of hearing, please bear in mind now that you have to deal with a forgetful person, and therefore cut up your answers into shorter pieces, that I may be able to follow you. (Trans. Lamb)

The topic of deafness instancing how a lousy style is not conducive to a clear understanding also recurs at Ep. 40.4–5. However, here Seneca addresses the issue of pronuntiatio, i.e. the appropriate slow pace which an orator (in the like of Fabianus) should keep to make sure that the audience properly understands. One could object that the defect of makrologia, which in the above passage Socrates attributes to the sophists, concerns length, not speed. If an echo from the Platonic Protagoras existed in Ep. 40, Seneca would then be repurposing surditas, qua conceptual signifier, to talk about a discourse’s rhythm, not its extension. However, on the one hand, Seneca maintains that the concitata oratio “wishes to impress the herd” (movere vult turbam), which is precisely the seductive/negative outcome imputed to the Sophists and their makrologia, and which Socrates criticizes throughout the Platonic dialogue. On the other hand, Seneca couches the ideal slow pace in terms that reflect not only the moment of phonation (i.e. its rapidity) but also style as a whole. For, at Ep. 40.4 he defines the good

 52 On Seneca’s selection of modern exempla of righteousness and virtue, cf. Costa (2013) 262– 306. 53 Cf. Ker (2010) 181–182.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition oratio as incomposita and simplex, two technical terms referencing lack of excessive artifice and the Stoic ideal adherence of good style to the truth. Lastly, at Ep. 40.9, Seneca clearly states that striving for oratorical quantity (quantum) runs counter to quality (quemadmodum). In other words, too abundant a delivery is tantamount to delivering too much and, as Wildberger argues, simplicity and clarity are the primary vehicles of truth: “Die Wahrheit müsse so ehrlich und offen, so klar und einfach wie möglich dargestellt werden”. 54 Thus the need for clarity both supports and depends on the one for simplicity. More important for now, however, is to ascertain how Socratic brevitas could function as model for Seneca’s quest for simplicitas. In other words, how is Seneca making use of the revered master not only as a model of ethics, but also as one of style? Since most of the Hellenistic schools took Socrates as the main stylistic and conceptual foil, 55 it would not be off the mark to opine that Senecan brevitas and simplicitas are Socratic in nature. However, a more fine-grained analysis ought to accord due consideration to Seneca’s various philosophical styles, which account for a textual output variegated and hugely indebted to Middle Stoicism, specifically to Panaetius but also to Posidonius. Setaioli’s analysis 56 on the topic does a particularly fine job in showing how Panaetius first, and then Posidonius, offered Seneca an authoritative (and Stoic) philosophical foundation upon which to build a didactic style running on the double track of admonitio and sermo (cf. pp. 96–101). If Panaetius demonstrates appreciation for the enarges as an effective means of fully explicating one’s thought, 57 it is Posidonius who fully theorizes the necessity of a modulable set of stylistic registers whereby not only pure reason, but also one’s irrational part may be addressed. 58 In so doing, Posidonius brings to its extreme entailments what Panaetius had set in motion; that is, the possibility for

 54 Wildberger (2006) 146. The ideal of the oratio simplex reflects the Stoic concern for the equivalence between τὸ εὖ λέγειν and τὸ ἀληθῆ λέγειν, on which cf. Berti (2018) 255–256, with related and exhaustive bibliography. Still Berti (2018) 256–257 discusses the meaning of the adjective incomposita, which at Ep. 40.4 Seneca presents as positive and, therefore, in seeming contradiction to compositus, an attribute of opposite valence, which at Ep. 40.1 denotes the ideal “wellcomposed” life of the philosopher. The puzzling contrast between these two adjectives has led many scholars to argue against the authenticity of the reading incomposita and to propose either emendations or conjectures. In fact, Berti (but before him already Setaioli (1971) 152) shows how incomposita (oratio) signifies “spontaneous” in the sense of “adverse to quibbles of dialectic.” 55 Cf. Long (1988). 56 Cf. Setaioli (2000) 126–141. 57 Cf. fr. 109 van Straaten (= test. 54 Alesse). 58 On the Posidonian take on emotions, cf. Kidd (1971).

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philosophical sermo, which is a quintessentially Socratic stylistic mode, 59 also to make room for contentio. To summarize, the rejection of makrologia, and the ideal of a sermo based on simplicitas, are Socratic in origin; however, they also betoken the lesson of Middle Stoicism with its effort to make room for a stylistic register that could instrumentally exploit certain psychagogic techniques. Going back to Socrates, Seneca finds in his style a set of formidable resources: the hitherto analyzed praise for syntomia as a means of clarity, but also an overt admiration of the Spartan style. 60 More specifically, when at Prot. 342e– 343b Socrates outlines various connections between the seven wise men and Laconic style (cf. p. 32 n. 28), he simultaneously relates these traditions to the core of Delphic wisdom. Seneca could not but look favorably upon Socrates’ validation of brevitas as the most adequate stylistic mode for wisdom. Furthermore, Socrates’ lack of trust in written doctrines and, consequently, Plato’s preference for the dialogic form could be utilized to support not only the Stoics’ blunt choice of an anti-rhetorical style but also Seneca’s claim that, if it were only possible, showing would be better than writing (and, as a consequence, seeing would be better than reading). Seneca’s admiration for Platonic Socratism as an ethical and stylistic model presented another major advantage. Socrates’ praise of Laconism qua paradigm for moral virtue encompassed an equally strong appreciation for Laconic style. This dry aesthetics had proven palatable even for the most traditionalist champions of the Roman republic. In fact, it had provided an expressive repertoire for the gradual penetration of Greek philosophy into Rome. 61 Arguably, because of its proximity to Laconism, the Stoic school achieved great success in comparison with other philosophical doctrines. The embassy of the year 155 BC and the cultural enrichment that interested Rome after the battle of Pydna in 167 BC were decisive factors for the fostering of Roman interest in philosophy. 62 Although it would be simplistic to imagine that the fascination with both Socrates’ and the

 59 It is Panaetius himself who claims the Socratic and Platonic origin of sermo, cf. fr. 55 van Straaten (= test. 79 Alesse). 60 The association of Socratic wisdom and Spartan culture was fostered already in antiquity. In particular, we know that Sphaerus of Borysthenes, disciple of Cleanthes, served as advisor of Cleomenes III and authored a work where he jointly tackled the figures of Lycurgus and Socrates. Unfortunately, nothing but the title of this work has come to us: Περὶ Λυκούργου καὶ Σωκράτους τρία (cf. DL 7.178). For the debt of Stoic rhetoric to Socratism, cf. Kennedy (1963) 292. 61 Cf. Moretti (1995) 73: “Una fra le principali strategie di penetrazione e diffusione della dottrina stoica […] è quella di presentarsi con connotati arcaizzanti, sotto i panni rassicuranti di un’etica tradizionalistica.” 62 Cf. Garbarino (1973), Colish (1985), Rawson (1985), Lévy (1992), and Vesperini (2018).

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition Stoics’ adherence to a certain kind of Laconism singlehandedly inaugurated a new era of philosophical interest in Rome, 63 what can nevertheless be said is that the gnomic nature of Laconism proved congenial to the ethical rigor of the mos maiorum. What attracted the Romans was the possibility of stressing the preponderant role that res ought to have over verba as a viable way of debunking what was perceived as the excessive intellectualism of Greek culture. Cato the Elder, on account of (and despite) his traditional anti-Hellenism, played an important role in adapting Greek culture to the moral needs of the Roman res publica and in shaping the qualities of the Roman aristocrat’s ideal style. 64 Though he showed linguistic interest in some of the same issues tackled by Stoic linguistics, in particular etymologies and the so-called differentiae verborum, his most significant doctrinal confluence with the Stoic school concerns his emphasis on res over verba. Cato the Elder ultimately championed a virile and purposely unadorned modus eloquendi which became a paradigm for Roman oratory. 65 Insufficient though these elements may be for labeling Cato the Elder as a

 63 The phenomenon of the penetration of Greek culture in Rome was certainly gradual. The embassy of the year 155 BC was successful but, far from lecturing an ignorant audience, it met the interest of a public that most likely had already experienced multiple chances to explore philosophical topics and texts. On the landmark embassy of the year 155 BC see Della Corte (1934), Kennedy (1972) 53–60, Terwagne (2007), and Dutsch (2014). 64 The relation of Cato the Elder to Greek culture has been the object of thorough study: cf. Leeman (1963) 43–50, Kenendy (1972) 51–57, and Calboli (1975) 85–101. For as much as Cato pledges his allegiance to Roman culture and considers Greek influence a potential danger, we have evidence of the fact that he knew Greek and had some familiarity with Greek literature. In particular, there is a passage from the Ad Marcum filium fr. 1 Jordan, transmitted both by Pliny HN 29.7.14 and Plutarch Cat. Mai. 23, where Cato takes a harsh yet nuanced stand. In fact, he prophesies that the progressive penetration of Greek culture, with its unruliness and pervasive use of doctors, will cause Rome’s ruin. Yet, at the same time, he advises his son Marcus to quod bonum sit illorum litteras inspicere, non perdiscere. “What benefit there is in looking into their writings, not in learning them thoroughly” (transl. Gazzarri). In this connection, the assessment of Cato’s position vis-à-vis Greek literature and language requires a more prudent approach, cf. Astin (1978) 157–181. On Cato and Stoicism, cf. Kennedy (1963) 293: “Whether or not they originated the phrase, most Stoics would have agreed with Cato’s definition of an orator as vir bonus dicendi peritus, ‘a good man skilled in speaking.’” 65 The main issue in gauging the influence of Stoicism on Cato’s rhetorical choices is on the one hand the scarcity of the fragments that directly address issues of style and, on the other, the filter of Cicero that, specifically in De or. 2.53 and Br. 65, stresses some of Cato’s alleged Stoic features such as brevitas, propensity for fragmentation in sententiae, and subtilitas. In reference to the Brutus, it is hard to tell how much actually reflects Cato’s orientation and how much depends on Cicero’s own taking on the prose of the former. Michel (1960) 436 ff. speaks of a Ciceronian “Stoicization” of Cato’s positions. Moretti (1995) 86–90 conducts a thorough analysis of the issue and

Socrates and Cato  

Stoic, a strong Stoic influence on the man is undeniable, especially when some proverbial Catonian statements are closely examined. Moretti has thoroughly analyzed the Stoic filiation of the two paradigmatic sentences: orator est vir bonus dicendi peritus and rem tene, verba sequentur. 66 Far from being original Catonian creations, these two programmatic phrases reveal a network of connections with previous traditions that makes the supposed antiHellenism of Cato at the very least extremely complex to gauge. Paradoxical though it might be, Cato repurposed Greek philosophy, and in particular some fundamental tenets of Stoic rigorism, precisely to emphasize the cultural gulf existing between Greek and Roman culture. The relation of Seneca to Cato the Elder is no less thorny than Cato’s relation to Stoicism, 67 and it hinges on the connections that both men established with Socratism and Laconism. Cato favored a style that mirrored the ethical virtues of the vir bonus. This is a style focused on the res and on a reflection of the poised masculine self. Yet, because of the complex connections between Cato’s ideology and style and Greek culture, Cato’s position is actually quite nuanced. There are two passages transmitted by Plutarch where Cato launches a scathing criticism against Socrates. At Cat. Mai. 20.3 he minimizes the merits of Socrates’ ability to put up with his own wife and sons, but Cat. Mai. 23 is a locus of far greater interest: Καὶ Σωκράτη φησὶ λάλον γενόμενον καὶ βίαιον ἐπιχειρεῖν, ᾧ τρόπῳ δυνατὸς ἦν, τυραννεῖν τῆς πατρίδος, καταλύοντα τὰ ἔθη καὶ πρὸς ἐναντίας τοῖς νόμοις δόξας ἕλκοντα καὶ μεθιστάντα τοὺς πολίτας. He says, for instance, that Socrates was a mighty prattler, who attempted, as best he could, to be his country’s tyrant, by abolishing its customs, and by enticing his fellow citizens into opinions contrary to the laws. (Transl. Perrin)

Cato’s accusation against Socrates is the same as that which Cato launches against Greek culture in general. Thus, though Cato favors a style that has much in common with the Laconic apophthegmatic conciseness promoted by

 points out how the renouncing of ψυχαγωγία can be singled out as the only traditionally Stoic element that we can be sure Cato favored. 66 Cf. Moretti (1995) 82–86. In particular, the first sententia would be an adaptation of Diogenes of Babylon’s πολίτης ἀγαθός, as already argued by Radermacher (1899) 191, who then retracted; cf. Id. (1902) 314. As for the second sententia, Brink (1971) 340 has hypothesized a Catonian dependence on Lysian material (transmitted to us by Dionysus Halicarnassensis, Lys. 4.1). 67 On this issue, cf. Allegri (2004) 58–68.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition Socratism and later on pursued by the Stoics, his rejection of the historical Socrates, both as citizen and as orator, is quite apparent. Hence the complexity of Seneca’s relation with Cato’s anti-Socratic yet dry, controlled, and virile type of prose, something ultimately quite appealing, albeit constructed around the harsh criticism of the most paradigmatic example of Stoic wisdom. Like Cato, Seneca favored brevitas and cherished sententiae as the modular units of composition for philosophical prose. 68 However Cato’s argumentation was also founded on both the efficacy of the dialectical method and on a stark refusal of psychagôgia. Here Seneca clearly departed from the Catonian tradition and the the radicalism of the old Stoa. Because it could easily foster a tendency for logical quibbling, the adoption of the dialogical form came at the risk of obscuritas. Traditional Stoic enthymêmata could have easily resulted in a general lack of clarity and in famously paradoxical outcomes. In sum, on the one hand Cato provided Seneca with an illustrious stylistic precedent of virile Roman virtue. 69 His “rem tene,” a quasi- programmatic manifesto of traditionalist aesthetics, conveniently recast in Roman terms the ancient ideal of a style pros ta pragmata (“focused on the matter”) as opposed to the one pros tous akroômenous (“focused on the audience”). 70 On the other hand, Seneca ought to have detached himself from Cato when it came to deploying the stylistic mode of disputatio, which comprehended psychagogic strategies among which the use of the enarges was paramount. Metaphors called attention to the res, thus deviating from the Stoic tendency to syllogistic convolutedness. Yet they originally accommodated the Stoic need for a greater emphasis on evidence as opposed to ornamentation, while sim-

 68 On Cato’s appreciation for brevitas, cf. Cicero De or. 2.53. On Seneca’s sententiae as a fundamentally anti-Ciceronian stylistic trait, see Traina (1974) 25 and Setaioli (2000) 160–162. 69 Ficca (1995) has shown how Seneca not only presents Cato the Elder as a specimen of virtue (at Ep. 7.6 he is paired with Socrates and Laelius: two most revered exempla), but he also refers to the man’s character through various, subtle linguistic allusions which showcase the coherence of Cato’s austere ethics with his dry, simple style. This is the case with the verb concinnare at Ep. 7.6 and 49.8, and 117.11, a rather uncommon form attested also at Cato Agr. 21. Similarly, Seneca’s insistence on the negative dyad luxuria – avaritia at both Ep. 94 and 95 finds precedent in Cato’s deployment of the same terms in his speech against the abrogation of the lex Oppia, as we read it in Livy 34.4.1. Other examples of this pattern we find at Ep. 87.3 where Seneca uses the term pulmentarium otherwise present also in Cato Agr. 58. Finally, Ep. 94.27 contains a direct quotation from what Seneca terms illa Catoniana (= Agr. fr. 10 Jordan), cf. Bellincioni (1979) 159– 160. 70 This canonical division goes back to Aristotle and Theophrastus as discussed in detail by Setaioli (2000) 126–127.

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ultaneously providing a solid base to achieve evidentia. Metaphors, the most celebrated and discussed among tropes, paradoxically represented for Seneca the answer to the call for a rhetoric of anti-rhetoric.

. Roman Socrateses Cato’s ethical take on style shows elements of Stoic inspiration, but it departs from the School’s tenets for its negative moral evaluation of Socrates. On the contrary, for Seneca, Socrates’ persona provides a model by which to contextualize philosophical preaching within contingent history. This method consists of presenting instances of the “alter Socrates,” i.e., utilizing the exemplary life of the Athenian philosopher as a model for virtuous behavior and showing that there are historical instances of lives lived in accordance with wisdom, even in the corruption of the present times. This tactic allows Seneca simultaneously to pursue two targets. First, he shows that time is indeed cyclical, to the effect that even Rome will benefit from the returning of the wise man into the arena of history. Secondly, by resorting to exempla drawn from real biographies, Seneca can claim that his teachings do not concern an unattainable ideal but that they do indeed exist and are embodied by fellow human beings, albeit exceptional ones. Seneca’s handling of the historical Socrates is committed to that mode of illustration that is concrete and material, in order to escape too abstruse a level of speculation that would result in a lack of didactic efficacy. In this respect, though Cato’s judgment on Socrates as an ethical exemplum is clearly negative, Seneca handles Socrates as a positive figure for both ethics and style, so as paradoxically to pursue Cato’s same target: creating a clear style reflective of the res at stake. Socrates’ virtues are brought back to life through the exemplary stories of individuals who chose to stand by their civic ideals (often coinciding with the Republican ideal of libertas) to the point of sacrificing their lives in order to preserve their uncompromising moral integrity. 71 In his Brutus Cicero discusses some of these exemplary characters and, very much as Seneca will do, he establishes a parallel between life and style. Publius Rutilius Rufus is one champion of this first phase of Roman Socratism. 72 Seneca

 71 Cf. Costa (2013) 262–306. 72 See Chioccioli (2005). On Publius Rutilius Rufus cf. Münzer (1920) and, on his trial, KalletMarx (1989).

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition overtly establishes a clear parallelism between Rutilius and other exemplary figures like Cato the Younger, the Cynic Demetrius and, of course, Socrates (cf. Marc. 22.3 and VB 18.3). 73 This connection was an easy one to make given the biography of Rutilius, who not only faced an unjust exile (at least if we are to trust the extant, mainly pro-senatorial historiographical tradition) but also heroically refused Sulla’s offer to come back to Rome. Now, Cicero certainly embraces the positive characterization of Rutilius as a scrupulously honest political creature, but he focuses much more on how his rhetorical style matches his strong ethos. The figure of Rutilius usefully brings together our three lines of investigation: the importance of Cicero’s critiques on the development of Senecan style and the figures of both Socrates and Cato as ethical and stylistic paradigms. The rough quality of Rutilius’ prose reflects the uncompromising nature of his conduct. Cicero overtly comments on Rutilius and always underlines some recurring elements that define the man and his style, as at Br. 113–114: Rutilius autem in quodam tristi et severo genere dicendi versatus est. Erat uterque natura vehemens et acer; […] multaque opera multaque industria Rutilius fuit, quae erat propterea gratior, quod idem magnum munus de iure respondendi sustinebat. Sunt eius orationes ieiunae; multa praeclara de iure; doctus vir et Graecis litteris eruditus, Panaeti auditor, prope perfectus in Stoicis; quorum peracutum et artis plenum orationis genus scis tamen esse exile nec satis populari adsensioni adcommodatum. Itaque illa, quae propria est huius disciplinae, philosophorum de se ipsorum opinio firma in hoc viro et stabilis inventa est. As for Rutilius, he kept to a style of speaking that was somber and severe. Both men [scil. Fufidius and Rutilius] were by nature intense in feeling and sharp. […] Rutilius was a man of many engagements and of much forensic activity, which was the more appreciated because at the same time he gave his services generously as a consulting jurist. His orations are dry; many admirable passages on questions of law; a man of learning and wide reading in Greek; a pupil of Panaetius, all but perfectly trained in the doctrines of the Stoics. Their style of oratory is acute and systematic, as you know, but meager and not well suited to winning the assent of a popular audience. That familiar dogma of self-sufficiency which is characteristic of this sect of philosophy was in him exemplified in its firmest and most unswerving form. (Transl. Hendrickson)

Cicero calls Rutilius doctus, an attribute also used at De or. 1.227, and he acknowledges both the juridical competency of the man and his bilingualism (a way to praise his vast culture).

 73 Rutilius is a recurring character in Seneca’s oeuvre. Aside from the passages mentioned above, Seneca mentions him and presents him as an exemplum at Prov. 3.7, Tranq. an. 16.1, Ben. 6.37.2, Ep. 24.4, 79.13–14.

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Interestingly enough, even this short passage follows the trajectory outlined above, i.e., a description of ethos, represented by the adjectives vehemens and acer, which is immediately coupled with the type of rhetorical style resulting from it. The whole characterization develops in two phases: first, Rutilius’ genus orationis Cicero terms peracutum and artis plenum, and he then concludes that it is exile and non satis populari adsensioni adcommodatum. The interest of Cicero’s criticism resides for now in how it attributes the Stoic stylistic faults to the overdialectical nature of the School. Furthermore, Cicero calls Rutilius a Panaeti auditor and identifies the type of rhetoric at stake as specifically Stoic: a definition that is tantamount to admitting how popular Stoicism had become in Rome by the mid-fifties (in fact, so popular that one could point to its characteristic mode of expression and label it accordingly). So much for the main coordinates of Cicero’s judgment on the man. Moving to Seneca, none of the occurrences concerning Rutilius directly target his style. If it is true that arguments ex silentio are often predicated on slippery ground, Seneca’s choice to omit any judgment on Rutilius-the-rhetor is conspicuous for at least two reasons. First, Seneca could not have ignored Cicero’s negative assessment (thus he purposely decides not to address it). Secondly, because of the Stoic qualis oratio talis vita principle, a champion of ethical righteousness like Rutilius should have provided optimal ground for an equally virtuous specimen of style. Seneca’s silence is therefore problematic, but also quite telling. For Cicero’s characterization of Rutilius’ style is very much in line with the qualities of the ischnos mode, which was both dry and typical of the old Stoics. In this connection Chioccioli 74 has shown how there is an attempt on the part of Seneca to present Rutilius as an idealized specimen of Rome’s archaic history and virtue. Rutilius is therefore a character from and of the past. Not only does he exhibit the righteousness of a bygone era, but he also uses a style completely alien to any psychagogic technique, to such an extent that Seneca may have found it too “old school,” and likely not suitable to his parenetic targets. Thus, Rutilius’ heroic stature makes him an immortal exemplum of Stoic virtue, but his style needs to be forsaken in favor of a stylistic mode able to run on the double tracks of the disputatio and of the sermo. This may be the reason why, while Seneca never criticizes Rutilius’ style, he also never praises or even mentions it.

 74 Cf. Chioccioli (2005) 308–309, who notices how Seneca selects for Rutilius the same descriptors he deploys to canvas the heroic figures of the early republic such as, for instance Lucretia, and Clelia, at Marc. 16.1–3.

  Metasemes and the Classical Tradition To summarize, the trajectory outlined so far shows how the cryptic Heraclitean tradition and a certain Laconism, which Socrates embraced for his anti-sophistic critique, constituted two fundamental pillars of the Stoic school’s doctrine of style. To be sure, the Stoics gave a blunter application to the Socratic dialectic method in their attempt to create a “degree zero” of language which, in keeping with the fundamentally imitative origins of human communication preached by the School, would move away from the res as little as possible, so as eventually to achieve the Heraclitean ideal of philosophical and rhetorical wisdom as a pure act of signification (sêmainein). Seneca fully accepted this tradition, but he operated selectively within it. He salvaged Socratism as a paradigmatic instance of the wise man’s providential presence in the arena of history and proposed Roman Socratic exempla. He also praised and adopted the Socratic syntomia typical of the dialectic form in order to create his own modular style of sententiae; yet he also paid heed to those Ciceronian critics who were, after all, the mirror of Roman aristocratic taste for rhetoric. Thus, Seneca embraced psychagôgia for multiple reasons. First, he wanted to deploy a technique that was apt to expound a given idea from multiple angles, thus avoiding obscuritas. Simultaneously, he wanted to stave off the accusation of elitism that plagued Stoic style, and so to create a type of philosophical prose that was more palatable for a Roman audience—an operation that was fundamentally anti-intellectual in the sense outlined by Cato the Elder. Seneca’s strategy therefore reflects a need for the creation of a style which would not simply account for a specific rhetorical taste, but which is also reflective of very specific philosophical choices and social demands. A strategy of communication that is so effective because it mirrors, in new and complex ways, both its historical background and a long-standing intellectual legacy, can hardly be dissected via too schematic a hermeneutic approach (as it is the case with little-nuanced applications of modern cognitive paradigms to classical literature). To be fair, a great merit of modern linguistics, and of the metaphorology that has become a veritable sub-branch of it, is to have posited and created quasi-mathematical approaches to the study of figural language. The systematic nature of these methods presents several advantages, not least the ability to produce more schematized results for a field, like that of figural language, which is as vast as the history of Western thought. However, this main advantage of modern linguistics (and, more particularly, of transformational grammar and of cognitivism in general) also bears less than desirable consequences, the main result being a flattening of the cultural components that inform linguis-

Roman Socrateses  

tic systems. This is true also for the application of these methods to Seneca’s philosophical discourse. A brief analysis of some of these modern approaches can helpfully shed some light on both their utility and their limits. The following chapters will provide an overview of these methods and their applicability to the Senecan discourse and the Stoic doctrines of cognition and pre-emotions.

 Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System A scholarly analysis of Seneca’s metaphorical strategies cannot avoid considering the contributions of modern scholarship on tropes and, more specifically, scholarship produced from the second half of the twentieth century onwards. These studies prove particularly relevant because they reinforce the cognitive value of metaphors, thus offering an interpretative filter that is potentially apt for the study of Seneca; after all, it was he who purposely eschewed all the rhetorical approaches that limit metaphors to the sphere of pure ornamentation and pointed instead to the performative effects of the res-to-verba correspondence. The purpose of this chapter is precisely to examine the many benefits of these theoretical approaches, but also to assess their limits, which are particularly apparent in the analysis of the Stoic theory of cognition. It would obviously be impossible to offer here, however concisely, a “history of metaphor;” but a brief historical excursus is nevertheless in order on the theories that insist the most on the cognitive component of tropes. In 1936 Richards published “The Philosophy of Rhetoric” which was, in many respects, a seminal work, if only for establishing the technical terms “vehicle” and “tenor” which are still largely deployed by linguists and which I will utilize in this book. The importance of Richards’ work does not reside solely in furnishing a technical language; much more interesting are the theoretical assumptions underpinning his technical terminology. “Tenor” designates what is not metaphorical, while the “vehicle” contains the metaphorical part of a proposition, with the consequence that every metaphorical discourse must incorporate something that is non-metaphorical in nature (the tenor). Thus, for the first time, Richards acknowledged that a metaphor ought simultaneously to contain the metaphorical and the non-metaphorical. The consequences of this finding were fully explored by Black, who was largely responsible for a marked surge of interest in the topic. In his contribution entitled “Metaphor,” published in 1954, 1 he laid the foundations for a new cognitive assessment of tropes, based on the proposition that the interactions of the conceptual frames of vehicle and tenor (Black terms them respectively “secondary subject” and “primary subject,” though he also uses the term “focus”) elicit new meanings. Based on such premises, metaphors are able simultaneously to  1 Black’s theories are also fully discussed and developed in his two other contributions from 1962 and 1990 (the latter having been published posthumously). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-003

The Substitutive Theory  

denote and to connote, and they thereby disrupt the long-standing idea that metaphors are implicit similes. Known as “interaction theory,” Black’s approach showcases the major advantage of providing a dynamic grid to explore metaphorical processes. Furthermore, Black appeals to the definition of a “system of associated commonplaces” to explain how metaphors can actually be performative in the creation of newly perceived contiguities, rather than being based on similarities that preexist and thus precede the metaphorical process. In other words, according to Black, the action of conveying an enunciation via metaphor offers a chance to re-process the “tenor” (i.e. that which is being described metaphorically) through the cognitive probes offered by the semantic relevance of the vehicle. This process is dynamic in nature because the metaphorical and the non-metaphorical parts interact with each other rather than operating via simple substitution. The novelty of the metaphorical process’ dynamic quality is truly the nub of the matter, and this interaction culminates in the forging of something semantically new and relevant, thus shifting the metaphorical discourse from the realm of description to that of cognition. Black’s work was so consequential that most of the subsequent scholarship arguably stems from it.

2.1 The Substitutive Theory Modern theories on tropes are traditionally divided into the categories of the “substitutive,” “comparative,” and “interactive”; these three groups are derived from the three main typologies of metaphors identified by Black. 2 The substitutive theory, which follows a literalist approach, is the least interesting for our purposes, because it is predicated on the sharp distinction between two separate levels: a denotative level and a figurative one. No meaningful connection operates at the figurative level, and our understanding of a given proposition depends on the ability of the receiving subject to substitute (whence the theory’s name) the figurative predicate with the corresponding literal one. For example, the meaning expressed by the proposition “Juliet is the sun” is defective 3 unless the listener/reader substitutes the denotative element “the sun” with its literal correspondent, thereby restoring the correctness of the enunciation. 4

 2 On this standardized division cf. Johnson (1981) and Cacciari (1991). 3 For this specific use of “defective” cf. Searle (1979)b 103, for the example of Juliet cf. Cohen (1976) 251. 4 For a more detailed discussion of substitutive theories cf. Sarra (2010) 52–53.

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System The literalist theory, which has been relinquished (i.e. abandoned by most of the scholarly community), minimizes the cognitive range of metaphors and, in the specific case of Seneca, counters the proposed idea that the medical and philosophical levels work in a tight synergy because everything is bodily in nature. 5 For example, let us consider Brev. 4.6, the end of a section devoted to Augustus’ last years. The princeps led a life so filled with preoccupations that, Seneca contends, in the end all he wished for was some free time to devote to himself. Among the many causes of anguish that afflicted him were the many plots or insidiae orchestrated by those who were closest to him, his relatives in primis. Seneca resorts to an elaborate medical metaphor to seal this statement: Haec ulcera cum ipsis membris absciderat: alia subnascebantur; velut grave multo sanguine corpus parte semper aliqua rumpebatur. When he had cut away these ulcers together with the limbs themselves, others would grow in their place; just as in a body that was overburdened with blood, there was always a rupture somewhere. (Transl. Basore)

According to the substitutive theory, one ought to consider what immediately precedes this long metaphorical section, i.e. the statement that Augustus was always worried and pressed by many matters, then to substitute “ulcera” with “preoccupations:” its non-metaphorical meaning. The analysis should then move to membris, which is simultaneously a metonymy and a metaphor, and corresponds to Augustus himself. The rest of the sentence would need to be parsed by the same method. The literalist approach presents a range of difficulties. First, it works best if tenor and vehicle are immediately contiguous (as is the case with “Juliet is the sun”). But Seneca often departs from a strict positional contiguity of tenor and vehicle and, as in this example from Brev. 4.6, he chooses to organize his imagery around paragraphs rather than around single sentences or substantive + predi-

 5 One other major issue with the substitutive theory is the so-called issue of the “twice-true metaphors,” which is to say propositions that can be true both on a literal and on a metaphorical level; cf. Cohen (1976) 253–257, who discusses both negative and positive twice-true metaphors. A negative form of a positive metaphor is the easiest way to obtain a twice true metaphor. This is the case, for instance, with the preposition “Juliet is not made of ice,” which is a true enunciation both on a literal level (uninteresting though it might be) and clearly on a metaphorical one. As for positive twice-true propositions, one could mention the example of “Hitler is an animal,” which clearly presents a more established metaphorical interpretation, but which can be verified as true also on literal level.

The Substitutive Theory  

cate units (cf. pp. 130–134). Secondly (truly the most critical aspect of any literalist interpretation), simple substitutions account for denotation but leave out connotation. Let’s consider the verb abscindo; interpreters could take this image of amputation (the excising of one’s own limbs together with the ulcers, in order to get rid of the ailment) as an allusion to the excruciating decision of exiling Julia, his own flesh and blood, in order to set an example for the enforcement of the laws on marriage and adultery. This interpretative approach has not yet been fully developed, and it would be worth pursuing. 6 However, what matters here is that a simple substitution of “amputation” (of ulcers and limbs) with “solution” (of problems) does not account for the multiple layers of meaning that are wrapped up in the density of the statement. The second part of this long series of metaphors is skillfully constructed to look like the technical description of the physical condition’s secondary developments—a description based on the traditional teaching of humors. An excess of blood, due to the physiological need to re-establish a harmonious bodily balance, tends to come to the surface in order to be dispersed, thus producing bruising and ulcers. 7 The verb subnascor accounts for the pathological mechanism, and a literalist correspondence would establish the equation between this technical verb and Augustus’ nagging thoughts. One could try to shore up the connotative nuances of subnascor by deploying a phrase like “new preoccupations were emerging,” where the verb “to emerge” indicates a “from-the-bottom-up” movement similar to that of blood. Yet even with this solution, much would be lost. For instance, since the same verb subnascor is utilized by Seneca at Ir. 2.10.8, to describe the unstoppable flood of water inside a sinking ship, could one argue that the passage from Brev. contains an echo (light though it may be) of Ir. 2.10.8, thus suggesting that when it came to the Leges Iuliae, Augustus was not much of a helmsman? And what of the neuter adjective grave? This component of the sentence is clearly polysemous, designating the body burdened by an excessive amount of blood even as it simultaneously casts a negative moral shadow on the description. If a literalist analysis shows its many shortcomings even when applied to a limited portion of text, it is no surprise that most modern theorists do not look favorably upon this analytical approach. All analyses that are founded

 6 It seems for instance to be substantiated by Suetonius Aug. 65.4, where Augustus defines the two Julias and Agrippa Postumus as tria vomica ac carcinomata sua. 7 For discussion of the noxious outcome of excessive accumulation and putrefaction of humors cf. Galen Meth. Med. 15.17(1006K), where herpetic ulcerations are related to an imbalance of yellow bile, while cancerous lesions are described as the consequence of an unhealthy accumulation of thick humor. On ulcerations and bloodletting in Galen, cf. Mattern (2013) 237–240.

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System solely on an appreciation of literalist correspondences are likely to lack interpretational depth.

2.2 The Comparative Theory The comparative approach is relatively recent and, though no less hard to defend than the substitutive theory, is more consequential for the study of Senecan prose. 8 According to the comparative approach, a metaphor consists of elements of which both tenor and vehicle partake (the so-called comparative ground). Thus, a metaphor is possible only within a proposition where the elements contributing to the trope share features belonging to a common, superordinate level. In the case of the Shakespearian example, “Juliet is the sun,” such common features could be identified with “radiance” or with “the ability to bring comfort.” 9 The need to single out the specific qualification under which the metaphor is subsumed automatically transforms the metaphor into a simile. In other words, if for the sake of verifying its semantic consistency the phrase “Juliet is the sun” has to be processed in terms of “Juliet is comforting like the sun,” then the metaphor is de facto turned into a simile; 10 and thus what it is about this metaphor that constitutes its metaphorical core remains unexplained. Further issues arise when it comes to assessing the common criteria selected to create this metaphor. Of all the possible elements that “Juliet” and “the sun” may have in common, who decides which ones are going to be pertinent, and how? Even more problematic is the fact that, according to the comparative model, a metaphor preexists both the tenor and the vehicle; in fact, it is already potentially embedded in all the semantic features that the two domains have in common. The result is that a metaphor needs to be interpreted, i.e., turned into a simile; but it requires the reader to assess new semantic implications because the metaphor itself supposedly creates none in and of itself. In the case of Seneca, the common bodily nature of language and anatomy is exploited to create a materialistic and therapeutic prose (cf. Ch. 5 and 6). The activation of the bodily qualities that are common to language and physiology can certainly be accounted for through comparative principles. But when it comes to demonstrating that Seneca’s metaphorical strategies are performative, i.e. able to  8 The most significant contributions to the comparative theory derive from the 1977 conference on metaphor and thought at the university of Illinois, organized and directed by Ortony. 9 This passage in the processing of a metaphorical enunciation is known as reconstruction of the implicit comparison; see Kintsch (1974). 10 The specific claim that a metaphor is but a shorten simile belongs to Miller (1979).

The Comparative Theory  

affect things, attitudes, and moral directions, the substitutive theory proves deficient because it fails to account for the accruing of any supplemental semantic layers that are added by the interaction of tenor and vehicle. Their metaphorical outcome contains only those features that the two domains had in common prior to the creation of the trope. A metaphor can be a container of mutually shared features, but of nothing more. As in the case of the substitutive theory, the comparative strategy accounts only for denotations, and its major shortcoming is its inability to describe connotations. For clarity, let us attempt a comparative analysis of the same passage from Brev. to test the literalist theory. The first sentence contains at least three metaphorical units: ulcera, membra, and absciderat. The initial part of the analysis requires that all the various lexical meanings of both the target and tenor domains be considered, and that we then select only the ones that are being activated for the creation of the metaphor and which are simultaneously valid for the two domains. For example, in the case of “ulcera = anxieties,” one could argue that the mutually activated meanings are “painful,” “ongoing,” and perhaps “lasting.” Similarly, for “membra = the individual itself,” one could either resort to an explanation via metonymy, or argue that various limbs correspond to various kind of preoccupations, or that simple “physical existence” is the most pertinent common ground. Finally, for “abscindo = to get rid of,” the meanings of “eliminating” or “separating oneself from” seem to be common to amputation and the action of overcoming a preoccupation. When set against the literalist reading, this comparative approach has the advantage of accounting for the polysemous nature of words; yet two major disadvantages stand out. First, when we consider a metaphor as a form of abbreviated comparison, only one meaning at a time can be accounted for. For instance, “ulcera = anxieties” may well condense several semantic layers, but the need to turn it into a simile cannot account for them simultaneously, but only serially: “anxieties can be painful like ulcers,” “anxieties can be ongoing like ulcers,” “anxieties can be lasting like ulcers.” The attendant consequence—and this is the second main weakness of the comparative approach—is that “ulcers” and “preoccupations,” though associated via a simile, remain separate, and nothing is said about how they mutually influence each other. What is the semantic relevance of describing the preoccupations of an old father through the polysemous domain of a bodily illness requiring surgery? To this fundamental question, the comparative theory can provide only a very limited answer.

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System

2.3 The Interactive Theory The interactive theory is by far the most interesting and consequential for the study of Senecan prose. Interactive theories explain metaphorical meaning as the result of the projection of a “source domain” onto a “target domain.” 11 Both the source and the target domains are defined as “conceptual domains” in that they rationally organize some selected elements and features of human experience. For instance, in the case of the proposition “Love is a journey,” the domain of love is metaphorically processed in terms of directionality. Admittedly, the definition of “conceptual domain,” since it presupposes the selection of a number of pertinent features that two domains present in common, does not facilitate an immediate understanding of how the interactive theory differs from the comparative one; for the former approach also requires an initial selection of elements common to both tenor and target domains. How, then, is the interactive theory fundamentally different and original? The crucial innovation resides in the importance attributed to the mutual influence that source and target domains exert on each other and whose outcome is not just an intersection of mutually shared features, but rather a semantic modification affecting both domains. In Richards’ words: “When we use a metaphor, we have two thoughts of different things active together and supported by a single word, or phrase, whose meaning is a resultant of their interaction.” 12 To make the point more starkly, let us consider the phrase “homo homini lupus.” 13 A substitutive analysis of this proposition produces the transformation of the enunciation into “a man is an evil being to another man,” where evil being represents the literal level standing in for the vehicle “lupus,” thus facilitating its comprehension. According to the comparative theory, the proposition “homo homini lupus” originates from the selection of specific features that “the man” and “the wolf” have in common; in this case one could say, for instance, that they are both animals and they can both be cruel. Thus “homo homini lupus” should be interpreted as, “a man is like a cruel animal to another man.” The comparative approach requires that the metaphorical content be transformed into a comparison, and it is therefore founded on a long-standing tradition which looks at metaphors as “special” similes (in fact, as shortened or implicit similes). In the case of the interactive theory, the starting point is somewhat similar because a metaphor is achieved via a collection of common traits that both  11 Cf. the definition of the system of associated commonplaces in Black’s (1962) 40. 12 Richards (1936) 93. 13 This example is in Black (1979) 156.

The Interactive Theory  

“the man” and “the wolf” share. But the mechanics and, most of all, the outcome of the operation are radically different: “the wolf” becomes to some extent “humanized,” while the man is understood through the conceptual frame of “wolfness;” this reciprocity ultimately amounts to the interactive process. The theory’s major outcome is the significant emphasis on metaphors as cognitive tools. In fact, the influence mutually exerted by the two domains prevents a backward transformation aimed at restoring the basic, pre-metaphorical meaning (as was the case with both the substitutive and the interactive theory). This operation could only take place at the cost of a cognitive deficit. 14 According to interactive theory, a metaphor brings about something semantically new and relevant. To revert once more to the passage in Brev. 4.6, only an interactive analysis of it can provide the theoretical frame needed to explore the crucial question left unanswered by both the substitutive/literalist and comparative approaches: how does the representation of anxieties via the metaphor of bodily ulcers and amputations affect a reader’s conceptualization of both moral anxieties and bodily illness? For instance, one could argue that the image of Augustus’ ailment along with the recurring, almost obsessive presence of blood well illustrates the personal suffering of an old man on account of a problem that concerned his immediate family members: his own blood. Concurrently, the constant proximity of the people who are causing all this suffering seems to suggest that Augustus’ chronic condition could not be shored up in any way and thereby appears all the more hideous. Furthermore, Julia’s exile, metaphorically channeled through the image of amputation (itself perhaps a necessary measure but hardly pain-free), may suggest the suffering of Augustus’ decision-making process. These are just some hypothetical projections on how the imagery at Brev. 4.6 could be explored through an interactive frame. Perhaps, as has been argued, an even more significant connotation resides in the uncertain territory between literal and metaphorical levels. 15

 14 The notion of “cognitive deficit” is already present Black (1962) 46: “The relevant weakness of the literal paraphrase is not that it may be tiresomely prolix or boringly explicit – or deficient in qualities of style; it fails to be a translation in that it fails to give the insight that the metaphor did.” 15 Cf. Sperber and Wilson (1986).

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System

2.4 The Conceptual-Cognitive Theory The conceptual theory of metaphor originates from the trail-blazing work of Johnson and Lakoff 16 and represents the most successful and articulate development of the interactive theory. According to the cognitivists, reasoning is a process which is vastly unconscious, emotional (not dispassionate) and, most importantly, metaphorical. In stark opposition to what for centuries has been the interpretation of the Aristotelian rule (i.e. the metaphor as a shortened simile, and therefore ornamentational), the cognitive theory describes tropes as mechanisms of thought, and in fact possibly as the main engine thereof. This approach amounts to a sort of Copernican revolution that polarizes the focus of any rhetorical analysis around the cognitive value of tropes. Drawing much from Reddy’s idea of the “conduit metaphor,” 17 the cognitivists contend that some ideas can only be expressed metaphorically, which is to say that metaphors do not just describe and/or enhance certain concepts (such as death, life, the soul, and so on) but also constitute them. To quote Pinker, semantics “is about the relation between words and emotions: the way in which words do not just point to things but are sutured with feelings, which can endow the words with a sense of magic, taboo, and sin.” 18 Not only do words reflect the conception and organization of the reality that they signify, but they can also guide us through the appreciation of how human relations are established and negotiated. The conceptual theory is not so much concerned with lexical units as with more complex and extended modules, namely “concepts” that are analyzed in their connections (but the technical term often used is “mapping” 19) between “source” and “target” domains (yet two more labels for Richard’s “vehicle” and “tenor”). 20 A fully expounded metaphorical mapping can reveal all the possible

 16 In particular, their 1980 work Metaphors We Live By. 17 Reddy’s basic idea as expressed in his 1979 paper is that language functions like a conduit because when people write or verbalize something it is as if they inserted their ideas into words which in their turn work as physical means, transferring these ideas to listeners/readers who must extract these ideas from the words. Communication is but a physical transfer of ideas from person to person along a conduit. 18 Pinker (2007) 3. 19 For example, the source domain (tenor) of life can be associated with various metaphors belonging to the target domain (vehicle) of traveling: “life is a journey;” “birth is the beginning of the journey;” “major problems in life are impediment to travel;” “death is the destination of the trip;” and so on. 20 Cf. the definition by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) 5: “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.”

The Conceptual-Cognitive Theory  

correspondences that are being activated by the use of a given metaphorical conceit; and, interestingly enough, it is always the case that not all aspects of a source can be mapped onto the target, with some mappings proving to be considerably more productive than others. If at this point we turn our attention back to Seneca, the emphasis of the cognitivists on metaphors as interactive and social processes is crucial for an author whose written works purport to be an ongoing attempt at communication and teaching, a highly intense human interaction. There is also another aspect to the theory that can open some interesting venues for the study of Seneca—namely the relation between metaphors and the conceptualization of emotions, in particular the fact that the metaphorical construction of emotions occurs through physical imagery. 21 For Seneca, both the cause of and the reaction to emotions and, indeed, emotions themselves, are physical phenomena, and a recent study by Sjöblad enthusiastically presents some interpretational advantages that the biological foundation of the cognitivist theory may offer. 22 He contends that, if examined through the cognitivist prism, the physicality of Seneca’s metaphors may offer a theoretical foundation for, and hence a more systematized appreciation of, the philosopher’s style. Sjöblad insists in particular on the versatility of the human body as a source domain. Certainly, this approach departs from the traditional categorization of Senecan imagery into groups 23 and for the first time pursues a more unitary vision; but it is not without complications. Conceptual metaphors are traditionally divided into three subcategories: structural, orientational, and ontological, 24 but all of these subgroups ultimately stem from the predicament that thought does not exist in the vacuum of an aphysical environment; in fact, there is no such a thing as disembodied thought. The consequence is that every discourse presupposes a biological foundation,

 21 In particular, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) 50 analyze some so-called dead metaphors such as “to have an emotion” or “to be filled with an emotion” to conclude that emotional effects are conceptualized as physical contacts. 22 Sjöblad (2015); cf. also a similar analysis applied to Cicero in Sjöblad (2009). 23 This is the case for instance with the pioneering work of Steyns (1906), which is the first systematic attempt to study Seneca’s metaphors and largely relies on a classification of the various tropes by kind. The same structure we still find in the central sessions of Armisen-Marchetti (1989). 24 For instance, “argument is war” is a structural metaphor because a concept is structured in terms of another. “More is up/less is down” is an orientational trope because it hinges on a spatial construct. Finally, ontological metaphors provide physical abstract concepts with physical features, as in the case with “argument is war.” Cf. Lakoff and Pinker (1980) 14 and Kövecses (2010) 33–46.

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System which does not refer to the physical ability of uttering a sound or writing a word, but rather to the human inability to create an interface with reality exempt on the basis of biological needs and functions. For instance, cognitivists consider the orientational concept “Happy is up” a consequence of people’s (in the sense of an animal species’) erect posture, which is generally associated with a positive emotional state. Hence the lexical realizations of concepts such as “I am feeling up” or “My spirit rose,” which stand in stark contrast to “I am feeling down” or “My spirit sank;” the latter allegedly deriving from the dropping posture being biologically associated with depressive states. 25 To quote Johnson: “If our most fundamental abstract concepts—such as those for causation, events, will, thought, reason, knowledge, mind, justice, and right—are irreducibly metaphoric, then philosophy must consist in the analysis, criticism and elaboration of the metaphorical concepts out of which philosophies are made.” 26 The appealing idea that metaphors may function as building blocks for conceptual systems opens the way to a more systematic study of Seneca’s philosophy via his own language—yet not without the risk of “an analysis of Seneca in spite of Seneca.” 27 The universality of the language/thought spectrum based on human biology is paramount for cognitivists, but greatly limits the possibility of providing a culturally specific description of a given philosophical system. The results that Lakoff and Johnson achieved in their 1999 work on the metaphorical structures of the Presocratic, Platonic, and Aristotelian philosophies (among others) is modest in philological scope, and always comes down to a basic description of some general mechanisms of metaphorical usage and formations that ultimately relate to the inescapability of human biology (as in the above-mentioned instance of figural content emerging from orientational cognitions). 28 Bartsch has also insisted on the performative qualities of metaphors, a sanctum of cognitive theories, but with much attention to Seneca’s focus on the practice of meditatio. 29 The merit of Bartsch’s approach resides in her emphasis on the

 25 Cf. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) 15. 26 Johnson (2008) 39. 27 Cf. Gazzarri (2017) 109–111. 28 Lakoff and Johnson (1999) 346–390 interpret, for instance, all Milesian philosophy through the metaphorical filter of “essence is matter,” a simplification that may describe the presence of some common feature, but does not account for the complexity of the various views because it purposely reduces them to the same conceptual core. As for Aristotle, I believe the texts of both Poetics and Rhetoric are, once more, misinterpreted by Lakoff and Johnson, and Aristotle made a first proponent of a literalist theory of figuration. 29 Bartsch (2009) 188–217.

Materiality, Analogy, and Representation  

materialistic quality of Senecan doctrine as the lynchpin of the philosopher’s stylistic choices. In particular, Bartsch maintains that metaphors facilitate the process of “learning to see things as they really are” because they break down reality into its various constituent parts, thus subdividing desirables into bodily elements. This analytical activity invigorates the philosophical exercise of moral progression that is described as the gradual shifting from “the actual self” to “the ideal self.” 30 Thus, meditatio is but a form of metaphorical processing of reality and, far from being mere figural tools, metaphors elicit the most materialistic dimension of one’s philosophical bettering because, in Bartsch’s words, “in the idea that metaphor produces the res praesens, we have, paradoxically enough, the notion that reality is the effect of the figural.” 31

2.5 Materiality, Analogy, and Representation Bartsch’s claim that Seneca’s metaphors are a means for deconstructing reality has application for both further gauging the viability of a cognitivist approach to Seneca’s prose and for appreciating the doctrinal roots of a literary operation that is deeply entrenched in the history of the creation of philosophical Latin, a language particularly indebted to Lucretius. With the composition of his De Rerum Natura, not only did Lucretius singlehandedly begin to forge a new philosophical language, but also, and perhaps more importantly, he undertook the creation of a specific expository method, designed to be performative on both a literary and a didactic level. While I by no means wish to become embroiled in the difficult problem of the different interpretative approaches to Lucretius’ oeuvre, there are, however, a number of fundamental studies which have underscored the recurring parallelism between the primary constituents of nature, i.e. atoms, and those of language, i.e. single letters, as if the microarchitecture of the universe could be channeled by and appreciated through the micro-components of literary discourse. 32 As Volk puts it, “the

 30 Bartsch (2009) 197 bases her analysis on Long’s (2009) 26–27 distinction between “occurrent subjectivity” and “normative identity.” 31 Bartsch (2009) 193. 32 This theory was further enhanced by the double meaning of “letter” and “principle” that both the Greek στοιχεῖον and the Latin elementum have, cf. Diels (1899) and Burkert (1959). On the topic of the atomic correspondence between atoms and letter and the readability of the world see Snyder (1980) 21–51; Blumenberg (19832) 36–46; and Steiner (1994) 116–122.

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System point of the analogy lies in the fact that both letters and elements can be indefinitely combined to create word and worlds, respectively.” 33 This line of reasoning, which recurs on a number of occasions in the course of the De Rerum Natura, is perhaps best instantiated by a passage from DRN 1.907−914: Iamne vides igitur, paulo quod diximus ante, permagni referre eadem primordia saepe cum quibus et quali positura contineantur et quos inter se dent motus accipiantque, atque eadem paulo inter se mutata creare ignes et lignum? Quo pacto verba quoque ipsa inter se paulo mutatis sunt elementis, cum ligna atque ignes distincta voce notemus. Do you see now, as I said a little while ago, that it is often of very great importance with what and in what position these same first-beginnings are held in union, and what motions they impart and receive mutually, and how the same elements a little changed in their relations create fires and firs? Just as the words themselves too consist of elements a little changed, when we mark fires and firs with a distinct name. (Transl. Rouse)

This much-discussed passage is preceded by Lucretius’ description of how it often occurs that tall forest trees are set aflame by their topmost branches rubbing against each other. This occurs not because fire is somewhat “hidden inside the woody matter of trees” (non est lignis tamen insitus ignis), but on account of the “flux” that originates in what Lucretius terms “seeds of heats” (semina ardoris), which eventually sets off the combustion. Thus, fire is the final product of the coming together of various microunits; it is the result of an addition of seeds and hence ultimately a compositional outcome. Language, qua natural and atomic reality, mirrors the mechanics of nature and provides a more palatable appreciation of this physical phenomenon by showing how the atoms (in this case the letters) that form the words ignes and lignum largely coincide. 34 These verses, hard though the challenge of translating them might be, shed light on one fundamental aspect of Lucretius’ strategy for the creation of his philosophical language: his literary strategy is predicated on two fundamental points of method. Seneca relies on similar principles, although  33 Volk (2012) 213. 34 On the reciprocity of content and language in Lucretius, cf. Conte (1966) 363: “L’origine vera e propria dell’espressione poetica non sta solo nella scelta delle singole parole e nel modo come vengono composte in frasi e periodi compiuti, non solo nel suono, nel ritmo; ma anche e particolarmente nel ‘modo della rappresentazione’. E le varie rappresentazioni son date dall’evocazione di immagini i cui segni sono le parole stesse.”

Materiality, Analogy, and Representation  

he puts them on a footing consistent with Stoic philosophy. The first principle concerns the importance of a common material background for reality and language (res and verba), the second to the need for a didactic language to be “decompositional,” with this label underscoring the potential for reducing a given content to smaller, minimal modules. There is yet another passage from the De Rerum Natura that can further our understanding of these two tenets and assist us in assessing their potential significance for Seneca’s figural strategy. The second book of De Rerum Natura is for the most part devoted to the analysis of atomic movements and aggregations. This subject is quite complex per se and therefore requires considerable didactic effort. Beginning at DRN 2.100, Lucretius provides an explanation for the different levels of density in matter as depending on the reciprocal distance that exists between the constituent atoms. The smaller the distance between atoms, the denser will be the resulting matter; the greater the distance, the more rarefied will be the attendant material body. Dense, tangible objects may therefore be easier to appreciate and, precisely because of their material approachability, rarefied bodies are inherently harder to perceive. Hence Lucretius feels that an example may be of help, and he therefore furnishes it at DRN 2.109–124: Multaque praeterea magnum per inane vagantur, conciliis rerum quae sunt reiecta nec usquam consociare etiam motus potuere recepta. Cuius, uti memoror, rei simulacrum et imago ante oculos semper nobis versatur et instat. Contemplator enim, cum solis lumina cumque inserti fundunt radii per opaca domorum: multa minuta modis multis per inane videbis corpora misceri radiorum lumine in ipso et velut aeterno certamine proelia pugnas edere turmatim certantia nec dare pausam, conciliis et discidiis exercita crebris; conicere ut possis ex hoc, primordia rerum quale sit in magno iactari semper inani. Dumtaxat rerum magnarum parva potest res exemplare dare et vestigia notitiai. And many besides wander through the great void which have been rejected from combination with things, and have nowhere been able to obtain admittance and also harmonize their motions. Of this fact there is, I recall, an image and similitude always moving and present before our eyes. Do but apply your scrutiny whenever the sun’s rays are let in and pour their light through a dark room: you will see many minute particles mingling in many ways throughout the void in the light itself of the rays, and as it were in everlasting conflict

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System struggling, fighting, battling in troops without any pause, driven about with frequent meetings and partings; so that you may conjecture from this what it is for the first-beginnings of things to be ever tossed about in the great void. So far as it goes, a small thing may give an analogy of great things, and show the tracks of knowledge. (Transl. Rouse)

Perception of the existence of rarefied atoms can be described in theory, but it proves hard to grasp in practice. It is indeed a case where theory bears complete adherence to its etymological interpretation of “mental sight.” Lucretius’ genius consists in turning this mental vision into an ocular one by means of a representation of rarefied atoms as little particles of dust which become visible when touched by sunbeams. What is offered to the reader is not the phenomenon itself, but something corresponding to it analogically. Through this shrewd procedure, Lucretius achieves two important results. First, by selecting a micro/atomic perspective, he paradoxically achieves visibility and therefore clarity. Second, by basing this reductio ad minima operation on analogic principles, he showcases the interrelatedness of all physical phenomena regardless of their scale or magnitude. Decomposition and analogy are also two fundamental pillars of Seneca’s strategies of figuration. The literary components of this technique will be discussed in various aspects in both chapters 3 and 4. In particular, I shall focus on Seneca’s relentless efforts to direct the disciple towards a wiser mode of life by means of “bits” and “chunks” of wisdom as if through a “visual narration.” Furthermore, this method of distillation (so to speak) of style, as the main way to seize the fundamentals of a given topic, lends itself optimally to the central principle of syntomia, 35 or rather, it deploys it and simultaneously fulfills the ultimate mission of this tenet: the furnishing of privileged access to the res. This means that for the Stoics, and for Seneca in particular, who deliberately brings to its extreme consequences the stylistic feature of metaphoric pointillism, figural language always pursues a double target. On a microlevel, a metaphor describes a single phenomenon, but on a macrolevel, because it divides reality in discreet presentations and decomposes it to the very core, it nears the essence of nature itself, if it is true (as it is true for the Stoics) that the logos of language and

 35 Zeno seems to preach a “reductio ad syllabam” which reminds of what Lucretius, on the basis of different philosophical will premises, will eventually maintain in his DRN, cf. SVF 1.328: Εἰπόντος δέ τινος ὅτι μικρὰ αὐτῷ δοκεῖ τὰ λογάρια τῶν φιλοσόφων, “λέγεις,” εἶπε, “τἀληθῆ: δεῖ μέντοι καὶ τὰς συλλαβὰς αὐτῶν βραχείας εἶναι, εἰ δυνατόν. “To someone who had said that he thought the philosophers’ argument were brief and curt, Zeno replied, ‘You are quite right; indeed, the very syllables ought, if possible, to be clipped’” (transl. Gazzarri).

Res, Verba, and Cognition  

the logos of nature coincide. 36 This is to say, the centrality and pervasiveness of Stoic logos provide simultaneous access to res and verba, and throughout this process metaphors, with their intrinsic visual quality, play a central role.

2.6 Res, Verba, and Cognition It goes without saying that Stoicism is a materialistic system, but the implications of this physicalist approach for Seneca’s means of figuration are often overlooked. From its foundation, the Stoic school showed a keen interest in the origin and functioning of language and developed a systematized ad hoc theory in the realm of logic (the other two parts of the philosophic system being physics and ethics). 37 The Stoics conceived of language as a manifestation of human logos. Through language, thoughts, which are bodies, 38 can be organized in rational propositions that constitute the very core of every act of communication. 39 This is true not only for dialectic (roughly corresponding to what we term formal logic), but also for rhetoric, which is more closely associated with the study of propositions, their ontology, their functioning and their resultant effects on communication. The materialistic implications of Stoic linguistics, both on the nature of literary texts and on all acts of communication (oral and written alike), provide a valuable touchpoint and starting-point from which to venture a new and original assessment of Seneca’s style. For the Stoics, both utterances and visual stimuli are material bodies acting upon other material bodies in obedience to universal and immutable laws. 40

 36 It is not by chance that Zeno attaches the necessity for συντομία to the natural physiology of the human body, i.e. its anatomy, cf. SVF 1.310: Ζήνων πρὸς τὸν πλείω λαλεῖν θέλοντα ἢ ἀκούειν “νεανίσκε,” εἶπεν” ἡ φύσις ἡμῖν γλῶτταν μὲν μίαν, δύο δὲ ὦτα παρέσχεν, ἵνα διπλασίονα ὧν λέγομεν ἀκούωμεν. “Zeno said to one more eager to blabber than to listen: ‘young man, Nature provided us with one tongue but two ears so that we might listen twice as much we speak’” (transl. Gazzarri). 37 Cf. DL 7.39. 38 Tridimensional extension and endurance through time are the conditions for the existence of a body, cf. SVF 2.525 and SVF 2.381. On this topic see Strawson (1959) 15, which contains an analysis of both passages together with the definition of ‘objective particulars’ as the building blocks of Stoic ontology, on account of their common sharing of bodily existence. Long (1971) 75–76 also discusses this issue and considers its relevance for the Stoic theory of language. 39 Cf. Long (2005) 618. 40 For this specific definition of a body, cf. SVF 2.359: Διϊσχυρίζονται τοῦτ’ εἶναι μόνον ὅπερ ἔχει προσβολὴν καὶ ἐπαφήν τινα, ταὐτὸν σῶμα καὶ οὐσίαν ὁριζόμενοι. “They believe that a body is

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System Thus, there is a physics of perception and, in this connection, a “physics of literature” with far-reaching implications for our deeper appreciation of Seneca’s philosophical mission—an appreciation that looks beyond his strategies of figuration solely within (and at the level of) the traditional rules of ornamentation or as mere effects of persuasiveness. Certainly, Seneca knew these rules and how to use them, but the scope of his oeuvre is predicated on the materialistic nature of Stoic linguistics, even while he often does not hesitate to critique some of the School’s stylistic idiosyncrasies (cf. pp. 30 n. 22; 34–35; 221 n. 60). In particular, the pervasive use of metaphorical language connects with and contributes to the complexity of Seneca’s unique style. For metaphors are figures that, by definition, entail “a shifting,” or rather a “superimposition” of images” (cf. pp. 18–26) 41 in that they presuppose the physical trajectory of a real, perceivable action. This physicalist dimension, whereby literary illustrations move and shift as if they were objects, is an essential component of the relation between language and thought. It is also, and markedly so, the governing element of Seneca’s preaching mission, surely Stoic in origin, but crafted into something highly original. The first part of my analysis below comprises three reciprocally intertwined topics of investigation: (1) the Stoic understanding of language, which embraces both corporeal and incorporeal components, and which propounds a very specific kind of relation between res and verba; (2) the stylistic implication of phantasiai or “presentations,” a fundamental notion on the basis of which the functioning of sensory inputs and the attainability of cognition are predicated; and (3) the Stoic conception of sight and its relations to, on the one hand, other ancient theories of vision and, on the other, to a type of language (and attendant style) that depends on and is subsumed under this very notion of sight. From one perspective, I will show how, within the Stoic system, language and thought coincide as expressions of the material soul, thus prompting the idea that a man is his style. From another perspective, I will tackle the notion of phantasia, with the purpose of outlining its centrality within every cognitive process and of showing how this centrality contributes to the creation of a highly original and specific illustrative style. Lastly, I will explore how Stoic accounts of the anatomical functioning of the human oculus posit a tight synergy between vision, judgment, cognition, and action. This contiguity is fully deployed by Seneca to  only that which can act or be acted upon and in the same way they define both substance and body” (transl. Gazzarri). 41 To be precise, the Latin term translatio also includes the meaning of “translation,” on which cf. Bettini (2012) 34–37.

Res, Verba, and Cognition  

furnish a prose able to “represent” reality in the sense of “providing multifaceted presentations” to the inquiring mind: a process that is simultaneously literary and visual. Seneca’s creation of a visual language is inseparable from the connectedness of cognition and sensation and from the attendant ability of language simultaneously to be informed by and to instantiate the rational patterning of reality. Moreover, language and the senses, because of their common participation in the physical world, naturally invite a cognitivist/Lakoffian reading of Seneca’s figural prose. But this interpretation is possible, as we have seen (cf. pp. 61–62), only at the price of a certain banalization of the whole Stoic system, which is reduced to the scale and function only of the human body and cannot incorporate the allembracing representation of the physical cosmos, a quintessential feature of Stoic materialism. 42 In sum, the fact that Seneca and the Stoics put at the center of their highly elaborate philosophical system the physicality of the real (via the presence of an all-encompassing pneuma) bars the way to a purely cognitivist interpretation of their figural language. The cognitivist method falls short when tasked with accounting for a cultural, and not a merely biological, description of nature. Because of the mutual interaction between human and cosmos, the Stoics posit a relation between res and verba that is largely based on the inseparable perspective of one’s own body, albeit not in the Lakoffian sense of the term. This is precisely because, since res and verba partake of the same universal breath, they are literally made of the same substance. 43 The shaping of one’s moral conduct will largely depend on grasping the implications of this tenet, and the language best suited to preaching will be based on and reflect the unique status that words have within the Stoic system. The mechanics of Stoic linguistics reveal features of comprehensiveness and interrelatedness with the other parts of the School’s system 44 and ultimately posit the correspondence between res and verba as a fundamental epistemological pillar. The Stoics believe in the natural origin of language and they consider the relation between reality and language to be based on fundamental truth. 45 This position stands in stark contrast with the so-called “conventionalist position”—a  42 On the cosmic dimension of Senecan philosophy, see Williams (2012) 17–53. 43 On the cosmic pervasiveness of λόγος as the key for a life according to reason, see Long (1996). 44 On the synergy of the various parts of the Stoic system, cf. Hadot (1991) and Ierodiakonou (1993), and for an analysis of Cicero’s judgment of this system, cf. Inwood (2012). 45 This Stoic position is likely what Quintilian Inst. 12.10.41–43 is referring to when he criticizes the tendency of the Atticists to consider the only function of “words” to be subservience to

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System doctrinal divergence notably explored in the Platonic Cratylus, where the two main lines of interpretation are heralded by (respectively) Cratylus and Hermogenes (the latter illustrating ideas similar to what Aristotle will eventually propound). 46 These positions are clearly and more succinctly outlined by Origen C. Cels. 1.24 (=SVF 2.146), who distinguishes between names by physis and names by thesis: Ἐμπίπτει εἰς τὸ προκείμενον λόγος βαθὺς καὶ ἀπόρρητος, ὁ περὶ φύσεως ὀνομάτων· πότερον, ὡς οἴεται Ἀριστοτέλης, θέσει εἰσὶ τὰ ὀνόματα ἤ, ὡς νομίζουσιν οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς, φύσει, μιμουμένων τῶν πρώτων φωνῶν τὰ πράγματα, καθ’ ὧν τὰ ὀνόματα, καθὸ καὶ στοιχεῖά τινα τῆς ἐτυμολογίας εἰσάγουσιν. There is a profound and arcane reasoning concerning the origin of names, which stands in opposition to what was previously said: if—and this is Aristotle’s position—names are bestowed by men or—as the Stoics maintain—names are by nature, with the first voices imitating things, in agreement with which the names were formed, and in accordance to which they introduce certain primary elements of etymology. (Transl. Gazzarri)

Here the term thesis ought be understood, as in the Cratylus, in the sense of “convention,” and it seems to signify “imposition,” in which case it would not necessarily be in opposition to physis but would rather imply a sort of conventionalist vision that obeys the norms of naturalness: a name-giver succeeds in imposing a name to the extent that, in doing so, he proves able to adhere to the nature of the thing upon which the name is bestowed. 47 The actual mechanism of name giving is expounded by Augustine in Dial. 6.9, where two main theories, both attributed to the Stoics, are presented. First—and this theory (and its attendant critique) can be traced back to Cicero—Augustine touches on the onomatopoeic method

 “sense” (solum natura sit officium attributum servire sensibus), or else there would be an unavoidable distancing from truth (remotum a veritate.) Thence their refusal of unnecessary ornamentation, including tralationes, cf. Atherton (1988) 403. But see also Kennedy (1972) 241–242, who argues against any crucial Stoic influence on Roman Atticism. 46 The Stoics maintain that language originates from πρῶται φωναί “the first verbal sounds,” which imitate the things to which they refer and by doing so introduce the στοιχεῖα or the “basic elements” of etymology. For Plato, it is not possible to posit a truth-bearing relation between res and verba. Not only can a given item be attributed any name whatsoever, but a proposition can equally present a true or a false statement, as posited at Soph. 261d–264b. Aristotle shifts the analysis from a relation between res and verba to one between referents and signifiers, so that a word may well be polysemic, but each single signifier univocally refers to only one item; cf. Baratin (1982) 12. 47 Cf. Allen (2005) 18–19.

Res, Verba, and Cognition  

whereby a clearly perceivable correspondence is established between the designating sound and the designated item. 48 Secondly, Augustine focuses on those instances in which res non sonant, i.e., on things that do not produce any kind of sound, and which cannot therefore be verbalized by means of onomatopoeic imitation. The relation of these words to the signified items is carried out by a sweetness—or harshness—of effect produced in the senses. 49 As Long points out, not only this second, non-onomatopoeic means of formation but also the more immediate, onomatopoeic mode are, as it were, synesthetic because they affect multiple senses in ways that may be harsh or agreeable, very much as the actual object which is being verbally designated would do. 50 This, we shall see (cf. pp. 164– 169), has major import for Seneca’s synesthetic assembly and use of metaphors inasmuch as it shows the core cognitive value of multi-sensory experiences in general and of linguistic achievements in particular. According to the Stoics, an utterance (phonê) is but air acting upon an impulse—in other words, a physical body. 51 The human voice differs from an animal  48 Augustine Dial. 6.9: Stoici autumant, quos Cicero in hac re ut Cicero inridet, nullum esse uerbum, cuius non certa explicari origo possit. Et quia hoc modo eos urguere facile fuit, si diceres hoc infinitum esse, quibus uerbis alicuius uerbi originem interpretaris, eorum rursus a te origo quaerendum esse, donec perueniatur eo, ut res cum sono uerbi aliqua similitudine concinat, ut cum dicimus aeris tinnitum, equorum hinnitum, ouium balatum, tubarum clangorem, stridorem catenarum. Perspicis enim haec uerba ita sonare ut ipsae res quae his uerbis significantur. “The Stoics, whom Cicero ridicules in this matter, as only Cicero can, think that there is no word whose definite origin cannot be explained. Because it would be easy to refute them by saying that this would be an infinite process, for by whichever words you interpret the origin of anyone word, the origin of these words would in tum have to be sought, they assert that you must search until you arrive at some similarity of the sound of the word to the thing, as when we say ‘the clang of bronze,’ ‘the whinnying of horses,’ ‘the bleating of sheep,’ ‘the blare of trumpets,’ ‘the rattle of chains.’ For you clearly see that these words sound like the things themselves which are signified by these words” (transl. Darrell Jackson). 49 Augustine Dial. 6.10: sed quia sunt res quae non sonant, in his similitudinem tactus ualere, ut, si leniter uel aspere sensum tangunt, lenitas uel asperitas litterarum ut tangit auditum sic eis nomina pepererit: ut ipsum lene cum dicimus leniter sonat. Quis item asperitatem non et ipso nomine asperam iudicet? lene est auribus cum dicimus uoluptas, asperum cum dicimus crux. Ita res ipsae afficiunt, ut uerba sentiuntur. “But since there are things which do not make sounds, in these touch is the basis for similarity. If the things touch the sense smoothly or roughly, the smoothness or roughness of letters in like manner touches the hearing and thus has produced the names for them. For example, lene (smoothly) itself has a smooth sound. Likewise, who does not by the name itself judge asperitas (roughness) to be rough? It is gentle to the ears when we say voluptas (pleasure); it is harsh when we say crux (cross). Thus, the words are perceived in the way the things themselves affect us” (transl. Darrell Jackson). 50 Cf. Long (2005) 41–42. 51 SVF 2.183.

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System cry in that the former is articulate, the other is not, and the latter therefore remains but a simple cry. A human utterance is properly labeled as lexis, 52 and the object about which a lexis is vocalized is the name-bearer or tynchanon (literally: “that which happens to be”). 53 Both the tynchanon and the lexis are bodies. But Stoic theory then introduces a third element: the lekton or “sayable”. 54 The fundamental feature of the lekta concerns their ontological status. Together with “void,” “place,” and “time,” they do not have physical bodies and are therefore classified as asômata or “incorporeals”. 55 Since only bodies exist, it cannot be said of lekta that they exist; and yet lekta cannot be said to be nothing. Their ontological status resides in not being nothing, which is why lekta do not exist, but subsist. 56 The Stoics outline a precise sequence that regulates the perception and understanding of a verbal structure. This process can potentially lead to cognition and, in the case of language, “sayables” play a specific, fundamental role. Crucially, lekta are not in the mind of the percipient subject: they are not thoughts, for if they were they would have a body (since thoughts have a body as dispositions of the material soul). The reaction to a given utterance will therefore not

 52 The term λέξις clearly showcases its relation with the word λόγος, as demonstrated both by the etymological proximity of the two terms and by DL 7.56 where λόγος is defined as: φωνὴ σημαντικὴ ἀπὸ διανοίας ἐκπεμπομένη, “a significant vocal sound uttered by the mind.” Sextus Empiricus Math. 2.80 insists on the distinction between a simple utterance and an utterance which is simultaneously an act of signification. Similarly, DL 7.57 underscores the ability of signifying as the main feature of λόγος. That about which λόγος signifies Diogenes terms as πρᾶγμα, ultimately coinciding with λεκτόν. 53 There is however a further differentiation between λέξις, which is an articulated realization, which may not necessarily convey any signification, and λόγος, which is not only articulated, but also bears meaning. 54 Seneca does not provide a specific Latin equivalent for the Greek λεκτόν. Rather, at Ep. 117.13 he ventures various potential translations such as enuntiativum quidam (“something that enunciates something”), effatum (“something said”), enuntiatum (“something enunciated”), dictum (“something said”). These attempts at rendering the pregnancy of the Greek λεκτόν lie in the wake of Cicero Acad. Pr. 2.95: Nempe fundamentum dialecticae est quidquid enuntietur (id autem appellant ἀξίωμα, quod est quasi effatum) aut verum esse aut falsum. “Clearly it is a fundamental principle of dialectic that every statement (termed by them axiōma, that is, a ‘proposition’) is either true or false” (transl. Rackman). An analysis of the philosophical significance of such Senecan definitions can be found in Inwood (2007) 297, and Bronowski (2019) 344–346. 55 SVF 2.166. 56 Baratain (1982) 11 poignantly defines λεκτά as the potential content of the enunciated: “Ce sont des énonçables, constituant le contenu virtuel des énoncés.” On the notion of λεκτόν, cf. also Schubert (1994), Frede (1994), and Bronowski (2019), of which see, in particular, pp. 81–125 concerning the λεκτά’s ontological status.

Res, Verba, and Cognition  

depend on lekta; in fact, causation can occur only between bodies. 57 The locus classicus for an account of the functioning of these various components is supplied by Sextus Empiricus Math. 2.11–12 : Oἱ μὲν περὶ τῷ σημαινομένῳ τὸ ἀληθές τε καὶ ψεῦδος ὑπεστήσαντο, οἱ δὲ περὶ τῇ φωνῇ, οἱ δὲ περὶ τῇ κινήσει τῆς διανοίας. καὶ δὴ τῆς μὲν πρώτης δόξης προεστήκασιν οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς, τρία φάμενοι συζυγεῖν ἀλλήλοις, τό τε σημαινόμενον καὶ τὸ σημαῖνον καὶ τὸ τυγχάνον, ὧν σημαῖνον μὲν εἶναι τὴν φωνήν, οἷον τὴν Δίων, σημαινόμενον δὲ αὐτὸ τὸ πρᾶγμα τὸ ὑπ’ αὐτῆς δηλούμενον καὶ οὗ ἡμεῖς μὲν ἀντιλαμβανόμεθα τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ παρυφισταμένου διανοίᾳ, οἱ δὲ βάρβαροι οὐκ ἐπαΐουσι καίπερ τῆς φωνῆς ἀκούοντες, τυγχάνον δὲ τὸ ἐκτὸς ὑποκείμενον, ὥσπερ αὐτὸς ὁ Δίων. τούτων δὲ δύο μὲν εἶναι σώματα, καθάπερ τὴν φωνὴν καὶ τὸ τυγχάνον, ἓν δὲ ἀσώματον, ὥσπερ τὸ σημαινόμενον πρᾶγμα, καὶ λεκτόν, ὅπερ ἀληθές τε γίνεται ἢ ψεῦδος. Some placed truth and falsity in the thing signified, others in the sound, others in the motion of the intellect. The champions of the first opinion were the Stoics who said that “Three things are linked together, the thing signified and the thing signifying and the thing existing;” and of these the thing signifying is the sound (“Dion,” for instance); and the thing signified is the actual thing indicated thereby, and which we apprehend as existing in dependence on our intellect, whereas the barbarians although hearing the sound do not understand it; and the thing existing is the external real object, such as Dion himself. And of these, two are bodies—that is, the sound and the existing thing—and one is incorporeal, namely the thing signified and expressible (lekton), and this too is true or false. (Transl. Bury)

The distinction between “that which is signified” (to sêmainomenon) and “the object that happens to be signified” (to tynchanon) is a crucial one. What can be surmised from the passage is that assent or dissent never relate to “sayables” (lekta,) but only to actual utterances, which are physical bodies. The matter is, however, not without controversy, and already Arcesilaus criticizes Zeno for his idea that assent is given to presentations when it can only be properly granted to propositions. 58 Furthermore, Inwood maintains that, according to the most orthodox Stoic doctrine, assent can be given to the immaterial

 57 Sellars (2006) 63 provides the example of the utterance “watch out, the tree is falling.” The decision to move out of the way in order to avoid the danger will not depend on the λεκτόν, but on the rational mind assenting to the impression produced by the physical body of the utterance. 58 Cf. Sextus Empiricus Math. 2.151–157. For a discussion of this critical passage cf. Frede (1986) 93–104, who maintains that Arcesilaus is here arguing in favor of the right kind of language (i.e. style) for a speaker to offer in a presentation most optimally to gain assent; in other words, how one presents something is as important as what one presents.

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System component accompanying a material presentation. 59 Inwood’s interpretation then allows for the potential accommodation of a Stoic style targeting emotions; in the words of Atherton: “an impression can embody not merely a λεκτόν […] but also some sort of emotional assessment of and response to its message, its ‘signified content’ strictly speaking; and where the impression is linguistic, signifiers can or can fail to be selected which accurately connote this ‘emotional content’.” 60 For the purpose of the present discussion, what matters most is not so much whether assent is given to sayables or to their attendant material presentations, but rather the centrality of thoughts (i.e., how an individual cognitive realm is affected and modified) within this very specific system of cognition and how the hêgemonikon 61 is materially affected by language. Understanding the place of thought in the Stoic system of causation is crucial for the claim that Seneca’s style deploys rhetorical strategies which aim at eliciting specific cognitive reactions, i.e., material affections of one’s soul. In fact, if every mode of intellectual interaction involving words did not rely on the belief that words can lead to a material modification of one’s state of mind and guide the proficiens towards wisdom, then all philosophical preaching would be dull and anodyne. How is it, then, that Seneca as a Stoic can trust the transformative power of his philosophical oeuvre, which is of course an intensely literary construction and hinges on the dexterous use of language? And why is it that a stylistic strategy revolving around metaphors can prove so effective? The distinction outlined by the Stoics between sayables and thoughts affords the ontological status of existence only to the latter. 62 Consequently, thoughts qua bodies can be accounted for only in or by a process of causation originating from language. Notwithstanding the importance of lekta, every cognitive process  59 Cf. Inwood (1985) 57. Seneca’s own discussion and instantiation of λεκτά can be found at Ep. 117.13: Hi habent proprium quiddam et a corporibus seductum, tamquam video Catonem ambulantem. Hoc sensus ostendit, animus credidit. Corpus est, quod video, cui et oculos intendi et animum. Dico deinde: Cato ambulat. Non corpus,” inquit, “est, quod nunc loquor, sed enuntiativum quiddam de corpore, quod alii effatum vocant, alii enuntiatum, alii dictum. “And these have a certain essential quality which is sundered from body: for example: ‘I see Cato walking.’ The senses indicate this, and the mind believes it. What I see is body, and upon this I concentrate my eyes and my mind. Again, I say: ‘Cato walks.’ What I say,” they continue, “is not body: it is a certain declarative fact concerning body—called variously an ‘utterance,’ a ‘declaration,’ a ‘statement’” (transl. Gummere). 60 Cf. Atherton (1988) 409. 61 On the ἡγεμονικόν qua unified philosophical model of the self, cf. Reydams-Schils (2005) 15– 52. 62 As Bardzell (2009) 22 puts it: “Incorporeals provide a rational framework that enables both cognition and linguistic expression, without [themselves] becoming reified.”

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also hinges on a second fundamental component: phantasiai. 63 And lekta qua propositional contents always accompany phantasiai. SVF 2.53 furnishes a description of this “physicalist chain,” whereby the material dispositions of one’s mind can be modified by externals inputs (or impressions), very much like a piece of wax receives the material impression of a signet ring: Τὴν δὲ φαντασίαν εἶναι τύπωσιν ἐν ψυχῇ, τοῦ ὀνόματος οἰκείως μετενηνεγμένου ἀπὸ τῶν τύπων ἐν τῷ κηρῷ ὑπὸ τοῦ δακτυλίου γινομένων. A presentation (or mental impression) is an imprint on the soul: the name having been appropriately borrowed from the imprint made by the seal upon the wax. (Transl. Hicks)

These lines 64 are of particular importance for the understanding of the role played by phantasiai or “presentations,” which are here utilized to describe the typôsis 65  63 The orthodox distinction between λεκτόν and φαντασία is still observed by Seneca, as shown but his discussion of the matter at Ep. 117. However, a generation after Seneca, Epictectus tends toward a blurrier distinction between the two notions. 64 For a similar analogy to the impression on the wax cf. DL 7.50. Crucially, when discussing Fabianus’ style and the ideal feature of the good style, Seneca Ep. 100.1 singles out the orator’s ability of figere verba, which Hijmans (1991) 20 and Garbanino (2006) 58 rightly interpret as an impression on the reader’s mind. Dionysius of Halicarnassus Comp. 22.1 utilizes the strikingly similar phrase ἐρείδεσθαι… τὰ ὀνόματα. The image of the wax is originally deployed by Plato Tht. 191c8–195a9, and many scholars have discussed the relation of this specific passage with the Stoic theory of cognition (in particular Zeno’s and Cleanthes’) which is also predicated on this illustration; cf. Mansfeld (1983) 67, Ioppolo (1990) 433–449, Long (2006) 223–235, Togni (2010) 95–101. 65 The term τύπωσις was coined by Zeno, but then modified by Crysippus to ἑτεροίωσις or ἀλλοίωσις to account for the simultaneous existence of multiple impressions. This logical predicament is described at SVF 2.55: Φαντασία δέ ἐστι τύπωσις ἐν ψυχῇ, τουτέστιν ἀλλοίωσις, ὡς ὁ Χρύσιππος ἐν τῇ δευτέρᾳ Περὶ ψυχῆς ὑφίσταται. οὐ γὰρ δεκτέον τὴν τύπωσιν οἱονεὶ τύπον σφραγιστῆρος, ἐπεὶ ἀνένδεκτόν ἐσ τι πολλοὺς τύπους κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ περὶ τὸ αὐτὸ γίνεσθαι. “Phantasia is the act of imprinting something on the soul, that is a process of change, as is set forth by Chrysippus in the second book of his treatise Of the Soul (De anima). For, says he, we must not take “impression” in the literal sense of the stamp of a seal, because it is impossible to suppose that a number of such impressions should be in one and the same spot at one and the same time” (transl. Gazzarri). The Latin translation of this notion is visio, as attested at Quintilian Inst. 6.2.29: Quas φαντασίας Graeci (nos sane visiones appellemus), per quas imagines rerum absentium ita repraesentantur animo ut eas cernere oculis ac praesentes habere videamur, has quisquis bene ceperit is erit in adfectibus potentissimus. “What the Greeks call phantasiai (let us call them “visions”), by which the images of absent things are presented to the mind in such a way that we seem actually to see them with our eyes and have them physically present to us” (transl. Russell). The scholarship on the Stoic notion of phantasia is vast. Perhaps the clearest and most succinct definition is at Inwood (1985) 56, as “representational image of the mind.” Other significant works on the topic

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System (or “impression”) on the soul produced by a sensation or a reasoning activity. 66 Aristotle Mem. 1.450a17–30 first deploys the image of the impression on the wax, although he calls it typos instead of typôsis. 67 More importantly, however, is that Aristotle is also the first to entertain the idea that this typos be not just an illustration of pure perception but rather describes a physical modification occurring inside the percipient’s body. 68 As for the Stoics, a cognitive sequence begins with a physical impression on the percipient subject’s mind, and it is fulfilled with the attendant rational assenting or dissenting. This specific phase of the Stoic epistemology of cognition is the most relevant for our contention that the fundamental feature of Seneca’s style is its intrinsically physicalized nature. Before venturing a more detailed description of sensation and cognition according to the Stoics, it bears stressing with Graver that Seneca’s interest in impressions concerns more their potential being a stimulus for action than their

 are Sandbach (1971), Frede (1986), Watson (1988) 38–95, Long (1996), Manieri (1998), and Zagdoun (2000). For the role of φαντασία as a form of ekphrastic interference cf. Bartsch (2007). As for the Latin rendering of the term, Cicero opts for visum, and more rarely for species, the latter of which is Seneca’s term of choice; see Armisen-Marchetti (1996) 82 n. 40 for a list of Ciceronian and Senecan occurrences of the aforementioned Latin translations of φαντασία. 66 The way this process is described often presents a degree of terminological ambiguity. In English, the word “impression” can equally signify a “sensation” and the result of something having been imprinted onto something else. Within the Stoic system, only the later meaning is accurate, and it reflects a completely materialistic conception of the mind. Furthermore, we are investigating the case of φαντασίαι generated by perception, but DL 7.51 clearly accounts also for φαντασίαι qua products of the ἡγεμονικόν’s own internal activity. 67 The difference is subtle: while a τύπωσις explicitly implies the notion of “cast,” and often signifies “impression,” τύπος more generically designates the effect of a blow on something; cf. Togni (2010) 87. 68 In particular, the bodily part which undergoes physical modification is the heart; cf. Aristotle Mem. 1.450a27–30: Δῆλον γὰρ ὅτι δεῖ νοῆσαι τοιοῦτον τὸ γινόμενον διὰ τῆς αἰσθήσεως ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ καὶ τῷ μορίῳ τοῦ σώματος τῷ ἔχοντι αὐτήν, οἷον ζωγράφημά τι τὸ πάθος, οὗ φαμὲν τὴν ἕξιν μνήμην. εἶναι· ἡ γὰρ γινομένη κίνησις ἐνσημαίνεται οἷον τύπον τινὰ τοῦ αἰσθήματος, καθάπερ οἱ σφραγιζόμενοι τοῖς δακτυλίοις. “For it is obvious that one must consider the affection which is produced by sensation in the soul, and in that part of the body which contains the soul— the affection, the lasting state of which we call memory—as a kind of picture; for the stimulus produced impresses a sort of likeness of the percept, just as when men seal with signet rings” (transl. Hett); cf. also the recent translation of Bloch (2007) 31, who takes κίνησις ἐνσημαίνεται οἷον τύπον τινὰ τοῦ αἰσθήματος as “the movement produced stamps, almost a sort of impression of the sense-impression.” On this passage and on Aristotle’s emphasis on how the τύπος effects a bodily modification, see Sorabji (1993) 82 and Togni (2010) 87–88.

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cognitive functioning. 69 However, an analysis of figural language, which is predicated on the notion of ante oculos ponere (“to make something visible”), demands that a basic description of Stoic epistemology be provided. When an external impulse (aisthêsis) leaves a physical impression on the mind, the hêgemonikon elaborates on that impression, a process leading to the creation of a phantasia. 70 A presentation is not strictly an impression, but rather the rational elaboration thereof, and only if this presentation, or rather the propositional content derived from it, receives a rational assent (synkatathesis) 71 can it then be classified as phantasia katalêptikê. 72 This is a presentation adhering to reality, and one whose truthfulness is guaranteed. The rational assent to a kataleptic presentation is by no means subjective but, as Frede observes, occurs with the self-evident clarity of truthfulness. In other words, it is not an act of deliberation, but rather it approaches a moment of enlightenment. 73 If, on the contrary, the mind

 69 Cf. Graver (2014) 264. 70 A φαντασία therefore does not coincide with one’s distal faculty; rather it is the product of it, as already outlined by Aristotle De an. 3.3.429a1: Ἡ φαντασία ἂν εἴη κίνησις ὑπὸ τῆς αἰσθήσεως τῆς κατ᾿ ἐνέργειαν γιγνομένης. “Imagination must be a movement produced by sensation actively operating” (transl. Hett). 71 Cicero Fin. 3.72 utilizes the verb assentiri to translate this fundamental stage of Stoic cognition into Latin. Seneca Ir. 2.1.3 adopts Cicero’s solution, but nonetheless opts for some original alternatives, such as accedere at Ep. 13.8 and credere at Ben. 4.34.1. For a complete list of Ciceronian and Senecan verbal occurrences of these specific technical meanings, cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1996) 82 n. 39. 72 Here the term καταληπτική alludes to the fact that the presentation is quite literally “graspable,” as explained by Cicero Acad. post. 1.41, commenting on Zeno’s coining of a new philosophical language: Id autem visum cum ipsum per se cerneretur, comprendibile—feretis haec?” “Nos vero,” inquit; “quonam enim alio modo καταληπτόν diceres?” “Sed cum acceptum iam et approbatum esset, comprehensionem appellabat, similem iis rebus quae manu prenderentur—ex quo etiam nomen hoc duxerat, cum eo verbo antea nemo tali in re usus esset, plurimisque idem novis verbis (nova enim dicebat) usus est. “‘And a trustworthy presentation, being perceived as such by its own intrinsic nature, he termed ‘graspable’—will you endure these coinages?’ ‘Indeed we will,’ said Atticus, ‘for how else could you express ‘catalēpton’?’ ‘But after it had been received and accepted as true, he termed it a ‘grasp,’ resembling objects gripped in the hand—and in fact he had derived the actual term from manual prehension, nobody before having used the word in such a sense, and he also used a number of new terms (for his doctrines were new)’” (transl. Rackham). Zeno’s image here suggests that dialectic and rhetoric, the former being more compact, while the latter is more expansive, actually differed only in their form, while the subject is the same; cf. Atherton (1988) 399–400. 73 Cf. Goldschmidt (19692) 114 and Ildefonse (1997) 120–121, who discusses the Ciceronian passage at Acad. Pr. 2.12.38 where the image of the scale instantiates the necessary assent to a

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System rejects the impression on account of its lack of congruity with reality, then the presentation is by definition to be classed as a phantasia akatalêptikê. The line separating true knowledge from false knowledge (and therefore a lack of knowledge) is the same as that which separates phantasia and phantasma. The latter is quite literally a phantasm deprived of all ontological consistency and, therefore, it is nothing short of a mistake. 74 The typical textbook example provided by the Stoics is found in Euripides Or. 255–277, where Orestes believes that he is facing the Erinyes when, in fact, he is beholding his sister Electra. 75 To summarize the process as described thus far, we can outline the following sequence: 76 (I) aisthêsis (impressed upon) → (II) hêgemonikon (rational processing) → (III) phantasia → (IV) propositional content → → (Va) synkatathesis (assent) to (IV) → (VIa) phantasia katalêptikê (self-evident truth of the presentation) → (Vb) lack of assent to (IV) → (VIb) therefore lack of ontological consistency

Such mechanics of epistemology are extremely consequential. The fact that a presentation may be right or wrong requires an attending assent or rejection to pass judgment upon it. Furthermore, the processing of impressions is a rational  kataleptic presentation: Ut enim necesse est lancem in libra ponderibus impositis deprimi, sic animum perspicuis cedere “for as the scale of a balance must necessarily sink when weights are put in it, so the mind must necessarily yield to clear presentations” (transl. Rackham). 74 The notion of φάντασμα is described at SVF 2.54: Φάντασμα δ’ ἐστίν, ἐφ’ ὃ ἑλκόμεθα κατὰ τὸν φανταστικὸν διάκενον ἑλκυσμόν. “Phantasma is that to which we are attracted by the empty traction of the imagination” (transl. Gazzarri). The definition “empty traction” signifies the absence of a material object from which a real impression may originate. The mental experience of a phantasma is termed φανταστικόν, cf. Graver (2007) 112–113 and Shields (2018) 39–41. The φανταστικόν is a fundamental mistake of the mind and, as such, it is endowed with existence. On the contrary, the φάντασμα from which a φανταστικόν eventuates is a non-existing φανταστόν, i.e. it does not exist. 75 Cf. Sextus Empiricus Math. 2.243–249. On this topic, see Labarrière (2004) 189–272. In the words of Graver (2007) 113: “Orestes is ‘attracted’ to the Furies, not of course in the sense of wanting to pursue them, but in that the nature of his mental experience entices him to believe that they are really there and to pursue a course of action in relation to them.” 76 In this connection, Cicero Acad. Pr. 2.145 (=SVF 1.66) attributes to Zeno the famous illustration of the difference between cognition and knowledge through a sequence of hand gestures: the stretched fingers amount to an impression, the closing hand to the moment of the assent, the fist to the kataleptic cognition, and, lastly, the other hand clenching over the fist to the kind of perfect knowledge attainable only by the wise man. For an extensive discussion of the history of the notion of φαντασία, cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1979), who insits on the theoretical differences on representation between Aristotle, Plato, and the Stoics.

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human skill and as such it can and must be responsibly trained. The correct handling of presentations ultimately amounts to a fundamental aspect of one’s ethical apprenticeship. But processing impressions is a material operation because it deals with material inputs under the direction of the hêgemonikon (which is itself material.) In other words, by creating continuity between sensory experience and rational faculty, phantasiai not only explain but also make possible a direct relation between sensations, knowledge, and behavior; 77 and our training in the correct handling of images amounts to an ethical exercise.

2.7 Oculus The contiguity between presentations, cognition, and ethical direction is enhanced by a language whose target is moral instruction and whose effectiveness rests on a large armory of figurations drawn from a variety of sensory domains. The Aristotelian tenet that metaphors enable a writer to poiein pro ommatôn, “put [an idea] before the eyes,” unequivocally links rhetoric and vision. The mechanics of sight and the role played by “the eye” in the deployment and understanding of Seneca’s figural strategy are yet another fundamental component of his “physics of literature” and the ensuing quest for a “visual style.” It is the very Aristotelian definition of metaphors as “shifted images” that encourages the deployment of illustrations that ought to be highly captivating for human distal faculties (sight in particular) and to enhance naturally the materialistic nature of Seneca’s prose. Although a history of the epistemic role of sight in the classical world is beyond the scope of this study, we would do well to outline and juxtapose two prevailing perspectives, one that looks at sight as yielding optimistic trust and one that looks at it as yielding diffidence. Already in Homer, sight stands out as a capability that fundamentally structures the learning process. 78 At Il. 2.484–486, the poet, aware as he is of his inability to recall all the names of the Greek commanders, summons the Muses’ help, in virtue of their being cognizant of everything:

 77 Cf. Dross (2010) 85: “La phantasia est inséparable de son devenir cognitif et actif.” 78 The bibliography on the relations between vision and knowledge is very rich, in particular when it comes to the distinction between μῦθος and λόγος and also concerning the importance of the autopsic principle for the development of Greek history and self-consciousness; cf. at least Burnet (1920), Nestle (1942), Cornford (1952), Vernant (1965), and Hartog (1980).

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System Ἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουσαι· ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα, ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν· …. Tell me now, you Muses who have dwellings on Olympus—for you are goddesses and are present and know all things, but we hear only a rumor and know nothing… (Transl. Murray)

The use of verbal forms of oida clearly signifies the relation between seeing and knowing: 79 a condition that is conceptualized in terms of direct experience and also guaranteed by physical presence. Shifting from the epic tradition to history and moving several centuries forward in time, Herodotus similarly underscores the tight relation between knowledge and vision by indicating the autoptic principle as the constitutive criterion of historia and by ultimately identifying what can be recounted with what has been seen. 80 In like manner, Aristotle locates the root of all learning and every creative activity in our capacity to see, and therefore to imitate. 81 Alongside these positive (and epistemologically positivist) theories of vision, there was in classical antiquity a second, far more skeptical attitude towards vision and the senses in general, wherein they were regarded as potentially deceptive and disorienting. This is the case, for instance, with Democritus fr. 68BK 11 DK: Λέγει δὲ κατὰ λέξιν· γνώμης δὲ δύο εἰσὶν ιδέαι, ἡ μὲν γνησίη, ἡ δὲ σκοτίη· καὶ σκοτίης μὲν τάδε σύμπαντα, ὄψις, ἀκοή, ὀδμή, γεῦσις, ψαῦσις. He says verbatim that there are two types of knowledge: the true one and the obscure one. And all these belong to the obscure one: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. (Transl. Gazzarri)  79 The Proto-Indo-European d “light,” can be equally found in the roots *DHU “sacrificial fire, smoke spirit,” *DHI “inner light, meditation,” *VID “sacred knowledge,” and its phonetic mirror *DIV “divine light.” The association between the holy, vision/light, and knowledge not only structures but predates Greek culture. Cf. Chantraine (1968) 316–317 s.v. εἴδον, De Vaan (2008) 767 s.v. video, and Beekes. (2009) 379–380 s.v. εἴδομαι. 80 Herodotus also collects data in his narration that he declares not to have witnessed directly but to have collected from other sources. The fact itself that he shows such care in distinguishing what has been directly seen and what has not demonstrates the primary importance attributed to sight. 81 Cf. the beginning of the Poetics where all different poetic genres are defined as imitations: Ἐποποιία δὴ καὶ ἡ τῆς τραγῳδίας ποίησις ἔτι δὲ κωμῳδία καὶ ἡ διθυραμβοποιητικὴ καὶ τῆς αὐλητικῆς ἡ πλείστη καὶ κιθαριστικῆς πᾶσαι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι μιμήσεις τὸ σύνολον. “Now, epic and tragic poetry, as well as comedy, dithyramb, and most music for aulos and lyre, are all, taken as a whole, kinds of mimesis” (transl. Halliwell).

Oculus  

Aside from the puzzling paradox of Democritus apparently being unable to escape a sensory-based definition of the fallibility of the senses, the pessimistic take on the cognitive potential of the distal faculties could not be more patent. Plato takes this analysis to its furthest extreme, to the point that ancient idealism can be framed as the most extreme expression of a fundamental mistrust in relation to the senses. Once again, however, much of it relies on the language of vision, which (metaphorically) prompts the conceptualization of knowledge and the attendant approach to our philosophical searching (the myth of the cave can be read as an analysis of false vs. accurate vision). 82 Forms are in fact visions, though immutable and eternal and, therefore, reliable and in sharp contrast to the transient object of earthly experiences. However, the corporeal emphasis of the Stoic system favors a different approach, much of it based on the way sensory experience is theorized, and on the value that is attributed to it. Equally distant from Plato’s negative attitude on the one hand, and Aristotle’s “positivist” approach on the other, the Stoic take is based, as it were, on a third epistemic option. Neither optimistic nor pessimistic, the School’s outlook on vision focuses not so much on the material inputs that reach the hêgemonikon through the various sensory parts, but rather on our ability to process the propositions deriving from these inputs. As already observed (cf. pp. 78–79), learning “how to see,” an exercise involving the judgment of propositional contents, amounts to acquiring knowledge and progressing on the path to wisdom. To better appreciate the inherently physical functioning of this sequence, which links sensory data to knowledge through the mediation of a rational, adjudicating faculty, it is worth taking stock of some dominant ancient theories concerning the mechanics of sight and the impact of these doctrines on Stoicism and on Seneca. A theory of the relation between vision and knowledge largely depends on how the physiology of the eye and the mechanics of sight are conceived. This is certainly true for Seneca and his creation of a style that is “materialistic” and anchored in the figurations of the bodily and sensory realms. Theories on the functioning of sight vary and range from the intromissive, such as the Democritean theory, to the completely extramissive, the main example of which is supplied by

 82 Plato’s assessment of the relation between vision and knowledge is further complicated by the much-debated passage at Tht. 201c where it is said that when it comes to a past event such as, for instance, a crime, true knowledge of its details is possessed only by a direct witness, and even if the judge manages to pass a rightful sentence, he will do so “without science.” For a concise discussion of the relation between knowledge and the senses, cf. Brunschwig (1996) 88– 112.

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System Plato. 83 Intromissive theories are predicated on the idea that external effluences from a given item affect the eye. On the other hand, in extramissive theories, it is the eye that, by means of an internal emanation of light, “captures” the external object. Lastly, Aristotle proposes a “mixed theory” which is predicated on the notions of potentiality and actuality, whereby the eye can potentially see items and becomes “actualized” when a perception occurs, the act of perceiving being facilitated by the medium of light. 84 The Stoics posit the extension of the vital pneuma from the hêgemonikon to the distal bodily faculties, thus creating a kind of tension, or tonos, which facilitates sensory transmission. A given unit of perceptual information is processed through this “tension grid,” and conforms to a mode that is fittingly termed kinêsis tonikê, or “tensional motion.” The actual act of transmission is called diadosis. Tension, both of the human body and of the external environment, is once again at the center of this mechanics of sight. The interaction between the eye, i.e., its pneuma, and external light creates a visual field of conic shape that is able to “capture” visual impressions, as if operating with a tactile ability. That is, the visual field interacts with the tensional qualities of the surface of a given object. A visual impression is then sent back to the heart (not the brain), which is deemed to be the rational center of the human body. Since the heart is also the seat of speech, the production of language-based propositions and the processing of visual presentations (two activities equally involving tensional modifications of the pneuma) find a common anatomical seat in the heart. Nonetheless, language, unlike perceptual information, comes not from outside the individual, but is conceived within the hêgemonikon itself. 85 Since speech and vision involve tensional motion and share the same anatomical location, they are both endowed with potential cognitive power. It is no surprise, then, that the Stoics choose to underscore the proximity of language and sight by showcasing a style so dry as to be ideally assimilated to the act of pointing to something; they thus posit a vision-prompting action (cf. p. 124). In the same way, Seneca’s highly visual language can be seen as an attempt to overcome the traditionally criticized shortcoming of Stoic rhetoric, i.e., its proverbial

 83 For Democritus’ theory we depend on Theophrastus Sens. 50–51. Cf. Nightingale (2015). 84 Cf. Aristotle De an. 2.5.416b–417b9. 85 Admittedly, Seneca never fully expounds this detailed and complex theory of vision, nor does he explicitly embrace it. However, as Smith (2014) 350 argues specifically on the relations of the ἡγεμονικόν with one’s distal faculties: “it stands to reason that this would have been part of his Stoic training” and he then adds that “Seneca’s silence on the matter […] is no doubt, rooted in his privileging of ethical issues.”

Oculus  

lack of clarity, by emphasizing this particular tenet of Stoic doctrine: the proximity of words and images, something that, according to DL 7.49, the Stoics particularly valued: Ἀρέσκει τοῖς Στωικοῖς τὸν περὶ φαντασίας καὶ αἰσθήσεως προτάττειν λόγον, καθότι τὸ κριτήριον, ᾧ ἡ ἀλήθεια τῶν πραγμάτων γινώσκεται, κατὰ γένος φαντασία ἐστί, καὶ καθότι ὁ περὶ συγκαταθέσεως καὶ ὁ περὶ καταλήψεως καὶ νοήσεως λόγος, προάγων τῶν ἄλλων, οὐκ ἄνευ φαντασίας συνίσταται. προηγεῖται γὰρ ἡ φαντασία, εἶθ’ ἡ διάνοια ἐκλαλητικὴ ὑπάρχουσα, ὃ πάσχει ὑπὸ τῆς φαντασίας, τοῦτο ἐκφέρει λόγῳ. The Stoics agree to put in the forefront the doctrine of presentation and sensation, inasmuch as the standard by which the truth of things is tested is generically a presentation, and again the theory of assent and that of apprehension and thought, which precedes all the rest, cannot be stated apart from presentation. For presentation comes first; then thought, which is capable of expressing itself, puts into the form of a proposition that which the subject receives from a presentation. (Transl. Hicks)

Seneca deploys “illustrative” words as if they were images. In doing so, he avoids the risk of obscuritas while keeping his allegiance to Stoic orthodoxy via this specific typology of illustrative language. Such a choice stands in stark opposition to the strategies taught by the schools of rhetoric to enable an orator to convince through artifices and overly dialectical syntax. Naturally, the hêgemonikon must always monitor the truthfulness of presentations. Both words and images ought to be gauged according to their cognitive value. That is, a phantasia, unless validated by the hêgemonikon’s rational assent, can potentially be a misleading phantasma and, by definition, only the logical content of structured propositions obeys rational criteria (cf. p. 78 n. 74). The relation between sight and language does not simply pertain to cognition, but also influences the Stoic theory of action. The notion of phantasia hormêtikê illustrates the relation between presentation and behavior and, more precisely, the ability of a given presentation to trigger a specific behavior (which, in the case of an object that is undesirable or intrinsically bad, is a form of repulsion, or aphormê). 86 Narration, vision, and action are not only interwoven, but they operate in a mutually integrative way and they all contribute to the proficiens’ moral progress. In sum, highly metasemic language provides Seneca not only with a semantic strategy to counter the accusation of lack of clarity usually levelled against the Stoics but also literally to provide his disciple with moral solidity and rouse him  86 Cf. Inwood (1985) and Ildefonse (2011).

  Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System toward a virtuous course of action. This modus operandi reaches its full potential through medical figurations—a formidable means by which to enhance the Stoic materialistic take on language and one which also repurposes the long-standing tradition of philosophy qua medicine. The result is a style that is simultaneously visual and therapeutic: a stylistic statement capable of affecting the mind and consciousness of the proficiens. In particular, the theory of pre-emotions enables Seneca to deploy the most effective protreptic discourse to effect specific bodily reactions. In this regard, highly metasemic language proves the most apt to elicit this type of reactions and, as a consequence, to provide the most effective training. On this basis, Seneca utilizes metaphors to elicit propatheiai, thus completely bypassing the ornamental function of metaphors in favor of their cognitive value and therapeutic function, as the next chapter will show.

 Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress The Stoic correspondence of language, thought, and the materiality of the body, including its psychological functions, allows for an assessment of the material effects of language on a percipient subject. One particularly relevant Stoic psychological notion is that of pre-emotions, the focus of the present chapter. Although variously theorized by different Stoic thinkers, pre-emotions account for kindred processes, whereby a subject must relate to some “psychic conditions” elicited by external events, at a stage which precedes the hêgemonikon’s rational assent (or lack thereof) and which therefore ought to be labeled as “pre-emotional.” The emphasis of my analysis will be on those pre-emotional situations elicited by verbal and literary content and able to equip the proficiens with a level of familiarity with psychological reactions much less destructive than those which fully blown, unbridled emotions would effect. Highly metasemic language, because of its quintessential ability to conjure up vistas (ante oculos ponere), can be purposely deployed to accustom a reader to his body’s physical reactions, which account for the expected physiological response to a given emotional state. It is as if metaphorical representations could provide a vicarious, as well as safe, arena wherein one can familiarize oneself with a menagerie of phantasiai before experiencing them in real life (what is outside the spectrum of figural/textual representations). 1 This formidable tool Seneca combines with the companion notion of literary evidentia, a cardinal concept for both Lucretius’ didactic mission and Longinus’ discussion of the hypsos. The visual quality of metaphorical language sustains Seneca’s effort to fragment reality into segments of more achievable comprehension. As with Lucretius, decomposition must be the chief didactic ploy for training a disciple to “truly see.” Each vista, insomuch as it serves the same fundamental need for learning how to manage propositional content (and how to judge it), functions as a mise en abyme of larger ethical conundrums and ultimately the cosmic interconnectedness of all aspects of reality.

 1 The central exercise of praemeditatio futurorum malorum is centered on precisely the correct handling of “this vicarious content.” As Armisen-Marchetti (1986) 186 argues: “La praemeditatio offre l’occasion d’user de l’imagination au service de la raison”. On the topic of the relation between ἄσκησις and imagination see also Armisen-Marchetti (2004–2005) 166–169. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-004

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress

. Apprenticeship and Pre-emotions The notion of ethical apprenticeship qua material exercise ensues from the materiality of Stoic linguistics, but also from its theory of emotions. In particular, for the Stoics—and this specific doctrine can be traced back to Chrysippus—the processing of external presentations involves two phases (known as “movements”), of which the first one does not involve any act of volition and is more “physiological;” the second is characterized by the hêgemonikon’s assent to (or dissent from) the first phase and is therefore more “mental.” A succinct explanation of this fundamental tenet is provided by Gellius NA 19.1.15–20, who recounts a conversation with a Stoic philosopher while aboard a ship after the danger of shipwreck has just been averted. Gellius is surprised by the lack of imperturbability of his Stoic interlocutor, who appeared to fear the sea-storm as much as the other non-Stoic passengers. Puzzled by this lack of proverbial and expected apatheia, he decides to question the philosopher about his behavior. The Stoic’s reply is worth presenting in its entirety: Visa animi, quas φαντασίας philosophi appellant, quibus mens hominis prima statim specie accidentis ad animum rei pellitur, non voluntatis sunt neque arbitrariae, sed vi quadam sua inferunt sese hominibus noscitanda; probationes autem, quas συγκαταθέσεις vocant, quibus eadem visa noscuntur, voluntariae sunt fiuntque hominum arbitratu. Propterea cum sonus aliquis formidabilis aut caelo aut ex ruina aut repentinus nescio cuius periculi nuntius vel quid aliud est eiusmodi factum, sapientis quoque animum paulisper moveri et contrahi et pallescere necessum est, non opinione alicuius mali praecepta, sed quibusdam motibus rapidis et inconsultis, officium mentis atque rationis praevertentibus. Mox tamen ille sapiens ibidem τὰς τοιαύτας φαντασίας, id est visa istaec animi sui terrifica, non adprobat, hoc est οὐ συγκατατίθεται οὐδὲ προσεπιδοξάζει, sed abicit respuitque nec ei metuendum esse in his quicquam videtur. Atque hoc inter insipientis sapientisque animum differre dicunt, quod insipiens, qualia sibi esse primo animi sui pulsu visa sunt saeva et aspera, talia esse vero putat et eadem incepta, tamquam si iure metuenda sint, sua quoque adsensione adprobat καὶ προσεπιδοξάζει: hoc enim verbo Stoici, cum super ista re disserunt, utuntur. Sapiens autem, cum breviter et strictim colore atque vultu motus est, οὐ συγκατατίθεται, sed statum vigoremque sententiae suae retinet quam de huiuscemodi visis semper habuit, ut de minime metuendis, sed fronte falsa et formidine inani territantibus. The mental visions, which the philosophers call φαντασίαι or ‘phantasies,’ by which the mind of man on the very first appearance of an object is impelled to the perception of the object, are neither voluntary nor controlled by the will, but through a certain power of their own they force their recognition upon men; but the expressions of assent, which they call συγκαταθέσεις, by which these visions are recognized, are voluntary and subject to man’s will. Therefore, when some terrifying sound, either from heaven or from a falling building or as a sudden announcement of some danger, or anything else of that kind occurs, even the mind of a wise man must necessarily be disturbed, must shrink and feel alarm, not from a preconceived idea of any danger, but from certain swift and unexpected attacks which

Apprenticeship and Pre-emotions  

forestall the power of the mind and of reason. Presently, however, the wise man does not approve ‘such phantasies,’ that is to say, such terrifying mental visions (to quote the Greek, ‘he does not consent to them nor confirm them’), but he rejects and scorns them, nor does he see in them anything that ought to excite fear. And they say that there is this difference between the mind of a foolish man and that of a wise man, that the foolish man thinks that such ‘visions’ are in fact as dreadful and terrifying as they appear at the original impact of them on his mind, and by his assent he approves of such ideas as if they were rightly to be feared, and ‘confirms’ them; for προσεπιδοξάζει is the word which the Stoics use in their discourses on the subject. But the wise man, after being affected for a short time and slightly in his colour and expression, ‘does not assent,’ but retains the steadfastness and strength of the opinion which he has always had about visions of this kind, namely that they are in no wise to be feared but excite terror by a false appearance and vain alarms. (Transl. Rolfe)

The visa animi, Gellius’ Latin rendering for the Greek phantasiai, have a specific ontological status here. They are not false perceptions of non-existing entities, in which case they would qualify as phantasmata. Rather, the visa animi are as real as they are unavoidable: they befall men on account of their all-too sentient human nature. It is impossible not to deal with presentations because it is impossible not to sense. So far, the philosopher of Gellius’ account is focusing on the so-called first movement. When volition enters the process so as to formulate a judgment, the second movement intervenes. In fact, the second movement involves two subsequent judgments, the first of which is an identification of the presentation as inherently good or bad, while the second frames the type of attendant reaction: pleasure in case of some good, distress in the case of an evil. To redirect our analysis to the problem of Seneca’s metasemic style, it may be of value to consider the relation between the present theory of the two movements and language. The identity of thought and language (i.e., the impossibility of thinking on any non-propositional content) is a quintessentially rational element. 2 However, the initial moment of language perception may not necessarily be so, or not fully so: our immediate reaction (that is, before receiving the mind’s kataleptic assent) to the various components of a proposition may be akin to the kind of unavoidable fear felt by the Stoic philosopher during the sea storm described by Gellius. It is as if the first reaction to language, or rather the initial perception of a given linguistic content, could more appropriately be considered “physiological”  2 In the words of Imbert (1978) 224: “Le stoïcisme nie qu’il ait une image séparée de son interprétation, qu’aucun contenu soit jamais donné indépendamment d’une forme discursive qui constitue la représentation en témoignage objectif. Toute représentation, si elle est telle, est une représentation reconnue, doublée de la forme discursive de l’assentiment.”

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress than “mental”. 3 This physiology of the first state of language-processing is confirmed by Seneca Ir. 2.2, where both physiological reactions and the perception of linguistic content are considered under the same heading of the first and involuntary movements: Omnes enim motus, qui non voluntate nostra fiunt, invicti et inevitabiles sunt, ut horror frigida aspersis, ad quosdam tactus aspernatio; ad peiores nuntios subriguntur pili et rubor ad improba verba suffunditur sequiturque vertigo praerupta cernentis. Quorum quia nihil in nostra potestate est, nulla quo minus fiant ratio persuadet. For all sensations that do not result from our own volition are uncontrolled and unavoidable, as, for example, shivering when we are dashed with cold water and recoilment from certain contacts; bad news makes the hair stand on end, vile language causes a blush to spread, and when one looks down from a precipice, dizziness follows. Because none of these things lies within our control, no reasoning can keep them from happening. (Transl. Basore)

This passage has been the object of extensive analysis, and my aim here is not to offer any supplemental interpretation. 4 However, this brief mention of the Stoic theory of the two movements, three actually, in the case of Seneca, 5 will reveal  3 Graver (2014) 270, n. 44 notices how Seneca elsewhere (Marc. 7.1.1, Prov. 4.1, Tranq. an. 1.9) defines this involuntary movement of the mind as morsus (“biting”), and how this terminology is likely to derive from Philo of Alexandria (who, in turn, must have had access to previous critical lore on the matter). 4 Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 46–52 addresses the relationship between Seneca’s prose style, Stoic psychology, and, more specifically, to the two options of respectively strict ἀπάθεια and academic/peripatetic μετριοπάθεια. In so doing, she poses one fundamental question: “À quelle part du psychisme s’adresse la rhétorique que Sénèque introduit dans la direction de conscience? Est-ce aux passions, ou à une autre fonction, qui, pour être irrationnelle, ne se confonds pas pour autant avec elles?” It is Seneca himself who asks the question in similar terms when at Ep. 116.1 he debates on “whether it is better to have moderate emotions, or no emotions at all” (utrum satius modicos habere adfectus an nullos). 5 For a succinct but clear illustration of the three movements according to Seneca, and based on the text of Ir. 2.4, cf. Fillion-Lahille (1984) 165, Sorabji (2000) 61–63, and Ramondetti (2006) 100–103. The starting point consists of the species vel opinio iniuriae, which is followed by the first movement, termed ictus animi, after which the second movement, or adsensus mentis takes place, and finally the third movement, a type of impetus compositus, occurs. Both the starting point and the second movement are controllable by reason, while first and third movements override any possible rational supervision. Ramondetti insists on Seneca’s interchangeable terminology for the starting point. Clearly, Seneca treats the definitions species and opinio (iniuriae), the Latin translations respectively of φαντασία and δόξα, as synonyms, thus suggesting that a received tort is such if and only if perceived as such. The sequence described supra is not undisputed. In particular, both Inwood (2005) 61–63 and Graver (2007) 120–132 and (2014) 271–

Apprenticeship and Pre-emotions  

yet another aspect of Seneca’s language, which is simultaneously materialistic and figural. Graver has argued against Sorabji’s claim that the first movement described by Seneca through various examples may represent the Stoic theorization of what modern medicine refers to as the reaction of the limbic brain. 6 In particular, Graver observes how Seneca considers both as equal parts of the first movement, as exemplified by (e.g.) one’s reaction to cold water (or, for that matter, the sense of vertigo triggered by heights) and, on the other, the bristling of the hair upon receiving bad news or a blushing reaction upon hearing obscene language. The last two examples, Graver contends, appear to be “less physical” and, as it were, less “limbic,” with the consequence that, at least for Seneca, the first movement ought to apply also to those phenomena which, like language, require a type of elaboration more complex than a simple sensory perception. Yet any attempt to interpret Seneca’s meaning here through the findings of modern neuroscience is a fascinating but dangerous exercise. This is because the Stoics had posited and described a specific structure for what we term nervous system, which depended on the tensional quality of the pneumatic principle (cf. pp. 147–149; 206–208), a tenet completely alien to the findings of modern medicine. Aside from these significant and structural divergences, what may prove disagreeable for the modern reader is that the very first reaction to linguistic content may be involuntary. In fact, if only for its propositional nature, language does not easily lend itself to any form of analysis that would frame its reception

 272 contend that attributing to Seneca a theory of emotions subdivided in three distinct movements would run counter to the Stoic orthodox position which Seneca himself outlines in Book 1. Graver opines that the second and third movements should therefore be taken as two aspects of rage. More specifically, while the second movement designates fully developed ira qua loss of rationality, the third movement applies to the morbid state of feritas: nothing short of an illness, which originates in anger and presents the distinctive tendency to be recursive. A great deal of ink has been split over the contentious topic of pre-emotions and the three Senecan movements; in addition to the above-mentioned contributions cf. also Bäumer (1982), Abel (1983), Donini (1996), Ramondetti (1996) 11–27, Vogt (2006), Kaufman (2014), and Gartner (2015). Most recently, Malaspina (2020) has re-examined the issue in order to propose a new text and a new interpretation of the much-vexed passage at Ir. 3.13.1. According to Malaspina’s analysis, we should concentrate on what he terms “no man’s land,” which is to say what falls in between the second and the third movement, after the διασροφή has already taken place. At this point a positive reaction to combat rage is no longer possible, and yet one could still resort to the strategy of the irae dilatio: “Ce conseil […] constitue en vérité une solution pratique très intelligente pour concéder un espoir de rétablissement au malade de colère hors du stoïcisme rigoureux, mais sans mettre ouvertement en discussion ou en crise les dogmes de l’école.” 6 Cf. Graver (2007) 95–99 and Sorabji (2000) 145–150.

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress as “involuntary.” And yet Seneca seems to suggest that at least the first segment of any given perceptive trajectory (including that of language) may not depend on the percipient subject’s will, and, as such, it should be considered as but a first movement. Hence Sorabji 7 terms these subtypes “mental first movements,” as opposed to purely physical ones, and he gleans evidence from Galen PHP 4 8 to trace their definition as bodily “contractions” and “releases.” To summarize, we have so far ascertained some important elements concerning the relation between language and emotions. In particular we have seen how (1) for the Stoics, and then for Seneca, emotions are volitional and, starting with Chrysippus, at least two movements are posited to describe the trajectory that leads from perception to emotion. (2) The first of these movements elicits unavoidable physiological reactions, and (3) in his discussion of the genesis of rage, Seneca lists various instances of first movements by associating entirely physiological reactions to physical phenomena with equally bodily responses that ensue from linguistic contents. This is a crucial contention for the assessment of Seneca’s rhetorical strategy as a materialistic operation.

. Painless Contemplation That language may be considered a natural and a physical phenomenon, not only with respect to the thorny debate of its origin but also because of its material effects on the human body, is something of great importance for the “stylus qua  7 Sorabji (2000) 30–31. 8 Galen is, in turn, commenting on mainly Chrisippean and Posidonian writings. PHP 4 is significantly centered on the physical reactions preceding the acts of volition from which emotions originate; cf. PHP 4.7.13−16 where Galen quotes Chrysippus on the issue of emotional abatement that occurs over time: a person might inquire about the abatement of distress, how it comes about, whether at the alteration of some opinion, or while all continue (as they were), and why this will occur. Then he continues: “Ζητήσαι δ’ ἄν τις καὶ περὶ τῆς ἀνέσεως τῆς λύπης, πῶς γίνεται, πότερον δόξης τινὸς μετακινουμένης ἢ πασῶν διαμενουσῶν, καὶ διὰ τί τοῦτ’ ἔσται.” εἶτ’ ἐπιφέρων φησί, “δοκεῖ δέ μοι ἡ μὲν τοιαύτη δόξα διαμένειν, ὅτι κακὸν αὐτὸ ὃ δὴ πάρεστιν, ἐγχρονιζομένης δ’ ἀνίεσθαι ἡ συστολὴ καὶ ὡς οἶμαι ἡ ἐπὶ τὴν συστολὴν ὁρμή. τυχὸν δὲ καὶ ταύτης διαμενούσης οὐχ ὑπακούσεται τὰ ἑξῆς, διὰ ποιὰν ἄλλην ἐπιγινομένην διάθεσιν δυσσυλλόγιστον τούτων γινομένων.” “A person might inquire about the abatement of distress, how it comes about, whether at the alteration of some opinion, or while all continue (as they were), and why this will occur”. Then he continues, “He seems to me that an opinion of this kind remains, that the actual present thing is evil, but as the opinion grows older the contraction is eased and, as I believe, the conation that follows on the contraction. It may also happen that although the conation persists, the things that follow will not conform to it, this being due to another supervening disposition of some sort which is not easily reasoned out.” (transl. De Lacy).

Painless Contemplation  

scalpel” hypothesis. Indeed, it shines a light on the notion that spiritual exercises may become behavioral patterning, but only after an ad hoc figural strategy has sparked specific bodily reactions. In this connection, another significant passage from Ir. has relevance here. At 2.2.3–6, Seneca presents a rich list of spectacula et lectiones, ranging from the most celebrated deeds of Roman history to Alexander’s epopee. Aside from the interesting association of theater and reading, Seneca identifies these two artes as a compendious category to demonstrate how they do not trigger real emotions. Hic subit etiam inter ludicra scaenae spectacula et lectiones rerum vetustarum. Saepe Clodio Ciceronem expellenti et Antonio occidenti videmur irasci; quis non contra Mari arma, contra Sullae proscriptionem concitatur? Quis non Theodoto et Achillae et ipsi puero non puerile auso facinus infestus est? Cantus nos nonnumquam et citata modulatio instigat Martiusque ille tubarum sonus; movet mentes et atrox pictura et iustissimorum suppliciorum tristis adspectus; inde est quod adridemus ridentibus et contristat nos turba maerentium et effervescimus ad aliena certamina. Quae non sunt irae, non magis quam tristitia est, quae ad conspectum mimici naufragii contrahit frontem, non magis quam timor, qui Hannibale post Cannas moenia circumsidente lectorum percurrit animos, sed omnia ista motus sunt animorum moveri nolentium nec adfectus sed principia proludentia adfectibus. Sic enim militaris viri in media pace iam togati aures tuba suscitat equosque castrenses erigit crepitus armorum. Alexandrum aiunt Xenophanto canente manum ad arma misisse. This steals upon us even from the sight of plays upon the stage and from reading of happenings of long ago. How often we seem to grow angry with Clodius for banishing Cicero, with Antony for killing him! Who is not aroused against the arms which Marius took up, against the proscription which Sulla used? Who is not incensed against Theodotus and Achillas, and the child himself who dared an unchildish crime? Singing sometimes stirs us, and quickened rhythm, and the well-known blare of the War-god’s trumpets; our minds are perturbed by a shocking picture and by the melancholy sight of punishment even when it is entirely just; in the same way we smile when others smile, we are saddened by a throng of mourners, and are thrown into a ferment by the struggles of others. Such sensations, however, are no more anger than that is sorrow which furrows the brow at sight of a mimic shipwreck, no more anger than that is fear which thrills our minds when we read how Hannibal after Cannae beset the walls of Rome, but they are all emotions of a mind that would prefer not to be so affected; they are not passions, but the beginnings that are preliminary to passions. So, too, the warrior in the midst of peace, wearing now his civilian dress, will prick up his ears at the blast of a trumpet, and army horses are made restive by the clatter of arms. It is said that Alexander, when Xenophantus played the flute, reached for his weapons. (Transl. Basore)

The translation of motus animorum as “emotions,” even if intended in a generic and unspecified sense, is misleading because, as Seneca explains immediately afterwards, these motus cannot be qualified as affectus “emotions” or as “passions;” rather, they constitute what precedes them. Moreover, the term motus

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress specifically accounts for the physical alterations that the human mind undergoes. These motus are to be imagined as what Philo of Alexandria QGen 1.79 terms propatheiai (“pre-emotions”), and Cicero Tusc. 3.83 calls morsus et contractiunculae animi (“bites and small contractions of the soul”). 9 Now, because the situations described by various kinds of artistic achievements are fictitious (or if they actually occurred, they are no longer present), the hêgemonikon, if correctly performing, cannot but discard these motus as inconsistent. It is as if one could experience the most positive or negative of events with the intention of simultaneously benefitting, on the one hand, from an increased familiarity with specific sets of first movements (set in motion by these fictional representations) and, on the other, from the safety provided by the ontological inconsistency of those very same events. 10 Thus, language has the potential for eliciting presentations that are, as it were, “safe.” They produce first movements (again physical affections) that are akin to the ones that a real, “non-literary” event would produce, thus offering a sheltered training environment for moral practice and betterment. The case of bad/negative presentations from which one can learn in all safety is of particular aesthetic interest in view of the literary tradition that precedes it. This component of Seneca’s strategy was first observed by Armisen-Marchetti, who distinguishes between adfectio, the emotional, involuntary movement not controllable by reason, and adfectus, which is the result of rational assent. The adfectio, precisely because it does not entail any rational fault, can be purposely deployed as a rhetorical expedient to trigger what the scholar terms an “émotion légitime”. 11 More recently, Graver has devoted extensive scholarship to the topic and concerning

 9 Philo of Alexandria describes these movements as “involuntary bites.” On Philo’s description of προπάθειαι, cf. Graver (1999), for whom Philo must have derived the notion of from older Stoic sources since, due to chronological constraints, he cannot have possibly been influenced by Cicero, nor by Seneca. 10 Sorabji (2000) 78–81 contends that even theatrical or literary presentations may in fact result in genuine emotion, insofar as the percipient subject imagines that a given situation could be real, so that the emotion-eliciting judgment passed by the ἡγεμονικόν, though triggered, for instance, by a theatrical representation, would nonetheless be related to real life, not the enacted situation. 11 Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 48 proposes to translate adfectio with “émotion” and adfectus with “passion.” Unfortunately, if we move away from the French text to English, “emotion” and “passion” are almost synonyms and any attempt to render the two French terms in way that still signifies a meaningful distinction proves arduous. Courtil (2015) 350 schematizes Armisen-Marchetti’s theory and repurposes it for his topic of investigation.

Painless Contemplation  

the typology of propatheiai elicited by literary content has coined the term “reader-emotions.” 12 The most illustrious Latin antecedent to the idea that literature may provide the reader with a vicarious, safe set of otherwise destructive experiences is arguably the incipit of Lucretius’ second book of the DRN, 13 where the poet states that looking from a safe place at another person’s tribulations during a sea storm is suave, not of course because another’s pain is per se pleasant to observe but on account of knowing oneself to be free of it. A similar idea is then instantiated by the contemplation of a battlefield from a removed and safe spot. Then, at DRN 2.7–10, Lucretius introduces the ultimate example of such suavitas: the possession of the edita doctrina sapientum templa serena, “the serene sanctuaries fortified by the teachings of the wise.” 14 The philosophical perspective of Seneca differs from that of Lucretius, but it is Lucretius who first so effectively introduces to Latin literature this junction between aesthetic experience and philosophical learning, 15 something which Seneca will later handle and deploy plenty. In particular, the three Lucretian vistas of (respectively) natural violence, human violence, and the blissful safety of philosophy fit well with three of the main repertoires of Seneca’s figural language, 16  12 Cf. Graver (2014) and (2017). 13 On this proem and its relation to the whole of the second book of DRN, see De Lacy (2007) and Farrell (2007). Lucretius had pioneered the challenge of the creation of a new philosophical language. Although writing poetry, and despite his allegiance to a different philosophical school, Lucretius anticipates a remarkable set of features which Seneca will later appropriate. For both authors, the gist of the problem resided in the challenge of harmonizing doctrinal and technical teachings with the most apt—that is didactic—style. Like Seneca, Lucretius embarked on a mission that transcended the sheer creation of a literary artifact and aimed at providing a path to philosophical salvation for the benefit of other men. Finally, as will Seneca, Lucretius considered the expressive means at his disposal insufficient and moved on to forge a new language. 14 According to Lehoux (2013) 146, such is the correct interpretational approach to understand fully the gruesome description of the plague of Athens at the end of book 6. Although the scenes presented by Lucretius are quite disturbing, they cannot compare to the pain felt by the victims of the plague. The reader is awarded a chance to be a watcher and “gaze from above,” while simultaneously accruing valuable lesson of moral significance. In the words of Lehoux: “The real revulsion that Lucretius hopes to cultivate in his reader at this point in the poem should not be at the sight of the dead bodies piling up so long and so far away, but at the sight of the terror felt by the Athenians themselves.” 15 Cf. Conte (1966). 16 For a detailed categorization of Seneca’s various types of imagery, cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 69–201. On the long-standing literary tradition from which the imagery of the proem of the second book of Lucretius derives, cf. De Lacy (2007) 151–152.

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress and with at least two examples from the above passage from the De ira; namely, the theatrical representation of a shipwreck and the historical narration of Hannibal’s siege. Last but not least, aside from this selection and compartmentalization of imagery, what is most consequential is the Lucretian equation between true philosophical knowledge and the painlessness of lofty and detached spectatorship (often of something utterly painful). If we redirect our analysis to what Seneca writes at Ir. 1.1.3 we can gain a fuller appreciation of this synergy between knowledge and painless observation, which becomes a philosophical method and a didactic approach. Seneca is here instructing the disciple about the signs produced by ira. The master’s medical pitch is recognizable in his description of rage as a pathology accompanied by specific symptoms. Because ira is a subspecies of dementia, it brings about specific bodily reactions that can be observed, catalogued, and recognized: Ut scias autem non esse sanos quos ira possedit, ipsum illorum habitum intuere; nam ut furentium certa indicia sunt audax et minax vultus, tristis frons, torva facies, citatus gradus, inquietae manus, color versus, crebra et vehementius acta suspiria, ita irascentium eadem signa sunt. But you have only to behold the aspect of those possessed by anger to know that they are insane. For as the marks of a madman are unmistakable—a bold and threatening mien, a gloomy brow, a fierce expression, a hurried step, restless hands, an altered colour, a quick and more violent breathing—so likewise are the marks of the angry man. (Transl. Basore)

The opening statement condenses in a quasi-aphoristic passage the didactic gist of Seneca’s mission: ut scias intuere, “observe so that you may know.” 17 Rational

 17 Similarly, at Tranq. an. 11.6, Seneca stresses the importamce of vision-induced praemeditatio as the main path to εὐθυμία: Quicquid enim fieri potest, quasi futurum sit, prospiciendo malorum omnium impetus molliet, qui ad praeparatos expectantesque nihil adferunt novi; securis et beata tantum spectantibus graves veniunt. “For by looking forward to whatever can happen as though it would happen, he will soften the attacks of all ills, which bring nothing strange to those who have been prepared beforehand and are expecting them; it is the unconcerned and those that expect nothing but good fortune upon whom they fall heavily” (transl. Basore). Quite significantly at Tranq. an. 11.8 (only a couple of paragraphs after his remarks on the necessity of prospicere), Seneca resorts to the example of the storm, likely foreshadowing a shipwreck: Μagna pars hominum est quae navigatura de tempestate non cogitat. “The number of men that will plan a voyage without thinking of storms is very great” (transl. Basore). This is certainly a common motif of popular preaching but, significantly, the same topical situation is illustrated by Gellius’ Stoic philosopher to describe the overpowering assault of certain (pre)emotional states (cf. pp. 86–87).

Painless Contemplation  

observation constitutes the main path to philosophical wisdom. This rational exercise of observation/ contemplation/ comprehension is directed by the master who systematically selects what the proficiens ought to focus his attention on. In the case of symptoms of rage, Seneca illustrates a collection of expressions: the stiff brow, the menacing expression of the face, a variation in the color of one’s complexion, and so on. It is as if the didactic efficacy of the teaching resided in the master’s ability to break down a moral conundrum into lesser, more easily processed occurrences, which, at the end of the paragraph, are termed signa. A phenomenon such as ira, which can be explained as a malfunctioning of reason and which produces a wide array of physiological reactions, can be better grasped (and therefore prevented) if such reactions can be gradually tackled and processed, as it were, one at a time. By reducing a complex phenomenon to simpler units, our understanding of both the single components and of the whole phenomenon becomes more agile. However, his simplicity of content is not Seneca’s only strategic asset. The choice of the word signum conjures up the very functioning of the Stoic cognitive process, which revolves around the previously-discussed notion of phantasia (cf. pp. 75–79) as related to the physical sign/impression left by a given sensation on the material soul. This means that the visible symptoms of rage (signa), which appear on the face of whoever falls victim to this passion, will leave a sign (signum), qua physical impression, on the percipient subject’s mind. The assent to (or dissent from) the propositional content deriving from such physical affection will determine one’s rational response (or the lack thereof). Thus, dividing a macro-phenomenon into smaller, distinct units not only amounts to simplifying something complex but also bears specific cognitive value. The proficiens acquires the necessary skills to deal with more complex situations via successive, small, and discrete presentations, which are deliberately selected for him by the master. Each one of these presentations will require the rational processing of a specific propositional content, and a series of successive presentations of such a kind will contribute crucially to the training of one’s mind. Such training amounts to “learning how to see,” and teaching corresponds to a “guidance for seeing.”

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress

. Praecepta and Decreta The role of pre-emotions in the making of Seneca’s style can offer a valuable interpretative key to the vexata quaestio of the relation between praecepta and decreta and their use in the making of Senecan prose. 18 One aspect which Seneca repeatedly stresses is that of general harmony, whereby a text must flow so that an argument’s various threads do not individually stand out and ruin the seamless patterning of the whole. 19 A sartorial metaphor is precisely what he deploys at Ep. 33.5 to describe this principle: Res geritur et per lineamenta sua ingenii opus nectitur, ex quo nihil subduci sine ruina potest. Nec recuso, quo minus singula membra, dummodo in ipso homine, consideres: non est formonsa, cuius crus laudatur aut brachium, sed illa, cuius universa facies admirationem partibus singulis abstulit. They are working out a plan and weaving together, line upon line, a masterpiece, from which nothing can be taken away with no injury from the whole. Examine the separate parts, if you like, provided you examine them as parts of the man himself. She is not a beautiful woman whose ankle or arm is praised, but she whose general appearance makes you forget to admire her single attributes. (Transl. Gummere)

The context of this passage concerns the aphorisms of a number of major philosophers. In particular, it deals with the utility that voces (“voices”) and flosculi (“little flowers”), two terms employed by Seneca as if they were synonyms, have for signifying the import of the protreptic part of his philosophical discourse. 20

 18 Seneca patently outlines this dichotomy at Ep. 94.45: In duas partes virtus dividitur, in contemplationem veri et actionem. Contemplationem institutio tradit, actionem admonitio. Virtutem et exercet et ostendit recta actio. “Virtue is divided into two parts—into contemplation of truth, and conduct. Training teaches contemplation, and admonition teaches conduct. And right conduct both practices and reveals virtue” (transl. Gummere). 19 Seneca repeatedly stresses through various metaphors this need for balance and measure, likely his own elaboration of Panaetius’ ideal of πρέπον, on which see Philippson (1930), Pohlenz (1933), Mazzoli (1970) 67–69, and Setaioli (2000) 130–136. 20 The term flos “flower,” and more specifically the lack thereof, is utilized by Cicero Parad. proem. 2 to describe Cato the Elder’s praiseworthy style (for its not being bedeviled by the traditional defects of the School): Cato autem, perfectus mea sententia Stoicus, et ea sentit, quae non sane probantur in volgus, et in ea est haeresi, quae nullum sequitur florem orationis neque dilatat argumentum, minutis interrogatiunculis quasi punctis, quod proposuit, efficit. “Whereas Cato, in my view a perfect specimen of a Stoic, holds opinions that by no means meet with the acceptance of the multitude, and moreover belongs to a school of thought that does not aim at oratorical ornament at all or employ a copious mode of exposition, but proves its case by means of tiny little inter-

Praecepta and Decreta  

The position outlined is one of balance. A teaching offered only by means of these noticeable sententiae is not effective because it lacks a sense of measure and overall equilibrium. 21 Doctrinal and stylistic beauty, as in the case of the feminine body, are evaluated with a gaze that embraces the whole and does not get stranded in the minutiae of a single detail. The question has been extensively analyzed by Setaioli. 22 The general harmony of the good style, he contends, ultimately derives from a balance between obvious oratorical traits and a more traditional philosophical style. The two sides, offset by an ideally balanced style, can be illustrated as follows: Tab. 1: Schematic summary of Setaioli’s analysis of Seneca’s stylistic tenets. stylistic type

disputatio

sermo (inlaboratus et facilis)

stylistic means

psychagogic style of admonitio, deployment of the ἐναργές

submissiora verba

purpose

ut velit discere “so that [the costriver] may desire to learn”

ut discat “so that [the costriver] may learn”

knowledge to be received

praecepta

decreta

purpose

preparation to philosophical teaching

philosophical teaching

Precisely because a great part of Seneca’s communicative strategy is founded on emotions (to elicit and then eradicate at least the most detrimental ones), parenesis plays a major role in the definition of the tropes to be deployed. The

 rogatory pin-pricks” (transl. Rackham). Quintilian Inst. 8, Proem. 23, in keeping with the botanical gamut of imagery, argues that too many niceties obscure the sense, in the same way as excessive herbage chokes the crop. The illustration of the flower, with the technical use of the terms ἀνθίζειν and ἀνθηρός, the Greek equivalents of depingere and floridus respectively, has a longstanding tradition, for which cf. Van Hook (1905) 17–18. 21 At Ep. 33.1 Seneca resorts to the image of the forest rising to the same height: Inaequalitatem scias esse, ubi quae eminent, notabilia sunt. Non est admirationi una arbor, ubi in eandem altitudinem tota silva surrexit. “There is unevenness, you know, when some objects rise conspicuous above others. A single tree in not remarkable is the whole forest rises to. the same height” (transl. Gummere). 22 Setaioli (2000) 111–120 and (2014). On this topic see also Williams (2015).

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress first stage of one’s philosophical improvement consists in the substitution of bad images with good ones. A bad mental image can be removed only by means of energetic action. This is the phase apt to the use of the so-called disputatio, which is an attempt at vehemently redirecting the disciple/co-striver towards ethically sound modes of life. The disputatio is based on psychagogic parenesis, which is designed to convince the listener by means other than targeting his reason alone. 23 It is by all means a propaedeutic phase. The substitution of the bad mental representation with a good one is achieved largely through the performative power of specific rhetorical devices that Seneca wields as if therapeutic instruments. This phase prepares the disciple for the second, crucial moment, where the disputatio gives way to the sermo, i.e. the language of philosophical discourse. 24 At this point, what needs to be assimilated are the so-called decreta, or founding principles of Stoicism. Simplicity characterizes the language of these tenets: the sermo through which they are conveyed ought to be inlaboratus et facilis, a result achieved by using submissiora verba. In other words, in designing his style, Seneca conflates oratory and philosophy. He unites stylistic features belonging to two different genres to outline a didactic itinerary that is organized in two phases: the energetic disputatio, during which previous misconceptions are targeted and removed; and the stage where sermo is employed to direct the disciple towards ethically enriching content. This rhetorical strategy, and in particular the mode of the disputatio, which in turn largely depends on the potential of the enarges, lies at the heart of Seneca’s metaphorical language.

 23 Cf. Setaioli (2000) 140–141. 24 This term comes, once again, from Cicero Orat. 64: Mollis est enim oratio philosophorum et umbratilis nec sententiis nec verbis instructa popularibus nec vincta numeris sed soluta liberius; nihil iratum habet nihil invidum nihil atrox nihil miserabile nihil astutum; casta verecunda virgo incorrupta quodam modo. Itaque sermo potius quam oratio dicitur. Quanquam enim omnis locutio oratio est tamen unius oratoris locutio hoc proprio signata nomine est. “The latter is gentle and academic; it has no equipment of words or phrases that catch the popular fancy; it is not arranged in rhythmical periods, but is loose in structure; there is no anger in it, no hatred, no ferocity, no pathos, no shrewdness; it might be called a chaste, pure and modest virgin. Consequently, it is called conversation rather than oratory. While all speaking is oratory, yet it is speech of the orator alone which is marked by this special name” (transl. Hubbell). It is worth observing how already with Cicero the terminology used to debate matters of style is gender oriented, as is evident for the term mollis. For a discussion of such a term to designate style in Cicero, cf. Newell Jackson (1914) 125. For engendered metaphors and language concerning style in Seneca, cf. Graver (1998) and Gazzarri (2014).

Praecepta and Decreta  

Notwithstanding the mutual integration of praecepta and decreta, the complex system of relations between these two modes of philosophical discourse constitutes a contentious topic not just for Seneca alone, but also for the Stoics more generally. If Aristo of Chios ranted against the praecepta and opted for a sharp ethical rigor to the effect that vices can be successfully extirpated only by means of decreta, Cleanthes chose a middle path, whereby the precept component can actually strengthen the doctrinal teaching. 25 Seneca sides with Cleanthes—hardly a revolutionary position, since Posidonius had already indicated his preference for a more tempered outlook on the matter (cf. p. 96 n. 19). 26 In sum, for Seneca, both praecepta and decreta are fundamental parts of his philosophical preaching, and they work in tight synergy, almost as if they were respectively the propaedeutic and doctrinal segments of a unitary discourse. 27 Very much in accordance with the Stoic identity of res and verba, Seneca’s take on the relation between exhortative and normative teaching is reflected in his striving for the most apt style and ultimately foreshadows an unresolved tension between parenesis and doctrinal treatise. 28 In this connection the theory of pre-emotions has application, and an analysis of its stylistic impact on Senecan prose will yield interesting results. At Ep. 94.40–41 Seneca discusses the benefits of associating with wise masters: Occursus mehercules ipse sapientium iuvat, et est aliquid quod ex magno viro vel tacente proficias. Nec tibi facile dixerim quemadmodum prosit, sicut illud intellego profuisse.

 25 The two positions are briefly described by Seneca at Ep. 94.1–19 26 Cf. Seneca Ep. 95.65. 27 As argued by Bellincioni (1978) 90–94, the praecepta are not only propaedeutic to the decreta, but also integrative. They therefore both precede and follow the decreta. This is because, for most men, wisdom, even after one defines it through exact normative principles, remains but an ideal to be constantly pursued by means of rightful actions, which rest on and are spurred by the preceptive part. Seneca clearly argues in favor of the integrative value of the preceptive part at Ep. 94.23: “Tolle,” inquit, “errores; supervacua praecepta sunt.” Falsum est. Puta enim avaritiam relaxatam, puta adstrictam esse luxuriam, temeritati frenos iniectos, ignaviae subditum calcar; etiam remotis vitiis quid et quemadmodum debeamus facere, discendum est. “Then comes the reply: ‘Do away with error, and your precepts become unnecessary.’ ‘That is wrong; for suppose that avarice is slackened, that luxury is confined, that rashness is reined in, and that laziness is pricked by the spur; even after vices are removed, we must continue to learn what we ought to do, and how we ought to do it’” (transl. Gummere). 28 This conclusion is somewhat already present in the seminal work of Husner (1924), but also of Hadot (1969) 189, who writes: “Die Originalität Senecas auf dem Gebiet der Seelenleitung beruht auf dem rhetorisch-for-malen Aspekt seiner Methode.”

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress We are indeed uplifted merely by meeting wise men; and one can be helped by a great man even when he is silent. I could not easily tell you how it helps us, though I am certain of the fact that I have received help in that way. (Transl. Gummere)

The kernel of the argument here is that there exists a type of beneficial association with wise men which can positively affect the proficiens in a subtle, even non-verbal way. The favorable effects of this association are definitely felt, even when it remains unknown how they actually come about. These lines showcase a mode of moral therapy (and in this regard, the choice of the verb prodesse is telling) that operates via a-rational channels but does not contain an explicit reference to the exhortative mode of the preceptive part. However, this association between the exhortative phase and a-rational content is clearly underscored a few lines later, at Ep. 94.43–44 , where the beneficial effects of the sacred oracles instantiate the stature of the praecepta: Quis autem negabit feriri quibusdam praeceptis efficaciter etiam inperitissimos? Velut his brevissimis vocibus, sed multum habentibus ponderis: Nil nimis. Avarus animus nullo satiatur lucro. Ab alio exspectes, alteri quod feceris. Haec cum ictu quodam audimus, nec ulli licet dubitare aut interrogare “quare?”; adeo etiam sine ratione ipsa veritas ducit. Who can deny that even the most inexperienced are effectively struck by the force of certain precepts? For example, by such brief but weighty saws as: “Nothing in excess,” “The greedy mind is satisfied by no gains,” “You must expect to be treated by others as you yourself have treated them.” We receive a sort of shock when we hear such sayings; no one ever thinks of doubting them or of asking: “Why?” So strongly, indeed, does mere truth, unaccompanied by reason, attract us. (Transl. Gummere)

The oracular sententiae, Seneca maintains, strike cum ictu (“with a blow”), and therefore sine ratione (“not following a rational pattern”). A similar terminology we find at SVF 3.459, a passage transmitted by Plutarch Virt. Mor. 3.441c which accounts for some elements of the Chrysippean theory of emotions: Δι᾿ ὅλου τρεπόμενον καὶ μεταβάλλον ἔν τε τοῖς πάθεσι καὶ ταῖς καθ᾿ ἕξιν ἢ διάθεσιν μεταβολαῖς κακίαν τε γίνεσθαι καὶ ἀρετήν, καὶ μηδὲν ἔχειν ἄλογον ἐν ἑαυτῷ, λέγεσθαι δ᾿ ἄλογον, ὅταν τῷ πλεονάζοντι τῆς ὁρμῆς ἰσχυρῷ γενομένῳ καὶ κρατήσαντι πρός τι τῶν ἀτόπων παρὰ τὸν αἱροῦντα λόγον ἐκφέρηται. It [scil. the hêgemonikon] is, they [scil. Chrysippus and the Stoics] say, wholly transformed and changes both during its emotional states and in the alterations brought about in accordance with an acquired disposition or condition and thus becomes both vice and virtue; it contains nothing irrational within itself, but is called irrational whenever, by the overmastering power of our impulses, which have become strong and prevail, it is hurried on to something outrageous which contravenes the convictions of reason. (Transl. Helmbold)

Praecepta and Decreta  

Admittedly, Seneca’s position on the nature and origin of emotions largely depends on the crucial synthesis of previous positions that the middle Stoics, Panaetius and Posidonius in primis, had achieved. In Seneca we find a positive evaluation of eupatheiai and in particular joy, which becomes a distinctive trait of the wise man. 29 To better assess the relation between Seneca’s theory of emotions and its attendant rhetorical strategy, I would like to concentrate on the socalled second movement (cf. supra), which, it bears repeating, is non-volitional. More specifically, what matters for the present analysis is the theoretical ground elicited by the word-choice that is evidenced in both the passage from Ep. 94 and the Plutarchian outline of the Chrysippean doctrine. In fact, I would argue that Seneca’s use of ictus may function as a Latin rendition of the Greek ekpheretai (“is led astray”), although the two philosophers are likely pursuing different targets. More specifically, the Latin text’s focus is on the persuasive effect of the blow delivered by a precept on the human soul, while the Greek passage insists on the modifications of the human soul’s undergoing the effect of an external emotion: in fact, for Chrysippus it is the soul itself that has become emotion (and wrongly so). However, for both Chrysippus and Seneca, the concept of the soul’s dislodgement is not to be read metaphorically; rather, it reflects the Stoic notion of ptoia, which quite literally amounts to a “fluttering” of the mind. 30 In sum, the use of the term ictus, which for Chrysippus amounts to a radical definition of the soul’s emotional diastrophê, for Seneca fittingly describes something potentially positive: the powerful action on the mind of the oracular praecepta, which are credited with setting in motion a process of dislodgment, in fact an alteration of the tensional qualities of the mind itself. The roots of this specific modus operandi are, however, not only philosophical but also steeped in various literary traditions, all unsurprisingly hinging on the centrality of enargeia, which simultaneously channels Seneca’s didactic needs and his use of evidentia.

 29 Cf. Graver (2014) 262–263. 30 Zeno describes the notion of πτῶσις at SVF 1.206: Ὡρίσατο δὲκἀκείνως· πάθος ἐστὶ πτοία ψυχῆς, ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν πτηνῶν φορᾶς τὸ εὐκίνητον τοῦ παθητικοῦ παρεικάσας. “He equally defined emotion as such: ‘it is a fluttering of the soul,’ on the basis of the comparison between the most voluble part of the soul and the fluttering of wings” (transl. Gazzarri).

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress

. Decomposition and The Double Standard of Sight The notion of phantasia, whose etymology was already an object of analysis for ancient commentators, 31 reveals a privileged connection with sight. Phantasia is a material and “visible” outcome of a physical process. Language, in the form of utterances or of texts, cannot but affect the soul and so produce phantasiai; but since the latter entail a kind of “ocular” cognitive approach, this mechanism naturally paves the way for a highly visual take on language. Even more striking is the fact that post-Alexandrian and Roman rhetoricians, for instance Quintilian (cf. pp. 113–114), will utilize the term typôsis (“impression”) as a synonym for enargeia. This terminological equivalence seems to suggest that a “vivid” and rhetorically performative type of language is capable of leaving an impression and establishing meaningful connections between imagination, cognition, language, and style. In fact, a skillfully honed style can act directly on the soul of the proficiens and facilitate his understanding of complex moral arguments. If the philosophical foundations of the relation between phantasia and cognition are Stoic through and through, Seneca nonetheless draws on various literary traditions to translate these Stoic tenets into a style that is congenial to his Latin public and to achieve his highly ‘visual’ mode of prose. The deployment of an analogical method similar to the one prompted by Lucretius, and the use of modules taken both from the so-called diatribic tradition and from the theatrical repertoire, all bespeak a specific intent. 32 Fully cognizant of the accusation of elitism that traditionally bedeviled the Stoics, Seneca deliberately embraces those literary traditions which had set the precedent for a clear didactic appeal; or, alternatively, he selects more popular genres. In order to temper a tune that might potentially sound over-condescending, but also to achieve the desired enargeia, Seneca often elevates his prose to the heights of literary hypsos (an aesthetic category whose compatibility with

 31 Cf. SVF 2.54: Εἴρηται δὲ ἡ φαντασία ἀπὸ τοῦ φωτός· καθάπερ γὰρ τὸ φῶς αὑτὸ δείκνυσι καὶ τὰ ἄλλα τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ περιεχόμενα, καὶ ἡ φαντασία δείκνυσιν ἑαυτὴν καὶ τὸ πεποιηκὸς αὐτήν. “The name φαντασία comes from φῶς (“light”). For as light reveals itself and what surrounds it, in the same way a φαντασία reveals itself and what produced it” (transl. Gazzarri). 32 On the problem of the definition of the diatribe as a genre and the different philosophical motives contributing to the making of this literary phenomenon, cf. Del Giovane (2015) 9–17. A very lucid and synthetic assessment of this can be found in Griffin (1976) 13–16.

Decomposition and The Double Standard of Sight  

Senecan philosophy I shall soon discuss). 33 The ultimate goal remains the making of a new style to befit the need of new type of reader: a visual reader. Lucretius once again provides a significant precedent for constructing a functional relation between a specific language/style and a specific set of core tenets (which belong, however, to a different philosophical tradition). He deploys analogical induction to tackle the description of phenomena that are particularly complex or even invisible 34 and he insists on the resemblance between the disposition of the constituent atoms of these phenomena and that of the letters of the alphabet which in turn form words and discourses. 35 A philosophical narration is therefore no less material than the world it describes. In fact, it presents the same “compositional modules” and it obeys the same “atomic laws.” It is structurally comparable with the very phenomena it seeks to explain and represent. The quasi-atomic fragmentation in verses and letters is per se both a didactic operation and a method of simplification (or decomposition) of a much more complex reality. What Lucretius does with atoms and letters (or with letters that are like atoms), I would like to suggest, Seneca does with phantasiai. What is of interest here is the affinity of a methodological approach, rather than Seneca’s agreement with Lucretius on philosophical ground, something that is clearly not tenable. In fact, for Lucretius human caecitas as a gauge for the consistency of atomic reality works not only as a rhetorical operator signifying invisibility but also as a moral  33 Seneca’s deployment of the literary and philosophical category of the ὕψος is a much contentious topic. Guillemin (1954) 270, Michel (1969), Mazzoli (1970; 1990), Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 53–60, and Gunderson (2015) all conclude that Seneca embraces the notion of the sublime. On the contrary, both Traina (1974) 122–124 and Setaioli (2000) 141–155 argue against this hypothesis. If Traina insists mainly on the notion of Seneca’s fragmented style (συγκοπή) being incompatible with the achievement of literary ὕψος, Setaioli systematically counters Mazzoli’s (1970) various arguments. He concludes that Seneca’s refusal of non-rationally-grounded literary theories bars the way to considering Seneca’s achievements as stemming from or aiming at the category of ὕψος. 34 The mechanism of Lucretius’ deployment of analogies and metaphors has been studied, among others, by Schrijvers (1978) and, more recently, Schiesaro (1990) who, in his chapter entitled “le metafore di base,” discusses the Lucretian deployment of the so-called μακράνθροπος, which is a detailed description of the cosmos as if it functioned like a human body. The evident difficulty resides in the fact that while a living organism is mortal and transitory, the nature of the universe as an aggregate of atoms and empty space is eternal and imperishable. Yet these two realities, opposite in nature, are utilized to illuminate the reciprocal functioning and attain to a sharper level of understanding. On the topic of sense perception and its conceptualization in Lucretius, cf. Sedley (1998), Schrijvers (2007), and Lehoux (2013). 35 Setaioli (2005) 118–119 observes how Lucretius is particularly fond of this analogy and utilizes it five times.

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress metaphor for nature’s mindlessness. In turn such caecitas naturae effectively betokens the lack of intention permeating the Epicurean universe: the polar opposite of Stoic ensouled logos. 36 Lucretian decomposition is therefore based on radically different philosophical premises, and yet it sets a precedent as an effective didactic method. As we have observed, Seneca’s strategy consists of dividing up the macro unit of an overwhelming ethical conundrum into multiple presentations so that each one may convey an aspect or, as it were, a small vista of a larger predicament. In so doing, a text materially affects the disciple’s mind by “bombarding” it with serial presentations until the initial macro-unit is processed in its entirety, one piece at a time. 37 If Lucretius, by decomposing reality via language, managed to instantiate the universe’s atomic nature through the analogical making of his poetry, Seneca turns the stylistic heritage of dry, laconic curtness into successive waves of presentation to train the mind. Both philosophers successfully invent a stylistic register which is itself a material realization of their different philosophical grounds. More specifically, Seneca deliberately exploits the systematic proximity of language and sight and, even more critically, of a skillfully constructed ocular language and sight, which is, after all, the distal faculty selected by the Stoic to theorize the conceptual architecture of human cognition. This highly original product will eventually become Seneca’s unmistakable authorial sphragis. Such visual language consists of a prose-style saturated by vision, and amounts not only to a philosophical statement but also to a didactic strategy: it engages the mind of the proficiens and steers him toward ethical improvement. Moral progress therefore entails also a physical (and ocular) process, a notion that was fated eventually to become minimally palatable because it is skewed by the Platonic (and then Christian) emphasis on a dualistic ontology, and then by the attendant debasement of the body as the utmost impediment for spiritual bettering. A passage from VB 11.4 instantiates Seneca’s method of decomposition via phantasiai, but also further problematizes the ocular dimension of his style:  36 Cf. Lehoux (2013) 146–148. 37 This “fragmented” modus operandi, far from being just a preaching method, is also stylistically relevant. If we re-examine the debate concerning the supposed shortcomings of Seneca’s style, which, in accordance with the guidelines of the Stoic school, came across as rather too fragmentary and crabbed (i.e. the proverbial harena sine calce, cf. Suetonius Cal. 53.2), we can now appreciate the philosopher’s genius for repurposing what was considered a stylistic defect into a virtuous didactic method. It is an operation that shifts the gist of the matter from expression to cognition, with the former facilitating the latter and, therefore, valorizing the indissoluble Stoic unity of style and content.

Decomposition and The Double Standard of Sight  

Aspice Nomentanum et Apicium, terrarum ac maris, ut isti vocant, bona concoquentis et super mensam recognoscentis omnium gentium animalia; vide hos eosdem in suggestu rosae despectantis popinam suam, aures vocum sono, spectaculis oculos, saporibus palatum suum delectantes; mollibus lenibusque fomentis totum lacessitur eorum corpus et, ne nares interim cessent, odoribus variis inficitur locus ipse, in quo luxuriae parentatur. Hos esse in voluptatibus dices, nec tamen illis bene erit, quia non bono gaudent. Look at Nomentanus and Apicius, digesting, as they say, the blessings of land and sea, and reviewing the creations of every nation arrayed upon their board! See them, too, upon a heap of roses, gloating over their rich cookery, while their ears are delighted by the sound of music, their eyes by spectacles, their palates by savours; soft soothing stuff caress with their warmth the length of their bodies, and, that the nostrils may not meanwhile be idle, the room itself, where sacrifice is being made to Luxury, reeks with varied perfumes. You will recognize that these are living in the midst of pleasures, and yet it will not be well with them, because what they delight in is not a good. (Transl. Basore)

This excerpt stands out for the bewildering sensorial experience it offers the reader. It is a fine example of a synesthetic cluster (cf. pp. 165–169), which serially engages one’s various distal faculties, as a way of decrying the sensory pleasures of Nomentanus and Apicius. Every conceivable aspect of human perception is involved, from the music caressing the listener’s ear to the dainties that are tickling his appetite, eyes and, nose. However, all these pleasures are to be visually processed as if one could smell, taste, hear, and touch everything with the eyes alone. The passage concludes with a moralistic statement in the typical “pointed” form of a Senecan sententia. There, in the short space of little more than a line, what is described above as an apparent spectacle of delight is revealed for what it truly is: moral corruption and spiritual death. The disproportion between the length of the description, rich in detailed and sensory imagery, and the brevity of the final statement emphasizes the effect of alienation felt by the reader/disciple as he abruptly pulls back from what has just been described. 38

 38 Although to the careful reader signs are inserted in the long description suggesting the decadent nature of the scene. In primis, the two characters quoted at the very beginning. For Apicius is indicated as a sample of moral decay elsewhere by Seneca, as at Helv. 10.10, where he is called pravae mentis, and Ir. 1.6.1. Cassius Nomentanus is targeted numerous times by Horace in his Satires: 1.1.102, 1.8.11, 2.1.22, 3.175, 3.224. Furthermore, the metaphor of the sacrifice to Luxury goes deeper than one may initially think. Parentare is a technical term designating a solemn funerary sacrifice offered to parents, relatives, and, in some cases, to persons dear for reasons other than familial links. Such a sacrifice, though, at least at its origin, was not an ordinary one; cf. ThlL X.I, 370, 1–66.

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress This whole tirade on the distrust of the passions and sensorial delights is itself conceived in a highly visual way. Paradoxical though it might be, the very eyes in which a disciple must beware of putting too much trust are here called on to take in (as a spectacle of unbridled luxuria) and assess “as vicious” the vices that they (here quite reliably) see. In effect, what we have here is an interesting take on the double standard of sight. If, on the one hand, sight allows Seneca’s visual style effectively to exert a cognitive training on the disciple/visual reader, on the other, that which so enticingly appears is likely to be epistemologically unsound. This is the case with the banquet of luxuria scene, populated as it is by false goods that lurk behind a fallacious appearance of attractiveness. What Seneca is here suggesting is that true vision is in fact rational vision: the mind must truly see (i.e. adjudge) what the eyes have perceived. Going back to Lucretius, his deployment of an analogical style promotes the epistemic status of sight qua vehicle of literary enargeia and means of enlightenment. The senses are to be trusted, and error can only be imputed to the mind’s failings. 39 Both Seneca and Lucretius strive to enhance the cognitive value of what can be seen, and both insist on learning as an apprenticeship to true, mindful use of vision. The human oculus can offer privileged access to many morally positive examples, but also to the ethical inconsistency of as many apparent goods. Nomentanus’ delicious banquet only looks desirable; in fact, it is not. Seneca’s visual trajectory may often offer good exempla, but it functions, as often, as a deterrent from the charm of what is assumed to be of value, and is not. 40 Much in the same vein, although primarily concerned with achieving freedom from fear, Lucretius’ ocular method must guide the reader to the comprehension of an ontological level which lies beneath the sheer content of sensory experiences. The atoms, even if paradoxically invisible, exist, and grasping this invisibility amounts to knowledge and freedom from fear. In fact, much of the first two books of DRN purports to teach the reader to trust what he can see (in

 39 Cf. Lucretius DRN 4.386: Proinde animi vitium hoc oculis adfingere noli. “Then do not impute to the eyes this fault of the mind” (transl. Rouse). 40 The episode of Hostius Quadra at Q Nat. 1.16.1-9 stands out for its negative visual exemplarity. According to Seneca, the man (on whose identity, cf. PIR2 4, p. 102, no. 230), as part of his deviant sexual encounters, routinely utilized deforming mirrors to enjoy the artificially-augmented size of his and his partners’ genitals. This detail stands out as the ultimate specimen of the correspondence between distorted vision, perverted knowledge, and moral perversion; cf. Citroni Marchetti (1991) 157–158 and Berno (2003) 31–63. Still on this episode, Williams (2016) 178–179 notices how the genitals’ falsa magnitudo functions as a counterpoise to the wise man’s magnitudo animi (Stoic μεγαλοψυχία).

Decomposition and The Double Standard of Sight  

spite of its invisibility) because sight is tantamount to knowledge. 41 The fanciful and cruel tales of the vates are removed from the cognitive field of what should be apprehended because they are ontologically inconsistent. For instance, at DRN 1.62–67 Lucretius tells a monster tale of his own, cleverly remade, to invite us to see the condition of superstitious mankind in a fresh but familiar way: Humana ante oculos foede cum vita iaceret in terris oppressa gravi sub religione, quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans, primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra. When men’s life lay for all to see foully grovelling upon the ground, crushed beneath the weight of Superstition, which displayed her head from the regions of heaven, lowering over mortals with horrible aspect, a man of Greece was the first that dared to uplift mortal eyes against her, the first to make stand against her. (Transl. Rouse)

Lucretius’ emphasis on terms designating the action of seeing is remarkable. 42 Clearly, he establishes an equation between seeing and knowing. The daring act of “lifting the eyes” leads to another extremely visual effect, which is the contemplation of the blazing walls of the universe, flammantia moenia mundi, an image which itself evokes an equivalence between light and knowledge. Some forty lines later, moreover, to characterize the Iphigenia episode as one of (so to speak) human reason’s supreme blindness, at DRN 1.107–109 Lucretius adds: Nam si certam finem esse viderent aerumnarum homines, aliqua ratione valerent religionibus atque minis obsistere vatum. For if men saw that a limit has been set to tribulation, somehow they would have strength to defy the superstitions and threats of the priests. (Transl. Rouse)

The hypothetical clause si viderent… aliqua ratione valerent again posits the necessary link between vision and knowledge. For Lucretius, what men should be  41 Lucretius’ stance and trust in what can be seen is nonetheless often problematic in the sense that images, which are simulacra, constantly need to be corrected and, as it were, reassessed by reason and science; cf. Porter (2016) 446–447. For Lucretius, as for Seneca, the ultimate problem consists in the fallacy of appearances and the greatest skill in learning how to truly “see.” 42 We start with ante oculos. We then have ostendebat followed by super aspectu, clearly related to the verb aspicio, and finally the expression tollere oculos, which couches human cognition in visual terms.

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress able to see in order to valere aliqua ratione is their death; i.e., they should understand that it is natural, necessary, and free from all sensation. They are thus required to “see” what cannot be visualized or perceived in any way. But this is precisely what Epicurus does, Lucretius says, by unveiling the truth and putting it before the eyes (ante oculos). Similarly, at Ep. 102.28–29 Seneca represents philosophical instruction as freedom from blindness, and the whole semantic logic of the passage hinges on the opposition between tenebra (“darkness”) signifying ignorance, and lux (“light”) or fulgor (“glow”) instancing one’s philosophical awakening. 43 Moreover, this Lucretian opposition between darkness and light is commandeered by Seneca not only as a conceptual signifier, but also as a stylistic operator. In fact, at Ep. 91.8 he resorts to a phrase likely echoing Lucretius DRN 1.62: tota ante oculos sortis humanae condicio ponatur. This Lucretian allusion, which is embedded in the text of the epistle, attests to Seneca’s urgent need for a language that can properly render the ethical matter at stake. Being a good writer, a good master, and a generous co-striver amounts to being able to furnish good representations, and the core of Seneca’s challenge shifts from the ethical realm to that of style, and to a fundamentally didactic concern. In a strikingly similar way, Lucretius had repurposed the cognitive difficulty of visualizing (i.e. of seeing/knowing) into the challenge of proper teaching. 44 The difficulty of being a good magister consists in shedding light (inlustrare) on what is obscurus, which, in the case of Lucretius, is a literal obscurity, since atoms are invisible particles. Seneca does much the same thing. For the passage just quoted from Ep. 91 we find: Exilia, tormenta morbi, bella, naufragia meditare. Potest te patriae, potest patriam tibi casus eripere, potest te in solitudines abigere, potest hoc ipsum, in quo turba suffocatur, fieri solitudo. Exile, the torture of disease, wars, shipwreck—we must think on this. Chance may tear you from your country or your country from you, or may banish you to the desert; this very place, where throngs are stifling, may become a desert. (Transl. Gummere)

 43 Cf. Ep. 102.28: Aliquando naturae tibi arcana retegentur, discutietur ista caligo et lux undique clara percutiet. “Some day the secrets of nature shall be disclosed to you, the haze will be shaken from your eyes, and the bright light will stream in upon you from all sides” (transl. Gummere). 44 At DRN 1.136–137 he writes that it is hard to render with Latin lines the obscure discoveries of the Greeks: Nec me animi fallit Graiorum obscura reperta/ difficile inlustrare Latinis versibus esse. “Nor do I fail to understand that it is difficult to make clear the dark discoveries of the Greeks in Latin verses” (transl. Rouse).

The Visual Reader  

The initial accumulation of accusatives virtually epitomizes the metaphorical repertoire of Seneca. Of special note is the use of the verb meditare, which is often translated (as here) as “to think” rather than “to practice” or “prepare,” with the greatest degree of approximation. But here meditatio is a technical term that refers to a specific exercise whose purpose is learning how to live happily and free from care, a vita beata (cf. p. 85 n. 1). For Seneca, such a mode of practice comes about by way of images. In Seneca, therefore, images do not function as mere rhetorical devices. Rather, they are conceived as necessary tools of meditation and as a means of pushing words to do more than merely “say”, “decorate,” and “persuade.” Seneca’s images, as practical tools, hurt. They build stamina and, ultimately, they heal.

. The Visual Reader The emphasis on the visual quality of prose is part and parcel of the fabric of various philosophical traditions; this is so not merely in terms of the physiology of vision and the consequential relations between sight and speech, but also for the description of (as it were) the “anthropology of sight.” More specifically, it is possible to trace and decipher how Peripatetic, Pythagorean, and some fundamental Posidonian tenets contribute to Seneca’s own theory of how the rational use of sight shapes the role of men in the universe and ultimately constitutes the backbone of their cognitive experience. A key passage from Ot. 5.3–4 offers a valuable insight into this variety of positions: Curiosum nobis natura ingenium dedit et artis sibi ac pulchritudinis suae conscia spectatores nos tantis rerum spectaculis genuit […] Ut scias illam spectari voluisse, non tantum aspici, vide quem nobis locum dederit. In media nos sui parte constituit et circumspectum omnium nobis dedit; nec erexit tantummodo hominem, sed etiam habilem contemplationi factura, ut ab ortu sidera in occasum labentia prosequi posset et vultum suum circumferre cum toto, sublime fecit illi caput et collo flexili imposuit; deinde sena per diem, sena per noctem signa perducens nullam non partem sui explicuit, ut per haec, quae optulerat oculis eius, cupiditatem faceret etiam ceterorum. Nature has bestowed upon us an inquisitive disposition, and being well aware of her own skill and beauty, has begotten us to be spectators of her mighty array […] That you may understand how she wished us, not merely to behold her, but to gaze upon her, see the position in which she has placed us. She has set us in the centre of her creation, and has granted us a view that sweeps the universe; and she has not only created man erect, but in order to fit him for contemplation of herself, she has given him a head to top the body, and set it upon a pliant neck, in order that he might follow the stars as they glide from their rising to their setting and turn his face about with the whole revolving heaven. And besides, guiding on their course six constellations by day, and six by night, she left no part of herself

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress unrevealed, hoping that by these wonders which she had presented to man’s eyes she might also arouse his curiosity in the rest. (Transl. Basore)

The philosophical density of this passage has been expounded by Williams, who itemizes its various components. 45 I would like to call attention to the vocabulary of vision selected by Seneca, which is dominated by two main semantic groups: one describing men as seers and defined by the action of spectare, and the other referring to nature and hinging on the action of ostendere. 46 This patterning of words suggests a theatrical re-casting not only of the philosophical training of the proficiens but also of human life itself. Nature offers a spectacle which, on account of its extraordinary beauty, not only cannot be disregarded, but also spurs men’s innate curiosity and favors moral progress. If the central role attributed to sight is deeply entrenched in the opticentric focus of Aristotle and the Peripatetics, the religious undertone of the passage depends on the conflation of specific Pythagorean and Posidonian themes, as duly noted already by Pohlenz. 47 More specifically, Cicero Tusc. 5.3.8–9 accounts for an episode transmitted by Heraclides Ponticus, but one that concerns Pythagoras. According to this passage, Pythagoras had compared the philosophers to those who regularly went to Olympia not for the sake of trading, nor to take part in the athletic competitions there, but simply visendi causa “for the sake of seeing”. 48 Posidonius reworks, as it were, this Pythagorean visual paradigm and connects contemplation with action, as can be inferred from fr. 186 EK: Ὁ Ποσειδώνιος τὸ ζῆν (τέλος ἀπεφήνατο) θεωροῦντα τὴν τῶν ὅλων ἀλήθειαν καὶ τάξιν καὶ συγκατασκευάζοντα αὐτὴν κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν, κατὰ μηδὲν ἀγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀλόγου μέρους τῆς ψυχῆς. τινὲς δὲ τῶν νεωτέρων Στωϊκῶν οὕτως ἀπέδοσαν, τέλος εἶναι τὸ ζῆν ἀκολούθως τῇ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κατασκευῇ. According to Posidonius, the end consists in living in contemplation of the truth and the order of the universe and trying to consolidate this truth as much as possible, without being influenced at all by the irrational part of the soul. Some later Stoics have given this definition: the end consists in living according to the constitution of man (Transl. Gazzarri).

 45 Williams (2003) 88–92. See also Dionigi (1983) 233–237. 46 The semantic field of vision is present already in Cicero’s Somnium, where the verbal dyad is formed almost exclusively by spectare and contemplari; cf. Ronconi (1961) 146. Cicero’s verbal choice describes only the active action of the individual as seer, thus dwindling to mere exhibit the spectacle of nature which, in Seneca, actively and empathetically ostendit. 47 Pohlenz (1967) 490–493. 48 The same episode is narrated by Iamblichus VP 58 where the Greek φιλοθεάμονες corresponds to the Ciceronian visendi causa.

The Visual Reader  

For Posidonius, life itself consists in and of contemplation. If we leave aside the matter of the Posidonian theory of the irrational part of the soul 49 and its influence on Seneca’s moral doctrine, what remains interesting for the study of figural language is the emphasis on the relation between contemplation and action. This argument is carried by the participle of the verb συγκατασκευάζω (“to consolidate”) and by the conclusive statement concerning the action of τὸ ζῆν ἀκολούθως τῇ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κατασκευῇ (“living in accordance with human constitution”). The emphasis here is on ordained, all-encompassing actions, as if systematic observation should ideally be turned into systematic action. The centrality of theôrein as a cognitive and moral pillar finds important expression in the above passage from De Otio, where men, on account of their anthropocentric positioning, gradually move from the role of spectator to that of contemplator. The trajectory underscoring the progression from spectare to circumspectare and, finally, to contemplare is akin to Posidonius’ invitation to “consolidate the truth of the whole.” In like manner, Seneca’s unifying action of circumspectare, which introduces a progression from simple vision to contemplation, displays a cognitive content similar to that prompted by prepositional συν- in the Posidonian συγκατασκευάζω. The topos of men’s status erectus, which makes them apt for contemplation, is an old one and already propounded by Greek authors such as Xenophon Mem. 1.4.11 and Plato Ti. 90b. Among Latin writers, Ma-

 49 Posidonius, like his master Panaetius, notably diverges from Stoic orthodoxy, particularly when it comes to psychology, for which he follows Plato in arguing in favor of the human soul’s being divided into the faculties of reason, emotion, and desire. Posidonius also comments on what he calls εὐεμπτωσία τῆς ψυχῆς (“proclivities of the soul”) (SVF 3.421); that is, the natural tendency of the human soul to choose morally wrong action. Such tendencies are explained on account of the σπέρμα τῆς κακίας “seeds of evil” (SVF 3.422) that the human soul would naturally contain, thus deviating from the Stoic paradigm of the human being qua ζῷον λογικόν (“rational animal”). Seneca seems to embrace this Posidonian stance, at least in the context of Ep. 94.13: Duo sunt, propter quae delinquimus: aut inest animo pravis opinionibus malitia contracta aut, etiam si non est falsis occupatus, ad falsa proclivis est et cito specie quo non oportet trahente corrumpitur. “There are two reasons why we go astray: either there is in the soul an evil quality which has been brought about by wrong opinions, or, even if not possessed by false ideas, the soul is prone to falsehood and rapidly corrupted by some outward appearance which attracts it in the wrong direction” (transl. Gummere). And yet, at Ep. 94.55 (in the course of the same letter) he seems to be of the opposite opinion: Erras enim, si existimas nobiscum vitia nasci; supervenerunt, ingesta sunt. “For you are mistaken if you suppose that our faults are inborn in us; they have come from without, have been heaped upon us” (transl. Gummere). On this issue, cf. Dihle (1973) 52–52 and Bellincioni (1978) 16 n. 2.

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress nilius 4.896–922, and notably Cicero Nat. D. 2.140, Tusc. 5.42, and Leg. 1.26 reapply this well-worn topic. It is therefore received by Seneca as an already traditional motif, and one that he redeploys in several of his works. 50 The significance of this topical detail resides, once more, in his adherence to corporeality. 51 It is the human body’s physiology that naturally prompts vision, and thence contemplation. This natural tendency is engrained in the body’s anatomy and, more precisely, in how its specific nature-given conformation facilitates sight. A visual language must therefore be the most apt to describe this specific philosophical trajectory, which leads the proficiens from the contained space of his own body to the external and universal body of nature, and then, through the latter, back to perceiving his body as a part of the whole cosmos. This circular movement, which is a philosophical and cognitive track, we find perfectly outlined at Helv. 20.2, the very conclusion of the consolation: Terras primum situmque earum quaerit, deinde condicionem circumfusi maris cursusque eius alternos et recursus. Tunc quidquid inter caelum terrasque plenum formidinis interiacet perspicit et hoc tonitribus, fulminibus, ventorum flatibus ac nimborum nivisque et grandinis iactu tumultuosum spatium. Tum peragratis humilioribus ad summa perrumpit et pulcherrimo divinorum spectaculo fruitur, aeternitatis suae memor in omne quod fuit futurumque est vadit omnibus saeculis. It seeks knowledge, first, of the lands and where they lie, then of the laws that govern the encompassing sea with its alternations of ebb and flow. Then it takes ken of all the expanse, charged with terrors, that lies between heaven and earth—this nearer space, disturbed by thunder, lightning, blasts of winds, and the downfall of rain and snow and hail. Finally, having traversed the lower spaces, it bursts through to the heights above, and there enjoys the noblest spectacle of things divine, and, mindful of its own immortality, it proceeds to all that has been and will ever be throughout the ages of all time. (Transl. Basore)

In this passage, Seneca describes an ascending progression that moves from land to sea, to what lies between earth and heaven, and then to the celestial regions inhabited by the gods. At that high point, it achieves a form of completeness of

 50 Cf. Ep. 94.56; 92.30 and Q Nat. 5.15.3. 51 The physicalist dimension of the status erectus topos is such not only for its direct reference to the posture of the body, but also for its tight relation to the animus erectus image, which, in turn, is linked to the desirable tonal quality of the human fiery pneuma; cf. Ep. 39.3: Quemadmodum flamma surgit in rectum, iacere ac deprimi non potest, non magis quam quiescere; ita noster animus in motu est, eo mobilior et actuosior, quo vehementior fuerit. “Just as the flame springs straight into the air and cannot be cabined or kept down any more than it can repose in quiet, so our soul is always in motion, and the more ardent it is, the greater its motion and activity” (transl. Gummere).

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vision which no longer occurs merely in spatial dimensions, but also through time: this is memoria, an amended type of vision which makes viable the contemplation of one’s self. This journey from what is humile to what is summum and back to the self is sustained by the vocabulary of sight, and in particular by recurring forms of the verb spectare (whose root is present both in its compound form = perspici and in the ablative spectaculo). These few lines from the end of the consolatio also instantiate the centrality of an additional cardinal tenet: the sublime, which as an esthetic and ethical category functions as a trait d’union between cognition, sight, and moral action. That is, the sublime has bearing on our understanding of Seneca’s visual tropes and his technique of narrative images. The problem of the exact chronology of Longinus’ treatise is unsolvable, at least given the current state of the evidence. Nonetheless, it is safe to locate the composition of the work to the early to mid 40s CE and therefore to assume that Seneca ought to be familiar with the doctrine and literary debate that orbited around the rhetorical and philosophical notion of hypsos. 52 However, the notion of phantasia expounded by the anonymous author of the treatise does not correspond to the homonymous doctrinal tenet of the Stoics. In this regard, Setaioli is right to insist on the incompatibility of Longinus’ irrational enthousiasmos with Seneca’s philosophical mission (cf. p. 103 n.3), which is of opposite valence. 53 In fact, Longinus’ notion of phantasia is strikingly similar to that outlined by Quintilian Inst. 6.2.29, who chooses to translate the Greek term with the Latin word visio, namely the impression of seeing something (oculis cernere) which is  52 On the chronology and attribution of the treatise, cf. Rostagni (1947), Lana (1951), Marin (1956), Herrmann (1964) 73–85, Russell (1964), Setaioli (1966), Michel (1969) 246, Crossett and Arietti (1975), Newman (1987), Paffenroth (1994), and lastly Porter’s (2016) 1–5. 53 Longinus Subl. 15.1 underscores the relation between visualization and the engendering of discourse: Ὄγκου καὶ μεγαληγορίας καὶ ἀγῶνος ἐπὶ τούτοις, ὦ νεανία, καὶ αἱ φαντασίαι παρασκευαστικώταται· οὕτω γοῦν εἰδωλοποιΐας αὐτὰς ἔνιοι λέγουσι. καλεῖται μὲν γὰρ κοινῶς φαντασία πᾶν τὸ ὁπωσοῦν ἐννόημα γεννητικὸν λόγου παριστάμενον, ἤδη δ᾿ ἐπὶ τούτων κεκράτηκεν τοὔνομα, ὅταν ἃ λέγεις ὑπ᾿ ἐνθουασιασμοῦ καὶ πάθους βλέπειν δοκῇς καὶ ὑπ᾿ ὄψιν τιθῇς τοῖς ἀκούουσιν. “Weight, grandeur, and urgency in writing are very largely produced, dear young friend, by the use of ‘visualizations’ (phantasiai). That at least is what I call them; others call them ‘image productions.’ For the term phantasia is applied in general to an idea which enters the mind from any source and engenders speech, but the word has now come to be used predominantly of passages where, inspired by strong emotion, you seem to see what you describe and bring it vividly before the eyes of your audience” (transl. Rhys Roberts). Longinus uses φαντασία as a vantage point that illuminates the relations between sublime vision and style and ultimately encompasses what Porter (2016) 445 terms the “sweeping topics” of nature, the soul, and language.

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress absent as if it were present. In turn, Quintilian’s definition can be compared to the notion of diatypôsis; 54 i.e., a vivid description that pursues visual effects, as outlined by the rhetorician Tiberius De Fig. 43: ἡ διατύπωσις ἐπὶ τὴν θέαν ἄγει τῶν οὐχ ἑωραμένων, (“the diatypôsis makes visible that which is not visible”). 55 The fundamental difference with Senecan presentations is ontological in nature. For Seneca, a presentation is a sensory experience and it culminates in the correct assessment of a given propositional concept. It is a cognitive event involving perception (a very specific form of causation). For Quintilian and Tiberius, the type of vision elicited by the phantasiai is a vision-effect and its efficacy coincides with the vividness of a literary image accounting for what cannot be seen. The result is a form of exaltation that a reader experiences and which will most likely achieve, at least in the case of oratory, a persuasive result. In this regard, Porter broaches the most crucial question, which, if applied to the excerpt from Quintilian, greatly problematizes its significance: “is visualization simply a metaphor for the imagination (for an imaginary seeing), and a conventional one at that?” 56 The same question can certainly be repurposed for Seneca but, because for the Stoics a presentation is a body, not a literary artifice, Seneca’s phrase ante oculos ponere (cf. p. 22 n. 9) is only apparently similar to Quintilian’s expression oculis cernere; in fact it is true in its most basic material sense, and to answer Porter’s question, it does not work as a metaphorical vehicle for imagination. Quintilian’s use of the verb videor (ita repraesentantur animo ut eas cernere oculis ac praesentes habere videamur) 57 shows the interest of the Latin rhetorician in the modification produced in the soul by the sublime literary image, rather than in the vividness of the literary result. However, his preoccupation is more  54 On the διατύπωσις, also known as ὑποτύπωσις, see Dross (2010) 29–32. 55 On the notion of διατύπωσις as equivalent to the notion of φαντασία as outlined by Longinus Subl. 15.2 and termed by Quintilian as visio, cf. Mazzucchi (1992) 206–207. 56 According to Porter (2016) 155–160, sublime visualization is a paradoxical form of hyper-persuasion and hyper-reality which captures an audience’s imagination (the case study utilized is tragedy) thanks to its ability to blind the beholder to what he or she is seeing. What counts is not the πραγματικόν (“the facts of the matter”), but rather the results achieved by the emotional effects of the visualization. In a way, Porter seems to stress the a-rational or irrational quality of specific stylistic strategies, something that may recall Seneca’s appeal to the ability of his illustrations to trigger pre-emotional states. However, for Seneca the ultimate target is a completely rational and moral one, and it concerns spiritual bettering. 57 The fictional essence of this imaginative effect will be clearly stressed by Isidore Etym. 2.21.33, when assessing the role of ἐνάργεια: Energia est rerum gestarum aut quasi gestarum sub oculis inductio. “Enargeia consists in the visualization of things as if they were almost present” (transl. Gazzarri).

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pathos-centered than philosophical. On the contrary, for Seneca, a phantasia, even if conjuring up something that is not physically present, nonetheless engages the percipient subject in a transformative way that is as real as if that item were present. To be sure, this does not mean that Senecan philosophy does not partake in at least some of the positive rhetorical outcomes that were generally accorded to phantasiai, and in particular enargeia. A clear instance of what was likely regarded as the most potent among these literary outcomes is furnished by these lines from Quintilian Inst. 6.2.32: Insequetur ἐνάργεια, quae a Cicerone inlustratio et evidentia nominatur, quae non tam dicere videtur quam ostendere, et adfectus non aliter quam si rebus ipsis intersimus sequentur. The result will be enargeia, what Cicero calls illustratio and evidentia, a quality which makes us seem not so much to be talking about something as exhibiting it. Emotions will ensue just as if we were present at the event itself. (Transl. Russell)

Quintilian introduces the cardinal concept of enargeia 58 as an emotion-triggering procedure that transforms a discourse into a demonstration. The explicit mention of Cicero 59 contextualizes what is an engineered visual effect (the use of the verb insequor is quite telling in this respect) among the tools of the orator’s trade. Furthermore, this passage is followed by some examples from the Aeneid. This detail, far from being merely ancillary, should make us appreciate an element of proximity concerning the literary preferences of Quintilian and Seneca. 60 This common cultural background also encompasses the knowledge and consideration of

 58 On this cardinal rhetorical concept, cf. Zanker (1981), Calame (1991), Galand-Hallyin (1993), Webb (1997), Manieri (1998), and Dross (2010). This is, to my knowledge, the first mention of the Greek term ἐνάργεια by a Latin author. 59 Cicero mentions the oratio inlustris at Part. or. 20 and touches on evidentia at Acad. Pr. 2.17. The author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium utilizes the term demonstratio at 4.68 and insists very much on the involvement of sight: Demonstratio est cum ita verbis res exprimitur ut geri negotium et res ante oculos esse videatur [...] Haec exornatio plurimum prodest in amplificanda et commiseranda re huiusmodi enarrationibus, statuit enim rem totam et prope ponit ante oculos. “Ocular demonstration when an event is so described in words that the business seems to be enacted and the subject to pass vividly before our eyes […] Through this kind of narrative ocular demonstration is very useful in amplifying a matter and basing on it an appeal to pity, for it sets forth the whole incident and virtually brings it before our eyes” (transl. Caplan). 60 With more than 100 quotations Virgil is by far Seneca’s favorite poet. On Seneca’s appreciation for Virgil, see Setaioli (1965), Auvray (1987) 29-34, Caranci Alfano (1981) 31–39, and Motto and Clark (1993) 125–132.

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress Cicero’s oeuvre as a historically crucial landmark (cf. p. 26, n. 16) and demonstrates the existence of a widely shared rhetorical doctrine that Seneca adapts to the Stoic cognitive primacy of presentation to pursue both knowledge and saphêneia. 61 This tight relation of teaching, representing, and therefore imagining was designed to achieve the ultimate result: to create a seamless continuity between narration and visualization, thus transforming the reader into a “visual reader”. 62 If Seneca then purposely choses to utilize phantasiai in order to achieve enargeia, and if this stylistic option may sometimes reach sublime heights, the sublime’s philosophical viability remains problematic, for clearly, as argued by Setaioli (cf. p. 103 n. 33), Seneca’s visual reader cannot be an irrational one. 63 If not Longinus’ hypsos, what is then the model commandeered by Seneca for his “incursions” into the territory of the sublime? I believe that Lucretius’ text may once again provide a viable solution to the conundrum. 64 In particular, the literary (and sublime) type of “the safe contemplation” at the incipt of DRN 2 (discussed  61 The relation between clarity and ἐνάργεια, to the point of the latter making up for the need of any further evidence, had been posited by Dyonisius Halicarnassensis Lys. 7.1–3: Aὕτη δ᾿ ἐστὶ δύναμίς τις ὑπὸ τὰς αἰσθήσεις ἄγουσα τὰ λεγόμενα, γίγνεται δ᾿ ἐκ τῆς τῶν παρακολουθούντων λήψεως. […] ἐπιζητήσει τε οὐθέν, οἷον εἰκὸς τοὺς μὲν ἂν δρᾶσαι, τοὺς δὲ παθεῖν, τοὺς δὲ διανοηθῆναι, τοὺς δὲ εἰπεῖν. “This [scil. enargeia] consists in a certain power he has of conveying the things he is describing to the senses of his audience, and it arises out of his grasp of circumstantial detail […] And he will require no further evidence of the likely actions, feelings, thoughts or words of the different persons” (transl. Usher). 62 This is the result of maximizing the rhetorical expedient of evidentia or ἐνάργεια. Quintilian Inst. 9.2.40 comments precisely on how the reader is enabled by the enarges to see something rather than simply feel it: Illa vero, ut ait Cicero, sub oculos subiectio tum fieri solet, cum res non gesta indicatur, sed ut sit gesta ostenditur, nec universa, sed per partis: quem locum proximo libro subiecimus evidentiae. Celsus hoc nomen isti figurae dedit. Ab aliis ὑποτύπωσις dicitur, proposita quaedam forma rerum ita expressa verbis, ut cerni potius videantur quam audiri. “As for what Cicero calls ‘putting something before our eyes,’ this happens when, instead of stating that an event took place, we show how it took place, and that not as a whole, but in detail. In the last book I classified this under evidentia. Celsus actually calls the Figure evidentia, but others prefer hypotyposis, that is, the expression in words of a given situation in such a way that it seems to be a matter of seeing rather than of hearing” (transl. Russell). 63 We will do better to heed with Armisen-Marchetti (1980) 15 the distinction, posited by Longinus, between what φαντασία may achieve in poetry vs. prose. Ἔκπληξις or “astonishment” is the sought-for effect for poetic φαντασία, with the desired outcome for prose being ἐνάργεια. This is to notice how the most irrational achievements of figuration truly apply to poetry more than prose. 64 On the pivotal role of Lucretius as a catalyst for the aesthetic of sublime in golden Latin literature, cf. Hardie (2009) 8. On Seneca’s use and repurposing of Lucretian sublimity, see Hardie (2007) 199 and Williams (2016).

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supra) we find also at Q Nat. 5.15 where Seneca, relying on Asclepiodotus, describes the exploration of an abandoned mine, which was carried out by some scouts sent by Philip II of Macedon in the hope of unearthing fabulous riches. What the explorers found instead was an astonishing underground reservoir of water, a spectacle which filled them with awe: Descendisse illos cum multo lumine et multos duraturo dies, deinde longa via fatigatos vidisse flumina ingentia et conceptus aquarum inertium vastos, pares nostris nec compressos quidem terra supereminente sed liberae laxitatis, non sine horrore visos. They descended with a large supply of torches, enough to last many days. After a while, when they were exhausted by the long journey, they saw a sight that made them shudder: huge rivers and vast reservoirs of motionless water, equal to ours above ground and yet not pressed down by the earth stretching above, but with a vast free space overhead. (Transl. Corcoran)

Porter suggests that both Longinus and Lucretius may have drawn on literature concerning meteorology and paradoxography for at least some of their sublime achievements. The above-passage from Seneca he equally considers part of these literary examples of sublime, which stem from the literature of natural wonders. 65 In this regard, there is no need to square Seneca’s Stoic lore with Longinus’ irrational enthousiasmos. In fact, Seneca’s description ends with the mention of horror or “a thrill of astonishment:” a lexical signpost both of the sublime repertoire, but also of pre-emotional states, something which—we have argued—is fundamentally different from irrational frenzy, and often propaedeutic to subsequent rational learning. Two additional passages respectively preceding and following this description of the underground cave support my contention. At Q Nat. 5.14.2 Seneca provides normative epistemological advice (which applies to both under- and aboveground phenomena): Nam ne haec quidem supra terras, quia videntur, sunt, sed, quia sunt, videntur. For even these do not exist above ground merely because they are seen, but they are seen because they exist. (Transl. Corcoran)

 65 Cf. Porter (2016) 454–457.

  Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress The tone of the passage is overwhelmingly rationalistic and accords well with the brief commentary at Q Nat. 5.15.2, which follows the description of the underground cave. This commentary consists in an aesthetic and moral appreciation of what Seneca (and his reader) have just learned: Cum magna hoc legi voluptate. Intellexi enim saeculum nostrum non novis vitiis sed iam inde antiquitus traditis laborare. I read this story with great enjoyment. For I realized that our age suffers not from new vices but from vices that have been handed down all the way. (Transl. Corcoran)

The horror of the underground vision elicited both pleasure (voluptas) and intellectual (and therefore moral) growth (intellexi). Suavitas and voluptas are, significantly, the two recurring lexical fields of the incipit of the second book of DRN, and the pleasurable feelings that the two terms signify betoken both safe contemplation and philosophical learning. I am suggesting that this species of contemplative/philosophical sublime, which is based on what Porter terms the spectacle of the maiestas rerum, need not, in fact cannot, be interpreted as a type of Longinian irrational frenzy. 66 On the contrary, philosophical sublimity is afforded by one’s ability to disband errors and to base the cognitive process on unshakable scientific foundations. 67 Sublimity may derive from the thrill that knowledge affords, or as Williams phrases it: “The positive sublimity […] against the paralysis of fear.” 68 In sum, there is a type of the sublime which equips the reader with the safe contemplation of nature’s laws and the phenomenally apparent. These laws may be terrible, even horrifying, but they nonetheless elate one’s reason because they enrich it with fundamental truths. This is how Seneca’s visual reader becomes also a reader of knowledge and sublime truth. In conclusion, Seneca’s selection and use of metaphors owes much to a variety of philosophical and literary traditions which explore, with variable scopes and outcomes, the proximity of visual illustration to verbal narration. The Stoics had crucially brought to the fore how presentations may affect a percipient subject to the extent of eliciting pre-emotional states, which are such because they precede the hêgemonikon’s adjudging of propositional content. These states involve physical

 66 Cf. Porter (2016) 445–450. 67 According to Porter (2016) 447: “Sublimity results from the sheer exhilaration that a glimpse of scientific truth affords, and from an appreciation of nature in its manifold abundance.” 68 Cf. Williams (2016) 175. A similar outlook on this issue can be found in Armisen-Marchetti (2015) 154.

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modifications, and—Seneca maintains—they can be triggered also by verbal/literary contents. A stylistic strategy predicated on highly metasemic language can therefore offer a remarkable variety of pre-emotional inputs. In particular, this key to reading Seneca’s illustrations can also be used also to reassess the muchdebated relation between praecepta and decreta. In fact, while the former psychologically appeal to the proficiens’ emotivity through the mode of highly illustrative disputatio, the sermo facilis is charged with the teaching of decreta and can therefore do without, or with much less, metaphorical content on account of its exclusive appeal to one’s reason. The exhortative mode of the decreta is also indebted to literary hypsos, whose potential Lucretius had already fully exploited to enhance the intellectual learning trajectory of his reader. Seneca repurposes the Lucretian method of narrative and cognitive decomposition of reality and chooses the metaphorical unit as his “atomic module” of narration; that is, a complex phenomenon purposefully de-composed into simpler units and therefore better grasped. The next chapter (4), the first of the book’s second half, dealing with Seneca’s practice of metaphor, will explore how these metaphorical, modular units are arranged in groups and will demonstrate the existence of specific patterning strategies which skillfully engage the reader with a variety of sensory stimuli, thus conjuring up within a text the bewildering complexity of an actual, non-literary experience. This crucial junction marks the transition from metaphor to metaphors.



Part II: Practice: The Text and The Body

 From Metaphor to Metaphors Seneca’s strategies of figuration do not exist in a vacuum. Metaphors, contextual by nature, activate both textual and contextual correspondences involving not only analogical relations between tenor and vehicle but also connections with other contiguous metaphors. This requires analysis of their combinatory strategies and positional qualities, with particular emphasis on the stylistic effects achieved through grouping and on the cognitive implications thereof. In particular, I will investigate the blurry distinction between chains of metaphors and allegories, and how Seneca originally positions himself with respect to both Stoic allegoresis and the Ciceronian definition of allêgoria as a continuous sequence of metaphors. Additionally, it bears developing a perspective on a conspicuous group of tropes which, unlike regular metaphors, notoriously predicated on semantic fallacy, are true both at a literal and at a figural level. This specific subcategory eventually problematizes an assessment of Seneca’s style and calls into question the primary role of the body and its therapy.

. Accumulation When discussing the problem of Seneca’s creation of new, original metaphors, Armisen-Marchetti speaks of “introuvable nouveauté” 1 to underline how much of the philosopher’s figured language tends to revivify “dead images” rather than positing analogies between domains never associated before (i.e. newly coined metaphors). To be sure, the adjective “dead” refers less to katachrêses than to varied degrees of acquaintance with the metaphorical component of a given statement. Such is the case, for instance, with all the imagery orbiting around the idea of velocitas as applied to time. Such figuration is as metaphorical as it is trite, and even used to the point of abuse. Only specific textual strategies can restore its tropical nature to the foreground. Accumulation achieves such an effect by repeatedly concentrating on a single domain, thus enhancing its vehicular function. 2 This is about all that has been observed in the literature to date regarding

 1 Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 223. 2 Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 224 proposes various textual examples of this mechanism. For example, at Ep. 49.2 the metaphorical pregnancy of velocitas is signaled by subsequent semantic reiterations such as the ones condensed in the phrase praecipitis fugae transitus. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-005

  From Metaphor to Metaphors metaphorical accumulations in Seneca, and it pertains exclusively to textual reiterations of a single, specific domain. In fact, these instances of accumulation amount to a minority, at least in comparison with the more frequent figural clusters formed by a variety of vehicles that are all coordinated by the same tenor. Metaphorical clusters composed of multiple domains play a crucial role in creating a teaching/learning experience that is not only effective but also true to the lore of the Stoic school. Their didactic efficacy consists mainly in their ability to present a single tenet from multiple angles, as if one could contemplate the complexity and pervasiveness of a single given issue by means of multiple, discrete moments of thought. Each image offers a different presentation (phantasia) to the hêgemonikon and, by doing so, requires assent or rejection (with the former amounting to the only acceptable evidence of truthfulness). A cluster of images stages this exercise repeatedly and ultimately reinforces the idea that any cognitive effort is but a struggle for the right form of judgment. The serial quality of this operation not only demonstrates the material nature of any intellectual activity (indeed, the hêgemonikon can be “trained” by applying itself to this gymnastic-like routine) but it also underscores the notably special status of medical and bodily metaphors. Physicalized picturings aim at presenting the material quality of the hêgemonikon through their illustration of illnesses and healing. Furthermore, the accumulation of metaphors offers the advantage of gradation. The incremental nature of these clusters of quasi-aphorisms provides the disciple with multiple attempts to grapple with a single topic, and by obtaining phantasiai out of a variety of experiences, it ensures that every learning process be confronted with the familiar, the less familiar, and, sometimes, the exotic. Clusters also represent a viable means of showcasing an allegiance to some sacrosanct Stoic principles that concern the nature of language and the desirable features of effective communication. The choice of “speaking by images” demonstrates the closest possible adherence to the dry pointedness of divine rationality: such is the case with the Heraclitean God at Delphi who chooses to “signify” (sêmainein) (cf. p. 32) rather than to commit an oracle to words clearly and explicitly. This hyper-descriptive/deictic quality of Seneca’s strategy of figuration stands out as a brilliant compromise to liberate language from the deterioration associated with the end of the state of nature (when the mere action of pointing to things sufficed), which is the unavoidable consequence of human progress. Indeed, presenting words as if they were scenes demands a reader’s visual engagement and transforms the simple reader into a “visual reader.” As argued before (cf. Tab. 1, p. 97), this is not the only stylistic strategy of Seneca, who time

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and again proves able to exploit different registers, but it is nonetheless a fundamental one. Only the collation of the various rational acts of assent triggered by these presentations will ultimately strengthen the reader’s judgment and introduce him to the most elusive moral notions (decreta)—notions that were previously unattainable. Furthermore, Seneca’s insistence on the relation between the visual and the figural shows an adherence to Aristotelian rhetorical doctrine. An allegiance to Aristotle suggests far more than a casual familiarity with the Greek philosopher, despite the challenge of establishing whether Seneca could have read Aristotle at first-hand or (more likely) through some middle platonic sources (like Cicero often did). 3 If the dryness of these brief presentations showcases the Stoics’ preference for an icastic style, this modus operandi by clusters of illustrations could also easily provoke the canonical accusation of obscuritas, which Cicero had fiercely attacked in his stylistic analyses of Latin rhetoric (cf. pp. 33–34). This is because a single presentation taken out of the chain of successive figurations could be too far-fetched; but through gradual accumulations, every figural increment contributes to the very same idea and enhances its clarity. Seneca’s ingenious compromise also addresses another important doctrinal tenet: the interrelatedness of every cosmic reality, ultimately obeying a universal logos. Through every component of the metaphorical clusters, the proficiens can experience not only the rectitude of a given moral principle, which is being serially validated through multiple presentations, but also the universal sympatheia of all things taking part in the same, all-encompassing morality. To illustrate the point, Ep. 104 contains excellent examples of figural accumulation. The epistle deals with the necessity of a life devoted to the study of philosophy. Traveling is but a momentary diversion, offering the illusion of changing one’s moral disposition by changing location. After insisting on these basic concepts, Seneca moves on and, at 104.17–18, proceeds to strengthen them by metaphorical accumulation: Nullam tibi opem advoca iste discursus, peregrinaris enim cum adfectibus tuis et mala te tua sequuntur. Utinam quidem sequerentur. Longius abessent: nunc fers illa, non ducis. Itaque ubique te premunt et paribus incommodis urunt. Medicina aegro, non regio quaerenda est.

 3 Cf. Setaioli (1988) 141–164. Seneca’s quotations of Aristotle are often indirect and depend on doxographic materials or, quite often, on medioplatonic commentators. Admittedly, when Aristotle’s presence in Seneca’s writings is explicit, it never concerns the matter of figural language, but rather issues such as ὀργή, πολυλαλία, and, in the Epistles (respectively Ep. 58 and 65), the distinction between genus and species, and the doctrine of the causes.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors Fregit aliquis crus aut extorsit articulum: non vehiculum navemque conscendit, sed advocat medicum, ut fracta pars iungatur, ut luxata in locum reponatur. Quid ergo? Animum tot locis fractum et extortum credis locorum mutatione posse sanari? Maius est istud malum, quam ut gestatione curetur. There will be no benefit to you in this hurrying to and fro; for you are traveling with your emotions and are followed by your afflictions. Would that they were indeed following you! In that case, they would be farther away; as it is, you are carrying and not leading them. Hence they press about you on all sides, continually chafing and annoying you. It is medicine, not scenery, for which the sick man must go a-searching. Suppose that someone has broken a leg or dislocated a joint: he does not take carriage or ship for other regions, but he calls in the physician to set the fractured limb, or to move it back to its proper place in the socket. What then? When the spirit is broken or wrenched in so many places, do you think that change of place can heal it? The complaint is too deep-seated to be cured by a journey. (Transl. Gummere)

In the space of two short paragraphs, Seneca manages to bring together at least three metaphorical domains and no fewer than four different images. The passage opens with the personification of evils that, like individuals, pursue the tormented man (mala sequuntur); but this is not the only figural feature suggested by the verb sequor. Indeed, the whole scene soon transitions to a military setting: the evils no longer simply “follow” so much as “besiege” (premunt) and “sting,” or even “torture” or “burn” (urunt) the individual. The verb urere “to burn” lends an anticipatory illustration to the last metaphorical domain: the suffering body and the need for medical intervention. Both the joints and the soul are dislocated and fractured, with the metaphorical analogy resting on the physical nature of the soul itself, which, like all bodies, is vulnerable to external causes. A hypothetical reader is required to comprehend the analogical relation supporting the metaphor by processing the sacrosanct Stoic principle of an all-encompassing materiality. Indeed, dislocation is the common etiology of ailments affecting both tenor and vehicle. Two additional figural elements, if only as a form of echo or of double-entendre, conclude 104.18. Firstly, the fractured (fractum) soul is equally qualified as extortum. The verb extorquere can indicate a medical condition (some kind of dislocation); but—and this is not a secondary meaning—it can also refer to torture. 4 Much like the initial military metaphor, in which the verb urere could allude both to a martial stratagem and to a medical condition characterized by a burning sensation, the conclusion of the passage, which rests upon medical imagery, contains a figural element that is both medical and evocative of torture.  4 Cf. ThlL V.II, 2040, 69–77.

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Lastly, 104.18 ends with the mention of gestatio, a term that is translated rather too vaguely by Gummere as “journey,” given that it properly carries the more specific meaning of “being carried on a sedan chair.” Seneca is not only aware of this word’s specific meaning, but also recommends the practice of gestatio (also known as lallatio) as an alternative to overly vigorous physical exercise, which might prove just as extreme and unwise as idleness. Lallatio was almost a form of “passive gymnastics” that involved caring for one’s internal organs by means of passive stimulation, i.e. the vibrations and bumps experienced by the passenger. When intentionally sought or recommended, lallatio was a form of medical therapy. Hence, to return to the end of 104.18, Seneca concludes by suggesting that journeys (gestationes) are only diversions: they cannot really “cure” one’s ailment because the malum is too deeply embedded. 5 Due to the polysemy of the term gestatio, Seneca could also be taken to mean “because the cure is not potent enough,” as it were, if gestatio is viewed in relation to lallatio. The metaphorical stratification is here so subtle that it is hard to decide which level is the figurative one: is it gestatio qua journey, or gestatio qua medical therapy? Seneca possibly keeps both tracks (the non-medical and the medical) active so as to signal by means of figural density the idea that everything is material; everything is a body; everything can be healed. The technique of accumulation also allows Seneca to employ what in modern linguistics is known as “conceptual blending.” First described by Fauconnier in 1997 and brought to prominence by Fauconnier and Turner’s joint effort, 6 the blending theory assumes a process of the subconscious combination and integration of elements from various domains to achieve a tightknit construal of thought  5 The gestatio is a therapeutic prescription typical of the Asclepiadean/methodic school and consists of a prolonged shaking movement which would eventually help thin the humors that had become too thick and thus causing various illnesses, cf. Hanson (2006) 495. In fact, the thinning corresponds to a proper repositioning of the ὄγκοι, or bodily atomic constituents, on which one’s health depends, cf. Rawson (1982) 358, Leith (2012), and the extensive contribution of Vallance (1990), who explores the possible relation between Asclepiades’ theory and Erasistratus’ idea of “the following of matter towards the area being vacated.” Seneca comments on the benefits of gestatio also at Ep. 15.6 and Ep. 55.1–2 where the concutio (“shaking”) produced by being transported on a sedan chair corresponds to the beneficial effect of decutere (“shaking off”) a too dense an accumulation of bile (On which principle see also Celsus Med. 2.15.3 and Pliny HN 28.54). On Seneca’s praise of this medical practice cf. Gourevitch (1982) 55, Jackson (1988) 34, 90, Migliorini (1997) 62–63, Chambert (2002) 78, Langslow (2000) 167, and Courtil (2015) 324– 326. 6 Fauconnier (1997) and Fauconnier and Turner (2002). An initial description of the role of “mental spaces,” however, had appeared already in Fauconnier’s homonymous 1985 book.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors and language. The prismatic effect amplified by figural clusters greatly contributes to blending conceptual spaces, in which elements coming from different vehicular domains coalesce and contribute to both a unique aesthetic experience and a uniquely performative teaching act. Another textual example may prove useful to illuminate this dynamic, and also to demonstrate the educational potential of such a blending technique. At Q Nat. 1 praef. Seneca discusses, among other topics, the necessity of studying theology, the highest part of philosophy, which stands at the pinnacle of all branches of learning inasmuch as philosophy allegedly surpasses all other human disciplines. If one could not aspire to partake in what is divine, Seneca argues, then life, devoted exclusively to trivial activities, would not be worth living. To underscore this concept at 1 praef. 4–5, an accumulation of metaphors activates a blending effect with conspicuous didactic potential: Quid enim erat cur in numero viventium me positum esse gauderem? An ut cibos et potiones percolarem? Ut hoc corpus causarium ac fluidum, periturumque nisi subinde impletur, farcirem et viverem aegri minister? Ut mortem timerem, cui uni nascimur? Detrahe hoc inaestimabile bonum, non est vita tanti ut sudem, ut aestuem. O quam contempta res est homo, nisi supra humana surrexerit! Quamdiu cum affectibus colluctamur, quid magnifici facimus? Etiamsi superiores sumus, portenta vincimus. Quid est cur suspiciamus nosmet ipsi quia dissimiles deterrimis sumus? Non video quare sibi placeat qui robustior est in valetudinario. What reason would I have to be glad that I was placed among the living? In order that I might digest food and drink? In order that I might stuff this diseased and failing body, which would soon die unless it were filled continuously—and that I might live as an attendant on a sick man? In order that I might fear death, the one thing for which we are born? Well, you can have this invaluable prize—living is not so important that I should even get sweaty and hot. After all, man is a contemptible thing unless he rises above his human concerns. But what greatness do we achieve as long as we struggle with ignoble passions? Even if we are victorious we conquer only monsters. What reason is there to admire ourselves because we are not as bad as the worst? I do not see why a man should feel pleased who is simply less sick than the others in the hospital. (Transl. Corcoran)

The first figural cluster frames the opening question of the paragraph. What follows are two rhetorical questions whose implied answers are intended to serve as a response. The tenor of the paragraph is food, or rather, addiction to food. The theme of food is here constructed through an accumulation of metaphorical domains. To begin with, the verb percolo lends to the first question a specific technical flavor. 7 Like a strainer, the human body is but a pipe, good only for filtering food.  7 Cf. Lucretius DRN 2.475; 5.269; 6.635 and Cato Agr. 108.2.

Accumulation  

This figuration simultaneously achieves two results. Firstly, it bypasses the process of digestion, which is generally charged with positive intellectual connotations: 8 here the food transits and exits the body as if in a continuous motion, thus linking ingestion and defecation. Secondly, this focus on the movement of food enhances the possibility of the “body as a space” type of metaphor, and it is precisely the spatialization of the body that paves the way for the use of the verbs implere and farcire (with both forms suggesting the filling of an empty space). Seneca adds an additional layer to the already rich figural transition occurring from 1) body as an object (a strainer) to 2) body as a space, and ultimately 3) body as a container. The verb farcire undoubtedly suggests the action of filling, but has the specific meaning of “stuffing,” and it is often used in culinary contexts. This results in the illustration of the body not just as a container, but as a piece of food itself that, very much like Trimalchio’s dainties, 9 can be stuffed with other delicacies in a confounding process which blends the eater with what is being eaten. 10 Lastly, Seneca adds one further shift: by relying on the morbidity of the illustration elicited by farcire, he introduces the image of the minister aegri—the nurse and, in this case, one’s own nurse. The analysis of these first lines already demonstrates how, for Seneca, metaphorical accumulation catalyzes the integration of metaphorical networks. Fauconnier defines “mental spaces” as assemblies of elements structured by cognitive frames and connected to long-term schematic knowledge (also known as “frames”). 11 Without discussing the mechanical details of the blending process, 12 it

 8 Seneca normally utilizes the verb concoquere to designate the peptic process which, when functioning properly, signifies moral virtue; cf. Gourévitch (1974) 314–316 and Courtil (2015) 262– 270. 9 Cf. Petronius Sat. 49, where Trimalchio’s servant cuts out a roasted pork only to reveal that the animal is stuffed with sausages and other pork-based delicacies. 10 On the cultural and literary significance of the “crammed menu,” cf. Gowers (1993) 70–76. Some dishes, because of their stuffing, perceived as unnatural or excessive, were usually lampooned by satirists or looked upon with suspicion by moralists. This is the case with the so-called “Trojan pig,” fattened hares, and fattened snails; cf. Macrobius Sat. 3.13.13–15. In particular, apparent already in Plautus is the striving for comic confusion whereby moral ideology and medical theory become no longer distinguishable, just as men become indistinguishable from the dainties on which they feed. 11 Fauconnier (2007) 351. 12 Cf. Fauconnier and Turner (2002) 40, where the blending process is described as requiring a minimum of four spaces, of which two must be input spaces.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors will suffice to observe how a metaphor, conceived as a cognitive blending, incorporates and combines information from two or more previously separate input spaces. 13 Seneca’s accumulation technique enhances the cognitive relevance of what amounts to a form of micro-incremental blending, where successive input spaces are added serially. The result is that, in this case, it becomes impossible to separate between the theme of food, the spatial representation of the human body, and the dialectical relation between food and illness. Such conceptual complexity is achieved seamlessly thanks to the creation of clusters whose hermeneutic nature ought to be considered in light of allegories and their specific role within Stoic rhetoric. This is because a number of classical rhetoricians (and crucially, among them, Cicero, cf. p. 134 n. 19) define allegory precisely as a cluster, of a series of metaphors. To unravel the complex relations between groups of metaphors and allegories in Seneca’s prose, it is crucial to examine the positional quality of the metaphors themselves; that is, to consider whether tenor and vehicle are contiguous (i.e., in close proximity) or, rather, if their semantic relation stretches over the space of a long paragraph or more generally expands into a larger context.

. Positional Features of Metaphors There are two main issues concerning the study of allegories. The first lies in the difficulty of drawing a clear distinction between allegory and metaphor. The second concerns the specificity of allegories in the ancient world and, in particular, how these tropes are differently assessed by Stoics and non-Stoics, and especially by rhetoricians. To begin with the first issue: the etymology of the term allegory allows room for too facile an interpretation. The verb allêgorein, from alla agoreuein, “to say something else” (other than what one truly means), 14 simply accounts for the figural nature of the trope, without elucidating what would constitute the difference between allegory and metaphor. After all, both metaphors and allegories have in common the key feature of metaphorical content: namely, a literal fallacy that must be recognized and resolved.

 13 Cf. Sjöblad (2015) 72, who applies Fauconnier’s model to the Senecan input spaces “iter ad sapientiam” and “iter vitae.” 14 See Heraclitus Quaest. Hom. 5.2. On Heraclitus’ definition see Konstan (in Russell and Konstan (2005)) xiii–xv.

Positional Features of Metaphors  

Moreover, the necessary interpretation required by every reading/exegetic activity, even by the processing of the most literal of contents, could itself be seen as an act of allegorical interpretation. This is an extreme stance, yet one that has been posited, and which is based, once again, on the rather fuzzy definition of allegory. 15 In theory, every reader is an interpreter (if only unwillingly), and since s/he operates via conceptual substitutions, s/he can be seen as an allegorist. A canonical distinction, however, exists between textual interpretation and a specific subcategory thereof: allegoresis. The aim of textual interpretation is to identify the supposed meaning intended by the author of a text; but allegory is predicated on a conceptual system of ideas whereby a writer consciously constructs a symbolic narrative that requires an ad hoc symbolic interpretation, which is canonically termed allegoresis. 16 The distinction between allegory and allegoresis will be used (1) to address the conundrum of the distinction between metaphor and allegory, and more specifically, (2) to differentiate how the Stoics and the rhetoricians each framed the issue. First we must clarify the distinction between allegory and metaphor. To do so, it is paramount to begin from the most difficult cases, in which metaphors become virtually indistinguishable from allegories. To shed some light on these cases, I propose a distinction between (a) metaphors arranged in close contiguity and (b) metaphors organized in larger contexts; I thus aim to target (as promised) the larger issue of metaphorical classification vis-à-vis their positional qualities. Metaphorical units often showcase contiguity between tenor and vehicle. Contiguity is a positional concept separate from intelligibility (saphêneia), albeit often overlapping with it. For instance, the trope “Achilles is a lion,” which for centuries has occupied a central position in the handbooks of rhetoric, sports features of both contiguity and intelligibility. Tenor and vehicle stand in close proximity and the analogical relation governing the metaphor can be easily understood.

 15 Cf. Frye (1957) 89, for whom the interpretation of a non-allegorical text and a purposely allegorical text rests on the same substitutive principle. In the first case, the narrative is replaced by discourse language, while in the case of the allegorical text the shift is from a symbolic to a literal level. 16 Cf. Berek (1978) 118. Allegory is ultimately a technique of composition, whilst allegoresis should be taken as a technique of interpretation. The confusion between the two terms has a long history as bemoaned, for instance, by Tate (1927), Pépin (1976) 487, and Domaradzki (2017). More specifically, the term ‘allegory’ has been often utilized to signify both allegory and allegoresis. The crucial distinction between the two terms is sharply defined in much of German scholarship (see, among others, Joosen and Waszink (1950) and Steinmetz (1986)) where “Allegorie” always designates allegorical “Dichtung,” while “Allegorese” refers to allegorical “Deutung.”

  From Metaphor to Metaphors “Contiguous metaphors” correspond to the most common notion of metaphor, and Seneca’s oeuvre contains an abundance of them. For instance, at Helv. 17.2 we find a sequence of contiguous metaphors which are remarkable both for their density and intensity: Scio rem non esse in nostra potestate nec ullum adfectum servire, minime vero eum, qui ex dolore nascitur. I know well that this is a matter that is not in our own power, and that no emotion is submissive, least of all that which is born from sorrow. (Transl. Basore)

The theme of the passage is one dear to the Stoics: control over emotions and, in this specific case, over the distress produced by grief. Seneca’s first move consists in turning grief into a thing (res) and then in declaring the impossibility of claiming ownership over it. Thus, the metaphorical sequence runs as follows: 1) “grief is a thing,” and 2) “grief is a thing which cannot be possessed (with ownership standing for emotional control).” In the rest of the statement, two further metaphorical fields are activated by 3) turning the overwhelming passion into a person who cannot be enslaved and then 4) stressing the flesh-and-blood-like nature of this individual who is being born from grief (itself another generating person). The close proximity of tenor and vehicle in the text serves to dramatize the intensity of one’s grief, which is exactly the crux of the “density serving intensity” definition. Let us now move to contextual metaphors. Ep. 51.10 offers an excerpt where tenor and vehicle are not in close proximity, and where these two fundamental foci of the figuration are no longer single words, but entire sentences. His cogitationibus intentum loca seria sanctaque eligere oportet. Effeminat animos amoenitas nimia nec dubie aliquid ad corrumpendum vigorem potest regio. Quamlibet viam iumenta patiuntur, quorum durata in aspero ungula est; in molli palustrique pascuo saginata cito subteruntur. Et fortior miles ex confragoso venit; segnis est urbanus et verna. Nullum laborem recusant manus, quae ad arma ab aratro transferuntur; in primo deficit pulvere ille unctus et nitidus. Therefore, a man occupied with such reflections should choose an austere and pure dwelling-place. The spirit is weakened by surroundings that are too pleasant, and without a doubt one’s place of residence can contribute towards impairing its vigour. Animals whose hoofs are hardened on rough ground can travel any road; but when they are fattened on soft marshy meadows their hoofs are soon worn out. The bravest soldier comes from rockribbed regions; but the town-bred and the home-bred are sluggish in action. The hand which turns from the plough to the sword never objects to toil; but your sleek and welldressed dandy quails at the first cloud of dust. (Transl. Gummere)

Positional Features of Metaphors  

The letter famously deals with Scipio’s villa at Liternum. Seneca emphatically deploys the diatribic/cynic topos of the domus as one’s imago vitae and animi. 17 The virtue of the old general’s moral constitution is mirrored by the solidity of his abode and its lack of unnecessary amenities. This is the only kind of space, Seneca avers, in which he can be free of distraction, and which is therefore conducive to philosophical meditation. The statement functions as the tenor for the subsequent group of sentences (the various vehicles): the units of the metaphorical process are, once again, sentences, not single words. In the rural scene that follows, Seneca’s description focuses on the resistance of animals trained on harsh ground as opposed to those weakened by marshy, soft pastures. This down-to-earth scene is then used to introduce the next sententia, which hinges on the topical opposition rus/urbs: the soldier coming from mountainous territory is strong, the city-bred one weak. The concluding statement equally rests on the oppositional dyad of urban vs. rustic symbolic spaces and presents exceptional metaphorical density. A hand (a metonymy for the individual) can easily move from the plow to the sword (two contiguous metaphors respectively for the toils of farming and those of warfare), while the unctus, a gender-coded nominal adjective charged with the vice of urban effeminacy, will prove useless at war. What we have here is far more complex than a simple metaphor such as “Achilles is a lion.” The reader is required to comprehend a rather extensive portion of text in order to grasp the figural nature of the various statements. In fact, it is not until the end of the sentence on iumenta that the metaphorical pitch of the narration fully emerges. The narrative sequence nonetheless continues, and two additional sententiae are added, both variations on the idea that austerity makes us strong while comfort makes us weak. The fact that the vehicular components of this narrative unit are no longer single words raises the thorny question of whether we are still even dealing with metaphors, and, if not, whether we should seek a more precise term. In other words, the fact that each vehicular sentence, if isolated from its context, presents a coherent literal sense that is free from any semantic fallacy raises the issue of

 17 On the moral significance of the buildings described by Seneca, cf. Henderson (2004) and Berno (2006) 159–165. Before Seneca, Cicero (whose ideal of decorum will prove crucial also for Vitruvius) insisted on the ethical significance of one’s domus, as is the case, for instance, at Off. 1.138–139. On Cicero’s moralizing of space, and private space in particular, as a way to forshadow an individual’s moral integrity, cf. Narducci (1989) 183–185 and Casamento (2016).

  From Metaphor to Metaphors whether what has so far been labeled under the heading of “contextual metaphors” should in fact be considered allegories. 18 In summing up this argument, while contiguous metaphors are rhetorical operators of localized import, contextual metaphors prove more problematic and, with their semantic logic, cue us to better assess the differences between clusters of metaphors and allegories.

. Metaphors and Allegories The term allegory is first associated with Demetrios, between the end of the second and the beginning of the first century CE. Cicero defines it as a stream of continuous metaphors 19 thus seemingly suggesting that any sustained use of the phenomenon can likely be labeled an allegory. The vague line separating metaphors from allegories derives not only from Heraclitus’ definition (cf. p. 130 n. 14), but also from Aristotle’s lack of a more specific description of the differences between the two tropes. Interestingly, Cicero does not adopt a Latin label for allegory, an omission that suggests that he considered allêgoria to be more Greek than other commonly utilized schêmata. 20 The Ciceronian passage from the Orator also raises the question of whether this flow of metaphors, which eventually elicits an allegorical architecture, should be gauged according to a quantitative or a qualitative criterion. That is, should an allegory be built around variations on a single vehicle, or could one assume that different vehicles—in particular when they refer to the same tenor and constitute a continuous narration—should also be regarded as allegory? Quintilian Inst. 8.6.44 21 seems to suggest a qualitative rather than a  18 Cf. Lausberg (19732) par. 895, 441. The allegory is for thoughts what the metaphor is for single words. 19 Cicero Orat. 94.6–9: Iam cum fluxerunt continuae plures tralationes, alia plane fit oratio; itaque genus hoc Graeci appellant ἀλληγορίαν: nomine recte, genere melius ille qui ista omnia tralationes vocat. “When there is a continuous stream of metaphors, a wholly different style of speech is produced; consequently, the Greeks call it ἀλληγορία or ‘allegory’. They are right as to the name, but from the point of view of classification Aristotle does better in calling them all metaphors” (transl. Hendrickson). This definition of allegory will eventually become prevalent in modern handbooks of rhetoric, cf. Lanham (1991) 4, for whom allegory consists in “extending a metaphor through an entire speech or passage.” 20 Cf. Grilli (1997) 409. 21 Quintilian Inst. 8.6.44 is also responsible for the utterly generic definition of allegory as inversio, which is to say a trope conveying a meaning other than the literal one: aliud verbis, aliud sensu ostendit (the Latin equivalent of the Greek etymological explanation ἄλλος + ἀγορεύω).

Metaphors and Allegories  

quantitative interpretation when, after providing the definition of metaphor both as inversio and then as continuae tralationes, he cites Horace Carm. 1.14 as an example of what he calls “allegory of the first type.” Ἀλληγορία, quam inversionem interpretantur, aut aliud verbis, aliud sensu ostendit, aut etiam interim contrarium. Prius fit genus plerumque continuatis tralationibus, ut O navis, referent in mare te novi/ fluctus: o quid agis? Fortiter occupa/ portum/, totusque ille Horati locus, quo navem pro re publica, fluctus et tempestates pro bellis civilibus, portum pro pace atque concordia dicit. Allegory, which people translate inversio, presents one thing by its words and either (1) a different or (2) sometimes even a contrary thing by its sense. (1) The first type generally consists of a succession of metaphors, as in “O ship, new waves will take you back to sea:/ what are you doing? Be resolute, make harbour,/” and that whole passage of Horace in which he represents the state as a ship, the civil wars as waves and storms, and peace and concord as the harbour.” (Transl. Russell)

In the Horatian text, all the correspondences between the various elements of vehicle and tenor orbit around the basic controlling metaphor of “the ship of state;” there is, in other words, only one coherent mapping. If, as seems plausible, this example is intended to corroborate the definition of allegory as continua μεταφορά, then the metaphors of the Ode are certainly numerous, but the governing criterion seems to be one of thematic coherence. The other interesting feature outlined by Quintilian is the stress on allegorical signification as something fundamentally different from a discourse’s literal meaning. This tenet is also found in Trypho fig. 3 III 193.8 Sp., and it is therefore part of a theoretical account of metaphor that not only precedes Seneca, but which Seneca also likely knew. At fig. 3 III 193.8 Sp. Trypho writes: Ἀλληγορία ἐστὶ λόγος ἕτερον μέν τι κυρίως δηλῶν, ἑτέρου δὲ ἔννοιαν παριστάνων καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον. Allegory is a form of expression which indicates something in a literal sense, but which is representing something else through a relation of similarity for the most part. (Transl. Gazzarri)

What stands out in Trypho’s definition is the presence of a literal sense that needs to be deciphered according to homoiôsis, i.e. an interpretational principle governing allegories in much the same vein as analogy which, according to Aristotle, functions as the guiding criterion for understanding metaphors (cf. pp. 23–25). The need to surpass the literal level in order to understand allegories recalls the Platonic notion of hyponoia, a term whose etymology alludes to a “covered”

  From Metaphor to Metaphors sense or one that “lies under” the literal level. As observed by Dross, 22 an attempt to provide a final definition for allegory proves arduous because of the trope’s inclusion in the fields of both rhetoric and philosophy. For Seneca, the task may be even more complicated because his prose work, imbued with rhetorical skill, purports to be a philosophical parainesis. 23 An additional layer of complexity arises from the difference between a text susceptible to allegorical interpretation (even without the author intending it to be so) and a text that is intentionally designed to be interpreted allegorically, but whose symbolic level of signification is not immediately apparent. 24 More specifically, the difficulty with Seneca’s strategy of illustration concerns his frequent deployment of sustained metaphors that seem to fit the Ciceronian definition of “continuous metaphors.” I believe that Seneca’s thematically homogeneous series of metaphors cannot be labeled as allegories. This claim is supported by specific features both of Stoic allegoresis and of the ancient tradition of philosophical allegory. The problem of Stoic allegoresis is closely related to the School’s cosmology and theology. According to the Stoics, the primitive wisdom of the human race and the invention of language are closely related, with the former determining the latter. The Urmenschen, relying on their pure connection with nature and truth, were the first wise name-givers and myth-makers: their act of linguistic creation formed the fragments of primordial knowledge into words. The Stoics’ attention to etymology consists of a systematic attempt to unearth by means of linguistic analysis the doctrine of these primitive men, a doctrine embedded in the uncorrupted, natural relation (originally shaped by a “demiurgic” name-making activity) between res and verba. Theology is one main focus of this archeological activity, and it is no coincidence that much of the Stoics’ exegetic endeavor concerns the study of the Homeric tradition qua privileged text to rediscover the doctrinal message associated

 22 Dross 2010, 49–61. 23 Cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 249: “L’image assume des fonctions essentielles au sein du discours, et se révèle indissociable du projet d’ensemble de Sénèque, avec la double visée qui le caractérise: visée philosophique et visée esthétique.” 24 This is what first Quilligan (1979) 25–26 and then Long (1996) 60 define, respectively, as allegorical text in a “weak” and in a “strong sense”.

Metaphors and Allegories  

with the gods’ names. 25 This exegetic mythology, which is central for Chrysippus, 26 was also favored by the middle stoics and, in particular, by Panaetius and Posidonius. 27 This method elicited Cicero’s criticism at Nat. D. 1.15.39 (=SVF 2.1077) of their inclination to treat poetic texts as allegorical repositories of theological truths. True, Seneca’s position differs from the traditional teaching of the Middle Stoa: not only does he decline to foster an interest in this etymological/theological interpretation of Greek poetry, 28 but he also professes a different theory concerning the golden age and the Urmenschen’s moral status. This theory, in opposition to the one of Posidonius, rejects all claims of a primitive wisdom. Ep. 90, traditionally one of the main Posidonian testimonia, is entirely devoted to the matter. In it, Seneca outlines various topics of disagreement with the polymath of Apameia, above all the fact that the absence of vices and evils during the golden age made the first men lucky and blissful certainly, but hardly wise. 29  25 For instance, Chaos, from χέεστθαι, is interpreted as “flowing water” (SVF 1.103). The name Apollo derives from the sun’s rising ἀπ᾽ ἄλλων καὶ ἄλλων, “from constantly different regions of the sky” (SVF 1.540). As for Zeus, the name is directly linked to the verb ζῆν, “to live,” while the accusative Δία accounts for the god being the means δι᾽ ὅν, “whereby” everything occurs (SVF 2.1021). On the relation between Stoic etymology and allegoresis, see Buffière (1956), Peraki-Kyriakidou (2002), Goulet (2005) 113–114, Domaradzki (2012) and Radice (2020) 47–50. 26 Cf. SVF 2.1009 and 2.1070 but, as observed by Radice (in Ramelli 2004) 11–14, the old Stoic school does not preach a theory of history where a phase of decadence follows the golden age; thence the fact that myths would not necessarily contain any archaic, uncorrupted truth. Furthermore, the ἐκπύρωσις and the attendant καθάρσις posited by Chrysippus are relevant for their cosmological rather than ethical value: they mark the beginning of a new universal cycle. The importance of etymology is supported by the old Stoics not through their theory of history, but via their explanation of the origin of language (cf. pp. 69–71). Basic language is simple φωνή, i.e. πνεῦμα extending from the ἡγεμονικόν, and, since the latter receives impressions from external objects, vocalized names are also molded by external objects. It is on account of this “physiology” of primordial naming that, for the old Stoics, the correspondence between res and verba is truth-bearing, and etymology can be considered a fruitful exegetic method. 27 Cf. Posidonius fr. 285 EK, where the old wise men are regarded as experts in astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, geography, and philosophy. At fr. T75 EK polymathy and poetry are closely associated. 28 Cf. Ep. 88.4–5 where Seneca clearly states that Homer cannot be considered a philosopher. 29 Cf. Ep. 90.44: Sed quamvis egregia illis vita fuerit et carens fraude, non fuere sapientes, quando hoc iam in opere maximo nomen est. Non tamen negaverim fuisse alti spiritus viros et, ut ita dicam, a dis recentes. Neque enim dubium est, quin meliora mundus nondum effetus ediderit. Quemadmodum autem omnibus indoles fortior fuit et ad labores paratior, ita non erant ingenia omnibus consummata. Non enim da natura virtutem; ars est bonum fieri. “But no matter how excellent and guileless was the life of the men of that age, they were not wise men; for that title is reserved for the highest achievement. Still, I would not deny that they were men of lofty spirit and—if I may

  From Metaphor to Metaphors Wisdom, in this view, implies a moral, mindful choice between good and evil, and it is therefore a struggle belonging to the postlapsarian age. If, therefore, for Seneca the primitive men (who, again, correspond to the first name-givers) cannot be held as wise, then their linguistic activity bears little interest, and the need for etymology as a form of allegoresis (i.e. the allegorical interpretation of texts) does not prove to be quite so formidable as a means of interpretation. 30 This refusal to embrace allegoresis is all the more significant in light of the contemporaneous activity of other eminent Stoics such as Cornutus and Chaeremon. The work of Cornutus, for instance, features a fine, very specific example of Stoic allegoresis. His compendium is a manual of mythology, i.e. a work of theology, entirely devoted to the symbolic interpretation of the gods. 31 However, one could object, even if Seneca seems uninterested in traditional Stoic allegoresis, he might nevertheless have used allegories as a rhetorical device, and one closer to the definition of continuae tralationes as provided by Cicero, and then reiterated by Quintilian (i.e. as a mere rhetorical rather than philosophical means). Accordingly, once it is determined that allegoresis does not number among Seneca’s doctrinal/philosophical objectives, we turn to the problem of allegory and the initial question of whether Seneca’s use of contiguous metaphors with a shared vehicle can be regarded as a textual strategy centered on allegories. If we consider Seneca’s clusters of metaphors as allegories in the rhetorical vein outlined by Cicero, we should also concurrently be reminded that this stylisitc device ought to be subservient to the successful communication of philosophical content. Be that as it may, we should equally entertain the idea that Seneca, while  use the phrase—fresh from the gods. For there is no doubt that the world produced a better progeny before it was yet worn out. However, not all were endowed with mental faculties of highest perfection, though in all cases their native powers were more sturdy than ours and more fitted for toil. For nature does not bestow virtue; it is an art to become good” (transl. Gummere). On this topic see also Boys-Stones (2003) 191–193 and Gazzarri (2020). 30 Cf. Radice (in Ramelli 2004) 331–336. 31 Cornutus’ work also depends on a Mediostoic and lately Posidonian theory of history as he overtly acknowledges at ND 35: Οὕτω δ’ ἂν ἤδη καὶ τἆλλα τῶν μυθικῶς παραδεδόσθαι περὶ θεῶν δοκούντων ἀναγαγεῖν ἐπὶ τὰ παραδεδειγμένα στοιχεῖα, ὦ παῖ, δύναιο, πεισθεὶς ὅτι οὐχ οἱ τυχόντες ἐγένοντο οἱ παλαιοί, ἀλλὰ καὶ συνιέναι τὴν τοῦ κόσμου φύσιν ἱκανοὶ καὶ πρὸς τὸ διὰ συμβόλων καὶ αἰνιγμάτων φιλοσοφῆσαι περὶ αὐτῆς εὐεπίφοροι. “And thus even the other mythical accounts concerning the gods that are handed down, may you oh boy reconnect them to the elements presented as examples, trusting that the ancient men were not of little value, rather they were also able to understand the nature of the universe and inclined to reason philosophically about it by means of symbols and enigmas” (transl. Gazzarri). For Cornutus and its theory of history, cf. Boys-Stones (2001) 55. On Corntus’ allegorical work, see Most (1989), Radice (in Ramelli 2004) 275–313, Ramelli (2008) 947–1138, Nesselrath (2009), and Boys-Stones (2018).

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distancing himself from the canonical Stoic practice of allegory and allegoresis (a chief method for uncovering philosophical truth), would nonetheless avail himself of a more rethorical type of allegory (i.e. the Ciceronian one), and that he would be doing this with the precise purpose of communicating hard-to-grasp Stoic philosophical content in a more effective way. We would then be outlining a trajectory whereby Seneca relinquishes Stoic philosophical allegory, only then to deploy continuae tralationes (allegories as per Cicero’s definition) precisely to return to and deliver Stoic tenets. This whole modus operandi appears to be rather convoluted, and its viability is clearly limited. Clusters of contiguous metaphors may certainly have contributed to enargeia, but for the Stoic philosopher Seneca allegory resonated with a practice quintessentially Stoic, philosophical, and, in this regard, quite specific or, at any rate, specific enough not to be confused with a mere stylistic trick. We may find confirmation of Seneca’s position if we examine other stylistic features that share with metaphors their employment, by philosophers and rhetoricians alike, as viable resources by which to achieve enargeia. More precisely, Seneca’s use of poetic insertions presents some features that can illuminate the status of contiguous metaphors. Quotations from the poets of the Augustan age, Virgil and Ovid especially, but also Horace, abound in Seneca’s oeuvre. The presence of Virgilian material has been studied by, among others, Setaioli, who outlines how Seneca quotes the poet from Mantua more than a hundred times, for a total of about two hundred lines. 32 Part of Setaioli’s analysis addresses and debunks Wirth’s assessment of the philosopher’s use of at least some of the quoted Virgilian 33 passages as allegories. Setaioli maintains that Seneca selects and interprets the poetic texts to better deliver some fundamental Stoic philosophical teachings. In the case of Virgil, Seneca undoubtedly deploys many groups of verses to illuminate Stoic doctrinal content that would otherwise seem far from palatable; but this stylistic expedient does not amount to an allegory because, as Setaioli puts it, “nella maggioranza dei casi non è appropriato parlare di cosciente e coerente interpretazione filosofica di Virgilio, sì piuttosto del bisogno di Seneca di esprimere i propri pensieri con maggiore vivezza attraverso le parole del poeta.” 34  32 Cf. Setaioli (1965) 135. 33 Cf. Wirth (1900) 7. 34 Cf. Setaioli (1965) 139. Seneca harshly criticizes the overindulging tendency of the old Stoics (and of Chrysippus in particular) to resort to an excessive number of poetic quotations on account of their attributing them philosophical relevance, and at the cost of transforming a philosophical discourse into a list of fragments; cf. Ben. 1.3.8: Chrysippus quoque, penes quem subtile illud acumen est et in imam penetrans veritatem, qui rei agendae causa loquitur et verbis non ultra,

  From Metaphor to Metaphors We can apply a similar interpretative approach to the issue of contiguous metaphors as allegories. Seneca’s long sequences of thematically coherent metaphors do not obey any hidden symbolic project. In other words, they are not inherently philosophical, but they nonetheless serve a philosophical purpose because they facilitate the moral persuasion of the proficiens by enhancing the parenetic quality of the prose: its “vivacity.” Unlike Cicero, however, their ultimate goal is to ease the teaching of philosophical truths, with the attendant bettering of the individual. Cicero’s equivalence between allegories and continuae tralationes cannot be applied to Seneca because it is predicated on a different teleological ground. Instead, Seneca’s repertoire of these “quasi-allegorical” chains of metaphors is largely composed of scenes from daily life, a feature likely attributable to the so-called diatribic tradition and its collection of intertwined Cynic and Stoic themes. It is precisely this philosophical and paraenetic quality of Seneca’s philosophical prose that bars the way to an allegorical interpretation of any use that he makes of metaphors. After all, allegories, esoteric as they are by definition, cannot have any direct appeal to the reader; their professed target is not the widespread, universally dispensed access to wisdom so much as the exclusion of those who are not equipped with the ad hoc hermeneutic tools, in favor of a secret doctrinal teaching bestowed upon a select few. 35 It is no accident that both Heraclitus and Pseudo-Plutarch De Hom. 92 couch the allegorical interpretation of Homer in religious terms, as an initiation into mysteries. In essence, Seneca’s refusal of philosophical allegories rests on a specific philosophical and doctrinal basis: his theory of the origin of the human race leaves no room for any archaeological appreciation of language and, consequently, for any allegorical interpretation. In turn, the lack of interest in Stoic allegoresis leaves no room for considering verba as a repository of embedded, symbolically enshrined doctrines. On the contrary, words must spur the reader to action through language tailored precisely for this purpose; this language acquires performative rather than  quam ad intellectum satis est, utitur, totum librum suum his ineptiis replet, ita ut de ipso officio dandi, accipiendi, reddendi beneficii pauca admodum dicat; nec his fabulas, sed haec fabulis inserit. “Chrysippus, too, whose famous acumen is so keen and pierces to the very core of truth, who speaks in order to accomplish results, and uses no more words than are necessary to make himself intelligible—he fills the whole of his book with these puerilities, insomuch that he has very little to say about the duty itself of giving, receiving, and returning a benefit; and his fictions are not grafted upon his teachings, but his teachings upon his fictions” (transl. Basore). 35 For the Stoics, this exclusion is the product of the progressive distancing from primitive wisdom that history imposes on the human race.

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symbolic status because it can make people “do things.” This kind of eloquence is “contingent” not only in the sense outlined by Armisen-Marchetti (cf. p. 32 n. 27), but also vis-à-vis the need to anchor the philosophical teaching in everyday life in order to achieve clarity. Seneca’s recurring chains of metaphors thus lend a familiar, emotional pitch to his prose, which nonetheless remains chiefly oriented towards a precise, select moral end. This is why Cicero’s definition of continuae tralationes (the Latin definition for allegory) is inadequate for describing Seneca’s stylistic expedient. Cicero introduces one of the orator’s tools of the trade: a trope meant for a specific genre and purpose which is not that of moral philosophy. Perhaps Seneca’s chains of metaphors sharing a common vehicle could be labeled as “contextual metaphors.” In sum, a contextual metaphor does not rely on the contiguity of tenor and vehicle qua single words; rather, it is a matter of two (or more) metaphorical foci consisting of independent sentences that are assembled to build complex narrations, in which every statement is true at a literal level, while simultaneously functioning as either vehicle or tenor of another statement. Contextual metaphors may be combined with or even contain contiguous metaphors, and they may also showcase and embed single contiguous metaphorical units: the hand for the person, the plow for agriculture/peace, the sword for warfare/war, and so on. 36 Another excerpt from Ep. 2 contains a fine instance of contiguous metaphors immediately followed by contextual ones. The epistle deals with the need for stability, both physical and intellectual. Restless traveling can be equally unsettling because of the traveler’s inability to concentrate on and study a single text at a time. The end of 2.2 summarizes the core of the issue as follows: Vitam in peregrinatione exigentibus hoc evenit, ut multa hospitia habeant, nullas amicitias. Idem accidat necesse est iis, qui nullius se ingenio familiariter applicant, sed omnia cursim et properantes transmittunt. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner. (Transl. Gummere)

The two themes, travel and study, are united metaphorically under a single conceptual heading, with the action of studying described in terms of travel. The in-

 36 This is case with the closing sentence from Ep. 51.10, which itself works as one of the contextual metaphors for the whole paragraph.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors tellectual enrichment deriving from the reading of the ancient masters can be assimilated to one of making life-friends along the road. Both activities require a steady attitude, and the former should be interpreted through the lens of the latter. So much for the part of the epistle containing contiguous metaphors. In the following paragraph, Seneca develops the same idea further, but he does so by deploying imagery drawn from medicine, and he organizes the paragraph according to what I call a contextual arrangement: Non prodest cibus nec corpori accedit, qui statim sumptus emittitur; nihil aeque sanitatem impedit quam remediorum crebra mutatio; non venit vulnus ad cicatricem, in quo medicamenta temptantur; non convalescit planta, quae saepe transfertur. Nihil tam utile est, ut in transitu prosit. Distringit librorum multitudo. Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it leaves the stomach as soon as it is eaten; nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; no wound will heal when one salve is tried after another; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong. There is nothing so efficacious that it can be helpful while it is being shifted about. And in reading of many books is distraction. (Transl. Gummere)

The text contains four independent images, three of them medical, one agricultural. They concern, respectively, digestion, the correct administration of drugs, the scarring effect of wounds, and the growth of plants. The paragraph also comprises two further statements. Seneca first adumbrates the governing analogical principle and follows this with a more specific contextualization of these various illustrations within the boundaries of the epistle’s main topic: the need to maintain a steady intellectual attitude. Contextual metaphors cannot exist without, of course, the necessary context to acknowledge their figural nature. In other words, while the statement “Achilles is a lion” immediately stands out as a metaphor on account of its semantic fallacy (Achilles is not a lion in the literal sense of the term), a contextual metaphor can prove semantically false only within a larger context. For instance, the statement “a plant which is often moved can never grow strong” contains no semantic discrepancies and so cannot be identified as a trope. It is the formulation of an analogical governing principle that provides access to the figural nature of all the statements while, finally, the last sentence distringit librorum multitudo provides the tenor for the whole paragraph. Through this contextual strategy, Seneca achieves a variety of rhetorical and philosophical targets. Firstly, he can afford to juxtapose several apparently different micro-units that nonetheless serve the same conceptual purpose, thus reproducing the laconic, aphoristic style so dear to the Stoics. The contextual nature of these images incorporates the micro-units into a narration that supports

Reversible Metaphors  

logical continuity and favors a less fractured style. This is precisely what allows the transition from epigrammatic laconism to moral dialogue. 37 Secondly, the possibility of approaching the same concepts from different perspectives proves to be didactically effective by offering multiple examples and opportunities to grasp and hold on to a given teaching. Lastly, the prismatic effect of expounding the content of a moral teaching through a variety of illustrations that are anchored to physical realities paves the way to an all-encompassing viewpoint on the interrelatedness of the universe. Every animal, every fiber, every physical phenomenon ultimately undergoes the same necessary causes, and the material nature of everything makes anything and everything susceptible to philosophical meditation and self-improvement. Before focusing on the emotional effects fostered by Seneca’s strategy of figuration, let us analyze some specific cases of metaphors that could also be confused with allegories, but which are something different. These are metaphors that, as it were, can be “undone” or “reversed.”

. Reversible Metaphors So far, we have argued that Seneca did not show a keen interest in allegoresis because he disagreed with some important, mainly middle-Stoic tenets concerning the origin of humankind, which formed the basis of the theory of the genesis of language and therefore prompted an allegorical exegesis. As for the deployment of allegories, while the Ciceronian definition of continuae tralationes does not address their possible use for philosophical purposes, the traditional Platonic notion of hyponoia relies on a highly symbolic dimension, which Seneca, with the exception of personifications, only rarely pursues. Hence the phrase “contextual metaphors,” which has in common with Cicero’s definition the emphasis on a continuative mode of illustration; but, unlike Cicero’s description, it hinges on a specific philosophical message channeled through the semantic assessment of a whole context. One main feature of such tropes is that they have meanings that are semantically sound at both a literal and a figural level. This is a characteristic that contextual metaphors and allegories have in common. The literal and the figural levels, however, are both true if and only if they are considered separately. For

 37 Cf. Gazzarri (2010) V–IX. Seneca’s literary form of choice is receptive of various traditions: the Platonic one, the Aristotelian σύγγραμμα, the dialogus, which for Cicero has the fundamental feature of dicere in utramque partem, and what Quintilian will term sermocinatio.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors instance, the Platonic myth of the cave, arguably the most famous allegorical episode in the entire classical tradition, makes perfect literal sense and, once philosophically expounded, helps the reader understand the Platonic theory of ideas; but it is to be read either as a simple narration of prisoners in a cave or as a symbolic account of Platonic ontology. The literal reading may point the way to the figural, but it does not coincide with it. Similarly, the sentence from Ep. 51.10 (cf. p. 132), Quamlibet viam iumenta patiuntur, quorum durata in aspero ungula est, delivers a literal message that is perfectly coherent and which, if considered within its metaphorical context, receives a specific philosophical signification; but the agricultural account on the one side and the need for an austere lifestyle on the other do not ultimately coincide, but can only correspond to each other. In the case of “reversible metaphors,” the literal and the figural not only correspond but also coincide. 38 This is a mechanism that works particularly well for Stoicism, but it can likely be discerned for every system of figuration predicated on materialistic tenets. To help clarify this point, I will analyze three different case studies from Seneca’s body of work: namely, the illustration of inner space, the example of the fiery soul, and the trope of the sculpted self.

 38 The problem of whether the literal meaning precedes the figural one or vice versa is one of the most debated and difficult issues of pragmatics (i.e. the branch of linguistics that deals with the use and contextualization of language). To schematize the main positions of this complex debate, we may distinguish three fundamental theories. The so-called “literal first hypothesis” is perhaps the best known, and its most crucial arguments originate from the work of Verbrugge and McCarrell (1977), Ortony (1978), Searle (1979)a, and Grice (1989), just to mention some of the most relevant contributors. According to the literal hypothesis, the comprehension of a metaphor occurs in two stages: first comes the literal interpretation and then, on the basis of the literal interpretation’s fallacy, the figural one. The second thesis, known as “direct access view,” was promoted chiefly by Gibbs and Gerrig (1989), Gibbs (1994; 2001), and Glucksberg (2003). The idea of direct access is predicated on the assumption that a given content is not processed in two phases (from literal to figural) but that the moment of comprehension is one in which a subject selects the interpretational level which is more appropriate (either literal or figural). Lastly, a third approach is Giora’s (1997; 1999) “graded salience hypothesis,” whereby salience becomes the decisive parameter for the comprehension of something enunciated. Salience designates a degree of interpretational difficulty on the basis of which the subject chooses to venture a figural interpretation directly, or has the former preceded by a literal one. For instance, in the case of the enunciation “Achilles is a lion,” the salience of the metaphor is sufficiently high that one could immediately grasp the figural level of the phrase. However, if instead of a lion one would have referenced a much more unusual animal to signify a much more peculiar or rarely touchedon aspect of human character, the salience of the metaphor would have been quite low and, in this case, access to the literal level in order to verify its fallacy would have proven necessary to then access the correct figural interpretation.

Reversible Metaphors  

In her analysis of the relations between Seneca’s metaphors and Stoic logic, Armisen-Marchetti uses the term “image archétypale” when referring to the image of inner space. 39 Looking back at Bachelard and Durand’s contributions 40 but without directly referencing the work of North American scholars on cognitive linguistics, Armisen-Marchetti acknowledges the strength of certain figurative models that are embedded in human biology. She nonetheless chooses to focus on the development, rather than the genesis, of such tropes. Her analysis is centered on the archetypal image of the soul’s inner space as one of the prevalent orienting metaphors for Seneca’s system, with the attendant conclusion that: “À l’opposition spatiale et formelle entre intérieur et extérieur s’est superposée une surdétermination éthique, qui elle-même n’est qu’une nouvelle incarnation de l’inépuisable dialectique de l’éternel et du périssable, de l’infini et du fini, de l’être et du non-être.” 41 The relentless Stoic encouragement towards meditatio is therefore illustrated by specific figurations that capture the soul’s fines, which separate internal autarkeia from external perturbations. But are these figurations metaphors? Are they figurations at all? Bartsch counters Armisen-Marchetti’s claim, characterizing them as “metaphors (or non-metaphors.)” 42 But, for the Stoics, the hêgemonikon is no less material than the body that houses it; it is quite literally an enclosed space. 43 Its affections are equally material and occur in a physical environment, receiving presentations from the outside. A passage from Ep. 74.19 sheds light on the particular status of the inner space illustration : Hoc multarum tibi urbium ostendet eventus, quarum in ipso flore luxuriosa imperia ceciderunt et quicquid virtute partum erat, intemperantia corruit. Adversus hos casus muniendi sumus. Nullus autem contra fortunam inexpugnabilis murus est; intus instruamur. Si illa pars tuta est, pulsari homo potest, capi non potest. The fate of many cities will prove the truth of this; their sway has ceased at the very prime because they were given to luxury, and excess. We should fortify ourselves against such calamities. But no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defences. If the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured. (Transl. Gummere)

 39 Cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 261–168. 40 Cf. Bachelard (1943) and Durand (1960). 41 Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 264. 42 Bartsch (2009) 201 n. 41. 43 The illustration of the inner space does not always refer to the ἡγεμονικόν. Sometimes it is attached to a more generic designation of “the self;” cf. Bartsch (2009) 202.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors Seneca is here commenting on the need for prudentia, parsimonia, and the control of moderatrix ratio, lest licentia—which is here allegorized, or rather personified—plunges everything into the abyss. This premise is highly figural, but it is not the object of the analysis. In what follows, Seneca first expounds the topical motif of the once-great-cities’ ruin 44 only then to deploy a series of illustrations. First, he describes the uselessness of defences against Fortune (which is here personified). He then calls on the “inner defenses” and “the inner parts” that must be safe and stay invulnerable. While certain components of this tirade are clearly figural (the wall, the storm, the implicit comparison between the fate of cities and that of individuals), the last part, with its mention of the intus and its possible affections, is not. In fact, for the Stoic the intus is a specific ti, a “something” that exists and therefore has a body. This is to say that the interiority described by Seneca is not an illustration; rather, it is a real locus. The metaphors of the city, the ramparts, and the fortification may assist the proficiens in his appreciation of the human interiority’s material quality; but, again, Seneca is offering the description of a thing, not a trope. Consequently, the verbal infinitive forms pulsari and capi ought to be taken literally because they describe some possible material affections of the hêgemonikon. Similar to the figurations of the inner space are the numerous figurations of the fiery soul, which have been thoroughly catalogued by Armisen-Marchetti. 45 The role of fire as an archetypal constituent of the world, 46 and the one endowed with the utmost degree of tensional quality, is expressly described by Seneca at Ot. 5.5: … Unde ista sidera exierint; quis fuerit universi status, antequam singula in partes discederent; quae ratio mersa et confusa diduxerit; quis loca rebus adsignaverit, suapte natura gravia descenderint, evolaverint levia, an praeter nisum pondusque corporum altior aliqua vis legem singulis dixerit; an illud verum sit, quo maxime probatur homines divini esse spiritus, partem ac veluti scintillas quasdam astrorum in terram desiluisse atque alieno loco haesisse. … Whence yon stars came forth, what was the state of the universe before the several elements separated to form its parts, what principle separated the engulfed and confused elements, who appointed their places to things, whether the heavy elements sank and the light ones flew aloft by reason of their own nature, or apart from the energy and gravity of matter some higher power has appointed laws for each of them, or whether that theory is true which strives especially to prove that man is part of the divine spirit, that some part, sparks,

 44 Cf., for instance, Herodotus 1.5. 45 Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 116–118. 46 Cf. Wildberger (2006) 64–64 and 75–78, and Graver (2007) 18–21.

Reversible Metaphors  

as it were, of the stars fell down to earth and lingered here in a place that is not their own. (Transl. Basore)

This passage illustrates a basic tenet of Stoic philosophy: namely, the role of fire as archetypal divine principle. Seneca avails himself of doctrinal content from heterogeneous traditions. In particular, while the description of the upward and downward motions are rooted in atomistic and Lucretian theories, 47 the core of the doctrine revolves around both the Heraclitean notion of the soul qua scintilla stellaris essentiae (sparkle of starry essence) 48 and Zeno’s and Chrysippus’ own outlooks on “designing fire” and “fiery pneuma”. 49 The success of this philosophical doctrine, outlined differently by different philosophical schools and embraced both by Plato and Cicero, 50 resulted over time in a familiarity with the tenet and its attendant transition from literal account to figural illustration. That is, what the Stoics intended by “fiery pneuma” is not a trope but a physical datum, and despite the abundance of instances harnessing this elemental lore for sheer figural ends, Seneca’s examples of pneumatic fire are chiefly literal, although he often winks gladly at the tropical potential of this doctrinal component. 51 Ep. 66.12 presents a very technical description of the human soul qua pneuma: Ratio autem nihil aliud est quam in corpus humanum pars divini spiritus mersa. Si ratio divina est, nullum autem bonum sine ratione est, bonum omne divinum est. Nullum porro inter divina discrimen est; ergo nec inter bona. Paria itaque sunt et gaudium et fortis atque obstinata tormentorum perpessio; in utroque enim eadem est animi magnitudo, in altero remissa et laeta, in altera pugnax et intenta.

 47 Cf. Williams (2003) 92–94. 48 Cf. fr. 22a15 DK. 49 Cf. SVF 1.135 Ζήνων δ’ ὁ Κιτιεὺς […] πνεῦμα ἔνθερμον εἶναι τὴν ψυχήν· τούτῳ γὰρ ἡμᾶς εἶναι ἔμπνους καὶ ὑπὸ τούτου κινεῖσθαι. “Zeno of Citium […] maintains that the soul is warm πνεῦμα. For we are pervaded by it and set in motion by it” (transl. Gazzarri); Zeno’s theology ultimately identifies πνεῦμα and Zeus. See also SFV 2.773: Oἱ μὲν γὰρ Στωικοὶ πνεῦμα λέγουσιν αὐτὴν ἔνθερμον καὶ διάπυρον. “The Stoics maintain that it (the soul) is hot and fiery pneuma” (transl. Gazzarri). 50 Cf. Plato Ti. 41d–42b and Cicero Rep. 6.15.3, both insisting on what Williams (2003) 94 calls “the astral dimension” of the theory. Though not framed within the cosmic context of the Timaeus, Aristotle Part. an. 651a and 670a, also argues in favor of the fiery nature of the soul. 51 Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 187 n. 118 calls attention to the erotic imagery of lyric and elegiac poetry, which fully exploits the full potential of figural terms such as, for instance, ignis, flamma, ardere qua representations of the amorous passion.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors Reason, however, is nothing else than a portion of the divine spirit set in a human body. If reason is divine, and the good in no case lacks reason, then the good in every case is divine. And furthermore, there is no distinction between things divine; hence there is none between goods, either. Therefore, it follows that joy and a brave unyielding endurance of torture are equal goods; for in both there is the same greatness of soul, relaxed and cheerful in the one case, in the other combative and braced for action. (Transl. Gummere)

In this passage, Seneca touches on an array of doctrinal precepts. The pervasiveness of the godly, fiery pneuma permeates and “informs” the human body and actually mingles with the four main physical elements of earth, water, air, and fire. 52 It is through this partaking of the divine principle that every individual can and should appreciate the intus/absconditus deus (yet another persuasive approach to cultivating interiority). He then proposes a Stoic syllogism organized as follows: a) reason is divine, b) all which is good has reason, c) therefore all which is good is divine, d) divine things all have the same value, therefore e) all goods have the same value. 53 Seneca delivers the outcome of this reasoning in the tradition of the shocking, mind-piercing sententia: a moment of joy and the endurance of torture can both be deemed good in that they are both manifestations of magnitudo animi. Of particular interest is the end of the paragraph, which is built around the opposite and complementary dyads remissa et laeta/pugnax et intenta, which both function as modifiers of magnitudo animi. Gummere’s translation as “relaxed and cheerful” and “combative and braced for action” is fair and is in fact paralleled by many other renderings in multiple languages. 54 However, this elegant word choice betrays an interpretation of the Latin text that is primarily metaphorical. Seneca’s focus is here on the specific notion of tonos, a ten-

 52 Cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias Mixt. 225.3–10. 53 On the complexity of this statement, cf. Inwood (2007) 164, who argues that the plausibility of e) “is reinforced by the use of the distinction between virtue and its manifestations to explain away the apparent indications that different circumstances are characterized by different degrees of goodness.” 54 Gummere choses to print laeta instead of laxa. However, even the scholars who opt for laxa, provide rather unspecific translations, cf., for instance, Noblot (1969), who translates these phrases as “détendue et pleine d’abandon” and “combative et ramassant ses forces;” Solinas (1995) as “calma e interessata” and “pugnace e sempre all’erta.” Notable exceptions are Inwood (2007), who translates these as “calm and relaxed” and “aggressive and tense,” Graver (2015), who chooses “relaxed and expansive” and “concentrated and combative,” and Gunermann, Loretto, and Rauthe (2014) who opt for “entspann und gelöst” and “kämpferisch und angespannt.”

Reversible Metaphors  

sional force inherent in the fiery pneumatic principle and which regulates the interaction of god with matter. 55 The level of this tensional force ultimately determines the quality of the pneuma. 56 If, in view of the notions of both pneuma and tonos, we go back to the dyad of Ep. 66.15, we can now outline a chiastic structure of the kind literal/figural–figural/literal. Such is the arrangement of the attributes selected by Seneca. Both remissa and intenta are adjectival participles that literally allude to the traction of ropes, or treads, 57 and in the words of Wildberger: Wenn nun in dem Gewebe von Gott und Materie das aktive Prinzip Gott expandiert bzw. kontrahiert, dann kann das nur in der Weise geschehen, daß die Faden, aus denen Gott in diesem Gemisch besteht, dicker bzw. dünner werden, während die Materie-Fäden ihr Volumen nicht ändern. Im reinsten Feuer wäre Gott so stark expandiert, daß er nur von feinsten Schlieren Materie unterbrochen wäre, umgekehrt würde in der Erde die Materie so stark überwiegen, daß nur Fäden Gottes Bereiche, die im übrigen ganz mit Materie gefüllt waren, wie ein feines Netz durchzögen. 58

Seneca’s description is therefore technical in nature, and his terminology alludes to the mutations of a physical system based on the principle of tension and its variations. The participle remissa is followed by the adjective laeta which, together with “fertile,” has “happy” among its primary, and not necessarily figural, meanings. Similarly, pugnax, thought metaphorically drawn from the field of warfare, has the well-established signification of “aggressive.” Consequently, laeta and pugnax function almost as glossae for the technical dyad remissa/intenta and actually pave the way for a potential metaphorical re-interpretation of the latter. In other words, once it is established that the soul’s tractional release amounts to a state of laetitia, one can afford to overlay the technical term remissa with the figural meaning of “calm.” Similarly, once pugnax qua “aggresive” has expounded the doctrinal meaning of intenta, the latter can also be read as “attentive” or “ready.” Thus, laeta and pugnax, two “dead metaphors,” provide access to two literal and doctrinal terms. It is indeed the case that the figural paves the way to the literal. As is the case for every other “reversible metaphor,” the component of semantic fallacy is superseded by the coincidence of the literal and the  55 In particular, τόνος results from the combination of opposed forces—hot, outward-moving fire with cold, inward-moving-air—which ultimately achieve a balanced tension; cf. among various attestations Alexander of Aphrodisias Mixt. 10.224. 56 The Stoics acknowledge three main conditions of the πνεῦμα as determined by its tensional level: ἕξις (cohesion), φύσις (nature), and ψυχή (soul) (cf. Fig. 1, p. 207). Only the third condition of πνεῦμα can be found in percipient animals able to beget, cf. Philo of Alexandria Leg. 2.22–23. 57 Cf. ThlL VII.I, 2113, 11–44. 58 Wildberger (2006) 77.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors figural: one’s soul experiences relaxation because its physical structures are released, but tension when the same structures are engaged. Once again, the doctrinal sanctum on which these figural strategies are predicated is the materiality of the Stoic system. Perhaps the most alluring example of Stoic materialism we encounter is the recurring mention of the sculpted self. At Ep. 50.5–6 Seneca provides a description of the didactic process sub specie artis: Laborandum est, et ut verum dicam, ne labor quidem magnus est, si modo, ut dixi, ante animum nostrum formare incipimus et recorrigere, quam indurescat pravitas eius. Sed nec indurata despero. Nihil est, quod non expugnet pertinax opera et intenta ac diligens cura; robora in rectum quamvis flexa revocabis. Curvatas trabes calor explicat et aliter natae in id finguntur, quod usus noster exigit; quanto facilius animus accipit formam, flexibilis et omni umore obsequentior. Quid enim est aliud animus quam quodam modo se habens spiritus? Vides autem tanto spiritum esse faciliorem omni alia materia, quanto tenuior est. No, we must work. To tell the truth, even the work is not great, if only, as I said, we begin to mould and reconstruct our souls before they are hardened by sin. But I do not despair even of a hardened sinner. There is nothing that will not surrender to persistent treatment, to concentrated and careful attention; however much the timber may be bent, you can make it straight again. Heat unbends curved beams, and wood that grew naturally in another shape is fashioned artificially according to our needs. How much more easily does the soul permit itself to be shaped, pliable as it is and more yielding than any liquid! For what else is the soul than air in a certain state? And you see that air is more adaptable than any other matter, in proportion as it is rarer than any other. (Transl. Gummere)

This passage is rich in materialistic terminology; in fact, it revolves around the Stoic notion of materia qua to paschon, the “passive” principle, as opposed to to poioun, the divine active principle. 59 The central section of the text containing the

 59 Cf. Diogenes Laertius 7.134, with its problematic variant that makes it hard to ascertain whether the two principles ought to be taken as bodies or as ἀσώματα. It is also unclear whether, according to Stoic doctrine, the two principles are to be taken as two features of the same body or as the most significant example of the type of mixture of two distinct elements known as “total blending” (the other two being “juxtaposition” and “fusion”). The mode of interaction of the two principles ultimately leads to radically different cosmological conceptions. If, indeed, the active and the passive principles are but two modes of a same body, then the cosmos is predicated on a very “rigid” monistic vision. On the contrary, if we posit the total blending scenario, then the possibility of potentially “undoing” the fusion opens up the way to the possibility of periodical conflagrations. Seneca notably tackles the problem of causation at Ep. 65.2–10, which he expounds precisely through the topical mention of the statue as the product of an artifex/opifex acting on materia, the Stoic active and passive principles respectively. As argued by Inwood (2007) 139, the distinction between active and passive principle here outlined by Seneca is

Reversible Metaphors  

imagery of robora and trabes is figural and belongs to the category of contextual metaphors. On the contrary, both the beginning of the passage and the conclusion exhibit reversible metaphors: these are, once again, very specific tropes, where the literal level tallies with the figural one. Crematori partly embraces, if only as a plausible direction for further analysis, the hypothesis that the literal level may here play a primary role: “In this passage Seneca uses multivalent terminology: the term pravitas, that means both ‘deformity’ and ‘sin,’ for instance, and the verb induro, ‘to harden,’ effectively express at the same time a moral perversity and a material anomaly.” 60 Apart from its logical sequencing, this statement is fundamentally correct. However, in the case of this Senecan passage, the term pravitas does not concomitantly mean “deformity” and “sin;” rather, it signifies “sin” because it first means “deformity.” That is, a specific physical affection of the hêgemonikon is the cause of an equally undesirable moral disposition. Similarly, the material anomaly described by the verb indurare explains the attendant ethical flaw. In sum, there exists a precise causal effect linking the physiological affection to its moral outcome. Seneca was surely aware of the fact that words such as pravitas were otherwise used primarily as tralationes to the point that their figural meaning had become the primary one. We certainly cannot exclude the co-presence of this figural level of signification in the passage from Ep. 50, and it is likely that Seneca willingly exploited the polysemy of the terms by inviting a reading where the physical and the moral meanings coexist. However, in accordance with Stoic doctrine, which is materialistic through and through, the physical signification ought to be in the foreground and possibly facilitate a subsequent moral interpretation, which is therefore dependent upon the understanding of the hêgemonikon’s physiological functioning. This reading of the “sculpted self” topos, of which the above passage is but one example, counters its exclusively metaphorical exegesis, and not just Crematori’s claim. Bartsch considers “the self as a work of art” a metaphor, and so does Hadot, with his influential interpretation of sculpture as a craft that takes away the superfluous marble from a block, just as philosophical preaching achieves a moral

 merely conceptual as “except perhaps for the moment of cosmogenic conflagration there is no actual separation of the active and the passive.” 60 Crematori (2014) 300. Elsewhere the scholar departs from her intuition as to the importance of the materialistic doctrine of the Stoics and presents Seneca’s statements related to molding and sculpture as “metaphors” for the effects of philosophical preaching.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors target by honing the proficiens’ spiritual disposition. 61 The consideration of the sculpted self as an example of common metaphor relies on a specific development of this topos: the philosopher qua sculptor. At Ep. 9.5 and, more extensively, at 85.40 Seneca repurposes an illustration already deployed by Cicero and suggests that, like Phidias, the Stoic wise man can execute a moral sculpture and achieve an equally masterful moral outcome. 62 Therefore, according to this line of reasoning, Phidias functions as the metaphorical alter ego for the philosopher in the same way as sculpture becomes a metaphor for philosophical practice, moral refinement, and so on. This specific reading of the topos can be challenged, and possibly displaced, by the analysis of what ars means for Seneca and by showing how its primary meaning is not always the one of “artistic skill.” In other words, if the “philosophy is art” primary metaphor (with its various mappings) is predicated on the assumption that Seneca for the most part uses ars to refer to what we generally call “the arts,” demonstrating that for Seneca ars often does not have the primary meaning of “artistic craft” will force us to recast, at least in some instances, the interpretation of the “sculpted self” topos and read them no longer as ordinary metaphors but, I suggest, as reversible ones. The etymological analysis of ars demonstrates how the meaning “craft” is not primary, with the Indo-European root of the term suggesting instead an opposition between ars as “acquired ability” and ingenium as “natural quality.” 63 The contrast between ars and ingenium pertains to “what is acquired” versus “what is innate,” rather than “natural” versus “artificial”. 64 The meaning of ars qua ar-

 61 Cf. Bartsch (2009) 209–212, and Hadot (1981) 58–59. Admittedly, when specifically commenting on Ep. 50.6, Bartsch writes that this is “a description which bridges the gap between metaphor and orthodoxy,” but she then states that the two systems, the literal and the metaphorical, operate simultaneously. 62 Cf. Crematori (2004) 303–307. While Cicero’s deployment of Phidia’s illustration at Orat. 7–9 rests on the Platonic idealistic assumption that what he will be sketching is not an existing individual, but rather a model only perceptible to the mind, for Seneca the immanent presence of God, active both in the work of the shaper and in the subject to be shaped, will produce a viable result, and not an idea(l). 63 The etymology of ars expresses the ability of joining elements and being active, a concept which in Greek is seldom expressed by the term τέχνη, although the idea of providing an orderly organization is better reflected by verbal forms such as ἀρτίζω or ἀρτύω and by the Latin substantive articulus or the adjective artus, -a, -um, with its archaic meaning of “tightly connected.” 64 This would be the traditional Platonic definition of a work of art as the copy of a copy. Admittedly, Seneca Ep. 65.3, argues that omnis ars naturae imitatio est, “All art is an imitation of nature,” but the Stoic ontological status of nature radically differs from the Platonic one.

Reversible Metaphors  

tistic production represents a specific terminological specialization. This understanding is supported, for example, by the antonym iners, which simply means “not-active,” “idle,” with no necessary reference to any banausic activity. 65 For Seneca, philosophy and philosophical bettering, both fittingly deemed moral duties and exercises, correspond to the highest activities, the most important artes. Thus, philosophy is not like an ars; it is an ars, in fact the ars. 66 In like manner, the philosopher is an artifex rather than merely acting like one. The interpretation of ars qua “artistic activity” is not indispensable to defining philosophy an ars. Epictetus Diatr. 1.15.2 will famously frame this conception by stating that Tῆς περὶ βίον τέχνης ὕλη ὁ βίος αὐτοῦ ἑκάστου. Each individual’s own life is the material of the art of living. (Transl. Gazzarri)

Similarly, at Ep. 31.8, Seneca provides a definition of philosophy as rerum scientia […] et ars, per quam humana ac divina noscantur (“Knowledge of things […] and art which makes it possible to know human and divine things”), while at 95.7–8 he calls wisdom ars vitae (a phrase also recurring at Ep. 117.12) and acknowledges the existence of an artifex vivendi. But philosophy’s activity cannot be separated from its own foundations, which are physicalist, as Seneca remarks at Ep. 16.3:  65 Cf. Ep. 65.2, where Seneca utilized the adjective iners (a Latin rendering of the Greek ἀργός) to discuss the Stoic causation and the opposition of materia and causa: Dicunt, ut scis, Stoici nostri duo esse in rerum natura, ex quibus omnia fiant, causam et materiam. Materia iacet iners, res ad omnia parata, cessatura, si nemo moveat. Causa autem, id est ratio, materiam format et quocumque vult versat, ex illa varia opera producit. Esse ergo debet, unde fiat aliquid, deinde a quo fiat. Hoc causa est, illud materia. “Our Stoic philosophers, as you know, declare that there are two things in the universe which are the source of everything—namely, cause and matter. Matter lies sluggish, a substance ready for any use, but sure to remain unemployed if no one sets it in motion. Cause, however, by which we mean reason, moulds matter and turns it in whatever direction it will, producing thereby various concrete results. Accordingly, there must be, in the case of each thing, that from which it is made, and, next, an agent by which it is made. The former is its material, the latter its cause” (transl. Gummere). 66 Cf. also Ep. 87.12–14, where Seneca, as part of his illustration and discussion of a universal negative syllogism in Camestres (on which see Inwood (2007) 244–245), outlines some fundamental differences between the Stoic and Peripatetic conceptions of ars. Both Stoics and Peripatetics agree that the essence of the τεχνίτης resides is his ἕξις, i.e. his possession of ars/τέχνη. However, for the Peripatetics this τέχνη must be “brought about” and realized through χρῆσις, i.e. through the skillful use of the apt artistic means. On the contrary, Stoics opine that τέχνη resides in one’s full possession of it and, crucially for our contention, this possession is framed in cognitive/ethical terms. This it is the case at SVF 1.73, where Zeno defines τέχνη as a σύστημα ἐκ καταλήψεων (“a system of comprehensions”). On these issues, cf. Isnardi Parente (1966) 112– 114, 290–300, and Allegri (2004) 83–87.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors Animum format et fabricat, vitam disponit, actiones regit, agenda et omittenda demonstrat, sedet ad gubernaculum et per ancipitia fluctuantium derigit cursum. It moulds and constructs the soul; it orders our life, guides our conduct, shows us what we should do and what we should leave undone; it sits at the helm and directs our course as we waver amid uncertainties. (Transl. Gummere)

Formare and fabricare are verbs that clearly allude to the action of shaping. The accusative animum, depending on these transitive forms, leaves little room for doubt: philosophical practice physically affects and modifies the hêgemonikon, and to achieve this objective a central role is played by “showing what to do and what not to do,” where the verb demonstrare does not simply mean “to show” (though this translation may be acceptable); rather, thanks to its technical/programmatic referencing of vision, it conjures up the deictic qualities of language and it ability to present content to the human mind (cf. p. 78). Still pertaining to the materiality of the passage, both the verbs regit and derigit share the root *reg /rig/rog, which is of course common to words such as dirigo or rex. The description of the hêgemonikon’s (the rex’) tensional qualities is patent in the phrase actiones regit, and it prompts a metaphorical allusion in the final image of the helmsman, which we can utilize to redirect the analysis to the issue of the signification of the term ars. If we look at the example provided by Seneca in this passage, we see that seafaring is here the example of choice for providing a metaphorical layer to the concept of derigere cursum (“keeping a straight course,” but also “providing the right tensional quality”). Moreover, the most frequently recurring examples of artes in Seneca are, precisely, seafaring, masonry, and medicine (all clearly referencing the physical centrality of the human body, cf. Ch. 6). Ars as sculpture constitutes a smaller subgroup. Additionally, a passage from Zeno (SVF 1.204), although it does not directly concern the illustration of the sculpture, nonetheless explores the relatability of moral constitution and physical appearance: Καταληπτὸν εἶναι τὸ ἦθος ἐξ εἴδους. A man’s character can be recognized from his look. (Transl. Gazzarri)

The use of katalêpton, a verbal adjective, here referencing the truth-bearing kataleptic aspect of a perception, reveals on the one hand the cognitive value of one’s look and, on the other hand, the fact that the eidos provides a privileged access to the êthos.

Reversible Metaphors  

Keeping this Zenonian tenet in mind, it bears comparing with a lengthy passage from Clement of Alexandria, 67 who attributes to Zeno the action of illustrating or jotting down (hypographein) the image of a young man (eikona neaniou) as if he were sculpting a statue. About this passage, Togni underscores “l’intreccio, alquanto disinvolto, di tratti esteriori ed interiori,” which could reveal Zeno’s project of a description/sculpture fit to conjure up precisely the unity of eidos and êthos. 68 However, following Vegetti’s work on nerves, 69 Togni also observes how the description of physical traits, for instance of the optimal muscular tension, obeys the Stoic principle of eutonia (cf. pp. 206–209). He therefore concludes that the muscular body of this ideal youth is meant to mirror his being morally outstanding. The illustration of the statue (and of the philosopher/sculptor) therefore stems from a long philosophical and literary tradition, which not only antedates Seneca but also emphasizes the ideal tensional state common to the visible part of a body and its hêgemonikon. To summarize the argument, philosophy is itself an ars: a specific kind of activity which produces moral effects, where the categories of the moral and the physical merge together because they both reflect a specific physiological affection of the hêgemonikon. This meaning of ars is primary for Seneca; the meaning of ars as “sculpture” or “artistic product” is secondary and can be regarded as a metaphor only in selected cases; for instance, when the philosopher is deliberately likened to Phidias. Otherwise, misleading and deceptive though they might be, those instances in which the ars of philosophy is framed as a molding activity of the soul cannot be taken primarily as metaphorical, and the figural layer, if present, depends on the primary meaning of the enunciation, which is literal and a direct expression of the Stoic physicalist tenets. “Molding one’s soul” chiefly means what its literal signification suggests; only after this literal/doctrinal assessment is apprehended can the additional metaphorical layer of sculpture be

 67 Cf. Clement od Alexandria Paed. 3.11.74 (=SVF 1.246): Ὑπογράφειν ὁ Κιτιεὺς ἔοικε Ζήνων εἰκόνα νεανίου καὶ οὕτως αὐτὸν ἀνδριαντουργεῖ· ἔστω, φησί, καθαρὸν τὸ πρόσωπον, ὀφρὺς μὴ καθειμένη, μηδ’ ὄμμα ἀναπεπταμένον μηδὲ διακεκλασμένον, μὴ ὕπτιος ὁ τράχηλος, μηδ’ ἀνιέμενα τὰ τοῦ σώματος μέλη, ἀλλὰ [τὰ] μετέωρα ἐντόνοις ὅμοια· ὀρθὸς νοῦς πρὸς τὸν λόγον, ὀξύτης καὶ κατοκωχὴ τῶν ὀρθῶς εἰρημένων. “It appears that Zeno of Citium traced the image of a young man and sculpted a statue out of him in such manner: ‘the face,’ he says, ‘shall be pure, the eyebrow not lowered down, the eye not brazen nor effeminate, the neck not bent languidly, the body’s limbs loosen, but tense like strings. The mind straight in reasoning, sharp, and receptive of rightful content’” (transl. Gazzarri). 68 Cf. Togni (2010) 129–130. 69 Cf. Vegetti (1993) 281.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors assessed in the economy of the text. The prevalent role of the literal level is confirmed by the role attributed by Zeno to sculpture, whereby the body as a physical whole of both external traits and psychological disposition obeys a common ideal tensional state. The three case studies of “the inner space,” “fiery soul,” and “sculpted self” provide multiple examples of reversible metaphors. These are literal statements, eventually suggesting or inviting an additional figural interpretation, where the tropical level always depends on a primary literary meaning, which may in turn be enriched, but never replaced, by the former. The “fiery soul,” for example, is primarily a reference to the fiery pneuma of the Stoic system. This notion eventually prompts a possible metaphorical interpretation of “fiery” as “energetic” or “vigorous.” These metaphorical layers coexist with and enrich the basic literal reference to the pneuma. The whole process can be summarized by the following sequence: L → F → L(f) Where: L = Literal Meaning F = Figural Meaning L(f) = Figural layer added to the literal meaning

In the case of the example above the value of L(f) would be “The vigorous and energetic fiery pneuma.” The metaphor is “reversible” precisely because the whole strategy makes it possible for the figural level to be activated, but then redirected again towards the literal. We have therefore a cognitive circle that moves from the literal to the figural and then reverses to the literal again. This dynamic, quasi-circular activation of the two levels succeeds in combining the clarity of raw data with the appeal of an enticing style, and it emotionally motivates the reader to embark upon his own moral improvement.

. Metaphors and the Senses Accumulations, the masterful deployment of contiguous and contextual arrangements, and the use of the peculiar typology of “reversible tropes,” are three different facets of Seneca’s strategy of illustration—the stylistic building blocks deployed to ease the proficiens’ progression on the path of moral improvement. The last part of this chapter deals with one additional figural strategy by which emotionally to trigger the visual reader’s mind. The patterning and behavior of these illustrations is diverse, but their common core consists in a direct appeal to the

Metaphors and the Senses  

proficiens, who is asked to interact personally with and respond to the text, thus singlehandedly revivifying the Socratic power of dialogic reciprocity. More specifically, the analysis below will focus on metaphors involving multiple senses and requiring that the proficiens pieces together the various fragments of a complex aesthetic illustration. Seneca’s metaphors involving sensory imagery are particularly apt to chart the relations between the physical and the figural. That is, sensory data partake of what is physical on account of the bodily nature of both the objects perceived and the means of perception. Metasemes involving distal faculties can be “simple” or “complex.” By “simple” I mean those illustrations targeting only one faculty, as is often the case with the metaphors that involve sight; on the other hand, “complex” metaphors are wedded to a multiplicity of sensory stimuli. Complex sensory metaphors can exist without any contamination among the various distal faculties involved; that is, multiple sensory acts involving different sensory modes can be described serially. However, it is also often the case that they can overlap and/or refer to each other within the context of synesthetic illustrations. 70 For clarity, I will divide the analysis of distal metaphors into two parts. I will first address the cognitive and stylistic relevance of multisensorial metaphors (regardless of their being synesthetic or not) and I will then turn to a more specific assessment of the synesthetic tropes by concentrating on both their philosophical implication and cognitive impact. More specifically, the first part will deal with the formal organization of images involving distal faculties and will account for why and in view of which stylistic results different sensory inputs are singled out and/or grouped together. The first part will also explore the possible reasons for Seneca’s deliberate structuring of sensory illustrations according to a number of dominant hierarchic rules (the main one being the prevalence of touch and of sight, which often subsumes the other senses). The second section will focus on the cognitive ends of synesthetic effects, in an attempt to describe not only how the senses are organized, but also what they reveal about the interrelatedness of Seneca’s system and ideology. The adjectives “synesthetic” and “intersensorial” will be used interchangeably and in reference to the combination and overlapping of experiences derived from different sensory domains and processed through the frames of different distal faculties. In a

 70 The term synaesthesia is here intended as “intersensorial metaphor,” as per Stanford’s (1936) 47–62 definition and without any reference to the term clinical application. To get rid of possible ambiguity, I propose that synaesthesia and synesthetic metaphors be interchangeable definitions and entirely confined to literature and rhetorical figurations.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors way, this type of metaphor differs little from the clusters ensuing from the accumulation method. It is precisely the clustering of multiple senses that creates multi-sensory and intersensorial metaphors. If the various perceptions are discreet and continue running on separate tracks, they elicit illustrations that are simply multi-sensory; but if the sensory data overlap and are construed according to reciprocal relations between distal faculties, then a serial, multi-sensory experience becomes intersensorial and synesthetic. Thus, this species of metaphor differs from simple clusters not only on account of its vehicular homogeneity, but also because it is not the case that only the tenor maps onto the various vehicles, but rather that the vehicles equally map on to one another. To elucidate this mechanism, we could imagine the case of an ethical proposition mapped into (i.e. “rendered with”) a metaphor involving touch. In this case, the haptic illustration would function as the vehicle for ethical tenor. Let us suppose, on the contrary, that the narration continues, and a cluster of metaphors is created in which other sensorial metasemes, while also elucidating and rendering ethical tenor, would also synaesthetically interact with one another. In this particular instance, the various vehicles would accommodate the mapping of tenor while simultaneously being tenors and vehicles of each other. Furthermore, one could argue that, at least from a cognitivist point of view, every metaphor is a sense-based metaphor, on account of the anatomical/neuronal organization of language, which cannot but rely on our biological (i.e. sensory) interface with reality. Let us concentrate first on how Seneca organizes images serially, a process which I term “multisensory.”

.. Multisensory and Intersensorial Metaphors Solimano, in her chapter devoted to the study of Seneca and “i cinque sensi” notes how the combination of three senses in Seneca’s oeuvre is less frequent than the mixing of two. 71 Despite presenting rich textual evidence to support her various contentions, she nevertheless fails to offer a plausible explanation for this pattern. The question is not far-fetched, but serves to illuminate the fundamental principles governing Seneca’s deployment of sensory images. The fact is, for Seneca, that some senses can be subsumed under what are considered the two main ones: sight and touch. In a sense (so to speak), sound is a form of sight just

 71 Solimano (1991) 11.

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as taste is a form of touch. 72 The remaining sense, smell, amounts to a more modest concatenation of occurrences, with the interchangeable dyad sound/sight accounting for most instances. This fluidity in the selection and combination of senses accounts for the frequency of illustrations involving two faculties over those involving three; but it also naturally gives rise to illustrations that are synesthetic by definition. At Ben. 2.25.2, Seneca discusses the necessity of showing gratitude when a benefit is received and for the appropriate body language to signal appreciation with adequate gestural eloquence: His atque eiusmodi vocibus id agamus, ut voluntas nostra non lateat, sed aperiatur et luceat. Verba cessent licet: si, quemadmodum debemus, adfecti sumus, conscientia eminebit in vultu. By these and similar utterances, instead of concealing, let us try to reveal clearly our wishes. Though words should fail, yet, if we have the feelings we ought to have, the consciousness of them will show in our face. (Transl. Basore)

This passage is remarkable for its synesthetic and subtle interweaving of sensory fields. Seneca first conjures up sound by mentioning voces, “the action of speaking,” but then he proceeds to describe the effect of these words through illustrations involving sight, or rather, the action of the will’s physical disclosure, which is signaled by the transition from the obscurity of latebrae to the open space of free-flowing light. In the second half of the statement, sound is conjured up by its own absence (verba cessent), but it equally leads to a form of vision, albeit duller than the previous vision-mode, when the reader visualizes an unspecified, yet unequivocal, expression of gratitude shaping up in vultu (that of Seneca, the proficiens’, or possibly the reader’s). The result is a recasting of the sense of sound in terms of sight: listening is seeing, and seeing (or showing) is saying. The power of a synesthetic metaphor of such a kind does not reside solely in its stylistic appeal, but depends equally on its ability to provide a heuristic method to appreciate the all-encompassing materiality of every phenomenon—even gratitude—which, on account of its bodily nature, can be seen, grasped, channeled, and therefore known. The deployment of synesthetic metaphors immediately elevates the reader’s experience from a mere item of style to what is in fact a matter of knowledge; and this elevation is only apparent, because for Seneca style can easily overstep the boundary separating it from content, and vice versa.  72 This definition of taste is of Aristotelian origin, cf. De an. 2.10.422a8: Τὸ δὲ γευστόν ἐστιν ἁπτόν τι. “Taste is a sort of tangible.”

  From Metaphor to Metaphors The synesthetic use of taste, subsumed under touch, is similar to the one of sound recast as sight. It has the same heuristic value, which can be better appreciated if we consider a passage from Aristotle De an. 3.12.343b12–20: Ἐπεὶ γὰρ τὸ ζῷον σῶμα ἔμψυχόν ἐστι, σῶμα δὲ ἅπαν ἁπτόν, ἁπτὸν δὲ τὸ αἰσθητὸν ἁφῇ, ἀνάγκη καὶ τὸ τοῦ ζῴου σῶμα ἁπτικὸν εἶναι, εἰ μέλλει σώζεσθαι τὸ ζῷον. αἱ γὰρ ἄλλαι αἰσθήσεις δι᾿ ἑτέρων αἰσθάνονται, οἷον ὄσφρησις ὄψις ἀκοή· ἁπτόμενον δέ, εἰ μὴ ἕξει αἴσθησιν, οὐ δυνήσεται τὰ μὲν φεύγειν τὰ δὲ λαβεῖν. εἰ δὲ τοῦτο, ἀδύνατον ἔσται σώζεσθαι τὸ ζῷον. διὸ καὶ ἡ γεῦσίς ἐστιν ὥσπερ ἁφή τις· τροφῆς γάρ ἐστιν, ἡ δὲ τροφὴ τὸ σῶμα τὸ ἁπτόν. For since the living animal is a body possessing soul, and every body is tangible, and tangible means perceptible by touch, it follows that the body of the animal must have the faculty of touch if the animal is to survive. For the other senses, such as smell, vision and hearing, perceive through the medium of something else; but the animal when it touches, if it has no sensation, will not be able to avoid some things and seize others. In that case it will be impossible for the animal to survive. This is why taste is a kind of touch; for it relates to food, and food is a tangible body. (Transl. Hett)

Aristotle is here describing the synergy of senses stemming from the bodily nature of beings: a tenet extremely palatable for the Stoics and for Seneca. Since men apprehend and verify the very existence of bodies chiefly through touch, 73 it is the physicality of reality that gives this sense supremacy. Now, because nourishment is itself a type of body, the sense that interacts with and processes it must be a form of touch, which is why taste ultimately amounts to a branch of touch. We encounter a representative textual instance of this conceptual frame at Ep. 109.7: Nam ipse ille, qui esse debeat, ita aptatus lingua palatoque est ad eiusmodi gustum, ut illa talis sapor capiat, aut offendetur. Sunt enim quidam, quibus morbi vitio mel amarum videatur. For it is the person himself who is to eat it, that is so equipped, as to tongue and palate, for tasting this kind of food that the special flavour appeals to him, and anything else displeases. For there are certain men so affected by disease that they regard honey as bitter. (Transl. Gummere)

 73 Cf. Seneca Ep. 106.8: Tangere enim et tangi nisi corpus nulla potest res, ut ait Lucretius. Omnia autem ista, quae dixi, non mutarent corpus, nisi tangerent; ergo corpora sunt. Etiam nunc cui tanta vis est, ut inpellat et cogat et retineat et inhibeat, corpus est. “Nothing but body can touch or be touched, as Lucretius says. Moreover, such changes as I have mentioned could not affect the body without touching it. Therefore, they are bodily. Furthermore, any object that has power to move, force, restrain, or control, is corporeal” (transl. Gummere). The primary role of touch is also demonstrated by how Seneca, strictly adhering to Stoic lore, exposes the theory of causation in this epistle, for which cf. Inwood (2007) 261–272.

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The syntax of the Latin, which is not easy to render ad litteram into English, describes the suitable physical conformation of both tongue and palate to the taste of honey, so that its flavor can capere, quite literally “capture” or “take,” the one who is eating. The data of the sensory organs which ought to be apti, i.e. “conformed appropriately,” in order to be a “successful fit” for a given flavor, are an element which already frames touch as the main conceptual channel for the description of taste. The use of the verb capio reiterates this idea by describing the percipient subject as “taken.” This only-apparent passivity of the individual is in fact perfectly in line with Stoic orthodoxy: external impressions are unavoidable, and one’s freedom consists (i) in developing the ability to process rationally the propositions that are derived from such affections, and (ii) in eventually assenting to or rejecting them. Because of their greater cognitive value, touch and sight axiologically subsume the other senses. This theoretical approach not only explains but also invites the use of synesthetic metaphors. And yet there is another, larger conceptual scaffolding which makes synthetic metaphors so interesting and ductile. More than any other illustrations, these metasemes are useful for plotting the fragile borderline separating vice from virtue. The plastic representations of multiple, simultaneous sensorial experiences effectively instance the modus, a very Roman ethical principle of right measure conducive to virtue or, in case of its violation, to vice and degeneration. Tranq. an. 4.6–7 offers a synesthetic description of virtue : Numquam inutilis est opera civis boni; auditus visusque, voltu, nutu, obstinatione tacita incessuque ipso prodest. Ut salutaria quaedam, quae citra gustum tactumque odore proficiunt, ita virtus utilitatem etiam ex longinquo et latens fundit. The service of a good citizen is never useless; by being heard and seen, by his expression, by his gesture, by his silent stubbornness, and by his very walk he helps. As there are certain salutary things that without our tasting and touching them benefit us by their mere odour, so virtue sheds her advantage even from a distance, and in hiding. (Transl. Gummere)

At first sight, this passage does not look synesthetic; 74 rather, it appears to contain a simple, serial accumulation of sensory experiences from different fields (thus prima facie it appears to be multisensory rather than intersensorial.) The  74 There are synesthetic elements signaled by specific adjectival choices. For instance, obstinatione tacita, which involves simultaneously the physical presence of the civis bonus (if only for its etymology, the term obstinatio suggests the idea of standing still right across the speaker/ reader) and his silence.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors participles auditus and visus clearly allude to sound and sight, while the illustration of the salutaria, through the ablative odore, refers to smell. This last image actually presents the sense of smell as somehow more important than taste and touch (citra gustum tactumque), or at least equal to them because it can stand in for them. But this is exactly the conceptual joint that activates the synesthetic figuration. Seneca is here saying that some drugs can be equally effective if smelled; 75 but when the reader revisits the initial illustration, he finds that the good citizens’ composure, his dignified silence and his gait amount to the ingredients of the healthy odor. Seneca here alludes to an odor made of visions and sounds. What enables the synesthetic process to function so smoothly is the common conceptual ground on which all the senses are predicated: that is, the belief that the right processing of sensory experiences can lead to knowledge. Thus, taste can be recast as touch, vision as smell, sound as sight, and so on. So much for synesthetic metaphors channeling positive moral content. The proficiens’ moral training must also provide occasions for him to familiarize himself with what is negative, illicit, or disconcerting. A skilled mind equally knows how to pursue virtue and how to avoid vice: these are two sides of the same coin and complementary opposites of the moral spectrum. Seneca often combines synesthetic metaphors with the technique of accumulation so as to instantiate negative paradigms. Such is the case with Helv. 10.5, where the moralizing target is gluttony, but the conceptual scaffolding of the illustration deliberately involves multiple senses: O miserabiles, quorum palatum nisi ad pretiosos cibos non excitatur! Pretiosos autem non eximius sapor aut aliqua faucium dulcedo sed raritas et difficultas parandi facit. Alioqui, si ad sanam illis mentem placeat reverti, quid opus est tot artibus ventri servientibus? Quid mercaturis? Quid vastatione silvarum? Quid profundi perscrutatione? Passim iacent alimenta, quae rerum natura omnibus locis disposuit, sed haec velut caeci transeunt et omnes regiones pervagantur, maria traiciunt et, cum famem exiguo possint sedare, magno irritant. How unhappy those whose appetite is stirred at the sight of none but costly foods! And it is not their choice flavour or some delight to the palate that makes them costly, but their rarity and the difficulty of getting them. Otherwise, if men should be willing to return to sanity of mind, what is the need of so many arts that minister to the belly? What need of commerce? What need of ravaging the forests? What need of ransacking the deep? The foods which Nature has placed in every region lie all about us, but men, just as if blind, pass these by and roam through every region, they cross the seas and at great cost excite their hunger when at little cost they might allay it. (Transl. Basore)

 75 For the role of therapeutic odors in Graeco-Roman pharmacopoeia, cf. Totelin (2015) 26–28.

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Here taste is obviously the central sense, as signaled by its almost obsessive semantic recurrence. We are reminded of it by: palatum, pretiosos cibos, the simple accusative pretiosos, then sapor, dulcedo faucium, ventri, alimenta, and finally famem. These are eight explicit occurrences referencing the one sense of taste in the short space of a paragraph. Such semantic density is reinforced by different stylistic means: first, we have the anaphoric chain of four direct questions, all introduced by the pronoun quid. Secondly, the sequence of three verbs of movement (transeo, pervagor, and traicio) symbolically transports the reader from the initial illustration of the delicacies to the concluding scene of hunger. An initial synesthetic overlapping occurs right at the beginning, where the act of tasting is described as a form of touching: the palate is tickled by costly food. To be fair, the verb excito activates a sexual overlay that ought to be rendered with more explicit wording than Basore supplies. The type of touch conjured up by this verbal expression is an erotic caress, which, rather than Basore’s rendering of it as “stirred,” should be translated more expressively, perhaps as “titillated” or “made wet.” Moving on, the anaphoric sequence of questions introduces some patent synesthetic insertion. The adjective caecus shifts the sensorial focus from taste to sight, and actually rebuilds the field of taste according to the inputs provided by the illustration of blindness. Now, since caecitas is a medical condition, and is here deployed to re-conceptualize taste, the result is that the initial sapor and cibus are turned into famis, with the latter being nothing short of an ailment, which can be sedated or aggravated. The synesthetic insertion of sight therefore has the effect of adding a medical layer to the entire illustration, and food is thereby presented as a pharmakon: something potentially good or, if misused, utterly detrimental. Synesthetic metaphors not only demonstrate, but are also predicated on, the interrelatedness of every phenomenon and the attendant human ability to experience it. This is paramount for Seneca, because this all-encompassing nature of the senses makes it possible to establish a connection between physical data and knowledge. Aristotle clearly posits this relation at Gen. an. 1.731a34–35: Ἀλλὰ καὶ γνώσεώς τινος πάντα μετέχουσι, τὰ μὲν πλείονος, τὰ δ᾿ ἐλάττονος, τὰ δὲ πάμπαν μικρᾶς. αἴσθησιν γὰρ ἔχουσιν, ἡ δ᾿ αἴσθησις γνῶσίς τις. All [scil. animals] have, in addition, some measure of knowledge of a sort (some have more, some less, some very little indeed), because they have sense-perception, and sense-perception is, of course, a sort of knowledge. (Transl. Peck)

If men can learn from the processing of what they feel—that is, if one’s anatomical interface with the world can potentially be conducive to knowledge—a negative alteration of this sensorial frame will negatively affect cognition. This is one main

  From Metaphor to Metaphors element in Seneca’s medicalization of every learning process, including the textual imparting of a teaching and, ultimately, style. It is not by chance that, for Seneca, both the individual and the text are subsumed under the same conceptual therapeutic heading, with a text and its style potentially being sick just like a person. 76

.. The Cognitive Role of Intersensorial Metaphors Seneca’s deployment of intersensorial metaphors is consequential not only as a stylistic tool, but also for its impact on the philosopher’s theory of cognition. The assumption that distal faculties can be combined in a synesthetic experience runs counter to the Aristotelian analysis of the senses, as conducted in the Metaphysics and in the De anima. Aristotle’s position is fundamentally anti-synesthetic because it allocates different experiential domains to each sense, singles out specific anatomical sites, and, for each faculty, outlines precise spheres of competence. 77 Furthermore, at Gen. Corr. 1.6.322b22–24, Aristotle underscores the relation between touch and the passions: Ἀλλὰ μὴν εἰ περὶ τοῦ ποιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν καὶ περὶ μίξεως θεωρητέον, ἀνάγκη καὶ περὶ ἁφῆς· οὔτε γὰρ ποιεῖν ταῦτα καὶ πάσχειν δύναται κυρίως ἃ μὴ οἷόν τε ἅψασθαι ἀλλήλων. But if we must go into the question of “action” and “passion” and of “commingling,” we must also investigate “contact.” For action and passion ought properly to be possible only for such things as can touch one another. (Transl. Forster)

Steiner Goldner 78 observes how the conventional narrative of Aristotle according sight preeminence over all other distal faculties is certainly true for the Met., while in the De An. touch, with its attendant set of impasses, 79 is described as the

 76 The medicalization of the senses and of the cognitive process favored by them is already patent in the Hippocratic corpus: Vict. 23. Stoic theory radically differs from the Hippocratic medical perspective and, rather than dividing up perception according to various organs, emphasizes the unity of the sensory process, cf. Graver (2007) 23. 77 Cf. Aristotle De an. 2.6.418a–12.424b. Furthermore, in several passages both of Phys. and Gen. Corr. Aristotle distinguishes between contact and touch, with the former concerning inanimate things, and the latter designating a sentient haptic content between beings. 78 On the scopophilic tradition of western philosophy and Aristotle’s contribution to it, see Steiner Goldner (2018) 52–53. 79 One particularly problematic characteristic of touch is the nature of its μεταξύ, (“medium”), which is to say the “in-bewteen-item” facilitating contact between the perceived and the per-

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most important among the senses. As pointed out in the passage above, touch more than all the other faculties conjures up the continuum existing between the inanimate and the sentient. That is, the axiological progression from mere material contact to sentient touch elicits a non-discrete, all-encompassing description of the universe, which subsumes under touch both mechanical movement (originated by contact) 80 and cognitive contents elicited by touch. Similarly, for Seneca, if sight is so important as to transform the reader into a seer or a “visual reader” (cf. pp. 102–103), touch affords an equally advantageous and compendious category by which to instantiate the cosmic unity of the real. This explains how, for Seneca, synesthetic metaphors not only furnish a representation of simultaneous distal experiences, but also often follow the pattern of a reductio ad tactum or ad visum in attempting to provide an aesthetic experience reflective of the world’s complexity. A more global/comprehensive aesthetic experience ought to be synesthetic, which is to say ontologically elevated so as to include a wide(er) collection of sensory experiences. In this connection, Rosen 81 argues that Plato favors something akin to this transition from aesthetic to synesthetic in his Symp., and in particular in the section containing Diotima’s speech. For Plato, while sheer aesthetic gratification may be criticized as a form of superficial frenzy, synesthetic contemplation, far from being a simply overloaded aesthetic experience, represents a qualitative improvement, a step closer to the ability of transcending the material world’s alluring beauties. In Rosen’s words: “what Plato’s Diotima recommends […] amounts to a form of ‘synesthesia’ in which normally differentiated sensory experiences are conceptually unified, in the hope that the differentiated pleasures normally associated with each experience will be abandoned for the increasingly non-sensory, non-differentiated pleasures that arise from the experience of absolute beauty.” Surely, Seneca’s physicalist perspective is not fraught with the inescapable need to transcend the illusory status quo in order to contemplate unalloyed beauty. The Stoic material world is not an illusion; in fact, there is nothing in it and of it apart from what is material. However, Seneca’s project of philosophical training does entail progression, and synesthetic experiences, purposefully  ceiver. The μεταξύ is usually something external to both (for instance the transparent air-medium for sight) but for touch it is identified with flesh, a problematic notion since this medium is an integral part of the perceiver; cf. De an. 2.11.423b26 and the discussion in Steiner Goldner (2018) 59–61. 80 That sensations, not just touch, could be framed as a form of motion had already been posited by Plato Tht. 156a–c. 81 Rosen (2013) 89–102.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors channeled through intersensorial metaphors, can facilitate a more comprehensive appreciation of the cosmos and the intellectual gauging thereof. The Stoic representation of the distal modes such as the octopus’ tentacles, which enable the head (i.e. the percipient soul) to interact with the external world, already accounts for a consumptive cognitive outlook on perception: all tentacles provide valuable information and, together with the head, form the whole of the animal. 82 As for the way in which this doctrine translates into Seneca’s pedagogical and literary project, if we go back to the distinction between praecepta and decreta (cf. pp. 96–101), intersensorial illustrations, on account of their ostensive potential, facilitate the layering of the pars praeceptiva and infuse with persuasive efficacy this traditional, quasi-proverbial teaching. Despite the fact that the materialistic system of Stoicism largely diverges from the Platonic progression to knowledge as outlined by Diotima, both Plato and Seneca appear to share a kind of trust in the pedagogical potential of synesthetic experiences. If for Plato synesthetic contemplation represents the penultimate, multi-sensorial step before the final relinquishing of appearances in favor of unspoiled beauty, for Seneca it facilitates the reverberation of a given admonition (or precept) from one sensory realm to another, until multiple aspects of materiality are affected by and coalesce around it. The preceptive part of Seneca’s pedagogical method unleashes the potential of the normative decreta, 83 which would otherwise remain too hard to grasp as ethical principles. Additionally, intersensorial metaphors support the praecepta’s protreptic function by endowing them with the physicality of multisensory representations, which can be delivered and received through multiple channels. We find an instantiation of these metaphors’ potentials at Ep. 94.29, where Seneca touches on the necessity for the decreta to be accompanied also by praecepta:

 82 Cf. SVF 2.836. In the passage the tentacle of this polypus-like soul are described as extending not only to the sensory faculties, but also to the voice and even to the genital organs, with the attending consequence that erotic arousal and sexual activities, although they cannot properly be considered senses, partake with them of their rational nature. Erotic arousal and sexual activities cannot be considered irrational; in fact, Chrysippus (SVF 2.885) refers to them as another such type of “seminal reason.” On the matter of the relation between sexuality and the ἡγεμονικόν, cf. Gaca (2003) 68–73. Other analogies emphasizing the unity of the soul include the image of the branches stemming out the trunk of a tree and the one of the spider’s web (SVF 2.747) whose tensional variations are transmitted to and registered by the center, regardless the area of the net which is affected. 83 See Rosen (2013) 91.

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Advocatum ista non quaerunt; adfectus ipsos tangunt et natura vim suam exercente proficiunt. Omnium honestarum rerum semina animi gerunt, quae admonitione excitantur, non aliter quam scintilla flatu levi adiuta ignem suum explicat. Erigitur virtus, cum tacta est et inpulsa. Praeterea quaedam sunt quidem in animo, sed parum prompta, quae incipiunt in expedito esse, cum dicta sunt. Quaedam diversis locis iacent sparsa, quae contrahere inexercitata mens non potest. Such maxims need no special pleader; they go straight to our emotions, and help us simply because Nature is exercising her proper function. The soul carries within itself the seed of everything that is honourable, and this seed is stirred to growth by advice, as a spark that is fanned by a gentle breeze develops its natural fire. Virtue is aroused by a touch, a shock. Moreover, there are certain things which, though in the mind, yet are not ready to hand but begin to function easily as soon as they are put into words. Certain things lie scattered about in various places, and it is impossible for the unpractised mind to arrange them in order. (Transl. Gummere)

The decreta can develop into behaviors and ethical patterns only if “actualized” and, as it were, put into action by the protreptic power of the praecepta. 84 Both the allusion to germination 85 and the sparkle arising from the fire illustrate the interdependence of these two pedagogical images. Sight and touch simultaneously sustain these illustrations, while the materialistic nature of virtue (which is ultimately a form of action) is emphasized by the verbs tango and impello. These two forms instantiate the “contact-therefore-motion” sequence that Aristotle fully expounds and the Stoics equally embrace. In sum, the praecepta find important expression in the synesthetic illustrations whereby broad and difficult concepts, such as virtus, though material by nature, are given a more localized meaning and become easier to process; while, from another perspective, the proficiens can familiarize himself with a variety of situations and physical data in preparation for the more complex decreta. Ethical and pedagogical intents complement each other insofar as the full understanding of teaching entails readiness for action. The concluding description of the mind as a physical space wherein the ability to arrange scattered notions is but a form of contraction underscores, once again, the materiality of the Stoic system which, Seneca is here maintaining, cannot properly function without language propping it up. The understanding and mastering of philosophical content coincide with its verbalization (cum dicta sunt.)  84 In Ep. 94 and 95 the term admonitio, its variant monitio, and the verb admonere/monere are utilized by Seneca as synonyms respectively for praeceptum and praecipere; cf. Bellincioni (1978) 89 n. 6. 85 The image of the seeds, which calls into question the role of innatism within Seneca’s philosophy (cf. p. 111 n. 49), recurs also at Ep. 73.16 and 108.8.

  From Metaphor to Metaphors If we revisit the overall sense of the passage, we find that admonitions are activated in the reader’s mind by their being channeled through multiple sensory illustrations. The simultaneous activation of touch, sight, and hearing quite literally trains the mind and induces its constructive reaction. If the decreta insist upon the importance of heeding the admonitions, the admonitions, in turn, must be propelled by the performative means of language, and intersensorial metaphors play a crucial role in enabling language to play its function. Yet this passage from Ep. 94 also offers another avenue for analysis. For the final description of the mind touches on the existence of some unspecified quaedam which are in the mind itself, but parum prompta, until language and words may reverse this condition. Now, Gummere proposes a literalist translation of quaedam as “certain things,” which is correct but, I believe, intentionally unspecific. Perhaps Bellincioni’s “intuizioni,” a free rendering of the pronominal form, rightly hints at the pre-rational status of virtue. 86 Seneca, at Ep. 94.29, resorts to synesthetic imagery precisely to comment on how language may ease the transformation of intuitions into readily available resources. This approach bears striking similarity to the Platonic pattern described by Rosen. In his analysis, the passage from aisthêsis to synaisthêsis instantiates the progression of one’s cognitive ability, but cannot yet be called “knowledge.” Similarly, for Seneca, synesthetic figurations contribute to endowing language with the ability to set in motion, organize, and make available (in expedito) contents that are in the mind but are not yet completely present to it. There is, in other words, a pre-rational modus operandi for virtue and the acquisition thereof. Sure enough, virtus will nourish and be nourished by rationality; the first assimilation of it, however, may occur also through channels that are not (yet) fully rational, as Seneca expounds at Ep. 94.40–44: Occursus mehercules ipse sapientium iuvat, et est aliquid. Quod ex magno viro vel tacente proficias. Nec tibi facile dixerim quemadmodum prosit, sicut illud intellego profuisse. “Minuta quaedam,” ut ait Phaedon, “animalia cum mordent non sentiuntur; adeo tenuis illis et fallens in periculum vis est. Tumor indicat morsum et in ipso tumore nullum vulnus apparet. Idem tibi in conversatione virorum sapientium eveniet: non deprehendes, quemadmodum aut quando tibi prosit, profuisse deprendes.” Quorsus, inquis, hoc pertinet? Aeque praecepta bona, si saepe tecum sint, profutura quam bona exempla. We are indeed uplifted merely by meeting wise men; and one can be helped by a great man even when he is silent. I could not easily tell you how it helps us, though I am certain of the fact that I have received help in that way. Phaedo says: “Certain tiny animals do not leave any pain when they sting us; so subtle is their power, so deceptive for purposes of harm.  86 Bellincioni (1979) 67.

Metaphors and the Senses  

The bite is disclosed by a swelling, and even in the swelling there is no visible wound.” That will also be your experience when dealing with wise men: you will not discover how or when the benefit comes to you, but you will discover that you have received it. “What is the point of this remark?” you ask. It is, that good precepts, often welcomed within you, will benefit you just as much as good examples. (Transl. Gummere)

The illustration here stands out for its medical diagnostic progression. Even without a visible wound, and with no perceivable pain caused by the bite, a skin bump reveals that an insect has punctured it. In a like manner, the association with wise men will eventually sort out its beneficial effects, though it may not immediately appear salubrious. Although it could be argued that a swelling is simultaneously felt and seen, the passage does not stand out for its strong synesthetic potential. However, what the image of the insect bite has in common with intersensorial metaphors is precisely its pre-rational nuance. The fact that one cannot immediately recognize the swelling for what it is does not mean that there is not a rational explanation for it. The sensory appreciation of the bite’s consequences eventually eases the reconstruction of what truly happened. In a way, the physical data leads us to a form of knowledge in spite of ourselves and our initial inability to decipher it. We are, as it were, forced into moral improvement without initially fully understanding it, but this does not make the ethical progression any less effective, or any less valuable. Sensory experiences may offer an easier path of access to the starting phase of moral progression, because they are “a natural given” and do not require any previously acquired talent. In sum, there exists a certain pre-rational beneficial influence deriving from a correct philosophical training, and intersensorial metaphors prove crucial to targeting the mind’s ability to consider and activate the propaedeutic sequence to doctrinal learning. Synaesthesia, rather than being a type or ornamentation or an expedient for successfully winning an argument, therefore becomes a fundamental cognitive method. In conclusion, Seneca relies heavily on combinatory strategies for metaphors. In particular, he resorts to accumulation as a chief method not only to reiterate the content of a teaching, but also to achieve a level of narration wherein the various material objects elicited by metaphors activate a reception which is chiefly visual rather than verbal. In other words, the objects and material items presented to the reader bypass their narrative component in favor of their visual efficacy. The reader sees the narration, and this is an achievement quite compatible with the Stoic “rhetoric of anti-rhetoric.” Seneca’s grouping also calls into question two additional aspects of Stoic doctrine, namely the nature of allegories and metaphors and the material domain

  From Metaphor to Metaphors of certain tropes being primary, or prevalent over the figural domain. The exploration of the former issue reveals the originality of Seneca’s practice with respect to the Latin tradition: for Cicero, continuae tralationes constitute an allegorical discourse, while for Seneca they can still be considered independent rhetorical operators which interact with one another. As for the material component of Seneca’s tropes, the types that I have classified under the heading of “reversible metaphors” demonstrate the philosopher’s allegiance to Stoic materialism. The central role of the human body is also brought to the fore by intersensorial and multisensorial metaphors, which bring together experiences from multiple domains and engage the mind’s pre-rational contents in sight of more complex and harder-to-grasp philosophical lore. The primary role of the body as the main target of metasemic language invites an assessment of how Seneca’s medical competencies affect his figural language. The last two chapters will sketch out two interpretative routes dealing respectively with the cognitive value of pain and with the pervasiveness of the human body as a metaphorical tenor, even for those figurations, like architecture or warfare, which apparently cannot claim membership in the types of metaphors inherent to the body and its therapy.

 Metaphorical Physiology The fact that figural language possesses the ability to activate pre-emotional states underscores the medical potential of metaphors, which can function as therapeutic tools not only in their inherent promotion of more virtuous behaviors (therapy qua persuasion) but also on account of their material impact on the material soul: a word-based surgery of sorts. This angle of analysis requires an assessment of Seneca’s own familiarity with medicine both with regard to its philosophical significance, and to the gamut of technical lore that, as a first century prominent Roman aristocrat, Seneca is likely to have possessed. Courtil’s book 1 stands out as an extremely detailed analysis of the topic more broadly. I will therefore concentrate only on those localized themes that Seneca channels into his own elaboration of a metaphorical strategy. In particular, the figure of the Roman medicus amicus furnishes an ideal conceptual model for recasting the philosopher’s pedagogical mission, while simultaneously providing ground for a radical “medicalization of style.” In accordance with the principle of life and style being mutually reflective, Seneca notably supports the need for the oratio to be as healthy as one’s vita. The consequence of such a stance is that medical imagery, beyond the canonical designation of moral vice, also expresses one’s stylistic faults. In this connection, the semantic logic of medical imagery, when applied to style, enhances the cognitive value of pain and brings to the fore an idea of physicality which is predicated on painful surgery. Bodily suffering stands out as the compulsory path, in fact the only practicable one, to ethical development.

. The Patient Seneca Seneca was not a healthy man, as famously attested by the opening of Ep. 54, where he declares that he has experienced all sorts of illnesses. 2 He spent a period

 1 Courtil (2015). 2 Cf. Ep. 54.1: Longum mihi commeatum dederat mala valetudo repente me invasit. ‘Quo genere?’ Inquis. Prorsus merito interrogas: adeo nullum mihi ignotum est. “My ill-health had allowed me a long furlough, when suddenly it resumed the attack. ‘What kind of ill-health?’ you say. And you surely have a right to ask; for it is true that no kind is unknown to me” (transl. Gummere). Similar remarks can be found at Helv. 19.2: Illius manibus in Urbem perlatus sum; illius pio maternoque nutricio per longum tempus aeger convalui. “It was in her arms that I was carried to Rome, it was by her devoted and motherly nursing that I recovered from a lengthened illness” (transl. Basore). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-006

  Metaphorical Physiology of time in Egypt, at Galerius’s estate, 3 perhaps to benefit from a “changement d’air lié à une affection phtisique.” 4 Also, the continuous shaking of the body aboard the ship on the Nile was believed to be particularly beneficial (cf. p. 127 n. 5). According to Cassius Dio 59.19.8, rumor had it that young Seneca was likely to die soon due to kachexia, and that that likelihood saved him from Caligula, who was envious of his rhetorical successes. At Ep. 78.1–2 , a number of symptoms are described, suggesting that, when he was still very young, Seneca suffered from a case of pulmonary disease so harsh that he seriously considered suicide, 5 and at Ep. 75.12 he provides a detailed description of this illness (although without indicating that he was himself affected by it). In a similar fashion, at Ep. 74.33 Seneca uses bodily vulnerability to illustrate moral conditions and he stresses how for both the body and the soul specific symptoms announce the onset of illnesses. Tacitus, at Ann. 14.54 portrays Seneca as an ailing old man who uses his precarious health as a pretext to retire from Nero’s court, and at Ann. 15.45 he describes Seneca as aeger nervis, which André 6 has identified either as a generic pathology of the nerves or a paralysis, or even gout. The philosopher himself talks about certain infirmities that accompanied him throughout his whole life and which could therefore be reasonably considered chronic. 7  According to Russell (1974) 80: “Seneca deserves a place […] among the articulate hypochondriacs of the ancient world.” Conde Salazar (1997) 637–642 provides a schematic overview of Seneca’s various afflictions and attempted remedies. 3 The evidence for and against a possible prefecture in Egypt by Seneca’s uncle Gaius Galerius comes in large part from the papyri. For a discussion of the current state of the question, see Jördens (2009) 230 n. 249. 4 Cf. André (2006) 470. 5 In spite of the many specific details provided by Seneca, the identification of the condition described at Ep. 78 is dubious. It was perhaps a form of tuberculosis or a chronic bronchitis, on which see Gourevitch (1974) 432; (1984) 113 and Rozelaar (1973) 54. 6 André (2006) 468. 7 On the basis of these Tacitean passages, and in particular of Ann. 15.60–64, Seneca has been imagined for centuries as a skinny, suffering, and emaciated man. In particular Fulvio Orsini, in the second edition (1598) of his Illustrium Imagines, identified a bust dating back to the 3rd century B.C. and portraying a gaunt, scrawny man with Seneca. The best copy of this model (of which several reproductions were circulating) was found in the Villa dei Papiri and is now part of the archaeological collection of the Museo Nazionale di Napoli. This model was then used by Flaminio Vacca to assemble the sculptural scene of the dying Seneca (Musée du Louvre), by combining a previous Hellenistic statue of an old fisherman with a base section representing the hot tub where Seneca committed suicide. This composition of Vacca and the head described by Orsini (although not the Neapolitan copy itself, since it had not yet been discovered) were then used by Pieter Paul Rubens to realize the painting portraying the death of Seneca (Munich, Alte

The Patient Seneca  

Ep. 54, which is rich in medical references, contains many elements of meditation on death and on the brave, unshakeable demeanor of the wise man facing it, thus outlining a highly symbolic (albeit paradoxical) correlation between suicide and health. 8 The whole epistle revolves around the image of the illness known as suspirium, possibly asthma, 9 which becomes, through the sense of suffocation felt by the patient, and hence the feeling of constantly being on the verge of death, an image for life and its close proximity to death. Apparently, Seneca’s dyspnea was aggravated by a claustrophobic tendency when he found himself in narrow, enclosed spaces: Ep. 57 describes a trip through a dark tunnel during which Seneca experiences an overwhelming sense of suffocation, which he immediately interprets as an opportunity for philosophical meditation. Finally, Ep. 104 mentions a flaring of fever and the attendant cure: leaving Rome to regain his rudeness of health in the countryside; here is but one possible representation of good health functioning as an illustration of the vita bona, a life enriched by the imperishable fruits of philosophy. These are but some of the most prominent references to his own health in Seneca’s writings. The phenomenon of the philosopher’s precarious health as a trigger for philosophical reflection predicated on the dyad illness/health has been thoroughly studied by Courtil. 10 In nearly all the aforementioned instances, the philosopher’s precarious health is used as a site of spiritual/metaphorical production, i.e. as a key for understanding, guiding, and healing the soul. However, the present chapter does not primarily concern Seneca’s rich repository of medical imagery drawn from both technical lore and previous literary treatments of the subject. A great deal of ink has been spilled on this topic and on the fascinating, ever-changing repurposing of bodily affections to signify major ethical conundrums. Much less has been written on how one’s style can be medicalized,  Pinakothek). These elements show the vitality of an iconographical model aimed at connecting a certain disdain for the body and philosophical preaching. This model was totally contradicted when, in 1813, a double herm dating to the 3rd century C.E. was found on the Caelian hill, close to Santa Maria in Dominica, combining a portrayal of Socrates and one of Seneca as indicated by the inscription. This sculpted head on the one hand associates the Roman Stoic with the Greek philosopher par excellence, and on the other shows a man in his sixties, fat and, one could say, able to enjoy the pleasures of life. As has been demonstrated, this work is a typical political official portrait, a form of aristocratic self-representation that, destined for public display, was supposed to provide the viewer with an image of political value; cf. Zanker (2000), Grmek and Gourevitch (1998) 56. 8 On the medical framing of suicide as a form of virile, gendered-coded definition of health, cf. Gazzarri (2010). 9 Cf. Berno (2006) 123 and Courtil (2015) 191–197. 10 Courtil (2015) 127–146; cf. also André (2006) 267.

  Metaphorical Physiology so to speak, in order to achieve therapeutic outcomes—outcomes that are meant not only to transform bad attitudes into morally sound ones, but also as a way of physically restoring one’s material soul. In sum, this chapter will focus not so much on medicine as a metaphor as on metaphors themselves as medicine: Seneca’s figural language may heal one’s soul, but this outcome is not a mere illustration. It is as real as it is desirable.

. Medical and Philosophical Amicitia Before venturing an assessment of Seneca’s highly medicalized phraseology and its therapeutic mechanisms, we will do well to investigate the didactic meaning of an intellectual pursuit that cuts across two major fields: medicine and philosophy. How thorough and well-founded were Seneca’s medical competencies? And how did he come upon this knowledge? By grappling with these questions, not only will we single out some of Seneca’s tools of the trade for enacting his strategy of illustration, but we will also be in a better position to assess how medical culture influenced the philosopher’s own framing of social connectivity; more specifically, we shall be better placed to consider the medicinal properties of the didactic master/disciple relationship as configured by Seneca. Celsus, of the Tiberian era, and Galen, who lived under Marcus Aurelius, are arguably the two most prominent medici of Rome, and they represent the most authoritative medical figures of the Roman milieu, one of them antedating the work of Seneca, the other belonging to the post Julio-Claudian era. That Seneca took into consideration Celsus’ oeuvre is demonstrated by the many echoes of the latter’s De Medicina in his philosophical work, for instance (and conspicuously) at Ep. 95. 11 Certainly, Celsus’ own involvement in the Sextii school 12 must have proved congenial for Seneca, and plausibly impacted his (so to speak) medicalization of philosophy. The sect notably favored dietary asceticism and made its quest for wisdom dependent upon the observance of healthy norms of hygiene. The sect’s philosophical orientation was eclectic and incorporated elements from various traditions: Stoic and Pythagorean in primis, but also neoplatonic, as well

 11 Stok (1985) 418 analyses important similarities between Seneca Ep. 95.13–15 and Celsus Med. pr. 1–2 and 4–7. More recently Courtil (2015) 344–347 has demonstrated how the text of Ep. 95 reveals Seneca’s likely knowledge not only of Celsus’ De Medicina’s prooemium, but also of other books from the same work. 12 Cf. Quintilian Inst. 10.1.124, which defines Celsus as a follower of the Sextii (Sextios secutus). On Q. Sextus and the Sextii, see von Arnim (1923), and Lana (1953; 1992), and Di Paola (2014).

Medical and Philosophical Amicitia  

as Asclepiadian regimen theory. 13 Perhaps Seneca and Celsus met at the Sextii school, 14 but, for present purposes, their sharing of a common cultural background warrants most emphasis. As for Galen, because of the solid Stoic foundations of his work, 15 and even though he postdates Seneca, his outlook on the relation between philosophical practice and doctoring may be used retroactively to assess Seneca’s engagement with medical culture. 16 In this regard, we should bear in mind Setaioli’s convincing argument that both Seneca and Galen are likely to have known and utilized the same exegetic tradition of Hippocratic aphorisms. 17 Even more crucial is Galen’s primary role in the recording and transmission of pneumatic medical theory, which was not only known in some form to Seneca but, as I will argue in Ch. 6, also played a key role in the shaping of his style as predicated on the materiality of the human body. 18 Notwithstanding the importance of Celsus and Galen, Seneca’s debt to Hippocratism is equally fundamental, as attested by several passages from both the Moral Epistles and the Dialogues. 19 In particular, Seneca shows familiarity with the humoral etiology of pain, with the notion of kairos as the appropriate moment for a therapeutic intervention, and with the theory of digestion as a process of concoction. 20 He also displays an accurate knowledge of certain specific tenets of ancient medicine, 21 such as particular therapeutic protocols for stomach pathologies, the importance of regimen, the central role of bile for maintaining health, the benefits deriving from moderate physical exercise, the idea that arteries contain pneuma and not blood, and a general conception of health as a proper admixture of warmth, cold, dry, and humid components. Last but not least, Seneca’s doctrine of the vital tonal tension and the mixing of the main elements is

 13 Seneca alludes to the secta Asclepiadis at Ep. 95.9, where he mentions also Themision, Asclepiades’ disciple. 14 Cf. Lana (1953) 1–26, Stock (1985) 418, and Capitani (1991) 112–113. 15 For Galen’s medical and philosophical training cf. Boudon-Millot (2012) 35−63. 16 For this methodological approach, cf. Bocchi (2011). 17 Cf. Setaioli (1988) 114–115. 18 Cf. Bocchi (2011), an important study on the relation between the tenets of the Pneumatic school and some of Seneca’s literary works, in particular his tragedies. 19 Cf. Brev. 1.2 and Ep. 95.20–21 where Hippocrates is called maximus medicorum (“the greatest of doctors”). 20 On Seneca’s knowledge of Hippocratism, see Setaioli (1988) 111–115, Bellinciooni (1979) 253, and Courtil (2015) 339–341. 21 Migliorini (1997) 21–125.

  Metaphorical Physiology clearly a major part of pneumatic doctrine, to which I shall return in the next chapter. So much for this cursory overview of Seneca’s plausible theoretical sources for his medical culture. In actuality, however, the teaching and practice of medicine in Rome was widespread and elaborately articulated, with numerous professional and semi-professional figures operating in the field, each following different schools, and each offering various types of training for those willing and able to learn. 22 This is a remarkably vital aspect of ancient medicine, but it also indicates that the discipline was not centrally institutionalized and that many different approaches coexisted to make up the whole of the discipline—a nexus of threads that hinders any attempts to establish a one-dimensional illustration of the theoretical tenets of the ars. However, all medical schools, including the Dogmatic, Empiric, and Methodic, insist (albeit with different degrees of emphasis) on the primacy of sight as the main means for diagnosis. 23 If the Dogmatic school accounts for the limits of direct observation and accords value to those conjectural processes through which an illness can be diagnosed (even without clear visual symptoms), the Methodists, through the notion of koinotês, argued in favor of the chief role of sight in the diagnostic process. 24 One additional aspect of complexity touches on the social status of the doctor, 25 which was critical in many respects. Firstly, medical expertise was considered “Greek” in origin and practice; 26 secondly, it was mainly (but not exclusively) a

 22 The complexity of this topic constitutes a distinct field of scholarship and expertise. To schematize the coordinates of the matter in brief, while the Dogmatics can be seen as the most adherent to the lore of the Hippocratic corpus, the Methodists favor an atomistic outlook on health, which is dependent upon the alteration of the most congenial bodily state of aggregation. Finally, the Empiricists distinguished themselves by the value they placed on direct observation, more than the sheer theoretical analysis of the causes. On the various medical schools, see Mudry-Pigeaud (1991), Pigeaud (1993), Stok (1993), and Littman (1996). 23 Cf. Mudry (2003) 31–33. 24 Cf. what the author of the Ars writes at Hippocrates de Arte 11: Ὅσα γὰρ τὴν τῶν ὀμμάτων ὄψιν ἐκφεύγει, ταῦτα τῇ τῆς γνώμης ὄψει κεκράτηται. “What escapes the eyesight is mastered by the eye of the mind” (transl. Jones). On the paramount importance granted by the methodic school to sight, cf. Mudry (2003) 91: “La médecine méthodique est donc tout entière dans le visible et le regard qui enregistre ce visible [..] Leur regard élimine toute sémiologie, toute activité réflexive de la part du médecin.” 25 Cf. Kudlien (1986). 26 The Greek origins of medicine were looked upon with suspicion and, as late the 70s, Pliny (cf. for instance HN 25.5) repeatedly bewails the moral corruption brought about by the penetration of Greek medicine in Rome; cf. Nutton (2004) 160–173. On the specific attitude of Pliny,

Medical and Philosophical Amicitia  

technê; 27 and, finally, it was an ars that required its practitioner to use his hands, and therefore could not be honorably practiced by any free man. These elements complicate the study of Seneca’s medical images by setting them against the backdrop of the (contradictory) social messages that were inseparable from one’s own display of medical skills: that is, how could the philosopher, in his attempt to heal souls, model himself on a medicus, who was usually a slave or a freedman? One could argue that Seneca’s amicable disposition towards slaves helps to resolve these contradictions; but this would suggest that the philosopher preaches one thing and practices another (which is of course no outlandish or uncommon accusation for Seneca). 28 The same applies to his relation to medical knowledge. A viable if partial solution to the problem could be that Seneca did not consider medical expertise to be purely Greek, or purely a technê, but rather a Roman social practice akin to philosophy. 29 For while it is attested by Cassius Hemina that the first doctor who came to Rome was the Peloponnesian Archagathos, son of Lysanias, in 219 B.C., 30 it is also true that, in Rome, the idea of the pater familias as care-giver and doctor of the whole family was in place long before Archagathos’ arrival, and the same applies to the greatly revered cult of Aesculapius. 31 Roman aristocracy therefore fosters an idea of medicine that is more traditional than technical, and not marked by servility. 32 In accordance with this cultural outlook, the Roman pater familias was expected to command a certain body of technical knowledge—which

 which he shared with many eminent figures of Roman aristocracy, see Nutton (1986), Hahn (1991), and Beagon (1992). 27 In particular, medicine was considered part of the artes coniecturales (στοχαστικαὶ τέχναι); that is, those disciplines concerning matters whose outcome could not be given for granted. This is the case with medicine and the attendant inability to predict the success of a therapy. Other traditional examples of artes coniecturales are archery and sailing, cf. Heinimann (1961). 28 On the contentious issue of Seneca’s contradictions, see Cambiano (2001). 29 For the conception of τέχναι in the Greek world, cf. Vernant (1965), in particular the chapter “Travail et nature dans la Grèce ancienne.” For the perspective of medicine as a τέχνη, cf. Temkin (1953) and Cambiano (1977). 30 Cf. Pliny HN 29.12. 31 On the cult of Aesculapius in Rome, cf. Roesch (1982), Renberg (2006/2007), Williams (2010), and Panagiotidou (2016). 32 Migliorini (1997) 19 maintains that even when medical knowledge is deployed for sheer literary purposes, it ought to be technically accurate for the various textual illustrations to be effective.

  Metaphorical Physiology he might use for the purposes of preserving his family’s health (as did, for example, the Elder Cato) 33 or to guide him as he chose the most competent among those professionals who offered him their services (as was probably the case with Celsus). Medicine was therefore something to be used as a benefit to one’s family and friends. In this respect, Seneca is no exception, and it is remarkable how the integration of Roman medical lore with specific techniques of aristocratic self-fashioning intersects with an equally specific taste for a dry style. This was the rhetorical ideology propounded by Cato the Elder—a style which, as we have seen (cf. pp. 44–47), proved congenial both to Stoic laconism and the Socratic dialectical mode. Eventually, the Romans, in order to reconcile their practical medical needs and interests with their societal values, will formulate a new type of cultural model for the doctor: the medicus amicus or “the physician friend,” a figure favored by Seneca to illustrate the ideal level of emotional interaction between master and proficiens. 34 The establishing of this reciprocal sympatheia required not just a certain closeness of relationship, but also a capacity to encourage the sick man with the same spirit and vigor via which the wise (and therefore brave) person endures pain. Self-control and generous participation ought to co-exist and spring from the same moral source, as Seneca argues at Ep. 85.29: Istum tu dices nec dolere? Iste vero dolet. Sensum enim hominis nulla exuit virtus. Sed non timet: invictus ex alto dolores suos spectat. Quaeris quis tunc animus illi sit? Qui aegrum amicum adhortantibus.

 33 Cato (Marc. fr. 1 Jordan) strongly condemns Greek medicine, which is seen as a means to kill of Roman people. This diffidence towards doctors seen as charlatans is present elsewhere in Latin literature as, for instance, at Plautus Men. 882–888, where incompetence and greediness seem to be the main features of parasitus medicus, one of the most abrasive Plautine types. Pliny HN 29.11, while denouncing the degeneration brought by foreign doctors, simultaneously insists on how Rome had been able to survive for more than six hundred years with no doctors (but not without medicine). The figure of the bad doctor is also constant target of satire, and Martial offers a vast repertoire concerning the topic; this is the case with Spect. 1.30, where the irony arises from the ambiguity medicus clinicus/gravedigger, while at 5.9 a doctor’s remedy results in a fever. Similarly, at Spect. 6.53 Martial describes one of such professionals able to kill even by just appearing in dream, and at 8.74 he plays into the similarity of the words oplomachus/opthalmicus to compare the doctor to the gladiator. As for Juvenal, at 10.217–221 Themision is described as a physician whose greatest skill consists in killing people. 34 On the vast topic of the medicus amicus, cf. Deickgraeber (1970), Mudry (1980; 1990), Gourevitch (1984), André (1987) 93–96, Lippi (2003) 19–37, and Stok (2009).

Medical and Philosophical Amicitia  

You’ ll say that he feels no pain? Yes, he does feel pain; for no human virtue can rid itself of feelings. But he has no fear; unconquered he looks down from a lofty height upon his sufferings. Do you ask me what spirit animates him in these circumstances? It is the spirit of one who is comforting a sick friend. (Transl. Gummere)

The medicus amicus concurrently exhibits the quality of gratia, and he is therefore gratiosus. This human type, which Galen will carefully delineate in his oeuvre, is founded on the Hippocratic qualities of care, attention, and kindness, qualities canonically framed as charites. 35 Seneca’s ideal medicus operates on the basis of philanthrôpia, which is also a form of charis, and the patient looks at his healer through the lens of philia. While Cicero, Celsus, and Scribonius already resorted to this relational model, 36 which is considered as prototypical of amicitia, the gist of it was specifically attached to Plato’s notion of paideia, 37 which greatly influenced Seneca’s

 35 Cf. Epid. 6.4.7 (=5.308.13–16 Littré). 36 Cicero’s oeuvre offers many examples of amicable relation between patient and doctor. For instance, at Fam. 13.20 he describes his relation with the doctor Asclapo of Patrae as one of iucunda consuetudo (“nice familiarity”) and describes him not only as knowledgeable, but also as somebody presenting the virtues of fidelitas (“conscientiousness”) and benevolentia (“kindness”). At Att. 15.1.1 Cicero deeply mourns the loss of his doctor/friend, to whom he refers in deeply emotional terms: Amorem erga me, humanitatem suavitatemque desidero. “It is his affection for me, his kindness and sweet manners that I miss.” As for Celsus, at Med. 1 pr. 73, he programmatically stresses the necessity for the doctor to be also a friend: Ideoque, cum par scientia sit, utiliorem tamen medicum esse amicum, quam extraneum. “Consequently, presuming their state to be equal, it is more useful to have in the practitioner a friend rather than a stranger” (transl. Spencer). Scribonius is even more radical and indicates the non-observance of medical φιλανθρωπία as something impious; cf. Comp. 2.6 (Sconocchia): Quod malum cum omnibus animantibus invisum esse debeat, tum praecipue medicis, in quibus nisi plenus misericordiae et humanitatis animus est secundum ipsius professionis voluntatem, omnibus diis et hominibus invisi esse debent. “Evil which must be abhorred by all thinking people, and particularly by doctors, who must be despised by all the gods and men, unless they possess a mind full of mercy and humanity, according to the intent of their profession” (transl. Gazzarri). To be more specific, the idea of φιλανθρωπία is typically Greek, and designates an institutional kind of benevolence, part of a specific behavioral model, to which Hippocratic thought had decisively contributed. The concept of amicitia is typically Roman; it comes from the patriarchal tradition of the pater familias and ideally aims at establishing a personal relation between two people who intimately know each other. Such a relation would have been hard to conceive in Greece where most doctors were itinerant and could not really have any strict social ties with their patients. For these considerations on the difference between Greek φιλανθρωπία and Latin amicitia, cf. Mudry (1980). 37 For example, at Symp. 186e–187a Plato clearly states that medicine is governed by love: Τούτοις ἐπιστηθεὶς ἔρωτα ἐμποιῆσαι καὶ ὁμόνοιαν ὁ ἡμέτερος πρόγονος Ἀσκληπιός, ὥς φασιν οἵδε οἱ ποιηταὶ καὶ ἐγὼ πείθομαι, συνέστησεν τὴν ἡμετέραν τέχνην. ἥ τε οὖν ἰατρική, ὥσπερ λέγω,

  Metaphorical Physiology own use of medical illustrations. At Leg. 4.720d the free-born doctor, by talking with the patient, both learns something himself and, by doing so, simultaneously becomes able to impart instructions, with the whole process amounting to a form of reciprocal paideia, whereby both learner and master can benefit : Ὁ δὲ ἐλεύθερος ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον τὰ τῶν ἐλευθέρων νοσήματα θεραπεύει τε καὶ ἐπισκοπεῖ, καὶ ταῦτα ἐξετάζων ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς καὶ κατὰ φύσιν, τῷ κάμνοντι κοινούμενος αὐτῷ τε καὶ τοῖς φίλοις, ἅμα μὲν αὐτὸς μανθάνει τι παρὰ τῶν νοσούντων, ἅμα δὲ καὶ καθ’ ὅσον οἷός τέ ἐστιν, διδάσκει τὸν ἀσθενοῦντα αὐτόν. But the free-born doctor is mainly engaged in visiting and treating the ailments of free men, and he does so by investigating them from the commencement and according to the course of nature; he talks with the patient himself and with his friends, and thus both learns himself from the sufferers and imparts instruction to them, so far as possible. (Transl. Bury)

At Leg. 9.857c–d the doctor who practices medicine through purely empirical methods is imagined to cross paths with a free-born doctor who is conversing with a free-born patient and who uses a series of arguments just as a philosopher would: Εἰ καταλάβοι ποτέ τις ἰατρὸς τῶν ταῖς ἐμπειρίαις ἄνευ λόγου. τὴν ἰατρικὴν μεταχειριζομένων ἐλεύθερον ἐλευθέρῳ νοσοῦντι διαλεγόμενον ἰατρόν, καὶ τοῦ φιλοσοφεῖν ἐγγὺς χρώμενον μὲν τοῖς λόγοις… If any of the doctors who practice medicine by purely empirical methods, devoid of theory, were to come upon a free-born doctor conversing with a free-born patient, and using arguments, much as a philosopher would… (Transl. Bury)

It is precisely this foundational tradition on which Seneca bases his model figure of a medicus amicus and magister. Through this ideal, he achieves a synthesis of two complementary aspects that are built into the conception of the doctor: the paternalistic one, represented by the topos of the surgeon exerting his authority for the sake of the patient’s health, and an amicable, more “maternal” one, which

 πᾶσα διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ τούτου κυβερνᾶται, ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ γυμναστικὴ καὶ γεωργία. “It was by knowing how to foster love and unanimity in these that, as our two poets here relate, and as I myself believe, our forefather Asclepius composed this science of ours. And so not merely is all medicine governed, as I propound it, through the influence of this god, but likewise athletics and agriculture” (transl. Lamb). On the Platonic paideutic model and its relations with medical doctrine, see Pisi (1983) 24.

Medical and Philosophical Amicitia  

is founded on the ideal of gratia. 38 A representative passage from Ben. 6.16.1 underscores the double standard of this relationship, which is, as the same time, both professional and personal : Quid ergo? Quare et medico et praeceptori plus quiddam debeo nec adversus illos mercede defungor? Quia ex medico et praeceptore in amicum transeunt et nos non arte, quam vendunt, obligant, sed benigna et familiari voluntate. What, then? Why is it that I owe something more to my physician and my teacher, and yet do not complete the payment of what is due to them? Because from being physician and teacher they pass into friends, and we are under obligation to them, not because of their skill, which they sell, but because of their kindly and friendly goodwill. (Transl. Basore)

It is the cardinal value of amicitia that reshapes the medical relationship into an honorable one, 39 to the point of assimilating it to the relationship between a pupil and his praeceptor, a figure very much like a doctor in that he was respected even if often of servile status. If the language of amicitia allows Seneca to shore up the respectability of the medical profession (and thereby also to fortify his didactic mission), another viable way out of the social implications of doctoring lay in the insights that this ars could provide into much more than the care of mortal bodies. 40 The fact that Seneca always uses the generic term medicus shows that he is not interested in technicalities 41 as much as he is in the epistemic model on which this ars is predicated. In actual practice, Romans would distinguish between a chirurgus  38 Cf. Gracia (1993) 19. 39 Coherently with the reconfiguration of his social role, the Roman medicus’ composition will be termed ‘“honorary” (honorarium) instead of “salary” (salarium). 40 The consideration of medicine as a prop for moral reasoning is as old as the very roots of Greek culture. Already at Iliad 1, the plague sent by Apollo presents the problematic relation between illness and guilt. In Hesiod Op. 69–105 the illnesses come out from Pandora’s vase. Sophocles utilizes the theme of deformity and blindness to frame his discourse on knowledge, divine justice, and hereditary guilt; similarly, the figure of Philoctetes and the different behaviors respectively of Odysseus and Neoptolemos offer a venue to speculate on the relation between physical sickness and moral righteousness. Lastly, Aristotle’s ethical notion of μέσον owes its epistemological scaffolding to medicine and how often, in the works of the Stagirite, medicine and philosophy are compared on account of their sharing a common strong ethical division, as argued in the two seminal works of Wehrli (1951) and Jaeger (1957). 41 The Latin term medicus is attested for the first time at Plautus Men. 215. However, it is only with Cicero that technical medical terms are introduced in the language and Latin literature, in the continuous effort to fill the gaps that would inevitably emerge every time the comparison with the richness of Greek language would arise. The Indo-European root *med- implies the simple concepts of measure and order and the idea of “healing” is not immediately attested. From

  Metaphorical Physiology (surgeon) and a medicus clinicus, the doctor who visits the patient en klinêi (on the bed). 42 That said, different forms of medical assessment are encountered within the letters; for instance, at Ep. 95.9 the ars medica is associated with philosophy and defined as liberalissima, while at Ep. 87.16 Seneca maintains that medicine and the other artes are not forms of true knowledge because they do not transcend mortality and therefore fail to strive for authentic virtue. 43 Finally, in Ep. 88, a crucial text for its extensive classification and assessment of the artes, medicine is not even taken into consideration. Pisi, drawing on the studies of Stückelberger and Isnardi Parente on the role of Posidonius’ classification in Seneca’s take on the artes, 44 has argued that the absence of medicine in the epistle can be explained by imagining that Seneca was strictly following the Posidonian model, where medicine was conspicuously absent; hence Seneca simply does not bother to include medicine in the group of the artes honestae. Together with Bellincioni, 45 she proposes that the exclusion of medicine must be intentional: a sign of how important it was for Seneca, i.e. to such an extent that, in order to utilize it as a “modello epistemico” for shaping his moral discourse, he preferred not to mix it with the other artes. This cognitive model, which orbits around the two main foci of, on the one hand, the patient/doctor philanthropic alliance and, on the other, the therapy of the mortal body, is paramount for the efficacy of Seneca’s metaphorical discourse. The phil-

 that primitive root different words derived, among which are the two Greek forms μέδομαι = ‘to take care of’ and μήδομαι = ‘to meditate, to invent’ and of course the Latin verbal form medeor. In Latin the term medicus is used both for veterinarian and doctor, this being a sign that the focus of the meaning was on the action of healing and not on the subject who or what would undergo the cure; cf. Benveniste (1945) and (1969) 123–32. 42 Cf. what Pliny HN 29.4 writes about Hippocrates: Traditur atque, ut Varro apud nos credit, templo cremato iis instituisse medicinam hanc, quae clinice vocatur. “It is said, as our countryman Varro believes, after the temple had been burnt, founded that branch of medicine called ‘clinical’” (transl. Jones). The clinical dimension is a fact odd Hippocratism and requires a dialectic exchange between doctor and patient. 43 Cf. Ep. 87.16: Istae artes non sunt magnitudinem animi professae, non consurgunt in altum nec fortuita fastidiunt: virtus extollit hominem et super cara mortalibus conlocat: nec ea, quae bona, nec ea, quae mala vocantur, aut cupit nimis aut expavescit. “These arts, however, make no profession of greatness of soul; they do not rise to any heights nor do they frown upon what fortune may bring. It is virtue that uplifts man and places him superior to what mortals hold dear; virtue neither craves overmuch nor fears to excess that which is called good or that which is called bad” (transl. Gummere). 44 Cf. Pisi (1983) 15–17; Stückelberger (1965) 39–68; Isnardi Parente (1966) 361–362; and Zago (2012). 45 Cf. Bellincioni (1979) 236.

Sick Body and Philosophical Anamnesis  

osophical roots of this illustrative strategy are tightly and unsurprisingly connected to the epistemic backbone of Hippocratism: the process of clinical anamnesis.

. Sick Body and Philosophical Anamnesis Endowing the ars medica with the cardinal values of amicitia and philanthrôpia, two repositories of moral virtue, proved effective in overcoming the social implications when Stoic preaching was couched as a form of doctoring. However, this deployment of esteemed Roman values could not simultaneously endow the medical ars with a matching intellectual pedigree. That is, the linking of the medical profession to amicitia had made doctoring socially viable (or sufficiently so for its association with philosophy to become viable), but it could not necessarily account for the validity of its philosophical foundations. In fact, this latter aspect had already been underscored by the first generation of Stoics, who insisted on the cognitive value of medicine qua philosophical exercise, as Cicero observes at Tusc. 4.10.23, albeit not without his usual caustic criticism: Hoc loco nimium operae consumitur a Stoicis, maxime a Chrysippo, dum morbis corporum comparatur morborum animi similitudo. At this point far too much attention is devoted by the Stoics, principally by Chrysippus, to drawing an analogy between diseases of the soul and diseases of the body. (Transl. King)

In this important testimony Cicero acknowledges the role played by the Stoics in shaping the conceptual overlapping of medicine and philosophy. 46 Seneca could therefore simultaneously tap into two intellectual strategies: he joined the ranks of his fellow Roman aristocrats in making the deployment of philosophical doctoring socially acceptable, but he also looked back at the old Stoa and the vitality of Hippocratic doctrine so as to frame his undertaking as intellectually sound and well-grounded. The clinical approach favored and described by the authors of the Corpus Hippocraticum hinges on the notion of anamnêsis (reminiscence) and presents striking similarities with the homonymous Platonic tenet: something that has been canonically observed in modern studies of ancient medicine.  46 See Democritus fr. 31B DK: Ἰατρικὴ μὲν γὰρ […] σώματος νόσους ἀκέεται, σοφίη δὲ ψυχὴν παθῶν ἀφαιρεῖται. ‘Medicine […] helps the illnesses of the body, while philosophy rids the soul of its sufferings’ (transl. Gazzarri). The link between medicine and ancient philosophy has been extensively treated by Jones (1946/79), Schumacher (1963), Pigeaud (1981), Frede (1987), Vegetti (1989), and Romano (1999).

  Metaphorical Physiology If we turn to the texts, the problem of communication between patients and doctors is outlined at VM 2.10–18: Μάλιστα δέ μοι δοκέει περὶ ταύτης δεῖν λέγοντα τῆς τέχνης γνωστὰ λέγειν τοῖσι δημότῃσιν. οὐ γὰρ περὶ ἄλλου τινὸς οὔτε ζητέειν προσήκει οὔτε λέγειν ἢ περὶ τῶν παθημάτων ὧν αὐτοὶ οὗτοι νοσέουσί τε καὶ πονέουσιν· αὐτοὺς μὲν οὖν τὰ σφέων αὐτέων παθήματα καταμαθεῖν, ὡς γίνεται καὶ παύεται, καὶ δι’ οἵας προφάσιας αὔξεταί τε καὶ φθίνει, δημότας ἐόντας, οὐ ῥηΐδιον· ὑπ’ ἄλλου δ’ εὑρημένα καὶ λεγόμενα εὐπετές. οὐδὲν γὰρ ἕτερον ἢ ἀναμιμνήσκεται ἕκαστος ἀκούων τῶν ἑωυτῷ ξυμβαινόντων. εἰ δέ τις τῶν ἰδιωτέων γνώμης ἀποτεύξεται, καὶ μὴ διαθήσει τοὺς ἀκούοντας οὕτως, τοῦ ἐόντος ἀποτεύξεται. Above all, I believe that in speaking about this art one must say things that can be understood by lay people. For it is not fitting either to investigate or to speak about anything other than the affections of these very people when they are sick and suffering. Now for them to learn about their own affections, how they come about and cease and on account of what causes they grow and diminish, is not easy, since they are lay people. But when these things have been discovered and stated by another, it is easy. For nothing is involved other than each person recalling the things that are happening to him when he hears them. But if someone misses the capacity of lay people to understand and does not put his listeners into such a state, he will miss the truth. (Transl. Schiefsky).

The very beginning of the passage stresses how medical concepts should be communicated to common people. It is said that they must be gnôsta or “understandable.” 47 The problem of communicating in a clear way, as well as the challenge of launching a fruitful dialogue, are central both for the Hippocratic conception of medicine and for Seneca’s use of medical language as a means of instruction. The medical process of anamnesis 48 originates precisely from the integration, within a dialogue, of two types of information. The one concerns the doctor’s theoretical competence, the other the actual events that led to the patient’s pathology. If separated, these two bodies of information cannot produce true knowledge—knowledge that, in purely medical terms, can be described as based on the right diagnosis and the attendant prescription of a proper cure. The doctor is only able to describe the theoretical aspects of a disease; but it is the patient alone who suffers from, and directly experiences, the specific symptoms affecting his body. Knowledge forms around the interaction/integration of these two otherwise incomplete types of information: it is the result of a dialogue between patient and doctor, whereby the patient, stimulated by the doctor’s questions, remembers past events, which the doctor, in turn, fills and interprets with diagnostic meaning. The passage from VM clearly states that the patient is guided  47 Festugière (1948) and Jouanna (1990) translate in a similar way. 48 Cf. Jouanna (1980)a and (1980)b, Pigeaud (1981) and (1996) 771–814.

Sick Body and Philosophical Anamnesis  

to a fuller understanding of his illness by the doctor, who “finds” and “explains” for him the content and signification of the illness. The patient then becomes able to recognize in his past behavior those mistakes that eventually led to his ailment. Medical diagnosis is thus the outcome of a dialogue, and the first step toward health consists in what amounts to an intellectual endeavor. The same process takes place between master and disciple. 49 The written text of Seneca’s oeuvre is the space where the philosophical anamnesis takes place. The text embarks on this process with one fundamental advantage on its side: the process can be reiterated every time the disciple/reader un-scrolls the scroll and starts a silent dialogue with his master. This idea—that a text that can be used repeatedly to promote the disciple’s spiritual improvement by guiding him through a virtual interaction with the master—is certainly not new. It is already at the heart of Plato’s preference for the dialogic form, which represents the gradual, back-andforth process whereby eternal principles are grasped in the present. The fragmentary, dialectical quality of Seneca’s style is therefore dependent not only on the formalism of Stoic logic, but also on the deliberate striving for a dialogic interaction between proficiens and master, which moves along the lines of medical anamnêsis. In this respect, a text from Galen Loc. Aff. 8.224.7–8.225.10K interestingly insists on a specific therapeutic practice that aims at curing people by means of letters: 50

 49 This clinical interaction is clearly outlined at Tranq. an. 1.4 where Serenus frames his relation with Seneca as the one of a patient with his doctor: Dicam quae accidant mihi: tu morbo nomen invenies. “I shall tell you what befalls me—you will find a name for my malady” (transl. Basore). 50 Many medical letters have come to us; in particular, in the Latin world this literary practice seems to become particularly frequent in the Roman-Hellenistic milieu. It may be going too far to describe these works as a genre, but they certainly were a well-establish literary product and it is possible to single out some main features that seem to be recurrent. The work of Marcellus Empiricus, a 5th century medical writer and author of the De Medicamentis, is followed by many epistles collected from older traditions. In particular, the Epistula alia eiusdem Hippocratis ex graeco translata ad Maecenatem was meant to be attached to a libellum. In this letter of Hippocratic inspiration, probably translated by the freedman Terentius Euelpistos, the author imparts teachings on how to recognize the symptoms of particular illnesses and how to cure them. Another epistle transmitted by Marcellus (apparently a Latin translation of an original Greek) purports to be a letter sent by Hippocrates to king Antiochus. The didactic intent of this work is clearly epitomized: Incitare vos ad necessariam cognitionem et […] instruere ad salutem; again, the link between knowledge and health is central. Marcellus works also contain the Epistula Plinii Secundi ad amicos de medicina. A peculiar example of medical letter is the so called Detaxone, in which king Partus or Idpartus (there are different names for the two different redactions) writes to Augustus to inform him about the different medical benefits that can derive from

  Metaphorical Physiology Ἐγὼ δὲ, ὡς ἴστε, καὶ χωρὶς τοῦ θεάσασθαι τοὺς οὕτω πάσχοντας ἐθεράπευσα διὰ γραμμάτων ἐνίους ἐν ἄλλοις ὄντας ἔθνεσιν· καὶ γὰρ ἐκ τῆς Ἰβηρίας καὶ τῆς Κελτικῆς καὶ Ἀσίας καὶ Θρᾴκης καὶ ἄλλων χωρίων ἐπιστειλάντων μοί τινων, εἴ τι πρὸς ἀρχὰς ὑποχύσεως, μήπω μηδεμιᾶς ἐναργῶς φαινομένης βλάβης ἐν τῇ κόρῃ, φάρμακον ἔχοιμι δόκιμον, ἀποστέλλειν αὐτοῖς, ἠξίωσα δηλωθῆναί μοι πρότερον, εἰ ἐκ τοῦ πολλοῦ χρόνου πάσχουσι, καὶ τἄλλα περὶ ὧν ὀλίγον ἔμπροσθεν εἶπον· εἶτα τοῖς ἐπιστείλασιν, ἓξ μῆνας ἢ ἐνιαυτὸν ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς γεγονέναι φασκόντων, ἀμφοτέρων ὁμοίως τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ἐπὶ μὲν ταῖς εὐπεψίαις ἄμεινον ἐχόντων, παροξυνομένων δὲ ἐπὶ ταῖς ἀπεψίαις καὶ ταῖς τοῦ στομάχου δήξεσιν, ἐμεσάντων τε χολῆς καὶ καθισταμένων, οὐδὲν ἔτι περὶ τῆς κόρης ἀξιώσας πυθέσθαι, βεβαίως ἔγνων ὡς οὐκ ἰδιοπάθειαν ἀλλὰ συμπάθειαν εἶναι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ἐπὶ τῇ γαστρί· καὶ πέμψας αὐτοῖς τὴν πικρὰν, ἐκείνους μὲν πρῶτον καὶ μάλιστα, διὰ ἐκείνων δὲ καὶ ἄλλους πολλοὺς τῶν ὁμοεθνῶν αὐτοῖς ἰασάμην· ὄντες γὰρ αὐτοὶ πάντες οἷς ἔπεμψα πεπαιδευμένοι, μαθόντες δ’ ἐξ ὧν αὐτοῖς ἐπέστειλα τὰς διαγνώσεις τῶν πεπονθότων τόπων, αὐτοί τε τοῦ λοιποῦ ῥᾳδίως ἐγνώριζον αὐτοὺς, ἐθεράπευόν τε τῷ πικρῷ φαρμάκῳ. You should know that I have not only personally treated persons suffering from this aliment but through correspondence I have cured some patients residing in other countries. Some sent me letters from Iberia, from Celtic lands, from Asia, Thracia and other countries, asking me whether I knew and could dispatch a trustworthy medicine against the beginning of suffusion, since a manifest damage had not as yet appeared in the pupil. I asked them first to tell me whether they had suffered for a long time, and to let me know the other symptoms which I discussed earlier. When they replied that six months or a year had elapsed since the onset, that both eyes felt better when the digestion was normal, became however acutely aggravated by indigestion and gastric pain, yet were relieved by emesis of bile, then I thought it was not necessary to ask further about the condition of the pupil. For I knew for certain that this was not a primary disease of the eyes but was caused by sympathy with an affection of the stomach. And dispatched them bitter aloe. Initially I cured mainly these patients; but later, thanks to them, many of their compatriots. Since all of those to whom I mailed the medicine were educated people and learned from my letters how to diagnose the affected parts, they easily recognized the condition and treated themselves with the bitter drug. (Transl. Siegel)

Galen writes about the process of curing somebody by using letters as a means of communication. This operation is conceived as a dialogue with the patient, by means of which the doctor reaches a diagnosis and administers a therapy at great distance. First the doctor gathers information about the onset and development of the pathology. All the elements concerning possible improvements and about

 the different body parts of animals. Another work related to Egypt is the letter of the priest Pitosiris to king Nechepsus on some of the main elements of medical prognosis (for which, cf. De simpl. med. temp. ac fac. 10.19 = 12.207.2–12 K, with translation by Bonner (1950)). On the Greek side, there are many Hippocratic letters, such as the Epistula de diebus Aegyptiacis and the Epistola de Medicina, to mention just a few. For a detailed study on the issue, see Boscherini (2000).

Sick Body and Philosophical Anamnesis  

the specific body parts affected are then registered, and the doctor can finally diagnose an illness of the stomach (and not of the eyes) and send the patient the specific drug: the so-called pikra. Galen also adds that all those cured by means of letters were cultivated and that thanks to this method, they learned how to recognize those pathologies and thereby they themselves became able to cure other people. We find a similar learning curve in Seneca. The issue of Galen looking at Seneca’s Epistulae as a precedent or even a model is beyond my present scope. As for Seneca, he may have known some version of therapy-through-letters from his familiarity with prior sources. Perhaps both Seneca and Galen could have read some of the same Greek sources concerning this specific type of cure (perhaps in Stoic texts, not to mention a hypothetical work from Hellenistic medical literature, of which only a small part has come down to us). 51 What matters is the existence of an established medical tradition relying on epistolary therapeutic protocols. Crucially, Galen’s point concerns not so much the therapeutic power of words per se (although I believe this idea is paramount in Seneca) but rather the use of letters as a privileged means of communication between a doctor and his patients. 52 In connection with this idea, at Ep. 15.1 Seneca outlines a trajectory

 51 Cf. Nutton (2004) 142–159 and 227: “Despite his long residence in Rome, Galen’s world, like theirs [contemporary medical writers living in Asia Minor], remained the world of the Greek East. His favorite authors were the Greek Classics, and, although he clearly knew Latin, his reliance on Latin writers was minimal at best.” 52 According to Entralgo (1970) the curative power of words, already perceived in Homeric society, pervaded by the ritualistic practice of the prayer (εὐχή), magic charm (ἐπαοιδή), and pleasant speeches (τερπνὸς λόγος), was enhanced through the intellectual production of Plato and Aristotle. According to Plato, words can be defined as an ἐπῳδή whenever a λόγος καλός produces σωφροσύνη in the soul. This is clearly maintained at Charm. 157a when, after having narrated how he was told by a Thracian physician how crucial for proper healing is the cure of the soul together with the therapy of the body, Socrates adds that the human soul can be treated by certain charms in the form of “beautiful words,” and that the whole body ultimately benefits from the therapeutic activity of these λόγοι καλοί on the soul. The Hippocratic school did not insist on or develop this Platonic legacy, and a verbal psychotherapy was never fully explored. The main preoccupation was to maintain the patient’s morale, and when words were used, it was done according to the magic, archaic modules of the Homeric world. Aristotle continued developing Plato’s doctrine through a full elaboration of the concept of καθάρσις, which is to say the effect of beneficial purgation that certain words, in particular those of tragedy, can produce on the whole human being (cf. Poet. 1449b.23–28). In Aristotle, the condition for the word to produce this therapeutic effect is being beautiful, and this beauty must concern both the embellishment of the word itself, and its moral nature. For a discussion of the issue, cf. the works of Edelstein (1952), Jaeger (1957), Hutchinson (1988), Nussbaum (1986) and (1994) 13–77.

  Metaphorical Physiology that connects good health with the study of philosophy; he does so in order to suggest that a life guided by philosophical research is fundamentally healthy: Mos antiquis fuit usque ad meam servatus aetatem, primis epistulae verbis adicere: ‘si vales bene est, ego valeo’. Recte nos dicimus: 'si philosopharis, bene est'. Valere autem hoc demum est. Sine hoc aeger est animus. Corpus quoque, etiam si magnas habet vires, non aliter quam furiosi aut phrenetici validum est. Ergo hanc praecipue valitudinem cura, deinde et illam secundam, quae non magno tibi constabit, si volueris bene valere. The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime. They would add to the opening words of a letter: “If you are well, it is well; I also am well.” Persons like ourselves would do well to say: “If you are studying philosophy, it is well.” For this is just what “being well” means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly, and the body, too, though it may be very powerful, is strong only as that of a madman or a lunatic is strong. This, then, is the sort of health you should primarily cultivate; the other kind of health comes second, and will involve little effort, if you wish to be well physically. (Transl. Gummere)

Here Seneca underlines how philosophy and good health are tightly linked, by adducing the customary Roman greeting joining the health of the addressee to that of the letter writer. For this reason, a logical shift is possible, changing the traditional opening, “if you are well, I am well” into “if you practice philosophy, I am well.” Thus, letter writing, philosophy, and health are all connected parts of the same project. Again, Seneca is not simply maintaining that a morally sound pursuit is for the spirit what health is for the body. What he is communicating at a subtler level is that our spiritual and philosophical quests amount to an overall condition of wellness. That notwithstanding, at Ep. 22.1 Seneca seems to contradict this thought when he writes: Quaedam non nisi a praesente monstrantur. Non potest medicus per epistulas cibi aut balinei tempus eligere: vena tangenda est. There are certain things which can be pointed out only by someone who is present. The physician cannot prescribe by letter the proper time for eating or bathing; he must feel the pulse. (Transl. Gummere)

The need for the doctor to be physically present is expressed through the image of the vena tangenda (“measuring the pulse”). Furthermore, Seneca makes it clear that a medicus cannot administer his therapy only through letters. The contradiction with the excerpt from Ep. 15 is but superficial, however, and the passage needs to be contextualized. What is being argued at Ep. 22.1 is the necessity for concreteness, and the need for decisions based on the immediate circumstances of life. The gladiator—this ludic image, in fact, follows directly after the

Sick Body and Philosophical Anamnesis  

passage—operates in precisely this manner: once he sees his adversary in the arena advancing toward him, he chooses the best action from the options available to him. That is, the medical image here is contingent on circumstance, since its main argument concerns not spiritual health but the effectiveness of a given action. It is a case where tenor (the right way of acting) and vehicle (the medical image) are completely separated, the latter acting as a means of representation without absorbing the essence of the tenor itself, and the medical image does not claim to deliver a cure at the same time. Furthermore, the image of the tactus venarum recurs also at Q Nat. 4.13.11, where Seneca calls it ineffective to diagnose the set of new illnesses deriving from the latest, most fashionable moral depravities. To judge from a more literary angle, Seneca would arguably consider his moral epistles akin to any other generic epistle. In fact, the recurring presence of the persona loquens within these texts demonstrates their proximity to the dialogic form. Even in those instances where a single letter, on account of its specificity of subject or its technical pitch, appears to be closer to a small treatise, indeed a kind of Aristotelian syngramma, there is always a persona ficta whose mental engagement is required for the text to “come alive.” 53 Physical presence, even if only conjured up by a literary expedient, is therefore the fundamental feature that is common not only to doctoring and to philosophical letters, but also to Seneca’s illustrations, which hinge on the governing principle of in rem praesentem ducere to bring (“to the scene of the action”). To revert to the excerpt from Ep. 22 (with its crucial image of the vena tangenda), the implied allusion to the physical presence of a doctor feeling the pulse only apparently runs counter to the efficacy of epistulae as pharmaka (even without the actual presence of the doctor), as demonstrated by a brief statement at Ep. 89.19: Tunc incipit medicina proficere, ubi in corpore alienato dolorem tactus expressit. Dicam etiam invitis profutura. Medicine begins to do good at the time when a touch makes the diseased body tingle with pain. I shall utter words that will help men even against their will. (Transl. Gummere)

The importance of touching (in this case therapeutic, not diagnostic, ‘contact’) is not only underscored but also immediately linked to philosophical preaching and letter writing (the verb dicere ought to be interpreted also as philosophical writing). The doctor must touch, but the real healing touch, the one that can truly  53 Cf. Gazzarri (2010) V–IX.

  Metaphorical Physiology induce improvement, consists in diffusing the philosophical principles, even to those unwilling to receive them. Above, we have seen how the good doctor, and in particular the good surgeon, must operate upon the reluctant or even actively resistant patient. To this effect, Seneca’s (written) dialogue is couched as a means of therapy and salvation, cf. Ep. 27.1: Tamquam in eodem valitudinario iaceam, de communi tecum malo conloquor et remedia communico. I am, however, discussing with you troubles which concern us both, and sharing the remedy with you, just as if we were lying ill in the same hospital. (Transl. Gummere)

The imaginary dialogue is indeed a remedii communicatio because the physician is someone suffering from the same disease or one who has gone through it himself. To use Gadamer’s language, only an “injured healer” can guide the patient through the needed therapeutic process. 54 This epistemic model which, as part of the body of late republican and imperial literature is quintessentially “post-Lucretian”, 55 finds full development in Seneca, and will be carried on by the following generation of thinkers. Notably, Epictetus Diatr. 3.23.30 will state something extremely close to the lines of Ep. 27.1, and actually is almost a quotation thereof: Ἰατρεῖόν ἐστιν, ἄνδρες, τὸ τοῦ φιλοσόφου σχολεῖον· οὐ δεῖ ἡσθέντας ἐξελθεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἀλγήσαντας. ἔρχεσθε γὰρ οὐχ ὑγιεῖς, ἀλλ’ ὁ μὲν ὦμον ἐκβεβληκώς, ὁ δ’ ἀπόστημα ἔχων, ὁ δὲ σύριγγα, ὁ δὲ κεφαλαλγῶν.

 54 Cf. Gadamer (1996). 55 Lucretius deploys the “bitter medicine” metaphor to describe his didactic project. Notably, at DRN 1.936–950 he utilizes the image of the physician smearing the cups with honey to hide the bitter flavor of the drug, thus tricking unsuspecting children (improvida aetas). This scenario is nonetheless entirely unlike the cooperative dialogic regime put forth by Seneca in his epistles. For Seneca’s anamnesis is based on cooperation and the integration of knowledge, while Lucretius makes very clear that health, freedom from fear, and salvation all belong to the master, while ignorance and fear are the attributes of the man who has not been taught the elements of Epicureanism. This sharp divide between physician and patient in Lucretius is hierarchical and paternalistic, and it completely eliminates the chance to structure the quest for wisdom as a moment of anamnesis. On Lucretius’ creation of a paideutic language founded on the principle of analogy, specifically as a fundamental gear for the functioning of the master/disciple relation, see Schiesaro (1990), Narducci (1992) 24, and for the central role of poetry, Compte-Sponville (2008).

Preaching as Surgery: Ferro et Igne  

Men, the lecture-room of the philosopher is a hospital; you ought not to walk out of it in pleasure, but in pain. For you are not well when you come; one man has a dislocated shoulder, another an abscess, another a fistula, another a headache. (Transl. Oldfather)

The translation of iatreion as “surgery” is a brilliant interpretation of the word’s more basic meaning, which is “hospital” or “infirmary.” Long’s choice is a deliberate one and may depend on the list of critical conditions described immediately after the chief statement (though a headache would hardly require surgery); or, more probably, it may depend on the prevalence of surgical images in literary contexts, perhaps on account of their extremely graphic nature. Ancient medicine is often described as a matter of the surgical skill on which one’s life depends. Seneca’s medicalization of his philosophical preaching is no different, and is largely indebted to this fundamental discipline.

. Preaching as Surgery: Ferro et Igne Chirurgia, a skill that involved both cutting and cauterizing, 56 was one of the three main branches of medicine that Celsus distinguished, with the other two being regimen and pharmacology. Because of their illustrative potential, surgical tropes were on occasion used by Seneca, to instantiate on the one hand the master/disciple-relation and, on the other, the affections and modifications of living organisms, including the body of a literary text, which is often presented as a living thing. These levels of signification channeled by amputation and cauterization are tightly interwoven, to the point that it often proves hard to distinguish when they are deployed to instantiate the therapeutic outcome of the ideal relation between master and proficiens; and hard to distinguish when, instead, they function as the modeling prescription of a style that hinges on the cardinal principle of subtraction: “less is more.” This difficulty in distinguishing between the two layers of signification is further complicated by the fact that Stoic style is by and large a moral matter and as such cannot but be enmeshed in the didactic endeavor of a master with his disciple: style is indeed a fundamental component of teaching and not simply a means that is subservient to teaching. Bearing this difficulty in mind, I would like to  56 Seneca Prov. 3.2 defines it at ferro et igne curare, ‘to cure by means of amputation and cauterizing.’ This “curative dyad” is equally attested by the Hippocratic work Medic. 5, where the almost programmatic formula διὰ τομῆς καὶ καύσιος is attested. There are also numerous occurrences among Latin authors (medical and not); cf. Courtil (2015) 223–225, 335 n. 2321, 2322, 2323.

  Metaphorical Physiology sketch a route out of this interpretative conundrum, and to start by focusing on the former of the two aspects: painful surgery signifying a successful didactic approach. At Ep. 52.9–10 Seneca argues that philosophy is not supposed to look for widespread and easy consent, for the patient is certainly not expected to praise the doctor when he is cutting and amputating: Quid enim turpius philosophia captante clamores? Numquid aeger laudat medicum secantem? Tacete, favete et praebete vos curationi. Etiam si exclamaveritis, non aliter audiam, quam si ad tactum vitiorum vestrorum ingemescatis. For what is baser than philosophy courting applause? Does the sick man praise the surgeon while he is operating? In silence and with reverent awe submit to the cure. Even though you cry applause, I shall listen to your cries as if you were groaning when your sores were touched. (Transl. Gummere)

This passage is part of a larger discussion of style and hinges on what Seneca often frames as a recurring contrast: from one perspective, the ambition of those orators who care little for any moral bettering of their audience but blatantly pursue personal success; and, from another perspective, the true philosopher who is free from any private pursuit and concentrates exclusively on his followers’ health. The medical troping of the passage simultaneously illustrates the healthy interaction between master (also a co-striver) and proficiens, and hence a stylistic ideal. 57 The master/surgeon’s therapeutic action treats the disciple’s sick body within a setting of religious silence. 58 Admittedly, the silence here is attributed to the patient, not the medicus, and yet the imperative form tacete both contributes to the overtone of the scene and is functional to the success of a good healing  57 The passage appears to be at least partially modelled on Celsus Med. 7 pr. 4, where the chirurgus is described sub specie misericordiae: Acie oculorum acri claraque animo intrepidus; misericors sic, ut sanari velit eum, quem accepit, non ut clamore eius motus vel magis quam res desiderat properet, vel minus quam necesse est secet; sed perinde faciat omnia, ac si nullus ex vagitibus alterius adfectus oriatur. “With vision sharp and clear, and spirit undaunted; filled with pity, so that he wishes to cure his patient, yet is not moved by his cries, to go too fast, or cut less than is necessary; but he does everything just as if the cries of pain cause him no emotion” (transl. Spencer). It is of import that Celsus underscores the surgeon’s lack of emotions as a fundamental professional skill, an aspect certainly most palatable to Seneca’s own mission. 58 The religious undertone of the passage is signified, for instance, by the use of the verbal form favete, which recalls the favete linguis! (“be silent!”) ceremonial invitation of the sacrificing priest to the attending worshippers. For a detailed description of a Roman sacrifice, cf. Pliny HN 28.11.

Preaching as Surgery: Ferro et Igne  

strategy, here described in the crudest details. The necessary silence requested from the patient coalesces with the master’s/medicus’ renunciation of seductive rhetorical strategies and, in this connection, it presupposes the lack of any redundant words, with the right style corresponding to the most adequate surgical tool: the ideal scalpel. In this regard, at Ep. 75.7 Seneca selects an even more explicit set of illustrations and presents cauterization, cutting, and regimen as the most effective therapies: Quid aures meas scabis? Quid oblectas? Aliud agitur: urendus, secandus, abstinendus sum. Ad haec adhibitus es. Curare debes morbum veterem, gravem, publicum. Tantum negotii habes, quantum in pestilentia medicus. Circa verba occupatus es? Iamdudum gaude, si sufficis rebus: quando, quae multa disces? Why do you tickle my ears? Why do you entertain me? There is other business at hand; I am to be cauterized, operated upon, or put on a diet. That is why you were summoned to treat me! You are required to cure a disease which is chronic, and serious—one which affects the general weal. You have as serious a business on hand as a physician. Are you concerned about words? Rejoice this instant if you can cope with things. When shall you learn all that there is to learn? (Transl. Gummere)

These lines underscore the subtle interplay between effective teaching and an appropriate style. The gist of dry Stoic rhetoric is summed up in the deployment of radical therapies: amputation, cauterization, and dieting. These illustrations are brought together to lend a medical pitch to the mission of the teacher, which is couched as a type of doctoring. Seneca invokes drastic therapies to cure a condition which has in fact become a plague. Even so, before the word pestilentia is explicitly deployed, it is the anaphoric insistence on the tickling of the ears that adumbrates the severity of the infection and foretells the spreading of the contagion. In particular, the verb scabere likely alludes to scabies: the heinous skin condition known for affecting animals, humans, and plants alike. 59 Seneca’s modus operandi allows for this illustration to conflate moral and rhetorical dimensions. Human vices can spread like scabies; and like scabies, a false master’s style  59 Seneca utilizes a similar image at VB 27.4, where scabies is explicitly mentioned as a figuration of moral depravity. This specific trope to signify the spreading of vice is a topos in Latin literature, cf. Horace Ep. 1.12.14 and Juvenal 2.80 and 8.34–35. As for the ears, Bramble (1974) 20 suggests that Persius, in his first satire, through the recurring insistence on the auricula, “insinuates that Rome’s ears are diseased and incapable of true judgment.” On the topic see also Reckford (1962), who argues for the contemptuous feature of the diminutive auricula as a sign of illness and moral debauchery. According to Courtil (2015) 208–210, it is unclear whether the Latin term scabies actually designates scabies or eczema.

  Metaphorical Physiology proves unable to bear and convey salutary teachings and, instead, merely tickles one’s ears. 60 If we are to trust Celsus, the skin’s rash precedes and foretells the full-blown manifestation of infectious itchy pustules, 61 hence the idea that a bad style not only contributes to, but is itself also part of, what will soon reveal itself to be a revolting, infectious disease. The adjective publicum, translated as “general weal,” has therefore a more technical medical import, alluding as it does to the contagion’s public spreading. Even more interestingly, Celsus adds that the Greeks call agria the type of scabies that is the most itchy and hardest to cure. This term, which Celsus translates as fera (“savage”), underscores not just the harshness of this condition but perhaps also its being shared by animals and men alike. 62 It is quite plausible that Seneca had in mind this authoritative passage of the De Medicina, where the potential of scabies for bridging medical and moral conditions had already been exploited. In particular, a possible allusion to feritas would suggest that morally deficient individuals are sick to the point of being like animals (the latter notoriously endowed with psychê, but not logos). 63 A bad preaching style is, as it were, a blunt instrument that simply reinforces and al-

 60 Both the previous image of the needed silence (signaled by the verbal form tacete) and the present illustration of the scabies are “divergent”. While the former inheres in the medicus’ apt style, but it textually refers to the patient, the latter is an affection of the patient’s skin, however the tickling symptoms describe the philosopher/doctor’s style. This strategy of mutual references, far from disorienting, conveys the ideal of the necessary synergy which must sustain any effective therapy. Furthermore, this “interchangeable perspective” may also contribute to the idea that the master is in fact also a co-striver. 61 Cf. Celsus Med. 5.28: Scabies vero est durior cutis rubicunda; ex qua pusulae oriuntur, quaedam humidiores, quaedam sicciores. Exit ex quibusdam sanies, fitque ex his continuata exulceratio pruriens, serpitque in quibusdam cito. “But scabies is harder, the skin is reddish, from which blisters originate, some moister, and some more dry. From some of these discharge flows, and from these comes a continuous itching ulceration which, in some cases, spreads quickly” (transl. Gazzarri). According to Mudry (1982) 60 n. 674, the scabies referenced by Celsus is to be identified with scabies. 62 According to Cato Agr. 5.7 scabies chiefly refers to a skin condition of animals. 63 Seneca is not new to such linguistic and value-laden lingering. At Ep. 83.21–26 he plays with the semantic proximity of the terms cruditas (“rawness”) and crudelitas (“cruelty”), which both share the same root as crudus (“raw”) and cruor (“no-longer-circulating blood,” “dead blood”). As Gourévitch (1974) 320–321 observes, the consumption of fashionable, raw food (such as oysters) makes man equal to beasts, and equally ferine. To describe this debasing process, Seneca often resorts to the Sallustian image of those enslaved to their bellies: the so-called ventri oboedientes.

Preaching as Surgery: Ferro et Igne  

most echoes the symptoms of the illness. The positive outcome of the cure depends on the professional marshaling of therapeutic methods, with pain couched as the ultimate test of success. On this important subtopic, which is the value of pain, Ep. 99.29–30 is constructed according to the model of the consolatio and contains nothing short of a laus doloris. However, unlike the excerpt from Ep. 75, this text does not insist so much on the connection between moral instruction and an appropriate style as it does on the relation between physical pain and perception, and therefore on the former as both a mechanism of cognition and, ultimately, as evidence of one’ s own living existence: Quaedam remedia aliis partibus corporis salutaria velut foeda et indecora adhiberi aliis nequeunt, et quod aliubi prodesset sine damno verecundiae, id fit inhonestum loco vulneris: non te pudet luctum voluptate sanare? Severius ista plaga curanda est. Illud potius admone, nullum mali sensum ad eum, qui periit, pervenire: nam si pervenit, non periit. Nulla, inquam, res eum laedit, qui nullus est: vivit, si laeditur. Certain remedies, which are beneficial for some parts of the body, cannot be applied to other parts because these are, in a way, revolting and unfit; and that which in certain cases would work to a good purpose without any loss to one’s self-respect, may become unseemly because of the situation of the wound. Are you not, similarly, ashamed to cure sorrow by pleasure? No, this sore spot must be treated in a more drastic way. This is what you should preferably advise: that no sensation of evil can reach one who is dead; for if it can reach him, he is not dead. And I say that nothing can hurt him who is as naught; for if a man can be hurt, he is alive. (Transl. Gummere)

This specific set of images is not without precedent. In particular, the phrase severius ista plaga curanda est is technical 64 and an almost ad litteram quotation from Celsus. The opposition between detrimental pleasure and positive pain works as a moral signpost, so to speak, but the final statement of the paragraph departs from this rather traditional deployment of imagery and engages the reader instead with the epistemic value of sensation qua evidence of one’s existence. Pain, Seneca avers, is itself evidence of life, because the dead are by definition non-sentient. At first sight, this closing remark from Seneca’s own defense of physical pain may appear as something of an oddity, if only because it is surely obvious and even trite. However, what Seneca in fact seeks to accomplish here is

 64 Cf. Celsus Med. 5.24: Plaga ipsa curanda extrinsecus vel sutura, vel alio medicinae genere est. “This external wound is to be treated by suture or some sort of other remedy” (transl. Gazzarri).

  Metaphorical Physiology much more subtle: namely, the anchoring of the canonical interplay between ethics and style to the larger frame of human sensation and cognition. 65 By maintaining that physical pain is a crucial cognitive tool to the point of constituting a fundamental piece of evidence for one’s existence, Seneca is offering a teaching/ learning model which accounts for pain as 1) a therapeutic notion, 2) a common currency of the relation between master and disciple, and 3) an all-important feature of sensation. These three different facets account for a style capable of eliciting a beneficial kind of physical discomfort, which targets the mind of the proficiens with “uneasy,” but nevertheless constructive, cognitive inputs. If we revisit what was argued in chapter 3 (cf. pp. 86–95) on the relation between Seneca’s philosophical prose and the so-called pre-emotions, we find that the need for a ‘painful’ style ties in neatly with the claim that illustrative language must provide a “safe” experiential ground, wherein the mind is affected by powerful, albeit seldom painful illustrations. This experiential dimension of pain had already been underscored by Chrysippus (SVF 2.858), who unequivocally defines it as a sensation and associates it with a modification of the vital pneuma, which is centripetally transmitted to the hêgemonikon. 66 In this regard, Courtil insists on the proximity of the expressions ictus animi and ictus doloris, which are Seneca’s terms of choice to describe (respectively) any possible effects of the soul and the very specific effect that is pain. 67 The lexical contiguity of these two phrases reveals a structural similarity between affectiones (or pre-emotions) and pain (both physical and moral). It is Chrysippus (SVF 2.876) who, once again, insists on the

 65 On the cognitive value of pain see the thorough assessment of Courtil (2015) 349–487. Seneca utilizes the unspecific notion of dolor (his use of the alternative term commiseratio is scanty) and the sensory charged variants sensus doloris and dolorem sentire to subsume a collection of experiences for which Greek language present a far richer vocabulary. In particular, the Senecan notion of dolor incorporates both of the idea of physical pain and the notion of λύπη or “moral sorrow.” Cicero Tusc. 3.31.76 (= SVF 3.458) attests the Chrysippean etymology of λύπη quasi solutionem totius hominis (“as if it could dissolve the entire human being”), which is a clear allusion to what was believed to be the cognate root of the verb λύω. The same etymology we find at Plato Crat. 419c and, although patently inaccurate (for we know that λύπη plausibly derives from the proto-Indoeuropean root *RUP, from which the Latin rumpo also comes), the illustration of pain as a “dissolving agent” is predicated on the notion of one’s body’s tensional qualities. On the emotional status of pain and the Stoic classification of passions, see Graver (2007) 53–60 and Malaspina (2015). On the etymology of λύπη cf. Chantraine. (1968) 651, Beekes (2009) s.v., and Dressler (2016) 133 n. 10. 66 Cf. SVF 2.858 where ἀλγεῖν (“feeling pain”) is explained as αἴσθησις τοῦ ἀλγεῖν (“the sensation of feeling pain”). 67 Cf. Courtil (2015) 535.

Preaching as Surgery: Ferro et Igne  

physical functioning of pain, but he does so by underscoring the importance of the tensional strengthening that education may achieve in and on one’s body: Ὅσοις γὰρ ἀσθενής ἐστιν ὁ ζωτικὸς τόνος, ἰσχυρά τε πάθη ψυχικὰ πάσχουσιν ἐξ ἀπαιδευσίας, εὐδιάλυτος τούτοις ἐστὶν ἡ τῆς ψυχῆς οὐσία· […] ἀνὴρ δ’ οὐδεὶς μεγαλόψυχος οὔτ’ ἐπὶ λύπαις οὔτ’ ἐπὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ὅσα λύπης ἰσχυρότερα θανάτῳ περιέπεσον· ὅ τε γὰρ τόνος τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῖς ἰσχυρός ἐστι τά τε παθήματα σμικρά. It is likely that the substance of the soul dissolves in those who have a weak vital tone and undergo violent passions of the soul on account of their lack of education […] No noble man happens to die on account of pains or something even stronger than pain because his soul’s tone is strong and the passions weak. (Transl. Gazzarri)

This excerpt furnishes two fundamental items for analysis. First, it is remarkable that its transmission (as is the case with much of Chrysippus) depends on Galen, who quotes it in its extension at Loc. Aff. 8.301–302K. This is a telling sign not just of Galen’s knowledge of Stoic doctrine, but also of Crysippus’s theory of pain as having a medical application. Secondly, the argument of this passage detaches “the uneducated ones” from the megalopsychoi, a term rich in philosophical meaning, and one that resonates with the beneficial influence of paideia. The attribution of physical components to cultural traits—that is, a different tonal quality of pneuma being allocated to different individuals on the basis of their variable levels of education—betokens the interplay between physiology and psychology. Thus, surgical tropes are endowed with the potential for triggering cognitive processes that are physical affections of the human mind: education trains the mind because it can physically strengthen one’s vital tonos. 68 By the same token, philosophy’s therapeutic value does not consist exclusively in the description of positive behavioral models (with the attendant protreptic invitation to amend one’s life); rather, the clinical dimension of knowledge allows for a surgical intervention on the disciple’s material soul: an operation that, for all its painfulness, is concerned with the removal of what is bad and the strengthening of what is good. This is a modification of cognitive mechanisms, and one carried out by language via incremental illustrations. When the critics of Stoic style resorted to the image of puncturing pin-pricks to describe the estranging effect of the School’s modus scribendi (cf. p. 33), they unintentionally pointed to what the Stoics considered physical (and painful) modifications of one’s mind. For Cicero and other critics of his ilk, the sensation  68 In accordance with the central role of the pneuma level of τόνος, Chrysippus (SVF 2.877) describes the passion originated by ongoing strong pain as a “tensional drop” (καταπίπτοντος ἐν αὐταῖς τοῦ κατὰ τὸ ψυχικὸν πνεῦμα τόνου).

  Metaphorical Physiology of discomfort elicited by the Stoic style was but a feeling of intellectual and aesthetic uneasiness, but we can now see how the proverbial spikes are in fact nothing short of material pin-pricks that are skilfully and intentionally administered by a wise master to produce actual discomfort. The puncturing stimuli effectively demonstrate the core value of pain, which vouches for a productive relation between master and disciple and stands out as a fundamental mark of Seneca’s medicinal and illustrative style. In summing up this chapter, we conclude that Seneca utilizes vast medical lore as a conceptual operator capable of enhancing the protreptic quality of the master/disciple relation. This is a didactic endeavor predicated both on the social value of amicitia, a notion that Seneca readily borrows from the Roman type of the medicus amicus, and on the cognitive importance of anamnesis, a pivotal notion inherent in both Hippocratism and Platonism. In this regard, Seneca takes to the extreme the epistemic proximity between medicine and philosophy and selectively chooses to situate his philosophical mission either as a form of surgery or, alternatively, surgery and medicine as activities that, inasmuch as they are predicated on moral ground, are philosophically relevant. This gambit is made possible by the material basis of Stoic psychology, whereby any act of moral bettering entails a material transformation of one’s mind. It is precisely on account of such “plastic potential” of the human mind that pain, and in particular surgery-induced pain, bears specific cognitive value. Pain can therefore vouch for the effectiveness of one’s preaching (in fact the best, most convincing style ought to produce pain) and for the success of the proficiens’ bettering. The next and final chapter will demonstrate how Seneca’s system of tropes largely hinges on the representation of these painful transformations. This is true even in the case of those illustrations which comprise metaphorical vehicles apparently alien to the human body, as is the case with architectural and warfarebased metaphors.

6 A Breathing Body So far, we have investigated some of Seneca’s strategies to recast with originality the traditional interplay between medicine and philosophy and achieve the goal of framing his moral activity as a medical pursuit predicated on the value of pain. The analysis has focused on how medical illustrations do not solely pertain to style and rhetoric, but also assist Seneca in reshaping the cognitive scope of his mission and effectively describe the intellectual pursuit of philosophy qua therapy. This didactic operation proves crucial for the function of Seneca’s dialogic exchanges, which ought to be interpreted not only as an act of intellectual allegiance to Socratism, but also as what they purport to be: therapeutic protocols. Amputation- and cauterization-based imagery makes it possible to establish a subtle interplay between style and morals whereby the former becomes inseparable from the latter. The previous chapter discussed primarily the ethical and cognitive dimensions of style, thus considering it subservient to its didactic function. This angle of analysis is not without a degree of artificiality, because ethically inspired teaching and a sound (i.e. healthy) style truly run on parallel tracks, and neither one plays an ancillary role. To be sure, Seneca’s insistence on the physical qualities of good style prompts us to consider the idea that he might be after a therapeutic/surgical outlook on his text no less than he is after his ideal disciple’s health. I say that the text, inseparable as it is from the man, cannot be simply consigned to the function of tool (the scalpel) but must be equally subjected to ad hoc curative procedures: the style itself must be healthy. Stoic physicalism, with its emphasis on the material nature of language (cf. pp. 72–79), is of paramount significance for Seneca’s attempt to intervene materially also on the physical body of his texts. All the same, he could rely on a wellestablished literary tradition which casts the literary body as a human body (a tradition which is still alive, if we are able—as we are—to grasp this analogy). Assessing Seneca’s medicalization of style will therefore require an investigation of the interplay between the vast literary heritage of the “text qua body” and allimportant Stoic physicalism. In fact, Seneca’s medicalization of style is conspicuous by its allusion to the so-called “theory of the causes,” around which the pneumatic school had organized a systemic explanation for the functioning of the human body and its morbid states. In this connection, the positive tensional qualities of one’s style are tantamount to what is a good style, with its attendant potential for benefitting the proficiens. Furthermore, reading Seneca through the lens of pneumatism greatly reinforces the contention that his medical and bodily outlook may function as a https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-007

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universal hermeneutical key to his figural language. Most of his prevalent metaphors can in fact be interpreted as references to the healthy or sick body. Even those categories of metasemes, such as architectural or warfare-based tropes, can claim membership in the larger group of the medical ones and ultimately reference the healthy tension of the vital breath. Thus, a belligerent warrior is but a representation of the breathing body.

6.1 Artistic vs. Medical Body Already with Plato, at Phdr. 264c, Socrates entertains the idea that a text is like an animal, in fact that a textual body, with its structure and orderly parts, can be compared to an animal’s body: Ἀλλὰ τόδε γε οἶμαί σε φάναι ἄν, δεῖν πάντα λόγον ὥσπερ ζῷον συνεστάναι σῶμά τι ἔχοντα αὐτὸν αὑτοῦ, ὥστε μήτε ἀκέφαλον εἶναι μήτε ἄπουν, ἀλλὰ μέσα τε ἔχειν καὶ ἄκρα, πρέποντ᾿ ἀλλήλοις καὶ τῷ ὅλῳ γεγραμμένα. But I do think you will agree to this, that every discourse must be organised, like a living being, with a body of its own, as it were, so as not to be headless or footless, but to have a middle and members, composed in fitting relation to each other and to the whole. (Transl. Fowler)

Plato is here relying on what is a clear simile (as signaled by the presence of ôsper, “like”) and is therefore not arguing for any true biological nature of a written text; rather, he is insisting on the organicistic need for a coherent structure.1 The simile’s terminology is quite generic and limited to the mention of a body (sôma) and its attendant requirement not to be headless (akephalon) and footless (apoun). Aristotle intercepts Plato’s core message and, twice in the course of his Poetics, advocates both for the suitability of a text’s organic structuring (the ideal text he calls eusynopton, “that which can be well-mentally-embraced”) and for its ideal being ôsper zôion hen holon (“like a whole animal”).2 Van Hook furnishes a list of Greek terms whose primary meanings are anatomical, but which are nonetheless vastly utilized metaphorically to designate a

|| 1 See Masquelet (2004) 745: “En effet, la représentation peut être purement anthropomorphique ou bien mettre l’accent sur la notion d’organisation […] le corps peut s’ordonner en fonction du principe d’autorité dont il convient de décliner une hiérarchie ou au contraire selon des fonctions organiques solidaires qui contribuent à la bonne marche de laquelle totalité.” 2 Cf. Aristotle Poet. 1450b34–1451a6 and 1459a20–21.

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text.3 Not only do these terms furnish an analogy between the different components of one’s body (such as bones, muscles, and cartilages) and the various part of a text, they also establish a ground for the metaphorical use of the categories of “health’” and “sickness”.4 Hence, as physical health is subject to variations, in the same way one’s style can be healthy or sick, and virtually all faults and vices can be couched in terms of ailments.5 The reason for the success of the physical and textual bodies’ mutual relatability is the object of ongoing scholarly debate.6 Perhaps the most convincing line of interpretation is tied to the cardinal role of the body as the “locus of the self”7 and, in this connection, it bears observing how this anthropological interpretation of such literary phenomenon accords well with the Lakoffian outlook on human cognition as inseparable from its biological grounding. Rimmel seems at least partly to embrace this theoretical outlook when she maintains that body/ texts metaphors are geared to make our body complicit in an experience that spotlights the very weaknesses of physicality, thus complicating the reading of a literary text.8 However, for my present purpose, I choose to focus on explanations that can be validated by cultural, rather than biological, arguments. The age of Nero offers particularly fertile ground for exploring how the body’s many affections can work as a discursive currency in which various authors can find outlet. Seneca’s emphasis—to the point of becoming an obsession—on the dismemberment of the human body has been variously interpreted, but the analyses so-far conducted have focused on the literary, rather than meta-literary, aspects of this motif. For instance, Most’s chief work on the topic does a fine job of emphasizing the textual and anthropological connections of Seneca’s recurring

|| 3 Van Hook (1905) 18–23. 4 This illustration will eventually become a topos. Tacitus Dial. 21.8: Oratio autem, sicut corpus hominis, ea demum pulchra est in qua non eminent venae nec ossa numerantur, sed temperatus ac bonus sanguis implet membra et exsurgit toris ipsosque nervos rubor tegit et decor commendat. “No, it is with eloquence as with the human frame. There can be no beauty of form where the veins are prominent, or where one can count the bones: sound healthful blood must fill out the limbs, and riot over the muscles, concealing the sinews in turn under a ruddy complexion and a graceful exterior” (transl. Peterson). 5 For the identity of morbum and vitium cf. Lucilius 26.678 (= 638M): Animo qui aegrotat, videmus corpore hunc signum dare. “We see him who is sick in mind showing the mark of it on his body” (transl. Warmington). See also the study of Bramble (1974) 35–38. 6 Cf. Fantham (1972) 164–175 with attendant bibliography. 7 I am borrowing this definition from Young (1997) 1. 8 Rimmel (2002) 11.

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scenes where a human body is pieced out.9 However, on the one hand Most limits himself to those examples (mostly taken from the tragedies) where physical dismemberment is a form of punishment or a fundamentally gruesome act (not a curative procedure) and, on the other hand, he does not insist much on what these scenes may mean for the economy of the text, other than its narrative rhythm being chopped up into quasi-aphoristic sententiae. The Latin elaboration of bodily illustrations to signify rhetorical tenets is characteristically Ciceronian because, as argued by Keith, Cicero played a key role in engineering a whole repertoire of specific bodily metaphors as part of the vivacious contention between Atticists and Asianists.10 Surely Seneca could rely on and ought to confront Cicero’s authoritative legacy. For this reason, we will do well to reconsider a previously-analyzed passage from Ep. 75.7 (the one where Seneca rejects a ticklish style, in favor of a “surgical one,” cf. pp. 191–198) against the backdrop of Ciceronian imagery. At Off. 1.136–137, Cicero presents the text as a physical item which can be subjected to modification in order to achieve a desired stylistic outcome: Obiurgationes etiam non numquam incidunt necessariae, in quibus utendum est fortasse et vocis contentione maiore et verborum gravitate acriore, id agendum etiam, ut ea facere videamur irati. Sed, ut ad urendum et secandum, sic ad hoc genus castigandi raro invitique veniemus nec umquam nisi necessario, si nulla reperietur alia medicina. It may sometimes happen that there is need of administering reproof. On such occasions we should, perhaps, use a more emphatic tone of voice and more forcible and severe terms and even assume an appearance of being angry. But we shall have recourse to this sort of reproof, as we do to cautery and amputation, rarely and reluctantly—never at all, unless it is unavoidable and no other remedy can be discovered. (Transl. Miller)

The context of the chapter concerns the need for a conversation to be free from excessive emotions, the same way irreproachable conduct should avoid unnecessary exhibitions of passion. In particular, Cicero contends, one should be espe-

|| 9 Most (1992) interprets Seneca’s scenes of dismemberment as a way to reflect on the identitary problem of personal integrity either when the one explores the uncertain borderline between humanity and bestiality or when the self is confronted with an enduring process of “atomization” with the global dimension of the expanding empire of Rome. Similarly, Gowers (1993) 12– 24 describes bodily and, in particular, food-based illustration systems for linking individual consumption to the conception of Rome as an over-consuming body. Last but not least, Desmouliez (1955) and Fantham (1972) 164 explained the success of the bodily illustrations for rhetoric as the fruit of the admiration for classical art, which had concentrated so much on anatomy. 10 Cf. Keith (1999) 42.

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cially cautious in administering reproof. This is when the medical metaphor intervenes: emotionally emphatic speech should be used sparingly, and as rarely as cautery and amputation. It should be done raro et inviti. Strong, aggressive speech (obiurgatio) is compared tout court to drastic therapy. The desired outcome of this rhetorical strategy consists in a certain emotional response on the part of the audience and, at first blush, this argument appears to preclude a physical/medical outlook on the body of the text itself. Indeed, Cicero’s main concern rests in the orator’s ability to use sparingly a resource which, if mishandled, can prove a double-edged sword. That notwithstanding, the honing of the designated rhetorical tool cannot occur without a substantial and simultaneous modification of the text’s body, as signified by the ablatives contentione maiore and gravitate acriore, two phrases equally referencing the physicality of verba (literally, their increase in tension and weight).11 In a similar fashion, at Ep. 75.7 Seneca calls for a preaching style which ought not to tickle like an infection, but rather cure like an amputation or cauterization.12 If a ticklish style proves not only formally unsuitable but even potentially infectious, it follows that a style fit for therapeutic surgery must itself be healthgiving. This is to say that curative preaching can be only be channeled through a sound and healthy style. Seneca furnishes even more explicit evidence of this equivalence at Ep. 40.13, where he terms the faults of Lucilius’ eloquence a morbus (“illness”).13 Admittedly, even Cicero presents instances of anatomical couching, not only of specific rhetorical strategies, as is the case with the above passage from Off., but also of the text itself. For example, in chapter 1 (cf. p. 28) we encountered Cicero’s praise of Caesar’s modus scribendi, which showcases the simplicity and self-evidence of a naked body; but, in this regard, there are even more explicit textual occurrences. At De or. 2.318, Cicero avers that a speech’s opening passage ought not to be drawn from outside sources (extrinsecus) but ex ipsis visceribus: literally, from the “very bowels of the argument,” which is to say from the argument of the speech itself. Similarly, at De or. 2.325 he insists on the necessary

|| 11 Cicero’s illustration is counterintuitive because the suitability for a sizable textual body, as signaled both by the comparative maior and the key term gravitas, is coupled with the action of amputating, as per oxymoronic association. 12 This surgical dyad, signaled by the phrase ferro et igne, constitutes a recurring topos in Seneca’s oeuvre. The expression intersects with gladiatorial language (cf. Ep. 7.4), and a complete list of all Senecan occurrences (with relative parallels in Celsus) can be found at Courtil (2015) 558–559. 13 This use of morbus to denote style can be traced back to Cato Or. fr. 40.1 Jordan. On the history of this motif, see Borgo (1998) 136 and Berti (2018) 296–297.

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coherence between a speech’s various parts, and he seals this technical tenet via the illustration of the body’s harmonious proportions: cohaerens cum omni corpore membrum. Lastly, at De or. 2.359 Cicero submits that, within a sentence, certain words play the same function as articulations for the limbs: multa enim sunt membra quae quasi articuli connectunt membra orationis.14 Cicero’s explicit deployment of anatomical imagery to illustrate both the making and functioning of a speech raises the question of whether it is after all correct to pinpoint as quintessentially Stoic Seneca’s recurring tendency to treat a text as a physical and often sick body. To my knowledge, it was Desmouliez, then followed by Fantham, who first insisted on what he termed “la signification esthétique” of the human-body-metaphors and proposed that their origin be tied to the Greek development of plastic arts.15 According to this hypothesis, the textual body conjured up by Cicero (and by those of his ilk) would be first and foremost an “artistic body” rather than a medical one, an object for esthetic contemplation rather than medical interest and therapy. It is not by chance that the Ciceronian excerpt from De or. 2.359 is tellingly introduced by the description of a painter who is mixing shapes and colors without losing sight of the painting’s overall harmony.16 Similarly, at De or. 3.217–218, the image of the division in kommata, which is prompted by the phrase crebro incidens (“making numerous incisa” but also “numerous incisions”),17 provides a surgical overlay to a passage otherwise conspicuous by its theatrical and pictorial imagery: Nullum est enim horum generum, quod non arte ac moderatione tractetur. Hi sunt actori, ut pictori, expositi ad variandum colores. Aliud enim vocis genus iracundia sibi sumat, acutum, incitatum, crebro incidens […] aliud miseratio ac maeror.

|| 14 This selection of three Ciceronian examples of bodily illustrations for style I take from Fantham (1972) 165. 15 Cf. Desmouliez (1955) 59. See also Fantham (1972) 164: “Behind the dominant rhetorical vocabulary based on analogies with the human body, lies the Greek admiration for that body, whether static in the visual arts, or mobile in dance, and of course in athletics.” For a cursory description various ancient conceptions and constructions of the human body, cf. Pigeaud (1981) 13–15. 16 Cf. De or. 2.358: Quam facultatem et exercitatio dabit, ex qua consuetudo gignitur, et similium verborum conversa et immutata casibus aut traducta ex parte ad genus notatio et unius verbi imagine totius sententiae informatio pictoris cuiusdam summi ratione et modo formarum varietate locos distinguentis. “The ability to use these will be supplied by practice, which engenders habit, and by marking off similar words with an inversion and alteration of their cases or a transference from species to genus, and by representing a whole concept by the image of a single word, on the system and method of a consummate painter distinguishing the positions of objects by modifying their shapes” (transl. Sutton). 17 Cf. Wilkins (1990) 357.

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For there are none of these varieties that cannot be regulated by the control of art; they are the colours available for the actor, as for the painter, to secure variety. For one kind of tone must be taken by anger—shrill, hasty, with short abrupt clauses—[…] Another tone is proper for compassion and for sorrow. (Transl. Rackman)

Among the themes of these lines is the same as at Off. 1.136: the limitation of anger for rhetorical purposes. Cicero is here commenting on the orator’s ability to variare colores, (“modulate”), which is typical of the actor, or the painter. When it comes to anger, the darkest of colors, he presents the image of the lancing surgeon. Although they concern three different fields, painting, acting, and medicine can all be used to define one’s ability to harness all possible resources of the good orator’s expressive armory. Medicine is but an ars among other artes, and Cicero tellingly chooses not to endow pain with any specific cognitive value. All various illustrations simply describe a collection of rhetorical technicalities to be parsed according to what is required by the contingencies of each case. This primarily aesthetic take on medicine focuses on the performative outcome of a text, as per the orator’s three primary aims: docere, delectare, movere. Seneca is not alien to the fundamental tenets of the ars rhetorica; in fact, if only for the influence of his father’s and Sextus’ teachings, he must have early on developed a high-level oratorical proficiency. Furthermore, Setaioli has illustrated the complexity of Seneca’s stylistic balance, which was influenced by the teachings of both Panaetius and Posidonius and manages to achieve an original interplay between rhetorical admonitio and philosophical sermo (cf. pp. 96– 101).18 The fact remains that Seneca’s focus on the good health of style is unparalleled and predicated on the text being consubstantial to the human persona.19 Thence the necessity for style not to be simply well-packaged or skillfully honed, but also literally healthy.20 To this end, rhetoric becomes both a medical concern and an ethical mission which entirely subsumes its traditional contiguity with plastic arts. In sum, Seneca’s medical body incorporates and endows with the notions of health and sickness the more canonical artistic-body as deployed for

|| 18 Cf. Setaioli (2000) 111–155 and (2014). 19 The theme of ‘sick style’ is a stock element of Seneca the Elder’s rhetorical strategy, cf. Controv. 2.4.11, 7.5.12. 20 Ep. 64.3 contains a programmatic framing of this principle in the form of a sententia: Non faciunt animum quia non habent. “They [scil. the writings] do not infuse spirit because they have no spirit” (transl. Gummere). Seneca is here contrasting the healthy vigor of Sextius’ writings with the much inferior stylistic quality of those philosophers fond of cavillationes and whose oeuvre is qualified by the medical adjective exanguis, i.e. “bloodless” in the sense of “sapless.”

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example by Cicero, which had traditionally provided the basic blueprint and the fundamental vocabulary for much of classical rhetorical theory. This operation, which we can call the medicalization of style, hinges on the skillful deployment of metaphorical language, but could not be viable without being propped up by the theoretical scaffolding of pneumatism, a quintessentially Roman take on Hippocratism, whose conceptual core hinged on the notion of pneuma/spiritus: an individual’s innate vital breath.

6.2 The Style’s Vital Breath The proximity of the pneumatic school to Stoicism is notoriously demonstrated by the philosophical pedigree of its alleged founder, Athenaeus of Attalia who, according to Galen, was Posidonius’ disciple.21 For the first century CE,22 Agathinus, master of Archigenes of Apamea and one of the fellows of Cornutus’ circle, was the pneumatic sect’s leading figure. Galen suggests a direct dependence of the pneumatic theories of Stoic lore and maintains that Chrysippus crucially provided the theoretical background for much of the pneumatic system.23 Seneca was likely familiar with both Athenaeus’ and Agathinus’ works, as demonstrated by the presence of pneumatic notions (though not expressly labeled as such) starting from his early works, including Ir. and ad. Marc.24 The common cardinal elements that Chrysippean Stoicism and pneumatism share are (1) the importance of tonos for health25 and (2) the fact that body and soul partake of the same substance, from which ensues the consequential reverberation of every bodily affection on the psyche and, conversely, of every psychological change on the body.26 Pneumatic lore is also deeply indebted to Hippocratism for the concept of dyskrasia, or an “unhealthy mix” of the humors, which is the fundamental trigger of morbid conditions. The Pneumatics maintain that the vital pneuma is endowed

|| 21 Cf. Galen Dign. Puls. 8.749K. 22 Cf. Suida s.v. Ἀρχιγένης and Galen, Dign. Puls. 8.787 K. Particularly problematic is a passage from De Causis Contentivis 2.1–2, a work whose original Greek version is lost, and which we possess only as a late 16th century Latin translation, where it is said of Athenaeus that conversatus fuit with Posidonio, a phrase which could allude to either actual apprenticeship or an intellectual allegiance not necessarily involving any personal interaction between the two men. 23 Cf. respectively Galen Dign. Puls. 8.787K and 8.631K where Chrysippus is called “the grandfather” of pneumatism. 24 Cf. Bocchi (2011) 62–68. 25 On the importance of τόνος and its relation to cold and health, see Bénatouïl (2005). 26 Cf. Couloubaritsis (1986) 115, Bocchi (2011) 68–69, and Smith (2014) 344–346.

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with the keeping of right krasis. In fact, it is the pneuma that can itself become warm, cold, dry, and humid, thence the substantial identity between a healthy krasis and a healthy temperament of the pneuma. Before redirecting our analysis to the assessment of the pneumatic doctrine’s influence on Seneca’s metaphors and stylistic strategies, it is crucial that we chart how the Stoic notion of pneuma is, as it were, repurposed by a pneumatics for the engineering of a specifically tonos-based medical theory and its attendant, and equally specific, notions of sickness and health. According to the Stoics the pneuma presents three possible tensional qualities, which is to say the pneuma may have three different tonoi: namely hektikon (“cohesive”), physikon (“natural” or “generative”), and psychikon (“psychic”).27 Hexis or “cohesion” is the tonal level that guarantees the integrity of a physical body, for instance a rock. The generative level, or physis, is what upgrades mere existence to life: a rock differs from a plant because only the second is alive, and this depends on the plant’s partaking of a physikon tonal level. Lastly, the psychic level is what determines impulses and impressions, and is therefore an exclusive appurtenance of sentient beings. Because a stone is indisputably non-sentient, as much as a man is indisputably endowed with a cohesive body, it follows that while a stone possesses only the first of tonal levels, a human being possesses all three (this is to say that a man has a tensional level in common with stones, and one with plants).28 The tensional levels are therefore to be imagined as hierarchically subsuming one another as per the following schematic chart:

Fig. 2: Graphic representation of the scala naturae.

|| 27 The fragments definitive for the various tonal states of the pneuma are numerous, for the ἑκτικόν, cf. SVF 2.368, 439, 716; for the φυσικόν, SVF 1.171, 2.716; for the ψυχικόν, cf. SVF 2.781, 782. 28 Chrysippus SVF 2.458 maintains that the cohesive tone which can be found in the stones is present, for instance, in human bones, while the generative tension, typical of plants, is the same that favors the growth of hair and nails.

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What must be stressed about the above representation is that for the Stoics there are not three different types of pneuma, but rather three different tensional levels of the same cosmic breath.29 A man who is sentient, alive, and whose body cohesively exists possesses all three tonal types; a plant only the first two, and a stone only the first. The pneumatic school develops and combines with this model a system of three concurrent causes, which account for the insurgence of morbid states. The most detailed illustration of these causes comes from the Galenic De Causis Contentivis and De Causis Procatarticis (both largely drawing from Athenaeus’ theories) and hinges upon the mutual relations between three fundamental “causes,” known as aitia prokatartikê, aitia proêgoumenê, and aitia synektikê. The first cause is but an external event which can potentially affect our body. The second cause, also labeled as antecedens, may or may not depend on the first and consists of an internal bodily affection (typically a form of dyscrasia.) The third cause is the so-called causa contentiva and corresponds to the pneuma’s ability to maintain the cohesiveness of an organism. The etiology of a morbid state may be triggered by an external event (for instance a frigid winter day = first cause) which in turn produces an affection of an internal organ (a bodily part becomes excessively cold = second cause), but an illness does not occur unless the cohesive pneuma gets sick and, as a vehicle (= third cause), transmits to the entire body what would otherwise remain the affection of only a specific part/organ. This mechanism bears two immediate consequences: (1) for a morbid state to develop, all body must be sick, not just a single part, and (2) every “bodily” illness must also be a “mental” illness. To better clarify point (2), if we heed the pyramidshaped-drawing illustrating the pneuma’s different tonal levels according to the

|| 29 This is the so-called scala naturae as outlined at SVF 2.988, on which see Long (1982) 37–39, Inwood (1985) 18–27, Annas (1992) 51–54, Wildberger (2006) 205–243, and Graver (2007) 19–21. Seneca describes in his own terms this model at Ep. 58.14 where, as argued by Smith (2014) 346– 347, the term anima designates both ἕξις and φύσις, while animus refers to ψυχή: Corpus quomodo divido? Ut dicam: aut animantia sunt aut inanima. Rursus animantia quemadmodum divido? Ut dicam: quaedam animum habent, quaedam tantum animam. Aut sic: quaedam inpetum habent, incedunt, transeunt, quaedam solo adfixa radicibus aluntur, crescunt. “And how do I distribute ‘substance’? By saying that it is either animate or inanimate. And how do I distribute the ‘animate’? By saying: ‘Certain things have mind, while others have only life.’ Or the idea may be expressed as follows: “Certain things have the power of movement, of progress, of change of position, while others are rooted in the ground; they are fed and they grow only through their roots” (transl. Gummere).

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Stoics, it will be clear that a human being participating in all three levels will suffer from an affection at every level (including the psychic one) because, it bears repeating, these levels are but simple “modes” of one same substance. A clear example of this etiology of morbid states is provided by Galen CC 2.9.4:30 Quando enim perustus qui fuerit a sole, transmutari aiunt necessario nostrum innate spiritum et fieri calidiorem se ipso, infrigidato autem frigore alterari secundum frigiditatem; parvis autem hiis fientibus nondum aegrotare nos, si vero in tantum evertatur a crasique secundum natura particola, ut iam noceatur actus eius, egritudinem esse eius secundum discrasiam factam, causam coniunctam habentem spiritum calefactum immoderate vel infrigitadum vel siccatum vel humectatum. For if a person suffers a sun-stroke, they say that it is our innate spirit that must undergo a modification and become itself warmer, but if chilled down by cold, this spirit turns to cold; nonetheless if these changes are slight, we are not yet sick, but if any bodily part is set out of balance to an extent that its actions are harmed, then a condition sets in determined by the unbalance of the bodily composition, because the cause of the illness consists of the spirit which has become excessively hot, or cold, or dry, or humid. (Transl. Gazzarri)

The passage submits that a sunny or a cold day cannot bring about respectively a sunburn or a cold unless the whole innate spirit gets sick, thus shifting the scale of the organic event from localized affection to general unbalance. To journey back to Seneca’s work, it is worth comparing this text with an excerpt from Ep. 108. At par. 4 Seneca describes the many advantages deriving from being a fellow of wise men. The main contention here is that a proficiens may benefits not only from studere (the active study of philosophical content) but also from conversare (simple association). To clarify his argument, Seneca compares the positive outcome of this association to an involuntary suntan, which occurs after prolonged sun-exposure in spite of a person’s intentions, and also to perfumes that lingers on one’s body after visiting a perfume-shop. These illustrations are finally sealed at par. 5 with a sarcastic statement against those of have proved unable to benefit from philosophy: Quid ergo? Non novimus quosdam, qui multis apud philosophum annis persederint et ne colorem quidem duxerint? “What then?” you say, “do we not know certain men who have sat for many years at the feet of a philosopher and yet have not acquired the slightest tinge of wisdom?” (Transl. Gummere)

|| 30 A thorough discussion of this excerpt can be found in Bocchi (2011) 74–75.

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Even if Seneca did not draw the suntan illustration from the same collection of examples deployed by the Pneumatics, the above passage certainly leads the reader to consider the possibility that the framework of the Epistle be also medical31 even more so on account of the fact that the etiology of the illustration, propounded by Seneca exempli gratia, appears to describe precisely the sequence of a reiterated procatarctic cause (in this case sun-exposure) which should eventually effect a bodily modification. In fact, a suntan is here allusive to the positive modification of one’s spiritual disposition. In chapter 4 (cf. pp. 123–130) we laid out how Seneca’s micro-incremental and unmistakable stylistic sphragis may be explained on the basis of Stoic psychology and, in particular, the theory of preemotions and what Graver terms “reader’s emotions.” In this connection, such literary illustrations are engineered to trigger specific physiological reactions, which are as sensate as vicarious and “safe” and succeed in providing a potent moral training. Because Stoic psychology is predicated on such biological premises, a pneumatic reading of pre-emotions may be keyed not only to what a select illustration effects (that is, tonal diastolic and systolic movements) but also to the way moral content is slowly (and physically) assimilated. This model is predicated on pneumatism because it reflects the dynamics whereby a procatarctic cause, which in this case corresponds to a literary stimulus, eventually affects and modifies one’s || 31 Seneca’s reference of this missed chance for a suntan is not clinical in nature like the heatstroke referenced by the Galenic medical text. However, what is of interest here is the occurrence of a physical modification and, in the case of Seneca, a missed chance for such modification triggered by intellectual association. One caveat, however, is very much in place. For the model of causation which Seneca illustrates at Ep. 65 is fundamentally Chrysippean (cf. Inwood (2007) 136–155) and conceptually less articulate than the pneumatic system propounded by the text on which the above-mentioned Galenic treatises are based. In this regard, it would not be not off the mark to hypothesize that Galen may be presenting a more elaborate scholarly version of less technical pneuma-Lehre, which Seneca is likely to have drawn from his Stoic education; cf. Courtil (2015) 272–277. Counter to this hypothesis, Bocchi (2011) 103–131 furnishes a detailed overview of Seneca’s possible relations with and knowledge of the pneumatics, and he comments on the presence of specific terminology, which demonstrates Seneca’s more-than-superficial, and actually quite detailed, knowledge of this medical school. The extent of Seneca’s knowledge of pneumatic theory is hard to assess, as it is notoriously difficult to sharply distinguish between lay and professional medical practice in Rome, cf. Draycott (2016) 434–440. More specifically, Galen Diff. Resp. 7.854K distinguishes between medical treatises destined to and written by specialists, and medical literature written by specialists for non-specialists. Turning to the specific issue of the causes, when Bocchi proposes that Seneca possesses specific pneumatic competences, he does not discuss how Seneca would have possibly squared the system of causation as he describes it at Ep. 65, with the one that emerges from the Galenic sources. This aspect remains, if not unsolvable, at least problematic.

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cohesive system (including one’s hêgemonikon). This whole process is channeled by the vehicular function of the pneuma (causa contentiva). When, at Ep. 108.5, Seneca denounces one’s lack of benefit from his association with wise men, very much like somebody who was exposed to the sun but did not tan, he is not simply utilizing an effective metaphor; he is also simultaneously underscoring the physical nature of every moral improvement and its relation to the wished-for modification of the psychon’s tonal state. What ought to be happening both in the case of a suntan and of moral improvement is a physical from-the-outside-in modification triggered by an external cause and spread to the entire organism by the causa contentiva. To this effect, a pneumatic reading of some of Seneca’s most recurring metaphors may prove that many illustrations, in spite of their being apparently inapplicable to or only tangentially associated with the human body, may claim membership in the larger group of medical tropes. The last part of this chapter will therefore be devoted to a pneumatic interpretation of two fundamental Senecan tropes: the strong, solid building and military combat.

6.3 Aedificium In the third book of his De architectura, Vitruvius insists on the geometrical relationships structuring the human body, in particular on the bilateral symmetries of various anatomical constituents such as bones, limbs, eyes, and ears. These observations underscoring the geometrical imprint of nature are directly linked to the possibility of translating it into an architectural achievement.32 In particular, the human body, with its proportions, ought to function as the model for the

|| 32 Cf. Vitruvius De arch. 3.1.1: Aedium compositio constat ex symmetria, cuius rationem diligentissime architecti tenere debent. Ea autem paritur a proportione, quae graece analogia dicitur. Proportio est ratae partis membrorum in omni opere totiusque commodulatio, ex qua ratio efficitur symmetriarum. Namque non potest aedis ulla sine symmetria atque proportione rationem habere compositionis, nisi uti ad hominis bene figurati membrorum habuerit exactam rationem. “The planning of temples depends upon symmetry: and the method of this architects must diligently apprehend. It arises from proportion (which in Greek is called analogia). Proportion consists in taking a fixed module, in each case, both for the parts of a building and for the whole, by which the method of symmetry is put into practice. For without symmetry and proportion no temple can have a regular plan; that is, it must have an exact proportion worked out after the fashion of the members of a finely-shaped human body” (transl. Granger). Crucially, Vitruvius utilized the term analogia to describe the proportional relations that ought to regulate both the structure of the human body and of a temple. The term is the same chosen by Aristotle to designate the logical

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most sacred among buildings: the temple. Vitruvius imagined the arms to be related to the legs through the navel, which was considered the source of life.33 This suggested analogy, arguably among the most consequential for Latin architecture, stems from a long-standing tradition dating back at least to Plato Ti. 69c–72b, who utilizes a very articulate architectural metaphor to describe the location of divine, mortal, and animal souls. More specifically, Plato places the divine soul in the head, which he compares to the city’s akropolis: an illustration which Seneca will later on appropriate and repurpose to signify the invincibility of the citadel of philosophy withstanding the attacks of Fortuna.34 Armisen-Marchetti furnished a vast repertoire of various images related to the notions of building and architecture and utilized by Seneca for a variety of purposes.35 I will concentrate on a narrower collection of examples, which prove apt to reveal the pneumatic substratum governing this set of illustrations. The analysis I shall put forward comprises three interwoven theses: namely that (1) architectural tropes can be read as medical tropes; (2) the illustration of the building may interchangeably apply to an individual physical body and to rhetoric, thus suggesting that (2.1) style can be sick, and (2.2) an individual is his style; (3) Seneca’s architectural discourse, thanks to the pervasiveness of Stoic pneuma, equally applies to the individuals and to the cosmos, thus prompting a notion of solidity or fragility that is pervasive and all-encompassing.

|| pattering responsible for the functioning of a metaphor. On Vitruvius’ selection of specific metaphorical fields often taken from a variety of τέχναι, cf. the early work of Mortet (1908) 199 and, more recently, Romano (1987) 191–194. 33 This theory notably inspired both Leonardo and Serlio for their drawing of the “Vitruvian man,” or homo bene figuratus; cf. Sennett (1994) 87–106, Gros (2006), and Oksanish (2019) 94– 118. 34 Cf. Cowling (1998) 23–29 and Seneca Ep. 82.5: Philosophia circumdanda est, inexpugnabilis murus, quem fortuna multis machinis lacessitum non transit. In insuperabili loco stat animus, qui externa deseruit, et arce se sua vindicat; infra illum omne telum cadit. “Therefore, gird yourself about with philosophy, an impregnable wall. Though it be assaulted by many engines, Fortune can find no passage into it. The soul stands on unassailable ground, if it has abandoned external things; it is independent in its own fortress; and every weapon that is hurled falls short of the mark” (transl. Gummere). 35 Cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 110–112 and the attendant catalogue organized according the following items: domus, casa, habitare, fundamenta, firmamentum, columen, fornicatio, crusta, ruina, ruere, solidus.

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6.3.1 Architecture is Medicine In chapter 4 (cf. pp. 145–146) we observed how the body qua internal space may qualify as a “reversible metaphor.” This is a specific trope where literal and figural levels are simultaneously valid, while normally a traditional metaphor requires a literal fallacy to be resolved through the identification of a governing analogical principle. In the case of reversible metaphors, not only a completely literal reading is possible, but this level of interpretation must hierarchically precede the figural one. Thus “the soul is a space” amounts to a statement which is true at its literal level, and which can also be subject to a metaphorical reading. In fact, it demonstrates the crucial role of space for Seneca’s discourse: each man is a space. The semantic logic of this conceptualization stems from a tradition dating back at least to the third century with Aristo, and then variously reworked through the many streams of the so-called diatribic preaching.36 For all that, we should heed Oltramare’s intuition that Seneca’s appropriation of the materials coming from the so-called diatribe incorporates, but also simultaneously surpasses, this traditions’ chiefly literary components and enhances its philosophical core.37 To assist my argument that many of Seneca’s architectural illustrations are predicated on specific medical lore, I am going to concentrate on a selection of texts where the wording for describing a building explicitly references the pneumatic illustration of the human body. Ep. 100 is a crucial text where Seneca, through the figure of Fabianus (cf. pp. 36–40), canvases the core features of the ideal style. At. parr. 5–6 we encounter the stock-element of the simple yet wellbuilt house: Sensus honestos et magnificos habes, non coactos in sententiam, sed latius dictos. Videbimus, quid parum recisum sit, quid parum structum, quid non huius recentis politurae; cum circumspexeris omnia, nullas videbis angustias inanis. […] quod dici solet, domus recta est. There you have honorable and splendid ideas, not fettered into aphorisms, but spoken with greater freedom. We shall of course notice passages that are not sufficiently pruned, not constructed with sufficient care, and lacking the polish which is in vogue nowadays; but

|| 36 Cf. SVF 3.376 and, for rich list of diatribic instances of the body qua building, Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 186 n. 108. 37 Cf. Oltramare (1926) 252–253: “le rôle de Sénèque fut d’incorporer à la doctrine de Chrysippe et de Posidonius des éléments très nombreux tirés de la philosophie populaire […] On peut donc considérer que, avec les Lettres à Lucilius, l’histoire littéraire de la diatribe romaine s’achève, tandis que, à l’ombre du Portique restauré, commence son histoire proprement philosophique.”

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after regarding the whole, you will see that there are no futile subtleties of argument. […] In the vulgar phrase, it is “a good house to live in.” (Transl. Gummere)

This passage, which seamlessly mixes the description of an ideal dwelling with that of a sound style, is predicated on a specific selection of terms. Both the adjective non coactus (“not restrained”) and the adverbial phrase latius dictos (“expressed with greater amplitude”) impute certain spatial qualities to the word they modify:38 sensus (in this case “thoughts,” but also -and crucially so- “physical states of the soul”). That thoughts are sensus makes perfect sense in light of the Stoic tenet that accords them a material nature qua dispositions of the material soul (cf. p. 67).39 Thus, the way in which this initial argument is couched reveals a common material background for rhetoric (one’s style), architecture (via the diatribical stock-element of the simple house), and anatomy (one’s thoughts which correspond to one’s sensus). The final part of the excerpt submits that the lack of angustias inanis or “purposeless frills”40 is what makes a domus recta or a “good house”.41 In fact, the Latin text literally designates “the frills” as a “hollow narrowness” and the “good abode” as a “straight house,” which is to say that the core meaning of both expressions is once again rich in spatial connotations.

|| 38 For the rhetorical use respectively of the verb cogo and the adverb latius cf. ThlL III, 1525, 13– 56 and VII.II,1023,84–1024, 1–30. 39 Seneca distinguishes between sensus and sententiae, two key concepts whose difference is outlined by Quintilian Inst. 8.5.2: Sed consuetudo iam tenuit ut mente concepta sensus vocaremus, lumina autem praecipueque in clausulis posita sententias; quae minus celebratae apud antiquos nostris temporibus modo carent. “However, the usage that has come to prevail is to call mental concepts sensus, and bright thoughts, especially at the ends of passages, sententiae; these were not so popular with the ancients, but in our time they know no bounds” (transl. Russel). A detailed list of Senecan passages referencing sensus can be found in Wildberger (2006) 740 n. 935, 936; see also Bardon (1940) 52 and Berti (2018) 54, 334–335. 40 See Leeman (1963) 267. 41 Both the phrases quid parum structum and quid recentis politurae reference the unpolished nature of simple, unsophisticated building blocks, thus adumbrating the metaphorical vehicle of the strong house, which becomes apparent only at the end of the clause. For the architectural overlay of the two expressions, cf. Quintilian Inst. 8.6.63: Differenda igitur quaedam et praesumenda, atque ut in structuris lapidum inpolitorum loco quo convenit quodque ponendum. Non enim recidere ea nec polire possumus quo coagmentata se magis iungant, sed utendum iis qualia sunt, eligendaeque sedes. “Some words therefore have to be postponed or taken early, and each has to be placed in its proper position, as in a structure of unshaped stones. We cannot cut or polish words to make them fit together better when juxtaposed; we have to take them as they are and choose places for them” (transl. Russell).

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To recapitulate the argument so far, we can account for 1) a physical/spatial background common to both the description of style and of the domus, 2) the need for the good style to channel sensus honestos,42 which are themselves physical elements because attached to the human soul (itself physical), 3) a set of opposite values whereby, within this specific context,43 amplitude and straightness are positive, while contraction and narrowness are negative. The medical significance of the opposition signaled in 3) comes to the fore in a passage from Q Nat. 6.18.6–7 where, within a larger discussion of heartquakes, Seneca charts some fundamental similarities between “telluric ailments” (such is his proposed interpretation of seismic events) and bodily dysfunctions:44 Etiamnunc et illud accedit his argumentis per quod appareat motum effici spiritu, quod corpora quoque nostra non aliter tremunt quam si spiritum aliqua causa perturbat, cum timore contractus est, cum senectute languescit et venis torpentibus marcet, cum frigore inhibetur aut sub accessionem cursu suo deicitur. Nam, quamdiu sine iniuria perfluit et ex more procedit, nullus est tremor corpori; cum aliquid occurrit quod inhibeat eius officium, tunc parum potens in perferendis his quae suo vigore tenebat, deficiens concutit quicquid integer tulerat. And now to these arguments is added an analogy which makes it obvious that an earthquake is brought about by moving air: our bodies also do not tremble except when some

|| 42 On the philosophical relevance of the phrase sensus honestos, cf. Berti (2018) 335, who observes how Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dem. 25.1 resorts to an almost identical expression (τὰς νοήσεις ἐξέταζε, εἰ καλαὶ καὶ μεγαλοπρεπεῖς εἰσι) in reference to Plato. 43 When referencing the stylistic ideal of συντομία, conciseness is seen as a positive feature. Seneca Ep. 94.27 accounts for its strategic and beneficial use: Praeterea ipsa, quae praecipiuntur, per se multum habent ponderis, utique si aut carmini intexta sunt aut prosa oratione in sententiam coartata. “Moreover, the precepts which are given are of great weight in themselves, whether they be woven into the fabric of song, or condensed into prose proverbs” (transl. Gummere). There is a sharp difference between purposeful conciseness, with its highly persuasive potential, and angustia, which is couched as a stylistic vice. On the relation between conciseness, sententiae, and admonitio, cf. Trillitzsch (1962) 29–32, Traina (1974) 39–41, and Berti (2018). 44 Cf. Berno (2003) 239–289, and Williams (2012) 183–193 and 242: “The (Stoic) theory of vital air that Seneca accepts in 6.16–18 as the cause of earthquakes naturally complements, and gains impetus from the book’s broader presumption of a living cosmos.” As for the stringent cosmic parallelism between terra and homo, cf. Seneca Q Nat. 3.15.1: Sed hoc amplius censeo. Placet natura regi terram, et quidem ad nostrorum corporum exemplar, in quibus et venae sunt et arteriae, illae sanguinis, hae spiritus receptacula. In terra quoque sunt alia itinera per quae aqua, alia per quae spiritus currit; adeoque ad similitudinem illa humanorum corporum natura formavit ut maiores quoque nostri aquarum appellaverint venas. “But I have this further theory: the idea appeals to me that the earth is governed by nature and is much like the system of our own bodies in which there are both veins (receptacles for blood) and arteries (receptacles for air). In the earth also there are some routes through which water runs, some through which air passes. And nature fashioned these routes so like human bodies that our ancestors even called them ‘veins’ of water” (transl. Corcoran).

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cause disturbs the air inside, when it is contracted by fear, grows weak in old age, becomes feeble with sluggish veins, is paralysed by cold, or is thrown from its normal course under an attack of disease. For, as long as the air flows without damage and proceeds in its usual way, there is no tremor in the body; when something happens which inhibits its function, then it no longer is strong enough to support what it had maintained in its vigour. As it fails it causes to collapse whatever it had sustained when it was intact. (Transl. Corcoran)

The central role played by the spiritus (the Latin translation of pneuma) immediately betokens the medical background of the argument. The genesis of morbid states, and in particular of bodily tremors, is here attached to specific perturbations of the pneuma (si spiritum aliqua causa perturbat), which are then listed and analyzed in detail. Fear corresponds to a contraction (timore contractus est); similarly, cold temperatures create a hindrance (frigore inhibetur) and, in general, all ailments consist of a material deviation of the pneuma from its physiological course (sub accessionem cursu suo deicitur). Any obstacle (quod inhibeat) to the natural flowing of spiritus results in a morbid alteration of its tensional state (quae suo vigore tenebat), which in turn manifests itself as a form of collapse (concutit). We thus have two polar opposite representations: on the one hand the strong house of Ep. 100.6 instantiates an ideal of physical health, sound style, and balance, but on the other hand, the human body, following a pattern analogical to one of the telluric events, crumbles when it succumbs to sickness. The physiology of the human body functions as a common referent for both architectural45 and geological illustrations,46 with the conceptual dyad solidity/collapse applicable to both domains. We find confirmation of this argumentative pattering at SVF 2.450, a sizable fragment attributed to Chrysippus and transmitted by Galenus Mot. Musc. 1.7–8, in which pneumatic tonos is instanced by several examples which illustrate why muscular tension ought to be present even if one rests or stands still and, therefore, in spite of the body’s immobile appearance. In fact, Chrysippus’ main contention is that:

|| 45 This parallelism between physical and architectural bodies will eventually become a fundamental rhetorical operator of Galen’s methodological discourse. In particular, in the De Constitutione he repeatedly resorts to the two key terms γένεσις and ἐπανόρθωσις to illustrate on the one hand both the building of a dwelling and the coming about of a condition, and on the other both the strengthening/repairing of a building and the therapeutic action of a doctor., Cf. Boudon (2003) 69–72. 46 Seismic cataclysm and architecture are also independently associated, and especially so following the destruction of Pompeii; see Traina (1989) 109–110 and Palumbo (1989) 124–127. At Q Nat. 6.1.5 Seneca explicitly links the micro-reality of human dwelling to the macro-reality of the earthquake via the image of ruina.

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Mένει γὰρ καὶ τοῦτ’ ἐν ταὐτῷ διὰ παντὸς ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὁμοίως ἐκείνῳ. It [scil. the body] indeed stays still in the same place, but not in the same way as this one (a body which does not move) would stay. (Transl. Gazzarri)

Among the examples illustrating this tenet are the case of a piece of wood which appears immobile because it is subjected to opposite but equal tractional forces and, perhaps more tellingly, that of the bird which seems to be immobile in the middle of the sky but is in fact taking advantage of an upward lift equal to the downward force originated by the weight of its body. Crucially, Chrysippuys channels these everyday occurrences into a more theoretical conclusion and submits that: Στερήσας γοῦν αὐτὸν τῆς ψυχῆς ἢ τοῦ τῶν μυῶν τόνου ταχέως ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ὄψει καταφερόμενον· ᾧ δῆλον ὅτι τὴν σύμφυτον τῷ τοῦ σώματος βάρει κάτω ῥοπὴν εἰς ἴσον ἀντεσήκου τῇ κατὰ τὸν τῆς ψυχῆς τόνον ἄνω φορᾷ. If you deprived it [scil. the body] of soul and muscular tone, you would see it quickly collapse onto the ground: it is clear that the natural downward movement which is due to the body’s weight, is balanced by the upward movement which is due to the soul’s tone. (Transl. Gazzarri)

Foundational solidity is first and foremost a physiological parameter germane to the balance of pneumatic tensional movements. We find a similar conceptualization in Philo of Alexandria, who tellingly speaks of “the straight reason which innervates the soul with its stable principles” (ἣν (ψυχήν) ὀρθὸς λόγος δόγμασι παγίοις ἐνεύρωσε) and Stobaeus 47 who argues in favor of the identity between tonal tension and moral strength (Καὶ ὁμοίως ὥσπερ ἰσχὺς τοῦ σώματος τόνος ἐστὶν ἱκανὸς ἐν νεύροις, οὕτω καὶ ἡ τῆς ψυχῆς ἰσχὺς τόνος ἐστὶν ἱκανὸς ἐν τῷ κρίνειν καὶ πράττειν ἢ μή) then to suggest a correspondence between health and symmetry of all bodily parts, including reason (ὥσπερ τε τὸ κάλλος τοῦ σώματός ἐστι συμμετρία τῶν μελῶν καθεστώτων αὐτῷ πρὸς ἄλληλά τε καὶ πρὸς τὸ ὅλον, οὕτω καὶ τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς κάλλος ἐστὶ συμμετρία τοῦ λόγου καὶ τῶν μερῶν αὐτοῦ πρὸς ὅλον τε αὐτῆς καὶ πρὸς ἄλληλα). In view of these specific tenets we are cued to re-examine as primarily medical/physiological some of Seneca’s recurring tropes, which partake of architectural terminology. For instance, at Ir. 1.20.2 false magnanimity is presented as a building which lacks foundations and ultimately caves in:

|| 47 Cf. respectively SVF 1.218 and 3.278.

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Omnes, quos vecors animus supra cogitationes extollit humanas, altum quiddam et sublime spirare se credunt; ceterum nil solidi subest, sed in ruinam prona sunt quae sine fundamentis crevere. Non habet ira cui insistat. All whom frenzy of soul exalts to powers that are more than human believe that they breathe forth something lofty and sublime; but it rests on nothing solid, and whatever rises without a firm foundation is liable to fall. Anger has nothing on which to stand. (Transl. Gummere)

The meaning of the excerpt may be keyed to architectural illustrations, but this is because buildings like the human body owe their existence to a causa contentiva. Furthermore, a series of potential correlatives to the anatomical significance of the passage anticipates and prepares the final outcome of the ruina. Seneca calls false magnanimity a tumor,48 which he then explains as a copia vitiosi humoris (“a quantity of watery corruption”) responsible not for a healthy growth, but rather a pestilens abundantia (“a diseased excess”). The theme of architecture, articulated as either a form of vicious illness or structural health, is central also to both Ep. 55 and 86, where the two domus reference the ethical personas of Servilius Vatia and Scipio respectively. These texts are not directly connected with a medical take on rhetoric and the attendant tensional qualities of the ideal style. However, both epistles demonstrate, in the case of Vatia, the association of physical and moral decay to an equally negative space and, in the case of Scipio, the importance of healthy tensional qualities that both the man and his house present in common. The description of Vatia’s house is characterized by a pervasive symbolism of death which is signaled, for instance, by the garden’s ornamental planes, notoriously barren trees, or by the gloomy presence of the Archerisius stream, whose namesake is reminiscent of infernal Acheron.49 On the contrary, Ep. 86 is rich in terminological signposts referencing the ideal tonal tension. This is the case with the verbs stare and sustinere (Ep. 86.5– 7) applied to both the house and Scipio. Furthermore, the epistle crucially focuses on a specific room: the balenum. This is the space of the domus naturally keyed not only to the body and the cultum sui but also to the notion of temperature, a factor which proves crucial for the tonal health of both body and soul.50

|| 48 Cf. Ep. 87.35, where Seneca traces back the tumor illustration to Posidonius. On the pneumatic notion of tumor and its deployment by Seneca see Migliorini (1997) 45 and Bocchi (2011) 171–173. 49 See Schiesaro (1985) 212–213, Motto and Clark (1993) 118, Berno (2006) 174–231, Rosati (2002) 235–238. 50 See Gourinat (1996) 33–34 and Bénatouïl (2005) 21–25.

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6.3.2 Solidity and Style Even more conspicuous for tonal/pneumatic terminology informing simultaneously architectural and stylistic achievement is Ep. 114, a text which frames Maecenas’ style in gendered terms,51 terms that Seneca labels corrupti generis oratio (Ep. 114.1). This text presents three crucial passages in which style and architecture are seamlessly blended to become isomorphous with the description of the human body. At 114.7–8 Maecenas’ verba are qualified as improbe structa (“faultily assembled”), his compositional arrangement an ambages (“a maze”), and then his words are labeled as transversa and his sensus criticized because enervati (“nerveless”). Berti’s commentary thoroughly reveals a well-sedimented rhetorical background for each one of these expressions.52 In particular, the use of the verb struere is typically Ciceronian, with Orat. 149–151 being entirely devoted to the matter of the bene structa collocatio. However, both terms ambages and transversa reference physical hindrances and difficult mobility,53 with the final mention of the sensus enervati functioning almost as an explanatory gloss which is crucially centered on human anatomy. I suggest that, together with the traditional, Ciceronian theory of the structura compositionis, Seneca is here simultaneously heeding the need for the pneuma to find its unhindered, physiological space of movement, impossible in a setting characterized by ambages and transversa54 without which both physical health and stylistic balance cannot find a congenial outlet. It is not by chance that the central term here is sensus, on whose polysemic density we have already commented (cf. p. 214). This is the same emphasis on sensus we find at Ep. 114.11, where the stylistic defect of too elliptical a style corresponds to the action of ‘cutting’ or praecidere, a verbal form alliterating with the infinitive procidere “to crumble,” with which the paragraph comes to an end. The semantic common ground of the two forms is similar to what we have plotted for other medical illustrations. The “cutting” of the sensus corresponds to the abruptae sententiae of par. 1 or to the anputatae sententiae of par. 1755 and, as such, it stands out as an || 51 Cf. Graver (1998) and Gazzarri (2014). 52 See Berti (2018) 99–108. 53 Concerning verba transversa, Garbarino (1978) 221 avers that the phrase may in fact allude to verba translata. In this regard, what is transversum could be seen as a generation of the right use of metaphorical language. 54 The movement of the pneuma is traditionally described as a pulsation. A healthy pneumatic pulsation amounts to one’s general health. 55 Seneca imputes this stylistic fault mainly to Sallust and his imitators; cf. Leeman (1963) 276.

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effective example of aposiopesis.56 However, not only does “cutting,” together with “burning,” furnish a topical allusion to surgery (cf. p. 191), but the lack of free tonal flowing caused by “an amputated narration” may be keyed to the pneumatic association of good health with free, direct, and unhindered pneumatic pulsation.57 The form procidere, a compound of cado,58 conjures up the collapse of a building which, due to the failure of its causa contentiva, and very much like a body deprived of its tonos, is no longer endowed with sufficient hexis (or “cohesiveness”). The association of the poorly structured building with bad health and bad style becomes even more apparent towards the end of the epistle, where at paragraphs 23–23 physical drunkenness, a “drunk” style,59 and morbid modifications of one’s tonal tension all contribute to a prismatic and multifaceted description of the same phenomenon. Seneca argues that the oratio Maecenatis is but a consequence of his illness (a magno animi malo oritur). This is a kind of intoxication (ebrietas) which simultaneously involves one’s body (lingua titubat; mens cessit) and one’s oratorical style (ita ista orationis). In the same spirit, Seneca criticizes Maecenas’ style also at Ep. 19.9, where he calls it ebrius sermo. Beyond the localized case of Maecenas, ebrietas was a fairly common rhetorical operator, if Longinus Subl. 3.5 references parenthyrson (“pseudo-bacchanalian”) as the unrestrained register of an inebriated author (ὥσπερ ἐκ μέθης). Still concerning ebrietas, Ep. 83, a text which has received relatively little scholarly attention, provides valuable ground to support a pneumatic reading of drunkenness and of the attendant subtopic of solidity vs. fragility. In the first section epistle (83.9–17), Seneca notoriously dismisses Zeno’s

|| 56 Cf. Berti (2018) 125–126 but also Caranci Alfano (2016). 57 Cf. Migliorini (1997) 24–30 and Bocchi (2011) 112–120. According to pneumatic theory the free movement of the pneuma corresponds to good health (as signaled by the use of specific verbal forms such as perfluere, procedere and tendere). On the contrary, any tonal constraint results in morbid states (often described through the use of verbs like contrahere, languescere, inhibere, deicere). In fact, every significant modification of the pneuma’s pulsation both leads to and is a sign of a morbid state. For instance, at Q Nat. 6.14.2 an accelerated pulsation is associated to bad heath: Dum bona valetudo est, venarum quoque imperturbata mobilitas modum servat; ubi aliquid adversi est, micat crebrius et suspiria atque anhelitus laborantis ac fessi signa sunt. “But in our body the movement of the veins also preserves its rhythm undisturbed while there is good health but when there is something wrong the movement pulses more rapidly and inhaling and exhaling give signs of effort and exhaustion” (transl. Corcoran). 58 The verb is crucially relevant also for medical terminology, where it may indicate the displacement of a bodily part, a case of prolapse, or the movement of a newborn creature emerging from the mother’s womb; cf. ThlL X.II, 1528, 15–21. 59 Cf. Motto and Clark (1990).

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syllogism about the untrustworthiness of the drunk man60 then to transition to a more extensive commentary on drunkenness, which goes beyond the structuring of logical reasoning. At Ep. 83.18 Seneca first medicalizes drunkenness by calling it a voluntaria insania (“a voluntary insanity”) and then moves on to describe its nosology: when wine occupies the soul (possedit animum), it kindles (incendit)61 human vices which as a consequence are given free play (laxatur). This whole process, Seneca contends, bestializes the soul (efferat animos), a process which finds outlet, among various shameful things, in the drunkard’s staggering course (i.e. the impossibility of keeping a rectum tenorem). The idea that the human soul can be “occupied” or possessed by an external cause certainly owes much to Seneca’s skillful use of juridical language,62 but—as we have argued before—it is equally dependent on the materialistic conception of the mind qua physical space. In this regard, the expansive/filling quality of the pneuma is affected negatively by an external cause (excessive wine), which modifies and upsets the tension of the mind, here referenced both by the loss of a stable, erect station and the simultaneous bestializing of the individual. This last element is itself readable as a significant existential downgrade, since animals can attain both physis and psychê but do not possess logos (cf. p. 194). The overall fragility ensuing from this degrading state is thoroughly described at Ep. 83.21, where Seneca dwells on the destructive consequences of ebrietas: Adice illam ignorationem sui, dubia et parum explanata verba, incertos oculos, gradum errantem, vertiginem capitis, tecta ipsa mobilia velut aliquo turbine circumagente totam domum, stomachi tormenta, cum effervescit merum ac viscera ipsa distendit. Besides, we forget who we are, we utter words that are halting and poorly enunciated, the glance is unsteady, the step falters, the head is dizzy, the very ceiling moves about as if a cyclone were whirling the whole house, and the stomach suffers torture when the wine generates gas and causes our very bowels to swell. (Transl. Gummere)

|| 60 Most of the scholarship concerning this epistle has focused on Seneca’s critique of Zeno’s excessive quibbles and how in the specific case of the syllogism of the drunk man Seneca’s rebuttal may depend on a similar line of reasoning as that proposed by Philo of Alexandria; cf. Armisen-Marchetti (1996) 77, Richardson-Hay (2001) and Rivas Gil (2009). 61 It is of significance that Seneca devotes the initial paragraphs of the Epistle to commenting on his healthy habits of taking cold baths, a norm of hygiene accompanied by a frugal regimen and which ought to be contrasted with the inflammatory effects of ebrietas, lest we concede that the incipit of the letter bears little relation to the successive paragraphs. 62 On Seneca’s language of interiority based on juridical lore, see Traina (1974) 10–23 and, more recently, Lotito (2001).

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Ebrietas, which inflames the whole body and corrupts one’s style to the point of impairing the ability to speak, is here termed ignoratio sui,63 the ultimate cognitive defeat, and signified by a house shaken by a cyclone. The illustration of the domus powerfully channels the inadequacy of the “drunk style” and one’s bad health. Once again, the metaphor of the domus references the body and is medical in nature. This is also the case with a type of building other than the house: the city walls (defensa moenia) which, in the paragraph following the illustration of the cyclone, Seneca describes being besieged and conquered by ebrietas. This warfare setting conveniently ushers us into the next set of illustrations inherent to the body: military metaphors.

6.4 Vivere Militare Est Warfare troping is central to the rhetoric of Seneca’s letters. Metaphors based on the dialectic war/peace and attack/defense are applied both to the preaching of the philosophical message (the achievement of virtue is indeed a strife) and to the good style, which must be used to convey such teaching and which is therefore “weaponized.” War stands out as a brutalizing force and, at the same time, as the ultimate depiction of the proficiens’ most fundamental life experience. Whence the programmatic motto: vivere militare est (Ep. 96.5),64 which accords well with the Roman Stoic conception of philosophy as an ars, i.e. as a tight-knit combination of knowledge and action. In this regard only askêsis, the specific type of practice which eventually leads to ethical improvement, can facilitate true moral progress.65 Crucially, both military and gladiatorial metaphors inhere in the illustration of the human body insomuch as they portray it as mortal, strong or feeble, and intact or wounded.66 Such extreme and opposite illustrations are predicated on || 63 The phrase bears striking similarity (both syntactically and for its meaning) to the Lucretian expression repetentia nostri (DRN 3.847), whose disconnection (cum interrupta est) signifies the impossibility of one’s sensing anything about himself or his past once death sets in. 64 This idea, coming from the repertoire of the diatribe, is a typical motive of the Roman philosophical tradition; we find it also in Epictetus Diatr. 3.24.34: στρατεία τίς ἐστιν ὁ βίος and in Marcus Aurelius, 2.17: Ὁ δὲ βίος, πόλεμος. 65 Cf. Hadot (1981), who targets the notion of ἄσκησις according to four main conceptual categories: “apprendre à vivre,” “apprendre à dialoguer,” “apprendre à mourir,” “apprendre à lire.” 66 The human body’s perishable nature is often referenced in military terms. For instance, at Ep. 65.21 Seneca channels the Platonic conceit of the self as mancipium corporis into his own collection of warfare imagery. He maintains that Fortuna can only injure the mortal body, without reaching one’s free soul: Maior sum et ad maiora genitus, quam ut mancipium sim mei corporis,

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conceptual models that are equally extreme and opposite. On the one hand, the proficiens molds his moral expectations on the ideal of the warrior’s virile body; on the other hand, he is simultaneously alerted to the paltry nature of whatever is physical: the valiant miles’ body is also the locus of both potential wounds and low desires and as such it is destined to die.67 This bifold outlook on military illustrations results from a combination of the heroic Homeric ideal of the body and what is a more Socratic illustration thereof. In Greek archaic culture, the body is a vehicle of aretê, an element of social distinction and a tool for achieving aristocratic values. In this respect, kalokagathia notoriously stands out as an ideal that combines moral and physical virtues to the extent that it makes them almost undistinguishable. Stoicism conceptually exploits such positive consideration of one’s body’s strength, its muscularity, its being a weapon against adversity. But, at the same time, the Stoics favor what is a detached attitude towards the body, and this is a crucial component of their attempt to transfigure virtues traditionally attributed to the physical body into figures for the virtuous soul (in fact, itself a body no less physical than one’s corpus). One generation after Seneca, Epictetus crucially compares the body to a little donkey, of which one must be ready to let go.68 The sôma is but low machine for getting work done and something not worth fighting for. In case of some external threatening forces, it should be cheerfully released. || quod equidem non aliter aspicio quam vinclum aliquod libertati meae circumdatum. Hoc itaque oppono fortunae, in quo resistat, nec per illud ad me ullum transire vulnus sino. Quicquid in me potest iniuriam pati, hoc est. In hoc obnoxio domicilio animus liber habitat. “No, I am above such an existence; I was born to a greater destiny than to be a mere chattel of my body, and I regard this body as nothing but a chain which manacles my freedom. Therefore, I offer it as a sort of buffer to fortune, and shall allow no wound to penetrate through to my soul. For my body is the only part of me which can suffer injury. In this dwelling, which is exposed to peril, my soul lives free” (transl. Gummere). 67 This seems to be an everlasting element in military ethics, as shown in a work that compares the influence of Stoic ideals in modern context by Sherman (2005) 19–41. 68 Cf. Epictetus Diatr. 4.1.79–80: Ὅλον τὸ σῶμα οὕτως ἔχειν σε δεῖ ὡς ὀνάριον ἐπισεσαγμένον, ἐφ’ ὅσον ἂν οἷόν τε ᾖ, ἐφ’ ὅσον ἂν διδῶται· ἂν δ’ ἀγγαρεία ᾖ καὶ στρατιώτης ἐπιλάβηται, ἄφες, μὴ ἀντίτεινε μηδὲ γόγγυζε. εἰ δὲ μή, πληγὰς λαβὼν οὐδὲν ἧττον ἀπολεῖς καὶ τὸ ὀνάριον. ὅταν δὲ πρὸς τὸ σῶμα οὕτως ἔχειν σε δέῃ, ὅρα, τί ἀπολείπεται περὶ τὰ ἄλλα, ὅσα τοῦ σώματος ἕνεκα παρασκευάζεται. ὅταν ἐκεῖνο ὀνάριον ᾖ, τἆλλα γίνεται χαλινάρια τοῦ ὀναρίου, σαγμάτια, ὑποδημάτια, κριθαί, χόρτος. ἄφες κἀκεῖνα, ἀπόλυε θᾶττον καὶ εὐκολώτερον ἢ τὸ ὀνάριον. “You ought to treat your whole body like a poor loaded-down donkey, as long as it is possible, as long as it is allowed; and if it be commandeered and a soldier lay hold of it, let it go, do not resist nor grumble. If you do, you will get a beating and lose your little donkey just the same. But when this is the way in which you should act as regards the body, consider what is left for you to do about all the other things that are provided for the sake of the body. Since the body is a little donkey, the other things become little bridles for a little donkey, like pack-saddles, little shoes,

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To be sure, the militarization of human psychology is a process which can be traced back at least to Plato and which Cicero fully appropriates, likely through and after Panaetius’ intervention. Crucially, for Seneca, Sextius heeded Cicero’s Tusculanae as the ideal trait d’union between, on the one hand, the old Platonic and Stoic traditions and, on the other, the Roman values of the mos maiorum.69 Seneca’s war-troping therefore stems from a well-sedimented set of philosophical and literary traditions.70 In particular, his military figurations are indebted to the Sextii school and its founder, Q. Sestius, who emphasized the notion of robur: a signifier of strength and moral solidity.71 What is remarkable about Seneca’s warfare troping is precisely the combination of a rich multilayered tradition of which the Sestian preaching represents but the most recent phase with the pneumatic description of human physiology, a specifically Stoic and Roman trait. My contention is that Seneca’s military tropes, while tapping into traditional warfare imagery, simultaneously reference the functioning of the human body and, most crucially, those bodily function which govern one’s acquisition of knowledge. If, as I hope to demonstrate, this interpretation is coherent with Seneca’s protreptic message, then at least some of his numerous warfare metaphors are medical in nature, not simply because they may occasionally account for the physical suffering of the human body, but insomuch as they crucially describe

|| and barley, and fodder. Let them go too, get rid of them more quickly and cheerfully than of the little donkey itself” (transl. Oldfather). 69 A history of the human psychology warfare tropes can be found in Lévy (2008) and ArmisenMarchetti (2011) 72–73. In particular, Plato Resp. 559a–561a describes the individual acting inside the democratic πόλις and fighting against bad desires, while Cicero, especially throughout Tusc. 2, insists on the hierarchical order by which affectus must obey one’s reason. As for the Stoics, since moral bettering consisted in gradually taking control of fears and excessive passions, this agonistic process was itself an internal act of war and conquest, which concerned first and foremost the mastering of propositional contents and the attendant achievement of the most congruous judgment. 70 For the diatribic motif of moral bettering as a military endeavor, cf. Weber (1895) 136, 178, and Oltramare (1926) 56. For the analysis of the philosophical tradition backing Seneca’s metaphors on war, see Busch (1961), André (1966), Traina (1974) 67–68, Lavery (1980), and, more recently, Armisen-Marchetti (1989) 76–79, 81–82, 94–97, 123–124, 130–131, (2011), Mazzoli (1991), Galimberti (2001), Sommer (2001) and (2002), and Lévy (2008). 71 On the Sextii, Cf. Lana (1953) 209–234, (1992) 109–124, Ferrero (1955) 360–378, Griffin (1976) 36–43, Manning (1981) 16–17, and Fillion-Lahille (1984) 256–257. At Q Nat. 7.32.3 Seneca defines the Sextii school as: Sextiorum nova et Romani roboris secta, “The new sect of the Sextii, made up of truly Roman vigour” (transl. Corcoran), and at Ep. 59.7 he writes: Sextium ecce cum maxime lego, virum acrem, Graecis verbis, Romanis moribus philosophantem. “For example, I am at this very moment reading Sextius; he is a keen man and a philosopher who, though he writes in Greek, has the Roman standard of ethics” (transl. Gummere).

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the functioning of one’s cognitive processes and, in so doing, account for a style conducive to this process. Ep. 59.7–8 is a fundamental text for the study of the representation of the philosopher as a soldier. Here Seneca heeds and comments on Sextius’ teachings: Movit me imago ab illo posita: ire quadrato agmine exercitum, ubi hostis ab omni parte suspectus est, pugnae paratum. ‘Idem’ inquit ‘sapiens facere debet: omnes virtutes suas undique expandat, ut ubicumque infesti aliquid orietur, illic parata praesidia sint et ad nutum regentis sine tumultu respondeant’. Quod in exercitibus iis, quos imperatores magni ordinant, fieri videmus, ut imperium ducis simul omnes copiae sentiant, sic dispositae, ut signum ab uno datum peditem simul equitemque percurrat: hoc aliquanto magis necessarium esse nobis ait. Illi enim saepe hostem timuere sine causa, tutissimumque illis iter quod suspectissimum fuit: nihil stultitia pacatum habet. Tam superne illi metus est quam infra. Utrumque trepidat latus. Secuntur pericula et occurrunt. Ad omnia pavet, inparata est et ipsis terretur auxiliis. Sapiens autem ad omnem incursum munitus, intentus, non si paupertas, non si luctus, non si ignominia, non si dolor impetum faciat, pedem referet. Interritus et contra illa ibit et inter illa. One of his similes appealed especially to me, that of an army marching in hollow square, in a place where the enemy might be expected to appear from any quarter ready for battle. “This,” said he, “is just what the wise man ought to do; he should have all his fighting qualities deployed on every side, so that wherever the attack threatens, there his support may be ready to hand and may obey the captain’s command without confusion.” This is what we notice in armies which serve under great leaders; we see how all the troops simultaneously understand their general’s orders, since they are so arranged that the sign given by one man passes down the ranks of cavalry and infantry at the same moment. This, he declares, is still more necessary for men like ourselves; for soldiers have often feared an enemy without reason, and the march which they thought more dangerous has in fact been most secure; but folly brings no repose; fear hunts it both in the van and in the rear of the column, and both flanks are in a panic. Folly is pursued, and confronted, by panic. It blenches at everything; it is unprepared; it is frightened even by auxiliary troops. But the wise man is fortified against all inroads; he is alert; he will not retreat before the attack of poverty, or of sorrow, or of disgrace, or of pain. He will walk undaunted both against them and among them. (Transl. Gummere)

The expression quadrato agmine ire is commonly found in the historians.72 Apart from Sextius, Seneca is the only philosopher to make use of it in his work.73

|| 72 In particular we find it 10 times in Livy (2.6.5, 7.29.6, 10.14.7, 21.32.1, 21.57.7, 35.3.2, 36.10.4, 39.30.9, 44.9.6 and fr. in cod palimps. Vat. ser. 91 p. 9.39), twice in Sallust (Iug. 100.1, Hist. reliq. fr. 7.20), and twice in Curtius Rufus (5.1.18, 5.13.10). On the phrase quadrato agmine as a stylistic signpost in, see also Wilson (1997) 64. 73 Henderson (2004) observes the proximity of this expression with lapide quadrato at Ep. 86.4, where the ablative of instrument describes the solidity of Scipio’s (crucially a victorious general) villa at Liternum. The solidity of the man’s abode references here his moral solidity (cf. p. 133).

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Around the illustration of the “hollow square,” he develops a very articulate description of the effective military maneuver, which is ultimately characterized by the timeliest synergy of an army’s various components. This battle scene, however, is predicated on specific medical terminology, which simultaneously alludes to and describes the functioning of human physiology. Admittedly, Langslow has analyzed a number of semantic extensions from various fields which, over time, have contributed to the forging of a specific Latin medical terminology (particularly so for Celsus and Scribonius).74 Warfare constitutes a conspicuous field of semantic export, to the point that one could safely relate the excerpt from Ep. 59 to this larger and well attested phenomenon of sematic appropriation. However, Seneca’s own repurposing of warfare imagery in order to reference the human body only confirms that the above passage can be read also as a description of human physiology and, as such, it paves the way to a pneumatic interpretation of the battle scene. To begin with, the selection of the verb orior, which describes a potential danger (aliquid infesti), immediately couches the imminent battle in terms of the onset of a physical condition. The use of orior and/or origo is in fact paramount among Latin medical writers to describe the triggering symptoms of a developing disease.75 As a consequence, in the rest of the scene, Seneca touches on a sound body’s appropriate set of reactions to a potential morbid state. The hêgemonikon plays, as it should, a central directive role and, if the illustration of the general/king (ad nutum regentis) is traditionally Stoic,76 the specific emphasis on the physiology of the various parts’ bodily reactions owes much both to the Stoic notion of the tonal states and to the attendant pneumatic theory of the causes. Virtue is supposed quite literally to “expand” (expandere), a term utilized also to describe the mechanical counterreaction to what the Stoics, Chrysippus in particular, term meiôsis or “depression,” which is intended as the coming about into the soul of a shrinking movement consequent to a painful input.77 The illustration of the army preparing for a potential danger therefore simultaneously furnishes

|| 74 Cf. Langslow (2000) 146–205. 75 Celsus alone presents more than 100 instances of such use. 76 Cf. Ep. 107.9–10: Malus miles est qui imperatorem gemens sequitur. Quare inpigri atque alacres excipiamus. “It is a bad soldier who grumbles when following his commander. For this reason, we should welcome our orders with energy and vigour” (transl. Gummere). 77 Cf. SVF 3.463: Tήν τε γὰρ λύπην ὁριζόμενος μείωσιν εἶναί φησιν ἐπὶ φευκτῷ δοκοῦντι ὑπάρχειν, την θ’ ἡδονὴν ἔπαρσιν ἐφ’ αἱρετῷ δοκοῦντι ὑπάρχειν. “[Chrysippus] defines pain as a depression following an impression which is judged as to be avoided, on the contrary pleasure as a raising movement determined by an item which is judged worth to be chosen” (transl. Gazzarri). On this specific Chrysippean tenet, see Pigeaud (2006) 265.

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a commentary on the physical soul, which, with its expansion, preventively counterbalances what would otherwise be the inward sinking-reaction determined by pain. The remainder of Seneca’s description obeys the same logic. First, he mentions twice the governing action of the commander in chief (whom he terms respectively imperator and dux) and then he insists on the fact that (1) the soldiers simultaneously understand a given order (simul omnes copiae sentiant) and (2) that they are disposed in a way so that (sic dispositae) an order simultaneously spreads through (percurrere) the cavalry and the infantry. If we account for this last statement as a simple description of a battle scene, then (2) appears almost redundant, or at best a clarification of (1). On the contrary, if we posit that the meaning of these two illustrations be keyed to a medical and pneumatic description of the body then (1) and (2) account for two distinct physiological phases of the organism’s functioning. More to the point, the understanding of the general’s order, i.e. the first illustration, is signified by the phrase simul sentire and accounts for the reception of the hêgemonikon’s input, while the second illustration shifts the focus on what is tellingly termed signum and on its mode of transmission/diffusion: i.e. percurrere. If description (1) heeds the notion of causa contentiva whereby the diffusion of the pneuma cannot but seamlessly inform and affect the whole organism, description (2) charts the specific tenets of a given cognitive content’s perception by and delivery through an organism as a whole. Lastly, towards the end of the paragraph Seneca suggests that this series of warfare-themed scenes is but a representation of the sapiens’ ideal disposition. The wise man ought to be munitus and intentus, with the second attribute functioning almost as an explanatory gloss of the first one. In this connection, this passage propounds a crucial equivalence between being “safe” or “well-defended” and the condition of the ideal pneumatic tension, a notion that the adjective intentus unequivocally conjures up.78

|| 78 On the Senecan use of intentio and intentus to reference the soul’s tensional qualities, cf. Bellincioni (1978) 140–147. Intentus works here as a transliteration of the Greek ἔντονος which could interchangeably designate tendons, nerves, and muscles. Already Plato Ti. 84e2–7 describes the function of these bodily parts as one of cohesion and connection, and in this regard both Hahm (1977) 70 and Togni (2010) 128–129 hypothesize that the Stoics might have looked at this specific Platonic use of ἔντονος to describe the all-encompassing cohesiveness of the universe.

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Cleanthes insists precisely on the association of physical tension with heroic exemplarity and utilizes the overlapping of these two levels of signification to explain Heracles’ function. The passage (SVF 1.514), which for its allegorical content has been transmitted by Cornutus ND 31,79 bears quoting extensively: Ἡρακλῆς δ’ ἐστὶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς ὅλοις τόνος, καθ’ ὃν ἡ φύσις ἰσχυρὰ καὶ κραταιά ἐστιν, ἀνίκητος καὶ ἀπεριγένητος οὖσα, μεταδοτικὸς ἰσχύος καὶ τοῖς κατὰ μέρος καὶ ἀλκῆς ὑπάρχων. […] καὶ τοξότης δ’ ἂν ὁ θεὸς παρεισάγοιτο κατά τε τὸ πανταχοῦ διϊκνεῖσθαι καὶ κατὰ τὸ ἔντονόν παρεισάγοιτο κατά τε τὸ πανταχοῦ διϊκνεῖσθαι καὶ κατὰ τὸ ἔντονόν τι ἔχειν καὶ τὴν τῶν βελῶν φοράν. Heracles represents the universal tension thanks to which nature is strong and solid, and invincible and insuperable, insomuch as it can communicate these strength and vigor also to the other parts. […] And the god may be represented as an archer because the arrows’ movement can reach any place and has something which is tense. (Transl. Gazzarri)

That fact that Heracles represents one of the most compelling cultural paradigms of military virtues does not warrant demonstration.80 What is remarkable about Cleanthes’ comment is the unequivocal association between, on the one side, the demigod’s traditional warfare attribute (the bow) and physical features (framed as simultaneously individual and cosmic), and on the other specific tensional qualities. Heracles’ body instances the perfectly tense body of the universe and, as a consequence, everybody’s body. Admittedly, the passage presents one major textual issue as the initial word τόνος is actually part of both Von Arnim’s and Wehrli’s text, vs. the reading λόγος, preferred both by Lang and Schmidt.81 In the case of the reading λόγος, the translation of the fragment’s first sentence would be “Heracles then is the reason present in all things.” The difficulty of the problem at stake resides in the fact that the logos and its optimal tensional quality are both related to the material nature of the former, with the consequence that the difference in meaning provided by the two different readings is

|| 79 Schmidt (1913) 89 doubts that the entire text quoted by Cornutus may be attributed to Cleanthes. 80 Heracles also stands out as one main paradigm for the Stoic sage; cf. Hoïstad (1948) 22–73, Grimal (1953) 37–38, Stanford (1954) 125–127, Bogun (1968) 109–112, Galinski (1972) 101–125, Setaioli (2000) 194, Montiglio (2011) 66–94, and Berno (2018) 87–88. 81 Cf. Wehrly (1928) 78, Lang (1881) ad loc., and Schmidt (1913) 89. Plutarch De Is. et Os. 40.367c (=SVF 2.1093) provides ground for τόνος (instead of λόγος): Tὸ πληκτικὸν δὲ καὶ διαιρετικὸν Ἡρακλέα, τὸ δὲ δεκτικὸν Ἄμμωνα “[The Stoics maintain] that Heracles is the one who hits and distinguishes, while Amun is the one receiving” (transl. Gazzarri). This passage, while offering a tensional interpretation of cognition, simultaneously stresses the identity between λόγος and its optimal τόνος.

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minimal. More important, however, is that the association of the archetypical figure of Heracles with the logos’ tensional qualities confirms that the illustration of the intentio, around which many of the warfare illustrations revolve, is compatible with the referencing of one’s body’s pneumatic balance. This is to say, the heroic warrior functions as a description of the healthy body. Furthermore, because both advisor and advisee equally proceed on the path of wisdom, optimal tension stands out not only as the proficiens’ ideal target but also as the desired expressive quality of the master’s style. Seneca clearly underscores this necessity at Helv. 4.1: Constitui enim vincere dolorem tuum, non circumscribere. Vincam autem, puto, primum si ostendero nihil me pati, propter quod ipse dici possim miser. I have determined to conquer your grief, not to dupe it. And too I shall conquer it, I think, if, in the first place, I show that there is nothing in my condition that could cause anyone to call me wretched. (Transl. Basore)

Two verbal infinitives, vincere and ostendere, syntactically parallel each other, with ostendere being a necessary pre-requisite for victory and the positive culmination of every military campaign.82 But ostendere both defines a stylistic quality and imputes a tensional ideal to its object, thus suggesting, that (1) the performative quality of language is not an accessory, but rather is paramount, and (2) that tension is a conceptual and rhetorical operator, which Seneca purposely deploys to illustrate the heroic body and the ideal style as reciprocal appurtenances. This overlapping of stylistic ideals with warfare imagery and the description of the body comes to the fore also at Ep. 64.3, another text where Seneca tackles Sextus’ writings and describes their beneficial effects: In qua positione mentis sim, cum hunc lego, fatebor tibi: libet omnis casus provocare, libet exclamare: “Quid cessas, fortuna? Congredere; paratum vides.” Illius animum induo, qui quaerit, ubi se experiatur, ubi virtutem suam ostendat. I shall acknowledge to you the state of mind I am in when I read his works: I want to challenge every hazard; I want to cry: “Why keep me waiting, Fortune? Enter the lists! Behold, I am ready for you!” I assume the spirit of a man who seeks where he may make trial of himself, where he may show his worth. (Transl. Gummere)

Reading Sextius’ works, Seneca avers, affects the mind and its positio, a term which can be taken as ‘disposition,’ but whose primary meaning is the one of || 82 For an analysis of the consolations conceived as a war against sorrow, cf. Ficca (2001) 169– 180.

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physical ‘position.’ Sextius’ words thus contribute to the surging of an agonistic spirit ready to battle against fortune.83 This new attitude is consequential to a physical metamorphosis,84 whereby one can clothe himself with Sextius’ spirit and, as such, give proof of virtue and reach an exemplary tensional state (ostendere). Moral progress entails a metamorphosis to be intended as a change in physical state of the material soul, and this transformation pertains to the mind’s pneumatic tension.85 Additionally, the notion of duritia allows for a seamless connection between warfare and architectural metaphors qua functional illustrations of human physiology. Ep. 74.19 contains a long military-themed tirade remiscent of a general’ s harangue, if only for the tenor of the many exhortative subjuntive forms. In it Seneca invites to build a fortification, a rampart against fate. Nullus autem contra fortunam inexpugnabilis murus est: intus instruamur. Si illa pars tuta est, pulsari homo potest, capi non potest. But no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defenses. If the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured. (Transl. Gummere)

This short excerpt is remarkable in many respects. First, the military-like exhortation is here almost indistinguishable from the tone of a street harangue typical

|| 83 This battling spirit which permeates Seneca’s oeuvre is well described by Sommer (2008) 638: “Die Stoa ist also im Verständnis des Sextius (und des Seneca) eine Philosophie der permanenten Mobilmachung – und zwar der Mobilmachung gegen die Anfeindungen des Schicksals, die überall lauern, insbesondere da, wo man sie am wenigsten erwartet hätte.” 84 The use of the verb induere to signify the taking of a new shape as if it were a new garment is typical of the Ovidian descriptions of metamorphoses; cf. Met. 1.88, 2.425, 2.850, 8.854, 11.179, 11.203; see also ThlL VII.1, 1263, 38–83. 85 Tension is elsewhere defined as a form of duritia. This is the case, for instance, with a passage from Prov. 4.11–12 where Seneca describes the harsh educational method made of physical hardship, and even lashing, that the Spartans use with their children. Lacedemonian fathers encourage their children to bear the ictus flagellorum (“the blows of the whip”), a phrase reminiscent of the ictus doloris and ictus animi: two expression which, as argued above (cf. pp. 195–198), demonstrate the functional synergy that Seneca establishes between pain and cognition. This agonistic training, if applied to the cases of life, makes it possible for the proficiens to be “hardened by fortune” (ab ipsa duremur) and to reject de-structuring mollitia as antithetic to virtue’s gendered but also physical standard: Numquam virtutis molle documentum est. “No evidence of virtue is ever soft” (transl. Gazzarri).

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of the diatribical tradition.86 Secondly, Seneca’s proposition is purposely paradoxical (a typical Stoic trait) in its affirming that no rampart can resist Fortuna and that therefore one should build a fortification precisely to repel Fortuna. The key to the paradox resides in the spiritual nature of the only effective line of defense. The motif of the inner citadel is a fundamental tenet of Stoic philosophy, and it crucially pertains to both cognition and psychology.87 What the inviolability of this spiritual acropolis truly signifies is that the interaction with what is other from us (and which can potentially be harmful) occurs through, and only through, the hêgemonikon’s adjudication of propositional content. The good health of this most important directive component of one’s material soul amounts to health tout-court and to ultimate inviolability. To refer to a much-discussed passage from Chrysippus, a cylinder may receive an external impulse which sets it in movement, but its rolling motion is determined by its own cylindrical nature, not by the external impulse.88 This metaphor references the dichotomy between external and internal causes and calls attention to the role of free will within such system of causes. However, in reference to what the human soul’s specific motion is, we have already discussed the description furnished by the pneumatics. The human soul, a vital pneuma, contracts and expands when reacting to the contents provided by external inputs. The human soul “breaths,” and this movement corresponds to an adjudicating moment of cognition. The focus of this chapter has been on the centrality of human physiology for Seneca’s figural language. Pneumatic theory provides both an anatomical application for the Stoic description of tensional states and a universal unit of measurement applicable to a man’s body, to his style, and to nature with its many phenomena. This allows for the creation of a descriptive gambit, hinging on the

|| 86 On the coexistence of multiple stylistic layers in Seneca’s work, cf. Williams (2015). 87 On this topic cf. the fundamental contribution by Hadot (19972) 123–144. 88 Cf. SVF 2.974: ‘Ut igitur,’ inquit, ‘qui protrusit cylindrum dedit ei principium motionis, volubilitatem autem non dedit, sic visum obiectum imprimet illud quidem et quasi signabit in animo suam speciem, sed assensio nostra erit in potestate, eaque, quemadmodum in cylindro dictum est, extrinsecus pulsa quod reliquum est suapte vi et natura movebitur’. ‘‘‘In the same way therefore,’ he says, ‘as a person who has pushed a roller forward has given it a beginning of motion, but has not given it the capacity to roll, so a sense-presentation when it impinges will it is true impress and as it were seal its appearance on the mind, but the act of assent will be in our power, and as we said in the case of the roller, though given a push from without, as to the rest will move by its own force and nature’” (transl. Rackham).

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expressible potential of metaphorical language, which could instantiate the standard of a virtuous style by means of virtuous images and also allows for the education of the virtuous man precisely because all these three domains could be ultimately broken down to their sound tensional components. This unifying interpretational key allows for a more organic assessment of Seneca’s groups of illustrations, otherwise discouragingly vast in their variety. It is certainly legitimate (and useful) to trace back the literary and philosophical tradition of each different category of illustrations, but it is equally legitimate and interesting to look for a common interpretational ground which Stoic materialism fully provides. Thus, even the house and the hardship of war, two fields of figuration hardly assimilable, reveal their common semantic logic: the vital breath of a thinking mind.

Epilogue The main thrust of this study has been to investigate Seneca’s deployment of metasemes, with specific attention to his theory and practice of metaphors. It is precisely the practice of what Seneca never overtly theorizes that allows for a systematic description of his otherwise purposely designed strategy of illustration. Unlike Cicero, who distances himself from the notion that metaphors are germane to the way we acquire knowledge, Seneca fully embraces the Aristotelian cognitive take on figural language, a crucial fact that has been egregiously equivocated by many interpreters, both ancient and modern, and which has led to the common opinion of Aristotle as the father of rhetorical objectivism and of Seneca as the most shrewd manipulator of the orator’s tools of the trade. That Seneca was a consummate connoisseur of the many techniques taught in the schools of rhetoric is little surprising; however, the present book has shown that his fragmented quasi-aphoristic take on Latin prose cannot be seen as a simple matter of taste—something quintessentially anti-Ciceronian. Rather, it obeys the rules of an ad hoc philosophical project. Many of Seneca’s sententiae are organized around metaphorical units of variable complexity, which are meant to promote incrementally the parenetic discourse’s visual appeal. This extreme interrelation between and mutual dependence of res and verba is indeed a masterstroke for Seneca. In fact, the syntactical fragmentation of the argument is true to the Stoic spirit of “anti-rhetoric:” a prose that, if only it could, would “show” instead of “narrate.” However, because these fragmented modules sport such evidentia, they also manage to bypass the main defect canonically imputed by Cicero to the school of the porch: obscuritas. This conceptual overlapping of what can be seen with what can be said has cued us to analyze the role that vision and the human senses play in Seneca’s deployment of metaphorical content. A first finding concerns what I termed the passage “from metaphor to metaphors,” which is to say the selection of a series of visual and sensory effects that are achieved by assembling multiple metaphors. In other words, there are various combinatory patterings that Seneca purposely pursues in order to achieve a menagerie of effects, which include synaesthetic stimulations. The latter, in accordance with the Platonic tradition, promote a higher level, all-encompassing knowledge of sorts. The second finding pertains to the close connection of metaphors (both what they are based on, and what they effect) with the human body’s functioning and its multiple layers of reactions. More specifically, I have shown how the Stoic theory of cognition and the notion of phantasia, because of their being predicated

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  Epilogue on radical material grounds, allow for the reading of figural language as a material instrument: the writer’s stylus simultaneously operates as a surgeon’s scalpel. In this connection, the theory of pre-emotions offers valuable theoretical ground for assessing how images, if purposely channeled, and even when conjuring up events that are materially not “in the moment,” can nonetheless affect the body, which physically reacts and responds to them. What is perhaps more interesting is that one can learn how to recognize such reactions and assess them for what they truly are: often trivial matters or, in the best-case scenario, ethically indifferent objects. This judgment of propositional content is at the core of Stoic moral training, and metaphors enable Seneca to strengthen his pupil vicariously, and even himself. Because figural language targets the human body and is apt to elicit propatheiai, medical culture furnishes an effective interpretational frame for couching philosophy as medical not only for the traditional assimilation of the philosopher as a doctor of moral ailments, but also in a more localized, materialistic, and lesspopularized sense. More specifically, Seneca organizes his figurations around some key medical notions, largely steeped in pneumatic lore, such as tonal tension, pneumatic contractions, and the positive/positivist acknowledgment of pain’s cognitive value. This angle of analysis allows for a new, unitary assessment of Seneca’s metaphorical repertoire, as well as for an important update in the study and categorization of his figural system. Indeed, it has been common practice in the last century of Senecan studies to divide up Seneca’s metaphors by category. Thence the traditional subdivision in plastic arts-drawn metaphors, metaphors related to sea-faring, warfare, gladiatorial games, traveling, physical affections, and so on. That this imagery belongs to well-attested literary and philosophical traditions (from theatre to the so-called diatribe) has certainly encouraged this modus operandi of thematic subdivisions. However, part of this approach’s longue durée is to be imputed to an inability to identify a unifying organizing criterion. This criterion, I believe, consists of Seneca’s ceaseless description and manipulation of the souls’ tensional states and qualities. Even two classes of figuration apparently bearing no relation to pneumatic theory, i.e. architecture and warfare, can in fact claim membership in the super-ordinate group of the medical/tensional tropes. Speaking of buildings and besieged cities is but a way to reference the human body, its affections, conditions, and optimal states. Admittedly, it may be objected that I have limited my analysis only to two specific categories: architecture and warfare; it does not matter how apparently unrelated to the medical field. One could argue these sample cases do not warrant the applicability of the same hermeneutic frame to different metaphorical fields.

Epilogue  

In other words, what can be said of buildings and armies would not necessarily apply to seafaring, or pottery, or food-centered metaphors, just to mention a few of the most recurring among Seneca’s vehicles. There is certainly room to test a more wide-ranging application of my approach. Nonetheless, the evidence presented here, both from the Stoic theorization of the tensional states and from the attendant notion of health according to the Pneumatic lore, provide solid ground for my results. In conclusion, Seneca’s deployment of figural language conforms to a deliberate strategy, which is predicated on the master’s duty to intervene surgically on his disciple’s cognitive abilities and, ultimately, on his soul. The stylus operates like a sharp scalpel which can cure through pain and which frames any moral progress as the positive outcome of a constructive relation between the master/doctor and the disciple/patient. Seneca teaches us that language and social relations are insolubly attached; and so are language and representation. Through the bewildering variety of his tropes, he literally informs the mind of his reader and progressively educates his sight. Far from being mere ornamentations, Seneca’s metaphors present crucial content to the mind; they reference the complexity of the cosmos, bypass the limits of human narration, and summon all senses toward the assimilation of the hardest ethical lessons. Ultimately, while teaching about it, Seneca’s metaphors instantiate the union and consubstantiality of words and reality: logos.

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Index Rerum Abusio cf. Katachrêsis Active and passive principles cf. To paschon and to poioun Aisthêsis 77–78, 178 Allegory and allegoresis 130–143 Amputation cf. Surgery Architecture 211–222 Ars / Technê 152–156 Asclepiades of Bithynia 127 n. 5, 175 Brevitas 25–28, 32–34, 41–50 Caesar's style 28, 203 Cato the Elder 44–51, 96 n. 20, 128 n. 7, 178, 194 n. 62, 203 n. 13 Cauterizing cf. Surgery Cicero –and allegories 134–138 –and Aristotle 25–26 –and metaphor 27–31 –and Stoic rhetoric 33–34, 197–198 Conceptual blending cf. Fauconnier and Turner Conduit Metaphor 60 n. 17 Decomposition and Analogy 63–67, 103– 104, 106 Ebrietas 36, 220–222 Enargeia / Enarges 42, 46–47, 85, 101– 102, 106–118, 139, 198, 139 Epiphora 18–20, 25–26 Fauconnier and Turner – Theory of 127– 130 Gestatio 127, 172 Heraclitus 32–33, 124, 147 Hypsos 102–103, 113–119, 218, 220 Ira 94–95 Katachrêsis 21 n. 6, 29–30, 123 Kyrion onoma 18–22 Laconism 32 Lakoff and Johnson – Theory of 60–63, 69, 201 Lallatio cf. Gestatio Lekton / Lekta 72–75 Lucius Annaeus Cornutus 138 Maecenas 35–36, 219–220 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-010

Medicus amicus 178–183 Meditatio 62–63, 85, 94–95, 109, 145, 173 Metaphor –and Aristotle 18–26 –and pleasure 24–26 –and simile 20–25, 53–59 –Comparative theory of 56–58 –Conceptual-cognitive theory of cf. Lakoff and Johnson – Theory of –Interactive theory of 58–59 –Substitutive theory of 53–56 Metonymy 2, 5, 18 n. 3, 54, 57, 133 Origin of language 69–71, 137 n. 26 Panaetius 38–40, 42–43, 48–49, 96 n. 19, 101, 111 n. 49, 137, 205, 224 Papirius Fabianus 36–40 Phantasia 22–23, 68, 75–59, 83, 85–87, 95, 102–104, 113–116, 124, 233 Phantasma 78, 87 Phantastikon 78 Pneuma –and scala naturae 207–208 –and tonos 83–89, 101, 146–156, 166 n. 82, 175, 196 n. 65, 197, 200–211, 216–221, 227–232 –as an octopus 166 n. 82 –as fire 112 n. 51, 146–148, 156, Pneumatism – causes of morbidity 208– 211 Polylalia cf. Ebrietas Posidonius 40–42, 90 n. 8, 99, 101, 109– 111, 137–138, 182, 205–206, 213 n. 37, 218 n. 48 Praecepta and Decreta 96–101, 125, 165– 167 Praemeditatio cf. Meditatio Propatheiai 86–95, 99–101, 196, 210– 211 Ptoia / Ptôsis 101 Publius Rutilius Rufus 26 n. 16, 47–49 Quintilian –and allegory 134–135, 138 –and metaphor 29–30 Rage cf. Ira

  Index Rerum Reddy Michael cf. Conduit metaphor Scabies 193–194 Sculpture cf. Statue Sextii – School of 174, 205 n. 20, 224– 225, 229–230 Sight – theories of 81–82 Socrates / Socratism 40–51, 157, 173 n. 7, 178, 187 n. 52, 199, 200, 223 Statue / Sculpted self 150–156 Stomer Mattheus IX fig. 1, 1 Sublime cf. Hypsos Surgery 57, 171, 191–198 Synecdoche 2, 18 n. 3

Synesthesia 11, 71, 105, 157–169 Synkatathesis 77–78 Syntomia cf. Brevitas Three movements (Seneca's) 88 n. 5, 101 To paschon and to poioun 150 n. 59 Tonos 147–150 Tralatio cf. Metaphor Typôsis 75–76 Virgilian quotations in Seneca 115 n. 60, 139 Visual reader 109–118, 106, 156, 165 Warfare 222–232

Index Locorum ALEXANDER APHRODISIENSIS Mixt. 10.224 Mixt. 225.3–10

149 n. 55 148 n. 52

ARISTOTELES De an. 2.5.416b–417b9 De an. 2.6.418a–12.424b De an. 2.10.422a8 De an. 2.11.423b26 De an. 3.3.429a1 De an. 3.12.434b.12–20 Gen. an. 1.731a34–35 Gen. Corr. 1.6.322b22–24 Mem. 1.450a17–30 Mem. 1.450a27–30 Part. an. 651a Part. an. 670a Poet. 1447a13–16 Poet. 1449b23–28 Poet. 1450b34–1451a6 Poet. 1457b1–3 Poet. 1457b9–10 Poet. 1457b25–30 Poet. 1458a23–28 Poet. 1459a3–8 Poet. 1459a20–21 Rh. 1386a29–35 Rh. 1405b8–12 Rh. 1405b16–20 Rh. 1410b11–15 Rh. 1410b18–21

82 n. 84 164 n. 77 159 n. 72 165 n. 79 77 n. 70 160 163 164 76 76 n. 68 147 n. 50 147 n. 50 80 n. 81 187 n. 52 200 n. 2 18 20f. 20 n. 5 19 23 200 n. 2 22 n. 11 22 21 24 24

AUGUSTINUS Dial. 6.9 Dial. 6.10

70, 71 n. 48 71 n. 49

CASSIUS DIO 59.19.8

172

CATO MAJOR Agr. 5.7 Agr. 21 Agr. 58

194 n. 62 46 n. 69 46 n. 69

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110673715-011

Agr. 108.2 Agr. fr. 10 Jordan Marc. fr. 1 Jordan Or. fr. 40.1 Jordan

128 n. 7 46 n. 69 44 n. 64, 178 n. 33 203 n. 13

CELSUS Med. pr. 1–2 Med. pr. 4–7 Med. 1 pr. 73 Med. 2.15.3 Med. 5.24 Med. 5.28 Med. 7 pr. 4

174 n. 11 174 n. 11 179 n. 36 127 n. 5 195 n. 64 194 n. 61 192 n. 57

CICERO Acad. post. 1.41 Acad. Pr. 2.12.38 Acad. Pr. 2.17 Acad. Pr. 2.95 Acad. Pr. 2.145 Att. 15.1.1 Br. 32 Br. 65 Br. 113–114 Br. 262 De or. 1.83 De or. 1.150 De or. 1.227 De or. 2.53 De or. 2.318 De or. 2.325 De or. 2.358 De or. 2.359 De or. 3.66 De or. 3.98 De or. 3.115 De or. 3.149–170 De or. 3.152 De or. 3.155 De or. 3.157 De or. 3.158

77 n. 72 77f. n. 73 115 n. 59 72 n. 54 78 n. 76 179 n. 36 5 n. 11 44 n. 65 48 28 33 n. 33 5 n. 11 48 44 n. 65, 46 n. 68 203 203 204 n. 16 204 33 39 n. 48 27 n. 17 27 n. 17 27 n. 18 27, 28, 29 28 30

  Index Locorum De or. 3.217–218 Fam. 7.25 Fam. 13.20 Fin. 3.1.3 Fin. 3.72 Leg. 1.26 Nat. D. 1.15.39 Nat. D. 2.140 Off. 1.136 Off. 1.136–137 Off. 1.138–139 Orat. 7–9 Orat. 62–64 Orat. 64 Orat. 91–96 Orat. 94.6–9 Orat. 149–151 Orat. 150 Parad. proem. 2 Parad. 3–4 Part. or. 20 Rep. 6.15.3 Top. 97 Tusc. 2 Tusc. 3.31.76 Tusc. 3.83 Tusc. 4.10.23 Tusc. 5.3.8–9 Tusc. 5.42

204f. 5 n. 11 179 n. 36 33 77 n. 71 112 137 112 205 202, 203 133 n. 17 152 n. 62 37 n. 43 98 n. 24 25f. 134 n. 19 219 5 n. 11 96f. n. 20 34 n. 36 115 n. 59 147 n. 50 38 n. 46 224 n. 69 196 n. 65 92 183 110 112

CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS Paed. 3.11.74

155 n. 67

CORNUTUS ND 31 ND 35

228 138 n. 31

CURTIUS RUFUS 5.1.18 5.13.10

225 n. 72 225 n. 72

DEMOCRITUS fr. 31B DK fr. 68B11 DK

183 n. 46 80

GELLIUS NA 19.1.15–20

86f.

DIOGENES LAERTIUS DL 7.39

67 n. 37

HERACLITUS Quaest. Hom. 5.2

130 n. 14

DL 7.49 DL 7.50 DL 7.51 DL 7.56 DL 7.57 DL 7.102 DL 7.134 DL 7.178

83 75 n. 64 76 n. 66 72 n. 52 72 n. 52 4 n. 10 150 n. 59 43 n. 60

DIONYSIUS HALICARNASSENSIS Comp. 22.1 75 n. 64 Dem. 25.1 215 n. 42 Lys. 4.1 45 n. 66 Lys. 7.1–3 116 n. 61 EPICTETUS Arr. Epict. 1.15.2 Arr. Epict. 3.23.30 Arr. Epict. 3.24.34 Arr. Epict. 4.1.79–80

EURIPIDES Or. 255–277

153 190f. 222 n. 64 223f. n. 68

78

GALENUS CC 2.1–2 206 n. 22 CC 2.9.4 209 De simpl. med. temp. ac fac. 12.207.2–12 K 186 n. 50 Diff. Resp. 7.854K 210 n. 31 Dign. Puls. 8.631K 206 n. 23 Dign. Puls. 8.749K 206 n. 21 Dign. Puls. 8.787K 206 n. 22, n. 23 Loc. Aff. 8.224.7–8.225.10K 185f. Loc. Aff. 8.301–302K 197 Meth. Med. 15.17 (1006K) 55 n. 7 Mot. Musc. 1.7–8 216 PHP 4 90 PHP 4.7.13–16 90 n. 8

Index Locorum  

HERACLITUS PHILOSOPHUS fr. 22a15 DK fr. 93 DK

147 n. 48 32

HERODOTUS 1.5

146 n. 44

HESIODUS Op. 69–105

181 n. 40

HIPPOCRATES de Arte 11 Epid. 6.4.7 Medic. 5 Vict. 23 VM 2.10–18

176 n. 24 179 n. 35 191 n. 56 164 n. 76 184

HOMERUS Il. 1 Il. 2.484–486

181 n. 40 79f.

HORATIUS Carm. 1.14 Ep. 1.1.106–108 Ep. 1.12.14 Sat. 1.1.102 Sat. 1.3.124–133 Sat. 1.8.11 Sat. 2.1.22 Sat. 3.175 Sat. 3.224

135 34 n. 35 193 n. 59 105 n. 38 34 n. 35 105 n. 38 105 n. 38 105 n. 38 105 n. 38

IAMBLICHUS VP 58

110 n. 48

ISIDORUS Etym. 2.21.33

114 n. 57

IUVENALIS 2.80 8.34–35 10.217–221

193 n. 59 193 n. 59 178 n. 33

LIVIUS 2.6.5 7.29.6 10.14.7

225 n. 72 225 n. 72 225 n. 72

21.32.1 225 n. 72 21.57.7 225 n. 72 34.4.1 46 n. 69 35.3.2 225 n. 72 36.10.4 225 n. 72 39.30.9 225 n. 72 44.9.6 225 n. 72 fr. in cod palimps. Vat. ser. 91 p. 9.39 225 n. 72 [LONGINUS] Subl. 3.5 Subl. 15.1 Subl. 15.2

220 113 n. 53 114 n. 55

LUCILIUS 26.678 (=638M)

201 n. 5

LUCRETIUS DRN 1.62 DRN 1.62–67 DRN 1.107–109 DRN 1.136–137 DRN 1.907–914 DRN 1.936–950 DRN 2 DRN 2.1–61

DRN 2.7–10 DRN 2.100 DRN 2.109–124 DRN 2.475 DRN 3.847 DRN 4.386 DRN 5.269 DRN 6.635 DRN 6.1138–1167

108 107 107 108 n. 44 64 190 n. 55 93 n. 13 93 n. 13 and 16, 116, 118 93 65 65f. 128 n. 7 222 n. 63 106 n. 39 128 n. 7 128 n. 7 93 n. 14

MACROBIUS Sat. 3.13.13–15

129 n. 10

MANILIUS 4.896–922

112

MARCUS AURELIUS M.Ant. 2.17

222 n. 64

  Index Locorum MARTIALIS Spect. 1.30 Spect. 5.9 Spect. 6.53 Spect. 8.74

178 n. 33 178 n. 33 178 n. 33 178 n. 33

ORIGENES C. Cels. 1.24

70

OVIDIUS Met. 1.88 Met. 2.425 Met. 2.850 Met. 8.854 Met. 11.179 Met. 11.203

230 n. 84 230 n. 84 230 n. 84 230 n. 84 230 n. 84 230 n. 84

PANAETIUS fr. 55 van Straaten (= test. 79 Alesse) 43 n. 59 fr. 109 van Straaten (= test. 54 Alesse) 42 n. 57 PERSIUS 1

193 n. 59

PETRONIUS Sat. 49

129 n. 9

PHILO JUDAEUS Leg. alleg. 2.22–23 QGen 1.79

149 n. 56 92

PLATO Charm. 157a Crat. 419c Leg. 4.720d Leg. 9.857c–d Phdr. 264c Prot. 334c–d Prot. 342e–343b Resp. 559a–561a Soph. 261d–264b Symp. 186e–187a Tht. 156a–c

187 n. 52 196 n. 65 180 180 200 41 32 n. 28, 43 224 n. 69 70 n. 46 179f. n. 37 165 n. 80

Tht. 191c8–195a9 Tht. 201c Ti. 41d–42b Ti. 69c–72b Ti. 84e2–7 Ti. 90b

75 n. 64 81 n. 82 147 n. 50 212 227 n. 78 111

PLAUTUS Men. 215 Men. 882–888

181 n. 41 178 n. 33

PLINIUS MAIOR HN 25.5 HN 28.11 HN 28.54 HN 29.4 HN 29.7–14 HN 29.11 HN 29.12

176 n. 26 192 n. 58 127 n. 5 182 n. 42 44 n. 64 178 n. 33 177 n. 30

PLINIUS MINOR Ep. 9.26.2

38 n. 46

PLUTARCHUS De garr. 503e Cat. Mai. 20.3 Cat. Mai. 23 De Is. et Os. 40.367c Virt. Mor. 3.441c

36 n. 41 45 44 n. 64, 45 228 n. 81 100

PLUTARCHUS (–PSEUDO) De Hom. 92

140

POSIDONIUS fr. 186 EK fr. 285 EK fr. T75 EK

110 137 n. 27 137 n. 27

QUINTILIANUS Inst. 3.8.6 Inst. 4.2.63 Inst. 6.2.29 Inst. 6.2.29–31 Inst. 6.2.32 Inst. 8, proem. 23

27 38 n. 46 75 n. 65, 113 22 n. 10 115 97 n. 20

Index Locorum  

Inst. 8.5.2 Inst. 8.5.32 Inst. 8.6.4 Inst. 8.6.5 Inst. 8.6.34–35 Inst. 8.6.44 Inst. 8.6.63 Inst. 9.2.40 Inst. 10.1.124 Inst. 10.1.125 Inst. 10.1.125–131 Inst. 12.10.41–43

214 n. 39 38 n. 46 30 27 n. 18 29 134 214 n. 41 116 n. 62 174 n. 12 29 n. 20 5 69 n. 45

RHETORICA AD HERENNIUM Rhet. Her. 4.68

115 n. 59

SALLUSTIUS Hist. reliq. fr. 7.20 Iug. 100.1

225 n. 72 225 n. 72

SCRIBONIUS LARGUS Comp. 2.6

179 n. 36

SENECA MAIOR Controv. 2 Controv. 2. praef. 2 Controv. 2.4.11 Controv. 7.5.12

36 n. 42 37 n. 43 205 n. 19 205 n. 19

SENECA MINOR Ben. 1.3.8 Ben. 1.12.1 Ben. 2.25.2 Ben. 2.34.2 Ben. 4.11.5 Ben. 4.12.1 Ben. 4.34.1 Ben. 6.16.1 Ben. 6.37.2 Ben. 7.8.2–3 Brev. 1.2 Brev. 4.6 Brev. 5.1–3 Ep. 2.2 Ep. 2.3

139f. n. 34 22 n. 9 159 29f. 22 n. 9 31 77 n. 71 181 48 n. 73 35 n. 39 175 n. 19 54, 55, 57, 59 26 n. 16 141 142

Ep. 7.4 Ep. 7.6 Ep. 9.5 Ep. 11.8 Ep. 12.6 Ep. 13.8 Ep. 15.1 Ep. 15.6 Ep. 16.3 Ep. 19.9 Ep. 22.1 Ep. 24.4 Ep. 27.1 Ep. 31.8 Ep. 33.1 Ep. 33.5 Ep. 39.3 Ep. 40 Ep. 40.1 Ep. 40.4 Ep. 40.4–5 Ep. 40.9 Ep. 40.11 Ep. 40.13 Ep. 45 Ep. 49.2 Ep. 49.8 Ep. 50.5–6 Ep. 50.6 Ep. 51.10

Ep. 52.9–10 Ep. 54 Ep. 54.1 Ep. 55 Ep. 55.1–2 Ep. 57 Ep. 58 Ep. 58.14 Ep. 59.7 Ep. 59.7–8 Ep. 64.3

203 n. 12 46 n. 69 152 22 n. 9 22 n. 9 77 n. 71 187f., 188 127 n. 5 153f. 220 188 48 n. 73 190 153 97 n. 21 96 112 n. 51 41 42 n. 54 41, 42 n. 54 41 42 26 n. 16 203 35 n. 38 123 n. 2 46 n. 69 150 152 n. 61 132, 141 n. 36, 144 192 173 171 n. 2 218 127 n. 5 173 125 n. 3 208 n. 29 224 n. 71 225, 226 205 n.20, 229

  Index Locorum Ep. 65 Ep. 65.2 Ep. 65.2–10 Ep. 65.21 Ep. 65.3 Ep. 66.12 Ep. 66.15 Ep. 73.16 Ep. 74 Ep. 74.19 Ep. 74.33 Ep. 75.1–7 Ep. 75.5 Ep. 75.7 Ep. 75.12 Ep. 78 Ep. 78.1–2 Ep. 79.13–14 Ep. 82.5 Ep. 82.9–12 Ep. 83 Ep. 83.9–17 Ep. 83.18 Ep. 83.21 Ep. 83.21–26 Ep. 85.29 Ep. 85.40 Ep. 86 Ep. 86.4 Ep. 86.5–7 Ep. 87.3 Ep. 87.12–14 Ep. 87.16 Ep. 87.35 Ep. 88 Ep. 88.4–5 Ep. 89.19 Ep. 90 Ep. 90.44 Ep. 91.8 Ep. 92.30

125 n. 3, 210 n. 31 5 n. 11, 153 n. 65 150 n. 59 222f. n. 66 152 n. 64 147f. 149 167 n. 85 13 145, 230 172 31 32 n. 27 193, 195, 202, 203 172 172 n. 5 172 48 n. 73 212 n. 34 35 n. 37 220 220 221 221 194 n. 63 178f. 152 218 225 n. 73 218 46 n. 69 153 n. 66 182 n. 43 218 n. 48 182 137 n. 28 189 137 137f. n. 29 22 n. 9, 108 112 n. 50

Ep. 94

Ep. 94.1–19 Ep. 94.13 Ep. 94.19 Ep. 94.23 Ep. 94.25 Ep. 94.27 Ep. 94.29 Ep. 94.40–41 Ep. 94.40–44 Ep. 94.43–44 Ep. 94.45 Ep. 94.55 Ep. 94.56 Ep. 95

Ep. 95.7–8 Ep. 95.9 Ep. 95.13–15 Ep. 95.20–21 Ep. 95.65 Ep. 96.5 Ep. 99.29–30 Ep. 100.1 Ep. 100.2 Ep. 100.3 Ep. 100.5–6 Ep. 100.6 Ep. 100.7 Ep. 100.8 Ep. 100.9 Ep. 100.11 Ep. 102.28 Ep. 102.28–29 Ep. 104 Ep. 104.17–18 Ep. 104.18 Ep. 106.8 Ep. 107.9–10

46 n. 69, 101, 167 n. 84 99 n. 25 111 n. 49 23 n. 12 99 n. 27 22 n. 9 46 n. 69, 215 n. 43 166f., 168f. 99f. 168 100 96 n. 18 111 n. 49 112 n. 50 46 n. 69, 167 n. 84, 174 153 175 n. 13, 182 174 n. 11 175 n. 19 99 n. 26 222 195 75 n. 64 39 39, 39 n. 48 36f., 213f. 216 38 37f. 38 40 108 n. 43 108 125, 173 125f. 126, 127 160 n. 73 226 n. 76

Index Locorum  

Ep. 108.4 Ep. 108.5 Ep. 108.8 Ep. 109.7 Ep. 114 Ep. 114.1 Ep. 114.4 Ep. 114.7–8 Ep. 114.11 Ep. 114.17 Ep. 114.22–23 Ep. 116.1 Ep. 117 Ep. 117.11 Ep. 117.12 Ep. 117.13 Helv. 4.1 Helv. 10.5 Helv. 10.10 Helv. 17.2 Helv. 19.2 Helv. 20.2 Ir. 1.1.3 Ir. 1.6.1 Ir. 1.20.2 Ir. 2.1.3 Ir. 2.2 Ir. 2.2.3–6 Ir. 2.4 Ir. 2.10.8 Ir. 3.3.2 Ir. 3.13.1 Marc. 2.2.1 Marc. 7.1.1 Marc. 16.1–3 Marc. 22.3 Ot. 5.3–4 Ot. 5.5 Prov. 3.2 Prov. 3.7 Prov. 4.1 Prov. 4.11–12 Q Nat. 1 praef. 4–5 Q Nat. 1.16.1–9 Q Nat. 3 praef. 17 Q Nat. 3.15.1

209 209, 211 167 n. 85 160 35, 219 219 35f. 219 219 219 220 88 n. 4 75 n. 63 46 n. 69 153 72 n. 54, 74 n. 59 229 162 105 n. 38 132 171 n. 2 112 94 105 n. 38 217f. 77 n. 71 88 91, 94 88 n. 5 55 22 n. 9 89 n. 5 22 n. 9 88 n. 3 49 n. 74 48 109f. 146f. 191 n. 56 48 n. 73 88 n. 3 230 n. 85 128 106 n. 40 22 n. 9 215 n. 44

Q Nat. 4.13.11 Q Nat. 5.14.2 Q Nat. 5.15 Q Nat. 5.15.2 Q Nat. 5.15.3 Q Nat. 6.1.5 Q Nat. 6.14.2 Q Nat. 6.18.6–7 Q Nat. 7.32.3 Tranq. an. 1.4 Tranq. an. 1.9 Tranq. an. 4.6–7 Tranq. an. 9.6.14 Tranq. an. 11.6 Tranq. an. 11.8 Tranq. an. 16.1 VB 11.4 VB 18.3 VB 27.4

189 117 117 118 112 n. 50 216 n. 46 220 n .57 215f. 224 n. 71 185 n. 49 88 n. 3 161 26 n. 16 94 n. 17 94 n. 17 48 n. 73 104f. 48 193 n. 59

SEXTUS EMPIRICUS Math. 2.11–12 Math. 2.80 Math. 2.151–157 Math. 2.243–249

73 72 n. 52 73 n. 58 78 n. 75

STOICORUM VETERUM FRAGMENTA SVF 1.66 78 n. 76 SVF 1.73 153 n. 66 SVF 1.81 34 n. 34 SVF 1.103 137 n. 25 SVF 1.135 147 n. 49 SVF 1.171 207 n. 27 SVF 1.204 154 SVF 1.206 101 n. 30 SVF 1.218 217 n. 47 SVF 1.246 155 n. 67 SVF 1.261 32 n. 28 SVF 1.263 32 n. 28 SVF 1.302 36 n. 41 SVF 1.310 67 n. 36 SVF 1.328 66 n. 35 SVF 1.514 228 SVF 1.540 137 n. 25 SVF 2.53 75 SVF 2.54 78 n. 74, 102 n. 31

  Index Locorum SVF 2.55 SVF 2.146 SVF 2.166 SVF 2.183 SVF 2.293 SVF 2.297 SVF 2.359 SVF 2.368 SVF 2.381 SVF 2.439 SVF 2.450 SVF 2.458 SVF 2.525 SVF 2.716 SVF 2.747 SFV 2.773 SVF 2.781 SVF 2.782 SVF 2.836 SVF 2.858 SVF 2.876 SVF 2.877 SVF 2.885 SVF 2.974 SVF 2.988 SVF 2.1009 SVF 2.1021 SVF 2.1070 SVF 2.1077 SVF 2.1093 SVF 3.24 SVF 3.278 SVF 3.376 SVF 3.421 SVF 3.422 SVF 3.458

75 n. 65 70 72 n. 55 71 n. 51 33 n. 32 33 n. 32 67f. n. 40 207 n. 27 67 n. 38 207 n. 27 216f. 207 n. 28 67 n. 38 207 n. 27 166 n. 82 147 n. 49 207 n. 27 207 n. 27 166 n. 82 196 n. 66 196f. 197 n. 68 166 n. 82 231 n. 88 208 n. 29 137 n. 26 137 n. 25 137 n. 26 137 228 n. 81 32 217 n. 47 213 n. 36 111 n. 49 111 n . 49 196 n. 65

SVF 3.459 SVF 3.463

100 226 n. 77

SUETONIUS Aug. 65.4 Cal. 53.2

55 n. 6 104 n. 37

SUIDA s.v. Ἀρχιγένης

206 n. 22

TACITUS Ann. 14.54 Ann. 15.45 Ann. 15.60–64 Dial. 21.8

172 172 1, 172 n. 7 201 n. 4

THEOPHRASTUS Sens. 50–51

82 n. 83

TIBERIUS RHETOR De Fig. 43

114

TRYPHO Fig. 3 III 193.8 Sp.

135

VARRO L.L. 5.13

29f.

VITRUVIUS De arch. 3.1.1

211 n. 32

XENOPHON Mem. 1.4.11

111