Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies) [1 ed.] 9780367331511, 9780429318153, 0367331519

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings

This volume is the first systematic study of Seneca’s interaction with earlier literature of a variety of genres and traditions. It examines this interaction and engagement in his prose works, offering interpretative readings that are at once groundbreaking and stimulating to further study. Focusing on the Dialogues, the Naturales quaestiones, and the Moral Epistles, the volume includes multi-​perspectival studies of Seneca’s interaction with all the great Latin epics (Lucretius, Vergil and Ovid), and discussions of how Seneca’s philosophical thought is informed by Hellenistic doxography, forensic rhetoric and declamation, the Homeric tradition, Euripidean tragedy and Greco-​Roman mythology. The studies analyzes the philosophy behind Seneca’s incorporating exact quotations from earlier tradition (including his criteria of selectivity) and Seneca’s interaction with ideas, trends and techniques from different sources, in order to elucidate his philosophical ideas and underscore his original contribution to the discussion of established philosophical traditions. They also provide a fresh interpretation of moral issues with particular application to the Roman worldview as fashioned by the mos maiorum. The volume, finally, features detailed discussion of the ways in which Seneca, the author of philosophical prose, puts forward his stance towards poetics and figures himself as a poet. Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings will be of interest not only to those working on Seneca’s philosophical works, but also to anyone working on Latin literature and intertextuality in the ancient world. Myrto Garani is Assistant Professor in Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is the author of Empedocles Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in Lucretius (London and New York, 2007) and co-​editor with David Konstan of The Philosophizing Muse. The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry, Pierides III (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2014). She has also published a number of articles on Empedocles’ reception in Latin literature, especially in Ovid’s Fasti. Her other publications include articles on Lucretius, Propertius, Ovid and the Pseudo-​Vergilian Aetna. She is currently working on a monograph on Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones Book 3 and a commentary of Lucretius’ De rerum natura 6.

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Andreas N.  Michalopoulos is Professor of Latin at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has published extensively on Latin literature of the 1st centuries BC and AD (especially epic, elegy, and drama), he has edited numerous volumes (more recently Dicite, Pierides. Classical Studies in Honour of Stratis Kyriakidis, 2017, with Sophia Papaioannou and Andrew Zissos) and is the author of Ancient Etymologies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: A Commented Lexicon (2001), Ovid, Heroides 16 and 17: Introduction, Text and Commentary (2006), and Ovid, Heroides 20 and 21:  Introduction, Text and Commentary (2013). His research interests include Augustan poetry, ancient etymology, Roman drama, the Roman novel, and the modern reception of classical literature. Sophia Papaioannou is Professor of Latin at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Philology. She is the author of numerous articles and chapters on Augustan literature (especially epic) and on Roman comedy, as well as two books on Ovid: Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623–​14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid (2005); and Redesigning Achilles: The ‘Recycling’ of the Epic Cycle in Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.1–​13.620 (2007); and a collection of papers on Terence (Terence and Interpretation, 2014). She has published on the reception of Vergil and Ovid in the Late Antiquity across various genres and authors, and one of her current projects includes the tracing of Vergilian and Ovidian influence in the subtext of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca.

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Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

Titles include: The Making of Identities in Athenian Oratory Edited by Jakub Filonik, Brenda Griffith-​Williams and Janek Kucharski Homicide in the Attic Orators Rhetoric, Ideology, and Context Christine Plastow Underworld Gods in Ancient Greek Religion Ellie Mackin Roberts Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ The Virgin and the Otherwordly Bridegroom in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Abbe Walker Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings Edited by Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos and Sophia Papaioannou Drama, Oratory and Thucydides in Fifth-​Century Athens Teaching Imperial Lessons Sophie Mills The Poetics in its Aristotelian Context Edited by Pierre Destrée, Malcolm Heath and Dana L. Munteanu Text and Intertext in Greek Epic and Drama Essays in Honor of Margalit Finkelberg Edited by Jonathan J. Price and Rachel Zelnick-​Abramovitz For more information on this series, visit: https://​www.routledge.com/​ classicalstudies/​series/​RMCS

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings Edited by Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos and Sophia Papaioannou

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First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos and Sophia Papaioannou; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos and Sophia Papaioannou to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 9780367331511 (hbk) ISBN: 9780429318153 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK

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Contents

List of contributors  Preface and acknowledgements  List of abbreviations  Introduction: intertextuality in the philosopher Seneca 

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M YRT O G ARAN I , A N D R EA S N.  MI C H A LO PO U LO S AND S OP H I A PAPAI OANN O U

PART 1 

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1 Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 

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AMAN DA  WI LC OX

2 Myth, poetry and Homer in Seneca philosophus 

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R. SC OT T   S MI TH

3 Seneca and the doxography of ethics 

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J U L A WI L D B E RG ER

PART 2 

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4 Reading Seneca reading Vergil 

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S OP H I A PAPAIOA N N O U

5 Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales  AN D RE AS N.  M I C H A LO PO U LO S

130

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6 The importance of collecting shells: intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 

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F RAN C E S C A RO MA NA BER N O

7 Sub auro servitus habitat: Seneca’s moralizing of architecture and the anti-​Neronian querelle 

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T OMMASO G A ZZA R R I

8 Seneca on the mother cow: poetic models and natural philosophy in the Consolation to Marcia 

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FAB I O T U T RO N E

9 Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum (NQ 3.20–​1, 25–​6; Ovid Met. 15.270–​336) 

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MYRT O  G AR A N I

Index locorum  General index 

254 271

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Contributors

Francesca Romana Berno is Associate Professor of Latin Language and Literature at Sapienza University of Rome. Her main interests lie in Seneca’s prose works, on which she has published three monographs (NQ, 2003; Epistles 53–​57, 2006; De constantia sapientis, 2018) and several articles, where she deals with rhetorical tools (metaphors, poetic quotations, historical examples) and their parenetic function. She is also enquiring on some philosophical issues in Cicero and Ovid. Myrto Garani (BA Thessaloniki, MA and PhD London) is Assistant Professor in Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is the author of Empedocles Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in Lucretius (London and New York, 2007) and co-​editor with David Konstan of The Philosophizing Muse. The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry, Pierides III (Newcastle-​upon-​Tyne, 2014). She has also published a number of articles on Empedocles’ reception in Latin literature, especially in Ovid’s Fasti. Her other publications include articles on Lucretius, Propertius, Ovid and the Pseudo-​Vergilian Aetna. She is currently working on a monograph on Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones Book 3 and a commentary of Lucretius’ De rerum natura 6. Tommaso Gazzarri, Yale PhD, is Assistant Professor of Classics at Union College (Schenectady, NY). He has published on Plautus, Seneca, Petronius and ancient sexuality. He is currently completing a monograph on Seneca’s deployment of figural language in his philosophical oeuvre. His main scholarly interests concern Roman Stoicism, ancient rhetoric and the relations between Greek and Roman cultures in the years of the late Republic and early Empire (mainly the Julio-​Claudian dynasty). Andreas N. Michalopoulos, PhD Leeds, is Professor of Latin at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has published extensively on Latin literature of the 1st centuries BC and AD (especially epic, elegy and drama), he has edited numerous volumes (more recently Dicite, Pierides. Classical Studies in Honour of Stratis Kyriakidis, Newcastle:  Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2017, with Sophia Papaioannou and Andrew Zissos)

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x Contributors and is the author of Ancient Etymologies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses:  A Commented Lexicon (Leeds:  Francis Cairns, 2001), Ovid, Heroides 16 and 17: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Cambridge: Francis Cairns, 2006), and Ovid, Heroides 20 and 21: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Athens: Papadimas, 2013). His research interests include Augustan poetry, ancient etymology, Roman drama, the Roman novel, and the modern reception of classical literature. Sophia Papaioannou is Professor of Latin at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Philology. She is the author of numerous articles and chapters on Augustan literature (especially epic) and on Roman comedy, as well as two books on Ovid: Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623–​14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid (Berlin 2005); and Redesigning Achilles: The ‘Recycling’ of the Epic Cycle in Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.1–​13.620 (Berlin 2007); and a collection of papers on Terence (Terence and Interpretation, Newcastle 2014). She has published on the reception of Vergil and Ovid in the Late Antiquity across various genres and authors, and one of her current projects includes the tracing of Vergilian and Ovidian influence in the subtext of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca. R. Scott Smith is Professor of Classics at the University of New Hampshire, where he has taught since 2000. In addition to a deep and abiding interest in Seneca the Younger, both prose and poetry, he has published widely in the field of myth and mythography, including co-​authored or co-​edited volumes:  Anthology of Classical Myth (Cambridge, MA 2016), Writing Myth:  Mythography in the Greek and Roman World (Leuven 2013), and Apollodorus’ Library and Hyginus’ Fabulae (Cambridge, MA 2007). Recently he has been studying the way in which the Greeks and Romans organized and transmitted their own mythical stories through the medium of geographical texts, as well as how mythographical material was integrated into ancient commentaries and scholia. He is currently co-​editing the Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography (forthcoming 2020). Fabio Tutrone is a Research and Teaching Fellow in Latin literature at the University of Palermo, where he also obtained his PhD in Greek and Latin Philology and Culture in 2009. He has held visiting positions in the United States, Switzerland and Germany, and has recently worked in a nationally funded project on the ‘anthropology of ancient myth’ directed by Professor Maurizio Bettini. His research focuses on the history of Roman literature, science and philosophy, with special regard to Lucretius, Seneca and the Latin reception of Greek thought. He has particular interest in literary topics of cognitive and anthropological relevance, such as the representation of animals and man-​animal relationships, the sociology of scientific knowledge, and the cultural perception of time. His publications include Filosofi e animali in Roma antica: Modelli di animalità e umanità in Lucrezio e Seneca (Pisa, ETS, 2012), and Evil, Progress, and Fall: Moral Readings

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Contributors xi of Time and Cultural Development in Roman Literature and Philosophy (Special Issue of Epekeina, 2014). Amanda Wilcox is Professor of Classics at Williams College. Her scholarly interests include Roman philosophical prose, epistolography, gender, and exemplary discourse, particularly within the works of Cicero and Seneca. Her book, The Gift of Correspondence in Classical Rome:  Friendship in Cicero’s Ad Familiares and Seneca’s Moral Epistles, appeared from the University of Wisconsin Press in 2012. Jula Wildberger is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at the American University of Paris, France, where she teaches Latin, Greek and ancient philosophy. Her current research concerns ancient Stoicism, its sources, its ancient reception, and its impact on modern thought. Her main publications include: Seneca und die Stoa. Der Platz des Menschen in der Welt. 2 Vols. (Berlin and New York 2006); Seneca, De ira/​Über die Wut. Lateinisch/​Deutsch (Stuttgart 2007); and she has co-​edited with M.  L. Colish, Seneca Philosophus (Berlin; New  York, 2014). Her more recent book, The Stoics and the State, appeared from Nomos publishers in 2018.

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Preface and acknowledgements

The nine chapters that put together the present collection are thoroughly revised versions of papers originally delivered at the conference ‘Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings’ held at the Swedish Archaeological Institute at Athens (SIA) on 5 and 6 May 2017. The conference was organized by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Classics, home institution of the three co-​editors of the volume and it was supported by the Swedish Institute at Athens. Professor Jenny Wallensten, the director of the SIA and a superb host, generously offered the space and the facilities for two days of intense and fruitful discussion. To her and to the staff of the Swedish Institute the volume editors would like to express their deep appreciation and gratitude. We are grateful to Routledge for offering an excellent home for this volume which aspires to offer incisive new perspectives on the diverse ways in which Seneca’s philosophical writings interact with the earlier literary tradition. Thanks are also due to the anonymous referees for the publisher, who have made several very helpful suggestions on the individual chapters of the volume, and to Ella Halstead, assistant editor for Classics at Routledge, for her support and prompt assistance throughout the publication process. A certain level of formatting standardization has been imposed to ensure consistency across the volume, but individual stylistic distinctiveness has been respected. As editors and fellow students of Seneca, we have been blessed to join forces with a group of insightful critics who deeply respect Seneca’s philosophical output, and we are grateful to all contributors for their superb cooperation and patience. Athens, October 2019 M. Garani A. N. Michalopoulos S. Papaioannou

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Abbreviations

DK H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Sixth edition. 3 vols. Berlin: Weidmann, 1951–​2. Edelstein and Kidd L. Edelstein and I. G. Kidd: Posidonius, vol. I: The Fragments. Revised edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. FHS&G W. W. Fortenbaugh, P. M. Huby, R. W. Sharples, and D. Gutas (eds.) Theophrastus of Eresus. Leiden: Brill, 1992. FGrHist F. Jacoby (ed.) Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. In five parts. Berlin: Weidmann, 1926–​30; Leiden: Brill, 1954–​8. Giannini A. Giannini, Paradoxographorum Graecorum Reliquiae. Recognovit, brevibus adnotationibus criticis instruxit, latine reddidit. Milan: Instituto Editoriale Italiano, 1965. Gow-​Page, HE A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page (eds.) The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams. 2 vols. Cambridge: University Press, 1965. Hense O. Hense (ed.) Ioannis Stobaei Anthologii libri duo posteriores, 3 vols. Berlin: Weidmann, 1894–​1912; reprinted 1958. Pfeiffer R. Pfeiffer (ed.) Callimachus, vol. i: Fragmenta. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949. SVF H. von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta. 4 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1903–​24. Wachsmuth C. Wachsmuth (ed.) Ioannis Stobaei Anthologii libri duo priores, qui inscribi solent Eclogae physicae et ethicae, 2 vols. Berlin: Weidmann, 1884; reprinted 1958. Abbreviations for journal titles generally follow the system used in L’Année Philologique; lists of standard abbreviations for classical authors and works can be found in LSJ and the OLD.

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Introduction Intertextuality in the philosopher Seneca Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos and Sophia Papaioannou

Seneca’s poetic work is profoundly defined by ongoing and multilayered engagement with multiple intertexts, Roman and Greek alike, as this has been amply illustrated in recent decades by several important studies.1 Seneca’s philosophical work, on the contrary, to this day has attracted little attention in terms of its literary merit, and specifically regarding its dialogue with non-​ philosophical literature, including poetry. The aspiring student of the philosopher Seneca’s intertextual engagement with earlier tradition is handicapped by the relative lack of substantial secondary literature. This is surprising given that throughout the Senecan corpus we come across over 200 direct quotations from earlier Latin authors, three quarters of them from Vergil and Ovid. Earlier studies on Senecan intertextuality, while important for illustrating Seneca’s literary consciousness, are out of date, for they limit their methodological perspective and range of scope (Setaioli 1965, Mazzoli 1970, Motto and Clark 1993a). Only a handful of approaches, all of them publications of the last decade, tackle Seneca’s relationship to earlier literature, specifically poetry.2 In his 2014 book on Senecan Tragedy and the Reception of Augustan Poetry, Christopher Trinacty explores Seneca’s relationship with his literary predecessors, in particular the strong influence of the Augustan poets (Vergil, Horace and Ovid) upon Senecan tragedy. Αs regards Seneca’s own literary theory, Trinacty underscores the pivotal importance of Epistle 79, that demonstrates ‘the sophistication and the intricacy of Seneca’s intertextual technique’ which advises writers to put ‘a new face’ on the words they inherit (Ep. 79.6). More to the point, Trinacty juxtaposes quotations from the Augustan poets in Seneca’s prose works with references to the same passages in his tragedies. A significant case-​study of his approach is Seneca’s treatment of a quotation from Vergil’s first Eclogue (1.6–​7), in which the poet-​shepherd Tityrus praises the godlike man who has given him otium. These verses are to be found recontextualized in three different instances: in Seneca’s Epistle 73 1 Trinacty 2014 with further bibliography. 2 See Papaioannou in the present volume (n. 1 for further bibliography). For Seneca’s reception of Lucretius in Naturales quaestiones, see Tutrone 2017. For Horace and Seneca’s Epistles, see also Rimell 2015, 82–​147 about the Horatian angulus and its reception in Seneca’s prose.

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2  Myrto Garani et al. referring to Nero as another divine Octavian/​Augustus; in the De beneficiis (4.6.4–​5), where the god granting philosophical leisure is not Octavian but the Stoic principle of Nature; and finally in Thyestes (560–​6), which refers to civil war while questioning the nature of peace as a result and the role of the ‘gods’ who grant it. Trinacty pointedly concludes with the assertion that ‘Seneca very rarely allows a quote to stand unchallenged or uninterrupted by his philosophical musings. Often one observes an “interpenetration” between the texts as Seneca strives to develop the quotes within his ethical framework and finds ways to show his personal understanding of the quoted material’.3 The philosopher Seneca’s forms of intertextuality, even though no less diverse and sophisticated in their implementation, have received little attention by comparison. A  leading reason for this omission should be sought in the difficulty of patterning the wide range of forms by which Seneca employs the literary and philosophical tradition, as direct quotations are combined with more or less easily detectable allusions. Further, these intertexts are assessed as operating in isolation; as a result, Seneca’s prose treatises are considered pastiches of multitextual dialogues that advance individual points which may or may not interact organically with the leading theme in the text. The preparation of the present volume was under way when a valuable collection of papers entitled Horace and Seneca. Interactions, Intertexts, Interpretation, edited by M.  Stöckinger, K.  Winter and A.  Zanker (2017) came out.4 As its title bespeaks, this important work is concerned primarily with the complex relationship between Horace and Seneca, but the individual approaches offer important insight for appreciating more broadly the interactions between the early Augustan and Neronian periods. Despite the fact that there are only four direct quotations from Horace in Seneca’s corpus, the individual contributions thoughtfully redefine intertextual engagement more broadly, and they successfully identify several complex ways of interaction between the imperial philosopher and his lyric predecessor. Also, Seneca’s interaction with Horace is explored across his entire oeuvre, tragedies and philosophical essays alike. The present volume builds on these studies, but focusing, as it does, exclusively on Seneca’s prose works, it aims to offer a series of interpretative readings at once groundbreaking and stimulating further study. The individual discussions identify multi-​faceted examples of Senecan intertextuality across the philosopher’s corpus:  his dialogues (i.e., De providentia [Wilcox], De ira [Wilcox, Smith]), De constantia sapientis (Smith), Consolatio ad Marciam (Tutrone), De clementia (Wilcox), the late natural treatise Naturales quaestiones (Garani), while considerable and sustained attention is paid to the Epistles (Papaioannou, Michalopoulos, Berno, Gazzarri, Wildberger).

3 Trinacty 2014, 60. 4 See also Mazzoli 1998.

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Introduction 3 The contributors address the impact that Seneca’s readings, principally Latin but also Greek, had on the formation of his ideas and the composition of his philosophical treatises. As is illustrated in the volume throughout, Seneca systematically appropriates earlier literary tradition in order to elucidate his philosophical ideas and shed light on moral issues. More precisely, different forms of intertextual engagement are used in order to discuss in the desired depth specific issues which are pivotal in Stoic philosophy, such as the fear of death (Berno), the formation of identity within the context of the social and political changes taking place during Seneca’s time (Wilcox, Wildberger), his political stance towards Nero (Gazzari, Wilcox), the therapeutic force of Stoic philosophy (Wilcox, Tutrone). Furthermore, several contributions are concerned with the ways in which Seneca puts forward his position on poetics and introduces himself as a poet, even within his prose. Not least, several contributions explore how Seneca resorts to poetic citation and allusion, in order to define his stance towards the previous philosophical tradition, be it Stoic (Posidonius in Gazzarri, Aristo of Chios in Berno, Doxography B in Wildberger) or Epicurean (Lucretius in Tutrone). A characteristic sample of the complex intertextual interweaving noted above is observed in the composition of Epistle 108. In this letter, Seneca condenses more than 15 readily detectable intertextual allusions and direct quotations, of an impressively wide generic provenance. As Gunderson remarks, ‘the complex microcosm of the letter itself evokes another complexity: the macrocosm of the corpus of Letters’,5 yet with the exception of a handful of brief and fragmentary discussions Ep. 108 is virtually ignored by contemporary criticism.6 This surprisingly understudied piece of crosstextually studded philosophical prose furnishes the ideal case-​study through which to illustrate the methodological tools for the study of intertextuality in Seneca’s philosophical work, that are employed by the contributions in this volume. Turning to the letter itself, Lucilius is burning with the desire to learn (cupiditas discendi, Ep. 108.1). His precise concern, whether the wise man would benefit another wise man, we only learn in the next letter, Ep. 109, which strongly suggests that philosophical doctrine is not the leading, or at least, the only preoccupation for Seneca in Ep. 108. Actually, a careful structural analysis suggests that the letter is clustered around various intertextual groups. The first cluster revolves around an allusion to the oral teachings of the philosopher Attalus, which serve an originary function given that it aroused 5 Gunderson 2015, 16. 6 For more on this letter and Seneca’s never to be published Books of Moral Philosophy, see Wildberger (this volume). For a commentary of this notably understudied letter, see von Albrect 2004, 68–​98. See also Trinacty 2014, 29–​32; Gunderson 2015, 16–​36. Additional discussion on citations in Seneca’s prose is now to be found in Tischer 2017; cf. also (the much earlier study of) Mazzoli 1970.

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4  Myrto Garani et al. Seneca’s early passion for knowledge (Ep. 108.3, 13). Notably, in the case at hand, the reader does not read a verbatim report of Attalus’ words; rather he is tempted to review (and, in the modern reader’s, case, to ‘resurrect’) Attalus’ actual teaching from Seneca’s recollection and re-​ composition of Attalus’ views on the interconnected roles of the teacher and the student. Attalus’ instruction of the young Seneca imprinted the latter’s soul with philosophical eagerness on how to integrate moral knowledge into his behavior.7 The same paradigm he now wishes to set for Lucilius, thus aspiring to become an Attalus to Lucilius’ Seneca. Seneca next quotes two lines from Publilius Syrus, the celebrated poet of the Roman mime, fr. 236 Ribbeck and fr. 234 Ribbeck.8 He will return to Publilius a little later (Ep. 108.11) and report two more quotations (Pall. Incert. Fab. 65 and 66 Ribbeck). All four involve moral maxims that target the same binary of wicked and damnable concupiscence vs. praiseworthy poverty. Seneca claims that the theater may help offer valuable moral instruction through maxims (or sententiae). He suggests that the effect the words of a good teacher have on the soul of his pupils is analogous to the effect of Publilius’ verses on the audience (provided that they are delivered by a good orator and are pronounced in the proper intonation of voice [Ep. 108.7]).9 Publilius’ sententiae became very popular among the rhetoricians of the Augustan age onwards, as is attested by Seneca the Elder (Controversiae 7.3.8).10 The Younger Seneca’s preference for Publilius in particular is attested in the wide employment of Publilian sententiae in his writings11 and by Seneca’s profuse praise for Publilius, so much so that a popular medieval collection of Publilius’ sententiae was entitled ‘Proverbia Senecae’ and attributed to Seneca by the medieval codices which transmitted it.12 The recourse to the moral maxims from Publilius, finally, coincides with the prominence of the mime (and pantomime), consistently a very popular genre in Rome and an important component of imperial performance culture. Recent studies have convincingly demonstrated the influence of sub-​performance on Seneca’s tragedies,13 and have repeatedly emphasized the performance structure of his

7 For Seneca’s education, see Braund 2015, especially 25. 8 For Publilius Syrus, see de Lachapelle 2011. Especially for Seneca and Publilius Syrus, see Mazzoli 1970, 203–​5; Giancotti 1967, 291–​303. 9 Cf. Cic. De or. 1.5.18. 10 Giancotti 1967, 282–​4. 11 Seneca quotes Publilius twice more in the Epistles: in Ep. 8.8, he stresses Publilius’ appropriateness for all types of stage performances (‘What a quantity of sagacious verses he buried in the mime! How many of Publilius’ lines are worthy of being spoken by buskin-​clad actors, as well as by wearers of the slipper!’), and also in Ep. 94. For the presence of Publilius Syrus in Senecan tragedy, see Dinter 2014. 12 Giancotti 1967, 335–​6. 13 Zanobi 2014; and earlier Zimmermann 1990.

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Introduction 5 philosophical diatribes,14 while Stoic philosophy, including Seneca himself, strongly emphasized the importance of the proper use of appearances for the proper communication of instruction (Epict. Diss. 1.1.7; Sen. Ep. 120.9). In this respect, Publilius’ sayings enforce the methodological unity of Seneca’s work overall. The close connection between poetry and philosophical advice implied in the employment of the maxims from mime is made clear through the citation of the Stoic Cleanthes, that affirms precisely the moralizing potential of poetry, as well as its power to exercise influential instruction by employing rhythm to render thoughts and concepts more accurately15: Seneca’s description of Cleanthes’ powerful verse is described at 108.10 by the Stoic metaphor of the trumpet which renders the sound clearer when it makes the wind pass through a more narrow channel and then let it go out through a wider opening (SVF I.487); to this description Seneca appends his own image of the javelin cast on verse.16 The quotation from Cleanthes appropriately leads to recollection of Sotion of Alexandria, and though him Pythagoras and Sextius (Ep. 108.17–​22)—​ three thinkers who exercised an important influence on Seneca’s teachings. Sotion was Seneca’s teacher: while still a boy (‘puer’, Ep. 49.2), Seneca reportedly attended his lectures on Pythagorean vegetarianism, the immortality of the soul and the theory of transmigration. Seneca puts forward a long quotation from Sotion, which ends with a sententia (Ep. 108.20). Sotion was one of the disciples of Q. Sextius who taught a hybrid version of Neo-​Pythagorian Stoicism at the time of Julius Caesar (Ep. 98.13) and Augustus. Seneca had studied his writings and was attracted by Sextus’ ability to teach how one may see the greatness of the happy life without despairing about how to reach it (Ep. 64.2–​3). Seneca’s brief embrace of vegetarianism (Ep. 108.22) may have been motivated by Sextius’ teachings, Sextius being a lifelong practicing vegetarian (Ep. 108.17–​18).17 Seneca records his past reaction to Sotion’s saying, as he forms the latter part of the wider intertextual web, and smoothly embraces Attalus, his third important teacher (Ep. 108.23). Vergil, the philosopher Seneca’s favorite literary source for quotations, dominates the last third of the Epistle, as phrases from the Georgics and 14 Cf. Star’s (2012, 117–​39) analysis of the performance elements in the De clementia; also Nussbaum 1993. 15 Seneca himself had translated Cleanthes’ verse ‘Hymn to Zeus’, which instructs on the Stoic theory of fate, and addressed Cleanthes’ views in Ep. 107, by noting the version of Cleanthes’ Stoic hymn:  ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt (Ep. 107.11). On Epistle 107, Seneca’s version of the Cleanthes hymn and Cleanthes himself, see Wildberger 2006a, 294–​300; Meijer 2007 and Fischer 2008, 202–​4. Elsewhere in the Epistles (Ep. 8.8), Seneca states that the poets have said many things such as those attributed (or could be attributed) to philosophers. 16 Gunderson 2015, 22–​3. 17 In Ep. 59.7–​8 Seneca refers again to Sextius, and specifically to Sextius’ simile of an army advancing in square formation to describe the action of the wise man always on guard against his abstract enemies—​torments in his daily existence: poverty, grief, disgrace, pain.

6

6  Myrto Garani et al. the Aeneid are cited in 108.24, 25, 27, 29, 34. Seneca comments on the contrasting modes of reading Vergil:  he approaches a Vergilian passage from a variety of perspectives, including those of the grammarian and the philologist, but also of the philosopher who finds in Vergil’s text the literary means through which to comprehend and prescribe in writing the supreme Good, virtue. Though philosophical at the core, Seneca’s reading of Vergil is informed by the complexity that distinguishes Vergilian intertextuality in Seneca’s tragedy.18 Seneca’s first Vergilian quotation comes from the Georgics and concerns the flight of time (Ep. 108.24; cf. Georg. 3.284): Fugit inreparabile tempus, ‘time flees and may not be recovered’. This half line comes from a transitional moment in Vergil’s poem. Vergil employs this phrase in a broader, two-​line introduction that serves as a subsidiary preface to the second half of the book.19 Seneca suppresses much of the original couplet, and then reformulates Vergil’s saying in the following lines by recontextualizing it (Ep. 108.28: Quod fugit, occupandum est, ‘We must catch that which flees’). The significance of the flight of time is enforced by the evocation of a second Vergilian passage only a few sentences later,20 and the passage recorded comes from the opening of the Third Georgic (Georg. 3.66–​8), an excerpt that helps contextualize the earlier citation into a new understanding of the concept of the fleeting time (Ep. 108.24; cf. 108.26; 108.29): Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi Prima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectus Et labor, et durae rapit inclementia mortis. The best days of our lives are the first to flee for the wretched mortals. Diseases and sad old age and toil come upon us, and until the merciless cruelty of death snatches us away. In this excerpt the philosopher elaborates on the fleetingness of time and deplores the passing of the happy yet brief space of human existence prior to the longer and much more arduous old age which Seneca associates with duress and impending death.21 This second Vergilian quotation seems to come to Seneca naturally from the first; both are famous maxims on the fleeting nature of time—​the unmistakable link is the verb fugit. Linguistic is the link to the next Vergilian quotation, this time from the Aeneid (6.275), which shares with the previous Vergilian intertext not just one word but a full half verse: Pallentesque 18 For more on the philosopher Seneca reading Vergil, see Papaioannou (in this volume); on the dramatist Seneca reading Vergil, see foremost Trinacty 2014. 19 Gunderson 2015, 167 n. 53. 20 Edwards 2004; Armisen-​Marchetti 1995. 21 Stöckinger, Winter and Zanker 2017, 7–​10. Seneca quotes again these Vergilian verses in his Brevit. Vit. [10].9.2 (clamat ecce maximus vates et velut instinctus salutare carmen canit…), while he admonishes his addressee to seize the present. See Williams 2003, 171–​2.

 7

Introduction 7 habitant morbi tristisque senectus (‘pale diseases and sad old age inhabit [sc. this place]’). The latter passage comes from the description of the Underworld in the Aeneid. In this Vergilian intertextual chain, the arrangement of quotations forges a sequence that leads progressively from life to death with the world of the dead as the inevitable common destination. For Seneca, the passage of time is the unvanquished enemy; one may only align one’s activity to this course so that one’s passage through this life may not be swept away without a trace. Vergil’s understanding of the original phrase of the Georgics, however, is different—​it does not advance existential polemics but rather is used in order to mark a new beginning, to issue a call to action. Actually, Seneca’s construction of the Vergilian sequence is a sample of clever decontextualization of the Vergilian text.22 Building the sequence on fugit (this is the word that links the second Vergilian passage to the first) obfuscates the possibility for a second intertextual sequence based on inreparabile tempus. Though the two expressions address the flight of time, the latter cluster evokes Aen. 10.467–​8, stat sua cuique dies, breve et inreparabile tempus | omnibus est vitae (‘to each there is a set day, for all a short span of life without recovery’). The phrase comes from Jupiter’s response to Hercules’ tears for Pallas’ impending death which shows the former’s compassion and underscores the grim fate of mortals. But having acknowledged this, Jupiter proceeds to add that humans can actually stop time and decay, and acquire immortality by accomplishing great deeds (10.468–​9): sed famam extendere factis, | hoc virtutis opus ‘but to extend fame by great deeds, this is the task of valor’. The flight of time has been balanced by the power of fama to conquer death and secure immortality. Seneca’s multi-​perspectival appreciation of intertextuality moves onto a more advanced level with the next intertext: in Ep. 108.30–​2, the philosopher refers to a passage from Cicero’s Republic (plausibly from Rep. 2.18, judging from context), which allegedly is so well-​known that he considers unnecessary to record the exact citation and its place in Cicero’s work. Then, he describes how three different scholars, a philologist, a grammarian and a philosopher, may quote this passage in their work for quite different reasons, and offer three different recontextualizations (the philologist would appreciate the passages for the information it provides on the early kings of Rome and the technical details of the early constitution;23 the grammarian would assess Cicero’s use of reapse for re ipsa and sepse for se ipse; the philosopher will evaluate the views against justice) that would invite three different interpretations.

22 From a different perspective Vogt-​Spira 2017 reads Seneca’s approach of the topic of time in the context of a diverse and widespread discourse, and in direct engagement with Horace, even though Seneca almost deliberately avoids quoting Horace in favor of other authors. 23 The reference to Fenestella, a historian of the age of Augustus and Tiberius, who wrote a lengthy (at least 22 books) chronicle (entitled Annales) of Roman history through the Late Republic, noted for its tremendous antiquarian detail, which does not survive today, comprises another intertextual reference; on Fenestella and the surviving fragments from his work, see now Cornell, Bispham, Rich and Smith 2013, 489–​96.

8

8  Myrto Garani et al. Cicero’s exemplary treatment of decontextualization continues and takes a different form in the next Senecan intertext, an excerpt from Ennius’ funerary poem for Scipio Africanus (Sen. Ep. 108.32–​3  =  Cic. Rep., fr. 4 Keyes  =  Enn. Varia 19–​20, p.  215 Vahlen2  =  Enn. fr. 43 Courtney  =  Enn. Epigram 5–​6 Warmington; cf. Cic. Leg. 2.57 in which Ennius’ epigram is partly quoted):24 Deinde transit ad ea, quae consuetudo saeculi mutavit, tamquam ait Cicero: ‘quoniam sumus ab ipsa calce eius interpellatione revocati.’ Hanc quam nunc in circo cretam vocamus, calcem antiqui dicebant. Deinde Ennianos colligit versus et in primis illos de Africano scriptos:       cui nemo civis neque hostis       quibit pro factis reddere opis pretium. Then he turns his attention to changes in current usage. Cicero, for example, says: ‘Inasmuch as we are summoned back from the very calx by his interruption’. Now the line in the circus which we call the creta was called the calx by men of old time. Again, he puts together some verses by Ennius, especially those which referred to Africanus:       A man to whom neither a friend nor a foe could ever       Repay for all his efforts and deeds. (Trans. Gummere 1925, with adaptations) From this passage the scholar declares that he infers the word opem to have meant formerly not merely assistance, but efforts. For Ennius must mean that neither friend nor foe could pay Scipio a reward worthy of his efforts. Seneca, once again, comments on a passage that elicits more than one reading. The text, which, as noted, comes from Scipio’s funerary epigram25 employs the recollection of an exemplum pietatis26 to comment on the ambivalence of praise vocabulary,27 but also on the appropriation politics of intertexts that originate in different generic backgrounds.28 The epigram builds on the semantic ambiguity of the terms hostis, pretium and opes, and in subtle irony at once praises 24 Morelli 2007, 527–​9; for Seneca and Cicero, see Keeline 2018, 196–​222 [especially 204–​6]. 25 According to Morelli 2007, 528, the epigram was actually inscribed on Scipio’s tomb at Liternum. 26 For Seneca and Scipio, see now Ep. 86; Henderson 2004, 102; Rimell 2013; Edwards 2019, 234–​54. 27 According to Henderson (2004, 102), Seneca quotes from Ennius in order to mock the pedantry of grammarians; notably, these quotations are all taken from those recontextualized once already in Cicero, and this suggests that Seneca once again is concerned with the politics of reappropriation. 28 Morelli 2007, 527: ‘Greek epigram from its beginnings played with similar ideas: the deceased was “appreciated by citizens and foreigners”; even enemies, by their defeat, testify to the deceased’s value. There are also traditional motifs that Roman elogium associated with the deceased’s excellence among his fellow citizens. Ennius re-​elaborates, modifies and adapts for Scipio such ancient topoi, even by inversion’.

 9

Introduction 9 and commiserates for Scipio who may not have been rewarded for his services to the fatherland, both because there was no reward high enough for him and because he was not alive and in Rome to be concerned with it (he was exiled by the Romans, who evidently rewarded him for his services by declaring him an enemy of the very fatherland he saved).29 The political and moral meaning of the quotation, however, is nicely concealed under an alleged preoccupation with linguistics. For Seneca, who was not particularly fond of Ennius’ archaic language,30 stylistics becomes the means to communicate, tongue-​in-​cheek, a critique of politics all the while he seems to be elaborating on his embrace of Pythagorianism, the main subject of his diatribe in the immediately preceding paragraphs (Ep. 108.17–​21).31 The Epistle fittingly concludes with a quotation that sits at the end of a chain of intertexts—​a signature closure to a letter representative of Seneca’ mastery of decontextualization. Vergil’s words are once again evoked, Georg. 2.260–​1, quem super ingens |​porta tonat caeli (‘above whom the great gate of heaven thunders’), but this time as means to reach back to Ennius through Cicero.32 This true intertextual stemma actually goes back even further, to Homer (Il. 5.749), Ennius’ original source of inspiration (Ep. 108.34 = Cic. Rep. fr. 3 Keyes = Enn. Varia 23–​4, p. 216 Vahlen2 = fr. 44.3–​4 Courtney = Enn. Epigram 3–​4 Warmington; cf. Lactant. Div. inst. 1.18.11): Esse enim apud Ciceronem in his ipsis de Re Publica hoc epigramma Enni: Si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est, Mi soli caeli maxima porta patet. For there is a couplet by Ennius, preserved in this same book of Cicero’s, On the State: If it is right for anyone to ascend the regions of the gods, For me alone the great gate of heaven stands open. Given the fact that the subject of Cicero’s Rep. 6.29 is the survival of the soul after death, it turns out that Seneca’s choice of quotation is conditioned by his Pythagorean interests in the previous paragraphs (Ep. 108.17–​21).

29 Morelli 2007, 528:  ‘in archaic literary Latin both pretium and ops are voces mediae which may also have negative connotations. For the hostis, then, what is meant is that none was able to “make Scipio pay the penalty” of his war exploits, hinting perhaps at Rome’s foe par excellence in this period, Hannibal. But what does it mean that no citizen could “adequately reward” Scipio? Ennius is probably critiquing Scipio’s ungrateful fatherland’. 30 For Seneca’s dislike of Ennius and his contempt for his old-​fashioned language, see Sen. Ep. 58.5. Cf. also De ira [5]‌.3.37.5; Mazzoli 1970, 189–​94. 31 Interestingly, Seneca’s nuanced reading of Ennius is combined with a very conservative reading of Cicero:  motivated by linguistic interests, the grammarian Seneca comments on Cicero’s precious archaism (calx), by quoting a passage from the Republic otherwise lost. 32 For Ennius’ epigram, see Morelli 2007, 526–​9.

10

10  Myrto Garani et al. According to Courtney, however, Ennius’ intertext is an epigram by Alcaeus of Messene in praise of Philip V of Macedonia (AP 9.518 = Gow-​Page, HE 14–​17).33 By alluding to this epigram, Seneca continues thinking of the pious Scipio and enhances his eulogy by assigning to the Roman hero a place among the gods after death through his comparison to Philip who enters the gates of heaven as a conqueror.34 Seneca’s choice of Ennius’ epigram enables him to go back to Stoic doctrine and close the letter with an allusion to the sublimity of the Stoic sage.35 Once again, he seems to be preoccupied with a grammarian’s explanation, but in essence he induces his addressee to imitate his own incredibly rich mining of intertexts behind Vergil’s verse, to discover the wisdom hidden behind and beyond the sterile meaning of words. As noted at the beginning, the volume consists of nine chapters arranged in two parts. Part  1 opens with a chapter by Amanda Wilcox (‘Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood’), which explores a less overt form of intertextual positioning, that of exemplary intertextuality, which, as she claims, is far less identifiable or isolable, in its sources or its effects, than quotation or allusion. Wilcox underlines that ‘the intertextuality of exemplary discourse invokes its intertextual tradition as a collectivity’. While Seneca grants exempla with rhetorical persuasiveness and philosophically therapeutic force, he omits the names of his sources possibly for strategic purposes. Wilcox identifies particular passages in which Seneca depicts exempla of paternal behavior. By means of these exempla, Seneca induces his readers into deliberation about the ideal paternal behavior in actual and symbolic terms and eventually assists them in conquering virtue. Wilcox places the focus at greatest length on two exemplary episodes, both about intended parricide, from book 1 of Seneca’s De clementia (1.9.1–​12, 1.15.1–​16.3). In both episodes the protagonist is Augustus, himself father, adoptive father, stepfather and pater patriae. Drawing our attention to the fact that the treatise is addressed to Nero, Wilcox discusses the way in which ordinary fatherhood intersects with the symbolic fatherhood that Augustus exercised over his subjects. Originally, Seneca narrates an attempt on the life of the emperor. Augustus figures as a positive exemplar, depicted as the mild father who ‘displayed his own forbearance and wisdom by choosing to sting his son onto a better path through words, rather than with harshly punitive action’ (p. 35). In the second example, Seneca describes an exemplary parent’s response to his son’s intended parricide, a reaction which is considered an analogue of the ruler’s clementia. Seneca suggests that the judgment of the good prince supersedes that of the good father. At the same time, he demonstrates how a ruler should 33 Courtney 1993, 41. 34 Morelli 2007, 527. 35 Cf. Sen. NQ 3 praef. and Garani (in this volume). Seneca here may toy with the deifying quality of Stoic sublimity, challenging traditional aristocratic views that did not accept post-​ mortem apotheosis; cf. Morelli 2007, 529.

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Introduction 11 act as a father to his subjects, while honoring their own traditional authority as fathers. Wilcox then discusses a passage from the second book of Seneca’s De ira, which touches upon the issue of the abuse of the paternal role, with reference to Caligula. She closes her chapter with a section comparing the political and ethical ramifications of father Augustus as represented in Seneca’s exemplary discourse to Seneca’s metaphorical representation of god as a father to humans in the De providentia: while Seneca defines the position of the pater patriae in relation to that of the pater familias and discusses the paternal aspect of the divine, he recommends paternal leniency and questions autocracy as benevolent paternalism. As Wilcox suggests, Seneca’s recasting of the social practice of adoption as a therapeutic metaphor available equally to all offers some alleviation for the tight bonds of actual and symbolic kinship Roman culture imposed on both sons and subjects. Next, Scott Smith (‘Myth, Poetry and Homer in Seneca Philosophus’) explores the way in which Seneca embraces traditional stories and heroic figures from the so-​called Greek ‘mythical time’—​both stories belonging to the broader mythical tradition and those recorded in the Homeric epics. According to Smith, the mythical world of gods and heroes represents for Seneca a ‘super-​text’ that can be cited, quoted, altered or manipulated. Smith favors a holistic approach to Seneca’s engagement with the mythical past, and identifies specific tensions between myth-​as-​intertext and poetry-​ as-​intertext. Seneca dissents from the ‘allegorizing’ approaches of his Stoic predecessors, according to which the earliest humans had some pure notion of the divine, which was corrupted due to the poets; hence the philosopher does not accept allegoresis along with allegory through etymology as a valid interpretative strategy. Further, Seneca rejects the majority of traditional stories which belong to the ‘mythical time’, due to their inherent unbelievable narrative elements, which are both alien to the Stoic natural world and distant from modern world. Regarding the intrinsic implausibility of the narrative components, it turns out that Seneca’s primary criterion is concerned with whether these events are consonant with the laws of nature or not, no matter when they have taken place. By underscoring the temporal chasm between the gullible past and the enlightened present, Seneca appears to be an advocate of the human progress in knowledge. Smith draws our attention to such an example, in De constantia sapientis ([2.] 2.1–​2), a case-​study in which the ‘text’ of myth provides rhetorical material. Seneca refers to Cato, Hercules and Ulysses and suggests that ‘the figures and events from the spatium mythicum, even if rationalized or historicized, have little relevance to the philosophical mission of the present’. On the other hand, Smith points to certain series of rhetorical exempla, in which a figure or event drawn from the spatium mythicum—​secundum naturam—​is grouped together with historical figures, to be placed in the same temporal space of the ‘past’. Seneca may elsewhere employ a mythical figure as an exaggerated rhetorical ‘type’, or in order to illustrate a complicated philosophical principle.

12

12  Myrto Garani et al. In the remainder of his chapter, Smith shifts his focus upon Seneca’s attitude towards Homer, whom he appears to consider a sensitive reporter of the human condition. As he claims, Seneca’s citation or quotation from the Homeric Ur-​text often should be seen an act of authority rather than intertextual dialogue. Regarding in particular Homer’s Iliad, Seneca’s references focus on the earliest books. Smith considers Seneca’s Homeric references as proverbial without the Homeric text in hand and without a clear pattern of use: some can be considered as ‘moral archetypes of human existence’, others are chosen so as to comment on oratorical style or as exempla to support a philosophical argument, still without bearing any deeper associations with the Homeric text. Last but not least Smith discusses an exception to what he has described so far as Seneca’s reception of Iliadic ‘myths’, by drawing our attention to Seneca’s description of the emperor Caligula’s maltreatment of Pastor at De ira [4.] 2.33, which is compared with the treatment that Priam received at the hands of Achilles in Iliad 24. Homer’s Odyssey, on the other hand, or at least the figure of Odysseus and his travels from books 9–​12 along with the information we read in post-​Homeric sources, offers Seneca a consistent and singular mytho-​literary image from the Odyssean ‘super-​text’ to exploit. The employment of doxographic literature at the service of Seneca’s ethical philosophy inspires Jula Wildberger to claim in her ‘Seneca and the Doxography of Ethics’, that the reception of ethical philosophy was a central element in the project of redefining what it meant to be a member of the Roman elite, in other words a senator seeking to achieve core values of his class, such as manly excellence (virtus) and freedom (libertas), and a philosopher, as well. Wildberger further argues that this process of redefinition took place not in the usual socio-​political arena but in the exclusive service of philosophy, so as to challenge Seneca to engage with it late in his life, so successfully as to create new authorial literary-​philosophical personae as role models to be advertized in the literary works of that period. To substantiate this claim, Wildberger outlines how the writer of the Epistulae morales develops as a practitioner of philosophy, by changing in the course of this work his explicit attitude towards the technical or academic side of philosophy, while showing an increasing interest in theoretical issues with dogmatic centrality. Wildberger observes that in the latter part of his epistolary corpus, the Roman philosopher appears to consider the refining function of dialectic ethical reasoning as beneficial, and offers summaries of ethical tenets in syllogistic form, in order to make important distinctions. As a consequence, this gives rise to two styles of philosophy, on the one hand, subtle reduction and concentration and, on the other, expansion through blunt, paraenetic pushing: not mutually exclusive but two sides of the same medal. […] Progress is made in an ongoing dialectic of disorderly accretion and subsequent weeding. (p. 83)

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Introduction 13 Wildberger singles out the pivotal importance of Ep.102, as the starting point of Seneca’s engagement with moralibus rationalia immixta (Ep. 102.4), marking the transition to a new stage of theoretical refinement and introducing a new theme, the ontology of the good. Further ontological questions are discussed in the subsequent epistles (e.g., 106, 113, 117 [116, 121, 124]). Wildberger points to thematic and structural parallels between the latter part of the Epistulae morales and Stoic doxography of a particularly technical nature, as we find in Doxography B excerpted in Stobaeus’ Anthologion (2.7) and attributed to Arius Didymus. In this doxography remarkable attention is paid to ontological issues. Wildberger indicates ten parallels regarding tenets of a more technical nature. Without suggesting necessarily Seneca’s specific allusion to Doxography B, she argues that these parallels serve to evoke intertextually a type of higher-​level or academic philosophy curriculum that the writer of the Epistles partly rejects and partly adopts, along with the kind of expertise one would need to acquire in order to become a professional in the field. In Wildberger’s words, [t]‌he letters help build the persona of a well-​educated expert who is disdainful of such recondite fields of the curriculum but also in full control of the subject matter, capable of seeing complex implications and free in his judgment like his Stoic predecessors, even beyond the confines of his school should his sense of what is correct and incorrect demand it.  (p. 100) The parallels are associated no less with ‘a new project of a systematic, comprehensive treatment of ethics in a more professional style than the compilation of summaries and reading notes or the composition of moral reflections in a personal style’ (p. 96). In the opening section of her chapter, Wildberger points to the shared general interest in ontological questions and the commonalities regarding the information provided (such as the ontological distinction between bodies and incorporeal predicate-​effects in Ep. 117). She, then, underscores explicit assertions that we read in both Seneca and Doxography B (e.g., in association with the corporeality of the soul and the corresponding corporeality of the good, they both claim that virtues, the primary goods are bodies and that they are animals in Ep. 106 and 113; the account about how ‘sayables’ [λεκτά] are involved in action impulses in Ep. 113, 117; the topic of friendship in Ep. 102; the discussion of mutual benefit exclusively between sages in Ep. 109; the erotic and sympotic virtues of the Stoic sage in Ep. 123). Wildberger observes also the correspondence between the sequence of arguments in Doxography B and the sequence of questions spread out over different letters in the Epistulae morales. Seneca also elucidates certain ambiguities that lurk in Doxography B (such as the point about practical wisdom in Ep. 117). More to the point, she focuses on the way in which Seneca introduces the ontological distinction in Ep. 117.5, as if he wanted to evoke some such doxographical source, by means of a short illustration reminiscent of the handbook lists with pairs of

14

14  Myrto Garani et al. verbal adjectives ending in -​τος (for the corporeal goods, bads or indifferent) and -​τέος (for the corresponding incorporeal effects). In this connection, it is highly remarkable that in his translation of the Greek theory, Seneca inverts the connotation of the two Greek suffixes and then again he slightly distorts what was intended in the original Greek account, so as to demonstrate his familiarity with inside knowledge of his target text. In the last part of her chapter, Wildberger proposes some suggestions about the content and the structure of Seneca’s lost work, Libri moralis philosophiae, which is mentioned in the same part of the corpus of the Epistles and which contained quaestiones, i.e., debated issues in ethics. Her suggestions are based on the conclusions drawn from what she has observed about Seneca’s reception of Stoic doxography of ethics. In accordance with this, she argues that The questions tackled in the Libri moralis philosophiae had this antithetic structure with the author cast in the role of a judge. [...] [T]he Libri moralis philosophiae were not a systematic exposition in form of an extended doxography developing tenets and definitions step by step within a conceptual thematic structure. (p. 101–2) The first half of Part 2 consists of three chapters that examine Seneca’s dialogue with the leading Latin epics of Vergil and Ovid, and strive to illustrate the diversity of Seneca’s philosophic embrace and the complexity and depth of his appropriation methodology. Inspired by the realization that Vergil’s works comprise the most popular source of intertextual quotations in Seneca’s prose works, Sophia Papaioannou in ‘Reading Seneca Reading Vergil’ takes on Vergil’s dominant presence in Seneca’s philosophical prose, evidenced in the 119 direct quotations from Vergil’s poetry and in numerous other less promptly identified situations of Vergilian interetxuality. Vergil’s poetry is consistently in Seneca’s mind, much more than any other work, poetic, philosophical, or otherwise—​the second more popular author to merit quotation is Ovid, with 28 quotes (Motto and Clark 1993a, 125)—​and this dominance has led critics generally to argue that the philosopher tends to quote Vergil as an authority of sorts (usually in a philosophical context), and has found in Vergil ‘the mastertext for the representation of the human soul and its passions’ (Staley 2013, 98), while Vergil’s Aeneas embodies the perfect wise man of the Stoics. In light of the uncontested acknowledgment of the Vergilian influence on Seneca’s prose writings, Papaioannou suggests that the philosopher Seneca’s interaction with Vergil is distinguished also by poetics. The way poetics works in the Epistles is best understood upon identifying a special type of dialogue between Seneca and Vergil, which is marked by irony:36 according to Papaioannou, Seneca’s echoes of Vergil in the Epistles often are ironic or even dissonant in comparison, and, further, Seneca’s ironic reading of Vergil is systematic, 36 The notable presence of irony in the Dialogues has been promptly noted in Wilcox 2008, 464–​75.

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Introduction 15 expressed in diverse ways, and identifiable throughout the author’s philosophical output. To illustrate this diversity in Seneca’s implementation of irony in his intertextual dialogue with Vergil, Papaioannou examines closely a number of textual incorporations from the Aeneid (which furnishes the majority of the Vergilian quotations) in the Epistles. The selection of the passages mindfully comprises texts from different parts of the corpus (including the first reference to the Aeneid in Ep. 12.9). Papaioannou’s study shows that, regardless of the peculiar function of each quotation, on each and every intertextual engagement the evocation of Vergil generates ironic contrast and discloses to the well-​ read reader of Seneca several layers of meaning at work, whose interpretation is too often determined by poetics. In ‘Seneca Quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales’, Andreas Michalopoulos focuses on Letters 33 and 110, which include quotations from Ovid, one of Seneca’s favorite poets. In Letter 33 Seneca discusses the futility of learning maxims and explains to Lucilius his reasons for not quoting any sayings of Epicurus since Letter 29. He strengthens his argument with a quotation from the story of Polyphemus and Galatea in book 13 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Michalopoulos argues that the Ovidian quotation in Letter 33 is not merely a display of Seneca’s erudition and that Seneca sets a fascinating literary challenge for his readers: he invites them to go back to the text from which he draws the quotation and to discover possible associations and similarities. Michalopoulos reveals the numerous points of contact between the two texts and shows that Seneca’s Ovidian quotation creates a dense nexus of intertextual connections opening a window for multiple interpretations of his text. Moreover, Seneca’s use of Polyphemus—​a mythological creature alien to the world of philosophy—​in a serious discussion about philosophy testifies to his witty and sophisticated humor. Michalopoulos then discusses Seneca’s advice to Lucilius in Letter 110 that men should guard themselves against material desires and be at peace with themselves in order to achieve happiness. Seneca cites line 595 from the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, from the story of Jupiter and Io. Michalopoulos explores the reason why Seneca evokes Io’s love affair with Jupiter in a letter that has absolutely no erotic content whatsoever. He points out that Seneca wishes to turn his readers’ attention to the intertext right from the start and make them look there for the proper connections. Michalopoulos then proceeds with a close, comparative reading of Ovid’s Io story and Seneca’s Epistle 110 and brings to the fore numerous points of contact between them. Michalopoulos concludes that the Ovidian quotations in Seneca’s Letters 33 and 110 are important for the whole letters and not just for the sections of the letters in which they are placed. Seneca requires Lucilius (and his external readers) to read the source-​texts carefully and pick up any possible undercurrent links, similarities, and analogies. According to Michalopoulos, these quotations function as bridges between Seneca’s and Ovid’s texts; the Ovidian source-​text plays the role of a parallel running commentary shedding light

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16  Myrto Garani et al. on Seneca’s letters and enabling a fuller understanding of Seneca’s ideas and arguments. Francesca Romana Berno in ‘The Importance of Collecting Shells: Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49’ focuses upon the short Epistle 49, which pertains to the issues of memory, poetry and dialectic, and discusses the function of the interconnected citations and allusions which are spread throughout the Epistle. In the first part of her chapter Berno maps the rich web of intertextual quotations and allusions whereupon Seneca builds his main argument. The opening of the Epistle is particularly emotional, due to the separation of dear friends, and thus seems to be charged with elegiac connotations. Then comes a quotation possibly from Cicero’s Hortensius (Sen. Ep. 49.5; Cic. fr. 12 Grilli), which responds to the latter’s polemic against lyric poetry and the poetae novi and itself refers back to Plato’s criticism of poetry in the Republic. By means of this quotation, while Seneca associates lyric poetry and dialectic, he introduces the distinction between useless philosophy, in this case dialectic with deals with paradoxes and wordplays, and the useful one, which leads to true happiness. Seneca also quotes from Vergil’s Aeneid (Sen. Ep. 49.7; Verg. Aen. 8.385–​6) and adopts epic phrasing, in order to exhort the reader to fight. Seneca derisively depicts the figure of an idle dialectic philosopher, who, far from approximating a Stoic sage, erroneously indulges in his linguistic dexterity. Seneca adds a prose translation from Euripides’ Phoenissae (Ep. 49.12; cf. Eur. Phoen. 469), in order to convey the contrast between simple and honest speech vs. complex and false speech. Berno shows how within the framework of one Epistle Seneca is able to create an intertextual play by interweaving quotations from epic and tragic poetry as well as philosophical prose, from both Greek and Latin literature. Berno then draws attention to an image at the center of the Epistle (Sen. Ep. 49.6), which depicts a marching soldier who collects little things as he goes along and then hastily drops them when he finds himself unexpectedly under the assault of the enemy. For Berno, this image stands as the main intertextual philosophical allusion of the Epistle, and leads to the suggestion that, whereas little things, such as shells, which are considered to be useless, ‘indifferents’ in Stoic terms, should be identified with dialectic tools, the urging event that calls for our immediate attention cannot be other that death. In connection with this image, she points to Seneca’s Epistle 115 in which the philosopher also discusses dialectic and explicitly bestows to Aristo of Chios an image of children collecting shells (Ep. 115.8). Berno also spots a parallel image in Epictetus (Ench. 7), where a man collecting shells is forced to go back to his ship. As she claims, in Epistle 49 Seneca departs from the orthodox Stoic position, which would appreciate paradoxes and wordplays, and plausibly alludes to Aristo, whose stance was critical towards dialectic and thus unorthodox in Stoic terms. Given, however, the fact that Seneca resorts to rhetorical tools and quotations, which somehow contradicts Aristo’s radical rejection of dialectic, Berno concludes that Seneca modifies

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Introduction 17 his predecessor’s stance, so as to offer a more arresting exhortation against the fear of death. The three chapters in the second half of Part  2 focus on philosophical intertextuality, defined either in terms of Seneca’s dialogue with philosophical literature or with interaction with an assortment of literary texts inside a decidedly philosophical context. Tommaso Gazzarri (‘Sub auro servitus habitat: Seneca’s Moralizing of Architecture and the Anti-​Neronian Querelle’) focuses on the two contradictory accounts about the Golden Age that Seneca expounds in his Epistle 90, and argues that, while Seneca resorts to intertextual dialogue with both Posidonius and Vergil, he is ‘not only conducting a philosophical discussion, but he is also pursuing a specific political target’ (p. 167). As Gazzarri demonstrates, Seneca first defines his position towards the Mid-​Stoic tradition with particular reference to the image of the Golden Age and human progress, and conveys pessimistic undertones concerning the subsequent eras of human history; he then harshly criticizes Nero’s lifestyle and regime, demythologizes the emperor’s ideal that a new Golden Age can be associated with the imperial house and eventually portrays him as a tyrant. The end of the ‘Golden Age’ constitutes one of the main foci of Epistle 90. Seneca quotes a long excerpt from Posidonius to argue in favor of the innocence and overall positive connotation of the prelapsarian age, yet pretty quickly distances himself from the Greek master by expounding a negative argument concerning the subsequent eras of human history. While Posidonius considers these primal philosophical tenets the necessary prelude to the development of modern artes, Seneca condemns their current status quo and sees in them the degeneration of the once pure and uncorrupted world; for the Roman philosopher, benefits brought about by artes should be considered in philosophical terms as preferable ἀδιάφορα, that is, something not worth pursuing. From the artes, architecture provides one of the most pervasive metaphorical fields throughout the Epistle.37 Gazzarri traces how Seneca takes a moralistic slant on architecture, which finds an illustrious antecedent in Vitruvius, De arch. 2.1.3, and establishes a cogent equivalence between one’s abode and one’s ethics. The unnecessary luxury of modern adobes clashes with the simplicity of primitive dwellings, in the same way that modern vices clash with the innocence and honesty of primitive men. In particular, at Ep. 90.10, Seneca contrasts the simplicity of primitive huts, like the casa Romuli, which he had praised in Helv. 9.2–​3, with the immoral sophistication of his time and concludes by saying that sub marmore atque auro servitus habitat. Gazzarri takes into account the chronology of the epistle as well as the extant literary evidence concerning the emperor’s royal palace (Suetonius Ner. 31 and Tacitus Ann. 15.42) and shows that, in his accurate description of the ceilings and the technical complexity of the main tricliniar space, the so-​called cenatio rotunda, Seneca clearly alludes to 37 Detailed discussion in Armisen-​Marchetti 1989.

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18  Myrto Garani et al. Nero’s architectural achievement, the Domus Aurea and targets its excesses. Gazzarri further notes that if one traces further the semantic layers of the adjective aureus, we find that both Vergil, in the sixth book of the Aeneid, and Calpurnius Siculus in his first Eclogue associate the accessions of new emperors (respectively Augustus, and, most likely, Nero) with the coming of a new ‘Golden Age’. Gazzarri calls Seneca’s philosophizing through literature ‘Senecan ex silentio literary strategy’ and shows how it helps the philosopher erase the link between Golden Age and monarchic power, while prioritizing the cynic motif of the liberty provided by a simple lifestyle, has significant political implications. Seneca seems to suggest that the only gold brought by Nero is the one of his domus. By upending this canonical perspective with his intertextual deployment of the tradition’s key term (aurus), Seneca clearly sets himself apart from preceding and contemporary literary tradition and conveys a far-​from-​idyllic representation of the political status quo in Rome. By doing so, he conveys a far-​from-​idyllic, potentially subversive, image of Rome’s status quo, in which Nero figures as a tyrant. In ‘Seneca on the Mother Cow: Poetic Models and Natural Philosophy in the Consolation to Marcia’, Fabio Tutrone discusses the interaction between Seneca and Lucretius. Tutrone explores the function of certain thus far underestimated intertextual allusions to Lucretius’ DRN, which he spots in Seneca’s Consolatio ad Marciam. In this particular consolatory treatise the philosopher aims at challenging Marcia’s prolonged, and thus unnatural, grief for the loss of her son, Metilius, three years after his death, and eventually at rekindling ‘her interest in communal life, family reciprocity and constructive memory’ (p.  180). Taking Seneca’s familiarity with the Epicurean tradition for granted, Tutrone discusses the appropriation in the Epistles of Lucretius’ didactic techniques which are in effect also in Seneca with therapeutic purposes in a way similar to his Epicurean predecessor. At the same time, the use of intertextuality in order to persuade the learned addressee, is considered by itself a rhetorical gesture of didactic ‘coercion’. Tutrone focuses on Seneca’s digression about the grief of non-​human beings (Marc. [6]. 7), and aims at unveiling the cognitive and physical basis of immoderate sorrow. He argues that, although for the Stoics moderate longing for the dead is natural, being a pre-​emotion, i.e., an involuntary ‘bite’ or ‘contraction’, men should react differently from animals, since they can, and certainly should, resort to rational judgment when it comes to the interpretation of natural world, human life and the limits of the self. In other words, Seneca deals with grief as a wrong rational response to external inputs. Under the understanding that Stoics and Epicureans share in common the philosophical idea of inner involuntary ‘bites’ or ‘contractions’ of the soul, Seneca opts for initiating an intertextual dialogue with both Lucretius’ famous passage on the mother cow (DRN 2.352–​66) and Ovid’s reception thereof within the framework of Persephone’s rape (Fasti 4.417–​ 620), a narrative already pregnant with vivid Lucretian connotations and focusing on maternal grief. In doing so, Seneca uses the Lucretian mother cow-​passage,

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Introduction 19 which is commonly read as a ‘purple’ poetic one, as a means to convey his Stoic philosophical message. For Tutrone, both Ovid and Seneca underscore the themes of parental love, death, grief and lamentation, which lurk in Lucretius’ scientific passage. Ovid, however, downgrades Lucretius’ anti-​religious connotations, which subsequently are completely obscured in Seneca’s treatment. Despite this doctrinal differentiation, Seneca embraces Lucretius’ train of thoughts, in order to show that Marcia’s grief is a cognitive error with behavioral consequences. What is even more, while Seneca claims that ‘if something maintains variation, evidently it is not based on nature’, he refutes the Epicurean ‘multiply infinite and profoundly variegated world of atoms and void’ and counter-​proposes his Stoic doctrine ‘of a uniform, teleologically ordered cosmos’ (p. 181) which comforts with ‘the indications of the immanent divine nature’ (p. 196). The concluding chapter by Myrto Garani (‘Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum (Nat. Quaest. 3.20–​1, 25–​6; Ovid Met. 15.270–​336)’) revisits Seneca’s engagement with the philosopher Ovid, and specifically with Ovid’s last and more sophisticated self-​projection in the Metamorphoses, Pythagoras. Garani zooms in on Seneca’s quotations from Ovid’s Pythagorean list of natural wonders, the first part of which is devoted to various mirabilia aquarum, concerning mainly rivers and springs (Met. 15.270–​336). As scholars have already observed, Ovid draws most of his examples from Callimachus’ Collection of Wonders (Ἐκλογὴ τῶν παραδόξων), part of which is reproduced by Antigonus’ of Carystus Collection of Wondrous Stories (Ἱστοριῶν παραδόξων συναγωγή). In line with this, Garani explores the ways in which Seneca responds to Pythagoras’ Callimachean (pseudo)scientific account and the Callimachean tradition of paradoxography, by offering coherent scientific explanations and thus rationalizing the paradoxographical examples. In Garani’s discussion, Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with Ovid’s list of mirabilia takes place in two stages; whereas in ­chapters 20 and 21 the engagement with the Ovidian intertext is more intense, with three explicit quotations, in c­ hapters 25 and 26 there is only one such quotation. Unlike Ovid, Seneca does not place the emphasis upon each particular case, but considers them as instances that demonstrate the general natural laws which regulate nature and the workings of waters. Seneca challenges Ovid’s account, either by omitting or by correcting specific examples, in case he regards them as fallacious, especially when these are explicitly associated with a mythical narrative. In this demythologizing process, Seneca applauds the reception of gods into the Ovidian universe, undoubtedly overlapping—​at least in his view—​with the Stoic divine providence; at the same time, he adopts a critical stance towards the Ovidian world of mythical transformation, which—​as he suggests—​is erroneously imbued with wonder and fear. In doing so, he follows Lucretius’ corresponding approach towards the natural wonders. At the same time, whilst he strives to make his account more palatable for his Roman audience, he produces tangible Italian examples. Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with Ovid turns out to be a bidirectional process: once Seneca engages with

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20  Myrto Garani et al. Ovid’s Callimachean list of paradoxa, he unexpectedly places himself within the Roman tradition of Callimacheanism, with its implications of witty generic experimentation and subtle—​often ironic—​intertextual allusions, which the informed reader should be on the alert to perceive, while reading the last part of book 3.

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Part 1

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1  Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood Amanda Wilcox

1  Introduction Roman literature abounds in depictions of fathers and fatherly deportment, and it is clear that in Roman culture and life, the central role played by a man’s father and by the head of household, the pater familias, could be richly supplemented by additional father figures. Near the beginning of his speech in defense of Marcus Caelius Rufus, for instance, Cicero describes how the adolescent Caelius was carefully transferred from his father’s house to Cicero’s own home, and from there to the ‘most pure’ (castissima domo, Cael. 9) house of Marcus Crassus, who along with Cicero guided his apprenticeship in public life. Cicero even encourages the jurors in the case to take a fatherly attitude toward the defendant. He surveys their options for paternal models by turning to comedy, first quoting several severe fathers drawn from the plays of Caecilius Statius before recommending instead that they adopt the attitude of Micio, the lenient father in Terence’s comedy Adelphoe: ‘He has broken down the doors, they will be refitted; he has torn his clothing, it will be mended’ (Fores ecfregit, restituentur; discit vestem, resarcietur Cael. 38 = Ad. 120–​1). Taken as a whole, Cicero’s Pro Caelio richly illustrates the pervasive Roman preoccupation with fatherhood, both literal and figurative, to which Seneca was heir. More specifically, the speech exemplifies a Roman presumption that Seneca’s writings also share, namely, that there is a direct connection between the correct performance of duties in the domestic sphere and beneficial outcomes in the public realm.1 But Cicero’s deft employment of Roman comedy in service of his persuasive forensic rhetoric also offers a useful point of comparison for Seneca’s deployment of ideas about fatherhood. Cicero’s transfer of the severe and lenient fathers from Roman comedy into forensic oratory engages in the most straightforward kind of intertextuality, namely, quotation. Cicero refers generically to a vehemens and durus father familiar from the plays of Caecilius Statius, and then he quotes specifically from several of these comedies before unfurling a quote from Terence’s Adelphoe to 1 On this theme in the Pro Caelio, see May 1995.

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24  Amanda Wilcox provide a model of the easy-​going, forgiving father he encourages his audience of jurors to emulate. In contrast, Seneca’s borrowing of paternal models, although it is no less indebted to previous literature than that of Cicero, is far less susceptible to straightforward source analysis. Seneca certainly does engage in quotation, allusion and reference to other literary texts in his philosophical works (for many excellent examples, see other contributions to this volume), but he engages also in less overt forms of intertextual positioning. In the passages this chapter examines, Seneca depicts paternal behavior that would be in some cases reassuringly familiar to his original audience, and sometimes quite unexpected, but he consistently casts these depictions in the form of exempla. When Seneca tells an anecdote in the form of an exemplum and installs it in a work of moral philosophy, he is not only exploiting a familiar means of advancing an argument but also practicing an art in itself. For Seneca’s Roman readers, schooled in declamation, the power of an exemplum well selected and deftly tailored to its immediate context was routinely measured by its persuasive force.2 Passages that were easily recognized as exempla in formal terms but departed from conventional expectations in the moral lesson they promoted had all the greater power to surprise their readers and to provoke them into deliberation. Just as Cicero recommends Terence’s character Micio as a model of paternal leniency in his Pro Caelio, Seneca, in several of his philosophical works, invokes through an exemplum a model of paternal behavior that may have the virtue of appearing fresh and unexpected, but which will also situate his advice firmly within the mainstream of the Roman literary tradition and mos maiorum. In late Republican legal oratory or early imperial declamation, exempla were evaluated for their persuasive force. In Seneca’s philosophical writing, the value of exempla still resided in their power to persuade the reader, but the persuasive force that exempla deployed by Seneca possessed likely stemmed in part from the reassuring familiarity his readers would have had with argument by means of historical exemplum, thanks to the emphasis on rhetoric and declamatory practice in Roman elite education. This familiarity could reassure newcomers to philosophical discourse by domesticating it, by bringing it closer to genres with which these readers already felt comfortable.3 Moreover, Roman exemplary discourse was thoroughly intertextual, though what I  will term ‘exemplary intertextuality’ differs in its aims and effects from literary intertextuality as it is has been most frequently examined 2 On exempla in declamation, see e.g., Sussman 1978, 114. For analysis of exempla in Seneca, see e.g., Wilcox 2006, Mayer 2008, and Dressler 2012. Langlands 2018 and Roller 2018, both of which build on prior work by these scholars, include valuable analyses of Senecan exemplary discourse within wide-​ranging discussions of exempla in Roman culture. 3 On the declamatory qualities of Clem. 1.9.1–​12, discussed below, see Braund 2009, 258 and Mortureux 1973, 24–​30. For the prominence of father-​son relationships in declamation, see Sussman 1995 and Gunderson 2003.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 25 in Latin poetry.4 The intertextuality exhibited by Senecan exempla is far less identifiable or isolable, in its sources or its effects, than quotation or allusion. This intertextuality is, instead, akin to that of the topos, in Stephen Hinds’ formulation: ‘[R]‌ather than demanding interpretation in relation to a specific model or models, like the allusion, the topos invokes its intertextual tradition as a collectivity, to which the individual contexts and connotations of individual prior instances are firmly subordinate’.5 Tara Welch has recently used Hinds’ discussion of the topos as a springboard for her exploration of the intertextuality of Valerius Maximus’ Memorable Doings and Sayings.6 Welch characterizes Valerius’ engagement with the texts of previous authors, specifically Cicero and Livy, as a kind of ‘anti-​intertextuality’, which ‘functions not only aesthetically, as a statement about texts and creation, but also socially, as a statement about who may participate in Roman culture (79)’. Valerius privileges the common threads of a story over the particularities of specific versions. In a conventional sense, he plagiarizes his sources, by failing to acknowledge extensive quotation.7 But Welch argues that Valerius saw his role as an author as a ‘conduit… for content: for tradition (75)’ and so in his telling of exempla, he ‘erases them as texts (76)’ as a means of recuperating and advertising ‘the truth [that these stories convey] beyond and independent of Cicero’s or Livy’s interpretation’ and thus engaging actively in ‘a process by which communal property becomes available to members of society at large (77)’.8 This way, Welch shows that Valerian intertextuality can neither be described as ‘historiographical intertextuality, valuing [authority derived from] source texts’ nor as typically ‘declamatory or literary intertextuality, valuing the destination text (74)’. Instead, Valerius engages in ‘intertextual streamlining’, that strips his versions of idiosyncratic stylistic markers or controversial historical details. What Welch discovers to be true of Valerian intertextuality is in significant measure also true for 4 The circumscribed exploration of Senecan ‘exemplary intertextuality’ here may thus be considered as one modest response to a comment by Don Fowler (2000, 128), to wit: ‘There is a tendency… for intertextual criticism to concentrate on poetic literary texts to the neglect of prose, subliterary, and non-​literary texts’. This remark is amplified by Baraz and van den Berg 2013, 3.  The articles their collection brings together offer a range of stimulating responses, including Welch 2013. 5 Hinds 1998, 34. I have also found helpful Lowell Edmunds’ (2001, 143–​4) description of ‘system reference’, in which a poetic text quotes ‘the [non-​poetic] language specific to an institution, an organization, or a customary social practice’. He offers as an example Ovid ‘quot[ing] an institution of the Roman household when he describes Circe’s supervision of her nymphs’ (Met. 14.268–​70). 6 Welch 2013. Cf. Bloomer 1992, 200. 7 Our conventional view of what constitutes plagiarism may well be anachronistic, however. See, e.g., Peirano 2012, 16 on ‘creative supplementation’, particularly within declamation, in which previous literary texts were used ‘not simply as a quarry for phrases, but as cues to construct fictional scenarios that might serve as platforms for rhetorical exercises’. 8 Similarly, see Bloomer 1997, 210–​1 on Seneca the Elder’s work and declamation generally as a means toward social mobility and prestige.

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26  Amanda Wilcox Seneca, mutatis mutandis, in his philosophical writings. At times Seneca flags his borrowing from other authors, whether to appeal to their authority or to challenge it, or to engage in stylistic homage or rivalry. But more often, the mission of sharing and handing down the truth (translatio) takes precedence over crediting individual sources. In fact, Seneca makes this priority explicit in his Moral Epistles: ‘Epicurus’ inquis ‘dixit: quid tibi cum alieno?’ Quod verum est meum est; perseverabo Epicurum tibi ingerere, ut isti qui in verba iurant nec quid dicatur aestimant, sed a quo, sciant quae optima sunt esse communia. (Ep. 12.11) You say, ‘Epicurus said this—​what are you doing with another person’s property?’ What is true is mine. I will keep heaping Epicurus on you so that those who swear by words and do not evaluate what is said but only who said it may finally learn that what is best is held in common.9 So, like Valerius, Seneca may strategically omit the names of his sources. Moreover, Seneca is concerned to illustrate that his exempla demonstrate moral behaviors that will be transferrable and useful for different actors in different circumstances. If smoothing away contested historical details or otherwise fictionalizing the episode best serves this aim, Seneca does not hesitate to do so. The resulting exempla, fashioned by Seneca to most effectively serve their persuasive and philosophically therapeutic aims, may, at least superficially, resemble the ‘streamlining’ done by Valerius Maximus. But Seneca’s ‘exemplary intertextuality’ does not relinquish careful literary and rhetorical shaping. Moreover, Seneca’s frequent choice to omit his sources rather than advertising them itself has an ethical and didactic purpose. His practice as a maker and transmitter of exempla itself exemplifies what he recommends to his readers. At Ep. 84.3, Seneca advises his addressee Lucilius to alternate reading various authors with writing his own work: ‘We should, as they say, imitate the bees, who roam around the flowers and snatch from those suitable for making honey, then whatever they have carried back they dispose and arrange in the comb’ (Apes, ut aiunt, debemus imitari, quae vagantur et flores et mel faciendum idoneos carpunt, deinde quidquid attulere disponunt ac per favos digerunt).10 Seneca digresses briefly to speculate on the process by which honey is made, a matter of some dispute, but he reins in his digression by pointing out that although the sources and process for making honey are mysterious, the natural end result is one delicious substance. Though discerning taste buds may differentiate sources for distinct flavors within it, the honey itself is an indivisible new whole. Seneca explains his analogy further by 9 Translations from Seneca’s works and other ancient texts are mine, unless otherwise noted. 10 Note the playfulness in the non-​citation citation accomplished by aiunt here, which is followed up by a quotation emphatically attributed to Vergil (ut Vergilius noster ait, Ep. 84.3). The bee simile in Ep. 84.3 is discussed also in the chapter by Papaioannou in the present volume.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 27 comparing the correct practice of reading and writing to the incorporation of food into our bodies: Quamdiu [alimenta] in sua qualitate perdurant…, onera sunt; at cum ex eo, quod erant, mutata sunt, tum demum in vires et in sanguinem transeunt. […] Concoquamus illa; alioqui in memoriam ibunt, non in ingenium. (Ep. 84.6) So long as food remains food in its own identifiable state…, it is a burden. But when it has changed from what it was, then at length it transforms into strength of body and into blood. […] Let us thoroughly digest our sources. Otherwise, they will enter into our memory, but not into our character. Further developing the idea, Seneca writes, ‘Let our mind hide away the sources that have assisted it, and only display what it has produced’ (Hoc faciat animus noster: omnia quibus est adiutus abscondat, ipsum tantum ostendat quod effecit, 84.7).11 Welch notes that Quintilian also advises the would-​be orator to make the best his own (quod prudentis est quod in quoque optimum est, si possit suum facere, Inst. Or. 10.2.4), in words that recall those of Seneca to Lucilius (quae optima sunt esse communia, Ep. 12.11).12 But crucially, Seneca’s advice in Epistle 84 does not recommend the assimilation of textual models to achieve literary or rhetorical excellence for its own sake. Rather, he urges this practice as a part of progress toward virtue.13 And thus, in keeping with Seneca’s prioritization of practical ethical ends over the display of his models, my discussion below of Augustus’ exemplary fatherhood does not focus on identifying specific intertexts. In the conclusion of this chapter, however, I do return to the metaphors that Seneca deploys in Ep. 84, which include not only bees making honey but also paternity and patrimony. He recasts the natural phenomenon of biological heredity and cultural practices of filiation as resources we can seize on for generating new texts and also for changing our lives. Within the body of this chapter, therefore, I investigate Seneca’s treatment of fatherhood, particularly in exemplary stories featuring Augustus, with the expectation that in crafting his versions of these stories Seneca largely 11 Henderson (2004, 46–​7) aptly paraphrases, ‘We are to put our raw materials under wraps, and show up our product instead’. 12 Welch 2013, 78. 13 Henderson’s (2004, 46–​8) discussion of this letter is well attuned to the ‘imaging of imaging’ or ‘metaphorization’ of its various topics to describe and enact Seneca’s moral pedagogy. Ep. 84 is discussed more straightforwardly as Seneca’s theory of intertextual practice by Welch (2013, 73) and Trinacty (2009, 263–​5), both of whom are interested (differently) in how Seneca the Younger responds to his father’s agenda. Langlands (2018, 120–​2) and Dressler (2016, 173) also comment valuably on Ep. 84.

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28  Amanda Wilcox overlooks the practice of literary intertextuality narrowly conceived—​that is, as a practice of marking resemblance and difference between source and target texts—​in favor of a more expansive notion of intertextual practice that collapses the distinction between literary and non-​literary reference, and presses both kinds equally into the service of ethical ends.14 Seneca deploys this exemplary intertextuality in service of his ‘exemplary ethics’, to use Rebecca Langlands’ term.15 Langlands contends that ‘the rhetorical and persuasive functions of exempla are intimately entwined with the ethical, and not separable from it’, a position that I take to be emphatically true for Senecan exempla. Similarly, for Seneca, the textual (and thus also intertextual) is intimately entwined with other parts of life not conventionally regarded as text. In fact, what can properly be regarded as textual is comprehensive. We find this view especially in the Epistulae morales, probably Seneca’s last philosophical writing, in which he suggests repeatedly that reading and writing to absent friends is not only comparable to living together and engaging in conversation, but that in fact, they are the same. They are not only identically valuable practices, but actually identical.16 In crafting this exemplary intertextuality as a vehicle for and demonstration of his exemplary ethics, Seneca comments on, and also delivers a lesson in, how to deal with the social and political changes that were at work during his lifetime. By placing largely traditional moral contents inside the reassuringly recognizable formal container of exemplary discourse, he commemorates and recommends the mainstream tradition of paternal leniency. At the same time, he invites a critique of autocracy that would figure itself as benevolent paternalism. Accepted forms of domestic authority and values were under considerable pressure in Seneca’s day. The dynamics of fatherhood vis-​à-​vis the state had already changed and were continuing to evolve. Seneca’s use of exemplary discourse for modeling actual and symbolic paternal behavior provides ample illustration that specious continuity in cultural representation can mask real change on the ground. Moreover, Seneca’s various portrayals of the dynamics of fatherhood through exempla carry out an exploration of the contours of autocratic power, dramatizing the position of the pater patriae vis-​à-​vis the pater familias.17 They also illuminate the difference between behavior that he judges commendable for human fathers and the behavior and attitudes he 14 A referee kindly points out that my working notion of Seneca’s exemplary intertextuality here is closer to that of Julia Kristeva (for which, see Waller 1989) than that of Gian Biagio Conte (1986), whose work on allusion has thoroughly influenced so much subsequent work on intertextuality in Latin poetry (e.g., Hinds 1998, cited above). The comparison of these strands of criticism in Edmunds 2001, 9–​14 is helpful, as are his remarks on the activity of the reader, who ‘rescues the text from dissolution in the vastness of the diachronic literary tradition (159)’. 15 Langlands 2018. 16 Various scholars have articulated or intimated this Senecan strategy; see, e.g., Edwards 2018; Dressler 2012; Wilcox 2012; Too 1994, 214–​6; Wilson 2008 [1987]. 17 Roller 2001, 243–​4, comments on this aspect of ‘modelling the emperor’.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 29 attributes to the paternal aspect of the divine, and show how these two kinds of paternity coincide in the person and powers of the princeps.

2  Augustus the father Although Seneca certainly avails himself of the familiar comfort that the formal markers of exempla could induce, he also innovates, not least by expanding the ranks of exemplary actors. Beyond the catalog of exemplary Republican Roman fathers that already occur in the pages of Cicero, Livy and Valerius Maximus, Seneca adds a number of more recent figures to the roster.18 Among these is the first emperor, Augustus. As a biological father, Augustus was neither prolific nor successful. His only child was a daughter, Julia, whom he married successively to her cousin M. Claudius Marcellus, his close associate M.  Agrippa (to whom she bore five children), and finally his stepson Tiberius, and whom he banished from Rome in 2 BCE and never recalled.19 In the De beneficiis, Seneca has Augustus lament his harsh punishment for Julia’s adulteries, though not as an intrinsic mistake. Rather, he regrets that his wrathful reaction drew greater public attention to Julia’s crimes. Divus Augustus filiam ultra inpudicitiae maledictum inpudicam relegavit et flagitia principalis domus in publicum emisit.… Haec tam vindicanda principi quam tacenda, quia quarundam rerum turpitudo etiam ad vindicantem redit, parum potens irae publicaverat. Deinde, cum interposito tempore in locum irae subisset verecundia, gemens, quod non illa silentio pressisset. (Ben. 6.32.1–​2) The divine Augustus sent away his daughter, who was shameless beyond the common brand of shamelessness, and the scandals of the emperor’s house he released into public view… Insufficiently in control of his own anger, he had made her shameful actions widely known—​actions which he in equal measure should have punished and should have hushed up, since the foulness of those sorts of things damages also the one who punishes them. Afterward, when some time had passed, and embarrassment had taken the place of anger, he groaned, since he had not suppressed her actions in silence.

18 Seneca comments on his practice at Ep. 83.13:  ‘Life should be informed by illuminating examples, and we should not always take refuge in the old ones’ (Instruenda est enim vita exemplis inlustribus, nec semper confugiamus ad vetera). Roller 2001, 88–​97 discusses the adjustments Seneca made in order to turn traditional Republican exemplars into models for a new kind of Roman ethics in concord with the political reality of the principate, and notes Seneca’s expansion of the exemplary catalog (p. 107). 19 For more on Augustus and Julia in Seneca, see Gloyn 2017, 149–​55.

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30  Amanda Wilcox As an adoptive father and stepfather, Augustus had hardly more success. He adopted Gaius Iulius Caesar and Lucius Iulius Caesar, the two older sons of M.  Agrippa and Julia, but both died in adolescence. After their deaths, Augustus adopted his adult stepson Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus, the third son of Agrippa and Julia, though he later formally removed the latter from the Julian gens and banished him.20 Tiberius, of course, succeeded Augustus, though there is scant evidence in our sources of warmth in their relationship or indication that Augustus, as father, wielded a beneficial influence over Tiberius whether as son or emperor. Ancient and modern historians agree that Augustus’ adoptions were for specifically dynastic ends, though propertied Romans already for centuries had used adoption as a ‘strategy of succession’, in Saller’s phrase,21 and his fellow Romans thus probably regarded Augustus’ assiduity in restocking the Julian gens with adoptive sons as the course any prudent pater familias would be bound to take. In any case, Seneca’s accounts of the exemplary fatherhood of Augustus rarely feature his own children, whether biological or adoptive. Interestingly, in the passage from De beneficiis quoted above, the rare mention of Augustus the biological father coincides with the equally rare invocation of Augustus as a negative exemplar. More frequently, Seneca recounts the interactions of the positively exemplary pater patriae with his figurative children, that is, his subjects.

3  Fathers, sons and the pater patriae Seneca offers some straightforward parenting advice in the De ira, where he devotes several pages to prescribing directly how to bring up children who can resist and manage their anger. For example, ‘Let [the child’s spirit] endure nothing low, nothing servile. See that there is never need for him to beg or plead and that he does not profit by doing so’ (Nihil humile, nihil servile patiatur; numquam illi necesse sit rogare suppliciter nec prosit rogare, Ira [4]‌.2.21.4). In contrast to these the straightforward instructions, the lessons that Seneca derives from exemplary passages featuring Augustus’ imperial paternity are less direct. But when we closely examine the passages where actual fathers and the first emperor interact, we see Seneca implicitly charting the intersection of ordinary fatherhood and the symbolic fatherhood that Augustus exercised over his subjects. The figurative paternity of the pater patriae is both a powerful metaphor and also a real phenomenon that Seneca documents and describes, and even shapes, or at least may have wished to be seen as shaping, given his responsibility as advisor to the throne.22 In fact, at the outset of the De clementia Seneca draws attention acutely to the one aspect of princely 20 On the abdicatio of Agrippa Postumus, see Saller 1991, 118. 21 Saller 1991, 162. 22 On the other hand, Seneca avoids figuring himself as a father figure for Nero, as Gloyn 2017, 119 n. 32 remarks. On Seneca’s refusal to place himself vis-​à-​vis Nero in the De Clementia, see Armisen-​Marchetti  2006.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 31 power that most equates to paternal power, by placing its enunciation in the mouth of Nero, whom he imagines asking, ‘Have I, of all mortals… been chosen to act in the part of the gods on earth? I make decisions of life and death for the peoples…’ (Egone ex omnibus mortalibus… electus sum, qui in terris deorum vice fungerer? Ego vitae necisque gentibus arbiter, Clem. 1.2). Accordingly, this chapter considers in detail two exemplary episodes that occur in fairly close proximity to one another in Book 1 of Seneca’s De clementia (1.9.1–​12, 1.15.1–​16.3).23 Both anecdotes are recounted at some length. The first quietly establishes what it means for a ruler to treat an individual subject as though their relationship were that of father and son, and provides Augustus as a positive exemplar who not only premieres this paternal role for the emperor but performs it successfully, using a time-​ honored script.24 In the second example, Seneca describes a more complex dynamic by recounting an episode in which the emperor plays his paternal role in tandem with the part of the primus inter pares, that is, the foremost citizen who nonetheless wielded his influence through auctoritas alone without recourse to any further, formal powers. This exemplum demonstrates how a hierarchical structure of authority depending on the metaphor of the state as a domicile, with the emperor as that household’s pater familias, could interact productively with the traditional structured authority of an actual private domus and its actual pater familias. Effectively, under Augustan rule the status of citizen has become less important than that of subject. But the force of this anecdote suggests that a pater familias who is also the subject of the pater patriae may find the latter status can act as a complement to the former, confirming his authority within the domus rather than displacing it. Seneca explicitly links these exemplary passages in book 1 of De clementia by specifying that both are about intended parricide. In the first anecdote, the intended victim is Augustus himself, which is an indirect way of establishing that the fatherhood of the pater patriae, while certainly symbolic, is not merely symbolic. Attempts on the life of the emperor are to be treated, rhetorically if not legally, as attempted parricide rather than attempted murder. Thus, it follows that the punishment for such attempts ought to also be either analogous or possibly identical to the punishment that would be meted out to a person who had attempted to kill his actual father. A father who believed that his child had made or was planning to make an attempt on his life would have complete discretion over his response. He might opt for any punishment ranging from immediately executing his child to complete forgiveness.25 The evidence suggests that the testamentary power wielded by fathers to disinherit disobedient sons provided a far more usual means of dealing with filial 23 Berno 2013 offers a more comprehensive view of Augustus as an exemplar in Seneca’s works. 24 On the father-​son relationship in De clementia, see also di Garbo 2008. 25 Saller 1991, 114–​28 explores the limits of patria potestas and the ius vitae necisque and concludes that financial control, up to and including disinheritance, was a more usual means for patres familias to deal with the misbehavior of sons in potestate.

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32  Amanda Wilcox misbehavior. Regardless of how an actual father might respond, however, the accusation of attempted parricide provides Seneca with a dramatic extreme, a limit case for charting the moral dimensions of family dynamics.26 On learning of a plot against his life led by Lucius Cinna, Augustus summons a council of his friends to meet on the following day so that he may solicit their advice.27 But here the story takes a turn: on the night before the council is scheduled to convene, Augustus frets so ceaselessly that his wife Livia offers him some advice. He listens to his wife and follows her recommendation, with sterling results. In his history of Rome, Cassius Dio composed a lengthy version of the same episode, derived either directly or indirectly from Seneca’s version (Cass. 55.14.1–​22.2).28 Dio’s telling focuses on the exchange between Augustus and Livia, whose lengthy speeches of advice take up the bulk of the episode. Dio omits the exchange between Augustus and Cinna altogether. Seneca’s development of the topos of the soft-​hearted, mild father, which is both modified and strengthened by Seneca’s record of Augustus’ participation in it, is notably absent from Dio’s account. On the other hand, in another post-​Senecan portrait of Augustus, the biographer Suetonius’ text suggests that Seneca’s portrayal of Augustus as a mild and even paternally indulgent judge had made its mark. Without specifying the precise role taken by the emperor, Suetonius reports that Augustus was diligent in his attendance at trials, and that his conscientiousness extended even to periods of ill health when he was unable to move from his bed and so heard cases in his home (Suet. Aug. 33). In the case of a man on trial specifically for parricide, whose guilt was clear, Augustus sought, through a carefully phrased leading question, to lessen the likelihood of a sentencing to the traditional, gruesome punishment for that crime. Suetonius follows this vignette immediately with another, in which Augustus modified court procedure in a case involving the forgery of wills so as to provide a merciful third alternative to a binary guilty or innocent verdict. These ad hoc interventions, in one case directed toward the defendant and in the other to the jury, are reminiscent of Seneca’s anecdotes about Augustus in the De clementia, respectively, the interview with Cinna (1.9.7–​10), and Augustus’ management of the domestic trial of Tarius’ son (1.15.3–​4). Neither parallel guarantees that Suetonius has deliberately invoked the Senecan depiction of Augustus in the De clementia, but both are neatly consonant with the mild judge we encounter there, who seeks to balance correct observance of the protocols prescribed by law and custom with a merciful regard for human foibles and the capacity for reform.29 26 Gunderson 2003, 129–​33 observes how Seneca the Elder similarly uses cases of attempted or intended filicide, concluding, ‘[a]‌ny father who uses his power [of life and death] to destroy the family is mad and does not deserve to have his power at all’. 27 On the consilium, see Lacey 1986, 137–​40. 28 For the date of the historical episode on which the exemplum is based, and for Dio’s reliance on Seneca’s account, see Griffin 1976, 409–​11 and Braund 2009, 261–​2 and 263–​4, with additional references. 29 For Augustus as exemplum in Suetonius, see e.g., Gunderson 2014 and Langlands 2014.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 33 A different aspect of this topos, the unfavorable comparison of paternal severity to paternal leniency, occurs in an exemplary and hortatory vein in a letter of Pliny (Ep. 9.12), in which Pliny follows up an anecdote recounting his reprimand of a father who was too hard on his son with an admonition addressed directly to his correspondent. ‘Remember that [your son] is a boy, and that you were a boy once, and play the father in such a way as keeps in mind both that you are a human being and the father of a human being’ (Cogita et illum puerum esse et te fuisse, atque ita hoc quod es pater utere, ut memineris et hominem esse te et hominis patrem, Ep. 9.12.2). Within Seneca’s own corpus, Augustus’ nighttime deliberations about Cinna (1.9.3–​5) are paralleled by a passage in Book 3 of De ira, where Seneca reports on his teacher Sextius’ nightly practice of self-​examination and follows his account of Sextius’ practice with a description of his own. Seneca represents his nightly ritual as a kind of self-​mirroring that is chiefly therapeutic for himself, though it may also provide a template for his reader.30 Likewise, Augustus’ deliberations are represented as both intensely domestic and personal. If it were not necessary for us, Seneca’s readers, to overhear Augustus’ train of thought, the debate he has with himself might have remained entirely internal. In fact, the extensive self-​address that Seneca imagines here for Augustus may be read as an unpracticed version of the methodical self-​examinations undertaken by Sextius and Seneca. Significantly, Seneca mentions that his wife is present during his nightly deliberations, as Livia is for Augustus. But Seneca’s wife is a silent witness to the routine Seneca describes in De ira, perhaps precisely because Seneca’s process of taking stock is routine, the daily inventory of a well-​regulated life, a process whose familiarity does not render it superfluous, but has, by design, removed its anguish. Augustus, on the other hand, does not appear practiced in the art of nocturnal self-​examination. He spends the night in an increasingly disturbed state (nox illi inquieta erat), and becomes so distressed that he repeatedly erupts into self-​remonstrations (gemens subinde voces varias emittebat… rursus silentio interposito maiore multo voce sibi quam Cinnae irascebatur, Clem. 1.9.4–​5). These outbursts eventually prompt Livia’s intervention. Now, certainly for Seneca’s addressee, the fledgling pater patriae Nero, as much as for an ordinary father struggling with an intransigent son, this sympathetic depiction of Augustus might well be more reassuring than an account of a competent, internally conducted process of deliberate self-​examination. But in fact, Augustus would only have had to wait out one sleepless night before the scheduled meeting of his consilium, the traditional sounding board for a pater familias, to receive assistance of the sort that Livia provides. The intervention of Livia may well be the most innovative aspect of this scene. We can ask what effect Seneca may have wished to achieve by substituting Augustus’ tormented nighttime self-​talk, resolved by sound counsel from his wife, for the traditional daytime meeting of

30 Ira [5]‌.3.36, on which, see Ker 2009a, 172–​82. On the ‘scopic paradigm’ and exemplarity, see also Bartsch 2006, 119–​32.

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34  Amanda Wilcox a council of his male peers. Most broadly, Livia’s advice, imagined by Seneca in direct speech, serves to emphasize the new prominence of women within the imperial domus, an aspect of its domesticity regularly highlighted by the Augustan regime.31 The authority of women within the imperial household had continued to grow over the course of the Julio-​Claudian principate. Nero himself was the great-​great grandson of Augustus through the maternal line. Augustus’ daughter Julia was Nero’s great-​grandmother, Agrippina the Elder his grandmother, and his mother was Agrippina the Younger, who had recalled Seneca from exile and appointed him the young prince’s tutor, and who was still alive and actively advising her son the emperor at the time De clementia was composed. Seneca may well have wished to acknowledge and promote the idea of consultation with the mater familias as a complement or alternative to the traditional consilium.32 On the next day, when Augustus meets with Cinna one on one, the moralist ventriloquizes the emperor’s fatherly address, which is stern and mild by turns. And though he comes down eventually on the side of clemency, along the way he criticizes Cinna’s failure to keep control of his own house. In Seneca’s version of Augustus’ speech, the emperor draws an explicit parallel between the individual household and the commonwealth when he inquires into Cinna’s intentions: ‘quo’ inquit ‘hoc animo facis? ut ipse sis princeps? male mehercules cum populo Romano agitur, si tibi ad imperandum nihil praeter me obstat. Domum tueri non potes, nuper libertini hominis gratia in private iudicio superatus es’. (Clem. 1.9.10) He said:  ‘What is your plan? That you yourself might be emperor? By god, the affairs of the Roman people are in a sad way if nothing but me stands in the way of you taking command. You aren’t able to look after your own house—​recently you were overcome by a freedman in a private lawsuit!’ Seneca does not reproduce the entire scolding. But he notes that Augustus talked for more than two hours, ‘drawing out in this way the sole penalty with which he was going to rest content’ (diutius enim quam duabus horis locutum esse constat, cum hanc poenam qua sola erat contentus futurus extenderet, Clem. 1.9.11).33 Seneca does include his imagined conclusion to Augustus’ speech: 31 See Milnor 2005, 80–​93, 289–​93 on Augustus’ household and on the ‘fundamental femininity of Julio-​Claudian rule’ realized by Nero’s time. For the imperial household under Nero, with attention to Agrippina’s role as advisor to the emperor, see Mordine 2013. 32 A less positive reading is also possible, in which the details of Augustus receiving advice at night in his bedroom from a woman could all be taken to suggest his inadequacy or his abandonment of Republican norms. 33 The substitution of a lengthy rebuke in place of more severe punishment was a paternal maneuver familiar to Seneca’s reader, though. In Terence’s Adelphoe, the permissive Micio plays

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 35 ‘vitam’ inquit ‘tibi, Cinna, iterum do, prius hosti, nunc insidiatori ac parricidae. ex hodierno die inter nos amicitia incipiat; contendamus utrum ego meliore fide tibi vitam dederim an tu debeas’. (Clem. 1.9.11) He said:  ‘As previously to an enemy, now to a plotter and parricide, I give you your life again, Cinna. From this day forward let a friendship commence between us; let us compete whether in better faith I have given your life to you, or you, in owing it to me’. Seneca closes the episode by commenting on the further career of Cinna: he became a model subject. Augustus later made Cinna a consul, and in his will, Cinna made Augustus his sole heir (Clem.1.9.12). This exchange of benefits between the emperor and his subject may prefigure Seneca’s affirmation in De beneficiis of the capacity for social inferiors, namely sons and slaves, to benefit their superiors, namely masters and fathers.34 The historical record shows that Cinna did his best to repay Augustus’ debt. In the De clementia, however, he is memorialized simply as the beneficiary of a mild father figure, who displayed his own forbearance and wisdom by choosing to sting his son onto a better path through words, rather than with harshly punitive action. In the second passage from De clementia involving an exemplary parent’s response to his son’s intended parricide, Seneca is explicit in representing ‘the self-​control of a father towards his children as the analog of a ruler’s clementia’, as Susanna Braund puts it.35 Seneca writes, ‘I give you this particularly as an example of a good prince, whom you may compare with a good father’ (Hoc ipso exemplo dabo, quem conpares bono patri, bonum principem, Clem. 1.15.3). This passage both reasserts the traditional and legal prerogatives of a Roman pater familias and comments on their right use, and also suggests—​at first implicitly within the body of the story, then, in the commentary that follows the narration, explicitly—​that the judgment of the good prince properly supersedes that of the good father. As a prelude to the main, positive exemplar, however, Seneca offers a negative example. He mentions a father named Tricho, who had flogged his son to death.36 The reason for Tricho’s harsh treatment of his son is not given, but the reaction of the Roman crowd is a telling indication that regardless of whether this father’s punishment of this son was technically legal, it was considered outrageous.

the situation for laughs, but he still engages in a prolonged scolding of his son Aeschinus before revealing that he will be allowed to marry the woman he desires. 34 On the possibility of benefits from child to parent, see Ben. 3.29–​38, and on slaves to masters, see Ben. 3.18–​28. For a perceptive discussion of these passages, see Gloyn 2017, 120–​32. 35 Braund 2009, 319. 36 Tricho is unknown apart from this text (Braund 2009, 319 and Faider et al. 1950, 94), which leads me to wonder whether he might not be entirely invented. In contrast, Tarius the positive exemplar with whom Tricho is paired (see below), appears in Pliny the Elder (HN 18.37).

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36  Amanda Wilcox Trichonem equitem Romanum memoria nostra... populus graphiis in foro confodit; vix illum Augusti Caesaris auctoritas infestis tam patrum quam filiorum minibus eripuit. (Clem. 1.15.1) Within living memory, the populace stabbed a Roman knight named Tricho ... in the forum with their styluses. Scarcely did the authority of Caesar Augustus rescue this man from threats [of death] just as hostile from fathers as from sons. Richard Saller cites this episode, vague as it is, as a possible instance of the emperor coming to the defense of a father who has exercised his traditional ius vitae necisque over his son.37 Some legal historians have argued that this right had already been significantly curtailed by Seneca’s lifetime, rendering Tricho’s murderous action itself a capital offense. It seems entirely plausible that rather than the execution itself, it is the method of killing his son, by whipping, a kind of punishment strongly associated with the disciplining of slaves, that would be the most offensive aspect of Tricho’s deed for a Roman reader or spectator.38 The part Augustus plays in this episode of defending a father’s traditional prerogatives, however, is in fact paralleled by the longer, positive exemplum about a merciful father named Lucius Tarius Rufus, whose son, like Tricho’s, was accused of plotting parricide. The exemplum’s beginning is signaled, as is Seneca’s usual practice, by an opening sentence that puts the exemplar, or the ostensible exemplar, in first position and succinctly introduces circumstances that yielded the exemplary deed, thus:  ‘As for Tarius, whose son was caught plotting to kill him, when he had condemned his son, making use of a council to do so, no one questioned [his decision], since the reason was known’ (Tarium, qui filium deprensum in parricidii consilio damnavit causa cognita, nemo non suspexit…, Clem. 1.15.2). Tarius would have been within his rights to exact a summary capital punishment of his son, but instead, he takes a more deliberative course, and after consideration, decides merely to banish his son to Massilia and to continue his annual allowance. To aid in his decision, he adheres to the same custom Augustus had planned to follow in the case of Cinna. He calls a council of his friends to come into his home to advise him. He includes Augustus among those invited. The inclusion of Augustus is key, for it enables Seneca to take an anecdote that already would have illustrated the wisdom of acting mercifully rather than harshly as a father, and to make it into a story whose real focus is not on Tarius, but on Augustus. Seneca’s 37 Saller 1991, 116–​7. 38 Seneca suggests that a responsible father ‘may occasionally have recourse to whipping’ (aliquando admonere etiam verberibus, Clem. 1.14.1), but frequent whipping for ‘trivial reasons’ (levissimus causis) is the mark of ‘the worst father’ (pessimus pater, Clem. 1.16.3). Saller 1991, 142–​50 shows the importance, in Roman child-​rearing, of distinguishing freeborn children from slaves by differentiating punishments, namely, by disciplining one’s children chiefly by granting or withholding praise (and for older children, money), but whipping slaves.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 37 emphasis on the emperor’s respectful observance of custom is echoed by his own carefully arranged word order. Tarius is the initial grammatical subject of the sentence, with his name and its modifier, a participle, embracing the object of his concern (Cogniturus de filio Tarius, Clem. 1.15.3). Nonetheless, the two parts of Augustus’ name (Caesarem Augustum) prominently anchor the end of the sentence’s first clause, balancing the two nominatives at its beginning (Cogniturus… Tarius) and once Augustus has been summoned (advocavit), he takes over as the grammatical subject (venit in privatos penates). Seneca makes a point of reporting that Augustus consented to appear in a private house, rather than moving the proceedings to his own home: Cogniturus de filio Tarius advocavit in consilium Caesarem Augustum; venit in privatos penates, adsedit, pars alieni consilii fuit, non dixit: ‘Immo in meam domum veniat’; quod si factum esset, Caesaris futura erat cognitio, non patris. (Clem. 1.15.3) When Tarius was about to deliberate formally concerning his son, he invited Caesar Augustus to his council meeting. Augustus came into a private home, he took a seat, he was part of another man’s council. He did not say, ‘Rather, let him come into my house’, because if he had done so, the deliberation would belong to Caesar, not to the father. And yet, in spite of Seneca’s remarking on Augustus’ conspicuous refusal to upstage Tarius, as moving this meeting from the father’s house to his own would have done, even within this opening sentence as a grammatical subject Augustus displaces Tarius ([Augustus] venit… adsedit… fuit… non dixit). Tarius’ name occurs twice more in the passage, but both Seneca’s editorial remarks mid-​narration and his praise of Augustus’ behavior at the passage’s end clearly indicate that the real focus of this exemplum is on the emperor (Clem. 1.15.4–7): Audita causa excussisque omnibus, et his, quae adulescens pro se dixerat, et his, quibus arguebatur, petit, ut sententiam suam quisque scriberet, ne ea omnium fieret, quae Caesaris fuisset; deinde, priusquam aperirentur codicilli, iuravit se Tarii, hominis locupletis, hereditatem non aditurum. Dicet aliquis: ‘Pusillo animo timuit, ne videretur locum spei suae aperire velle fili damnatione’. Ego contra sentio; quilibet nostrum debuisset adversus opiniones malignas satis fiduciae habere in bona conscientia, principes multa debent etiam famae dare. Iuravit se non aditurum hereditatem. Tarius quidem eodem die et  alterum heredem perdidit, sed Caesar libertatem sententiae suae redemit; et postquam adprobavit gratuitam esse severitatem suam, quod principi semper curandum est, dixit relegandum, quo patri videretur. Non culleum, non serpentes, non carcerem decrevit memor, non de quo censeret, sed cui in consilio

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38  Amanda Wilcox esset; mollissimo genere poenae contentum esse debere patrem dixit in filio adulescentulo inpulso in id scelus, in quo se, quod proximum erat ab innocentia, timide gessisset; debere illum ab urbe et a parentis oculis submoveri. When the case had been heard and all the evidence thoroughly examined, both in favor of the youth and against him, [Augustus] asked that each person present write down his own judgment so that Caesar’s opinion would not be adopted by all. Then, before the ballots were opened, he took an oath that he would not accept an inheritance from Tarius, who was a wealthy man. Someone might say, ‘He was afraid that it might seem that he wished to open up a place for his own expectation by the condemnation of the son’. On the contrary, say I. Anyone of us ought to have had enough trust in our own honorable intentions to resist spiteful interpretations, but rulers ought to give much consideration to their reputation. [Augustus] took an oath that he would not accept an inheritance. So Tarius on the same day lost a second heir, but Caesar restored [confidence in] his freedom of judgment, and after he showed that his own severity was disinterested, which is always of concern for a ruler, he said that the son should be banished, to wherever the father thought best. Mindful not of the man whom he was judging, but the one in whose council he was, he did not recommend the sack, nor the snakes, nor prison. He said that the father ought to be content with the mildest kind of punishment in the case of a young son moved by impulse into a crime which he had acted timidly, which is the nearest thing to innocence. He ought to be removed from the city and from his father’s sight. The shift in the Seneca’s attention from the behavior of Tarius to that of Augustus can be explained easily by the fact that the De clementia is addressed, after all, to Nero, who should aspire to exercise his quasi-​paternal power over his subjects as deftly as his ancestor Augustus did. More interesting is Seneca’s explanation for the mildness of Augustus’ recommendation, which is credited to the emperor’s greater concern for the father Tarius rather than his errant son, suggesting that while the proper object of Tarius’ paternal care was Tarius filius, the object of Augustus’ paternal care was the elder Tarius. Reinforcing the tacit analogy that the prince is to the subject as the subject is to his son, in the following section Seneca elaborates a whole list of hierarchical relationships of command that he says are analogous to one another: ‘An emperor commands his citizens, a father his children, a teacher his pupils, a military tribune or centurion the common soldiers’ (imperat princeps civibus suis, pater liberis, praeceptor discentibus, tribunus vel centurio militibus, Clem. 1.16.2). For the newly minted pater patriae, this episode provides a demonstration of how to act as a father to his subjects while at the same time honoring his subjects’ traditional authority as fathers, a lesson which may well have

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 39 had the power to reassure Seneca’s other readers, a largely male, propertied audience many of whom may have been patres familias themselves. For these readers, the phrase in privatos penates would convey the innermost sanctum or the heart of the house, where the father was traditionally imagined to sit in unimpeachable judgment on members of his household. By keeping the son’s hearing in the house of Tarius, Augustus upholds this traditional authority of the pater familias. This deference is accentuated by Seneca’s prose. He marks the importance of Augustus by making him the subject of four active verbs in quick succession, but ends the list by articulating what Augustus refrained from saying (non dixit). By answering the summons and taking a seat among the other councilors in another father’s house, Augustus seems to discreetly affirm a father’s legal and traditional right to pass judgment on his son. On the basis of this sentence alone, it would be tempting to read the passage simply as a graceful demonstration of Augustus’ refusal to usurp traditional authority, by acting both inter patres and inter pares. In the house of Tarius, the paternal authority belongs to Tarius. But actually, that is not what the passage says. In spite of the fact that Augustus has been invited to the council as a consultant, he quickly takes charge. Nonetheless, he wields his authority so graciously, at least in Seneca’s telling, that rather than resentment from the father whose patria potestas has been ever so gently superseded in his own house, Augustus earns praise. Seneca does not, in fact, record the reaction of Tarius. Instead, he closes the passage with his own accolades for the emperor: ‘One whom fathers worthily call into counsel! One whom worthily they would designate as co-​heirs with their innocent sons!’ (o dignum quem in consilium patres advocarent! O dignum quem coheredem innocentibus liberis scriberent! Clem. 1.16.1). This elision of the narrative frame at the end of the exemplum seems particularly significant given the hortatory framework of the De clementia overall, since it enables a specific episode from the past to lapse into a generalized statement on praiseworthy behavior any prince might aspire to deserve, including Seneca’s addressee Nero. We can see a similar renovation of the father-​son relationship elsewhere in Seneca’s writings, where the traditional dyadic dynamic is reordered in such a way as to make room for a third actor, the emperor, who sometimes acts as a father for the father, and sometimes displaces him. Seneca recounts one such episode at De beneficiis 2.25.1. In this case, Gaius Furnius has succeeded in obtaining a benefit from Augustus for his father. He is particularly exemplary, for Seneca, in the way in which he expresses his gratitude to Augustus. The father of Furnius never appears or speaks in Seneca’s telling. His importance rests entirely in his needing a pardon, which provides the occasion for Augustus to make a benefaction for Furnius, and for Furnius to express his thanks to Augustus. The only authority on display here is that of Augustus, and it is the authority of a conqueror to either punish or spare the conquered that is at issue. The anecdote about Tarius and this story about Furnius complement one another, nonetheless. In the first instance, a son’s life is in jeopardy because he has plotted against his father. Augustus consents to advise the

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40  Amanda Wilcox father, and in fact takes control of the process, but he does it so graciously that he wins praise. As for the outcome, the son’s life is saved, though he is deprived of his home (both domus and patria) and his inheritance (patrimonium). The father, meanwhile, loses not one but two heirs—​his son and Augustus.39 In the story about Furnius, on the other hand, a father’s life is in jeopardy, and his son saves it by appealing to the emperor. Both Furnius the father and Furnius the son become indebted to Augustus. Furnius the son stands to benefit from this obligation—​and in fact we know that he served as consul in 17 BCE, which must indicate that he continued in Augustus’ favor. We do not hear what became of his father, but it is not a stretch to interpret Furnius filius’ gratitude toward Augustus as at least a partial transference of the loyalty and gratitude owed by a child to his progenitor to, instead, his ruler.40 In other words, when a son thanks Augustus fulsomely for judging and pardoning his father, the traditional allocation of authority has already been breached, to the detriment of the actual father and the advantage of the symbolic father. This change is made more dramatic by a generational inversion.41 Instead of a father seeking mercy for his son, a son appeals to the father of the country on behalf of his own, private father.42 The traditional paternal role of acting both as the judge of his son and also as his advocate is left out of the transaction altogether. This short-​circuiting of an expected pattern of behavior is indicative of the construction of a new, differently distributed model of authority, in which sons need not always suffer under the severity or be relieved by the mildness of their own fathers, but can circumvent their father’s judgment by applying instead to the emperor.43 Now, so long as the emperor exercises discretion, restraint, good judgment, and mildness, his possession of paternal authority that supersedes the traditional, domestic model might not seem objectionable. But what happens when the pater patriae is impulsive, arbitrary in his judgments, cruel and abusive of his paternal role? This question was not hypothetical for Seneca or his fellow Romans. Seneca offers several examples that illustrate how terrifying it might be to attract the ‘fatherly’ interest of a bad emperor. The fullest of these 39 Seneca calls attention to this double loss, which surely suggests a diminishment of Tarius’ prestige: no heir, and no reflected glory from offering a benefit to the emperor. 40 On the gratitude owed by children to their parents, see, e.g., Sen. Ben. 5.5.2–​3. See also Gloyn’s discussion of Ben. 3.29.1 and 3.31.3–​4 (2017, 116–​22). 41 Gunderson 2003, 125–​6 analyzes a similar reversal in Seneca the Elder (Contr. 2.6.2), wherein ‘by inverting their proper relationship… the father actually forces the son to become a wise father himself’. 42 Confirmation that the trope of a father as suppliant was still active comes from Ira [4]‌.2.33.5 (an episode discussed below), where a father who seeks forgiveness of Caligula on behalf of his condemned son is compared to Priam supplicating Achilles. 43 We might expect that the option to substitute one step higher in a hierarchy of fathers—​that is, turning from one’s actual father, if unsatisfactory, to the emperor—​would be continued by a further option of turning from an unsatisfactory emperor to god. But, as will be discussed below, this tidy hierarchy of substitution does not harmonize either with Stoic theodicy or with Seneca’s political circumstances.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 41 comes from the second book of De ira, where Seneca recalls that Caligula imprisoned a young man because he was irritatingly well-​groomed. When his father, named Pastor, came to the emperor to plead for his son’s life, Caligula had the son led out to execution, and invited his father to dinner. He had Pastor watched throughout the banquet to see whether he was appropriately appreciative of the emperor’s hospitality. The anecdote ends with Seneca’s devastatingly simply explanation for why the father prudently repressed his grief: he had another son (habebat alterum, Ira [4]‌.2.33.4). The actions that Caligula takes in this episode, prompted by his extreme albeit whimsical cruelty, are not labeled by Seneca as explicitly paternal. But the only two men in Rome with the right to summarily execute Pastor’s sons were Pastor himself and the emperor. In a culture where the ius vitae necisque is a quintessential marker of paternal authority, the exercise of that right is unavoidably an assertion of at least symbolic paternity, even if indirectly so. Liz Gloyn has recently written trenchantly about another vivid passage in which Seneca recounts Caligula’s abrupt whipping, torture, and execution of several Roman senators and equestrians (Ira [5].3.18.3–​4); here the outrageous caprice and thoroughness of the emperor’s cruelty are on full display as emblematic of the irrational savagery of anger (Non enim Gai saevitiae sed irae, Ira [5].3.19.5).44 It is telling that Seneca postpones a final, terrible detail of this episode. Only at the very conclusion of the passage does he reveal that after executing these men, the same night he sent centurions to his victims’ houses to kill their fathers also.45 Gaius seems compelled to do away with the fathers he has dispossessed not only of their sons, but also of a quintessential element of their identity as fathers, as though their paternity lay exclusively in the ius vitae necisque, and once the power was rendered null, their own lives became superfluous. Caligula’s terrible abuses of his paternal role show the perverse turn that the honorific pater patriae had taken by his reign. During the republic, this title was sparingly bestowed on men who had preserved the state in moments of greatest peril from enemies either external or within. Augustus prominently includes it in his Res Gestae among the honors given him by the Senate.46 But in Seneca’s works, a different, grimmer aspect of Roman fatherhood dominates the complex of qualities and powers contained in the pater part of pater patriae. Instead of an emphasis on the pater as protector of his family and guarantor of the stability of the household, the father’s unchecked power of life and death over members of that household, now firmly conceived of as including all of Rome, is represented as the foremost element. The title of pater patriae has become a conceptual shorthand that both encodes and reinforces the emperor’s absolute right of life or death over his subjects. Nero 44 Gloyn 2017, 159–​62. 45 Sen. Ira [5]‌.3.19.5: Adicere his longum est quod patres quoque occisorum eadem nocte dimissis per domos centurionibus confecit, id est, homo misericors luctu liberavit. 46 Aug. Res Gestae 35.1.

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42  Amanda Wilcox accepted this title around the time that Seneca wrote the De clementia, which may account somewhat for its prominence in that work.47 Yet even in the De ira, a substantially earlier work, Seneca seems intrigued by the power this metaphor held, and interested in promoting a deliberative mode of parenting in which actual fathers and rulers figured as father could peacefully co-​exist and perhaps productively collaborate.48 This collaboration was undoubtedly a smoother one when the ruler exercised his authority with a light touch. An emperor who styled himself as the peer, or even rival, of Olympian gods, was much less likely to act as a peer or supporter of other, merely mortal Roman fathers.49

4  God the father The De providentia takes up a question that Seneca says Lucilius, the essay’s addressee, has often asked him. If the universe is governed by a beneficent providence, as the Stoics believed, why do so many misfortunes befall good men (quid ita… multa bonis viris mala acciderent, Prov. [1]‌.1.1)? In answering this question, Seneca leans extensively on the paternal aspect of the divine. Now, when Seneca shows Augustus an exemplary parent, he almost always acts as a mild, lenient father, who inspires and confirms forbearance in other fathers and grateful virtue in formerly erring sons. When ‘God the father’ is doing the parenting, however, the paternal mode is severe, not lenient, and inspires not merely conventional good behavior, but heroic and often self-​ immolating deeds of virtue.50 To put it another way, Augustus the father is almost always the exemplary agent, the character who displays exemplary behavior, in Seneca’s treatments of him. In exemplary passages featuring god, the exemplary agent is the story’s figurative child, that is, the person on the receiving end of god’s parental actions. This person’s reaction to divinely sent misfortune exhibits and confirms his virtue. ‘Are you surprised’, Seneca writes, ‘if god, the one most loving of good men, who wishes them to be optimally good and as excellent as possible, assigns a fortune to them by which they will be tested?’ (Miraris tu, si deus ille bonorum amantissimus, qui illos quam optimos esse atque excellentissimos vult, fortunam illis cum qua exerceantur adsignat? Prov. [1].2.7). This logic enables Seneca’s representation of Cato the Younger as a divine favorite. Blocked by Caesar’s forces from any means of escape, his assertion of self-​determination by suicide

47 N.b., the allusion to ius vitae necisque at Clem. 1.2 also noted above. On the history and significance of pater patriae with specific reference to Nero, see Braund 2009, 317. See also Cooley 2009, 273, and for longer treatments, Alföldi 1971; Severy 2003, 158–​6; and Stevenson 2009. 48 Lavery 1987 enumerates each of the exemplary father-​son-​ruler triangles in the De Ira. 49 At Ira [3.]1.20.8–9, Caligula issues a challenge to Jove when a thunderclap interrupts his enjoyment of a pantomime performance. 50 Setaioli 2007, 362 likens Seneca’s god to the Roman pater familias, ‘very exacting in his children’s upbringing’.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 43 becomes an unsurpassable performance of virtue and a spectacle pleasing to the gods: ‘How would they not watch happily their progeny departing via so noble and memorable an end?’ (Quidni libenter spectarent alumnum suum tam claro ac memorabili exitu evadentem? Prov. [1].2.12).51 Elsewhere in his philosophical writing, as I  have noted above, Seneca does not hesitate to use exemplary anecdotes from more recent history.52 In the De providentia, however, Seneca avoids naming contemporary or recent exemplars, whether positive or negative. In the introduction to his translation of this dialogue, James Ker remarks, [T]‌his work has an obvious relevance to Seneca and his aristocratic contemporaries… especially given how easy it was to view the Roman Empire as coextensive with the world and the emperor as god, [yet] Seneca discusses misfortune almost exclusively via Cato and other republican heroes, together with Socrates.53 Ker does not explain the absence of contemporary exemplars in the De providentia, but the theodicy of the work, taken together with the ease of imagining the emperor as god, points us toward a plausible explanation. In the De providentia Seneca has figured god as a father, and a father who delights in giving good men bad fortune to surmount. But only a bad, cruel emperor would do the same, intentionally, to his subjects. And if he were to do so, not only would he show himself to be a bad ruler, his subjects who were good men would show themselves morally superior to their emperor. Seneca’s treatment of Caligula in his moral philosophy confirms this problem. In exemplary passages, Caligula figures frequently as an agent of fate, though not, explicitly, as a father.54 Nonetheless, he, like Augustus, performed as pater patriae to the Roman people, and whereas Augustus during his lifetime circumspectly styled himself the son of a god (divus filius), Caligula notoriously considered himself to be already divine. Seneca does not make an explicit connection between the emperor as ‘God the father’ and the pater patriae, but the link was available to readers who chose to make it. For those readers, exemplary passages featuring Augustus’ velvet-​gloved usurpation of traditional paternal authority might be read as equally injurious to their autonomy as Caligula’s brutal trespasses were, and in both sorts of exempla, Seneca may subtly invite criticism of autocratic rule, in which one man has the power attributed to a Roman father over all other men, regardless of how gently he might exercise it. Seneca’s readers might well feel caught between, on the one hand, the permanent status of disempowerment as symbolic filii in patria potestate that 51 All the more striking, given this picture of divine paternal love, is Seneca’s description of virtus as a gently loving parent at Ep. 66.27. 52 Ep. 83.13, cited above at n. 18. Seneca also draws attention to the practice at Ira [5]‌.3.18.3. 53 Ker 2014b, 278–​9. 54 On Caligula as a negative exemplar and catalyst for virtue, see Wilcox 2008.

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44  Amanda Wilcox even the deft performance of paternal authority exhibited by a good emperor entailed for his subjects, or by the extremes of virtuous action that God the father, albeit ‘most loving of good men’ (bonorum amantissimus), tended to provoke or require. But for the person aspiring to virtue, thinking and living out, in Langlands’ terminology, an ‘exemplary ethics’, Seneca’s expansive understanding of textuality can provide a way to take control.55 While remaining a son and subject, the explicitly figurative and textual practice of selecting worthy affiliations can enable each of us, Seneca suggests, to become the heir of worthy parents of our own choosing.

5  Seneca’s example: practicing intertextuality as affiliation For Furnius, whose actual father required a quasi-​paternal intervention by his son, the availability of a merciful public father supplied the lack of a worthy private one. The errant son of Tarius benefited from a benevolent, measured father backed up by an exemplary prince. Pastor, on the other hand, was only able to save one of his sons from the depredations of an overreaching emperor. His intervention on behalf of the other seems to have hastened that son’s demise. The very multiplicity of these examples strongly implies that an ethics built on exemplarity will engage its participants in ‘creative imitation’.56 But whereas the various possibilities represented by exempla featuring fathers, sons, and emperors can provide ample means for learning to adjust our reactions to the actions of our father(s) or our son(s) so as to behave as well as circumstances permit, our attempts at admirable behavior will nevertheless be constrained by those circumstances. In short, those suffering the rule of a difficult father, whether actual or imperial, might require a further resource. And fortunately, Seneca supplies one. He invites his reader, whether as a son or as an imperial subject, to recognize the limits of both biological and symbolic parentage, and to recognize and choose the possibility of productively substituting a more desirable metaphorical parentage in place of the difficult relation. From a narrowly literal or legal perspective, this philosophical solution might seem implausible, given the broad scope and inexorable quality of Roman patria potestas. But as he often does, on this point Seneca uses metaphor to achieve a therapeutic end. With the mindset that Seneca recommends, the relationship of father to son, a bond that appears inescapable in the structure of Roman society and law, turns out to be either entirely illusory, or, paradoxically, wholly subject to an individual’s own choice. Knowledge of the way things really are will enable sons to free themselves from unworthy fathers just as slaves can emancipate themselves from morally inferior masters. Moreover, by seriously entertaining the notion that ‘reality is the effect of the figural’, Seneca’s readers become better able to see and judge received facts 55 Dressler 2012, 172. 56 Langlands 2018, 120. See also Peirano 2012, 13 on the ‘habit of creative supplementation’ in imperial Roman literary practice.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 45 like exile, slavery, or who our true parents are, through the application of a double procedure. The first step is to strip away conventional understanding, the second is to ‘recast’ social or even natural facts as metaphors that can aid our philosophical progress.57 Thus, for example, seeing oneself as in reality a slave of Fortune, rather than accepting as valid a servile status vis-​à-​vis another human being, may, according to Seneca, enable us to envision and accomplish our own emancipation.58 Readers of Seneca accustomed to the frequent, flexible social and legal scope of adoption practices in the Roman world are well-​positioned to accept Seneca’s invitation to recast their understanding of adoption, and particularly testamentary adoption, as a metaphor, the better to understand their own radical capacity for choice. Seneca describes this approach in the De brevitate vitae, asserting that while we do not choose our actual parents, we are nonetheless able to choose an inheritance from where we like. He writes, Solemus dicere non fuisse in nostra potestate quos sortiremur parentes, forte nobis datos:  nobis vero ad nostrum arbitrium nasci licet. Nobilissimorum ingeniorum familiae sunt:  elige in quam adscisci velis; non in nomen tantum adoptaberis, sed in ipsa bona. (Brev. vit. [10].15.3) We are accustomed to say that who our parents are is not in our power, but falls by chance, and by chance we are given to men. But in fact it is allowed for us to be born according to our own judgment. There are households marked by the most noble natures; choose in which of these you wish to be enrolled; you will be adopted not only in name, but also in the estate. This passage invites Seneca’s reader to participate in a philosophical recasting of the conventional Roman social practice of adoption. If Seneca’s reader chooses to see himself, figuratively but in reality, as up for adoption, then he can choose whose heir he will be and what he will inherit. For an aspirant to wisdom, the recognition that he could choose a truer relation of paternity and filiation than the father awarded him by Fortune would constitute a significant advance toward achieving a life of freedom and happiness, regardless of who his pater or his pater patriae happened to be. Seneca’s Moral Epistles demonstrate this option most fully, and illustrate most directly what I  have argued is also the case for his use of exemplary discourse in his other prose works, especially the De clementia, namely that Seneca puts the resources and practices of exemplary intertextuality, along with intertextuality in all its guises, into the service of illuminating, refining, 57 The foregoing sentences are greatly indebted to Bartsch 2009, from whose discussion I have borrowed phrases occurring on pp. 193 and 198. 58 Edwards 2009, 143.

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46  Amanda Wilcox and practicing his therapeutic moral philosophy. The idea of elective affiliation, for instance, recurs in several of Seneca’s Moral Epistles. In Epistle 44, Seneca observes that all humans are descended from gods (omnes… a dis sunt, 44.1), and that because only a good mind confers nobility, we all qualify (bona mens omnibus patet; omnes ad hoc sumus nobiles, 44.2). Accordingly, he urges Lucilius to live in such a way that he can count Socrates, Cleanthes and Plato among his ancestors (44.3). But he clinches his exhortation with a striking image: ‘An atrium full of smoky death masks does not make a person noble; no one has lived his past life for our present glory, and what existed before us is not ours. The soul makes us noble’ (Non facit nobilem atrium plenum fumosis imaginibus; nemo in nostram gloriam vixit nec quod ante nos fuit nostrum est: animus facit nobilem, Ep. 44.5).59 Characteristically, Seneca reaches for a vivid image deeply familiar to his Roman reader to drive his point home, and he uses an object, the funeral mask (imago), that is equally resonant as a symbol.60 Seneca does not even concede in this letter the hortatory efficacy imagines may possess, though elsewhere he emphatically recommends looking to the images of ‘great men’—​not our own ancestors, but both Catos, Laelius, Socrates, Plato, Zeno and Cleanthes—​to stimulate our emulation of their virtue.61 And so, when Stephen Hinds quotes from the Moral Epistles Seneca’s encouragement to his friend Lucilius, who is hesitating to begin composing his planned poem called ‘Aetna’, he risks misrepresenting Seneca.62 In fact, Seneca does reassure Lucilius that his position as a latecomer to the poetic treatment of Mt. Aetna is actually advantageous, as Hinds notes, but Seneca’s point about the advantages of belatedness has a more important application than encouraging literary emulation. Seneca writes (Ep. 79.6): Multum interest utrum ad consumptam materiam an ad subactam accedes:  crescit in dies, et inventuris inventa non obstant. Praeterea condicio optima est ultimi:  parata verba invenit, quae aliter instructa novam faciem habent. Nec illis manus init tamquam alienis. Sunt enim publica. It matters a lot whether you are embarking on material that has been farmed to death or only lightly harrowed:  [the latter] increases day by day, and what has been discovered does not stand in the way of what will be discovered. Furthermore, he who comes last has the best shot: he

59 Gloyn 2017, 174–​6 also discusses how Seneca redraws the idea of family through this letter. 60 For a brief treatment of Seneca’s use of images, see Armisen-​Marchetti 2015a; for a comprehensive discussion, Armisen-​Marchetti 1989. 61 Quidni ego magnorum virorum et imagines habeam incitamenta animi… Marcum Catonem utrumque et Laelium Sapientem et Socraten cum Platone et Zenonem Cleanthenque in animum meum… recipiam, Sen. Ep. 64.9–​10. 62 Hinds 1998, 41. See also Trinacty 2009, 263.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 47 discovers words ready to hand, which, when he has arranged them differently, will take on a new appearance. Nor does he lay hands on another person’s property, for [words] are public. Many of the Moral Epistles offer variations on this reassurance to Lucilius that ‘there’s lots left to do’. Here, I wish to stress Seneca’s expression of an idea that he has enunciated before, namely: [verba] sunt enim publica.63 The clear implication is that imitation, whether literary or moral, as will emerge in the letter’s later sections, is not theft. In the next sentence, Seneca writes that although Lucilius may find the prospect of his poetic subject intimidating as well as appetizing,64 he should proceed confidently in his overarching endeavor, which is the achievement of virtue. At the beginning of Ep. 79, Seneca asks Lucilius to climb Aetna in his honor and for the sake of science (79.2), then in the middle of the letter he discusses Lucilius’ literary aspirations to scale the heights of a poetic Aetna of his own making (79.4–​8), and finally, in the last and longest part of the letter he reveals that both scientific and poetic endeavor are properly in service of wisdom, which is the true mountain that Lucilius, Seneca, and all aspirants to wisdom are required to climb (79.9–​18). This part of this letter leaves literary ambition and scientific investigation behind in favor of addressing the climb toward virtue directly. This path, which is open to all of us, has been pioneered by others but the way lies equally open to latecomers, who should look to their predecessors as valuable exemplars, but who have an equal claim on what is true, an equal chance of attaining virtue, and plenty left to accomplish. In the same letter, Seneca moves from poets who were not deterred by the achievements of their forebears (79.5) to Greek and Roman exemplars of virtue, whose disregard for their fame among their contemporaries has yielded to a truer estimation of their value among posterity.65 Likewise, Seneca asserts, his and Lucilius’ concern for virtue will keep them in circulation: ‘The talk (sermo) of those who come after matters not at all to us, yet although we will not be sensible of it, this talk will cultivate and attend us’.66

63 At Ep. 12.11, cited above. 64 ‘If Aetna does not make your mouth water, then I don’t know you’ (Aut ego te non novi aut Aetna tibi salivam movet, Ep. 79.7). The prospect is ‘mouth-​watering’ because Aetna’s very rich literary, philosophical, and scientific associations make it a fitting challenge for Lucilius’ ambition to write something elevated (grande aliquid). In keeping with his penchant for mobilizing both literal and figurative meanings, Seneca also nods here toward the agricultural richness of Aetna’s slopes. 65 At Ep. 79.5, Vergil, Ovid, Cornelius Severus; at 79.13–​ 17, Democritus, Socrates, Cato, Rutilius and finally Epicurus and his correspondent Metrodorus. By ending with a pair of letter-​writing friends, Seneca draws attention to his current project, the correspondence with Lucilius, and thus to the textual nature of his ethical practice. 66 Ep. 79.17: Ad nos quidem nihil pertinebit posterorum sermo; tamen etiam non sentientes colet ac frequentabit.

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48  Amanda Wilcox The moral imperative to pursue virtue is a project and patrimony that is equally available and appropriate for all ‘sons’. As he often does, Seneca uses conventional means to a radical end. In his exemplary discourse, he recognizes and takes advantage of the persistence of teaching by example as a culturally central and prestigious practice at Rome. But he endorses a traditional method to teach a lesson that may well undermine or contradict traditional mores.67 Seneca wants his readers, ultimately, not to look backward in emulation of the hoary mos maiorum, but rather forward, toward achieving virtue in their own lives. Rather than striving to become mere replicas of their fathers, these philosophical sons must choose their fathers, and then focus on what lies ahead. In Moral Epistle 84, after comparing our work as readers and writers to the labors of honey-​making bees and the body’s natural incorporation of food, Seneca offers an additional pair of metaphors, one of which shows a way forward, the other a caution: ‘And if a likeness appears in you of that person whom admiration has modeled deeply to you, I wish you to resemble a son, as it were, and not an image. For an image is a lifeless thing’ (Etiam si cuius in te comparebit similitudo, quem admiratio tibi altius fixerit, similem esse te volo quomodo filium, non quomodo imaginem: imago res mortua est, Ep. 84.8). In the passages from both Letter 79 and Letter 84, the literary pursuits Seneca alludes to in the opening sections act as preludes to the letters’ main lessons. In the former, Seneca mobilizes Lucilius’ poetic endeavors as a metaphor for their shared journey toward virtue, an ascent they share with many others, which will lead them all to the same end (Ep. 79.8–​10). In the latter, Seneca’s abandonment of reading leads him to ‘a broader theorization of how to read and write,’ which includes both the comparison to bees making honey, and us making ourselves like sons.68 Strikingly, the conclusion of Letter 84 ends up in the same metaphorical terrain as Letter 79: ‘Very rocky is the pathway of a prestigious career; but if you wish to climb that peak below which even fortune submits, you will see all those things below you which are generally considered the most exalted attainments, but in the end, you will come to the highest point as though across a level plain’ (Confragosa in fastigium dignitatis via est; at si conscendere hunc verticem libet, cui se fortuna summisit, omnia quidem sub te quae pro excelsissimis habentur aspicies, sed tamen venies ad summa per planum, Ep. 84.13). The main message both these letters convey is the simultaneous claim and demonstration that literary pursuits serve the ethical life, and it is that service which endows literary pursuits with their greatest value. Practicing this ethical life as Seneca prescribes it, moreover, will be an intensely textual and intertextual endeavor. Just as the figures of lineage, descent, filiation and genealogy have been used among literary theorists and critics (albeit at times contentiously) as analogs for intertextuality, so too 67 On this point, see now Langlands 2018 and particularly ­chapter 12, on ‘controversial thinking through exempla’. 68 The quote is from Dressler 2012, 173–​4; see also Langlands 2018, 121.

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Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 49 (inter)textuality can serve as an analog for the life of philosophy Seneca urges on us. Alex Dressler has demonstrated ‘the way in which [for Seneca,] textuality, particularly literature, mediates moral transformation’, and Catharine Edwards has recently drawn attention to the continuous generation of philosophical community that Seneca envisions happening via epistolary conversations that include both past exemplars and future readers.69 Taking Seneca as our example, we may write ourselves into history as the heirs of whomever we choose, and as the parents of whomever chooses us. Finally, our task is to increase the patrimony of our self-​declaring heirs: ‘Let us act like the good pater familias; let us make more what we have received. Let a greater inheritance (hereditas) pass from me to those who come afterward’.70 We will do so by thinking through exempla and by writing ourselves into their ranks.71

69 Dressler 2012, 172; Edwards 2018. 70 Ep. 64.7:  Sed agamus bonum patrem familiae, faciamus ampliora quae accepimus; maior hereditas a me ad posteros transeat. 71 Ep. 98.13:  Nos quoque aliquid et ipsi faciamus animose; simus inter exempla. The stimulating conversation of the audience and fellow attendees of the May 2017 conference on Intertextuality in Senecan Philosophy gave a felicitous beginning for this piece, and I am very grateful for the unstinting hospitality and critical generosity of the conference’s organizers, who are this volume’s editors. This chapter has benefited much from their kind attention, as well as from the astute comments of two anonymous referees. I  had the good fortune to deliver another early version of this chapter as the 2017 Guttman Memorial Lecture at Union College. I  would like to thank Stacie Raucci, Tommaso Gazzarri, Hans Friedrich Mueller, their students, and the audience on that happy occasion for their suggestions and encouragement.

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2  Myth, poetry and Homer in Seneca philosophus R. Scott Smith

1  Introduction Tackling ‘myth-​as-​intertext’ in Seneca’s prose works1 entails a demanding and deep examination of the manifold ways that Seneca engaged with the rich tapestry of stories from the spatium mythicum (‘mythical time’), both those that might be conceived of as a koine mythical tradition as well as those told specifically in the Homeric epics. In the absence of a systematic treatment of Seneca’s use of what we call ‘myth’, I have decided to preface the intertextual examinations proper with a comprehensive study of Seneca’s views and employment of stories from the world of gods and heroes.2 Those interested in my analysis of Seneca’s engagement with the Homeric texts can find them in section 5 below. Thus, this chapter has two main goals. First, it attempts to provide a systematic overview of what we call myth in Seneca’s philosophical works, including a review of Seneca’s theological concerns on the one hand, and a new evaluation of the use of figures and events in the spatium mythicum on the other. Studies of Seneca’s view of ‘myth’3 have primarily focused on the 1 It is impossible to treat here either the tragic corpus (if indeed these are written by our Seneca: see Kohn 2003, with which I am sympathetic, and footnote 30 below), which extensively employs and rewrites stories from the mythical world (though, see footnote 53 below). Since these literary constructs are explicitly set in the mythical world, the mode of intertextuality is inherently different. Those who wish to consider the Stoic rewriting of myth in the tragedies, see (among many others) Pratt 1983, 78–​131; Rosenmeyer 1989, passim but esp. 5–​36; and Star 2016. 2 To promote further study of Seneca and myth an index of references is provided in the Appendix. 3 Although the concept of ‘myth’ employed widely today did not have a corresponding category in antiquity, especially in early Greek literature, there are certain indications that the traditional body of stories that we call myth was eventually seen as a distinct collection that could be subjected to scrutiny. First, Palaephatus’ Unbelievable Tales (4th c. BCE) presents us with a systematic project of rationalizing these traditional stories, indicating that they were seen differently from other historical or legendary tales. Furthermore, Apollodorus’ Library (and less so Hyginus’ Fabulae, both likely 2nd c. CE) presents a coherent set of stories that seem to be implicitly defined as ‘myth’. Finally, as we will see below, the Roman chronologer Varro distinguished between a ‘mythical’ and ‘historical’ period, demonstrating that, by Seneca’s day, there was ancient precedent for thinking of myth as a conceptual whole. As will be elaborated

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Myth, poetry and Homer 51 theological aspects, especially his rejection of allegoresis as a valid method to align the traditional gods with Stoic principles. Here, I wish to widen the lens to look at Seneca’s approach to the mythical past holistically. In doing so I  will show that Seneca’s rejection of the majority of mythical stories is grounded both in the rejection of unbelievable narrative elements that do not align with the natural world as understood by the Stoics (as well as his Roman contemporaries) and in the great temporal gulf that separates his modern world from the remote, and therefore gullible, past. When Seneca does engage with the stories from the mythical period, he tends to do in such a way as to draw the reader’s attention from that past to the present, even when adopting a literary persona. Second, the chapter will explore some tensions between myth-​as-​intertext and poetry-​as-​intertext, with special attention to the Homeric texts that stood at the center of elite Roman education.4 To say that a reference to Odysseus is automatically to enact an intertextual dialogue with the Homeric text itself fails to recognize the complicated relationship between myth and text. To a great extent myth acts according to the rules of quantum mechanics. At one and the same time, a myth may be coextensive with the poetical text(s) in which it is embedded, but it may also exist independently, separate from yet still interacting with texts even from a distance—​a sort of ‘quantum entanglement’. When we encounter a ‘Homer says’, it may, at one time, be a reference to the text of the Iliad (literary intertextuality), yet at another it may refer to its quantum twin, the ‘super-​text’5 that has grown up separate from the text of Homer and which may include the scholarly and mythographic exegesis that has built up around it (cultural or mythical intertextuality). To take one example from outside of Seneca’s corpus, the Elder Pliny describes the Halizones thus:  ‘Homer called these people Halizones because the nation was surrounded by the sea’ (HN 5.143 hos Homerus Halizonas dixit, quando praecingitur gens mari). Homer, it turns out, says no such thing, but simply lists the Halizones without elaboration

further in section 3, I prefer the term spatium mythicum because it reflects the coherency of the mythical system that took place ‘back then’, regardless of the plausibility of the stories. 4 It is impossible to treat the extensive bibliography on intertextuality, but several foundational studies have influenced the way that I  think about intertextuality. In particular, Pucci 1998, 1–​48 is essential reading for a history of the debate about the role of authorial intent in New Critical and Structuralist approaches to allusion and intertextuality, with a reorientation of the question toward the ‘full-​knowing reader’ that is necessary for the allusion to be activated. See also Edmunds 2001; Hinds 1998; Fowler 1997. For a recent study of Seneca’s intertextual relationship with Vergilian and Ovidian poetry in the Natural Questions, see Trinacty 2018. 5 The term ‘supertext’ is used variously by literary critics and has no agreed-​upon meaning. By ‘super-​text’ here, I mean specifically the life of a textual element, character, episode or idea that has grown beyond the text itself. For instance, Odysseus may be found in Homer’s text, but he is also brought into a number of mythical episodes which are not ‘textual’ in the same way but have somehow become connected to the text or author. This might be called the concept of the ‘mythical super-​text’.

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52  R. Scott Smith at Il. 2.856. For Pliny’s detail one must look to the scholiastic tradition:6 οὗτοι γὰρ οἰκοῦσι γῆν ὑπὸ θαλάσσης ἐζωσμένην (‘for these occupy a land girded by the sea’).7 Here, Homer is an authority, but his original text has been ‘built up’ by subsequent interpretation—​becoming ‘Homeric’ by association. To anticipate a bit of what will be covered in section 5, Seneca’s rewriting of the wandering Odysseus is only meaningful when the geographical associations—​undefined in the original literary text—​with Southern Italy are assumed as part of the mythical tradition. Likewise, a reference such as Niobe’s ‘remembering to eat’ as told in Iliad 24, can be complicated because the original text has become embedded in and is part of another cultural context. An example of this occurs at Ep. 63.2, where Seneca refers specifically to the authority of the ‘greatest of poets’, who provides guidance for the period of mourning: we should only grieve for one day (Il. 19.229) and even Niobe thought of food (Il. 24.602). Again, the context of the Homeric lines is are not as important as is the fact that Homer is an authority for proper human behavior. Even if Seneca’s lines ‘enact’ an intertextual relationship, the audience’s interpretation of how Seneca’s remark relates to the Homeric Ur-​text is obscured by the fact that the same two passages were commonly evoked at funeral feasts (thus becoming part of the super-​text, and to some extent drawn into the realm of ‘exemplary intertextuality’ outlined by Amanda Wilcox in Chapter 1).8 In such contexts, where citation or quotation can be an act of authority rather than of literary engagement, we should be wary of envisioning that every reference to Achilles or Bellerophon is to be seen in dialogue with Homer or Euripides—​even when a text or author is explicitly mentioned. Before we consider Seneca’s use of the Homeric epics, it will be important to examine his views on the traditional stories themselves. If the mythical world of gods and heroes represents a sort of text that can be cited, quoted, altered or manipulated, it will be worthwhile to analyze exactly what Seneca thinks of this text and how he employs or rejects it. Only then can we turn to the literary versions of those same kind of stories.

6 Erbse 1969–​88 ad loc. vol. I 348. 7 All translations in this chapter are my own, unless otherwise noted. 8 Lucian, De luctu 24:  ‘Μέχρι μὲν τίνος, ὦ οὗτος, ὀδυρόμεθα; ἔασον ἀναπαύσασθαι τοὺς τοῦ μακαρίτου δαίμονας εἰ δὲ καὶ τὸ παράπαν κλάειν διέγνωκας, αὐτοῦ γε τούτου ἕνεκα χρὴ μὴ ἀπόσιτον εἶναι, ἵνα καὶ διαρκέσῃς πρὸς τοῦ πένθους τὸ μέγεθος’. τότε δὴ τότε ῥαψωδοῦνται πρὸς ἁπάντων δύο τοῦ Ὁμήρου στίχοι καὶ γάρ τ᾽ ἠΰκομος Νιόβη ἐμνήσατο σίτου (Il. 24.602): καὶ γαστέρι δ᾽ οὔπως ἐστὶ νέκυν πενθῆσαι Ἀχαιούς (Il. 19.225). ‘My dear man, how long are we to lament? Let the spirits of the departed rest. But if you have absolutely decided to keep on weeping, for that very reason you must not abstain from food, in order that you may prove equal to the magnitude of your sorrow’. Then, ah! then, two lines of Homer are recited by everyone: ‘Verily Niobe also, the fair-​tressed, thought of her dinner’ and ‘Mourning the dead by fasting is not to be done by Achaeans’ (transl. Harmon 1925).

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Myth, poetry and Homer 53

2  Theological criticism: rejection of Stoic allegoresis When speaking of Seneca and ‘myth,’ we must at the outset make a distinction between theological concerns about the divine on the one hand, and the vast array of stories that concern the heroic world on the other. In terms of the former, Seneca’s attitude was obviously influenced by his philosophical views of the Stoic god, which have been most recently analyzed in a comprehensive paper by Aldo Setaioli.9 Other studies have shown that Seneca rejects the facile ‘allegorizing’ approaches of his Stoic predecessors, especially Chrysippus, who attempted to bring traditional pantheistic theology into line with Stoic philosophy (see below). It is worth pointing out here that when scholars speak of Stoic allegories of myth, they tend to refer to interpretation of gods and goddesses, not the whole body of traditional stories concerning heroic events. This tendency mirrors the Stoic practice itself, which is almost entirely concerned with theological matters.10 Recent studies have persuasively argued that so-​ called early Stoic ‘allegoresis’11 was not based on the notion that poets somehow had special access to the truth, which they purposefully but cryptically embedded in their poetry, but rather on the idea that the earliest humans, free from widespread corruption, had some pure notion of the divine.12 The poets, far from being proto-​Stoics, instead were largely responsible for corrupting these

9 Setaioli 2007; see also van Sijl 2010, Wildberger 2006a, 21–​48, esp.  30–​7; Batinski 1993. Setaioli (2007, 347) articulates how the traditional pantheon of gods are to be interpreted as ‘ministers’ of the one and true god, Jupiter, who is alone exempt from destruction in the great conflagration (see Ben. 4.7.1–​4.8; cf. Wildberger 2006a, 33–​4). 10 The one exception seems to have been Metrodorus of Lampsacus, who supposedly allegorized heroes alongside the gods in the Iliad. See Tatian Or. ad Gr. 21 (= DK 61 A3), who said that Metrodorus ‘turned everything into allegory’ (cf. DK 61 A4, where, for example, Agamemnon is allegorized as aether). See Califf 2003. 11 Employing the term ‘allegory’ for Stoic interpretation of traditional Greek divine myth is controversial and is used with caution here. An important article by A. Long (1996, 67–​76, 82–​3), followed by a monograph of van Sijl (2010), persuasively argues that there was no sustained attempt to see early Greek myth as systematically allegorical, but rather the early Stoics took an ‘atomic’ approach, focusing on individual names (mostly through etymology) and narrative elements to bring traditional myth in line with Stoicism. Furthermore, Long and van Sijl argue that the earliest Stoics did not believe that the earliest mythmakers purposefully embedded secret knowledge in narrative stories. Instead, the earliest humans, free from widespread corruption, had some pure conceptions of the divine, which were then corrupted by others, especially poets. By clearing away the corruption one can reclaim the original natural conception of the divine and thus bring it in line with the Stoic view (contra Most 1989; Ramelli and Lucchetta 2004, ch. 6.6). If Long and van Sijl are correct, then the impulse behind the Stoic line of interpretation is akin to rationalizing approaches, which view the fabulous elements of myth as due to the corruption of an original event or conception. 12 Long 1996; van Sijl 2010, 3–​92. That Homer purposefully engaged in allegory is found in later sources, for instance Strabo 1.2.7 Meineke (cf. Seneca Ep. 88.5) and especially Heraclitus the Allegorist (Russell and Konstan 2005).

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54  R. Scott Smith unadulterated notions of the divine. As Long puts it, the Stoics were ‘interested in their [the poets’] poems as sources of pre-​existing, pre-​philosophical views of the world—​what we might call “true myths” ’.13 The poets themselves, in turn, were responsible for many of the childish superstitions held by humankind (Cic. ND 2.36 = SVF 2.1067; cf. Philodemus De pietate 2158–​9 Obbink). Thus, the Stoics ‘were interested in the ancient ideas transmitted in that poetry rather than in the poets and their poems as such, in myth rather than poetry’.14 On this reading, since poetry is the sole means to reclaim the original conceptions of the gods, one must use it, but cautiously, by carefully clearing away poetic distortions. Greek poetry, then, was nothing more than ‘ethnographical material’15 that allowed early Stoics to align their views, based on the observation of nature, with the original natural conceptions of the earliest peoples. Thus, early Stoics like Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, and later Hecato and Cornutus, could employ poetry as a way to gain access the pure notions of the divine. Seneca’s own view of the earliest humans is complex, in part because our main source, Letter 90, is a complicated amalgam of Posidonius’ and Seneca’s views on the ‘Golden Age’ of humankind. There is no need to revisit the difficulties in extricating Seneca’s precise position relative to his Stoic predecessor.16 It is enough to point out here that Seneca, in contrast to what appears to be the Posidonian perspective, did not view the earliest humans as having particular access to the truth. Even though at Ep. 90.7 Seneca claims ‘to have agreed with Posidonius up to this point’ that the earliest peoples were ruled by sapientes, this seems to be a temporary rhetorical position so that he can later refute Posidonius’ claim that Wise Men were responsible for discovering artes. Later, Seneca clarifies his real position: ‘I do not believe that that rude age, which still lacked technical knowledge and learned things by trial and error, had this sort of philosophy’ (Ep. 90.35, hanc philosophiam fuisse illo rudi saeculo quo adhuc artificia deerant et ipso usu discebantur utilia non credo; cf. 90.46).17 Furthermore, even though the earliest humans, ‘fresh from the gods’ (a dis recentes), were more innocent and sturdier than modern folk, ‘they were not Wise Men’ (Ep. 90.44). They were innocent because they did not know better (Ep. 90.46, ignorantia rerum innocentes erant), but innocence does not imply philosophy or special knowledge. Unlike Posidonius, Seneca does not endow the earliest people with any special access to the truth, knowledge or the divine. 13 Long 1996, 70. 14 Van Sijl 2010, 98. 15 Long 1996, 82. 16 See recently Costa 2013, 141–​67 with further bibliography at 141 n. 383, and van Nuffelen and van Hoof 2013 n. 2. 17 Van Nuffelen and van Hoof 2013 refute the notion that Seneca was defending the early Stoic position against Posidonius’ radical claims. As we will see, Seneca’s description of the earliest period is consistent with his own desire to deemphasize the mythical past in favor of the present and is not necessarily based on an early Stoic position.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 55 Because of his views on the earliest humans, Seneca cannot accept that allegoresis is a valid interpretative strategy.18 The most systematic rejection is, of course, his critique of his predecessors’ interpretation of the Graces (Grk. Χάριτες) at the beginning of De beneficiis (1.3.2–​1.4.6).19 Drawing on Hecato and Chrysippus (cited at 1.3.8, 1.3.9, 1.4.1, 1.4.4),20 Seneca spends several chapters reviewing his predecessors’ so-​called discoveries. Despite his protests that such interpretations are invalid, Seneca nevertheless goes to great lengths to provide details about the iconography of the Graces and the Stoics’ interpretation thereof.21 Since the analysis reveals much about Seneca’s view of traditional theology and especially of poetic inventions (see also below, section 4), a brief review will be worthwhile. The Greeks (specified at 1.3.6), we are told, present the Graces as three sisters who are portrayed as holding hands, smiling, youthful, virginal and wearing loose, translucent clothing. Each element is interpreted:  they smile because people who give and receive beneficia are happy; they are youthful because memory of a beneficium should be always fresh; they wear loose clothes because beneficia should be unrestricted (1.3.5). In terms of the number of Graces, some Greeks propose that one of the Graces symbolizes the giver of a benefit, another the receiver and the third the one who reciprocates. Others offer a slightly different version: one stands for the giver, another for the receiver and the third for the one who gives and receives at the same time (1.3.3). Here, the very multiplicity of interpretations of the Graces’ iconography rules out the certainty of a ‘true’ original meaning and reveals the ridiculous nature of such an attempt to root out the truth about divine myth. As Batinski points out, ‘Seneca rejects these allegorical readings of the Graces because the critical methodology produces disparate results’.22 Seneca is similarly critical of allegory through etymology. Since etymology is the search for a singular etymon, or ‘truth’, multiple interpretations yielding equally possible truths create an impossible hermeneutic conundrum.23 It is perhaps for this reason that Seneca opts to omit his predecessors’ etymological explanations of most of the Graces’ names, which vary 18 See Gale 1994, 19–​45 on Lucretius’ similar rejection of allegory, esp. p.  31, ‘[allegorical exegesis] must be rejected, since it is based on the (false) assumption that the poets and mythmakers were either philosophers or else turning the works of genuine philosophers into poetry’. 19 Griffin 2013a ad loc.; van Sijl 2010, 171–​2; Most 1989; cf. Ramelli and Lucchetta 2004, 333–​4; Picone 2013, 70–​1. 20 Seneca may have been implicitly criticizing the work of his contemporary Annaeus Cornutus, the Summary of the Traditions of Greek Theology 15 (Ἐπιδρομὴ τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν θεολογίαν παραδεδομένων), which includes an allegorical interpretation of the Graces (see Most 1989; Ramelli and Lucchetta 2004, ch. 6). 21 Griffin 2013a, 179 points out that, even if the discussion of allegory adds nothing to the discussion, the introduction of the Graces does present the key concepts of giving, receiving and reciprocating that will form the subject of Seneca’s treatise. 22 Batinski 1993, 75. 23 Cf. Wildberger 2006a, 34–​5; Pellizer (forthcoming).

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56  R. Scott Smith according to the source. He does, however, include Chrysippus’ interpretation of their mother’s name, Eurynome, who was so called ‘because the sharing of benefits requires an inheritance that spreads far and wide’ (1.3.9). One wonders whether Seneca here makes an exception specifically to highlight the absurdity of the practice and to highlight the inventiveness of poets (1.3.9). For Seneca exclaims, ‘as if mothers are regularly named after their daughters, or poets reproduce the real names!’ Names, then, cannot reflect the real nature of divinity, but are rather the products of poetic ingenuity. Study of the divine, on the other hand, requires seriousness: ‘let us leave those frivolities to the poets’, Seneca advises, because ‘their job is to please the ears and to weave a sweet-​sounding tale (fabulam)’. For the real work of keeping society from disintegrating, we must speak seriously and forcefully, unless one ‘thinks that frivolous fictions and old wives’ tales can prevent the most destructive possible turn of events, the loss of all beneficia’ (1.4.6). Traditional stories of gods are forcefully rejected in favor of serious philosophical discussion.

3  Seneca and the spatium mythicum While many studies have sought to explain Seneca’s view of what may be called ‘divine myth,’ no study to my knowledge systematically addresses how Seneca treated the body of traditional stories that are told about the world of Greek heroes. As we will presently see, Seneca rejects most of the traditional stories for the same reasons he rejects theological myths, that is, he blames poetic invention. But before we provide a detailed review of the evidence, it is important to inquire whether Seneca recognized a category of ‘myth’ that might be separate from what we call ‘historical stories’. By Seneca’s time, it seems clear that there was both a temporal and conceptual distinction between ‘mythical time’ and ‘historical time’, one that prioritized the present as a time of progressive knowledge and potential enlightenment. A useful, and perhaps authoritative, corpus of traditional Greek stories is provided by Apollodorus’ Library, probably from the 2nd c.  CE. This text, although written after Seneca’s time, may offer a conceptual structure for what might have passed for the mythical period in the empire. Organized along major genealogical lines, the Library begins with Ouranos and culminates with the Trojan War and the death of Odysseus—​establishing the temporal framework for a separate corpus of ‘myths’ as opposed to a ‘historical period’. This mythical period of time, set in the distant past when gods could roam the earth along with heroes, is commonly described by the modern term spatium mythicum.24 Since this term avoids the implication of ‘myth-​as-​fiction’, I will use this term instead of referring to a general category of ‘myth’ when exploring how Seneca dealt with those events that were said to have taken place during that time. There is ancient precedent, prior to Seneca, for recognizing such a category based on a temporal framework. A few generations before Seneca was born, Varro (according to Censorinus Die Natali 21.1–​2) divided time into three major 24 Piérart 1983, 48.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 57 periods: 1) an unknown (ἄδηλον) period before the flood, of which nothing is known; 2) a mythical (μυθικόν) era between the flood and the first Olympiad, which contains unverifiable stories that contain fantastic accounts; and 3) the historical (ἱστορικόν) age, the events of which can be confirmed. Where Varro got this scheme, if anywhere, is anyone’s guess, and it may be his own.25 It is worth pointing out that the end of Varro’s ‘mythical period’, the first Olympiad, does not correspond exactly to that implied in Apollodorus’ Library (the death of Odysseus) or agree with other sources that see the Trojan War or the Return of the Heraclidae as the fundamental hinge between the mythical and historical periods.26 Be that as it may, the spatium mythicum (Varro’s second age) is characterized specifically as a record of the past, but one that was embellished with fabulous additions (multa in eo fabulosa referuntur; cf. Strabo 1.2.3–​10 Meineke, where Homer adds mythical elements to ‘adorn his account’). As we will see below (on Const. sapient. [2]‌.2.1–​2), Seneca too seems to recognize a difference between the ‘unsophisticated past’, which accepted such fantastic narratives, and the ‘enlightened present’ that does not—​an implicit recognition of a category of a spatium mythicum. But not all stories from the spatium mythicum contain fantastic elements. Indeed, some conform to the biological and physical rules of the natural world, while others seem to violate the principles of observed reality. In other words, there is a wide spectrum of plausibility embedded in the stories themselves.27 For instance, that Phaedra fell in love with her stepson is entirely plausible even according to the rational standards of the historical age. Yet, her half-​ brother, the hybrid Minotaur, beggars belief. Likewise, there is a great deal of conceptual difference between Bellerophon’s taming of a flying horse to kill a three-​headed monster and the ill-​starred military campaign of the Seven against Thebes. This second conceptual distinction is based not on when an event happened, but on the intrinsic plausibility of the narrative components. This distinction is the motivation to rationalize fantastic stories as early as Hecataeus, but by Seneca’s day categories of narratives were also recognized in Latin rhetorical texts and later in Servius, where we find explicit definitions of plausible (secundum naturam) and implausible (contra naturam, thus fabulosa) specifically attributed to narratives from the spatium mythicum.28

25 At Eratosthenes FGrHist 241 fr. 1c (vol. D2, 709) Jacoby suggested that Varro’s source was Eratosthenes, who, however, seems to have regarded the fall of Troy as the beginning of computable time. See Möller 2005, 248, 255–​9, with further discussion and bibliography. 26 For Eratosthenes, see previous note. Ephorus begins his universal history with the Return of the Heraclidae, precisely the point at which Hellanicus of Lesbos terminated his works. See Fornara 1983, 8–​9. 27 Gale 1994, 95–​6; Veyne 1988, 41–​3. 28 For the categories fabula (unreal and improbable, characteristic of epic and tragedy), historia (factual but removed from the present time, complicated by the Greek use of the same term for a mythical narrative) and argumentum (unreal but possible, characteristic of comedy), see Cic. Inv. 1.27, Rhet. Her. 1.13, Quint. Inst. Or. 2.4.2, though see already Xenophanes and Hecataeus, and Arist. Poet. 9, 1451a38–​b6. For Servius, see especially Dietz 1995.

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58  R. Scott Smith This distinction seems to be Seneca’s litmus test, as it was for many of his Roman contemporaries.29 He is not concerned as much about when a story was to have taken place as he was whether it conforms with the laws of nature or not. Centaurs and Giants, even though they are accorded an ontological status by some Stoics, are not real in a physical sense, but merely products of false reasoning (falsa cogitatione, Ep. 58.15). Frequently, but not always, Seneca highlights the fanciful nature of story with the use of fabula or fabulosus, which is often employed by Seneca’s contemporaries to denote a ‘tall tale’ (contra naturam), as it was for Varro’s spatium mythicum above:30 Atlas holding up the sky is a story handed down in tales (Pol. [11].7.1, fabulis traditus). Elsewhere Seneca tells Lucilius that he is eagerly awaiting letters from him to see ‘whether Charybdis resembles what the tales say’ (Ep. 79.1, Charybdis an respondeat fabulis).31 Part of Seneca’s view of myth, however, is due to the temporal gulf between a gullible past and an enlightened present. Silly ideas such as a monstrous woman with dogs emerging from her waist might have been believable in the past, but in the educated present we must not put faith in matters that defy belief. A passage from the Naturales quaestiones exemplifies Seneca’s view of human progress in knowledge, even with what might be called the historical period. Here Seneca presents the view of Euthymenes of Massilia (6th–​5th c.  BCE?), who argued that the Nile originated at the Atlantic Ocean, only to refute the report as an outright lie. There is quite a difference, we must remember, even between the archaic Greek period and the modern Roman Empire (NQ 4A 2.24): Back then one had the opportunity for fabrication. Since foreign lands were unknown, people could send back ‘tall tales’ (fabulae). But now merchant ships skirt along the coast of the whole outer sea, and none of them reports the source of the Nile. Old ideas, in Seneca’s view, can be imprecise and crude: (NQ 6.5.2, opiniones veteres parum exactas esse et rudes: circa verum adhuc errabatur).32 One may compare a similar view in Polybius’ Histories, where the historian explicitly acknowledges that one no longer needs recourse to fabulous stories in order to make sense out of the world (4.40.2): ‘now that every sea and land has been 29 Pomponius Mela: Smith 2016; Pliny the Elder: Smith 2017. 30 Fabula is, however, not used exclusively for a story that contains unbelievable elements. It can also denote a theatrical play (Ep. 76.31, 77.20, 108.6, 115.15), a story, sometimes with a moral lesson (Ben. 5.23.2, 7.21.1, NQ 5.15.1), rumor/​gossip (Ben. 3.23.3, Ep. 13.8, 122.14–​15), reports from a distant place (Otio [8]‌.5.1), and finally the historical (Ep. 24.6) or mythical (Ep. 88.3) material learned under a grammaticus. 31 Seneca is particularly interested in the nature of the ‘fabulous’ Scylla and Charybdis: Marc. [6]‌.17.2, Ep. 45.2, NQ 3.29.7, and see below, section 5. Here, Seneca implies that the nature of the place gave rise to the myth, that is, he rationalizes the myth itself. 32 See Wildberger 2006a, 32.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 59 opened up, it is not appropriate (πρέπον) to use poets and mythographers’.33 While our predecessors may be forgiven for their credulity, Seneca and his contemporaries should know better now that the world has given up most of its secrets. Seneca offers a definitive statement concerning the distinction between the gullible past and the enlightened present at De constantia sapientis [2]‌.2.1–​ 2.34 At the beginning of the essay our philosopher is at pains to reassure his addressee, Serenus, that Cato the Younger—​despite his vile treatment at the hands of lesser men—​cannot in actuality suffer abuse (iniuria) or insult (contumelia). Cato, in fact, is a more certified example of a Wise Man than Hercules and Odysseus were in earlier ages (prioribus saeculis). He goes on to explain by alluding to myth ([2.]2.1–​2): Cato non cum feris manus contulit, quas consectari venatoris agrestisque est, nec monstra igne ac ferro persecutus est, nec in ea tempora incidit quibus credi posset caelum umeris unius inniti:  excussa iam antiqua credulitate et saeculo ad summam perducto sollertiam cum ambitu congressus, multiformi malo, et cum potentiae inmensa cupiditate, quam totus orbis in tres divisus satiare non poterat, adversus vitia civitatis degenerantis et pessum sua mole sidentis stetit solus et cadentem rem publicam, quantum modo una retrahi manu poterat, tenuit… Cato did not grapple with wild beasts—​pursuing them is a job for hunters and country folk—​nor did he hunt down monsters with fire and sword. He did not happen to live in those days when it was possible to believe that heaven was carried on the shoulders of a single man. After old-​ fashioned gullibility had long been discarded and humanity had reached the height of ingenuity, he fought against corruption, a multi-​formed evil, and against the unbridled desire for power—​power that the whole world divided into three parts could not satisfy. Against the vices of a state in decline and sinking under its own weight he alone stood, and as the republic was falling, he held it up, at least as much as was possible for it to be sustained by a single hand. Seneca’s predecessors (Stoici nostri) had pronounced Odysseus and Hercules to be Wise Men on the grounds that they had overcome all trials, rejected pleasures, and conquered all their fears. In this passage the labors of Hercules, who is portrayed as nothing more than a glorified hunter, comes off as trivial in comparison to Cato’s.35 Hercules’ exploits are further downplayed

33 Clarke 2007, 95. 34 Berno 2018; Minissale 1977; and Grimal 1953 ad loc. 35 Minissale 1977 ad loc., ‘la qualificazione in senso negativo, rispetto a Catone, dell’operato dell’eroe del secoli passati…mentre assolve proprio a questo compito, prepara alla visione della grandezza morale dell’Uticense’. See also Montiglio 2011, 83–​4.

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60  R. Scott Smith by the omission of the names of any of his labors, a technique that Seneca will repeat at Ep. 88.7 (see below, section 5) to implicitly rationalize unbelievable achievements by removing the unbelievable aspects of the story.36 But not only was the spatium mythicum a time characterized by simplistic challenges, but it also was a period of gullibility, a time when people could believe such fantastic stories as the heavens being supported by a single man.37 But now, Seneca reminds us, we know better, and furthermore the challenges of our time are more complex and far more challenging. The modern world faces complicated political and sociological problems, ones caused by far more dangerous animals than those Hercules faced:  humans. Cato grappled not with the Hydra, but with corruption (ambitus), which is a real and manifold evil. Cato also had to contend with the unquenchable desire for power, which the whole world, divided into three parts like Geryon (unnamed in the comparison), could not satisfy. And instead of holding up the sky—​a preposterous notion—​Cato sustained, as far as was in his power, the falling Roman republic, a very real challenge Cato took up without bending.38 As the world becomes progressively more corrupt, the tools to fight the problems must become more refined (for the need of more sophisticated cures, see Ep. 95.15–​32).39 We need philosophy, not Hercules’ club. A similar comparison between the complex challenges of the modern world and those in the mythical past can also be found in Ep. 31. This letter opens with Seneca’s praise of Lucilius’ determination to make himself better, but he urges his correspondent to ignore the alluring call of ‘popular goods’. One has to ‘close off one’s ears’ to the temptation, and it is not enough just to use wax: ‘there is need of a stronger plug than the one they say (ferunt) Odysseus used on his comrades’ (Ep. 31.2). The song that Odysseus heard was enticing, but it only came from one direction. The Siren song in the modern world, by contrast, ‘echoes from every direction, from every part of the world’ (ex omni terrarum parte circumsonat). We do not have to pass by (praetervehere) just one spot with its insidious pleasures, but each and every city (omnes urbes)’. Again, Seneca’s world needs philosophy, not Odysseus’ wax. The two passages analyzed above exemplify a crucial point: the ‘text’ of myth provides rhetorical material to emphasize the gulf between the remote

36 On rationalization of myth, see Hawes 2014. 37 Cf. Sen. Pol. [11].7.1, where the freedman Polybius’ position as advisor to the emperor Claudius is compared to the mythical (fabulis) Atlas ‘on whose shoulders the heavens (mundus) rest’. 38 Cf. the comment of Hadot 1969, 89 n. 65, ‘Bemerkenswert ist auch in diesem Zusammenhang, daß die Verkörperungen des Weisen für die griech. Stoa aus der Mythologie stammten (Herakles und Odysseus); für die römische Stoa dagegen ist es eine historische Gestalt, Cato Uticensis’. 39 Seneca’s conception of the past and progress is complicated, not least because of the tension between the conservative position of the mos maiorum and the progressive optimism inherent in a philosophy that offers a remedy to increasing vices:  see Costa 2013, esp.  167–​73. As humanity degenerates, philosophy arises to counter the increase in vice.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 61 past and the present. The figures and events from the spatium mythicum, even if rationalized or historicized as they are above, have little relevance to the philosophical mission of the present. A survey of Seneca’s use of stories from the spatium mythicum reveals that Seneca is not much interested in the period. Seneca does not refer to any of the major mythical campaigns (e.g., the Argonaut adventure or Calydonian Boar Hunt). There is no mention of a Phaedra, Medea or Oedipus, even though we have plays on these figures handed down under his name.40 Hercules, for his part, only appears occasionally and without substantial development (see the Appendix for list of references to mythical figures).41 Occasionally a figure or event from the spatium mythicum—​if secundum naturam—​can be lumped together with historical figures in a set of rhetorical exempla. Without repeating the lengthy scholarship on rhetorical accumulation of exempla, it will suffice to point to Quintilian’s statement at Inst. Or. 12.4.1, where in addition to historical events one must also ‘not neglect even the examples invented (ficta) by famous poets’ to ensure that an orator has an ‘abundance of examples’ (exemplorum copia) at hand.42 When an event from the spatium mythicum does not contain fabulous elements, it can be amalgamated with the spatium historicum to exist in the same temporal space of the ‘past’. Thus, Hercules can be included in a list of unjust sufferers alongside Regulus and Cato (Tranq. [9]‌.16.4); Hecuba can sit among Croesus, Plato and Diogenes as someone who became a slave late in life (Ep. 47.12); and Nestor can be compared to Seneca’s contemporary, Sattia, who was known for her long life-​span (Ep. 77.20; cf. Plin. HN 7.158, Martial 3.93.20, CIL 6.9590). When Seneca, in exile, attempts to console his mother Helvia, he lists all the Greek and Trojan exiles that migrated to Italy: Antenor, Evander, Diomedes, and of course Aeneas (Helv. [12].7.6; cf. [12].7.3, an allusion to the Aeneid). A mythical figure can also be used as an exaggerated rhetorical ‘type’, to which a modern person could be compared, often favorably. We have already noted the comparison of Polybius with Atlas. Alcestis is extolled ‘in the poems of all’ (carminibus omnium) as a paragon of wifely virtue, outdone only by Seneca’s aunt during the shipwreck that took the life of her husband (Helv. [12].19.5). Sometimes, a figure from the spatium mythicum can serve merely as an illustration of a complicated philosophical principle. In order to 40 Given the extensive knowledge of the mythographic tradition displayed in the tragic corpus I find it remarkable that more references to myth do not appear in the philosophical works. Of course, the reluctance to employ mythical examples may be part of the philosophical outlook, but one wonders whether these are grounds to revisit the attribution of Seneca’s plays to the philosopher. 41 Cf. the more extensive use in Epict. Diss. 1.6.32–​6, 2.16.44–​5, 3.22.57, 3.24.14–​17, 3.26.31–​2, 4.10.10. 42 Quintilian, for his part, asserts that myths have been authorized by their very antiquity (vetustas) or are ‘believed to have been invented by great men to serve as lessons for humankind’ (Inst. Or. 12.4.2; cf. 5.11.17–​18). On historical exempla in Seneca, see Mayer 1991.

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62  R. Scott Smith explain the principle that all fools have all flaws, even if we cannot see them, he appeals to a mythical figure:  ‘just as a person has all the senses but not everyone has eyesight as good as Lynceus’, so too fools have all flaws, even if they are not as intense and extreme as they appear in some’ (Ben. 4.27.3). Similarly, to exemplify the concept of indifferentia Seneca reminds us that, although Agamemnon’s and Odysseus’ homes are very different in terms of wealth and prosperity, both still desire to return home (Ep. 66.26). Elsewhere, he employs the multi-​headed Chimaera and Hydra to illustrate the way in which virtues, though capable of being separately conceived, are yet part of the same organism (Ep. 113.9), an image used by philosophers since Plato (Republic 9.588c). By contrast, Seneca uses the hybrid nature of Scylla to criticize the Epicureans for insisting that pleasure is the highest good, since they are effectively adding ‘the irrational to the rational’ and ‘the dishonorable to the honorable’ (Ep. 92.9–​10, citing Verg. Aeneid 3.426–​8). In combining these two unlike things, they are creating a ‘mixed and monstrous creature, composed of different and ill-​fitting limbs’. Occasionally, Seneca rationalizes a myth, whereby the fantastic elements are removed to uncover the original event that became mythologized. We have already seen an example of implicit rationalization in our discussion of Constantia sapientis [2]‌.2.1–​2 above. Two other examples: at Ep. 90.14 Seneca incredulously wonders how anyone can admire Daedalus on equal terms with Diogenes—​the former is nothing more than the inventor of the saw! Here, Seneca presents Daedalus merely as an inventor, an appeal to the protos heuretes (first inventory) motif, a common fallback for rationalizers.43 In a discussion of foul items cast upon the shore by the sea at NQ 3.26.7, Seneca, doubtlessly drawing on another source, reports that the myth of the cattle of the Sun was said to take place between Messina and Mylae because of the dung-​like substance left on the shore there by the sea: ‘around Messana and Mylae the force of the turbulent sea casts onto shore something similar to dung… this is the origin of the story that the cattle of the Sun are stabled there’ (circa Messenen et Mylas fimo quiddam simile turbulenti vis maris profert… unde illic stabulare Solis boves fabula est).44 If we leave aside for the moment the references to mythical characters in quotations of other texts,45 as well as the unlikely references in the fragments of Seneca’s De matrimonio (see Appendix), these are the only references 43 Pliny HN 7.198 lists Daedalus as the inventor of carpentry and the tools that go with it, including the saw (fabricam materiariam Daedalus et in ea serram…). On the protos heuretes motif as a form of rationalizing, see Hawes 2014, 28; Plin. HN 7.191–​209). The Daedalus and Icarus myth was frequently rationalized as a corruption of their invention of a boat and sails, which allowed them the ‘fly’ away (Palaephatus 12; Paus. 9.11.4–​5). 44 Pliny, perhaps drawing on Seneca, reports the same (HN 2.220, circa Messanam et Mylas fimo similia expuuntur in litus purgamenta, unde fabula est Solis boves ibi stabulari). See also Scholia vetera in Ap. Rhod. ad 4.965 p. 299 Wendel, Appian Bellum Civile 5.116, placing it near Artemisium. 45 E.g., Tethys and Phaethon in quotation of Ov. Met. 2.63–​81 at Prov. [1]‌.5.10–​11.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 63 to the spatium mythicum that do not involve the events and figures in the Homeric epics. By contrast, figures from the Homeric epics appear more often:  Odysseus (11 times) Achilles (5 times), Priam (3 times), Helen and Hecuba (2 times each), Nestor (2 times), Ajax (once), as well as numerous allusions to Odysseus’ adventures. The national hero Aeneas naturally figures prominently, although he only appears by name occasionally. The greater attention to figures from the Trojan War is the function, no doubt, of the central place Homer held in Roman education, but also of the role of the Trojan War as the motivation for Aeneas’ migration to Italy.

4  (Greek) poets and myth in Seneca It is well known that Seneca generally refrains from referring to Greek poetic texts, vastly preferring the ‘poesia nazionale’, especially the poems of Vergil and Ovid.46 This is no doubt explained, in part, by his general negative attitude toward the Greeks, already found in Seneca’s father (Contr. 1 pr. 6),47 and especially toward their excessive subtlety (see Ben. 1.3.1f., discussed above, and NQ 2.50.1) and interest in trivial matters (Brev. vit. [10].13.3, Ep. 88 passim). Such frivolous attention to explaining every small detail is regarded as ineptiae (‘absurdities’), a term associated with the Greeks since at least Cicero (De orat. 2.18; Sen. Ep. 82.8; Ben. 1.3.8). The same word is used in Seneca’s criticism of allegory in the De beneficiis discussed above to describe fabulous stories (Ben. 1.4.5–​6): ‘We should leave those absurdities (ineptiae) to the poets’, we are told, ‘whose job it is to charm the ears and weave a sweet tale’ (dulcem fabulam nectere).48 Although Seneca does not specifically mention Greek poets here, the context—​and direct mention of Homer and Hesiod in the passage (Ben. 1.3.6–​7, 10)—​indicates Seneca is thinking primarily of them. Greek poets are especially targeted for two reasons. The first is their tendency to invent elements of stories, leading them far from the truth, which of course is the philosophical goal. While this inventive spirit is not exclusively limited to Greek poets,49 Seneca seems to attribute the fantastic stories 46 See Mazzoli 1970, 157–​60 and 1991; Setaioli 1988, 48. Somewhat outdated is Maguinness 1956. Papaioannou in this volume persuasively argues that Seneca, despite his frequent use of Vergil, often does so in an ironic fashion, manipulating the text to create a new network of associations that subverts the meaning and context of the original lines. 47 Seneca never went to Greece, as might be expected of an educated Roman (Griffin 1976, 37). 48 Poetry and mythical tales are, in his view, fictional and light entertainment at best. At Ira [5]‌.3.9.1 Seneca warns us not to give hot-​headed types overly serious materials, but rather we should give them more pleasant reading: ‘let [them] be soothed by the reading of poetry and occupied by stories with their tales’ (lectio illum carminum obleniat et historia fabulis detineat). 49 The underlying concern about the truth-​value of poetical texts may be what leads Seneca to manipulate the text of the Aeneid, often quoting lines in contexts vastly differently from the original (see the contributions of Papaioannou and Berno in this volume). In other words, if poetical works are untrustworthy, there is no reason to feel compelled to stay faithful to the original contexts; the text is ripe to be molded, adapted, changed and refashioned.

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64  R. Scott Smith from the spatium mythicum—​which involves Greeks, after all—​to them in particular. The second reason is that, as we saw in section 3 above, the early Greeks who created such stories, removed from the modern period of enlightenment, were considered a remarkably gullible group, capable of creating and believing such nonsense. The gulf between Greek poets and modern Rome is immense. To achieve progress, we must move forward to the Roman present. It is not only that poetical inventions are frivolous; they can also be detrimental to human society.50 At Vit. beat. [7]‌.26.6 Seneca, again using the term ineptiae, compares fictions about the gods with the hallucinations of someone who believes that the Wise Man can be harmed (Vit. beat. [7].26.6): I endure your hallucinations just like the Best and Greatest Jupiter endures the silliness of poets (ineptias poetarum), one of whom gives him wings, another horns, while yet another introduces him as an adulterer and staying out all night. One makes him savage toward the gods and unjust towards humans, another an abductor of freeborn men and his relatives at that, and still another a father-​killer and sacker of his father’s and other people’s kingdoms. The result of all this is that, if people believe that the gods are like this, they will feel less shame in sinning. In this passage, Seneca explains that poets cannot harm Jupiter with their inventions any more than someone’s hallucinations can harm the Stoic sapiens. The theological objections are no different than one would find in Plato: gods should not have the same base emotions as humans and should not commit adultery, abduct people, or kill their fathers and take their kingdoms (Republic 2.376d–​380c; cf. Sen. fr. 93 Vottero). In this case, the fictions of poets effectively give humans, at least the ones that have not reached philosophical perfection, the license to act immorally. A similar view is also seen at Brev. vit. [10].16.4–​5, where ‘the madness of poets serves to nourish human folly with their ridiculous stories (fabulis)’. There, Seneca insists that the story of Jupiter doubling the night to extend his pleasure with Alcmene was invented to authorize human immorality (morbo, lit. ‘disease’) through divine example. In a later letter (Ep. 115.12), in which he criticizes society’s obsession with wealth as the measure of success, Seneca suggests that poets contribute to this madness: ‘Then there are the plays of poets, which inflame our desires [for money]’ (accedunt deinde carmina poetarum, quae adfectibus nostris facem subdant). To prove his point he provides several quotations of poets, perhaps from an anthology.51 50 Mazzoli 1991, 206–​7. 51 The series of examples ends with a quotation of Euripides’ Danae (though Seneca seems to attribute it to his Bellerophon) and an anecdote about its first production in Athens that allows him to pivot from poets’ praise of money to its condemnation (Ep. 115.15). When the lines in praise of money were delivered on stage, the whole audience rose in protest, demanding that both actor and play be dismissed. Euripides leapt onto the stage, begging the audience to wait to see how the speaker’s life would end: dabat in illa fabula poenas Bellerophontes quas in sua

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Myth, poetry and Homer 65 The poets may also have other sinister reasons for their inventions. At Marc. [6]‌.19.4 Seneca attempts to assuage Marcia’s concern for her deceased son by asserting that the punishments in the underworld are the invention of poets:  ‘those [punishments] are the poets’ amusements, and they torture us with empty terrors’ (luserunt ista poetae et vanis nos agitavere terroribus; see also Ep. 82.16 with comments by Papaioannou in this volume, Case #2).52 Similarly, at Ep. 24.18 Seneca, citing ‘that old saw of the Epicureans’ (Epicuream cantilenam), returns to the same topic, where he equates belief in Cerberus and other underworld terrors with a childish mentality—​showing how closely allied the positions of the two schools were on the subject of poetic invention.53 Poets also fabricated the monsters of the underworld. At Ira [4].2.35.5, Seneca compares the angry man with various images, among which are the ‘infernal monsters covered with serpents and spitting fire that the poets have invented’ (qualia poetae inferna monstra finxerunt succincta serpentibus et igneo flatu). Here, the physiognomy of human anger is couched in the seething, shrieking, hissing, howling, glowering, war-​inducing, peace-​ destroying, torch-​bearing goddesses of the underworld. The Furies, then, are simply exaggerated examples of the enraged person whose internal fury is represented externally, an implicit rationalizing account of how these mythological monsters came to be invented (finxerunt).54

5  The ‘myths’ of Homer As a group, then, poets are categorized as inventors of myth, whose creations may arise from a number of causes. And yet, Homer, for all of his fantasies (contra naturam), can also be a sensitive reporter of the human condition (secundum naturam), as nearly all of the action that takes place in the Iliad and Odyssey can be understood in purely human terms. Such is Seneca’s point at Pol. [11].8.2, where he advises the freedman Polybius, grieving over the death of his brother, to turn to the writings of Homer and Vergil, who have ‘done humanity a great deal of good’ (Pol. [11].8.2), for solace: ‘Among quisque dat (‘Bellerophon, in that very drama, was to pay the penalty which is exacted of all men in their own drama [sc. of life]’). Such a pivot, characteristic of Seneca’s writing, should technically undermine Seneca’s overall point. 52 It is not only poets that can fashion myths to strike fear into humans’ minds; statesmen wishing to curb sin can as well: see NQ 2.41–​6 and Weinstock 1951, Hine 1981, 387–​96, and Williams 2012, 324–​32. 53 For Lucretius and Seneca on this motif, see Marković 2010–​11; cf. Gale 1994, 93–​4. 54 Other poetic inventions: at NQ 6.18.5, after a quotation of Verg. Aen. 1.53–​4 on Aeolus’ cave of winds, Seneca criticizes the poets’ scientific inaccuracy: ‘of course poets wanted to show a prison in which the winds lie enclosed beneath the earth’, but what they did not realize was that winds must always be in motion and so cannot be contained (sine dubio poetae hunc voluerunt videri carcerem in quo sub terra clausi laterent). The inventions of poets apparently can also be motivated by compassion. Stories that the divine can perish seek to comfort us by reminding us that death and decay are natural and unavoidable events in the world order (Marc. [6]‌.12.4). Such positive motivations are rare.

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66  R. Scott Smith those writings every book will furnish you countless examples of the human condition, unsettling events, and tears flowing for every possible reason’ (Pol. [11].11.5, nullus erit in illis scriptis liber qui non plurima varietatis humanae incertorumque casuum et lacrimarum ex alia atque alia causa fluentium exempla tibi suggerat). Although Seneca’s praise of Homer here has been viewed as a rhetorical ploy to flatter his addressee,55 Seneca’s views of Homer elsewhere are not specifically negative. At Ep. 63.2 Seneca calls Homer the ‘greatest of the Greek poets’ (poetarum Graecorum maximus). In viewing Homer as a potential reporter of real human behavior Seneca may have been following the lead of his Stoic predecessor, Chrysippus. The second founder of Stoicism had a deep interest in analyzing Greek poetry and especially the psychology of characters, not for allegorical purposes, but because Homer and Euripides were attempting to exemplify human behavior, behavior that could, in turn, be subjected to analysis on Stoic terms. Cullyer (2008), several years after Gill’s 1983 seminal article on Chrysippus and Euripides’ Medea,56 has demonstrated that Chrysippus studied Achilles’ interaction with Priam in Iliad 24 through the lens of Stoic psychology. If she is right that Chrysippus’ interpretation directly influenced Seneca’s consolation of Lucilius in Ep. 63,57 Seneca’s interest in the last book of the Iliad (see below) may be seen as a function of his own interest in Stoic interpretations of realistic human behavior when faced with grief and loss. As an educated member of the élite, of course, Seneca knew Homer well. Just a generation later his fellow Spaniard Quintilian prefers that students start with Greek literature before its Roman counterpart (Inst. Or. 1.1.12). Seneca himself points to the study of Homer at the earliest age:  ‘everyone who has learned their first letters knows that Neptune is called Ἐνοσίχθονα in Homer’ (NQ 6.23.4). When students learned to write Greek, they were given difficult words, mainly from the world of Greek myth, to practice.58 Homer features heavily in the most elementary writing practices for Greeks, whether word-​lists or in short narrative exercises that summarize the epic (Smith, forthcoming). In Seneca’s day, an intimate knowledge of Homer was an indication of one’s status as an educated member of the élite. Seneca himself provides an anecdote about an uneducated freedman, Calvisius Sabinus, a 55 Mazzoli 1970, 164 considers Seneca’s praise of Homer here as perfunctory (‘in ossequio a una consolidata tradizione’) in contrast to his view of Vergil. Seneca’s admiration of Homer in ‘lo scritto meno sincero del filosofo’ is rhetorically motivated to appeal to Polybius, who had translated and interpreted Homer’s works. 56 A recent article by J. Müller (2014) unpersuasively attempts to study the surviving Senecan play Medea as Seneca’s meditation on the Stoic idea of ἀκρασία. 57 Cullyer 2008, 538–​9. 58 Quintilian informs us that when a boy sets out to write out words in the usual way, teachers should make sure ‘that he does not waste his efforts in writing out common, everyday words. He can quickly learn the explanation of glosses, as the Greeks call them, of the more obscure words along the way and, while still engaged in the initial steps, acquire what would otherwise demand special time to be devoted to it’ (Inst. Or. 1.1.34–​5). See further Huys 2013 on complicated names such as Pityokamptes in the pentasyllabic wordlist of the 3rd c. BCE Livre d’écolier (Guéraud-​Jouguet  1).

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Myth, poetry and Homer 67 wealthy but uneducated freedman in the mold of Trimalchio, who customarily forgot the names of Odysseus, Achilles and Priam, ‘names that we know as well as our paedagogi’ (Ep. 27.5). Seneca’s famous criticism of Homeric quaestiones (‘interpretative problems’) suggests that he was well aware of the intense scrutiny to which the mythical stories in Homer were subjected in the Hellenistic and Imperial periods (Ep. 88 passim; Brev. vit. [10].13.2–​3, attributing such pedantry to Graecorum iste morbus)—​some of which he may have experienced in his own education.59 Such debates, of course, reveal how the text is expanded to include other items—​the creation of a ‘super-​text’ that combines text and interpretative exegesis. Evidence from the papyri, as well as the distribution of Homeric quotations by later writers, however, suggests that not every part of Homer’s works was studied equally. Certain books and passages were preferred. The Iliad was far more popular, but even within this text the focus was uneven: over half of the papyri are from Iliad 1–​6, and the Catalog of Ships was immensely popular, doubtless because of its geographical and mythographical interest.60 The distribution of Seneca’s references to the Iliad seems to correspond with the emphasis on the earliest books. Omitted here are those references to Homer that are reported second hand.61 Iliad 1.39–​41: ‘that Homeric priest’ (Chryses, unnamed) reminded the gods of what he did for them and how he religiously cared for their altars (Ben. 5.25.4, dis… Homericus ille sacerdos allegat officia et aras religiose cultas) ~ τοι χαρίεντ᾿ ἐπὶ νηὸν ἔρεψα. Iliad 1.249: A reference to speech of Nestor, which was ‘sweeter than honey’ (Ep. 40.2, melle dulcior… profluit) ~ τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ γλώσσης μέλιτος γλυκίων ῥέεν αὐδή. Iliad 2.211f.: Philip II, when insulted by the Athenian Demochares, did not punish him, but merely ‘sent that Thersites away’ (Ira [5]‌.3.23.3). It is unclear whether this is a quotation of Philip’s ipsissima verba or Seneca’s addition. Iliad 3.222: A reference to Ulysses’ speech that ‘comes down like snow’ (Ep. 40.2, oratio illa… concitata et sine intermissione in modum nivis superveniens iuveni data est) ~ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα.62 59 Seneca, Ep. 58.1–​6 suggests that he himself lost a great deal of time on such subjects under a grammaticus (quantum tempus apud grammaticen perdiderim). 60 Cribiore 2001, 194–​ 7; Morgan 1998, 105–​ 6, pointing to uneven distribution of papyri, suggests that less Homer was read among the Romans than in the Hellenistic period, and in the Byzantine period still less. 61 For instance, at Ep. 90.31, Seneca reports that Posidonius ‘preferred’ (maluit) to view the lines on the potter’s wheel in Homer as interpolated because it had been invented later by Anacharsis (Il. 18.599–​601). Ira [3]‌.1.20.8 contains the only quotation of Homer in Greek, but it comes in a quotation of the emperor Caligula. 62 Setaioli 1988, 52 n.  174 suggests that Seneca may have conflated Menelaus and Ulysses if the first part of Seneca’s description is an echo of Il. 3.213 (ἐπιτροχάδην ἀγόρευε), a possible ‘lapsus mnemonico’. And yet, even though Menelaus is described as ‘younger’ in Homer, a fact

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68  R. Scott Smith Iliad 14.268–​70:  Seneca, critical of the proliferation of etymological interpretations of the Graces’ names, reports that Homer changes one of the names to Pasithea and promised her in marriage (Ben. 1.3.7) ~ Χαρίτων μίαν… |​ δώσω ὀπυιέμεναι καὶ σὴν κεκλῆσθαι ἄκοιτιν |​ Πασιθέην (Hera speaking to Hypnos). Il. 19.229: the greatest Greek poet limits mourning to a maximum of a single day (Ep. 63.2, cum poetarum Graecorum maximus ius flendi dederit in unum dumtaxat diem) ~ ἐπ’ ἤματι δακρύσαντας (joined with example of Il. 24.602 below, but see Lucian, De luctu 24, cited in footnote 8). Il. 24.10–​11 Achilles is compared to the restless soul (Tranq. [9]‌.2.12, qualis ille Homericus Achilles est, modo pronus, modo supinus, in varios habitus se ipse componens, quod proprium aegri est, nihil diu pati et mutationibus ut remediis uti) ~ ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖτε |​ ὕπτιος, ἄλλοτε δὲ πρηνής. See also the subversive rewriting at Juv. 3.278–​80. Il. 24.478–​9 + 506 + 602:  Ira [4]‌.2.33.5:  Pastor’s enduring of the cruel banquet of Caligula, who had killed one of his sons, is compared to Priam’s meeting with Achilles: quid ille Priamus? Non dissimulavit iram et regis genua complexus est, funestam perfusamque cruore fili manum ad os suum rettulit, cenavit? Sed tamen sine unguento, sine coronis, et illum hostis saevissimus multis solaciis ut cibum caperet hortatus est ~ χερσὶν Ἀχιλλῆος λάβε γούνατα καὶ κῦσε χεῖρας |​ δεινὰς ἀνδροφόνους… (506) ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόματα χεῖρ᾿ ὀρέγεσθαι… (602) and see analysis below. Il. 24.602: Homer said that ‘even Niobe thought of food’ as a way to urge mortals to move on after the death of loved ones (Ep. 63.2, cum poetarum Graecorum maximus… dixerit etiam Niobam de cibo cogitasse) ~ καί γάρ… Νιόβη ἐμνήσατο σίτου (joined with example of Il. 19.229 above, but see Lucian, De luctu 24, cited in footnote 8). Some of these references, even if they correspond to the original Greek, are clearly proverbial and do not imply that Seneca consulted a text of Homer (see Il. 19.229 and 24.602 above, also found together at Lucian, De luctu 24). Mazzoli suggests, perhaps correctly, that all the references are pulled from Seneca’s memory, which is demonstrably faulty on at least one occasion.63 A review of the examples above shows no clear pattern of use: some are given as ‘moral archetypes of human existence’;64 others are drawn from different not mentioned by Setaioli, the poet insists on how little Menelaus says (Il. 3.214 παῦρα… οὐ πολύμυθος). 63 Mazzoli 1970, 164. At Ben. 1.3.7 Seneca claims that Thalia in Hesiod is one of the Graces, while in Homer she is a Muse, yet the only Thalia in Homer is one of the Nereids (Il. 18.39). See Mazzoli 1970, 162 n. 19 and 164; Setaioli 1988, 52 and 469–​71. 64 Cf. Tranq. [9]‌.2.12, Ep. 63.2, Ben. 5.25.4; cf. Mazzoli 1991, 197.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 69 parts of the epic to comment on oratorical style (Ep. 40.2); still others are used as exempla to support a philosophical argument (Ben. 1.3.7). All but one do not seem to trigger a series of deeper associations with the original Homeric text. The one exception is Seneca’s description of the emperor Caligula’s maltreatment of Pastor at Ira [4]‌.2.33 (next to last passage above), where he compares his actions to the treatment of Priam at the hands of Achilles in Iliad 24 (see also Wilcox’s treatment of this same passage in the previous chapter). Here, the resonances are deep and meaningful, and a literary intertextual dialogue seems intended by Seneca himself. In fact, Seneca crafts the story of Pastor’s suffering so as to prepare the reader in subtle ways for the explicit reference to the Iliad given above:  Caligula had Pastor’s son in custodia (though alive) as Achilles had Hector’s corpse (Ira [4].2.33.3). Pastor begged Caligula for his son, as Priam would do, but fails; in fact his request prompts the emperor to kill his son (ibid.). After doing so, Caligula invites Pastor to a perverse dinner; Seneca describes the invitation as a way to show that the emperor did not treat Pastor completely inhumane, a perverse reflection of the central theme of Iliad 24 (Ira [4].2.33.3–​4). Seneca is emphatic that Pastor’s dead son remained unburied during the cruel dinner (Ira [4].2.33.4:  Eo die quo filium extulerat, immo quo non extulerat. Pastor is a podagricus senex, now in his 100th year (centesimus), an old man like Priam. Pastor, of course, succeeds in enduring the monstrous hospitality of the emperor, so much so that, as Seneca suggests, ‘he deserved to be allowed to leave the banquet to collect his son’s remains’ (Ira [4].2.33.6, dignus fuit cui permitteretur a convivio ad ossa fili legenda discedere), just as Priam was able to do. Yet Caligula, a kindly and even cheerful host, did not allow him to do so. The similarities, perverted though they may be, are stark. Caligula is the anti-​ Achilles, whose morose humanity is contrasted with the emperor’s cheerful incapacity for human suffering. Furthermore, the human activity of eating to regain some normalcy in life after grieving is perverted into a spectacle of inhumanity: Caligula toasts Pastor and tells him to ‘forget about his grief’—​a depraved take on ‘even Niobe remembered to eat’—​but the context of cruelty here is far removed from the Iliadic compassion. One cannot help but wonder whether Seneca creatively embellished his narrative in De ira so as to rewrite the Homeric model to accentuate the emperor’s lack of humanity. Despite this single example, however, there does not seem to be any attempt to consistently engage with the fabric of Homer’s Iliad systematically in the way we see, for example, in the Senecan play Troades.65 By contrast, Homer’s 65 To take the clearest examples of the attempt to include nearly all of the Iliad in the play, we find references to book 1 (clear structural parallels, Agamemnon taking Briseis), book 2 (815–​ 57, the Catalog of Ships), book 3 (897–​8, reference to Helen watching men get slaughtered, incerta voti); book 6 (reference to the growth of Astyanax into the defender of Troy; cf. 535–​ 6), book 9 (315–​21, the embassy, Achilles playing the lyre), book 15 (444–​5, Hector setting ships on fire; cf. 683–​4), book 16 (446–​7, ‘taking real spoils from fake Achilles’), book 20 (348,

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70  R. Scott Smith Odyssey, or at least the figure of Odysseus, offers Seneca a consistent and singular mytho-​literary image from the Odyssean ‘super-​text’ to exploit. First, there are some references to episodes drawn from the Odyssey, especially those in the Naturales quaestiones, that are surely drawn from other sources. The rationalizing account of the cattle of the Sun was mentioned above (section 3). The reference to Pharos being a day’s sail away, likewise, must come from a source that is shared by contemporary or near-​contemporary geographical writers.66 Beyond these two examples, only Odysseus’ travel narrative from books 9–​12 figure at all in Seneca’s prose works.67 The most substantial reference of the text is found at Ep. 88.7, where Seneca criticizes grammatici who waste time inquiring into the geographical specifics of the Ithacan’s travels when we ourselves are wandering morally—​a criticism already found in Bion of Borysthenes:68 Do you ask where Ulysses wandered rather than make sure that we ourselves do not wander eternally? There’s no time to learn whether he was buffeted between Italy and Sicily or beyond the known world (surely such a long wandering could not have occurred in such a small space). Tempests of the mind rock us daily; our negligence pushes us into every one of Ulysses’ calamities. We have plenty of beauty to tempt our eyes and enemies we face on one side wild monsters reveling in human blood, on another alluring and treacherous voices, and on yet another shipwrecks and every kind of misfortune. In brief compass Seneca alludes, without giving any names, to Scylla and Charybdis, Circe and Calypso, the Laestrygonians, Polyphemus and the

‘whom no god wanted to face’ [= Il. 20.318, 443), book 21 (185–​7, Xanthus creeping tardus), book 22 (188–​9, 413–​5, 744 dragging Hector around mound) and book 24 (310–​5, supplication of Achilles by Priam; cf. 691f.; 666, gift of Hector’s body back to Priam). Of course, the debate between Agamemnon and Pyrrhus early in the play reflects the argument between the former and Achilles in book 1 of the epic. 66 NQ 6.26.1: Tantum enim, si Homero fides est, aberat a continenti Pharos quantum navis diurno cursu metiri plenis lata velis potest. ~ Od. 4.356–​7 τόσσον ἄνευθ᾿ὅσσον πανημερίη γλαφυρὴ νηῦς |​ ἤνυσε ᾗ λιγὺς οὖρος ἐπιπνείῃσιν ὄπισθεν. But see Pomponius Mela Chorograph. 2.104: Pharos nunc Alexandriae ponte coniungitur, olim, ut Homerico carmine proditum est, ab eisdem oris cursu diei totius abducta and Plin. HN 5.128: altera iuncta ponte Alexandriae… Pharos quondam diei navigatione distans ab Aegypto. Cf. Setaioli 1988, 53, Strabo 1.2.23 Meineke. 67 For a synthetic overview of the Stoic-​Cynic portrayals of Odysseus, see now Montiglio 2011,  66–​94. 68 Bion of Borysthenes Fr. 5a Kindstrand: ‘Bion used to say that grammatici who inquired into the wandering of Odysseus did not examine their own wandering, and that they did not even realize that they themselves were wandering on this very point, that they were doing nothing of importance’. See Stückelberger 1965 ad loc. Strabo’s introductory book (cf. Gell. Noct. Attic. 14.6.3) offers a clear example of the heated debate as to where Odysseus traveled (Ep. 88.7), perhaps reflecting such discussions in both academic and school contexts.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 71 Sirens, but the names are omitted and seem to be couched in purely human terms. As we saw in Constantia sapientis [2]‌.2.1–​2 discussed above, the effacing of the mythological names both challenges the truth-​ value of the fabulous creatures and downplays Odysseus’ challenges in comparison to their modern counterparts. The challenges that face Seneca’s world, by contrast, are far more complicated than the simpler ones of the past: at Ep. 31.2 Seneca reminds us that Ulysses only had to worry about an alluring song from one direction; today we are surrounded by dangerous voices on every side (cf. Ep. 123.12, also voces without reference to the names). Our gaze is drawn away from the past—​and the Odyssean context—​to the here and now.69 The turning away from the mythical past to our own wanderings is exemplified in another group of letters, Ep. 31–​57, which include the ‘epistolary tour’ of Campania in Ep. 49–​57. Seneca’s self-​identification with (an anti-​ heroic) Odysseus reaches its highest pitch in Letter 53, where he claims to have suffered shipwreck in the Bay of Naples, and Letter 56, where he equates the din of the baths to the song of the Sirens, but the resonances run deeper than those two explicit references. Scholars have long since recognized that the Epistulae morales are, if not a complete fiction, highly literary and involve a great deal of self-​fashioning on the part of Seneca.70 We must, therefore, be sensitive to the ways in which Seneca shapes his narrative, especially in Ep. 49–​56,71 where he presents himself as ‘the Busy, Futile Traveler’,72 a substantial rewriting of Odyssey 9–​12. What inspired Seneca to enter into a sustained dialogue, if not with Homer’s text itself, with the mythical super-​text of the Homeric figure Odysseus? Seneca was prompted, I would submit, by the peculiar literary nature of the letters and the presentation of the geographical relationship between writer and correspondent. First, if one accepts that the adventures of Odysseus took place in Sicily and Italy,73 as Seneca himself does, the topography of Seneca’s and Lucilius’ relationship corresponds almost exactly to the travels of his epic predecessor—​one that can be especially exploited when Seneca visits the Campanian coast. Second, the physical distance between Seneca and Lucilius, and the impossibility of a ‘present’ relationship, resembles the very real distance between Odysseus and his home. Seneca’s ideal conception of a philosophical relationship is, after all, based on togetherness; at Ep. 6.5, even as he tells Lucilius that he will send him books, Seneca laments, ‘yet a living voice and companionship will help you more than a speech’ (plus tamen tibi et viva vox et convictus quam oratio). It is the separation of Seneca and Lucilius 69 See Wilcox’ ‘Cautionary Postscript’ in the previous chapter. 70 See Griffin 1976, 416–​9 for a review of the question up until 1976. See more recently Schafer 2011; Inwood 2005a, esp.  346–​8; Henderson 2004, passim; Schönegg 1999; Mazzoli 1989, 1846–​55. 71 See Ker 2009b, 345–​6; Berno 2006, passim; Hurka 2005; Henderson 2004, 32–​5. 72 Motto and Clark 1971, 217. 73 See Phillips 1953 for an overview of the ancient works that situate the travels of Odysseus in Sicily and southern Italy.

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72  R. Scott Smith and the former’s appearance in Campania that initiates the extended literary engagement with the Odysseus myth. The main obstacle keeping the two literary friends apart is the strait of Messina with its fabled and dangerous Scylla and Charybdis, which Seneca frequently emphasizes.74 Seneca writes early in their correspondence, ‘When you were heading for Sicily, you passed through the straits’, and takes pains to describe the dangers of a reckless helmsman choosing to hug the wrong side, that of Charybdis (Ep. 14.8; cf. Ep. 31.9). In a later letter (Ep. 45.2), Seneca, in response to Lucilius’ request for yet more books (see Letter 6 mentioned above), laments that the two cannot be together, and exclaims: ‘If I  could, I  would bring myself there to you, and if I  did not expect that you were about to gain a release from your office soon, I would have demanded of myself an old man’s journey. Not even Charybdis and Scylla, that mythical strait (fabulosum istud fretum), could have stopped me. I would not only have crossed it, but I would have even swum across it, provided that I could have embraced you and with my own eyes judge how much you’ve improved your mind’. As Seneca tells it, not even old age could have prevented him from attempting to reunite with Lucilius. Like Odysseus, trying to make his way home, Seneca imagines that he would even swim if he had to—​one is prompted to think of shipwrecked Odysseus, of course. Lucilius’ public office, furthermore, seems to have a hold on him as Calypso had on Odysseus. Is there as sense of suspicion that Lucilius will go astray without Seneca’s guidance? Indeed, this is what Seneca seems to imply before the passage above: ‘Whoever wants to reach their destination ought to follow a single path, not wander over many’ (Ep. 45.1). It is almost as if Seneca is preparing us for the epistolary tour of Ep. 49–​57, to which we will now turn. In this suite of letters Seneca takes us through his own wanderings around the Bay of Naples (see already Berno 2006). At Ep. 49, Seneca visits Campania, whence Lucilius hailed and where Seneca likely had one or more residences. The very sight of Lucilius’ birthplace drives home how far away the two are from each other. His mind races back to when the two were together last. It was as if, Seneca tells us, their tear-​filled farewell had taken place just moments ago:  ‘I cannot believe how fresh… the sight of your Naples and Pompeii has made my longing for you’ (Ep. 49.1). Seneca arrives at Lucilius’ hometown, but he is not there. The rest of the letters in the epistolary tour emphasize aimless wandering:  Seneca compares Lucilius’ surroundings (Aetna, land of the Cyclopes) with his visit to Baiae, which is nothing more than a ‘whorehouse for vices’ (Ep. 51.3, deversorium vitiorum). Letter 52 then opens with a question to Lucilius, ‘What is it, Lucilius, that draws us, who 74 Cf. Henderson 2004, 31–​2.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 73 want to head in one direction, down another path?’ It is because we ‘fluctuate (fluctuamur) between different plans’ and cannot settle on one path? In Letter 53, which we will discuss in more detail below, Seneca foolishly sets sail under threatening conditions and is shipwrecked like Odysseus. In the next letter, on praemeditatio mortis, are we to envision Odysseus’ trip to the underworld? In Ep. 55 Seneca narrates his restlessness as he is carried in a litter along the shore in view of Vatia’s villa. In the following letter Seneca tarries above a bathhouse and its seductions only to leave immediately (Ep. 56). Then, Seneca reports his journey through the Crypta Neapolitana through darkness and terrors (Ep. 57). It is as if Seneca does not know where he wants to be, where he should go, or how he can get there. He is describing his own wanderings, his own challenges, his own failings.75 Despite these allusions to wandering, restlessness and absence, it is only in Letter 53 that we meet an explicit engagement with what we might call an ‘Odyssean’ theme—​and yet it is less a reference to the text as it is to the broader myth that grew up around the text. A parodic rewriting of the story, this letter opens with Seneca’s vivid description of his own shipwreck. Although clouds were threatening, the sea was calm, so ‘I thought I could sneak across the few miles from your Parthenope to Puteoli’; Seneca is as reckless as Odysseus. To get there faster, he made for open water, heading for the small island of Nesis. Soon the waves roll in, Seneca is stricken with seasickness, and when his pleas to the captain to bring the ship to shore are unsuccessful, he leaps overboard and scrambles onto land. He sums his experience up with a reference to Odysseus: ‘you should know that it wasn’t because Odysseus was born under such an angry sea that he was shipwrecked so often. He just got sea-​sick a lot’ (Ep. 53.4). The tragicomic aspects of this self-​portrayal of Seneca-​as-​a-​failed-​Odysseus has been thoroughly examined.76 Here, I would like to focus on an aspect of the letter that has been missed, that is, the use of ‘Parthenope’ for Naples, which I  would argue establishes the Odyssean inter-​or rather super-​text at the beginning of the letter. Only here does Seneca use this term for Naples; elsewhere, even in the ‘Campanian letters,’ he uses ‘Neapolis’ exclusively (Ep. 49.1, 57.1, 68.5, 76.4; Marc. [6]‌.20.4, NQ 6.1.2). It is true that the word is commonly found in poetry,77 but here it seems to be signaling to the learned reader that we are in a specific Odyssean topography: Parthenope is the name 75 Seneca’s position on travel is complicated; the once-​held view that Seneca rejected the idea that travel was helpful for moral improvement has been rightfully revisited and refined: see Montiglio 2006. Although Seneca finds moral lessons in, say, visiting Vatia’s villa, Seneca’s own wandering here is depicted as restlessness—​perhaps because he is, without Lucilius, in a sense homeless. 76 Berno 2006, 29–​32, 233–​8; Motto and Clark 1993a; cf. Montiglio 2006. 77 Verg. Georg. 4.564 (and Servius ad loc.); Columella R.R. 10.1.1; Ov. Met. 15.712; Stat. Silv. 1.2.261, 2.2.84, 3.1.93, 3.1.152, 3.5.79, 4.4.53, 4.8.3, 5.3.105, 5.3.129a; Sil. Ital. Pun. 8.534, 12.28, 12.34.

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74  R. Scott Smith of one of the Sirens found in post-​Homeric sources.78 But the implications go beyond a simple announcement of an ‘Odyssean’ context. During Seneca’s attempt to sail, he decides to ‘leap into the sea’ and head for land despite the ship captain’s warnings. This image corresponds exactly to what sailors would do under the spell of the Sirens’ song. Seneca’s jumping into the water, then, is a literary reenactment of what the fictional Odysseus was able to avoid, and what Seneca could not.79 Seneca, of course, lives, but he is forced to reflect on his own failings, his own wandering, his own Odyssean adventure. Seneca’s portrayal of himself as an Odysseus-​as-​everyman, fighting not against fabled monsters but against one’s own failing, undercuts the authority of the Homeric epic even as Seneca exploits the narrative potential of the ‘idea’ the Ithacan. Odysseus did not confront monsters that shipwrecked him and his crew. Instead, Seneca sees Odysseus as a purely human character, one subject to the dangers inherent in aimless wandering no less than we are. Seneca’s reluctance to name mythical monsters that Odysseus and Hercules fought is implicit criticism that the stories as presented in Greek mythical texts are fictional. But lying beneath this criticism is the recognition that these figures were somehow confronting challenges similar to those Seneca and his contemporaries were facing, even if less complex and therefore less worth of admiration or study. The literary nature of these letters, the separation of Seneca/​Odysseus from his friend Lucilius/​Laertes/​Telemachus/​Penelope, and the geographical context all conspired to prompt Seneca to write himself in the role of a present-​day Odysseus—​a decision that has distinct resonances throughout the presentation of the geography of and movement through Letters  49–​56.

6  Conclusions Seneca’s interest in the stories about gods and heroes of the past is guided by his primary concern: a search for a truth that is in accordance with nature. All narratives that are contra naturam—​both the theological absurdities that diminish the majesty of the Stoic deus and the outlandish claims about the spatium mythicum—​are rejected or implicitly historicized so as to render them consistent with the laws of nature. Seneca does not consistently attempt to rationalize or historicize myth because the gulf between the distant past and the modern world, on which he is solely focused, is so vast as to sever any ties. When he does draw on the heroes from the spatium mythicum, it is usually from a rhetorical persona, and he only uses cases that do not break 78 The story is fully told in Lycophron (Al. 717–​25): the Siren Parthenope jumps into the sea after Odysseus’ ship passes by and washes up next to the tower of Phaleros, the founder of Neapolis. The inhabitants build her a tomb and pay her honors as a bird-​goddess. 79 Seneca also rewrites the Siren episode at Ep. 56.15, where, after enduring the din of the bathhouse, he decides to leave:  ‘why do I  torture myself longer than I  have to? After all, Odysseus discovered such an easy remedy for his men even against the Sirens’. Here, Seneca has successfully listened to—​and described—​the Siren-​song of the bathhouse as an Odysseus.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 75 the laws of nature. The case is, of course, complicated by the Homeric epics, which contain absurdities but which can also depict human behavior that may have relevance to the human condition, even in the Roman empire. Seneca never subjects the epics to a sustained Stoic analysis, as Chrysippus seems to have done, but he employs certain scenes in rhetorical and literary contexts depending on the mode in which he is writing at any one time. Unsurprisingly, Seneca’s most sustained engagement with a literary figure, Odysseus, albeit freed from his textual existence, is to be found in his most literary work, the Epistulae morales, where the search for truth gives way to personal reflection on distance, wandering, and longing for companionship. Even so, the very fictiveness of Odysseus’ adventures gives Seneca license to rewrite, even subvert, the Homeric narrative to drive home the point that greater challenges exist for his own contemporaries in the here and now.

Appendix: references to myth in Seneca philosophus Note: Two fragments from Seneca’s De matrimonio, which is known only from Jerome’s polemical Adversus Iovinianum (for which, see Hunter 2007), contain references or allusions to events and figures from the spatium mythicum. The first had already been identified by Haase in 1853; Bickel in his meticulous and influential, yet misleading, work of 1915 included these two passages among three fragmenta incerta because they contained references to tragedy and myth. Vottero, more confident, presented them as frr. 51 and 53 in his edition.80 Recent studies are rightly critical of Bickel’s methodology and have cast doubt on how much Jerome relied on a work nowhere else mentioned.81 It is the view of this author that these examples are Jerome’s own, not least because Seneca philosophus was so reluctant to draw on materials from the mythical period and especially from Greek tragedies. fr. 51 Vottero quidquid tragoediae tument et domos urbes regnaque subvertit, uxorum paelicumque contentio est. Armantur parentum in liberos manus, nefandae adponuntur epulae, et propter unius mulierculae raptum Europae atque Asiae decennalia bella confligunt.82

80 In his introduction (1998, 25) Vottero does not doubt that they derive from De matrimonio, but he remarks that these three fragments are ‘of uncertain placement’ (di incerta collocazione). 81 Torre 2000; Takács 2000, 325. Most recently, Delarue 2001 has reexamined the evidence and rightly reduced the number of fragments significantly to a mere 12. Unfortunately, Delarue does not discuss these incerta fragmenta, but does not include them in the final tally (p. 187). For a review of the question, with all the putative fragments, see now Gloyn 2017, 207–​23. 82 Bickel (1915, 64–​5, 338) regards the final clause, marked by italics (mine) as belonging not to Seneca, based on the late Latin phrase decennale bellum and the fact that Helen only appears once elsewhere, in the polemical Ep. 88. Vottero notes, however, that muliercula is not uncommon in Seneca (to be precise, it occurs in three passages: Clem. 2.5.1; Ep. 63.13, 66.53).

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76  R. Scott Smith fr. 53 Vottero Alcestin fabulae ferunt pro Admeto sponte defunctam et Paenelopis pudicitia Homeri carmen est. Laodamia quoque poetarum ore cantatur occiso aput Troiam Protesilao noluisse supervivere.

Mythological appendix83 Achilles:  Tranq. [9.]2.12 ille Homericus Achilles est, modo pronus, modo supinus, in varios habitus se ipse componens; Ep. 27.5 Calvisius Sabinus forgets his name; Ep. 88.6 quaestio among pedants whether Achilles or Patroclus was older; Ep. 104.31 (in quotation of Aen. 1.458), Cato resembles Achilles who is stuck in the middle between Agamemnon and Priam (= Caesar and Pompey); Ben. 4.27.2: a polemical question to the Stoics, who argue all non sapientes have all vices, ‘so is Achilles fearful’? Cf. Papaioannou in this volume, case #1. Aeneas:  Helv. [12].7.6 (unnamed) exemplum of someone who has been exiled, like Seneca, in a list of exiles from Trojan War (cf. Helv. [12].7.3, liberos coniugesque et graves senio parentes traxerunt. Alii longo errore iactati non iudicio elegerunt locum sed lassitudine proximum occupaverunt; Ep. 21.5 (in quotation of Aen. 9.446–​9) Vergil offers Aeneas and Romulus eternal glory; Ep. 82.7 (in quotation of Aen. 6.261) example of courage and a firm heart; Ep. 88.37 Didymus’ books include a discussion of Aeneas’ real mother, dismissed by Seneca as trivial. Ben. 3.37.1, Aeneas outdoes his father in generosity by leading him gravem senio through the flames; Ben. 6.36.1, he questions Aeneas is pius if he wanted his town to be captured so that he could save his father from captivity. Aeolus:  NQ 6.18.5 (after citation of Aen. 1.53–​4 on Aeolus’ winds), Seneca is critical of the mistake poets make: sine dubio poetae hunc voluerunt videri carcerem in quo sub terra clausi laterent, sed non intellexerunt nec id quod clusum est esse adhuc ventum, nec id quod ventus est posse iam cludi. Agamemnon:  Ep. 66.26, to exemplify ‘indifferents’ Seneca contrasts rich Agamemnon with poor Ulysses, suggesting each still wants to return home; Ep. 104.31 (in quotation of Aen. 1.458, Atriden Priamumque et saevom ambobus Achillen), in the crisis of the late republic, Caesar and Pompey are recast as Agamemnon and Priam, with Achilles being the avatar for Cato, who was hostile to both. Ajax:  Ira [4]‌.2.36.5, exemplum:  anger leads to madness, which can lead to death: Aiacem in mortem egit furor, in furorem ira. Alcestis:  Helv. [12].19.5 (unnamed): exemplum for comparison with Seneca’s aunt, who compares favorably to the mythical Alcestis. Alpheus:  see Arethusa. 83 Not all the references in the mythological appendix are included in the index locorum listed at the end of the volume.

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Myth, poetry and Homer 77 Antenor:  Helv. [12].7.6, founder of Patavium, exiled like Seneca (see Aeneas above ad loc.). Apollo:  Ira [5]‌.3.14.2: Cambyses, known to drink excessively, was told by a friend of his to drink less because drunkenness was not befitting a king. Cambyses said alcohol never affected him, and to prove it he drank even more heavily, brought out his friend’s son, and shot him right through the heart. Asked about his aim then, at ille negavit Apollinem potuisse certius mittere. Arethusa:  NQ 3.26.5, with quotation from Verg. Ecl. 10.4–​5; cf. NQ 6.8.2. Atlas:  Pol. [11].7.1: Polybius’ position is compared to Atlas. Atreus:  Ep. 80.7 (cited in quotation of unknown tragic poet). Bellerophon:  Ep. 115.15: character in a play, who apparently praised money on stage, which caused a near-​revolt until Euripides intervened and told the audience to wait for the end. dabat in illa fabula poenas Bellerophontes quas in sua quisque dat. Bellona:  Ira [4]‌.2.35.6 (quotation): a quotation of one of the vates: perhaps an adaptation of Verg. Aen. 8.703 (but cf. Lucan 7.568). Busiris:  Clem. 2.4.1 (in quotation of an unnamed interlocutor) example of extreme savagery. Castor:  see Dioscuri. Cattle of the Sun:  NQ 3.26.7. At a place near Messene and Mylae the sea casts up muck on a regular basis ‘with a foul color’, which gave rise to the story that the cattle of the Sun were stabled here (rationalizing version). Centaurs:  Ep. 58.15: in a section devoted to ontological divisions, he attributes to ‘some Stoics’ a super-​category called ‘quid’. Cerberus:  Ep. 24.18: Seneca equates belief in Cerberus and other underworld terrors with a childish mentality; Ep. 82.16 (called ingens ianitor Orci in quotation of Aen. 6.400–​1 and 8.296–​7). Charybdis:  Marc. [6]‌.17.3; Ep. 14.8; Ep. 31.9, 45, 79.1, frequently rationalized. Cf. NQ 3.29.7. Chimaera:  Ep. 113.9:  Seneca illustrates how virtues are not separate living beings, but separate parts of a living animal (animus). Cf. Plato, Republic 9, 588c. Croesus:  Tranq. [9].11.12 (mytho-​historical, factus non regno tantum, etiam morti suae superstes). Cyclopes:  NQ 2.44.1 in quotation of Ovid, Met. 3.305–​7. Daedalus:  Ep. 90.14: rationalized, through the protos heuretes motif, as the inventor of the saw. Danaids (?):  Brev. vit. [10].10.6. Delos: cf. NQ 6.26.2–​3, with quotation of Verg. Aen. 3.77. Diomedes:  Helv. [12].17.6, exiled after Trojan War. See Aeneas above ad loc. Dioscuri:  NQ 1.1.13 (St. Elmo’s Fire). Erinys:  NQ 4A praef. 19. Giants:  Ep. 58.15: in a section devoted to ontological divisions, he attributes to ‘some Stoics’ a super-​category called ‘quid’.

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78  R. Scott Smith Hecuba:  Ep. 47.12: exemplum of someone becoming a slave in old age (along with Croesus, Darius’ mother, Plato, Diogenes); Ep. 88.6: among a list of quaestiones regarding the Homeric text: if she was younger than Helen, why did she appear so much older? Helen:  Ep. 88.6: see Hecuba above, ad loc. Helle:  Ep. 80.7 (cited in quotation of unknown tragic poet). Hercules:  Const. sapient. [2]‌.2.1, see above, section 3; Tranq. [9.]16.4, exemplum of someone suffering unjustly, alongside historical examples; Ep. 94.63: Alexander followed in the footsteps of Hercules and Liber; Ben. 1.13.1 Corinthians gave citizenship to Hercules (and then to Alexander); Ben. 1.13.2 Alexander followed in the footsteps of Hercules; Ben. 4.8.1, Hercules’ death allegorized as Stoic ἐκπύρωσις. Hydra:  Ep. 113.9:  Seneca illustrates how virtues are not separate living beings, but separate parts of a living animal (animal). Cf. Plato, Republic 9, 588c. Ixion:  Ep. 24.18:  the fears of the underworld are illusory; Ixion does not revolve on a wheel. Juno:  Ep. 95.47:  Seneca criticizes the cult practices of bringing a mirror to Juno (and a linen cloth and a strigil to Jupiter). God does not need attendants. Ep. 110.1: guardian spirit of women. Jupiter:  Vit. beat. [7]‌.26.7, Jupiter puts up with insane people’s hallucinations like Jupiter puts up with the ineptiae poetarum; Brev. vit. [10].16.5, said to ‘double the night’; Ep. 9.16: equated with Stoic god; Ep. 25.4, referring to Epicurus: sapiens contends with him in blessedness (cf. Ep. 73.13, 111.18); Ep. 59.12 (in quotation) Alexander, wounded, says, ‘all swear that I am the son of Jupiter, but this wound declares loudly that I am a mortal’; Ep. 95.47: Seneca criticizes the cult practices of bringing linen cloth and a strigil to Jupiter (and a mirror to Juno). God does not need attendants; Ep. 107.10, citing Cleanthes:  Jupiter rules the world; Ep. 119.7: Seneca argues that one ought to be content not to be cold, hungry and thirsty: this is all that Jupiter has. NQ 2.41–​6, manubiae (‘strengths’) of Jupiter’s thunderbolts. Cf. fr. 93 Vottero apud poetas salacissimus. Liber:  Ep. 94.63: Alexander follows in the path of the conquerors Hercules and Liber. Lynceus:  Ben. 4.27.3. Menelaus:  Ep. 80.8 (in a quotation from an unknown tragic poet). Minerva (Pallas): Ep. 77.2 (quotation of an unknown poet):  refers to the promunturium Minervae near Capri. Minos (?):  Marc. [6]‌.13.1, where there is mentioned ‘that father, who was told of his son’s death in the middle of a sacrifice, commanded the flute-​player to stop playing, took the crown off his head and finished the rest of the sacrifice scrupulously’ (cf. Apd. 3.15.7). Neptune:  Const. sapient. [2]‌.4.2:  could Xerxes have touched Neptune with chains sunk into the sea? Ep. 73.5:  reference to his role as sea-​god, to whom merchants ‘owe more’ if they carried costlier cargo; NQ 6.23.4,

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Myth, poetry and Homer 79 land near the sea are so frequently shaken that the power of moving the sea has been assigned to Neptune. Nestor:  Ep. 40.2 (unnamed), described as having gentle speech and sweeter than honey (Homer, Il. 1.249); Ep. 77.20, all lives are short, even those of Nestor and Sattia. Niobe:  Ep. 63.2, even she thought of food in her grief (Il. 24). Odysseus [Lat. Ulixes]: Const. sapient. [2]‌ .2.1, see discussion above; Ep. 27.5:  Calvisius Sabinus forgets his name (see Achilles ad loc.); Ep. 31.2: Seneca urges Lucilius to resist the call of ‘popular goods’. He must ‘close his ears, but it is not enough (parum est) to cover with wax. There is need of a stronger plug than the one they say (ferunt) Odysseus used on his comrades’; Ep. 40.2 (unnamed), described as having speech like snowflakes (Il. 3.222); Ep. 53.4, Odysseus’ shipwrecks caused by seasickness; Ep. 56.15, Odysseus found a way to combat the Sirens’ song; Ep. 66.26:  Ithaca compared with Mycenae, but both Odysseus and Agamemnon wish to return home; Ep. 88.7: among a list of quaestiones regarding the Homeric text: where did Odysseus wander? Also contains allusions to Od. 9–​12; Ep. 88.8: among a list of quaestiones regarding the Homeric text:  did Penelope suspect that Odysseus had returned before she actually knew? Ep. 123.12:  our parents’ wishes are similar to the Sirens’ song; they appear wonderful but are dangerous. Olympus: cf. NQ 6.25.2. Ossa: cf. NQ 6.25.2. Parthenope (Siren):  a place name for Naples, leading up to Ulysses theme later in letter (see Ulysses ad Ep. 53.4); see discussion in section 5. Patroclus:  Ep. 88.6, among a list of quaestiones regarding the Homeric text: who was older, he or Achilles? Pelops:  Ep. 80.7 (cited in quotation of unknown tragic poet). Penelope:  Ep. 88.8:  among a list of quaestiones regarding the Homeric text: was she unchaste? Pollux:  see Dioscuri. Priam:  Ira [4]‌.2.33.5, a summary of Il. 24, comparing Pastor’s endurance of the cruelty of Caligula, who had killed his son, to Priam’s kissing the hands of Achilles; Ep. 27.5: the freedman Calvisius Sabinus forgets his name; Ep. 104.31 (in quotation of Aen. 1.458, Atriden Priamumque et saevom ambobus Achillen). In the crisis of the late republic, Caesar and Pompey are recast as Agamemnon and Priam, with Achilles being the avatar for Cato, who was hostile to both. Cf. the contribution of Papaioannou in this volume). Procrustes:  Clem. 2.4.1 (in quotation of an unnamed interlocutor) example of extreme savagery (those who, not content just with killing, but become savage). Prometheus:  Ep. 19.9 (title of a literary work of Maecenas). Scylla:  Ep. 31.9; Ep. 45; Ep. 79.1: Seneca ‘knows full well that Scylla is a rock and not at all fearsome to sailors’; Ep. 92.9–​10, the image used to criticize

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80  R. Scott Smith Epicurean psychology of a rational and irrational part of the soul. Cf. NQ 3.29.7. Silenus:  Ira [5]‌.3.22.4 (reported statement by Antigonus), ‘I’d be glad and expect success if I had a Silenus in the camp!’ Sirens:  Ep. 31.2; Ep. 56.15:  bathhouse noise equivalent to the song of the Sirens; Ep. 123.12. Sisyphus:  Ep. 24.18: underworld terrors are illusory. Sol:  Ep. 115.13 (in quotation of Ovid, Met. 2.1–​2): his palace (literary); Prov. [1]‌.5.10–​11 (quotation of Ovid). Tethys:  Prov. [1]‌.5.10 (quotation of Ovid). Thersites:  Ira [5.]3.23.3, Philip II endures the Athenian Demochares’ insults and simply sent ‘that Thersites’ away. Tityos (unnamed):  Ep. 28.14, underworld terrors are illusory. Underworld:  Marc. [6]‌.19.4; Ep. 28.14, the stories of the underworld are illusory. Venus:  Ep. 115.14 (in a Latin translation of Euripides’ Danae though Seneca suggests Bellerophon is the speaker of the words): if Venus’ charm shines as sweet as money is, she rightly moves men and gods to love. Venus Genetrix: NQ 7.17.2 (festival of).

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3  Seneca and the doxography of ethics Jula Wildberger

From beginning to end, Seneca’s Epistulae morales are an expression of sophisticated Stoic thought. This is a fact implicit in the text and due to the expertise of its author, L. Annaeus.1 However, the explicit attitude to the technical or, as one might call it, academic side of philosophy changes in the course of this work. As I have argued in other publications,2 Seneca’s persona, the Letter Writer, develops an increasing interest in theoretical issues. He begins to understand what the author, L. Annaeus, knew all the time, namely that it is impossible to take philosophy seriously without due attention to the nitty-​ gritty details of the craft. By transforming his Letter Writer in this manner, the author L. Annaeus fashions a new literary-​philosophical persona for himself. He carves out a unique role model for a modern, Roman philosopher and member of the elite. This new philosopher negotiates the fine but extremely sensitive line between the provider and the consumer of cultural capital. The central concern here is one of losing face by engaging with philosophy in a manner that would appear unfitting for one’s social position.3 Technical expertise is the hallmark of the professional, most frequently originating from 1 I would like to thank the anonymous peer referee for extremely valuable suggestions. The name ‘Seneca’ is used when no distinction between author and persona is necessary or to refer to the author and his personae in other works as well. ‘L. Annaeus’ refers to the man himself in contrast to his authorial voice and literary personae, such as the Letter Writer in the Epistulae morales, whose development and changes of mind throughout the corpus are deliberate literary artefacts (Wildberger 2014a). A  similar distinction between the man Lucilius and the Addressee created with the Epistulae morales is much harder to maintain not least because of the scarcity of reliable extra-​textual information. Luckily, the distinction is not essential to this chapter, which deals only with the Addressee or with features the man, as far as we know, shares with the Addressee, and so I use the name ‘Lucilius’ for both. 2 See in particular Wildberger 2006a, ch. 2.4; and 2014a. 3 A related but different type of challenge is the role of philosophy in education. Continued study might appear as a degrading form of infantilization (see, e.g., Sen. Ep. 25.1; 76.1), and the student-​teacher relation inverts the social hierarchy of the actors involved (e.g., when the freedman Epictetus lambasts young Roman or provincial principal aristocrats, addressing them as slaves). Reydams-​Schils 2011, for example, demonstrates how foregrounding the agency of the philosophizing subject, both in Seneca’s writings and those of other Stoics, serves to address what might otherwise appear as slavish dependency on another’s intellectual authority.

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82  Jula Wildberger Greece or one of the Greek speaking provinces, who deals in philosophical discourse as a form of edifying entertainment and status marker or as an educational practice shaping elite identity.4 The professional’s senior ‘customer’, his audience or patron is a noble amateur, a man of dignitas and gravitas, who cares for his moral persona, fondly remembers his studies as a youth, and spends some of his free time with a worthy occupation, listening to a lecture here or there and consulting his house philosopher.5 For the contemporary Roman target audience of the Epistulae morales, men of senatorial or equestrian rank, concerned about their social standing, the Letter Writer and L.  Annaeus’ persona in the Naturales quaestiones are models exemplifying how they might strive for expertise in philosophy without turning into a professional intellectual like those Greeks who serve as companions and traveling performers or provide higher education and a tourist attraction for the passing administrator.6 Through the authorial roles he assumes in his works, L. Annaeus shows what it might mean to be a Roman and a senator seeking to achieve core values of his class such as manly excellence (virtus) and freedom (libertas) not in the usual socio-​political arena but in the exclusive service of philosophy.7 I will argue that reception of ethical doxography was a central element in that project of redefining the Roman elite philosopher which L. Annaeus set himself at the end of his life and for which he created authorial personae as role models in the works of this period. The kind of intertextuality I wish to explore in this chapter is of interest not only as a stylistic device or as evidence for possible sources of Seneca’s thought. Intertextuality here is a social phenomenon of generic transformation. L. Annaeus adapts a kind of writing that for a member of his class constitutes suitable reading but not something dignified enough for him to produce himself. This undertaking is part of an overall agenda of promoting the role of philosophy in the lives of his peers and those Romans aspiring to attain his rank. The reception of doxography in Seneca’s later writings exemplifies both the necessity and the possibility of becoming a philosophy expert if one wishes to live the values that distinguish a Roman imperial elite.

4 On this social function of philosophy, see Hahn 1989 and 2012. It is important, however, that Hahn focuses on the second and third rather than the first century. 5 For Thrasea Paetus as an example of the more traditional form of elite Stoicism, see Wildberger 2014b. 6 For the social type philosophus, see, most importantly, Hahn 1989 and 2012. We can see the social distinction and hierarchical relation displayed in the Epistulae morales, e.g., when we read of ‘peddlers’ in philosophy (Ep. 29.7) or that ‘dear Demetrius’ is being ‘carried around’ by Letter Writer (Ep. 62.3). Yes, he admires the man, but socially, Demetrius is part of his entourage. The example of the Cynic and demonstrably frugal Demetrius also shows that the hierarchy persists even if the relationship is less overtly economic. 7 Wildberger 2018a, 2018b and 2018c.

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 83 To substantiate this claim, I  will first summarize some of my earlier findings and outline how the Letter Writer of the Epistulae morales develops as a practitioner of philosophy, as far as this development constitutes the background for the intertextual phenomena to be discussed (1). Second, I will point to certain parallels between the Epistulae morales and Stoic doxography of a particularly technical nature (2), and then suggest a possible function of such parallels in the work (3). Finally, I will pull a few threads together and venture some suggestions about the third big book Seneca produced at that time, the Libri moralis philosophiae (4). Unlike the Naturales quaestiones and the Epistulae morales, only a few testimonies and fragments of this work have been preserved. Lactantius quotes from it in his Divinae institutiones, and Seneca himself mentions it in three of his letters, describing it as a systematic exposition of ethics.8 I will argue that the work did not present this material in a continuous account of tenets, such as we find it in the expository parts of Cicero’s philosophica and in Greek doxographers like Diogenes Laertius. Rather, Seneca created a series of controversies (quaestiones), thus assuming a less professorial role, one more in line with his social status and background: that of an arbiter between different positions in a critical debate.

1  The Letter Writer’s growing acceptance of theoretical philosophy From the first mention of purely formal logic, the Letter Writer continues to reject this kind of study, a rejection that is repeated toward the end of the corpus in Ep. 111.9 However, the Stoics were also famous for summarizing ethical tenets in syllogistic form, and with regard to this method, the Letter Writer changes his mind.10 In spite of scathing initial criticism in Ep. 82, he continues to practice such syllogistic reasoning, which his addressee Lucilius explicitly demands. Both use it for making important distinctions, and this is linked to the emergence of a new category of topics in the final part of the corpus:  theoretical issues integral to ethical questions, moralibus rationalia inmixta, as they are called in Ep. 102.4. In that same letter it becomes clear that the two styles of philosophy which were contrasted in previous discussions—​on the one hand, subtle reduction and concentration and, on the other, expansion through blunt, paraenetic pushing—​are not mutually exclusive but two sides of the same medal and both essential for progress.11 The philosopher concentrates and focuses on details of an argument in order to refine his concepts but also expands the arguments in order to grow and strengthen his concepts, especially those with 8 See Vottero 1998, F and T 90–​6, with introduction and commentary. 9 For discussion and further literature, see Francesca Romana Berno’s contribution to this volume. 10 Schofield 1983. A more detailed account of what follows is Wildberger 2006a, ch. 2.4.3. 11 Wildberger 2010.

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84  Jula Wildberger motive force. Progress is made in an ongoing dialectic of disorderly accretion and subsequent weeding. At the end of book 20, which I  believe was the last of the corpus,12 the Letter Writer explicitly defends his attention to technical issues and points to their dogmatic centrality. Lucilius needs to understand his own nature to figure out what he owes it (Ep. 121.3)—​an injunction that sounds all the more plausible since the good was just defined in terms of what is according to nature (Ep. 118). In Ep. 124 an apparently subtle epistemic point marks the critical boundary not only between Epicureanism and Stoicism, but also between an animal nature and the specific nature of rational animals, the kind of nature that is peculiar to humans and the divine. The letter thus provides exactly that fine-​grained understanding which Lucilius needs to acquire if he wishes to do justice to his nature (Ep. 121.3), an understanding that is the necessary condition for a correct definition of what is good (Ep. 118). Dialectic reasoning has become something extremely beneficial (Ep. 124.21). Nullo modo prodesse possum magis quam si tibi bonum tuum ostendo, si te a mutis animalibus separo, si cum deo pono. In no way can I benefit you more than by showing you what your own good is, by distinguishing you from speechless animals, by placing you at the side of God.13

2  The Epistulae morales and the Outline of Stoic Ethics by Arius Didymus: the parallels Several parallels to technical doxography can be found in the part of the corpus that represents the last stage of this development. They begin with the pivotal Ep. 102, in a passage that also contains first references to the Libri moralis philosophiae. Ep. 102 responds to Lucilius’ request for further support of a claim made in a previous letter (Ep. 102.3), which either is an ad hoc fiction or did exist but vanished in one of the lacunae in the manuscript tradition. Between Ep. 101 and 110, the incipit of Book 18 has been lost and with it, possibly, that earlier letter too. Whatever the truth of the matter, as it is, Ep. 102 marks the transition to a new stage of theoretical refinement. On the one hand, it continues the syllogistic ethical reasoning begun with Ep. 82 and demonstrates its refining function in philosophical progress. On the other hand, the letter introduces a new theme, the ontology of the good. The two friends continue to practice ontology in Ep. 106 with the question, raised by Lucilius, whether the good is a body (Ep. 106.4), and similar questions are discussed at Lucilius’ request in Ep. 113—​whether the virtues are animals—​and in Ep. 117 about the difference between goods as bodies and the effect-​predicates caused by those goods. 12 Wildberger 2014a, 460–​1. 13 Unless indicated otherwise, translations are my own. The Latin text of the Epistulae morales is quoted from Reynolds 1965.

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 85 It is with regard to such ontological questions that we can observe striking similarities to an Outline of Stoic Ethics, whose attention to ontological issues exceeds by far what we find in other accounts of similar length and detail, notably by Cicero and Diogenes Laertius. The Outline of Stoic Ethics, also known as Doxography B, has been transmitted in Stobaeus’ Anthology (Ecl. 2.7) and is generally attributed to Arius Didymus.14 It is a possibility to be considered that Arius Didymus may have been the same person as the Stoic Arius associated with Emperor Augustus, whom Seneca introduces in Ad Marciam ([6]‌.4.2) as the philosopher Areus consoling Livia. We know that Diogenes Laertius included a man called Arius among the Stoics whose lives and ideas he reported. This part of Book 7 is lost, but from a table of contents we know that Arius followed after Antipater of Tyre (a friend of Cato the Younger who died shortly after 44 BCE) and preceded Seneca’s contemporary Cornutus, the last philosopher on the full list of authors treated.15 Internal evidence within Doxography B points to a date not before the later first century BCE, e.g., the use of the Posidonian term εὐεμπτωσία for an innate inclination to ‘fall’ into certain types of passions (Stob. 2.7.10e, p. 93 Wachsmuth). There are also close parallels to a section in Cicero’s account of passions in Tusculanae disputationes 4. Before considering their import, I will first indicate ten parallels between the Epistulae morales and the Outline of Stoic Ethics that concern tenets of a more technical nature. A full survey and assessment of all parallels between the two works is beyond the scope of this chapter and not necessary for my argument. 1. The distinction between bodies and incorporeal predicate-​effects discussed in Ep. 117 seems to have been a structural principle of at least one layer of Doxography B, which first discusses bodies (goods, most notably virtues and indifferents) and then, from p.  85 Wachsmuth, predicates (καθήκοντα, κατορθώματα and ἁμαρτήματα).16 Even though there are passing references to bodies and incorporeal effects also in other sources on Stoic ethics, we have no other continuous text that would equal Doxography B in its lavish attention to this ontological distinction.17 14 Ioannes Stobaeus, who evidently copied the Outline of Stoic Ethics more or less completely, does not indicate its author. It is called ‘Doxography B’ because it forms part of three extensive, but anonymous, excerpts in which ethical doctrines are exposed. Stobaeus quotes a passage from the third of these, Doxography C, later in his Anthology, and there he names as its author a certain Didymus. The attribution thus rests (a)  on the assumption that the same author wrote both Doxography B, our Outline, and Doxography C on Peripatetic ethics, and (b)  on the identification with the Didymus named by Stobaeus with the doxographer Arius Didymus cited by name in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica (see, e.g., Hahm 1990 and Göransson 1995, in particular pp. 205–​7. A recent survey of the evidence is Gourinat 2011). 15 On this Index locupletior and what we can learn from it, see Dorandi 1992. 16 Wildberger 2012. 17 A table of terminological distinctions and relevant passages is given in Wildberger 2006a, vol. 2, 369–​75. Unlike Seneca, Cicero, who also uses terms for effect-​predicates in De Finibus, seems not to have understood, or cared, about the ontological implications, as can also be seen

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86  Jula Wildberger 2. Not only does Doxography B highlight the difference between bodies and predicates discussed by Seneca in Ep. 117. A second parallel, beyond a shared general interest in ontological questions, can be found in the explicit assertion that virtues, the primary goods, are bodies and that they are animals: Ἀρετὰς δ’ εἶναι πλείους φασὶ καὶ ἀχωρίστους ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων, καὶ τὰς αὐτὰς τῷ ἡγεμονικῷ μέρει τῆς ψυχῆς καθ’ ὑπόστασιν, καθ’ ὃ δὴ καὶ σῶμα πᾶσαν ἀρετὴν εἶναί τε καὶ λέγεσθαι, τὴν γὰρ διάνοιαν καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν σῶμα εἶναι· τὸ γὰρ συμφυὲς πνεῦμα ἡμῖν ἔνθερμον ὂν ψυχὴν ἡγοῦνται. Βούλονται δὲ καὶ τὴν ἐν ἡμῖν ψυχὴν ζῷον εἶναι, ζῆν τε γὰρ καὶ αἰσθάνεσθαι· καὶ μάλιστα τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν μέρος αὐτῆς, ὃ δὴ καλεῖται διάνοια. Διὸ καὶ πᾶσαν ἀρετὴν ζῷον εἶναι, ἐπειδὴ ἡ αὐτὴ διανοίᾳ ἐστὶ κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν. Κατὰ τοῦτο γάρ φασι καὶ τὴν φρόνησιν φρονεῖν, ἀκολουθεῖ γὰρ αὐτοῖς τὸ οὕτως λέγειν. They say that there are several virtues and that they are inseparable from each other. And that in substance they are identical with the leading part of the soul; accordingly, [they say] that every virtue is and is called a body; for the mind and the soul are bodies. For they believe that the inborn pneuma in us, which is warm, is soul. And they also want [to claim] that the soul in us is an animal, since it lives and has sense-​perception; and especially so the leading part of it, which is called mind. That is why every virtue too is an animal, since in substance it is the same as the mind; accordingly, they say also that practical wisdom is wise/​acts wisely (φρονεῖν). For it is consistent for them to speak thus.18 As a whole, the passage in Doxography B provides information very similar to key tenets discussed in Ep. 106 and 113. Seneca adduces a much larger number of arguments, and generally the parallels between the two works are thematic and dogmatic rather than literal. The idea that the mind is pneuma, spiritus, has already been communicated earlier in the letter corpus,19 but for the corporeality of the soul and the corresponding corporeality of the good compare, e.g., Sen. Ep. 106.4, where the capacity of a good to act upon the corporeal soul is adduced as evidence for the soul’s corporality: Bonum agitat animum et quodam modo format et continet, quae [ergo] propria sunt corporis. Quae corporis bona sunt corpora sunt; ergo et quae animi sunt; nam et hoc corpus est. A good gets the soul going and, in a way, shapes it and holds it together, all of which is characteristic of a body. The goods of a body are bodies themselves. Therefore also [the goods] of the soul. For [the soul] too is a body. if one compares the two authors’ treatment of Stoic determinism in Naturales quaestiones and De fato respectively (Wildberger 2013). 18 Stob. 2.7.5b7, p. 66 Wachsmuth, transl. Gerson and Inwood 1997, with some terms changed for consistency with the usage in this chapter. 19 See, e.g., Sen. Ep. 41.2: sacer intra nos spiritus sedet; Ep. 50.6: Quid enim est aliud animus quam quodam modo se habens spiritus?; Ep. 57.8.

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 87 With the word continet Seneca points to cohesive power, the ἕξις, of a soul’s pneuma. It is this pneuma that makes the soul a single unity and thus a single existent body in the ontological sense, an idea central to the issue raised in Ep. 102. There, Seneca clarifies that Stoics do not recognize goods ‘of spatially separated parts’ (ex distantibus): ‘For it is by one single pneuma (spiritus) that one good must be held together (contineri) and controlled; there must be one single leading part [of the soul (the ἡγεμονικόν)] for one single good’ (Ep. 102.7). The first argument reported by Seneca in Ep. 113 for the claim that virtues are animals is the same as the one reported in Doxography B.  It has the following structure: Premise 1: The soul is an (ensouled) animal. Premise 2: The virtues are the same as the [leading part of the] soul. Conclusion: The virtues are animals. Seneca presents his version in Ep. 113.2 based on a definition of virtue in the ‘orthodox’ Chrysippean version according to which the different virtues are not only different from each other by their relation to different objects (πρός τί πως ἔχοντα) but also intrinsically different as different states of the mind (πως ἔχοντα): Animum constat animal esse, cum ipse efficiat ut simus animalia, cum ab illo animalia nomen hoc traxerint; virtus autem nihil aliud est quam animus quodam modo se habens; ergo animal est. It is undisputed that the soul is an animal, since the soul itself causes us to be animals, since it is from the soul that animals derive their name. Now, a virtue is nothing but a soul in a certain state. Therefore, a virtue is an animal. The word format in Ep. 106.4, quoted above, probably alludes to the same definition: the shapes that a good gives to the soul are the various states of a virtuously disposed mind. The passage in Doxography B begins with the well-​known tenet of the unity of virtues. However, the doxographer gives it a physical-​ontological twist by stating that they are the same leading part or mind (διάνοια, in Seneca mens or animus) of a rational soul. This very idea provides an argument why the virtues cannot be a plurality of animals in Seneca’s account of the standard Stoic position at Ep. 113.4 and 113.24: Singula animalia singulas habere debent substantias; ista omnia unum animum habent; itaque singula esse possunt, multa esse non possunt. Individual animals must have different substances. All these here have one single soul. Therefore, they can be individuals, yet cannot be many.

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88  Jula Wildberger ‘Nam quemadmodum aliquis et poeta est et orator, et tamen unus, sic virtutes istae animalia sunt sed multa non sunt. Idem est animus et animus et iustus et prudens et fortis, ad singulas virtutes quodam modo se habens’. ‘For just as someone is both a poet and an orator, but nevertheless only one person, so these virtues here are animals, but not many of them. A soul is the same as a soul which is just, prudent, and at the same time also brave, being in a certain state with regard to the individual virtues’. [The speaker here is a representative of the Stoic view.] How virtues could be united in this way and still be more than one and different from each other is a core issue in Seneca’s discussion of the arguments he reports. 3. The commonalities noted so far concern the information provided by Doxography B.  A  third parallel is constituted by the sequence in which the same information is presented. The order of the two premises in the argument why virtues are animals indicated above is that which we find in Ep. 113.2: the soul is an animal (animum… animal esse) and a virtue is the soul in a certain state (virtus autem nihil aliud est quam animus quodam modo se habens). In Doxography B the order is inverse. The difference is explicable by the fact that Seneca discusses only one of the tenets that are conjoined in Doxography B. In this particular Letter 113, Seneca only asks whether virtues are animals, whereas Doxography B conjoins several claims in the one passage quoted above (p. [86]). In this passage the premise that the virtues are identical with the mind has already been used for another argument. Its author asserts that virtues, the good par excellence (since all other goods are goods by partaking in virtue), are the same as the mind and then shows which tenets about the virtues follow from this fact: Virtues are bodies (like the mind). Virtues are animals (like the mind). Virtues produce virtuous actions or effects (i.e., do what a mind does), e.g., when practical wisdom (φρόνησις) is wise or does wise things (φρονεῖν). Now, interestingly, there is a correspondence between this sequence of arguments in Doxography B and the sequence of questions spread out over different letters in the Epistulae morales: Ep. 106 asks whether goods are bodies. Ep. 113 asks whether virtues are animals. Ep. 117 asks whether wisdom (sapientia) is a good while being wise (sapere) is not, according to the Stoic tenet that the first is a body and cause while the latter is an effect, i.e., an incorporeal sayable or attribute (accidens).

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 89 4. A fourth connection between the two works is the fact that Seneca’s Ep. 117 can be adduced to elucidate the point about practical wisdom more hinted at than reported in the passage from Doxography B.  Even the examples, wisdom and being wise, are the same. Doxography B has undergone some abbreviation after it was excerpted by Stobaeus,20 and such technical material was a likely candidate for omission. In any case, the explanation we have is too fragmentary to see what exactly was meant at the end of the cited passage by the verb φρονεῖν. As the context is now, the word seems to indicate the idea that, as animals, virtues are agents performing the corporeal actions and cognitions that belong to their domain, just like other animals that live and perceive with their senses. However, in other passages the doxographer uses the verb φρονεῖν to refer to an achievement or κατόρθωμα, which is not a corporeal action but the predicate-​effect of such an action.21 Seneca’s discussion in Ep. 117 addresses this ambiguity by exploring the possible meanings of φρονεῖν or sapere, respectively. For this purpose it builds on the ontological concepts developed in Ep. 106 (that goods must be bodies) and Ep. 113 (that wisdom, whether an animal or not, is nothing else but the mind). The traditional understanding Seneca reports and then critiques is that sapere is the effect of being wise (or having wisdom) when there is wisdom present, just as we find it in an account of Stoic conceptions of causation that was part of a doxography of Stoic physics possibly by the same author, Arius Didymus, as Doxography B.22 According to that account, Zeno claimed that being practically wise (φρονεῖν) happens when its cause, i.e., practical wisdom (φρόνησις), is present. The other reading of ‘being or acting wisely’ (sapere) suggested in Ep. 117 is that the word denotes a wise mind in action, namely the corporeal actions performed by the mind qua wisdom. The concept of such corporeal actions occurs already in Ep. 113, both when Seneca discusses the possibility of actions being animals since they are not different from the corporeal mind (Ep. 113.19–​20) and when he distinguishes two conceptions of action, exemplified by the action of walking, both of which imply that the action is, or at least includes, the mind.23 Accordingly, wisdom would be the state a perfect mind is in, i.e., a habitus or ἕξις, while being wise is the use of such a perfect mind:24 20 Hahm 1990. 21 Stob. 2.7.8, p. 85 Wachsmuth; 8a, p. 86; 11e, p. 96. 22 Stob. 1.10.16c, p. 138f. Wachsmuth = Ar. Did. fr. 18 = SVF 1.89. See Mansfeld 2001, and for the parallels to Seneca, Wildberger 2006a, ch. 2.4.5.1–​2, and in this paper nn. 11 and 32. We find excerpts of the doxography on Stoic physics in Eusebius and in Stobaeus. 23 Sen. Ep. 113.23 = SVF 2.836 and 2.525 (= Plut. de comm. not. 1073d–​1074a): According to Chrysippus, the action is only the mind (principale = ἡγεμονικόν); according to Cleanthes both the mind and the other soul-​pneuma are involved in the activity. 24 Sen. Ep. 117.16. A Greek Stoic might also have called it a διάθεσις, i.e., a perfected ἕξις. For the meaning of the word habitus, compare Ep. 113.7 concerning the virtue iustitia: Haec enim habitus animi est et quaedam vis. Brad Inwood (2007, 299) points to Ep. 117.12 (Sapientia est mens perfecta vel ad summum optimumque perducta), which also supports an understanding of habitus not as possession but as a state or disposition.

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90  Jula Wildberger Sapientia habitus perfectae mentis est, sapere usus perfectae mentis. Wisdom is the state of a perfected mind; being wise is the use of a perfected mind. 5. The first parallel between Doxography B and the latter, more technical part of the Epistulae morales discussed in this chapter was the fact that at the heart of the controversy in Ep. 117 is the ontological distinction so elaborately made and reported at various places in Doxography B (see p. 85). A fifth link between the two texts can be seen in the way in which Seneca introduces the ontological distinction in Ep. 117.5, as if he wanted to evoke some such doxographical source. He provides a short illustration reminiscent of the neat handbook lists with pairs of verbal adjectives ending in -​τος (for the corporeal goods, bads or indifferents) and -​τέος (for the corresponding incorporeal effects) of which we find two in Doxography B but none, e.g., in Diogenes Laertius 7:25 Coguntur nostri verba torquere et unam syllabam expetendo interponere quam sermo noster inseri non sinit. Ego illam, si pateris, adiungam. ‘Expetendum est’ inquiunt ‘quod bonum est, expetibile quod nobis contingit cum bonum consecuti sumus. Non petitur tamquam bonum, sed petito bono accedit’. The proponents of our school are forced to resort to verbal quibbles and insert one syllable into [the term] expetendum (αἱρετόν), something which our language does not permit. I’ll add it all the same, if you bear with me: ‘To be chosen (expetendum)’, they say, ‘is that which is a good, able to be chosen (expetibile = αἱρετέον) that which we achieve when we have acquired the good. It is not sought like a good, rather it comes as an accession to the good that is sought’. The quoted passage (Ep. 117.5) even reports a rationale for the distinction similar to what we also find in Doxography B. The objects of choice and of the other impulses, that which one wants to have, are the corporeal goods themselves, not the effects achieved with a successful choice or volition: Διαφέρειν δὲ λέγουσιν, ὥσπερ αἱρετὸν (= expetendum) καὶ αἱρετέον (= expetibile), οὕτω καὶ ὀρεκτὸν καὶ ὀρεκτέον καὶ βουλητὸν καὶ βουλητέον καὶ ἀποδεκτὸν καὶ ἀποδεκτέον. Αἱρετὰ μὲν γὰρ εἶναι καὶ βουλητὰ καὶ ὀρεκτὰ

καὶ ἀποδεκτέα, κατηγορήματα ὄντα, παρακείμενα δ’ ἀγαθοῖς. Αἱρεῖσθαι μὲν γὰρ ἡμᾶς τὰ αἱρετέα καὶ βούλεσθαι τὰ βουλητέα καὶ ὀρέγεσθαι τὰ ὀρεκτέα. Κατηγορημάτων γὰρ αἵ τε αἱρέσεις καὶ ὀρέξεις καὶ βουλήσεις γίνονται, ὥσπερ καὶ αἱ ὁρμαί· ἔχειν μέντοι αἱρούμεθα καὶ βουλόμεθα καὶ ὁμοίως ὀρεγόμεθα τἀγαθά, διὸ καὶ αἱρετὰ καὶ βουλητὰ καὶ ὀρεκτὰ τἀγαθά ἐστι. Τὴν 25 Stob. 2.7.6f., p. 78 Wachsmuth; 11f., p. 97f., collected in SVF 3 as fragments 89–​91.

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 91 γὰρ φρόνησιν αἱρούμεθα ἔχειν καὶ τὴν σωφροσύνην, οὐ μὰ Δία τὸ φρονεῖν καὶ σωφρονεῖν, ἀσώματα ὄντα καὶ κατηγορήματα. They say that just as what is to be chosen (αἱρετόν) differs from what ought to be chosen (αἱρετέον), so also what is to be reached for from what ought to be reached for and what is to be wanted from what ought to be wanted and what is to be welcomed from what ought to be welcomed. For the goods are to be chosen and to be wanted and to be reached for and ought to be welcomed, all of which are predicates that accompany the goods. For we choose what ought to be chosen and want what ought to be wanted and reach for what ought to be reached for. For our choices and reachings and volitions are for predicates, just like our impulses. Yet what we choose and want and likewise reach for is to have the goods, and that is why the goods are to be chosen and to be wanted to be reached for. For we choose to have practical wisdom and self-​control, but not, by Zeus, to be wise and self-​controlled, which are incorporeal and predicates.26 In order to retain a peculiarity of Seneca’s reception of the Greek theory, I have used different phrases for the two sets of terms: ‘to be…’ vs. ‘able to be…’ where Seneca opposes the gerundive with an adjective suffixed with -ibile, but ‘to be…’ vs. ‘ought to be…’ for the original Greek distinction between the verbal adjectives in -​τόν and -​τέον. For interestingly the Roman philosopher inverts the connotation of the two Greek suffixes. It is the verbal adjective in -​τέος that clearly has a jussive connotation similar to the Latin gerundive. Partly, Seneca’s choice may be due to the fact that the Latin ge­rundive had long since become the standard translation for the Stoic terms formed as verbal adjectives in -​τός.27 The identification of the corporeal goods as the objects which impulses aim to acquire in the reported explanation may be another reason for this inversion. One should choose an object if some volition or motivation is directed at it—​or so one would think. Whatever the reason, Seneca seems more interested in demonstrating his familiarity with such insider knowledge than a faithful rendering of the original idea. That he had in mind, or before him, an explanation close to what we read in Doxography B is also suggested by the parallel descriptions for the relation between corporeal good and incorporeal predicate. In Seneca it ‘comes as an accession to the good that is sought’ (petito bono accedit), whereas in Doxography B the predicates ‘accompany’ or ‘are present with 26 Stob. 2.7.11f, p.  97f. Wachsmuth  =  SVF 3.91. Because of its repetitiveness, Doxography B abounds in omission errors due to saut du même au même. The supplemental phrase in angle brackets was suggested by Heine 1869, who points to Stob. 2.7.11i, p. 101 Wachsmuth, where the term ὠφέλημα reoccurs together with the characterization of such beneficial predicates as ‘accompanying’ or ‘co-​present with the goods’ (παρακείμενα τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς). 27 Concerning expetendum in the sense of αἱρετόν, see for example Cic. Fin. 3.10, 21f.

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92  Jula Wildberger the goods’ (παρακείμενα δ’ ἀγαθοῖς). Here again, the Latin version distorts slightly what was intended in the original Greek account: The predicates do not follow upon nor are they a—​less valuable—​addition to the goods. They are coincident with the goods as that which, according to Zeno’s account (p. 89), is caused by the good’s presence.28 Those Greek Stoics who introduced the distinction may also have had a good reason to use the verbal adjective in -​τέος, i.e., the one with unequivocal jussive force, to denote the predicate. As an existent body a good thing is there for us to choose; it is available, able to be chosen, desired, valued, etc. The predicate, on the other hand, is the target effect toward which an impulse is directed or the result of the activity of some good, i.e., of virtue or what partakes in it. In both cases it is something an agent thinks ought to be brought about. 6. This takes us to a sixth commonality of the Epistulae morales and Doxography B: We have only three accounts about how ‘sayables’ (λεκτά) are involved in action impulses, and two of these come from Seneca’s Epistulae morales 113 and 117, while the third occurs in Doxography B.29 The parallels between the two works are not as close as in the other cases discussed above, and formulations of the statements subsisting at rational action impulses (with the phrases καθήκει μοι and oportet me respectively) can be found elsewhere. However, other sources use these formulations in passing as part of the Stoic vocabulary and do not pause to explain the phenomenon in onto-​semantic terms. 7. Further parallels can be found with regard to the topic of friendship. A  seventh is the application of the ontological principle introduced in Ep. 102.7, that there are no goods constituted of separate bodies (ex distantibus, p.  87), to social relations. Doxography B adduces the same tenet (μηδὲν ἐκ διεστηκότων ἀγαθὸν εἶναι), in a discussion of different meanings of the term ‘friendship’ (φιλία): Τριχῶς δὲ λεγομένης τῆς φιλίας, καθ’ ἕνα μὲν τρόπον τῆς κοινῆς ἕνεκ’ ὠφελείας [Wachsmuth, Meineke; ἕνεκα φιλίας codd.], καθ’ ἣν φίλοι εἶναι λέγονται, ταύτην μὲν οὔ φασι τῶν ἀγαθῶν εἶναι, διὰ τὸ μηδὲν ἐκ διεστηκότων ἀγαθὸν εἶναι κατ’ αὐτούς· τὴν δὲ κατὰ τὸ δεύτερον σημαινόμενον λεγομένην φιλίαν, κατάσχεσιν οὖσαν φιλικὴν πρὸς τῶν πέλας, τῶν ἐκτὸς λέγουσιν ἀγαθῶν· τὴν δὲ περὶ αὐτὸν φιλίαν, καθ’ ἣν φίλος ἐστὶ τῶν πέλας, τῶν περὶ ψυχὴν ἀποφαίνουσιν ἀγαθῶν. [The word] ‘friendship’ has a threefold use, one of them being [the friendship] for the sake of a shared benefit, according to which men are said to be friends. This one, they say, does not belong to the goods because of the fact that nothing composed of separate parts is a good according to 28 Accordingly, Inwood 2007 translates ‘is an adjunct’ and even suggests reading accidit in the sense of ‘is an attribute of’ (293). 29 Sen. Ep. 113.18 = SVF 3.169; Sen. Ep. 117.12f.; Stob. 2.7.9b, p. 88 Wachsmuth = SVF 3.171. For Seneca, see Wildberger 2006a, 2.4.4.2 and, e.g., the commentary by Inwood (2007). Parallel sources, such as Diog. Laert. 7.49, 51, 63 and Sext. Emp. Math. 8.70, discuss the role of sayables in rational cognition.

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 93 them. The friendship connoted according to the second meaning, which is a friendly adherence from the part of those close to one, belongs to the external goods according to them. The friendship occurring in oneself, by way of which a man is a friend of those close [to him], is, as they assert, one of the psychic goods.30 8. One of these meanings denotes friendship as a relation shared by both friends, which the Stoics do not regard as a good because it consists of separate bodies (the two friends). Another type of friendship is an external good, namely the friendly disposition a friend has toward us, and that type provides parallel number eight, in that it is similar to the good under discussion in Ep. 102: praise by good men, i.e., the praising attitude of others toward the subject having it as a good. As it turns out in Seneca’s discussion, the benefit is mutual. The sage enjoys the justified praise of other sages, which is an external good; the one praising the great man (or, in the case of a fool, just admiring him) enjoys the appreciation of a model of excellence (Ep. 102.30). 9. A ninth parallel can be found in the discussion of mutual benefit, now exclusively that between sages, which follows in Doxography B directly after the distinction of the three types of friendship just quoted. From the same act, the one benefiting another enjoys perfect benefit just like the one being benefited. This is so because both benefiting and being benefited are states and movements according to virtue: Εἶναι δὲ καὶ καθ’ ἕτερον [Heeren; θάτερον codd., Wachsmuth] τρόπον κοινὰ τὰ ἀγαθά. Πάντα γὰρ τὸν ὁντινοῦν ὠφελοῦντα ἴσην ὠφέλειαν ἀπολαμβάνειν νομίζουσι παρ’ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, μηδένα δὲ φαῦλον μήτε ὠφελεῖσθαι μήτε ὠφελεῖν. Εἶναι γὰρ τὸ ὠφελεῖν ἴσχειν κατ’ ἀρετὴν καὶ τὸ ὠφελεῖσθαι κινεῖσθαι κατ’ ἀρετήν. There is another sense in which all good things are common. For they believe that anyone who benefits anyone, by that very fact, receives equal benefit, but that no base man either benefits or is benefited. For benefiting is to maintain something in accordance with virtue and being benefited is to be moved in accordance with virtue.31 These are ideas at the theoretical heart of Ep. 109 about the question whether a sage can benefit a sage, and the same argument is made in that letter too. From the definition of benefiting as moving32 or maintaining something 30 Stob. 2.7.11c, p. 94f. Wachsmuth = SVF 3.98. 31 Stob. 2.7.11d, p. 95 Wachsmuth = SVF 3.94; transl. Gerson and Inwood 1997, 220, altered. 32 The definition in the transmitted text of Stobaeus is incomplete. It mentions only ‘maintaining’ but not ‘moving’, which may be the result of a copying error or of deliberate abbreviation. Wachsmuth considers supplementing the text but leaves the matter open, while Gerson and Inwood (1997, 220) include the missing word in their translation. The full version is reflected in the text from Seneca quoted here and is also attested in the parallel account of Diog. Laert. 7.104.

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94  Jula Wildberger according to virtue Seneca deduces that benefit must be beneficial for the one benefiting too since the beneficent man makes active use of his own virtue (virtute sua) in the process (Ep. 109.12): Prodesse autem est animum secundum naturam movere virtute sua. Vt eius qui movebitur, hoc non sine ipsius quoque qui proderit bono fiet. Now, to benefit is to move a mind according to nature by one’s own virtue. Just as this will happen for the good of the man who is being moved, so also for the good of the very man who is benefiting [the other]. Seneca’s definition is more narrowly aligned with its context and limited to the active side of beneficence, namely that benefiting is a virtuous movement of the beneficent man himself. However, the idea that benefiting involves actively moving someone else and the other being moved, from which derives a different type of mutual benefit that is only possible between sages, was introduced earlier in the same letter (Ep. 109.2, 11). 10. A tenth and final parallel concerns the erotic and sympotic virtues of the Stoic sage. It is a well known tenet that this sage excels in the art of love, and Seneca makes use of the idea when developing his own concept of a mutually erotic progressor friendship and when describing the sage as ‘a master in the art of making friends’ (Ep. 9.5: amicitiarum faciendarum artifex), thus alluding to the term φιλοποιία in the definition of ἔρως.33 At Ep. 123.15 this idea appears in tandem with the tenet that the sage is also a party expert: Hoc enim iactant:  solum sapientem et doctum esse amatorem. ‘Solus aptus est ad hanc artem; aeque conbibendi et convivendi sapiens est peritissimus. Quaeramus ad quam usque aetatem iuvenes amandi sint’. Haec Graecae consuetudini data sint… For this is what they assert: ‘Only the sage is an erudite lover. He alone is suited for this art. Equally as concerns the art of drinking and reveling together, the wise is the greatest expert. Let us consider up to which age young men should be courted’. These things may be granted to Greek custom … With this compare in Doxography B the assertion that the sage does everything not only rationally and logically but also like a true party expert and expert lover:34

33 Wildberger 2018a; more generally on the erotic efforts of sages, see Wildberger 2018b, ch. 6.5. 34 Stob. 2.7.5b9, p. 65–​6 Wachsmuth = SVF 3.717, transl. Gerson and Inwood 1997, 206, altered to agree with my solution for the lacuna. Erotic and sympotic virtue occur as an intimately connected pair also in Diogenes of Babylon’s treatise On Music. The fragment in SVF 3, Diog. Bab. 79 = Philod. De musica col. 43.37–​45 can be supplemented from Philodemus’ refutation in col. 130 (according to the original counting restored by Delattre 2007).

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 95 Ἀκολούθως γὰρ τούτοις δογματίζουσι καὶ ὅτι καὶ νουνεχόντως καὶ διαλε κτικῶς ποιεῖ καὶ συμποτικῶς καὶ ἐρωτικῶς. […] Ὁμοίως δὲ τῇ ἐρωτικῇ τὴν συμποτικὴν παραλαμβάνουσιν εἰς τὰς ἀρετάς, τὴν μὲν περὶ τὸ ἐν συμποσίῳ καθῆκον ἀναστρεφομένην ἐπιστήμην οὖσαν τοῦ πῶς δεῖ ἐξάγεσθαι τὰ συμπόσια καὶ τοῦ πῶς δεῖ συμπίνειν· τὴν δ’ ἐπιστήμην νέων θήρας εὐφυῶν, προτρεπτικὴν οὖσαν ἐπὶ τὴν κατ’ ἀρετήν [scripsi; alii alia]. Consistently with this they hold also that [the sage] acts with good sense and dialectically and sympotically and erotically. […] They understand virtue exercised at a symposium as similar to virtue in sexual matters, the one being knowledge which is concerned with what is appropriate at a symposium, viz. of how one should run symposia and how one should drink at them; and the other is knowledge of how to hunt for talented young boys, which encourages them to according to virtue.

3  Doxography of ethics, references to the Libri moralis philosophiae, and the Letter Writer’s developing acceptance of advanced-​level ethical theory The presented parallels are suggestive, but we should not overrate their significance for the question of a direct intertextual relation. The popularity of Arius Didymus’ work is attested by the transmission of other parts of his doxographic production,35 and L.  Annaeus may very well have studied Stoicism with some version of Doxography B.  On the other hand, much research still needs to be done on the sources of Doxography B itself, and whole libraries of Stoic service writing are lost to us. Nor should we underestimate the impact of oral instruction or targeted research commissioned by L. Annaeus himself. The fact that a certain tenet is reported only in the Epistulae morales and in Doxography B does not constitute sufficient proof that he draws on Doxography B or a lost common source of both. Even literal echoes may be a reflection of a more widespread usage in the schools of which we possess no other witnesses. To be on the safe side, I would suggest that pending further research we take Doxography B as an example of the contents and manner of a more technical lecture by a Stoic professor at the time. Wherever it comes from, the material in Epistulae morales which has parallels in Doxography B must have evoked a typical higher-​level philosophy curriculum and the kind of expertise one would need to acquire to become a professional in the field, and this effect seems to have been intended. It is noteworthy, for example, how allusive the mention of the extra syllable in the suffix -​τέος is in Sen. Ep. 117.5. It is hard to make sense of that passage if one has not yet seen some examples in Greek. The Letter Writer sounds like an expert speaking to another expert familiar with such outlandish Stoic terminology and therefore also the curriculum in which the distinction was taught. 35 See Gourinat 2011 and Viano 2012 for recent discussion and further bibliography.

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96  Jula Wildberger An explanation of the parallels between Epistulae morales and Doxography B in this pragmatic sense, irrespective of the genetic relation between the two texts, is consistent with the selection Seneca has made and how he characterizes the selected material. We have already seen that the series of ontological debates begins in Ep. 102, the starting point of engagement with moralibus rationalia immixta (Ep. 102.4). The question of how post-​mortal fame could be a good (Ep. 102.3) combines two topics that reappear separately in Ep. 106 and Ep. 109. One the one hand, Ep. 102 raises an ontological issue deriving from the corporeality of the good. This issue is taken up in Ep. 106 with the question whether the good is a body. On the other hand, it asks how value is constituted in relations between social agents, which is also the topic of Ep. 109, when Lucilius asks whether a sage can benefit a sage (Ep. 109.1). The parallels are also associated with a new project of a systematic, comprehensive treatment of ethics in a more professional style than a compilation of summaries and reading notes (Ep. 6.4, Ep. 39) or the composition of moral reflections in a personal style (Ep. 84).36 Because of the lacuna before Ep. 102 (see p. 84) we cannot preclude that already this letter’s quaestio-​topic was introduced as an example of the new work on ethics that is mentioned in Epistulae morales 106, 108 and 109. However, the first extant mention of the Libri moralis philosophiae in Ep. 106.1–​3 provides reasons to believe otherwise. The verb velle marks it as a recently conceived new project rather than work in progress. More importantly, if the work had been mentioned before, the amount of detail in the description here would be redundant.37 The later descriptions are shorter, less detailed, and refer to its composition no longer as planned but as ongoing in the present.38 When introducing the question of Ep. 106 and when presenting his own view, the Letter Writer characterizes the topic as irrelevant. It is something ‘entertaining rather than beneficial to know’,39 just a game of superfluous erudition (Ep. 106.11f.): Quoniam, ut voluisti, morem gessi tibi, nunc ipse dicam mihi quod dicturum esse te video:  latrunculis ludimus. In supervacuis subtilitas teritur:  non faciunt bonos ista sed doctos. Apertior res est sapere, immo simplicior:  paucis est ad mentem bonam uti litteris, sed nos ut cetera in supervacuum diffundimus, ita philosophiam ipsam. Quemadmodum omnium rerum, sic litterarum quoque intemperantia laboramus: non vitae sed scholae discimus.

36 On this gradation, but as part of the passive reading program for the student, see Hadot 2014,  116–​7. 37 That the Letter Writer only here (Ep. 106.3) promises to share material without invitation could be explained by the fact that it is the first time that Lucilius shows an interest by raising a question pertinent to it. 38 Sen. Ep. 108.1: cum maxime ordino; 109.17: complectimur. 39 Sen. Ep. 106.4: quae scire magis iuvat quam prodest.

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 97 Now that I’ve complied with your wishes, I’m going to tell myself that which, obviously, you’ll say [when you read this]: These are just gaming competitions! We waste our intelligence (subtilitas) on something completely superfluous. This stuff doesn’t make us better, it promotes erudition. What it means to be wise is much more evident, or rather less complicated: Applying just a little study (litterae) is sufficient to achieve a good, healthy mind, but just as we bloat everything else to superfluous dimensions, so with philosophy itself. In all things we suffer from lack of self-​control and likewise in our studies. We don’t learn for life but for the lecture hall (schola).40 In spite of the outspoken criticism, there is an important change of mind in comparison to earlier rants about academic philosophy. Subtilitas, the ability to make fine conceptual distinctions, appeared as useless and was the target of sententious wit, e.g., when a Stoic proposing an ethical syllogism is compared to someone trying to take on a lion armed with a needle.41 In Ep. 106, however, subtilitas appears as a positive faculty, and its importance is underscored again right at the beginning of the next letter (Ep. 107.1). The problem is only that it is abused for the wrong purpose; it is worn out on the wrong kind of activity. The Letter Writer suggests that moderation is required, and the listless, repetitive42 accumulation of syllogisms in answer to Lucilius’ question may be interpreted as a sign of such moderation, or certainly disapproval. The reference to litterae, to philosophia as something that can be bloated beyond good measure, and, most of all, schola in the last sentence confirm my thesis that the parallels to Doxography B are supposed to be perceived as gestures toward the academic curriculum. Ep. 109, too, ends with a reflection about the purpose of discussing such a question from the lecture hall. But here the Letter Writer’s criticism is less scathing than in Ep. 106. Now the discussion no longer exhausts and instead trains subtilitas as well as the dialectical skills required for successful conceptual work. The claim is now that there are more essential things to do first. It is for the one still (adhuc) in need of therapy that studies of a different type are a necessity and resolving questions like the one discussed not yet (nondum) useful (Ep. 109.17f.): Persolvi quod exegeras, quamquam in ordine rerum erat quas moralis philosophiae voluminibus conplectimur. Cogita quod soleo frequenter tibi dicere, in istis nos nihil aliud quam acumen exercere. Totiens enim illo revertor:  quid ista me res iuvat? Fortiorem fac me, iustiorem, 40 Note the hedge: The Letter Writer admonishes himself with the words he expects Lucilius to say, even though Lucilius has raised the question. For the topos of the simplicity of truth in Ep. 49.12, see Francesca Romana Berno’s contribution in this volume. 41 Ep. 82.24; compare also, e.g., 45.8, 45.13 nimium subtilibus; 48.4 ab istis subtilibus; 49.6; 58.25; 65.16 in hanc subtilitatem inutilem; 88.43. 42 See, e.g., Sen. Ep. 106.5, 10: the good of a corporeal human should be a body too.

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98  Jula Wildberger temperantiorem. Nondum exerceri vacat:  adhuc medico mihi opus est. Quid me poscis scientiam inutilem? magna promisisti:  exhibe fidem. Dicebas intrepidum fore etiam si circa me gladii micarent, etiam si mucro tangeret iugulum; dicebas securum fore etiam si circa me flagrarent incendia, etiam si subitus turbo toto navem meam mari raperet:  hanc mihi praesta curam, ut voluptatem, ut gloriam contemnam. Postea docebis inplicta solvere, ambigua distinguere, obscura perspicere:  nunc doce quod necesse est. I’ve fulfilled your demand, even though it belongs into the sequence of subjects as part of my comprehensive treatment of ethics in several books. Consider what I always tell you so frequently, that in such matters we do nothing but train our sharp wit (acumen). I come back to this point again and again: How does this help me? Make me more courageous, more just, more self-​controlled! I’m not yet free to train [in the gym]: I still need a doctor. Why do you demand of me such useless knowledge? What about the great things that you’ve promised? Show that you’re not a fraud. You were saying that I’d not tremble even if swords would flash around me, even if the point were at my neck. You were saying that I’d be carefree even if blazing fires were to burn down everything around me, even if a tornado suddenly were to spin my ship all over the sea. This is the care you must provide me: that I can look down upon pleasure and fame. After that you may teach me how to unravel convoluted arguments, to analyze ambiguous terms, to see the logic in what is a mystery to others. For now teach me what is necessary. In Ep. 106 Seneca frames the discussion of the technical topic with a short derogatory remark at the beginning (Ep. 106.4) and a longer final comment (Ep. 106.11f.). The ratio is inverted for the quaestio of Ep. 109, in that the whole of Ep. 108 corresponds to the short introductory remarks at Ep. 106.4 and Ep. 109 then provides the answer. In Ep. 108 the Letter Writer first characterizes Lucilius’ question, the one answered in Ep. 109 (Ep. 108.1, 38), and his interest in the new Libri moralis philosophiae as a burning desire for learning and then devotes the rest of this long letter to advice how to use that desire in a productive manner (Ep. 108.1): […] quemadmodum tibi ista cupiditas discendi, qua flagare te video, digerenda sit, ne ipsa se impediat. […] how you should channel your desire for learning, which I see burning in you, so that it doesn’t trip itself up. Dogmatically speaking, the passion ‘desire for learning’ (cupiditas discendi) is an instantiation of the vice ‘lack of self-​control with regard to studies’ (litterarum intemperantia) criticized in Ep. 106.12; it is a passion directed at an

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 99 indifferent that is erroneously perceived as a good. Throughout Ep. 108 it is clear that Lucilius’ craving to learn something is, indeed, an irrational passion that drives learners to all kinds of weird and ecstatic behavior.43 However, the Letter Writer now acknowledges that a learner’s passion can be a motor of progress, provided it is oriented toward the right overall aim and fostered by a competent and benevolent teacher. The examples given show that the Letter Writer thinks of learning in the context of exactly that institution, the philosopher’s lecture hall, which was derided at the end of Ep. 106. Now this schola appears as a place for becoming a better person, a place for changing one’s life, as illustrated by the Letter Writer’s reminiscences about the impression his teachers made on him44 and, not least of all, the image of well-​ meaning, generous Attalus, beleaguered in his school by his students, always willing to indulge their calls for yet another debate:45 Haec nobis praecipere Attalum memini, cum scholam eius obsideremus et primi veniremus et novissimi exiremus, ambulantem quoque illum ad aliquas disputationes evocaremus, non tantum paratum discentibus sed obvium. ‘Idem’ inquit ‘et docenti et discenti debet esse propositum, ut ille prodesse velit, hic proficere’. This is the advice I remember Attalus giving us when we were besieging his lecture hall, arriving first and leaving last, challenging him to some discussion even during his afternoon walk—​while he was always not only ready to teach us but inviting: ‘Teacher and learner must have the same objective: The teacher should wish to benefit, the learner to make progress’. Here the philosopher’s school is a model for the didactic relationship between sender and addressee, with the Letter Writer imparting advice that he himself has received from his master. What the triad of quaestiones in Ep. 102, 106 and 109 achieves together with the commentaries in Ep. 106, 108 and 109 is a differentiation within the school curriculum. Some topics are more irrelevant than others. The value of social relations, understanding the meaning of ‘benefiting a friend’ and thus getting a better sense of what exactly true friends have to offer each other, is regarded as more important than the mere physics of the good, such as the question whether it is a body or an incorporeal. The Letter Writer’s attitude 43 See in particular Sen. Ep. 108.7, where a philosopher’s audience is likened to a band of corybants. 44 Sen. Ep. 108.7, 14–​16, 22–​3. The Letter Writer emphasizes how many of the changes to his lifestyle were permanent. 45 Sen. Ep. 108.3. For the academic connotations of disputatio (‘lecture’) in this context compare Ep. 117.25, quoted in n. 46 below, and Ep. 64.3: Instituunt, disputant, cavillantur, non faciunt animum quia non habent.

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100  Jula Wildberger to ontological topics like that of Ep. 106 remains derogatory. The much more thorough and sophisticated discussions of Ep. 113 and Ep. 117 appear as reactions to a request by Lucilius and thus not as part of the material from the Libri moralis philosophiae the Letter Writer had offered to send on his own accord in Ep. 106.3. In Ep. 113 and 117, the Letter Writer demonstrates that he is capable of the exercise, while clearly marking his disapproval. The letters thus help build the persona of a well educated expert who is disdainful of such recondite fields of the curriculum but also in full control of the subject matter, capable of seeing complex implications (Ep. 117.1:  dum nescis) and free in his judgment like his Stoic predecessors (Ep. 113.23), even beyond the confines of his school should his sense of what is correct and incorrect demand it (Ep. 117.1). It is in the context of such rejected topics for study and pointlessly quibbling debates,46 which happen to coincide with the parallel material in Doxography B, that the Letter Writer distances his own way of doing philosophy from what befits a Greek professor. As we have seen, he looks down on the bookish classroom contests at the end of Ep. 106 (p. 98). In Ep. 113.1 he states his belief that worrying about the question whether virtues are animals, is one of the things that are only appropriate for those in the Greek philosopher’s garb:47 Puto quaedam esse quae deceant phaecasiatum palliatumque. I believe there are some things befitting only someone in slippers and a Greek cloak. The study of erotic and party wisdom, too, he would grant the Greeks and their foreign customs (Ep. 123.15, quoted on p.  94) but not, we may supply, accept in a true Roman philosopher like Sextius (Ep. 64)—​or himself. A Roman philosopher may also investigate questions of a more theoretical nature, such as the epistemology of the good in Epistulae morales 120, 121 and 124, but those questions contribute to progress, and so it is appropriate to advertise the value of this legitimate form of subtilitas with a quotation from the Roman Poet: ‘Possum multa tibi veterum praecepta referre, |​ni refugis tenuisque piget cognoscere curas’. Non refugis autem nec ulla te subtilitas abigit:  non est elegantiae tuae tantum magna sectari, sicut illud probo, quod omnia ad aliquem profectum redigis et tunc tantum offenderis ubi summa subtilitate nihil agitur. 46 Sen. Ep. 117.25: disputatiunculis inanibus subtilitatem vanissimam agere. 47 Sen. Ep. 113.1. For the outfit and its inappropriateness for a Roman, compare Plut. Ant. 33.7: Mετὰ τῶν γυμνασιαρχικῶν ῥάβδων ἐν ἱματίῳ καὶ φαικασίοις προῄει (‘and he went forth carrying the wands of a gymnasiarch, in a Greek robe and white shoes’).

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 101 ‘Manifold is the advice of the ancients that I could relate to you /​should you not shy away and disdain the acquaintance with subtle attention’. But you don’t shy away, nor will any sophistication (subtilitas) deter you. Your exquisite taste would not let you go exclusively after the big subjects, just as I approve also of your policy to pare down everything to some progress, that you are displeased only when utmost sophistication is spent on nothing at all.48 There is another feature that distinguishes the Roman philosopher as represented by our Letter Writer from Greek professorial writing as represented by Doxography B. The doxographer reports tenets and, occasionally, arguments in support of them. The Letter Writer has a question brought before him, often qualified as controversial among the experts,49 and is asked to pronounce his judgment. The result is that the Roman philosopher remains aligned with the more traditional roles of his class, such as that of a culturally minded patron listening to the disputes of his hired client intellectuals after dinner. He asserts his social superiority like someone cast in the role of a magistrate giving his verdict,50 while at the same time also performing an intellectual act essential for any progress, namely forming his own opinion.51 The Roman philosopher thus shows the very quality that distinguishes him from those whose wisdom consists in parroting textbook phrases (Ep. 33.7–​8; Ep. 108.6).

4  The structure and content of Seneca’s Libri moralis philosophiae Appropriately for such a role, the questions of Ep. 102, 106, 113 and 117 as well as those of Ep. 116, 121 and 124 all have an antithetic structure such that one of two alternatives must be chosen. For Ep. 121, the letter about animal self-​cognition, we have a parallel version in the Foundations of Ethics (Ἠθικὴ στοιχείωσις) by the second-​century CE Stoic Hierocles. While Hierocles blends a developmental account of attachment (οἰκείωσις) with a controversy about whether animals have self-​perception at all, the topic of Seneca’s letter is only a controversy, namely whether animals have an understanding of their own constitution or not. I would therefore tentatively suggest that the questions tackled in Libri moralis philosophiae also had this antithetic structure with the author cast in the role of a judge. Unlike textbooks of the ilk of Doxography B and its lost more extended relatives, the Libri moralis philosophiae were not 48 Sen. Ep. 124.1, the quoted lines are Verg. Georg. 1.176–​7. 49 For example, in Sen. Ep. 113.1: de hac quaestione iactata apud nostros. 50 In De vita beata and elsewhere, Seneca compares his theoretical choices to voting and sententiam dicere in the Senate ([7]‌.3.2), thus creating for himself a different expert persona that does not distinguish between him and the other Stoics, his fellow senators. See De Pietro 2014. On the use of legal language and philosophy conceived in parallel to legal practice, see also Griffin 2013b. 51 Compare Reydams-​Schils 2011.

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102  Jula Wildberger a systematic exposition in form of an extended doxography developing tenets and definitions step by step within a conceptual thematic structure. We are explicitly told that the Libri moralis philosophiae contained quaestiones, debated issues in ethics, when the Letter Writer announces his intention ‘to expound all questions, or controversies, relevant to ethics’.52 In his important paper on the political significance of the other large work Seneca composed at that time, the Naturales quaestiones, Harry Hine reminds us that quaestio is also a legal term for certain courts and the cases heard there and that sometimes ‘the reader is explicitly cast as a judge’.53 Both the word explicare (Ep. 106.2) and the mode of discussion exemplified in the letters would point to a mixture of argument summary, explanations of the  arguments, and the author’s assessment. The comprehensiveness of the work, that the books were ‘to encompass the whole ethical part of philosophy’,54 would then be achieved by its systematic structure, i.e., the order in which the various controversies are presented,55 and by the range of topics treated, so that actually all main issues (Ep. 106.2: ‘omnes […] quaestiones’) would be covered at one point or other within the work. The other extant fragments, four quotes in Lactantius’ Divinae institutiones,56 are too short to draw any conclusions as to their original context. However, they also do not contradict my suggestions about the nature of the Libri moralis philosophiae. For each of the fragments a debatable quaestio similar to those in the Epistulae morales can be imagined without difficulty. The first of these57 could have occurred in a reply to the question whether humans are children of Zeus or in some controversy about a tenet of Stoic allegorical interpretation, e.g., of myths concerning Zeus’ affairs with human women. The second develops an argument from Zeno’s Politeia why there is no need to build temples for the gods. The passage applies Zeno’s idea to the statues of gods:58 Simulacra deorum venerantur, illis supplicant genu posito, illa adorant, illis per totum adsident diem aut adstant, illis stipem iaciunt, victimas caedunt; et cum haec tanto opere suscipiant, fabros qui illa fecere contemnunt. Quid inter se tam contrarium quam statuarium despicere, statuam adorare et eum ne in convictum quidem admittere qui tibi deos faciat? 52 Sen. Ep. 106.2: omnes ad eam [= moralem philosophiam] pertinentis quaestiones explicare. 53 Hine 2006, 54–​5, the quote is from p. 55. 54 Sen. Ep. 108.1: libros […] continentis totam moralem philosophiae partem. 55 Sen. Ep. 108.1:  ordino; 109.17:  ordine rerum […] quas moralis philosophiae voluminibus complectimur. 56 Sen. frr. 93–​6 Vottero; frr. 122–​3 Haase do not belong to this work. 57 Lactant. Div. inst. 1.16.10 (= fr. 93 Vottero). 58 Lactant. Div. inst. 2.2.14–​15 (= fr. 94 Vottero); see Bees 2011, 247–​60, 340f., 350. That one should worship the gods with virtues rather than statues is attested for Zeno himself (Stob. 4.1.88, p. 27 Hense = SVF 1.266).

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Seneca and the doxography of ethics 103 They worship images of the gods: These they implore with knees bent, these they pray to, these they court, sitting or standing beside them all day, these they present with donations and sacrificial animals. And while they undertake all this with such effort, they regard the artisans who made those with contempt. What could be more contradictory than despising the sculptor while adoring the sculpture, and not even to admit that man into your company who makes your gods for you? The quaestio here could have been whether Stoics really prohibit the construction of temples and statues for the gods, and in the extant passage Seneca might develop the arguments of his Stoic predecessors before the author himself presents his own, less polemical and more nuanced answer.59 If the next quote did not come from the same context (lambasting the childishness of worshipers who need statues like children their dolls and teddy bears, as it were),60 it could have occurred in a discussion of the idea that, properly speaking, all men except the sage are boys.61 The fourth and last quotation62 also allows us to imagine a wide range of original contexts from which it might have been taken: Hic est ille homo honestus, non apice purpurave, non lictorum insignis ministerio, sed nulla re minor: qui cum mortem in vicinia vidit, non sic perturbatur tamquam rem novam viderit, qui sive toto corpore tormenta patienda sunt sive flamma ore rapienda sive extendendae per patibulum manus, non quaerit quid patiatur sed quam bene. This is the one of [true] nobility, not distinguished by purple or a priest’s tiara, nor by the attendances of a magistrate’s guard. In no respect is he a lesser man. When he sees death nearby, it does not disturb him like something unheard of and unseen. When he must suffer torture with all his body or imbibe fire with his open mouth or stretch out his hands on the cross, he does not ask what he is suffering but how well he suffers it. The stark contrast between the extremely humiliating physical punishments the truly honorable man would bear unflinching and the insignia of social status characterizing a nobleman, a vir honestus, in the ordinary sense would have been well placed in a discussion of the question whether a sage loses his honor or honestas, and with it his perfect happiness, when undergoing such

59 For some considerations what this answer might have been, see Wildberger 2018b, ch. 3.1.2. 60 Lactant. Div. inst. 2.4.14 (= fr. 95 Voterro). On the question, see Lausberg 1970, 189–​92; for the context of the quote also Voterro 1998, 438. 61 Lausberg 170, 188–​9; Vottero 1998, 349; Wildberger 2006a, vol. 2: 848–​50. 62 Lactant. Div. inst. 4.17.28 (= fr. 96 Vottero).

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104  Jula Wildberger debasing punishments fit for a slave or criminal.63 A  quaestio of this kind would allow for a rich and nuanced discussion of indifferents. Of course, we cannot do more than speculate. The point I wish to make is that the extant fragments of the Libri moralis philosophiae64 do not preclude a format of the kind I have suggested for the whole work: Ethical tenets were discussed as controversies one after the other, such that Seneca first expounded the Stoic reasoning (as possibly in fr. 94 Vottero) and then took a stance of his own. This format would allow for a systematic treatment of all aspects of Stoic ethics by choosing the right issues in the right order and gradually differentiating important concepts in the course of the various controversies, just as the later Epistulae morales build on concepts introduced earlier in the corpus.65 If the quaestiones were similar in content to the samples in the Epistulae morales and to the questions we could suggest, speculatively, for the extant fragments, they would feature Stoic ideas that at first sight might appear outlandish and implausible. In this respect then, the Libri moralis philosophiae would have been reminiscent of Cicero’s Paradoxa Stoicorum66 and, like that work, allow for some display of Roman eloquence. Thus continuing the tradition of Roman philosophical oratory, the format of the work would have enabled an authorial stance that both embraces serious academic philosophy and hedges the author’s persona against the unsavory degradation to the status of a professor.

63 Dig. 47.14.1.3:  Quamquam autem Hadrianus metalli poenam, item operis vel etiam gladii praestituerit, attamen qui honestiore loco nati sunt, non debent ad hanc poenam pertinere, sed aut relegandi erunt aut movendi ordine; 48.8.3.5: sed solent hodie capite puniri, nisi honestiore loco positi fuerint, ut poenam legis sustineant: humiliores enim solent vel bestiis subici, altiores vero deportantur in insulam. 64 The discussed fragments are those that can be attributed to the Libri moralis philosophiae with reasonable certainty. Lausberg 1970,193f. also considers Lactant. Div. inst. 5.13.20 = fr. 78 Vottero, which could have occurred in another quaestio illustrating the concept of indifferents, e.g., in a discussion of the somewhat surprising tenet that suicide may be a rational choice for the sage in all his perfect beatitude but not for the fool (see, e.g., Plut. De Stoic. repugn. 1063c–​d = SVF 3.759). Concerning the overall structure and content of the work, possible further references and connections to the letters and De beneficiis, see also Mazzoli 2016. 65 As demonstrated for the beginning of the work by Hachmann 1995. 66 See also Lausberg 1970, 185–​6 on the role Stoic paradoxes may have played in the Libri moralis philosophiae.

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Part 2

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4  Reading Seneca reading Vergil Sophia Papaioannou

Vergil’s works comprise the most popular source of quotations in Seneca’s prose works. With 119 quotations Vergil is Seneca’s preferred author for quoting; Ovid, who holds the second place is quoted only 28 times (Motto and Clark 1993a, 125).1 The length of these quotations varies, but the leading criterion determining this length is one and the same: to identify the desired Vergilian subtext and successfully elicit, as a result, an elaborate network of associations, which affects and determines the way the Senecan text is to be received. The frequency of the Vergilian quotations and the clout of the great poet has convinced recent critics that Seneca reaches back to Vergil, an author taught in the schools already under Augustus and by Seneca’s time held as an authority on various topics2 including philosophical gravity, because he has found in Vergil’s works, especially the Aeneid, ‘the mastertext for the representation of the human soul and its passions’.3 At the foundation of the philosophical reading of the Aeneid stands the conviction that Vergil’s Aeneas embodies the exemplum of the Stoic proficiens (‘progressor’).4 I would 1 The earliest systematic treatment of all Vergilian quotations in Seneca’s prose works is Batinski 1983. Earlier studies include Doppioni 1939; Setaioli 1965; Mazzoli 1970, 215–​32. More recently, see André 1982, 219–​33; Motto and Clark 1993b; Berno 2006, 304–​6. 2 Cf. Fantham 1982, 21: ‘Vergil was now [in Seneca’s era] universally known, guaranteeing to the writer who introduced a Vergilian allusion into his argument the full understanding of quotation and context by his readers’. On Vergil’s dominant presence in the Roman school curriculum, see Bonner 1977, 213–​4; Mayer 1982 (by Nero’s time Vergil and Horace are universal classics); and more recently Horsfall 1995, 250–​3; and Milnor 2009 (as evidenced in the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii). 3 Staley 2013, 98. 4 Ker 2015, 114: ‘There is a convenient affinity between the overall quest of Aeneas as a hero struggling to make progress in Aeneid and the progressing student of philosophy who is the main concern of Epistulae morales’. The symbolic depiction of Aeneas is best seen in Ep. 56, where in the same paragraph (56.13) commenting on Aeneas’ trepidation for the safety of his family at Aen. 2.726–​9, that may compromise his fearlessness (the text listed in 56.12), states that Aeneas may be both a sapiens (when he appeared calm and composed by the din of the battle during the night of Troy’s fall) and imperitus (when he gives in to fear as he leads his family out of the burning Troy).

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108  Sophia Papaioannou like to suggest that the philosopher Seneca’s interaction with Vergil should be appreciated in light of the inevitable influence of the reception and interpretation politics established by the numerous Vergilian echoes in Senecan tragedy,5 and also by the routine integration of literary allusions specifically to Vergil in post-​Vergilian literature as part of defining one’s own literary authenticity.6 In Seneca’s philosophical writings the intertextual engagement with Vergil (and the Augustan poets more generally) is both explicit and accompanied by analysis more or less detailed. Literary politics in the philosopher Seneca is best understood upon identifying a special type of dialogue between Seneca and Vergil, which is set inside a principally ethical framework but operates broadly and beyond Stoic doctrine:  this dialogue is marked by irony—​Seneca’s echoes of Vergil often are ironic or even dissonant in comparison. This ironic contrast of the Senecan text vs. Vergil’s text has been noted in Seneca’s tragedy.7 More recently, in a study by Andrew Zissos (on Seneca’s Troades) and in the PhD Dissertation by Timothy Hanford, it has been shown that Seneca’s ironic reading of Vergil is systematic and sustained. For Zissos, Seneca uses Vergil as a counter-​text or foil.8 It is my contention that ironic contrast also influences, and on occasion determines, the dialogue with Vergil in Seneca’s prose works, and I will set out to prove this by looking closely at a selection of textual incorporations from the Aeneid in Seneca’s Epistles. Even as Seneca’s moral treatises advance their own, philosophically-​determined thematics, and as a result the Vergilian excerpt is adjusted to new referents, Seneca revisits the spirit of the original, because this recollection is intended to forge an ideological bridge between 5 Ter Haar Romeny 1887 is the earliest study that discusses Vergilian quotations in Seneca’s tragedies. Since Batinski’s dissertation (n. 1 above), a number of influential studies on the tragic Seneca receiving Vergil have explored in depth the multiformity of Vergilian reception in Seneca’s plays; these studies include Fantham 1975 (for Vergil’s Dido and Seneca’s Phaedra); Putnam 1995; Tarrant 1997; Schiesaro 2003, passim; Trinacty 2014; Hanford 2014. 6 Cf. e.g., Seneca the Elder, Suas. 3.7, speaking about Ovid quoting phrases from Vergil not with the intention to steal them, but to emulate them and at the same time ascertain that his readers could understand the emulation: non subripiendi causa, sed palam mutuandi, hoc animo ut vellet agnosci. 7 Putnam 1995, 278–​9; Schiesaro 2003, 223, observes a ‘continuous, even obsessive confrontation’ between Seneca and his models; several dissonances between the two authors have been identified in the individual commentaries on the plays but a systematic study of the phenomenon in Seneca’s tragic corpus is still a desideratum, though see recently Hanford 2014 (next note). 8 Zissos 2009, 191: ‘Though its plot does not follow the pattern of the Aeneid, … the Troades’ program of allusion establishes the epic as a persistent, often ironic counterpoise to its own dramatic action’; and on p. 194 ‘Seneca’s persistent recourse to Vergilian allusion makes available a strategy of ‘ghost reading’ that signals notions of historical progress: the circularity of tragic iteration is implicitly set against the linearity of teleological epic, as articulated in the Aeneid’. Hanford 2014 is the first systematic study on ironic contrast between Vergil and Seneca, limiting his scope on Seneca’s tragedy (specifically Agamemnon, Medea and Troades).

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 109 (Augustan) past and (post-​ Augustan) future.9 The Vergilian moments selected to help forge this bridge ultimately are ignored, misinterpreted or being juxtaposed, or they generate humor in a context that calls for the opposite. According to Wilcox,10 irony in moral philosophy is particularly suited to Stoicism, which typically dealt in paradoxes as a mode of communicating ideas. Wilcox refers to the theory of two types of literary irony advanced by Muecke, verbal and situational irony. Verbal irony implies an ironist who intentionally creates the irony, while situational irony is ‘a condition of affairs’ that is understood by a third party to be ironic. In the case of verbal ironies, the focus of interpretation is set on the ironist’s techniques; situational ironies are explored through analysis of the observer’s ironic sense and attitudes.11 The irony works precisely through the pretense that something that reason could not invent has been invented. Embracing irony is a clever way to avoid being specific and expressing commitment, and thus dissociate oneself from an uncomfortable situation. In this respect, irony has a strong moral dimension. When irony works from a moral perspective, which in my view is Seneca’s case in many respects, it sets out to compromise intellectually two seemingly incongruent things: to define and defend our living in the context of a cultural frame, political situation and set of ideals, which nonetheless we have come to doubt and question under certain circumstances. This case for irony has recently been made by Jonathan Lear and elaborated upon by a group of prominent contemporary philosophers and psychotherapists (Lear 2011). Irony in this sense is politically motivated, and for Lear the catalyst was the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Irony, Lear argues, is the most effective means to shake one out of their comfort zone, show one what to strive for, and force them to reach this goal. Seneca’s situation is more complex and this complexity is dictated by contemporary politics, the imperialistic and increasingly authoritarian regime of Nero, and Seneca’s pivotal position therein as Nero’s tutor and advisor, which nonetheless compromises his philosophical worldview. Seneca gradually comes to realize how difficult it becomes to reconcile his public role at the side of the emperor with his professed ideals and moral beliefs as a Stoic vir. In irony he discovers the tool that would allow him to express his true convictions without being detected by the uninitiated. In the course of Seneca’s career, irony and evasiveness will become interdependent.12 This embrace of irony as 9 Ker 2015. 10 Wilcox 2008, 464–​75. 11 For an excellent introduction to the various forms of irony, see Muecke 1970; also 1969. 12 On Seneca’s elusiveness of opinion as expression of opportunism, rather than political dissidence of the Neronian regime, see Rudich 1993, passim; 1997, 17–​106; Rudich employs the term dissimulatio for Seneca’s adroit concealment of true beliefs and feelings; even though he believes that Seneca is deeply distressed for his stance and he lived in a permanent state of despair and fear for his life; Rudich is more sympathetic towards Tacitus; for the use of irony to construct political polyphony in order to condemn imperial autocracy, see Dressler 2013.

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110  Sophia Papaioannou a solution to avoid taking sides, accept firmly or outright deny, is not new with Seneca; it is part of the essence of the elegiac recusatio, and more akin to the philosophical viewpoint, is at the core of Horace’s employment of irony in his open closures, observed in the Epodes, especially Epode 2, the Satires (markedly present in both 1.1 and 1.4, two expressly programmatic poems), and in the Odes (e.g., the ironically incomplete endings of 2.1 and 3.3).13 Intertextuality is a particularly effective way to employ irony, and in order to understand how this works one may turn to the work of another much-​ cited contemporary theorist of irony, Wayne Booth. Booth has advanced a different distinction, between ‘stable’ and ‘unstable’ irony. For Booth, both these types of irony involve a ‘mask’, in which the author raises a mental challenge by putting forward an affirmation that clearly must be rejected, or at least treated with skepticism. However, with unstable irony, a type of irony so ambiguous as to be open to virtually limitless interpretations, and where the reader has a difficult time determining whether the author is expressing his real views, no reconstruction of the author’s position is possible, because the ‘universe of discourse’ of the author is one that is ‘inherently absurd’ and this implies that ‘all statements are subject to ironic undermining’.14 With the exception of satire,15 the irony identified in literary texts, by contrast, including Seneca’s treatment of Vergil’s quotes, involves cases of stable irony. Stable irony is irony in which the author has or takes a position, and where the irony may function in such a way that the reader who ‘gets it’ at least is offered the possibility of making that position his or her own.16 Stable irony is, then, irony that is endowed with a moral purposiveness. When coming to ways to identify irony in a literary text, one of the most conventional expressions of the trope is the integration of popular expressions incorrectly or carelessly.17 This applies in general to the case of Seneca’s quoting Vergil. As it will be discussed in the following pages through detailed analysis of selected cases, incorrectness may appear in various forms. In the literal sense, Seneca manipulates the text, when he corrects the orthography on a Vergilian passage. The discrepancy with the manuscript tradition calls for closer attention to the causes of this intervention (case 1 below). Alternatively, Seneca combines excerpts from different parts of the Aeneid and produces a new ‘Vergilian’ 13 On moral and political irony at the closure of Horace’s poems, especially those of programmatic significance, see Fowler; on appreciating the elegiac recusatio as a literary expression of the moral and political irony binary, see Papanghelis 1987; on political irony in Horace, see Fowler 1993. 14 Booth 1974, 240–​1. 15 Griffin 1994, 67 considers most of the irony used in literary satire to be unstable: ‘[T]‌hough we assume an author in control of the irony, we cannot reconstruct that author’s precise meaning with any confidence. In some cases we have reason to think that even satirists cannot contain the irony they have let loose’. 16 ‘Reading irony is in some ways like translating, like decoding, like deciphering, and like peering behind a mask’ (Booth 1974, 33). 17 See details on how to identify stable irony in Booth 1974, ch. 3.

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 111 text (case 2). Most cases of incorrectness, including the two just mentioned, seem to concern semiotics:  they involve Vergilian passages of varying size (the length of the quotations varies from one-​half line to five lines), which are quoted, verbatim or slightly altered but promptly identified, allegedly in order to illustrate or endorse a statement or an idea discussed in the surrounding text. The reader, however, realizes that the quotation either is not relevant to, or contradicts, the ideas it purports to endorse (cases 3, 4 and 5), and on several occasions is the means to a deeper intertextual relationship with a non-​Vergilian text or texts (cases 1 and 5). A final case of ironic incorrectness comprises the instances of quasi-​quotation, that is, allusions to specific phrases from Vergil, which have undergone more extensive adaptation but, because they are so famous, they readily come to mind. These well-​known Vergilian echoes prompt Seneca’s audience to undertake a more wholistic reading of the Vergilian original, beyond the text surrounding the phrase echoed in Seneca and onto an entire section or episode. This more complex reading elicits arguments and leads to conclusions, which sharply juxtapose the context in Seneca’s narrative (case 6)—​hence the irony. From the analysis of the diverse expressions of irony in these representative instances, chosen for reasons of convenience, I hope to illustrate Seneca’s studied employment of the trope, thus proving the inspiring force of Vergil’s poetry across genres and traditions.

Case 1 In Ep. 104 Seneca quotes Vergil three times. I would like to focus on the third of these quotations, Aen. 1.458, which is part of Ep. 104.31.18 The larger context runs as follows (Ep. 104.30–32): 30 Nemo mutatum Catonem totiens mutata re publica vidit; eundem se in omni statu praestitit, in praetura, in repulsa, in accusatione, in provincia, in contione, in exercitu, in morte. Denique in illa rei publicae trepidatione, cum illinc Caesar esset decem legionibus pugnacissimis subnixus, totis exterarum gentium praesidiis, hinc Cn. Pompeius, satis unus adversus omnia, cum alii ad Caesarem inclinarent, alii ad Pompeium, solus Cato fecit aliquas et rei publicae partes. 31 Si animo conplecti volueris illius imaginem temporis, videbis illinc plebem et omnem erectum ad res novas vulgum, hinc optumates et equestrem ordinem, quidquid erat in civitate sancti et electi, duos in medio relictos, rempublicam et Catonem. Miraberis, inquam, cum animadverteris Atriden Priamumque et saevom ambobus Achillen; Utrumque enim inprobat, utrumque exarmat. 32 Hanc fert de utroque sententiam: ait se, si Caesar vicerit, moriturum, si Pompeius, exulaturum. Quid habebat quod timeret qui ipse sibi et victo et victori constituerat 18 Most recent discussion of the intertextuality is Berno 2011, 233–​53.

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112  Sophia Papaioannou quae constituta esse ab hostibus iratissimis poterant? Perit itaque ex decreto suo. 30. No one ever saw Cato change, no matter how often the state changed: he kept himself the same in all circumstances—​in the praetorship, in defeat, under accusation, in his province, on the platform, in the army, in death. Furthermore, when the republic was in a crisis of terror, when Caesar was on one side with ten legions keen for a fight at his call, aided by so many foreign nations, and when Pompey was on the other, satisfied to stand alone against all comers, and when the citizens were leaning towards either Caesar or Pompey, Cato alone established a definite party for the Republic. 31. If you would obtain a mental picture of that period, you may imagine on one side the people and the whole populace eager for revolution—​on the other the senators and knights, the chosen and honored men of the commonwealth; and there were left between them but these two—​the Republic and Cato. I tell you, you will marvel when you see Atreus’ son, and Priam, and Achilles, angered with both. Like Achilles, he scorns and disarms each faction. 32. And this is the vote which he casts concerning them both: ‘If Caesar wins, I slay myself; if Pompey, I go into exile’. What was there for a man to fear who, whether in defeat or in victory, had assigned to himself a doom which might have been assigned to him by his enemies in their utmost rage? So he died by his own decision.19 Seneca’s rendering of Aen. 1.458 favors the variant Atriden over the variant adopted unanimously by the manuscripts and all the modern editions of the epic, Atridas, evidently manipulating tradition, in order to illustrate better the analogy he crafts in the case at hand. Commentators have surprisingly little to say on the subject. The Vergilian text, readily recognizable, comes from the opening section to the first ekphrasis of the Aeneid, the murals in the temple of Juno at Carthage. As Francesca Romana Berno has observed, Seneca’s text of Ep. 104 engages more broadly with the concept of visualization stressed in the trope of ekphrasis, for it features recurring terminology of vision (accipite Socraten, Ep. 104.27; accipe Marcum Catonem, 104.29; vide… vides… vides, 104.33), which means to echo Vergil’s descriptive narrative in the relevant passage (lustro, Aen. 1.453; miror, video, 1.456).20 Hence, the discrepancy with the unanimous (and uncontested) tradition is impossible to miss. Seneca, thus, succeeds to stress the element 19 The translation of Seneca’s Epistles throughout is that of Gummere with minor changes (Gummere 1917, for letters 1–​65; Gummere 1920, for letters 66–​92; Gummere 1925, for letters 93–​124); other translations of Seneca’s prose texts are my own unless otherwise noted. The translations from the Aeneid and the Georgics follow Fairclough 1999 and 2000, with adaptations. 20 Berno 2011, 243.

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 113 of polarization along with the significance of the middle ground held by Vergil’s Achilles. In Seneca’s argument, ‘Achilles’ is paralleled to Cato, whereas ‘Priam’ is the analogue to Pompey and ‘Atriden’ in the singular (meaning Agamemnon) to Caesar. Along the same lines, the potential exile of Cato (if Pompey had been victorious) corresponds to Achilles’ withdrawal from the combat, while both Cato and Achilles chose their own deaths. The association of Caesar to Agamemnon is enforced by the theme of anger. Still, the death of Cato by committing suicide (which did happen eventually) does not exactly correspond to Achilles’ situation. Also, why should Pompey correspond to Priam and Caesar to Agamemnon? Simply because the death of the Trojan king in Aeneid 2 mirror’s Pompey’s death (on the parallel see more below), while Agamemnon died at the hands of his wife and cousin, like Caesar, who died by his own people? Not least, Achilles’ personal anger at Priam is not justified by the Iliad. Further, in the Vergilian text the placement of Agamemnon and Priam side by side and on the same line with the angry Achilles sum up the entire Iliad: the anger of Achilles is the main theme of the Iliad. This anger breaks out in Iliad 1 and because of Agamemnon who demands by force Achilles’ prize; and dissolves in Iliad 24, when Priam visits Achilles in his place of withdrawal—​following their encounter Achilles has reconciled with Patroclus’ death and has given away his anger. In Seneca’s text the variant ‘Atriden’ for Agamemnon is a lectio difficilior, but is at odds with Vergil’s text because the poet of the Aeneid employs the word in the singular only once, in Aen. 11.262, where it is associated with Menelaus (Atrides Protei Menelaus ad usque columnas |​exulat…).21 In light of the above, Seneca’s emendation of the Vergilian text, as well as his reading of the Homeric epic are studied, determined by context. And the main idea of the particular context is not anger but the median place of the Republican Cato, between the two extremes of Pompey and Caesar, who are perceived as equal threats to the traditional constitution. Cato’s median position is captured, possibly even visually, by the middle place of Achilles on the ekphrasis, an emblematic depiction in its representation of the middle ground. At the same time, Seneca’s emphasis on the proverbial immutability of Cato (Nemo mutatum Catonem totiens mutata re publica vidit; eundem se in omni statu praestitit. ‘No one ever saw Cato change, no matter how often the state changed: he kept himself the same in all circumstances’) distances him from Achilles, who eventually in Iliad 24, and following his meeting with Priam, sets aside his anger, and brings him closer to another hero of the Trojan Cycle, the great Ajax. Ajax’s fate and philosophy behind his death are strikingly similar to Cato’s own: both die by their own hand because they refuse to conform to a changing world around them. Cato’s projection against Achilles 21 On the basis of the Senecan passage, Kraggerud 2017 ad Aen. 1.458, has suggested correcting the standard edition of the Vergilian text.

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114  Sophia Papaioannou in the Senecan passage at hand evokes Ajax’s claim to be granted rightfully the weapons of Achilles, being the mightiest Greek warrior standing after Achilles’ death and Achilles’ nearest kin. Notably, Cato and Ajax are drawn together in Cicero, Off. 1.113, one of the leading intertexts behind Seneca’s De beneficiis, because both Cato and Ajax preferred death to enduring the indignities suffered by their enemies (Odysseus for Ajax, the other Roman leaders defeated by Julius Caesar for Cato).22 This proximity of Cato to Ajax ironically undermines the comparison to Achilles, which the Vergilian quotation was intended to endorse in the first place. The recollection of the first Vergilian ekphrasis triggers more associations. Seneca’s identification of Pompey to Priam draws on Vergil’s mourning the tragic death of the Trojan king in light of the death of Pompey: both leaders end up as decapitated (anonymous, deprived of historical memory and continuity) bodies on the beach (Aen. 2.554, 558; esp. 557–​8, iacet ingens litore truncus; |​avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus ‘his great trunk lies on the shore, head torn from shoulders and a nameless corpse’).23 The almost unavoidable recollection of the Vergilian subtext overshadows a couple of additional allusions, expected to be identified by those who have studied Seneca’s larger corpus:  Priam in the Troades 162–​3 is reportedly lucky not because he was allotted by fate to depart from life and from his kingdom at the same time, but because in his death he takes his kingdom with him: felix quisquis bello moriens |​omnia secum consumpta tullit, ‘blessed is anyone who, dying in war, has taken with him his destroyed world in its entirety’). Similarly, Cato in Prov. [1]‌.2.9 is observed by Jupiter to stand defiant in the ruins of the Republic with which he suggestively identifies (Ecce spectaculum dignum ad quod respiciat intentus opere suo deus, ecce par deo dignum, vir fortis fortuna mala compositus, utique si provocavit, ‘Look, a spectacle worthy for a god intent on his work to look at; look, a pair worthy of a god, a brave man against ill fortune, especially if he has challenged her’).24 More conspicuously, in Seneca’s Agamemnon, the king is decapitated when Clytemnestra in Ag. 897–​901 first strikes him with her axe, just like a priest about to slaughter the sacrificial victim. Seneca’s description is graphic and macabre—​in 901–​3

22 Recent criticism has established that De beneficiis has obvious affinities with De officiis, since among other things both works instruct the members of the Roman governing class on proper social morality, and both constitute ‘literary responses to political and social change’; see Griffin 2013a, 7–​14 and 46–​53; the quote is from p. 10; on the association between Cicero’s portrayal of Cato and Ajax in De Officiis, see Gill 2008, 41. 23 The depiction of the decapitated trunk of Priam in Aeneid 2 as an allusion to the trunk of Pompey was noted already by Servius at Aen. 2.557: Pompei tangit historiam. On the topic, see esp. Bowie 1990, 470–​81; Hinds 1998, 8–​10. 24 Littlewood 2004, 249–​55, discusses the ironic element produced by the comparison of the aged Cato going down with the Republic to a young man killing a lion (Prov. [1]‌.2.7–​10), and the amplification of the comic (lit. ludic) element through its theatricalization in the combination of the gladiatorial picture in the De providentia and the portrayal of Priam in the Troades.

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 115 Agamemnon’s severed head hangs only by a thin piece of skin—​and as such, memorable to the readers of Seneca’s Epistles25 armat bipenni Tyndaris dextram furens, qualisque ad aras colla taurorum popa designat oculis antequam ferro petat, sic huc et illuc impiam librat manum. habet! peractum est! pendet exigua male caput amputatum parte et hinc trunco cruor exundat, illic ora cum fremitu iacent. (Ag. 897–​903)

Now Tyndaris in mad rage snatches the two-​edged axe and, as at the altar the priest marks with his eye the oxen’s necks before he strikes, so, now here, now there, her impious hand she aims. He has it! The deed is done! The scarce severed head hangs by a slender part; here blood streams over his headless trunk, there lie his moaning lips. (Transl. Miller 1917) The recollection of the decapitated Agamemnon, then, draws also the king of Mycenae next to the Vergilian Priam, and the likeness of Agamemnon’s decapitation to the slaughter of bulls on the altar solidifies the association to the intertext of the Aeneid, for Priam is slaughtered by Neoptolemus on the altar of Hercean Jupiter, and as such, his murder is explicitly compared to a sacrifice (Aen. 2.550–​3):26         hoc dicens altaria ad ipsa trementem traxit et in multo lapsantem sanguine nati, implicuitque comam laeva, dextraque coruscum extulit ac lateri capulo tenus abdidit ensem. So saying, to the very altar stones he drew him, trembling and slipping in his son’s streaming blood, and wound his left hand in his hair, while with the right he raised high the flashing sword and buried it to the hilt in his side. Seneca’s tragic intertext, then, throws Pompey in the light of Cato in Seneca’s epistle; by the recollection of Troades 162–​3 and the tragic portrayal 25 The Agamemnon was published in 55 CE. The Moral Letters to Lucilius and the Natural Questions are the product of the last years of Seneca’s life, the brief period (62–​5 CE) that Seneca spent in retirement (on the dating of Seneca’s writings, see the introductions in Cooper/​Procopé 1995 and Griffin 1976 [repr. 1992]). 26 Agamemnon explicitly identifies with Priam when he dons Priam’s royal attire at Ag. 881–​3; on the deliberate likeness of the two royal deaths and Seneca’s evocation of Vergil’s account of Priam’s death as his model, see Schiesaro 2014, 184; and the detailed discussion in Frangoulidis 2016, 395–​409.

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116  Sophia Papaioannou of Priam therein, Cato’s symbolism is duplicated and Achilles is ironically drawn next to his enemy, Priam. Finally, the evocation of the tragic description in Seneca’s Agamemnon, of Agamemnon’s decapitation and the association to a sacrifice which replicates the death of Vergil’s Priam, Agamemnon and Priam, the two ends in Vergil’s text, sustaining and defining the middle position of Achilles, are drawn next to, or rather identify with, one another, in yet another ironic expression of duplicated symbolism.

Case 2 In Ep. 82 one may detect another conspicuous ironic treatment of Vergilian excerpts. In this letter Seneca quotes Vergil’s Aeneid three times, and all three quotations are taken from book 6. The topic of Ep. 82 is the fear of death and how philosophy should approach it in order to battle it.27 Seneca first rejects the strategies of Greek philosophers to combat the fear of death by logical arguments, by calling these strategies ineptias Graecas (‘Greek foolishness’, Ep. 82.8), and then confesses that even though correct in principle, for the case at hand these strategies are ineffective, because rationalizing death is very difficult, not least because of the bad reputation death has acquired in famous literary texts, including the Aeneid which Seneca hastens to quote (Ep. 82.16): Descriptus est carcer infernus et perpetua nocte oppressa regio, in qua                                 Ingens ianitor Orci ossa super recubans antro semesa cruento aeternum latrans exsangues terreat umbras. they have portrayed the prison in the world below and the land overwhelmed by everlasting night, where           Within his blood-​stained cave Hell’s warder huge           Does sprawl his ugly length on half-​crunched bones,           And terrifies the disembodied ghosts with never-​ceasing bark. The quotation is introduced with a statement that is irony-​ridden and reproving of Vergil’s description of the Underworld and, more generally, of the impact Vergil’s genius might have had thereupon: multorum ingeniis certatum est ad augendam eius infamiam (‘Many great minds have competed to increase its bad reputation’). Textually, the Vergilian description of the Underworld produced by Seneca is artificial: a cento of two unrelated Vergilian passages. This perhaps is one of the earliest and shortest attested Vergilian centos. The couplet from Vergil’s description of the Underworld (6.400–​1) is split, and in between Seneca inserts one-​half line from a second, brief description of 27 The topic of death is central in several epistles: leading perspectives include the rationalization and acceptance of death (Ep. 30, 70, 82), the reality of its perpetual proximity (Ep. 1, 12, 26, 101), and the acceptance or not of suicide (Ep. 22, 77); cf. Inwood 2005b, 302–​21; Edwards 2007 and 2014; Armisen-​Marchetti 2008; Ker 2009b; and Smith 2014, esp. 357–​9.

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 117 the Underworld offered in Aen. 8.296–​7, in the context of Evander’s hymn to Hercules.28 The verb that makes the seamless interfusion of the two passages possible is ‘terrere’ (sc. Aen. 8.298 … terruit): a verb meaning ‘terror’ brings together two different descriptions of terror into a new composition of mega-​ terror! The artificiality of this new, even more frightening picture of the world of the dead derides the graphic descriptions of death as a place of terror produced by all influential epic poets, including Vergil. The humorous irony thus underlining the horrors of epic death is enforced by the employment of two additional quotations from Vergil in the same epistle, set one prior and one after 82.16. At 82.7 Seneca exhorts his reader to overcome the fear of death by employing the Sibyl’s exhortation to Aeneas: nunc animis opus, Aeneas, nunc pectore firmo (‘now you need your courage, Aeneas, now your stout heart!’ Aen. 6.261). And a similar exhortation, again by the Sibyl to Aeneas, occurs in 82.18: Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audientior ito |​Qua tua te fortuna sinet ‘You-​do not give in to troubles but go forth more bravely where your fortune permits you’). The imitation of both Sibylline statements is ironic once the reader realizes that Aeneas was alive at the time he was preparing to enter the Underworld and, more importantly, he was destined to come back alive, and he knew so.

Case 3 Another multidimensional appropriation of Vergil in Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius is the employment of the famous bee simile in Aen. 1.430–​629 in Ep. 84: Qualis apes aestate nova per florea rura             exercet sub sole labor, cum gentis adultos educunt fetus, aut cum liquentia mella stipant et dulci distendunt nectare cellas, aut onera accipiunt venientum, aut agmine facto ignavom fucos pecus a praesepibus arcent:             fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella.

430

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Just as bees in early summer carry out their tasks among the flowery fields, in the sun, when they lead out the adolescent young of their race, or cram the cells with liquid honey, and swell them with sweet nectar, 28 The composition of this first Vergilian cento may have one other possible cause: The employment of the phrase ianitor Orci at Aen. 8.296, should call to mind Vergil’s referring to Cerberus as ianitor of the Underworld in Aen. 6.402. If Seneca is working from memory, he may have wished to have both passages starting with that key phrase recalled. On the inevitable recollection of Aen. 8.296 by the reader of Aen. 6.402, cf. Horsfall 2013 (v. 2), 306 ad loc. s.v. ingens ianitor. 29 This is a particularly influential passage, quoted, paraphrased or summarized by a long series of authors, from Macrobius to the early Renaissance; see Summers 1910, 284.

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118  Sophia Papaioannou or receive the incoming burdens, or forming lines drive the lazy herd of drones from their hives: the work glows, and the fragrant honey’s sweet with thyme. In this letter, Seneca compares poetic production with the work of the bees, stressing the process, which involves reading and digesting a variety of works prior to composing a new piece of high quality (the ‘honey’). The bee-​like imitator is thought to transform the source materials by a digestive process. In the course of this process several sources are mixed and the product of this mixing is more refined than each one of the sources, while the originals are thoroughly transformed and dissimulated in the process of reforming. The description of literary production becomes effective by means of evoking one of Vergil’s famous bee similes, a passage which reproduces nearly verbatim Georg. 4.162–​9, where the description of the labor of the bees is set in a broader context, and therein, it is compared to the work of the Cyclopes in a conspicuous articulation of the Callimachean small vs. large dichotomy.30 The philosophy of the literary digestion of many different sources for the production of one’s own unique identity in writing, has recently received an important ontological treatment in Graver 2014, an essay about literary composition as a means of giving shape to one’s identity (ingenium), as the latter is expressed in one’s thoughts and overall intellectual activity. Through this literary identity, an author’s self-​image lives beyond the biological confines of the body. In my reading, Seneca’s recollection of this important Vergilian passage furnishes an optimal springboard for elaborate discussions on both poetics and politics. In his recent study of Senecan tragedy, Trinacty correctly remarks that Seneca’s quoting the double Vergilian simile of the bees was determined partly by the fact that both bee similes are in the context of a metaphor.31 Vergil’s original admittedly does not associate the bee with the process of creative composition based on the eclectic combination of material from a variety of sources. In the text of the Aeneid, the bee simile captures expressly the orderly and feverish labor of the Carthaginians (Aen. 1.423), and the emphasis is on the systematic process of collecting the material to produce the honey.32 Yet, the employment of the laboring bee by Callimachus in combination with the theme of eclecticism that is connected with the bees already

30 Most recently Giusti 2014, 37–​41, noting (on p. 37 n. 3) Farrell 1991, 243–​5; Nelis 2001, 243–​ 4, Casali 2006, 197–​203 (on Aen. 8.449–​53); Mac Góráin 2009, 6–​7. 31 Trinacty 2014, 14f. 32 According to Jones, Vergil uses bees ‘as a paradigm, in a limited sense, of the perfect society—​a hardworking, patriotic, thrifty, disciplined community of the likeminded all working towards a single, noble end’ (2011, 137); similarly Leach agrees that the main theme of the simile is ‘the single minded dedication of a people to their task and the resultant sense of joyous order’ (2).

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 119 in Aristotle,33 and of the pure-​water element in the Hymn to Apollo 110–​2,34 to create an imagery with specific reference to poetry,35 offers a distinct model for imitation by the Roman devotees to Callimacheanism. In this context, the laboring bees are set at the foundation of a theory of literary emulation following Callimachus’ reception in Rome. In Latin poetry the eclecticism of the bees is further attested in their careful selection of flowers, while emphasis is placed on the output of this laborious process, the fragrant honey:  e.g., Lucr. DRN 3.10–​12 (Lucretius addresses Epicurus and compares himself to the bee that crops the knowledge from the works of the Greek sage): tuisque ex…chartis, |​floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant, |​omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta ‘From your pages, as bees in flowery glades sip every blossom, so do I crop all your golden sayings’. Horace echoes these lines in C. 4.2.27–​32, expanding Lucretius’ borrowing from just one authority to a poet’s borrowing from several authors, while refers to himself as ‘the little one’ (parvus), rendering the bee an embodiment of the Callimachean ideal of the small (μικρόν): ego apis Matinae |​more modoque |​grata carpentis thyma per laborem |​plurimum circa nemus uvidique |​Tiburis ripas operosa parvus |​carmina fingo:  ‘I, after the custom and manner of the Matinian bee, that gathers the pleasant thyme with repeated labor around the groves and banks of the well-​watered Tiber, I, the little one, compose my verses with extreme labor’. Seneca’s employment of Vergil’s bee metaphor, then, means to recall Callimachean poetics as canonized in Lucretius and Horace, where the analogy of author to bee evolves into the comparison of the composition of poetry to the sifting and blending stages of honey production:36 We also… ought to copy these bees, and sift [separare] whatever we have gathered from a varied course of reading…. Then, by applying the supervising care with which our nature has endowed us,—​in other words, our 33 Arist. Hist. an. 7.11, 596b: ἡ δὲ μέλιττα μόνον πρὸς οὐδὲν σαπρὸν προσίζει, οὐδὲ χρῆται τροφῇ οὐδεμίᾳ ἀλλ’ ἢ τῇ γλυκὺν ἐχούσῃ χυμόν· καὶ ὕδωρ δ’ ἥδιστα εἰς ἑαυτὰς λαμβάνουσιν ὅπου ἄν καθαρὸν ἀναπηδᾷ. ‘only the bee does not settle near anything rotten and does not eat any food except what has a sweet juice; they also take for themselves the most pleasant water wherever it springs up pure’. 34 Aristotle’s eclectic bees in the previous note are already connected to the pure water element. 35 In the Hymn to Apollo 110–​2 the bees are depicted to bring water to Demeter ‘not from every source but where it bubbles up pure and undefiled from a holy spring, its very essence’. F.  Williams (1978 ad loc.) points out that the bee is often used figuratively to refer to the poet (listing among others, Pind. Pyth. 10.53–​4; Plat. Ion 543a; and Aristoph. Birds 748f.); see details in F. Williams 1978, 85–​99. Especially on the Pindaric text at Pyth. 10.53–​4, the earliest attestation of the bee as symbol for the inspired poet, see Beer 2006, further noting the Pindaric precedent also in the pure and ambrosian-​sweet water symbolism for superior praise poetry (Isth. 6.74; Isth. 7.20–​1; Pyth. 4.289); also Poliakoff 1980, 42. 36 Graver 2014, 287 notes that Seneca is aware of these earlier treatments of the bee simile: the employment of the phrase ut aiunt (‘as they say’) makes the passage in question ‘a cleverly self-​referential gesture, enacting its own recommendation’.

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120  Sophia Papaioannou natural gifts,—​we should so blend those several flavors into one delicious compound that, even though it betrays its origin, it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from whence it came. Seneca’s initiative is ground-​breaking because the rules forged for the writing of neoteric and meta-​neoteric Latin poetry are embraced for the composition of a genre little suited to Hellenistic aesthetics, philosophical prose. The Callimachean essence of Seneca’s prose proves especially pronounced when the reader of the epistle comes to realize that although the Aeneid passage is the primary source of inspiration for Seneca’s bees, Vergil’s own source of inspiration in Aen. 1.430–​6, the Ur-​passage from the fourth Georgic, may still be active in the metaphor of the bees. Ten lines further down the Georgics description of the laboring bees, Vergil reports in detail on the various routines of the bees noting, at Georg. 4.180–​4, that the bees tend to visit a considerable variety of trees/​bushes/​flowers:  arbusta, salices, casium, crocum, tiliam, hyacinthus. Although the Aeneid passage focuses mainly on labor, the Georgics passage combines labor with selectivity and variety secured by the tasting from many different sources (Georg. 4.180–4): At fessae multa referunt se nocte minores,             crura thymo plenae; pascuntur et arbuta passim et glaucas salices casiamque crocumque rubentem et pinguem tiliam et ferrugineos hyacinthos. Omnibus una quies operum, labor omnibus unus:

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But the young return home in weariness, late at night, their thighs loaded with thyme; far and wide they feed on arbutus, on pale-​green willows, on cassia and ruddy crocus, on the rich linden, and the dusky hyacinth. All have one season to rest from labor, all one season to toil. Still, those rules of neoteric poetics have little to do with the bee simile as articulated in the Aeneid quotation, where the emphasis is solely on labor. In this respect, the appeal to Vergil seems a red herring! Several other details, however, in the text of the Vergilian bee metaphor suggest that Seneca engages in discourse with a different set of themes that are tied to the employment of the bee imagery as a political symbolism, as this is clearly manifested from the other uses of the bee simile in the Aeneid.37 37 Additional bee similes in the Aeneid include Book 7.64–​7, describing the swarm of bees which settles on the laurel tree in the palace of Latinus and anticipates the future domination of the Trojans, and in Aen. 12.587–​92, on the Latins soon to be ‘smoked out’ from their walls like bees from their hive. Their careful arrangement suggests that Vergil considered them significant (Leach 1977, 3): in all three occasions the bees carry martial symbolism. Giusti 2014 correctly notes that bees in the Aeneid are to be read ‘as a symbol of both an enlightened and perfectly organized state and of the military forces that lie at the basis of such perfection’ (p. 47).

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 121 The springtime setting of the activity of the bees alludes, for Aeneas who recalls it, to rebirth and regeneration:  of the brand-​new city of Carthage which rises under Aeneas’ eyes, and hopefully of Troy, as promised to Aeneas.38 Since Plato, political philosophers have used bee colonies as a template for human society—​indeed the ideal expression of the collective body politic whose anonymous individual members work together for the benefit of the community.39 The laboring-​bees metaphor in the Aeneid is the expression of Aeneas’ admiration (miratur; Aen. 1.421, 422)  more broadly, for the grand city rising before his eyes as a result of the disciplined toil of an entire community of workers; the description he provides of Carthage puts together—​appropriately for the founder of Rome—​a Roman city.40 Vergil’s bee metaphor has inspired Seneca’s allegorical justification of imperial rule in Clem. 1.19.1–​6, presented as a lesson to the young Nero (the treatise was written the year after Nero came to power), and instructing him to behave like the ‘king bee’, the benevolent leader who rules by authority even though he has no sting, i.e., weapon to exercise punishment. And yet, benevolence is only one side of ‘king bee’ conduct; a different reader may detect ominous military references in the military imagery of the laboring bees, for agmine facto at 1.434 takes up Aen. 1.82, a line referring to Aeolus’ catastrophic winds, ac venti velut agmine facto.41 A  decade later, shortly before the end of his life and while removed from politics and alienated from Nero, Seneca reaches back to Vergil’s bee simile and, in Epistle 84, makes it applicable to the rules of philosophical writing. Philosophical composition is like the honey—​ the product of eclectic cropping and thorough digestion similar to that of the honeybees. The echoes of Callimachean poetics has replaced the political origins of the bee metaphor, but the employment of the same Vergilian bees on both occasions generates irony as the reading of Seneca’s dissertation on the poetics of philosophical composition seeks credibility at the same time the philosopher’s earlier political diatribe on the good king in the De clementia has by then proven a failure.

Case 4 Seneca’s earliest quotation of the Aeneid in the corpus of his Moral Epistles42 is a line taken from Dido’s lament, Aen. 4.653, vixi et quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi (‘I lived and journeyed the course given to me by fate’), and is

38 Aeneas sees ‘an activity that he himself should be initiating… in the interest of his people’; thus Polleichtner 2009, 150; also Nelis 1992, 16; Leach 1977, 4. 39 See ‘Bees’ in Thomas and Ziolkowski 2013, 176–​7. 40 Giusti 2014, 44–​5. 41 On the ominous and threatening connotations of the bee simile, see Giusti 2014 throughout. 42 It is generally agreed that the letters are arranged in the order in which they were written; see Setaioli 2014a, 193.

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122  Sophia Papaioannou attested in Ep. 12.9.43 The theme of Ep. 12, the end of one’s life and how not to be afraid of it, but rather, to be always ready for it (the idea of the letter is summarized in the opening phrase of 12.8, ‘Hence, every day ought to be regulated as if it closed the series, as if it rounded out and completed our existence’), toys with the closural place of the letter in the collection. The selection of a passage from a famous heroine’s famous last words set also at the close of a book underscores the closure theme further. And yet, the employment of Dido’s suicide as a paradigm of a Stoic death is ironic, for Dido’s death is premature. She chooses to die before her allotted time, and she attributes her (own voluntary) decision to fate. The broader context of the Vergilian quotation, noted below, amplifies the irony (Ep. 12.8–9): [8]‌Itaque sic ordinandus est dies omnis tamquam cogat agmen et consummet atque expleat vitam. Pacuvius, qui Syriam usu suam fecit, cum vino et illis funebribus epulis sibi parentaverat, sic in cubiculum ferebatur a cena ut inter plausus exoletorum hoc ad symphoniam caneretur: ‘Βεβίωται! Βεβίωται’. [9] Nullo non se die extulit. Hoc quod ille ex mala conscientia faciebat nos ex bona faciamus, et in somnum ituri laeti hilaresque dicamus, vixi et quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi. Crastinum si adiecerit deus, laeti recipiamus. Ille beatissimus est et securus sui possessor qui crastinum sine sollicitudine exspectat; quisquis dixit ‘vixi’ cotidie ad lucrum surgit. 8. And so, every day ought to be regulated as if it closed the series, as if it rounded out and completed our existence. Pacuvius, who by long occupancy made Syria his own, used to hold a regular burial sacrifice in his own honor, with wine and the usual funeral feasting, and then would have himself carried from the dining-​room to his chamber, while eunuchs applauded and sang in Greek to a musical accompaniment: ‘He has lived his life, he has lived his life!’ 9. Thus Pacuvius had himself carried out to burial every day. Let us, however, do from a good motive what he used to do from a debased motive; let us go to our sleep with joy and gladness; let us say: I have lived; the course which Fortune set for me |​is finished. And if God is pleased to add another day, we should welcome it with glad hearts. That man is happiest, and is secure in his own possession of himself, who can await the morrow without apprehension. When a man has said: ‘I have lived!’, every morning he arises he receives a bonus.

43 Aen. 4.653 is a favorite of Seneca’s, for he quotes it three times in three different works (Vit. beat. [7]‌.19.1; Ben. 5.17.5; Ep. 12.9); on all three occasions it serves the same function: Dido’s suicide is part of Seneca’s Stoic argument on the acceptance of death; see Doppioni 1939, 133–​7 and 154–​5; Setaioli 1965, 149–​50; Batinski 1983, 149–​51; and more recently Berno 2014.

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 123 Dido has realized that her life as she has constructed it in the aftermath of her becoming Aeneas’ consort resulted to her falling irretrievably from her dux femina status—​by sharing her power, she loses it. Her new identity is entwined with Aeneas. Aeneas’ departure equals her death which, in an unfailingly Stoic reading of the case at hand, becomes part of Fate’s design. The irony underlying the way in which Seneca employs the situation of Dido, a woman desperately in love who commits suicide in a state of madness, as an example of serene acceptance of life and death, has been nicely discussed in Berno 2014.44 In Berno’s reading, Seneca considers Dido’s decision to become a Stoic and interpret her initiative to take her own life as the will of Fate; as if directed by Fate with tactful irony. The heroine’s death, then, at once voluntary and dictated by the circumstances, is hardly natural—​it is contrary to the argument built by Seneca in the rest of the epistle, which stresses one’s preparation for natural death at any given moment. Berno notes in particular how irony is amplified when considering that Dido’s suicide, which allegedly was determined by fate, follows immediately after Seneca’s commenting on the parodying attitude towards death of a certain Pacuvius in Ep. 12.45 Like Dido, Pacuvius’ conduct is set up as a negative foil for the Stoic student—​of what is not the Stoic approach of one’s death: with his daily rehearsal of his own funeral rites, Pacuvius fails to understand Stoic doctrine, even though he claims to follow it:  he is shown to be a fool still obsessed with life (the detail of the mourning eunuch and the oriental setting appropriately adds a dose of comic exaggeration to the tragedy of death, and a very private moment becomes a public performance).46

Case 5 In Ep. 53, Seneca opens his speech by recalling an adventurous sea trip he once took. Soon after leaving the shore at Puteoli for nearby Naples, the weather changes:  ‘the ground-​swell was on, and the waves kept steadily coming faster’ and Seneca becomes sea-​sick (Ep. 53.1). Anxious, he demands the boat be driven to shore despite the helmsman’s protest (Ep. 53.2). And without waiting for the ship to land, he plunges into the water and swims to the shore (Ep. 53.3): 44 Especially Berno 2014, 131–​4. In embracing Berno’s reading and interpreting as ironic the particular instance of Vergilian intertextuality in Seneca, I disagree with Mann (2006, 103–​ 22), who argues that Seneca seriously advances Dido’s Stoic point of view and endorses the heroine’s decision to attribute her suicide to fate by interpreting the course of the events as fated. 45 Berno 2014, 131–​4. 46 Berno 2014, 132–​3, keenly observes the similarities between Pacuvius’ obsession with his death and Petronius’ Trimalchio who likewise combines the spectacular and the macabre, and this association enhances the ironic character of the situation, including the interpretation of the Vergilian text in this context.

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124  Sophia Papaioannou [3]‌Peius autem vexabar quam ut mihi periculum succurreret; nausia enim me segnis haec et sine exitu torquebat, quae bilem movet nec effundit. Institi itaque gubernatori et illum, vellet nollet, coegi, peteret litus. Cuius ut viciniam attigimus, non exspecto ut quicquam ex praeceptis Vergilii fiat, obvertunt pelago proras. (Aen. 6.3) aut ancora de prora iacitur: (Aen. 3.277) memor artificii mei vetus frigidae cultor mitto me in mare, quomodo psychrolutam decet, gausapatus. But I was suffering too grievously to think of the danger, since a sluggish seasickness which brought no relief was racking me, the sort that upsets one’s stomach but does not empty it clean. Therefore I  laid down the law to my pilot, forcing him to make for the shore, willy-​nilly. When we drew near, I did not wait for things to be done in accordance with Vergil’s orders, until Prow faced seawards or Anchor plunged from bow I remembered my profession as a veteran devotee of cold water, and, clad as I was in my cloak, let myself down into the sea, just as a cold-​water bather should. Ep. 53 is part of a group of letters (49–​57) whose primary theme is not Lucilius and his work but Seneca himself, who in advanced age has returned to Campania and is confronted with the prospect of his nearing death. In several of these letters Seneca exhibits irony:47 he undertakes short journeys in and about nearby locations (Baiae, Cuma, Naples), only in order to deride traveling as therapeutic and educational. Also, in the same letters Seneca often refers to himself as a fool (fatuus, a term first attested in Ep. 50.2, applying indirectly to Seneca), and this foolishness is illustrated in a variety of ways in the letters that follow.48 Seneca uses personal experience in Ep. 53 as a parable, in a philosophical discussion on the repercussion of underestimating the symptoms of physical suffering and moral illness. Irony runs through the entire letter, including the usage of Vergil’s quotations. In 53.3, Seneca quotes the Aeneid twice as he describes his foolish disembarkation before the boat reaches the shore. The quotation of part of line 3, obvertunt pelago proras, from the opening section of Aeneid 6, associates Seneca’s journey and effort to approach the shore to 47 See Motto and Clark 1970, 102–​5. 48 On the thematic coherence of Ep. 49–​57, see Motto and Clark 1971, 217–​20; and more recently Berno 2004, 7–​24, discussing the appropriation of a Vergilian quotation from Aeneas’ flight from Troy (Aen. 2.726–​9) in Seneca Ep. 56; in this quotation Aeneas is transformed from a wise man into a foolish one (imperitus) mirroring Seneca’s state as recorded in all the Campanian epistles.

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 125 the arrival of the Trojans in Italy and their landing at the same location (bay of Naples-​Cuma). Yet, contrary to the Trojans who land their ships with tact and grace, Seneca acts foolishly. The former reach the end of a long journey after undergoing many adventures and storms at sea; Seneca fails to complete a short journey by boat along the coast. The ironic overtones are amplified at the realization that Seneca’s leap into the water presupposes more complex and less obvious intertextuality: it evokes the plight of Palinurus, the vigilant Trojan helmsman who plunged headlong into the limpid waters (or, alternatively, was pushed to his death by Sleep) at the very end of Aeneid 5 (and only a few lines before the quotation from Aen. 6.3), and whose loss nearly wrecked Aeneas’ ship had Aeneas himself not realized Palinurus’ absence from the keel and hastened to take his place.49 Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with Vergil on Palinurus continues beyond the close of Aeneid 5:  a little later in the same epistle, Seneca’s description of how he managed to pull himself successfully onto the shore, by ‘scrambling over the rocks, searching out the path, or making one for myself’ (Ep. 52.4:  Quae putas me passum dum per aspera erepo, dum viam quaero, dum facio?), recalls Palinurus’ fate later in the epic, in the episode of the encounter of his ghost with Aeneas in the Underworld, in Aeneid 6.347–​71. In the particular episode, Palinurus offers a different version of his death. He survived the plunge into the water, which incidentally happened while ‘on the Libyan voyage’ (Libyco… cursu 6.338), and after three days in the sea he reached the shore of Velia and ‘scrambled over the rocks’ (Aen. 6.360 prensantemque uncis manibus capita aspera montis); he was almost safe when the locals killed him.50 Seneca deliberately recalls the discrepancy in Vergil’s account of the fate of Palinurus, commonly attributed by Vergilian critics to divergent perspectives,51 because Palinurus’ version has many similarities with Odysseus’ story. Once in the water, Palinurus clings to the rudder for three days prior to washing up on the Veian shore; Odysseus in turn clung to pieces of his ship for nine days 49 In the last lines of Aeneid 5 Aeneas laments the fate of Palinurus and utters a statement that sounds ironic under the circumstances:  He believes that Palinurus died through overconfidence in calm sea and sky, even though the steersman earlier had insisted to stay awake, because he distrusted the elements (Aen. 5.848–​51). 50 The apparent discrepancies between the two versions are well-​discussed; for a detailed list, see R. D. Williams 1960, xxv; and the commentary in Berres 1982, 250–​81; and more recently, Horsfall 2013, ad 337–​83. 51 E.g. Quint 1993, 87, who justifies the inconsistencies on the fact that ‘the course of destiny is experienced by human beings as chance contingency’; see also Fratantuono and Smith (2015, 695). On the two versions about Palinurus, Thomas (2004) suggests that they are tied to variant versions of stories about shipwrecked men (nauagika) preserved in the new Posidippus papyrus. O’Hara 2007, 92–​4 ties the divergent versions to the fact that they are connected to the underworld which ‘contains far too many discrepancies with what is said elsewhere in the poem for them to have been accidental’; similarly for Horsfall (1995, 151) the problem is ‘a conflict between “static” and “redemptive” views of the afterlife’. Horsfall, however, in his Aeneid 6 commentary believes that the discrepancy is due to the unfinished status of the Aeneid (Horsfall 2013, 276).

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126  Sophia Papaioannou before washing up on Calypso’s island.52 Seneca’s styling himself immediately afterwards as the celebrated king of Ithaca is enforced in light of the allusion to the Vergilian Palinurus. In a way, the association of Seneca to Odysseus seems to be only natural: the comparison of human experience to wandering is at the core of the concept of the homo viator, which is central to Stoic philosophy. The Stoic homo viator is a patient and enduring hero who knows that his lifespan is a sequence of departures which he cannot control, but has to accept. For the Stoics Odysseus and his persistent, 20-​year-​long journey to return home was their model for the homo viator.53 Contrary to the interpretations of Odysseus as the ideal student of the world among Stoic writers, for Seneca, Odysseus is not a contemplative hero:  in Const. sapient. [2]‌.2.1, he clearly admits that Odysseus has endurance and admires him for his resistance to temptations, but denies him the inquisitive mind that seeks to uncover and conquer new knowledge. This dissension from the Stoic opinio communis is wittingly noted by means of irony: Seneca, the Stoic theoretician, projects himself on Odysseus, the embodiment of the Stoic ideal, but the circumstances that enforce the assimilation are of contested seriousness because what brings Seneca and Odysseus together is their common proneness to seasickness (Ep. 54.4, ‘l understood that sailors have good reason to fear the land. It is hard to believe what I endured when I could not endure myself; you may be sure that the reason why Ulysses was shipwrecked on every possible occasion was not so much because the sea-​god was angry with him from his birth; he was simply subject to seasickness’). The irony that permeates this analogy is identified with the detail of the seasickness, for the Stoic helmsman never gets seasick (SVF 1.396)!54 This irony, further, is a clear indicator leading the sensitive reader to detect and appreciate Seneca’s own ambivalence towards endless traveling as a source of wisdom, rejecting it as unnecessary or even risky, on the one hand (overtly in Ep. 54.4 just discussed, ironically and by means of a Vergilian quotation in Ep. 53.3), but in admiration for those who travel for the pursuit of knowledge and genuinely adhering to the Stoic doctrine that travel is the stepping stone to philosophical knowledge. According to Montiglio, Seneca’s conflicted views about traveling in his philosophical thought is fed by the identification of traveling in Roman literature with the imperialistic expansion of Rome. This ambivalence is expressly embraced in the treatment of the Argonautic expedition in Seneca’s Medea, and his interpretation of Alexander’s conquests in several of his treatises.55 On the other 52 Quint 1993, 87, on Palinurus mirroring Odysseus; also Brenk 1984; recent treatment of the Palinurus episode and its intertextual subtext in Fratantuono and Smith 2015, 693–​8. 53 According to Epictetus (Diss. 2.23.36–​9), the purpose of the journey is to return home in order to perform one’s civic duties. At the same time, a Stoic’s home is internal—​his homeland is within. Thus, reaching the right mental disposition is as important as reaching the homeland. See Montiglio 2005, 42–​61, on the Stoic concept of identifying the life of the Stoic man with wandering, especially sea traveling, and the employment of the exempla of Odysseus (especially) and the blind Oedipus. 54 I have taken the reference to the Stoic fragments from Montiglio 2005, 43 n. 5. 55 Montiglio 2006, 569–​79.

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 127 hand, Montiglio notes in the same study, Seneca carefully avoids condemning all journeys as expansionist, obviously mindful of Nero’s reaction, and he pointedly praises the emperor’s travels in Egypt and holds them to be along the line of true quest for knowledge, tactfully silencing his imperialistic aims. This studied contradiction and the elusiveness it generates regarding Seneca’s actual views exemplifies the tactful way of expressing political discomfort and dissidence.

Case 6 The last instance of a Vergilian quotation in Seneca concerns not an actual quotation but the uncontested evocation of some Vergilian excerpt. I  consider it a quotation all the same, because the identification of the Vergilian intertext is unmistakable, no less because the alluded passage from Vergil is an emblematic one and occurs more than once in the course of the Aeneid, in different but functionally kindred passages. The Consolatio ad Marciam addresses Marica, the daughter of Cremutius Cordus, who mourns her son for a very long time. Seneca tries to console her, first by engaging her heritage and her unique mission as a result (daughter and safekeeper of the memory of the historian Cremutius Cordus), and then by producing two divergent examples of famous mourning females, one to be avoided (Octavia) and one to be imitated (Livia) (Marc. [6]‌.4.2–​5.6). Seneca’s emphasis on Marcia’s relationship to her father and her son cast the daughter of Cremutius Cordus in light of Vergil’s Aeneas: the Aeneid is in the subtext of the consolation, since the speech’s desideratum, the termination of suffering (for Marcia) is figured through the overarching desideratum of the Aeneid, which is the end of suffering (for the Trojans).56 Marcia’s therapy is seen as at once predicated and destined to go through suffering—​the very conflict that permeates Aeneas’ quest. Thus, when Seneca already in the opening chapter of the consolation addresses Marcia with the question, ‘For what end will there be?’ (quis enim erit finis? Marc. [6]‌.1.6), inquiring about when she will stop mourning, he evokes ‘the voice of Jupiter upbraiding Juno for her inconsolable passion that threatens the success of Aeneas’ mission:  ‘What end will there be, my wife?’ (quae iam finis erit, coniunx? Aen. 12.793)’.57 The Vergilian Jupiter’s question denotes that the end is already predetermined, and he only offers Juno the time and manner she will concede this to happen. Slightly rephrased, the same question at Marc. [6].1.6 echoes another Vergilian intertext, Venus’ complaint to Jupiter about the termination of the labors plaguing Aeneas at Aen. 1.240 Quem das finem, rex magne, laborum? On both occasions the context involves a request, expressed in the form of an inquiry, 56 Ker 2009b, 95–​6. Ker is explicit about Marcia’s familiarity with the Aeneid which directs subconsciously her behavior towards suffering for the loss of her nearest kin: ‘we may recognize that Seneca appeals to Marcia as a reader of Augustan literature, and in particular of the Aeneid’ (p. 95). 57 Ker 2009a, 96.

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128  Sophia Papaioannou for the deserved, or rather, due termination to suffering that has been going on for too long. The Aeneid is full of prayers for the end of suffering, and Seneca takes advantage of this: he constructs a network of Vergilian echoes in order to engage the authority of Vergil, the epic gods and the great Aeneas to increase the pressure on Marcia to put an end on her mourning. Thus, Marc. [6]‌.1.6 recalls another key moment in Vergil’s epic, Aen. 1.198–​9, the opening of Aeneas’ first speech to his men shortly after they have collected their shipwrecked selves on the shores of Carthage: o socii—​neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum—​|​ o passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem (‘O friends—​well, we were not unknown to trouble before—​O you who have endured worse, the god will grant an end to this too’); Seneca emphatically echoes the closing and more weighty clause. The recollection of Aen. 1.198–​9, in turn, forges an association with another passage from the consolation, as part of it is distinctly evoked in Marc. [6].12.4:  occurrent tibi passi ubique maiora; and later also in 20.1: o ignaros malorum suorum. This intertextually informed consolatory appeal to Marcia is peppered with Vergilian evocations, because Seneca, as he himself confesses, has in mind not only the devastated mother, but also, and even, foremost, the erudite daughter of Cremutius Cordus, who is versed in Augustan literature including the Aeneid.58 Aware that an emotional appeal may be ineffective, Seneca tries to reason her by stimulating and engaging her intellect. As for Seneca, this role as a consoler becomes a refinement of, indeed I  dare say an improvement on, Vergil’s role. Marcia’s recommended female exemplum, Livia, found consolation to the works and teachings of the Stoic philosopher Areus; on the contrary, the negative exemplum, Octavia, refused to console herself, even when Vergil honored and immortalized her deceased son, Marcellus, by placing him at the most distinguished part of the Roman heroes’ catalog in Aeneid 6, the conclusion. As a matter of fact, by a grand display of extreme theatricality (her fainting during Vergil’s recitation of Aeneid 6), she selfishly placed herself, instead of the glory of her son, at the center of attention, and by fainting, she also refused to listen to the Aeneid. Seneca’s ironic treatment of Octavia should become a lesson for Marcia, who should embrace the advice of the Stoic philosopher by following in the footsteps of Livia. To a careful reader, Seneca’s consolation of Marcia pales in comparison with the praise the philosopher bestows on the reputation of Cremutius Cordus, the fearless intellectual and ‘the most powerful man’ who wrote his historiography ‘with his blood’ (Marc. [6]‌.1.3). Cremutius Cordus, who wrote a history of the Civil Wars, was prosecuted by Sejanus and was forced to commit suicide under the emperor Tiberius because, according to Tacitus (Ann. 4.34–​5), he refused to praise Augustus and instead celebrated Cicero, Brutus and Cassius—​the last of whom he called ‘the last Roman’. Tiberius also ordered for Cremutius’ work to be burned, but Marcia preserved copies 58 On Marcia’s erudition, see Tutrone in this volume.

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Reading Seneca reading Vergil 129 which she later published in abridged form under Caligula. Rudich has read Seneca’s unrestrained admiration for Cremutius Cordus as ‘a kind of a quest for a necessary psychological outlet’, with the praise of a hero who was also an intellectual but did not hesitate to secede from life and not compromise his ethical principles. In short, Cremutius is what Seneca feels that he should be but cannot do.59 In my reading, Marcia’s outstanding example of defiance of imperial autocracy may offer yet another expression of Seneca’s political dissimulatio, disclosing an interesting case of a statement of political dissidence, albeit an allusive one.

Conclusion The six cases discussed above comprise selective expressions of ironic reception of Vergil’s Aeneid in Seneca’s philosophical epistles. The Aeneid epitomizes the distinctive cultural identity of the Augustan Age, which became paradigmatic not only for the generations immediately following, but for Western culture across time. Seneca’s critical dialogue with Vergil takes advantage of the universality of the Aeneid as a paradigmatic literary expression of Roman political philosophy and morality, in order to problematize it. Living in Nero’s time, Seneca comprehends that wit and erudition has limited power against authoritarian violence; that the cultural messages communicated by Vergil’s heroes have lost their relevance and appeal. Irony is a uniquely powerful intellectual weapon in this respect. Ironic speech does not mean what it says: the meaning it conveys is associated with speech, but it is different from what it is said, and on several times, is its opposite. More importantly, this ironic meaning is complex. Seneca’s philosophical speech is an appropriate testing ground to study the dynamic interaction between the ‘true’ meaning and the ‘false’ meaning of statements and ideas. The most complex are statements quoted from other authors, and as such, they already come into the Senecan text with a set of meanings of their own. Vergil’s speech on account of its universal appeal and meticulous subjection to study is a premier ground to test the limits of Seneca’s ironic commentary on the ambiguities of philosophical speech.

59 Rudich 1997, 22–​8 (the quotation is from p. 27).

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5  Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales Andreas N. Michalopoulos

In the Epistulae morales Seneca lays out his moral philosophy, personal wisdom, and life experience, combined with fictitious anecdotes and doctrina of all sorts. Drawing on his rich life experience and on the vast knowledge he acquired from his wide range of readings Seneca offers instructions, spiritual direction, practical advice, and moral paraenesis to his friend Lucilius1 (and to a wider public). To achieve his goal, Seneca uses various means, styles, devices, and rhetorical features, such as ironic parataxis, hypotactic periods, direct speech, sententiae, and quotations of poetry. In this chapter I will discuss two Ovidian quotations in the Epistulae (Ep. 33 and 110). I  intend to explore the following issues: why and when does Seneca resort to direct quotation? Which criteria govern the choice of particular passages? What is the role and function of these quotations? How do they serve Seneca’s argumentation, if at all? What do these quotations tell us about his literary taste? Ηow do they operate within Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with his predecessors?

1  Philosophical sayings and the flocks of Polyphemus (Ep. 33) The general subject of Ep. 33 is the futility of learning maxims. Seneca reacts to Lucilius’ complaint that he has not quoted any sayings of Epicurus since Ep. 29,2 and explains his reasons for doing so. In his favorite habit, he compares the Stoics with the Epicureans.3 He argues that it is impossible for someone 1 Lucilius is also the addressee of De providentia and Naturales quaestiones. Seneca promises to send Lucilius: books with certain passages marked for study (Ep. 6.5) and Seneca’s own works and books by other authors (Ep. 45.1–​3). For Lucilius’ devotion to literature and philosophy, see Sen. NQ 4A praef. 14. Lucilius treated the legend of Alpheus and Arethusa in a poem (NQ 3.26.6). 2 On Seneca’s reception of the Epicurean tradition, see André 1969; Setaioli 1988, 171–​248; Graver 2015; Schiesaro 2015. 3 On Seneca and Stoicism, see among others Fillion-​Lahille 1984; Veyne 2003; Hine 2004; Inwood 2005b; Wildberger 2006a and 2006b; Edwards 2019, 9–​15. On Seneca and Epicurus, see Setaioli 1988, 171–​248; Obstoj 1989; Griffin 1976 [repr.  1992], 3–​4; Wildberger 2014a; Schiesaro 2015.

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Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales  131 to identify the original source of each Stoic motto and attribute it to a single person. In stark contrast, all the maxims of the Epicureans are credited to one man, the founder of the school, Epicurus, because he appropriated the wise words of his followers (Ep. 33.4): Puta nos velle singulares sententias ex turba separare; cui illas adsignabimus? Zenoni an Cleanthi an Chrysippo an Panaetio an Posidonio? Non sumus sub rege; sibi quisque se vindicat. Apud istos quicquid Hermarchus dixit, quicquid Metrodorus, ad unum refertur. Omnia quae quisquam in illo contubernio locutus est, unius ductu et auspiciis dicta sunt. Non possumus, inquam, licet temptemus, educere aliquid ex tanta rerum aequalium multitudine. Pauperis est numerare pecus. Quocumque miseris oculum, id tibi occurret, quod eminere posset, nisi inter paria legeretur. Suppose we should desire to sort out each separate motto from the general stock; to whom shall we credit them? To Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Panaetius, or Posidonius? We Stoics are not subjects of a despot: each of us lays claim to his own freedom. With them, on the other hand, whatever Hermarchus says, or Metrodorus, is ascribed to one source. In that brotherhood, everything that any man utters is spoken under the leadership and commanding authority of one alone. We cannot, I maintain, no matter how we try, pick out anything from so great a multitude of things equally good. ‘Only the poor man counts his flock’. Wherever you direct your gaze, you will meet with something that might stand out from the rest, if the context in which you read it were not equally notable.4 Seneca strengthens his thoughts with a poetic quotation.5 The quotation is readily recognizable and one can take it for granted that Seneca expected Lucilius (and the external readers of the Letters) to be able to trace its famous source: it is drawn from Polyphemus’ speech of amatory persuasion addressed to the nymph Galatea in the Metamorphoses of Ovid (13.824), one of Seneca’s favorite poets.6 But what were the reasons that led Seneca to quote this

4 The translations of Seneca’s Epistulae morales are from Fantham 2010. 5 For Seneca’s poetic quotations, see Maguinness 1956; Mazzoli 1970; Dingel 1974; Ker 2015; Edwards 2019. 6 For Seneca’s engagement with Ovid, see Charlier 1954–​5; Ronconi 1984; Goddard Elliott 1985; Jakobi 1988; Degl’ Innocenti Pierini 1990a; Borgo 1992; Mader 1995; Tarrant 2002; Hinds 2011; Trinacty 2014, 65–​126; Vial 2015. For Seneca’s quotations from Ovid’s Metamorphoses book 15 in the third book of his Naturales quaestiones, see Garani in this volume.

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132  Andreas N. Michalopoulos particular Ovidian line? Is this just an ornamental touch, a simple display of Senecan erudition? This quotation serves multiple functions. Seneca invites his informed readers to look a bit further, to go through the text from which he draws the quotation, and to discover possible underlying associations and similarities. The rereading of the story of Polyphemus and Galatea from Ovid’s Metamorphoses can shed light on many aspects of Seneca’s Ep. 33. It can provide the explanation one seeks as to why Seneca chose to cite a line from Polyphemus’ speech in his discussion on the practices of the Stoics and the Epicureans, a choice which at first seems odd. This is a fascinating literary challenge for both Lucilius and us, the external readers of the Letters. First of all, it is noteworthy that whereas in this letter Seneca denounces other people’s habit of citing mottoes, and writes about the futility of learning maxims, at the same time he inserts a quotation in his own statement. In other words, he consciously commits the ‘crime’ that he denounces. Seneca playfully comes forward as a teacher who rejects his own practices. Second, the Ovidian line that Seneca chooses to cite does not come from a ‘serious’, philosophical passage, but, as already noted, from Polyphemus’ amatory speech to Galatea, which is dotted with many humorous elements. This is the basic plot of the story as narrated by Ovid in the Metamorphoses:  Polyphemus is in love with Galatea, but she despises him and lies in the arms of a handsome youth, Acis. Burning with desire, but unskilled in the arts of love and rhetoric, Polyphemus addresses to Galatea a crude speech of erotic confession and persuasion, doomed to fail.7 Seneca focuses on that part of the speech in which Polyphemus brags about his riches and countless flocks. The Cyclops claims that he does not know their exact number, because they are too many (Met. 13.821–​3): hoc pecus omne meum est, multae quoque vallibus errant, multas silva tegit, multae stabulantur in antris, nec, si forte roges, possim tibi dicere, quot sint. pauperis est numerare pecus. All this fine flock is mine, and many more roam in the dales or shelter in the woods or in my caves are folded; should you chance to ask how many, that I could not tell: a poor man counts his flocks.8 It is surely striking that in his discussion of philosophers and philosophical mottoes Seneca inserts the words of Polyphemus, a mythological creature alien to the world of philosophy. The fact that Seneca criticizes the intellectual poverty of the Epicureans citing words of the uncouth Cyclops renders the whole situation ironic.9 Seneca’s main intention is clear:  he wants to 7 This episode of course has obvious Theocritean origins (Id. 11). 8 The translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses are from Melville 2008. 9 See also Davies 2010, 201.

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Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales  133 demonstrate that whereas the maxims of Stoic philosophy are countless, the maxims of the Epicureans are few and countable. This Ovidian line enhances Seneca’s position. Moreover, the reference to flocks in a discussion about the Epicureans and their submission to their master is possibly intended to pick up the well-​known description of the Epicureans as the flock of Epicurus.10 Polyphemus’ shadowy presence in Seneca’s Ep. 33 has even more ramifications, mainly humorous ones,11 which the readers can pick up only if they go back to the Ovidian source text of the quotation. The points of contact are neither few nor negligible. Let me begin with a couple of general links between the two texts: a) In his speech to Galatea Polyphemus constantly speaks about himself; it is a speech of shameless and tasteless self-​promotion. By the same token, Seneca criticizes in Ep. 33 the tendency of the Epicureans to promote Epicurus and give all the credit to him. b) In a similar manner, just like Polyphemus advertises himself, his riches and his supposed beauty, so does Seneca advertise the wealth of the sayings of the Stoics (quocumque miseris oculum, id tibi occurret, quod eminere posset, nisi inter paria legeretur. ‘Wherever you direct your gaze, you will meet with something that might stand out from the rest, if the context in which you read it were not equally notable’). The specific points of contact between Seneca’s Ep. 33 and Polyphemus’ story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses are even more intriguing: 1) Twice in Ep. 33 Seneca mentions the flosculi (33.112 and 33.713). These flosculi—​‘memorable maxims’14 or ‘aphorisms expressed with some rhetorical flourish’15—​most probably pick up the name of Epicurus’ School, 10 Cf. Horace’s striking depiction of himself as a ‘hog in Epicurus’ herd’ (Epist. 1.4.15–​6): me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises |​cum ridere voles Epicuri de grege porcum. ‘Whenever you want to enjoy a laugh, I’ll be here—​as content as a hog from Epicurus’ herd’ (transl. Kilpatrick 1986). 11 Fantham 2010, 285 on 33.4 notes the humorous aspect of the quotation but does not elaborate on it. 12 Sen. Ep. 33.1: Desideras his quoque epistulis sicut prioribus adscribi aliquas voces nostrorum procerum. Non fuerunt circa flosculos occupati: totus contextus illorum virilis est. ‘You want to have some sayings of our leading thinkers added to these letters as they were before. Those men were not concerned with gathering blossoms; their entire argument is manly’. 13 Sen. Ep. 33.7: Ideo pueris et sententias ediscendas damus et has quas Graeci chrias vocant, quia complecti illas puerilis animus potest, qui plus adhuc non capit. Certi profectus viro captare flosculos turpe est et fulcire se notissimis ac paucissimis vocibus et memoria stare. ‘That is why we give boys sayings to memorize and what the Greeks call Chriae, because the child’s mind can embrace them when it still cannot contain more. But it is shameful for a man who had made some progress to hunt blossoms and prop himself up with a few famous sayings, and rely on his memory’. 14 Schiesaro 2015, 244. 15 Graver/​Long 2015 on Sen. Ep. 33.1. For the use of philosophical maxims, especially maxims drawn from Epicurus, compare Sen. Ep.  2.4–​5.

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134  Andreas N. Michalopoulos the Garden.16 In the Metamorphoses Polyphemus addresses Galatea as floridior pratis (790) ‘more flowery than the meadows’ and also calls her riguo formosior horto (797) ‘more beautiful than a well-​watered garden’.17 2) When Seneca wishes to point Lucilius to the great number of Stoic maxims, he uses the phrase quocumque miseris oculum, instead of quocumque miseris oculos (see OLD s.v. 5), which one might expect. The singular, oculum, instead of the plural, oculos, cleverly conjures up the one-​eyed Polyphemus in the source text of Seneca’s Ovidian quotation. 3) Seneca writes: quod eminere posset ‘something that might stand out from the rest’. This comment, referring to philosophical maxims and coming right after the quotation of Polyphemus’ words, could also be a clever hint to Polyphemus’ enormous height, because of which he was visible even from a great distance (Hom. Od. 9.187–​92): ἔνθα δ’ ἀνὴρ ἐνίαυε πελώριος, ὅς ῥα τὰ μῆλα |​ οἶος ποιμαίνεσκεν ἀπόπροθεν· οὐδὲ μετ’ ἄλλους |​ πωλεῖτ’, ἀλλ’ ἀπάνευθεν ἐὼν ἀθεμίστια ᾔδη. |​ καὶ γὰρ θαῦμ’ ἐτέτυκτο πελώριον, οὐδὲ ἐῴκει |​ ἀνδρί γε σιτοφάγῳ, ἀλλὰ ῥίῳ ὑλήεντι |​ ὑψηλῶν ὀρέων, ὅ τε φαίνεται οἶον ἀπ’ ἄλλων. ‘There a monstrous man spent his nights, who shepherded his flocks alone and afar, and did not mingle with others, but lived apart, obedient to no law. For he was created a monstrous marvel and was not like a man that lives by bread, but like a wooded peak of lofty mountains, which stands out to view alone, apart from the rest’.18 I hope that it has become clear from the above that in Ep. 33 Seneca’s quotation of a line from Polyphemus’ address to Galatea in Ovid’s Metamorphoses creates a dense nexus of intertextual connections. However, in the contrast between the Stoics and the Epicureans who does Polyphemus correspond to? Who is he to be identified with, the Stoics or the Epicureans? By quoting this line from the Metamorphoses Seneca wishes to highlight the large number of Stoic maxims and mottoes in contrast with the scarceness of Epicurean ones. On this basis, the Stoics are identified with those who do not know the exact number of their livestock because they are too many, while the Epicureans are identified with the poor who are able to count their animals, precisely because they do not have many. Hence, the Stoics are matched with Polyphemus and the Epicureans with those who are not as rich as Polyphemus. Moreover, Seneca depicts the Epicureans as fully subordinate to their master, Epicurus, who appropriates all their sayings; on the contrary, the 16 For Epicurus’ Garden, see Long 1986, 15; Sinisgalli 2012, 163 n. 3. 17 At Ep. 21.10 Seneca records the inscription on the gate to Epicurus’ garden:  cum adieris eius hortulos †et inscriptum hortulis† ‘HOSPES HIC BENE MANEBIS, HIC SVMMVM BONVM VOLVPTAS EST’ ‘When you approach his little garden and its inscription  —​ ‘Stranger, this is a good place to stay: here pleasure is the highest good’. 18 The translations of Homer’s Odyssey are from Murray 1985. Cf. Ov. Met. 13.842–​3: adspice, sim quantus: non est hoc corpore maior |​Iuppiter in caelo. ‘See how large I am! No bigger body Jove himself can boast up in the sky’.

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Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales  135 Stoics yield to no one and do not belong to anyone’s jurisdiction: non sumus sub rege; sibi quisque se vindicat ‘We Stoics are not subjects of a despot: each of us lays claim to his own freedom’. Interestingly, this was exactly the case with the Cyclopes; already in Homer, Polyphemus proudly and irreverently declares that the Cyclopes do not recognize any authority above them (Hom. Od. 9.275–​8): οὐ γὰρ Κύκλωπες Διὸς αἰγιόχου ἀλέγουσιν |​ οὐδὲ θεῶν μακάρων, ἐπεὶ ἦ πολὺ φέρτεροί εἰμεν· |​ οὐδ’ ἂν ἐγὼ Διὸς ἔχθος ἀλευάμενος πεφιδοίμην |​ οὔτε σεῦ οὔθ’ ἑτάρων, εἰ μὴ θυμός με κελεύοι ‘For the Cyclopes pay no heed to Zeus, who bears the aegis, nor to the blessed gods, since truly we are better far than they. Nor would I, to shun the wrath of Zeus, spare either you or your comrades, unless my own heart should bid me’.19 Hence, when Seneca proudly declares that the Stoics have no kings, he playfully identifies them with the Cyclopes, who acknowledge no superior power, human or divine. Seneca’s analogy is tongue-​in-​cheek; he is counting on Lucilius’ cleverness and his ability to appreciate this humorous discrepancy. Seneca’s use of Polyphemus-​ the-​clumsy-​lover in a serious discussion about philosophy testifies to his witty and sophisticated humor.

2  What’s Io got to do with it? (Ep. 110) The general theme of Ep. 110 is true and false riches. From his villa at Nomentum Seneca advises Lucilius that men should guard themselves against material desires and be at peace with themselves in order to achieve happiness. This is how the letter begins (Ep. 110.1): Ex Nomentano meo te saluto et iubeo habere mentem bonam, hoc est propitios deos omnis, quos habet placatos et faventes quisquis sibi se propitiavit. Sepone in praesentia quae quibusdam placent, unicuique nostrum paedagogum dari deum, non quidem ordinarium, sed hunc inferioris notae ex eorum numero quos Ovidius ait ‘de plebe deos’. Ita tamen hoc seponas volo ut memineris maiores nostros qui crediderunt Stoicos fuisse; singulis enim et Genium et Iunonem dederunt. I send you greetings from my place at Nomentum, and bid you enjoy a sound mind, that is, the favor of all the gods, whom each man finds appeased and favoring if he has first propitiated himself. For the time being set aside the tales that some thinkers like, that a divine escort is given to each of us, not an official one but one of lower rank such as Ovid calls ‘gods from the common crowd’. I want you to set this aside while keeping in mind that our ancestors who believed this were Stoics: indeed, they gave a Genius and a Juno to each individual. 19 Cf. Ov. Met. 13.856–​8: tibi enim succumbimus uni, |​quique Iovem et caelum sperno et penetrabile fulmen, |​Nerei, te vereor, tua fulmine saevior ira est. ‘To you [sc. Galatea] alone I yield. I, who despise Jove and his heaven and his thunderbolt, sweet Nereid, you I fear, your anger flames more dreadful than his bolt’.

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136  Andreas N. Michalopoulos Once again Seneca cites a verse in his letter. He actually names his source—​ Ovid—​and expects Lucilius to locate the exact passage from which the quotation is drawn. This is line 595 from the first book of the Metamorphoses, from the story of Jupiter and Io. Let us have a close look at the part of the Io-​Jupiter story from which Seneca draws the quotation. Ovid writes about Io’s first meeting with the god. Jupiter approaches Io and invites her to a shady grove, reassuring her that she will enjoy the protection (praeside tuta deo) not of a common, lesser god, but of the most potent of all gods20 (Ov. Met. 1.587–​600): viderat a patrio redeuntem Iuppiter illam flumine et ‘o virgo Iove digna tuoque beatum nescio quem factura toro, pete’ dixerat ‘umbras           altorum nemorum’ (et nemorum monstraverat umbras) ‘dum calet, et medio sol est altissimus orbe! quodsi sola times latebras intrare ferarum, praeside tuta deo nemorum secreta subibis, nec de plebe deo, sed qui caelestia magna               sceptra manu teneo, sed qui vaga fulmina mitto. ne fuge me!’ fugiebat enim. iam pascua Lernae consitaque arboribus Lyrcea reliquerat arva, cum deus inducta latas caligine terras occuluit tenuitque fugam rapuitque pudorem.

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Io returning from her father’s stream had caught Jove’s eye. ‘You charming girl’, he said, ‘well worthy of Jove’s love, happy is he, whoever he be, that wins you for his bed. Go to the deep wood’s shade’—​he pointed to the shady wood—​‘the hour is hot; the sun shines in his zenith. If you fear alone to risk the wild beasts’ lairs, a god will guard you and in the deepest forest keep you safe—​no common god! The scepter of the sky is mine to hold in my almighty hand; I wield at will the roaming thunderbolts—​no, do not run!’ For now the girl had run; through Lerna’s meadows and the forest lands of high Lyrceus she sped until the god drew down a veil of darkness to conceal the world and stayed her flight and ravished her. The identification, however, of the quotation is not an end in itself. The question arises again: what is the role of this Ovidian quotation in this part of Seneca’s letter to Lucilius? Is this a casual quotation without further ramifications? Is this 20 The term praeses is applied to tutelary gods (OLD s.v. 2) and frequently denotes a guardian god (OLD s.v. 1). It corresponds to the protective daemon that each man supposedly has. The Stoics accepted the existence of such δαίμονες (lesser deities or semi-​divine beings not given the full rank of gods), who protected men and watched over human affairs. See Diog. Laert. 7.151, Plin. HN 2.16, Costa 1988 on Sen. Ep. 12.2 and 110.1, Algra 2003, 171f., Graver/​Long 2015 on Sen. Ep. 110.1.

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Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales  137 a simple demonstration of Senecan erudition or should we read something more into it? What is the point of evoking Io’s love affair with Jupiter in a letter that has absolutely no erotic content whatsoever? An initial observation:  at first sight, this Ovidian quotation by Seneca is unnecessary. One would not really feel that something was missing, if this quotation was not there. This makes it even more possible that Seneca put it there—​very early in the letter—​for a reason. In fact, it is ironic that whereas Seneca urges Lucilius to ‘set aside the tales that some thinkers like’ (Sepone in praesentia quae quibusdam placent), a few lines later he cites a line from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a poem famous for its tales. He did a similar thing in Ep. 33: while rejecting other people’s habit of citing mottoes, he himself cited a line from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Seneca wants Lucilius (and his external readers) to go back to the source of the quotation and look for similarities and analogies. He wishes to turn his readers’ attention to the intertext right from the start and make them look there for the proper connections. A  close, comparative reading of the Io story and Seneca’s Ep. 110 brings forward numerous points of contact. Seneca was well acquainted with the cult of Io-​Isis. He spent some time in Egypt in order to cure a severe illness when his uncle, Gaius Galerius, was prefect there. In fact, Seneca wrote about Egypt and its cults in his treatise De situ et sacris Aegyptiorum, which is now lost. Furthermore, the Ovidian story of Io—​in which Juno plays such an important part—​fits perfectly well with Seneca’s mention of Juno residing in each woman (singulis enim et Genium et Iunonem dederunt). Immediately after this Ovidian quotation, in the second paragraph of the letter (110.2) Seneca raises the question if the gods have so much free time to deal with the affairs of men: postea videbimus an tantum dis vacet ut privatorum negotia procurent (‘Next we will consider whether the gods have so much leisure that they can look after the affairs of private citizens’). A perceptive reader, who brings to mind the Ovidian intertext, will surely notice that Jupiter did what he did to Io, exactly because he had ample free time to come down to earth from Olympus; and so did Juno right after him. Seneca continues in the same paragraph (110.2):  interim illud scito, sive adsignati sumus sive neglecti et fortunae dati, nulli te posse inprecari quicquam gravius quam si inprecatus fueris ut se habeat iratum (‘meantime, be sure of this, that whether we are allocated to their care or neglected and left to fortune, you can wish no worse curse on any man than if you curse him with suffering his own hostility’). This is exactly what happened to Io in the Metamorphoses: she was abandoned by Jupiter and she suffered badly—​though not because of her own hostility. Only after Io’s many wanderings and hardships did Jupiter pity and help her.21 In Seneca’s words (110.2):  sed non est quare cuiquam quem poena putaveris dignum optes ut infestos deos habeat:  habet, inquam, etiam 21 Ov. Met. 1.668–​9:  nec superum rector mala tanta Phoronidos ultra |​ferre potest natumque vocat. Cf. Io’s supplication to Jupiter to put an end to her sufferings (Met. 1.733): cum Iove visa queri finemque orare malorum.

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138  Andreas N. Michalopoulos si videtur eorum favore produci (‘But there is no reason to wish that anyone whom you think deserves punishment should have the gods against him. He has, I tell you, even if he seems to be escorted by their favor’). Again, this is exactly the case with Io in the Metamorphoses: although initially she enjoyed Jupiter’s favor, then she suffered badly.22 The Ovidian story of Io continues to be at the back of Seneca’s mind in the next paragraph of the letter (Ep. 110.3): Quotiens enim felicitatis et causa et initium fuit quod calamitas vocabatur! quotiens magna gratulatione excepta res gradum sibi struxit in praeceps et  aliquem iam eminentem adlevavit etiamnunc, tamquam adhuc ibi staret unde tuto cadunt! How often something that was at first called a blow has proved the origin and beginning of good fortune! How often an affair welcomed with great congratulation has built steps up to a precipice and raised further to this point someone already distinguished, as if he was still standing where a fall can be safe. The story of Io fits both cases: on the one hand, her affair with Jupiter—​ which can surely be taken as good fortune—​caused her significant hardships and misery; on the other, her sufferings eventually came to an end and she became a goddess. Seneca then moves on to discuss the hope and fear of men. He urges Lucilius to compress both what gives him joy and what gives him fear (110.4). Quoting Lucretius (110.6:  quid ergo? non omni puero stultiores sumus qui in luce timemus? ‘Well then! Aren’t we more stupid than any child, to fear in the light?’). Seneca claims that there is absolutely no reason for men to fear anything. The solution that he proposes (110.8) for the redemption of men from the dark is none other than providentia: sed lucescere, si velimus, potest. uno autem modo potest, si quis hanc humanorum divinorumque notitiam [scientia] acceperit, si illa se non perfuderit sed infecerit, si eadem, quamvis sciat, retractaverit et ad se saepe rettulerit, si quaesierit quae sint bona, quae mala, quibus hoc falso sit nomen adscriptum, si quaesierit de honestis et turpibus, de providentia. But the dawn can come, if we only want. There is only one way it can happen: if a man takes in this knowledge of things human and divine, and does not just sprinkle it over himself but steeps himself in it; if he goes over the same things repeatedly, although he knows them and refers them to himself; if he seeks to know what things are good and what bad, 22 At De providentia [1]‌.4.7 Seneca argues that Fortune puts the good men to the test, not the bad ones. Also ([1].3.9) that Fortuna wants to prostrate and annihilate her victims, but she only succeeds in making them better and in offering them as a paradigm of virtue to be admired.

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Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales  139 the things to which this name is falsely assigned; if he inquires into things honorable and shameful; if he inquires into providence. This is where Seneca’s letter and its Ovidian intertext come really close. First, in the story of Io light and darkness play a significant part. Jupiter appears at high noon (dum calet, et medio sol est altissimus orbe 592) and asks Io to seek for shelter in a shady grove (nemorum secreta 594), away from the heat and the light. He promises that she will be safe in there, because she will be accompanied by a praeses deus (praeside tuta deo 594). Then, Jupiter covers the area in a caligo (599) and rapes her. This raises Juno’s suspicions, when she notices the clouds that created the sensation of the night in the middle of the day (interea medios Iuno despexit in Argos |​et noctis faciem nebulas fecisse volucres |​sub nitido mirata die 601–​3).23 Seneca’s emphasis on the need for providentia is even more important for the association of Ep. 110 with this particular Ovidian intertext. Io-​Isis as a supreme force ruling the Universe, like Fate and Nature,24 is very closely associated with providentia; Isis had a certain appeal to the Stoics—​among others—​because Providence was an important concept in Stoic teaching, and the Stoics were the true advocates of Πρόνοια in philosophical literature.25 The association of Providentia with Isis is found mainly in Apuleius,26 in book 11 of the Metamorphoses, in which providentia is one of the main characteristics of the goddess.27

23 On the contrast between light and darkness in the story of Io cf. also Ovid’s address to the dead Argos (Met. 1.720–​1):  Arge, iaces, quodque in tot lumina lumen habebas, |​exstinctum est, centumque oculos nox occupat una. ‘Argus, you lie dead, and that light which you used to have for so many eyes, has been put out:  one night has taken complete control over a hundred eyes’. 24 On πρόνοια-​providentia, see Sharples 1987, esp.  1216–​8; Dragona-​Monachou 1994; Ferrari 1999; Graverini 2012, 99–​102. Cf. e.g., Cic. Div. 1.117: esse deos, et eorum providentia mundum administrari, eosdemque consulere rebus humanis, nec solum universis, verum etiam singulis; Plin. Paneg. 10.4: Iam te providentia deorum primum in locum provexerat; Sen. NQ 2.45.2: Vis illum [scil. Iovem] fatum vocare, non errabis; hic est ex quo suspensa sunt omnia, causa causarum. Vis illum providentiam dicere, recte dices; est enim cuius consilio huic mundo providetur, ut inoffensus exeat et actus suos explicet. Vis illum naturam vocare, non peccabis; hic est ex quo nata sunt omnia, cuius spiritu vivimus; Gell. Noct. Att. 7.1.7: providentia, quae compagem hanc mundi fecit. See ThLL X.2 2320,46–​2321,16 s.v. providentia. 25 Graverini 2012, 99. Several Stoics (Chrysippus, Panaetius, Seneca, Epictetus) wrote treatises De providentia. 26 On Seneca as a model for Apuleius’ philosophical works, see Harrison 2000, 166f.; Harrison/​ Hilton/​Hunink 2001, 189 with n.  14, 193, and 213f. nn. 72 and 75 (on Socr. 21, 168 and 22–​23,  172). 27 Graverini 2012, 97 claims that such a strong and sustained connection between Isis and Providence can only be found in Apuleius and is unprecedented in previous literature, however, he admits that (p. 97f.) ‘even if it is an innovation, it is clearly not a revolutionary one’, because ‘Isis is commonly identified with Felicitas or Fortuna, and Felicitas especially (which properly means God’s protection) is extremely close to the idea of Providentia’. On the association of Isis with providentia in book 11 of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, see also Finkelpearl

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140  Andreas N. Michalopoulos A bit further down in Ep. 110 Io returns, indirectly, to the mind of the informed reader, who continues to follow the Ovidian parallel intertext. Referring to royal riches, Seneca claims that avoiding them is not to be commended, because these riches are nothing but superfluities anyway. On the other hand, the avoidance of really necessary things is certainly commendable. In his argument Seneca refers to grass, tree leaves, and cattle (Ep. 110.12), which feature prominently in Io’s story in the Metamorphoses: Non est autem quod te nimis laudes si contempseris aureos lectos et gemmeam supellectilem; quae est enim virtus supervacua contemnere? Tunc te admirare cum contempseris necessaria. Non magnam rem facis quod vivere sine regio apparatu potes, quod non desideras milliarios apros nec linguas phoenicopterorum et alia portenta luxuriae iam tota animalia fastidientis et certa membra ex singulis eligentis:  tunc te admirabor si contempseris etiam sordidum panem, si tibi persuaseris herbam, ubi necesse est, non pecori tantum sed homini nasci, si scieris cacumina arborum explementum esse ventris in quem sic pretiosa congerimus tamquam recepta servantem. Sine fastidio implendus est; quid enim ad rem pertinet quid accipiat, perditurus quidquid acceperit? Now you have no reason to praise yourself excessively for despising golden couches and jeweled equipment: for what is the virtue in despising superfluities? Admire yourself when you despise necessities. You are not scoring any great achievement if you can live without a king’s equipment, if you don’t hanker after wild boars weighing a thousand pounds or the tongues of flamingoes and other monstrosities of a luxury that now disdains complete animals and singles out specific parts from each variety; but I  will admire you when you despise even cheap bread, if you persuade yourself that grass, when it is necessary, grew not just for cattle but for humankind, if you know that the tips of trees can serve to fill the belly into which we have heaped up such costly products. After her transformation into a heifer, Ovid’s Io is forced to feed only on grass, which she despises. Her life changes dramatically; she used to be a princess living in riches, and she is now forced to eat grass and sleep in the mud (Met. 1.632–​4): frondibus arboreis et amara pascitur herba. |​ proque toro terrae non semper gramen habenti |​incubat infelix limosaque flumina potat. She browsed on leaves of trees and bitter weeds, and for her bed, poor thing, lay on the ground, not always grassy, and drank the muddy streams.28 The significance of Seneca’s Ovidian quotation at the beginning of Ep. 110 again re-​emerges. 2012, 94 on Apul. Met. 11.1.2. On the association of Isis with Felicitas or Fortuna, see also Allison 2006 for an early Empire amulet from the House of Menander in Pompeii linking Fortuna to Isis, as Isis-​Fortuna. 28 Cf. also Ov. Met. 1.645: decerptas senior porrexerat Inachus herbas. ‘Old Inachus picked grass and held it out’.

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Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales  141 To conclude: I hope to have shown that the two Ovidian quotations in Seneca’s Ep. 33 and 110 are far from random or superfluous. They are not just a display of Seneca’s erudition or casual learned references. They are important for the whole letter and not just for the particular part of the letter in which they are placed. Seneca requires Lucilius (and his external readers) to go back to the source-​texts, read them carefully and try to detect any possible undercurrent links, similarities, and analogies. These Ovidian quotations come with ramifications; they open a window for multiple and nuanced interpretations of Seneca’s letters. They join the two texts together and open a dialogue between them. The Ovidian source text sheds light on Seneca’s letter, strengthens its argumentation, without Seneca needing to refer to it constantly. Seneca says little, but means a lot. In essence, via these quotations Seneca attaches his letter with a parallel running commentary, so to speak, which remains in the background. It is up to the reader to carry forward the memory of the original text and make the proper associations. Understanding the underlying associations with the source-​texts of the quotation is a key to a deeper understanding of Seneca’s ideas and arguments in his Letters.29

29 In the words of Ker 2015, 114 ‘Seneca’s quotations are often the tips of icebergs’.

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6  The importance of collecting shells Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 491 Francesca Romana Berno

1  Introduction: Epistle 49 Seneca’s Epistle 49 is a quite short letter, which fills only three pages in the Oxford edition: nevertheless, it deals with key issues such as memory, poetry and dialectic, and it contains a significant number of citations, plus, as we will see, allusions. The main topics of this letter, and in particular the critic of dialectic,2 were already present in Epistles 45 and 48: the critique of subtilitas as rhetorical skill was already in Epistle 45 and 48; the paradox of the horned man3 comes from Epistle 45, the employment of the rare term vafer/​vafritia for ‘cleverness’ from 48. So, the three letters have a sort of thematic unity, in which Epistle 49 represents the final stage of Seneca’s considerations. My aim in this chapter is to offer an analysis of this text from the point of view of intertextuality:  in other words, an interpretation based on citations and allusions. First, I  will transcribe and briefly summarize the content and the structure of the letter; then, I will focus on the quotations, which are to be read, in my opinion, as allusions to a Stoic image in the center of the text. My point is that this image, where a man collects little things found on his way, represents the interpretative key of the letter, in that it alludes to Aristo of Chios. He was a Stoic (fl. 260 BCE), pupil of Zeno, and his views on key theoretical issues of Stoic philosophy contributed significantly to the transition to the so-​called Middle Stoa. Seneca quotes him several times, especially in the Epistles.4 Apparently, Aristo was the first Stoic who tried to reform the dialectic of his school, sharply criticizing syllogisms and paradoxes while showing a charming force of persuasion (below, section 6). It is my aim to show that Seneca’s statements against lyric poetry and a certain kind

1 I am truly grateful to Catharine Edwards for her carefully reading and editing of my English, and to Francesco Caruso for some suggestions about Plato. 2 Wildberger 2006b, 137–​52; Armisen-​Marchetti 2009; Torre 2016. 3 On which, see Schulthess 1996; below, n. 22. 4 Ioppolo 1980; Porter 1996; Boeri-​ Salles 2014, 16; 539–​ 40; 558; 651–​ 2; Ranocchia 2011; Prost 2012.

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 143 of dialectic in Epistle 49 could reasonably have been inspired by Aristo, and represent Seneca’s personal reading of this philosopher: Sen. Ep. 49 1. Est quidem, mi Lucili, supinus et neglegens qui in amici memoriam ab aliqua regione admonitus reducitur; tamen repositum in animo nostro desiderium loca interdum familiaria evocant, nec extinctam memoriam reddunt sed quiescentem inritant, sicut dolorem lugentium, etiam si mitigatus est tempore, aut servulus familiaris amisso aut vestis aut domus renovat. Ecce Campania et maxime Neapolis ac Pompeiorum tuorum conspectus incredibile est quam recens desiderium tui fecerint: totus mihi in oculis es. Cum maxime a te discedo; video lacrimas conbibentem et adfectibus tuis inter ipsam coercitionem exeuntibus non satis resistentem. 2. Modo amisisse te videor; quid enim non ‘modo’ est, si recorderis? Modo apud Sotionem philosophum puer sedi, modo causas agere coepi, modo desii velle agere, modo desii posse. Infinita est velocitas temporis, quae magis apparet respicientibus. … 4.  Modo te prosecutus sum; et tamen hoc ‘modo’ aetatis nostrae bona portio est, cuius brevitatem aliquando defecturam cogitemus. Non solebat mihi tam velox tempus videri: nunc incredibilis cursus apparet, sive quia admoveri lineas sentio, sive quia adtendere coepi et conputare damnum meum. 5. Eo magis itaque indignor aliquos ex hoc tempore quod sufficere ne ad necessaria quidem potest, etiam si custoditum diligentissime fuerit, in supervacua maiorem partem erogare. Negat Cicero, si duplicetur sibi aetas, habiturum se tempus quo legat lyricos: eodem loco dialecticos: tristius inepti sunt. Illi ex professo lasciviunt, hi agere ipsos aliquid existimant. 6.  Nec ego nego prospicienda ista, sed prospicienda tantum et a limine salutanda, in hoc unum, ne verba nobis dentur et aliquid esse in illis magni ac secreti boni iudicemus. Quid te torques et maceras in ea quaestione quam subtilius est contempsisse quam solvere? Securi est et ex commodo migrantis minuta conquirere: cum hostis instat a tergo et movere se iussus est miles, necessitas excutit quidquid pax otiosa collegerat. 7. Non vacat mihi verba dubie cadentia consectari et vafritiam in illis meam experiri. Aspice qui coeant populi, quae moenia clusis ferrum acuant portis. Magno mihi animo strepitus iste belli circumsonantis exaudiendus est. 8. Demens omnibus merito viderer, si cum saxa in munimentum murorum senes feminaeque congererent, cum iuventus intra portas armata signum eruptionis expectaret aut posceret, cum hostilia in portis tela vibrarent et ipsum solum suffossionibus et cuniculis tremeret, sederem otiosus et eiusmodi quaestiunculas ponens: ‘quod non perdidisti habes; cornua autem non perdidisti; cornua ergo habes’ aliaque ad exemplum huius acutae delirationis concinnata. 9.  Atqui aeque licet tibi demens videar si istis inpendero operam: et nunc obsideor. Tunc tamen periculum mihi obsesso externum inmineret, murus me ab hoste secerneret: nunc mortifera mecum

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144  Francesca Romana Berno sunt. Non vaco ad istas ineptias; ingens negotium in manibus est. Quid agam? mors me sequitur, fugit vita. 10. Adversus haec me doce aliquid; effice ut ego mortem non fugiam, vita me non effugiat. … 11. … Erras, si in navigatione tantum existimas minimum esse quo morte vita diducitur; in omni loco aeque tenue intervallum est. Non ubique se mors tam prope ostendit: ubique tam prope est. Has tenebras discute, et facilius ea trades ad quae praeparatus sum… 12. De iustitia mihi, de pietate disputa, de frugalitate, de pudicitia… Si me nolueris per devia ducere, facilius ad id quo tendo perveniam; nam, ut ait ille tragicus, ‘veritatis simplex oratio est’, ideoque illam inplicari non oportet; nec enim quicquam minus convenit quam subdola ista calliditas animis magna conantibus. Vale. 1. A man is indeed lazy and careless, my dear Lucilius, if he is reminded of a friend only by seeing some landscape which stirs the memory; and yet there are times when the old familiar haunts stir up a sense of loss that has been stored away in the soul, not bringing back dead memories, but rousing them from their dormant state, just as the sight of a lost friend’s favorite slave, or his cloak, or his house, renews the mourner’s grief, even though it has been softened by time. Now, lo and behold, Campania, and especially Naples and your beloved Pompeii, struck me, when I  viewed them, with a wonderfully fresh sense of longing for you. You stand in full view before my eyes. I am on the point of parting from you. I see you choking down your tears and resisting without success the emotions that well up at the very moment when you try to check them. 2. I seem to have lost you but a moment ago. For what is not ‘but a moment ago’ when one begins to use the memory? It was but a moment ago that I sat, as a lad, in the school of the philosopher Sotion, but a moment ago that I began to plead in the courts, but a moment ago that I lost the desire to plead, but a moment ago that I lost the ability. Infinitely swift is the flight of time, as those see more clearly who are looking backwards. … 4. It was but a moment ago that I saw you off on your journey; and yet this ‘moment ago’ makes up a goodly share of our existence, which is so brief, we should reflect, that it will soon come to an end altogether. In other years, time did not seem to me to go so swiftly; now, it seems fast beyond belief, perhaps because I feel that the finish-​line is moving closer to me, or it may be that I have begun to take heed and reckon up my losses. 5. For this reason I am all the more angry that some men claim the major portion of this time for superfluous thing,—​time which, no matter how carefully it is guarded, cannot suffice even for necessary things. Cicero declared that if the number of his days were doubled, he should not have time to read the lyric poets. And you may rate the dialecticians in the same class; but they are foolish in a more melancholy way. The lyric poets are avowedly frivolous; but the dialecticians believe that they are themselves engaged upon serious business. 6. I do not deny that one must cast

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 145 a glance at dialectic; but it ought to be a mere glance, a sort of greeting from the threshold, merely that one may not be deceived, or judge these pursuits to contain any riddle matters of great worth. Why do you torment yourself and lose weight over some problem which is more clever to have scorned than to solve? When a soldier is undisturbed and traveling at ease, he can hunt for trifles along his way; but when the enemy is closing in on the rear, and a command is given to quicken the pace, necessity makes him throw away everything which he picked up in moments of peace and leisure. 7. I have no time to investigate disputed inflections of words, or to try my cunning upon them. ‘behold the gathering clans, the fast-​shut gates, and weapons whetted ready for the war’. 8. I  need a stout heart to hear without flinching this din of a battle which sounds round about. And all would rightly think me mad if, when greybeards and women were heaping up rocks for the fortifications, when the armor-​clad youths inside the gates were awaiting, or even demanding, the order for a sally, when the spears of the foemen were quivering in our gates and the very ground was rocking with mines and subterranean passages,—​I say, they would rightly think me mad if I were to sit idle, putting such petty posers as this: ‘What you have not lost, you have. But you have not lost any horns. Therefore, you have horns’. Or other tricks constructed after the model of this piece of steer silliness. 9. And yet I may well seem in your eyes no less mad, if I spend my energies on that sort of thing; for even now I am in a state of siege. And yet, in the former case it would be merely a peril from the outside that threatened me, and a wall that sundered me from the foe; a sit is now, death-​dealing perils are in my very presence. I  have no time for such nonsense; mighty undertaking is on my hands. What am I  to do? Death is on my trail, and life is fleeting away; 10. Teach me something with which to face these troubles. Bring it to pass that I shall cease trying to escape from death, and that life might cease to escape from me. … 11. … You are mistaken if you think that only on an ocean voyage there is a slightly space between life and death. No, the distance between is just narrow everywhere. It is not everywhere that death shows himself so near at hand: yet everywhere he is as near at hand. Rid me of these shadowy terrors; then you will more easily deliver to me the instruction for which I have prepared myself. … 12. Discuss for me justice, duty, thrift, and purity… If you will only refuse to lead me along by-​paths, I shall more easily reach the goal at which I am aiming. For, as the tragic poet says: ‘The language of truth is simple’. We should not, therefore, make that language intricate; since there is nothing less fitting for a soul of great endeavor than such crafty cleverness. (Transl. Gummere 1917)

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146  Francesca Romana Berno Let us start from an abstract of the letter. Epistle 49, as it is usually the case in Seneca’s epistles, opens with a biographical episode, that of the separation of Seneca from his dearest friend Lucilius (we can guess, because of his departure for Sicily where he held the office of procurator). This memory is renewed by the sight of Naples and Pompeii, place of birth of the addressee of the letters. The scene is rich in pathetic details, with Lucilius weeping despite his efforts to hold back tears, and it is described in terms of a discidium, such as the parting of lovers (§ 1). Section 2 shifts to philosophy: from the idea of ‘memory’ Seneca extracts a general reflection on time and its quick passing, based on the idea of ‘a while ago’ (modo) which can be applied both to recent facts and to distant memories because of the brevity of a man’s life (§§ 2–​4). Then, the philosopher starts to criticize anything which involves wasting time, focusing on lyric poetry and, most of all, dialectic. Here we find a quotation from Cicero (§ 5). The examples which follow refer to military imagery,5 with a citation from the Aeneid and the scene of a siege where everyone does his best to rescue the others, except for an idle philosopher who remains seated and meditating on dialectic paradoxes (§§ 6–​8). Our daily situation is not different from that of a war: death is looming over us. Accordingly, we should not lose time with wordplays. We need a clear, simple, direct exhortation against the fear of death. This final consideration is supported by the translation of a sentence from Euripides (§§ 10–​12). The structure of the Epistle may be described as follows: § 1: introduction-​ autobiographical episode (themes: memory, friendship/​tears); §§ 2–​4: argumentative section, I  (theme:  the brevity of life/​rapidity/​life as a narrow space); §§ 5–​6 and 7–​9 argumentative section, II (against lyric poetry and dialectic/​ military imagery:  siege, pursuit); §§ 10–​ 2 conclusion-​ parenetic section (what really works against the fear of death/​making life a bigger space/​the path towards virtue). The individual links between the sections are evident: the vividness of distant memories suggests the brevity of life, in that all of our past lies at the same depth of our consciousness. In turn, the brevity of life suggests the necessity of avoiding useless occupations, such as reading lyric poetry and dialectic works. Finally, the pars construens: the philosopher suggests the authentic way to make someone’s life long, that is, by learning real philosophy, not philosophy based on wordplay, but one grounded in virtues. From a lexical point of view, apart from the semantic field of brevity in the first part, the letter is characterized by the opposition between uselessness, laziness, waste of time on one side (supervacua, inepti, lasciviunt § 5, minuta conquirere, pax otiosa, vacat § 6; sederem otiosus, § 8, vaco, ineptias § 9), which define the cleverness of connecting words (dubie cadentia, vafritia etc. § 7, per devia, inplicari, subdola calliditas § 12), and usefulness, urgency, necessity on the other (necessaria § 5, instat, necessitas § 6, 5 On the relevance in Senecan prose writings, see Lavery 1980; Cermatori 2014. A context very similar to that of Letter 49 is to be found in Ep. 82.21–​2 (Armisen-​Marchetti 2009, 178–​83).

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 147 magno animo § 7, ingens negotium § 9, magna conantibus § 12) which describe the simple exhortation to fight against the fear of death. To the first field corresponds the habit of the fools (demens § 8–​9, deliratio § 8); to the second, that of the sage. Despite its declarations against stylistic complexity, the text is enriched by three citations: in § 5, we find the quotation from Cicero against lyrics, presumably from his lost protreptic work Hortensius; in § 7, a Vergilian citation from Aeneid book 8; in § 12, a quotation from Euripides rendered in Latin. The total includes two poetic quotations (epic and tragedy), and one prose quotation (a philosophical essay); two come from Latin authors, one from a Greek work. Even more amazing is the web of allusions intertwined with the citations. Let us follow the narrative of the letter and identify these quotations one by one.

2  An elegiac opening (Ep.  49.1–​2) In the first section, the milieu is that of an elegiac poem:6 the emotional power of memory, the separation of dear friends for a long time, tears uselessly restrained. It is not surprising that we find some peculiar poetic allusions. First, the expression dolorem… renovat, referring to things which recall the memory of our lost beloved ones, clearly alludes to Aen. 2.3, Infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem, ‘Too deep for words, O queen, is the grief you bid me renew’ (transl. Goold 1999), words pronounced by Aeneas and directed to Dido, while recalling the end of Troy.7 In the same first section the image of things that previously belonged to a beloved one who has passed away and renew the grief for his loss, may recall a Platonic image where the subject is the lover: ‘Well, you know what happens to lovers, whenever they see a lyre or cloak or anything else their loves are accustomed to use: … they get in their mind, don’t they, the form of the boy whose lyre it is?’ (Phaedo 73d; transl. Gallop 1980). Lucilius is unable to hold back his tears: video lacrimas conbibentem (Sen. Ep. 49.1 ‘I see you choking down your tears’). We can find parallels for this image only in Ovid, in three different passages about grief, sorrow and pain.8 Two additional passages from the Tristia exhibit the same situation of separation from a dear friend observed in Seneca’s opening (3.5.1–​16; 3.4a.37–​40; here the verb is simple, bibo). In 3.4a the overlap is striking:

6 Russo 2013. 7 This same expression will be used by Plin. Ep. 6.10.1 in a similar context. 8 Ov. Ars am. 2.325-6: et videat flentem, nec taedeat oscula ferre | et sicco lacrimas conbibat ore tuas (grief: ‘And let her see you weeping, and be not weary of living her kisses’; transl. Mozley 1979); Ep. 15.150: grata prius lacrimas conbibit herba meas (sorrow: Sappho about Phaon ‘the grass I once found gracious has drunk my tears’; transl. Showerman 1977). For conbibo in an auto-​referential sense Ep. 11.54: et cogor lacrimas conbibere ipsa meas ‘and force myself to drink my very tears’. See also Prop. 4.11.6.

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148  Francesca Romana Berno Vidi ego te tali vultu mea fata gementem qualem credibile est ore fuisse meo. nostra tuas vidi lacrimas super ora cadentes tempore quas uno fidaque verba bibi. (Ov. Tr. 3.4a.37–​40) I saw thee lamenting my fate with such a look as I think my own face must have borne. I saw thy tears fall upon my face, tears that I drank in with thy words of loyalty. (Transl. A. L. Wheeler 1988) The pervasiveness of elegiac memories in this opening can be explained by the sincere love that Seneca felt for his friend,9 and the sorrow Lucilius expressed for Seneca’s departure. As these feelings are typical of an elegiac mood, the elegiac tone is naturally prompted by the context. We also know from Seneca’s NQ that Lucilius had a poetic preference for Ovid (NQ 4A 2.2), which suggests that he would appreciate Ovidian echoes. Even so, this poetic attitude admittedly contrasts sharply with the criticism of lyric poetry which follows immediately after.

3  The first quotation: Cicero against lyric poetry (Ep. 49.5) The first quotation of the letter is set in section 5: Negat Cicero, si duplicetur sibi aetas, habiturum se tempus quo legat lyricos ‘Cicero declared that if the number of his days were doubled, he should not have time to read the lyric poets’. The passage quoted by Seneca represents one of the few occasions in the Epistulae in which the philosopher explicitly quotes a prose work (with the exception of Epicurus’ sentences); the author is Cicero: Seneca criticizes him for his political choices and also for his style in the letters, nonetheless this criticism shows that he knows Cicero’s philosophical works well.10 The passage against lyric poetry is linked to Cicero’s well-​known polemic against the poetae novi, which is provisionally attributed to Cicero’s lost work Hortensius (12 Grilli).11 The knowing reader observes that it resembles another passage, the opening of Cicero, Tusc. 2.27: sed videsne poetae quid

9 On this peculiar kind of friendship, see Wildberger 2018a, esp. 404–​9; cf. Schönegg 1999, 33–​9; Wilcox 2012, 115–​31. For the wider context of love and passion, see Gill 1997; Inwood 1997. 10 See e.g., Ep. 21.5; 86; 100.9; 118. For an overview on Seneca and Cicero, see Setaioli 2003. For Seneca’s judgment on lyric poetry, see Mazzoli 1970, 209–​11. 11 Grilli 2010, 35 ad loc. and 135. Grilli rightly points out that the Senecan expression is too harsh: this suggests that the phrase in question is probably a paraphrase, or—​in Grilli’s opinion—​that it expresses the thought of Lucullus, a military man with a rough way of speaking, who was one of the characters of the dialogue. Cf. Stramme/​Zimmermann 1976, 88; also Ruch 1958, 74, who maintains that the quotation fits better Hortensius than Rep. 4.9; and Plasberg 1892, 27–​9. About Cicero and lyric poetry, see Alfonsi 1960, 170–​7; Watson 1982, 93–​110; Lomanto 1998; Spahlinger 2005, 248–​53.

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 149 mali adferant?, ‘But do you note the harm which poets do?’ (Transl. King 1971). In this section Cicero explicitly alludes to Plato’s criticism of poetry in the Republic:12 Recte igitur a Platone eiciuntur ex ea civitate quam finxit ille, cum optimos mores et optimum rei p. statum exquireret. (Tusc. 2.27) Plato was right, then, in turning them out of his imaginary state, when he was trying to find the highest morality and the best conditions for the community. (Transl. King 1971) In Plato’s original (Rep. 3.398a–​b), the philosopher does not censure poetry tout court, but only that poetry which ‘imitates everything’ (μιμεῖσθαι πάντα). The other kind, that which ‘imitates the expressions of honest men’13 (ὃς ἡμῖν τὴν τοῦ ἐπιεικοῦς λέξιν μιμοῖτο), is granted a place in his ideal land. In short, there are two kinds of poetry: a bad one, which is useless or dangerous, and a good one, which leads men towards sanctity. It is impossible to prove that Seneca is alluding to this passage in Ep. 49, but is probable to argue that something similar to what Plato says of poetry can be said of philosophy from Seneca’s point of view. In fact, in this letter, where the philosopher introduces a clear analogy between lyric poetry on one side, and dialectic on the other, he also maintains that there is a useless philosophy which is focused on linguistic paradoxes and wordplays, and a useful one which can lead us to true happiness. We can find a more precise correspondence with Seneca’s reasoning in another Platonic dialogue, Gorgias. Here, Socrates distinguishes different industries, ‘some of which extend only to pleasure (ἡδονή), procuring that and no more, and ignorant of better and worse; while others know what is good (ἀγαθόν) and what bad (κακόν)’ (Grg. 500b, transl. Lamb 1967). Rhetoric (ῥητορική, 500c), but also flute-​playing (500d), dithyrambic compositions, choral production, harp-​playing (501e–​502a), tragic poetry (502b), or even poetry in general14 (502c) belong, in Socrates’ opinion, to the first group; philosophy to the second (500c). Oratory in particular aims only at flattering and gratifying their audience (κολακεία, χαρίζεσθαι), not at making them better (βελτίοι, 502e–​503a); on the contrary, a good rhetoric, which evidently coincides with philosophy, directs listeners to justice and become virtuous (δικαιοσύνη… καὶ ἡ ἄλλη ἀρετὴ ἐγγίγνηται, 504e).15 The context (public 12 Moretti 1995, 31. A whole section of Plato’s Republic is devoted to the criticism of poetry (2.377d–​398b), first with regards to contents, then to style. About the problematic relationship between Plato and poetry, see Naddaff 2002. About ‘good’ rhetoric cf. Phdr. 261a; 270b–​d. 13 Trans. Emlyn-​Jones 2013. 14 The comparison between oratory and poetry is evident: Poetry is a kind of ‘public speaking’ (δημηγορία, Grg. 502c). 15 There is also a possible allusion to Plato near the end of the letter (Ep. 49.12): the exhortation to deal with justice, duty, thrift, purity, maybe echoes the conclusion to Plato’s Phaedrus,

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150  Francesca Romana Berno speaking/​personal philosophical training), the imagery (medicine/​war) and the peculiar target of the critics (sophistic/​dialectic philosophers) are different in Plato and Seneca; but the basic idea is the same.

4  The second quotation: Vergil, or the philosopher against the rest of the world (Ep. 49.7) The distinction between a good and a bad way of leading a philosophical life is developed and clarified in the Vergilian quotation as in Ep. 49.7—​an example of serious poetry used for a good cause.16 In fact, the lines from the Aeneid are quoted to exemplify an attitude which is the opposite of vafritia, the ability to connect words in a peculiar way.17 As seen earlier, Seneca inserted at the opening of Epistle 49 a Vergilian echo from an emotional episode, the opening of Aeneas’ narration of the end of Troy. A  few sections later, at Ep. 49.7, he quotes Vergil again, borrowing this time two verses from book 8, a book Seneca does not usually quote:18 Aspice qui coeant populi, quae moenia clusis |​ferrum acuant portis (Aen. 8.385–​6) see what nations are mustering, what cities with closed gates whet the sword… (Transl. Fairclough 2000) The lines talk about enemies at the doors, angst, fear; once set in context, however, they come from a scene of seduction.19 Venus is trying to convince Vulcan to make divine weapons for Aeneas—​the fruit of her adultery. And she succeeds. The quoted couplet is the only section that deals with war in an episode dominated by love and tenderness. Seneca, one might say, reaches out for

where Socrates considers worthy of philosophers only speeches which deal with the right, the good and the beautiful, and excludes from philosophy speeches made only of wordplays (Phdr. 276e; 278d–​e). 16 On this topic in general, see Setaioli 1965; Mazzoli 1970, 215–​32; Berno 2012a; Papaioannou in this volume. 17 The only known recurrence of this abstract noun before Seneca is in Valerius Maximus, in a passage where vafritia, ‘craftiness’, is only a step away from sapientia: 7.3. Pr. 1: Est aliud factorum dictorumque genus, a sapientia proximo deflexu ad vafritiae nomen progressum, quod, nisi fallacia vires adsumpsit, finem propositi non invenit laudemque occulto magis tramite quam aperta via petit (‘There is another kind of deeds and sayings, advanced to the title of craftiness by the slightest turn from wisdom. This does not succeed, unless deceit will have added its strength. It seeks praise more greatly by a secret path than by an open road’. Transl. E. L. Wheeler 1988). The chapter in question is entitled Vafre dicta aut facta. The term vafritia is effectively a conjecture by Vorst from a script vafriae, of uncertain meaning (see Briscoe 1998 ad loc.). This attitude is assessed positively or negatively, depending on its consequences: if the deception implies something good for the fatherland, then the vafritia was good. Seneca does not agree with this common way of thinking. 18 Only nine quotations from a total of 11 lines (Mazzoli 1970, 231). 19 Setaioli 1965, 141.

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 151 another ‘elegiac’ context, not least a scene that excludes all mention to Aeneas and his heroism—​a passage whose provenance not many readers would readily identify. Yet, Seneca ignores all these considerations as he chooses to excerpt just these two lines. Far more fitting in the Senecan context at hand would be other lines, such as those from book 10 (Verg. Aen. 9.505–6): Adcelerant acta partier testudine Volsci et fossas implore parant ac vellere vallum. Forth the Volscians speed in even line, driving on their roof of shields, and prepare to fill the moat and pull down the palisade. (Transl. Fairclough 2000) from a section that describes the Trojans defending their walls, which is the image that Seneca uses to comment on the citation. We could assume that Seneca may have preferred to quote the passage from book 8 because it names no enemies, which makes it easier to identify them with abstract entities such as death. It is also likely that he chose those verses because their ‘elegiac’ context created an aesthetic link with the opening. Even more probable, however, is that he quoted the couplet from memory without having in mind the broader context of Vulcan’s seduction. The philosopher extracts from the citation the explicitly quoted themes of angst, enemies and fear, and opportunely discusses them in depth in his commentary (Ep. 49.8): Demens omnibus merito viderer, si cum saxa in munimentum murorum senes feminaeque congererent, cum iuventus intra portas armata signum eruptionis expectaret aut posceret, cum hostilia in portis tela vibrarent et ipsum solum suffossionibus et cuniculis tremeret, sederem otiosus et eiusmodi quaestiunculas ponens:  ‘quod non perdidisti habes; cornua autem non perdidisti; cornua ergo habes’ aliaque ad exemplum huius acutae delirationis concinnata. I need a stout heart to hear without flinching this din of a battle which sounds round about. And all would rightly think me mad if, when greybeards and women were heaping up rocks for the fortifications, when the armor-​clad youths inside the gates were awaiting, or even demanding, the order for a sally, when the spears of the foemen were quivering in our gates and the very ground was rocking with mines and subterranean passages,—​I say, they would rightly think me mad if I  were to sit idle, putting such petty posers as this: ‘What you have not lost, you have. But you have not lost any horns. Therefore, you have horns. Or other tricks constructed after the model of this piece of steer silliness’. In this case Seneca reverts to epic poetry to exhort the reader in a definitely epic way, as if he were leaving for a war, or even fighting in an actual war. The

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152  Francesca Romana Berno author amplifies emotionally the battle image: his first sentence (Magno mihi animo strepitus iste belli circumsonantis exaudiendus est ‘I need a stout heart to hear without flinching this din of a battle which sounds round about’ Ep. 49.8) recalls the final image of Turnus’ aristeia in the Aeneid (9.808–​9: strepit adsiduo cava tempora circum |​tinnitus galea et saxis solida aera fatiscunt ‘Round his hollow temples the helmet echoes with ceaseless clash; the solid brass gapes beneath the rain of stones’), when the young warrior is described at the extreme point of resistance to his enemies’ attack. Turnus decides to run away; on the contrary, the philosopher has to stay and fight to death. Seneca goes on to add technical terms and descriptions referring to sieges, such as eruptio (sally), saxa congerere (to heap up rocks), suffossiones (mines) and cuniculi (subterranean passages),20 and portrays not only brave warriors in frenzy hardly restraining themselves at the expectation of the battle signal, but also people of all ages, including old people, women and children, participating in the defensive works. The accumulation of visual elements, stressed by the repetition of cum, is balanced by the auditory indications of the enemy getting nearer and nearer, from all directions, both horizontal, trying to break the doors down, and vertical, digging subterranean tunnels. The same choice of summoning visual and auditory elements in describing battles goes back to Homeric epic. Τhis scene of angst, fear and expectation, dominated by frantic movements and threatening sounds, radically contrasts the image of the so-​ called ‘philosopher’, sitting idly (sederem otiosus), lost inside a world made by useless wordplays. This is the negative counterpart of the famous Lucretian image of the sage who watches a shipwreck from the reassuringly dry land of philosophy (Lucr. DRN 2.1–2): Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem… Pleasant is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another’s great tribulation… (Transl. Rouse 1992) The philosopher is serene because he has gained awareness of the inconsistent and vain nature of all things, including possible disgraces, and this has secured for him a safe distance from any possible negative experience. This image of the sage who lives in safety, protected from the tempests of life, is a philosophical commonplace. Seneca’s own examples are even more striking than those recorded in Lucretius, because they do not simply concern distant observers but men who have been directly touched by disasters: we can think, for example, of Stilpo of Megara (Const. sapient. [2]‌.5.6–​6.7; Ep. 9.18). The

20 All are military terms, to be found respectively in Caes. BGall. 3.19.3; Curt. 8.2.24; Vitr. Arch. 1.5.5; Caes. BGall. 3.21.3 and 7.22.2.

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 153 tyrant Demetrius destroyed his town; Stilpo lost all his property as well as his family, yet when he was asked by the tyrant whether he had lost anything, the man declared: ‘I have lost nothing: I have all that is mine with me’ (‘nihil,’ ‘inquit.’ ‘omnia mea mecum sunt’, transl. Ker 2014a). The reaction of the sage Stilpo is completely different from that of his fellow citizens (Const. sapient. [2].6.2): Inter micantis ubique gladios et militarem in rapina tumultum, inter flammas et sanguine stragemque inpulsae civitatis, inter fragorem templorum super deos suos cadentium, uni homini pax fuit. Amid swords flashing on every side and the uproar of soldiers bent on pillage, amid flames and blood and the destruction of the smitten city, amid the crush of temples falling upon their gods, one man alone had peace  (Transl. Basore 1928) The passages from De constantia and Epistle 49 are similar also from a formal point of view:  both record an accumulation of war images stitched together through the repetition of inter in the one text, cum in the other, and both portray the sage in all these images standing calm and alone, in opposition to turmoil. In the De constantia, behind Stilpo’s mask Seneca opportunely dismisses the preoccupations and concerns of his fellow citizens, who are described as greedy men risking death in their struggle to save their material wealth ([2]‌.6.7). Stilpo, on the contrary, is seen as the absolute hero. Epistle 49, however, reverses the situation. Here, the idle protagonist has an illusory awareness of moral superiority and psychological distance from the fact, because his skills are limited to linguistic dexterity and he considers that his ability to craft wordplays suffices to help him reach serenity. It is precisely this misunderstanding which makes him not a positive example, like that of Lucretius’ poem or that of Stilpo, but a negative one: in fact, Seneca defines him as a man that is mentally disturbed (demens, Ep. 49.8), i.e., the opposite of the sage in Stoic philosophy. From this perspective, Seneca’s foolish idle man in Ep. 49 has an interesting parallel in a passage from Petronius, where the protagonists are rescued from a certain death from a shipwreck. As they prepare to leave the sinking ship, they hear a strange sound; they turn around and see their friend Eumolpus, the poet of the group, who is writing a poem. They shout at him to come with them, but he refuses, because, he says, the poem is not yet finished. Refusing to abandon him, they forcibly carry him out from the boat, calling him mad and deluded (Petron. 115.1–5): 1. Audimus murmur insolitum et sub diaeta magistri quasi cupientis exire beluae gemitum. 2.  Persecuti igitur sonum invenimus Eumolpum sedentem membranaeque ingenti versus ingerentem. 3.  Mirati ergo quod illi vacaret in vicinia mortis poema facere, extrahimus clamantem

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154  Francesca Romana Berno iubemusque bonam habere mentem. 4. At ille interpellatus excanduit et ‘sinite me’ inquit ‘sententiam explere:  laborat carmen in fine’. 5.  Inicio ego phrenetico manum iubeoque Gitona accedere et in terram trahere poetam mugientem. We heard a curious droning coming from below the master’s cabin. It sounded like the plaintive utterance of a beast seeking to escape. When we tracked down the sound, we found Eumolpus sitting there, raining verses thick and fast on to a massive sheet of parchment. We showed some surprise at his leisurely composition of poetry when he was at death’s threshold; we dragged him out shouting, and told him not to worry. But he flushed with rage at being disturbed, and said: ‘Kindly allow me to formulate my thought. The poem is limping at its close’. I laid my hand on the lunatic, and bade Giton come to lend help, and to drag the bellowing poet ashore. (Transl. Walsh 1996) The analogy between the two scenes is obvious: each describes a situation of danger and imminent death; in both scenes, all people do their best to rescue themselves, except a single individual who ignores everything, lost in his world (note the use of the same verb, vacare, ‘to have free time’, in both contexts: Sen. Ep. 49.7; Petron. 115.3), and who accordingly is considered by the rest to be mad (Sen. demens; acuta deliratio; Petron. phreneticus). It is significant that the same image in Seneca describes a philosopher, in Petronius a poet. The parallels between the passages from Seneca and Petronius show that this commonplace was applied to both poets and philosophers:  both were recipients of the same philosophical prejudices, which likely originated in (now lost) diatribic treatises (such as those of Bion of Borysthenes)21 and were typically cast against the contemplative life in general, and more specifically against those interested in theoretical matters which were perceived as useless, such as rhetoric and dialectic. Seneca takes his start from this idea, but he adjusts it as to reflect the juxtaposition of the good philosopher, who looks for essential things (i.e., living a full life and learning to die), to a bad one, who gives too much importance to dialectic. It should be pointed out that the paradox of the ‘horned’ man (i.e., the man who did not lose any horns because he did not have any to begin with; cf. Ep. 49.8 recorded and discussed above), used in Seneca’s essay as a symbol of nonsense, was one favored by Chrysippus.22 In light of the above, it becomes clear that Seneca’s hostility against rhetoric and dialectic, subjects he considered of little practical value and therefore useless, must have other roots, which we shall explore shortly. 21 Oltramare 1926, 263–​4. The reference study on the intertextual relationship between Petronius and Seneca is Sullivan 1968, 193–​213. 22 SVF 2.279 = Diog. Laert. 7.186; Moretti 1995, 140–​1; above, n. 3.

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5  The final quotation: Euripides and Stoic rhetoric (Ep. 49.12) Nam, ut ait ille tragicus, ‘veritatis simplex oratio est’. (Ep. 49.12) ‘For, as the tragic poet says: the language of truth is simple’.

23

This is one of two cases in the Epistles where the philosopher gives the prose translation of a Greek verse24 (ἁπλοῦς ὁ μῦθος τῆς ἀληθείας ἔφυ, Eur. Phoen. 469; the other is in Ep. 115, which we will discuss later). The quoted text transcribes another maxim, and this time belongs to a longer sentence. The first thing to note is that in this case the original context in Euripides is very similar to that of the Senecan text that hosts the quotation:  an opposition between simple and honest speech vs. complex and false speech. The line is part of a speech by Polynices, who goes on to say that ‘justice needs no elaborate interpretations’ (ποικίλα ἑρμηνεύματα, l.  470), while he concludes as follows: ‘I have spoken the precise facts, plain and simple, mother, not marshaling deceitful rhetoric’ (οὐχὶ περιπλοκὰς |​ λόγων ἀθροίσας εἶπον),25 but ‘only saying what is just, it seems to me, in the eyes both of the wise and the simple’ (ll. 494–​6, transl. Kovacs 2002). Seneca uses a similar image of a simple situation which should not become complicated (Ep. 49.12:  si me nolueris per devia ducere… inplicari non oportet, ‘if you will only refuse to lead me along by-​paths… We should not make the language intricate’; here the verb implico corresponds to the Greek attribute περίπλοκος) and talks about a malign dialectic ability (subdola calliditas ‘crafty cleverness’). Accordingly, we can say that he has in mind not just the Euripidean line, but also its overall context, and the overlap between the speech of Polynices and Seneca’s intention in the letter could be the reason why the philosopher chose to quote a Greek poet, and not a Latin one, in a letter against poetry. Even more interesting is the fact that Cicero, who as we have seen has his role as an author in this letter (section 3 above), transfers in Latin Euripides’ exact words to describe Stoic rhetoric. In fact, in the Brutus there is a passage where the statarii oratores, ‘stationary [i.e., old-​fashioned] orators’, such as M. Aemilius Scaurus and P. Rutilius Rufus, are praised for their simplex in agendo veritas, non molesta (Brut. 116 ‘simple realism, free from exaggeration’; transl. Hendrickson 1939). Scaurus is considered an old-​fashioned orator, while Rutilius is explicitly called a Stoic (ibid.) and a pupil of Panaetius (114).26 Cicero apparently approves of this choice of a style of unadorned realism, yet 23 On the passage, see Mazzoli 1970, 174–​5; Setaioli 1988, 68; Tosi 2011, 194–​6 on Seneca. As it is well known, the sentence was originally Aeschylean (fr. 176 Radt). See also Mastronarde 1994, 280–​1 ad loc. For the alternative ratio/​oratio, see Santini 1981. 24 Mazzoli 1970, 171–​5. 25 Mastronarde 1994, 287 ad loc. 26 Moretti 2002.

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156  Francesca Romana Berno he stresses that it is never effective because people do not appreciate it. In fact, Rutilius was exiled even though he was innocent. In Cicero’s opinion, he was defeated because he chose to defend himself on his own, without asking for assistance (115). Yet, his speeches were too bare and unadorned (ieiunae, 114), and even though he told the facts as they were, he lost. The same concept is expressed in the De oratore (1.229), where Cicero reports again the Rutilius episode with these words (De or. 1.229): Non modo supplex iudicibus esse noluit, sed ne ornatius quidem aut liberius causam dici suam quam simplex ratio veritatis ferebat. He declined not only to crave mercy of his judges, but also to be defended more eloquently and elaborately than the plain truth of the matter permitted. (Transl. Sutton 1959) From these words we can understand both the admiration for Rutilius’ immaculate morality and the criticism of Rutilius’ choice not to use rhetoric, which in his case would have been effective because it would serve a good cause, that of staving off the condemnation of an innocent person.

6  The allusion to Aristo of Chios (Ep. 49.6) Let us go back to Seneca. The link with Cicero’s rhetorical essays clearly shows that Seneca’s quotation from Euripides is in fact an allusion to Stoic rhetoric, intended to be used as some form of anti-​rhetoric which refuses dialectic. This Stoic rhetoric here receives praise. Nevertheless, if we consider the letter as a whole, we can see that Seneca from the start is opposed to poetry and dialectic; he gives the impression that he considers the two to be similar. In doing so, he tempts the reader to reach back to the old Stoic Chrysippus, who loved paradoxes. The same Ep. 49, however, with its intertwined quotations, contradicts this. So, which Stoics are involved here? And how can we justify, in the same letter, the mounting of praise for the telling of the truth plain and simple, and the use of stylistic devices? I think that a clue to answer this question is another allusion, to be located in section 6 of the epistle (Ep. 49.6): Securi est et ex commodo migrantis minuta conquirere: cum hostis instat a tergo et movere se iussus est miles, necessitas excutit quidquid pax otiosa collegerat. When someone is undisturbed and traveling at his ease, he can hunt for trifles along his way; but when the enemy is closing in on the rear, and a command is given to the soldier to quicken the pace, necessity makes him throw away everything which he picked up in moments of peace and leisure.

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 157 The image is that of a lazy traveler who has time to collect little things (like pebbles, we can imagine, or shells, if he is at the seaside). This image is set opposite to a scene of hurry and danger, that of a soldier urged by the enemy, who needs to run and leave every unnecessary thing behind.27 We find a similar image, much richer in details, in Epictetus, Ench. 7. There, the setting is that of an outing by the sea,28 though not that of a soldier suddenly aware of the enemy drawing nearer and nearer. Still, the structure of the short story is the same: a lazy traveler who collects little useless things is suddenly confronted with an emergency which forces him to drop everything. From the Stoic perspective, the little things are our world of ‘indifferents’. Among them belong money, family and also, of course, poetry and dialectic. All these are things we turn to and enjoy when we have plenty of time at our disposal, yet when we understand that this time may be too short, we come to the realization that we need to focus on the essential. The emergency situation described in Ep. 49.6 is clearly connected with death; actually, it can be identified with death (Epict. Ench. 7): Just as on a voyage when your ship has anchored, if you should go on shore to get fresh water, you may pick up a small shell-​fish or little bulb on the way (ὁδοῦ μὲν πάρεργον καὶ κοχλίδιον ἀναλέξῃ καὶ βολβάριον), but you have to keep your attention fixed on the ship, and turn about frequently for fear lest the captain should call; and if he calls, you must give up all these things (πάντα ἐκεῖνα ἀφιέναι), if you would escape being thrown on board all tied up like a sheep. So it is also in life: if there be given you, instead of a little bulb and a small shell-​fish, a little wife and child, there will be no objection to that; only, if the Captain calls, give up all these things and run to the ship, without even turning around to look back (ἐὰν δὲ ὁ κυβερνήτης καλέσῃ, τρέχε ἐπὶ τὸ πλοῖον ἀφεὶς ἐκεῖνα ἅπαντα μηδὲ ἐπιστρεφόμενος). And if you are an old man, never even get far away from the ship, for fear that when he calls you may be missing. (Transl. Oldfather 1928) The analogies in structure and meaning in the images of Seneca and Epictetus, in my opinion, stem from a common source:  a source that must have been famous and well known to Seneca’s contemporaries; a source that

27 Here perhaps there is also an allusion to the ridiculous ‘triumph over the sea’ of Caligula, who ordered his troops to collect shells to take them to Rome as spolia (Suet. Gaius 46; Brugnoli 1996, 96–​104; Armisen-​Marchetti 2015b, 267–​8). 28 On this passage, see Stephens 2007, 138–​40. An illuminating psychoanalytical reading of this passage is offered in Yalom 2005, 248–​68. An allusion to a similar image can be found in Sen. Ep. 49.11.

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158  Francesca Romana Berno a brief allusion could readily trigger its recollection. It is Seneca himself who, in another letter, Ep. 115.8, discloses the clue that helps us identify this source. In Ep. 115.8, Seneca compares the pebbles collected by children at the seaside to jewels and luxury houses loved by adults. This comparison is attributed to Aristo of Chios (Ep. 115.8 = SVF 1.372):29 Quid ergo inter nos intersit, ut Ariston ait, nisi quod nos circa tabulas et statuas insanimus, carius inepti? Illos reperti in litore calculi leves et aliquid habentes varietatis delectant, nos ingentium maculae columnarum… And what then, as Aristo says, is the difference between ourselves and these children, except that we elders go crazy over paintings and sculpture, and that our folly costs us dearer? Children are pleased by the smooth and variegated pebbles which they pick up on the beach, while we take delight in tall columns of veined marble… (Transl. Gummere 1925) Here, we find the image of collecting little things, a childish occupation, referring to the adults’ passions for things that the Stoics value as indifferents. That same correspondence is to be found in the text of Epictetus, along with the view that one should be able to leave them aside when necessity calls. Seneca’s employment of the image of an adult collecting little things may be indebted, and even allude, to a more detailed image in Aristo, which comprises the earliest record of all the particulars later contained in the version transmitted in Epictetus’ text. The suggestion to identify Aristo as the primary source of inspiration for Seneca may be substantiated if we consider Aristo’s position on the theme of the letter, i.e., dialectic, which is similar to Seneca’s treatment as recorded in one of the opening sentences of Ep. 115.1: quaere quid scribas, non quemadmodum, ‘find out what you have to write, not how’. In the same letter we find a critique of poetry on account of the fact that it contains wrong precepts such as a eulogy of wealth:  this criticism is supported with a quotation from Euripides (Ep. 115.14). The two letters, thus, have much in common, including perhaps the same source. Nothing has survived from Aristo’s work; we have only indirect testimony:  we know that he was called ‘the Siren’ for his power of persuasion (SVF 1.333 = Diog. Laert. 7.160); yet, we are also told that he blamed dialectic as useless for ethical purposes (SVF 1.352 = Stob. Ecl. 2.1.24, p. 8.13 Wachsmuth πρὸς ἡμᾶς μὲν τὰ ἠθικά, μὴ πρὸς ἡμᾶς δὲ τὰ διαλεκτικά:  μὴ γὰρ συμβάλλεσθαι πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν βίου, ‘we care for ethical things, we do not care for dialectic, because it does not deal with the correct way of living’). In the testimonia that refer to him he reportedly compared dialectic to 29 Festa 1935 cautiously attributes this fragment to Aristo’s work Against False Opinions. For the comparison between fools and children, a commonplace in ancient philosophy, see Ioppolo 1980, 320. See also above, p. 142 and n. 4.

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Intertextuality in Seneca’s Epistle 49 159 spiderwebs: both are elaborate but useless (SVF 1.351 = Diog. Laert. 7.161). Aristo’s rejection of dialectic was peculiar and distinguished him from the first Stoics, particularly Chrysippus:30 the latter also wrote a treatise in three books titled Against Dialectics (SVF 1.333 = Diog. Laert. 7.160) and maybe another treatise against rhetoric.31 He quoted some famous paradoxes, such as that of the Indian and the Dominator,32 in order to reject them as useless and physically troublesome exercises (SVF 1.389 = Plut. Tuend. san. 133c). Given Aristo’s critique of dialectic, his image of collecting little things, and the similarities between Seneca’s Epistles 49 and 115, where he is explicitly quoted, we can infer that Aristo may be the source behind Seneca’s Ep. 49. Maybe the same criticism of lyric poetry, which we find in both Senecan letters, was in Aristo, too. In another letter, Ep. 89, Seneca, quoting Aristo, argues for the importance of reducing philosophy, especially dialectic, to serving a single purpose, moral improvement.33 But he distances himself from Aristo because the latter was against monitiones, while Seneca considers them crucial for the moral education of the learner (Sen. Ep. 89.13 = SVF 1.357): Ariston Chius non tantum suprevacuas esse dixit naturalem et rationalem sed etiam contrarias; moralem quoque, quam sola reliquerat, circumcidit. Nam eum locum qui monitiones continent sustulit et paedagogi esse dixit, non philosophi, tamquam quidquam aliud sit sapiens quam generis humani paedagogus. Aristo of Chios remarked that the natural and the rational were not only superfluous, but were also contradictory. He even limited the ‘moral’, which was all that was left to him; for he abolished that heading which embraced advice, maintaining that it was the business of the pedagogue, and not of the philosopher—​as if the wise man were anything else than the pedagogue of the human race! (Transl. Gummere 1920) We can identify, then, in Aristo the whole argument of Ep. 49: the criticism of dialectic, the praise of simple philosophical speeches and the image of collecting little things as an allegory for wasting time on indifferents. In Seneca’s text of course these elements are amplified:  Seneca has added the comparison between lyric poetry and dialectic,34 the obsession with the lapse of time and death pursuing us like an urging enemy, the military images, and 30 Ioppolo 1980, 63–​9; Porter 1996, 162; Ranocchia 2011, 345. 31 Ioppolo 1980, 47–​50; 68–​9. 32 Another Chrysippean paradox:  SVF 2.283 (Arrian Epicteti Dissertationes 2.19.1–​2); 2.287 (Lucian, Auctio vitarum 22). 33 See Mazzoli 2005b; Boeri/​Salles 2014, 558. 34 Aristo’s views on poetry are perhaps to be found in the fragments of Philod. De Poem book 5, where the author argues against an unnamed Stoic (Jensen 1923, 128–​45; Ioppolo 1980, 256–​60; Mangoni 1993, 61–​9; Porter 1996, 162–​7). In this text, Philodemus attributes to this Stoic a distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ poetry (cols. 17.6–​10).

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160  Francesca Romana Berno the ‘elegiac’ opening with the painful memory of the philosopher’s parting from Lucilius, which triggers the dissertation in the main body of the letter. The knowing reader may even read the contrast between the criticism of dialectic and lyric on one side, and the use of rhetorical tools and quotations on the other, as the coexistence of Aristo’s radical theories with Seneca’s personal reading thereof.

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7  Sub auro servitus habitat Seneca’s moralizing of architecture and the anti-​Neronian querelle Tommaso Gazzarri

In Ep. 90 Seneca tackles the theme of human progress and, more specifically, the relation between human progress and technological development. The outcome of the analysis is a pessimistic one. The invention of the artes has fueled luxury and moral vices, by concealing, under the false appearance of progress, what is in fact a widening of the gap separating contemporary society from the ideal of bene vivere. The philosophical relevance of the topic provides Seneca with the opportunity to situate his thought within the lore of previous philosophical traditions, more specifically to define his position vis-​à-​vis the contribution of Middle-​Stoicism.1 The result is an epistle which is rich in doctrinal nuances and highly intertextual. In Ep. 90 Seneca does not conceal his sources of choice; rather, already at par. 5, he introduces Posidonius as his main comparandum. In fact, the text of the epistle constitutes a precious testimony in reconstructing the fragmentary tradition of the polymath from Apameia.2 Posidonius connects the development of the artes to the Golden Age, the traditional cultural myth predicated on the notion of a forever-​lost age of happiness, and situated in a remote and vanished past. Seneca characterizes it as ‘the so-​called Golden Age’, a clear sign of his intent to shift the discussion from the mythical account of the poetic tradition to the systematic reasoning of philosophical debate: Illo ergo, quod aureum perhibent, penes sapientes fuisse regnum Posidonius iudicat. 1 With this well-​established label I am referring chiefly to the contributions of Panaetius and Posidonius, who both influenced Seneca in many respects. We only have one extant Panaetian quotation in Seneca’s oeuvre (Ep. 116.5), possibly deriving from a later anthology of apophtegmata, but which nonetheless reflects Panaetius’ shift of focus from the unattainable perfection of the wise man, to the morals of the average man. Furthermore, following the 1908 pioneering study of Siefert, scholars unanimously acknowledge the profound influence of Panaetius’ περὶ εὐθυμίας on Seneca’s De tranquillitate animi. As for Posidonius, his emphasis on human emotions greatly influenced Seneca’s protreptic method of admonitio, as argued by Setaioli 1985. 2 Cf. Posidon. fr. 284 Edelstein and Kidd which contains the text of Ep. 90, in fact Seneca’s epistle is the main text to reconstruct Posidonius’ theory of human evolution and culture as observed by Bees 2005, 15 n. 2.

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162  Tommaso Gazzarri ‘Therefore, in the age that men call golden Posidonius3 believes that monarchy belonged to wise men’.4 The Quellenforschung of the Posidonian presence in the epistle has a long and complex tradition, with multiple attempts to assess what in the text is to be attributed to Seneca, what is genuinely Posidonian and, finally, what should be regarded as fundamentally Posidonian, yet modified by or read through the lens of Seneca. Important though this philological analysis may be, it is not the aim of the present contribution. For the epistle certainly contains various textual layers, sometimes hard to tease apart, but the topics on which Seneca agrees or disagrees with Posidonius are evident, thanks to the explicitly stated formulas Posidonio adsentio (‘I agree with Posidonius’) and dissentio a Posidonio (‘I disagree with Posidonius’), respectively at Ep. 90.7 and 90.11. Both Seneca and Posidonius frame the Golden Age as a time when power was exerted by kings. The monarchy of these sapientes reges, Seneca maintains, was the natural consequence of the weaker seeking the guidance of the better, very much like the most muscular bull or the most sizable elephant naturally leading their herds (thus, for animals, physical strength, not moral excellence is the decisive factor for leadership).5 The two philosophers also concur that, after this phase, monarchic power degenerated into tyranny, due to the increase of vice and the decline of morality. Thus, an age regulated by the promulgation of leges began and, again, this was possible thanks to the intervention of the sapientes (sages), in fact, the men who have gone down in history as the seven sages like, for instance, Solon (Ep. 90.6). Both Stoic philosophers also agree on the notion 3 The most up-​to-​date analysis on the philosophical and textual relations between Ep. 90 and the Posidonian lore is the one of Zago 2012, but a more synthetic overview can be found also in Setaioli 1988, 322–​36 (in particular, for the history of the Quellenforschung, 323 n. 1506) and Chaumartin 1988. For an analysis of the relation between Posidonius and Seneca in their deployment of the Golden Age topos and with an emphasis on the role played by Seneca’s own Roman literary culture, see Feeney 2007, 129–​31. 4 Such a rationalizing aim is already present in Dicaearchus’ reading of Hesiod, and his attempt to eliminate the mythical elements of the Erga’s account, cf. Schütrumpf 2001, 261. 5 Cf. Ep. 90.4: Sed primi mortalium quique ex his geniti naturam incorrupti sequebantur, eundem habebant et ducem et legem, commissi melioris arbitrio. Naturae est enim potioribus deteriora summittere. Mutis quidem gregibus aut maxima corpora praesunt aut vehementissima. Non praecedit armenta degener taurus, sed qui magnitudine ac toris ceteros mares vicit. Elephantorum gregem excelsissimus ducit; inter homines pro summo est optimum. Animo itaque rector eligebatur, ideoque summa felicitas erat gentium, in quibus non poterat potentior esse nisi melior. ‘But the first men and those who sprang from them, still unspoiled, followed nature, having one man as both their leader and their law, entrusting themselves to the control of one better than themselves. For nature has the habit of subjecting the weaker to the stronger. Even among the dumb animals those which are either biggest or fiercest hold sway. It is no weakling bull that leads the herd; it is one that has beaten the other males by his might and his muscle. In the case of elephants, the tallest goes first; among men, the best is regarded as the highest. That is why it was to the mind that a ruler was assigned; and for that reason the greatest happiness rested with those peoples among whom a man could not be the more powerful unless he were the better’ (Transl. Gummere 1920).

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Architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 163 that a shift in human history from the reign of sapientes reges to the communities regulated by leges coincides with the end of the Golden Age. So much for the Posidonian lore with which Seneca agrees: to take stock of the elements of disagreement between the two philosophers, it is worth referring to the following schematic table, which follows Zago’s interpretation in outlining the various phases of human civilization according to Posidonius and Seneca respectively: Stages of civilization according to Posidonius

Stages of civilization according to Seneca

men γηγενεῖς → διαστροφή (vices) ↓ phase of cave dwelling ↓ technological development (tecta)—​philosophia—​sapientes ↓ natural submission to the sapientes ↓ government of the sapientes (reges sapientes)—​ Golden Age ↓ progressive degeneration: reges → tyranny → necessity of leges—​ end of Golden Age

Golden Age: absence of vices /​absence of laws /​reges sapientes (= rule of the best, not of the wise) ↓ διαστροφή (vices) → end of Golden Age ↓ technological development

A first major element of discrepancy between the two philosophers is the chronological setting of the Golden Age, which Posidonius locates after the διαστροφή6 (i.e., the turning of mankind towards vice and away from innocence). More specifically, he places the Golden Age at the end of an evolutionary sequence which, beginning with the διαστροφή (and the attendant assumption is that humankind was plagued by vices from birth), is then followed by a primitive phase of cave dwelling, then the introduction of tecta, of philosophia and, finally, the natural submission to the sapientes, whose rule marks precisely the advent of a blessed time. On the contrary, for Seneca, the Golden Age, which is characterized by the absence of law and government, is a prelapsarian one, thus to be positioned before the διαστροφή. The diffusion

6 The διαστροφή λόγου (or perversio rationis) is a fundamental tenet of the Stoic doctrine, see Bellincioni, 1978, 15–​41; Grilli 1963, 87–​101, and Zago 2012, 58–​61 and 220 n. 58. The chronological order of these various phases can be analyzed to assess Seneca’s use of the Posidonian account, and yet, as is the case with mythical lore, a text’s narrative order often obeys axiological rather than temporal considerations. In the case of the Hesiodic sequence of races (cf. Op. 106–​201) the golden race is qualified as ‘first’, not so much because it was the first to have appeared but because it was ‘the best’ with respect to the axiological dyad δίκη/​ὕβρις, as outlined by Vernant 1965, 13–​41; this chapter had previously appeared as Vernant 1960, 21–​54.

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164  Tommaso Gazzarri of vices will eventually disrupt this blissful age, and restless technological development will follow. This implies that the reign of the sapientes, which for Posidonius coincides with the Golden Age, bestows the benefits of a good life upon an already corrupted human race; in contrast, for Seneca there cannot be a Golden Age without complete purity and absence of vice. Furthermore, while Posidonius situates the beginning of human technological development during the Golden Age and attributes it to the wisdom of the kings, for Seneca there is a fundamental incompatibility between banausic work and wisdom. Equally upsetting for Seneca must have been the association, under the heading of wisdom, of sapientia, leges, and artes. An element of difficulty derives from the fact that Seneca first maintains to agree with Posidonius on the idea that the reges sapientes ruled during the Golden Age, but then he seemingly contradicts himself by stating that these leaders were not really wise. This contradiction is in fact only apparent on account of the different notion of ‘wisdom’ that Posidonius and Seneca respectively demonstrate. While the former attaches sapientia to philosophical speculation and technical development, the latter interprets the kings’ political wisdom as the natural leadership of the stronger, and the various technical achievements as the fruit of sagacitas, ‘not true wisdom’.7 Therefore Seneca does agree with the Posidonian description of the Golden Age as presented at Ep. 90.5–​6, but he does so on the basis of a different interpretation of the notion of primitive wisdom. More to the point, unlike Posidonius, Seneca conceives the Golden Age as a-​philosophical.8 Thus, if on the one hand he does not attribute any vices to it, on the other, at Ep. 90.36, he clearly states that it was not possible to retrieve any traces of wisdom in it:  Non erant illi sapientes viri, etiam si faciebant facienda sapientibus ‘Those9 were not wise men, even though they did what wise men should do’. According to Seneca, the artes do not ensue from wisdom, rather from shrewdness, and wisdom is not a synonym of innocence because the prelapsarian age did not require any form of moral responsibility.10 It is precisely on account of the fact that wisdom requires ethical involvement that the artes cannot have possibly been invented by wise men. In fact, technology brought about benefits which, even if highly enjoyable, remain at the very least preferable ἀδιάφορα, something clearly not worth any moral pursuit. Furthermore, and in accordance with Stoic orthodoxy, in the same passage Seneca attaches 7 Cf. Sen. Ep. 90.11: Omnia enim ista sagacitas hominum, non sapientia invenit. ‘It was man’s ingenuity, not his wisdom, that discovered all these devices’ (Transl. Gummere 1920). 8 Cf. Degl’Innocenti Pierini 2008, 108: ‘L’età dell’oro del filosofo non è quindi, paradossalmente, né nel passato né nel presente, è al di fuori della storia’. 9 The pronoun illi refers to the men living in the prelapsarian age. 10 The actions of these primitive men likely fall under the heading of χαθήοντα, a technical term of the Stoic school which is rendered as officia by Cic. Fin. 3.20 and designating those actions performed according to one’s natural instinct and without any ethical connotation, as is the case, for instance, with animals, cf. Armisen-​Marchetti 1998, 205; see also Wildberger 2006a,  315–​7.

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Architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 165 the discovery of the first technical skills to the natural intelligence of men, not to the gifts bestowed by kings. Thus, for Seneca, the emergence of the τέχναι, not only has nothing to do with philosophical wisdom, but is a naturally occurring fact taking place in the prelapsarian age and, in accordance with Stoic orthodoxy, a direct consequence of human physiology and anatomy.11 Admittedly, Posidonius’ stand is more nuanced than it looks at first sight. At Ep. 88.21, as part of an extensive analysis on the value of liberal studies, Seneca quotes and appears to embrace the Posidonian division of the artes in vulgares, ludicrae, pueriles, and liberales (‘low’, ‘those which serve for amusement’, ‘those for the education of the boys’, and ‘the liberal arts’) invented by the first wise kings ad instruendam vitam, ‘with the purpose of providing for daily needs’.12 However, at Ep. 90.25, Seneca distances himself from the Posidonian take on the artes when he clarifies that the sapientes contribute only the εὕρεσις, the initial moment of the invention, while the development of the technical skills is immediately entrusted to sordidiores ministri or ‘meaner assistants’.13 Thus, this association of technical development with philosophical wisdom, Posidonian and in opposition to orthodoxy of the old Stoa, is mitigated by limiting the wise men’s involvement in τέχναι only to the moment of discovery.14 The last part of Ep. 90 is very problematic. Starting from par. 36 and extending to par. 46, Seneca introduces15 a second blissful description of the 11 Cf. what attested by Philo Judaeus Aetern. 130 (= SVF 1.106a) and likely to be attributed to Zeno: εἰκὸς γὰρ μᾶλλον δ’ἀναγκαῖον ἀνθρώποις συνυπάρξαι τὰς τέχνας ὡς ἂν ἰσήλικας, οὐ μόνον τι λογικῇ φύσει τὸ ἐμμέθοδον οἰκεῖον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅτι ζῆν ἄνευ τούτων οὐκ ἔστιν. ‘For it is obvious, rather it is necessary, for the arts and the humankind to be coeval, not only because acting according to a method is typical of a rational being, but also because without the arts the human race could not survive’. 12 Most scholars agree on considering Posidonius the source of at least Ep. 88.21–​8. For a general assessment of the issue and overview of the main scholarly contribution, cf. Setaioli 1985, 316–​22. 13 Sen. Ep. 90.25: Omnia […] haec sapiens quidem invenit: sed minora quam ut ipse tractaret, sordidioribus ministris dedit. ‘The wise man did indeed discover all these things; they were, however, too petty for him to deal with himself and so he entrusted them to his meaner assistants’. Seneca outlines a hierarchical system dominated by philosophy prevailing not only over menial activities but also over philology and medicine (cf. respectively Ep. 108 and 95). This subdivision of values hinges on the Ciceronian dichotomy between the honestum and the artes characterized as sordidae and illiberales, cf. Off. 1.150. On this topic, see also Romano 2005, 85. 14 It has been argued that Posidonius’ sages invent the τέχναι to find a remedy for the difficulties brought about by the end of the Golden Age. Therefore, even for Posidonius the wise kings initially inhabited a pre-​technological world, cf. van Nuffelen and van Hoof 2013, 194. The idea that the artes were invented by the sages, but immediately entrusted to some menial workers (the sordidiores ministri) is something that Posidonius probably got from Plato, but which is present also in Cic. Off. 2.11–​16 and that therefore, could very likely come from Panaetius (cf. Pl. Rep. 2.369bf.); cf. Zago 2012, 151–​2. 15 The second description of the Golden Age is introduced at Ep. 90.36 by the laconic statement secutast fortunata tempora (‘Next there came the fortune-​favored period’). However, this interpretation is far from certain. In fact, secutast is Buecheler’s (1879) conjecture for the nonsensical reading sicutaut transmitted both by B (Codex Bambergenisis) and A (Codex Argentoratensis). Even if one accepts secutast, the text presents significant interpretative

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166  Tommaso Gazzarri Golden Age, which is in sharp contrast to the first one, the one just analyzed.16 In this second account, Seneca does not mention the reign of the wise kings, something he had previously stated in agreement with Posidonius. Instead, he resorts to the more traditional representation of an era of complete innocence, both a-​political and a-​philosophical. This kind of Golden Age hinges around the motif of the αὐτόματος βίος, a topos present both in Hesiod, Op. 117–​ 20 and Plato, Plt. 271e, but which is also instantiated by Lucretius 5.925–​87, where the earth is said to be producing fruits sponte sua (‘of her own accord’), a phrase echoed by Seneca respectively at Ep. 90.38 and 90.40 where nature is compared to a common mother providing for everybody, and the soil is qualified as fertilior, inlaborata, and larga (‘more fertile’, ‘untilled’, and ‘generous’).17 Various scholars have posited different solutions for the presence of this second description of the Golden Age in Ep. 90, which is, once again, in clear contrast with the first description, the one containing significant elements of agreement with Posidonius. The two principal hypotheses advanced so far are either A) that Seneca is here describing two different ages, which would have both been present in the text of Posidonius, or B) that Seneca is in fact resorting to two different sources for the two different characterizations of the Golden Age, and that the second description would in fact follow Plato, Laws 676af., a text characterized by elements such as the absence of greed and rivalry, and a complete lack of banausic skills as a consequence of recurring cyclical destructions.18 To tackle this conundrum, I am going to venture an approach that diverges from those followed by the majority of the scholars so far. I do not intend to explore how or why the accounts presented by Seneca differ, and then, on the basis of the differences, attempt to reconstruct various genealogies of potential models. Rather, I am going to insist on what the two Senecan accounts difficulties, for the verbal form may equally refer to a feminine singular or to a neuter plural nominative. In the first case the subject would be philosophia, from the end of par. 35, thus suggesting the idea that ‘philosophy came after the fortune favored times’, with fortunata tempora working as an accusative. In the second case, the subject ‘favored times’ would refer to the situation chronologically following what described at the end of par. 35, where Seneca states that philosophy did not exist illo rudi saeculo, quo adhuc artificia deerant et ipso usu discebantur utilia, ‘in such a rude age, when the arts and crafts were still unknown and when useful things could only be learned by use’. 16 Both representations of the Golden Age, the positive and the negative one, are deeply rooted in Greek culture as observed already by Bignone 1916, 211. In particular, among the Presocratics, Empedocles shows this duality of perspective by alternating idyllic descriptions, such as the one at fr. 77, 78 DK, with utterly pessimistic ones, as in the case of fr. 136 DK; cf. Sacerdoti 1956, 268–​9. 17 For a study of the topos also known as ‘Automaton-​Motiv’, cf. Ganz 1967, 119. 18 Cf. respectively, Grilli 1953 and Theiler 1982, 388–​90. See also Armisen-​Marchetti 1998, 201 who maintains that the only solution for the conundrum of the two contrasting descriptions of the Golden Age in Ep. 90 is to suppose that Seneca, when translating Posidonius, is utilizing sapientes in a non-​technical and non-​Stoic sense of the term in the case of the first description, while he would resort to a use of the word more apposite to Stoic orthodoxy for the final representation. A  similar distinction is present in Cic. Tusc. 5.7–​10 where the sapientes predate the Pythagorean invention of philosophia.

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Architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 167 have in common, and once I have singled out this common core, I am going to offer a tentative interpretation of it. I would like to narrow the focus to Seneca’s motives for disagreement with Posidonius, and concentrate first on the possible reasons for disagreement inside the first account of the Golden Age (which Seneca explicitly attributes to Posidonius) and, second, on the elements of disagreement between the two different accounts of the Golden Age (occurring at the beginning and at the end of the epistle), the second of which could possibly have been modeled, once again, on Plato’s Laws. I am going to predicate my analysis on the hypothesis that in Ep. 90 Seneca is not only conducting a philosophical discussion, but he is also pursuing a specific political target: that Ep. 90 is an abrasive moral querelle against Nero’s lifestyle and regime. Seneca’s choice to consider Golden Age, monarchic power, and technical progress as not constituting elements in the same philosophical line of reasoning reflects a specific political goal. Since the very beginning of the principate, some of the most celebrated Roman poets had reworked the myth of the Golden Age to fit the propaganda needs of the new regime. This is the case with Vergil, who returns to the topic multiple times, in multiple texts.19 At Aen. 6.791–​5 Aeneas, in the course of his katabasis, is shown the most glorious time of Rome, which is yet to come, and which will take place under Augustus, thus associating the advent of a new Golden Age with the principate: hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva Saturno quondam, super et Garamantas et Indos proferet imperium Here is Caesar and all the seed of Iulus destined to pass under heaven’s spacious sphere. And this in truth is he whom you so often hear promised you, Augustus Caesar, son of a god, who will again establish a Golden Age in Latium amid fields once ruled by Saturn; he will advance his empire beyond the Garamants and Indians. (Transl. Fairclough 1999)

Significantly, Seneca at Ep. 90.37 chooses to quote a passage from Georg. 1.125–​8 (not the Aeneid), which is modeled on the Hesiodic tradition of the Erga, and contains no patent allusions to Augustus:20 19 An overview of various literary treatments of the Golden Age mostly in Latin literature, arranged by theme, can be found in Armisen-​Marchetti 1998, 202 n. 24, but also, with a specific emphasis on Vergil and Calpurnius, in Fabre-​Serris 1999, 188–​9. An organic overview of the Golden Age in Latin poetry can be found in Pianezzola 1979. Of the same author, but centered on Ovid, see Pianezzola 1999, 43–​61. 20 Vergil is by far the author that Seneca quotes the most (about one hundred times), for a total of approximately two hundred lines. In particular, the quotations for the Aeneid amount to about 75 to 80% of all the overall Vergilian presence in Seneca, cf. Setaioli 1965, 135 and

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168  Tommaso Gazzarri                 nulli subigebant arva coloni ne signare quidem ut partiri limite campum fas erat: in medium quaerebant, ipsaque tellus omnia liberius nullo poscente ferebat.                 No farmers subjugated the fields and defining boundaries or apportioning land with confines was a sacrilege people gained from the common fruits, and the Earth herself was dispensing her gift all the more freely when nobody was asking for them Seneca selects this Vergilian passage concerning the primal innocence of the Golden Age as a backdrop to comment on the corruption of his time. Ep. 90.38, the paragraph immediately following the quotation from the Georgics, works as commentary of the Vergilian passage and is organized in two almost symmetrical halves both hinging on the topic of luxuria, namely the complete lack thereof for the Urmenschen, and the ravaging damage produced by it in contemporary society, to the point that multa concupiscendo omnia amisit, ‘by desiring many things, it lost everything’.21 Perhaps, Seneca’s decision not to quote another passage from Georg. 2.513–​31 is even more significant on account of Vergil’s choice to represent the Golden Age as a time of simple, idyllic rural life, where farming plays a key role: a situation in apparent contradiction to what he had canvassed in book 1,22 and which would have presented Seneca with the conundrum of a positive outlook on agriculture qua τέχνη. Another major Vergilian text concerning the Golden Age is Aen. 8.319–​ 27 where Evander recalls the bygone bliss of Saturn’s reign, during which

Mazzoli 1970, 215–​32. The lack of an explicit mention of the princeps in Georg. 1.125–​8 may have eased Seneca’s task of dissociating the deployment of the Golden Age motif from Nero. However, the Georgics were composed in the aftermath of the battle of Actium, and the thematic unit of the first book which concerns the human race’s fall (a time following the bygone blissful reign of Jupiter) reveals the fear that Octavian’s military success, and the attendant hopes for peace, may not be final, cf. Wallace-​Hadrill 1982, 21. For a general assessment of the Golden Age in the Georgics, cf. Johnston 1980, 41–​105. 21 The theme of luxuria mother of all evils is typically Stoic, cf. SVF 3.229b (= Cic. Leg. 1.17.47). Seneca will hammer again on the relation between Golden Age, gold, and luxuria at Ep. 115.11–​13, where the contempt for Nero’s palace and its supposed relation to a new era of bliss is no longer hinted at; rather, it quite overtly hinges on two quotations from Ov. Met. 2.1–​ 2 and 107–​8 (respectively on Helios’ palace and chariot), which are so commented: Denique quod optimum videri volunt saeclum aureum appellant. ‘And finally when they would praise an epoch as the best, they call it the “Golden Age” ’ (Transl. Gummere 1925). According to Degl’Innocenti Pierini (2008, 108–​9) Seneca is here being critical of all poetic illustrations of the primitive age as golden, i.e., positively linked to the value of gold:  the metal which epitomizes corruption and luxuria. 22 About the many incoherencies harbored in Vergil’s various accounts of the Golden Age, cf. Perkell 2002, 3–​39.

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Architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 169 previously primitive people were given laws by a king who, very much like Augustus at Aen. 6.792–​3, is fated to bring back the aurea saecula: primus ab aetherio venit Saturnus Olympio arma Iovis fugiens et regnis exsul ademptis. is genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis composuit legesque dedit, Latiumque vocari maluit, his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris. aurea quae perhibent illo sub rege fuere saecula: sic placida populos in pace regebat, deterior donec paulatim ac decolor aetas et belli rabies et amor successit habendi. First from heavenly Olympus came Saturn, fleeing from the weapons of Jove and exiled from his lost realm. He gathered together the unruly race, scattered over mountain heights, and gave them laws, and chose that the land be called Latium, since in these borders he had found a safe hiding place. Under his reign were the Golden Ages men tell of: in such perfect peace he ruled the nations; till little by little there crept in a race of worse sort and duller hue, the frenzy of war, and the passion for gain. (Transl. Fairclough 1999) This passage and Seneca’s attendant decision not to make use of it are quite telling. Vergil, like Seneca and unlike Posidonius, considers the Golden Age a prelapsarian one; like Seneca, he deems the διαστροφή a consequence of the encroaching vices and, in particular, of the belli rabies and amor habendi, a dyad outlining a morally deteriorating trajectory23 almost identical to the one at Ep. 90.36: Secutast fortunata tempora, cum in medio iacerent beneficia naturae promiscue utenda, antequam avaritia atque luxuria dissociavere mortales et ad rapinam ex consortio discurrere. ‘Next there came the fortune-​favored period when the bounties of nature lay open to all, for men’s indiscriminate use, before avarice and luxury had broken the bonds which held mortals together, and they, abandoning their communal existence, had separated and turned to plunder’ (Transl. Gummere 1920). Yet despite the evident similarities of this passage to the text of Aen. 8, Seneca chooses not to quote the latter, likely because the tight relation proposed between the coming back of the aurea saecula and the concurrent action of the princeps suits Augustus’ regime, but could not possibly work for Nero. Considering this collection of these intertextual echoes and references it bears heed in Papaioannou’s argument that Seneca often recasts the spirit of his Vergilian quotations to generate an 23 This is a topical theme also present in Ov. Met. 1.128–​31:  protinus inrupit venae peioris in aevum |​omne nefas:  fugere pudor verumque fidesque; |​in quorum subiere locum fraudesque dolusque |​insidiaeque et vis et amor sceleratus habendi. ‘Straightway all evil burst forth into this age of baser vein: modesty and truth and faith fled the earth, and in their place came tricks and plots and snares, violence and cursed love of gain’ (Trans. Miller 1977).

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170  Tommaso Gazzarri irony-​effect that works as a critical bridge between a bygone Augustan past and a post-​Augustan future.24 Going back to the Vergilian passages which stand out for their not having been selected, such Senecan, ex silentio literary strategy can be appreciated also in light of Calpurnius Siculus’ work. At Ecl. 1.33–​88, Calpurnius, likely a contemporary of Seneca, portrays Nero’s reign as a new Golden Age, by reworking and interweaving two Vergilian texts as his inspiration (Aeneid 6 and the fourth Eclogue) and, though the hyper-​celebratory tone of these lines has been interpreted by some as a form of mockery,25 what is of interest is the deployment of Vergilian material with the purpose of linking the Golden Age and the princeps’ political action. Thus, Seneca’s silence on Nero’s regime is quite telling, especially in the selection of the specific Vergilian quotations for describing the Golden Age. Deciding not to state that Nero’s age was a new Golden Age was tantamount to saying explicitly that Nero’s age was not a golden one; this is especially evident given that other major poets had patently showcased this association. The doctrinal rebuttal of the link between monarchic power and Golden Age is, then, clearly not just a matter of philosophical debate, but has profound political implications. In keeping with the epistles’ date of composition following Seneca’s retirement from court, the critique against the Neronian regime becomes yet more explicit when he refuses the Posidonian coupling of technology with monarchic power. In the course of Ep. 90, before introducing the second description of the Golden Age, Seneca debunks Posidonius’ claim that the τέχναι ought to be attributed to the philosophers’ wisdom, by instantiating several inventions and showing how they were brought about by men’s shrewdness (sagacitas hominum) rather than wisdom (sapientia). Such is the case with iron utensils and warfare tools (Ep. 90.11), mines, hammer and tongs (Ep. 90.12), the loom (Ep. 90.20), agriculture (Ep. 90. 21), and baking (Ep. 90. 22). These are punctual, almost aphoristic exempla, that engage the reader’s attention, while hammering on the same concept, through subtle thematic variations. The greatest space is reserved to a history and critique of fabrica or ‘building’.26 24 Cf. Papaioannou (in this volume) 2. More specifically Papaioannou bases, at least partly, her argument on Booth’s notion of ‘stable irony’, whereby a potential reader can appropriate the author’s stance which is conspicuous precisely for its ironic potential, or in the words of Papaioannou: ‘Stable irony is […] irony which is endowed with a moral purposiveness’ (p. 110 above). 25 Cf. Korzeniewski 1971, 5.  Calpurnius tackles the association of the Golden Age with the princeps also in in Ecl. 4 and in the second of the Carmina Einsidelnsia. Several scholars have underscored the presence of pessimistic tones concerning the principate in Calpurnius’ work, cf. Leach 1973; Newlands 1987; Green 2009. A thorough assessment of the scholarship concerning these various issues can be found in Karakasis 2016, 110–​2. 26 The moralistic deployment of the architectural theme and of one’s private dwelling can be found elsewhere in Seneca’s oeuvre, in particular in Ep. 86 he praises the sobriety of Scipio’s customs and attaches them to the austerity of his villa. On the contrary Ep. 55 offers the description of Vatia’s luxurious estate which functions as an architectural representation of the man’s ignavia, cf. Berno 2006, 159–​231; Costa 2013, 225–​61; and Bertoli 1982, 177–​9.

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Architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 171 There are at least four large blocks devoted exclusively to this τέχνη: two of them (Ep. 90.7–​10 and 15–​17) follow the first description of the Golden Age (the Posidonian one); one (Ep. 90.25) is located around the middle of the letter and, finally, towards the conclusion of the epistle, we find another large section (Ep. 90.42–​3), which is anchored to the second description of the prelapsarian age (the Hesiodic one) and explicitly references the motif of the ‘retorica della capanna’ or ‘rhetoric of the hut’.27 These descriptions reveal a clear allusion to Nero’s Domus Aurea, especially when compared to the extant literary evidence concerning the emperor’s royal palace. The Domus Aurea was not only a royal palace but also, in Champlin’s words: ‘a setting which Nero purposefully designed to support and complement the public roles he chose to act’.28 It was an unprecedented achievement of architectural grandeur, and even more hideous for the fact that the beginning of its construction was made possible thanks to the fire of 64 CE29 which wiped out entire regions of the city.30 Only 4 out of the 14 regions of Augustan Rome remained untouched, thus offering the emperor an unprecedented opportunity not only to plan his imperial domus from scratch, but also to re-​ design the configuration of the entire Urbs. Carandini has calculated that the whole palatial complex took in a surface of 219 hectares (= 541 acres), while the residential building itself amounted to more than 150 rooms for a total of 16.500 sm (= 177.604 sf).31 The two main literary sources for the Domus Aurea are Suet. Ner. 31 and Tac. Ann. 15.42. These texts may well depend, at least partially, on Seneca, but they also deploy other shared and more extensive sources because both are richer in details concerning in particular the domus’ hydraulics.32 The 27 I take this definition from Degl’Innocenti Pierini 2008, 115, who points to the likely presence of Ov. Met. 8.643–​54 (the episode of Baucis and Philemon) as a hypotext serving as the source for the moral contrast between happiness ensuing from paupertas, and the moral servitude attached to riches. 28 Cf. Champlin 1998, 335. 29 According to Tac. Ann. 16.1–​2, after the fire, Nero encouraged the (false) report that the gold of queen Dido had been found, an occurrence which was reworked by panegyrists to show how ‘[N]‌ot only were there the usual harvests, and the gold of the mine with its alloy, but the earth now teemed with a new abundance, and wealth was thrust on them by the bounty of the gods’. 30 The building of Domus Aurea follows at least two construction phases which precede Nero’s reign and culminating with what will be the bases of the domus transitoria, Nero’s first palace, cf. Ball 2003, 28–​43. An introduction to the scholarship and main issues concerning Nero’s palace can be found in Vössing 2004, 341–​3; and Beste and von Hesberg 2013, 322–​8. 31 Carandini 2010, 285. For more specific dimension of Domus’ various parts, see Fraioli 2017, 293. 32 Suetonius’ account, given the absence of close parallels in other literary works, seems to be a fully original composition; cf. Bradley 1978, 174. The matter of Suetonius’ and Tacitus’ sources is a particularly thorny one. Besides the imperial archives, Suetonius likely consulted the no-​ longer extant works of both Pollio and Cremutius Cordus. As for Tacitus, he likely consulted Cluvius Rufus’ shipwrecked Historiae to glean information for his own homonymous work.

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172  Tommaso Gazzarri elements that Suetonius and Tacitus present in common with Seneca concern the ceilings and the technical complexity of the main tricliniar space, the cenatio rotunda. Seneca provides accurate descriptions of these spaces without ascribing them to Nero’s royal palace, but it is precisely the overlapping of the descriptions of Ep. 90 with those of later authors who, in contrast, explicitly attribute them to the Domus Aurea, that leaves little room for doubt. In particular, at Ep. 90.9, Seneca mentions a vast cenatio with gilded coffered ceilings,33 while, at Ep. 90.15, he describes some mechanisms to spray saffron from hidden pipes, the hydraulic systems devised to create sudden fountain-​ like effects and, lastly, the revolving ceilings that would offer the possibility of changing scenes. These sensationalist features are countered by arguments of Cynic influence, which are patently acknowledged by Seneca when, at Ep. 90.14, he evokes and contrasts the figures of Daedalus and Diogenes, whose lifestyles are epitomized by two symbolic objects, respectively the saw, a clear allusion to artes, and a cup famously crashed by Diogenes in his quest for the utmost simplicity. In his 19th Diatribe Musonius Rufus does something similar by opposing Cynic simplicity to extreme luxury which is, once again, epitomized by a golden ceiling.34 The repeated targeting of specific architectural details certainly depended on their being so excessive, but there may be other supporting reasons.

He also resorted to Fabius Rusticus, notoriously hostile to Nero, as a source for the narration of Nero’s principate’s last phase. 33 For this detail cf. also Ep. 90.2. A  similar description, possibly a parody of the Neronian achievement can be found in Petron. Sat. 60. Interestingly, the mechanisms of Trimalchio’s ceiling let down a giant cask surrounded by golden crowns, and this spectacular expedient is immediately followed by a course of cakes arranged around a bread-​made giant Priapus. Though far from being conclusive, these two details could ironically allude respectively to Nero’s golden regality, and to his Bacchic interpretation of the Golden Age. 34 Muson. 19.108.5–​109.1 Lutz:  τί δ’ αἱ περίστυλοι αὐλαί; τί δ’ αἱ ποικίλαι χρίσεις; τί δ’ αἱ χρυσόροφοι στέγαι; τί δ’ αἱ πολυτέλειαι τῶν λίθων, τῶν μὲν χαμαὶ συνηρμοσμένων, τῶν δ’ εἰς τοίχους ἐγκειμένων, ἐνίων καὶ πάνυ πόρρωθεν ἠγμένων καὶ δι’ ἀναλωμάτων πλείστων; οὐ ταῦτα πάντα περιττὰ καὶ οὐκ ἀναγκαῖα, ὧν γε χωρὶς καὶ ζῆν καὶ ὑγιαίνειν ἔστι, πραγματείαν δ’ ἔχει πλείστην, καὶ διὰ χρημάτων γίνεται πολλῶν, ἀφ’ ὧν ἄν τις ἐδυνήθη καὶ δημοσίᾳ καὶ ἰδίᾳ πολλοὺς ἀνθρώπους εὐεργετῆσαι; ‘What good are courtyards surrounded by colonnades? What good are all kinds of colored paints? What good are gold-​decked rooms? What good are expensive stones, some fitted together on the floor, others inlaid in the walls, some brought from a great distance, and at the greatest expense? Are not all these things superfluous and unnecessary, without which it is possible not only to live but also to be healthy? Are they not the source of constant trouble, and do they not cost great sums of money from which many people might have benefited by public and private charity?’ Seneca, Ep. 114.19 deploys the moralistic topos of the overly adorned ceiling which becomes indistinguishable from the equally lavish floor, thus well representing a completely distorted reality, literally upended since what is above and what is under are no longer distinguishable. On the cynic roots of the architectural moralism and its proximity to the tradition of the so-​called diatribe, cf. Del Giovane 2015, 114–​6; on the contrast between the Domus Aurea’s gilded ceiling, an artificial sky of sort, and the cynic description of the peaceful starry sky at Ep. 90.42, cf. Degl’Innocenti Pierini 2008, 125.

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Architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 173 Nero’s fixation on gold was but one manifestation of his desire to be deified. Indeed, a colossus (destined later to become the namesake of the arena that under the Flavians would supplant Nero’s sensationalist palace) representing the emperor as Helios/​Apollo stood in the palace’s vestibule.35 The association with the god could certainly allude to a new Golden Age granted to Rome by an Apollonian princeps, similar to the one in Vergil’s fourth Eclogue; the literary allusion would of course reinforce an association between Nero and Augustus. The colossus, moreover, could simultaneously suggest the emperor’s love for singing and chariot-​racing.36 Also, the cenatio rotunda was famously structured so that the emperor would sit in the center of it, with the various planets revolving together with the ceiling and emphasizing his role as the immobile sun of this small mechanical universe.37 Furthermore, the oculus of the cenatio, fittingly located above the head of the emperor, would constantly project light on his persona, thus suggesting the idea that Nero could naturally shine with his own light. Still pertaining to the architecture of the Domus, Seneca insists much on the gilded lacunaria. Though much faded and almost no longer visible, we can still form an idea of their original splendor thanks to the reproductions that were made right after the rediscovery of the site towards the end of the 15th century, and the works of artists like Pinturicchio, Michelangelo, and Raphael (the latter famously drew inspiration from the decorations of the domus to realize the logge vaticane). Perrin analyzed the connection between the splendid tents utilized by Alexander the Great and the illusionistic effects of the Domus Aurea’s lacunaria, and in particular those of the cenatio rotunda.38 Alexander had adopted the use of Persian tents as a manifestation of his ideology of universal monarchy; this is largely attested by Herodotus and Plutarch (just to quote some of the most important sources).39 In particular, among the Persians, the king of kings was known for his οὐρανίσκος, which was a circular tent sustained by columns and which purported to be a small-​scale recreation of the sky, with the king sitting centrally beneath it. Before Alexander, an 35 The Colossus, which we can reconstruct thanks to various pictorial records (gems in particular), was the work of Zenodoros. The height of this theomorphic achievement has been estimated to range between 100 and 120 feet, while the seven rays on the head measured each 22 feet in length, cf. La Rocca 2017, 200–​1. 36 Cf. Toynbee 1947, 132–​4. 37 Varro R. R. 3.5.9–​17 describes his own mansion’s aviary, which was equipped with a mechanical rotating system similar to other installations that can be found in some of the lavish domed hall of republican villas, cf. Moorman 1998, 354–​5. Nero’s cenatio possibly had a false ceiling set in rotary motion by water operated pipes, cf. Prückner and Storz 1974, 323–​39. Degl’Innocenti Pierini 2008, 127–​8 also notices how Seneca’s description and moral condemnation of these machinae could in fact also inhere to Nero’s attempt to kill Agrippina through the engineered accident of her ship’s collapsible cabin, a plot which was orchestrated after the initial design of a mechanical device to loosen the ceiling of the bedroom where she was sleeping, cf. Suet. Ner. 34.2–​3. 38 Perrin 1990, 221. 39 Cf. Hdt. 8.114; Plut. Alex. 20.8.13.

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174  Tommaso Gazzarri Athenian architect, possibly Ictinos, had completed the construction of the Odeon of Pericles in 443 BCE. This structure, immediately adjacent to the theater of Dionysus, stood out as an architectural imitation of Mardonios’ tent which had been seized after Plataea, and eventually reinstalled in Athens.40 If this hypothesis concerning the iconographic provenance of the Domus Aurea’s lavish decorations is true, that is if the Domus Aurea was decorated to resemble a tent of a Hellenistic king, or even just Alexander’s tent, then the splendid lacunaria were yet another element of Nero’s propaganda and not simple adornments. So much for the cenatio rotunda, which was the most public space of the emperor’s own residence. The iconography of the grotesques and mythical creatures, decorating for the most part the private rooms of the Domus, also lends an additional programmatic signification to Nero’s architectural achievement, and helps clarify Seneca’s own selection of elements to describe the Golden Age. Perrin divided up by categories both mythical beings/​mythological hybrids and grotesques adorning numerous spaces of the palace, and singled out a total of eight types for the former and six for the latter.41 In particular, the gryphon decoration, present in multiple rooms (# 18, 19, 32, 34, 36, and 37), conjures up, once again, the figure of Alexander since, together with the Amazons, gryphons are commonly associated with the conquest of the Indies, but also on account of a Persian legend according to which Alexander was brought up by gryphons.42 Gryphons also symbolize solar vitality, as they often accompany many Egyptian deities connected to the sun, and to gold, which they zealously guard.43 Though the political signification of these creatures does not seem to be fully crystallized before the artistic achievement of Trajan’s forum, where it alludes to the pacification of the East,44 many possible symbolic layers typical of this mythical hybrid seem to suggest an association between the Domus Aurea, Alexander, and gold. Furthermore, the gryphon’s customary presence in Dionysus’ corteges not only reinforces the link between the animal and the East (for the relations between Dionysus and the Indies are well-attested), but as, Perrin maintains, endows this creature with the very specific role of ‘guide of the souls’ and ‘guardian of the Golden Age’.45 Among other mythical creatures, marine thiasos convey a similar message. These menageries of 40 Cf. Plut. Alex. 13.9.20. 41 Perrin 1982, 305–​19. Perrin’s study is based on the 18th-​century engravings of Bartoli, Mirri, and Ponce. Specifically devoted to the extant frescos of the Domus’ various rooms is Iacopi 1999, 19–​161. 42 Cf. Jucker 1961, 172 n. 1. 43 This detail is mentioned by Hdt. 3.116; 4.13; 4.27 and, in the 4th century, by Ctesias apud Aelianum NA 4.27 = fr. 45h FGrHist 688 Jacoby. 44 Cf. Eberle 1990, 53–​4. 45 Perrin 1982, 307:  ‘le griffon véhicule l’âme au-​dessus de la matière jusqu’aux splendeurs éthérées, en psychopompe connaissant le chemin du royaume de Bacchus. Sa position médiane sur les voutes confirme son rôle de gardien des terres des bienheureux, de gardien de l’âge d’or; les griffons soutiennent ainsi de leur vieille tradition l’idéologie néronienne’.

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Architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 175 heterogeneous beings occur both in private and public rooms (# 19, 30, 34, 36, and 78).46 Their bewildering variety, together with the attendant archetypal symbol of water, the element of which they all partake, manifest the generating power of life. Moreover, the recurring presence of Nereids seems to have an ideological rather than a decorative function. Known for accompanying and protecting those who fared by sea,47 with the Hellenistic age their sphere of influence gradually widened, and the Nereids became escorts of the dead, as attested by countless representations on Roman sarcophagi. Their function as psychopomps thus integrates that of the gryphons with whom they also share a common association with Dionysus.48 Equally related to the god are the numerous representations of putti (rooms # 19, 34, and 36)  which, similar to the extant Pompeian specimens for their composition and executions, instance the fecundity and the youth-​related qualities of the Golden Age. Additionally, the putti’s well attested childlike and irresponsible behavior49 evokes praise of a care-​free attitude and the critique of too austere a modus vivendi. The grotesques, for their part, are compositions of a heterogeneous nature, selections from multiple objects and creatures combined into one being. Such is the case with humans sprouting out of goblets, female figures hybridized with tree branches, or artifacts consisting of objects and natural elements fused together such as leaved candelabra or pillars in the shape of flowers. Perrin interprets them as symbols of the ‘crisis of reason’, in favor of a conceptual framing of the world as ‘retour au chaos originel’.50 This fusional synthesis of multiple objects and beings is predicated on and attests to Nero’s own vision of the Golden Age: a time of a Bacchic lack of inhibitions in an undifferentiated natural state and of a lack of rules and hierarchies—​a set of anti-​values all the more dangerous if preached by the princeps.51 46 Among the beings represented are horses and bulls with whales’ tails being ridden by tritons, various types of whale-​tailed monsters, ichthyocentaurs and Nereids. 47 Cf. Sapph. fr. 5 Voigt; Eur. Hel. 1584–​7; Arr. Anab. 1.11.6. According to Paus. 2.1.8, the Nereids had their own dedicated cult sites. 48 Barringer 1995, 141–​51; Barringer calls attention to Eur. Andr. 1254–​68, which seems to support the idea that the Nereids have the ability to confer immortality, and to Hymni Orphici 24 and Ion 1074–​89, where the Nereids dance in celebration of the Bacchic mysteries, thereby suggesting an association with both Dionysos and Persephone. 49 Among the innumerable literary and visual representations of such attitudes see, for instance Alcm. fr. 38 and Sapph. fr. 130 V. 50 Perrin 1982, 322. 51 Cf. Fabre-​Serris 1999, 195–​6 where Nero’s Bacchic-​like vision of the Golden Age is associated with the emperor’s sexuality, which Suet. Ner. 29 overtly critiques when narrating the episode of his marriage to Doriphorus (suam quidem pudicitiam usque adeo prostituit. ‘He prostituted his own chastity to such an extent’), while Tac. Ann. 15.37 mentions the wedding to Pythagoras. Champlin 1998, 340–​4 proposes an interpretation of the Golden House as a stage where Nero, by blending public and private spaces (the domus and the urbs) thus upending many social conventions, would pursue his political/​esthetic project of a ‘year-​ round Princeps Saturnalicus’.

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176  Tommaso Gazzarri Nero saw in his royal palace an extraordinary means for giving physical representation to his ideology. The interpretation of the mythical creatures decorating the various rooms of the Domus, if correct, demonstrates Nero’s own association between his reign, its artistic propaganda, and the Golden Age. The name itself of the Domus could possibly elicit the intention of making the Golden Age a namesake for the palace. This idea, fascinating and possibly convincing, is nonetheless controversial, and equally persuasive scholarship has been produced both in support of and against this hypothesis.52 The architectural principles governing the whole project, however, reveal a close adherence to Nero’s ideology. As attested, once again, by Suet. Ner. 55 and Tac. Ann. 15.40.3, the emperor was dreaming of Neropolis,53 a new Alexandria in which grand buildings would alternate with extensive parks, built according to rational Deinocratean principles.54 Even these spaces, on account of their resemblance to the παράδεισοι of the Achaemenid dynasty, conjured up a strong ideal of theocratic kingship. The use of gardens and the display of specific plants as a form of self-​aggrandizement are late republican phenomena, and would become major means of imperial image-​making during the first century CE.55 According to Pliny HN 12.19–​20 and 12.111–​3, Pompey was the first to display a tree—​a specimen of ebony, to be precise—​as a trophy during his triumph on Mithridates and the pirates in 62 BCE, thus making the tree a symbol of the subjugated enemy, and a testament to his own power. Pliny HN 15.102 also attests that, in a similar fashion, about ten years earlier L. Licinius Lucullus had imported the cherry tree from Pontus as a token of his victory over Mithridates in 74 BCE and that, in 43 CE, the cherry tree was then introduced to Britain. The case of the cherry tree is an interesting one because of its symbolic trajectory shifting from image of the conquered to attribute of the conqueror, from triumphal trophy to emblem of Roman imperium.56 This ‘botanical gesture of supremacy’ is by no means new. There are long-​standing Egyptian and Assyrian traditions of transplantations charged with symbolic value. The Achaemenid empire soon adopted this custom to be then followed by Alexander and the Hellenistic kings. In particular we know from Theophr. (HP 4.4.1 Wimmer; CP 2.3.3 Wimmer), Plin. (HN 16.144), and Plut. Mor. (Quaest. conv. 3.2.1, 648c-​d) that Harpalus, 52 In favor of an allegorical interpretation of the adjective is L’Orange 1942, 68–​100. On the contrary, the hypothesis that the attribute ‘golden’ must refer to the gilded dome of the rotunda is sustained by Lehmann 1945, 22. 53 Among other examples of Nero renaming cities after himself are Caesarea Philippi becoming Neronias and Artaxata being changed to Neroneia. This aspect of Nero’s ideology, however, should not be overemphasized as renaming cities after emperors had been common practice since Augustus, cf. Bradley 1978, 290–​1. 54 A topographical assessment of the palace based on the ancient sources can be found in Peters 1985, 105–​17. For the presence of literary topoi in the description of Nero’s gardens, see Moorman 1998, 359–​60. 55 Cf. Marzano 2014, 200–​5. For the imperial period, see in particular Beard 1998, 31–​2. 56 Both episodes of Pompey and Lucullus are extensively analyzed by Marzano 2014, 204–​7.

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Architecture and the anti-Neronian querelle 177 Alexander’s boyhood friend, unsuccessfully tried to transplant ivy in the gardens of Babylon.57 The intent was to provide a biological representation of European and Asiatic species coexisting since, as Brian phrases it, ‘le paradis constitue en effet une représentation microcosmique de la variété écologique, arbustive et animale, de l’espace impérial’. Admittedly, both Suetonius’ and Tacitus’ descriptions of Nero’s palatial gardens are quite succinct and not extremely detailed. Suetonius Ner. 31 insists on the microcosm-​like quality of the landscape, by mentioning the fact that the artificial lake looked like a sea (stagnum instar maris)58 and that the surrounding buildings were similar to cities complemented with woods, fields, vineyards, vistas and all sorts of animals. Tacitus’ account is even more succinct and at Ann. 15.42.1 the historian insists on the size of the gardens and the open views offered by the hortus. The gardens of the Domus Aurea were meant to be a propagandistic representation of the οἰκουμένη, with the emperor ruling over both spaces symbolically and de facto, in the guise of a παντοκράτωρ solar deity.59 It was therefore the emperor himself who, through his architectural and landscape achievements, and much more dangerously than Posidonius, associated fabrica, kingship and, in the words of Tacitus, favored the transition from the vetus to the nova Urbs: the quite literally gilded architectural manifestation of a new Golden Age. Thus, in Ep. 90, Seneca surely expresses his disagreement with Posidonius, but he simultaneously targets Nero’s ideal that a new Golden Age be associated with the imperial house and its ambitious agenda of urban and residential architecture. 57 See Schneider 2012, 284–​8. 58 The architectural features of the palace and the presence of an ‘artificial sea’ suggest a strong resemblance between the Domus Aurea and the lavish villae maritimae on the bay of Naples, so despised by Seneca, cf. Mielsch 1987, 136–​7. Champlin 1998, 341 suggests that the many parties organized throughout the years by Nero, and choreographed to be set on floating platforms (such as the one organized in 64 on the Stagnum Agrippae, cf. Tac. Ann. 15.33–​7 and Cass. 62.15.1–​6) or arranged on the banks of rivers or sea shores (Suet. Ner. 27) deliberately conjured up the decadent atmosphere of Baiae. Furthermore, the dome of the octagon suite bears architectural similarities with the rotunda at Baiae, commonly known as the ‘temple of Mercury’; cf. Ball 2003, 230–​2. 59 At Apocol. 4.1.27–​32 Seneca compares the young emperor to a rising sun; at Clem. 1.8.3 Nero’s all-​encompassing power is equated to omnipresent strength of sun light, and Luc. 1.47–​8 loads his description of Nero’s apotheosis with many solar attributes and specific astronomical references which, it has been argued, instance the Stoic model a god as ‘soul of the world’; cf. Arnaud 1987, 185–​93. The interpretation of the Domus Aurea as the palace of the emperor κοσμοκράτωρ, charged with solar attributes, was first proposed by L’Orange (1942, 68–​100). In 63 CE, a triumph-​like spectacle was staged to celebrate the peace treaty with the Parthians and the Armenians concluded in 66 CE. According to the account of Cass. 62.23.3–​4, during this celebration, which took place at dawn so that Nero could be struck by the rising sun’s beams, Tiridates, king of Armenia and brother of the Parthians’ king Vologaeses, pledged his allegiance to the emperor by declaring that he regarded him as the god Mithras (a solar deity in Zoroastrianism). The study of coins minted after the year 63 confirms the diffusion of such sol-​related iconography, with the type of Nero wearing a corona radiata, cf. L’Orange 1947, 61; Champlin 1998, 336; and La Rocca 2017, 197–​202.

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178  Tommaso Gazzarri Looking back at the structure of Ep. 90, we can single out three main narrative blocks. The first and the last ones consist of the two accounts of the Golden Age, apparently in contradiction. The first one showcases the presence of kings, while the second contains no mention of kings and is built around both the Hesiodic/​Lucretian motif of the αὐτόματος βίος, and the topos of the anaphoric negations.60 In between these two descriptions stands the moralistic critique of the τέχναι, which is spurred by two major arguments of dissent from Posidonius: that prelapsarian kings were not wise, and that philosophy was not the main engine for technological development. Thus, Seneca first disjoins regal power and wisdom (being the strongest is not tantamount to being wise); then, he separates wisdom from technological development, and targets, with purposeful acrimony, the invention of fabrica. Seneca ensures that the reader recognizes in his description the megalomanic palace of the young emperor, and gradually guides the reader to the second description of the Golden Age which contains neither τέχναι nor kings.61 It should not come as a surprise then that Seneca, by purposely exploiting the Cynic motif of the liberty provided by a simple lifestyle, calls Nero a tyrant when, at par. 10, he writes: sub auro servitus habitat (‘under the gold dwells slavery’).

Many private dedications, though undated, call Nero ‘the New Sun God’, cf. SIG3 814, IGRR 3, 345 and SEG 18, 566. Furthermore, the solar connotations described in the passage from Clem. present structural and formulaic features similar to the ones of many Egyptian religious hymns, where the Pharaoh’s khâ, namely the action of exiting the palace to be seen in public, is canonically described as the trajectory of the sun rising in the sky. Still typical of the Egyptian culture was the practice of placing a statue on a temple’s raised pavilion so that the ba, or the vital power of the solar disk, could penetrate into the statue before the sunbeams touching the ground. In this regard, both Suet. Ner. 6.1 and Cass. 61.2.1 attest that, at the exact moment of Nero’s birth, on December 15 of the year 37 CE, the newborn had been struck by sunlight before the beams touched the ground, an anecdote whose symbolic power the young emperor deployed and memorialized through ceremonies organized by Tiberius Claudius Balbillus, his prefect of Egypt, in order to win the trust of his Egyptian subjects. The Egyptian influences on Nero’s solar representation have been analyzed by Grimal (1971, 208–​11), while the solar omen of Nero’s birth has been discussed in relation to its possible influence on the orientation of the Domus by Voisin (1987, 509–​43). 60 Anaphoric negations are canonically employed to describe the Golden Age against the backdrop of the present times. In other words, the prelapsarian age is seen as the time when all the vices (serially listed and described) brought about by the progress of time were not present, cf. Davies 1987. Seneca deploys this topos in a unique manner by creating an anaphoric chain of perversions that are not generic, thus leaning toward a rather idealized description of the Golden Age as an era free from such quasi-​archetypal vices; rather, he provides very specific negative examples of vices, and by doing so polarizes the reader’s attention on the present—​ the time he is really interested in and the only arena for pursuing virtue, cf. Maxia 2000, 91–​3. 61 This is all the more significant if compared to the text of Clem. 2.1.4, written by Seneca and delivered by young Nero as his own inaugural speech. There Seneca had purposely related the new saeculum felix (Nero’s) to the end of the old, long reign of vices (Claudius’), but the years when the De clementia was composed clearly offered different hopes, and the association between the Golden Age and the new emperor’s reign was still possible.

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8  Seneca on the mother cow Poetic models and natural philosophy in the Consolation to Marcia Fabio Tutrone

Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break. (W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene III, 209–​210)

1  Introduction: consoling, instructing, and rewriting According to two contemporary scholars in the sociology of emotions, ‘social institutions prescribe roles to bereaved persons; however, the newly bereaved might challenge them—​loudly’.1 Albeit different in kind and content, social expectations were highly influential in ancient Rome as well. As Valerie Hope points out, ‘the fact that some individuals sort to codify grief and to set a limit to its expression indicates that others deviated from these codes and limits. In other words, in their grief people could and did defy what was deemed acceptable’.2 There is good reason to believe that Marcia, the addressee of the earliest of Seneca’s extant writings, was one of those bereaved who did not fear to challenge culturally sanctioned norms. To make things even worse, she was an educated woman in an anxious ‘city of fathers’.3 Three years after the death of her son Metilius, she was still grieving for him—​too much for a culture which legally regulated the length of mourning.4 And it was not only 1 Charmaz-​Milligan 2007, 526. 2 Hope 2007, 173. For a comprehensive analysis of the Greco-​Roman understanding of grief, calling attention to the culturally constructed character of this and other emotions, see Konstan 2016. 3 On Rome as a ‘cité de pères’, see Thomas 1986. The importance of gender issues in Seneca’s Consolations is highlighted by Wilcox 2006. Marcia was skilled and cultured enough to publish anew the work of her father, the historian Aulus Cremutius Cordus, who was prosecuted by Sejanus and committed suicide in 25 CE (cf. also Cass., 57.24.4). Seneca claims that Marcia inherited from her father the love of learning (studia, hereditarium et paternum bonum, [6].1.6) and ‘performed a superb service to Roman literature’ (optime meruisti de Romanis studiis, [6].1.3). She was conspicuous for her moral virtue (1.1) and noble-​mindedness (magnitudo animi, [6].1.5), the typically Stoic virtue of μεγαλοψυχία. 4 A Roman funerary law reported by Paulus, Sent. 1.21.2–​5, 8–​14 (= Bruns 1909, 2.334–5) prescribes that ‘parents and children over six years of age can be mourned for a year, children under six for a month. A husband can be mourned for ten months, close blood relations for

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180  Fabio Tutrone a matter of time. Crushed by sorrow, Marcia appeared to forget her duties towards her children and grandchildren as well as towards the heritage of her family’s memory.5 In his philosophical Consolation to this allegedly stubborn noble lady, Seneca carefully contrasts the positive value of memory with the abnormal psychology of prolonged grief, arguing that the latter ‘is destructive to the mourner, the neglected family, the community and the dead’.6 Yet, for all its perceptive understanding of social variables, Seneca’s therapeutic approach is primarily focused on the cognitive and physical basis of immoderate sorrow. The Consolation to Marcia embraces the orthodox Stoic view that, when unduly protracted, grief reflects a logical misunderstanding of the natural world, human life, and the limits of the self. Cultural norms are broken and—​ what matters much more—​social bonds are in danger when the knowing agent gives his/​her assent (συγκατάθεσις) to false impressions. At that very moment, human rationality loses its battle for the conquest of truth, and the mind (which the Stoics regard as an entirely material body) is enslaved to opinion (δόξα).7 Seneca is thus aware that persuading Marcia to leave her false beliefs is the only way to reawaken her interest in communal life, family reciprocity and constructive memory. He conceives his consolatory writing as an intellectually engaging didactic work tailored to the needs and disposition of his addressee. At the same time, Seneca clearly envisages a wider audience attending his re-​educational sessions and arranges his arguments in such a way that any learned Roman reader may benefit from his instructions.8 The main purpose of the present chapter is to show that in this and several other respects the Consolation to Marcia makes a conscious move towards the different but evidently related genre of didactic poetry. I shall focus on eight months. Whoever acts contrary to these restrictions is placed in public disgrace’. Cf. Shelton 1998, 94, Konstan 2006, 252–​8, and Hope 2007, 174. See also Seneca’s own warnings in Helv. [12].16.1, and Ep. 63.13. As early as the 5th century BCE, the Twelve Tables tried to curb women’s expression of mourning at funerals (Cic. Leg. 2.59). 5 At Marc. [6]‌.16.6–​8, Seneca poignantly notes that, while grieving for Metilius, Marcia forgot another son who had died earlier (prioris oblita). Seneca adds that, in her grief, Marcia tended to see Metilius’ daughters as ‘great burdens’ (magna onera) rather than as ‘great comforts’ (magna solacia). 6 Shelton 1995, 188. The contrasting exempla of Octavia and Livia presented at the outset (Marc. [6]‌.2–​3) are a case in point. 7 For a rich discussion of the Stoics’ epistemology of emotions, including special notes on the case of grief, see Graver 2007. A controversy has arisen over the possible changes made to the earlier Stoic theory by Posidonius and other later thinkers: see e.g., Sorabji 2000, 29–​143, and the different stance of Gill 2006, 207–​90. 8 Cf. Manning 1981, 6–​7: ‘in the Ad Marciam we find a number of digressions upon the human situation, dealing with the greater impact of the unexpected (9.1f.), the mutability of fortune (9.1–​11), the inseparability of life’s pains from its pleasures (17–​18), and the evils from which death can rescue a man (20). The occasional use of the masculine participles in such sections, even though his addressee is feminine (9.3; 17.1 and 18.4), and a plural imperative (10.4) strongly suggest that there are times when this wider audience is uppermost in the author’s mind’.

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Poetic models and natural philosophy 181 the literarily and philosophically dense section on general praecepta which follows the opening gallery of exempla.9 At the very start of this section ([6]. 7), Seneca embarks on a skillful (yet almost unrecognized) imitatio/​aemulatio of Lucretius’ famous argument on the mother cow (DRN 2.352–​66). A closer analysis of Seneca’s intertextual allusion to Lucretius’ piece of bravura and its Ovidian afterlife will reveal that the strategies of literary amplification and rewriting deployed in the Consolation support the construction of a distinctively Stoic paradigm of natural philosophy. While giving new shape to his poetic models, Seneca substantially revises the intellectual meanings of Lucretius’ exposition, in an attempt to replace the Epicurean emphasis on physical diversity and animal cognition with the Stoic doctrine of a uniform, teleologically ordered cosmos. Seneca’s reception of many aspects of the Epicurean tradition has been thoroughly studied.10 Indeed, Epicurus’ presence in the Senecan corpus, especially in the Letters to Lucilius, cannot fail to strike any reader, ancient or modern. What is more, as Alessandro Schiesaro observes, ‘Lucretius, both as the foremost Roman interpreter of the Greek philosopher and as a master of Latin poetry, plays a distinctive role in Seneca’s negotiations of Epicureanism and Stoicism’.11 In the specific context of the Consolation to Marcia, Seneca’s deep-​seated interest in philosophical traditions other than Stoicism is further increased by genre requirements. As David Kaufman notes in his discussion of Galen’s newly rediscovered treatise On Freedom from Distress (Περὶ ἀλυπίας), given its predominantly practical focus, ancient consolation literature is ‘perhaps the most heterodox of ancient philosophical genres’.12 This heterodox, eclectic character is eloquently exemplified by Seneca’s most prominent Roman predecessor, Cicero, whose Tusculan Disputations report that ancient consolers—​including Cicero himself in his lost Consolation to Himself—​were prepared to use therapeutic arguments from a variety of schools for the sake of effectiveness.13 9 The rhetorical division of the Consolation into several distinct sections, alternating moving exempla and instructive praecepta, was already noted by Albertini 1923, 53–​4, Favez 1928, LXV–​LXXI, Grollios 1956, 15–​18, and Abel 1967, 15–​46, among others. As Manning 1981, 8, remarks, ‘between the exordium and the peroratio, which is signified by the prosopopoeia of Cremutius Cordus at 26.1 […] are four main sections: exempla, general precepts, precepts relating to Marcia’s situation, and precepts relating to Metilius’ situation’. On the set of exempla put forth at 1–​6, see Shelton 1995. 10 See, for instance, the extensive treatments by André 1969, Setaioli 1988, 171–​248, Wildberger 2014a, Schiesaro 2015, and Graver 2016. 11 Schiesaro 2015, 239. Seneca’s re-​use of Lucretius’ poetic force is also discussed by Mazzoli 1970, 206–​9. Although Schiesaro 2015, 240, is right in claiming that, for the most part, Seneca privileges ‘Epicurus’ teachings on ethics while silencing or criticizing his physics’, the Natural Quaestions shed interesting light on Seneca’s assimilation of Lucretius’ and Epicurus’ physical doctrines. See Tutrone 2017. 12 Kaufman 2014, 275. On the ‘fluid’ nature of the consolatory genre, and the need to adopt ‘an inclusive and flexible attitude’ to the array of social practices it condenses, see Scourfield 2013. 13 Cic. Tusc. 3.76: sunt etiam qui haec omnia genera consolandi colligant—​alius enim alio modo movetur—​, ut fere nos in Consolatione omnia in consolationem unam coniecimus; erat enim in

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182  Fabio Tutrone Seneca’s willingness to employ a number of psychagogic methods and theoretical constructs in order to console (and re-​educate) Marcia also puts his work in contact with didactic epic. From a very early date, authors of didactic poetry endeavored to adapt their rhetorical techniques to their addressees’ character. They were not afraid to use harsh means such as complaint and rebuke if necessary and never forgot that an external audience witnessed the salutary lessons they conveyed to their internal addressees.14 In a thought-​ provoking survey, Philip Mitsis showed that a sophisticated strategy of ‘didactic coercion’ underlies Lucretius’ poem On the Nature of Things, in so far as the Epicurean writer tries to arouse in his readers both compassion for Memmius—​the fool or νήπιος ‘who embraces all the conventional and mistaken attitudes that the poet is out to eliminate’—​and allegiance to the wise teacher.15 A clear echo of this typically poetic-​didactic situation can be perceived in the introductory section of the Consolation to Marcia (Marc. [6].1.5): Alii itaque molliter agant et blandiantur, ego confligere cum tuo maerore constitui et defessos exhaustosque oculos, si verum vis magis iam ex consuetudine quam ex desiderio fluentis, continebo, si fieri potuerit, favente te remediis tuis, si minus, vel invita, teneas licet et amplexeris dolorem tuum, quem tibi in filii locum superstitem fecisti. So other people may treat you gently and soothingly, but I have decided to do battle with your grief; I  shall bring your weary, exhausted eyes under control, eyes which, if you want to know the truth, flow more from habit than from longing; I shall do this, if possible, with your support for the remedies, but if not, I shall do it even against your will, even if you embrace and cling to your grief, which you have kept alive in place of your son.16 With an eye open on his other readers, Seneca declares that the authentic root of Marcia’s distress is a cognitive error with behavioral consequences: the transformation of natural longing (desiderium) into a self-​ induced habit (consuetudo), and the attachment to grief as a kind of emotional surrogate of Metilius. This is a rigorous Stoic diagnosis relying on the assumption that tumore animus, et omnis in eo temptabatur curatio (‘there are those who bring together all these types of consolation, since different methods work for different people. In my ‘Consolation’, for instance, I combined virtually all these methods into a single speech of consolation. For my mind was swollen, and I was trying out every remedy I could’. Transl. Graver 2002, 34). Cf. also Cic. Att. 12.14.3. On the emotional and philosophical meaning of Cicero’s Consolatio ad se, see Baltussen 2013. 14 All these features of ancient didactic are suitably illustrated in Schiesaro-​Mitsis-​Strauss Clay 1993. 15 Mitsis 1993, 123–​8: ‘in winking with the poet behind the back of the fool, we ourselves may be swallowing more of the poet’s medicine than we suspect’. 16 Here and elsewhere, translations from the Consolation to Marcia are those of Hine 2014.

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Poetic models and natural philosophy 183 grief is a wrong rational response to external inputs—​a concrete instantiation of opinion (δόξα, opinio). But as David Konstan points out, the Epicureans agree with the Stoics that, differently from basic perceptions such as pain and pleasure, grief is essentially cognitive in nature and can be healed through appropriate rational therapy.17 Mutatis mutandis, the empty and sorrowful hug of Marcia seeking an impossible reunion with Metilius can be compared to the unsatisfying quest for love and its deceitful simulacra described in Lucretius’ book 4.18 Like Lucretius, Seneca believes that it is worth applying the bitter remedy of didactic coercion to correct the error of those minds which pervert the meaning of natural experiences. Still, harsh means are not the core element of Stoic and Epicurean pedagogy. First and foremost, both Seneca and Lucretius attempt to enhance the persuasiveness of their message by appealing to their addressees’ status, background and preferences. Even Seneca’s intertextual re-​use of Lucretius falls within the scope of a strategy of persuasion. The alluring rewriting of a fine literary piece and its reinterpretation in light of Stoic thought seem expressly designed to impress the imagination of a learned woman like Marcia.19 Indeed, the very structure of the Consolation—​which, quite unusually, discusses exempla before praecepta—​is presented by Seneca as a rhetorical device aimed to capture the addressee’s attention. As Seneca makes clear, ‘different people need different treatment: some are guided by reason (ratio); some need to be confronted with famous names (nomina clara), with prestige (auctoritas) that will constrain their thinking when they are captivated by superficial appearances’.20 As is well-​known, quotations from famous names of the poetic tradition had figured prominently in ancient consolation literature since the time of Crantor of Soli, the late fourth-​century Academic author of an influential work On Mourning (Περὶ πένθους) praised by the Stoic Panaetius.21 Although in his textual commentary Charles Manning claims 17 Konstan 2013, 203:  ‘Epicurus preserves the distinction between emotions that depend on belief (as fears clearly do, as well as joy) and are therefore cognitive in nature, and sensations such as pleasure and pain that are directly mediated by perception and hence, unlike beliefs, are incorrigible. Despite a divergence in terminology, Epicurean theory is in this respect consistent with Peripatetic and Stoic views’. Needless to say, my approach in this chapter is in total disagreement with the claim of Wilson 2013, 94, that the ‘most salient characteristic’ of Seneca’s Consolations is ‘their abstention from philosophy, and even suppression of it’. 18 See esp. Lucr. DRN 4.1091–​114. 19 On Marcia’s erudition and love for literature, see n. 3. Remarking on the similarities between Cicero’s and Seneca’s hortatory advice to the bereaved, Ker 2009b, 90–​1, observes that ‘the tailoring of this advice to suit the addressee makes the consolation an exercise in the rhetoric of occasion, and also in the offering of ‘mediating narratives’. […] The therapy comes to be mediated through cultural and literary representations with their own tales to tell, thereby amplifying the therapy’s signifying potential’. 20 Cf. Marc. [6]‌.2.1–​2. Since Marcia clearly belongs to the latter group of people, the examples of Octavia and Livia, and the speech of the philosopher Areus, take precedence over general teachings. 21 Crantor’s long-​standing influence upon the consolatory tradition is highlighted by Graver 2002, 187–​94. On his admiration for, and quotation of, poetic texts (especially Homer and

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184  Fabio Tutrone that, compared to other consolers, Seneca ‘shows considerable restraint’ in referring to literary authorities,22 it has been convincingly argued that ‘Seneca appeals to Marcia as a reader of Augustan literature, and in particular of the Aeneid’.23 A deeper exploration of Seneca’s allusivity, with reference to the less obvious field of Epicurean didactic, shall demonstrate that Marcia’s acquaintance with the by-​then renowned poem of Lucretius serves as the basis for a forceful restatement of the Stoic conception of death, nature and parental love.

2  Animal sorrows across the genres: Lucretius and Ovid Lucretius’ masterpiece On the Nature of Things does not give extensive treatment to grief, but as a vigorously perturbing emotion connected to the experience of death, the theme surfaces repeatedly in the poem. Epicurus showed great concern for the negative consequences of the fear of death, and there is also evidence that he authored one of the earliest consolatory epistles in Hellenistic literature.24 As Tim O’Keefe remarks, ‘in so far as the main Epicurean arguments show that death is not bad for the person who has died, they should also help greatly lessen our grief at the deaths of loved ones’.25 Still, the Epicureans recognize that grieving the loss of one’s friends—​even by weeping and groaning—​is not only legitimate, but also preferable to freedom from distress (ἀλυπία) carried to the point of indifference (τὸ ἀπαθές).26 Epicurus’ followers seem to make a sharp distinction between the physiological manifestations of sorrow due to an incorrigible emotional ‘bite’ (δηγμός) and the pathological prolongation of mourning caused by false beliefs. All of Lucretius’ remarks are consistent with this view.27 For instance, whereas grief (luctus) and the tears of those bewailing a loved one on the point of death are included in Lucretius’ discussion of the natural Euripides), see Diog. Laert. 4.26–​7. On Panaetius’ appreciation of Crantor’s On Mourning (and apparently of the theory of μετριοπάθεια), see Cic. Luc. 135. Cf. also Sorabji 2000, 106–​7. 22 Manning 1981, 13: ‘a citation from Publilius Syrus, another from the Aeneid and an obvious allusion to that work are the limits of the backing sought in the Ad Marciam from the “classics” of Seneca’s own day’. 23 Ker 2009b, 95–​6. 24 See Plut. Non posse 1101a–​b, quoting Epicurus’ letter to Dositheus and Pyrson about the death of Hegesianax (Dositheus’ son and Pyrson’s brother). 25 O’Keefe 2010, 170. See also Warren 2004, 1–​16. 26 Plut. Non posse 1101a. The distance between the Epicurean position and the later Stoic ideal of the eradication of emotions (culminating precisely in ἀπάθεια and ἀλυπία) is all too clear. 27 An illuminating treatment of this matter is offered by Konstan 2013. On the twinge or δηγμός which even the Epicurean sage may experience, see Philod. De ir. cols. 40–​2; De mort. cols. 20–​35. As Tsouna 2007, 32–​51, notes, Philodemus’ idea of ‘bite’ has many affinities with earlier Stoic views, but unlike the Stoics, Philodemus ‘interprets ‘bites’ in terms of evaluative reactions to events and treats them as genuine emotions’. On the Stoic conception of ‘bites’ as non-​judgmental pre-​emotions, see n. 57.

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Poetic models and natural philosophy 185 affections of the soul (DRN 3.459–​71), the inconsolable lamentations of those indulging in ‘endless mourning’ (aeternus maeror, aeternus luctus) are blamed as irrational (DRN 3.894–​911). However, one passage captures most poignantly Lucretius’ sympathetic understanding of grief and its physical basis. And it is this passage that Seneca alludes to in his Consolation to Marcia. Rather unexpectedly, here Lucretius—​ who is a well-​known critic of anthropocentric cosmology—​does not deal at length with human sorrow at the death of a dear one, but with the intense sufferings of an animal mother deprived of her calf (DRN 2.352–​66): Nam saepe ante deum vitulus delubra decora turicremas propter mactatus concidit aras sanguinis expirans calidum de pectore flumen; at mater viridis saltus orbata peragrans             quaerit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis, omnia convisens oculis loca, si queat usquam conspicere amissum fetum, completque querellis frondiferum nemus adsistens et crebra revisit ad stabulum desiderio perfixa iuvenci,             nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentes fluminaque ulla queunt summis labentia ripis oblectare animum subitamque avertere curam, nec vitulorum aliae species per pabula laeta derivare queunt animum curaque levare;             usque adeo quiddam proprium notumque requirit.

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For example, often before a god’s gracefully ornamented shrine a calf falls a victim beside the incense-​smoking altars, and with its last breath spurts a hot stream of blood from its breast. Meanwhile the bereaved mother ranges through green glades searching the ground for the imprint of those cloven hoofs. With her eyes she explores every place in the hope that she will be able to spy somewhere the young one she has lost. Now she halts and fills the leafy grove with her plaintive calls. Time after time she returns to the cowshed, her heart transfixed with longing for her calf. Tender willow shoots, and grass freshened by dew, and those familiar streams brimming their banks as they slide by, fail to soothe her mind and remove the pang of anguish; and the sight of other calves in the luxuriant pastures is equally powerless to divert her thoughts into a new channel and disburden her of care. So deeply does she feel the loss of something that she knows as her very own.28 As the start of the passage shows (nam, DRN 2.352), this touching description of a cow desperately looking for her lost offspring is introduced by way 28 For the sake of clarity and convenience, I use the prose translation of Smith 2001.

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186  Fabio Tutrone of analogy. Lucretius’ philosophical purpose is to elucidate the nature of the invisible atoms composing all things, ‘the great diversity of their forms, and the variety of their manifold shapes’ (quam longe distantia formis, […] multigenis quam sint variata figuris, DRN 2.334–​5). It is because of such constitutive diversity, the poet argues, that the individual members of all species—​humans as well as fishes, herds, wild beasts and birds—​differ from each other and can be easily distinguished (DRN 2.342–​8). For the very same reason, just like humans (nec minus atque homines, 351), animals can recognize their young, and vice versa (DRN 2.349–​51).29 The conceptual framework of Lucretius’ didactic argument makes thus clear three important points: first, as an immediate emotional response, grief has a solid natural basis; second, the animal kingdom provides valuable evidence about human feelings and the related ethical issues; third, the origins of parental love lie in the infinite variety of physical elements and compounds. We should bear these three points in mind when we go back to Seneca’s imitatio in the Consolation to Marcia. Lucretius is unequivocal in stating that the grieving cow is simply following a natural instinct. In the subsequent section (DRN 2.367–​70), after citing the case of other animal species, he proclaims that the unique relationship between mother and offspring responds to ‘what nature requires’ (quod natura reposcit, DRN 2.369). However, already in this basic, physiological form, mourning appears totally dependent on the inner cognitive world of living beings. Neither the surrounding bucolic landscape nor the sight of other calves are able to soothe the cow’s mind (animus, DRN 2.365 and 2.363) and mitigate her anguish (cura, DRN 2.363 and 365). Like the distressing ‘bites’ mentioned by Philodemus30, the animal mother’s longing (desiderium, DRN 2.360) is incorrigible. Indeed, despite the careful inspection of many different spaces (omnia loca, DRN 2.357)  and the inevitable flow of time (crebra revisit, DRN 2.359), Lucretius’ cow remains as inconsolable as the addressees of ancient consolations. But while the consolatory tradition could appeal to the pacifying effect of metaphysical and eschatological visions—​the prosopopoeia of Cremutius Cordus at the end of Seneca’s Consolation to Marcia is a case in point31—​Lucretius identifies in religious beliefs the prime cause of grief. As Anne Amory points out, ‘for the atomic argument the calf does not need to be sacrificed on an altar; it could just as well have been killed accidentally, or even just lost, but Lucretius chooses instead a situation which allows him to attack religion’.32 This deliberate choice appears even more 29 The logical coherence of Lucretius’ analogy between atoms and living beings has been questioned by some interpreters (cf. e.g., Bailey 1947, I, ad loc.). But see now Konstan 2013, 200: ‘the great variety of atomic shapes permits individuation on the macroscopic level to such an extent that any given animal can readily identify its own offspring and parents; in turn, since animals do invariably recognize each other, the possibility that atoms come in a single form, or in very few, is eliminated by what the Epicureans called counter-​witnessing or ἀντιμαρτύρησις’. 30 Cf. n. 27. 31 Sen. Marc. [6]‌.26. 32 Amory 1969, 161. See also Saylor 1972, 307–​13, comparing the present passage with the anti-​ religious polemic of the sacrifice of Iphigenia (DRN 1.80–​101). For further references (and a wider discussion of Lucretius’ philosophical stance), see Tutrone 2012, 57–​72.

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Poetic models and natural philosophy 187 significant if one considers the poet’s (equally deliberate) insistence on the cognitive and moral issue of mourning. Here as well as in other sections of his work,33 Lucretius seems to suggest that religion and the faith in human/​ divine interactions (such as those presupposed in ancient sacrifice) do not alleviate grief. Rather, they cause it.34 Lucretius’ Epicurean lesson was admittedly hard to accept for traditionally minded Romans. And it was visibly at odds with the Stoic worldview that had been influencing Rome’s ruling class for more than one century. Yet the poetic charm of Lucretius’ arguments gave them enduring fame and relevance. In the age of Augustus, Ovid proclaims that ‘the verse of the sublime Lucretius shall perish only when one day consigns the earth to destruction’.35 Interestingly enough, in the intellectually elaborated framework of his Fasti, Ovid himself embarks on a sustained imitatio of the mother cow episode and its ‘sublime’ inspiration. That the poetry of the Fasti relies on a wide-​ranging gallery of literary models and a refined negotiation of generic boundaries has long been acknowledged by scholars. Especially conspicuous is Ovid’s combination of elegy and epic (both heroic and didactic) in his treatment of the rape of Persephone (4.417–​620), where the imitation of the cow passage actually occurs.36 As a self-​conscious author of aetiological elegy, Ovid pursues a didactic project which is overtly reminiscent of Lucretius’ challenging lesson—​from the opening celebration of Venus’ creative force (4.1–​132) through the description of the Magna Mater cults (4.179–​372)

33 See, besides the above-​mentioned sacrifice of Iphigenia, the attack on traditional rituals in Lucr. DRN 4.1233–​47; 5.1198–​203. In DRN 3.417–​869, the belief in the survival of the soul after death, which plays a central role in Academic and Stoic consolatory writings, is shown to be dangerously misleading. 34 Lucretius’ polemic against sacrifice appears more radical than that of most Epicureans (cf. e.g., Philod. De Piet. lines. 790–​7; 877–​96; 1849–​52 Obbink, with the comments of Summers 1995) and reveals the influence of Empedocles (see Furley 1989, 172–​82, Sedley 1998, 30, and Garani 2013). Moreover, Roman readers could hardly fail to spot Lucretius’ allusive references to the vocabulary of death, lamentation and comfort which characterized funerary contexts and consolations. Eloquent examples include:  amissum, querellis (DRN 2.358), desiderio perfixa (DRN 2.360), oblectare animum, avertere curam (DRN 2.363), derivare animum, cura levare (DRN 2.365). Cf. also DRN 3.894–​918 for Lucretius’ knowledge of Roman funerary conventions. An analogous degree of intergeneric allusivity may be detected in the contrasting depiction of a typically bucolic locus amoenus (DRN 2.355, 359, 361–​4, 367–​70). 35 Ov. Am. 1.15.23–​4 (carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti, |​exitio terras cum dabit una dies), quoting Lucr. DRN 5.95. Ovid’s use of the rather ‘technical’ adjective sublimis captures Lucretius’ conscious engagement with the rhetoric of the sublime (ὕψος):  see Porter 2016, 445–​53. 36 A path-​breaking discussion of Ovid’s intertextual background has been offered by Hinds 1987, 99–​133, who compares the treatment of Persephone’s rape in the Fasti with that of Metamorphoses 5.  See also Hinds 1992, Merli 2000, 69–​129, and Pasco-​Pranger 2006, according to whom ‘we might think of the Fasti’s genre as the locus of several distinct but simultaneous negotiations. On one level, the dynamic opposition between epic and elegy continues to play a role […]; on another level, the negotiation of the specialized generic status of etiological elegy as opposed to amatory elegy is played out; and on yet another, this etiological elegy defines its own ways of building meaning in the exposition of the year against the cultural model of the epigraphical calendars’ (13).

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188  Fabio Tutrone and the reflection on earth’s generative power underlying the myth of Ceres and Persephone (4.393–​620).37 Since Ovid’s reception of Lucretius is likely to have influenced Seneca’s own rewriting, it is worth reassessing it briefly before turning back to the Consolation to Marcia. The presentation of the games of Ceres (Cereris ludi, 4.393) in Fasti 4 includes a typically didactic instruction about the choice of sacrificial victims which may have roots in Roman religious symbolism, but acquires fuller meaning in light of the subsequent aemulatio Lucreti (Fast. 4.413–​6): A bove succincti cultros removete ministri: bos aret; ignavam sacrificate suem. Apta iugo cervix non est ferienda securi: vivat et in dura saepe laboret humo. You attendants, with tucked up robes, take the knives away from the ox; let the ox plough; sacrifice the lazy sow. The axe should never smite the neck that fits the yoke; let him live and often labour in the hard soil.38 As Denis Feeney points out, this and other precepts in the Fasti attest to Ovid’s negative perception of sacrifice ‘as a token of the loss of the Golden Age’.39 However, Ovid’s refusal of bovine sacrifice in particular (the offering of a sow is in fact prescribed) seems also related to the re-​ appearance of Lucretius’ disconsolate bovine in the narrative of Persephone’s rape. According to Ovid, this digressive narrative is made necessary by the requirements of ‘the subject itself’ (ipse locus, 4.417), that is, by the point of the calendar and the general setting.40 With a supremely Callimachean move, readers are informed that they ‘will hear much that they knew before’, while also ‘learning a few things’.41 What readers already know certainly includes Lucretius’ didactic poetry, for a first allusion to the Epicurean poet is made in 37 Lucretius’ hymn to the alma Venus (cf. Ov. Fast. 4.1, and Lucr. DRN 1.2) is the well-​known proem to Book 1 (1–​43). The cult of the Magna Mater is the subject of a controversial exposition in Book 2 (600–​45). In the same book, the identification of the fruits of the earth (fruges) with Ceres is rationalistically explained (655–​60), and the origins and limits of agricultural fertility are painstakingly discussed (991–​1174). As Schiesaro 2002, 64, observes, ‘Ovid’s Fasti can be read as an attempt to combine Lucretius’ interest in causae with Vergil’s ethical and religious concerns’. On the Fasti’s relationship to didactic poetry, see also Miller 1992. 38 Translations from the Fasti are, with slight modifications, those of Frazer 1959. 39 Feeney 2004, 16: for Ovid, after the advent of farming and animal breeding, ‘human life is denaturalised, and sacrifice must be endlessly repeated in order to stave off the ever-​present threat of having to pay the full consequences of that denaturalisation’. 40 Cf. Barchiesi 1997, 75–​6: ‘ipse locus could be read in two ways: on the one hand as ‘this point of the calendar’, and on the other as ‘this setting’, the one that is about to be described. […] Exigit ipse locus is just the kind of formula that a serious historian would use to motivate a digression’. 41 Ov. Fast. 4.418: plura recognosces, pauca docendus eris. As Hinds 1987, 40, points out, the pentameter ‘implies in the Alexandrian manner that the bulk of the ensuing narrative will consist of material attested elsewhere’.

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Poetic models and natural philosophy 189 the epic portrayal of Sicily as the geographical setting of Persephone’s rape. Indeed, Ovid’s picture of ‘the Trinacrian land’ (Trinacris, 4.420)  running out ‘into the vast sea’ (vastum in aequor) with its ‘three rocky capes’ (tribus scopulis) is an elegant epitomization of Lucretius’ depiction of Empedocles’ homeland.42 Learned readers cannot escape noticing such a powerful, even if indirect, re-​evocation of Empedocles—​a prominent figure in Latin literature since the time of Ennius and a relentless critic of animal sacrifice.43 Yet, the most explicit reference to Lucretius’ poetry surfaces at the key moment when Ovid describes Ceres’ reaction to the rape of her daughter. While picking flowers in the Sicilian town of Henna, where she had come with her mother upon invitation of Arethusa, Persephone is abducted by Hades. As soon as her playmates realize that she is not with them anymore, they display the typical ancient manifestations of mourning: ‘they fill the mountains with shrieks and smite their bare bosoms with their sad hands’.44 Ceres’ maternal grief, by contrast, is markedly Lucretian (Fast. 4.455–​66): Attonita est plangore Ceres (modo venerat Hennam)             455 nec mora, ‘me miseram! filia’ dixit ‘ubi es?’ mentis inops rapitur, quales audire solemus Threïcias fusis maenadas ire comis. ut vitulo mugit sua mater ab ubere rapto et quaerit fetus per nemus omne suos,             460 sic dea nec retinet gemitus, et concita cursu fertur, et e campis incipit, Henna, tuis. inde puellaris nacta est vestigia plantae et pressam noto pondere vidit humum; forsitan illa dies erroris summa fuisset,             465 si non turbassent signa reperta sues. Ceres was startled by the loud lament; she had just come to Henna, and straightway, ‘Woe’s me! my daughter,’ said she, ‘where are you?’ Distraught she hurried along, even as we hear that Thracian Maenads rush with streaming hair. As a cow, whose calf has been torn from her udder, bellows and seeks her offspring through every grove, so the goddess did not stifle her groans and ran at speed, starting from the plains of Henna. From there she light on prints of the girlish feet and marked the 42 Cf. Ov. Fast. 4.419–​22, and Lucr. DRN 1.716–​30. 43 In her analysis of Ovid’s account of the Agonalia festival (Fast. 1.317–​456), Garani 2013 highlights the impact of Empedocles’ teachings on the Ovidian representation of bull sacrifice as a marker of the fall from the Golden Age. According to Garani, ‘Ovid integrates within his history of sacrifice a double allusion to Empedocles and Lucretius, the so-​called “Empedoclean fingerprint”, and thus brings into his narrative the Empedoclean imagery of the advent of Strife and the concomitant zoogony’ (259). On the reception of Lucretius as ‘Empedocles Romanus par excellence’ (17) by Latin didactic poets, see also Garani 2007. On Ovid’s interest in Empedocles and its cultural-​historical background, see Pfligersdorffer 1973. 44 Ov. Fast. 4.453–​4: montes ululatibus implent, |​et feriunt maesta pectora nuda manu.

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190  Fabio Tutrone traces of the familiar figure on the ground. Perhaps that day had been the last of her wanderings if swine had not foiled the trail she found. By the very act of re-​using Lucretius’ analogy in a different analogical context, Ovid urges his audience to spot the metaphorical connections between Ceres and the mother cow. Both are bereft parents wandering in search of their offspring with an upset mind, for the cow’s animus (DRN 2.363, 365) finds a telling equivalent in the goddess’ mens (4.457)—​mens and animus being Lucretius’ alternative synonyms for the rational part of the soul in book 3.45 One might object that, differently from the calf chosen as a comparans, Persephone is not dead. But a young chthonic deity can hardly experience a state closer to death than this forced stay in the infernal realm of Hades. What is more, both Ovid’s Ceres and Lucretius’ animal mother react to their loss by groaning and embarking on a long quest: these two fundamental details of Lucretius’ atomic argument are purposely selected in Ovid’s rewriting of the simile (4.459–​60)46 and are further expanded in the description of Ceres’ journey (4.461–​6). The section on Ceres’ mournful journey is the most densely allusive in Ovid’s text: here, at the border between animal and human expressivity, the querellae of Lucretius’ cow (DRN 2.358) are transformed into gemitus (4.461), and readers are reminded of the Lucretian particular of prints (vestigia, 4.463)—​with signa at 4.466 as an elegant variatio and the participle of premo now referred to the ground (humus, 4.464).47 Whereas modern interpreters tend to focus on the scientific content and the anti-​religious implications of Lucretius’ argument, Ovid—​like Seneca several years later—​puts special emphasis on its relationship to the topics of death, grief and lamentation. Also during her wandering throughout earth and sky, Ceres has the typical emotional response of the ancient bereaved: she ‘sits most rueful’ (sedit maestissima, 4.503), is ‘touched by the name of mother’ (mota est dea nomine matris, 4.513),48 fasts for a long time (longam famem, 4.534), and finally approaches Jupiter ‘after long moaning to herself, with deep lines of sorrow on her face’ (questa diu secum, […] maximaque in voltu signa dolentis erant, 4.585–​6). In soothing Ceres and excusing the deed as an act of love (hanc lenit factumque 45 See e.g., Lucr. DRN 3.94–​7. Konstan 2013, 203 recalls that Lucretius is not entirely consistent in his use of animus/​mens and anima for the rational and the irrational parts of the soul, respectively (cf. Lucr. DRN 3.421–​4). But the repeated occurrence of animus in the short sequence of the calf episode seems intended to produce in the addressee an awareness of the (often overlooked) cognitive faculties of animals. See also Tutrone 2012, 66–​72. 46 The two lines composing Ovid’s simile are crowded with lexical reminiscences of Lucretius’ longer treatment: mater (DRN 2.355), nemus (DRN 2.359), uber (DRN 2.370). Quaerit can be compared with the Lucretian requirit (DRN 2.366), but quaerit is also Bailey’s plausible conjecture for line 356, which is corrupted in the manuscript tradition of Lucretius. Ovid’s imitatio may actually serve as an additional argument in support of Bailey’s reading. 47 Cf. Lucr. DRN 2.356. Note also the participial adjective notum, which Ovid refers to Persephone’s ‘weight’ in contrast with the very general usage of Lucr. DRN 2.365. 48 Cf. e.g., Octavia’s obstinacy in not allowing any mention to be made of her dead son: Sen. Marc. [6]‌.2.5.

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Poetic models and natural philosophy 191 excusat amore, 4.597), Jupiter himself plays the role of the consoler. Like many ancient consolers, the king of heaven cannot do anything else than encourage his addressee to accept the alternation of life and death perfectly symbolized by Persephone’s sojourns below and above the earth (4.611–​8). Still, for all their sympathetic reappropriation of Lucretius’ verse, Ovid’s Fasti ultimately neutralize the potentially destabilizing effects of Epicurean didactic. Lucretius’ dramatic denunciation of the painful consequences of traditional rituals and beliefs is condensed into an allusive poetic image at the very heart of a celebration of traditional deities. For Ovid, the wandering of the bereaved cow is not different in its essence from the cultic procession of Dionysus’ maenads (4.458)—​one of whom, Agave, famously kills her son Pentheus and searches for his lost limbs.49 Even more remarkable, Ovid’s cow simile makes no mention of the theme of sacrifice, as readers are told that the calf is ‘torn’ from his mother’s udder (vitulo ab ubere rapto, 4.459), but they hear nothing of the purpose of this violence. They are, of course, expected to remember Lucretius’ masterpiece—​and they might even been led to value animal suffering more highly than the marginalized ritual of sacrifice—​but for the very same reason they are induced to wonder about the roots of Ovid’s deliberately elliptical readaptation.50 As Steven Green has shown, Ovid’s attitude towards live sacrifice in the Fasti mirrors the unresolved tension between an ‘Augustan’ and a ‘Pythagorean’ viewpoint:  while the former legitimizes this solemn tradition of Roman religion revived by Augustus, the latter ‘invites sympathy for the animal victims by inviting us to break down barriers between human and animal experiences’.51 In the end, however, the bitterly polemical and radically anti-​religious approach of Lucretius’ poem remains unparalleled in Ovid’s work. And the Epicurean therapy of grief is discarded ipso facto as a philosophically extraneous and poetically irrelevant exercise in wisdom. As we shall now see, Seneca seems to have learned from Ovid 49 Cf. Nussbaum 1990, vii, ‘Euripides’ Bacchae ends with a scene in which a mother reassembles her son’s severed bodily parts, parts that she herself has fatally ripped. She puzzles over the proper location of each member, weeping for the disunity that she herself has made’. In comparing Ceres with the roving maenads, Ovid might even be hinting at Ceres’ agency in what happened to Persephone. At the beginning of his digression, Ovid makes clear that the future spouse of Hades had come to Sicily to accompany her mother (423–​6). 50 The erasure of explicit mention of sacrifice in Ovid’s imitation is remarked on by Feeney 2004, 13–​16, who also analyzes the different perspectives on animal killing emerging from Fasti 1 and Vergil’s Georgics. According to Feeney, ‘in Book 1 the shocking nature of sacrifice is overt, and fully stressed, as Ovid concentrates all his efforts on denaturalising his audience’s familiarity with the institution […]. In book 4 Ovid affects to ignore this perspective and to give another, more ameliorative view of the patron goddess of modern life, exempt from the nexus of killing, but the sacrificial imperative behind the life of civilization keeps breaking through […] in the form of the myth, with the Lucretian sacrificial simile for Ceres’ bereavement, with the reminder of her hatred of pigs, and with the treatment of the Triptolemus story as an aetiology of agriculture’. See also Fantham 1992. 51 Green 2008, 54, recalling the famous speech of Pythagoras in Metamorphoses 15. Cf. also Garani 2013, 258. Ovid’s ambiguous and at times provocative response to Augustan discourse is magisterially investigated in Barchiesi 1997 and Newlands 1995.

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192  Fabio Tutrone that Lucretius’ lesson can easily become part of a non-​Epicurean teaching program.

3 Stoicizing the cow: Seneca’s cosmology and philosophical anthropology When switching from his initial presentation of hortatory exempla to his more general discussion of philosophical precepts, Seneca broaches the difficult question of the extent to which grief is a natural human response. The adoption of this theoretical perspective is hardly surprising for the follower of a philosophy whose highest aim is ‘living in accordance with nature, that is, in accordance with virtue’.52 At the same time, Seneca seems acutely aware that his learned addressee may legitimately lean towards several alternative paradigms of nature and natural law, all abundantly represented in the Roman intellectual debate. Indeed, though sharing a series of ethical premises and goals, the Epicureans and the Stoics had largely diverging views of nature, humankind and the cosmos. And the situation was further complicated by the persisting influence of Academic and Peripatetic thought on the consolatory genre. It is thus no accident that Marcia is immediately presented with a therapeutic argument that, while re-​using the insights of other philosophical schools, reaffirms the kernel of Stoic doctrine (Marc. [6]‌.7): ‘At enim naturale desiderium suorum est’. Quis negat, quam diu modicum est? Nam discessu, non solum amissione carissimorum necessarius morsus est et firmissimorum quoque animorum contractio. Sed plus est quod opinio adicit quam quod natura imperavit. Aspice mutorum animalium quam concitata sint desideria et tamen quam brevia: vaccarum uno die alterove mugitus auditur, nec diutius equarum vagus ille amensque discursus est; ferae cum vestigia catulorum consectatae sunt et silvas pervagatae, cum saepe ad cubilia expilata redierunt, rabiem intra exiguum tempus extinguunt; aves cum stridore magno inanes nidos circumfremuerunt, intra momentum tamen quietae volatus suos repetunt; nec ulli animali longum fetus sui desiderium est nisi homini, qui adest dolori suo nec tantum quantum sentit sed quantum constituit adficitur. ‘But grieving for one’s relatives is natural’. Who can disagree, as long as it is done in moderation? For when we are merely separated from our dear ones, never mind when we lose them, there is an unavoidable stab of pain, and a contraction even in the most resolute minds. But what imagination adds goes beyond what nature commands. In the case of mute animals, see how agitated their grieving is, and yet how short lived:  with cows, their bellowing is heard for one or two days, and with mares, their erratic, 52 Diog. Laert. 7.87 (τὸ ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν, ὅπερ ἐστὶ κατ’ ἀρετὴν ζῆν), quoting Zeno’s lost treatise On Human Nature. For an introductory overview of Stoic naturalism and its ethical-​logical corollaries, see Sellars 2006, 125–​9.

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Poetic models and natural philosophy 193 demented charging around lasts no longer; when wild animals have followed the tracks of their cubs and wandered all through the forests, when they have returned repeatedly to their ransacked lairs, they extinguish their rage within a short time; birds squawk around their empty nests with loud shrieks, but in a moment they fall silent and resume their flight. No animals mourn their offspring for long, apart from human beings; they encourage their own grief, and the duration of their affliction depends not on what they feel but on what they decide. With a typical rhetorical (and diatribic) stratagem, Seneca starts by addressing Marcia’s hypothetical objection that longing (desiderium) for the dead is natural. As Cicero points out, the Stoics define longing as ‘the desire to see someone who is not yet present’.53 In the case of grief (which the Stoics, like their predecessors, call πένθος), a person’s emotional status is worsened by the perception that ‘untimely death’ (ἄωρος θάνατος) makes the separation irreparable.54 However, desiderium is also the word employed by Lucretius in his cow argument (2.360). Seneca has no hesitation in agreeing with the Epicurean Lucretius that irrational animals can experience parental love and longing, but he carefully re-​defines the boundaries of animal feeling in strict accordance with the principles of Stoic cosmology and anthropology. Curiously enough, following the opinion of Constantine Grollios, Charles Manning contends that the digression about non-​ human beings in the Consolation to Marcia ‘has no exact parallel in extant Latin texts’ and assigns Seneca’s injunction ‘either to the influence of the Peripatetic view he is putting forward, or to the therapeutic effect of the argument on Marcia’.55 It is true that (here as well as elsewhere) Seneca appears relatively well-​disposed toward the Peripatetic doctrine of the moderation of the emotions (μετριοπάθεια)—​ the doctrine according to which the emotions should not be totally extirpated, as the Stoics claimed, but brought to some sort of mean. Yet, on closer inspection Seneca’s reception of this and other non-​Stoic traditions does not overstep the barriers of Stoic orthodoxy.56 After claiming that ‘moderate longing’ (desiderium modicum) is natural, Seneca reinterprets in Stoic terms what may 53 Cic. Tusc. 4.21 (= SVF 3.398):  desiderium libido eius, qui nondum adsit, videndi. The πόθοι καὶ ἵμεροι described by Stobaeus Ecl. 2.7, p. 91 Wachsmuth (= SVF 3.394) as pathological consequences of desire (ἐπιθυμία) are perfect Greek equivalents. It is interesting to note that Arius Didymus, whose work is traditionally regarded as the main source of Stobaeus’ epitome, is probably the same Arius recalled by Seneca in the preceding section of the Consolation to Marcia  ([6].4–​6). 54 On the Stoic definition of πένθος as a special kind of pain (λύπη) caused by the experience of ἄωρος θάνατος (or τελευτή), see SVF 3.413–​4. Untimely death is often recorded as a prime cause of grief in the consolatory genre—​well beyond the tradition of Stoicism. Cf. e.g., Plut. Cons. Apoll. 110e–​113e. 55 Manning 1981, 55–​6, referring back to Grollios 1956, 36. 56 In the introduction to his commentary, Manning 1981, 10, himself notes that ‘Peripatetic moderation of the emotions is not Seneca’s final goal for Marcia, but a step on the way to the Stoics’ ideal of ἀπάθεια, a necessary step for one who has been grieving with such vehemence

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194  Fabio Tutrone at first look like a Peripatetic notion. An involuntary ‘bite’ (morsus) or ‘contraction’ (contractio) of the soul is unavoidable, Seneca argues, in so far as the soul of both humans and animals is a material aggregate subject to the action of external forces. Such a measured physical response is experienced also by the wise (firmissimorum quoque animorum), but is clearly limited in time. Moreover, this is not a real emotion, but a pre-​emotion (what the Greek Stoics call a προπάθεια), for it does not entail the conscious assent of reason or the arbitrary supplement of opinion.57 Noticeably, Seneca employs the traditional Stoic words contractio and morsus, which had already been used by Cicero as translations for συστολή and δηγμός (or δῆξις).58 Yet, as mentioned earlier, the idea of inner ‘bite’ had also become part of the vocabulary of the Epicureans, who in contrast with the Stoics considered this kind of immediate responses full-​fledged emotions. If we look at the wider context of the passage, it will not be difficult to realize that Seneca reshapes the legacy of Epicurean thought at the same time when he gives new meaning to the ethics of Aristotle’s school. The subsequent section about the ‘longing of irrational animals’ (mutorum animalium desideria) is in fact an elegant amplification of, and variation on, the Lucretian theme of the mother cow—​pace Grollios and Manning.59 The rhetorical practice of imitatio/​aemulatio is turned by the writer into an effective tool for philosophical inquiry, teaching and correction, with the purpose of reaching an audience well-​acquainted with late Republican and Augustan literature.60 Lucretius’ (and Ovid’s) animal mother is directly alluded to at the beginning through for so long’. On the Peripatetic-​Stoic controversy, see e.g., Procopé 1998, 172:  ‘the idea behind the Peripatetic talk of ‘moderate emotion’, μετριοπάθεια, was that of the Aristotelian mean […]. There are things to which anger is the right reaction, in the same way that some misfortunes are genuinely grievous, and justifiably objects of grief, or some people are truly hateful and rightly hated. The Stoic claim was that the judgments of good and evil implicit in such emotions are always unwarranted’. 57 Seneca’s reference to the Stoic theory of pre-​emotions in this passage is acknowledged by Hine 2014, 38 n.  21, and Konstan 2016, 3–​8, who also makes a stimulating comparison with the universal, non-​intentional ‘affects’ of modern psychology. On the Stoic concept of προπάθεια, see Gill 2006, 279–​81, with further references. A sound reappraisal of the extant evidence is offered by Graver 1999. If we trust Seneca, whose writing On Anger devotes consistent attention to pre-​emotions (Sen. Ira [4]‌.2.1–​4), the concept goes back to Zeno (Sen. Ira [3].1.16.7  =  SVF 1.215). To be sure, as recorded by Gal. Plac. Hipp. Plat. 4.7.12–​18, Chrysippus dealt with involuntary tears and the progressive abatement of distress in his work On Passions (see Tieleman 2003, 123–​30; 259–​60). Seneca makes clear that the wise man will go through this sort of natural experiences also in Ep. 71.27–​9; 99.15–​21. 58 On the Stoic use of συστολή, see e.g., SVF 3.386, 394, 412. On δηγμός/​δῆξις, see Gal. Plac. Hipp. plat. 4.3.2 (= SVF 1.209), and Plut. Virt. mor. 449A. Cicero resorts several times to the verb contrahere (corresponding to the Greek συστέλλειν) as well as to the words contractio and morsus: see e.g., Cic. Tusc. 4.14 (= SVF 3.393), and 3.83–​4, where the idea of pre-​emotion is also expounded. Cf. Tieleman 2003, 282–​3, and Graver 2009, 240–​4. 59 Seneca’s allusivity is instead noted by Mazzoli 1970, 207 n. 95. 60 In this sense, one can definitely agree with Manning 1981, 56, that Seneca is aware of the possible therapeutic effect of his argument on Marcia. One might add that the rhetoric of

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Poetic models and natural philosophy 195 the mention of the cows’ bellowing (vaccarum mugitus). But differently from Lucretius, whose pathetic use of the term mater (DRN 2.355) creates a deliberate overlapping of animal and human feelings, Seneca deploys the agricultural label vacca and describes the practice of searching for one’s offspring as a very general animal habit. It seems to be no accident that the other three species chosen by Seneca play a relevant role in Lucretius’ didactic arguments: while mares (equae) are cited in book 4 for their allegedly passionate character—​ a trait that, according to ancient lore, they display as parents and mating partners61—​wild beasts (ferae) and birds (aves), with their natural propension for love, figure eminently in the first proem.62 Other details of the Lucretian intertext are also echoed, from the woodland setting (already taken on by Ovid) to the description of the return to the cowshed63 and the evocative words vestigium and pervagare.64 Clearly, Seneca’s ultimate objective in rewriting Lucretius’ argument is to restate his own Stoic paradigm of nature and the human against the competing interpretation of the Epicureans. According to the author, even if the behavior of irrational animals (ἄλογα ζῷα or muta animalia) exemplifies the basic reality of physiological instincts and reactions, human addressees should be aware that their condition is far more complex and delicate. Humans are subject to the same external stimuli as other living beings, yet the content and duration of their emotions depend, as Seneca puts it, ‘not on what they feel but on what they decide’ (nec tantum quantum sentit sed quantum constituit adficitur), that is, on the beliefs arising from their rational judgments.65 Differently from cows and birds, Marcia is called to go beyond the level of animal nature (natura) and perception in order to resist the misleading influence of opinion (opinio), recover from her illness, and fulfill her providential vocation. The anthropocentric structure of Seneca’s cosmology, with its providentially established scala naturae, puts humankind in both a privileged and a challenging position, for although animals may serve as models of naturality,

moral exemplarity pursued by Seneca in the preceding section of his Consolation is now transformed, more specifically, into a rhetoric of literary exemplarity—​to which moral aims remain fundamental. 61 Cf. Lucr. DRN 4.1197–​200. The mares’ passionate (and even lecherous) nature is recalled by Arist. Hist. an. 6.18, 572a 8–​30; 6.22, 575b 30–​1; 9.4, 585a 3–​4 and Columella R.R. 6.27, among others. By virtue of their constitution, mares were reputed to produce a powerful aphrodisiac, the so-​called hippomanes (see, besides Aristotle, Verg. Georg. 3.280–​3, and Tib. 2.4.57–​8). On the mares’ attachment to their young, see e.g., Plin. HN 8.165. 62 Lucr. DRN 1.10–​20. 63 The stabulum of Lucretius’ cow (DRN 2.360) is now expanded into the ‘ransacked lairs’ (cubilia expilata) of wild beasts. 64 The Senecan pervagatae is a variation and simplification of Lucretius’ rare peragrans (DRN 2.355). Significantly, peragrare is the verb deployed by Lucretius to characterize Epicurus’ and his own innovative undertakings in the fields of wisdom and poetry: DRN 1.74; 1.926 (= 4.1). 65 On the strong rationalistic basis of Senecan emotions, see Konstan 2015, 174–​7.

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196  Fabio Tutrone the difficult tasks involved in the management of belief-​based emotions can be accomplished only by distinctively anthropic means.66 Several years later, when writing his Letters to Lucilius, Seneca will warn again against the risk of following too closely the example of irrational creatures. In Epistle 99, Seneca allegedly reports a letter he had previously written to Marullus for the loss of his baby son.67 Again, the writer is prepared to heal parental grief with the harsh means of didactic coercion.68 He does not allow his addressee to exceed the measure set by the Stoic doctrine of pre-​emotions, since, in Seneca’s own words, ‘we should let tears fall, but we should not command them do so’.69 Even more remarkably, Seneca embarks on a new anti-​Epicurean (and anti-​Lucretian) polemic, as his confutation of Metrodorus’ tenet that ‘there is a certain pleasure akin to sadness’ (esse aliquam cognatam tristitiae voluptatem)70 is preceded by a criticism of the attitude of birds (aves) and wild beasts (ferae). According to the author, albeit wholly natural, the energetic response of such animals to the death of dear ones lacks the fundamental ingredient of reason and does not permit the survival of memory over time. As a supremely rational being, the wise man (prudentem virum) will cultivate the faculty of remembering and shy away from the imitation of inhuman souls.71 Seneca’s aemulatio completely obscures the anti-​religious overtones of Epicurean didactic, since from a Stoic perspective bringing one’s inner self to a state of sovereign peace means living in accordance with the indications of the immanent divine nature. Thus, even though the Consolation to Marcia 66 For an extensive treatment of Stoic cosmology and its approach to human-​animal relations, see Wildberger 2006a, I, 203–​43, and 2008. Cf. also Tutrone 2012, 157–​291, on Seneca’s ‘ambiguous’ anthropocentrism. On Stoic anthropocentrism, more generally, see Dierauer 1977, 199–​252, and Sorabji 1993, 112–​33. 67 It is hard to ascertain whether Seneca’s addressee is the same Marullus mentioned by Tac. Ann. 14.48. Wilson 1997, 66, goes so far as to regard Marullus as a fictional character (cf. also Wilson 2013, 96–​7). But there is good reason to share the view of Setaioli 2014b, 242 n. 28. 68 Cf. Sen. Ep. 99.1–​2. As Setaioli 2014b, 242 observes, ‘Seneca adopts the schema plagion, i.e., he purports to be scolding Marullus instead of consoling him, following the well-​known rhetorical mode ostensibly pursuing a goal opposite to the one expected by the listener or reader’. 69 Sen. Ep. 99.16:  permittamus illis (scil. lacrimis) cadere, non imperemus. The topic of pre-​ emotions is carefully dealt with at Ep. 99. 14–​20. Here, too, readers are reminded of the difference between involuntary ‘bites’ (morsus) and true sorrow (dolor). 70 The tenet is ascribed by Seneca to Metrodorus and cited in Greek (fr. 34 Körte). On the problematic reconstruction of Seneca’s Greek quotation, see Setaioli 1988, 249–​51. 71 Sen. Ep. 99.24: effusissime flere, meminisse parcissime, inhumani animi est. As a teacher of Stoic ethics, Seneca constantly tries to arouse in his addressee an awareness of the gap interposed by divine providence between humans and animals. In Ep. 124.21 he declares to Lucilius: ‘I can be of no greater benefit to you than by revealing the good that is specifically yours, by taking you out of the class of irrational animals, and by placing you in the company of God’ (nullo modo prodesse possum magis quam si tibi bonum tuum ostendo, si te a mutis animalibus separo, si cum deo pono). In the same letter (Ep. 124.13–​20) as well as in Ep. 121.3–​9; 17–​24, Seneca forcefully contrasts the teleologically determined character of animal life and cognition with the higher faculties of humankind.

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Poetic models and natural philosophy 197 reflects a sincere appreciation of Lucretius’ poetic insight and a thorough understanding of the underlying analogies between Stoic and Epicurean natural philosophy,72 there can be no doubt that Seneca’s cosmos lies very distant from the non-​teleological, materialistic universe of Lucretius. In the very next chapter of his Consolation, Seneca further stresses his distance from Lucretius by observing that the unnaturalness of prolonged grief is shown by the variable effects of this and other emotions on different people and cultures. Marcia is taught that ‘things that derive their force from nature maintain the same force in every instance: if something shows variation, evidently it is not based on nature’ (apparet non esse naturale quod varium est, Marc. [6]‌.7.3). This is not an uncritical restatement of the Peripatetic idea of physical order and ‘a sort of inversion of the Stoic doctrine of general consent’, as suggested by Manning.73 Rather, it is a meditated response to the conceptual system which lays the foundation of Lucretius’ cow argument:  a refutation of the multiply infinite and profoundly variegated world of atoms and void that, according to Epicurus, permeates both animals and humans. If Marcia, too, learns to respond effectively to false beliefs, she will overcome her sadness and appreciate the difference between pleasing poets and truthful teachers.

72 Elsewhere in his Consolation, Seneca has no difficulty in using other characteristically Epicurean arguments against the fear of death which had been artistically elaborated by Lucretius. See, above all, the refutation of the mythical view of the underworld and its punishments in Marc. [6]‌.19.4–​5. Notably, this refutation is accompanied by the claim that death is nothing to us as well as by a comparison between the dead and the unborn. Cf. Lucr. DRN 3.830–​1023. 73 Manning 1981, 56.

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9 Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum (NQ 3.20–​1, 25–​6; Ovid Met. 15.270–​336)1 Myrto Garani

1  Introduction Seneca’s intertextual engagement with Ovid has been repeatedly pointed out, with particular focus upon his multiple explicit poetic quotations from the Ovidian corpus within his philosophical treatises.2 At the same time, recent studies on Ovid’s Metamorphoses have highlighted the philosophical aspects of his mythological epic poem.3 In my chapter I explore Seneca’s quotations from Ovid’s Metamorphoses book 15 in the third book of his Naturales quaestiones, a book which investigates the nature and causes of terrestrial waters and is commonly considered by recent scholarship to have been originally the first in Seneca’s natural philosophical project.4 My discussion forms part of my general claim that Seneca structures this particular book as a reply to the whole of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which he perceives as an essential chain within the tradition of natural philosophical epic poetry—​ultimately looking back to Lucretius and Ennius—​and hence criticizes through this particular interpretative prism, while he condenses it into a single book.5

1 I would like to thank Sophia Papaioannou, Frederik Bakker and the anonymous Routledge readers for their comments and suggestions. 2 Ten out of the 18 citations from Ovid’s Metamorphoses occur in NQ Book 3.  For Ovid in Seneca, see Goddard Elliott 1985; De Vivo 1989 and 1995; Degl’ Innocenti Pierini 1990b; Borgo 1992; also Michalopoulos in the present volume. Especially for Seneca’s intertextual engagement with Pythagoras’ speech, see Torre 2007; also Berno 2012b upon the arguments thereof I build my present discussion. For Ovid’s influence on Seneca’s tragedies, see Charlier 1954–​55; Ronconi 1984; Jakobi 1988; Mader 1995; Trinacty 2014, 65–​126 and passim; Vial 2015. For other poetic quotations in Seneca, see Lurquin 1947; Maguinness 1956; Mazzoli 1970; Timpanaro 1994. The translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses are from the Loeb edition by Miller (1977 and 1984; rev. by Goold); the translations of Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones are from Corcoran 1971 and 1972. 3 For philosophy in Ovid’s Metamorphoses Crahay and Hubaux 1958; Segl 1970; Lafaye 1971, 191–​223; Nelis 2009 (and below especially for Pythagoras’ speech). 4 Codoñer Merino 1979, vol. 1, xii–​xxi; Hine 1981, 6–​19 and 1996, xxiv. For acceptance of the ordering (3, 4a, 4b, 5, 6, 7, 1 and 2), see Parroni 2002, xlix; Gauly 2004, especially 65–​7. 5 As I argue elsewhere [Garani (forthcoming a)], the figure of Phaethon, present explicitly in the prologue to the book and implicitly in the narration of the cataclysm in the final chapters, is

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  199 Our—​ and Seneca’s—​ point of departure is the last book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Met. 15.1–​484), in which Pythagoras teaches Numa, the second king of Rome about natural law (Met. 15.6 quae sit rerum natura, requirit ‘he seeks to know what Nature’s general law may be’). In doing so, Pythagoras assumes Lucretius’ corresponding vatic role in DRN, where he initiates his pupil, Memmius, into the mysteries of nature.6 Along these lines, Pythagoras delivers a speech, in the first part of which he attacks meat-​eating and sacrifice (Met. 15.75–​142) and explicates his doctrine of metempsychosis (Met. 15.158–​72). Pythagoras, then, goes on to reveal by means of various examples the principle of cosmic transformation (Met. 15.176–​459). He first refers to the change from land into sea (Met. 15.262–​9) and thus calls to mind the flood Ovid describes in his book 1. Pythagoras, then, introduces a list of natural wonders, the first part of which is devoted to various mirabilia aquarum, concerning mainly rivers and springs (Met. 15.270–​336). The notion of water transformation dominates and thus looks back to the cosmogonic first line of the poem (15.308–​9 non et lympha figuras | datque capitque novas? ‘Why, does not even water give and receive strange forms?’; 1.1–​2 In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas | corpora ‘My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed into new forms’). Scholars have long pointed out, but then undervalued the fact that Ovid draws most of his examples from Callimachus’ Collection of Wonders (Ἐκλογὴ τῶν παραδόξων), part of which is reproduced in Antigonus of Carystus’ Collection of wondrous stories (Ἱστοριῶν παραδόξων συναγωγή).7 While Callimachus is considered the oldest reported writer of paradoxography, his collection is a characteristic example of his experimental style, as this is reflected by his writing of both

proved to be the thread that connects the opening and the closing of the book as well as a pivotal figure for Seneca’s intertextual engagement with both Lucretius and Ovid. 6 Hardie 1995 revised in Hardie 2009; Garani 2014, 130–​3. For further echoes of Lucretius in Ovid’s Pythagorean speech, see e.g., Bömer 1986, ad Met. 15.6; Galinsky 1998, 328–​30. For further discussion about Ovid’s Pythagoras account, see Stephens 1957, 62–​77, Little 1970, Myers 1994, 133–​66, Setaioli 1999, Hardie 2015, Beagon 2009. For arguments for the parodical or satirical character of the speech, see Segal 1969; Holleman 1969; Galinsky 1975,  104–​7. 7 For Ovid’s Greek sources in Pythagoras’ list, see Lafaye 1971, 208–​10, 252. For Callimachus as philologus and paradoxographer, see Krevans 2011, especially 120–​ 6. Within the paradoxographical corpus, see in particular Philostephanus of Cyrene’s Περὶ τῶν παραδόξων ποταμῶν (On wondrous rivers) (Callimachus’ student, 3rd cent. BCΕ); Polemon Periegetes (3rd–​ 2nd cent. BCE) Περὶ τῶν ἐν Σικελίᾳ θαυμαζομένων ποταμῶν (On the marvelous rivers in Sicily); Isigonus of Nicaea (1st cent. BCE or 1st cent. CE). Regarding the Latin paradoxographical tradition, there are fragments from Varro’s Gallus Fundanius de admirandis (belonged in the series of Logistorici; cf. Arnob. Adv. nat. 6.3) and Cicero’s Admiranda. About Varro and Cicero, see Schepens and Delcroix 1996, 428–​9. Sotion, Seneca’s Stoic teacher, also wrote a paradoxography (Parad. Gre. Westermann 1839, 183–​91). On paradoxography, see Ziegler 1949; Giannini 1964; Jacob 1983; Schepens and Delcroix 1996; Sassi 1993. Specifically on mirabilia aquarum, see Callebat 1988.

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200  Myrto Garani poetry and prose and his exploring the possibilities of crossing the generic boundaries.8 Callimachus’ special interest for the oddities and wonders of Italy and Sicily should not go unobserved.9 Following Callimachus’ paradoxographical practice, Ovid as a rule does not provide scientific explanations about the phenomena he describes. In doing so, he does not turn down the mythical explanations in favor of the scientific ones; he rather opts for keeping them both into play.10 What is even more significant, Ovid’s Pythagoras constantly encourages amazement at the marvels of nature (Met. 15.317; 321, 408, 410). In his turn, in the preface to his Naturales quaestiones 3 Seneca introduces the philosophical topos of the flight of mind (NQ 3 praef. 1 mundum circumire) and thus offers his Stoic approach to the quest of knowledge; in doing so, he seems to be transferring to the beginning of book 3—​and probably of his whole project—​ the vatic figure of Pythagoras from the final book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.11 Contrary to Pythagoras’ stance towards mirabilia, in his Naturales quaestiones Seneca follows in the Stoic tradition, according to which ‘the wise man never wonders at any of the things which appear extraordinary, such as Charon’s mephitic caverns, ebbings of the tide, hot springs or fiery eruptions’ (ἔτι γε τὸν σοφὸν οὐδὲν θαυμάζειν τῶν δοκούντων παραδόξων, οἷον Χαρώνεια καὶ ἀμπώτιδας καὶ πηγὰς θερμῶν ὑδάτων καὶ πυρὸς ἀναφυσήματα. SVF 3.642 von Arnim = Diog. Laert. 7.123).12 We should bear in mind for the discussion to follow that this demystifying approach towards the natural world is consonant with the corresponding Epicurean admonition encapsulated in the semi-​ formulaic Lucretian phrase non est mirabile (DRN 2.308, 2.898), admonition which Ovid’s Pythagoras deprecates (cf. Ov. Met. 15.317 quodque magis mirum est).13 Seneca, then, variously diffuses material from Pythagoras’ speech into the main part of his explanations about waters. On this basis, in this chapter I will explore the ways in which Seneca responds to Pythagoras’ Callimachean (pseudo)scientific account and the Callimachean tradition of paradoxography, by offering coherent scientific explanations and thus rationalizing the paradoxographical examples. As we will see in detail, Seneca does not place the emphasis upon each particular case, but considers them as instances that 8 Sistakou 2009 for the inverse process, that of Callimachus’ poeticizing of natural phenomena. See also Asper 2009. 9 Prioux 2009. One should also bear in mind that Callimachus’ water imagery is burdened with metaphorical connotations about poetry, which are echoed in Latin poetry, already in Lucretius’ poem. E.g., Call. Hymn to Apollo 105–​13, Ep. 28 Pf. = 2 GP. See Knox 1985 about Callimachus as water-​drinker. See also Romano 2011, 320–​1. For Callimachean water-​ imagery in Lucretius’ DRN, see Brown 1982. For other Callimachean allusions in Pythagoras’ speech, see Knox 1986, 65–​83. 10 Cf. a brief adumbration of a cause (Ov. Met. 15.271 tremoribus orbis); a mythical explanation for the noxious waters of the Anigrus (15.281–​4) with Myers 1994, 150. 11 Garani (forthcoming a). 12 Toulze-​Morisset  2004. 13 See also Lucr. DRN 2.465, 4.259: minime mirabile; 4.595, 5.592: non est mirandum; 6.654–​5: mirari […] miratur; Ov. Met. 15.321, 408, 410 with Myers 1994, 158 n. 101; Schrijvers 1970, 262–​6.

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  201 demonstrate the general natural laws which regulate nature and the workings of waters.14 Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with Ovid’s list of mirabilia takes place in two stages; whereas in c­ hapters 20 and 21 the engagement with the Ovidian intetext is more intense, with three explicit quotations, in ­chapters 25 and 26 there is only one such quotation.

2  Naturales quaestiones 3.20–​1: effects of certain waters upon body and mind In ­chapters 20–​1 Seneca explores the variety of properties and tastes in water, as well as their different effects; in doing so, he turns to Theophrastus’ method of multiple explanations15 as well as the latter’s scientific theory, according to which the differences in the properties of water are explained by appealing to two principles, (a) the differences in temperature and (b) the admixture of earth.16 In line with this theory, Seneca puts forward four possible causes, all of which are based on different substances dissolved in water (NQ 3.20.1–​2): At quare aquis sapor varius? Propter quattuor causas. Ex solo prima est per quod fertur; secunda ex eodem, si mutatione eius nascitur; tertia ex spiritu qui in aquam transfiguratus est; quarta ex vitio quod saepe concipiunt corruptae per iniuriam. Hae causae saporem dant aquis varium, hae medicatam potentiam, hae gravem spiritum odoremque pestiferum gravitatemque, hae aut calorem aut nimium rigorem. But why the variety of taste in water? There are four causes. The first is from the soil through which the water is carried; the second also depends on the soil if the water is produced by a transmutation of earth into water; the third comes from the air which was transformed into water; the fourth from a pollution which water often receives when it has been corrupted by harmful substances. These cases give water its different taste, its medicinal power, its disagreeable exhalation and pestilential odor, as well as its unwholesomeness, heat or excessive cold. The dominant idea is that of transformation of air or earth into water (transfiguratus est), which echoes Pythagoras’ theory regarding the mutual transformation of elements (Met. 15.244–​51).17 As Francesca Romana Berno 14 On the contrary, Lucretius turns the specific cases of marvelous waters into the principal objects of his inquiry (DRN 6.848–​905). See Lucr. DRN 6.848–​78: spring of Hammon; 6.879–​ 905: spring which kindles tow (cf. Ov. Met. 15.311–​2); 6.890–​4: sweet spring off Aradus with Bakker 2016, 159; see also idem 113f. especially 122–​3. 15 Steinmetz 1964, 46, 82, 86, 91, 322, 327; Daiber 1992; Kidd 1992, especially 303–​ 4; Gottschalk 1998, 287; Sharples 1998, xv. For objections regarding Theophrastus’ use of multiple explanations as a method, in association with the Syriac Meteorology which allegedly is assigned to him, see now Bakker 2016, especially 73–​6. 16 Sharples 1998, 192. See also Steinmetz 1964, 259–​66. 17 Bickel 1957 for Posidonius’ influence regarding the verb transfigurare.

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202  Myrto Garani has recently demonstrated in detail, Seneca has introduced this theory earlier in his book;18 already in NQ 3.10.1 he writes: Adicias etiam licet quod fiunt omnia ex omnibus, ex aqua aer, ex aere aqua, ignis ex aere, ex igne aer; quare ergo non ex terra fiat aqua? You may add, also, the principle that all elements come from all others: air from water, water from air, fire from air, air from fire. So why not water from earth? Then again he argues that ‘and there are the kinds of moisture which change from liquid to stone. In fact, earth and moisture decay into substances such as bitumen and other substances like it’ (NQ 3.15.3 et quae in lapidem ex liquore vertuntur; in quaedam vero terra umorque putrescunt, sicut bitumen et cetera huic similia) and similarly that ‘the earth itself, if it is easily decomposed, often dissolves and becomes moisture’ (NQ 3.15.7 Saepe terra, si facilis est in tabem, ipsa solvitur et umescit). Then, Seneca discusses the possible effects of water which is polluted due to various substances, such as sulphur, nitre or bitumen, and thus dangerous if drunk. As he claims, water with such properties may have intoxicating, maddening, soporific or even lethal effects upon the body or the mind. In order to shed light upon this—​plausibly Theophrastean—​theory, he introduces three Ovidian quotations, by selectively drawing paradoxographical examples from Pythagoras’ list and elaborating upon them; while he maintains the Ovidian distinction between body and mind (Met. 15.317–​8 quodque magis mirum est, sunt, qui non corpora tantum, |​ verum animos etiam valeant mutare liquors ‘and, what is still more wonderful, there are streams whose waters have power to change not alone the body, but the mind as well’), he seems to be striving to establish a logical thread upon the poetic examples and organize them into a cohesive whole: as he suggests, all of these changes are due to the proportion of sulphur in water. While Ovid’s Pythagoras considers the water as both the agent and the object of metamorphosis (Met. 15.308–​9 lympha figuras |​datque capitque novas ‘water give and receive strange forms?’), in his discussion Seneca shifts the emphasis upon the consequences of the polluted water. In this way, Seneca subdues Pythagoras’ amazement into Theophrastus’ scientific explanations. 2.1  Effects upon body: petrification To begin with, Seneca argues that depending on its substance, the adulterated water may cause petrification. In order to demonstrate this, Seneca quotes an example from Ovid’s list, that of a river at the Cicones, on the southwestern 18 For the idea of mutual transformation of elements in Seneca’s NQ 3, see Berno’s 2012 thorough discussion.

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  203 coast of Thrace, which ‘when drunk, turns the viscera to stone and puts a layer of marble on everything it touches’ (Met. 15.313–​4 flumen habent Cicones, quod potum saxea reddit |​ viscera, quod tactis inducit marmora rebus). Ovid’s exact example of petrification of human beings is not found among Callimachus’ extant explanations; still, Pliny testifies that such properties were attributed to the river of Cicones (Plin. HN 2.226); its effect, however, refers to the wood thrown into the water which gets covered with a film of stone. More references about waters with petrifying effects can be found in the paradoxographical corpus. According to Paradoxographus Florentinus (16 p. 318 Giannini = fr. 191 FGrHist 4 Jacoby), Hellanicus wrote about such a spring near Magnesia at Sipylum, a city in Lydia, that petrifies the belly. And there are even more examples about waters which either coat things cast into it with stone or leave deposits, to which we will come back. Seneca’s first citation is particularly significant, due to the corresponding bearing of the Ovidian verses within their original context. Ovid’s example explicitly refers to the effect of water that transforms the body and turns it into stone. As Bauer has discussed, the stone is a particularly dominant image within the Metamorphoses; in line with this, the Ovidian example of Cicones conjures up various transformations recounted throughout the poem.19 To cite just one example, in book 6 Ovid narrates the myth of Niobe, whom Latona turned into stone as a punishment for the rejection of her worship.20 These transformations look back at the reverse process, i.e., the transformation of the stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha into human bodies (Met. 1.400–​ 6). So, whereas in the beginning of ­chapter 20 the emphasis was placed upon the (Pythagorean) idea of transformation of water due to various factors, Seneca proceeds with his scientific explanation, as if objecting to the Ovidian mythical idea of transformation. In addition, although Seneca had at his disposal various such examples which he could glean either from the paradoxographers or even directly from Theophrastus,21 he rather aims at rationalizing the Ovidian example. It is for this reason that Seneca emphasizes his personal experience, by vaguely adding Italian examples and thus encouraging his pupil to undertake an experiment himself (NQ 3.20.4):22 19 Bauer 1962. For Lichas’ metamorphosis into a rock, see Met. 9.211–​29 with Myers 1994, 48. See also von Glinski 2012, 34–​40. 20 See especially Ov. Met. 6.204–​312, where Ovid describes how Niobe’s daughters were killed and her fate: 6.309 intra quoque viscera saxum est (‘Within also her vitals are stone’); 6.312 et lacrimas etiam nunc marmora manant (‘and even to this day tears trickle from the marble’). 21 E.g., Antigonus (Hist. mir. 161  p.  100 Giannini) draws his information from Eudoxus and Callimachus about water in Cos, which coats irrigation channels with stone; cf. also Antig. Hist. mir. 135  p.  90 Giannini. As we gather from Paradoxographus Vaticanus 11  p.  334 Giannini (= Antig. fr. 2 p. 108 Giannini), Antigonus reports that there was a hot spring in Hierapolis in Phrygia, which coated things cast into it with stone. For this spring and its petrifying properties, see also Vitruv. Arch. 8.3.9–​10. Theophr. 219 FHS&G (= Plin. HN 31.19) reports about the spring of Marsyas in Phrygia which casts out rocks. 22 For Seneca’s references to Italy, see Hine 2006, 50–​1.

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204  Myrto Garani Quod in Italia quibusdam in locis evenit:  sive virgam, sive frondem demerseris, lapidem post paucos dies extrahis; circumfunditur enim corpori limus adliniturque paulatim. This happens in certain localities in Italy. If you immerse a twig or a branch, after a few days you take out a stone. For the mud flows around the object and gradually coats it all over. Moreover, Seneca gives an example of water with similar chemical composition, but without lethal implications, that of the therapeutic water of Albula near Tivoli, where several springs containing sulphur (sulphuratam aquam, NQ 3.20.4) were considered to be a cure.23 2.2  Effects upon mind Seneca, then, turns to the possible effects of polluted water upon the mind. Although Seneca states that ‘one or another of these causes is present’ (NQ 3.20.5 Aliquam harum habent causam), the important factor turns out to be sulphur: depending on its sulphuric force, water acts upon mind like wine in different degrees and thus may cause madness, deep coma, drunkenness, or even death. 2.3  Madness or deep lethargy To illustrate the first potential mental consequence, Seneca quotes from Ovid information regarding the maddening effect of water from the Ethiopian lakes (NQ 3.20.5): Aliam harum habent causam illi lacus, ‘quos quisquis faucibus hausit’, ut idem poeta ait, aut furit aut patitur mirum gravitate soporem. Similem habent vim mero, sed vehementiorem. Nam, quemadmodum ebrietas, donec exsiccetur, dementia est et nimia gravitate defertur in somnum, sic huius aquae sulphurea vis habens quoddam acrius ex aere noxio virus mentem aut furore movet aut sopore opprimit. One or another of these causes is present in those lakes so that, as the same poet says: Whoever lets them go down his throat either goes mad or suffers a strange deep coma. They have a power similar to neat wine, but stronger. For, just as drunkenness is madness, until it dries out and results in a sleep that is excessively heavy, so the sulphuric force of this water containing a kind of poison, made more severe by the noxious air, either unhinges the mind with frenzy or oppresses it with sleep. 23 Concoran 1971, 250:  ‘The effects described by Seneca are those produced by water which transfers minerals on to objects, or infuses minerals into objects (which are thus hardened), often substituting the intruded minerals for the object’s material which is dissolved away; or deposits minerals free-​standing such as stalactites and stalagmites’. Cf. Plin. HN 31.10.

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  205 Let me quote in full Ovid’s verses (Met. 15.319–​21): cui non audita est obscenae Salmacis undae Aethiopesque lacus? quos si quis faucibus hausit, aut furit aut patitur mirum gravitate soporem; Who has not heard of the ill-​famed waves of Salmacis and of the Aethiopian lakes? Whoever drinks of these waters either goes raving mad or falls into a strange, deep lethargy. If we read again into the syntax of the Ovidian verses, the poet seems to attribute lunacy not only to the Ethiopian lakes, but also to the filthy waters of the Salmacis spring, which he mentions in the previous line (Met. 15.319), and whose effeminating power he had treated earlier in the poem in the context of the myth of Hermaphroditus (Met. 4.285–​388). By ignoring the spring of Salmacis, Seneca seems to object to a mythical story. Regarding the Ethiopian lakes, Ovid plausibly draws his information from Callimachus (Antig. Hist. mir. 145 p. 94 Giannini = Ctesias fr. 1lα Nichols):24 Κτησίαν δὲ τὴν ἐν Αἰθιοπίᾳ τὸ μὲν ὕδωρ ἔχειν ἐρυθρόν, ὡσανεὶ κιννάβαρι, τοὺς δ’ ἀπ’ αὐτῆς πιόντας παράφρονας γίνεσθαι. τοῦτο δ’ ἱστορεῖ καὶ Φίλων ὁ τὰ Αἰθιοπικὰ συγγραψάμενος. [According to Callimachus], Ctesias mentions a spring in Ethiopia that has water as red as cinnabar and says that those who drink from it become deranged. Philon, the author of the Ethiopika, also mentions this in his history. (Transl. Nichols 2008) At this point, it should not go unobserved the fact that Callimachus himself quotes Ctesias of Cnidus, the 4th-​century BCE historian and personal physician to the Persian royal family of Artaxerxes II, who was commonly considered to be unreliable.25 Ovid himself omits an otherwise interesting detail from what is considered to be Ctesias’ report—​which, however, refers to an Ethiopian spring, not a lake: the color of the water of this spring was said to be red, like that of cinnabar, this being a color closely associated with madness; moreover, according to Paradoxographus Florentinus, Ctesias also specified

24 See also Ctesias fr. 1lγ Nichols (=Plin. HN 31.9):  sed ibi in potando necessarius modus, ne lymphatos agat, quod in Aethiopia accidere iis qui e fonte Rubro biberint Ctesias scribit ‘But there it is necessary to be moderate in one’s drinking, because it brings on madness, which happens in Ethiopia to those who drink from the Red Spring, according to Ctesias’ (transl. Nichols 2008). Cf. Isid. Orig. 13.13.4. 25 Aristotle (Hist. an. 7.28, 606a9) thinks him unreliable. Antigonus (Hist. mir. 15b p.  38 Giannini) thinks that his reports are false, incredible and fabulous.

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206  Myrto Garani the nature of madness brought about (Ctesias fr. 1lβ Nichols = Paradox. Flor. 17 p. 320 Giannini): Κτησίας δὲ ἐν Αἰθιοπίᾳ κρήνην ἱστορεῖ τῷ χρώματι κιννάβαρι παραπλησίαν· τοὺς δὲ πίνοντας ἀπ’ αὐτῆς παραλλάττειν τὴν διάνοιαν, ὥστε καὶ τὰ κρυφίως πεπραγμένα ὁμολογεῖν. Ctesias mentions in his history a spring in Ethiopia which has the colour of cinnabar and that those who drink from it lose their mind so that they confess even to things done in secret. (Transl. Nichols 2008) The one who drinks from this water was said to reveal the secrets and accuse oneself of every sin which he had formerly committed in secret. As compared to Ovid’s partial incorporation of Ctesias and Callimachus’ information, Seneca in addition omits the specific name of the place, somehow dissociating his reference from that of Ctesias. In order to strengthen the credibility of his report, he points to the sulphuric force of the water (aquae sulphurea vis). More importantly, Seneca introduces here the image of the wine and drunkenness, explicitly pointing to the relation of wine with both madness and sleep. Such a comparison of this wondrous water with old wine, due to its exceedingly sweet odor and its corresponding effects, is also found in Diodorus Siculus’ narration about Ctesias’ report of the campaign of Semiramis against Ethiopia, during which she allegedly saw that particular Ethiopian lake (Diod. Sic. 2.14.4 = Ctesias fr. 1b Nichols part): ἀπὸ δὲ τούτων γενομένη τῆς Αἰθιοπίας ἐπῆλθε τὰ πλεῖστα καταστρεφομένη καὶ τὰ κατὰ τὴν χώραν θεωμένη παράδοξα. εἶναι γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ φασι λίμνην τετράγωνον, τὴν μὲν περίμετρον ἔχουσαν ποδῶν ὡς ἑκατὸν ἑξήκοντα, τὸ δ’ ὕδωρ τῇ μὲν χρόᾳ παραπλήσιον κινναβάρει, τὴν δ’ ὀσμὴν καθ’ ὑπερβολὴν ἡδεῖαν, οὐκ ἀνόμοιον οἴνῳ παλαιῷ· δύναμιν δ’ ἔχειν παράδοξον·τὸν γὰρ πιόντα φασὶν εἰς μανίαν ἐμπίπτειν καὶ πάνθ’ ἃ πρότερον διέλαθεν ἁμαρτήσας ἑαυτοῦ κατηγορεῖν. (4) After leaving Egypt she invaded most of Ethiopia, subdued it and observed the marvels of this land. They say that there is a square lake in Ethiopia with a perimeter of about 160 feet, the water of which on the surface resembles cinnabar and has a very pleasing fragrance, not unlike an aged wine, and it has incredible power: they say that whoever drinks it falls into madness and confesses to all of the crimes he has previously committed and gotten away with. (Transl. Nichols 2008) Diodorus, however, concludes by stating that ‘a man may not readily agree with those who tell such things’ (τοῖς μὲν οὖν ταῦτα λέγουσιν οὐκ ἄν τις ῥᾳδίως συγκατάθοιτο). In any case, Seneca’s comparison with wine may indicate the fact that apart from Callimachus’ paradoxographical collection, via its Ovidian

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  207 versified version, Seneca gleans his material also from other such collections. What is more, although Seneca does not touch upon the temperature of the water—​as Theophrastus would have done—​the metapho­rical image of wine he opts for clearly conveys the notion of heat, this being its intrinsic property.26 2.4  Drunkenness In cases that the sulphuric force of water is less harsh, Seneca suggests that the effect upon men is more similar to that of strong undiluted wine, which brings about drunkenness. As an example, he turns again to Ovid’s list to quote the latter’s reference to the Lyncestian river (Ov. Met. 15.329–​31; Sen. NQ 3.20.6): Hoc habet mali:                             Lyncestius amnis, quem quicumque parum moderato gutture traxit, haud aliter titubat, quam si mera vina bibisset. The following has this harmful effect: …the river in Lyncestis Anyone who consumes it with immoderate thirst staggers, and if he had drunk strong wine. Ovid’s information is once again found in Antigonus’ Callimachus, who in turn quotes from Theopompus, the 4th-​century historian and disciple of Isocrates (Antig. Hist. mir. 164  p.  102 Giannini  =  Theopompus fr. 278(b) Shrimpton):27 Ἐν δὲ Λυγκήσταις Θεόπομπον φάσκειν τι εἶναι ὕδωρ ὀξύ· τοὺς δὲ ἐκ τούτου πίνοντας ὥσπερ ἀπὸ τῶν οἴνων ἀλλοιοῦσθαι. Καὶ τοῦθ’ ὑπὸ πλειόνων μαρτυρεῖται. 26 About Theophrastus on wine, see 425–​9 FHS&G; Theophr. CP 6 Wimmer. According to Plutarch (Adv. Col. 1109e-​1110a), when Epicurus is asked in his work the Symposium whether wine is calorific, he holds a dialogue with Polyaenus about the heating quality (θερμαντικόν) of wine (cf. Epicur. frr. 58–​60 Usener). 27 Cf. also Theopompus fr. 278(c) Shrimpton (=Parad. Vat. 12 p. 335 Giannini): Θεόπομπος ἐν Λυγκήσταις φησίν τι εἶναι ὕδωρ ὀξύ, ὃ τοὺς πίνοντας μεθύσκει. ‘Theopompus says that there is harsh water in Lyncestae which intoxicates its drinkers’. Theopompus fr. 278(d) Shrimpton (=Parad. Florent. 20  p.  320 Giannini):  Θεόπομπος ἐν Λυγκήσταις φησὶ πηγὴν εἶναι τῇ μὲν γεύσει ὀξίζουσαν, τοὺς δὲ πίνοντας μεθύσκεσθαι ὡς ἀπὸ οἴνου. ‘Theopompus says that in Lyncestum [sic, Lyncestae] there is a spring that tastes like vinegar and makes people who drink it intoxicated as if from wine’. Theopompus fr. 278(e) Shrimpton (=Plin. HN 2.230): Lyncestis aqua quae vocatur acidula vini modo temulentos facit; item in Paphlagonia et in agro Caleno. ‘But Theopompus claims that one can get drunk from the springs I mentioned above—​that is, the somewhat acidic water called Lyncestis makes people intoxicated like wine. The same is found in Paphlagonia and in the region of Cales’. Translations from Theopompus are by Shrimpton 1991. Cf. Arist. Mete. 2.3, 359b17; Parad. Vat. 22 p. 338 Giannini; Plin. HN 31.16. See also Theophr. 214A FHS&G (=Athen. Deipn. 2.42E Kaibel) about such a spring in Paphlagonia. Cf. Plin. HN 2.230, Vitruv. Arch.8.3.20. Heraclides of Pontus (fr. 127 Wehrli) also reports about a spring of sweet wine in Naxos.

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208  Myrto Garani And he says that Theopompus claims that in Lyncestae there is [a source of] harsh water, and people who drink from it are changed as if from drinking wine. Very many others bear witness to this. (Transl. Shrimpton 1991) In both Ovid and Seneca, we do not find any reference to the particular property of acidity (ὕδωρ ὀξύ), pertaining to its taste, but just to its inebriating effect. 2.5  Seneca’s (2nd) Ovidian omission Before we proceed into Seneca’s next category of sulphuric water, we should briefly discuss Seneca’s second eloquent omission from Ovid’s list, which concerns the sobering effect of the waters of Clitor’s spring; this water was said to turn men away from wine, because this is where the herbs, by means of which Melampus cured the Proetides of a madness inflicted by Bacchus (Met. 15.324–​8),28 were thrown. Apart from the fact that this reference would interrupt the logical sequence of Seneca’s explanation about the various effects of sulphuric water, I think that once again Seneca implicitly reveals his critical stance towards Ovid’s mythological explanation as well as the implausibility of the marvelous nature of such water. 2.6  Death Last but not least, Seneca refers to Averna loca, without actually using this generic name, i.e., places from which lethal water, which is contaminated due to locality and atmosphere, is discharged (NQ 3.21):29 In quosdam specus qui despexere moriuntur; tam velox malum est ut transvolantes aves deiciat. Talis est aer, talis locus ex quo letalis aqua destillat. Quod si remissior fuit aeris et loci pestis, ipsa quoque temperatior noxa nihil amplius quam temptat nervos uelut ebrietate torpentes. People die who have looked down into certain caves. The deadliness is so swift that it brings down birds flying by. Such is the atmosphere, such is the place from which lethal water discharges. But if the deadliness of the atmosphere or of the place is less severe, the poison itself is less harmful and affects little more than the sinews as though they were asleep because of drunkenness. Despite the fact that such a reference is not to be found within Ovid’s Pythagorean list, still there are various corresponding ones in Antigonus’ 28 Cf. Parad. Florent. 12 p. 318 and 24 p. 320 and 322 Giannini (containing a 10-​line epigram). 29 See also Sen. NQ 6.28.

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  209 Callimachus (Antig. Hist. mir. 152a p. 96, 152b p. 98 Giannini; cf. Call. fr. 407 xxiv, xxxi, xxxii Pf.).30 Along these lines, Lucretius offers rational explanations in atomic terms about various pestilential areas which were observed to poison overflying birds due to pungent sulphur, which is breathed out of hot springs (DRN 6.738–​839).31 As Brown significantly argues, within the framework of his explanation, Lucretius implicitly objects to the Callimachean myth associated with Athena and her banishing of crows from the Athenian Acropolis, which is found in the short epic Hecale narrated by an old crow.32 In light of these associations, Seneca’s Averna loca bring into his discussion paradoxographical material—​drawn from Lucretius or even directly from the paradoxographical corpus—​which is coated with Callimachean color, but has already been demythologized by Lucretius. Unlike Lucretius, Seneca does not refer to any specific place or to the extreme heat of these waters; he rather lays his emphasis upon their venomous force, by resuming as his point of reference the analogical image of wine, along with its soporific implications. Seneca claims that there may be an escalation, since in this case the properties of waters may sometimes be less dangerous, causing just sleep, not death. At the end of his explanation about such noxious places Seneca reiterates the theory of elemental transformation which he expounded in the beginning of ­chapter 20, stating that ‘there is nothing which does not render traces of that from which it is derived’ (NQ 3.21.2 Nulla res est quae non eius quo nascitur notas reddat). 2.7  First conclusions On the basis of our discussion of the first cluster of Ovidian quotations in comparison to Pythagoras’ list of wonders, let us draw some prelimi­nary conclusions. On the one hand, Seneca employs the analogical image of wine as a connecting thread of his various explanations. On the other, he omits 30 See also Parad. Vat. 13 (p. 334 Giannini) and Parad. Florent. 22 (p. 320 Giannini) both citing Heraclides of Pontus (fr. 127 Wehrli). As Frederik Bakker rightly pointed out to me, very much like Antigonus, Seneca distinguishes pestilential waters (Antig. Hist. mir. 152a p. 96, 152b p. 98; Sen. NQ 3.21) from pestilential places (Antig. Hist. mir. 121–​3 p. 84, 123 p. 86; Sen. NQ 6.28). See also Arist. De sensu 5, 444b31ff.; Theophr. CP 6.5.5 Wimmer; [Arist.] De mundo 4, 395b26–​30; Apuleius De mundo 17 (p. 153, 11f. Thomas). 31 Near Cumae: Lucr. DRN 6.747–​8, Athenian Acropolis: DRN 6.749–​55. For the relevant discussion, see Bakker 2016, 119–​21. 32 According to the myth, a crow reported to Athena that against her orders, out of curiosity the daughters of Cecrops opened the chest containing the infant Erichthonius, which had been entrusted to them by the goddess. In return, the goddess banished the crow from the Acropolis. Cf. iras Palladis acris, Lucr. DRN 6.753 with Call. Hecale fr. 260.41 Pf. βαρὺς χόλος… Ἀθήνης, Graium ut cecinere poetae, Lucr. DRN 6.754 with Call. Hecale fr. 260.17 Pf.; cf. also Palladis… Tritonidis, Lucr. DRN 6.750 with Call. Iamb. 12 fr. 202.28 Pf. Τριτωνίς. For the relevant discussion and further Callimachean echoes in Lucretius’ account about Averna loca, see Brown 1982, 88–​9. The myth also occurs in Antig. Hist. mir. 12 p. 36 Giannini, in a portion of work which does not derive from Callimachus.

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210  Myrto Garani two Ovidian examples which are associated with mythological tales (Salmacis and Clitorium) and opts for others, such as Averna loca, which are found neither in Ovid nor presumably in Theophrastus, drawing from the broad paradoxographical tradition. In doing so, he appears to be following in Lucretius’ demythologizing approach by laying his own emphasis and omitting details, such as those ultimately reported by Ctesias about waters with specific maddening effects, that, albeit fascinating, could easily discredit the scientific reliability of his account.33 This is also the reason why he suggests self-​hand experiments and points to examples from Italy.

3  Naturales quaestiones 3.25–​6: various mirabilia aquarum Seneca does not quote again explicitly Ovid till ­chapter 26, which he devotes to the existence of underground rivers. However, it would be significant to take a closer look at his discussion in ­chapters  25 and 26, in which Seneca pieces together various mirabilia aquarum. As I  will demonstrate, not only does Seneca broaden his scope so as to include other noteworthy instances from paradoxography, but he also implicitly engages with Pythagoras’ list. 3.1  Styx In the beginning of ­chapter 25 Seneca refers to waters which, albeit deadly, are not distinctive in odor or taste. He mentions two such examples (NQ 3.25.1): Quaedam aquae mortiferae sunt nec odore notabiles nec sapore. Circa Nonacrin in Arcadia Styx appellata ab incolis advenas fallit, quia non facie, non odore suspecta est, qualia sunt magnorum artificum venena quae deprehendi nisi morte non possunt. Haec autem de qua paulo ante rettuli aqua summa celeritate corrumpit, nec remedio locus est, quia protinus hausta duratur nec aliter quam gypsum sub umore constringitur et alligat viscera. Some waters are deadly and yet are not distinctive in odor or taste. Near Nonacris in Arcadia the Styx, as it is called by the inhabitants, fools strangers because it is not suspected by its appearance or odor. Such waters are like the poisons of high-​and-​mighty tricksters, which cannot be detected except by death. Moreover, this water, which I just referred to, corrupts with amazing speed. There is no time for an antidote because as soon as it is drunk it hardens and is congealed by moisture like gypsum and binds the bowels.

33 For Lucretius’ demythologization, see Hardie 1986, 78–​83; Gale 1994, 164–​8, 172–​3, 181, 185–​9; Garani 2007, 118, 122, 136, 140, 150, 174. Owing to space limits, a detailed discussion of Seneca’s embrace of Lucretius’ demythologizing approach falls beyond the scope of this study. For more, see now Garani (forthcoming a) and Garani (forthcoming b).

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  211 The first is Styx, near Nonacris in Arcadia, where the water kills with amazing speed and there is no antidote. Seneca seems to draw his remark from Theophrastus, as we gather once again from Antigonus’ Callimachean account (Call. fr. 407 xxx Pf. = Antig. Hist. mir. 158 p. 100 Giannini = Theophr. 213B FHS&G):34 Περὶ τῶν [αὐτῶν] ὑδάτων Θεόφραστόν φησι τὸ καλούμενον Στυγὸς ὕδωρ λέγειν, ὅτι ἐστὶν ἐν Φενεῷ, στάζει δ’ ἔκ τινος πετριδίου· τοὺς δὲ βουλομένους αὐτοῦ ὑδρεύεσθαι σπόγγοις πρὸς ξύλοις δεδεμένοις λαμβάνειν διακόπτειν δὲ πάντα τὰ ἀγγεῖα πλὴν τῶν κερατίνων. τὸν δὲ ἀπογευσάμενον τελευτᾶν. Concerning waters (Callimachus) says that Theophrastus says of the so-​ called ‘water of Styx’ that it is at Pheneos, and trickles from a certain cliff. Those who want to collect it catch it in sponges tied to sticks. It breaks all vessels except those made of horn. The person who tastes of it dies. (Transl. Fortenbaugh, Huby, Sharples, and Gutas) In Ovid’ list, however, it is noteworthy that we read different information about the fatal effect of these waters (Met. 15.332–​4): est locus Arcadiae, Pheneon dixere priores, ambiguis suspectus aquis, quas nocte timeto: nocte nocent potae, sine noxa luce bibuntur; There is a place in Arcadia which the ancients called Pheneus, mistrusted for its uncertain waters. Shun them by night, for, drunk by night they are injurious; but in the daytime they may be drunk without harm. Therefore, it seems that in this particular case, Seneca plausibly draws his information from Antigonus’ Callimachus or even directly from Theophrastus, and corrects Ovid: this dangerous water does not cause death only during the night, but whenever it is drunk. Although, as Sharples notes, Theophrastus seems to attribute the alleged poisonous qualities of the water to cold or to an admixture of earthy substance, in Seneca there is no such explicit comment about the extreme coldness associated with its corrosive properties, apart from the mention that when this water is drunk, it hardens like gypsum.35 Last but 34 See also Theophr. 213C FHS&G (= Plin. HN 31.26): in Arcadia ad Pheneum aqua profluit e saxis Styx appellata, quae ilico necat, ut diximus, sed esse pisces parvos in ea tradit Theophrastus, letales et ipsos, quod non in alio genere mortiferorum fontium. ‘In Arcadia, at Pheneos, there flows from the rocks water which is called ‘the Styx’. It kills instantaneously, as we have said. However, Theophrastus records that there are small fish in it, which are themselves deadly. This does not happen in any other kind of deadly spring’ (transl. FHS&G). Cf. also Theophr. 213A FHS&G (Anonymous, on Antimachus of Colophon = Pack2 89 = P. Milan. 17, col.2.53–​8, PRIMI t. 1 p. 53 Vogliano). 35 Sharples 1998, 202. For the fact that the water of Styx was extremely cold, see Plin. HN 31.27: Namque et haec insidiosa condicio est, quod quaedam etiam blandiuntur aspect, ut ad

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212  Myrto Garani not least, Seneca adds a brief reference to the poisonous water in Thessaly, around Tempe (NQ 3.25.2).36 3.2  Waters with colorific force Seneca then turns to waters that, even though not dangerous, are associated with a certain marvelous phenomenon. In this case, the presence of Theophrastus’ influence as his source seems to become increasingly apparent. Seneca explicitly quotes Theophrastus for the information that there are rivers which, when drunk, dye flocks of sheep (NQ 3.25.3–​4): in Macedonia he points to the Haliacmon and Peneus rivers;37 he also refers to two rivers in Boeotia, one of which is the Melas, i.e., ‘Black’;38 he also adds a reference about horses in Cappadocia, which he draws, as he claims, from auctores bonos—​whoever these might be. Sharples remarks that, while according to Pliny’s testimony (Theophr. 218A FHS&G [see below quoted]  =  Plin. HN 31.13–​14) Theophrastus refers to an effect to the color of the newborn animals that drink of the water, Seneca’s corresponding testimony (Theophr. 218D FHS&G) apparently refers to changes in the animals themselves, admittedly over a considerable time.39 Once again, if we turn to the paradoxographical tradition, we may glean several such references about this strange colorific force of rivers.40 As Prioux notes, ‘such anecdotes were probably linked with the symbolic aspects of the relationship between rivers and eschatiai:  the role of rivers as geographical boundaries and lines of expansion for a given territory may account for their supposed ability to change the appearance of men and animals’.41 However, the absence from Seneca’s account of any reference to Italian examples is striking Nonacrim Arcadiae, omnino nulla deterrent qualitate. Hanc putant nimio frigore esse noxiam, utpote cum profluens ipsa lapidescat. ‘For certain waters have also this insidious property, that the very prospect is attractive; as at Nonacris in Arcadia, which has nothing at all about it to serve as a warning. They think that this water harms by its excessive cold, seeing that as it flows it itself turns to stone’ (transl. Jones 1963). Cf. also Plin. HN 2.231. See also Vitruv. Arch. 8.3.16 and Plut. (Alex.75–​77) for its alleged role in Alexander’s death. 36 Unlike Pliny (HN 31.28) and Vitruvius (Arch. 8.3.15), Seneca does not refer to any plants around it. 37 Instead of Seneca’s Peneius, Pliny (HN 31.13–​14) refers to Axius. 38 According to Pliny (HN 2.230) and Vitruvius (Arch. 8.3.14), the other river is the Cephisus. Cf. Varro (apud Solinus De mirabilibus mundi 7.27 p. 66.11–​15 Mommsen). 39 Sharples 1998, 216. 40 According to Pliny (HN 31.13–​14), Eudicus (i.e., Eudoxus) reports that the Euboean springs Cerona and Neleus make sheep that drink from them black and white respectively. For similar anecdotes about sheep who drink the water of two rivers, see also Arist. Hist. an. 3.12, 519a10–​19; Ps. Arist. Mir. ausc. 170 p. 310 Giannini; Strabo Geogr. 10.1.14 Meineke. Cf. also Paradox. Palat. 15 p. 358 Giannini and Antig. Hist. mir. 78 p. 68 Giannini. The river Scamander was thought to change the color of hair into yellow (Paradox. Vat. 10 p. 334 and Antig. Hist. mir. 78 p. 68 Giannini). See Prioux 2009, 124 n. 11. See also Öhler 1913, 59–​60. 41 Prioux 2009, 124–​5.

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  213 and this Senecan omission becomes even more alarming upon recalling that there were such references already in Theophrastus about Crathis and Sybaris, i.e., the two rivers that used to surround the city of Sybaris (Theophr. 218A FHS&G = Plin. HN 31.13–​14):42 Theophrastus Thuriis Crathim candorem facere, Sybarim nigritiam bubus ac pecori, quin et homines sentire differentiam eam; nam qui e Sybari bibant, nigriores esse durioresque et crispo capillo, qui e Crathi candidos mollioresque ac porrecta coma. Theophrastus (says) that at Thurii the (river) Crati makes cattle and flocks white, the Coscile black. Moreover, men too are affected differently by them; for those who drink from the Coscile are darker and more hardy and have curly hair, those who drink from the Crati are fair-​complexioned and more delicate and have straight hair. According to Pliny, Theophrastus had claimed that the Crathis and Sybaris could change the color of a fleece to black or white; but they also had similar effects upon people’s complexions and the texture of their hair, making their hair straight or curly.43 Apart from Theophrastus, we may glean similar information about the ability of these specific rivers to change the pigmentation of hair also from Nymphodorus of Syracuse, a Greek author of travel literature who wrote a work entitled Marvels of Sicily in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE (fr. 4 p. 114 Giannini = fr. 11 FGrHist 572 Jacoby = Scholion on Theocritus’ Idyll 5.14–​16 [k, p. 161.2–​4 Wendel] = Theophrastus 218C FHS&G):44 ὡς Νυμφόδωρος δὲ καὶ Θεόφραστός φασι τοῦ Κράθιδος τὸ ὕδωρ ξανθίζειν. As Nymphodorus and Theophrastus say, the water of the Crati produces a golden color. As Sharples remarks, it is unclear whether this testimony refers to drinking or bathing, and to people or to animals.45 What is even more, there are other references according to which, whereas the Crathis affects human hair 42 According to Serbat 1972, 107, Pliny is the only source to attribute exactly opposite properties to Crathis and Sybaris. Cf. also Theophr. 218B FHS&G (=Ael. Nat. anim. 12.36): Τὸ ὕδωρ ὁ Κρᾶθις λευκῆς χρόας ποιητικὸν μεθίησι. Τὰ γοῦν πρόβατα πιόντα αὐτοῦ καὶ οἱ βόες καὶ πᾶσα ἡ τετράπους ἀγέλη, καθά φησι Θεόφραστος, λευκὰ ἐκ μελάνων γίνεται ἢ πυρρῶν. ‘The Crati flows with water that produces a white color. At any rate sheep that drink of it, and cattle, and every four-​footed herd become white instead of black or red, according to what Theophrastus says’ (Transl. FHS&G). 43 Sharples 1998, 215. 44 About Crathis, see also Isigonus fr. 14  p.  147 Giannini (=Tzetz. Schol. Lyc. 1021 Müller = Sotion fr. 2 p. 167 Giannini); Paradox. Pal. 13 p. 358 Giannini; see also Vitruvius (Arch. 8.3.14) according to whom Crathis darkens cattle to a greater or lesser extent. 45 Sharples 1998, 216.

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214  Myrto Garani in color—​making it red, golden or white, i.e., fair—​the Sybaris affects the emotional state of people or animals. For example, Ps. Aristotle (Mir. ausc. 169 p. 310 Giannini) states that:46 Περὶ τὴν Θούριον πόλιν δύο ποταμούς φασιν εἶναι, Σύβαριν καὶ Κρᾶθιν. ὁ μὲν οὖν Σύβαρις τοὺς πίνοντας ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ πτυρτικοὺς εἶναι ποιεῖ, ὁ δὲ Κρᾶθις τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ξανθότριχας λουομένους. People say that two rivers, the Sybaris and the Crathis, flow in the region of Thourioi. The first one, the Sybaris, makes the horses that drink its water timorous. The second one, the Crathis, changes to blond the hair colour of men who wash themselves in its waters. (Transl. Prioux 2009) Along these lines, Ovid’s Pythagoras also refers to these rivers, with reference to the change of hair color (Met. 15.315–​6): Crathis et huic Subaris nostris conterminus oris electro similes faciunt auroque capillos; In our own region the Crathis and near it the Sybaris make hair like amber and gold. Ovid probably drew his information from Callimachus, who, however, does not cite Theophrastus, but Timaeus of Tauromenion (Antig. Hist. mir. 134 p. 90 Giannini = Call. fr. 20 p. 17 Giannini = Call. fr. 407 vi Pf. = Timaeus fr. 46 FGrHist 566 Jacoby): Τίμαιον δὲ τῶν ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ ποταμῶν ἱστορεῖν Κρᾶθιν ξανθίζειν τὰς τρίχας. [According to Callimachus], Timaeus reports that, among Italian rivers the Crathis has the peculiarity of changing the color of hair to blond. Given the wide range of contradictory information that occurs in our sources regarding the marvelous effects of these two Italian rivers, it should not come as a surprise the fact that Seneca differentiates himself from both Theophrastus and Ovid; by keeping silent about these examples, he subtly comments on the unreliability of paradoxographical stories associated with them. 3.3  Floating bricks and floating islands Seneca discusses the processes of sinking and floating with respect to the relevant weight of waters (NQ 3.25.5–​10); more precisely the regulating factors of these processes are considered to be the density of both the waters and the 46 Flashar 1972, 151. Cf. Strabo Geogr. 6.1.13 Meineke. For more references, see Sharples 1998, 215 n. 619 and n. 620.

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  215 sinking or floating object. Along these lines, as he suggests, bodies sink or float according to the proportion of their gravity to the gravity of the water of the lake. Under the umbrella of the same scientific principle, he discusses people, objects and then floating islands. Whereas scholars disagree as to whether Seneca draws his theory only from Theophrastus,47 what is particularly significant for our discussion, in this context he unquestionably integrates material from the paradoxographical tradition. First, Seneca refers to lakes which support people who do not know how to swim and in which bricks float. Seneca mentions a pond in Sicily and another one in Syria (NQ 3.25.5).48 Similar references occur within the paradoxographical corpus; for example, according to Antigonus, the 4th-​ century BCE Pythagorean Xenophilus of Chalcidice reports about the Dead Sea (Antig. Hist. mir. 151 p. 96 Giannini):49 Ξενόφιλον δὲ ἐν μὲν τῇ πλησίον Ἰόππης οὐ μόνον ἐπινήχεσθαι πᾶν βάρος, ἀλλὰ καὶ παρὰ τρίτον ἔτος φέρειν ὑγρὰν ἄσφαλτον· ὅταν δὲ γίγνηται τοῦτο, παρὰ τοῖς ἐντὸς τριάκοντα σταδίων οἰκοῦσιν κατιοῦσθαι χαλκώματα. A lake near Joppa, where not only every weight [is said to] float, but also every third year [is said] to bring forth moist asphalt. When this happens, for those living inside, three stadia [circumference] copper vessels [are said] to tarnish. (Transl. Taylor 2012) Then, Seneca refers to Theophrastus’ testimony about certain islands in Lydia, the so-​called Calaminae islands in Lake Coloe near Sardis, composed of light, pumice-​like stones, which float (NQ 3.25.7). In doing so, he does not 47 Sharples 1998, 180–​1 ad Theophr. 206 FHS&G. See also Fensterbuch 1960, especially 375–​6, Steinmetz 1964, 265, Gross 1989, 139. 48 Aristotle (Mete. 2.3, 359a) reports about such a lake in Palestine. For the Lake Asphaltitis, see also Josephus Bel. Jud. 4.8.4. For floating bricks and porous clay, see Strabo (Geogr. 13.1.67 Meineke = Posidon. fr. 237 Edelstein and Kidd), who reports on Pitane on the Elaitic Gulf in Mysia and brings in Posidonius for a parallel in Iberia. For floating bricks made of pumice-​like earth which does not sink, see Plin. HN 35.171 and Vitruv. Arch. 2.3.4. As Kidd 1988, 830, remarks, both Pliny and Vitruvius couple the Pitane bricks with those from Maxilua and Callet in Further Spain. See also Posidon. fr. 279 Edelstein and Kidd (= Strabo Geogr. 16.2.42–​3 Meineke) about the solidification of asphalt in the Dead Sea with Kidd 1988,  951–​2. 49 There were also more incredible stories, such as those narrated by Ctesias (Ctesias fr. 45sα Nichols = Antig. Hist. mir. 150 p. 96 Giannini). See also e.g., Ctesias (fr. 47a Nichols = Antig. Hist. mir. 146 p. 94 Giannini) about a spring called the Sila in India in which everything sinks; Ctesias fr. 47b Nichols (= Plin. HN 31.21) about a pond called the Side in India in which nothing floats and everything sinks. Cf. also Paradox. Vat. 35 p. 340 Giannini (= Hellanicus fr. 190 FGrHist 4 Jacoby). See also Paradox. Florent. 3 p. 316 Giannini, about a lake in India which does not receive anything thrown into it, but it expels it, and a spring which casts those who dive in back out as from a catapult. About expulsion from such a lake in Sicily, see Philostephanus fr. 8 p. 23 Giannini (=Tzetz. Chil. 7. 670 Kiessling); Ps.-​Arist. Mir. ausc. 112 p. 278 and 280 Giannini; Paradox. Florent. 30 p. 324 Giannini.

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216  Myrto Garani refer to Varro’s fanciful version (R. R. 3.17.4), according to which the so-​ called Islands of the Nymphs in Lydia at the sound of flutes float from the bank into the middle of the lake, circle and return to the shore.50 Seneca then once again appeals to his personal experience, mentioning Italian examples of floating islands which may or may not contain rocks, all of which can also be found in the paradoxographical tradition, such as a floating island near Cutiliae, which has trees and grows plants, as well as another one in Lake Vadimo (NQ 3.25.8–​10).51 Seneca resumes his scientific explanation, referring both to the density of water which is full of minerals, from which ensues its heaviness, and to the movable material of the island, which is composed out of hollow and porous rocks, like those deposited next to mineral springs (NQ 3.25.9–​10 aquae gravitas medicatae et ob hoc ponderosae, et ipsius insulae materia vectabilis […] exesa et fistulosa, qualia sunt quae duratus umor efficit, utique circa medicatorum fontium rivos, ubi purgamenta aquarum coaluerunt et spuma solidatur ‘the density of the water, which is full of minerals and for this reason heavy; and the movable material of the island itself, which is not composed of solid substance […] hollow and porous like those which hardened moisture has formed, certainly along the banks of mineral springs where the deposits from the water coalesce and the foam solidifies’). In this way, this explanation looks back to his earlier discussion about the different flavors of waters depending on their substance and their petrifying effect upon human body (NQ 3.20.4). Is somehow Seneca’s discussion about floating islands associated with Ovid’s Pythagorean list? In order to answer this question, let us read how Pythagoras proceeds with his speech, once he completes the list of mirabilia aquarum, wherefrom Seneca has drawn and cited the aforenoted three examples (Met. 15.336–​9): tempusque fuit, quo navit in undis, nunc sedet Ortygie; timuit concursibus Argo undarum sparsas Symplegadas elisarum, quae nunc inmotae perstant ventisque resistunt. There was a time when Ortygia floated on the waves, but now she stands firm. The Argo feared the Symplegades, which at that time clashed together with high-​flung spray; but now they stand immovable and resist the winds. 50 See also Plin. HN 2.209 about Reed Islands, moved not only by the winds, but even with poles. Cf. also Theophrastus (HP 4.10.2 Wimmer) on floating islands, not apparently made of stone. See Irby 2016, 194–​5. 51 Paradoxographus Florentinus reports about floating islands that change their place when pushed by the winds (Paradox. Florent. 37  p.  326 Giannini:  Benacus, Cutiliae; 38  p.  326 Giannini: Vadimo; 39 p. 326 Giannini: lake Coloe). Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 1.15; Pomponius Mela Chorograph. 1.55 (on the floating island of Chemmis in Egypt), 2.82–​3 (about a floating island in a marsh on the Gallic Coast); Plin. Ep. 8.20 (about floating islands in Lake Vadimo); Macrob. Saturn. 1.7.28–​31.

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  217 By Ortygia, i.e., Delos, Ovid refers to the mythological floating island par excellence, which now stands firm. One could claim that in this particular case, given the fact that Seneca does not reproduce somehow the Ovidian verses, he seems to be tacitly agreeing with Ovid’s report about the mythological tradition. Still, one should bear in mind that a subversive hint at Delos’ alleged immobility is not absent from Seneca’s work; in his Naturales quaestiones 6, while he discusses the impossibility of Delos being completely free from earthquakes, Seneca quotes Vergil’s claim that Apollo granted that Delos would no longer wander afloat but remain fixed in its location (NQ 6.26.2 Sed movetur et Aegyptus et Delos, quam Vergilius stare iussit:  ‘Immotamque coli dedit et contemnere ventos’. ‘But Egypt does have earthquakes, and so does Delos, which Vergil ordered to stand still: “He arranged that it be tilled, a land without earthquake and scorning the winds” ’; cf. Verg. Aen. 3.77). As Williams rightly remarks, ‘in wittingly modifying the Vergilian sense at 6.26.2 and pointedly emphasizing Vergil’s authorial will (stare iussit), Seneca again targets ‘la poesia mitologica’ as a source of unscientific misinformation that here stands in contrast to his own strivings, apparently free as they are from all fictional embellishment’.52 Subsequently Seneca briefly discusses additional material drawn from paradoxography, in order to challenge its truth (NQ 3.25.11). Along these lines, Seneca does not hesitate to cast his doubt upon Theophrastus’ claim that the Nile water should make women more fertile, since he himself cannot find a persuasive explanation.53 Similarly, he objects to beliefs such as those attributing to waters in Lycia the propriety of protecting the pregnancy of women, as unfounded rumors.54 3.4  Disappearing and reappearing rivers Seneca explicitly returns to Ovid’s Pythagorean list again in c­ hapter 26, when he describes the existence of disappearing and reappearing rivers. He first sets forward his scientific explanation, pointing to the fact that there are vacant spaces underground and that all liquid by its nature is carried to a lower and 52 Williams 2012, 250, quoting De Vivo 1992, 50–​3 about ‘la poesia mitologica’: ‘Even before he turns to Thucydides and Callisthenes for counter-​testimony that Delos did indeed experience earthquakes, the transparency of his Vergilian distortion surely signals to the knowing reader the fragility of the evidence for the quake-​free Delos; and for the reader who delves deeper, a similar ambiguity in ἀκίνητον (‘no longer floating’ as opposed to ‘not shaken by earthquake’) may equally compromise the Pindaric testimony to which Seneca alludes’. Pliny (HN 4.66), in his list of the Cyclades islands, distinguishes the Delian ‘immovability’ from ‘unshakeability’. For ancient allusions to Delos’ alleged resistance to earthquakes, see Barchiesi 1994, 440–​1; Lapini 1995; Nishimura-​Jensen 2000, Rusten 2013. 53 Athenaeus cites Theophrastus on Waters for the effect on Nile waters (Theophr. 214A FHS&G  =  Athen. Deipn. 2.41F Kaibel). Theophrastus (HP 9.18.10 Wimmer) states that there are places that water is prolific (παιδογόνον), e.g., Thespiae, but in Pyrrha it is sterilizing (ἄγονον). Cf. Arist. Hist. an. 9.4, 584b7 and 31; Gen. anim. 4.4, 770a36; Plin. HN 7.33. 54 Plin. HN 31.10.

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218  Myrto Garani empty space (cf. NQ 3.16.4; cf. Lucr. DRN 6.536–​42). Such lists of underground rivers can be found already in Aristotle’s Meteorology (Mete. I  13, 350b36–​351a18), so as to illustrate why some people think that the sea itself is replenished from underground reservoirs.55 In order to demonstrate his point, Seneca quotes four verses from Ovid (NQ 3.26.3–​4; cf. Ov. Met. 15.273–​6):56 Quaedam flumina palam in aliquem specum decidunt et sic ex oculis auferuntur. Quaedam consumuntur paulatim et intercidunt; eadem ex intervallo revertuntur recipiuntque et nomen et cursum. Causa manifesta est: sub terra va locus; omnis autem natura umor ad inferius et ad inane defertur. Illo itaque recepta flumina cursus egere secreto, sed, cum primum aliquid solidi quod obstaret occurrit, perrupta parte quae minus ad exitum repugnavit, repetiere cursum suum.       Sic, ubi terreno Lycus est potatus hiatu,       existit procul hinc alioque renascitur ore.       Sic modo combibitur, tacito modo gurgite lapsus       redditur Argolicis ingens Erasinus in undis. Idem et in Oriente Tigris facit; absorbetur et desideratus diu tandem longe remoto loco, non tamen dubius an idem sit, emergit. Certain rivers fall visibly into some cave and so are carried out of sight. Other diminish gradually and are lost but return after some distance and recover their name and course. The reason is obvious:  there is a vacant space underground; moreover, all liquid by its nature is carried to a lower and empty region. And so the rivers received into that empty region continue their course out of sight, but as soon as anything solid meets them so as to obstruct them they burst through the section that offers the least resistance to their exit and recover their course on the surface.       Thus, when Lycus is drunk up by the yawning earth       it comes out far from here and is reborn from another source.       Thus, the mighty Erasinus is sometimes drunk up,       sometimes glides along in silent flow and is restored in the waters of Argos. Also, in the East the Tigris does the same thing. It is absorbed and after a long disappearance it finally emerges far away in a remote place yet undoubtedly the same river. Seneca adds the example of Tigris, which, as he states, beyond any doubt remains the same river, once it emerges after its long disappearance.57 Comparing to Ovid, there are two points to which we should draw our 55 Plin. HN 2.225. 56 Cf. also Seneca’s reference to Timavus (NQ 3.1) by quoting Verg. Aen. 1.245–​6. 57 About Tigris as well as Alpheus and Arethusa, see also Sen. NQ 6.8 (and discussion below p. 220–1).

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  219 attention. To begin with, whereas in Ovid the river Lycus springs forth with a different appearance, as if it is reborn in a new disguise (alioque renascitur ore, Met. 15.274), Seneca underlines the fact that the re-​emerging river is the same (eadem ex intervallo revertuntur recipiuntque et nomen et cursum). It seems thus that once again Seneca disapprovingly comments upon the Ovidian mythological world of transformation, within which men can get metamorphosed into rivers.58 This critical stance towards his predecessor is further revealed by the fact that Seneca quotes only two out of three Ovidian examples of underground rivers within the list.59 Ovid also refers to the river Mysus, about which ‘they say that ashamed of his source and former banks, now flows in another region as Caïcus’ (Met. 15.277–​8 et Mysum capitisque sui ripaeque prioris |​ paenituisse ferunt, alia nunc ire Caicum).60 What is the reason of Mysus’ shame and who are those who give this account (paenituisse ferunt, Met. 15.278)? Although to the best of my knowledge, we cannot retrieve this information from any reliable source prior to Ovid,61 it is worth mentioning Pseudo-​Plutarch’s treatise on Rivers. In this work, highly problematic though it may be, the author offers two mythical versions associated with the river Caïcus (Ps.-​Plut. De fluviis 21 Hercher 1851): Κάϊκος ποταμός ἐστι τῆς Μυσίας· ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ τὸ πρότερον Ἀστραῖος ἀπὸ Ἀστραίου τοῦ Ποσειδῶνος. Οὗτος γὰρ παννυχίδος Ἀθηνᾷ τελουμένης Ἀλκίππην τὴν ἀδελφὴν κατὰ ἄγνοιαν βιασάμενος ἔφθειρεν καὶ ἀφείλετο τῆς προειρημένης τὸν δακτύλιον· τῇ δ’ ἐπιούσῃ τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐπιγνοὺς τὴν σφραγῖδα τῆς ὁμαίμου, διὰ λύπης ὑπερβολὴν ἔβαλεν ἑαυτὸν εἰς ποταμὸν Ἄδουρον, ὃς ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ Ἀστραῖος μετωνομάσθη· προσηγορεύθη δὲ Κάϊκος δι’ αἰτίαν τοιαύτην. Κάϊκος, Ἑρμοῦ καὶ Ὠκυρρόης παῖς νύμφης, Τίμανδρον ἕνα τῶν εὐγενῶν φονεύσας καὶ τοὺς προσήκοντας αὐτῷ φοβούμενος, ἑαυτὸν ἔρριψεν εἰς τὸν Ἀστραῖον, ὃς ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ Κάϊκος μετωνομάσθη. CAICUS is a river of Mysia, formerly called Astraeus, from Astraeus the son of Neptune. For he, in the height of Minerva’s nocturnal solemnities having deflowered his sister by a mistake, took a ring at the same time from her finger; by which when he understood the next day the error which he had committed, for grief he threw himself headlong into the river Adurus, which from thence was called Astraeus. Afterwards it came to be called Caïcus upon this occasion. 58 E.g. the story of Galatea who transformed her lover Acis into a river god, Met. 13.870–​97; the story of Alpheus and Arethusa, Met. 5.573–​641. 59 Hine 1996, 146 notes the differences, in the text that Seneca cites (Ov. Met. 15.273: epotus—​ Sen. potatus; Met. 15.275: tecto—​Sen. tacito; Met. 15.276 arvis—​Sen. undis). 60 On Ps.-​Plutarch, see Cameron 2004, 127–​34. Cf. Ov. Met. 2.243. Strabo (Geogr. 13.1.70 Meineke) reports that some take it of two rivers, the Caïcus and the Mysus. See also Thomas 1988, 214 ad Verg. Georg. 4.370. 61 Bömer 1986; Hardie 2015 ad loc.

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220  Myrto Garani Caïcus, the son of Hermes and Ocyrrhoe the Nymph, having slain Timander one of the noblemen of the country, and fearing the revenge of his relations, flung himself into the river Astraeus, which from that accident was called Caïcus. (Transl. Goodwin 1889) According to this account, Caïcus threw himself into the river Astraeus, because of a certain crime he had committed (either deflowering his sister or killing a nobleman); as a consequence, there was a change in the name of the river. The myth itself, however, does not so much hint at a process of transformation. Given the fact that the name of Caïcus occurs among Callimachus’ fragments (fr. gram. 404 Pf.), one may assume that Ovid may have drawn his obscure mythological allusion from the—​now lost—​Callimachean treatise On the rivers of the known world (frr. gram. 457–​9 Pf.).62 Whatever the case may be, Seneca’s omission of Caïcus tellingly demythologizes the phenomenon of underground rivers, offering in reply his scientific explanation. Demythologization may also turn out to be the reason why Seneca does not refer in this context to the spring of Arethusa which, however, held a prominent place in the paradoxographical tradition and to which Ovid devotes an episode in his mythological epic (Met. 5.573–​641). Callimachus cites Timaeus (Call. fr. 407 xii Pf. = Antig. Hist. mir. 140.2 p. 92 Giannini = fr. 41a FGrHist 566 Jacoby):63 φησὶν δὲ καὶ φιάλην ποτ’ εἰς τὸν Ἀλφειὸν ἐμβληθεῖσαν ἐν ἐκείνῃ φανῆναι. τοῦτο δ’ ἱστορεῖ καὶ Τίμαιος. And they say that a saucer tossed into the Alpheus once appeared in Arethusa. Timaeus also reports this. Therefore, Seneca’s stance is remarkable, given that, as Prioux remarks, ‘Traditions on rivers may also have been used as a means to tighten the links between south Italy and Sicilian streams and Greek geography’.64 3.5  Self-​cleansed  waters Arethusa, however, is not absent from Seneca’s account of waters: the famous spring turns up in the paragraphs immediately following, in which Seneca 62 See also the catalogue of 27 rivers in Ov. Met. 2.242–​59 (which are to be found just before Met. 2.264 about Cyclades that Seneca wrongly quotes for the flood in NQ 3.27.13) with Kyriakidis 2007, 141–​2; for the catalogue of eight rivers in Verg. Georg. 4.367–​73 with its plausible Callimachean echoes, see Thomas 1988, 207, 212–​5. 63 For Polybius’ criticism regarding Timaeus’ story of Arethusa, see Baron 2013, 74–​7. With reference to Arethusa, Strabo (Geogr. 6.2.4 Meineke) objects that a river cannot flow through the sea without fresh and salt water mixing. 64 Prioux 2009, 138–​9.

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  221 explains the process of self-​purgation of certain springs (NQ 3.26.5–​6; cf. Verg. Ecl. 10.4–​5): Quidam fontes certo tempore purgamenta eiectant, ut Arethusa in Sicilia quinta quaque aestate per Olympia. Inde opinio est Alpheon ex Achaia eo usque penetrare et agere sub mari cursum nec ante quam in Syracusano litore emergere, ideoque his diebus quibus Olympia sunt victimarum stercus secundo traditum flumini illic redundare. Hoc et a te creditum est, ut in prima parte dixi, Lucili carissime, et a Vergilio, qui alloquitur Arethusam:       Sic tibi, cum fluctus subter labere Sicanos,       Doris amara suas non intermisceat undas. Some springs cast out impurities at a specific time, as the Arethusa does in Sicily every fifth summer during the Olympic festival. Hence there is the belief that the Alpheus penetrates all the way to Sicily from Achaia and maintains its course under the sea and re-​emerges only at the coast of Syracuse. So, on those days when the Olympic festival is held the excrement of sacrificial animals consigned to the current of the River Alpheus overflows in Sicily. Even you believe this legend, my dear Lucilius, as I said in the first part of this work; and so does Virgil, who addresses Arethusa:       So when you glide beneath Sicilian waters       may the sea nymph Doris never mingle her bitter waves with yours. On the one hand, Seneca appears to testify the fact that in Sicily the spring Arethusa casts out impurities every fifth summer during the Olympic festival. On the other, he explicitly states that he considers it to be a legend (opinio est) the fact that the Alpheus penetrates to Sicily from Achaia and re-​emerges at the coast of Syracuse. Instead of Ovid, Seneca here turns back to both Lucilius, his addressee, and Vergil, quoting two verses from the latter’s tenth Eclogue.65 Seneca goes on to add another example of such a spring, the one in Chersonese, which belongs to the Rhodians. This spring ‘after a long interval of time becomes stirred up from its depths and pours out some foul stuff, until it is freed of it and cleansed’ (NQ 3.26.7 post magnum intervallum temporis foeda quaedam turbidus ex intimo fundat, donec liberatus eliquatusque est).66 65 About Alpheus and Arethusa, see also Sen. NQ 3.1.1, 6.8.2; Lucilius fr. 4 Morel and Büchner [FPL 4, p. 314 Blänsdorf; pp. 348–​9 Courtney]; Verg. Aen. 3.694–6. For a different version of the myth of Arethusa in Seneca, see Sen. Marc. [6]‌.17.3.1–​4.1. 66 Plin. HN 31.55: Et illa miraculi plena, Arethusam Syracusis fimum redolere per Olympia, verique simile, quoniam Alpheus in eam insulam sub maria permeet. Rhodiorum fons in Cherroneso fons nono anno purgamenta egerit. ‘The following phenomena too are very wonderful: the Arethusa at Syracuse smells of dung during the Olympian games, a likely thing, for the Alpheus crosses to that island under the bed of the seas. A  spring in the Rhodian Chersonesus pours out refuse every ninth year’ (Transl. Jones 1963).

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222  Myrto Garani Seneca explains that it is the nature of the sea to ‘wash ashore all impurities and filth’ (omne immundum stercorosumque litoribus impingat). Then Seneca refers to an example of a region of the sea in which this process has been observed to take place periodically: ‘in the turbulent season of the equinox the sea around Messena and Mylae throws up something like excrement and boils and seethes with a vile color’ (NQ 3.26.7 circa Messenen et Mylas fimo quiddam simile turbulenta aequinoctii vice mare profert fervetque et aestuat non sine colore foedo). And he goes on to add the legend associated with this place, i.e., that the cattle of the Sun are allegedly stabled there (unde illic stabulare Solis boves fabula est).67 In my opinion, Seneca’s hint at this specific myth is particularly informative regarding his relationship with the paradoxographical tradition. Mylae, a small Sicilian peninsula on the north-​ east coast of the island was considered to be a miraculous place. For example, Theophrastus in his History of Plants (HP 8.2.8 Wimmer) reports that: Λέγεται δὲ καὶ ἐν Σικελίᾳ τῆς Μεσσηνίας ἐν ταῖς καλουμέναις Μύλαις ταχεῖάν τινα γίνεσθαι τὴν τελείωσιν τῶν ὀψίων· τὸν τῶν ὀσπρίων μὲν γὰρ σπορητὸν ἓξ μῆνας, τὸν δὲ τῷ ὑστάτῳ σπείραντα θερίζειν ἅμα τοῖς πρώτοις· ἀγαθὴν δὲ διαφερόντως εἶναι τὴν χώραν ὥστε τριακοντάχοα ποιεῖν, ἔχειν δὲ καὶ νομὰς θαυμαστὰς καὶ ὕλην. It is said also that in the Messenian district in Sicily at the place called Mylae the late sown crops mature rapidly; thus the sowing of pulses goes on for six months, but he that made the last sowing gathers his crop at the same time as the first: also that the soil is exceedingly good, so that it yields thirty-​fold; and there are also wonderful pastures and forest-​land. (Trans. Hort 1916) More to the point, a hint at this myth about the cattle of the Sun can be meaningfully gleaned from two paradoxographical authors, Nymphodorus and Philostephanus, as we read in the ancient scholia to Odyssey (Schol. Hom. Od. 12.301, [Oxford 1855] ii, p. 549 Dindorf):68 Νυμφόδωρος ὁ τὴν Σικελίαν περιηγησάμενος καὶ Πολύαινος καὶ Πανύασις φύλακα τῶν Ἡλίου βοῶν Φυλάκιον φησὶ γενέσθαι, ὃν Φιλοστέφανος Αἰολιδῶν εἶναί φησι καὶ ἔχειν ἐν Μυλαῖς ἡρῷον. 67 About tidal refuse, see also Plin. HN 2.220:  Omnia pleno fluctu maria purgantur, quaedam et stato tempore. Circa Messanam et Mylas fimo similia expuuntur in litus purgamenta, unde fabula est Solis boves ibi stabulari. ‘All seas excrete refuse at high tide, some also periodically. In the neighborhood of Messina and Mylae scum resembling dung is spat out on to the shore, which is the origin of the story that this is the place where the Oxen of the Sun are stalled’. (Transl. Rackham 1938). 68 Nymphodorus fr. 6 p. 114 Giannini in his Περίπλοι (fr. 3 FGrHist 572 Jacoby); Philostephanus fr. 15 FHG iii.31 Müller; Polyaenus fr. 7 FGrHist 639 Jacoby; Panyassis of Halikarnassos Heraclea fr. 8 Kinkel. Cf. Scholia Vetera in Apol. Rhod. ad 4.965 p. 299 Wendel: Μύλας δέ φησι χερρένησον εἶναι ἐν Σικελίᾳ, ἐν ᾗ τοῦ Ἡλίου βόες ἐνέμοντο. Ubi ad vocem φησὶ suppleo Τίμαιος ex antecedentibus.

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Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum  223 Nymphodorus the author of the Description of Sicily, Polyaenus and Panyassis say that the guardian of the Sun’s cattle was Phylacius, about whom Philostephanus says that he was a son of Aiolos and had a cult at Mylae. According to this, Phylacius, the herdsman of the Sun’s cattle, had a cult at Mylae. Therefore, it seems plausible that in this case Seneca looks back to the broader paradoxographical tradition, in order to demythologize it, by counter-​offering his scientific explanation. Towards this direction, Seneca repeats his theory that ‘all standing and enclosed water naturally purges itself’ (NQ 3.26.8 omnis aquarum stantium clausarumque natura se purgat).69

4  Conclusions What is, then, the function of the Ovidian quotations from Pythagoras’ list within Seneca’s book 3 On Waters? To answer this question, we should first see what follows next in Seneca’s account. Whereas, as we have already briefly discussed, Seneca initiates his Stoic physical project by intertextually hinting at the vatic figure of Pythagoras, brought forward from the last book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, just after his discussion about the process of self-​purgation of the sea, he culminates book 3 with his account of the cosmic deluge (NQ 3.27–​30), in the course of which he turns to the beginning of Ovid’s poem, by means of a double allusion to the Ovidian story of the cataclysm (Met. 1.262–​ 312) as well as that of Phaethon and the conflagration (Met. 1.747–​2.400).70 To put it differently, right before Seneca’s account about the final destruction of the world, in which the Ovidian presence is dominant, even if debatable, Seneca demarcates anew his stance towards his poetic predecessor. On the one hand, in his effort to demonstrate the Theophrastean theory as regards the properties of waters, he highlights the philosophizing aspects of Ovid’s mythological epic, which he considers to be a significant source of examples which, despite their paradoxographical provenance, may hold a certain scientific value; in doing so, he proves himself a perceptive Ovidian reader, anticipating thus the corresponding modern scholarly reception of the Metamorphoses. On the other, he challenges Ovid’s account, either by omitting or by correcting specific examples, in case he regards them as fallacious, especially when these are explicitly associated with a mythical narrative; in this demythologizing process, although Seneca applauds the reception 69 Cf. Arist. Hist. an. 6.13, 568a4 (about the Black Sea ‘being cleansed’); Posidon. fr. 221 Edelstein and Kidd (FGrHist 87 fr. 91 Jacοby = Strabo Geogr. 1.3.9 Meineke) (about depth of the sea of Sardinia) with Kidd 1988, 794; Plut. De cohibenda ira 456c (τὴν μὲν γὰρ θάλασσαν, ὅταν ἐκταραχθεῖσα τοῖς πνεύμασι τὰ βρύα καὶ τὸ φῦκος ἀναβάλλῃ, καθαίρεσθαι λέγουσιν. ‘For when the sea is disturbed by the winds and casts up tangle and seaweed, they say that it is “being cleansed” ’). 70 Degl’Innocenti Pierini 1990b; Timpanaro 1994, 309; Berno 2003, 93–​6; Mazzoli 2005a; Williams 2012, 101; Garani (forthcoming b).

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224  Myrto Garani of gods into the Ovidian universe, undoubtedly overlapping, at least in his view, with the Stoic divine providence, he adopts a critical stance towards the Ovidian world of mythical transformation, which—​as he suggests—​is erroneously imbued with wonder and fear; in doing so, he follows Lucretius’ corresponding approach towards the natural wonders. It is through this double lens, both Lucretian and Ovidian, that he also responds to the broader paradoxographical tradition. At the same time, whilst he strives to make his account more palatable for his Roman audience, he brings in tangible Italian examples. Nevertheless, Seneca’s intertextual dialogue with Ovid turns out to be a bidirectional process: once Seneca engages with Ovid’s Callimachean list of paradoxa, he unexpectedly places himself within the Roman tradition of Callimacheanism, with its implications of witty generic experimentation and subtle—​often ironic—​intertextual allusions, which the informed reader should be on the alert to perceive, while reading the last part of book 3 and the rest of Seneca’s Natural Questions. In a word, Seneca presents himself as the ideal Stoic vates with not only therapeutic, i.e., liberating, philosophical aspirations, but also poetic claims, on the basis of which he emulates Ovid, even if writing in (didactic) prose.

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254

Index locorum

Aelian De natura animalium 4.27 (= Ctesias fr. 45h Nichols = fr. 45h FGrHist 688 Jacoby): 174 n43 12.36 (= Theophr. 218B FHS&G): 213 n42 Aeschylus (ed. Radt) fr. 176: 155 n23 Alcaeus of Messene AP 9.518 (= Gow-​Page, HE 14–​17): 10 Alcman (ed. Campbell) fr. 38: 175 n49 Antigonus of Carystus (ed. Giannini) Historia mirabilium 12 p. 36: 209 n32 15b p. 38: 205 n25 78 p. 68: 212 n40 121–​123 p. 84: 209 n30 123 p. 86: 209 n30 134 p. 90 (= Call. fr. 20 Giannini = Call. fr. 407 vi Pf. = Timaeus of Tauromenion fr. 46 FGrHist 566 Jacoby): 214 135 p. 90: 203 n21 140.2 p. 92 (= fr. 41a FGrHist 566 Jacoby = Call. fr. 407.49–​50 Pf.): 220 145 p. 94 (= Ctesias fr. 1lα Nichols): 205 146 p. 94 (= Ctesias fr. 47a Nichols): 215 n49 150 p. 96 (= Ctesias fr. 45sα Nichols): 215, 215 n49 151 p. 96: 215 152a p. 96: 209 152b p. 98: 209 158 p. 100 (= Theophr. 213B FHS&G = Call. fr. 407 xxx Pf.): 211 161 p. 100: 203 n21 164 p. 102 (= Theopompus fr. 278b Shrimpton): 207

fr. 2 p. 108 (= Paradox. Vat. 11 p. 334): 203 n21 Appian Bellum civile 5.116: 62 n44 Apuleius De mundo (ed. Thomas) 17 p. 153, 11ff.: 209 n30 Metamorphoses 11: 139, 139 n27 11.1.2: 140 n27 Aristo of Chios (SVF, ed. von Arnim, vol. i) 1.333 (= Diog. Laert. 7.160): 158, 159 1.351 (= Diog. Laert. 7.161): 159 1.352 (= Stob. Ecl. 2.1.24, p. 8.13 Wachsmuth): 158 1.357 (= Sen. Ep. 89.13): 159 1.372 (= Sen. Ep. 115.8): 158 1.389 (= Plut. Tuend. san. 133c): 159 1.396 (= Stob. Ecl. 2.31.95, p. 218 Wachsmuth): 126 Aristophanes Birds 748ff.: 119 n35 Aristotle De generatione animalium 4.4, 770a36: 217 n53 De sensu 5, 444b31ff.: 209 n30 Historia animalium (Books 1–​6 ed. Peck; books 7–​10 ed. Balme) 3.12, 519a10–​19: 212 n40 6.13, 568a4: 223 n69 6.18, 572a8–​30: 195 n61 6.22, 575b30–​31: 195 n61 7.11, 596b: 119 n33 7.28, 606a9: 205 n25 9.4, 584b7: 217 n53

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Index locorum 255 9.4, 584b31: 217 n53 9.4, 585a3–​4: 195 n61 Meteorologica 1.13, 350b36–​351a18:  218 2.3, 359a: 215 n48 2.3, 359b17: 207 n27 Poetica 9, 1451a38-​b6: 57 n28 Arius Didymus (ed. Diels) fr. 18 p. 457 Diels (Stobaeus 1.10.16c, p. 138f. W.-​H. = SVF 1.89): 89 n22 Arrian Anabasis 1.11.6: 175 n47 Epicteti Dissertationes 2.19.1–​2 (= SVF 2.283): 159 n32 Athenaeus (ed. Kaibel) Deipnosophistae 2.41F (= Theophr. 214A FHS&G): 217 n53 2.42E (= Theophr. 214A FHS&G): 207 n27 Augustus Res Gestae 35.1: 41 n46 Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae 7.1.7: 139 n24 14.6.3: 70 n68 Bion of Borysthenes (ed. Kindstrand) fr. 5a: 70 n68 Caesar De bello Gallico 3.19.3: 152 n20 3.21.3: 152 n20 7.22.2: 152 n20 Callimachus Hymn to Apollo (ed. Mair) 105–​13: 200 n9 110–​2:  119 Fragments (ed. Pfeiffer) Epodes 28 Pf. (= 2 GP): 200 n9 fragmenta grammatica 404: 220 407 vi (= Antig. Hist. mir. 134 p. 90 Giannini = Call. fr. 20 Giannini = Timaeus of Tauromenion fr. 46 FGrHist 566 Jacoby): 214 407 xii (= Antig. Hist. mir. 140.2 p. 92 Giannini = Timaeus of Tauromenion fr. 41a FGrHist 566 Jacoby): 220

407 xxiv: 209 407 xxxi: 209 407 xxxii: 209 407 xxx (= Antig. Hist. mir. 158 p. 100 Giannini = Theophr. 213B FHS&G): 211 457–​9:  220 Iambs 12 fr. 202.28: 209 n32 Hecale 260.17: 209 n32 260.41: 209 n32 Calpurnius Siculus 1.33–​88:  170 4: 170 n25 Carmina Einsiedelnsia 2: 170 n25 Cassius Dio 55.14.1–​22.2:  32 57.24.4: 179 n3 61.2.1: 178 n59 62.15.1–​6: 177 n58 62.23.3–​4: 177 n59 Censorinus De Die Natali 21.1–​2:  56 Chrysippus (SVF, ed. von Arnim, vol. ii) Logic 2.279 (= Diog. Laert. 7.186): 154 n22 2.283 (= Arrian Epict. Dissert. 2.19.1–​2):  159 2.287 (= Lucian Vitarum auctio 22): 159 Physics 2.525 (= Plut. de comm. not. 1073d-​ 1074a): 89 n23 2.836 (= Sen. Ep. 113.23): 89 n23 2.1067 (= Cic. ND 2.36): 54 Ethics (SVF, ed. von Arnim; vol. iii) 3.89–​91 (= Stob. 2.7.6f., p. 78 Wachsmuth; 11f, p. 97f.): 90 n25 3.91 (= Stob. 2.7.11f., p. 97f. Wachsmuth): 91, 91 n26 3.94 (= Stob. 2.7.11d, p. 95 Wachsmuth): 93 n31 3.98 (= Stob. 2.7.11c, p. 94f. Wachsmuth): 93 n30 3.169 (= Sen. Ep. 113.18): 92 n29 3.171 (= Stob. 2.7.9b, p. 88 Wachsmuth): 92 n29 3.229b (= Cic. Leg. 1.17.47): 168 n21 3.386: 194 n58 3.393 (= Cic. Tusc. 4.14): 194 n58 3.394 (= Stob. Ecl. 2.7, p. 91 Wachsmuth): 193 n53, 194 n58

256

256  Index locorum 3.398 (= Cic. Tusc. 4.21): 193 n53 3.412 (= Diog. Laert. 7.110–​1): 194 n58 3.413–​4: 193 n54 3.642 (= Diog. Laert. 7.123): 200 3.717 (= Stob. 2.7.5b9, p. 65–​66 Wachsmuth): 94 n34, 95 3.759 (= Plut. Stoic. repugn. 1063c-​d): 104 n64 Cicero Ad Atticum 12.14.3: 182 n13 Brutus 114–​6:  155–​6 Pro Caelio 9: 23 38 (= Ter. Ad. 120–​1):  23 De divinatione 1.117: 139 n24 De oratore 1.5.18: 4 n9 1.229: 156 2.18: 63 De finibus 3.10: 91 n27 3.10, 21f.: 91 n27 3.20: 164 n10 Hortensius (ed. Grilli) fr. 12: 16, 148 De inventione 1.27: 57 n28 De legibus 1.17.47 (= SVF 3.229b): 168 n21 2.57: 8 2.59: 180 n4 Lucullus 135: 184 n21 De natura deorum 2.36 (= SVF 2.1067): 54 De officiis 1.113: 114 1.150: 165 n13 2.11–​16: 165 n14 De republica 2.18: 7 4.9: 148 n11 6.29: 9 fr. 3 (ed. Keyes = Sen. Ep. 108.34 = Enn. Varia 23–​4, p. 216 Vahlen2 = fr. 44.3–​4 Courtney= Enn. Epigram 3–​4 Warmington): 9 fr. 4 (ed. Keyes = Sen. Ep. 108.32–​3 = Enn. Varia 19–​20, p. 215 Vahlen2 = Enn. fr. 43 Courtney = Enn. Epigram 5–​6 Warmington):  8

Tusculanae disputationes 2.27: 148–​9 3.76: 181 n13 3.83–​4: 194 n58 4.14 (= SVF 3.393): 194 n58 4.21 (= SVF 3.398): 193 n53 5.7–​10: 166 n18 CIL (= Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum) 6.9590: 61 Cleanthes (SVF, ed. von Arnim, vol. i) I.487: 5 Columella De re rustica 6.27: 195 n61 10.1.1: 73 n77 Cornutus Epidrome 15: 55 n20 Corpus iuris civilis (eds. Mommsen and Krüger) Digesta 47.14.1.3: 104 n63 48.8.3.5: 104 n63 Ctesias (ed. Nichols 2008; for frr. 45ff. see Nichols 2011) fr. 1b part (= 2.14.4): 206 fr. 11a (= Antig. Hist. Mir. 145 p. 94 Giannini): 205 fr. 1lβ (= Paradox. Flor. 17 p. 320 Giannini): 206 fr. 1lγ (= Plin. NH 31.9): 205 n24 fr. 45h (= Ael. NA 4.27 = Ctesias fr. 45h FGrHist 688 Jacoby): 174 n43 fr. 45sα (= Antig. Hist. mir. 150 p. 96 Giannini): 215 n49 fr. 47a (= Antig. Hist. mir. 146 p. 94 Giannini): 215 n49 fr. 47b (= Plin. NH 31.21): 215 n49 Curtius Rufus Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis 8.2.24: 152 n20 Diodorus Siculus 2.14.4 (= Ctesias fr. 1b Nichols part): 206 Diogenes Babylonius (SVF, ed. von Arnim; vol. iii) 79 (= Philod. De music. col. 43.37–​45 Delattre): 94 n34 Diogenes Laertius 4.26–​7: 184 n21 7.49: 92 n29 7.51: 92 n29 7.63: 92 n29

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Index locorum 257 7.104: 93 n32 7.87: 192 n52 7.110–​1 (= SVF 3.412): 194 n58 7.123 (= SVF 3.642): 200 7.151: 136 n20 7.160 (= SVF 1.333): 158, 159 7.161 (= SVF 1.351): 159 7.186 (= SVF 2.279): 154 n22 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Antiquitates Romanae 1.15: 216 n51 Empedocles (eds. Diels -​Kranz) fr. 77: 166 n16 fr. 78: 166 n16 fr. 136: 166 n16 Ennius (ed. Vahlen2) Varia 19–​20, p. 215 (=fr. 43 Courtney = Epigram 5–​6 Warmington = Sen. Ep. 108. 32–​33 = Cic. Rep. fr. 4 Keyes): 8 23–​4, p. 216 (= fr. 44.3–​4 Courtney= Epigram 3–​4 Warmington = Sen. Ep. 108.34 = Cic. Rep. fr. 3 Keyes): 9 Epictetus (ed. Oldfather) Discourses 1.1.7: 5 1.6.32–​6: 61 n41 2.16.44–​5: 61 n41 2.23.36–​9: 126 n53 3.22.57: 61 n41 3.24.14–​17: 61 n41 3.26.31–​2: 61 n41 4.10.10: 61 n41 Encheiridion 7: 16, 157 Epicurus (ed. Usener) frr. 58–​60: 207 n26 Euripides Andromache 1254–​68: 175 n48 Helen 1584–​7: 175 n47 Ion 1074–​89: 175 n48 Phoenissae 469: 16, 155 470: 155 494–​6:  155 Eratosthenes (FGrHist. 241 Jacoby) fr. 1c (vol. D2, 709): 57 n25

Galen De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis (ed. De Lacy) 4.3.2 (= SVF 1.209): 194 n58 4.7.12–​18: 194 n57 Hellanicus (FGrHist 4 Jacoby) fr. 190 (= Paradox. Vat. 35 p. 340 Giannini): 215 n49 fr. 191 (= Paradox. Florent. 16 p. 318 Giannini): 203 Heraclides of Pontus (ed. Wehrli) fr. 127 (= Paradox. Vat. 13, p. 334 Giannini and Paradox. Florent. 22, p. 320 Giannini): 207 n27, 209 n30 Herodotus 3.116: 174 n43 4.13: 174 n43 4.27: 174 n43 8.114: 173 n39 Hesiod Works and Days 106–​201: 163 n6 117–​20:  166 Homer Iliad 1.39–​41:  67 1.249: 67 2.211ff.: 67 2.815–​57: 69 n65 2.856: 52 3.213: 67 n62 3.214: 68 n62 3.222: 67 3.897–​8: 69 n65 5.749: 9 6.535–​6: 69 n65 9.315–​21: 69 n65 14.268–​70:  68 15.444–​5: 69 n65 15.683–​4: 69 n65 16.446–​7: 69 n65 18.39: 68 n63 18.599–​601: 67 n61 19.225: 52 n8 19.229: 52, 68 20.318: 70 n65 20.348: 69 n65 20.443: 70 n65 21.185–​7: 70 n65 22.188–​9: 70 n65 22.413–​5: 70 n65 22.744: 70 n65 24.10–​11:  68

258

258  Index locorum 24.310–​5: 70 n65 24.478–​9:  68 24.506: 68 24.602: 52, 52 n8, 68 24.666: 70 n65 24.691ff.: 70 n65 Odyssey 4.356–​7: 70 n66 9.187–​92:  134 9.275–​8:  135 Horace Epistulae 1.4.15–​16: 133 n10 Epodes 2: 110 Odes 2.1: 110 3.3: 110 4.2.27–​32:  119 Satires 1.1: 110 1.4: 110 Isidorus Origines 13.13.4: 205 n24 Isigonus (ed. Giannini) fr. 14 p. 147 (= Tzetz. Schol. Lyc. 1021 Müller = Sotion fr. 2 p. 167 Giannini): 213 n44 Josephus Bellum Judaicum 4.8.4: 215 n48 Juvenal 3.278–​80:  68 Lactantius (ed. Heck and Wlosok) Divinae Institutiones 1.16.10 (= Sen. fr. 93 Vottero): 102 n57 1.18.11: 9 2.2.14–​15 (= Sen. fr. 94 Vottero): 102 n57 2.4.14 (= Sen. fr. 95 Voterro): 103 n60 4.17.28 (= Sen. fr. 96 Vottero): 103 n62 5.13.20 (= Sen. fr. 78 Vottero): 104 n64 Lucan Pharsalia 1.47–​8: 177 n59 Lucian Auctio vitarum 22 (= SVF 2.287): 159 n32 De Luctu 24: 52 n8, 68

Lucilius (eds. Morel and Büchner) fr. 4 (FPL 4, p. 314 Blänsdorf; pp. 348–​9 Courtney): 221 n65 Lucretius 1.1–​43: 188 n37 1.2: 188 n37 1.10–​20: 195 n62 1.74: 195 n64 1.80–​101: 186 n32 1.716–​30: 189 n42 1.926 (= 4.1): 195 n64 2.1–​2:  152 2.308: 200 2.334–​5:  186 2.342–​8:  186 2.349–​51:  186 2.352–​66: 18, 185 2.355: 190 n46, 195 2.356: 190 n46, 190 n47 2.358: 187 n34 2.359: 190 n46 2.360: 187 n34, 193, 195 n63 2.363: 187 n34, 190 2.365: 187 n34, 190, 190 n47 2.366: 190 n46 2.367–​70:  186 2.370: 190 n46 2.465: 200 n13 2.600–​45: 188 n37 2.655–​60: 188 n37 2.898: 200 2.991–​1174: 188 n37 3.10–​12:  119 3.94–​7: 190 n45 3.417–​869: 187 n33 3.421–​4: 190 n45 3.459–​71:  185 3.830–​1023: 197 n72 3.894–​911:  185 4.1 (= 1.926): 195 n64 4.259: 200 n13 4.595: 200 n13 4.1091–​114: 183 n18 4.1197–​200: 195 n61 4.1233–​47: 187 n33 5.95: 187 n35 5.592: 200 n13 5.925–​87:  166 5.1198–​203: 187 n33 6.536–​42:  218 6.654–​5: 200 n13 6.738–​839:  209 6.747–​8: 209 n31

 259

Index locorum 259 6.749–​55: 209 n31 6.750: 209 n32 6.753: 209 n32 6.754: 209 n32 6.848–​78: 201 n14 6.848–​905: 201 n14 6.879–​905: 201 n14 6.890–​4: 201 n14 Lycophron Alexandra 717–​25: 74 n78 Macrobius Saturnalia 1.7.28–​31: 216 n51 Martial 3.93.20: 61 Metrodorus (ed. Körte) fr. 34: 196 n70 Musonius (ed. Lutz) 19.108.5–​109.1: 172, 172 n34 Nymphodorus of Syracuse (ed. Giannini) fr. 4 p. 114 (= fr. 11 FGrHist 572 Jacoby = Scholion on Theocritus Idyll 5.14–​ 16 [k, p. 161.2–​4 Wendel] = Theophr. 218C FHS&G): 213 fr. 6 p. 114 (= Περίπλοι fr. 3 FGrHist 572 Jacoby): 222 n68 Orphica Hymni 24: 175 n48 Ovid Amores 1.15.23–​4: 187 n35 Ars amatoria 2.325–​6: 147 n8 Epistulae 11.54: 147 n8 15.150: 147 n8 Fasti 1.317–​456: 189 n43 4.1: 188 n37 4.1–​132:  187 4.179–​372:  188 4.393: 188 4.393–​620:  188 4.413–​6:  188 4.417: 188 4.417–​620: 18, 187 4.418: 188 n41 4.419–​22: 189 n42

4.420: 189 4.423–​6: 191 n49 4.453–​4: 189 n44 4.455–​66:  189 4.457: 190 4.458: 191 4.459: 191 4.459–​60:  190 4.461–​6:  190 4.461: 190 4.463: 190 4.464: 190 4.466: 190 4.503: 190 4.513: 190 4.534: 190 4.585–​6:  190 4.597: 191 4.611–​8:  191 Metamorphoses 1.1–​2:  199 1.128–​31: 169 n23 1.262–​312:  223 1.400–​6:  203 1.587–​600: 15, 136 1.592: 139 1.594: 139 1.595: 136 1.599: 139 1.601–​3:  139 1.632–​4:  140 1.645: 140 n28 1.668–​9: 137 n21 1.720–​1: 139 n23 1.733: 137 n21 1.747–​2.400:  223 2.1–​2: 11, 168 n21 2.63–​81: 62 n45 2.107–​8: 168 n21 2.242–​59: 220 n62 2.243: 219 n60 2.264: 220 n62 4.285–​388:  205 5.573–​641: 219 n58, 220 6.204–​312: 203 n20 6.309: 203 n20 6.312: 203 n20 8.643–​54: 171 n27 9.211–​29: 203 n19 13.790: 134 13.797: 134 13.821–​3:  132 13.824: 131

260

260  Index locorum 13.842–​3: 134 n18 13.856–​8: 135 n19 13.870–​97: 219 n58 14.268–​70: 25 n5 15.1–​484:  199 15.6: 199 15.75–​142:  199 15.158–​72:  199 15.176–​459:  199 15.244–​51:  201 15.262–​9:  199 15.270–​336: 19, 199 15.271: 200 n10 15.273: 219 n59 15.273–​6:  218 15.274: 219 15.275: 219 n59 15.276: 219 n59 15.277–​8:  219 15.278: 219 15.281–​4: 200 n10 15.308–​9: 199, 202 15.311–​2: 201 n14 15.313–​4:  203 15.315–​6:  214 15.317: 200 15.317–​8:  202 15.319–​21:  205 15.319: 205 15.321: 200 15.324–​8:  208 15.329–​31:  207 15.332–​4:  211 15.336–​9:  216 15.408: 200 15.410: 200 15.712: 73 n77 Tristia 3.4a.37–​40:  147–​8 3.5.1–​16:  147 Palaephatus 12: 62 n43 Panyassis of Halikarnassus (ed. Kinkel) Ἡρακλεία (Heraclea) fr. 8: 222 n68 Paradoxographus Florentinus (ed. Giannini) 3 p. 316: 215 n49 12 p. 318: 208 n28 16 p. 318 (= Hellanicus fr. 191 FGrHist 4 Jacoby): 203 17 p. 320 (= Ctesias fr. 1lβ Nichols): 206

20 p. 320 (=Theopompus fr. 278d Shrimpton): 207 n27 22 p. 320: 209 n30 24 p. 320 & 322: 208 n28 30 p. 324: 215 n49 37 p. 326: 216 n51 38 p. 326: 216 n51 39 p. 326: 216 n51 Paradoxographus Palatinus (ed. Giannini) 13 p. 358: 213 n44 15 p. 358: 212 n40 Paradoxographus Vaticanus (ed. Giannini) 10 p. 334: 212 n40 11 p. 334 (= Antig. fr. 2 p. 108 Giannini): 203 n21 12 p. 335 (= Theopompus fr. 278c Shrimpton): 207 n27 13 p. 334: 209 n30 22 p. 338: 207 n27 35 p. 340 (= Hellanicus fr. 190 FGrHist 4 Jacoby): 215 n49 Paulus Sententiae receptae (ed. Schulting) 1.21.2–​5, 8–​14: 179 n4 Pausanias 2.1.8: 175 n47 9.11.4–​5: 62 n43 Petronius 60: 172 n33 115.1–​5:  153–​4 115.3: 154 Philo Judaeus (ed. Cohn and Reimer) De aeternitate mundi 130 (= SVF 1.106a): 165 n11 Philodemus De ira (ed. Indelli) cols. 40–​2: 184 n27 De morte (ed. Henry) cols. 20–​35: 184 n27 De musica (ed. Delattre) col. 43.37–​45 (= SVF 3, Diog. Bab. fr. 79): 94 n34 col. 130: 94 n34 De pietate (ed. Obbink) cols. 790–​7: 187 n34 cols. 877–​96: 187 n34 cols. 1849–​52: 187 n34 cols. 2158–​9:  54 De poematis (ed. Jensen) Book 5 cols. 17.6–​10: 159 n34 Philostephanus

 261

Index locorum 261 fr. 8 p. 23 Giannini (= Tzetz. Chil. 7.670 Kiessling): 215 n49 fr. 15 FHG iii.31 Müller: 222 n68 Pindar Isthmian 6.74: 119 n35 7.20–​1: 119 n35 Pythian 4.289: 119 n35 10.53–​4: 119 n35 Plato Gorgias 500b-​503a:  149 504e: 149 Ion 543a: 119 n35 Laws 676a ff.: 166 Phaedo 73d: 147 Phaedrus 261a: 149 n12 270b-​d: 149 n12 276e: 150 n15 278d-​e: 150 n15 Politicus 271e: 166 Republic 2.369bff.: 165 n14 2.376d-​380c:  64 2.377d-​3.398b: 149 n12 3.398a-​b:  149 9.588c: 62 Pliny the Elder Naturalis Historia 2.16: 136 n20 2.209: 216 n50 2.220: 62 n44, 222 n67 2.225: 218 n55 2.226: 203 2.230 (= Theopompus fr. 278e Shrimpton): 207 n27, 212 n38 2.231: 212 n35 4.66: 217 n52 5.128: 70 n66 5.143: 51 7.33: 217 n53 7.158: 61 7.191–​209: 62 n43 7.198: 62 n43 8.165: 195 n61 12.19–​20:  176 12.111–​3:  176

15.102: 176 16.144: 176 18.37: 35 n36 31.9 (= Ctesias fr. 11γ Nichols): 205 n24 31.10: 204 n23, 217 n54 31.13–​14 (= Theophr. 218A FHS&G): 212, 212 n37, 212 n40, 213 31.16: 207 n27 31.19 (= Theophr. 219 FHS&G): 203 n21 31.21 (= Ctesias fr. 47b Nichols): 215 n49 31.26 (= Theophr. 213C FHS&G): 211 n34 31.27: 211 n35 31.28: 212 n36 31.55: 221 n66 35.171: 215 n48 Pliny the Younger Epistulae 6.10.1: 147 n7 8.20: 216 n51 9.12: 33 9.12.2: 33 Panegyricus 10.4: 139 n24 Plutarch Moralia Adversus Colotem 1109e-​1110a: 207 n26 Consolatio ad Apollonium 110e-​113e: 193 n54 De cohibenda ira 456c: 223 n69 De communibus notitiis 1073d-​1074a (= SVF 2.525): 89 n23 De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1063c-​d (= SVF 3.759): 104 n64 De tuenda sanitate praecepta 133c (= SVF 1.389): 159 De virtute morali 449A: 194 n58 Non posse 1101a-​b: 184 n24 1101a: 184 n26 Quaestiones conviviales 3.2.1, 648c-​d:  176 Vitae parallelae Alexander 13.9.20: 174 n40 20.8.13: 173 n39 75–​77: 212 n35 Antonius

262

262  Index locorum 33.7: 100 n47 Polyaenus (FGrHist 639 Jacoby) fr. 7: 222 n68 Polybius Histories 4.40.2: 58 Pomponius Mela (ed. Ranstrand) De chorographia 1.55: 216 n51 2.82–​3: 216 n51 2.104: 70 n66 Posidonius (eds. Edelstein and Kidd) fr. 221 (= fr. 91 FGrHist 87 Jacoby = Strabo Geogr. 1.3.9 Meineke): 223 n69 fr. 237 (=Strabo Geogr. 13.1.67 Meineke): 215 n48 fr. 279 (=Strabo Geogr. 16.2.42–​3 Meineke): 215 n48 fr. 284: 161 n2 Propertius 4.11.6: 147 n8 Ps.-​Aristotle De mundo 4, 395b26–​30: 209 n30 De mirabilibus auscultationibus (ed. Giannini) 112 p. 278 & 280: 215 n49 169 p. 310: 214 170 p. 310: 212 n40 Ps.-​Plutarch (ed. Hercher) De fluviis 21: 219 Publilius Syrus (ed. Ribbeck) fr. 234: 4 fr. 236: 4 Pall. Incert. Fab. 65: 4 Pall. Incert. Fab. 66: 4 Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 1.1.12: 66 1.1.34–​5: 66 n58 2.4.2: 57 n28, 61 n42 5.11.17–​18: 61 n42 10.2.4: 27 12.4.1: 61 12.4.2: 61 n42 Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.13: 57 n28 Sappho (ed. Voigt) fr. 5: 175 n47 fr. 130: 175 n49

Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium (ed. Wendel) ad 4.965 p. 299: 62 n44, 222 n68 Scholia in Homeri Iliadem (ed. Erbse) ad Hom. Il. 2.856, i, p. 348: 52 n6 Scholia in Homeri Odysseam (ed. Dindorf) ad Hom. Od. 12.301, ii, p. 549: 222 Seneca the Elder Controversiae 1 pr. 6: 63 2.6.2: 40 n41 7.3.8: 4 Suasoriae 3.7: 108 n6 Seneca the Younger Apocolocynthosis (Ludus de morte Claudii) 4.1.27–​32: 177 n59 De beneficiis 1.3.1ff.: 63 1.3.2–​4.6:  55 1.3.3: 55 1.3.5: 55 1.3.6: 55 1.3.6–​7:  63 1.3.7: 68, 68 n63, 69 1.3.8: 55, 63 1.3.9: 55, 56 1.3.10: 63 1.4.1: 55 1.4.4: 55 1.4.5–​6:  63 1.4.6: 56 2.25.1: 39 3.18–​28: 35 n34 3.23.3: 58 n30 3.29.1: 40 n40 3.29–​38: 35 n34 3.31.3–​4: 40 n40 3.37.1: 76 4.6.4–​5:  2 4.7.1–​4.8: 53 n9 4.27.2: 76 4.27.3: 62, 78 5.5.2–​3: 40 n40 5.17.5: 122 n43 5.23.2: 58 n30 5.25.4: 67, 68 n64 6.32.1–​2:  29 6.36.1: 76 7.21.1: 58 n30 De clementia 1.2: 31, 42 n47

 263

Index locorum 263 1.8.3: 177 n59 1.9.1–​12: 10, 24 n3, 31 1.9.3–​5:  33 1.9.4–​5:  33 1.9.7–​10:  32 1.9.10: 34 1.9.11: 34–​5 1.9.12: 35 1.14.1: 36 n38 1.15.1: 35–​6 1.15.1–​16.3:  10, 31 1.15.2: 36 1.15.3: 35, 37 1.15.3–​4:  32 1.15.4–​7:  37–​8 1.16.1: 39 1.16.2: 38 1.16.3: 36 n38 1.19.1–​6:  121 2.1.4: 178 n61 2.4.1: 77, 79 2.5.1: 75 n82 Dialogi (ed. Reynolds) [1] De providentia [1].1.1: 42 [1].2.7: 42 [1].2.7–​10: 114 n24 [1].2.12: 43 [1].2.9: 114 [1].3.9: 138 n22 [1].4.7: 138 n22 [1].5.10–​11: 62 n45, 80 [2] De constantia sapientis [2].2.1–​2: 11, 57, 59, 62, 71 [2].2.1: 78, 79, 126 [2].4.2: 78 [2].5.6–​6.7:  153 [2].6.2: 153 [3–​5] De ira [3].1.16.7 (= SVF 1.215): 194 n57 [3].1.20.8: 67 n61 [3].1.20.8–​9: 42 n49 [4].2.1–​4: 194 n57 [4].2.21.4: 30 [4].2.33: 12, 69 [4].2.33.3: 69 [4].2.33.3–​4:  69 [4].2.33.4: 41, 69 [4].2.33.5: 40 n42, 68, 79 [4].2.33.6: 69 [4].2.35.5: 65 [4].2.35.6: 77 [4].2.36.5: 76

[5].3.9.1: 63 n48 [5].3.14.2: 77 [5].3.18.3–​4:  41 [5].3.18.3: 43 n52 [5].3.19.5: 41, 41 n45 [5].3.22.4: 80 [5].3.23.3: 67, 80 [5].3.36: 33 n30 [5].3.37.5: 9 n30 [6] Ad Marciam [6].1.1: 179 n3 [6].1.3: 128, 179 n3 [6].1.5: 179 n3, 182 [6].1.6: 127–​8, 179 n3 [6].2–​3: 180 n6 [6].2.1–​2: 183 n20 [6].2.5: 190 n48 [6].4–​6: 193 n53 [6].4.2: 85 [6].4.2–​5.6:  127 [6].7: 18, 181, 192–​193 [6].7.3: 197 [6].9.1–​11: 180 n8 [6].9.3: 180 n8 [6].10.4: 128, 180 n8 [6].12.4: 65 n54, 128 [6] 13.1: 78 [6].16.6–​8: 180 n5 [6].17–​18: 180 n8 [6].17.1: 180 n8 [6].17.2: 58 n31 [6].17.3.1–​4.1: 221 n65 [6].17.3: 77 [6].18.4: 180 n8 [6].19.4: 65, 80 [6].19.4–​5: 197 n72 [6].20: 180 n8 [6].20.1: 128 [6].20.4: 73 [6].26: 186 n31 [6].26.1: 181 n9 [7] De vita beata [7].3.2: 101 n50 [7].19.1: 122 n43 [7].26.6: 64 [7].26.7: 78 [8] De otio [8].5.1: 58 n30 [9] De tranquillitate animi [9].2.12: 68, 68 n64 [9].11.12: 77 [9].16.4: 61, 78 [10] De brevitate vitae

264

264  Index locorum [10].9.2: 6 n21 [10].10.6: 77 [10].13.2–​3:  67 [10].13.3: 63 [10].15.3: 45 [10].16.4–​5:  64 [10].16.5: 78 [11] Ad Polybium [11].7.1: 58, 60 n37, 77 [11].8.2: 65 [11].11.5: 66 [12] Ad Helviam [12].7.3: 61, 76, 77 [12].7.6: 61, 77 [12].9.2–​3:  17 [12].16.1: 180 n4 [12].19.5: 61, 76 Epistulae morales (ed. Reynolds) 1: 116 n27 2.4–​5: 133 n15 6.4: 96 6: 72 6.5: 71, 130 n1 8.8: 4 n11, 5 n15 9.5: 94 9.16: 78 9.18: 153 11.54: 147 n8 12: 121–​3, 116 n27 12.2: 136 n20 12.8–​9:  121–​3 12.9: 15, 122–​3, 122 n43 12.11: 26, 27, 47 n63 13.8: 58 n30 14.8: 72, 77 15.150: 147 n8 19.9: 79 21.5: 76, 148 n10 21.10: 134 n17 22: 116 n27 24.6: 58 n30 24.18: 65, 77, 78, 80 25.1: 81 n3 25.4: 78 26: 116 n27 27.5: 67, 76, 79 28.14: 80 29: 130 29.7: 87 n6, 82 n6 30: 116 n27 31: 60 31.2: 60, 71, 80 31.9: 72, 77, 79 31–​57:  71

33: 15, 130–​5, 137, 141 33.1: 133, 133 nn12 & 15 33.4: 131 33.7: 133, 133 n13 33.7–​8:  101 39: 96 40.2: 67, 69, 79 41.2: 86 n19 44: 46 44.1: 46 44.2: 46 44.3: 46 44.5: 46 45: 77, 79, 142 45.1–​3: 130 n1 45.1: 72 45.2: 58 n31, 72 45.8: 97 n41 45.13: 97 n41 47.12: 61, 78 48: 142 48.4: 97 n41 49–​56:  71, 74 49–​57: 71, 72, 124 49: 72, 142–​60 49.1–​2: 146, 147–​8 49.1: 72, 73, 147 49.2: 5 49.2–​4:  146 49.5–​6:  146 49.5: 16, 146, 148–​50 49.6–​8:  146–​7 49.6: 16, 97 n41, 146, 156–​60 49.7–​9:  146–​7 49.7: 16, 146, 147, 150–​4 49.8: 151–​4 49.10–​12:  146 49.11: 157 n28 49.12: 16, 97 n40, 146–​7, 149 n15, 155 50.2: 124 50.6: 86 n19 51.3: 72 52: 72 52.1 52.4: 125 53: 71, 73, 123–​7 53.1: 123 53.2: 123 53.3: 123–​7 53.4: 73, 79 54.4: 126 55: 73, 170 n26 56: 71, 73, 107 n4, 124 n48 56.12: 107 n4

 265

Index locorum 265 56.13: 107 n4 56.15: 74 n79, 80 57: 73 57.1: 72 57.8: 86 n19 58.1–​6: 67 n59 58.5: 9 n30 58.15: 58, 77 58.25: 97 n41 59.7–​8: 5 n17 59.12: 78 62.3: 82 n6 63: 66 63.2: 52, 66, 68, 68 n64, 79 63.13: 75 n82, 180 n4 64: 100 64.2–​3:  5 64.3: 99 n45 64.7: 49 n70 64.9–​10: 46 n61 65.16: 97 n41 66.26: 62, 76, 79 66.27: 43 n51 66.53: 75 n82 68.5: 73 70: 116 n27 71.27–​9: 194 n57 73: 1 73.5: 78 73.13: 78 76.1: 81 n3 76.4: 73 76.31: 58 n30 77: 116 n27 77.2: 78 77.20: 58 n30, 61, 79 79: 1, 47, 48 79.1: 58, 77, 79 79.2: 47 79.4–​8:  47 79.5: 47, 47 n65 79.6: 1, 46–​7 79.7: 47 n64 79.8–​10:  48 79.9–​18:  47 79.13–​17: 47 n65 79.17: 47 n66 80.7: 78 82: 83, 84, 116–​7, 116 n27 82.7: 76, 117 82.8: 63, 116 82.16: 65, 77, 116–​7 82.18: 117 82.21–​2: 146 n5

82.24: 97 n41 83.13: 29 n18, 43 n52 84: 27, 27 n13, 48, 96, 117–​21 84.3: 26, 26 n10 84.6: 27 84.7: 27 84.8: 48 84.13: 48 86: 8 n26, 148 n10, 170 n26 88: 63, 67, 75 n82 88.3: 58 n30 88.5: 53 n12 88.6: 76, 78 88.7: 60, 70, 70 n68, 79 88.8: 79 88.21: 165 88.21–​8: 165 n12 88.37: 76 88.43: 97 n41 89.13 (= SVF 1.357): 159 90: 17, 54, 161–​78 90.2: 172 n33 90.4: 162 n5 90.5–​6:  164 90.5: 161 90.6: 162 90.7–​10:  171 90.7: 54, 162 90.9: 172 90.10: 17 90.11: 162, 164 n7, 170 90.12: 170 90.14: 62, 77, 172 90.15–​17:  171 90.15: 172 90.20: 170 90.21: 170 90.22: 170 90.25: 165, 165 n13, 171 90.31: 67 n61 90.35: 54, 166 n15 90.36: 164, 165, 165 n15, 169 90.37: 167 90.38: 166, 168 90.40: 166 90.42–​3:  171 90.42: 172 n34 90.44: 54 90.46: 54, 165 92.9–​10:  62, 79 94: 4 n11 94.10: 77 94.63: 78 95: 165 n13

266

266  Index locorum 95.15–​32:  60 95.47: 78 98.13: 5, 49 n71 99: 196 99.1–​2: 196 n68 99.14–​20: 196 n69 99.15–​21: 194 n57 99.16: 196 n69 99.24: 196 n71 100.9: 148 n10 101: 84, 116 n27 102: 13, 84, 87, 93, 96, 99, 101 102.3: 84, 96 102.4: 13, 83, 96 102.7: 87, 92 102.30: 93 104: 111–​6 104.27: 112 104.29: 112 104.31: 76, 79, 111–​6 104.33: 112 106: 13, 84, 86–​9, 96–​101 106.1–​3:  96 106.2: 102, 102 n52 106.3: 96 n37, 100 106.4: 84, 86, 87, 96 n39, 98 106.5: 97 n42 106.10: 97 n42 106.11f.: 96–​7, 98 106.12: 98 107: 5 n15 107.1: 97 107.10: 78 107.11: 5 n15 108: 3-​10, 96, 98, 99, 165 n13 108.1: 3, 96 n38, 98, 102 nn54 & 55 108.3: 4, 99 n45 108.6: 58 n30, 101 108.7: 4, 99 nn43 & 44 108.10: 5 108.11: 4 108.13: 4 108.14–​6: 99 n44 108.17–​8:  5 108.17–​21:  9 108.17–​22:  5 108.20: 5 108.22: 5 108.22–​3: 99 n44 108.23: 5 108.24: 6 108.25: 6 108.26: 6 108.27: 6

108.28: 6 108.29: 6 108.30-​2:  7 108.32-​3 (= Cic. Rep. fr. 4 Keyes = Enn. Varia 19–​20, p. 215 Vahlen2 = Enn. fr. 43 Courtney = Enn. Epigram 5–​6 Warmington): 8 108.34 (= Cic. Rep. fr. 3 Keyes = Enn. Varia 23–​4, p. 216 Vahlen2 = fr. 44.3–​4 Courtney= Enn. Epigram 3–​4 Warmington): 6, 9 108.38: 98 109: 3, 13, 93, 96–​99 109.1: 96 109.2: 94 109.11: 94 109.12: 94 109.17: 96 n38, 102 n55 109.17f.: 97–​8 110: 15, 84, 130, 135–​41 110.1: 135, 136 n20 110.2: 137 110.3: 138 110.4: 138 110.6: 138 110.8: 138 110.12: 140 111: 83 113: 13, 84, 86–​9, 92, 100, 101 113.1: 100, 100 n47, 101 n49 113.2: 87, 88 113.4: 87 113.7: 89 n24 113.9: 62, 77, 78 113.18 (= SVF 3.169): 92 n29 113.19-​20:  89 113.23: 89 n23, 100 113.24: 87–​8 114.19: 172 n34 115: 16, 155, 156, 159 115.1: 158 115.8 (= SVF 1.372): 16, 158 115.11-​13: 168 n21 115.12: 64, 64 n51 115.14: 80, 158 115.15: 58 n30, 64 n51, 77 116: 13, 101 116.5: 161 n1 117: 13, 84–​92, 100, 101 117.1: 100 117.5: 13, 90, 95 117.12: 89 n24 117.12f.: 92 n29 117.16: 89 n24

 267

Index locorum 267 117.25: 99 n45, 100 n46 118: 84, 148 n10 119.7: 78 120: 100 120.9: 5 121: 13, 100, 101 121.3–​9: 196 n71 121.3: 84 121.17–​24: 196 n71 122.14–​15: 58 n30 123: 13 123.12: 71, 80 123.15: 94, 100 124: 13, 84, 100, 101 124.1: 101 n48 124.13–​20: 196 n71 124.21: 84 n13, 196 n71 Naturales quaestiones (ed. Hine) 1.1.13: 77 2.41–​6: 65 n52, 78 2.44.1: 77 2.45.2: 139 n24 2.50.1: 63 3 praef.: 10 n35 3 praef. 1: 200 3.1: 218 n56 3.1.1: 221 n65 3.10.1: 202 3.15.3: 202 3.15.7: 202 3.16.4: 218 3.20–​1: 19, 201–​10 3.20.1–​2:  201 3.20.4: 203, 204, 216 3.20.5: 204 3.20.6: 207 3.21: 208, 209 n30 3.21.2: 209 3.25–​6: 19, 210–​23 3.25.1: 210 3.25.2: 79, 212 3.25.3–​4:  212 3.25.5–​10:  214 3.25.5: 215 3.25.7: 215 3.25.8–​10:  216 3.25.9–​10:  216 3.25.11: 217 3.26.3–​4:  218 3.26.5–​6:  221 3.26.6: 77, 130 n1 3.26.7: 62, 77, 221–​2 3.26.8: 223 3.27–​30:  223

3.27.13: 220 n62 3.29.7: 58 n31, 77, 80 4A praef. 14: 130 n1 4A praef. 19: 77 4A 2.2: 148 4A 2.24: 58 5.15.1: 58 n30 6.1.2: 73 6.5.2: 58 6.8: 218 n57 6.8.2: 77, 221 n65 6.18.5: 65 n54, 76 6.23.4: 66, 78 6.26.1: 70 n66 6.26.2–​3:  77 6.26.2: 217 6.28: 208 n29, 209 n30 7.17.2: 80 Tragedies Agamemnon 881–​3: 115 n26 897–​901:  114–​5 897–​903:  115 901–​3:  114 Thyestes 560–​6:  2 Troades 162–​3:  114–​5 Fragments (ed. Vottero) F and T 90–​6: 83 n8 51: 75 53: 75, 76 78 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 5.13.20): 104 n64 93–​6: 102 n56 93 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 1.16.10): 64, 78, 102 n57 94 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 2.2.14–​15): 102–​3, 102 n58, 104 95 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 2.4.14): 103 n60 96 (= Lactant. Div. inst. 4.17.28): 103, 103 n62 Sextus Empiricus Adversus mathematicos 8.70: 92 n29 Silius Italicus 8.534: 73 n77 12.28: 73 n77 12.34: 73 n77 Solinus (ed. Mommsen) De mirabilibus mundi 7.27 p. 66.11–​15: 212 n38 Sotion (ed. Giannini)

268

268  Index locorum fr. 2 p. 167 (Isigonus fr. 14 p. 147 Giannini = Tzetzes Scholia ad Lycophrona 1021 Müller): 213 n44 Statius Silvae 1.2.261: 73 n77 2.2.84: 73 n77 3.1.93: 73 n77 3.1.152: 73 n77 3.5.79: 73 n77 4.4.53: 73 n77 4.8.3: 73 n77 5.3.105: 73 n77 5.3.129a: 73 n77 Stobaeus Eclogae (eds. Wachsmuth -​Hense) 1.10.16c, p. 138f. (= Arius Didymus fr. 18 p. 457 Diels = SVF 1.89): 89 n22 2.1.24, p. 8.13 (= SVF 1.352): 158 2.7, p. 37–​152: 13, 85 2.7, p. 91 (= SVF 3.394): 193 n53, 194 n58 2.7.5b7, p. 66: 86 2.7.5b9, p. 65–​6 (= SVF 3.171): 94 n34 2.7.6f., p. 78: 90 n25 2.7.8, p. 85: 89 n21 2.7.8a, p. 86: 89 n21 2.7.9b, p. 88 (= SVF 3.171): 92 n29 2.7.10e, p. 93: 85 2.7.11c, p. 94f. (= SVF 3.98): 92–​3, 93 n30 2.7.11d, p. 95 (= SVF 3.94): 93, 93 n31 2.7.11f, p. 97f.: 90 n25, 91, 91 n26 2.7.11i, p. 101: 91 n26 2.31.95, p. 218 (= SVF 1.396): 126 4.1.88, p. 27 (= SVF 1.266): 102 n58 Strabo (ed. Meineke) Geography 1.2.3–​10:  57 1.2.7: 53 n12 1.2.23: 70 n66 1.3.9 (= Posidonius fr. 221 Edelstein & Kidd = fr. 91 FGrHist 87 Jacoby): 223 n69 6.1.13: 214 n46 6.2.4: 220 n63 10.1.14: 212 n40 13.1.67 (= Posidonius fr. 237 Edelstein & Kidd): 215 n48 13.1.70: 219 n60 16.2.42–​3 (= Posidonius fr. 279 Edelstein & Kidd): 215 n48 Suetonius Augustus 33: 32

Gaius 46: 157 n27 Nero 6.1: 178 n59 27: 177 n58 29: 175 n51 31: 17, 171 34.2–​3: 173 n37 55: 176 Tacitus Annales 4.34–​5:  128 14.48: 196 n67 15.33–​7: 177 n58 15.37: 175 n51 15.40.3: 176 15.42: 17, 171 15.42.1: 177 16.1–​2: 171 n29 Tatian Oratio ad Graecos (ed. Diels-​Kranz) 21 (= DK 61 A3): 53 n10 Terence Adelphoe 120–​1 (= Cic. Cael. 38): 23 Theocritus Idylls 11: 132 n7 Theophrastus Fragments (ed. Fortenbaugh, Huby, Sharples, and Gutas) 213A (Anonymous, on Antimachus of Colophon = Pack2 89 = P. Milan. 17, col.2.53–​8, PRIMI t. 1 p. 53 Vogliano): 211 n34 213B (= Antig. Hist. mir. 158 p. 100 Giannini = Call. fr. 407 xxx Pf.): 211 213C (= Plin. NH 31.26): 211 n34 214A (= Athen. Deipn. 2.41F Kaibel): 217 n53 214A (= Athen. Deipn. 2.42E Kaibel): 207 n27 218A (= Plin. NH 31.13–​14): 212, 213 218B (= Ael. Nat. anim. 12.36): 213 n42 218C (= Nymphodorus fr. 4 p. 114 Giannini = fr. 11 FGrHist 572 Jacoby = Scholion on Theocritus Idyll 5.14–​16 [k, p. 161.2–​4 Wendel]): 213 218D: 212 219 (= Plin. NH 31.19): 203 n21 425–​9: 207 n26 De causis plantarum (ed. Wimmer) 2.3.3: 176

 269

Index locorum 269 6: 207 n26 6.5.5: 209 Historia plantarum (ed. Wimmer) 4.4.1: 176 4.10.2: 216 n50 8.2.8: 222 9.18.10: 217 n53 Theopompus (ed. Shrimpton) fr. 278(b) (= Antig. Hist. mir. 164 p. 102): 207 fr. 278(c) (= Paradox. Vat. 12 p. 335 Giannini): 207 n27 fr. 278(d) (= Paradox. Florent. 20 p. 320 Giannini): 207 n27 fr. 278(e) (= Plin. NH 2.230): 207 n27 Tibullus 2.4.57–​8: 195 n61 Timaeus of Tauromenion (566 FGrHist Jacoby) fr. 41a (= Call. fr. 407.49–​50 Pf. = Antig. Hist. mir. 140.2 p. 92 Giannini): 220 fr. 46 (= Antig. Hist. mir. 134 p. 90 Giannini = Call. fr. 20 Giannini = Call. fr. 407 vi Pf.): 214 Valerius Maximus Facta et dicta memorabilia 7.3 Pr. 1: 150 n17 Varro De re rustica 3.5.9–​17: 173 n37 3.17.4: 216 Vergil Aeneid 1.53–​4:  76 1.82: 121 1.198–​9:  128 1.240: 127 1.245–​6: 218 n56 1.421: 121 1.422: 121 1.423: 118 1.430–​6: 117, 120 1.434: 121 1.453: 112, 121 1.456: 112 1.458: 76, 79, 111–​6 2.3: 147 2.550–​3:  115 2.554: 114 2.557–​8:  114 2.557: 114 n23 2.558: 114 2.726–​9: 107 n4, 124 n48

3.77: 77, 217 3.277: 124 3.426–​8:  62 3.694–​6: 221 n65 4.653: 122 n43 5.848–​51: 125 n49 6.3: 124 6.261: 76, 117 6.275: 6 6.338: 125 6.347–​71:  125 6.360: 125 6.400–​1: 77, 116 6.402: 117 n28 6.791–​5:  167 6.792–​3:  169 7.64–​7: 120 n37 8.296–​7: 77, 117 8.296: 117 n28 8.298: 117 8.319–​27:  168–​9 8.385–​6:  150 8.703: 77 9.505–​6:  151 9.808–​9:  152 10.467–​8:  7 10.468–​9:  7 11.262: 113 12.587–​92: 120 n37 12.793: 127 Eclogues 1.6–​7:  1 4: 170, 173 10: 221 10.4–​5: 77, 221 Georgics 1.125–​8:  167–​8 1.176–​7: 101, 101 n48 2.260–​1:  9 2.513–​31:  168 3.66–​8:  6 3.280–​3: 195 n61 3.284: 6 4.162–​9:  118 4.180–​4:  120 4.367–​73: 220 n62 4.564: 73 n77 Vitruvius De architectura 1.5.5: 152 n20 2.1.3: 17 2.3.4: 215 n48 8.3.9–​10: 203 n21 8.3.14: 212 n38, 213 n44

270

270  Index locorum 8.3.15: 212 n36 8.3.16: 212 n35 8.3.20: 207 n27 Zeno Citieus (SVF, ed. von Arnim, vol. i) Physics 1.89 (= Stob. 1.10.16c, p. 138f. Wachsmuth = Ar. Did. fr. 18 Diels): 89 n22

1.106a (= Philo Judaeus Aetern. 130): 165 n11 Ethics 1.209 (=Galen Plac. Hipp. Plat. 4.3.2 De Lacy): 194 n58 1.215 (=Sen. Ira [3].1.16.7): 194 n57 1.264f. (=Lactant. Div. inst. 2.2.14–​15 =Sen. fr. 94 Vottero): 102 n58 1.266 (=Stob. 4.1.88, p. 27 Hense): 102 n58

 271

General index

Acis 132, 219n58 adoption 11, 30, 45 Alexander the Great 78, 126, 173–​4, 176–​7, 212 allegoresis, allegory (allegorizing, allegorized) 11, 51, 53, 55, 63, 66, 78, 102, 121, 159, 176n52. animal(s) (living animal, virtues as animals, primary goods as animals) 13, 18, 60, 77–​8, 84, 86–​9, 100–​1, 103, 134, 140, 162, 164n10, 174, 177, 181, 184–​6, 188n39, 189–​97, 212–​4, 221 anthropocentrism 196n66 anthropology 192–​3 Antipater of Tyre 85 Apollo 77, 173, 217 Arethusa 76–​7, 130n1, 189, 218n57, 219n58, 220–​1 Aristo of Chios 16, 142–​3, 156, 158–​60 Arius Didymus 13, 84–​5, 89, 95, 193 Artes 17, 54, 161, 164–​5, 172 Averna loca 208–​10 Baiae 72, 124, 177n58 bee simile 26n10, 117–​21 benefit (mutual) 13, 93–​4 Caïcus 219–​20 Callimachus (Callimachean, Callimacheanism) 19–​20, 118–​21, 188, 200, 203, 205–​7, 209, 211, 214, 220, 224 Campania (Campanian) 71–​3, 124, 144 cattle of the Sun 62, 70, 77, 222–​3 cenatio rotunda 17, 172–​4 colossus 173 contractio 194; see also morsus; δηγμός /​ δῆξις Cornutus 54, 55n20, 85

corporeality (of soul, of good) 13, 86, 96 cosmology 185, 192–​3, 195, 196n66 cow 18, 179, 181, 185–​7, 189–​93, 195, 197 Cyclops (Cyclopes) 72, 77, 118, 132, 135 declamation 24, 25n7, n8 Delos 77, 217 demythologization (demythologizing, demythologized) 17, 19, 209–​10, 220, 223 dialectic (dialectical, dialecticians) 12, 16, 84, 97, 142–​6, 149–​50, 154–​60 didactic 18, 26, 99, 180, 182–​4, 186–​9, 191, 195–​6, 224 Dido 108 n5, 121–​3, 147, 171 Domus Aurea 18, 171–​4, 177 doxography (doxographic, doxographical, doxographer, Doxography B, Doxography C, of ethics) 81–​104. Egypt (Egyptian) 127, 137, 174, 176, 178n59, 206, 216n51, 217 elusiveness 109n12, 127 emotion(s) 64, 144, 161n1, 179, 180n7, 183n17, 184n26, 193–​7 Epicurean(s) 3, 18–​9, 62, 65, 78, 80, 130–​4, 181–​4, 200 Epicureanism 84, 181 Epicurus 15, 26, 47n65, 119, 130–​1, 133–​4, 148, 181, 183n17, 184, 195, 207n26 exemplary discourse 10–​11, 24, 28, 45, 48 exemplary intertextuality 24, 25n4, 26, 28, 45, 52 exemplum, exempla 10–​12, 24

272

272  General index fabrica 170, 177–​8 fatherhood 10, 23–​49 floating (bricks, islands) 214–​7 friendship 13, 35, 92–​4, 146, 148n9 Galatea 15, 131–​4, 219n58, 135n19 God the father 42–​4 Golden Age 17–​8, 54, 161–​4, 165n14, n15, 166–​78, 188–​9 grief 5n17, 18–​9, 41, 66, 69, 79, 144, 147, 179, 180, 182–​7, 189–​94, 196–​7, 219; see also πένθος grotesques 174–​5 gryphons 174–​5 Hercules 7, 11, 59–​61, 74, 78, 117 Hierocles 101 Homer 9, 12, 51–​2, 53n12, 57, 63, 65–​8, 79, 135, 183n21 homo viator (Stoic) 123 imago (imagines) 46, 48 incorrectness 110–​11 indifferent(s) 14, 16, 76, 85, 90, 99, 104, 157–​9; see also ἀδιάφορα inheritance 38, 40, 45, 49, 56 Io 15, 135–​40 irony (stable and unstable) 110, 170n24 Isis 137, 139, 140n27 ius vitaenecisque 31n25, 35, 41, 42n47 Juno 78, 112, 127, 135, 137 Jupiter 7, 15, 53n9, 64, 78, 114–​5, 127, 136–​9, 168n20, 190–​1 L. Licinius Lucullus 176 Libri moralis philosophiae 14, 83–​4, 95–​6, 98, 100–​4 Lycus 218–​9 lyric(s) (poetry, poets) 16, 142–​4, 146–​9, 159–​60 Marcia 18, 127–​8, 179–​86, 188, 192–​3, 194n60, 195–​7 military (imagery, images, terms) 121, 146, 152n20, 159 mirabilia (aquarum) 19, 198–​201, 210, 216 Mithridates 176 morsus 194; see also contractio; δηγμός /​ δῆξις multiple explanations (in Theophrastus, in Seneca) 201 Mylae 62, 77, 222–​3

Mysus 219 mythical time 11, 50, 56 Nereids 68 n63, 175 Nero (Neronian, Anti-​Neronian) 2–​3, 10, 17–​8, 30n22, 31, 33–​4, 38–​9, 41–​2, 107n2, 109, 121, 127, 129, 161–​78 Nomentum 135 Odeon of Pericles 174 Odysseus 12, 51–​2, 56–​7, 59–​60, 62–​3, 67, 70–​5, 79, 114, 125–​6; see also Ulixes; Ulysses otium 1 Palinurus 125–​6 paradox (Stoic) 16, 104, 109, 142, 146, 149, 154, 156, 159 paradoxa (Callimachean) 20, 224 paradoxography (paradoxographer, paradoxographical) 19, 199–​200, 202–​3, 206, 209–​10, 212, 214–​17, 220, 222–​4 pater familias 11, 23, 28, 30–​1, 33, 35, 39, 42n50, 49 pater patriae 10–​11, 28, 30–​1, 33, 38, 40–​1, 42n47, 43, 45 patria potestas 31n25, 39, 44 patrimony 27, 48–​9 pedagogy 27n13, 183 Philodemus 54, 94n34, 159n34, 184n27, 186, 187n34 pneuma 86–​7, 89n23; see also spiritus Polyphemus 15, 70, 130–​5 Pompey 76, 79, 112–​15, 176 Posidonian 54, 85, 162–​5, 170–​1 Posidonius 3, 17, 54, 67n61, 131, 161–​7, 169–​70, 177–​8, 180n7, 201n17, 215n48, 223n69 pre-​emotions 184n27, 194n57, 196; see also προπάθεια providentia 138–​9; see also πρόνοια Pythagoras 5, 19, 175n51, 191, 198–​202, 209–​10, 214, 216, 223 Pythagorean 5, 9, 19, 166n18, 191, 199, 203, 208, 215–​17 rationalization (rationalize, rationalized, rationalizing) 11, 19, 50n3, 53n11, 57, 58n31, 60–​2, 65, 74, 77, 116, 162n4, 200, 203

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General index 273 rhetoric 23–​4, 132, 149, 154–​6, 159, 171, 183n19, 187n35, 194n60, 195 river(s) 202–​3, 207, 212n38, n40, 213, 218–​21 sapiens (sapientes) 54, 64, 76, 78, 107n4, 162–​5, 166n18 sayables 13, 86, 96; see also λεκτά schola 97, 99 sons 11, 30–​1, 35–​6, 39–​42, 44, 48, 68 spiritus 86–​7; see also pneuma statue (of gods) 102–​3, 178n59 Stoicism 5, 53n11, 66, 82n5, 84, 95, 109, 130n3, 161, 181, 193n54 Styx 210–​11 subtilitas 96–​7, 100–​1, 142 textuality 44, 49 theology (theological) 50–​1, 53, 55–​6, 64, 74. Tiberius Claudius Balbillus 178n59 Tiridates 177n59 transformation 19, 49, 82, 140, 182, 199, 201, 202n18, 203, 209, 219–​20, 224 Ulixes 79; see also Odysseus; Ulysses Ulysses 11, 67, 70–​1, 76, 79, 126; see also Odysseus vafer, vafritia 142, 146, 150 virtue(s) 6, 10, 13, 24, 27, 42–​4, 46–​8, 61–​2, 77–​8, 84–​9, 92–​5, 100, 102n58, 138n22, 140, 146, 178n60, 179n3, 192, 195n61

wisdom 10, 13, 35–​6, 45, 47, 86, 88–​91, 100–​1, 126, 130, 150, 164–​5, 170, 178, 192, 195n64 Greek philosophical terms ἀδιάφορα 17, 164; see also indifferent(s) ἀκρασία 66 n56 ἀλυπία 184 ἁμαρτήματα 85 ἀντιμαρτύρησις 186n29 ἀπάθεια 184n26, 193n56 αὐτόματος βίος 166, 178 δηγμός /​δῆξις 194; see also contractio; morsus διαστροφή 163, 169 δόξα 180, 183 ἐκπύρωσις 78 ἕξις 87, 89n24 ἔρως 94 εὐεμπτωσία 85 καθήκοντα 85 κατορθώματα 85 λεκτά 13, 92; see also sayables μετριοπάθεια 184n21, 193–​4 οἰκείωσις 101 πένθος 193; see also grief πρόνοια 139n24; see also providentia προπάθεια 194; see also pre-​emotions συγκατάθεσις 180 συστολή (συστέλλειν) 194 φιλοποιία 94 χαθήοντα 164n10

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