Seneca - Moral letters to Lucilius. Volume 1

We have lost morals, justice, honor, piety and faith, and that sense of shame which, once lost, can never be restored.

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How Seneca came by this "pointed" style will be evident to one who reads the sample speeches given in the handbook of the Elder Seneca.

Hesiod, Works and Days, 369.

Frag. 475 Usener

i.e., a word which has a special significance to the Stoics; see Ep. xlviii, note.

Frag. 74 Wimmer.

See Index.

A reference to the murder of Caligula, on the Palatine, A.D. 41.

i.e., to death.

The Garden of Epicurus. Frag. 477 and 200 Usener.

i.e., of the Stoic school.

Frag. 25 Fowler.

Cf. Herodotus, i. 8 .

Frag. 26 Fowler.

During the luncheon interval condemned criminals were often driven into the arena and compelled to fight, for the amusement of those spectators who remained throughout the day.

The remark is addressed to the brutalized spectators.

Frag. 302 Diels.

Frag. 208 Usener.

As contrasted with the general Stoic doctrine of taking part in the world's work.

See Ep. lxxxv. 33 for the famous saying of the Rhodian pilot.

cernulat, equivalent to Greek , of a horse which throws a rider over its head.

Cf. the Stoic precept nil admirandum.

Frag. 199 Usener.

Literally "spun around" by the master and dismissed to freedom. Cf. Persius, v. 75f.

Fabulae togatae were plays which dealt with Roman subject matter, as contrasted with adaptations from the Greek, called palliatae. The term, in the widest sense includes both comedy and tragedy.

i.e., comedians or mimes.

Syri Sententiae, p. 309 Ribbeck.

Com. Rom. Frag. p. 394 Ribbeck.

ibidem.

Frag. 174 Usener.

i.e., the Cynics.

i.e., the Cynics.

i.e., the diurna mercedula; see Ep. vi, 7.

Frag. 27 Fowler.

Frag. 175 Usener.

"Pure love," i.e., love in its essence, unalloyed with other emotions.

Cf. his Frag. moral. 674 von Arnim.

The distinction is based upon the meaning of egere, "to be in want of" something indispensible, and opus esse, "to have need of" something which one can do without.

This refers to the Stoic conflagration: after certain cycles their world was destroyed by fire. Cf. E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, pp. 192 f.; cf. also Chrysippus, Frag. phys. 1065 von Arnim.

Gnomologici Vaticani 515 Sternberg.

Frag. 474 Usener.

Cf. above 6.

i.e., not confined to the Stoics, etc.

Author unknown; perhaps, as Buecheler thinks, adapted from the Greek.

Frag. de superstitione 36 H., according to Rossbach.

Epicurus, Frag. 210 Usener.

Frag. 210 Usener.

The figure is taken from the , the Holy of Holies in a temple. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid, vi. 10 secreta Sibyllas.

A jesting allusion to the Roman funeral; the corpse's feet pointing towards the door.

His former owner should have kept him and buried him.

Small figures, generally of terra-cotta, were frequently given to children as presents at the Saturnalia. Cf. Macrobius, i. 11. 49 sigila... pro se atque suis piaculum.

i.e., the old slave resembles a child in that he is losing his teeth (but for the second time).

i.e., seniores, as contrasted with iuniores.

, "the Obscure," Frag. 106 Diels.

i.e., of light and darkness.

Usus was the mere enjoyment of a piece of property; dominium was the exclusive right to its control. Possession for one, or two, years conferred ownership. See Leage, Roman Private Law, pp. 133, 152, and 164. Although Pacuvius was governor so long that the province seemed to belong to him, yet he knew he might die any day.

Vergil, Aeneid, iv. 653.

Epicurus, Sprche, 9 Wokte.

Seneca dismisses the topic of "exaggerated ills," because judgements will differ concerning present troubles; the Stoics, for example, would not admit that torture was an evil at all. He then passes on to the topic of "imaginary ills," 6-7, and afterwards to "anticipated ills," 8-11. From 12 on, he deals with both imaginary and anticipated ills.

Cf. Solon's .

Epicurus, Frag. 494 Usener.

Cf. Tacitus, Annals, xv. 44, describing the tortures practised upon the Christians.

Scylla was a rock on the Italian side of the Straits. Charybdis was a whirlpool on the Sicillian side. Servius on Vergil, Aeneid, iii, 420 defines the dextrum as the shore "to the right of those coming from the Ionian sea."

Cf. Juvenal, x. 22 cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.

Cf. the proverb necesse est multos timeat quem multi timent, which is found in Seneca, de Ira, ii. 11. 4 and often elsewhere.

Literally, "is as good as a (priest's) fillet."

Cf. Tac. Hist. i. 50 inter duos quorum bello solum id scires, deteriorem fore vicisset.

See, for example, Letter XXII.

Epicurus, Ep. iii. p. 63. 19 Usener.

Named kalendarium because interest was reckoned according to the Kalends of each month.

i.e., the prize-ring; the contestants were rubbed with oil before the fight began.

Cardiacus meant, according to Pliny, N. H. xxiii. 1. 24, a sort of dyspepsia accompanied by fever and perspiration. Compare the man in Juvenal v. 32, who will not send a spoonful of wine to a friend ill of this complaint.

Named from the Salii, or leaping priests of Mars.

The fuller, or washerman, cleansed the clothes by leaping and stamping upon them in the tub.

Epicurus, Frag. 491 Usener.

Court fools of the period.

i.e., have merely advanced in years.

Frag. 201 Usener.

Perhaps from the Hortensius; see Mller, Frag. 98, p. 326.

Literally, "Water!"

Frag. 479 Usener.

i.e., the whole year is a Saturnalia.

For a dinner dress.

The pilleus was worn by newly freed slaves and by the Roman populace on festal occasions.

The Epicurians. Cf. 9 and Epicurus, Frag. 158. Usener.

Cf. Ep. c. 6 and Martial, iii. 48.

The post which gladiators used when preparing themselves for combats in the arena.

Usually identified with Chaerimus, 307-8 B.C. But Wilhelm, ster Jahreshefte, V.136, has shown that there is probably no confusion of names. A Charinus was archon at Athens in 290-89; see Johnson, Class. Phil. ix. p. 256.

Vergil, Aeneid, viii. 364 f.

The procurator did the work of a quaestor in an imperial province. Positions at Rome to which Lucilius might succeed were such as praefectus annonae, in charge of the grain supply, or praefectus urbi, Director of Public Safety, and others.

And therefore could speak with authority on this point.

Perhaps a tragedy, although Seneca uses the word liber to describe it. Maecenas wrote a Symposium, a work De cultu suo, Octavia, some stray verse, and perhaps some history. See Seneca, Epp. xcii. and ci.

Seneca whimsically pretends to assume that eccentric literary style and high political position go hand in hand. See also the following sentence.

Epicurus, Frag.542 Usener.

A slave kept by every prominant Roman to identify the master's friends and dependants.

Epicurus, Frag. 542 Usener.

A slave kept by every prominant Roman to identify the master's friends and dependants

Seneca applies to wisdom the definition of friendship, Salust, Catiline, 20. 4 idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est.

Frag. 206 Usener.

i.e., the life of voluntary poverty.

Adapted from the epigram on Alexander the Great, "hic est quem non capit orbis." See Plutarch, Alexander, 6 . , and Seneca, Ep. cxix. 8.