oxford world’s classics DIALOGUES AND ESSAYS Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c.1bc–ad 65) was born in Corduba, Spain, and educated in Rome. Plagued all his life by ill health, he embarked on a political career after a stay in Egypt. In 41 he was exiled by the emperor Claudius and only returned to Rome in 49, when he became tutor to the young Nero. Together with the prefect of the Praetorian Guard Sextus Afranius Burrus, he acted as a senior adviser to Nero until 62, withdrew to private life, and was forced to commit suicide in 65. He had taken up writing as a young man. His earliest extant treatises date from the period before his exile. He continued to write throughout his life and was particularly productive in his final years. His treatises are recognized as the most important body of work on Stoicism in Latin. He also wrote the Letters to Lucilius and several tragedies, the earliest extant specimens of the genre in Latin. John Davie is Head of Classics at St Paul’s School, London. He is the author of a number of articles on classical subjects and has recently translated the complete surviving plays of Euripides for Penguin Classics (four volumes). A member of the Hellenic Society’s and Roman Society’s Visiting Panel of Lecturers, he divides his time between London and Oxford, where he teaches Classics to under- graduates at Balliol and other colleges. Tobias Reinhardt is Fellow and Tutor in Latin and Greek at Somerville College, Oxford. He has published books on Aristotle, Cicero, and (jointly with Michael Winterbottom) on Quintilian. oxford world’s classics For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to the world’s great literature. Now with over 700 titles—from the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century’s greatest novels—the series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing. The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures which enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized for its fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry, religion, philosophy and politics. Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers. OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS SENECA Dialogues and Essays Translated by JOHN DAVIE With an Introduction and Notes by TOBIAS REINHARDT 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York Translation © John Davie Editorial material © Tobias Reinhardt The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, ca. 4 B.C.–65 A.D. [Selections. English. 2007] Dialogues and essays / Seneca; translated by John Davie; with an introduction and notes by Tobias Reinhardt. p. cm. — (Oxford world’s classics) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978–0–19–280714–4 (alk. paper) 1. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, ca. 4 B.C.–65 A.D.—Translations into English. 2. Conduct of life—Early works to 1800. 3. Ethics—Early works to 1800. I. Davie, John N. II. Reinhardt, Tobias. III. Title. PA6661.A7S46 2007 878´.0109—dc22 2007016351 Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc ISBN 978–0–19–280714–4 13579108642 CONTENTS Introduction vii Note on the Text xxviii Select Bibliography xxix Chronology xxxii DIALOGUES AND ESSAYS On Providence 3 On Anger, Book 318 Consolation to Marcia 53 On the Happy Life 85 On The Tranquillity of the Mind 112 On the Shortness of Life 140 Consolation to Helvia 163 On Mercy 188 Natural Questions, Book 6: On Earthquakes 219 Explanatory Notes 249 This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION Seneca’s Life and Career Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born around 1bcas the second of three sons into a wealthy family of the equestrian class in what is today Cordoba in southern Spain. His father, likewise born in Spain but of Italian descent, is known as Seneca the rhetor; he had a keen interest in rhetorical education and wrote, late in his life, probably between ad 37 and 41, summary accounts of performances which he had wit- nessed in the rhetorical schools as a young man.1 The elder Seneca mainly pursued the family’s business interests, as was not unusual for someone of his social order, and apparently did not appear as an advocate. In his son’s writings he is presented as an educated, old- fashioned, and down-to-earth Roman, whose attitude to philosophy was a reserved one, although it appears that practical moral philosophy had some appeal for him too. Seneca’s mother, Helvia, was probably of Spanish descent; she is the addressee of one of the consolations included in this volume. Seneca’s older brother, Annaeus Novatus, later changed his name due to adoption to Junius Gallio, had a distin- guished political career, and became a proconsul of Achaia, where he met the apostle Paul (Acts 18: 12).2 His younger brother, Annaeus Mela, on whom apparently the elder Seneca’s hopes had rested more than on his brothers (Controv. 2 pref. 3–4), withdrew from public life as a young man; Mela’s son was the poet Lucan, whose epic on the civil war is extant. Seneca, along with his brothers, was soon sent to Rome, where he started the conventional course of education pursued by wealthy young Romans who were to embark on a career as an advocate or politician; their father accompanied them in order to oversee their education. In due course this academic training involved substantial reading of 1 These are partially extant, and known as the Controversiae and Suasoriae; see the Loeb edition with translation by Michael Winterbottom (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), and below, p. xxiv. Such exercises would also represent the standard form of advanced rhetorical education for the young Seneca. 2 See p. xxvi on the spurious correspondence between Seneca and St Paul, which circu- lated in the Middle Ages. viii Introduction literary and historical texts and rhetorical practice, notably in declama- tion. In addition, Seneca had a series of teachers in philosophy whom he later credited with having a formative influence on him;3 notably, they exposed him not just to Stoic moral doctrine, but to a wide range of other intellectual influences, and this breadth of outlook is reflected in Seneca’s works. Two of his teachers, Papirius Fabianus and the Greek Sotion from Alexandria, had been pupils of Q. Sextius, who had founded Rome’s only native philosophical school, which fused elements of traditional Stoicism with Pythagoreanism.4 Fabianus had started out as a declaimer (Seneca the elder, Controv. 2 pref. 1), and his speaking retained its rhetorical power when he turned to philosophy; he had an interest in science and inquiry into natural phenomena, which might help to explain Seneca’s interest in these matters. That one’s everyday habits and customs need to be seen in a broad context was suggested by the teachings of Sotion, who, like Pythagoras, abstained from the consumption of meat because of his belief in the transmigration of souls (Letters 108.20–1). Attalus the Stoic, who came perhaps from Pergamum in Asia Minor, introduced Seneca to mental routines of self-examination (ibid. 108.3), a prominent feature of his treatises and letters; he also had an interest in divination, which the Stoics saw not as superstition but as a scientific discipline; according to Seneca’s Natural Questions (2.84.2, 2.50.1), Attalus undertook a study of the Etruscan art of interpreting sky signs, like lightning. However, what for Seneca might have been an unequivocally happy period of his life was interrupted by frequent and at times dangerous bouts of ill health, notably various respiratory diseases;5 this eventually caused him to spend some time in Egypt, where the climate was supposed to be conducive to the improvement of his condition. Seneca took the opportunity to write a treatise about local customs and religious practices (Natural Questions 4.2.7).6 3 By the first century ad it was no longer common for young Romans of Seneca’s status to go to Athens and study philosophy there, as it had been in the first century bc.