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ΛΕΟΝ (Πόλη) ΚΑΣΤΙΛΗ-ΛΕΟΝ
14/7/1896 - 20/11/1936
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ΚΟΡΝΤΟΜΠΑ (Πόλη) ΑΝΔΑΛΟΥΣΙΑ
Lucanus, M. Annaeus. The short notices of this poet in common circulation, such
as that prefixed to the edition of Weise, although particularly meagre, contain
a series of statements many of which rest upon very uncertain evidence, while
the longer biographies, such as that of Nisard, are almost purely works of imagination.
In order that we may be enabled to separate those portions of the narrative which
admit of satisfactory proof from those which are doubtful or fictitious, we must
examine our materials and class them according to their quality.
I. The facts collected from the writings of Statius, Martial, Juvenal, Tacitus,
the Eusebian Chronicle as translated by Jerome and Sidonius Apollinaris, may be
received with confidence. According to these authorities Lucan was a native of
Cordova; his father was L. Annaeus Mella, a man of equestrian rank and high consideration,
who, satisfied with amassing a large fortune by acting as agent for the imperial
revenues (procurator), did not seek the same distinction in literature or politics,
which was achieved by his brothers M. Seneca and Junius Gallio. The talents of
the son developed themselves at a very early age and excited such warm and general
admiration as to awaken the jealousy of Nero, who, unable to brook competition,
forbade him to recite in public. Stung to the quick by this prohibition the fiery
young Spaniard embarked in the famous conspiracy of Piso, was betrayed, and, by
a promise of pardon, was with some difficulty induced to turn informer. In order
to excuse the hesitation he had at first displayed, and to prove the absolute
sincerity of his repentance, he began by denouncing his own mother Acilia (or
Atilia), and then revealed the rest of his accomplices without reserve. But he
received a traitor's reward. After the more important victims had been despatched,
the emperor issued the mandate for the death of his poetical rival who, finding
escape hopeless, caused his veins to be opened. When, from the rapid effusion
of blood, he felt his extremities becoming chill, but while still retaining full
consciousness, he recalled to recollection and began to repeat aloud some verses
which he had once composed descriptive of a wounded soldier perishing by a like
death, and with these lines upon his lips expired (A. D. 65). The following inscription
which, if genuine, seems to have been a tribute to his memory proceeding from
the prince himself, was preserved at no distant period in one of the Roman churches:
--
M. ANNAEO . LUCANO . CORDUBENSI . POETAE . BENEFICIO . NERONIS . FAMA . SERVATA.
From the birthday ode in honour of the deceased, addressed to his widow Polla
Argentaria, by Statius, we gather that his earliest poem was on the death of Hector
and the recovery of his body by Priam; the second, on the descent of Orpheus to
the infernal regions; the third on the burning of Rome; the fourth, an address
to his wife; the last, the Pharsalia; there is also an allusion to the success
which attended his essays in prose composition, and we infer from an expression
of Martial that his muse did not confine herself exclusively to grave and dignified
themes. (Stat. Silv. ii. praef. and Carm. 7; Martial, Ep. i. 61, vii. 21, 22,
23, x. 64, xiv. 194; Juv. vii. 79; Tac. Ann. xv. 49, 56, 70, xvi. 17; comp. Dialog.
de Orat. 20; Hieron. in Chron. Euseb. n. 2080; Sidon. Apollin. x. 239, xxiii.
165; Wernsdorff, Poet. Lat. Min. vol. iv. pp. 41, 587.)
II. In a short trumpery fragment entitled " Vita Lucani," ascribed to Suetonius,
and which may be an extract from the treatise of that grammarian, " De claris
Poetis," we are told that Lucan made his first public appearance by reciting at
the quinquennial games the praises of Nero, who ranked him among his chosen friends,
and raised him to the quaestorship. This good understanding, however, was short-lived,
and the courtly bard having been, as he conceived, insulted by his patron, from
that time forward seized every opportunity of attacking him in the most bitter
lampoons, and eventually took a lead in the plot which proved the destruction
of himself and his associates.
III. Another "Vita Lucani," said to be " Ex Commentario Antiquissimo," but which
can scarcely be regarded as possessing much weight, furnishes sundry additional
purticulars. It sets forth that he was born on the 3d of Nov. A. D. 39, that he
was conveyed from his native country to Rome when only eight years old, that his
education was superintended by the most eminent preceptors of the day, that he
gave proofs of extraordinary precocity, attracted the attention of Nero, and while
yet almost a boy was admitted into the senate, raised to the dignity of the quaestorship,
that he exhibited in that capacity gladiatorial shows, and was soon after invested
with a priesthood, that he incurred the hatred of Nero by defeating him and carrying
off the prize with his Orpheus, in a poetical contest at the quinquennial games,
in consequence of which he was prohibited from writing poetry or pleading at the
bar; that, seeking revenge, he found death, and perished on the last day of April,
A. D. 65, in the 26th year of his age. Then follows a catalogue of his works,
many of the names being evidently corrupt: Iliacun. Suturnulia. Catascomon (probably
Catacausmos, i. e. katakausmos). Sylvarum X. Tragoedia Medea imperfecta. Salticae
Fabulac XIV, Hippamata prosa [p. 808] oration in Octavium Sagitlam, et pro eo
De incendio urbis (words which it has been proposed to reduce to sense by reading
Hypomnnemtnta prosa oratione in Octavium Sagittam, et pro eo Declamationes-De
incendio urbis). Epistolarum ex Campania.
As to the accuracy of the above list it is impossible to offer even
an opinion; but it is confirmed to a certain extent, at least, by an old scholiast
upon Statius, generally known as Lutatius, who quotes some lines from the Iliacon
(ad Stat. Theb. iii. 641, and vi. 322), besides which he gives two hexameters
from a piece which he terns Catagonium (ad Stat. Theb. ix. 424). With regard to
the story of the public defeat sustained by Nero, which has been repeated again
and again without any expression of distrust, and has afforded the subject of
a glowing picture to a French critic, we may observe that it is passed over in
silence by all our classical authorities, that it is at variance with the account
given by the compiler of the life attributed to Suetonius, that, Γ priori, it
is highly improbable that any literary man at that period, however vain and headstrong,
much less a court favourite, whose nearest kinsmen were courtiers, would ever
have formed the project of engaging seriously in a combat where success was ruin.
That no such event took place under the circumstances represented above, can be
proved from history, for the quinquennial competition (quinquennale certamen --
triplex, musicum, gymnicum, equestre) instituted by Nero, and called from him
Neronia, was held for the first time A. D. 60, when, as we are expressly informed
by Suetonius, " carminis Latini corona, de qua honestissimnus quisque contenderat
ipsorum consensu concessam sibi recepit," words which indicate most clearly the
amount of opposition offered by these mock antagonists; the second celebration
did not take place until after the death of Piso and his confederates (Tac. Ann.
xiv. 20, xvi. 4; Sueton. Ner. 12, comp. 21; Dion Cass. lxi. 21). In all probability
the fable arose from an obscure expression in the Genethliacon of Statius (v.
58), which, although hard to explain, certainly affords no sufficient foundation
for the structure which has been reared upon it.
The only extant production of Lucan isanheroic poem, in ten books,
entitled Pharsalia, in which the progress of the struggle between Caesar and Pompey
is fully detailed, the events, commencing with the passage of the Rubicon, being
arranged in regular chronological order. The tenth book is imperfect, and the
narrative breaks off abruptly in the middle of the Alexandrian war, but we know
not whether the conclusion has been lost, or whether the author never completed
his task. The whole of what we now possess was certainly not composed at the same
time, for the different parts do not by any means breathe the same spirit. In
the earlier portions we find liberal sentiments expressed in very moderate terms,
accompanied by open and almost fulsome flattery of Nero; but, as we proceed, the
blessings of freedom are more and more loudly proclaimed, and the invectives against
tyranny are couched in language the most offensive, evidently aimed directly at
the emperor. Whether this remarkable change of tone is to be ascribed to the gradual
development of the evil passions of the prince, who excited the brightest hopes
at the outset of his reign, or whether it arose from the personal bitterness of
a disgraced favourite, must be left to conjecture; butt, whichever explanation
we may adopt, it is impossible to believe that the work was published entire during
the life-time of the author, and it appears almost certain that it never received
his last corrections.
A remarkable diversity of opinion exists with regard to the merits
of Lucan. The earlier critics assuming the attitude of contending advocates, absurdly
exaggerate and unreasonably depreciate his powers. And yet great defects and great
beauties are obvious to the impartial observer. We find almost every quality requisite
to form a great poet, but the action of each is clogged and the effect neutralised
by some grievous perversity. We discover vast power, high enthusiasm, burning
energy, copious diction, lively imagination, great learning, a bold and masculine
tone of thought, deep reflection and political wisdom; but the power being ill
governed, communicates a jarring irregularity to the whole mechanism of the piece,
the enthusiasm under no control runs wild into extravagant folly, the language
flows in a strong and copious but tur-bid stream; the learning is disfigured by
pedantic display; the imagination of the poet exhausts itself in far-fetched conceits
and unnatural similes; the philosophic maxims obtruded at unseasonable moments
are received with impatience and disgust we distinctly perceive throughout vigorous
genius struggling, but in vain, against the paralysing influence of a corrupt
system of mental culture and a depraved standard of national taste.
The Editio Princeps of Lucan was printed at Rome, by Sweynheym and
Pannartz, under the superintendence of Andrew, Bishop of Aleria, fol. 1469, and
two impressions, which have no date and no name of place or printer, are set down
by bibliographers next in order. Some improvements were made by Aldus, 8vo. Venet.
1502, 1515, but the first really critical editions are those of Pulmannus, 16mo,
Antv. 1564, 1577, 1592. The text was gradually purified by the labours of Bers
mannus, 8vo. Lips. 1584, 1589; of Grotius, 8vo. Antv. 1614, and Lug. Bat. 1626;
of Cortius, 8vo. Lips. 1726; of Oudendorp, 4to. Lug. Bat. 1728; of Burmann, 4to.
Leid. 1740; of Bentley, 4to. Strawberry Hill, 1760; of Renouard, fol. Paris, 1795;
of Illycinus, Vindob. 4to. 1811; of C. Fr. Weber, 8vo. Lips. 1821-1831; and of
Weise, 8vo. Lips. 1835.
Of these the editions of Oudendorp and Burmann are the most elaborate
and ample, especially the latter, but the most useful for all practical purposes
is that of Weber, which contains an ample collection of Scholia and commentaries,
a dissertation on the verses commonly considered spurious, and various other adminicula;
a fourth volume, however, is required to complete the work, and is intended to
contain remarks on the life and writings of Lucan, an account of the editions
and fragments, complete indices, and other aids.
A supplement to the Pharsalia, in seven books, by Thomas May, being
a translation into Latin of an English supplement appended to his metrical translation,
was published at Leyden in 1630, and will be found at the end of the Amsterdam
edd. of 1658, 1669.
The first book of the Pharsalia was rendered into English, line for
line, by Christopher Marlow, 4to. Lond. 1600, the whole poem by Arthur Gorges,
4to. Lond. 1614, and by Thomas May, 12mo. Lond. 1627. The latter was reprinted
in 1631, with a continuation of the subject until the death [p. 809] of Julius
Caesar, and although pre-eminently dull, seems to have been popular, for it passed
through a great number of editions. The best translation is that of Rowe, which
first appeared in 1718 (fol. Lond.); it is executed throughout with considerable
spirit.
Of the numerous French translations, that of Guillaume de Brebeuf,
4to. Paris, 1654-1655, long enjoyed great reputation, and, notwithstanding the
censures of Boileau, still finds admirers. The prose version of Marmontel, 2 vols.
8vo. Paris, 1766, is in every way detestable.
The German metrical translations of L. von Seckendorff, 8vo. Leip.
1695, and of C. W. von Borck, 8vo. Halle, 1749, are not highly esteemed, and that
in prose by P. L. Haus, 8vo. Mannheim, 1792, is almost as bad as Marmontel's.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΜΠΙΛΜΠΙΛΙΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΣΑΡΑΓΟΣΑ
Martialis, M. Valerius, the epigranmatist. Whatever information we possess regarding the personal history
of this writer is derived almost exclusively from his works; for although he often
boasts of his own far-spread popularity, and although Aelius Verus was wont to
term him " his Virgil," he is not spoken of by any contemporary author except
the younger Pliny, nor by any of those who followed after him, except Spartianus,
Lampridius, and perhaps Sidonius Apollinaris, until we reach the period of the
grammarians, by whom he is frequently quoted. By collecting and comparing the
incidental notices scattered through his pages, we are enabled to determine that
he was a native of Bilbilis in Spain, that he was born upon the first of March,
in the third year of Claudius, A. D. 43, that he canoe to Rome in the thirteenth
year of Nero, A. D. 66, that after residing in the metropolis for a space of thirty-five
years, he again repaired to the place of his birth, in the third year of Trajan,
A. D. 100, and lived there for upwards of three years at least, on the property
of his wife, a lady named Marcella, whom he seems to have married after his return
to the banks of the Salo, and to whose graces and mental charms he pays a warm
tribute. His death, which cannot have taken place before A. D. 104, is mentioned
by the younger Pliny, but we are unabie to fix the date of the epistle (iii. 20,
al. 21) in which the event is recorded. His fame was extended and his bools were
eagerly sought for, not only in the city, but also in Gaul, Germany, Britain,
Getica, and the wild region of the north; he secured the special patronage of
the emperors Titus and Domitian, obtained by his influence the freedom of the
state for several of his friends, and received for himself, although apparently
without family if not unmarried, the highly-valued privileges accorded to those
who were the fathers of three children (jus trium liberorum), together with the
rank of tribunus and the rights of the equestrian order, distinctions which in
his case were probably merely honorary, not implying the discharge of any particular
duties, nor the possession of any considerable fortune. His circumstances, however,
must have been at one time easy; for he had a mansion in the city whose situation
he describes, and a suburban villa near Nomentum, to which he frequently alludes
with pride. It is true that Pliny, in the letter to which we have referred above,
states that he made Martial a pecuniary present to assist in defraying the expenses
of his journey (prosecutus eram viatico secedentem), but when he adds that the
gift was presented as an acknowledgment for a complimentary address, he gives
no hint that the poverty of the bard was such as to render this aid an act of
charity. The assertion that the father of Martial was named Fronto and his mother
Flaccilla, rests upon a mistaken interpretation of the epigram v. 34; and another
curious delusion at one time prevailed with regard to the name of Martial himself.
In the biography of Alexander Severus (c. 38) we find the twenty-ninth epigram
of the fifth book quoted as "Martialis Coci Epigramma," and hence Joannes of Salisbury
(Curial. Nugar. vii. 12, viii. 6, 13), Jacobus Magnus of Toledo (Sopholog. passim),
and Vincentius of Beauvais (Specul. Doctr. iii. 37), suppose Coquus to have been
a cognomen of the poet, and designate him by that appellation. The numerous corruptions
which everywhere abound in the text of the Augustan historians, and the fact that
the word in question is altogether omitted in several MSS. and early editions,
while we find etiam substituted for it in two of the Palatine codices, justify
us in concluding either that coci was foisted in by the carelessness of a transcriber,
or that the true reading is coce, i. e. quoque, which will remove every difficulty.
The extant works of Martial consist of an assemblage of short poems,
all included under the general appellation Epigrammata, upwards of 1500 in number,
divided into fourteen books. Those which form the two last books, usually distinguished
respectively as Xenia and Apophoreta, amounting to 350, consist, with the exception
of the introductions, entirely of distichs, descriptive of a vast variety of small
objects, chiefly articles of food or clothing, such as were usually sent as presents
among friends during the Saturnalia, and on other festive occasions. In addition
to the above, nearly all the printed copies include 33 epigrams, forming a book
apart from the rest, which, ever since the time of Gruter, has been commonly known
as Liber de Spectaculis, because the contents relate entirely to the shows exhibited
by Titus and Domitian, but there is no ancient authority for the title, and hence
the most recent editor restores the proper and simple form Liber Epigrammaton.
The " De Spectaculis" is altogether wanting in most of the best MSS., and of those
which embrace it two only, beth derived from the same archetype, are older than
the fifteenth century; but the most judicious critics are of opinion that the
greater number of the pieces are genuine, although it is not unlikely that spurious
matter may have found its way both into this and the other books, for we find
a remonstrance (x. 100) addressed to an unscrupulous pretender, who was attempting
to palm his own progeny on the public under the cover of Martial's reputation.
Considerable praise is due to the industry displayed by Loyd and Dodwell
in adjusting the chronology of Martial, but the recent labours of Clinton are
much more satisfactory. It is clear from the introductory dedication and notices
in prose and verse, that the different books were collected and published by the
author, sometimes singly and sometimes several at one time. The "Liber de Spectaculis"
and the first nine books of the regular series involve a great number of historical
allusions, extending from the games of Titus (A. D. 80) down to the return of
Domitian from the Sarmatian expedition, in January, A. D. 94. The second book
could not have been written until after the commencement of the Dacian war (ii.
2), that is, not before A. D. 86, nor the sixth until after the triumph over the
Dacians and Germans (A. D. 91); the seventh was written while the Sarmatian war,
which began in A. D. 93, was still in progress, and reaches to the end of that
year. The eighth book opens in January, A. D. 94, the ninth also refers to the
same epoch, but may, as Clinton supposes, have been written in A. D. 95. The whole
of these were composed at Rome, except the third, which was written during a tour
in Gallia Togata. The tenth book was published twice: the first edition was given
hastily to the world; the second, that which we now read (x. 2), celebrates the
arrival of Trajan at Rome, after his accession to the throne (x. 6, 7, 34, 72).
Now, since this event took place A. D. 99, and since the twenty-fourth epigram
of this book was written in honour of the author's fifty-seventh birthday, we
are thus supplied with the data requisite for fixing the epoch of his birth; and
since at the close of the book (x. 104) he had been thirty-four years at Rome,
we can thence calculate the time when he left Spain. The eleventh book seems to
have been published at Rome, early in A. D. 100, and at the close of the year
he returned to Bilbilis. After keeping silence for three years (xii. prooem.),
the twelfth book was despatched from Bilbilis to Rome (xii. 3,18), and in this
lie refers (xii. 5) to the two preceding hooks, published, as we have seen, in
A. D. 99 and 100. Allowing, therefore, for the interval of repose, the twelfth
book must be assigned to A. D. 104. It must be observed, however, that if the
Parthenius, to whom book xi. is dedicated, and who is again addressed in book
xii. (ep. 11), be the "Palatinus Parthenius," the chamberlain of Domitian (iv.
45, v. 6, viii. 28; comp. Sueton. Domit. 16), and if the statement of Victor (Epit.
12), that this Parthenius was cruelly murdered by the soldiery (A. D. 97) soon
after the elevation of Nerva, can be depended upon, it is evident that some pieces
belonging to earlier years were included in the later books It is not necessary,
however, to hold with Clinton, that Ep. xi. 4 is in honour of the third consulship
of Nerva (A. D. 97), since the words and the name Nerva are equally applicable
to the third consulship of Trajan (A. D. 100). Books xiii. and xiv., the Xenia
and Apophoreta, were written chiefly under Domitian (xiii. 4. 14, xiv. 1. 179,
213), although the composition may have been spread over the holidays of many
years.
It is well known that the word Epigram, which originally denoted simply
an inscription, was, in process of time, applied to any brief metrical effusion,
whatever the subject might be, or whatever the form under which it was presented,
and in this sense the heterogeneous mass which constitutes the Greek anthology,
and all the lighter effusions of Catullus, are called epigrams. In many of these,
it is true, the sentiments are pithily worded, and a certain degree of emphasis
is reserved for the conclusion; but Martial first placed the epigram upon the
narrow basis which it now occupies, and from his time the term has been in a great
measure restricted to denote a short poem, in which all the thoughts and expressions
converge to one sharp point, which forms the termination of the piece. It is impossible
not to be amazed by the singular fertility of imagination, the prodigious flow
of wit, and the delicate felicity of language everywhere developed in this extraordinary
collection, and from no source do we derive more copious information on the national
customs and social habits of the Romans during the first century of the empire.
But however much we may admire the genius of the author, we feel no respect for
the character of the man. The inconceivable servility of adulation (e. g. ix.
4, v. 8) with which he loads Domitian, proves that he was a courtier of the lowest
class, and his name is crushed by a load of cold-blooded filth spread ostentatiously
over the whole surface of his writings, too clearly denoting habitual impurity
of thought, combined with habitual impurity of expression.
Three very early impressions of Martial have been described by bibliographers,
all of them in 4to., all in Roman characters, and all without date and without
name of place or of printer. One of these, by many considered as the Editio Princeps,
is supposed by Dibdin (Bibl. Spencer. vol. iv. p. 532) to have been the work of
Ulric Han. The first edition which bears a date, and which contests the honour
of being the Princeps, is that which appeared at Ferrara, 4to. 1471 (Dibdin, Bibl.
Spencer. vol. ii. p. 169), and which does not contain the "Liber de Spectaculis."
It was followed by the edition of Vindelin de Spira, 4to. Venet., without date,
but probably executed about 1472 ; by that of Sweynheym and Pannartz, fol. Rom.
1473; that of Joannes de Colonia, fol. Venet. 1475; and that of Philippus de Lavania,
fol. Mediol. 1478, the two last being merely reprints from Spira. The text, which
was gradually improved by the diligence of Calderinus, fol. Venet. 1474, 1475,
1480, &c., of Aldus, 8vo. Venet. 1501, and Junius, 8vo. Basil. 1559, first assumed
a satisfactory form in the hands of Gruterus, 16mo. Francf. 1602, who boasted,
not without reason, that he had introduced more than a thousand corrections, and
was still further purified by Scriverius, Lug. Bat. 12mo. 1619, Amst. 12mo. 1621,
16mo. 1629, and by Raderus, fol. Mogunt. 1627, Colon. 1628. Schrevelius, in the
8vo Variorum of 1670, exhibited very judiciously the results of the toils of his
predecessors, and no important improvements were made from that time until 1842,
when Schneidewinn published a new recension (8vo. 2 vols. Grem. 1842 founded upon
a most careful examination of a very large number of MSS. His prolegomena contain
a full and highly valuable account of these and other codices, of the places where
they are at present deposited, and of their relative value. No ancient author
stands more in need of an ample and learned commentary, but none has yet appeared
which will satisfy all the wants of the student. The most useful, upon the whole,
is that which is attached to the edition of Lemaire, 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1825,
but Schneidewinn has promised to publish the notes of Fr. Schmieder, the preceptor
of C. O. MΓΌller, of which he speaks in high praise, and expresses a hope that
he may be able to add the remarks compiled by Bοttiger, which passed after his
death into the hands of Weichert.
A great number of translations from Martial will be found dispersed
in the works of the English poets, and numerous selections have been given to
the world from time to time, such as those by Thomas May, 8vo. Lond. 1629; by
Fletcher, 8vo. Lond. 1656; by J. Hughes, in his Miscellanies, 8vo. Lond. 1737;
by W. Hay, 12mo. Lond. 1754 ; by Wright, along with the distichs of Cato, 12mo.
Lond. 1763; by Rogers, in his poems, 12mo. Lond. 1782; and finally a complete
version of the whole by Elphinstone, 4to. Lond. 1782, a singular monument of dulness
and folly. In French we have complete translations into verse, by Marolles, 4to.
Paris, 1675, a translation into prose having been published previously (1655)
by the same author; by Volland, 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1807; and by E. T. Simon,
3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1819. Julius Scaliger rendered a considerable number of the
epigrams into Greek, and these translations will be found placed under the original
text in the edition of Lemaire. (Plin. Ep. iii 20. al. 21 ; Spartian. Ael. Ver.
2; Lamprid. Alex. Sever. 38 ; Sidon. Apoll. Carm. ix. 33; Martial, i. 1, 2, 3,
62, 101, 117, ii. 92, iii. 95, iv. 10, 72, v. 13, 16, 23, vi. 43, 61, 64, 82,
vii. 11, 17, 51, 88, 93, viii. 3, 61, ix. 84, 98, x. 24, 92, 94, 100, 103, 104,
xi. 3, 24, xii. 21, 31, xiii. 3, 119. An account of the celebrated MS. of Martial
preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, will be found in Dalyell, " Some
account of an ancient MS. of Martial," &c., 8vo. Edin. 1812.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΚΟΡΝΤΟΜΠΑ (Πόλη) ΑΝΔΑΛΟΥΣΙΑ
Seneca, M. Annaeus, was a native of Corduba (Cordova) in Spain. The time of his birth is uncertain;
but it may be approximated to. He says (Contr. Praef. i. p. 67) that he considered
that he had heard all the great orators, except Cicero; and that he might have
heard Cicero, if the Civil Wars, by which he means the wars between Pompeius and
Caesar, had not kept him at home (intra coloniam meam). Seneca appears to allude
in this passage to some of Cicero's letters (ad Fam. vii. 33, ix. 16), in which
Cicero speaks of Hirtius and Dolabella being his "dicendi discipuli" (B. C. 46).
It is conjectured that as Seneca might be fifteen in B. C. 46, he may have been
born on or about B. C. 61 (Clinton, Fasti), the year before C. Julius Caesar was
praetor in Spain. Seneca was at Rome in the early period of the power of Augustus,
for he says that he had seen Ovid declaiming before Arellius Fuscus (Contr. x.
p. 172). Ovid was born B. C. 43. Seneca was an intimate friend of the rhetorician
M. Porcius Latro, who was one of Ovid's masters. He also mentions the rhetorician
Marillius, as the master of himself and of Latro. He afterwards returned to Spain,
and married Helvia, by whom he had three sons, L. Annaeus Seneca, L. Annaeus Mela
or Mella, the father of the poet Lucan, and Marcus Novatus. Novatus was the eldest
son, and took the name of Junius Gallio, upon being adopted by Junius Gallio.
Seneca was rich, and he belonged to the equestrian class. The time of his death
is uncertain; but he probably lived till near the end of the reign of Tiberius,
and died at Rome or in Italy. It appears that he was at Rome early in life, from
what has been stated as to Ovid; and he must have returned to Spain, because his
son Lucius was brought to Rome from Spain when lie was an infant. (L. Seneca,
Consol. ad Helviam. )
Seneca was gifted with a prodigious memory. He was a man of letters,
after the fashion of his time, when rhetoric or false eloquence was most in vogue.
His Controversiarum Libri decem, which he addressed to his three sons, were written
when he was an old man. The first, second, seventh, eighth, and tenth books only,
are extant, and these are somewhat mutilated : of the other books only fragments
remain. These Controversiae are rhetorical exercises on imaginary cases, filled
with common-places, such as a man of large verbal memory and great reading carries
about with him as his ready money. Another work of the same class, attributed
to Seneca, and written after the Controversiae, is the Suasoriarum Liber, which
is probably not complete. We may collect, from its contents, what the subjects
were on which the rhetoricians of that age exercised their wits : one of them
is, "Shall Cicero apologise to Marcus Antonius ? Shall he agree to burn his Philippics,
if Antonius requires it?" Another is, "Shall Alexander embark on the ocean?" If
there are some good ideas and apt expressions in these puerile declamations, they
have no value where they stand ; and probably most of them are borrowed. No merit
of form can compensate for worthlessness of matter. The eloquence of the Roman
orators, which was derived from their political institutions, was silenced after
the Civil Wars; and the puerilities of the rhetoricians were the signs of declining
taste.
The Controversiae and Suasoriarum Liber have often been published
with the works of Seneca the son. The edition of A. Schottus appeared at Heidelberg,
1603 and 1604, Paris, 1607 and 1613. The Elzivir print of 1672, contains the notes
of N. Faber, A. Schottus, J. F. Gronovius, and others.
The confusion between Seneca, the father, and Seneca, the philosopher, is fully
cleared up by Lipsius, Electorum Lib. I. cap. 1, Opera, vol. i., ed. 1675.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Jan 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Helvia, wife of M. Annaeus Seneca, of Corduba, the rhetorician, and mother of his three
sons, M. Annaeus Novatus, L. Annaeus Seneca, the philosopher, and L. Annaeus Mela
(Sen. Consol. ad Helv. 2). Helvia was probably a native of Spain, and followed
her husband to Rome, about A. D. 3-5, while her second son was an infant (Ibid.
17). The life of Helvia is contained in Seneca's address of condolence to his
mother (Consolatio ad Helviam) on his exile to Corsica, in the reign of Claudius,
A. D. 47-9. Through the rhetorical amplifications of this address we discover
that Helvia had borne her full share of the sorrows of life. Her mother died in
giving birth to her. She was brought up by a stepmother. She had lost her husband
and a most indulgent uncle within a month of each other; and her grief for the
untimely decease of one of her grandsons was embittered by the exile of her son.
Helvia had at least one sister (Cons. ad Helv. 17), but her name is unknown.
ΚΑΔΙΖ (Πόλη) ΑΝΔΑΛΟΥΣΙΑ
Colummela, is known to us as the most voluminous and important of all the Roman writers upon
rural affairs. The only particulars which can be ascertained with regard to his
personal history are derived exclusively from incidental notices scattered up
and down in his writings. We thus learn, that he was a native of Cadiz (x. 185);
and since he frequently quotes Virgil, names Cornelius Celsus (i. 1.14, iii. 17.4,
&c.), and Seneca (iii. 3.3), as his contemporaries, and is himself repeatedly
referred to by the elder Pliny, it is certain that he must have flourished during
the early part of the first century of the Christian era. At some period of his
life, he visited Syria and Cilicia (ii. 10.18); Rome appears to have been his
ordinary residence (Praef. 20); he possessed a property which he calls Ceretanum
(iii. 3.3, comp. iii. 9.6), but whether situated in Etruria, in Spain, or in Sardinia,
we cannot tell; and from an inscription found at Tarentum it has been conjectured
that he died and was buried in that city. His great work is a systematic treatise
upon agriculture in the most extended acceptation of the term, dedicated to an
unknown Silvinus, and divided into twelve books. The first contains general instructions
for the choice of a farm, the position of the buildings, the distribution of the
various duties among the master and his labourers, and the general arrangement
of a rural establishment; the second is devoted to agriculture proper, the breaking
up and preparation of the ground, and an account of the different kinds of grain,
pulse, and artificial grasses, with the tillage appropriate for each; the third,
fourth, and fifth are occupied with the cultivation of fruit trees, especially
the vine and the olive; the sixth contains directions for choosing, breeding,
and rearing oxen, horses, and mules, together with an essay on the veterinary
art; the seventh discusses the same topics with reference to asses, sheep, goats,
swine, and dogs; the eighth embraces precepts for the management of poultry and
fishponds; the ninth is on bees; the tenth, composed in dactylic hexameters, treats
of gardening, forming a sort of supplement to the Georgics (comp. Virg. Georg.
iv.); in the eleventh are detailed the duties of a villicus, followed by a Calendarium
Rusticum, in which the times and seasons for the different kinds of work are marked
down in connexion with the risings and settings of the stars, and various astronomical
and atmospherical phaenomena; and the twelfth winds up the whole with a series
of receipts for manufacturing different kinds of wine, and for pickling and preserving
vegetables and fruits.
In addition to the above, we have one book "De Arboribus", which is
of considerable value, since it contains extracts from ancient authorities now
lost, and throws much light on the fifth book of the larger work, which appears
under a very corrupt form in many of the MSS. Cassiodorus (Divin. Lect. 28) mentions
sixteen books of Columella, from which some critics have imagined, that the tract
"De Arboribus" was one of four written at an early period, presenting the outline
or first sketch of the complete production. The MSS. from which Columella was
first printed inserted the "De Arboribus" as the third book of the whole work,
and hence in the older editions that which is now the third book is marked as
the fourth, and so on for all the rest in succession.
The Latinity of Columella is in no way inferior to that of his contemporaries,
and belongs to the best period of the Silver Age. His style is easy and copious
to exuberance, while the fondness which he displays for multiplying and varying
his mode of expression is out of taste when we consider the nature of his theme,
and not compatible with the close precision which we have a right to expect in
a work professedly didactic. Although we miss the racy quaintness of Cato and
the varied knowledge and highly cultivated mind of Varro, we find here a far greater
amount of information than they convey, and could we persuade ourselves that the
whole was derived from personal observation and experience, we might feel satisfied
that our knowledge of the rural economy of that epoch was tolerably complete.
But the extreme carelessness with which the Calendar has been compiled from foreign
sources may induce the suspicion, that other matters also may have been taken
upon trust; for no man that had actually studied the appearance of the heavens
with the eye of a practical farmer could ever have set down in an almanac intended
for the use of Italian husbandmen observations copied from parapegmata calculated
for the latitudes of Athens and Alexandria.
With the exception of Cassiodorus, Servius, and Isidorus, scarcely
any of the ancient grammarians notice Columella, whose works lay long concealed
and were unknown even in the tenth century. The Editio Princeps was printed at
Venice by Nic. Jenson, 1472, in a collection of "Rei Rusticae Scriptores" containing
Cato, Terentius Varro, Columella, and Palladius Rutilius. The first edition in
which the "Liber de Arboribus" was separated from the rest was that superintended
by Jucundus of Verona and published by Aldus, Venice, 1514. The most valuable
editions are those contained in the "Scriptores Rei Rusticae veteres Latini,"
edited by Gesner, Lips. 1735, reprinted, with the collation of an important Paris
MS., by Ernesti, Lips. 1773; and in the Scriptores Rei Rusticae of J. G. Schneider,
Lips. 1794. This last must be considered in every respect the most complete, and
in the preface will be found a very full account of the different MSS. and of
the gradual progress and improvement of the text.
The tenth book, under the title " J. Moderati Columellae Hortuli Commentarium",
appeared in a separate form at Rome, about 1472, from the press of Adam Rot, and
was frequently reprinted in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Translations exist in English, Lond. 1745; in French by Cotereau,
Paris 1551; in Italian by P. Lauro, Venez. 1554, 1557, and 1559, by Bened. del
Bene, Verona 1808; and in German, among many others, by M. C. Curtius, Hamburg
1769.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΑΜΠΟΥΡΙΑΣ (Χωριό) ΙΣΠΑΝΙΑ
Hanno, a Carthaginian officer left in Spain by Hannibal when that general crossed the Pyrenees, B. C. 218. An army of 10,000 foot and 1000 horse was placed under his orders, with which he was to guard the newly-conquered province between the Iberus and the Pyrenees. On the arrival of Cn. Scipio with a Roman army at Emporia, Hanno, alarmed at the rapid spread of disaffection throughout his province, hastened to engage the Roman general, but was totally defeated, the greater part of his army cut to pieces, and lie himself taken prisoner. (Polyb. iii. 35, 76; Liv. xxi. 23, 60.)
ΚΟΡΝΤΟΜΠΑ (Πόλη) ΑΝΔΑΛΟΥΣΙΑ
Massa, Baebius or Bebius, one of the most infamous informers of the latter end of the reign of Domitian, is first mentioned in A. D. 70, as one of the procurators in Africa, when he betrayed Piso, and is described by the great historian as "jam tune optimo cuique exitiosus." (Tac. Hist. iv. 50.) He was afterwards governor of the province of Baetica, which he oppressed so unmercifully, that he was accused by the inhabitants on his return to Rome. The cause of the provincials was pleaded by Pliny the younger and Herennius Senecio, and Massa was condemned in the same year that Agricola died, A. D. 93; but he seems to have escaped punishment by the favour of Domitian; and from this time became one of the informers and great favourites of the tyrant. (Tac. Agric. 45; Plin. Ep. vii. 33, comp. iii. 4, vi. 29 ; Juv. i. 34.)
ΣΑΝΤΙΠΟΝΣ (Πόλη) ΑΝΔΑΛΟΥΣΙΑ
Hirtuleius, quaestor after the year B. C. 86, was the author of an amendment on
the law of L. Valerius Flaccus, consul in the same year. The Valerian law had
cancelled debts by decreeing that only a quadrans should be paid to the creditor.
The amendment of Hirtuleius, by tripling the dividend to be paid, rendered the
law almost nugatory (Cic. pro Font. 1). It is doubtful whether this Hirtuleius
were the same with the quaestor and legatus of Sertorius in Spain (Plut. Sert.
12; Front. Strat. i. 5.8), who in B. C. 79, on the banks of the Anas, defeated
L. Domitius Ahenobarbus -Therius, legatus of Q. Metellus Pius, and L. Manilius,
praetor of Narbonne, in the neighbourhood of Lerida. But early in the following
spring Hirtuleius was himself routed and slain near Italica in Baetica by Metellus.
Hirtuleius was so highly esteemed as an officer by Sertorius, that the latter
is said to have stabbed the messenger who brought the news of his death, that
the report of it might not discourage his own soldiers.
(Liv. Epit. 90; Flor. iii. 22; Appian, B. C. i. 109; Schol. Bob. in Cic. pro Flacc.;
Eutrop. vi. 1; Oros. v. 23; Front. Strat. ii . 1.2, 3.5, 7.5, ii. 5.31, iv. 5.19;
Sallust. Hist. ii. ap. Non. s. v. Sagum.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Jan 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΚΟΡΝΤΟΒΑ (Επαρχία) ΑΝΔΑΛΟΥΣΙΑ
1126 - 1198
The Catholic Encyclopedia
ΚΟΡΝΤΟΜΠΑ (Πόλη) ΑΝΔΑΛΟΥΣΙΑ
Seneca, L. Annaeus, the son of M. Annaeus Seneca, was born at Corduba, probably
about a few years B. C., and brought to Rome by his parents when he was a child.
Though he was naturally of a weak body, he was a hard student from his youth,
and he devoted himself with great ardour to rhetoric and philosophy. He also soon
gained distinction as a pleader of causes, and he excited the jealousy and hatred
of Caligula by the ability with which he conducted a case in the senate before
the emperor. He was spared, it is said, because Caligula was assured by one of
his mistresses that Seneca would soon die of disease. The emperor also affected
to despise the eloquence of Seneca : he said that it was sand without lime (Sueton.
Calig. 53). Seneca obtained the quaestorship, but the time is uncertain. In the
first year of the reign of Claudius (A. D. 41). the successor of Caligula, Seneca
was banished to Corsica. Claudius had recalled to Rome his nieces Agrippina and
Julia whom their brother Caligula had exiled to the island of Pontia (Ponza).
It seems probable that Messalina, the wife of Claudius, was jealous of the influence
of Julia with Claudius, and hated her for her haughty behaviour. Julia was again
exiled, and Seneca's intimacy with her was a pretext for making him share her
disgrace. What the facts really were is unknown; and the innocence of Seneca and
Julia is at least as probable as their guilt, when Messalina was the accuser.
In his exile in Corsica Seneca had the opportunity of practising the
philosophy of the Stoics, to which he had attached himself. His Consolatio ad
Helviam, or consolatory letter to his mother, was written during his residence
in the island. If the Consolatio ad Polybium, which was also written during his
exile, is the work of Seneca, it does him no credit. Polybius was the powerful
freedman of Claudius, and the Consolatio is intended to comfort him on the occasion
of the loss of his brother. But it also contains adulation of the emperor, and
many expressions unworthy of a true Stoic, or of an honest man. The object of
the address to Polybius was to have his sentence of exile recalled, even at the
cost of his character.
After eight years' residence in Corsica Seneca was recalled A. D.
49, by the influence of Agrippina (Tac. Ann. xii. 8), who had just married her
uncle the emperor Claudius. From this time the life of Seneca is closely connected
with that of Nero, and Tacitus is the chief authority for both. On his return
he obtained a praetorship, and was made the tutor of the young Domitius, afterwards
the emperor Nero, who was the son of Agrippina by a former husband. Agrippina
relied on the reputation of Seneca and his advice as a means of securing the succession
to her son; and she trusted to his gratitude to herself as a guarantee for his
fidelity to her interests, and to his hatred of Claudius for the wrongs that he
had suffered from him.
It was unfortunate that the philosopher had so bad a pupil, but we
cannot blame him for all that Nero learned and all that he did not learn. The
youth had a taste for what was showy and superficial : he had no capacity for
the studies which befit a man who has to govern a state. If Seneca had made a
rhetorician of him after his own taste, that would have been something, but Domitius
had not even the low ability to distinguish himself as a talker. There is no evidence
to justify the imputation that Seneca encouraged his vicious propensities ; and
if Nero had followed the advice contained in Seneca's treatise, De Clementia ad
Neronem Caesarem, written in the second year of Nero's reign, the young emperor
might have been happy, and his administration beneficent. That Seneca would look
upon his connection with Nero as a means of improving his fortunes and enjoying
power, is just what most other men would have done, and would do now in the same
circumstances; and that a man with such views would not be very rigid towards
an unruly pupil is a reasonable inference. We know that he did not make Nero a
wise man or a good man; we do not know that he helped to make him worse than he
would have been; and in the absence of positive evidence of his corrupting the
youth and with the positive evidence of his own writings in his favour, it is
a fair and just conclusion that he did as much with Nero as a man could who had
accepted. and chose to retain a post in which his character could not possibly
escape some imputation. [p. 779] He who consents to be the tutor of a vicious
youth of high station, whom he cannot control, must be content to take the advantages
of his post, with the risk of being blamed for his pupil's vices.
Claudius was poisoned by his niece and wife Agrippina A. D. 54, and
Nero succeeded to the Imperial power. Tacitus (Ann. xiii. 2, &c.) states that
both Burrus and Seneca attempted to check the young emperor's vicious propensities;
and both combined to resist his mother's arrogant pretensions. A woman assuming
the direct exercise of political power was a thing that the Romans had not yet
seen, and it was inconsistent with all their notions. The opposition of Burrus
and Seneca to the emperor's mother was the duty of good citizens.
Nero pronounced the funeral oration in memory of Claudius. The panegyric
on the deceased emperor was listened to with decency and patience till Nero came
to that part of his discourse in which he spoke of the foresight and wisdom of
Claudius, when there was a general laugh. The speech, which Nero delivered, was
written by Seneca in a florid style, suited to the taste of the age, with little
regard to truth, and none for his own character, for he afterwards wrote a satire
(Apocolocyntosis) to ridicule the Apotheosis of the man whom he had despised and
praised.
In the first year of his reign Nero affected mildness and clemency, and such was
the tone of his orationes to the senate; but these professions were the words
of Seneca, uttered by the mouth of Nero; the object of Seneca was, as Tacitus
says, either to give public evidence of the integrity of his counsels to the emperor,
or to display his abilities. There might be something of both in his motives;
but it is consistent with a fair judgment and the character of Seneca's writings
to believe that he did attempt to keep Nero within the limits of decency and humanity.
A somewhat ambiguous passage of Tacitus (Ann. xiii. 13), seems to affirm that
he endeavoured to veil Nero's amour with Acte under a decent covering; and Cluvius
(Tacit. Ann. xiv. 2) states that the amour with Acte was encouraged to prevent
a detestable crime. "What a part for a Stoic to play," says one of Seneca's biographers,
" whose duty it was to recall his disciple to the arms of his wife, the virtuous
Octavia". The Stoic probably did the best that he could under the circumstances.
The murder of Britannicus A. D. 55 was followed by large gifts from
Nero to his friends; and "there were not wanting persons to affirm, that men who
claimed a character for sober seriousness, divided among themselves houses and
villae at that time, as if it were so much booty" (Tacit. Ann. xiii. 18). The
allusion is supposed to be to Seneca and Burrus; but the passage of Tacitus contains
no distinct charge against either of them. It was unlucky for Seneca's reputation
that he was rich; for a man in power cannot grow rich, even by honest means, without
having dishonesty imputed to him.
The struggle for dominion between Nero and his mother could only be
decided by the ruin of one of them; and if Seneca wished to enjoy credit with
Nero, it was necessary that he should get rid of this imperious woman. Fabius
Rusticus says that Seneca maintained Burrus in his post of Praefectus Praetorio,
when Nero intended to remove him on the ground of his supposed adherence to the
cause of Agrippina (Tacit. Ann. xiii. 20). But Plinius and Cluvius Rufus said
that Nero never doubted the fidelity of Burrus, and that in his alarm and his
impatience to get rid of his mother, he could not be pacified till Burrus promised
that she should be put to death, if she should be con victed of the designs which
were imputed to her. Burrus and Seneca paid Agrippina a visit, with some freedmen,
to be witnesses of what took place. Burrus charged her with treasonable designs,
to which Agrippina replied with indignant eloquence. A reconciliation with Nero
followed, her accusers were punished, and her friends rewarded; neither Burrus
nor Seneca was under any imputation of having prejudiced Nero against her.
The affair of P. Suilius (A. D. 58) brought some discredit on Seneca.
Suilius had been a formidable instrument of tyranny under Claudius, and was justly
hated. He was charged under a Senatusconsultum, which had amended the Lex Cincia,
with receiving money for pleading causes; a feeble pretext for crushing an odious
man. The defence of Suilius was an attack on Seneca : he charged him with debauching
Julia, the daughter of Germanicus, and hinted at his commerce with women of the
imperial family, probably meaning Agrippina; and he asked by what wisdom, by what
precepts of philosophy he had, during a four-years' intimacy with an emperor,
amassed a fortune of three hundred million sestertii : at Rome he was a hunter
after testamentary gifts, an ensnarer of those who were childless; Italy and the
provinces were drained by his exorbitant usury. His own profits, Suilius said,
were moderate, and earned with toil and lie would endure any thing rather than
humble himself before an upstart favourite. We must assume that Suilius supposed
that Seneca had moved against him in this matter : his words were reported to
Seneca, and perhaps aggravated. A charge was got up against him, it is not said
by whom, as to his infamous delations under Claudius, and he was banished to the
Balearic Islands. The words of such a man are no proof of Seneca's guilt; but
the enormous wealth of Seneca gave a colour of truth to any thing that was said
against him (Tacit. Ann. xiii. 42).
Nero's passion for Poppaea brought the contest between him and his
mother to a crisis (Tacit. Ann. xiv. 1. A. D. 59). Poppaea burned to become the
wife of Nero, but she saw that it was impossible while Agrippina lived. She plied
Nero with her blandishments, her tears, and even her sarcasms; and at last he
resolved to kill his mother, and the only question was as to the way of doing
it. After an unsuccessful attempt to drown her, Nero, terrified at the failure
of his plan, sent for Burrus and Seneca. Whether they were previously acquainted
with the design against Agrippina's life is uncertain (Tacit. Ann. xiv. 7). Dion
Cassius (lxi. 12), with his usual malignity, accuses Seneca of instigating Nero
to the crime. Burrus and Seneca were long silent in the presence of Nero; either
they thought that it would be useless to dissuade the emperor from his purpose,
or, what is more probable, they saw that either the mother or the son must perish.
Seneca broke the silence by asking Burrus if orders should be given to the soldiers
to out Agrippina to death. Burrus replied that the soldiers were devoted to the
family of Germanicus, and would not shed the blood of his children; but Anicetus,
he added, would finish what he had begun. Anicetus performed his promise, and
Agrippina died by the hand of assassins, A. D. 60.
The imperial murderer fled as if he could leave his conscience behind
him, to the city of Naples, whence he addressed a letter to the senate upon the
death of his mother : he charged her with a conspiracy against himself, on the
failure of which she had committed suicide. The author of the letter was Seneca
(Tacit. Ann. xiv. 11) : it is not extant, but a few words from it are quoted by
Quintilian (Inst. Orat. viii. 5). This letter is Seneca's great condemnation :
he had consented to Agrippina being assassinated, and he added to this crime the
despicable subterfuge of a lie which nobody could believe. From this time Nero
felt more free, and Seneca in due time had his reward.
In A. D. 63 Burrus died, and he may have been poisoned. Nero appointed
two commanders of the Praetorians in place of Burrus, Fennius Rufus and Sofonius
Tigellinus, whose infamy has been perpetuated with that of his master. The death
of Burrus broke the power of Seneca : it diminished his influence towards good,
and Nero was now in the hands of persons who were exactly suited to his taste.
Tigellinus and Rufus began an attack on Seneca. His enormous wealth, a never-failing
matter of charge against Seneca, his gardens and villae, more magnificent than
those of the emperor, his exclusive claims to eloquence, and his disparagement
of Nero's skill in driving and singing, were all urged against him; and it was
time, they said, for Nero to get rid of a teacher. Seneca heard of the charges
against him : he was rich, and he knew that Nero wanted money. He obtained an
interview in which he addressed the emperor in a studied speech (Tacit. Ann. xiv.
53). He asked for permission to retire, and offered to surrender all that he had.
Nero affected to be grateful for his past services, refused the proffered gift,
and sent him away with perfidious assurances of his respect and affection. Seneca
now altered his mode of life, saw little company, and seldom visited the city,
on the ground of feeble health, or being occupied with his philosophical studies.
When Nero, after plundering Italy and the provinces, began, like the
Eighth Henry of England, the pillage of the temples and of things dedicated to
religion, in order to meet his extravagant expenditure, Seneca, who feared that
he might be involved in the odium of the sacrilege, though it is not said why
he feared (Tacit. Ann. xv. 45), prayed for leave to retire into the country; and
when it was refused, he kept his chamber on the pretence of sickness. A story
was current that Nero tried to poison him, but the attempt failed. The conspiracy
of Piso gave the emperor a pretext for a more direct attack on his teacher's life
though there was not complete evidence of Seneca being a party to the conspiracy
(Tacit. Ann. xv. 60). Certain words of Seneca to Antonius Natalis, which were
of a suspicious character, were repeated to Nero; and Granius Sylvanus, a tribune
of a Praetorian cohort, was sent by the emperor to Seneca to demand the meaning
of them. It happened that Seneca was returning from Campania, and had rested at
a villa four miles from the city. In the evening the tribune with a band of soldiers
surrounded the house where Seneca was supping with his wife Pompeia Paullina and
two friends. Seneca explained their words that he had used to Natalis, and the
tribune carried them to the emperor. Nero was in close council with the two great
ministers of his cruelty, his wife Poppaea and Tigellinus. Nero asked if Seneca
was preparing to die voluntarily; and on the tribune replying that he saw no signs
of fear, no gloomy indication in his words or countenance, he was ordered to go
back and give him notice to die. The tribune, himself a party to the conspiracy
of Piso, did not show himself again to Seneca, but he sent in a centurion with
the order of death. Without showing any sign of alarm, Seneca asked for his testament,
apparently with the intention of adding some legacies. but the centurion refused
to allow this, on which Seneca told his friends that since he was forbidden to
reward their services, his last testamentary bequest must be tile portraiture
of his life, which, if they kept in their memory. they would have the reputation
of an honest lite and of a constant friendship. He cheered his weeping friends
by reminding them of the lessons of philosophy, and that he who had murdered a
brother and a mother could not be expected to spare his teacher. Embracing his
wife, he prayed her to moderate her grief, and to console herself for the loss
of her husband by the reflection that lie had lived an honourable life. But as
Paullina protested that she would die with him, Seneca consented, and the same
blow opened the veins in the arms of both. Seneca's body was attenuated by age
and meagre diet; the blood would not flow easily, and he opened the veins in his
legs. His torture was excessive ; and to save himself and his wife the pain of
seeing one another suffer, he bade her retire to her chamber. His last words were
taken down in writing by persons who were called in for the purpose, and were
afterwards published. Tacitus for some reason has not given the words, and he
did not think proper to give the substance of them. The soldiers, at the entreaty
of the slaves and freedmen of Seneca, stopped the wounds of Paullina, and she
lived a few years longer; but her pallid face showed that the stream of life was
largely drawn from her. Scandal, as usual, said that when she found that Nero
did not wish her death, she was easily prevailed upon to submit to live. Seneca's
torments being still prolonged, he took hemlock from his friend and physician,
Statius Annaeus, but it had no effect. At last he entered a warm bath, and as
he sprinkled some of the water on the slaves nearest to him, he said, that he
made a libation to Jupiter the Liberator. He was then taken into a vapour stove,
where he was quickly suffocated, A. D. 65. The body was burnt without ceremony,
according to the instructions in a codicil to his will, which was made when he
was in the full enjoyment of power and wealth. Seneca died, as was the fashion
among the Romans, with the courage of a stoic; but with somewhat of a theatrical
affectation which detracts from the dignity of the scene. Tacitus has not strongly
censured Seneca in any passage; but Dion Cassius collected from among the contradictory
memoirs of the time every thing that was most unfavourable to his character. Seneca's
great misfortune was to have known Nero; and though we cannot say that he was
a truly great or a truly good man, his character will not lose by comparison with
that of many others who have been placed in equally difficult eircumstances. Whether
he was privy to Piso's conspiracy or not, is a matter which has been warmly discussed,
but cannot be determined ; nor if we suppose that he was in the conspiracy, would
that circumstance be an additional blot on the life of a mall who had aided the
tyrant in killing his mother. Seneca's fame rests on his numerous writings, which,
with many faults, have also great merits.
The following are Seneca's works:
1. De Ira, in three books, addressed to Novatus. Opinions vary as to the time
when it was written. Lipsius concludes from book iii. c. 18, that it was written
in the time of Caligula, in which case it would be the earliest of Seneca's works.
But this conclusion is by no means certain; and it is unlikely that he wrote so
freely of Caligula while the "beast" was alive. The author has exhausted
the subject. In the first book he combats what Aristotle says of Anger in his
Ethic.
2. De Consolatione ad Helviam Matrem Liber, which has been already mentioned.
It is one of Seneca's best treatises. The conclusion from c. 17, that Seneca had
been in Egypt, is by no means sure.
3. De Consolatione ad Polybium Liber, which has also been already mentioned: it
was written in the third year of Seneca's Corsican exile. It is sometimes placed
after the treatise De Brevitate Vitae. Diderot and others maintain that it is
not the composition of Seneca, because it is not worthy of him, and contains sentiments
inconsistent with the Consolatio ad Helviam and ad Marciam. But this internal
evidence is not supported by any external evidence; and an unprejudiced criticism
will vindicate the work as Seneca's, though it disgraces him. It contains (c.
26) a humiliating picture of the Roman world crouching before an enfranchised
slave and a stupid master.
4. Liber de Consolatione ad Marciam, written after his return from exile, was
designed to console Marcia for the loss of her son. Marcia was the daughter of
A. Cremutius Cordus (Tacit. Ann. iv. 34; and the Consol. ad Marciam, c. 22).
5. De Providentia Liber, or Quare bonis viris mala accidant cum sit Providentia,
is addressed to the younger Lucilius, procurator of Sicily. The question that
is here discussed often engaged the ancient philosophers : the stoical solution
of the difficulty is that suicide is the remedy when misfortune has become intolerable.
Lipsius calls this a Golden Book. In this discourse Seneca says that he intends
to prove " that Providence hath a power over all things, and that God is
always present with us" (c.1).
6. De Animi Tranquillitate, addressed to Serenus, probably written soon after
Seneca's return from exile. It is in the form of a letter rather than a treatise
: the object is to discover the means by which tranquillity of mind can be obtained.
This work may be compared with the treatise of Plutarch peri euthumias. This treatise
was written soon after Seneca's return from exile (c. 1), when he was elevated
to the praetorship, and had become Nero's tutor. He speaks as one who felt himself
ill at ease in the splendour of the palace after living a solitary and frugal
life.
7. De Constantia Sapientis seu quod in sapientem non cadit injuria, also addressed
to Serenus, is founded on the stoical doctrine of the impassiveness of the wise
man. "This book", saith Lipsius, "betokeneth a great mind, as great
a wit, and much eloquence; in one word, it is one of his best".
8. De Clementia ad Neronem Caesarem Libriduo, which has been already mentioned.
There is too much of the flatterer in this; but the advice is good. The second
book is incomplete. It is in the first chapter of this second book that the anecdote
is told of Nero's unwillingness to sign a sentence of execution, and his exclamation,
"I would I could neither read nor write." The work was written at the
beginning of Nero's reign.
9. De Brevitate Vitae ad Paulinum Liber, recommends the proper employment of time
and the getting of wisdom as the chief purpose of life. Life is not really short,
but we make it so.
10. De Vita Beata ad Gallionem, addressed to his brother, L. Junius Gallio, is
probably one of the later works of Seneca, in which he maintains the stoical doctrine
that there is no happiness without virtue; but he does not deny that other things,
as health and riches, have their value. "No man hath condemned wisdom to
perpetual poverty". The conclusion of the treatise is lost.
11. De Otio aut Secessu Sapientis, is sometimes joined to No. 10.
12. De Beneficiis Libri septem, addressed to Aebucius Liberalis, is an excellent
discussion of the way of conferring a favour, and of the duties of the giver and
of the receiver. The handling is not very methodical, but it is very complete.
It is a treatise which all persons might read with profit. The seventh chapter
of the fourth book contains the striking passage on Nature and God: "What
else is Nature but God, and a divine being and reason which by his searching assistance
resideth in the world and all the parts thereof?" &c.
13. Epistolae ad Lucilium, one hundred and twenty-four in number, are not the
correspondence of daily life, like that of Cicero, but a collection of moral maxims
and remarks without any systematic order. They contain much good matter, and have
been favourite reading with many distinguished men. Montaigne was a great admirer
of them, and thought them the best of Seneca's writings (Essay of Books). It is
possible that these letters, and indeed many of Seneca's moral treatises, were
written in the latter part of his life, and probably after he had lost the favour
of Nero. That Seneca sought consolation and tranquillity of mind in literary occupation,
is manifest. The thoughts which engaged him and the maxims which he inculcated
on others were consolatory to himself at least, while he was busied with putting
them into form; and that is as much as most philosophers get from their speculations
in the way of comfort. Seneca was old when he wrote these epistles (Ep. 12).
14. Apocolocyntosis, is a satire against the emperor Claudius. The word is a play
on the term Apotheosis or deification, and is equivalent in meaning to Pumpkinification,
or the reception of Claudius among the pumpkins. The subject was well enough,
but the treatment has no great merit; and Seneca probably had no other object
than to gratify his spite against the emperor. If such a work was published in
the lifetime of Seneca, he must have well known that it would not displease either
Agrippina or Nero; and it leads to the probable inference, that the poisoning
of Claudius was not a matter which he would complain of. In fact, the manner of
the death of Claudius was a subject for the wits of that day to sport with, (Dion
Cass. Ix. 35, and the notes of Reimarus).
15. Quaestionum Naturalium Libri septem, addressed to Lucilius Junior, is one
of the few Roman works in which physical matters are treated of. It is not a systematic
work, but a collection of natural facts from various writers, G reek and Roman,
many of which are curious. The first book treats of meteors, the second of thunder
and lightning, the third of water, the fourth of hail, snow, and ice, the fifth
of winds, the sixth of earthquakes and the sources of the Nile, and the seventh
of comets. Moral remarks are scattered through the work ; and indeed the design
of the whole appears to be to find a foundation for ethic, the chief part of philosophy,
in the knowledge of nature (Physic). He says (book vii. c. 30):"How many
things are there besides comets that pass in secret, and never discover themselves
to men's eyes? For God hath not made all things subject to human sight. How little
see we of that which is enclosed in so great an orb? Even he who manage these
things, who have created them, who have founded the world, and have inclosed it
about himself, and is the greater and better part of this his work, is not subject
to our eves, but is to be visited by our thoughts". This is the man whom
some have called an Atheist.
The judgments on Seneca's writings have been as various as the opinions about
his character; and both in extremes. It has been said of him that he looks best
in quotations; but this is an admission that there is something worth quoting,
which cannot be said of all writers. That Seneca possessed great mental powers
cannot be doubted. He had seen much of human life, and he knew well what man was.
His philosophy, so far as he adopted a system, was the stoical, but it was rather
an eclecticism of stoicism than pure stoicism. His style is antithetical, and
apparently laboured ; and when there is much labour, there is generally affectation.
Yet his language is clear and forcible ; it is not mere words : there is thought
always. It would not be easy to name any modern writer who has treated on morality,
and has said so much that is practically good and true, or has treated the matter
in so attractive a way.
People will judge of Seneca, as they do of most moral writers, by
the measure of their own opinions. The less a man cares for the practical, the
real, the less will he value Seneca. The more a man envelops himself in words
and ideas without exact meaning, the less will he comprehend a writer who does
not merely deal in words, but has ideas with something to correspond to them.
Montaigne (Defence of Seneca and Plutarch) says : " the familiarity I have had
with these two authors, and the assistance they have lent to my age and to my
book, which is wholly compiled of what I have borrowed from them, obliges me to
stand up for their honour." In another place (Essay of Books) he compares Seneca
and Plutarch in his usual lively way : his opinion of the philosophical works
of Cicero is not so favourable as of Seneca's; and herein many people will agree
with him. The judgment of Ritter (Geschichte der Philosophie) is a curious specimen
of criticism. If Diderot is extravagant in his praise of Seneca, Ritter and others
are equally extravagant in their censure. Ritter finds contradictions in Seneca;
and such we may expect in a man who lived the life that he did. We cannot suppose
that his conscience always approved of his acts. A practical philosopher, who
has lived in the world, must often have done that which he would wish undone;
and the contradiction which appears between a man's acts and his principles will
appear in his writings. Ritter remarks that he has treated of the doctrines of
Seneca at some length, because they show how little talent the Romans had for
philosophy. Perhaps the historian of Philosophy may provoke a like remark by his
criticisms. Seneca applied himself chiefly to Ethic, which in its wide sense is
the art of living happily, without which philosophy has no value. To Physic he
paid some attention, and he does not undervalue it as an instrument towards an
end. Of the other division of philosophy, Logic, he knew little and cared nothing;
and it is of no value except so far as it may be an aid to Physic and Ethic. Ritter
says: "his zeal to establish a science which shall be simple and merely adapted
for the practical purpose of purity of morals, carries him so far, that he declares
even the liberal sciences and philosophical Physic to be useless, so far as they
are not capable of application to Ethic. This zeal leads him to expressions which
are scarcely reconcileable with a philosophical style of thinking. To wish to
know no more than is necessary is a kind of intemperance; such a knowledge makes
us only proud : he considers it as a sample of the prevailing luxury". The passages
to which Ritter refers are in the Epistolae (Ep. 88, 106). The latter contains
the striking passage: "sed nos ut caetera in supervacuum diffundimus, ita philosophiam
ipsam. Quemadmodum omnium rerum, sic litterarum quoque intemperantia laboramus;
non vitae, sed scholae discimus". Which is the wiser, Seneca or his critic, let
every man judge for himself. There is enough in Ethic, or the practical application
of knowledge to life, to employ us all. Those who have no taste for Ethic, as
thus understood, may indulge, if they have money and leisure, in the "intemperantia
litterarum", of which kind of intemperance a large part of all literature is an
example.
Seneca, like other educated Romans, rejected the superstition of his
country: he looked upon the ceremonials of religion as a matter of custom and
fashion, and nothing more. His religion is simple Deism: the Deity acts-in man
and in all things; which is the same thing that Paul said when he addressed the
Athenians, "for in him (God) we live and move and have our being" (Acts, xvii.
28). Indeed there have been persons who, with the help of an active imagination,
have made Seneca a Christian, and to have been acquainted with Paul, which is
a possible thing, but cannot be proved. The resemblance between many passages
in Seneca and passages in the New Testament is merely an accidental circumstance.
Similar resemblances occur in the Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus.
The fourteen letters of Seneca to Paul, which are printed in the old editions
of Seneca, are apocryphal.
Seneca wrote other works which are no longer extant, though the titles
of some of them are known. Quintilian (Inst. Or. x. 1.128) says, he treated also
on almost every subject of study; for both orations of his, and poems. and epistles,
and dialogues, are extant". The fragments of the lost works are contained in the
complete editions of Seneca. Niebuhr discovered the fragment of a work on Friendship
in the Vatican, and the beginning of another "De Vita Patris".
Besides the works which have been enumerated there are extant ten
tragedies, which are attributed to Seneca: Quintilian (Inst. Or. ix. 2.9) and
other Latin writers quote these plays as the works of Seneca. The plays are entitled
Hercules Furens, Thyestes, Thebais or Phoenissae, Hippolytus or Phaedra, Oedipus,
Troades or Hecuba, Medea, Agamemnon, Hercules Oetaeus, and Octavia. After all
the discussion that there has been about the authorship of these tragedies, there
seems no other person to whom we can assign then than Seneca, the teacher of Nero.
The titles themselves, with the exception of the Octavia, indicate sufficiently
what the tragedies are. Greek mythological subjects treated in a peculiar fashion.
They are written in Iambic senarii, interspersed with choral parts, in anapaestic
and other metres. The subject of the Octavia is Nero's ill-treatment of his wife,
his passion for Poppaea, and the exile of Octavia. Seneca himself is one of the
personages of the drama, and he is introduced in the second act, deploring the
vices of the age and his own unhappiness in his elevated station. There seems
no reason why this tragedy should not be attributed to the same author as tile
other nine, except the fact that it is not contained in the oldest Florentine
MS. of the tragedies; nor is there such difference between this and the other
tragedies, in character and expression, as to make it a probable conclusion that
it is not by the same hand. If it is a work of Seneca, it must have been written
after the exile of Octavia. A. D. 62.
These tragedies are not adapted, and certainly were never intended
for the stage. They were designed for reading or for recitation after the Roman
fashion, and they bear the stamp of a rhetorical age. The Greek tragedies themselves,
of which these Latin tragedies are an imitation in form only, are overloaded with
declamation, especially those of Euripides. The tragedies of Seneca contain many
striking passages, and have some merit as poems. Moral sentiments and maxims abound,
and the style and character of Seneca are as conspicuous here as in his prose
works. But there is a wonderful difference between the Latin tragic writer and
the Greek dramatists. A comparison of the Medea of Euripides and of Seneca is
instructive : the dullest understanding will feel that the Greek play is intended
and is suited for acting, and that the Roman play was not intended for the stage,
and could not be acted. These Roman tragedies are, in fact, little more than dramas
in name land in form : the form, indeed, is precisely Greek, but there is no substance
under the form. The Octavia, which some critics violently condemn, is perhaps
the best of them, viewed as a drama. There is something to move the affections:
there is a tragical situation of an unhappy woman suffering from a brutal husband
and a rival favourite, and a catastrophe in the wretched fate of Octavia. The
study of the tragedies of Seneca has had some influence on the French drama.
The editio princeps of Seneca is that of Naples, 1475. The subsequent
editions of the whole works of Seneca and of particular treatises are numerous.
The edition of J. F. Gronovius, Leiden, 1649-1658, is in 4 vols. 12mo.: that of
Ruhkopf, Leipzig, 1797-1811, 5 vols. 8vo.; Bipont edition, Strassburg, 1809, 5
vols. 8vo. There are three complete French translations of the works of Seneca,
of which that of Lagrange is the last, and is said to be the best. The last edition
of Lagrange's version is that of Paris, 1819, 13 vols. 12mo.: the life of Seneca
makes the fourteenth volume. The French translations of particular treatises are
very numerous.
A list of the English translations of Seneca, or of separate treatises,
is contained in Bruggemann's work. The first edition of "The Workes of L. Annaeus
Seneca, both Morall and Naturall, translated by Thos. Lodge, D. in Physicke",
was published in London in 1614, with a Latin dedication to Chancellor Ellesmere;
and "The Life of L. Annaeus Seneca described by Justus Lipsius". This translation
contains all the works of Seneca except the Apocolocyntosis, and the Epistles
to Paul. The translation has considerable merit, and was a great thing for a man
to do who also translated Josephus, and in other respects contributed to the literature
of England.
One of the best editions of the tragedies of Seneca is that by Schroder,
Delft, 1728. There is an edition by F. H. Bothe, Leipzig, 1819. There are two
French translations of the tragedies, the latter of which is by M. Levee in his
Theatre des Latins, Paris, 1822. An English translation of the tragedies by several
hands appealed in 1581
Bahr, Geschichte der Romischen Literatur, vol. i. contains very copious references to all the literature that belongs to the works of Seneca.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Jan 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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