Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium

Last updated
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium
Seneca the Younger, Letters, Florence, Plut. 45.33.jpg
15th-century illuminated manuscript, Laurentian Library
Author Seneca
Language Latin
SubjectEthics
GenrePhilosophy
Publication date
c. 65 AD
Publication place Ancient Rome
Text Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium at Wikisource

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Latin for "Moral Letters to Lucilius"), also known as the Moral Epistles and Letters from a Stoic, is a letter collection of 124 letters that Seneca the Younger wrote at the end of his life, during his retirement, after he had worked for the Emperor Nero for more than ten years. They are addressed to Lucilius Junior, the then procurator of Sicily, who is known only through Seneca's writings.

Contents

The letters often begin with an observation on daily life, and then proceed to an issue or principle abstracted from that observation. The result is like a diary, or handbook of philosophical meditations. The letters focus on many traditional themes of Stoic philosophy such as the contempt of death, the stout-heartedness of the sage, and virtue as the supreme good.

Writing

Scholars generally agree that the letters are arranged in the order in which Seneca wrote them. [1] The 124 letters are arranged in twenty manuscript volumes, but the collection is not complete. [2] Aulus Gellius (mid-2nd century) quotes an extract from the "twenty-second book", so some letters are missing. [3] However since the fire of Lyon mentioned in letter 91 took place less than a year before Seneca's death (in spring 65) the number of missing letters is not thought to be very many. [3]

Collectively the letters constitute Seneca's longest work. [3] Although addressed to Lucilius, the letters take the form of open letters, [4] and are clearly written with a wider readership in mind, [5] in the epistolary genre well-known in Seneca's time. [6] Seneca refers to Cicero's letters to Atticus and the letters of Epicurus, and he was probably familiar with the letters of Plato and the epistles of Horace. [7] However, despite the careful literary crafting, there is no obvious reason to doubt that they are real letters. [1] Seneca often says that he is writing in response to a letter from Lucilius, although there is unlikely to have been a strict back-and-forth exchange of letters. [8] Even if both writers had access to the imperial mail service, a letter from central Italy to Sicily would have taken four to eight days to travel. [8] In many instances Seneca probably composed letters as a new subject occurred to him. [8] The letters tend to become longer over time, interspersed with some short ones, [2] and the later letters focus increasingly on theoretical questions. [9] [10]

Dating

The Letters were written in the last two or three years of Seneca's life. [11] In letter 8, Seneca alludes to his retirement from public life, which is thought (by reference to Tacitus Annals xiv. 52–56) to have been around spring of the year 62. [12] Letter 18 was written in December, in the run-up to the Saturnalia. Letter 23 refers to a cold spring, presumably in 63 AD. [12] Letter 67 refers to the end of a cold spring and is thought (to allow forty-three intervening letters) to have been written the following year. [12] Letter 91 refers to the great fire of Lugdunum (Lyon) that took place in the late summer of 64. [12] Letter 122 refers to the shrinking daylight hours of autumn. [13] Other chronologies are possible –in particular if letters 23 and 67 refer to the same spring, that can reduce the timescale by a full year. [12]

Content

Incipit page of the first printed edition of the Epistles in the "Tuscan" i.e. Italian version (1494). Seneca - Epistolae ad Lucilium, MCCCCLXXXXIIII a di XIIII di Aprile - 544792.jpg
Incipit page of the first printed edition of the Epistles in the "Tuscan" i.e. Italian version (1494).

The letters all start with the phrase "Seneca Lucilio suo salutem" ("Seneca greets his Lucilius") and end with the word "Vale" ("Farewell"). In these letters, Seneca gives Lucilius advice on how to become a more devoted Stoic. Some of the letters include "On Noise" and "Asthma". Others include letters on "the influence of the masses" and "how to deal with one's slaves" (Letter 47). Although they deal with Seneca's personal style of Stoic philosophy, they also give valuable insights into daily life in ancient Rome.

The letters tend to open with an observation of a quotidian incident, which is then abstracted to a far wider exploration of an issue or principle. [14] In letter 7, for instance, Seneca reports a chance visit to an arena gladiatorial combat, fought to the death; he then questions the morality and ethics of such a spectacle, in what is the first extant record of a pre-Christian writer expressing moral qualms on the matter. [14]

Seneca frequently quotes Latin poets, especially Virgil, but also Ovid, Horace, and Lucretius. [15] Seneca also quotes Publilius Syrus, such as during the eighth letter, "On the Philosopher's Seclusion". [16]

Themes

Seneca's letters focus on the inner life and the joy that comes from wisdom. [17] He emphasizes the Stoic theme that virtue is the only true good and vice the only true evil. [9] He repeatedly refers to the brevity of life and the fleeting passage of time. [1]

Seneca's first letter to Lucius, discussing fleeting nature and the value of time, in Latin with English subtitles.

Underlying a large number of the letters is a concern with death on the one hand (a central topic of Stoic philosophy, and one embodied in Seneca's observation that we are "dying every day") and suicide on the other, a key consideration given Seneca's deteriorating political position and the Emperor's common use of forced suicide as a method of covert execution. [14]

Early letters often conclude with a maxim to meditate on, although this strategy is over by the thirtieth letter. [10] Such maxims are typically drawn from Epicurus, but Seneca regards this as a beginner's technique. [18] In letter 33 he stresses that the student must begin to make well-reasoned judgements independently. [18]

Language and style

French edition, 1887 Epistulaemoralesadlucilium1887paris.JPG
French edition, 1887

The language and style of the letters is quite varied, and this reflects the fact that they are a mixture of private conversation and literary fiction. As an example, there is a mix of different vocabulary, incorporating technical terms (in fields such as medicine, law and navigation) as well as colloquial terms and philosophical ones. [19] Seneca also uses a range of devices for particular effects, such as ironic parataxis, hypotactic periods, direct speech interventions and rhetorical techniques such as alliterations, chiasmus, polyptoton, paradoxes, antitheses, oxymoron, etymological figures and so forth. In addition there are neologisms and hapax legomena. [19]

Later history

Manuscripts

The oldest manuscripts of the letters date from the ninth-century. [20] For a long time the letters did not circulate together; instead they appear as two distinct groups: Letters 1 to 88 and Letters 89 to 124. [20]

Early manuscripts for the first group of the letters, 1 to 88, are: [21]

For the second group of the letters, 89 to 124, there is only a limited selection of early manuscripts. The best manuscripts are: [21]

In 1913 Achille Beltrami announced the discovery of the earliest manuscript which combined both groups. Codex Quirinianus (or Brixiensis), Q, is a 9th or 10th century manuscript from the Biblioteca Queriniana, Brescia containing letters 1–120.12. [22] [23]

The letters began to be widely circulated together from the twelfth-century onwards, [24] and around four hundred manuscripts of Seneca's letters are known. [25]

Printed editions

The letters were first printed at Naples in 1475. [26] They were printed in an edition with most of the Seneca's other works, and with works by the elder Seneca. [26] The letters were then published separately, also in 1475, at Paris, Rome, and Strasbourg. [26] Erasmus produced a much superior edition in 1529. [24]

Legacy and influence

Michel de Montaigne was influenced by his reading of Seneca's letters, [27] and he modelled his Essays on them. [24] The letters were a principal source for Justus Lipsius for the development of his Neostoicism towards the end of the 16th century. [24]

English translations

Complete

There have been several full translations of the 124 letters ever since Thomas Lodge included a translation in his complete works of 1614.

Selections

There have been many selected and abridged translations of Seneca's letters. Recent editions include:

Quotations

The tag Vita sine litteris mors ('Life without learning [is] death') is adapted from Epistle 82 (originally Otium sine litteris mors, 'Leisure without learning [is] death') and is the motto of Derby School and Derby Grammar School in England, Adelphi University, New York, and Manning's High School, Jamaica.

Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt ('The fates lead the willing and drag the unwilling'), from Epistle 117 paragraph 11 line 5, expresses a fatalistic view of man's subjection to natural and divine will. It is also an example of chiasmus. This line, which Seneca attributes to the Greek Stoic philosopher Cleanthes, is quoted in the last line of German intellectual Oswald Spengler's two-volume work The Decline of the West (1922).

The work is also the source for the phrase non scholae sed vitae : "We do not learn for school, but for life".

Criticism

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 Setaioli 2013 , p. 193
  2. 1 2 Setaioli 2013 , p. 198
  3. 1 2 3 Graver & Long 2015 , p. 6
  4. ↑ Setaioli 2013 , p. 194
  5. ↑ Graver & Long 2015 , p. 4
  6. ↑ Setaioli 2013 , p. 196
  7. ↑ Setaioli 2013 , p. 195
  8. 1 2 3 Fantham 2010 , p. xxi
  9. 1 2 Setaioli 2013 , p. 192
  10. 1 2 Graver & Long 2015 , p. 5
  11. ↑ Graver & Long 2015, p. 1.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Setaioli 2013 , pp. 191–192
  13. ↑ Fantham 2010 , p. xxii
  14. 1 2 3 Romm, James (14 March 2014). "Rome's House of Cards". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  15. ↑ Graver & Long 2015 , pp. 8–9
  16. ↑ Moral letters to Lucilius, Letter 8
  17. ↑ Graver & Long 2015 , p. 13
  18. 1 2 Graver & Long 2015 , p. 11
  19. 1 2 Berno, Francesca Romana. "Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium". Academia.edu. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  20. 1 2 Graver & Long 2015 , p. 20
  21. 1 2 Gummere, Richard. Epistulae morales ad Lucilium. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library. p. xiii.
  22. 1 2 von Albrecht, Michael (1997). A History of Roman Literature: From Livius Andronicus to Boethius. Vol. 2. Brill. p. 1193. ISBN   9004107118.
  23. ↑ Reynolds, L. D. (1965). The medieval tradition of Seneca's Letters. Oxford University Press. p. 13.
  24. 1 2 3 4 Graver & Long 2015 , p. 21
  25. ↑ Reynolds, L. D. (1965). The medieval tradition of Seneca's Letters. Oxford University Press. p. 15.
  26. 1 2 3 Gummere, Richard. Epistulae morales ad Lucilium. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library. p. xiv.
  27. ↑ Clark, Carol E. (1968). "Seneca's Letters to Lucilius as a source of some of Montaigne's imagery". Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance. 30, 2 (2): 249–266. JSTOR   41430068.
  28. ↑ The introduction (page xxxv) says the book contains a "selection of 80 letters," but there are 87 letters. The missing letters are: 13, 17, 20, 22–3, 25, 29, 30, 32, 42–3, 45, 50, 52, 58, 66, 69, 71, 74, 81, 85, 89, 92–4, 96, 98, 100, 102, 105–6, 109, 111, 113, 117, 119–20.
  29. 1 2 3 Fantham 2010 , p. xxviii

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seneca the Younger</span> Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and dramatist (c. 4 BC–AD 65)

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucilia gens</span> Ancient Roman family

The gens Lucilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. The most famous member of this gens was the poet Gaius Lucilius, who flourished during the latter part of the second century BC. Although many Lucilii appear in Roman history, the only one known to have obtained any of the higher offices of the Roman state was Lucilius Longus, consul suffectus in AD 7.

Hecato or Hecaton of Rhodes was a Greek Stoic philosopher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Correspondence of Paul and Seneca</span> Forged letters

The Correspondence ofPaul and Seneca, also known as the Letters of Paul and Seneca or Epistle to Seneca the Younger, is a collection of letters claiming to be between Paul the Apostle and Seneca the Younger. There are 8 epistles from Seneca, and 6 replies from Paul. They were purportedly authored from 58–64 CE during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero, but appear to have actually been written in the middle of the fourth century. Until the Renaissance, the epistles were seen as genuine, but scholars began to critically examine them in the 15th century, and today they are held to be inauthentic forgeries.

<i>De Brevitate Vitae</i> (Seneca) Essay by Seneca

De Brevitate Vitae is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, sometime around the year 49 AD, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that people waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives people enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly. In general, time is best used by living in the present moment in pursuit of the intentional, purposeful life.

<i>Non scholae sed vitae</i> Latin phrase about learning

Non scholæ sed vitæ is a Latin phrase. Its longer form is non scholæ sed vitæ discimus, which means "We do not learn for school, but for life". The scholae and vitae are first-declension feminine datives of purpose.

<i>Homo homini lupus</i> Latin proverb

Homo homini lupus, or in its unabridged form Homo homini lupus est, is a Latin proverb meaning literally "Man to man is wolf". It is used to refer to situations where a person has behaved comparably to a wolf. In this case, the wolf represents predatory, cruel, and generally inhuman qualities.

Epistulae or Epistles are a specific genre of letter-writing composed in Latin. The term may also refer to specific works:

Seneca's Consolations refers to Seneca’s three consolatory works, De Consolatione ad Marciam, De Consolatione ad Polybium, De Consolatione ad Helviam, written around 40–45 AD.

The gens Sextia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, from the time of the early Republic and continuing into imperial times. The most famous member of the gens was Lucius Sextius Lateranus, who as tribune of the plebs from 376 to 367 BC, prevented the election of the annual magistrates, until the passage of the lex Licinia Sextia, otherwise known as the "Licinian Rogations," in the latter year. This law, brought forward by Sextius and his colleague, Gaius Licinius Calvus, opened the consulship to the plebeians, and in the following year Sextius was elected the first plebeian consul. Despite the antiquity of the family, only one other member obtained the consulship during the time of the Republic. Their name occurs more often in the consular fasti under the Empire.

<i>De Clementia</i> Essay by Seneca

De Clementia is a two volume (incomplete) hortatory essay written in AD 55–56 by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to the emperor Nero in the first five years of his reign.

<i>De Tranquillitate Animi</i> Essay by Seneca

De Tranquillitate Animi is a Latin work by the Stoic philosopher Seneca. The dialogue concerns the state of mind of Seneca's friend Annaeus Serenus, and how to cure Serenus of anxiety, worry and disgust with life.

<i>De Otio</i> Essay by Seneca

De Otio is a 1st-century Latin work by Seneca. It survives in a fragmentary state. The work concerns the rational use of spare time, whereby one can still actively aid humankind by engaging in wider questions about nature and the universe.

The gens Hateria, occasionally Ateria, was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, known from the last century of the Republic and under the early Empire. The most distinguished of the Haterii was Quintus Haterius, a senator and rhetorician in the time of Augustus and Tiberius. He was consul suffectus in 5 BC.

The gens Pacuvia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned during the second century BC, and from then down to the first century of the Empire Pacuvii are occasionally encountered in the historians. The first of the Pacuvii to achieve prominence at Rome, and certainly the most illustrious of the family, was the tragic poet Marcus Pacuvius.

The gens Satellia was an obscure plebeian family of equestrian rank at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in ancient writers, but a number are known from inscriptions.

Negative visualization or futurorum malorum præmeditatio is a method of meditative praxis or askēsis by visualization of the worst-case scenario(s). The method originated with the Cyreanic philosophers and was later adopted by Stoic philosophers. The technique was made popular with publications of Seneca the Younger's Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium. It is thought to have been one of the common forms of Stoic spiritual exercises.

The gens Albinovana was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. No members of this gens are known to have held any of the higher offices of the Roman state, and hardly any are mentioned in history. The family is perhaps best known from Publius Albinovanus, an infamous participant in the civil war between Marius and Sulla, and from the first-century poet Albinovanus Pedo. A number of Albinovani are known from inscriptions.

Seneca the Younger's Letter 47 of his Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, sometimes known as On Master and Slave or On Slavery, is an essayistic look at dehumanization in the context of slavery in ancient Rome. It was a criticism of aspects of Roman slavery, without outright opposition to it, and had a favorable later reception by Enlightenment philosophers and subsequently the 19th century abolitionist movement. Conversely, the text has also been seen as a proslavery apologia, as well as in the light of the Stoic philosophical idea that "all men are slaves".

The gens Tanusia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in history, and none attained any of the higher offices of the Roman state. Quintus Cicero mentions that the heads of this family were proscribed by Sulla, and Tanusius Geminus was a historian of the same period, whose work has now been lost. A few other Tanusii are known from epigraphy.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.