{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "seneca.de_beneficiis",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/seneca/de-beneficiis/livre-2/passage-14/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "On Benefits",
    "author": "Seneca",
    "date": "c. 56-64 CE",
    "summary": "Seneca examines the art of giving, receiving, and returning a benefit in a society structured by obligation. Intention, gratitude, debt, and freedom distinguish moral exchange from commercial calculation and humiliating power.",
    "learning": "Distinguish benefit from the object given, analyze intention and gratitude, and examine how a free relationship can arise within systems of dependence.",
    "long_summary": "The books analyze choice of recipient, manner and timing of giving, recognition of intention, and conduct toward ingratitude. A benefit is not the object transferred; it lies in benevolent will, which return should continue without a fixed price.\n\nGenerosity claims to create a bond among moral equals but operates within Roman patronage and hierarchy. Seneca confronts that tension through cases, objections, and revisions rather than a simple code of reciprocity.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "Roman world, 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood.",
        "science": "Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory.",
        "medicine": "Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist.",
        "transport": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky.",
        "agriculture": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour.",
        "communication": "Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand.",
        "clothing": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood. Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory. Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky. Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "stoicism",
        "label": "Stoicism"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "ancient",
        "label": "Antiquity"
    },
    "languages": [
        "lat",
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "annotation_file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/de-beneficiis/annotations/lat-perseus-editorial-notes.ndjson",
            "annotation_records": 91,
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/de-beneficiis/representations/lat-perseus-lat2.ndjson",
            "language": "lat",
            "records": 228,
            "role": "original",
            "source_id": "perseus.seneca.de_beneficiis.perseus_lat2"
        },
        {
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/de-beneficiis/representations/en-stewart.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 228,
            "source_id": "project-gutenberg.seneca.aubrey-stewart-de-beneficiis-1887",
            "translator": "Aubrey Stewart"
        },
        {
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/de-beneficiis/representations/fr-baillard.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 228,
            "source_id": "baillard-1914-wikisource-fr",
            "translator": "Joseph Baillard"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "anger",
            "label": "Anger"
        },
        {
            "id": "beneficence",
            "label": "Beneficence"
        },
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "death",
            "label": "Death"
        },
        {
            "id": "desire",
            "label": "Desire"
        },
        {
            "id": "duty",
            "label": "Duty"
        },
        {
            "id": "education",
            "label": "Education"
        },
        {
            "id": "ether_field",
            "label": "Ether and field"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "friendship",
            "label": "Friendship"
        },
        {
            "id": "hope",
            "label": "Hope"
        },
        {
            "id": "judgment",
            "label": "Judgment"
        },
        {
            "id": "justice",
            "label": "Justice"
        },
        {
            "id": "law",
            "label": "Law"
        },
        {
            "id": "love",
            "label": "Love"
        },
        {
            "id": "messiah",
            "label": "Messiah"
        },
        {
            "id": "mindfulness",
            "label": "Mindfulness"
        },
        {
            "id": "neighbor",
            "label": "Neighbor"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "roles",
            "label": "Roles and relationships"
        },
        {
            "id": "salvation",
            "label": "Salvation"
        },
        {
            "id": "service",
            "label": "Service"
        },
        {
            "id": "sin",
            "label": "Sin"
        },
        {
            "id": "suffering",
            "label": "Suffering"
        },
        {
            "id": "time",
            "label": "Time"
        },
        {
            "id": "war_and_peace",
            "label": "War and peace"
        },
        {
            "id": "wisdom",
            "label": "Wisdom"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "seneca.de_beneficiis"
    ],
    "passages": 228,
    "word_count": 81267,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 81267,
        "fr": 68574,
        "lat": 45461
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "seneca_treatise_book_chapter_v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "book",
                "label_fr": "Livre",
                "label_en": "Book"
            },
            {
                "key": "chapter",
                "label_fr": "Chapitre",
                "label_en": "Chapter"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Chapitre",
        "leaf_en": "Chapter"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:seneca.de_beneficiis:2.14",
    "canonical_ref": "2.14",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lat",
            "text": "Sunt quaedam nocitura impetrantibus, quae non dare sed negare beneficium est ; aestimabimus itaque utilitatem potius quam voluntatem petentium. Saepe enim noxia concupiscimus, nec dispicere, quam perniciosa sunt, licet, quia iudicium interpellat adfectus ; sed cum subsedit cupiditas, cum impetus ille flagrantis animi, qui consilium fugat, cecidit, detestamur perniciosos malorum munerum auctores. Ut frigidam aegris negamus et lugentibus ac sibi iratis ferrum, ut amentibus, quidquid contra se usurus ardor petit, sic omnino, quae nocitura sunt, impense ac summisse,non numquam etiam miserabiliter rogantibus perseverabimus non dare. Cum initia beneficiorum suorum spectare tum etiam exitus decet et ea dare, quae non tantum accipere, sed etiam accepisse delectet. Multi sunt, qui dicant : \" Scio hoc illi non profuturum, sed quid faciam ? Rogat, resistere precibus eius non possum ; viderit : de se, non de me queretur.\" Falsum est : immo de te et merito quidem; cum ad mentem bonam redierit, cum accessio illa, quae animum inflammabat, remiserit, quidni eum oderit, a quo in damnum ac periculum suum adiutus est ? Exorari in perniciem rogantium saeva bonitas est. Quemadmodum pulcherrimum opus est etiam invitos nolentesque servare, ita rogantibus pestifera largiri blandum et adfabile odium est. Beneficium demus, quod in usu magis ac magis placeat, quod numquam in malum vertat. Pecuniam non dabo, quam numeraturum adulterae sciam, nec in societate turpis facti aut consilii inveniar ; si potero, revocabo, si minus, non adiuvabo scelus. Sive illum ira, quo non debebit, impellet, sive ambitionis calor abducet a tutis, in nullum malum vires a me sumere ipso1 patiar nec committam, ut possit quandoque dicere : \" Ille amando me occidit.\" Saepe nihil interest inter amicorum munera et hostium vota; quidquid illi accidere optant, in id horum intempestiva indulgentia impellit atque instruit. Quid autem turpius quam quod evenit frequentissime, ut nihil intersit inter odium et beneficium ?",
            "edition": "Perseus canonical Latin TEI",
            "source_id": "perseus.seneca.de_beneficiis.perseus_lat2",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "There are some things which injure those who receive them, things which it is not a benefit to give but to withhold; we should therefore consider the usefulness of our gift rather than the wish of the petitioner to receive it; for we often long for hurtful things, and are unable to discern how ruinous they are, because our judgment is biassed by our feelings; when, however, the longing is past, when that frenzied impulse which masters our good sense has passed away, we abhor those who have given us hurtful gifts. As we refuse cold water to the sick, or swords to the grief-stricken or remorseful, and take from the insane whatever they might in their delirium use to their own destruction, so must we persist in refusing to give anything whatever that is hurtful, although our friends earnestly and humbly, nay, sometimes even most piteously beg for it. We ought to look at the end of our benefits as well as the beginning, and not merely to give what men are glad to receive, but what they will hereafter be glad to have received. There are many who say, \"I know that this will do him no good, but what am I to do? he begs for it, I cannot withstand his entreaties. Let him see to it; he will blame himself, not me.\" Not so: you he will blame, and deservedly; when he comes to his right mind, when the frenzy which now excites him has left him, how can he help hating the man who has assisted him to harm and to endanger himself? It is a cruel kindness to allow one's self to be won over into granting that which injures those who beg for it. Just as it is the noblest of acts to save men from harm against their will, so it is but hatred, under the mask of civility, to grant what is harmful to those who ask for it. Let us confer benefits of such a kind, that the more they are made use of the better they please, and which never can turn into injuries. I never will give money to a man if I know that he will pay it to an adulteress, nor will I be found in connexion with any wicked act or plan; if possible, I will restrain men from crime; if not, at least I will never assist them in it. Whether my friend be driven into doing wrong by anger, or seduced from the path of safety by the heat of ambition, he shall never gain the means of doing mischief except from himself, nor will I enable him one day to say, \"He ruined me out of love for me.\" Our friends often give us what our enemies wish us to receive; we are driven by the unseasonable fondness of the former into the ruin which the latter hope will befall us. Yet, often as it is the case, what can be more shameful than that there should be no difference between a benefit and hatred?",
            "translator": "Aubrey Stewart",
            "edition": "On Benefits (1887)",
            "source_id": "project-gutenberg.seneca.aubrey-stewart-de-beneficiis-1887",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Il est des choses qu’il serait fatal d’obtenir ; et de celles-là ce n’est pas le don, mais le refus qui est un bienfait. Aussi doit-on considérer l’intérêt du demandeur avant son désir. Souvent en effet c’est notre mal que nous souhaitons et nous n’en pouvons entrevoir toute la portée, parce que la passion trouble le jugement. Mais sitôt que le désir s’attiédit, que cette fougue d’une âme ardente, devant laquelle a fui la raison, est tombée, on maudit les pernicieux auteurs de ces présents qui nous ont nui. Comme on refuse l’eau froide aux malades, le glaive aux désespérés qui rêvent le suicide, et aux amants tout ce que leur passion pourrait tourner contre eux-mêmes ; ainsi à toutes les demandes de choses préjudiciables, quand on emploierait sollicitations, soumissions, larmes pathétiques, nous opposerons une persévérante résistance. Il convient d’envisager l’effet le plus éloigné de nos services aussi bien que le plus prochain : donnons ce qu’on est heureux de recevoir, ce qu’on sera heureux aussi d’avoir reçu. Bien des gens disent : « Je sais que cela ne lui profitera pas ; mais que faire ? il m’en prie : je ne puis résister à ses instances. C’est son affaire ; c’est à lui, non à moi qu’il devra s’en prendre. » Tu te trompes : c’est à toi, et avec justice, quand la raison lui reviendra, quand la fièvre, qui embrasait son âme, se sera calmée. Comment ne haïrait-il pas celui qui ne l’a aidé que pour son dommage et au risque d’un grand mal ? Octroyer aux gens ce qui doit les perdre, c’est une bonté cruelle . S’il est noble et beau de sauver un homme en dépit même de ses efforts et de sa volonté ; lui accorder de désastreuses faveurs, c’est de la haine officieuse et complaisante. Nos bienfaits doivent être de ceux qui, à mesure qu’on en use, satisfont de plus en plus, qui enfin ne tournent jamais à mal. Je ne donnerai point d’argent que je saurai devoir être le prix d’un adultère : je ne veux pas me trouver complice d’un acte ou d’un projet infâme. Si je puis, j’en préviendrai l’exécution ; sinon, je n’y aiderai pas. Que la colère emporte mon ami à un acte injuste, ou que l’ardeur de l’ambition l’éloigne des voies de la prudence, je me garderai qu’il puisse jamais dire : « C’est son amitié qui m’a tué. Souvent il n’y a nulle différence entre les présents de nos amis et les souhaits de nos ennemis. Tout ce que ceux-ci nous veulent de mal, l’intempestive tendresse de ceux-là nous y prépare et nous y pousse. Or quelle honte, et cela n’est que trop fréquent, que les effets de l’amitié ressemblent à ceux de la haine !",
            "translator": "Joseph Baillard",
            "edition": "Œuvres complètes de Sénèque le Philosophe (1914)",
            "source_id": "baillard-1914-wikisource-fr",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        }
    ],
    "content_checksum": "b229ba7f35f306693a959457c3516fce7452c1fe11b0bbb75efd562e094b2546"
}