{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "seneca.de_beneficiis",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/seneca/de-beneficiis/livre-2/passage-9/",
    "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": "beneficence",
            "label": "Beneficence"
        },
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "faith",
            "label": "Faith"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "justice",
            "label": "Justice"
        },
        {
            "id": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "prayer",
            "label": "Prayer"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "sin",
            "label": "Sin"
        },
        {
            "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:2.9",
    "canonical_ref": "2.9",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lat",
            "text": "Praecipiunt itaque omnes auctores sapientiae quaedam beneficia palam danda, quaedam secreto. Palam, quae consequi gloriosum, ut militaria dona, ut honores et quidquid aliud notitia pulchrius fit; rursus, quae non producunt nec honestiorem faciunt, sed succurrunt infirmitate egestati, ignominiae, tacite danda sunt, ut nota sint solis, quibus prosunt.",
            "edition": "Perseus canonical Latin TEI",
            "source_id": "perseus.seneca.de_beneficiis.perseus_lat2",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Accordingly, all writers on ethical philosophy tell us that some benefits ought to be given in secret, others in public. Those things which it is glorious to receive, such as military decorations or public offices, and whatever else gains in value the more widely it is known, should be conferred in public; on the other hand, when they do not promote a man or add to his social standing, but help him when in weakness, in want, or in disgrace, they should be given silently, and so as to be known only to those who profit by them.",
            "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": "Aussi est-ce l’avis de tous les maîtres de la sagesse, que telles grâces doivent se faire publiquement, que telles autres veulent le mystère. Le grand jour convient à celles qu’il est glorieux de mériter : tels sont les dons militaires, les distinctions honorifiques, enfin tout ce que relève la publicité. Mais ce qui ne procure ni avancement ni relief, les secours qui soulagent l’infirmité, l’indigence ou l’ignominie, doivent être des œuvres muettes et ne se révéler qu’à celui qu’elles consolent. Parfois même, près de ceux qu’on aide, il faut user de subterfuge ; il faut qu’ils reçoivent sans savoir de quelle main .",
            "translator": "Joseph Baillard",
            "edition": "Œuvres complètes de Sénèque le Philosophe (1914)",
            "source_id": "baillard-1914-wikisource-fr",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        }
    ],
    "content_checksum": "06d969ee87b540448b707a4c88a3f943c0e969025cda7b843b37cc96067df964"
}