{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "seneca.epistulae_morales",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/seneca/moral-letters-to-lucilius/livre-103/passage-1/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Moral Letters to Lucilius",
    "author": "Seneca",
    "date": "c. 62-65 CE",
    "summary": "Seneca turns the letter into a moral workshop: ordinary situations become tests of judgement, time, and freedom. Lucilius is both addressee and partner in a course of practice the reader is invited to continue.",
    "learning": "Examine the use of time, fear of death, wealth, friendship, and the passage from doctrine to conduct.",
    "long_summary": "The Moral Letters follow a teaching relationship in motion. Seneca often begins with a visit, a noise, an illness, or a reading, then redirects attention toward a moral problem. The epistolary form lets him proceed through returns, objections, and advice rather than a closed system.\n\nThe collection teaches readers to measure a day by its use, distinguish possession from dependence, prepare for death without devaluing life, and choose reading that changes conduct. Its tensions matter too: a wealthy author criticizes wealth, and a man close to power seeks an inner freedom his position compromises.",
    "historical_context": "Seneca composes these letters under Nero, after gradually withdrawing from political life. Rome concentrates wealth, dependence, and court violence. The correspondence turns that unstable situation, ending with Seneca’s ordered death in 65, into material for moral examination.",
    "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",
        "fr",
        "en"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "annotation_file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/epistulae-morales/annotations/lat-perseus-editorial-notes.ndjson",
            "annotation_records": 1206,
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/epistulae-morales/representations/lat-perseus-lat2.ndjson",
            "language": "lat",
            "records": 2141,
            "role": "original",
            "source_id": "perseus.seneca.epistulae_morales.perseus_lat2"
        },
        {
            "annotation_file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/epistulae-morales/annotations/fr-baillard-notes.ndjson",
            "annotation_records": 670,
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/epistulae-morales/representations/fr-baillard.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 2141,
            "source_id": "baillard-1914-wikisource-fr"
        },
        {
            "annotation_file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/epistulae-morales/annotations/en-gummere-notes.ndjson",
            "annotation_records": 1057,
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/seneca/epistulae-morales/representations/en-gummere.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 2141,
            "source_id": "wikisource.en.seneca.gummere",
            "translator": "Richard M. Gummere"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "anger",
            "label": "Anger"
        },
        {
            "id": "ether_field",
            "label": "Ether and field"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "sin",
            "label": "Sin"
        },
        {
            "id": "virtue",
            "label": "Virtue"
        },
        {
            "id": "war_and_peace",
            "label": "War and peace"
        },
        {
            "id": "wisdom",
            "label": "Wisdom"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "seneca.epistulae_morales"
    ],
    "passages": 2141,
    "word_count": 209173,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 209173,
        "fr": 177748,
        "lat": 119166
    },
    "editorial_status": "curated_semantic_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "seneca_epistulae_letter_section_v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "letter",
                "label_fr": "Lettre",
                "label_en": "Letter"
            },
            {
                "key": "section",
                "label_fr": "Section",
                "label_en": "Section"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Section",
        "leaf_en": "Section"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:seneca.epistulae_morales:103.1",
    "canonical_ref": "103.1",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lat",
            "text": "Quid ista circumspicis, quae tibi possunt fortasse evenire, sed possunt et non evenire? Incendium dico, ruinam, alia, quae nobis incidunt, non insidiantur; illa potius vide, illa devita, quae nos observant, quae captant. Rariores sunt casus, etiam si graves, naufragium facere, vehiculo everti; ab homine homini cotidianum periculum. Adversus hoc te expedi, hoc intentis oculis intuere. Nullum est malum frequentius, nullum pertinacius, nullum blandius.",
            "edition": "Perseus canonical Latin TEI",
            "source_id": "perseus.seneca.epistulae_morales.perseus_lat2",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Pourquoi te mettre si fort en garde contre ces accidents qui, possibles sans doute, peuvent aussi ne pas arriver, tels que l’incendie, l’écroulement d’une maison, tout ce qui fond sur nous par hasard, non par préméditation ? Prévois, évite plutôt ces ennemis qui nous épient, qui visent à nous surprendre. Ce sont des cas assez rares, quoique graves, que les naufrages, les chutes du haut d’un char ; mais d’homme à homme le péril est de tous les jours. Voilà contre quoi il faut te prémunir, t’armer de toute ta vigilance, car nul fléau n’est plus commun, plus obstiné, plus insinuant. La tempête menace avant de surgir ;",
            "edition": "Baillard 1914",
            "source_id": "baillard-1914-wikisource-fr",
            "translation_type": "translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Why are you looking about for troubles which may perhaps come your way, but which may indeed not come your way at all? I mean fires, falling buildings, and other accidents of the sort that are mere events rather than plots against us. Rather beware and shun those troubles which dog our steps and reach out their hands against us. Accidents, though they may be serious, are few—such as being shipwrecked or thrown from one’s carriage; but it is from his fellow-man that a man’s everyday danger comes. Equip yourself against that; watch that with an attentive eye. There is no evil more frequent, no evil more persistent, no evil more insinuating.",
            "translator": "Richard M. Gummere",
            "edition": "Moral Letters to Lucilius",
            "source_id": "wikisource.en.seneca.gummere",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        }
    ],
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}