Seneca
- Disponibilité
- Texte consultable
- Qualité du texte
- Contrôles automatiques réussis
- Format du texte
- Texte numérique extrait du document
- Type de document
- Étude savante
- Droits d’usage
- Domaine public
- Extraits
- 238
page 22
SENECA
6
something
-
the
of the eloquence of the past generation
more numerous
and various the models before them the less are
and, in
they likely to become mere imitators
in
first
place, because the
;
the second place, because the age is degenerate,
and because the art of rhetoric having reached
height about the time of Cicero had, according to the universal law of change, been deits
In the days of freedom, so
clining ever since.
he continues, rhetorical exercises had a serious
since by eloquence a man might reach
the highest offices of the State
but, since the
overthrow of the republic, this spur to effort
object,
;
had largely been withdrawn.
He had heard all
the great orators except Cicero, and the task
satisfying the praiseworthy curiosity of his
of
sons by returning as it were to school in his old
age, and bringing to light out of the caverns of
his memory all that they contained of the decla-
mations made in the schools by the celebrated
rhetoricians of the past, would be to him a de-
The publication of their witty
and
sayings
ingenious subtleties would also incidentally have the useful effect of checking the
lightful labour.
unacknowledged plagiarisms
of their degenerate
successors.
The
elder Seneca
was a Roman
of the old
school, of equestrian rank, a lover of the past
-
orderly, austere, and methodical. His wife, Helvia
belonged to an influential provincial family,
,
which a severe simplicity was
in
*
'
a
tradition.^
Bene in antiqua et severa institutam domo
Helv. xvi.).
'
{Cons,
ad
page 23
MARCUS ANNAEUS SENECA
7
of distinguished men she
we
was,
may accept the description left
of her by her son the philosopher, a woman
of remarkable character and intelligence.
Her
most mothers
Like
if
husband, to whom any departure from old
Roman customs and ideas was distasteful,^ was
opposed to what we now call the higher education of women, and would not suffer her to devote
much time to study, a circumstance regretted
by her son, in whose judgment there were few
on whom such opportunities would have been
less likely to be wasted, or who in the little time
actually allowed could have acquired so much.
He tells us that his mother took deep interest
while her
in
his
philosophical
in
his
society was inexhaustible
studies,
delight
and, on the
other hand, that the very sight of her always
;
gaiety and
After her widowhood, which succeeded
him with an almost boyish
filled
gladness.
within thirty days the death of the kindest of
brothers, she administered with the utmost care
and disinterestedness the inheritance of her three
sons
;
refusing
all
personal advantage from
it
as
had been another's, and giving as much care
management as if it had been her own.
In the same way the course of honours which
two of her sons successfully pursued, and the
if it
to its
fortunes they acquired, though giving her pleasure
their
for
herself,
sake,
were a source not of
profit to
but of additional expense - so much
better did she
deem it to give than to receive.
Novatus, the eldest of the three sons of Marcus
^
'
'
Nimis majorum consuetudini deditus {Cons, ad Helv. xvi.).
page 24, segment 1/2
SENECA
8
Seneca and Helvia, was adopted by his father's
friend, Junius GalUo the rhetorician, by whose
name he became known. He entered early on
an official career, passing through all the official
dignities till he became consul suffedus, after
which he became Proconsul of Achaia in the year
52, where the accident of a riot, resulting in the
appearance of Paul of Tarsus before his tribunal,
immortalised a name which all the praises of
his brother Seneca,
who
describes
him
as the
most irresistibly charming man of his age, could
not have rescued from oblivion.^ If we may
trust his brother's description, he was indeed
a man made to be loved. 'No one man,' writes
the younger Seneca, with his usual rhetorical
exaggeration, is so agreeable to another as Gallic
'
to
who know him
all
'
- nemo enim mortalium
'
1 The
identity of the Gallio of the Acts with GalHo the brother
is made practically certain by an incidental reference
Seneca
of
to his brother in Achaia in one of the philosopher's letters to
Illud mihi in ore erat domini met Gallionis, qui cum
Lucilius
in Achaia febrem habere caepisset, protinus navem adscendit, clamitans non corporis esse, sed loci morbum' {Ep. civ.). Achaia, which
'
:
comprised all the Peloponnesus and the greater part of Hellas
proper with the islands, had been an imperial province under
Tiberius and Caligula, but was transferred to the Senate by
Claudius in a.d. 44 (Tac. Ann. i. 76; Suet. Claudius, 25). The
date of Gallio's proconsulship (52) has been ascertained by the
discovery of an inscription at Delphi containing four fragments
of a letter of Claudius to the city.
Pliny alludes to a voyage
made by Gallio for the sake of his health, which may be the
Praeterea est alius usus multisame as that spoken of by Seneca
plex, principalis
page 24, segment 2/2
vera navigandi phthisi a^ectis, ut diximus, aut sanguinem egerentibus : sicut proxime Anneum Gallionem fecisse post
'
:
Consulatum meminimus' (Plin. N.H. xxxi. 6).
Seneca had been
recalled from exile in 49, and his brother Gallio must have been
It was the custom of the emperors
consul suffectus in 50 or 51.
at that time to nominate consuls for short periods, though the
year was named only after those first appointed.
page 25
MARCUS ANNAEUS SENECA
9
^
'
His
uni tarn dulcis est quam hie omnibus.'
courtesy and unstudied charm of manner win
every heart, yet so modest is he that not only
shrink from the very approaches of
listens with equal reluctance to the
but
flattery,
excellences have
praises which his numerous
does he
really deserved.'
^
The youngest brother Mela,
second book
of
'
Controversies
though described by
addressed,
to
whom
is
exclusively
father as
the
'
his
mentally the best endowed of the three, made
an early resolution to content himself with his
hereditary rank and, leaving the career of honours
to his two accomplished brothers, to devote
himself to a life of studious retirement. His
father, though he did not conceal his own preference for an active career, acquiesced without
much difficulty in this decision, declaring that
he was ready, when his two elder sons had put
out to sea, to keep the third in harbour. That
Mela was his favourite son, and that this lack
ambition was a disappointment to one so
of
enamoured
of
traditionary
ways
as
the
elder
Seneca, will seem probable to the reader of the
dedication addressed to him; nor would he have
been greatly consoled had he been able to fore-
the
ancient State
dignities would not prevent his son
from accumu-
see
that
this
contempt
for
lating a large fortune as procurator of the imperial
demesne under the principate of Nero.
Hoc plus quam Senecam dedisse
Cf Statius, Sylv. ii. 7
mundo, Aut dulcem generasse Gallionem.'
2
Nat. Quaest. iv. Praef.
'
1
.
:
page 26
SENECA
10
The Senecas appear to have been a most
united family. But whereas the father held
the view common to old
men in every age that
the era of great men was over, and that in
the new generation there was an unexampled
dearth of talent and ability in every kind, the
sons were believers in progress, with scant
for
respect
authority,
tradition,
or
national
feeling.
The reminiscences
of
the
Controversiae
in
which the father endeavours to convince his
sons by description and quotation of the
superiority of the past generation, were the
outcome of this difference of view. In the
preface of the last book he declares that they
shall trouble him no longer.
He owns he is
the
of
At
first
he thought it
weary
subject.
would be pleasant to summon up remembrance
of things past and recall the best years of his
life under the mild Augustus, but he now feels
half ashamed, as if he attached too much importance to such studies. These exercises of ingenuity,
he says, are well enough if taken lightly
take
them too seriously and they disgust. He could
not admire the modern rhetorician Musa, whom
his sons had insisted on his accompanying them
to hear.
He thinks his style turgid and unnatural, declares the man has no sincerity, and,
:
in
-
'
Mela's frowning disapproval
licet
mens confrahat frontem
gives instances
spite
of
'
-
Mela
of what he means from the declamation he had
heard. Clearly between father and sons, in
spite of high mutual affection and respect, no
page 27
MARCUS ANNAEUS SENECA
agreement
on
these
points
was
reached
ii
or
possible.
The positions of the various controversialists
in the
'
battle of the books,' fought in the second
half of the first century between the upholders
of the classical tradition in writing and speaking
and the new school, between ancient and modern
ideas and standards, are admirably given in the
dialogue
Tacitus.
De Oratorihus, generally ascribed to
The dialogue is for all time a model of
urbane controversy, in which the most complete
difference of opinion is effectively expressed with-
out a trace of acerbity or sarcasm. The views
of the author are probably represented by the
who, after Afer and Messala
have pleaded the cause of the moderns and of
the ancients respectively, takes a middle course.
He admits with Messala the fact of the decay of
eloquence, but argues that this is the result of
the change in the character of the times and in
the nature of the government rather than of any
decline in the abilities of men.
Augustus, indeed, together with everything else, had pacified
eloquence which could only flourish in turbulent
times
but he suggests that eloquence was not
of such importance that it was desirable that
the times should be turbulent in order that it
might flourish. He might have added that good
gentle
Maternus,
;
being the true representation of emotion,
passion, or thought, which the artist has himself
art
experienced either actually or through sympathy,
must change with the changing life of the
day and cannot be limited by old conventions.
it
page 28
SENECA
12
Original minds may not force their ideas into an
ancient mould on pain of illustrating the
couplet
of Boileau
:
'Voulant se redresser soi-meme on
s'estropie,
Et d'un original devient une copie.'
When, however, we compare the graceful, easyflowing style of Livy, Cicero, and Virgil, their
avoidance of over-emphasis or
the rise
tions,
the
even
and
texture
fall
of
of
abrupt
their
transi-
periods,
and
their
narrative, comparable to a good mountain road, which is never
irksome to a traveller whatever the
height to
which it rises
- when we compare
this with the
bold realism, the disregard for convention and
tradition, the cosmopolitanism, and the striking
but often isolated thoughts and
aphorisms of
Lucan and Tacitus and Juvenal, we can understand the extreme dislike which such admirers
of
antiquity in later generations as Quintilian
or Aulus Gellius or Pronto felt for the
younger
whom they rightly regarded as the
author of this revolution in taste. The
transition resembles, both in its nature and in
the circumstance of the
intervening revolution,
Seneca,
chief
that
from the
French
encyclopaedists
of
the
eighteenth century to Chateaubriand and Victor
Hugo a transition deplored by Sainte-Beuve,
-
who might be called the Quintilian of the nineteenth century.
page 29
CHAPTER II
EARLY YEARS AND EDUCATION
- SOTION,
ATTALUS, FABIANUS
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the second son of
Marcus Seneca and Helvia, was born at Corduba
about the commencement of the Christian
era.^
He was living at Rome, as we have seen, with
and brothers in the days of Tiberius,
and while still a boy was seized with a passion
for those philosophical studies which were to
be the chief interest of his life and his best title
His earliest master in philosophy was
to fame.
a
native of Alexandria, under whose
Sotion,
his parents
influence he
'
'
thought nobly
doctrines of Pythagoras.
for a
time of the
Sotion showed us [he afterwards wrote in a letter to
the reasons of Pythagoras and afterwards of
Lucilius ^]
'
- reasons
Sextius for abstaining from meat
1
'
differing from
Quae Tritonide fertiles Athenas
Unctis, Baetica, provocas trapetis,
Lucanum potes imputare terris.
Hoc plus quam Senecam dedisse mundo,
Aut dulcem generasse Gallionem.'
(Statius, Sylv. ii. 7.)
*
Ep. cviii.
page 30, segment 1/2
SENECA
14
one another yet in each case of a high nature. Sextius
maintained that man could find food enough in the
world without shedding blood, and that the association
of the satisfaction of his appetites with the slaughter
of beasts was a cause of cruelty.
it
He thought, too, that
was wise to circumscribe as much as possible the raw
material of luxury, and, moreover, that a vegetarian
But Pythagoras beUeved
diet was best for the health.
in the common nature and the inter-communion of all
Nothing, he thought, that has Ufe can perish;
things must suffer change and pass in neverfrom one form into another. We
succession
ending
cannot tell after how many vicissitudes and how many
dwelling-places a soul will return into the form of man,
things.
but
all
but we run the risk of committing murder or even parricide when we slay or devour an animal in which some
soul we have known in human shape may be abiding.
When Sotion had expounded to us these doctrines of
Pythagoras, he would ask us whether we believed that
lives passed from one body to another, that what we
called death was but transmigration, that the souls of
men might inhabit flocks or wild beasts or fishes, that
nothing perished in the universe but only changed its
place, and that men and animals no less than the heavenly
bodies go their appointed rounds and know the same
Great men,' he would add, have believed
vicissitudes ?
these things, but I do not wish to fetter your judgment
concerning them. Yet if they be true you are right to
abstain from meat, and if false what harm can you suffer
from such abstention ? It is at least a useful economy,'
Moved by these considerations I eat no meat for a
whole year, and after a very short time found this
regimen not only easy but agreeable. My mind
seemed lighter and
page 30, segment 2/2
more agile to this day I cannot
affirm with certainty whether it really was so or not.
'
'
-
You
will
explain to
wonder why I abandoned this diet. I will
you why. My youth was passed under the
principate of Tiberius,
at
a
time when foreign
rites
page 31, segment 1/2
EARLY YEARS AND EDUCATION
15
were prohibited in Rome.^
Abstention from the flesh
of certain animals was held to be evidence of an inchnation towards the Jewish superstition, and therefore at the request of my father, who was no enemy
to philosophy but feared a scandal, I returned to
my
former habits, and he found no difficulty in persuading
me to eat better dinners.^
From
Sotion
Seneca passed
the
Stoic,
to
the
Pythagorean, the young
the lecture-room of Attains
whose influence upon his life and
more decisive character. Attains
ideas was of a
described by the elder Seneca as by far the
and most eloquent philosopher of his
time
magnae vir eloquentiae, ex philosophis,
is
acutest
-
*
quos nostra aetas
^
facundissimus.'
vidit,
subtilissimus
et
longe
et
We know nothing of his life,
except that, having been cheated of his property
by Sejanus, he consoled himself as a philosopher
but we know
should by following the plough
something of his mind by the many references to
;
him and quotations from his sayings to be found
in the works of his admiring pupil, Lucius Seneca.
1
This edict was issued in the year 19
'
:
Actum et de sacris
factumque patrum consultum,
aegyptiis judaicisque pellendis
"
ut quatuor millia Hbertini generis, ea superstitione infecta,
ceteri
quis idonea aetas, in insulam Sardinian! veherentur
" '
cederent Italia, nisi certam ante diem profanos ritus exuissent
:
.
.
.
(Tac. Ann. ii. 85).
Patre itaque me rogante,
Ep. cviii. The old reading was
calumniam timebat, sed phUosophiam oderat, ad
non
qui
'
2
:
pristinam consuetudinem redii,' but it is probable that the
suggested emendation of Lipsius is correct, since we may infer
from the decorous conservatism manifest in the writings of the
elder Seneca that he was unlikely to