Letters From a Stoic (30 page)
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Authors: Seneca
Serapio
, minor Stoic, philosopher from Asia Minor,
82
.
Serenus, Annaeus
, close friend of Seneca, now dead,
117
.
Servius (Servius Tullius)
, early Roman king, traditionally 578–535
B.C.
,
210
.
Sextius (Quintus Sextius)
, eclectic philosopher of Rome in the Augustan period; Stoic, though he denied it, in his ethics, and Pythagorean in his vegetarianism,
205
.
Sibyl, the
, legendary Italian prophetess,
76
.
Socrates
, remarkable Athenian figure (469–399
B.C.
) whose method of inquiry into moral values and own personal character inspired Plato and other philosophers; not known to have put any philosophical thoughts or arguments into writing; condemned to death, unjustly, for ‘corrupting the youth’ of Athens, he refused an opportunity of escape and took the executioner’s poison,
40
,
42
,
75
,
77
,
186
,
192
–3.
Solon
, early Athenian statesman and legislator (639–559
B.C.
); one of the ‘Seven Wise Men’ of antiquity,
163
.
Sotion
, minor philosopher in Seneca’s time who may have been a pupil of Sextius,
205
.
Stilbo
, Greek philosopher, head of the Megarian school in the fourth century
B.C.
; in ethics agreed with the Cynics on the importance of
apatheia
, immunity to feeling,
47
,
52
–3.
Sulla (Lucius Cornelius Sulla)
, Roman general and dictator (138–78
B.C.
), a reforming but cruel ruler,
55
.
Syracuse
, city of Sicily,
218
.
Theophrastus
, Greek scholar and philosopher of the fourth century
B.C.
, pupil of Aristotle and almost as productive, writing systematic treatise on botany and other scientific subjects, and some amusing sketches called the
Characters
,
35
.
Thrace
, the area, roughly speaking, of the eastern Balkans,
142
.
Tiber
, Italy’s second largest river, on which Rome stands,
141
.
Tiberius
, Augustus’ successor as emperor (
A.D.
14–37), a suspicious though competent ruler,
142
–3,
207
,
223
.
Tigris
, river in what is now Iraq,
188
.
Timagenes
, an Alexandrian, apparently a wit, at one time a friend of the emperor Augustus,
181
.
Timon
, the misanthrope of Athens,
67
.
Tubero (Quintas Aelius Tubero)
, distinguished Roman Stoic in the first century
B.C.
,
190
.
Tyrants, the Thirty
, an unconstitutional band of oligarchs who inaugurated a reign of terror in Athens in 404
B.C.
,
192
.
Ulysses
, the Latin name of the hero of Homer’s
Odyssey
,
101
,
113
,
152
–3,
229
.
Varius, Geminus
, Augustan orator,
85
.
Varus (Publius Quinctilius Varus)
, Roman general and provincial governor, consul in 13
B.C.
; in Germany with three legions in
A.D.
9, his entire army was wiped out in a sudden German attack near the modern Osnabruck and he took his own life,
93
.
Varus
, Roman knight,
224
.
Vatia, Servilius
, cautious Roman politician of the civil wars period,
106
–8.
Vinicius, Marcus
, Roman general, consul in 19
B.C.
,
224
.
Vinicius, Publius
, Augustan orator, quoted several times by Seneca’s father, consul in
A.D.
2,
85
.
Virgil (Publius Vergilious Maro)
, the greatest Roman poet (70–19
B.C.
), author of the Roman epic, the
Aeneid
, of the
Georgia
and shorter, pastoral poems, who soon became a model to later writers and a school text-book; Seneca quotes from him some 65 times in the Letters to Lucilius,
75
–6,
101
,
112
,
149
,
191
,
208
–9,
211
,
220
.
Zaleucus
, early Greek legislator, laying down laws for many cities founded by Greeks in Italy and Sicily,
163
.
Zeno
, founder, having previously been a Cynic, of the Stoic philosophy in the early part of the third century
B.C.
, (cf.
Introduction, p.
14.); author of most of its basic beliefs, regarding ethics as the most important part of philosophy,.40,
79
–80,
141
,
190
,
212
.
Zeno of Elea
, Greek monist philosopher and logician, born about 490
B.C.
, pupil of Parmenides,
160
–61.
*
Philosophers of the Cynic school.
*
The authorship is not known.
*
Presents which were customary during the Saturnalia holidays.
*
A short, obscure digression (§§6 to 7) concerning divisions of time is omitted.
*
Virgil,
Aenteid
, IV:653.
*
A festival lasting several days, commencing on the 17th December.
*
Epicureans.
As the next sentence indicates, rich men sometimes had a room fitted out for the purpose.
*
Virgil,
Aeneid
, VIII: 364–5.
*
Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus, Ibycus, Bacchylides, Simonides, Alcman, Anacreon, Pindar.
*
Aeneid
, III:72.
*
Aeneid
, VI:78–9.
*
Ovid,
Metamorphoses
, XIII:824.
*
Apophthegms.
*
Iliad
, III:222 and I:249.
*
Virgil,
Aeneid
, VIII:352.
*
Many ex-slaves had risen to high positions under Claudius and Nero.
*
The text for three or four words is corrupt to the point of being untranslatable.
*
Sic itur ad astra?
Virgil,
Aeneid
, IX:641.
*
Aeneid
, VI:3, III:277.
*
i.e.
its medical name,
asthma.
*
A fragment of Varro Atacinus ‘translation from the Greek of Apollonius’
Argonautica.
*
Aeneid
, II:726–9.
Aeneas is describing his feelings as he leads his son and carries his father out of Troy while the city is being sacked.
*
Homer narrates in Book XII of the Odyssey how the hero, following the advice of Circe, stopped the ears of his crew with beeswax while they rowed past the place where the temptresses sang.
*
Homer,
Iliad
, XIX:228f., XXIV:601f.
*
Well-known works of Polycletus, the great fifth century Greek sculptor.
Copies of both statues have survived.
*
The source of this quotation is not known.
*
Virgil,
Aeneid
, VI:376.
*
Virgil,
Aeneid
, I:203.
*
A total of about 85 lines of this letter have been omitted as not of interest or repeating thoughts expressed elsewhere.
*
By the Gauls in 390
B.C.
*
Horace,
Satires
, 1:2.27 and 1:4.92.
Horace actually wrote Rufillus.
*
A
liber
.
*
Virgil,
Georgics
, I:336–7.
The person meant is of course the astrologer, not the astronomer.
*
Some 45 lines of the Latin are omitted for their relative lack of interest (§§21 to 28).
*
15 lines (§§39 to 40, on further examples of worthless learning) are omitted.
*
Virgil,
Georgics
, I:144.
*
Virgil,
Georgics
, I:139–40.
*
Ovid,
Metamorphoses
, VI:55 (apparently misquoted).
*
About 17 lines (§§28 to 30, in which Seneca appears to claim for philosophy complete and certain knowledge of the truth in religious or cosmological matters) have been omitted.
*
Virgil,
Georgics
, I:125–8.
*
Virgil,
Aeneid
, III:282–3.
*
Virgil,
Aeneid
, VI:277.
*
The text at this point is corrupt.
I have adopted the emendations
si parum nota
and
si rara
suggested by Buecheler and Madvig.
*
Virgil,
Aeneid
, VI:274–5.
*
St Augustine quotes this fragment of Cleanthes as Seneca’s (
De Civitate Dei
, V:8).
*
Both quotations, and the next two, are believed to be fragments of plays of Publilius Syrus.
*
Aeneid
, VI:275.