The ' (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "Moral Letters to
Lucilius
The gens Lucilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. The most famous member of this gens was the poet Gaius Lucilius, who flourished during the latter part of the second century BC.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vo ...
"), also known as the ''Moral Epistles'' and ''Letters from a Stoic'', is a collection of 124 letters that
Seneca the Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (; 65 AD), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.
Seneca was born in ...
wrote at the end of his life, during his retirement, after he had worked for the Emperor
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...
for more than ten years. They are addressed to
Lucilius Junior
Lucilius Junior (fl. 1st century), was the procurator of Sicily during the reign of Nero, a friend and correspondent of Seneca, and the possible author of ''Aetna'', a poem that survives in a corrupt state.
Life
The information about Lucilius come ...
, the then
procurator
Procurator (with procuracy or procuratorate referring to the office itself) may refer to:
* Procurator, one engaged in procuration, the action of taking care of, hence management, stewardship, agency
* ''Procurator'' (Ancient Rome), the title of ...
of
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
, who is known only through Seneca's writings. Regardless of how Seneca and Lucilius actually corresponded, it is clear that Seneca crafted the letters with a broad readership in mind.
The letters often begin with an observation on daily life, and then proceed to an issue or principle abstracted from that observation. The result is like a diary, or handbook of philosophical meditations. The letters focus on many traditional themes of
Stoic philosophy
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that th ...
such as the contempt of death, the stout-heartedness of the sage, and virtue as the supreme good.
Writing
The ''Letters'' were probably written in the last three years of Seneca's life. Scholars generally agree that the letters are arranged in the order in which Seneca wrote them.
In letter 8, Seneca alludes to his retirement from public life, which is thought (by reference to Tacitus ''
Annals
Annals ( la, annāles, from , "year") are a concise historical record in which events are arranged chronologically, year by year, although the term is also used loosely for any historical record.
Scope
The nature of the distinction between ann ...
'' xiv. 52–56) to have been around spring of the year 62.
Letter 18 was written in December, in the run-up to the
Saturnalia
Saturnalia is an ancient Roman festival and holiday in honour of the god Saturn, held on 17 December of the Julian calendar and later expanded with festivities through to 23 December. The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple ...
. Letter 23 refers to a cold spring, presumably in 63.
Letter 67 refers to the end of a cold spring and is thought (to allow forty-three intervening letters) to have been written the following year.
Letter 91 refers to the great fire of
Lugdunum
Lugdunum (also spelled Lugudunum, ; modern Lyon, France) was an important Roman city in Gaul, established on the current site of Lyon. The Roman city was founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, but continued an existing Gallic settlem ...
(Lyon) that took place in the late summer of 64.
Letter 122 refers to the shrinking daylight hours of autumn.
Other chronologies are possiblein particular if letters 23 and 67 refer to the same spring, that can reduce the timescale by a full year.
The 124 letters are arranged in twenty manuscript volumes, but the collection is not complete.
Aulus Gellius
Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, or ...
(mid-2nd-century) quotes an extract from the "twenty-second book", so some letters are missing.
However since the fire of Lyon mentioned in letter 91 took place less than a year before Seneca's death (in spring 65) the number of missing letters is not thought to be very many.
Collectively the letters constitute Seneca's longest work.
Although addressed to Lucilius, the letters take the form of open letters,
and are clearly written with a wider readership in mind.
The
epistolary genre was well-established in Seneca's time.
Seneca refers to Cicero's
letters to Atticus and the letters of
Epicurus
Epicurus (; grc-gre, Ἐπίκουρος ; 341–270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy. He was born on the Greek island of Samos to Athenian parents. Influenced ...
, and he was probably familiar with the
letters of Plato and the
epistles of Horace.
However, despite the careful literary crafting, there is no obvious reason to doubt that they are real letters.
Seneca often says that he is writing in response to a letter from Lucilius, although there is unlikely to have been a strict back-and-forth exchange of letters.
Even if both writers had access to the imperial mail service, a letter from central Italy to Sicily would have taken four to eight days to travel.
In many instances Seneca probably composed letters as a new subject occurred to him.
On average the letters tend to become longer over time,
and the later letters focus increasingly on theoretical questions.
However even in the later letters Seneca continues to include letters that are very short.
Content
![Seneca - Epistolae ad Lucilium, MCCCCLXXXXIIII a di XIIII di Aprile - 544792](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Seneca_-_Epistolae_ad_Lucilium%2C_MCCCCLXXXXIIII_a_di_XIIII_di_Aprile_-_544792.jpg)
The letters all start with the phrase "''Seneca Lucilio suo salutem''" ("Seneca greets his Lucilius") and end with the word "''Vale''" ("Farewell"). In these letters, Seneca gives Lucilius advice on how to become a more devoted
Stoic
Stoic may refer to:
* An adherent of Stoicism; one whose moral quality is associated with that school of philosophy
*STOIC, a programming language
* ''Stoic'' (film), a 2009 film by Uwe Boll
* ''Stoic'' (mixtape), a 2012 mixtape by rapper T-Pain
*' ...
. Some of the letters include "On Noise" and "Asthma". Others include letters on "the influence of the masses" and "how to deal with one's slaves" (
Letter 47). Although they deal with Seneca's personal style of Stoic philosophy, they also give us valuable insights into daily life in ancient Rome.
There is a general tendency throughout the letters to open proceedings with an observation of a specific (and usually rather minor) incident, which then digresses to a far wider exploration of an issue or principle that is abstracted from it.
In one letter (letter 7), for instance, Seneca begins by discussing a chance visit to an arena where a gladiatorial combat to the death is being held; Seneca then questions the morality and ethics of such a spectacle, in what is the first record (to our current knowledge) of a pre-Christian writer bringing up such a debate on that particular matter.
Seneca frequently quotes Latin poets, especially
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
, but also
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
,
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
, and
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
.
Seneca also quotes
Publilius Syrus
__NOTOC__
Publilius Syrus ( fl. 85–43 BC), was a Latin writer, best known for his sententiae. He was a Syrian from Antioch who was brought as a slave to Roman Italy. Syrus was brought to Rome on the same ship that brought a certain Manilius, a ...
, such as during the eighth letter, "On the Philosopher's Seclusion".
Themes
Seneca's letters are focused on the inner-life, and the joy that comes from wisdom.
He emphasizes the Stoic theme that virtue is the only true good and vice the only true evil.
He repeatedly refers to the brevity of life and the fleeting nature of time.
Underlying a large number of the letters is a concern with death on the one hand (a central topic of Stoic philosophy, and one embodied in Seneca's observation that we are "dying every day") and suicide on the other, a key consideration given Seneca's deteriorating political position and the common use of forced suicide as a method of elimination of figures deemed oppositional to the Emperor's power and rule.
Early letters often conclude with a maxim to meditate on, although this strategy is over by the thirtieth letter.
Such maxims are typically drawn from
Epicurus
Epicurus (; grc-gre, Ἐπίκουρος ; 341–270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy. He was born on the Greek island of Samos to Athenian parents. Influenced ...
, but Seneca regards this as a beginner's technique.
In letter 33 he stresses that the student must begin to make well-reasoned judgements independently.
Language and style
![Epistulaemoralesadlucilium1887paris](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Epistulaemoralesadlucilium1887paris.JPG)
The language and style of the letters is quite varied, and this reflects the fact that they are a mixture of private conversation and literary fiction. As an example, there is a mix of different vocabulary, incorporating technical terms (in fields such as medicine, law and navigation) as well as colloquial terms and philosophical ones.
Seneca also uses a range of devices for particular effects, such as ironic
parataxis
Parataxis (from el, παράταξις, "act of placing side by side"; from παρα, ''para'' "beside" + τάξις, ''táxis'' "arrangement") is a literary technique, in writing or speaking, that favors short, simple sentences, without conjun ...
,
hypotactic periods, direct speech interventions and rhetorical techniques such as
alliteration
Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...
s,
chiasmus
In rhetoric, chiasmus ( ) or, less commonly, chiasm (Latin term from Greek , "crossing", from the Greek , , "to shape like the letter Χ"), is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of wor ...
,
polyptoton
Polyptoton is the stylistic scheme in which words derived from the same root are repeated (such as "strong" and "strength"). A related stylistic device is antanaclasis, in which the same word is repeated, but each time with a different sense. An ...
,
paradox
A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...
es,
antitheses
Antithesis (Greek for "setting opposite", from "against" and "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together f ...
,
oxymoron
An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, more rarely oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction. An oxymoron can be used as a rhetorical devi ...
, etymological figures and so forth. In addition there are
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
s and
hapax legomena.
Later history
Manuscripts
The oldest manuscripts of the letters date from the ninth-century.
For a long time the letters did not circulate together; instead they appear as two distinct groups: Letters 1 to 88 and Letters 89 to 124.
Early manuscripts for the first group of the letters, 1 to 88, are:
* Two Paris manuscripts of the 10th century, p and P
* Another Paris manuscript of the 11th century, b
* The ''Codex Laurentianus'', of the 9th or 10th century, containing letters 1–65. Designated as L
* The ''Codex Venetus'', of the 9th or 10th century, containing letters 53–88, V
* The ''Codex Metensis'', of the 11th century, known as M
* The ''Codex Gudianus'', of the 10th century, which contains scraps of the earliest letters. Designated as g
For the second group of the letters, 89 to 124, there is only a limited selection of early manuscripts. The best manuscripts are:
* ''Codex Bambergensis'', of the 9th century, known as B. Likely from the scriptorium of
Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious (german: Ludwig der Fromme; french: Louis le Pieux; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aqui ...
.
* ''Codex Argentoratensis'', of the 9th or 10th century, A. Probably a copy of B. This manuscript was destroyed during the
siege of Strasbourg
The siege of Strasbourg took place during the Franco-Prussian War, and resulted in the French surrender of the fortress on 28 September 1870.
After the German victory at Wörth, troops from the Grand Duchy of Baden under Prussian General Aug ...
in 1870
In 1913
Achille Beltrami
Achille is a French and Italian masculine given name, derived from the Greek mythological hero Achilles. It may refer to:
People Artists
* Achille Beltrame (1871–1945), Italian painter
* Achille Calici (c. 1565–?), Italian painter
* Achi ...
announced the discovery of the earliest manuscript which combined both groups. ''Codex Quirinianus'' (or ''Brixiensis''), Q, is a 9th or 10th century manuscript from the
Biblioteca Queriniana, Brescia containing letters 1–120.12.
The letters began to be widely circulated together from the twelfth-century onwards,
and around four hundred manuscripts of Seneca's letters are known.
Printed editions
The letters were first printed at
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
in 1475.
They were printed in an edition with most of the Seneca's other works, and with works by the
elder Seneca.
The letters were then published separately, also in 1475, at Paris, Rome, and Strasbourg.
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...
produced a much superior edition in 1529.
Legacy and influence
Michel de Montaigne
Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne ( ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), also known as the Lord of Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularizing the essay as a liter ...
was influenced by his reading of Seneca's letters,
and he modelled his ''
Essays
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...
'' on them.
The letters were a principal source for
Justus Lipsius
Justus Lipsius (Joest Lips or Joost Lips; 18 October 1547 – 23 March 1606) was a Flemish Catholic philologist, philosopher, and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible w ...
for the development of his
Neostoicism
Neostoicism was a philosophical movement that arose in the late 16th century from the works of Justus Lipsius, and sought to combine the beliefs of Stoicism and Christianity. Lipsius was Flemish and a Renaissance humanist. The movement took on ...
towards the end of the 16th century.
English translations
Complete
There have been several full translations of the 124 letters ever since
Thomas Lodge
Thomas Lodge (c. 1558September 1625) was an English writer and medical practitioner whose life spanned the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.
Biography
Thomas Lodge was born about 1558 in West Ham, the second son of Sir Thomas Lodge, Lo ...
included a translation in his complete works of 1614.
* Thomas Lodge (1614). ''The workes of Lucius Annæus Seneca, both morrall and naturall''. London: William Stansby
* Thomas Morell (1786). ''The Epistles of Lucius Annæus Seneca''. 2 vols. London: W. Woodfall
* Richard M. Gummere (1917, 1920, 1925). ''Seneca: Ad Lucilium epistulae morales''. 3 vols. Loeb Classical Library
* Margaret Graver, A. A. Long (2015). ''Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius''. University of Chicago Press.
Selections
There have been many selected and abridged translations of Seneca's letters. Recent editions include:
* Robin Campbell (1969). ''Letters from a Stoic''. Penguin. (40 letters)
* Elaine Fantham (2010). ''Seneca. Selected Letters''. Oxford World's Classics. (80 letters)
* Margaret Graver, A. A. Long (2021). ''Seneca: Fifty Letters of a Roman Stoic ''. University of Chicago Press. (50 letters)
Quotations
The tag ''Vita sine litteris mors'' ('Life without learning
sdeath') is adapted from ''Epistle'' 82 (originally ''Otium sine litteris mors'', 'Leisure without learning
sdeath') and is the
motto
A motto (derived from the Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. Mot ...
of
Derby School
Derby School was a school in Derby in the English Midlands from 1160 to 1989. It had an almost continuous history of education of over eight centuries. For most of that time it was a grammar school for boys. The school became co-educational an ...
and
Derby Grammar School
Derby Grammar School is a selective independent school in Littleover near the city of Derby, England. Founded in 1995, to recreate the historical Derby School, (which had become mixed-Comprehensive in the 1970s, and then changed name in 1989), i ...
in England,
Adelphi University
Adelphi University is a private university in Garden City, New York. Adelphi also has centers in Manhattan, Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County. There is also a virtual, online campus for remote students. It is the oldest institution of higher ed ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, and Manning's High School,
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
.
The work is also the source for the phrase ''
non scholae sed vitae
''Non scholæ sed vitæ'' is a Latin phrase. Its longer form is ''non scholæ sed vitæ discimus'', which means "We do not learn for school, but for life". The ''scholae'' and ''vitae'' are first-declension feminine datives of purpose.
The m ...
'': "We do not learn for school, but for life".
Criticism
*
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...
in his 1529 edition raised three main criticisms of the letters.
** First was Seneca's habit of mixing personas in the work, running objections and refutations of objections together in a way that Erasmus found not illuminating but obfuscatory.
** Second was the way Seneca, in complaining about philosophical logic-chopping, nevertheless filled his pages with much of that empty quibbling himself, in illustrationprompting Erasmus to second
Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilia ...
's objection to Seneca's own standing as a philosopher.
** Thirdly, Erasmus felt that the letters were more disguised essays than a real correspondence: "one misses in Seneca that quality that lends other letters their greatest charm, that is that they are a true reflection of a real situation".
Citations
References
*
*
*
External links
*
*
*
''Moral letters to Lucilius'', translated by Richard M. Gummere on
Wikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually rep ...
* by Richard M. Gummere
Why Seneca's ''Moral Epistles''?Seneca: Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales Volume IVolume IIVolume III at
Open Library
Open Library is an online project intended to create "one web page for every book ever published". Created by Aaron Swartz, Brewster Kahle, Alexis Rossi, Anand Chitipothu, and Rebecca Malamud, Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive, ...
(in Latin and English)
Thomas Lodge, ''The workes of Lucius Annæus Seneca, both morrall and naturall'', 1614.*
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Philosophical works by Seneca the Younger
Ethics literature
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