Seneca (Routledge Revivals)

Costa C.D.N.

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415744683
• eBook ISBN: 9781317799900
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Ancient Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume, first published in 1974, offers a selection of modern perspectives on Seneca, covering his prose treatises, his letters and his tragedies.

For centuries literary and philosophical circles had to take Seneca seriously, even if they could not always respect him, and although his reputation has fluctuated, there has been a revival of interest in his achievements. Accordingly, a large part of Seneca is devoted to this later influence at the deliberate expense of not covering all of Seneca's less familiar works. The Moral Essays, the tragedies and the letters to Lucilius are examined by the contributors, who also discuss Seneca's philosophical influence and the Senecan heritage in English and neo-Latin literature.

Each essay contains insightful and sometimes controversial material, which is of value to the specialist as well as to students of Latin, English or French literature.

V

Seneca’s Philosophical Influence

G. M. Ross

In this chapter, my purpose is to give a general survey of Seneca’s philosophical influence from his own time to the present. I shall, however, concentrate on the first twelve centuries A.D., since the relevant material is sufficiently limited for a more or less complete account to be practicable, and such completeness is necessary for establishing my largely negative thesis, that Seneca’s ancient and early medieval influence was much less than has often been claimed. As for the remaining period, I say enough to give an overall picture of the fluctuations in his popularity; but anything more than a cursory account, particularly of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when his influence was at its height, would require at least a chapter on its own.

It may be felt that my approach is too negative, especially in the sections dealing with antiquity; but if anything I would say it is not negative enough. On the whole I accept as genuine influence any instance in which Seneca’s views are explicitly approved, even though more is really needed to establish that knowledge of them had any formative effect. But in the absence of detailed information about the genesis of an individual’s philosophical beliefs, this is normally the best evidence available. I am much more sceptical about the value of parallels, whether of thought or of expression. In the first case, there is rarely any way of telling whether we have to do with specifically Senecan influence, and it is often a matter of conjecture whether even Stoic influence is at work. In the second case, there is no clear criterion for establishing how many parallels there must be, or how close, before we can safely conclude not only that there is borrowing, but also that it is from Seneca and not from some common source or intermediary; and then it still needs to be shown, as before, that there is a transfer of ideas as well as of words. The most prudent methodological principle to adopt is that where there is insufficient positive evidence of influence, it should be assumed, at least provisionally, that there is no influence.

1 Seneca in pagan antiquity

Seneca is for us one of the best known of ancient philosophers. It can therefore come as a surprise that he had no influence on the subsequent history of pagan philosophy as a technical discipline. He was completely ignored not only by the adherents of rival philosophical systems, but even by the other surviving representatives of his own school, Epictetus (c. 50–138) and Marcus Aurelius (121–80), despite close similarities in the versions of Stoicism all three were propounding.¹ Having seen why this should be so, we shall be in a better position to understand what influence Seneca did have, and why.

The principal reason for Seneca’s failure to leave any impression on the mainstream of philosophical thought is that this was not his purpose. His ambition was not to produce new developments in philosophy (in fact he was highly critical of those who became too involved in the technicalities of the subject), but to propound and defend the Stoic view of life in a way that would appeal to the layman, indulging only in as much metaphysics as was necessary to provide a framework for the practical aspects of Stoicism. So, since he was little more than a popularizer of views that earlier Stoics had argued for more thoroughly, it is only natural that later philosophers should turn to them rather than to him for formulations of the Stoic position. Besides, we should not forget that Seneca’s prominence in modern accounts of Stoicism is due largely to the accident that his are the earliest Stoic writings to have survived in any more than a fragmentary state.

Seneca’s philosophical superficiality is closely connected with another factor tending to limit his influence on later philosophers, namely the fact that during his lifetime philosophy was largely in the province of amateurs. In most periods, major philosophers have had their influence virtually guaranteed by their role as teachers or scholars within an established institution whose intellectual traditions they could modify.² But the disestablishment of philosophy which was a feature of Seneca’s time not only cut off this avenue of influence, but also encouraged an eclectic spirit which makes it almost impossible to trace clear lines of influence at all. In addition to these factors, Seneca was unlikely to appeal to later philosophers both because Stoicism began to suffer a decline within a few decades of his death, so that by the third century philosophy was almost exclusively Platonic; and also because he wrote in Latin, whereas virtually every subsequent pagan philosopher, whatever his nationality, wrote in Greek. Nevertheless, even taking all these mitigating circumstances into account, we can only conclude from their silence that later philosophers regarded Seneca as at best second-rate.

While it is certain that Seneca had no significant influence on professional philosophers, the position is very different with regard to the popular philosophy of his day. During the latter part of the first century, the culture of the Roman Empire was to a striking extent pervaded by Stoic ideas and values. It is impossible to judge how far this state of affairs was due specifically to Seneca’s work, since there were innumerable other Stoic writers, teachers and preachers in the early imperial period. There is, however, a strong presumption that his contribution was a significant one, both because of the effectiveness of his literary style, and because of the moral authority he must have had as a respected statesman. But more positive evidence is hard to come by, and the assertion that he helped to form the general climate of contemporary thought would be a mere guess were it not for a number of explicit testimonies to his reputation. Seneca’s fellow-countryman and contemporary, Columella, writes (De re rust. III.3.3): Seneca, vir excellentis ingenii atque doctrinae …; and in Nat. Hist. XIV.5.51 Pliny the Elder (23/4–79) refers to him as princeps tum eruditorum ac potentia. Quintilian (b. c. 30/35) says he was almost the only author read by the younger generation (Inst. Orat. X.1.125): tum autem solus hic fere in manibus adulescentium fuit; and later makes the very fair point that Seneca excelled as a moralist rather than as a philosopher (ibid. 129):

In philosophia parum diligens, egregius tamen vitiorum insectator fuit. Multae in eo claraeque sententiae, multa etiam morum gratia legenda.

Seneca’s protégé Martial (c. 40–c. 104) calls him fecundus in Ep., VII.45.1, but this could just be out of flattery for his patron.³ Far more important is the evidence provided by Tacitus (b. c. 56), who says (Ann. 12.8) that Agrippina recalled Seneca from exile because of his popularity and scholarly reputation: laetum in publicum rata ob claritudinem studiorum eius; and in Ann. 13.3 that Seneca’s polished and pleasant style was in fashion when he wrote the speech Nero delivered at Claudius’s funeral: quamquam oratio a Seneca composita multum cultus praeferret, ut fuit illi viro ingenium amoenum et temporis eius auribus accommodatum. Again, he asserts that the dissertation Seneca wrote while dying was too well known for him to need to repeat it (Ann. 15.63): quae in vulgus edita eius verbis invertere supersedeo.⁴

Even hostile historians admit his reputation: Suetonius (b. c. 69) refers to him as tum maxime placentem (Cal. 53.2); and Dio Cassius, writing in the third century, says (59.19.7): ‘Lucius Annaeus Seneca, who surpassed all the Romans of his day in wisdom, and many others besides …’ Finally, a more indirect piece of evidence for general familiarity with Seneca’s work is given by the convincing theory that Petronius was satirizing Seneca’s literary style and Stoic attitudes in the Satyricon;⁵ and, as Bourgery says, ‘On ne parodie que les auteurs en renom.’⁶

The only remaining basis for assessing Seneca’s influence on his contemporaries is by finding traces of it in the literature of the time. But the evidence here is almost bound to be inconclusive, since virtually nothing that survives deals with the same sort of topics, so as to be capable of revealing either clear Senecan influence, or the lack of it. The most obvious candidate is Plutarch (before 50 to after 120) in his Moralia and Quaest. Nat.; but all we find (in Mor. VI.461F) is one bon mot attributed to Seneca (though not derived from his writings), and a few tenuous parallels between Plutarch’s and Seneca’s Quaest. Nat.⁷ However, since Plutarch was both Greek and an opponent of Stoicism, his virtual ignoring of Seneca gives us no basis for concluding that the latter was generally unknown or despised at the time. As might be expected, Pliny the Elder occasionally uses Seneca as a source of information about scientific matters: in Nat. Hist. I he claims to have used him for Book VI (on geography), Book IX (on aquatic animals) and Book XXXVI (on stones), though he refers to him explicitly only in VI.21.60, IX.78.167 and XIV.5.51. But this gives no evidence either way about the extent of Seneca’s influence as a philosopher or moralist.

As for the poetry of the period, the dependence on Seneca of the anonymous tragedy Octavia is beyond question: it both imitates his style, and shows his character in a favourable light.⁸ But elsewhere the position is less clear. It is generally agreed that Seneca left a profound impression on his Stoic nephew Lucan (39–65): for instance, Bourgery writes: ‘Un surtout a lu avidement les ouvrages du grand philosophe et s’en est profondément impregné, c’est Lucain.’⁹ However, most of the parallels that have been found with Seneca’s works are with the Naturales Quaestiones and the Agamemnon;¹⁰ that Seneca influenced him specifically in his Stoicism seems to be an assumption (though a perfectly reasonable one) based on the similarity in their attitudes and their personal relationship, rather than on any direct evidence from Lucan’s verse. It is equally generally agreed that Seneca had no influence on the other extant Stoic poet of the time, Persius (34–62),¹¹ a judgment based ma...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• I. Imago Vitae Suae
• II. Form and Content in the Moral Essays
• III. Letters to Lucilius
• IV. The Tragedies
• V. Seneca’s Philosophical Influence
• VI. Seneca and English Tragedy
• VII. Seneca and Neo-Latin Tragedy in England
• Subject Index
• Name Index