Abbreviations
OCD
Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., ed. Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
SVF
Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. Hans F. A. von Arnim. Leipzig, 1903–24.
Use.
Usener, Hermann. Epicurea. Leipzig, 1887.
Introduction
1. Insult (contumelia) was a frequent grievance in the actio iniuriarum; see in general the discussion by Riggsby 2010, 191–94; also, OCD s.v. “iniuria and defamation.” Seneca’s discussion shows some traces of legal categorization and juristic argumentation (e.g., 5.3, 7.3–6).
2. Though it would have been possible to translate iniuria with “wrong,” as Robert Kaster has appropriately done in his translation of On Anger, in the present context I have used injury to sustain the contrast with insult—the first primarily physical, the second primarily verbal—that is central to the division of the work; and to register the fact that Seneca often draws analogies with physical assault (e.g., 1.1, 3.5, 16.2). But caution is needed: Latin iniuria, like Greek adikia, places more emphasis on the perpetrator’s agency (“unlawful conduct,” “unjust treatment,” “an injustice”) than does the English term injury.
3. The syllogistic arguments here differ from the logical game-playing Seneca criticizes elsewhere (e.g., Letter 49.5–6), as noted by Barnes 1997, 18 n. 19. See also Cooper 2006.
4. Seneca’s discussion is placed in a broader sociological context by Roller 2001, 146–54, esp. 151 n. 32.
5. On constantia in Seneca’s prose and tragedies, see Star 2006.
6. On constantia in Seneca and its association with patientia and magnitudo animi, see Viansino 1988, 66. Serenus’s lack of special respect for patientia is a reminder of that term’s associations with not only endurance but also, depending on the context, problematic submission, mapped in detail by Kaster 2002.
7. Wright 1974, 59. The convenient but misleading abbreviated title On Constancy may owe something to the fact that Justus Lipsius adapted Seneca’s title for his neo-Stoic work De Constantia (1584). Lipsius’s work draws on a variety of Seneca’s works, not this one alone.
8. For subtle analysis of the sage’s function in Seneca, see Inwood 2005, 295–96.
9. The only certain dating criterion is the posthumous mention of Valerius Asiaticus at 18.2, which puts the work later than 47 CE, the year of Valerius’s suicide under Claudius (Tacitus Annals 11.3.2). On Serenus, and the chronology of the works associated with him, see Seneca’s recollection of his death in Letter 63.14–15. For discussion see Griffin 1992, 316–17, 354, 396, 399, 447–48; Williams 2003, 12–15; also Grimal 1953, 13–17, 19.
10. On the tradition see Lee 1953; the relevance of paradoxes in Seneca’s Consolation to Helvia is demonstrated by Williams 2006.
11. Plutarch On Stoic Contradictions 1044a. For this and other fragments preserving this paradox (including Seneca On Benefits 2.35.2), see SVF 3:567–81. The various Greek terms include adikia (“injustice”), blabê (“harm”), diabolê (“slander”), hubris (“rough treatment”).
12. On the Caligula example, see Wilcox 2008, 466–72; Wright 1974, 63.
13. As Matthew Roller has noted (2001, 161–62).
14. Griffin 1992 observes: “Perhaps [the Caligula example here] is a reference to Seneca’s own insulting treatment and his passive role in 41, but Seneca does not go out of his way to enlighten us biographically” (215).
On the Constancy of the Wise Person
15. Cato the Younger (95–46 BCE); on Cato in Seneca, see the note at On Providence 2.9.
16. P. Vatinius had defeated Cato in the election for praetor in 55, and this is the scenario that Serenus has in mind, as is made clear at 2.3 below (cf. On Providence 3.14; Letters 118.4).
17. P. Clodius Pulcher (d. 52), one of Cicero’s main adversaries, became a symbol of political corruption and mob violence in the 50s BCE.
18. Seneca presents Hercules as a moral exemplar alongside Regulus and Cato at On Tranquility of Mind 16.4, and he is ubiquitous in the tragedies; Ulysses (Odysseus) arises as an occasional example, especially in Letters (e.g., 88.7).
19. I.e., the first triumvirate, in the 50s, with power shared between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus.
20. On the Stoic paradoxes, see my introduction to this essay.
21. This perhaps refers to situations when the wise person undergoes a temporary loss of sobriety or sanity, as in drunkenness (Cato’s, at On Tranquility of Mind 17.4); on drunkenness, however, see Letters 83.9–27.
22. Actions of King Xerxes during the Persian Wars.
23. Demetrius (336–283 BCE) was the son of Antigonus and king of Macedonia. Stilpo (ca. 370–290 BCE) belonged to the Megarian school of philosophy begun by Euclides of Megara, a student of Socrates; their ethics emphasized, among other things, self-sufficiency.
24. Still Stilpo.
25. Another Stoic paradox: “The wise person is never moved by gratitude” (cf. Cicero On Behalf of Murena 61).
26. I.e., common to insult and injury alike.
27. I.e., insults at the morning greeting (salutatio) and the evening dinner party (conuiuium).
28. Apparently a reference to pre-emotions (propatheiai), which the Stoic wise person feels without assenting to them. On Seneca’s account of these, see Graver 2007, 93–101.
29. The text here (MSS ualentes coloratos, emended to ualentes colorati) remains uncertain.
30. King of the Medes: probably a loose reference to Xerxes, the Persian king. Attalus: i.e., one of the three kings of Pergamon named Attalus, in the third and second centuries BCE.
31. The servile chores included wiping up spit and vomit; see Letters 47.5.
32. Epicurus Sententiae 16 Use.
33. Usener excerpts this as frag. 585.
34. Veruex marinus: literally, “a marine castrated sheep”; source unknown (= SVF 2:11).
35. Seneca’s “eyewitness account” is “hard to place,” but probably in the reign of Caligula or later (Griffin 1992, 44 n. 4).
36. For Vatinius’s deformities and Cicero’s attacks, see Plutarch Cicero 9 and 26; Cicero’s speech Against P. Vatinius was published ca. 56–54 BCE, after the trial of P. Sestius. On Vatinius see also 1.3 above with note.
37. On Caligula (12–41 CE; emperor 37–41), many of the details below arise also in Suetonius’s Caligula: physiognomy (50), adultery (36), clothing (52), Chaerea and the assassination (56–58), the name Caligula (9).
38. I follow Gertz’s emendation emendicaticiis capillis aspersi (“hairs obtained by begging”) for †emendacitatis† capillis adspersi.
39. I.e., let alone against himself. Basore translates with “by others”; I prefer to follow Viansino and Lanzarone.
40. Cassius Chaerea.
41. As Wilcox 2008, 467 observes, this ironically echoes Caligula’s saying (recorded by others, and by Seneca in On Anger 3.19.2) that he wished the Roman people had one neck, so he could punish them all in a single stroke.
42. On Xanthippe’s ill-tempered provocations of Socrates, see Seneca’s On Marriage frag. 31 Vottero and Letters 104.27. On Socrates as the butt of comedians’ jokes, see On the Happy Life 27.2.
43. Antisthenes (444–365 BCE) and a few other students of Socrates encountered abuse for not being Athenian citizens. The “mother of the gods” is Cybele.
Basore, John, trans. 1928. Seneca, Moral Essays. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Grimal, Pierre, comm. 1953. De constantia sapientis. Paris: Belles Lettres.