Abbreviations
LS
Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
OLD
Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. G. W. Glare. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
Use.
Usener, Hermann. Epicurea. Leipzig, 1887.
Introduction
1. For analysis, including on the variations and subtleties in Stoic theories of pleasure, see Asmis 1990, 235–44. Background for the dispute can be found in Cicero On the Ends of Good and Bad 2.43–69; cf. Griffin 1992, 307.
2. Background for this emphasis, which probably derives from Panaetius, can be found, e.g., in Cicero On Duties 1.17; cf. Asmis 1990, 250; Griffin 1992, 179, 296–97, 307 n. 4.
3. For other discussions of the happy life with different emphases, see Letters 85 and 92.
4. On the work’s chronology and approach, and the question of its relationship to Suillius’s charges, see Griffin 1992, 19–20, 306–9, 396, 399; Asmis 1990, 246–47. For discussion of the charges and Seneca’s relationship to money, see Levick 2003; for background on Suillius, Rutledge 2001, 111–13. The development of modern theories about the relationship of On the Happy Life to its historical context is helpfully traced by Chaumartin 1989, 1686–89.
5. As Schiesaro notes, Seneca even “offers an implicit model to the ruler” (1996, 26), especially in stressing the importance of respect for freedom.
6. On the heterogeneity of the debates, see Griffin 1992, 307.
7. On joy (gaudium = Gk. chara) and pleasure here, see Asmis 1990, 232–35, 244; joy and wealth, Griffin 1992, 179.
8. On Stoic values as freedom in this work, see Inwood 2005, 314.
9. As Hill 2004, 151–57 argues, suicide in Seneca serves as an exercise in “cognitive exemplarity.”
On the Happy Life
10. These words were used by the president of the senate to declare the outcome of a vote after a sententia was put to the vote; see Talbert 1984, 282–83.
11. This phrase (hoc amplius censeo) has a technical application in senatorial procedure, where a senator can support a measure and yet amend it by addition; see Talbert 1984, 256.
12. The Stoics, beginning with Zeno, focused on living in agreement with nature. But this was adapted in various ways (see LS 63 ABC), especially concerning the exact reference of “nature.” Seneca’s phrasing a few lines below, “its own nature,” recalls an addition by Chrysippus: the nature “of the human being” (cf. LS 63C2 and Chaumartin 1989, 1692), though Asmis 1990, 225–28 points out that Seneca, further, makes it specific to the nature of the individual person.
13. I fill the lacuna uoluptatibus et *** pro illis by following Reitzenstein, who inserts doloribus spretis.
14. I follow the conjecture of Gertz, ipsa sui fastidio obnoxia for the doubtful reading of the MSS †ipsis flagitiis noxia†.
15. “Morally good” is a translation of honestum, which I render throughout with either “morally good” or “moral” in keeping with the policy of the series.
16. An Epicurean interlocutor speaks up, unannounced. Here Seneca responds as if the objector were alluding to the Epicurean doctrine of recollection and anticipation of pleasures in the mind; see LS 21T, 22E1, F1, 24D.
17. For the doctrine (Epicurus frag. 506 Use.), compare Diogenes Laertius 10.138; Cicero Tusculan Disputations 3.20.49. See also LS 21B, P.
18. Literally, “aediles,” the magistrates appointed to monitor standards in bathhouses and other public institutions.
19. The last two phrases are an approximate translation, since the text here is questionable (nec quicquam †mutauit† optima).
20. A quotation from Virgil Aeneid 2.61, where the phrase describes the Greek trickster Sinon, who knew that he might be put to death, but hoped to be well received by the Trojans, as in fact he was.
21. I follow the emendation of Russell, [erat uera] Ratio uero, against the MSS readings (†erat uera. ratio uera† and †erat uera. ratio uero†).
22. For this Epicurean criticism of the Stoics, see LS 21P; also, for the Epicurean theory, Epicurus frag. 504 Use.
23. Here “ends” and “end” translate forms of finis, which can refer to territorial boundary or any ending but also here alludes to finis bonorum, the regular Latin term for the telos, or highest good.
24. Literally “pulls its ear” (aurem peruellit).
25. I omit a poorly understood phrase in the text, †utque enim† admittit.
26. For clarifying discussion see Dyson 2010, defending the manuscript reading concedis (“you (sg.) grant”) against the emendation of J. Müller followed by Reynolds, concedimus (“we grant”).
27. The promise is kept at 14.1.
28. Cassius Nomentanus was a legendary glutton and spendthrift. M. Gavius Apicius, the gourmand (and recipe writer) from Minturnae, flourished during the age of Tiberius.
29. The objector apparently admits that Nomentanus and Apicius are wretched, but denies that they illustrate the Epicurean position. Seneca’s refutation in the next lines, however, insists that they do in fact reach the Epicurean goal, or at least the hedonist’s goal, and that they show this state to be compatible with, and vulnerable to, madness.
30. Usener 1887 excerpts this as frag. 460 in his survey of Epicurean theory on satisfying desires (frags. 454–84 Use.).
31. I read Reynolds’s suggestion paenitentiae for †adulescentiae†.
32. An instrument of the Galli, the castrated priests of Magna Mater (Cybele).
33. I read Reynolds’s suggestion degener, cito for †degenerans uiro†.
34. Usener excerpts this as frag. 455; see above on 12.4.
35. Epicurus frag. 514 Use. See also Cicero On the Ends of Good and Bad 2.69 = LS 210, on Cleanthes’ word picture of the virtues as handmaidens to pleasure, a parody of Epicurean theory.
36. The latter two clauses directly contradict a famous utterance of the hedonistic philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene (Diogenes Laertius 2.75).
37. A reference to the notorious shallows off the coast of northern Africa.
38. Quotations from Virgil Georgics 1.139–40. The same verses are quoted for a different point at Letters 90.11.
39. For the distinction, see Cicero De finibus 3.55.
40. The language is close to Seneca’s translation from Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus, ducunt uolentem fata nolentem trahunt (“the fates lead the one who is willing; the one who is unwilling, they drag”), at Letters 107.10–11; the resonance is noted by Asmis 2009, 120.
41. On possible allusions here to the charges made against Seneca by P. Suillius Rufus in 58 CE, see my introduction to this essay.
42. For Plato as a target of criticism, see especially Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 11.504–9; for Epicurus, Diogenes Laertius 10.3–8; for Zeno of Citium (ca. 334–262 BCE), the first Stoic, Diogenes Laertius 7.33–34.
43. P. Rutilius Rufus (b. ca. 160 BCE) and Cato the Younger (95–46); see On Providence 2.9, 3.7, 3.14 with notes.
44. Seneca’s contemporary and friend; see On Providence 3.3 with note.
45. For “they . . . themselves” rather than “he . . . himself,” I am following Ruhkopf’s emendation interdixerint (which makes the contrast with the other Cynics clearer).
46. Otherwise unknown.
47. Virgil Aeneid 4.653, words of Dido before her suicide. The line is a favorite of Seneca’s, being quoted at Letters 12.9 and On Benefits 5.17.5.
48. I read delictorum uestrum omnium sit with Bourgery, for delictorum †omnium† sit.
49. This sentence has puzzled editors, and this translation is an approximation. In the final three sentences, I substitute “you” for Seneca’s third-person plural “they,” to clarify the reference to his opponents.
50. Ovid Metamorphoses 2.328, from the Phaethon episode, a comparison anticipated by the language at 20.2 above. Compare the similar but more extensive use of Phaethon in On Providence 5.10–11.
51. In the last two sentences we may see allusions to Seneca’s own works Consolation to Helvia (concerning exile) and On the Shortness of Life.
52. “Marcus Cato” here is Cato the Younger, who evidently revered the frugality of the early third-century Romans M. Curius Dentatus and Tiberius Coruncanius, but possessed wealth of his own without blame. Cato’s own wealth falls somewhere between that of the obscenely wealthy triumvir M. Licinius Crassus (d. 53 BCE) and his own moderately wealthy, but parsimonious, great-grandfather Cato the Censor (i.e., Cato the Elder, 234–149).
53. The theory of indifferents is discussed in detail at Letters 92.16–26; see also LS 58.
54. In contrast with the common tendency to give indiscriminately, criticized in On Benefits 1.1.2.
55. “I am . . . noting names” (nomina facio) is a technical term from accounting, referring to marking someone’s status as a reliable or worthy debtor. Seneca applies this analogically to the recipients of his gifts (cf. On Benefits 1.1.2).
56. This speech has some similarities to a “premeditation of future bad events” (praemeditatio futurorum malorum); on meditatio in Seneca see Newman 1988, 1989; Bartsch 2006, 230–81.
57. Rome’s oldest bridge and a location frequented by beggars.
58. Here no satisfactory solution has been offered for the corrupt text of praetextatus et †causatus†: “and cloak” is a guess.
59. I read with Lipsius semitectis, for †sententiis†.
60. “Black days,” or dies atri, were the days after the Kalends, Nones, and Ides, considered unlucky.
61. Liber (identified with Dionysus, whose mother Semele was from Thebes) was the legendary inventor of the triumph procession; see Pliny Natural History 7.191.
62. I read with Madvig a me petant for †penatium† petant.
63. A theme of the Roman triumph, in which the triumphator was reminded by a slave: “Look behind you! Remember that you are human!”
64. An approximation, for †clamitatis† odisse.
65. There are similarities here to the fragments of Seneca’s On Superstition, collected in Vottero 1998, 47–56.
66. Cf. OLD s.v. faueo 5. The Greek term euphêmia (lit. “good speaking”) also often means “silence.”
67. The details evoke various oriental religions, including worship of Isis (rattle) and Cybele (self-laceration).
68. I.e., in Aristophanes’ Clouds.
69. For Democritus’s abandonment of wealth, see On Providence 6.2; for corresponding anecdotes on the others, see Diogenes Laertius 3.3 (Plato), 5.4 (Aristotle), 10.7 (Epicurus).
70. Two of Socrates’ younger interlocutors; accusations of pederasty were part of the anti-Socratic tradition (e.g., Lucian Symposium 39). On the similar accusations against Seneca, see my introduction to this essay.
71. I have adopted the general sense of Grimal’s suggestion, uos quos <tunc> maxime felices <dicam>, for the corrupt text †o uos usu† maxime felices.
72. The transmitted text breaks off here, followed by what survives of the next work in the Essays, namely, On Leisure. Evidently, in an earlier manuscript from which the surviving manuscripts derive, the pages containing the end of the present work and the beginning of the next were lost.
Basore, John, trans. 1932. Seneca, Moral Essays, vol. 2. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Davie, John, trans. 2007. Seneca, Dialogues and Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.