Selection 10 (1 pref. 5-13)

Selection 10 (1 pref. 5–13): The ethical value of the study of natural science

Seneca argues that the study of the physical world allows us to better understand the cosmos as a whole and attain a “view from above.” In studying the larger universe we acquire the proper perspective on the human world and its troubles and, ultimately, become closer to God, who is that universe. We recognize that the human animus (the mind as the seat of consciousness) is a small portion of the divine inside of each of us, which delights in doing this sort of research. These ideas underlie and motivate the treatise as a whole. As Hadot (1995: 245) puts it, “The view from above thus leads us to consider the whole of human reality, in all its social, geographical, and emotional aspects, as an anonymous, swarming mass, and it teaches us to relocate human existence within the immeasurable dimensions of the cosmos. Everything that does not depend on us, which the Stoics called indifferent (indifferentia)—such as health, fame, wealth, and even death—is reduced to its true dimensions when considered from the point of view of the nature of the all.” Seneca encourages this perspective in some of his letters as well, such as Ep. 92.30–34.

Further Reading: Hadot 1995: 238–250; Inwood 2009.

[1.pr.5] Ethical struggle on the merely human plane, without natural science, is impoverished.

O quam: introducing an exclamation (AG 269.c).

contempta: “trivial,” “negligible” > contemno.

surrexerit: future perfect > surgo in the protasis of a future more vivid condition (AG 516).

humana: “human affairs,” acc. n. pl. substantive

quamdiu cum adfectibus colluctamur: coping with damaging emotions is a central goal of Stoic ethics. In his ethical writings Seneca stresses the daily fight against such passions (adfectus), and a central theme of his tragedies the inability of characters to overcome their passions. See Konstan 2015 for a concise overview of Seneca’s perspective on the passions.

magnifici: partitive genitive (AG 346)

portenta vincimus: “we overcome only monsters,” no worthy goal or great achievement.

cur suspiciamus nosmet ipsos: indirect question (AG 574). The -met intensifier (AG 143.d) and ipsos stress the vanity of accolades we give to ourselves for making philosophical progress.

dissimiles deterrimis: “very different from the worst (people).” dissimilis takes the dative (AG 385). This sort of comparison shows how limited our perspective truly is.

quare sibi placeat: another indirect question (AG 574). placeat takes the dative (AG 367).

in valetudinario: according to Seneca we are all ethically “sick” in some way, and philosophy can help heal the mind just as doctors heal the body. See Ep. 27.1: “I am lying in the same hospital as you, and I am speaking to you about our shared illness and sharing remedies for it” (tamquam in eodem valetudinario iaceam, de communi tecum malo conloquor et remedia communico). In general, Roman hospitals were found in army camps and not in cities, where such care would take place in the home.

[1.pr.6] Ethical progress in itself is not enough; its purpose is to prepare the mind for the contemplation of the heavens and the divine.

multum interest: “there is a great difference.”

vires: “physical strength” (looking back to robustior in the previous sentence) rather than good health in general.

effugisti vitia animi: these vices are subsequently catalogued. Ring-composition with effugisti encloses this paragraph.

est tibi frons ficta: tibi is dative of possession (AG 373), and applies also to the string of nominatives that follows, sermo ... cor ... avarita ... luxuria ... ambitio.

in alienam voluntatem: “according to someone else’s will.” The dangers of flattery were also mentioned in the preface of Book 4a and are a central theme of Tacitus’ history of the period, the Annals.

involutum: “wrapped up,” “concealed”

avaritia: greed is that it is never satiated (Ep. 108.9: “many things are lacking in poverty, everything is lacking to greed,” desunt inopiae multa, avaritiae omnia). Avaritia comes up relatively often in NQ, especially as a force that inspires exploration, but for the wrong reasons (e.g. mining in Book 5, see Selection 6).

quae: fem. nom. sing., subject of neget in relative clause of characteristic (AG 535).

luxuria … reparet: the antecedent of quam is pecunia and it introduces a relative clause of characteristic. Note the rhetorical amplification from turpiter to turpius and the repetitive “p” and “t” sounds which give this sententia a memorable rhythm. As with greed, luxury is another vice that appears often in NQ (see Selections 5 and 12).

ambitio: originally denoted the act of canvassing for office, but gradually came to mean  “a self-interested striving for success,” especially in politics. Earlier in the work, Seneca notes that Lucilius is “a stranger to ambition, a friend to leisure and literature” (scio quam sis ambitioni alienus, quam familiaris otio et litteris, NQ 4a.pr.1).

te ad dignitatem nisi per indigna: note the wordplay between dignitatem and indigna. dignitas means “rank,” “public office.” indigna would include the need to flatter the voters or powerful individuals to gain office.

multa effugisiti, te nondum: “you have escaped many (bad) things, (but) you have not yet escaped yourself” by gaining the loftier perspective of natural science.

Virtus … quam adfectamus magnifica est: virtus in the Stoic view is a moral excellence never fully achieved by ordinary mortals, hence adfectamus, “we strive for.” Note the wordplay with the previous paragraph, adfectibus ... adfectamus, and magnifici ... magnifica.  

per se beatum est malo caruisse: the infinitive is the neuter subject of est (AG 452); careo takes an ablative of separation, malo (AG 401).

ad cognitionem caelestium: ad +  accusative expressing purpose. cognitio takes an objective genitive (AG 347). Seneca draws on both meanings of caelestia: “heavenly objects,” and “divine things” (LS caelestis II.A.4).

dignum ... qui … veniat: dignus frequently introduces a relative clause of characteristic (LS dignus I.β). Translate “worthy to come.”  

[1.pr.7] The enlarged perspective of natural science allows us to despise human wealth and luxury.

tunc … cum: correlatives, “then… when… ” (AG 323.g).

habet: supply animus as the subject from the previous sentence.

calcato omni malo: ablative absolute, building on the previous section’s idea of malo caruisse.

petît: perfect tense (= petivit, AG 181), as is vēnit at the end of the sentence.

altum: “the lofty and the deep” (Corcoran). altus can have both meanings. Seneca likes to play with such vertical highs and lows in this work. See Trinacty 2018.

in interiorem naturae sinum: “into the inmost secrets of nature” (LS sinus II.2.d). There is some personification of natura here. For a similar idea, see NQ 7.30.6 in Selection 9 and 1.pr.3.

iuvat: “it is pleasing,” impersonal verb with the accusative vagantem [animum] (AG 388.c) and the infinitive ridere.

pavimenta: marble inlaid floors favored by the rich, like the one from Pompeii at the House of the Faun.

ridere: rather than feeling envy or greed, the exalted mind laughs at displays of wealth (elaborate floors) as well as all the gold on earth (cf. NQ 5.18.16 for similar laughter). In his treatise de Ira, Seneca advises us to “withdraw far away and laugh” (recede longius et ride! 5.37.3) when we are growing angry at the behavior of those around us.

non illo tantum … sed illo: “not only do I speak about the gold… but also the gold… ”

quod egessit: “that (gold) which it (the earth) has produced,” i.e., what has already been mined.

signandum monetae: “to be struck for money.” Supply aurum with signandum. The mint in Rome was connected to the temple of Juno Moneta; as a common noun, moneta can refer by extension to any mint, or be used as a synonym for pecunia or nummus.

in occulto: = “in hiding,” “in a hidden place,” an important idea for the work as a whole, as Seneca often gives reasons for hidden phenomena. At the opening of the work, he stated his task would be to discover occulta (3.pr.1) and at the close of the work he will say it is through such investigation of occulta naturae (2.59.2) that our souls are strengthened (see Selection 14).

posterorum: “of later generations.” See the digression about mining in Book 5 (Selection 6).

[1.pr.8] It is not possible to despise worldly goods until one attains this “view from above.”

non potest ... circuit ... sibi ipse dixit: animus is the subject of this long sentence, supplied from above.

ante… quam: “until,” with totum circuit mundum (AG 434). The long wait for the quam gives the feeling that Seneca could continue to catalogue the trappings of the rich indefinitely.

porticus: accusative plural. There were numerous public colonnades in the city of Rome, and they were found at private villas as well (such as Villa Poppaea at Oplontis).

lacunaria ebore fulgentia: “recessed panelled ceilings gleaming with ivory,” emblematic of conspicuous consumption by the rich (see Horace, Odes 2.18.1–2; Seneca, Ep. 114.9 and 115.9). A French manuscript of the NQ shows Seneca at work on the text in a room with a paneled ceiling!

tonsiles silvas: manicured gardens are attested in Rome from the 1^st century BCE (e.g. the elegant Horti Lucullani) and one can find reconstructed pleasure gardens in some of the houses in Pompeii, as well as the Roman style Getty Villa in Malibu.

derivata … flumina: water features were common in luxury villas, especially fish ponds and swimming pools; but water could also be used in plumbing (cf. Ep. 100.6) or baths (Ep. 86.7). Diverting streams was not uncommon, to provide water for villa crops (especially vines) and meadows (Marzano 2007: 93–4). Seneca describes the Villa Vatia having a canal cut between the sea and an inland lake to supply fish when there are storms at sea (Ep. 55.6). Seneca lambasts such luxury and the “foodie” desire for red mullet in NQ 3.17.1–18.7.

totum circuît mundum: circuît = circumivit, pf. > circumeo. animus is still the subject. This tour of the universe is the culmination of Seneca’s original desire to “traverse the world” (mundum circumire, 3.pr.1).

terrarum orbem: orbis terrarum is the standard way to refer to the world in Latin.

angustum: from on high the whole world seems small and insignificant.

magna ex parte opertum mari: mari is ablative of means (AG 409); magna ex parte = “for the most part.”

ea qua extat: the antecedent is pars. The idea that terra firma “stands out” from the sea emphasizes the vast expanse of water that covers the world.

squalidum: “uncultivated” wasteland

ustum: “scorched” by the sun, > uro

rigentem: “frozen” (LS rigeo III.1)

punctum: “pinpoint.”

[1.pr.9] From the perspective of the universe, the contested boundaries between nations are ridiculously small.

O quam: introducing an exclamatory sentence, as in 1.pr.5.

Histrum: Hister or Ister was the Roman name for the lower Danube , long the border between the Roman Empire and Dacia, what is now Romania. Dacia was largely independent of Roman influence until conquered by Trajan in AD 106, which is famously portrayed on his column. See map.

Dacos: “the Dacians” (the masculine nominative singular standing for the people as a whole).

<nostrum> <arc>eat imperium: reading Oltramare's emendations. This makes more sense with the actual geopolitical situation at this time, which Seneca surely understood.

Haemo Thraces includat: “let the Thracians fence in the (Roman) empire with the Haemus,” i.e. the Balkan mountain range. In the Neronian period the Haemus range was the boundary between newly established provinces of Thracia (to the south) and Moesia Inferior (to the north). See map.

Parthis: the Parthians, based in what is now Iran, were Rome’s main imperial rivals in this period. The Euphrates River represented the notional boundary between Roman and Parthian spheres of control.

Sarmatica: the Sarmatians were a confederation of Iranian nomadic tribes who consolidated their power in the northern Black Sea steppe in the 4th to 2nd centuries BCE. In the 1st century BCE, they were allies of the Pontic king Mithradates VI during his war with Rome. Thereafter, the northern Pontic littoral was called Sarmatia, and the group was often mentioned by Latin writers. Seneca imagines their territory as bounded on the west by the Danube.

Aethiopas: “the Aethiopians” (acc. pl.). Seneca probably refers to the peoples of Upper Nubia around the kingdom of Meroe, south of Egypt and separated from it by the Nubian desert. Ancient Greek geographers, however, distinguished between “Aethiopia under Egypt” (i.e., Upper Nubia) and “Inner Aethiopia,” which seems to refer to sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, and this could be the reference here as well. See Ptolemy, Geography 4.7 (Aethiopia under Egypt) and 4.8 (Inner Aethiopia).

[1.pr.10] If ants had human minds they would go to war over tiny spaces, as we do.

si quis: introduces a mixed condition with a future less vivid protasis and a future more vivid apodosis (AG 516); quis for aliquis (AG 310.a).

nonne: expects an affirmative answer (AG 332.b).

illae: the ants

aream: could be any open space, but Seneca perhaps imagines a threshing floor used to separate grain (LS area II.c). It was usually circular, and hence it approximates an ancient conception of the earth.

divident: echoing the dividitur that ends 1.pr.8.

cum … sustuleris: cum temporal clause (AG 547). Although in previous sections it was the animus that was traveling into the celestial sphere, now Seneca imagines “you” (Lucilius or the reader) attaining such a viewpoint.

in illa vere magna: vere acts as a corrective to what had seemed “great” from an earthly point of view (see the following, quasi magnum aliquid agatur). As Gunderson (2015: 68) puts it, “The philosophy of perspective provides one of the opening themes of the text as a whole. There we are told that we generally mis-measure phenomena because we look at them from our own meager standpoint.”

quotiens videbis exercitus … ire: videbis sets up indirect speech with exercitus the accusative subject of ire (AG 580). This image recalls the opening of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura Book 2 where one observes the movements of armies from far off (2.5–6, 40–46).

quasi magnum aliquid agatur: quasi introduces a conditional clause with the subjunctive (AG 524). Military action and imperialism more generally are cut down to size, a theme also highlighted earlier in the work in the preface to Book 3 (3.pr.5–6, 9–10).

modo… modo… modo… : “now… now… now… ” (AG 323.f). The movements of the cavalry, even with superlatives (extrema) and comparatives (ulteriora), are made minuscule by this view from above.

a lateribus adfusum: “massed at the flanks” of the main column, a military expression, see LS ab II.B.3 and OLD affundo 6.

‘it nigrum campis agmen’: a quotation of Vergil, Aeneid 4.404, in which Vergil compares the movement of Aeneas’ men to ants storing grain for the winter. Vergil himself plays with the reader’s perspective. What was a comparison for the reader soon becomes the point of view Dido (4.408), who is seeing this from her “high citadel” (arce ex summa). Her reaction is not the serene philosophical contemplation of the divine that Seneca encourages here.

formicarum: heavily empahsized by its position.

in angusto: not only emphasizing the tiny nature of their work, but also another recollection of the passage of the Aeneid, where the ants were carrying their food “on a narrow path” (calle angusto, Aen. 4.405). Note how this adjective is repeated from 1.pr.8 and will be found again at 1.pr.13. Seneca is artfully stressing this word and will conclude this preface with the observation, “I will know everything is tiny, having measured god” (sciam omnia angusta esse mensus deum, 1.pr.17).

quid illis et vobis interest: “what difference is there between those ants and you” (LS intersum II.B).

corpusculi: the small size of the body is emphasized with the diminutive.

[1.pr.11] Our world is tiny, but the mind, if purified, has access to the vast world above.

punctum: the repetition stresses the point first made at the end of section 1.pr.8.

minima: “tiny,” further describing the regna.

etiam cum illis utrimque oceanus occurrit: “even when the Ocean runs to meet them on both sides,” i.e., the kingdom could take up the entire landmass of Europe, Africa, and Asia, but it would still be tiny from the cosmic viewpoint. occurro takes the dative, illis (AG 370).

animus: this sort of movement of the mind can happen with Stoic meditation and study.

<s>ed ita: “but under these circumstances,” helping to explain the way the mind can be admitted to the world summit.

secum: = cum se.

minimum ex corpore: “very little of the body”

si sordidum omne detersit: the mind must be cleansed from earthly matters to make this ascent.

se contentus emicuit: in Epistle 9, Seneca stresses that the ideal Stoic is self-sufficient (se contentus), repeating the phrase six times in the course of the letter. Fittingly for its travel into the firmament, such a mind “shines out” like a star (see emicuit at NQ 7.1.4).

[1.pr.12] The fact that the human mind delights in the study of natural science shows its kinship with the divine.

cum illa tetigit: cum temporal clause (AG 545); illa (acc. pl. neut.) refers to the ingentia spatia of the celestial sphere.

vinculis liberatus: vinculis is ablative of separation (AG 401). The metaphor reflects the ubiquity of slavery in the Roman world and the Platonic conception of the soul being imprisoned by the body (see Apuleius, De Platone 2.20: “the soul of the wise man, when freed from its bodily bonds, returns to gods,” vinculis liberata corporeis, sapientis anima remigrat ad deos).

quod: “the fact that” (AG 572), further elaborating the argument of the mind’s divine nature.

nec ut alienis sed ut suis interest: interest takes the dative; the animus “takes part in” or “attends to” divine matters not because they are different, but because they are cut from the same cloth; see also Ep. 41 and Ep. 102.23–29.

secure: “without anxiety.”

occasus ... ortus: accusative plural.

diversas concordantium vias: vias in the sense of “orbits” of stars. Although the orbits may differ, there is still harmony in the heavens.

ubi … ostendat: the first of three indirect questions (AG 586).

columen: “point of culmination,” the apex of its course.

[summum cursus]: “the highest altitude of its course.” There words are probably a marginal gloss on columen that has intruded upon the text.

quousque descendat: the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks all used the heliacal risings of various stars for the timing of agricultural activities. The risings and fallings of stars and constellations are discussed in many surviving ancient works, such as Hesiod’s Works and Days, Aratus’ Phaenomena, and Manilius’ Astronomica.

curiosus spectator: “an engaged spectator.” The animus wants to know astronomical details because they directly pertain to it.

[1.pr.13] From this sublime point of view, one realizes not only how small the earth is, but also how to conceive of the true nature of God.

domicilii: the “home” encompasses the animus’ body, dwelling, and country.

quantum: can mean “how great” or “how small.” At first glance, the reader might assume that it is actually a great distance between India and Spain, but Seneca remarks that it is not that far.

paucissimorum dierum spatium: Seneca exaggerates for rhetorical effect. The fastest travel by open sea from Gades in Spain to Pelusium in Egypt would take approximately 32 days. After a land leg from the coast of Egypt to the Red Sea, the voyage to India would probably take another month. It has been hypothesized that Christopher Columbus thought Seneca was speaking about a westward journey and that this passage influenced his decision to sail to the New World (see Clay 1992).

suus: “favorable”; cf. Ep. 71.3: “if one does not know which harbor to approach, there can be no favorable wind (suus ventus).”

per triginta annos: per + time = “during, over a period of.” This refers to the orbit of Saturn and shows the vast expanse of the celestial realm, compared to the earthly travel from Spain to India.

nusquam resistenti sed aequaliter cito: “which never stops and maintains a constant velocity,” further defining the “very fast star” (velocissimo sideri).

quod diu quaesît: “that which it has long sought.” quaesît = quaesivit. animus is the subject.

nosse: = novisse.

mens universi: this idea may originate with the Presocratic philosopher Thales. Aëtius (a later compiler) explains, “Thales says that God is the mind of the world, and the totality is at once animate and full of deities” (Graham 2010: 35). Cicero also expresses this idea in De Natura Deorum (1.39).

non vides totum: hence the sort of exploration of the hidden and inner workings of nature that Seneca does in NQ. God is natura and therefore the study of natura is also the study of God.

magnitudo illi sua redditur: “his own greatness is rendered to him.” That is, God is given credit for his true magnificence only if we conceive of him as the totality of the universe.

qua nihil maius: qua is ablative of comparison (AG 406). The antecedent is magnitudo.

opus suum et intra et extra tenet: “he maintains his own work both from within and without.” God’s work is the universe and all that is in it.