On Seneca's "Ad Marciam" 9004064303, 9789004064300

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ON SENECA'S "AD MARCIAM"

MNEMOSYNE BIBLIOTHECA

CLASSICA BATAVA

COLLEGERUNT A. D. LEEMAN·

H. W. PLEKET · W. J. VERDENIUS

BIBLIOTHECAE

FASCICULOS EDENDOS CURAVIT

W. J. VERDENIUS,

SUPPLEMENTUM

HOMERUSLAAN

53, ZEIST

SEXAGESIMUM

NONUM

C. E. MANNING

ON SENECA'S "AD MARCIAM"

LUGDUNI BATAVORUM

E.J. BRILL

MCMLXXXI

ON SENECA'S ''AD MARCIAM'' BY

C. E. MANNING

LEIDEN

E.

J. BRILL

1981

ISBN Copynght 1981 by E.

90 04 06430 3

J. Brill,

Leiden, The Netherlands

All nj;hts reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written permission from the publisher PRINTED

IN THE

NETHERLANDS

CONTENTS Pref ace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

v11

The The The The The

1 8 12 21 25

Date and Purpose of the Ad Marciam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Structure of the Ad Marciam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Literary and Philosophical Background of the Ad Marciam . . . . Language and Style of the Ad Marciam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Text of the Ad I\farciam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Commentary..............................................

27

Select Bibliography.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

PREFACE A commentary on Seneca's Ad Marciam needs little excuse. The last commentary on any of the consolationes to appear in English was the small but invaluable work on the De Brevitate Vitae and Consolationes Ad Polybium and Ad Helviam by J. D. Duff which appeared in 1915, and no full scale commentary on the Ad Marciam has been seen since Favez' edition in 1928. Since that time a number of new approaches have assisted our understanding of what Seneca was trying to say, and have helped us to a juster appreciation of the seeming inconsistencies in Seneca's arguments. Rudolf Kassel and Constantine Grollios have demonstrated the influence of generic tradition on the form of the work whilst structural studies by Pierre Grimal and Karlhans Abel have shown the importance of viewing any Senecan argument in its context rather than as a statement of principle in vacuo. Others such as Mlle Guillemin have demonstrated Seneca's concern to teach, and the way in which works are tailored to meet the paedeutic situation. It seemed therefore reasonable to attempt a fuller commentary on the Ad Marciam which incorporated some of the fruits of scholarly research in divergent areas, however inadequate that attempt might be. In a first work it is appropriate to record many debts of gratitude. My teachers at the University of Southampton were always most encouraging and incisive, and I am particularly grateful to Professor A. E. Douglas and Mr C. W. Whitaker for showing me the possibilities of working on Seneca. My colleagues at the University of Canterbury have always been interested in discussing my work, and I should mention here my fellow Stoic Dr. R. P. Bond, Dr. L. C. Watson of the University of Sydney, Professor D. A. Kidd who made some valuable comments on textual cruces, and Professor K. H. Lee rvho was likewise encouraging and helpful. The bulk of the research was carried out while on study leave as a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in the University of Edinburgh in 1976-7. I am grateful to the University of Canterbury for providing for this leave, and to the University of Edinburgh which provided such congenial surroundings in which to work. Professor William Beattie was kindness itself, and Mrs Margaret Swift organised accommodation with quiet efficiency. Colleagues in the department of Humanity, Dr H. Hine and Mr J. G. Wright both read preliminary drafts of the commentary and made helpful suggestions for improvement, whilst Mr J. G.

VIII

PREFACE

Howie in the Greek department willingly shared his knowledge of consolatory themes in Greek Literature. Other scholars who have been of considerable encouragement are Mr C. D. N. Costa of the University of Birmingham and Professor Francis Cairns of the University of Liverpool. I should also thank my wife who typed part of the first draft, and Prudence Buttery who produced the final version with both efficiency and good humour. Finally, I should like to thank Professor A. D. Leeman who encouraged me to publish the work in its present form, and made valuable suggestions about the scope of the introduction. Needless to say, I am responsible for the deficiencies still apparent in the work.

THE DATE AND PURPOSE

OF THE AD MARCIAM

The biography of L. Annaeus Seneca is well-known. There is no need to discuss in detail the life of the second son of a provincial rhetor who early developed both ill-health and a taste for philosophy. Others have dealt with the beginnings of his political career, his prominence as an orator under Gaius, his exile early in Claudius' reign, his recall at Agrippina's request to be Nero's tutor, his years as one of that emperor's principal advisors, his retirement in 62, and his enforced suicide in 65 after the discovery of the Pisonean conspiracy. 1 What is worth noting is that the connection between Seneca's literary and philosophic work and his life as a statesman is difficult to determine. Syme and Griffin 2 have pointed out that without Tacitus' account we should know scarcely anything of Seneca's political activity, about which he says little, and it is equally true that external sources give us little assistance in determining the chronology of his work. The Ad Marciam is no exception to this general rule. There is no external evidence for dating the work, and arguments on this question have to be drawn from the work itself. Such evidence as there is can be classified into the following three categories: 1) References to external events which can be accurate! y dated from other sources; 2) References to the lives of people whom Seneca discusses in the work which enables conclusions to be drawn about their ages and the like; 3) Subjective reactions to the work itself, its contents and its silences, which can be compared with other works of Seneca for which a definite date can be established. Despite the availability of evidence from all these sources, scholars even in this century have suggested widely differing dates for the composition of the work.

3

R. Waltz, La viepolitiquedeSeneque, Paris 1909; P. Grima), Seneque, Paris, 1966, pp. 1-35; M. Griffin, Seneca, a philosopher in politics, Oxford, 1976, pp. 1-128, inter alia. 2 R. Syme, Tacitus, Oxford, 1958, p. 552, cited by Griffin, op. cit., p. 1. 3 C. Buresch, Consolationum a Graecis Romanisque scriptorum historia critica, in Leipziger Studien 9, 1886, pp. 111-12; E. Albertini, La composition dans les ouvrages philosophiques de Seneque, Paris, 1923, p. 14, n. 1; C. Favez (ed.), Seneca, Ad Marciam de Consolatione, Paris, 1928, pp. XI-XV; J. W. Basore (ed.), Seneca, Moral Essays, vol. II, London and Camb., Mass., 1932, p. viii; A. Traglia (ed.), Seneca, La Consolazione aMarcia, Rome, 1965, p. 7; K. Abel, Bauformen in Senecas Dialogen, Heidelberg, 1967, p. 159; M. Griffin, op. cit., p. 397; all 1

2

THE DATE AND PURPOSE

OF THE AD MARCIAM

The first category of references enables us to set a terminus post quern of 39/40 for the work. The consolatio was prof erred to Marcia in the third year after her son's death (1. 7). Since her bereavement she had found no refuge in literary pursuits, an interest inherited from her father Cremutius Cordus (1.6), and yet she had played a considerable part in the republication of her father's historical writings (1.3-1.4) which had not been permitted until Caius' principate (Suet. Caius 16). A reference of the second kind seems to rule out the possibility that the work was written during Seneca's exile. When Seneca writes to Marcia '' In qua... urbe, di boni, loquimur'', it is pressing words too far to insist that both author and recipient must have been within the pomerium at the time of writing. But it is not likely that an exile, banished from Rome by imperial decree, could use such a phrase without seeming to write incongruously. But it is much more difficult to establish with certainty whether the work was written shortly before the exile, or after it. For the evidence which concerns Marcia, her family and acquaintances and their relative ages, is of its nature somewhat vague, and not entirely consistent. In the Ad Marciam itself we are told that Metilius died as a 'iuvenis' of great promise ( 12. 3 and 24.3) and that Livia and Octavia were great examples belonging to the same age and sex as Marcia (2. 2). Now if the latter statement is accurate, given that Octavia died in 11 B. C., the latest possible date for Marcia's birth would be about 25 B.C. 4 But given also the tendency of Roman women to marry young (12 was the legally permitted age), it is difficult to see that the son of a woman of Marcia's age, who had held no magistracy, could be regarded as a young man of great promise in 49 A.D. or later. The external evidence, however, is not entirely consistent with this picture. Marcia's father, Cremutius Cordus committed suicide after being accused of lese-majeste in 25 A.D. (Tac. Ann. 4, 34-5, Dia 57, 24, 2-4). Dia describes Cremuti us as evrcuAcxt