SENECA THE ELDER.
(1) LIFE.
Annaeus Seneca (for the praenomen Marcus, usually given, there is no authority: in the best MSS. it is Lucius, possibly through confusion with his son) was a native of Corduba: Mart. i. 62, 7,
‘Duosque Senecas unicumque Lucanum
facunda loquitur Corduba.’
The date of his birth is probably about B.C. 55, for he was old enough to have heard Cicero if the civil wars had not prevented him leaving his native town: Contr. i. praef. 11, ‘Omnes magni in eloquentia nominis excepto Cicerone videor audisse: ne Ciceronem quidem aetas mihi eripuerat, sed bellorum civilium furor, qui tunc orbem totum pervagabatur, intra coloniam meam me continuit.’
He was of equestrian rank; cf. the speech of Seneca the younger, Tac. Ann. xiv. 53, ‘Egone, equestri et provinciali loco ortus, proceribus civitatis adnumeror?’
Most of his life appears to have been spent in Rome, where alone he could have acquired his vast knowledge of contemporary rhetoric. Together with his countryman Porcius Latro, he attended the lectures of the rhetorician Marullus: Contr. i. praef. 22, ‘Hoc Latro meus faciebat, ut sententias amaret. Cum condiscipuli essemus apud Marullum rhetorem ...’ Asinius Pollio he had heard at two different periods: Contr. iv. praef. 3, ‘audivi illum et viridem et postea iam senem.’
Seneca’s wife was Helvia, whose noble character is described by her son (ad Helv. 14, 3; 16, 3): by her he had three sons, M. Annaeus Novatus, L. Annaeus Seneca, and M. Annaeus Mela.
He survived Tiberius; for (1) he alludes to events which happened after his reign, (2) Sueton. Tib. 73, quotes from ‘Seneca’ an account of the death of Tiberius, and we know that the elder Seneca wrote history: that his son did likewise there is nothing to show. Hence he was alive after A.D. 37. On the other hand, he was dead before his son’s exile in A.D. 43, for Sen. ad Helv. 2, 5, after enumerating the calamities which had befallen his mother—among them his father’s death—concludes with the words ‘raptum me audisti: hoc adhuc defuerat tibi, lugere vivos.’
Seneca was a man of stern character: for his old-world views and dislike of innovation cf. his son’s words (ad Helv. 17, 3), ‘Patris mei antiquus rigor.... Virorum optimus, pater meus, maiorum consuetudini deditus.’ He disapproved of the higher education of women, ‘propter istas quae litteris non ad sapientiam utuntur, sed ad luxuriam instruuntur.’
(2) WORKS.
The only extant works of Seneca are Oratorum et Rhetorum Sententiae, Divisiones, Colores Controversiarum et Suasoriarum.
1. The Controversiae were written at the request of his three sons, but were intended for a wider circle of readers: i. praef. 10, ‘Quaecumque a celeberrimis viris facunde dicta teneo, ne ad quemquam privatim pertineant, populo dedicabo.’ Seneca here gives a criticism of the rhetoricians of his time, with specimens of the style of each: i. praef. 1, ‘Exigitis rem magis iucundam mihi quam facilem; iubetis enim quid de his declamatoribus sentiam qui in aetatem meam inciderunt indicare, et si qua memoriae meae nondum elapsa sunt ab illis dicta colligere, ut quamvis notitiae vestrae subducti sint, tamen non credatis tantum de illis, sed et iudicetis.’ The specimens are given from memory, and the arrangement is not systematic: i. praef. 4, ‘Illud necesse est impetrem, ne me quasi certum aliquem ordinem velitis sequi in contrahendis quae mihi occurrent.’ Seneca treats only of those rhetoricians whom his sons had not themselves heard: i. praef. 4, ‘Neque de his me interrogatis quos ipsi audistis, sed de his qui ad vos usque non pervenerunt.’ His hero is Cicero, since whose time oratory has steadily degenerated: i. praef. 11, ‘Illud ingenium quod solum populus Romanus par imperio suo habuit’; ibid. 7, ‘Omnia ingenia quae lucem studiis nostris attulerunt tunc nata sunt: in deterius deinde cottidie data res est.’
Of the ten Books of Controversiae only five have come down to us, viz., i., ii., vii., ix., and x. The deficiency is to some extent supplied by an abridgment (Excerpta) made in the fourth or fifth century A.D., which adds thirty-nine themes to the thirty-five contained in the surviving part of the original work. Each Book had a separate preface. Those to v., vi., and viii. are entirely wanting; for the prefaces to ii., iii., and iv. we are indebted to the abridgment.
The Controversiae were written when Seneca was an old man, and when his two elder sons were preparing for public life, probably about A.D. 20: x. praef. 1, ‘Sinite me ab istis iuvenilibus studiis ad senectutem meam reverti’; ii. praef. 4 (to Mela), ‘Fratribus tuis ambitiosa curae sunt foroque se et honoribus parant.’
As to the date of publication, it has been argued[71] that they appeared after the fall of Seianus and before the death of Mamercus Scaurus, i.e., between A.D. 31 and 34. Probably, however, the publication did not take place till after the death of Tiberius, A.D. 37; the protest against the burning of books (x. praef. 6-7) would have been as offensive to him as to Seianus.
2. There is only one book of Suasoriae, and the beginning of it is lost. It gives specimens of the treatment of seven themes, e.g., 3, ‘Deliberat Agamemnon an Iphigeniam immolet negante Calchante aliter navigari fas esse.’ It is certainly later than the Controversiae: Contr. ii. 4, 8, ‘Quae dixerit suo loco reddam, cum ad suasorias venero.’ One passage cannot have been written before A.D. 34: 2, 22, ‘Scaurum Mamercum, in quo Scaurorum familia exstincta est.’ It was not published in the lifetime of Tiberius, for Seneca calls the accuser of Scaurus ‘homo quam improbi animi tam infelicis ingenii’ (2, 22), and quotes Cremutius Cordus (6, 19) whose books had been burned in Tiberius’ time.
3. Seneca wrote also on Roman history from the commencement of the civil wars to his own time, but left the work of publication to his son.
L. Seneca de vita patris (Haase, vol. iii. p. 436), ‘Si quaecumque composuit pater meus et edi voluit iam in manus populi emisissem, ad claritatem nominis sui satis sibi ipsi prospexerat ... Quisquis legisset eius historias ab initio bellorum civilium, unde primum veritas retro abiit, paene usque ad mortis suae diem,’ etc.