158. Cp. P.L.M. iv. 15, 8; Plin. N.H. xvi. 242.
159. For these cp. Ep. xiv. 13; ib. civ. 29.
160. e.g. 7l 'de Atho monte', 57 'de Graeciae ruina', 50 'de bono quietae vitae', 47, 48 'morte omnes aequari', 25 'de spe'.
161. There is, in fact, direct evidence that he wrote such verses. Plin. Ep. v. 3. 5.
162. Cp. p. 263.
163. Cp. the not dissimilar situation in Sen. Oed. (936), where Oedipus meditates in very similar style, as to how he may expiate his guilt. The couplet vivere si poteris, &c., is nothing if not Senecan.
164. Quint, viii. 3. 31 ('memini iuvenis admodum inter Pomponium ac Senecam etiam praefationibus esse tractatum, an "gradus eliminet" in tragoedia dici oportuisset') shows Seneca as critic of dramatic diction; there is no evidence to show what these praefationes were, but they may have been prefaces to tragedies. The Medea (453) is cited by Quintilian ix. 2. 8. For later quotations from the tragedies, cp. Diomedes, gr. Lat. i. p. 511, 23; Terentianus Maurus, ibid. vi. p. 404, 2672; Probus, ibid. iv. p. 229, 22, p. 246, 19; Priscian, ibid. ii. p. 253, 7 and 9; Tertullian, de An. 42, de Resurr. 1; Lactantius, Schol. Stat. Theb. iv. 530.
165. Cp. also the iambic translation of Cleanthes, Ep. cvii. 11:—
duc, o parens celsique dominator poli, quocunque placuit: nulla parendi mora est. adsum impiger. fac nolle, comitabor gemens malusque patiar, facere quod licuit bono. ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.
166. Some of the more remarkable parallels have been collected by Nisard (Études sur les poètes latins de la décadence, i. 68-91), e.g. Med. 163 'qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil'. Ep. v. 7 'desines timere, si sperare desieris'. Oed. 705 'qui sceptra duro saevus imperio regit, timet timentes: metus in auctorem redit'. Ep. cv. 4 'qui timetur, timet: nemo potuit terribilis esse secure'. de Ira_, ii. 11 'quid quod semper in auctores redundat timor, nec quisquam metuitur ipse securus?'-Oed. 980 sqq.; de Prov. v. 6 sqq.; Phoen. 146, 53; Ep. xii. 10; de Prov. vi. 7; Herc. F. 463, 464; Ep. xcii. 14.