Seneca the Younger, or 'the Philosopher,' was born in Spain at Corduba;
was educated at Rome; was banished in 41 A.D. to Corsica by Claudius;
was recalled in 49; became Nero's tutor; largely deserves the credit for
the good government of the early part of that emperor's reign; was
consul in 57, but lost influence with Nero, and was compelled by him to
commit suicide on a charge of participation in the conspiracy of Piso.
His writings are chiefly philosophical and ethical. The frequent close
resemblance of his views to those of Christianity occasioned the
fabrication of a correspondence between himself and St. Paul. St. Jerome
considered this genuine and therefore included him among the Christian
saints.
Nine tragedies of Seneca's composition are extant. These have powerfully
influenced the development of the English and French drama.
His style is forced and ornamental, moving, for the most part, in brief,
disconnected, and often paradoxical sentences.
For Reference: Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, _History of Roman
Literature_, vol. 2, p. 38 ff.; Leo, _L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae_
(Berlin, 1878-1879); Sherburne's _Tragedies of Seneca Translated_
(London, 1702); Kingery, _Three Tragedies of Seneca_ (New York, 1908);
Harris, _The Tragedies of Seneca Translated_ (The Clarendon Press,
1904).
Metres: Anapaestic Dimeter Acatalectic with Anapaestic Dipody,
G. & L. 777, 780, 782: _Selection_ 1. Dactylic Hexameter, B. 368; A. &
G. 615: _Selection_ 2.
_1._ Cf. Horace, _Carmen_, 1. 3. 9-40. 1. Audax: cf. ll. 24, 39. nimium:
cf. l. 8. 7, 8. With too slight a partition dividing the ways of life
and death, i.e. separating from himself by merely a thin plank the sea
in which he would perish. Cf. Juvenal, 12. 57-59. Line 7 nearly equals
inter vitam et mortem. 18. Hyadas: a group of seven stars in the head of
Taurus, whose setting at both the morning and the evening twilight was
attended with storms. 19. Oleniae...caprae: one of the horns of the goat
Amalthea, which fed Jupiter with its milk, was placed among the stars.
The goat was Olenian, i.e. Aetolian. 21. Attica plaustra: Charles' Wain
(the Great Dipper), which Bootes was imagined to drive. The latter
constellation is called tardus as being so placed in the sky that it
requires a long time for its setting. 24. Tiphys: the pilot of the Argo.
28. Thessala pinus: the Argo, the first ship, which, built under the
direction of Pallas, with Jason as leader and heroes like Hercules,
Castor, and Pollux as crew, sailed to Colchis in the Far East in quest
of the Golden Fleece (which perhaps originally meant the fleecy, golden
clouds of sunrise). The Sirens, Scylla, and the Symplegades were some of
the dangers of the journey. Medea, daughter of the king of Colchis,
aided Jason to secure the fleece and fled with him. See Smith,
_Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology_, 'Argonautae.'
32. illa: the Argo. 34. montes: the Symplegades, floating rocks at the
entrance of the Euxine, which clashed together to crush whatever might
come between them. 36. velut...sonitu: groaned as with ethereal sound,
i.e. dashed together with a sound like thunder. 38. mare deprensum: the
sea caught between and forced up by the closing rocks. 42. In the prow
of the Argo was a piece of the speaking oak of Dodona. 43. virgo Pelori:
Scylla. 45. omnes...hiatus: opened all her mouths together. 48. dirae
pestes: the Sirens, maidens who by sweet songs lured sailors to their
shore and devoured them. Orpheus saved his companions by drowning the
Sirens' song with the music of his lyre.
These stories are told in _Odyssey_, 12, in Apollonius Rhodius, 4. 889
ff., and (in English) in Charles Kingsley's _Greek Heroes_.
55. Medea, abandoned by Jason for Creusa, in the later action of this
play slays her rival and her own children. 68-72. Thule: a distant
island not identified,--possibly Iceland, more probably the largest of
the Shetland Islands,--regarded by the ancients as the northern limit of
the known world.
Seneca, considering the progress of maritime discovery in the past, was
led naturally to the thought that new lands would some day be discovered
beyond the ocean. The conception was not new. Cicero, _Tusculanae
Disputationes_, 1. 28, speaks of a south temperate zone, cultivated and
inhabited, unknown to us. This, of course, is not necessarily beyond the
sea, though Mela places it there. Cicero again in _De Republica_, 6. 20
implies that there are other islands than the Roman world surrounded by
other seas than the Atlantic. Plato, _Timaeus_, 24-25, says that beyond
and surrounding the Atlantic there is a vast continent, between which
and the western coast of Europe and of Libya are a number of islands, of
which Atlantis before its submergence was the largest. Strabo, 1. 4. 6,
says it is quite possible that in the temperate zone there may be not
only the island that forms the world as known to his contemporaries, but
two such or even more, especially near the circle of latitude which is
drawn through Athens and the Atlantic Ocean. See Smith, _Dictionary of
Greek and Roman Geography_, 'Atlanticum mare' and 'Atlantis.'
Lowell, in his _Columbus_, represents the discoverer as naming this
passage,--said also by tradition to have made a deep impression on his
mind,--along with Canto XXVI of Dante's _Inferno_ and Plato's _Timaeus_
and _Critias_, as inspiring him to his attempt:
Then did I entertain the poets' song,
My great Idea's guest, and, passing o'er
That iron bridge the Tuscan built to hell,
I heard Ulysses tell of mountain-chains
Whose adamantine links, his manacles,
The western main shook growling and still gnawed.
I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale
Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjorne's keel
Crush the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore:
_I listened musing to the prophecy
Of Nero's tutor-victim_...
And I believed the poets.
The son of the discoverer wrote in his copy of the tragedies opposite
these lines,--'This prophecy was fulfilled by my father, the Admiral
Christopher Columbus, in the year 1492.'
_2._ Agamemnon returns to Argos after the capture of Troy, his wife
Clytemnestra expressing deep joy at his return. He has brought with him
as a captive Cassandra the seer who, suddenly swooning, sees in
prophetic frenzy Agamemnon's death and her own at the hand of
Clytemnestra and her paramour, Aegistheus. Agamemnon worships Jupiter
and Juno at the altar and then enters the palace to his death.
1, 2. Tandem...terra. Cf. Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_, 503 ff., 810 ff.
laris: Roman coloring. 3. diu: taken with felix. 4. Asiae: objective
genitive, after potentes, B. 204, 1; A. & G. 349, a.
5. vates: Cassandra. corpus: accusative of specification. 7. recipit
diem: i.e. revives. 9. optatus ff.: with a double meaning to the
audience. 10. Festus ff.: Troy fell immediately after the festivities
that celebrated the withdrawal of the Greek fleet. Cf. _Aeneid_, 2. 246
ff. 11. Cecidit ff.: for the death of Priam cf. _Aeneid_, 2. 506 ff. 13.
Priamum: King Agamemnon's fate is to be such as King Priam's. Priam was
slain at the altar, and these altars (aras, 1. 11) awaken forebodings.
14. Ubi ff.: where faithless wives are, is calamity. 15. Libertas: the
freedom of death. 19. dum excutiat deum: until she casts off the
influence of Apollo who has thrown her into the prophetic frenzy. 21.
pater: Jupiter. 24. cuncta: accusative of specification. 25. Argolica
Iuno: Hera had a famous shrine at Argos. For an account of excavations
there see Waldstein, _The Argive Heraeum_. 26. Arabumque donis: incense.
supplice fibra: the entrails of the sacrificed animals (pecore votivo),
whose condition was supposed to indicate the will of the gods.