BOOK I

PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE

TIME OF NERO

[Illustration]

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA

MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO

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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

PHYSICAL SCIENCE

IN THE TIME OF NERO

BEING A TRANSLATION OF THE

_QUAESTIONES NATURALES_ OF SENECA

BY

JOHN CLARKE, M.A.

LECTURER ON EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

WITH NOTES ON THE TREATISE BY

SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE

K.C.B., D.C.L., Sc.D., LL.D.

PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1910

_Plurimum ad inveniendum contulit qui speravit posse reperiri._

SENECA, _Q.N._ VI. V. 2.

PREFACE

This book is intended primarily for English readers, to most of whom it

will probably be at least new. Thomas Lodge, the well-known dramatist,

published in 1614 a translation of the whole of Seneca’s prose works

(except the _Apocolocyntosis_), but no English editor or commentator

seems to have turned his attention to the _Quaestiones Naturales_,

either before or since. Lodge’s translation, a folio volume of nearly a

thousand pages, was probably very good for its day, but is now out of

date.

The Introduction is designed to give a setting to the translation, and

to answer a few of the questions that would naturally occur to the

mind of an intelligent reader who was not a classical scholar. In the

Index also some details are included that may be helpful to those who

have neither time nor opportunity for hunting up historical and other

allusions in books of reference. The object has been to make the volume

self-interpreting, though it may be that the course has not always been

judiciously steered between too little and too much.

The _Quaestiones Naturales_ must be regarded as occupying historically

an important position. It was the latest deliverance of the classical

world upon the subject of physical speculation. Its currency during

the Middle Ages rendered it for many centuries the chief authority in

science in Western Europe. Its cosmology represented not only popular

but also educated opinion, and became the source of many of the

accepted ideas concerning the universe that passed into early modern

literature in our own and other countries.

Indebtedness to editors of Seneca and to others, which has been very

great, is acknowledged as fully as possible in the Introduction and

elsewhere where help has been availed of. The interest taken in the

book by various friends is also gratefully acknowledged. Professor Sir

Joseph Larmor and Professor J. Arthur Thomson have made several useful

suggestions. Professor Herbert J. C. Grierson has very kindly read the

proofs and given valuable assistance in other respects. But my chief

acknowledgments are due to Sir Archibald Geikie. To him the translation

owed its inception: his constant aid and encouragement have enabled

me to complete a task from which I should probably have otherwise

shrunk. I am indebted to him also for the Commentary appended to the

translation, in which the questions treated by Seneca are considered

from the point of view of modern Science. It has been to him a labour

of love: may our readers enjoy something of the same satisfaction!

J. C.

Old Aberdeen,

_September 27, 1909_.

CONTENTS

PREFACE v

INTRODUCTION xxi

BOOK I

[METEORS, HALO, RAINBOW, MOCK SUN, ETC.]

PREFACE

PAGE

Contrast between human (moral) philosophy and divine (natural,

physical). The sublime character of the latter which lifts

us above the contemplation of the littlenesses of the earth

and earthly life to the knowledge of God and His nature.

Compared with astronomical conceptions and dimensions the

world of man is but as a threshing-floor, the haunt of ants.

The mind of man attains its true height in contemplation and

investigation of these sublime facts. Some of the problems

thus raised 3

CHAP.

I. Meteoric fires--_she-goat_, _kid_, etc. Occasions of their

appearance; connection of portent with event. Explanation

of the phenomena. They may be due to pressure of the

atmosphere. Aristotle attributes them to the effect of

terrestrial evaporation: difference of density causes

various outbursts of this kind. They are analogous to

lightning, but less violent 8

II. _Halos._ Produced by the light of a heavenly body striking

the surrounding air and forming a circle as a stone does

when thrown into a pond. Formed far away from the heavenly

body and comparatively near the earth in the region of the

wind. Require a particular state of the atmosphere neither

too dense nor too thin. More frequent at night than day for

this reason: by day the sun rarefies the air too much by

its heat. Method of dissipation gives indication of wind or

rain. Calmness a condition of formation, as in the analogous

case of water 12

III. _Rainbows._ Generally by day, produced by inequalities

of surface and density in clouds. Another species seen in

a burst pipe or a fuller at work. Various explanations.

Light and shade will not explain the varied colours. Some

explain the rainbow as a confused reflection of the sun

from individual drops of rain: every bounded surface, large

or small, thus reflects--fish-pond and dew-drop equally.

Aristotle attributes the confusion of colours to weakness of

human sight; parallels may be found in persons whose sight

is abnormally weak. As the innumerable drops, apparently

without intervals, fall, human vision fails to distinguish

severally the reflections of the sun, which thus become

blended and confused. Vision is similarly deceived in the

case of an oar in water, apples in a glass globe, etc., even

in the size and movements of the sun himself. At any rate

the rainbow requires both sun and cloud, and these opposite

to each other. These two in operation produce the varieties

of colour 16

IV. That the rainbow is an image is shown by the relation of

sun to cloud in position, by the rapidity of formation and

dispersion. Artemidorus’ explanation of the shape of the

cloud (concave), and the consequent position of the red in

the rainbow 22

V. Arguments to show that the cloud is coloured by the sun,

like a dove’s neck or a peacock’s tail, and that the rainbow

is not a _reflection_ of the sun. The position (opposite)

would be equally necessary in this case. Answer to this

contention by Posidonius. The colour effects. Author agrees

with Posidonius’ position but not his arguments. The only

_proof_ is the geometrical one 23

VI. Arguments from the size--never more than a semicircle--and

shape of the bow. As the colour, whether real or reflected,

is derived from the sun, so must also the shape be. The size

is accounted for by the magnifying power of water, glass,

etc. The sun as he appears in the rainbow is seen through

moisture 28

VII. The arguments from the dispersion of the sun’s rays through

glass (prism). Contention that they confirm author’s view 30

VIII. The form once more; why it is never larger than a

semicircle. A wrong explanation refuted. Explanation of

Aristotle’s remark as to the seasons of rainbows, in summer

only in the morning or evening, in autumn at any time 31

IX. _Streaks_ or _weather-galls_. Merely abortive or imperfect

rainbows 33

X. Relations and differences of _halos_, _bows_, and

_weather-galls_ 34

XI. _Mock suns._ Their appearance and position in relation to

the sun. They are a reflection of the sun in a suitable

medium 34

XII. The formation of a mock sun may be compared to the image

of the sun in eclipse as seen reflected in a dish of oil or

pitch: the medium must be adapted to give the impression.

The mock sun requires a certain consistency of cloud,

failing which, a different effect is produced--obscuration,

dissipation, etc. 35

XIII. There may be two mock suns simultaneously. Some think

the one is a reflection of the other, the clouds acting as

mirrors set opposite to one another. Mock suns, especially

in the South, are a sign of rain 36

XIV. Other celestial fires. “_Cave meteors_,” “_Barrel

meteors_,” “_Chasms_,” with a brief description of each. The

rapidity of their flight, just as of lightning, deceives the

sight. Their origin and cause. They indicate wind 37

XV. _Gleams_ (_flashes_, σέλα). Their production and motions,

varieties of them. Some do damage. Some are analogous to

comets. “_Bearded_,” “_torches_,” “_cypress_” are different

kinds. “_Beams_” and “_barrels_” may be of the same class.

A curious case where such an appearance raised an alarm of

fire. They are real fires. On the contrary, rainbows and

halos are mere reflections. Mirrors have this wonderful

power of false presentation 39

XVI. The “mirrored den” of Hostius Quadra 41

XVII. The philosophy of the looking-glass. The evolution of

mirrors. Mirrors of full length are now used. They cost a

fortune greater than the Senate gave Scipio’s daughters.

A harmless necessary device has become an instrument of

luxury, the adornment of women, the burden of men, nay, part

of the kit of the soldier 44

BOOK II

[THE NATURE OF AIR. THUNDER AND LIGHTNING]

[I.-XI. Prefatory to treatment of thunder and lightning,

descriptive of the nature of the air, in which these

phenomena occur.]

I. Divisions of physical science--astronomy, meteorology,

geography. Cross divisions, _e.g._ earthquakes, belong to

meteorology, being produced by air; so the earth, as a

planet, belongs to Astronomy but its properties belong to

Geography 51

II. Unity and composition in bodies. The analogy of the seen

applies to the unseen. The atmosphere is possessed of unity

(_unitas_) 52

III. Parts and material of bodies distinguished. In the human

body blood is both 54

IV. The atmosphere is an integral part of the universe: has

unity 54

V. The earth is both part and material of the universe. From it

nourishment is supplied to the latter 55

VI. The atmosphere has unity--is not compact of atoms, otherwise

it could not exert tension, which is one of its main

features, with endless manifestations 55

VII. There is no vacuum in the air, as the analogy of water

shows 57

VIII. The exertion of tension presupposes tensibility, just as

motion does mobility. Its existence in air proved by the

effects of air, which tosses about mountains, houses, walls,

etc. The propagation of sight and sound proves the same 58

IX. Its tension is seen in raising water, as in the jet in the

amphitheatre. Proofs from a ship upborne of water, a quoit

flung from a height, sound heard through a wall 59

X. Varieties of density and temperature in the atmosphere: the

central layer is coldest 60

XI. The lower parts are most subject to change. The cause of

this is in part the earth, in part the sun, moon, and other

stars. So much by way of preface to explain the nature of

that atmosphere in which thunder and lightning occur 61

XII. _Lightning_, _thunder-bolt_, _thunder_. All agree that they

occur in the clouds, but different explanations are given of

their cause and relations. Anaxagoras connects them with the

ether; Aristotle says they are due to exhalations of various

kinds, from the earth, coming in contact with the clouds 62

XIII. The fire cannot be inherent in the clouds and fall from

them. When it so comes it is forced 64

XIV. There is nothing inconsistent with this in the explanation

given (I. xv.) of meteors. There may be an analogy with what

is observed in cases of fire when isolated groups of houses

take fire through gradual accumulation of heat 65

XV. Some (Stoics) think that spontaneous combustion takes place

in the air 66

XVI. Difference between a flash of lightning and a bolt 66

XVII. Some explain the noise of thunder as due to hot meeting

cold, as in the case of hot iron plunged into water 67

XVIII. Anaximander attributes the effects to air and explains

all the phenomena by reference to it 67

XIX. Anaxagoras says it is the ether that acts on the lower

atmosphere to produce them: it sends out fire 68

XX. Diogenes of Apollonia thinks that fire and air interact,

producing one another, as may be observed in the various

phenomena 68

XXI. Authorities discarded: independent explanation. A flash and

a bolt are fire in some form: they differ only in degree 69

XXII. Analogy of fire on earth: it must apply above. Lightning

due either to impact or friction. Hurricanes are a

sufficient cause of the former 70

XXIII. Clouds and air may through friction also be a cause. The

fires so produced are insubstantial and evanescent 71

XXIV. Fire by reason of its lightness levitates, just as water

gravitates. But in the case of a bolt it is forced down,

contrary to its nature, like a “weeping” tree 71

XXV. But it is said that wet clouds produce fire. How? 72

XXVI. There is no inconsistency in the combination in the same

cloud of potential fire and water. A log burns at one end,

exudes moisture at the other. An island on each of two

occasions was thrown up by fire in the Aegean Sea, fire

overcoming water. And clouds are, as a matter of fact,

required for lightning: exceptions to this are only apparent 72

XXVII. Different kinds of thunder. The growling and the

crashing, with their causes 75

XXVIII. In order to the sound of thunder, clouds of a particular

shape must meet in a particular way. A bladder does not

burst with a report if cut. A broad simultaneous blow over

the whole cloud is necessary to an explosion 76

XXIX. The proper shape and the rupture of the cloud are

necessary. Compare drums, etc. 77

XXX. According to some, clouds are not necessary to thunder:

witness eruptions of Etna and the overthrow of Cambyses’

army, where particles of sand were the medium of the thunder

and lightning. But in this case, too, a cloud was formed, it

may be, a denser, and more solid than one composed of mere

air, before the sound was emitted 77

XXXI. Strange effects of lightning 78

XXXII. Portents and events, their undoubted and widespread

connection 79

XXXIII. Thunderbolts. Threefold division of the art of dealing

with them 81

XXXIV. Mistaken views as to the relation of lightning to other

presages. The former are of equal, not superior, value 82

XXXV. Fate cannot be changed by expiation and entreaty 83

XXXVI. “God is not a man” that he should change fate. What is

the use, then, of rites? 84

XXXVII. Answer--Fate fixes some things only conditionally: the

alternative issues are determined by the conduct, active or

passive, of the worshipper 84

XXXVIII. This action of his is likewise a part of fate. The

soothsayer, like the physician, is the minister of fate.

Discussion of free will deferred 85

XXXIX. Three classes or kinds of thunderbolts, as judged by

their indications, according to Caecina 86

XL. These are kinds of prognostications rather than of bolts.

The different species of the latter are distinguished by

their effects--boring, splitting, burning. Fine distinctions

of Latin terms 87

XLI. A kind that stains or discolours. The Etruscan view of the

three kinds of bolt according to _their_ division 88

XLII. The Etruscans knew what they were about in attributing

certain motives and actions to Jupiter. Their theory was for

the benefit of the ignorant mass of humanity 89

XLIII. “Which things are an allegory.” An example is set to

earthly rulers to be merciful and consider well their

judgments 90

XLIV. Jove does not change his missiles; but there are

gradations in the offence to be punished. That is the lesson 91

XLV. By Jove the Etruscans meant, as we do, all that is greatest

and best--Fate, Providence, Nature, the Universe 91

XLVI. He is the source of the thunder’s power, though he does

not superintend each stroke. Why he spares the guilty is

another affair, which will be discussed in another place 92

XLVII. An erroneous classification of thunderbolts according to

time 92

XLVIII. It must be wrong, because the time is always limited. A

better basis of treatment is that of Attalus. Place, time,

person, etc., must all be looked into 93

XLIX. Caecina’s division, his names and their meanings 94

L. That of Attalus is much better, being based on the true

signification 95

LI. The signification of some does not affect, of some does not

reach, us 95

LII. The force of lightning as seen in different materials, and

at different times in the same material (cf. xxxi.) 96

LIII. Poisonous effects: may be followed up afterwards.

Panegyric on philosophy 97

LIV. Returns to Posidonius’ (Aristotle’s) opinion as to the

cause of thunder, an explosion of air 98

LV. The collision of clouds may produce it. Air is the cause

in this instance also. Shooting stars are associated with

thunder, but this is the exception, not the rule 98

LVI. Heraclitus and Caecina think sheet lightning an

intermittent incipient fire. Change in the pronunciation of

the Latin word 100

LVII. Lightning is probably due to the air turning into fire

through rarefaction of the clouds. It is naturally most

frequent in summer. Sheet and forked lightning differ in

degree, not in kind 100

LVIII. Reasons for rapidity of lightning and its obliquity 101

LIX. Every story should have a moral. Death cannot be prevented;

why fear it? It is cowardly and silly. Death by lightning is

rather an honour than otherwise. Besides, fear is futile 102

BOOK III

ON FORMS OF WATER

PREFACE

Having begun a mighty task in my old age I must make up for

lost time by hurrying on. The magnitude of it is actually

an incentive to effort. Such studies are far superior to

the historian’s task of recording the deeds of the robbers

and butchers of mankind. The former raise us above the

vicissitudes of fortune. “The principal thing” is to have a

pure heart and clean hands, to escape slavery to self. The

study of the universe exalts us to this 109

I. The cause of rivers and their varieties. Waters vary in

amount at different seasons, in temperature, in medicinal

qualities 114

II. Varieties of taste, weight, colour, utility to health,

consistency 115

III. Gravitation or the force of air determines the flow of

water. Surface and spring water: they may be combined as in

Lake Fucinus 115

IV. Why is the sea not filled nor the earth drained dry by

rivers? 116

V. Some hold that what flows into the sea returns by secret

passages cleansed of its salinity 116

VI. Some think rain supplies the rivers, and in proof cite the

interior of Africa as contrasted with Gaul and Germany 117

VII. Objections to this argument. Rain does not penetrate more

than 10 feet. If the earth is dry, it absorbs the rain; if

it is saturated, the rain runs off. Again, rivers rise in

rocks and mountains, where what rain ever fell must have run

off. Rich wells of “living” water are found in the driest

ground at depth. Fountains well out at mountain tops 117

VIII. The interior of the earth is, according to some, a huge

receptacle of fresh water 118

IX. Others think the air which is contained within the earth

being prevented from circulating turns into water 119

X. But indeed the four elements are all interchangeable 120

XI. Though the supply of water is perennial, rivers and springs

are intermittent 121

XII. The abundance of water is no difficulty, since it is a

fourth part of the universe 123

XIII. The relation of water to the other elements. Thales’ silly

notion that the earth sails in water like a ship at sea 124

XIV. The Egyptians divide each of the elements into male and

female 125

XV. The veins of the earth resemble those of the human body.

There are likewise the analogies of marrow, mucus, etc., of

injuries and of bleeding, of parturition, perspiration, etc. 125

XVI. Intermittent fountains are an illustration of seasonal

activity. The great vacant spaces of the earth and their

tenants. Underground fish 128

XVII. The incredible wonders of nature are paralleled and even

outdone by the excesses of luxury 129

XVIII. The extravagances of luxury, which make a wise man mad 130

XIX. To return--a sudden eruption of water casts up fish,

generally poisonous. This points to the unfailing supply of

subterranean water 132

XX. Various tastes of water due to four causes; qualities of

water--petrifying, soporific, intoxicating, fatal 133

XXI. The same pestilential influence as taints rivers is

perceived in caves: the noxious rivers flow from or through

them 134

XXII. The Ocean and seas are coeval with the universe. So

probably are abnormal rivers like the Danube and the Nile 135

XXIII. Rain and surface water must be added to subterranean 135

XXIV. The causes of hot springs 136

XXV. Poisonous rivers. Colouring power of others. Great specific

gravity of certain waters, its effects and cause 137

XXVI. Intermittent rivers and springs. Means possessed by river,

fount, and sea of purifying themselves 141

XXVII. Digression on the universal deluge which will destroy

the world. Nature is niggardly in creation, lavish in

destruction. Ovid is unequal in his treatment of this

catastrophe 143

XXVIII. Further imaginative pictures of what water can do by

way of destruction. Alternative methods of destroying the

earth--water and fire 148

XXIX. Further possibilities of the same character. Distinctions

of seas, gulfs, etc., will all be obliterated; nature and

the works of man will alike be overthrown 150

XXX. Nature shows by the chafing of the sea that she designs to

inundate the world. A deluge is part of the fore-ordained

plan. But there will be a new earth and a new race of men

who will not sin--for a time 154

BOOK IV

CONTAINING A DISCUSSION OF SNOW, HAIL, AND RAIN. [THE NILE]

PREFACE

The dangers of flattery and its insidiousness. If you must

have praise, praise yourself. Lucilius has good cause: he

must not, however, think too much of himself because he is

governor of that historic province Sicily, which has ere now

decided the fate of generals and of empire 159

I. Leaving Sicily and its marvels let us deal with the omitted

part of the last book, the Nile. There is no real analogy

between it and the Danube 166

II. The course of the Nile; its cataracts. The inundation of

the river. Its meaning to Egypt. Its denizens; crocodiles

and dolphins in conflict. Causes of the overflow: melting

of snow; Etesian Winds; drying up of the springs through

internal heat of the earth in winter; the attraction of

the sun in Africa draws water from the sea to fill up the

gap caused by evaporation [none of the accounts apparently

accepted] 167

III. Origin of hail; why it differs from snow 177

IV. Causes of snow in winter, hail in spring 179

V. It is said that the cooler air of the North (Scythia, etc.)

is stirred by the melting of the snow in spring and floats

South, causing hail instead of rain 180

VI. Hail, it is again alleged, is averted by sacrifice. If there

is not a victim handy you have merely to prick your finger! 181

VII. This belief in the power of blood was an ancient

superstition 182

VIII. Three causes why the air near the earth is warmest, and

therefore produces snow rather than hail 182

IX. Democritus’ view--dense bodies are heated most quickly, and

retain their heat longest 183

X. The air nearest the earth is denser than elsewhere 184

XI. The tops of mountains, it is urged, should be warmer because

nearer the sun. The difference is wholly inappreciable if we

adopt the scale of the universe, the true one 184

XII. The comparatively mild air near the earth causes snow, but

not hail 186

XIII. The despicable luxury of the effeminate Romans, who bought

snow, bathed in it, and must resort even to ice to cool the

unnatural feverish thirst born of their indulgence 186

BOOK V

TREATING OF WINDS AND MOVEMENT OF THE ATMOSPHERE

I. Definition of _wind_--air flowing in one direction. The

air, like the sea, is always moving, even when it is

thought to be still; hence the necessity of the additional

qualification--in one direction 193

II. Democritus says wind arises from a multitude of atoms in a

small space striving to get free, just like a crowd jostling

each other 194

III. But wind does not thus depend on density; cloudy or misty

weather does not necessarily produce wind, while wind is

produced when the morning sun dissipates the air. Democritus

is, therefore, wrong 195

IV. Wind arises in two ways--from the interior of the earth by

emission--like wind on the stomach!--and from evaporation 196

V. The air has inherent power of movement, which is the chief

cause of wind, evaporation being a less powerful one. Water

has the power of moving and of imparting life to animals and

plants 197

VI. Fire even, the destroyer, sometimes generates life. Air in

like manner has a peculiar power of its own 197

VII. _Breezes before dawn_ arise from rivers, etc. Do not last

long 198

VIII. _The “gulf” wind_ (ἐγκολπίας): its origin and duration 198

IX. Connection of winds with seasons of the year and with the

heat and light of the sun. The sun does not directly cause

the winds 200

X. Some cite the Etesian Winds as proof that he does. They blow

in summer when the snows melt and the moisture is carried

South 201

XI. But as to the effect of the sun, there is no analogy between

the Etesian Winds, which do not spring up till late in the

day, and the winds which rise at dawn and fall as the day

advances 202

XII. _Cloud squalls_ (ἐκνεφίας). Their formation and

combinations 203

XIII. The breaking up of clouds produces wind. Air, in an effort

to get free, or heat, may produce this. Interruption of free

passage may produce a whirlwind, just as an obstacle in a

river a whirlpool. _Violent whirlwinds_ take fire (πρηστήρ).

Some winds produce different ones. An analogy holds between

air and drops of moisture. A union of forces in air or in

dew is necessary to give impulse and produce a current. Air

and wind are merely a matter of degree 204

XIV. Mode in which the subterranean winds are generated and make

their escape 205

XV. Ancient miners of Philip’s saw rivers and vast underground

reservoirs. It is some consolation to read such a story,

which shows greed is no new vice: the older generations were

as reckless as we are in their quest for treasure better hid 207

XVI. The four _cardinal winds_. The full list includes twelve.

Their names and directions 208

XVII. The great circles of the earth which give twelve

divisions, and therefore prescribe the possible number of

the winds 210

XVIII. The uses of wind and the illustration afforded of the

wisdom of Providence. The crops are dependent on it. So

is commerce. But we make the sea a highway to war and

not to peace. We go to seek for death, as if it were not

always near. Xerxes, Alexander, Crassus are warnings of the

mischievous use of power to cross the sea. Better, perhaps,

the winds had never been given at all. But the value of a

natural gift must not be estimated by the depraved use of

it. Every gift, even sight and speech, man has perverted in

the same way 212

BOOK VI

TREATING OF EARTHQUAKES

CHAP. PAGE

I. Earthquake at Pompeii and the alarm it caused, many giving

up Campania as a residence altogether. If the solid earth

fail, what can be done? Refuge from tempest and fire and

thunderstorm and war is possible, but not from earthquake.

But (1) the whole earth is subject to such movement: we

cannot escape by changing our ground--Tyre, Asia Minor,

Achaia have all suffered. (2) Death is the same in whatever

form it come, the circumstances matter not, a stone is all

one with a mountain 221

II. We cannot escape death. The hopeless find refuge in despair.

The knowledge of our frailty and mortality is our true

solace. Death must come, a death with circumstance is rather

to be preferred than otherwise. In an earthquake the earth

shows itself mortal as men are 225

III. Our fears are due to ignorance. Through lack of a

philosophic view of the universe we consider phenomena

strange which are merely rare, _e.g._ eclipses. Fear may be

removed by knowledge 228

IV. The study of such problems is the very worthiest; it reveals

the secrets of nature, and is disinterested. But it is

highly profitable at the same time 229

V. Various explanations of _earthquakes_ have been suggested.

The earlier ones are crude, but not therefore to be

despised. Every subject develops as time goes on. Gratitude

is due to the investigators who first dared to question

nature 230

VI. The cause of earthquakes is by some said to be water. Thales

of Miletus explains how this takes place, but he must be

wrong: the analogy of a ship sailing the ocean will not

apply to the earth (cp. III. xiii.) 231

VII. Water may be the cause, but may operate in quite different

ways from those supposed by Thales. Storms, etc., in

subterranean seas may cause earthquakes 233

VIII. There must be such subterranean water. The Tigris and

Arethusa prove it. Nero, the virtuous and the veracious,

sent two officers to investigate the sources of the Nile;

their account confirms the assumption 235

IX. Fire is another alleged cause. It either bursts out through

opposing obstacles, as in the clouds (Anaxagoras), or burns

away the foundation and causes a subsidence at the spot 236

X. Pieces of the earth falling in merely through the decay of

age may produce the effect without fire or any external

influence. This is Anaximenes’ opinion 237

XI. Fire is supposed by some to cause earthquakes by expanding

the vapour which it first causes to be given off from the

subterranean waters 238

XII. Archelaus sets down the cause as air pressing up the

earth’s internal wind which is already condensed to bursting

point 239

XIII. Aristotle and Theophrastus take evaporation to be the

cause. Strato, much in the same way, thinks that differences

of internal temperature are the cause 240

XIV. By some it is thought that air is the cause, but that its

operation, along with water, is like that of blood and air

in the vessels of the body. The earth, it is assumed in this

case, admits air, which must find an exit. When it does so

violently, the result is an earthquake 242

XV. The earth is porous, perforated at many points, and it is

thus that the air enters 243

XVI. The earth is full of air, nourishing plants rooted in it,

and exhaling enough to feed the sun and the other heavenly

bodies. Air is the most movable of elements; therefore

the earth, if it is full of air, must also have frequent

movements 244

XVII. Obstruction of air, just as of water, causes greater

impetuosity when it escapes. Wind is frequently associated

with earthquakes, as at Chalcis 245

XVIII. Additional considerations to prove that the great cause

of earthquakes is air, _i.e._ wind 247

XIX. Metrodorus of Chios compares the rumbling of an earthquake

to the resonance of the voice in a tub; the underground

caves impart the sound 248

XX. Various combinations of water and air supposed by Democritus

and Epicurus to co-operate to the production of earthquakes 249

XXI. Air must be the cause. Different kinds of earthquakes 251

XXII. First species--shaking of the earth: its causes 252

XXIII. Next comes the form of concussion caused by air. The

great Callisthenes, who braved the fury of Alexander and

lost his life for it, supports this view. Submarine effects

of it are particularly noticeable 253

XXIV. Different explanations may be given of the exact method in

which air acts 255

XXV. The striving of the air in subterranean caverns produces

a concussion or collapse in the earth above. The area of

disturbance is limited, never over 200 miles, as numerous

instances prove. The Peneüs and Ladon were thus produced 256

XXVI. The nature of the soil composed of muddy accretions

without interstices is said to account for the exemption of

Egypt from earthquakes. So Delos in the sea has porous rocks

which emit the air easily. But the facts are wrong. There

is abundant proof that proximity to the sea is no safeguard

against shock 258

XXVII. A peculiarity of the Campanian earthquake, that it killed

600 sheep, is explained by the emission of pestilential

vapour, by which sheep, with their heads close to the

ground, naturally were most readily affected 259

XXVIII. Noxious vapours are not, however, peculiar to

earthquakes. They are found in several parts of Italy

habitually. Such, too, is the origin of new diseases 261

XXIX. Excessive fear drives people mad. Earthquakes split

statues and divide kingdoms, _e.g._ Sicily from Italy, Spain

from Africa 262

XXX. The action of the air accounts for all the detailed

phenomena, splitting of walls, houses, towers, statues; also

for the prolongation of shocks for several days 263

XXXI. A further proof that air is the agent is to be found in

the gradually diminishing violence of the successive shocks.

Phenomena in the pavement witnessed by a philosopher who was

in his bath 264

XXXII. The moral. Life hangs on a thread; why should one dread

the loss of it? The greatness of the cause of death is no

source of terror. The hereafter is better and safer than

earth. There there is no fear of earthquake or thunderstorm,

fire or flood. Fear of death magnifies all human risks. Do

not dread death, long for it, and, if necessary, meet it

half way 265

BOOK VII

TREATING OF COMETS

I. Phenomena, however wonderful, are not noted and admired

unless they are uncommon. The sun and moon and starry

heavens have no observers, but a Comet at once sets the

whole world agog. The nature of the stars is a sublime and

likewise a profitable study 271

II. The nature of _Comets_ has not been hitherto fully

investigated. They are so rare that one wants a record of

the movements of all ever observed 273

III. Democritus, Eudoxus, Conon, Epigenes, and Apollonius of

Myndus all fail to give any satisfactory account of the

matter. Nor had the Egyptians or Chaldaeans investigated

them 274

IV. Epigenes explains the Comet as due to a conjunction of

Saturn with Mars or the Sun: it is akin to whirlwind and

“beam” meteors 275

V. But there are essential differences between whirlwind, which

is terrestrial, and beams and torches, which are above the

clouds. There is a difference of duration also. Beams and

Comets, it is true, have been mistaken for one another. It

was a Comet, according to Aristotle, that appeared before

the destruction of Buris and Helice. The character of the

flame differs in the two forms 276

VI. There are two kinds of Comets, according to Epigenes. They

are produced by air driven up and setting on fire suitable

material above, which takes place every day at the same hour 277

VII. But Comets are not concomitants of winds; there is no

parallelism in the phenomena. The higher ones, which have an

orbit, he attributes to the north wind, but the facts do not

square here either 278

VIII. The course and altitude of Comets render the whirlwind

explanation impossible 279

IX. The force and duration of whirlwinds are similarly

inadequate 280

X. The slowness and steadiness of the Comet could not be

accounted for on this assumption, nor its general behaviour

and shape 281

XI. We must look for some other explanation. Now Comets, it must

be premised, appear in all quarters of the sky. Whatever the

divisions of them made by the Greeks, they are all of one

origin. Some of the ancients thought they were due to the

union of two planets 283

XII. Again the facts do not square. Comets and planets appear

simultaneously. A conjunction is momentary, a Comet lasts

six months sometimes. The planets do not pass much beyond

the ecliptic, but Comets appear in every quarter of the sky.

And there are other objections 284

XIII. Artemidorus thinks the firmament is solid and has

openings for stars. Comets are casual planets, or formed by

conjunctions of them. His account is a tissue of barefaced

falsehoods 286

XIV. How would a solid firmament be supported? No feasible

explanation can be offered. Besides, the number of stars is

so great--and they may all be “wanderers” if an indefinite

number is--that there must be innumerable conjunctions of

them, _i.e._ Comets. But, as a matter of fact, Comets are

rare 287

XV. Again the huge Comets of the times of Demetrius and Attalus

would require scores of planetary conjunctions to form them 288

XVI. Ephorus, a mere chronicler, who takes this view, has

nothing to support him. He tries, like others of his set, to

embellish his work by narrating marvels. Why did he not tell

us what the two stars were into which the Comet resolved

itself, as he alleges it did? 289

XVII. Apollonius of Myndus holds the Comet to be a true star

(planet) with an erratic course, visible only when it

approaches the lower part of its orbit. Different colours of

Comets 290

XVIII. But Comets do not wax and wane as they approach and

recede like planets. Nor do their orbits lie within the

ecliptic. Besides, we can see through a Comet but not

through a true star (planet) 291

XIX. Zeno the Stoic thinks the light of converging stars gives

the appearance of a longer star. Others hold modified forms

of the same opinion or analogous views 291

XX. Most of the Stoics hold Comets to be evanescent, and

attribute them to friction of the air. Various phenomena are

analogous 292

XXI. Their methods of accounting for varieties of orbits in

Comets 293

XXII. I do not agree with any School. Reasons 295

XXIII. Further arguments showing difference between fires and

Comets 295

XXIV. There may be many stars in the universe whose paths

have not been traced: Comets are such. No satisfactory

explanation has been given of the mind, but its existence is

not doubted 297

XXV. Comets are not yet fully understood. Many things are in the

same category. A future age will be amazed at our ignorance

of such matters 298

XXVI. Reasons of apparent movements of Comets. The transparence

and shape accounted for 299

XXVII. Parallels to the differences between Comets and other

planets 300

XXVIII. Comets give prognostications, but not of immediate

events or weather 302

XXIX. Denial of heaviness and slowness of Comets 303

XXX. Humility is as becoming in investigators of the nature of

the heavens as in worshippers. God has revealed but a little

of Himself to man 304

XXXI. One cannot be surprised that everything has not yet

been discovered. We must leave something to succeeding

generations. We are not yet fully proficient in vice, though

we have striven so long and hard. We still retain, strange

to say, some traces of manhood 305

XXXII. We are all given up to low pleasures and vices, and

devote our strength to them. Philosophy is kept for wet

days. The old teachers have no successors. In fact, we are

letting go what they discovered. We at best play with truth,

which, as of old, lies at the bottom of the well, and needs

the best efforts of young and old, late and early, to bring

it to light 307

NOTES BY SIR A. GEIKIE 309

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES ON “AIR,” QUOTATIONS, AND GERCKE’S READINGS 344

INDEX 351

INTRODUCTION

SENECA

I. LIFE

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was the second son of Annaeus Seneca (generally,

but apparently without authority, called Marcus Annaeus Seneca) of

Corduba (Cordova) in Spain: his mother was a Spanish lady named Helvia.

The elder Seneca was himself a man of note. He is known as Seneca the

Orator or Rhetorician, in contradistinction to his more famous son,

the Philosopher. His works that have come down to us suggest by their

titles, _Controversiae_ and _Suasoriae_, the rhetorical character of

the contents.

Seneca had an elder brother, M. Annaeus Novatus, and a younger one,

L. Annaeus Mela (or Mella), father of Lucan the poet (M. Annaeus

Lucanus).[1] The family was thus a distinguished one. The poet Martial,

himself a Spaniard, speaks of “the house of learned Seneca thrice to be

numbered” (iv. 40. 2): the allusion might with equal appropriateness

apply either to the three brothers or to the three generations: Seneca

the Elder, Seneca, Lucan--father, son, grandson.

[1] Lucan, owing to the jealousy of Nero, was induced to join Piso’s

conspiracy in 65 and suffered the penalty. His heroic poem, the

_Pharsalia_, though in many respects crude, is a wonderful production

for a man of twenty-six.

The eldest brother of the Senecan family, Novatus, was adopted by a

friend of the family, Junius Gallio, by whose name he is known to

history. Seneca on more than one occasion makes reference to him in

the _Q.N._, and always in the most laudatory terms. In iv. Pref. 9

_et sqq._, he pays a high tribute to his character, and a further

proof of his admiration and affection is afforded by his addressing to

him his treatise on _A Happy Life_. Gallio is of interest in another

connection. He was proconsul of Achaia during the period of the Apostle

Paul’s activity there (Acts xviii.), and his conduct on the occasion of

a sectarian uproar at Corinth has attached to his name a certain stigma

which, perhaps, he does not altogether deserve.

Seneca was born about the beginning of the Christian era, probably in

the year 3. By this time the language and the arts of Rome had spread

widely over the conquered provinces, in many of which independent

centres of culture and literary activity had sprung up. While Rome

as the capital and heart of things continued to draw to herself all

that was best, or, at any rate, all that was most enterprising and

ambitious, her literary and even her political life was largely

recruited and maintained by supplies from external sources, such as

Spain, Gaul, and Africa.[2]

[2] From Spain, besides the Senecas, Lucan and Martial, already

mentioned, came Columella, Pomponius Mela, Quintilian, etc.; from

Gaul came many rhetoricians; Africa sent so many of the same class

that by Juvenal’s time (_circ._ 100) it could with propriety be

designated “nursery of lawyers” (see Teuffel, _Hist. of Rom. Lit._

vol. ii. 6).

Seneca was brought by his father to Rome at an early age,[3] and there

he was educated and spent practically his whole life. His lot was cast

in perilous times, those of Caligula the madman (37–41), Claudius the

imbecile (41–54), Nero the monster (54–68). Seneca’s early studies

were devoted to rhetoric. With such assiduity did he prosecute them,

and with such brilliant success were his efforts at the bar crowned,

that he speedily awakened the jealousy of Caligula. The hint of danger

was taken. By his father’s advice he abandoned law in the meantime and

devoted himself with equal ardour and enthusiasm to philosophy. Among

his philosophic tutors were Attalus, a Stoic, and Sotion, a pupil of

the Sextii, the decline of whose school is lamented in the _Q.N._

(307). He first embraced the Stoic doctrine, but finding the tenets

and practices of this sect not sufficiently severe, he adopted those of

the Pythagoreans. His father, a man with a good deal of worldly wisdom,

saw the dangers of extreme eccentricities of this kind, which implied

a covert condemnation of the whole world. He exhorted his son to live

more like other people; he might otherwise be mistaken for a Jew

(_i.e._ a Christian)! The young barrister’s difficulties were, however,

ended for a time by the death of Caligula (41). Seneca, who was now

thirty-eight, resumed his practice at the bar, and opened a school for

youths of noble birth, which was largely attended. About this time also

he obtained the quaestorship, the duties of which introduced a young

man into public service and enabled him to obtain some insight into the

financial methods of the Empire.

[3] His maternal aunt acted as nurse on the occasion: see _Consol. ad

Helviam_, xvii.

His re-entry on public life was, however, destined to be the prelude to

another disaster. Indeed, all through his subsequent life his interests

were so involved with the affairs of the rulers of the State that he

must always stand on slippery ground. The fact is, Seneca’s abilities

were too great for his position. He was a man of the most brilliant

parts, “one of those ardent natures the virgin soil of whose talent

shows a luxurious richness unknown to the harassed brains of an old

civilisation” (Cruttwell, _Hist. of Rom. Liter._ p. 378). In an age of

absolute and suspicious tyranny all eminence is obnoxious to the ruling

powers. It is a standing reproach to them, hence a source of fear

and alarm, a menace as they imagine, and an incentive to disloyalty.

During the very first year of Claudius’ reign Seneca was banished to

Corsica, where the next eight years find him. It was the outcome of a

Court intrigue. Messalina, wife of the Emperor, was apparently jealous

of the influence of Claudius’ nieces, Julia and Agrippina, whom he had

just recalled from banishment. Julia was again banished, and Seneca, on

the ground of an alleged improper intimacy with her, was made to share

her disgrace. His banishment was really a blessing in disguise. He

employed assiduously the period of enforced leisure, devoting himself

again to philosophy, and returning to his first love, Stoicism. Here

he perfected his study, and probably elaborated most of those doctrines

with which his writings abound. In Cruttwell’s words, he “struck out

the mild and catholic form” of the Stoic philosophy “which has made

his teaching, with all its imperfections, the purest and noblest of

antiquity” (_op. cit._ 379). To this period, too, belong some of what

may be called his earlier works, already showing remarkable power.

His exile had been compassed by the notorious Messalina, the third wife

of Claudius. On her fall Claudius married, as his fourth wife, his

niece, the still more notorious Agrippina,[4] daughter of Germanicus

Caesar and sister of Caligula and of Julia. One of Agrippina’s first

acts was to have Seneca recalled and appointed tutor to the young Nero,

her son by a former marriage and now heir-apparent to the throne. This

was in 48, when Nero was but eleven years of age, and henceforth to the

end of his life Seneca’s fortunes are closely associated with those of

Nero, “a name to all succeeding ages curst.” To be tutor to a prince

means much if the pupil is docile. If he prove headstrong and at the

same time vicious, as Nero speedily did, the choice of the tutor is an

unenviable one, either to follow his pupil and palliate his conduct,

or else to resist at the risk of position and influence and, it may be

eventually, of life. With Seneca at first all went well. The prince

was amenable, the tuition seemed to bear good fruit. The teacher was

faithful to his charge, and loyal to the prince’s mother, Agrippina,

to whom he owed his office and influence. Mother and son were still in

accord. To the philosopher there was no conflict of duty, no necessity

for the choice of one of two evils.

[4] This lady must not be confounded with her mother, who bore the

same name.

In 54 the vacillating Claudius was poisoned by Agrippina, and Nero

succeeded to the throne. For a time the government was virtually in

the hands of Seneca and of Burrus, also an excellent man, commander of

the praetorian guards. In these earlier years the young Emperor gained

a reputation for justice and moderation which has thrown a halo round

that golden quinquennium. His tutor must in fairness receive a portion

of the credit. He seems to have been throughout imbued with an honest

desire to promote virtue and good government and to check such vicious

propensities as a youth with Nero’s antecedents was not unlikely to

develop; but whether the means adopted were always unimpeachable

seems more open to question. Seneca’s own interests were apparently

not neglected. In 50 he had been made praetor; shortly after he was

raised to the consulship. Within the short space of four years from his

appointment as Nero’s master he had attained a position of commanding

influence in the State, and had amassed a colossal fortune (nearly

£3,000,000 it is said). The latter he attributed to the unsolicited

generosity of his master, but his enemies and detractors had quite a

different version of the matter.

For more than a decade after Nero’s succession Seneca’s life is part

of the history of the Roman Empire. The philosopher had become, as

it appeared, _de facto_ king and a new era seemed to have arisen

on mankind. Philosophers, it is true, have neither in ancient nor

in modern times shone in the sphere of action. The troubled sea

of practical politics is strewn with the wrecks of philosophic

reputations. Still, even before the age of the Antonines, Seneca, if

any man, might have been the exception to prove the rule. He was a

man of versatile genius, he had had a practical training, he was a

man of affairs. The facts show that he had a true conception of the

necessities as well as of the duties of government. But he was placed

in an impossible situation. Agrippina wished to rule her son, and her

chosen means was through his tutor. Nero, on the other hand, once he

had tasted the sweets of power, determined not to be ruled by his

mother, but to make her instrument his tool. The condition of unstable

equilibrium could not long continue.

The conflict came to a head through a disgraceful intrigue of Nero’s

about the year 59. Seneca had to make his choice, and never was choice

more difficult. To Agrippina he owed everything--life, position,

fortune, his past belonged to her. But he saw that Nero was to be the

winner in the struggle; his safety, his hopes, his future lay with

the ruling power. He may have felt that expostulation was vain and

resistance fruitless. He does not appear to have attempted either.

He decided to cast in his lot with the Emperor. When Nero finally

decided to get rid of his mother, Seneca not only adhered to the plan

but consented to vilify her memory by composing the letter to the

Senate, in which the matricide sought to justify his act. It was the

great treason of his life. In a critical situation he had chosen a

wrong course, and it cannot have been without a pang, a sense of moral

cowardice and tergiversation. He had sacrificed self-respect, he had

lost philosophic caste.

After the murder of his mother, Nero abandoned himself to the wildest

excesses and extravagances. The philosopher had perforce to follow in

his wake, and humiliating enough he must have felt the part he was

obliged to play. Still, he and Burrus continued to act as a sort of

drag, conspiring with what of conscience was left to Nero in checking

his headlong course. The beginning of the end, so far as Seneca was

concerned, came with the death in 63 of Burrus, his constant friend

and ally. Various indications now showed that the tyrant was anxious

to be freed from the last remaining restraint. The philosopher felt

his position was insecure. The man who had murdered his mother, not to

mention his (step-)brother and his wife--two of his other victims--was

not likely to have great compunction in ridding himself of his

tutor. Seneca sought to anticipate the storm by abandoning politics,

retiring from Court, and surrendering his estates. Nero refused the

offer, and expressed profusely his continued regard for his tutor;

shortly afterwards he displayed the sincerity of his professions by an

insidious attempt to poison him! The philosopher then renounced all

his state, adopted a voluntary poverty, and by putting into practice

his professed tenets of the simple life endeavoured to avoid a

repetition of the risk at least of poison. His diet was herbs, his

drink, water from the fountain. But it was only a matter of time now.

The occasion for which the Emperor was on the watch came in 65. In

that year Piso’s conspiracy was formed against the Emperor’s life, and

Seneca was accused, falsely so far as we can judge, of complicity. He

was ordered to prepare for death, which, according to the custom of

the day, allowed the victim the choice of means, and was usually a

voluntary opening of the veins in order to bleed to death. Tacitus has

with characteristic power and pathos depicted the scene (_Annals_, xv.

61–4). No act of his life, it would seem, became Seneca better than

the leaving of it. His death was worthy of a philosopher and a Stoic.

With the utmost calmness, amid a throng of mourning, sympathising

friends, he faced his fate, and yet with the studied pose of a man who

had conned the part. The age was one of posturing. Men were always

under the eye of the informer and the spy, and learnt to act their part

accordingly. The “meditation of death” must often have occupied the

philosopher’s latter days. He was a second Socrates consigned to an

unjust end; the last scene was enacted with all the dignity, composure,

and even cheerfulness of his great prototype. The cock due to

Aesculapius has a parallel more worthy of the occasion in the libation

to Jupiter the Liberator. The supreme act atoned for many weaknesses

and failures.

Though Seneca was not without many detractors,[5] his worth as a man is

attested by many proofs. His young wife Paulina desired to share his

fate, and opened her veins along with her husband. By Nero’s orders

she was saved, but she continued to the end of her life to bear in

her unnatural pallor the marks of her devotion. Tacitus, writing at a

distance of thirty or forty years, describes the character of Seneca in

terms of commendation and esteem. No doubt the historian had himself

borne the yoke of the savage Domitian, and knew what life under a

tyrant meant. But withal he was too acute an observer and too impartial

a critic to be blinded by any mere sentimental sympathy. He understood

and appreciated Seneca, to whose genuine worth his testimony is the

most enduring tribute.

[5] Dio Cassius is often very caustic in his criticisms, but even he

recognises Seneca’s sterling merit and services to the state.

The age of Seneca, whose “life almost coincides with the Julio-Claudian

tyranny,” has been made to re-live for us in Professor Dill’s _Roman

Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, which ought to be studied

by those who desire to understand more of Seneca as statesman,

philosopher, and man.[6] In addition to a short account and criticism

of the _Quaestiones Naturales_ (pp. 300 _et sqq._), the chapter (Book

III. ch. i. pp. 289–333) on “The Philosophic Director” is particularly

illuminating. The following tribute from it may fittingly close our

brief sketch:--

[6] Mr. Henderson’s _The Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero_

should also be studied.

“The man who approaches Seneca thinking only of scandals gleaned from

Tacitus and Dio Cassius, and frozen by a criticism which cannot feel

the power of genius, spiritual imagination, and a profound moral

experience, behind a rhetoric sometimes forced and extravagant, had

better leave him alone. The Christianity of the twentieth century

might well hail with delight the advent of such a preacher, and

would certainly forget all the accusations of prurient gossip in the

accession of an immense and fascinating spiritual force. The man with

any historical imagination must be struck with amazement that such

spiritual detachment, such lofty moral ideals, so pure an enthusiasm

for the salvation of souls, should emerge from a palace reeking with

all the crimes of the haunted races of Greek legend” (_op. cit._

p. 295).

II. WRITINGS

Seneca was a voluminous writer. Most of his works partake more or less

of a philosophical character. In a class by themselves may be placed

the ten tragedies, together with some verses, attributed to him. The

titles, _Medea_, _Hercules Furens_, _Hippolytus_, _Agamemnon_, etc.,

suggest the Greek subjects as well as the plays of the same names by

Euripides and Aeschylus. The treatment of the themes is all Seneca’s

own. Moral maxims abound; the plays are homiletic and were never

designed to be acted.

One of the plays is of special interest as dealing with current

topics. This is the _Octavia_, whose chief character is Nero’s wife

of that name, exiled by him in order to make room for the licentious

Poppaea Sabina. Seneca himself is introduced as one of the characters,

deploring the vices of the age and the unhappiness of those set in high

position. If the play is genuine, which has been doubted on the ground

of references in it that seem to apply to Nero’s death, it goes to

prove that Seneca used very plain language toward his master and pupil.

In any case, it shows what the relation of Seneca to Nero was generally

supposed to be. Tacitus (xv. 61) represents Seneca as telling Nero

by messenger that the latter has had more frequent experience of his

independence than of his servility, and the _Octavia_ is fair comment

upon his statement.

Here is a specimen of the dialogue:--

_Nero._ Fortune has put everything in my power.

_Seneca._ Distrust her favours: she is a fickle goddess.

_N._ To fail to see all that one may do, betrays the coward.

_S._ The credit lies in doing not what one may, but what one ought.

_N._ The crowd tramples on a feeble prince.

_S._ They will crush a hated one:

and so forth. Seneca’s last remark may be a prophecy--some would say

after the event. The play contains other allusions which suggest some

of the actual details of Nero’s end.

The prose works include:

(_a_) Philosophical Essays such as _Anger_, _Clemency_, _Benefits_,

_Calmness of Mind_, _A Happy Life_, _The Shortness of Life_,

_Providence_, or _Why Providence allows troubles to afflict the Just_,

_The Constancy of the Sage_, _The Leisure of the Sage_.

(_b_) Letters, or rather Treatises, of Condolence, the so-called

_Consolations_, addressed respectively _to his Mother Helvia_;

_to Marcia_, the daughter of Cordus, on the death of her son; _to

Polybius_, the powerful freedman of Claudius, on the loss of his

brother.

(_c_) _Letters to Lucilius_, a hundred and twenty-four in number.

(_d_) _Apocolocyntosis_--a lampoon on the deceased Emperor Claudius. On

such occasions deification (apotheosis) was accorded to the late ruler,

and he was received into the number of the gods. This skit describes

the reception of Claudius in heaven and his expulsion thence to the

lower regions, with his trial and sentence there. _Pumpkinification_ is

the nearest English translation of the title.[7]

[7] One would have expected that Claudius’ fate would be to be

enrolled among--the Pumpkins. But the piece as we have it contains no

allusion to this.

(_e_) _Quaestiones Naturales._

(_f_) Works no longer extant, the only one of them that concerns us

being that on _Earthquakes_, referred to as a work of his youth in

_Q.N._ 230.

(_g_) A spurious work, as is now on all hands conceded, is the

correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul. In his opposition to

popular beliefs and superstitions, and in the purity of his moral

tenets, Seneca approached some of the Christian doctrines, and it

was no improbable supposition that at the Court of Nero he might

have became acquainted with the Apostle of the Gentiles.[8] But the

assumption of a correspondence of this kind is another affair. Its

genuineness was believed from the time of Jerome (400) till the

sixteenth century.

[8] See Mr. Henderson’s _Life and Principate of Nero_, 286–7, and Mr.

Glover’s _The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire_, 149.

Seneca is generally considered to appear at his best in the

_Consolation to his Mother Helvia_ and in the _Epistles to Lucilius_,

which are therefore usually ranked as amongst his finest works. The

latter work, which from the outset was designed for publication, is

not an ordinary correspondence on the current affairs and interests

of everyday life like Cicero’s Letters, but is philosophic in

character; it covers a wide range of moral discussion and reflection,

and is full of admirable maxims. Many of its sentiments have become

commonplaces; their almost hackneyed character detracts perhaps

somewhat from our appreciation of their intrinsic merit. On the other

hand, the spitefulness of the _Apocolocyntosis_, the servility of the

_Consolation to Polybius_, and the flattery of the _Clemency_, which

was addressed to Nero, show the reverse of Seneca’s character. Of the

characteristics of his style, however, and of his position in Roman

literature--one of commanding importance--this is not the place to

speak. His works reflect truly enough both the iron and the miry clay

which entered into his mental and moral composition.

III. “QUAESTIONES NATURALES”

This work stands in a category by itself. It raises a number of

difficult problems, in which every reader of it, whether classical

scholar or not, is interested.

The historical title, _Natural Questions_, is convenient, though,

without explanation, a little misleading. The nearest rendering of

the Latin form _Quaestiones Naturales_ is Physical Inquiries, or

Investigations in the Domain of Physics, or, as in the title, what we

should now call Physical Science. The terms Physics and Science had a

very different connotation in that age and in ours. Plutarch, almost

a younger contemporary of Seneca, gravely discusses in a work with a

similar title such questions as Why shepherds give their sheep salt,

Why horses’ hair is superior to mares’ for casting-lines, and even, Why

a dog runs after a stone rather than after the person who threw it!

The extent of such a title is determined pretty much by the range of

topics an author decides to include. In Seneca’s case, as it happens,

the branches chiefly dealt with are Astronomy and Meteorology, together

with certain portions of what may be designated as Physical Geography

including Seismology.

Science was in that day synonymous with Philosophy, or at any rate

Philosophy embraced all that could claim to be Science. Learning

was homogeneous; its subdivisions had not yet been separated or

differentiated.

The treatise was addressed in a quasi-epistolary form to Lucilius

Junior, procurator[9] of Sicily. Most of our knowledge of him is

derived from Seneca, who, besides the _Q.N._, addressed to him his

_Epistles_ and his tract on _Providence_. Lucilius seems to have been

a _protégé_ of Seneca, and rising from the ranks under his fostering

care and guidance, not only to have attained a position of influence,

but also to have achieved literary distinction. His philosophical

predilections were toward Epicureanism, but he was a man of high

principle and character, though not exempt from dangerous temptations

at various points in his career. His public labours had associated

him with Sicily, and the themes of his writings, chiefly poems as it

would appear, had been drawn from the same quarter. He is, not without

probability, supposed to have been the author of the anonymous didactic

poem _Aetna_, for long attributed to Virgil, a work which presents

many interesting parallelisms to the _Q.N._ both in its science and

its philosophy. Seneca’s Epistle lxxix. contains a special charge to

Lucilius, who was at the time making a circuit of his province, to

report the facts concerning Charybdis--Seneca knew all there was to

know about Scylla--and to investigate in detail the present condition

of Aetna. The letter goes on to banter Lucilius upon the inclusion of

Aetna in the poem on which he was engaged--no doubt the work referred

to in _Q.N._ 114, 142; cf. 167. The whole question is discussed

with full knowledge by Professor Robinson Ellis in the Introduction

(xxxvi-xlviii) to his edition of the _Aetna_, to which reference

should be made. For other allusions to Lucilius in Seneca see, besides

the _Q.N._, Epistles xix. xxvi. xxxiv. etc.

[9] The procurator was in this case practically governor. In some

instances he was the representative of a chief governor (_praeses_)

to whom he was subject, _e.g._ Pontius Pilate was procurator of

Judaea under the Governor of Syria.

The _Q.N._ was composed probably about the year 63 or 64. We

might content ourselves with the statement of the fact, did not

the circumstances of composition throw light upon difficulties of

arrangement and sequence which can scarcely be passed unnoticed. The

evidence on which we have to rely is chiefly internal. The exact

date of Lucilius’ procuratorship in Sicily (159) is unknown, but the

consulship of Regulus and Virginius, which witnessed the Campanian

earthquake (221), fell in 63, that is, some two years before Seneca’s

death. The allusions in the Preface to Book III. (109) are still more

direct and convincing. The writer was drawing near his end, pressed

hard on the rear by old age, with every necessity and incentive to

hurry on the completion of his task.

On the other hand, the mission despatched by Nero to the sources of

the Nile (235–6) would naturally point to an earlier date during the

more promising years of his reign--unless indeed, as is by no means

improbable, the complimentary reference to the emperor’s virtues be a

piece of adulation. A similar reference recurs in connection with the

comet in Nero’s reign (290), the date of which must (after Tacitus) be

assigned to the year 61.

The Elder Pliny, writing in 77, about a dozen years after Seneca’s

death, adds to each Book of his _Natural History_ an exhaustive list of

the authorities, native and foreign, that he had used. Book II. deals

with many of the subjects of the _Q.N._, of which it is in some places

an expansion, but in most little more than an epitome.[10] And yet no

mention of Seneca occurs in the list of authorities attached, which

seems strange if the work had then been given to the world.[11]

[10] See particularly Pliny’s treatment of Comets (ii. xxii.), Winds

(xliv.-l.), Lightning (liii.), Floating Islands (xcvi.). But most

striking of all is the reproduction (lxiii.) of Seneca’s remark (208

end of c. xv.), “If any nether gods existed, they would have been dug

up long ere this in the mines sunk by our avarice and luxury.” The

two authors had hit upon the same thought, and Seneca had happened to

use it first. Or it may have been a current witticism in an age of

unbelief.

[11] Seneca’s name does occur in the lists attached to Books VI. IX.

and XXXVI.; the first is geographical, dealing with Asia and Africa,

the second has for subject fishes and aquatic life in general, while

the third deals with the natural history of stones.

We read in the Sixth Book of the _Q.N._ (230) that the author had

previously, when a young man, composed a work upon Earthquakes. This,

taken in connection with what precedes, and with what we know of

the author’s character and interests, affords some ground for the

conjecture that he may have worked intermittently at the subject at

various periods of life. But no doubt the arrangement of the materials

and the completion of the work belong to his latter years. He had by

this time lost his hold upon Nero, and had practically retired from

political activity. His trust in princes had been found misplaced. He

was disappointed if not embittered. The discussion of public affairs

was precluded. It was dangerous even to let one’s thoughts rest upon

them. But there were consolations for political disappointment and

inactivity. Recourse might be made to the contemplation of those great

works and workings of Nature which are exempt from the caprices of

human passion. The study of Nature was equally fitted to humble and to

console; to it Seneca betook himself for refuge.[12]

[12] “The Stoics affected to despise physical studies, or at any

rate to postpone them to morals. Seneca shared this edifying but

far from scientific persuasion. But after his final withdrawal from

court, as the wonders of nature forced themselves on his notice,

he reconsidered his old prejudice, and entered with ardour on the

contemplation of physical phenomena” (Cruttwell, _op. cit._ 381).

The _Q.N._ may, thus, have been composed at different dates, materials

for it being gathered at various times as opportunity offered. But the

final arrangement and systematisation belong to the last years of the

author’s life, about the years 63 or 64. The publication may not have

taken place until some time subsequently, and may have been carried out

by Lucilius, who was Seneca’s literary executor. So much is certain,

that the work as we have it is not the work as it left the author’s

hand.

Much time and ingenuity have been bestowed on attempts to restore

the _Q.N._ to what may be supposed to have been its original form.

The most casual reading of it as it stands, shows that it is full

of inequalities. If the clue could only be recovered, much of its

difficulty and obscurity would disappear. As it is, it abounds in

abrupt transitions, interruptions of the logical sequence, repetitions,

excrescences, and even irrelevancies and inconsistencies, which it can

hardly be supposed that an author would have allowed to remain in a

treatise prepared for publication.

One or two considerations derived from the present arrangement will

serve to throw light upon this point. In the first place, Book IV., as

we have it, is evidently composite. Between Chaps. II. and III. there

is a deep hiatus. In the former chapter the discussion of the Nile is

cut short, and the author’s own view is not even indicated, much less

established; while the latter opens so abruptly as at least to suggest

that it may have originally been preceded by something with which it

stood in organic sequence.

Again, the several Books do not conform to the author’s division of the

subject as set forth in the opening of Book II. (51), but follow--or

precede--one another anyhow.

Then, three of the Books (I. III. IV.) have a formal Preface, while the

others have not, though in them, too, with the exception of the Sixth,

the opening chapter is introductory in character.

Any attempt to restore a more intelligible order must depend for its

success on the extent to which we may assume Seneca to have been a

methodiser. In Book II. i, he certainly states very distinctly the

divisions of his subject--(_a_) things in the heavens, (_b_) things

between heaven and earth, (_c_) things on the earth. But it by no

means follows that he himself maintained this order of treatment, or

that he always exhausted one subject before passing on to the next.

The division evidently enumerates the subjects in order of dignity or

worth, and may have little, if any, relation to the order of their

discussion; in fact, in Book II. he goes on immediately to deal with

meteorology, his second and not his first topic.

Bernhardt (_Die Anschauung des Seneca vom Universum_, p. 7) frankly

accepts the traditional order of the Books, and finds its explanation

in the distinction between phenomena and elements. The first three

Books deal with the phenomena of heaven, air, earth, respectively; the

last four respectively with the elements--water, air, earth, fire. This

is ingenious, if not altogether convincing.

The most recent editor, Professor Gercke, divides Book IV. into

its two constituents, IV. (_a_) = IV. Pref.-ii., IV. (_b_) = IV.

iii.-xiii., and arranges the Books in ascending scale thus: Earth III.

IV. (_a_); Air IV. (_b_), II. V. VI; Heaven VII. I. There seems great

probability, almost amounting to certainty, that there were originally

eight Books, as he supposes. But a consistent and fairly natural order

might perhaps be restored with less violence to the accepted form

than his scheme involves. Books III. and IV. (_a_) seem to have been

misplaced or transposed, being placed after Book II. instead of after

Book VI., where they originally stood; Book IV. (_a_) had somehow got

mutilated, which the more easily led to the confusion. Book IV. (_b_)

also suffered somewhat in the process. Thus the original order may have

been I. II. IV. (_b_), V. VI.; III. IV. (_a_); VII.; the first five

Books deal with Meteorology, including Seismology (air), the next two

with Physical Geography (earth), the last Book with Astronomy (heaven).

A single change of the order is thus all that is required; but, of

course, the regrettable gap after IV. (_a_) remains.

Even with this rearrangement the sequence leaves something to be

desired. But it must be borne in mind that the author makes a claim to

philosophic liberty (178), and that in no case can the rules of modern

requirement be applied to him.

Of course, if the assumption of methodical arrangement be unfounded,

and the author composed just as the humour took him, the existing order

may be all right: it is as good as any other fortuitous collocation.

Some have supposed that the work was left unfinished at the author’s

death, but of this we have no proof.

The language of the Preface to Book III. has been taken by some to

imply that this was the opening of the whole work. Whether this is

so must remain to some extent matter of opinion. It may, however, be

pointed out (_a_) that the claim of the Preface to Book I. seems at

least equally strong, (_b_) that the language of § 4 of the Preface to

Book III. (110), “how much is unaccomplished of my plan, though not of

my life,” seems inapplicable to a work that was not begun or merely

beginning. There was a remnant of the work and a remnant of life, but

they were disproportionate, the one large, the other small. This was a

reminder to hurry on to completion a work with which, _ex hypothesi_,

some progress had already been made.

When all has been said, we must, for practical purposes, accept the

book as it has been handed down to us and make what we can of it.

The difficulties are not exhausted even when the pristine order is

restored. What is true of the work as a whole is true of it also in

detail. The text is full of uncertainties and corruptions. The work

was popular and was frequently copied, and this naturally gave rise

to variations, which, being improved upon by succeeding generations

of copyists, in course of time rendered the text in many places very

obscure if not unmeaning. The nature of the subject matter, frequently

little understood, no doubt facilitated and hastened the process of

corruption. Hence the translator has at every turn to decide first

_what_, and then _how_, he shall translate.[13]

[13] Gercke says (Preface, xlvi) that the traditional text of the

_Q.N._ is utterly corrupt and still requires the united efforts of

many earnest scholars for its restoration. He writes as recently

as two years ago (1907), and has himself probably made the most

considerable contribution of all the editors to the correction of the

text; but he modestly calls himself only a pioneer.

An added difficulty is the form of address to Lucilius. The adoption of

the epistolary style, whatever its other advantages, has not, it must

be admitted, conduced to the lucidity of the argument. Science does

not readily lend itself to exposition by dialogue, and the trouble

is aggravated when, in addition to the correspondent, an imaginary

opponent is from time to time introduced and indifferently addressed

in the second person, or referred to in the third. To make matters

still worse, the author frequently conceals himself behind the mask of

one or other of the disputants, irrespective of pronouns. Finally, he

employs “we” sometimes of himself and his correspondent, sometimes of

his philosophic sect, the Stoics, sometimes of his nation, the Romans,

sometimes of his kind, man in general!

IV. SENECA’S METHOD OF TREATMENT OF SUBJECT

In order to appreciate Seneca’s treatment of his subject we must

understand something of his philosophical tenets. He was in the main

a Stoic, but with such a strong tendency toward independence that

he may be considered an Eclectic. The Stoics, whether or not they

originated, at any rate recognised and adopted the threefold division

of philosophy--Physics, Ethics, Logic[14]--which was originated among

the Greeks and handed down by them to the Romans, who were in this

department their pupils. Seneca is typical of the Stoics in regarding

Ethics as of supreme importance. On Logic he did not apparently set

any great store, though he must have been a diligent student of the

cognate branch, Rhetoric. Physics, as we have seen, did not claim much

attention from him in early life; only as he approached the mature age

of threescore did his study of it become more detailed and systematic.

No clear line of demarcation existed in his mind, or for the matter

of that in his age, between philosophy and science. Yet there is

considerable internal evidence in the _Q.N._ that his pursuit of such

studies was in part an outcome of the true scientific spirit, and that

he possessed in no ordinary degree the scientific imagination. Still,

when all due allowance is made for this, it remains true that Seneca

was moralist first and physicist or scientist afterwards. Physics led

to theology,[15] and had thus a direct bearing on man’s destiny and

fate. Had there been no Ethics, whose interests were involved in a

knowledge of the universe, its parts, its function, and its author,

the impelling motive for the study of Physics would have been removed.

Possibly when his political career was closed by the death of Burrus

in 63, Seneca might in any case have devoted some of his leisure to a

subject which offered such opportunities of exalted contemplation. But

it was his ethical aims that added the chief zest to the pursuit.[16]

As the various departments of knowledge had not assumed definite

divergent forms, there was nothing incongruous to his mind in the

mixture, or as he might have regarded it, the union, of what to us

seem so different from one another as Physics and Ethics. The facts

of nature had, in his view, to be brought into connection with the

lessons that may be derived from them. In so many words he tells us

(102) that every study must have a moral attached to it, or to put

it otherwise, that physical phenomena must be made the occasion for

driving home some general truth, establishing some ethical position,

clinching an argument, reprobating a vice. The conclusion of each Book

of the _Q.N._ contains the practical application of the lessons to be

derived from its subject: there are not infrequent digressions, too,

for the same or a cognate purpose. The author’s moral zeal sometimes

ran off with him, and he felt constrained to break off for the time his

discussion of scientific truths and to assume the rôle of the moralist

and reformer.[17]

[14] See Professor Davidson’s _The Stoic Creed_, p. 42, where it is

pointed out that each of these may be subdivided so as to bring the

number up to six--Physics and Theology, Ethics and Politics, Logic

and Rhetoric. See also Seneca, Epist. lxxxix., where the division is

discussed. For further information on the subject, the article on the

Stoics in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ and any of the histories of

philosophy, _e.g._ Erdmann or Zeller, may be consulted.

[15] Cf. Professor Burnet’s _Early Greek Philosophy_ for illustration

of this in earlier times.

[16] Cf. footnote 2 to p. xxxiv.

[17] The method was not obsolete for many centuries, even if it is

yet wholly dead. On more than one occasion the study of Natural

History has been advocated on account of the abundance of figures of

speech that may be drawn from it! Erasmus esteemed it because of the

light it threw on the classics; his insensibility to the wonders of

natural forces and processes provoked Luther’s remark that “Erasmus

looks upon external objects as cows look upon a new gate.”

The reader of the _Q.N._ need not, therefore, regard as matter of

surprise this curious medley of science and morality, which is of the

very essence of the author’s principles and purpose. Seneca performs

this part of his task with evident relish. He is always ready to

improve the occasion, and will even go out of his way to find it.

His censure of vice, his denunciation of luxury and self-indulgence,

his castigation of immorality, seem to afford him a kind of morbid

satisfaction. Even a note of insincerity may sometimes be suspected.

He is rather too ready to display his own acquaintance with all the

refinements of the vices of “good society”: perhaps it was the fault of

his age to gloat over unsavoury details that a moralist would now be

more anxious to conceal than to reveal.[18]

[18] “There are pictures of voluptuous ease and jaded satiety which

may be the work of a keen sympathetic observation, but which may also

be the expression of repentant memory” (Dill, _op. cit._ p. 298).

With Seneca as moralist, however, we are not here directly concerned.

But what attitude are we to assume toward his Science? It need

scarcely be said that of Science in the twentieth century sense, the

first century of our era knew very little. Its greatest weakness was

that it possessed practically no means of interrogating nature save

those afforded by the human senses. The sundial was known, but the

thermometer, the barometer, the telescope, and even the microscope,

had still to be invented. Experiment except in the most rudimentary

form was impossible. Observation was the only method available, and

it lost much of its value from the necessary looseness and inaccuracy

attaching to it. Seneca was fully alive to the necessity of procuring

correct data. He records his own observation when digging among his

vines (117); he had visited the Sabine country to see a floating island

(139); he had evidently watched closely rainbow, lightning, meteors,

comets, etc, etc. He laid friends like Lucilius under contribution,

and he insists on the necessity for keeping records of observation,

especially when the phenomenon is comparatively rare, as a Comet

(274). Besides, he draws not only upon the history of his country,

but also upon the learning of other nations--Greeks, Babylonians, and

Egyptians--records which for the most part are no longer extant. The

_Q.N._ thus embodies many out-of-the-way facts which otherwise would be

unknown to us. Accuracy is nearly always a relative term: approximate

accuracy is the most we can look for in that age. Seneca’s contribution

of data is curious, interesting, and valuable.

Again, in arguing from facts, or supposed facts, Seneca is entitled to

credit for his method if not always for his results. A great merit is

that he endeavours to account for the phenomena observed, he habitually

raises the causal issue, and he is not satisfied until he has passed in

review all the considerations involved in the observation or problem.

He is scrupulous in always giving the other side a hearing, and in

discussing views with which he disagrees, even though only to reject

them. On the negative side he is generally fairly convincing, and

succeeds in showing the fallacies involved in a proposition. But on

the constructive side he is many times ingeniously perverse, curiously

blind to the inadequacy of the theories which he himself advances,

and which he would readily have confuted in an opponent. Sometimes

he adopts an error already current, as old as Aristotle or older;

sometimes he advances a fresh one of his own. But even his errors are

instructive, and represent a phase of progress. The line of progress is

zigzag. Only after errors have been exhausted does the truth emerge and

advance become possible.

The amenities of ancient science seem to have been somewhat scanty.

A mistake, a false inference, an erroneous view, is met with the lie

direct. The moral stigma of falsehood is, at any rate in certain

instances, attached to such a deviation from fact. Nor is this all.

The whole character must be bad if a man has “lied.” The authors,

whom Seneca calls chroniclers, and particularly Epigenes, are in one

passage quite fiercely attacked (289). In justice to Seneca it must

be said that he is hardly more polite toward himself. The words on

p. 154, § 2, rendered, “I can give my own word, etc.,” read literally,

“I’m a liar if water does not meet us, etc.” Perhaps, therefore, it is

only a manner of speaking. In the early days of public education in

Britain a Government report recorded as a proof of moral progress the

substitution in some parts of the country of “I beg your pardon” for

“You’re a liar!” The child seems to have here re-lived the history of

the race.

Seneca had a wide outlook, too, and a splendid scientific faith.

With prophetic eye he sees the day when an astronomer will arise to

demonstrate the nature and orbit of Comets[19] (299); he is content

to let posterity have a share of the credit! Nor is his humility less

than his confidence. His lessons may still usefully be taken home;

we imagine we have pierced to nature’s inmost sanctum, yet we are

still loitering round her outer court (306); let us not despise the

day of small things, the investigation of nature’s marvels requires

generations of workers and ages of work; there will come a day when

all will be revealed, when posterity will smile at our feeble and

clumsy efforts and wonder how we missed such obvious truths (298). The

ancients must be treated leniently; it was a large contribution to

discovery to have conceived the hope of its possibility (231). Seneca

maintained and promoted this belief in ultimate success. He displays

throughout the same alert, buoyant, enthusiastic confidence, together

with patient, reverent search for truth in nature and truth about God.

[19] The fulfilment, or at least the beginning of the fulfilment, of

this prediction may be dated from Newton in 1680.

Seneca nowhere gives us a reasoned connected exposition of the views

entertained by him regarding the Universe as a whole or the relation

of its parts. Only “by parcels” and inference can we glean them from

scattered remarks and comments that he makes in the course of his

work. In Physics even more than in Ethics he was an Eclectic; he

criticises freely, and occasionally rejects entirely, the opinions of

his own school, the Stoics, at one point going so far as to call them

silly (181, cf. 295). He claims authority, too, for his own research,

and asserts the right to hypothesise for himself: he is hopeful, if

not certain, of discovery (304). He frequently quotes rival opinions

without indicating his own. He is familiar with conflicting theories

which he does not attempt, or fails in his attempt, to harmonise.

And in the end one is tempted to ask whether he himself had reached

any consistent comprehensive cosmical scheme. There is much that is

quaint and interesting and ingenious, but it seems doubtful whether

an attempt to construct from the _Q.N._ a complete cosmology would in

the end repay the labour. The scheme might prove self-contradictory;

it would in any case be full of error, and there would in no case be

the assurance that it was all Seneca’s own. This seems sufficient

reason for declining the task. If one care to pursue it further,

helpful information may be obtained from Bernhardt’s _brochure_ (_Die

Anschauung, etc._) already referred to, while a discussion of the whole

subject will be found in Crouslé’s Thesis, written in Latin, _De L._

_Annaei Senecae Nat. Quaest_., which for fulness and fairness leaves

nothing to be desired.[20] In the Commentary and Notes at the end of

the volume Seneca’s scientific opinions and methods are discussed by

Sir Archibald Geikie.

[20] Ideler’s _Meteorologia veterum Graecorum et Romanorum_, which

forms the Prolegomena to his edition of Aristotle’s _Meteorology_,

but is printed as a separate volume, also contains much curious

information on this recondite subject.

V. SOME OF SENECA’S PREDECESSORS AND CONTEMPORARIES

The history of ancient Science is a very tangled and abstruse subject,

a portion of the history of ancient Philosophy, which lies as much

outside the scope of the present work as beyond the powers of the

writer. Still, Seneca cannot be altogether detached from what preceded

him. In order to throw light upon his work, it may be permissible to

pass in rapid review a few of the chief sources from which he drew. Our

starting-point may be Aristotle.

Aristotle is with good reason named “the master of those who know”

(Dante, _H._ iv.). He may be said to have summed up the knowledge of

the ancient world, at least as far as Greece is concerned, on all

subjects. If not the founder of Science any more than of Philosophy,

he recapitulated so fully all that went before that he became the

fountain-head and source from which all succeeding workers mainly drew.

He systematised the existing materials, adding his own criticisms

and observations, and illuminating the whole with the strong light

of his unrivalled powers. He drew upon many authorities whose works

are now lost, the leading names among them being familiar from the

_Q.N._--Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, and the rest. The extent and

variety of the material may, perhaps, best be understood from a work

like Professor Burnet’s _Early Greek Philosophy_, to which reference

should be made. A reasoned consecutive account will there be found of

the individual contributions made to philosophy (including science)

by the early Greek thinkers. Long before Aristotle’s time numerous

physical theories had been propounded, and had been supported by their

authors with great acuteness of argument; hardly any question had

been left unasked that related to matter, motion, or mind. “We may

smile, if we please, at the strange medley of childish fancy and true

scientific insight.... But we shall do well to remember at the same

time that even now it is just such hardy anticipations of experience

that make scientific progress possible, and that nearly every one of

the early inquirers ... made some permanent addition to the store of

positive knowledge, besides opening up new views of the world in every

direction” (_op. cit._ 29).

Seneca probably possessed fuller details of the investigations and

speculations of these early workers than we now do. The existing

materials are contained in Professor Diels’ _Die Fragmente der

Vorsokratiker_, with which his other great work, the _Doxographi

Graeci_, should be compared.[21]

[21] These are, of course, only for the classical scholar.

The chief work of Aristotle upon which Seneca drew was the

_Meteorologica_. The extent to which its subject coincided with that

of the _Q.N._ may be inferred from a glance at its contents. The

_Meteorologica_ is divided into four Books, arranged thus:--

I. Scope and relations of Meteorology. The four elementary

bodies--earth, water, fire, air--and their relations. Celestial fires.

Shooting stars. Comets. The Milky Way. Clouds. Fog. Dew. Hoar-frost.

Rain. Snow. Hail. Wind. Formation of rivers. Change in land through

action of rivers: effects on movements of races.

II. The sea and its salinity. Theory of the winds, their varieties,

positions, etc. Earthquakes and their explanation. Lightning and

thunder.

III. Lightning, thunder, and similar phenomena. Halo and rainbow. Mock

sun and cognate appearances. Exhalation and its influence.

IV. Theory of the elements (= ingredients or first principles); two

active--hot and cold, two passive--dry and moist. Their effect on

bodies. Cohesion, Liquefaction, Solidification, Coagulation, Fusion,

Solubility, and other properties. Homogeneous and non-homogeneous

bodies. Effects of temperature. Place of this work in author’s scheme.

Another work that goes under Aristotle’s name, but is now generally

considered spurious, is the _De Mundo_ (_the Universe_), which in

part repeats the subjects of the latter part of the _Meteorology_.

Seneca may also have drawn on the _De Coelo_ (_the Heavens_), whose

subject covers portions of the _Q.N._ He refers more than a dozen of

times to Aristotle by name, but it was not customary to refer to

individual works. There are numerous instances in which Aristotle is

his authority, though no specific mention of him occurs.

Theophrastus, the pupil of Aristotle, and, his successor as head

of the Academy, is also frequently referred to in the _Q.N._ His

master bequeathed to him his library and original manuscripts, and

Theophrastus was himself also a voluminous writer.

Among his extant works on Science, we have treatises or tracts dealing

with Fire; Winds; Stones; Signs of Rain, Wind, Storm, and Fine Weather;

not to mention Colours, Odours, etc., and an extensive work on Plants

and their History. His work on Perception and Percepts is said to be a

chapter of a larger work on the history of philosophy. At any rate, it

records and discusses the opinions of earlier writers on the subjects

to which the title refers. For his further views on Physics, and the

lost treatise on the subject, see Diels, _Dox. Graec._ 119 _et sqq._,

and 473 _et sqq._

Aratus, who flourished about 280–270 B.C., wrote two poems (in

Greek) entitled respectively _Phaenomena_,[22] an introduction to

the knowledge of the constellations; and _Prognostics_, a method of

forecasting the weather from astronomical phenomena. Aratus scarcely

ranks as a scientific writer, but Seneca refers to his opinions on one

occasion in the _Q.N._ He was apparently held in high esteem by the

Romans, for he found a translator (in part) in Cicero, and an imitator

in Virgil (_Georgics_).

[22] It is from this poem (l. 5) that Paul quotes (Acts xvii. 28),

“For we are also his offspring.” Aratus was a native of Soli in

Cilicia, and therefore a compatriot of Paul.

Plutarch stands in a somewhat different relation to Seneca. He was a

little subsequent in date, but there is a sort of parallelism between

the two, both in their scientific and their more general interests.

Besides the _Physical Causes_, already referred to, Plutarch made a

compilation in five Books--at least it goes under his name--of the

Tenets of the Philosophers (_Placita Philosophorum_) regarding a

vast number of physical, especially astronomical and physiological,

subjects. Diels (_op. cit._ 65) scouts the idea of the genuineness of

the “wretched epitome,” and assigns it to the middle of the second

century. Whether this be so or not does not much affect its value for

us. The existence of the work shows the nature of the material which

was available in Seneca’s age. The work is a kind of distant echo of

Theophrastus’ lost treatise and preserves many opinions of the older

philosophers, of which, to say the least of it, we should otherwise

have been less fully informed. The parallelism of the _Placita_ to the

_Q.N._ will appear from a few of the titles. Books II. and III. of

the former reproduce a long array of opinions of Thales, Empedocles,

Anaxagoras, Diogenes, Anaximenes, Democritus, Xenophanes, Xenocrates,

not to mention Plato, Aristotle, the Pythagoreans, the Stoics, etc.,

etc., regarding such subjects as Eclipses, the Milky Way, Comets,

Earthquakes, Clouds, Winds, Thunder and Lightning, etc., etc.

Plutarch also has questions regarding Aratus _Prognostics_, and a

Miscellanea of discussions on allied subjects.

Of Latin writers two have special bearing on Seneca. Lucretius (95–51

B.C.), in his great poem on Nature (_De Rerum Natura_), has expounded

the Epicurean view of the universe. In so far as science is capable

of metrical and poetical exposition, he ranks high among scientific

writers; while the recent resuscitation of the atomic theory lends

special interest to his views. The Romans were always a practical

and not a speculative nation, and any deviation from the type, such

as Lucretius or Seneca, becomes especially noteworthy and valuable.

Numerous parallelisms between them have been brought out in the

Commentary and Notes appended to this Translation.

Pliny the Elder stands in respect of date in much the same relation

to Seneca as Plutarch does. His great work on Natural History, which

was addressed to the reigning Emperor, Vespasian, was published in

the year 77, that is, about a dozen years after Seneca’s death. We

have already glanced at the bearing of this date upon that of the

publication of the _Q.N._ We are now concerned rather with the relation

of the contents of the two works. Gibbon (_Decline and Fall_, chap.

xiii.) speaks of “that immense register where Pliny has deposited

the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind.” Nor is the

description unjust. The work is of portentous length, extending to

thirty-seven Books; it treats of an enormous variety of subjects,

physical, geological, geographical, ethnographical, botanical, medical,

etc., many of which are now quite dissociated from the title, _Natural

History_. Pliny seems to have read everything that existed in writing

on the various subjects included, and his array of authorities attached

to the contents of each Book is very imposing.[23] But unfortunately

his judgment does not appear to have been equal to his industry.

Everything is recorded, credible and incredible, whether derived from

trustworthy literature or based on mere report: a more uncritical

congeries of truth and error it would be difficult to imagine.

[23] He claims to have read about 2000 volumes of 100 choice authors,

but his lists seem to include a much larger number of names--146

Roman and 327 foreign writers. See Teuffel, _Rom. Lit._ vol. ii.,

under Pliny the Elder. Cf. Dill, _op. cit._ p. 146 and _note_.

Book II. deals with the constitution of the universe, including

astronomical and meteorological phenomena, such as Meteors, Halos,

Eclipses, Winds, Earthquakes, Rain, etc., etc. Many of these cover

the same ground as the _Q.N._ Among the domestic authors cited for

this Book are M. Varro, Livy, Cornelius Nepos, Caecina, “who wrote on

the Etruscan cult”; among the foreign authors are Plato, Anaximander,

Democritus, Archimedes, Aristotle, etc., etc. The omission of Seneca

from the Latin list is balanced by that of Theophrastus from the

Greek list. It is, of course, unsafe to build any theory on a merely

negative basis. Obviously Pliny had read at any rate portions of these

authors, to whom he elsewhere refers, and may, through mere oversight

or negligence, have omitted specific mention of them here: he usually

refers to authors and not to their individual works. If, at the time of

the composition of Book II., which may have been considerably earlier

than the date of publication of the whole work, he did not know of

Seneca’s _Q.N._, then the inference seems inevitable that there were

current a collection or collections of the opinions (δόξαι) of the

older philosophers which were common property to any one interested in

such matters. The _Placita_ attributed to Plutarch, though its present

form may be much later than Pliny’s time, may have been derived from

sources of this kind. We shall not be far wrong in supposing that,

in addition to the works still extant, there was a mass of material

available to Seneca and Pliny alike which represented the traditional

views on physical and allied subjects handed down from the old Greek

philosophy. Most of the Latin authors, seventeen in number in all,

cited by Pliny on Book II. are now known to us only by name; of those

whose works remain, Varro is the only one whom we should consider

likely to furnish much material for the topic in hand.

Of Pliny’s lists in general it may be said that they indicate that a

good many writers even among the Romans had been attracted by subjects

of a scientific or quasi-scientific character, if we may not venture to

say that their works can rank as science even in the modified sense in

which the term is applicable to Seneca or Pliny. It is in keeping with

the character of the people that practical sciences like agriculture

(Varro, Columella) and architecture (Vitruvius), not to mention

cookery, should have received special attention. These authors, with

others like Manilius (_Astronomica_) and Pomponius Mela (geography),

however interesting in themselves, have only an indirect and sometimes

only a remote bearing on the Physical Science of their day.

VI. THE “QUAESTIONES NATURALES” IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The _Q.N._ is a landmark in the progress of Physical Science. From

Aristotle and Theophrastus there is a great gap until we reach Seneca:

the gap is still greater between Seneca and the Renascence, from which

the era of true science is to be dated. The _Q.N._ is the last word

spoken on the subject by the classical world, and practically the only

work of its kind that survives to us in Latin. Various commentators

on Aristotle and Seneca have, probably unconsciously, appeared as

champions of either author’s claim to be considered as _the_ authority

in Science during the Middle Ages. All the materials for forming an

unbiassed judgment are to be found in Dr. Sandys’ _History of Classical

Scholarship_ (vol. i.).

Seneca possessed one or two initial advantages. In the first place,

Latin, in which he wrote, was understood and spoken throughout the

world, whereas for many centuries Greek was over large tracts of it,

particularly in the West, an unknown tongue. Again, Seneca was for

long supposed to be a Christian, claimed by the early fathers as “one

of us,” and ranked by Jerome among the _Ecclesiastical Writers_. There

was not therefore the same prejudice against his works as is known to

have existed in the early Christian centuries against pagan authors,

especially against the poets.

As a matter of fact, the knowledge of Aristotle’s works, at any rate

in the West, seems to have been derived in the first instance from

Arabic translations made in the ninth century and brought to Spain

about the twelfth century, while from 1204 onwards he was known in

Latin translations made direct from the Greek MSS., which were now

accessible. “In Roger Bacon’s day, not-withstanding his eagerness for

promoting the study of Aristotle in the original Greek, it was the

_Latin_ Aristotle alone that was studied in the schools” (Sandys,

_op. cit._ 575). That was about the year 1267. Seneca seems to have

been well known, chiefly as a moralist, through the Middle Ages. He

“was famous as the author of the _Naturales Quaestiones_” (_ib._

627[24]) also. Saint-Hilaire’s claim, therefore (Arist. _Meteor._

Pref. ii. iii.), “that Aristotle laid down the law on Meteorology,

as in everything else, from the age of Alexander right up to the

Renascence,” must be accepted with some qualification. There seems

room for Ruhkopf’s explanation (_Q.N._ Pref.) that Seneca’s work was,

and continued to be, the sole fountain whence Natural Philosophy

derived its source and drew its supplies during many centuries, “until

Aristotle’s books were transmitted for public use into Western Europe.”

[24] See, besides, pp. 387, 541, 547, 560, 569, etc.

By the thirteenth century Aristotle had come fully into vogue, and the

references to his teaching in Dante (1265–1321), said to number upwards

of 300, show what a hold he had obtained upon the greatest man of the

age. The “moral Seneca” is also known to Dante, and placed by him in

the same region of the unseen world (_H._ iv.), but the references

to his teaching are insignificant by comparison (less than ten). Dr.

Sandys states (_op. cit._ 591 _n._) that the references to Aristotle

are mainly to the _Ethics_, _Physics_, _Metaphysics_, and _De Anima_.

But we are now on the eve of the Renascence, whose “morning-star

... arose in the person of Petrarch” (_op. cit._ 650), early in the

fourteenth century (1304–1374). Greek scholarship was reviving in

the West, and Petrarch studied the language in his later days. But

his inspiration was derived in the first instance from Latin, “the

philosophical works of Cicero and the moral letters of Seneca” (_op.

cit._ ii. 4). The latter he cites as many as sixty times (_ib._ 7), and

he was also familiar with the Senecan tragedies (_ib._ 6).

From this and from the general course of history we seem justified

in believing that during the Middle Ages, in default of any general

knowledge of Aristotle, Seneca was the chief authority on Physical

Science. The views transmitted by him, for they were comparatively

seldom altogether his own, having obtained currency, found their way

into literature, and probably went far to colour the conceptions

entertained on the subject in all the earlier literature of Modern

Europe. Later, when Aristotle’s works became more widely known, his

authority became supreme alike in philosophy and in science. Nor does

the temporary ascendancy of Seneca, though historically very important,

carry with it any presumption of rivalry, not to say superiority, to

Aristotle. Seneca may best be regarded as pupil and interpreter of

Aristotle, in so far as the two come into competition. His date, the

language employed as his medium, his position, his reputation as a

Christian, and his activity in other fields, all conspired to give him

a position in the Middle Ages which is not necessarily the measure of

his intrinsic merit as compared with Aristotle.

VII. THE PRESENT TRANSLATION

From what has preceded, it will appear that the path of the translator

of the _Quaestiones Naturales_ is beset with snares. At best he has a

choice of difficulties, It may perhaps, therefore, be well to say a

word or two upon the method in which these have been dealt with on the

present occasion.

A translator’s prime duty is to follow his author, for which purpose

he must first understand him, a requirement not very easily here

fulfilled. The texts of the _Q.N._ vary greatly, as already indicated,

and it is no easy matter to select any one that might be consistently

followed. The most recent and best text, the Teubner, edited by Gercke,

has strong claims, and had it been my good fortune to have it by me

when the translation was made, I should have been tempted to adopt

it _simpliciter_, even though in many details it departs somewhat

violently from the accepted arrangement. As it was, it did not come to

hand until the translation was finished and paged for publication, so

that full use could not be made of it. In a few cases its corrections

had been anticipated; in some its readings have been adopted; some that

could not be incorporated are referred to in a note on the subject.

The text being settled, the translator must, if possible, put himself

in the author’s position and obtain his point of view.

In science, particularly, the _milieu_ of the author must be caught

if his thoughts are to be accurately reproduced. The danger of

attributing to Seneca ideas that were unknown to him and that are due

to modern analysis and discovery has to be constantly present to one’s

mind. For example, “homogeneity,” “elasticity,” “electricity,” “gas,”

“explosion,” etc., are a few of the terms that his language suggests,

but that would probably convey a wrong impression of his conception

of the phenomena to which they relate. They have been thus ruled out.

Nor is Seneca consistent in the use of the terms he employs; he has

no scientific vocabulary. In a separate note attention is called to

his words for “air” and “atmosphere”; but there are many other terms

that belong to the same category. These are, for instance, three

words for “thick” or “dense,” _crassus_, _densus_, _spissus_, which

he seems to use almost indifferently, at any rate without any precise

discrimination. So with terms like “_impetus_” (impulse, onset)

“_impulsus_” (shove, impulse), “_ictus_” (stroke, blow), “_vis_”

(force, quantity, amount), “_curro_” (to run (river), to revolve

(heavenly body)), and its compounds, _eo_ (to go), and its compounds,

etc., etc.

Apart from any peculiarity of Seneca, Latin allows the use of

adjectives and pronouns, whose distinctive gender points their

reference, where English requires substantives or their equivalent.

Latin, too, often conveys by mere suggestion where English requires

explicit expression. This is particularly so with connectives, where

a separate clause may be required to develop the _nuance_ of a subtle

collocation. In general, assuming--and it is no great stretch--that

the author meant to express _something_, whether right or wrong, I

have endeavoured to ascertain what that something was and to convey

it to the English reader. In doing so I have had no scruple in using

more words than Latin, or in making explicit what I conceived to be

implicit, or in varying the rendering of the same term to suit the

context and idiom. Ambiguity has, as far as possible, been avoided and

even removed. At the same time the author has been followed as closely

and faithfully as may be. Where he repeats a term purposely, as he

frequently does, the repetition is retained, though a variant might

have sounded more euphonious. Probably, in some cases--it may be in a

good many--the meaning has been misconceived; certainly, there will be

difference of opinion in regard to readings adopted for translation,

where one had to be taken and two or more almost equally good had to

be left out. Ruhkopf was the text chiefly used; in addition Koeler

and the Variorum Edition of Bouillet were constantly at hand, and I

have been much indebted to all three in questions of interpretation.

Nisard’s French Translation has also been of some service, indirectly

by suggestion perhaps rather than directly; in a few passages the

translation is from a different text from that printed on the same

page. The old Tauchnitz text has been habitually consulted, while

Gercke’s text has been carefully collated throughout. The latter does

not mention Ruhkopf at all in his Bibliography--surely an involuntary

omission. There is a useful Bibliography also in Bouillet, but the date

of his Edition is as far back as 1830. To my regret I have not been

able to procure Lagrange’s famous French Translation, and the same

remark applies to several German works of repute. Lodge’s Translation

(1614) was not of any service for my purpose.

THE NATURAL QUESTIONS OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA ADDRESSED TO LUCILIUS

BOOK I

[METEORS, HALO, RAINBOW, MOCK SUN, ETC.]

PREFACE

Lucilius, my much esteemed friend--While a great gulf separates 1

philosophy from the other learned arts, there is to my mind an equally

wide gulf in philosophy itself between the portion which relates to

human conduct and that which deals with the nature and power of heaven.

The latter is more exalted and more speculative, it allows itself wide

liberty. It is not satisfied with mere observation, it surmises that

there is a greater and fairer realm placed by nature beyond human

sight. Between these two divisions of philosophy, in short, there is as

wide a gulf as between their subjects, God and man.

The one teaches us what should be done on earth;[25] the other, what 2

is done in heaven. The one dispels our errors and flashes a light by

which to thread the mazes of life; the other far transcends this gloom

in which we grope, rescues us from the darkness, and leads us to the

very source of light itself. For myself, I am grateful to nature, not

so much when I see her on the side that is open to the world, as when

I am permitted to enter her shrine. Then one may seek to know of what

stuff the universe is made, who is its author or guardian, what is the

nature of God. Is He wholly absorbed in Himself, or does He sometimes

regard us? does He do something daily, or has He done once for all? is

He a portion of the world, or the whole world? may He issue new decrees

even to-day and thus modify the laws of fate, or is it an infringement

of His majesty and an acknowledgment of error to alter what has once

been made? for surely the same must always please Him who can be 3

pleased only with what is best. Nor yet withal is His freedom or power

diminished, for He is a law unto Himself.

[25] In other words, the principles of human conduct.

Life would have been a useless gift, were I not admitted to the study

of such themes. What cause for joy would it be to be set merely in

the number of those who live? In order to digest food and drink?

To repair a diseased, enfeebled body, that would perish unless it

were continually refilled, and thus lead the life of a sick man’s

attendant? To fear death, to which our very birth destines us? Away

with the priceless boon! Life is not worth the heat and the sweat. How 4

despicable a creature is man, unless he rise above the earth! What

great thing can we do as long as we have to wrestle with our passions?

Even if we prevail, we but conquer monsters. What cause have we to

esteem ourselves because we are not quite so bad as the very worst? I

can see no great reason for self-satisfaction because one’s strength is

rather above the average of those in the same hospital. You are still

far from good health and vigour. Or, again, you have escaped vices of

soul, the hypocrite’s brow, the flatterer’s speech fashioned to serve

another’s will, the dissembler’s heart, the miser’s spirit, which

robs all, but yet mortifies itself. You are a prey neither to luxury,

which loses basely and repairs its losses still more basely; nor to

ambition, which leads to place of worth only by unworthy means. But 5

yet you have accomplished nothing. You have escaped many perils, but

not yet [that of] self! The virtue we aim at raises to a splendid

eminence; not so much because escape from vice is in itself a blessed

thing, but rather because the soul is emancipated, prepared for the

knowledge of heavenly things, and rendered worthy of entering into

communion with God.

The full consummation of human felicity is attained when, all vice

trampled under foot, the soul seeks the heights and reaches the inner

recesses of nature. What joy then to roam through the very stars, to

look down with derision on the gilded saloons of the rich and the whole

earth with its store of gold! Gold, did I say? Yes, all the gold the

earth ever produced and sent into currency, and all that she keeps

hidden in secret to glut the avarice of posterity. Only when one has

surveyed the whole universe can one truly despise grand colonnades, 6

ceilings glittering with ivory, trim groves and cooling streams

transported into wealthy mansions. From above, one can now look down

upon this narrow world, covered for the most part by sea, and, even

where it rises above the sea, an ugly waste either parched or frozen.

The philosopher says to himself: Is this the plot that so many tribes

portion out by fire and sword? How ludicrous are their frontiers! The

Dacian must not pass the lower Danube; the Strymon must shut off the 7

Thracians; the Euphrates must be the barrier of the Parthians; the

Danube must form the boundary between Sarmatian and Roman; the Rhine

must set a limit to Germany; the Pyrenees must raise their chain

between Gallic and Spanish provinces; between Egypt and Ethiopia a

desert of barren sands must stretch! Why, if ants are ever endowed

with human intelligence, will not they in like manner portion out a

threshing-floor into many provinces?

But when you rise to what is truly great, then, as often as you 8

see armies marching forth with floating banners, and the cavalry now

scouting in front, now massed on the flanks, as if some great design

were toward, you will pleasantly remark:

The black swarm is hurrying through the plains.

That host is a throng of ants, its evolutions are in a back garden.

In what do we excel the ants, save in the measure of the puny little

body? That is a mere point in which you sail, and war, and dispose

your kingdoms. Your kingdoms are lilliputian even when they stretch

from Ocean to Ocean. Only on high are the domains spacious; to their 9

possession the mind is admitted, provided always that it bring with

it no taint of the body, but wipe off all stain and pass forth like an

armed man, lightly equipped, nimble, modest in his wants. When the soul

reaches those regions, it receives nourishment and growth; as if freed

from the shackles of earth, it returns to the true source of its being.

A proof of its divine origin is furnished by the pleasure it derives 10

from what is divine; here it feels itself at home, not in a strange

land. Without alarm it views the setting of the stars and their rising,

and the mazy orbits of the heavenly bodies that yet move all in unison.

It notes when each star first shows its light on earth, when it attains

its meridian height, observes its orbit and the limits of its descent.

An interested spectator, it examines and investigates every detail.

And why should it not? It feels that they are akin to itself. Then

contempt for the narrow limits of its former dwelling succeeds. For 11

what after all is the space that lies from India to the farthest shores

of Spain? A few days’ journey if a prosperous wind waft the vessel. But

that heavenly region affords a route during full thirty years to the

swiftest of the planets, rushing with untiring velocity, never once hal

ting.

Here at last the soul comes to learn what it has long sought, it begins

to know God. But what is God? The universal intelligence. What is 12

God, did I say? All that you see and all that you cannot see. His

greatness exceeds the bounds of thought. Render Him His true greatness

and He is all in all, He is at once within and without His works. What,

then, is the difference between the divine nature and the human? In us

the better part is spirit, in Him there is nothing except spirit. He 13

is wholly reason: though mortal eyes are so sealed by error that men

believe this frame of things to be but a fortuitous concourse of atoms,

the sport of chance. And yet than this universe could aught be fairer,

more carefully adjusted, more consistent in plan? But men will have it

that it is tossed about at random in the confusion of thunder, cloud,

and storm, and the other forces by which the earth and its purlieus are

haunted.

Nor is this merely the madness of vulgar error; even the philosophers

are tainted by it. Men there are who think that they themselves have 14

a mind, one, too, that foresees and orders events in detail whether

relating to themselves or to others. But this frame of things, in which

we men along with the rest of creation are set, they deem void of

counsel, hurried hither and thither at random; or at best, nature, they

suppose, does not know what her own aim is. How profitable then, think

you, will it be to ascertain the truth on such questions and exactly

to define each position! For example, what is the extent of the power

of God? Does He create matter or does He employ matter already given?

Does the pre-existing archetype give shape to matter, or does the

matter determine the shape? Can God perform anything He wishes, or does

material fail Him in many cases, just as a great artist often produces

inferior work, not through any defect in his art, but because the 15

material on which it is exercised is refractory? To search into such

things, to learn them, to meditate upon them--why, is it not in effect

to transcend the limits of mortality and to be enrolled a citizen of a

higher state? What good will it do you, you ask. Well, if nothing else,

I shall, at any rate, know that measured by divine standard all earthly

things are mean. But of this more anon.

I

To come now to my purpose--listen to the explanation offered by 1

Natural Philosophy concerning _the Fires_ which the atmosphere drives

athwart. Their oblique course and amazing velocity furnish proof that

they are thrust out with great violence. Evidently they do not come

forth of themselves, they are shot out. There are many different forms

of them. A certain kind of them Aristotle calls a She-Goat. If you

ask me why, I must retort by asking you first to explain why they are

also called Kids. It will, perhaps, be more to the purpose not to 2

cross-examine one another with questions such as: What does such

and such an author say? Answer me. Better examine the cause of the

phenomenon itself than form surmises as to why Aristotle has applied

the name She-Goat to a ball of fire. This was the shape of the one

as big as the moon that appeared when Paulus was engaged in the war

against Perseus. In our own days we have more than once seen a huge

ball-shaped flame which broke up in the very middle of its course. We 3

saw a similar portent about the time of the death of the late Emperor

Augustus. We again saw one when Sejanus was executed. A warning of the

same kind preceded the death of Germanicus.

You may, perhaps, exclaim: Are you then so benighted as to suppose that

the gods send out previous intimation of the death of great men? Do you

imagine that anything on earth is so great that the Universe should

perceive its loss? That question must be reserved for another season.

We shall then see whether a fixed succession is observed in all events,

and whether one event is so bound up with another that what precedes is

either cause or at least token of what follows. We shall then see, 4

too, whether the gods trouble themselves about human concerns, and

whether the mere series of events reveals by unmistakable signs what

its effects must be. Meantime, I venture the opinion that fires of the

class referred to are produced by violent friction of the atmosphere.

The pressure inclines toward one or other side, and as there is no

yielding there, an internal struggle ensues. From violent action

of this kind arise the different varieties of fires--beams, balls,

torches, and gleams. When the shock is less severe, and the atmosphere

is merely grazed, as it were, smaller lights are emitted,

And the flying stars drag their hairy tail.

Then their thin fires mark a slender path, which they prolong across 5

the sky. For that reason no night is without sights of the kind; no

great movement of the atmosphere is required to produce them. In fact,

to put it shortly, they are due to the very same cause as thunderbolts,

only they require less force.

Clouds that encounter each other with little force cause flashes of

lightning; if impelled by greater violence, thunderbolts. Aristotle

offers the following explanation: The earth gives forth many 6

different exhalations, some moist, some dry, some cold, some containing

the seeds of fire. And little wonder if the earth’s evaporation is of

all varied kinds. Why, even in the heavens the colour of objects does

not show uniform; the red of the Dog-star is brighter, that of Mars

duller; Jupiter has no red, his sheen is prolonged into pure light. 7

Well, in the great abundance of minute bodies emitted by the earth and

driven up to the higher regions, of necessity some of the elements that

reach the clouds furnish material for fires. They do not require any

collision in order to burn, the breath of the sun’s rays is sufficient

to kindle them. So with us, shavings sprinkled with sulphur catch fire

at some distance. Probably, therefore, tinder of this kind gathering 8

within the clouds is easily kindled; greater or less fires are produced

just as there has been more or less substance in the elements.

On the other hand, to suppose either that actual stars fall or leap

across the sky, or that some portion of them is taken away or pared

off, is sheer folly. If this had been so, they would ere this have 9

disappeared. For there is not a single night on which there is not a

very large number of stars that seem to break up as they pass across

the sky. Yet they are all found again in their wonted places: each one

maintains its size unimpaired. It follows, therefore, that the fires

referred to have their origin below the stars, and that, being without

solid foundation on fixed abode, they quickly perish. Why, then, you

ask, do they not cross the sky by day as well as by night? The next 10

thing you will say will be that there are no stars by day because they

are not visible! The stars are, of course, there, but obscured by the

sun’s brightness. Similarly, meteor fires like torches cross the sky by

day too, but they are hidden by the brightness of the daylight. If, as

sometimes happens, a burst of light shoots out strong enough to assert

its brilliance even in the face of day, then they do become visible.

In fact, our own age has more than once seen torches by day, some 11

rushing from east to west, others from west to east.

Sailors consider it a sign of storm when there are many shooting

stars. If their appearance really is a sign of wind, they must occur

in the quarter where wind is found, in other words, in the atmosphere

which lies between the earth and the moon. In violent storms at sea

there sometimes appear, as it were, stars settling on the sails. The

sailors who are in jeopardy then suppose that they are being aided by

the power of Castor and Pollux. They have really ground for better 12

hope in this appearance, because it makes plain that the storm is

breaking, and the wind falling. Otherwise the fires would flit about

without settling. When Gylippus was on the voyage to Syracuse, a star

appeared, resting on the very tip of his lance. In the camp of the

Romans at times pikes appeared to be on fire, no doubt because fires

of this kind glided down on to them: these fires are often wont to

strike animals and trees, just like thunderbolts. If, however, they 13

are discharged with less force, they merely glide down and settle, and

do not inflict stroke or wound. Again, some are forced out from among

clouds, others come from a clear sky, if the atmosphere has got into a

condition to emit fire. In like manner, it occasionally thunders with a

clear sky, and from the same cause as with a cloudy one, the atmosphere

undergoing internal collision. Even when the air is comparatively clear

and dry, it may become condensed, and form bodies similar to clouds,

the clashing of which causes the sound of the thunder. From time to 14

time, therefore, arise meteors like beams and like shields, and the

semblance of vast fires over the sky, if a force similar in kind but

greater in degree encounter suitable material.

II

Let us now see how the brightness is produced that sometimes envelops 1

the heavenly bodies. History has put on record that, on the day of the

late Emperor Augustus’ entrance into Rome on his return from Apollonia,

a parti-coloured circle, such as is wont to be seen in a rainbow,

appeared round the sun. The Greeks call this a _Halo_; our most

appropriate name for it is a Crown. Let me explain how it is formed.

When a stone is thrown into a pond, the water is observed to part 2

in numerous circles, which, very narrow at first, gradually widen out

more and more until the impulse disappears, lost in the surface of the

smooth water beyond. Let us suppose something of the same kind to occur

in the atmosphere. When condensed it is capable of receiving an impact:

the light of sun, moon, or any heavenly body encountering it forces it

to recede in the form of circles. Moisture, be it observed, and air,

and everything else that takes shape from a blow, is driven into the

same form as that possessed by the object that strikes it. Now every

kind of light is round. Therefore, the air when struck by light will 3

assume this form. Accordingly the Greeks gave the name Threshing-floor

(_i.e._ Halo) to a brightness of this kind, because spaces set apart

for threshing corn were, as a rule, round.

Be the better name threshing-floors, or be it crowns, there is no

reason to suppose that they are formed in the neighbourhood of the

heavenly bodies. They are a very long distance from them, though as

seen from the earth they seem to touch and encircle them. In reality

such an image is formed not very far from the earth, but the wonted 4

frailty of human vision is deceptive, and we imagine the ring is formed

close round the heavenly body itself. But no such thing could possibly

occur in the neighbourhood of the sun and stars, as there is nothing

but thin ether there. It is only when bodies have become rough and

dense that shape can be impressed upon them. In subtle bodies there

is no point on which form can lay hold or to which it can adhere. A

phenomenon of the same nature as the halo may often be witnessed in

baths, because the atmosphere is thick and dark: it is most frequent

when the wind is in the south, when the air is heaviest and most dense.

Halos sometimes are dissolved gradually and fade away, sometimes they 5

are broken up on one side. In the latter case seafaring men look for

wind in the direction in which the circle of the crown has been broken.

If the parting is on the north, there will be a north wind, if on the

west, zephyrs will follow. This is a proof that these crowns are formed

in the region of the sky in which the winds are usually formed. The

upper regions of air have no crowns because they have no winds either.

An additional proof of the connection of winds and halos is afforded 6

by the fact that the halo is never formed unless the atmosphere is at

rest, and the wind, as it were, inactive. Under other circumstances it

is not usually observed.

The atmosphere when it is at rest may be fashioned to any pattern by

being driven or drawn in any direction. But when it is in motion, light

cannot even strike it. It takes no shape and offers no resistance,

because the part first affected is always dissipated by the motion.

Therefore it is that no heavenly body can ever be surrounded by a 7

figure of the kind referred to unless when the atmosphere is dense and

motionless, and so preserves the ray of round light that strikes upon

it. Nor is it without good reason. Recollect the analogy mentioned

a little ago. A pebble thrown into a pond or lake or any other

circumscribed piece of water produces innumerable circles; but it has

not the same effect if thrown into a river. And why so? Because in the

latter case the water as it hurries on prevents the formation of any

definite figure. So in the atmosphere the same thing happens; when 8

it is stationary, it may receive a pattern; when it rushes in rapid

motion, it evades all control, warding off every blow and every form

as it approaches. When these crowns, of which I have spoken, have

disappeared uniformly on all sides, and vanished in their own tracks,

it is an indication of equilibrium in the atmosphere: there is perfect

quietness and you may then look out for rain. When they break up 9

at one side, it means wind in that quarter. If they burst at several

points, a storm is brewing. The reason of this may be gathered from

the explanations I have now given. If the ring fade all round, it is

evident that the atmosphere is equable, and therefore calm. But if it

is broken through on one side, evidently there must be an inclination

of the air in that direction: hence that quarter will produce wind. But

when the halo is rent and torn on all sides, plainly an attack is being

made on it from several quarters at once, and a disquieted atmosphere

is assailing it on this side and on that. So this disturbance of

the heavens, the repeated effort and striving in all directions, 10

betokens evidently that a storm is coming up with sudden shiftings of

the wind.

These crowns may be observed generally by night round the moon and

other stars, but very seldom by day; in fact, so rarely in the latter

case, that certain of the Greeks have denied that they appear at all

by day. But history proves that they do. The cause of the infrequency

of their appearance by day is that the sun’s light is stronger then,

and the atmosphere itself when stirred and warmed by it is less dense.

The moon’s power, on the other hand, is feebler, and is therefore more

easily resisted by the surrounding air. The rest of the heavenly 11

bodies are equally weak, and unable by their own force to burst

through the atmosphere. So their shape is impressed and retained in

the more solid and less yielding medium. For, in order to produce the

phenomenon, the atmosphere must neither be so thick as to exclude or

dissipate the light that streams in on it, nor yet so thin and rare

as to furnish no hold to the rays that fall upon it. This particular

consistency is obtained at night: the sluggish air is at that time

struck with the faint light from moon or stars without violence or

rudeness, and, being thicker than it is wont to be by day, is tinged

thereby.

III

On the contrary, _the Rainbow_ does not occur by night, except on 1

very rare occasions, inasmuch as the moon has not sufficient strength

to pierce the clouds and suffuse them with hues such as they receive

from the brilliant light of the sun. The shape and varied colours of

the rainbow are due to the peculiarities of different kinds of clouds.

Some parts of the clouds are swollen, others hollow; some are too dense

to transmit sunlight, others too rare to exclude it. This difference in 2

consistency causes alternations of light and shade, and produces that

marvellous variety presented by the rainbow. Another explanation is

offered in instances like the following: When a pipe bursts anywhere,

the water is observed to be forced by pressure through the small

opening; the drops seen against a slanting sun reproduce the appearance

of the rainbow. Again, if you will at any time watch a fuller at work,

you will observe the same appearance: when he has filled his mouth with

water and spirts it lightly on the clothes stretched on pegs, the air

thus besprinkled exhibits plainly the various colours that shine in the

bow. One cannot doubt that the reason of this lies in the moisture. 3

For a rainbow never occurs except when there are clouds about.

Let us inquire how it is produced. Some authorities say that there are

certain drops of water that transmit light, while some are too compact

to be translucent. Thus the brightness is the effect of the former; the

shadow, of the latter; by the intermingling of the two is formed the

rainbow, part of which is bright, to wit, that which admits sunlight,

part darker, namely, that which has shut out the light and cast a

shadow from itself over the objects nearest it. Others again deny that 4

this is so. Shade and light, they say, might be the cause if the

rainbow had only two colours, and thus was made up of light and shade.

But now, though there gleam a thousand diverse hues,

Their changes withal elude the eyes that behold.

The hues that touch seem actually one, yet the edges are quite different.

In it sight detects something that is red, something that is orange,

something that is blue; and there are other colours too, laid on in

finest lines just like a skilful painting, so that, as the poet remarks

above, it is impossible to discover whether the colours differ from one

another until the last of them is compared with the first. The junction 5

of colour with colour deceives the sight: with such marvellous skill

does nature starting from what is like end in what is totally unlike.

What good, then, do the two alleged colours, light and shade, do in

a case of this kind, when the presence of an endless variety must

be accounted for? Again, certain authorities are of opinion that the

following is the method of formation of the rainbow: In the quarter of

the sky where rain is falling, they say, the drops of falling rain are

so many mirrors; from each mirror, therefore, is reflected an image of

the sun. By and by, many, in fact, countless, images, descending and

crossing abruptly, are all blended together. Therefore the rainbow is

just a blending of a great number of images of the sun. They appeal to

the following argument in proof of this: On a clear day, say they, 6

set out a thousand basins, and they will all contain images of the sun.

Or arrange single drops of water on single leaves; they will each have

an image of the sun. On the other hand, an immense pond will have no

more than one image. Why so? Just because every smooth surface that is

fenced off, and surrounded by its own boundaries, is a mirror. Again,

divide a pond of very large size into several small ponds by inserting

partition walls; it will show as many images of the sun as it has

divisions. Leave it as it was, spreading out to its full extent, and it

will show but one reflection of him. The small extent of the liquid or 7

pond makes no manner of difference. If the surface is circumscribed,

it forms a mirror. Well then, those countless drops, which are carried

down by a falling shower, are so many mirrors, and contain so many

reflections of the sun. To an observer right in front of them they

present the appearance of being mixed up: the intervals which part

them from each other are not distinguished, their mere distance from

the observer prevents discrimination of them. By and by instead of

individual drops there is seen a single blurred mass that contains them

all.

Aristotle agrees with this opinion. His words are: Beams of light

are reflected by sight from every smooth surface. Now, nothing is 8

smoother than water and air. Therefore, our sight is reflected back on

us from thick air. Indeed, where the vision is dull and feeble, the

slightest stroke of air checks it. Some people suffer from an affection

which causes them to think that they are meeting their own image, and

they see everywhere the reflection of themselves. And why? Because the

power of their eyes is so weak that it cannot overcome the resistance

of even the nearest layer of the atmosphere. What dense air effects in

ordinary cases, any kind of air is sufficient to effect in the cases

referred to by Aristotle. For whatever the nature of the air, it is

strong enough to defeat weak sight. Now, much more is our vision

reflected upon us by water because it is denser and cannot be pierced;

it absolutely stops the rays from our eyes, and turns them back to

the source whence they proceeded. Well then, when there are numerous 9

raindrops, they are just so many mirrors. But on account of their

smallness they express the sun’s colour without

distinct shape. By and by when the same colour is reflected in the

countless drops that fall without intermission, it begins to take on

the appearance not of numerous images with intervals between, but of a

single, long, uninterrupted image.

But how, you may object, can you tell me that there are many thousands

of images there, where I can see none at all? Besides, as there is

but one colour in the sun, why are there different colours in the 10

reflections of him? These objections which you have put forward, as

well as others that no less call for refutation, I will endeavour to

refute. And let me say, first of all, that nothing is more deceptive

than our eyesight, not merely in objects whose careful examination is

prevented by distance in position,[26] but even in objects seen close

at hand. An oar, though quite whole, presents the appearance of being

broken when seen in clear shallow water. Apples seen through glass

appear much larger than they really are. In long colonnades, pillars 11

set at intervals present an apparently unbroken continuity of line. Or

go back to the case of the sun himself; his orb, which reason proves to

be larger than the whole earth, is so contracted by human sight that

some of the philosophers have maintained that it is only a foot in

diameter. He is, we know, the swiftest of all luminaries, yet none of

us can see him move; nor should we believe that he does advance, were

it not evident from time to time that he has advanced. The world itself

glides on with headlong speed; within an instant of time it unfolds its

risings and its settings, yet none of us is aware of its movement. What

cause, then, is there for wonder if our eyesight cannot separate 12

the drops of the rain showers, and loses the distinction of the images

on account of the vast distance at which they are beheld? At any rate

no one can doubt this, that the rainbow is a reflection of the sun,

formed in a hollow cloud full of moisture. This is made plain from the

simple fact that the image is never seen except opposite the sun, high

up or low down, in inverse relation, just as he sinks or elevates his

course. When he descends, it is higher; when he is high in the heavens,

it is more sunken. A cloud of the required kind is often at the side 13

of the sun without producing a rainbow, because it does not catch his

image straight in front.

[26] The received text gives “diversity of colours.”

As to the variegation in colour, it is due simply to its double

source, derived partly from the sun, partly from the moist cloud. The

moisture produces lines now blue, now green, now purple-like, and

orange or red--the two shades, dull and bright, combining to produce

this diversity. So also, a purple garment does not always come out 14

in exactly the same tint from the same dye. Differences depend upon

the length of time it has been steeped, the consistency and the amount

of moisture in the dye it has imbibed: it may be dipped and boiled

more than once, or it may have received only one immersion. In like

manner then, when there are the two elements, sun and cloud, in other

words, object and mirror, it is little wonder that as many varieties of

colour are generated as can be produced from them in higher or lower

tone in countless different categories. For example, there is one 15

colour that proceeds from the light of fire, another from a light that

is duller and less violent than fire. In other details concerning the

rainbow the method of inquiry is full of uncertainty; there is nothing

concrete to lay hold upon, and conjecture must be ventured in every

direction. But in this question of its origin doubt is precluded; for

it is evident that the causes of the rainbow are two in number, sun and

cloud. The bow never appears when the sky is clear, and never when it

is so cloudy as to hide the sun. It must, therefore, unquestionably

arise from these, failing either of which it cannot come into being.

IV

A further consideration must be mentioned, which is just as manifest 1

as the preceding, to prove that the reflection is given back after

the fashion of a mirror; it is never given back save from straight

opposite to the sun, that is,[27] unless on one side stands the object

to be reflected, and on the other the mirror that reveals it. Proofs

are adduced by the mathematicians that are not merely convincing but

that compel belief of this. Nor can doubt be left in any mind that

the rainbow is an image of the sun, imperfectly reflected owing to

the defective shape of the mirror. But meantime let us recall other

proofs that may, so to speak, be picked up in the street without any 2

reference to mathematics. Among the proofs of this origin of the bow

I place the extreme rapidity of its emergence. In a single moment the

huge form with its thousand lines is inwoven in the texture of the

heavens, and just as rapidly does it fade. Now, nothing is returned so

quickly as an image from a mirror. The mirror does not create anything,

it merely reveals it. Artemidorus of Parium tells us further even the

kind of cloud required to reflect such an image of the sun. If you 3

make a concave mirror, he says, that is, one resembling half of a ball

cut through the middle, and take your stand outside the centre, then

those who stand beside you will appear in the reflection inverted and

nearer to you than to the mirror. The very same thing, according to

him, takes place when we look at a round hollow cloud from the side: 4

the image of the sun detaches itself from the cloud, and is nearer us

and more turned in our direction. Therefore the red colour is from the

sun, the dark blue is from the cloud: the other hues are produced by a

blending of these two.

[27] In a writer less prone to repetition the words to the end of the

sentence would seem the insertion of a copyist.

V

But there are arguments on the other side. About mirrors there are 1

two opinions; some people think that only phantoms are seen in them; in

other words, the shape of our bodies, an emanation separated from our

bodies. Others, however, affirm that images do not exist in the mirror,

but that it is the very bodies that are seen, the eyesight being bent

back and reflected on itself again. Now, the point is not how do we see

whatever it is we see: the question is, how the image should resemble

the original in the cloud as in a mirror.[28] Could anything be more 2

unlike than the sun and a rainbow in which neither the colour nor the

shape nor the size of the sun is to be seen? A bow is far larger and, in

the bright part, far redder than the sun: in the other colours, too, it

is different from him. Besides, when you insist on comparing a mirror

to the atmosphere (_i.e._ as embodied in a cloud), you must show me

in the latter the same smoothness of texture, the same levelness of

surface, the same brightness as in the former. But surely no clouds

resemble mirrors to this extent. We often pass through the middle of

clouds without seeing ourselves in them. People who climb to the tops

of mountains look down on cloud, but cannot make out their reflection 3

in it. True enough, but it is separate drops that are separate mirrors,

says my opponent. Admitted. Still, I deny that a cloud consists of

fully formed drops. It no doubt contains the elements from which

the drops are formed, but not as drops. Clouds do not contain even

water, but only the material to form water. Granting, for the sake

of argument, that there _are_ countless drops in the clouds and that

they can reflect an object, yet they do not all produce one and the

same reflection, but each its own. Further, you may join mirrors to

one another, but they will not unite to form a single reflection: 4

each portion will enclose a likeness of the object. Some mirrors are

composed of a large number of very small parts. Set before them one man

and a whole people is reflected, each portion producing an image

of its own. The portions of the mirror thus united

and placed side by side none the less keep their images separate, and

out of one man make a crowd. But they do not blend in one that troop; 5

they separate and distinguish the individual faces. Now, a rainbow is

bounded by a single outline, the whole presents but one representation.

[28] The reading of the MSS. is admittedly corrupt. I have followed

Ruhkopf’s conjecture, though without conviction. The argument seems

to require _dissimilis_ = unlike, or _non similis_ (cf. c. v. 13),

instead of _similis_ = like (“resemble” in the text): in that case

the meaning would be: how an image unlike the original ought to be

reflected from the cloud as from a mirror. Cf. § 13 below.

Well, but, says our opponent, is not the water that is scattered

from a burst pipe, or that is tossed up by the oar, wont to exhibit

something similar to these colours that are seen in the bow? True,

but not for the reason which you wish to bring out, to wit, that each

single droplet receives an image of the sun. As a matter of fact, the 6

drops fall too quickly to be able to form such an image. The medium

must be stationary in order to receive the impression of what is to be

reproduced.

How, then, it may be asked, does it come about? The drops, I reply,

receive the colour, but not the image of the sun. Besides, as Nero

Caesar says very elegantly:

The neck of Venus’ dove glitters as the bird tosses its head,

and so the neck of the peacock shines with varied colours as often

as it is turned hither and thither. Are we, therefore, to say that

feathers of this kind, whose every turn passes into new colours, are 7

mirrors? Well, clouds differ in character from mirrors no less than

the birds mentioned, and as chameleons and the other animals whose

colour changes. In the latter case the cause is sometimes subjective:

the creatures when inflamed with anger or passion vary their hue

through the suffusion of moisture: at other times the position of the

light, direct or slanting, gives the colour its particular hue. What

resemblance, I say, is there between mirrors and clouds? Whereas 8

those are not translucent, these transmit light. Those are dense and

compact, these are rare. Mirrors are of uniform material throughout,

clouds are made up of various elements brought together at random, and

therefore are full of internal strife, and cannot long hold together.

Consider further; at sunrise one sees a certain portion of the sky

ruddy; at other times one sees clouds of fiery red. This particular

colour is received by the clouds from encountering the sun: what, then,

is there to prevent the many colours of the bow being derived by them

in the same way from him, even though they do not possess the power of

mirrors? A little ago, my opponent retorts, you advanced the argument 9

that the rainbow is always produced opposite the sun, because an image

could not be reflected from a mirror unless the object were in front

of it. We agree in this point, he adds. Yes, for just as the object

whose image is to be transferred to the mirror must be set opposite

the mirror, in like manner, in order that the clouds may be tinged by

the sun’s rays, the sun must occupy a suitable position. He does not

produce the same effect if his light streams in on all sides; there

must be a proper incidence of the rays to produce the effect. Such are

the reasons alleged by those who will have it that the rainbow is a

coloured cloud.

Posidonius and those who are of opinion that the phenomenon is produced

by reflection as from a mirror, answer their arguments thus: If there 10

were any real colour in a bow, it would persist, and be seen more

distinctly, the nearer it is. As it is, the image of the bow is clear

only in the distance; it is lost as it begins to approach. I do not

agree with this argument in refutation, though I approve the main

sentiment which it supports. And I will tell you why. The cloud _is_

coloured, but in such a way that the colour cannot be seen from every

point. And no more can the cloud itself: for no one who is in it can

see it. What wonder, then, if its colour cannot be seen by one 11

to whom itself is not visible? And yet, although the cloud is not

seen, it is there: and so is the colour. It is, therefore, no proof

of the deceptiveness of the colour that it ceases to be manifest

when one approaches it. For, I repeat, the same happens to the clouds

themselves: they are not all a sham merely because under certain

conditions they cease to be visible. Besides, when you are told that

the cloud is dyed by the sun, it does not mean that that colour of

his is mingled, as it were, with a hard, firm, durable body, but with

a liquid unstable body that is incapable of more than a very brief

impress. Let me add that there are certain artificial colours which 12

display their virtue at a distance. The better and richer the Tyrian

purple is, the higher up you must hold it to display its full blaze. It

does not cease to possess its colour simply because it does not reveal

its best shade in any and every position in which it is exhibited. I

am of the same opinion as Posidonius in holding that the bow is formed

in a cloud shaped like a hollow round mirror, whose form is that of a

section through a ball. This cannot be proved without the aid of 13

geometry: the mathematical proofs leave no doubt that the bow is an

image of the sun, but one that does not resemble it. Nor, indeed, are

all objects faithfully represented in mirrors. There are some mirrors

one is terrified to let one’s eyes rest upon, such is the misshapen and

distorted image they reproduce of those who gaze upon them. They deform

the likeness they preserve withal. Some, again, there are, a glance at

which causes great self-satisfaction in one’s strength: the arms are 14

enormously increased, and the appearance of the whole body is enlarged

to superhuman proportions. There are mirrors that turn faces to the

right, and mirrors that turn them to the left, others twist and even

invert them. What wonder, then, that a mirror of this kind should be

formed in a cloud by which a defective appearance of the sun should be

presented?

VI

Among the other arguments it must be mentioned that a rainbow never 1

is seen greater than a semicircle: the higher the sun is, too, the

smaller is the bow. As our countryman Virgil says:

And deep drinks

The mighty bow,

when rain is brewing. But the threat the bow conveys is not the same

whatever the quarter it has shown itself in. If it rises toward the 2

south, it will bring a heavy fall. The rain in that quarter, such is

its force, cannot be mastered by the strongest midday sun. If it

shine toward the west, there will be only a dew or a light rain. If

it rise in the east or thereabouts, it prognosticates fine weather.

If, however, the bow is the sun’s reflection, why does it appear of

far larger size than the sun himself? Just because there is a kind

of mirror that exhibits objects on a far larger scale than that on

which they are presented to it, increasing their form to a portentous

magnitude: and in turn there is another kind that reduces the size. And

tell me this again, why does an image assume the form of a circle if it

does not answer to a circle? You may, perhaps, tell me why the colour 3

of the bow is varied: why its shape is what it is, you will not be able

to tell me except by citing some model after which it is formed. Now,

other model there is none save that of the sun; when you admit that the

rainbow receives its colour from him, it follows that it receives its

shape also from him. In short, you and I are agreed that those colours

by which its quarter of the heaven is adorned proceed from the sun.

But on one point we are not agreed: you say that the colour is real; I

maintain that it is only apparent. Whichever it is, real or apparent,

it comes from the sun. On your assumption its sudden cessation cannot

be explained, seeing that all other bright lights in the sky are

dispelled gradually. Its sudden appearance and, at the same time, its 4

sudden extinction make for my contention. For it is a peculiarity of a

mirror that the reflection in it is not built up piecemeal, but all at

once comes fully into being. Every image in it is destroyed, too, with

as great rapidity as it was formed. For to the construction or removal

of the images nothing is required but the presentation and withdrawal

of the objects.

In the rainbow-cloud whose nature is in question, there is no proper

substance or material: there is only a sham and a likeness without

reality. Will you be convinced that this is so? The proof is, the 5

rainbow will cease if you conceal the sun. Place another cloud, I

repeat, in front of the sun, and all the bright hues of the bow are

gone. But what is to be said, you may ask, in explanation of the size

of the bow which is considerably greater than that of the sun? I have

already said that there are certain mirrors that multiply every object

they reflect. I may now add that every object much exceeds its natural

size when seen through water. Letters, however small and dim, are

comparatively large and distinct when seen through a glass globe filled

with water. Apples floating in a glass vessel seem more beautiful than

they are in reality. The stars appear bigger if seen through a cloud, 6

because our vision is blurred in the moisture, and cannot accurately

grasp its object. This will become plain to demonstration if you fill

a cup with water and throw a ring into it. While the ring lies right

at the bottom its appearance is visible on the surface of the water.

Anything, in fact, that is: seen through moisture appears far larger

than. in reality it is. What wonder that the image of the sun, being 7

seen in a moist cloud, should be reproduced on a scale larger than the

original, and that for the two reasons indicated? The cloud contains

the two elements, one like glass, which can transmit light, and one

also of the character of water; at any rate, if it does not just yet

contain the actual water, it is now forming it, its nature is already

such as can easily be changed into water.

VII

As you have mentioned glass, some one interposes, I can draw from 1

this same material an argument to confute you. Glass sticks are

manufactured, either fluted or bulging,[29] with many corners like a

club. If one of these sticks is placed obliquely in the path of the

sun’s rays, it sends back the colour which is wont to be seen in the

rainbow. This proves that there is not here an image of the sun, but an

imitation of his colour from reflection. Now, in this argument there

are many points that make for my view. First of all, it is plain that 2

there must be some smooth surface like a mirror to reflect the sun.

Secondly, it is plain that no colour is formed in the rod, but only a

false appearance of colour, such as I mentioned above, which the neck

of a pigeon, as it is bent hither and thither, alternately puts on

and off. This, I say, is seen likewise in the case of a mirror, which

assumes no real colour, but only a certain imitation of the colour of a

foreign body.

[29] Another reading gives “twisted.”

Still, this one point requires explanation; it is not the sun’s 3

image that is beheld in that glass stick, because it is not capable of

expressing it accurately. True enough it tries to reproduce the image,

because the material is smooth and suitable for this purpose. But it

fails because its shape is unsymmetrical. If it had been suitably

constructed, it would reflect as many images of the sun as it had

faces. But since the sides are not distinctly separated from each

other, and not bright enough to serve as mirrors, the images are only

incipient, not fully expressed; they get confused through being crowded

together, and are reduced to the appearance of a single band of colour.

VIII

But to return--why does the bow not complete the full circle in its 1

form, but appear as only a semicircle when stretched to the full extent

of its greatest span? Some are of opinion that the reason is that the

sun, being much higher than the clouds, strikes them only on the upper

side. Hence their lower parts are not touched by his light. Receiving

the sun only on one side, the clouds reproduce only one portion of him,

and this is never more than a half. There is very little force in this

contention. My reason for saying so? The sun, even though he is on 2

the upper side, yet strikes, and therefore colours, the whole cloud.

How could it be otherwise? His rays are wont to be transmitted through

the clouds and to penetrate any density in them. Further, the proof

they advance is flatly in opposition to their main proposition. For if

the sun is higher than the clouds, and his beams, therefore, shed only

on their upper side, the bow would never come down as far as the earth.

Yet it does descend to the very ground. Besides, the bow is never 3

seen except opposite to, not below, the sun. The fact is, the sun’s

highness or lowness does not affect the matter: the side of the cloud

that faces him is struck by him throughout its whole extent.

Furthermore, sometimes even the setting sun produces a rainbow; surely

at that time, being near[30] the earth, he strikes the clouds on their

lower side. And yet then, too, the bow is only a semicircle, though

the clouds receive the sunlight on their lower and darker portions.

The Stoics, who hold that the light is reflected in the cloud as 4

in a mirror, make the cloud hollow like the section of a ball. Such

a mirror, being but part of a circle, cannot, they think, reproduce

a whole circle. I give my adherence to the proposition, but I cannot

agree to the argument in its support. For, if the whole figure of a

circle placed opposite a concave mirror is reproduced in it, then there

can surely be nothing to prevent the whole of a ball being seen in a

semicircular circular mirror. Besides, we have already shown that 5

complete rings resembling a rainbow surround the sun and the moon at

times. Why should the circle be complete in the halo, but never in

the rainbow? And then again, why should the clouds that receive the

sunlight be always hollow ones, and not sometimes flat or bulging?

[30] The common reading makes this adjective refer to clouds--the

clouds which are near the earth.

Aristotle says that rainbows are formed, after the autumnal equinox,

at any hour of the day, but in summer only either in the early part

of the day, or when the sun has begun to sink. The cause of this is

obvious. In the first place, about midday the great heat of the sun 6

dispels the clouds: he cannot be reflected in the clouds which he

breaks up. But in the early morning and as he sinks toward the west,

his rays have less power, and can thus be resisted and reflected by the

clouds. In the second place, the sun is not wont to form a bow except

when he faces the clouds in which it is formed. When the days are 7

shortening in autumn, his rays are always slanting. Therefore, he has

some clouds facing him that he can strike, at any part of the day, even

at the hour at which he attains his meridian height. But in the summer

season he sails right overhead. Therefore, in the great altitude of his

midday course, he looks down on the earth too directly to encounter any

clouds. He has them at that period all beneath him.

IX

I must now go on to speak of _Streaks_ (watergalls, sun-dogs), which 1

are as bright and varied as the rainbow, and commonly received by us as

equally indicative of rain. No great labour need be spent in explaining

them, for they are just incomplete rainbows. They have the variegated 2

appearance of the bow, but none of its curve. They lie in a straight

line. They are formed near the sun, as a rule, in a moist cloud that

has begun to break up. Thus, they have the same colour as is found

in the rainbow, but there is a difference in the shape, due to the

corresponding difference in the clouds over which they stretch.

X

There is a similar variety of colours in _Halos_. But there is this

difference in the various phenomena: Halos are formed at any point in

the sky, wherever there is a heavenly body; rainbows are not found

except opposite the sun; streaks, only in the neighbourhood of the sun.

I may express their difference in another way: Bisect a halo and you

have a rainbow; make it a straight line and you have a streak. In all

three there is the same multiplicity of colours, the scale running from

dark blue to orange. Streaks, then, are found only close to the sun.

Rainbows are all either solar or lunar. Halos are seen with all the

heavenly bodies.

XI

Another kind of streak is visible when thin rays of bright light 1

equidistant from one another are shot out through narrow apertures

in the clouds. These, too, are a prognostication of rain. How am I

to express myself here? What shall I call them? Images of the sun?

The chroniclers call them merely suns, and have put on record that

they have been seen in twos and threes. The Greeks call them _Mock 2

Suns_ (parelia = beside the sun), because they are generally seen in

proximity to the sun, and somewhat resemble the sun. They do not give a

complete reproduction of the sun, but exhibit only his size and shape.

They are dull, however, and languid without any of his heat. What name

are we to apply to them? Shall I do as Virgil did---hesitating about

the name, employ the very name which causes the hesitation?

And by what name[31] shall I call you, Rhaetian wine?

But yet you must not seek to compete with the Falernian bins.

[31] He has altered Virgil’s word “carmine” to “nomine” to suit his

meaning, or, as the editors say, _lapsu memoriae_.

There is no objection to my calling these, mock suns. They are, in

fact, images of the sun formed in a thick cloud close to him after 3

the fashion of a mirror. Some writers define a mock sun as a cloud,

round, bright, and resembling the sun. The mock sun follows the sun,

and is never left farther behind him in his orbit than it was at its

first appearance. None of us, I suppose, is surprised at seeing a

reflection of the sun in some fountain or quiet lake. Well, his disc

may be reflected in the heavens just as readily as on earth, if only

the material is suitable to produce the reflection.

XII

Whenever we wish to observe an eclipse of the sun, we place on the 1

ground basins filled with oil or pitch. The thick liquid is not easily

disturbed, and therefore retains the images it receives. Images, I

may observe, cannot be seen except in a liquid at rest. Then we are

in the habit of noting how the moon obstructs the sun, and by the

interposition of her body hides his, which is so much larger, sometimes

partially, if it so fall out that she only encounter a portion of his

orb, sometimes completely. The latter is called a total eclipse: it

quite shuts out the light and shows us the stars; it occurs when the 2

centre of the two bodies lies in the same straight line. Now, just as

the image of both sun and moon can be seen on earth, so it is in the

case of mock suns in the atmosphere. The still air is so compact and

yet clear that it can receive the sun’s likeness. Other clouds receive

it, but let it go if they are either in motion, or thin, or black. The

moving clouds disperse it, the rare let it slip, the black and impure

do not take the impress of it, just as on earth soiled objects do not

reflect an image.

XIII

Mock suns are wont to be formed in pairs and on the same principle. 1

There is nothing, in fact, to prevent the formation of as many as there

are clouds suitable for exhibiting an image of the sun. Some writers

are inclined to hold that when two such phantoms are visible, one

arises directly from the sun, the other from his image. For, to use

an illustration from common experience, when several mirrors are so

arranged that one is in sight of the other, all reflect the same image;

but only one is directly from the original, the rest are reflections

of images. The nature of the object presented to the mirror makes 2

no difference in the effect. Whatever it sees it reproduces. So, up

on high there, if some chance has so disposed the clouds that they

face one another, one of them reflects the image of the sun, the other

the image of his image. The clouds that produce this effect must be

dense, smooth, bright and flat, analogous in character to the sun. All

phantoms of this kind are white and resemble so many discs of the moon,

for the reason that the sun’s light that they receive and reflect back

is always oblique. If the cloud, on the contrary, is beneath the 3

sun and too near him, his rays dispel it: or again, if situated too

far away, it does not reflect them nor produce any image. In ordinary

experience in the same way mirrors withdrawn to a distance from us do

not reproduce our features because our sight cannot carry back to us

from them.

These suns, too--to employ the name given by the chroniclers,--are

an indication of rain, especially if they have their position in a

southern quarter, from which the most heavily-charged clouds chiefly

come up. When such an image surrounds the sun on both sides, then, if

we are to believe Aratus, a storm is brewing.

XIV

It is now high time that I ran over the other varieties of celestial 1

fires, whose forms are diverse one from the other. Sometimes there

is a shooting star, sometimes there are glowing lights, which are

occasionally stationary, sticking to one spot, and at times able to

rush through the air. Several species of these may be observed. There

are, for example, _Bothynae_ (cave-like meteors) when within an outer

circle there is a blazing gulf in the sky like a circular grotto

excavated in it. Then there are _Pithitae_ (barrel-shaped meteors) when

a vast circular mass of fire like a cask either rushes through the sky,

or blazes away in one spot. There are _Chasmata_ (chasms), too, when 2

there is a subsidence of some portion of the heavens, which sends out

hissing flame, as it were, from its hidden recesses. There are also a

great number of colours in all these. Some are of brightest red, some

of light insubstantial flame, some of white light, some glittering,

some with a uniform glow of orange without sparks or rays. We see,

therefore,

The stars’ long tracks that gleam white behind.

These stars, for so they appear to be, dart forth and flit across 3

the sky, and by reason of their extraordinary rapidity seem to leave

a long trail of fire. Our sight cannot follow their course, and

wherever their career leads we imagine the heaven is all on fire.

Such is the swiftness of their flight that its separate portions are

not distinguished and it can be grasped only as a whole. We are aware

rather of the quarter in which the star appears than of its route. It,

therefore, seems to mark its entire course with a line of continuous 4

fire, because the slowness of our vision fails to keep pace with the

stages of its career and sees at the same moment the start and the

finish; as happens in a flash of lightning, the fire seems a long train

because the meteor traverses its path rapidly and the space through

which it falls presents itself to our eyes as a whole. But, as a matter

of fact, the fire does not extend itself all through the space crossed

by the meteor. Nor have such long thin bodies strength enough for the 5

effort. How, then, it may be asked, do they issue forth? The answer

is, the fire is kindled by the friction of the atmosphere and is urged

headlong by the wind. Still, it does not always arise from wind or

friction. Sometimes its origin is due to certain peculiar conditions

in the atmosphere; for on high there are many elements, dry and hot

and earthy, among which fire is generated. It then streams down in

pursuit of fuel to sustain it, and therefore is hurried rapidly along.

The reason for the differences of colour it presents lies in the 6

nature of the material set on fire and in the degree of violence of the

conflagration. A falling body of this kind betokens wind, which may be

looked for in the quarter in which the meteor has burst out.

XV

How, some one further inquires, are those bright gleams of light 1

which the Greeks call _Sela_ (luminosities) produced? In many ways,

people say. They may arise from the violence of the winds, or from

the fervent heat of the upper heavens. Fire is a very widely diffused

element there, and sometimes catches the lower regions if they are

combustible. The mere motion of the stars in their courses may kindle

fire, and convey it to all that lies beneath them. Nay, is it not

quite possible that the atmosphere should drive up even to the ether

the germs of fire, from which may arise a glow or burning or darting

resembling a star? Some of these gleams rush headlong like shooting 2

stars, some remain fixed in their place, emitting light sufficient to

dispel darkness and reinstate daylight, until their fuel is used up,

and they gradually grow dimmer, and by and by, just like a flame which

is dying out, are by gradual subsidence reduced to nothingness. Some of

these appear in the clouds, some above them: in such cases the thick 3

air nearer the earth feeds them for a long time, but eventually forces

them right up to the stars. Certain of these last no considerable time:

they straightway dart across the sky, or are extinguished just at their

point of origin. These are called gleams because their appearance is

fitful and short-lived, though their fall is not always unattended by

injury: they have often caused as much damage as lightning. One has

seen houses struck by them, what the Greeks call _astrapoplecta_[32]

(= star-struck). Those that have a longer career and a stronger fire 4

which follows the motion of the heavens, or those that pursue an

orbit of their own, are regarded by the Stoic philosophers as Comets:

of which more anon. Different kinds of these are _pogoniae_ (bearded),

_lampades_ (torches), and _cyparissiae_ (like cypress trees), and all

the rest of them: they have a thin tail of fire. It is doubtful whether

beams (_trabes_) and the rare barrel-meteors (_pithitae_) should be

placed in this category or not. Such meteors require a great mass of 5

fire, since their immense orb sometimes surpasses in size that of the

morning sun.

[32] The term might also mean _struck by lightning_. A commoner

reading gives the meaning: which, when grazed by this means, the

Greeks called plecta (= struck).

Among these should certainly be placed a phenomenon of which we often

read in the chronicles--the heavens appeared to be on fire. The

blaze of it is occasionally so high as to mount to the very stars;

occasionally it is so low as to present the appearance of a distant

fire. In the reign of Tiberius Caesar the fire brigade hurried off 6

to the relief of the colony at Ostia, supposing it to be in flames;

during the greater part of the night there had been a dull glow in

the sky, which appeared to proceed from a thick smoky fire. No one

has any doubt that these burnings in the heavens contain flame as

really as they display it: they have a certain substance in them. As

to those formerly discussed, I mean rainbows and halos, it is a 7

question whether they deceive the sight and consist of an illusion;

or really contain what appears in them. I and those who think with me

cannot convince ourselves that the rainbow and halo have a basis of

any definite material in them. For we judge that in a mirror there is

nothing but a deception: the mirror only pretends to show a foreign

body. What is revealed does not exist _in_ the mirror. Otherwise 8

it would not come out of it, nor would it be forthwith obscured by

another image: nor would innumerable forms now fade from it, now be

received by it. What follows, then? That these are mere phantoms

and the insubstantial imitation of real bodies. Indeed, in certain

instances, people have so arranged mirrors that the objects have been

distorted and degraded in the reflection. For, as I have already said,

there are some mirrors that twist the faces of those who look into

them, some that enormously increase them until they exceed all size and

proportions of these bodies of ours.

XVI

At this point I wish to tell you a little story to show you how 1

unscrupulous lust is in seizing every instrument that will rouse

passion: so resourceful is it in goading to madness its own morbid

fury. There was one Hostius Quadra whose obscenity formed a model for

everything that was lewd on the stage. He was rich and avaricious,

a very slave to his millions. He was eventually murdered by his own

slaves, but the late Emperor Augustus considered his murder undeserving

of punishment, and as good as declared that he had been justly slain.

This man’s lust knew no distinction of sex. Among other things, he 2

had mirrors constructed of the kind just mentioned, that reflected

images of abnormal size, causing, for example, a finger to exceed the

size of an arm in length and thickness. He so arranged his mirrors

that he could see all his accomplices’ movements, and could gloat over

the imagined proportions of his own body. He raised a levy of scamps 3

like himself in all the public baths, where he chose men of the

regulation height; this but whetted his appetite to have his scenes

of riot reproduced in false unnatural proportions. Go to, you that

say the mirror was invented for purposes of adornment! I could not

soil my pen by recording the foul words and deeds of that monster:

he deserved to be torn by his own jaws. To aggravate his guilt,

mirrors faced him on every side that he might be a witness of his own

infamy. Deeds of darkness, which lie heavy on the conscience, the 4

imputation of which ordinary men will indignantly spurn, weighed so

lightly with him that he thrust them before his face, and into his

very eyes. Crimes, in faith, usually dread the sight of themselves.

Even in those lost to shame, and exposed to every insult, the eye is

still delicately susceptible. But that beast thought his unparalleled

wickedness but a trifle; he summoned his eyes to witness it. Aye, not

content with seeing his sin, he surrounded himself with mirrors to

multiply and group his scenes of vice. Even when he could not see 5

directly, he employed the reflecting power of the mirrors to reveal

scenes of revolting and abominable iniquity. The filthy blackguard

left nothing that could be called a deed of _darkness_. He had no 6

dread of the daylight, but complacently applauded himself in all his

bestial vice. Now, don’t you think he would have liked to have his

portrait painted in that attitude? The ministers of public vice draw

the veil of modesty over them in part: in fact, a house of ill-fame is

in some degree shame-faced But that brute had made an exhibition of 7

his obscenity, and presented to his own sight what the darkest night is

not deep enough to hide. I will be out and out bad, was the monster’s

resolve; my eyes must share my lust, they must witness and superintend!

By my art I will defeat nature’s shyness: nobody must imagine that I 8

do not know what I am about! Nature is niggardly to man, she is more

generous to the cattle. I will find means to thwart her, and to indulge

my little weakness. My lust shall go one better than nature. I will

construct a mirrored chamber that will reflect shapes of enormous size.

I only wish I could make the size real; but I must be content with 9

the belief of it. My vice must see more than it can compass, and must

rest content with wonder at its own restraint.

Away with such a fellow! Perchance he met a speedy death even before he

could gloat over the sight. He richly deserved to be offered up as a

victim before his own mirror-idol.

XVII

Go now and laugh at the philosophers for discussing the nature of 1

the mirror and inquiring why our face is reflected in it, and is

turned toward us too. What did nature mean by giving us real bodies

and then ordaining that phantoms of them also should be visible?

What was her purpose in providing material of the sort capable of

receiving and returning images? Not, I trow, that we men might use a 2

looking-glass to pluck out the straggling hairs of our beard and polish

up our face. Nature has never at any point merely provided resources

for luxury. First of all, her motive was to show us the sun with his

glare dulled, since our eyes are too weak to gaze at him direct, and

without something to reflect him we should be wholly ignorant of his

shape. No doubt one may study him as he rises and as he sets. But we 3

should know nothing of his true figure as he shines in fierce noonday

brightness, without his softening ruddy glow, unless an image of him

could be mirrored in some liquid where he shines less directly and

is more easy to observe. In the second place, we should be unable to

see or investigate the conjunction of two heavenly bodies, by which

the daylight is wont to be interrupted, unless we could examine the

reflections of sun and moon in basins on the ground with comparative

freedom. In the third place, mirrors were discovered in order that 4

man might come to know himself.

Many benefits have ensued; first, the knowledge of self, after that,

devices to secure specific results. The comely man was taught to shun

conduct that would degrade him. The uncomely learned that bodily

defects must be compensated by virtue of character. The young man was

reminded by his vigour that youth was the time for learning and for

performing daring deeds of chivalry. The grey-beard was warned to have

respect for his hoary hair and turn his thoughts sometimes to death.

It was for this that even objects in nature have afforded us the 5

opportunity of seeing ourselves.[33] A clear fountain or a smooth stone

gives each back his image. In the poet’s words:

Lately I saw myself on the shore,

When the sea stood calm without a breath of wind.

[33] The meaning may be, In addition, _i.e._ to artificial mirrors,

objects in nature, etc.

What, think you, was the style of life of the people who dressed at a

mirror of this kind? The age was unsophisticated, satisfied with what

supplies chance presented. It did not as yet degrade a boon into a

vice, or turn nature’s invention to purposes of lust and luxury. At

first, chance revealed to each his form. In due time the inherent 6

self-love of mankind endeared the sight of their own figure, and they

came to look more frequently into the mirror held up by nature in which

they had first beheld their image. Later on, when a worse race of men

ransacked the very bowels of the earth for treasure better hid more

deeply, iron first came into use; its production might have caused no

damage had the world produced only that one metal. But then in good 7

earnest were brought to light the other precious banes of earth. Their

smooth surface presented the image of their possessors, who had in view

some quite different purpose. One saw his reflection in a cup, another

in a brass vessel procured for some ordinary use. Presently a round

mirror was constructed specially to render this service: it was not as

yet of polished silver, but of a common brittle ware. [33] The men of

ancient days lived a homely life; they thought themselves smart enough

if they washed off in the stream of the river the dirt contracted in

their work. But even then they bestowed pains on dressing their hair

and combing out their flowing beards. In this part of the toilet each

attended to himself and at the same time helped his neighbour. The 8

thick streaming hair of the men, which it was of old the fashion to

wear, was, of course, combed out by the wives. But sometimes they

thought themselves handsome enough without any such artistic hand, and

they just shook it out for themselves as spirited animals do their

mane. Afterwards, when luxury had now gained sway, embossed mirrors

of gold and silver of full-length size were made, and at last they

were actually adorned with precious stones. One of these has ere now

cost a woman more than the amount of a dowry given in the old days

at the public expense to the penniless daughters of famous generals.

Do you suppose Scipio’s daughters bought mirrors chased with gold 9

from the iron money that their dowry was paid in? Happy the poverty

that gave occasion to earn such a title to glory! The Senate would not

have dowered them if they had been able to afford mirrors. Whoever the

man was to whom the Senate acted the part of father-in-law, he knew

that he had got a wife that was above suspicion. Nowadays the whole

of the dowry that the Roman people gave Scipio would not be enough to

buy a single looking-glass for some of the loose, silly daughters of

our freedmen! Luxury has been gradually developed merely by the 10

possession of wealth, and has now gone to oppressive lengths; therewith

vices have received an immense accession of strength. In short,

everything has got so mixed up through our perverted refinements that

all that used to be regarded as the decoration of women has become

part and parcel of the outfit of man; I am understating, it is now an

essential portion of a soldier’s kit. The mirror was introduced for the

sake of the toilet; nowadays there is no vice to which it is not an

indispensable adjunct.