SELECTED PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS

1 CLARENDON LATER ANCIENTPHILOSOPHERSS eries editors: Jonathan Barnes, Universit e de Paris IV Sorbonneand A. A. Long, University of California, BerkeleySENECASELECTED PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERSS eneca s LETTERS to Lucilius are a rich source of information aboutancient Stoicism, an influential work for early modern philosophers, anda fascinating PHILOSOPHICAL document in their own right. This selectionof the LETTERS aims to include those which are of greatest philosophicalinterest, especially those which highlight the debates between Stoicsand Platonists or Aristotelians in the first century AD, and the issue,still important today, of how technical PHILOSOPHICAL enquiry is relatedto the various purposes for which philosophy is practised.

2 In additionto examining the PHILOSOPHICAL content of each letter, Brad Inwood scommentary discusses the literary and historical background of the lettersand to their relationship with other prose works by is the earliest Stoic author for whom we have access to a largenumber of complete works, and these works were highly influential inlater centuries. He was also a politically influential advisor to the Romanemperor Nero and a celebrated author of prose and verse. His philosophicalacuity and independence of mind make his works exciting and challengingfor the modern Inwoodis Professor of Classics and Philosophy at the Universityof IN THE SERIESA lcinous:The Handbook of PlatonismJohn DillonEpictetus:Discourses, Book Robert DobbinGalen:On the Therapeutic Method, Books I and IIR.

3 J. HankinsonPorphyry:IntroductionJonathan BarnesSeneca: SELECTED PHILOSOPHICAL LettersBrad InwoodSextus Empiricus:Against the EthicistsRichard BettSextus Empiricus:Against the GrammariansDavid BlankSENECASELECTED PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERST ranslated with anIntroduction and Commentary byBRAD INWOOD11 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford Oxford University Press is a department of the University of furthers the University s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong KarachiKuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City NairobiNew Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France GreeceGuatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal SingaporeSouth Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Pressin the UK and in certain other countriesPublished in the United Statesby Oxford University Press Inc.

4 , New York Brad Inwood The moral rights of the author have been assertedDatabase right Oxford University Press (maker)First published First published in paperback All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriatereprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproductionoutside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or coverand you must impose the same condition on any acquirerBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication DataData availableLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataData availableTypeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, IndiaPrinted in Great Britainon acid-free paper byCPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, WiltshireISBN (hbk) (pbk)

5 For my parentsPREFACEIn the course of my work on this book I have incurred more debts than I canfully recall, let alone acknowledge here. It is a genuine pleasure to thank,first and foremost, the Centre forAdvanced Study in the BehaviouralSciences for their support during a sabbatical leave in . Withoutthe respite and stimulus provided by that unique institution this bookwould never have been completed. I am also very grateful to the CanadaResearch Chair program of the Canadian government and to my friendsand colleagues at the University of Toronto for invaluable and unstintingsupport. I owe a great deal to the generous and careful work of my researchassistants in the Department of Classics, Vicki Ciocani and Emily initial work on Seneca s LETTERS wasencouraged by an invitation fromthe ancient philosophy group at Cambridge University to a workshop onSeneca s LETTERS in May.

6 The discussion at that workshop contributeda great deal to several of the commentaries in this book. Later, studentsin two of my graduate seminars (in and ) at the Universityof Toronto served as willing guinea pigs and ingenious collaborators. Akeen group of graduate students at New York University provided helpfulfeedback on several LETTERS during a series of visits in ; I am gratefulto Phillip Mitsis for the invitation to NYU and for his encouragement andadvice on Seneca over many years. Tony Long has been both supportiveof and patient about this project for a very long time. His acute commentsand those of his fellow series editor Jonathan Barnes have improved thecommentary and translation at many points; no doubt I should have takentheir advice more consistently.

7 David Sedley s work on the relationshipbetween Stoic physics and ethics in Seneca s work (especially in hisarticle Stoic Metaphysics at Rome , Sedley ) has been a valuablesource of stimulus. The need to respond to John Cooper s challengingdiscussion Moral Theory and Moral Improvement: Seneca (Cooper ) provoked many fruitful lines of enquiry. The ancient philosophygroup at the University of Chicago has done a great deal for the studyof Seneca during the time when this book was under construction (notleast by organizing a key conference in April ) and their confidence inthe value of Senecan studies in a contemporary PHILOSOPHICAL setting hasfostered a great deal of work by many people from which I have been ableto Some commentaries have benefitted from work on papers originallywritten for oral presentation and since published separately.

8 The com-mentary on Letter is intimately connected to a paper given at theUniversities of Buffalo, British Columbia, and Alberta, Reason, Ration-alization and Happiness ; it now appears as chapter ofReading Seneca(Inwood ). The commentary on Letter began as a sketch for Getting to Goodness , delivered to the Princeton Ancient PhilosophyColloquium and at the University of Pittsburgh and now published aschapter ofReading Seneca. The commentary on Letter has beenenriched by discussion of an unpublished paper presented at CornellUniversity, the University of Arizona, and UC Santa owe a particularly concrete debt of gratitude to Margaret Graver, whosubjected the penultimate draft of my translation to an exacting influence has saved me from many errors and infelicities and I haveoften accepted her suggestions for better wording; the remaining blundersare my own fault.

9 Margaret also read an early version of the commentarieswith a critical eye; her comments and suggestions have improved mycomment on almost every is no mere clich e to say that without the encouragement, advice, andloving support of my wife, Niko Scharer, I would not have been able towrite this book. An even older debt is owed to my parents, Marg and BillInwood. For many decades they have provided a wonderful education,both moral and intellectual. My brothers and I had the privilege of growingup in a household where critical enquiry, teaching, intellectual challenge,and a passion for fairness were in the fabric of daily life.

10 It has taken mea long time to see how precious a gift our parents gave us. Humbly, Idedicate this book to and ConventionsxxvTRANSLATIONS1 Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter COMMENTARY105 Group ( LETTERS , , ) Letter Letter Letter x Group ( LETTERS and ) Letter Letter Group ( LETTERS and ) Letter Letter Group ( LETTERS , and ) Letter Letter Letter Group ( LETTERS ) Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Letter Bibliography Index Locorum General Index INTRODUCTIONS eneca s Life and WorksLucius Annaeus Seneca, better known as Seneca the Younger, was acomplex figure.