Seneca's Moral Epistles Vol. 3 (Letters 93-124)

received. He has set up the pattern of a good man, showing the quality and the greatness of a good man. If he had added anything, it would have been similar to what had passed.

9 And yet, how long do we live? We have enjoyed the knowledge of all things. We know from what beginnings original: "principiis" Nature rises, how she orders the world, through what changes she recalls the year, how she has enclosed all things that ever were, and has made herself the end of her own being. We know that the stars move by their own impulse, that nothing stands still except the earth, and that all other things speed on with continuous velocity. We know how the moon passes the sun, why it leaves the swifter behind, how it receives or loses its light, what cause brings on the night, and what brings back the day. You must go there, where you may view these things more closely.

10 "I do not," says that wise man, "go forth more bravely because of this hope, because I judge that the path is open to me to my gods. I have indeed earned admission, and I have already been among them, and I have sent my soul to them, and they had sent theirs to me. But suppose I am taken from the midst, and after death nothing of man remains; I have an equally great spirit, even if I depart, heading nowhere."

11 "He did not live as many years as he could have." A book of few verses is still a book, and indeed one to be praised and found useful; you know how ponderous the annals of Tanusius are, and what they are called. Tanusius Geminus wrote bulky, poorly regarded historical annals.