Philosophical Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Vol. 1

« Among them (the Greeks), » he says in Tusc. I, 2, « geometry was in the highest honor; therefore, nothing was more illustrious than mathematicians. But we have limited the scope of this art to the utility of measuring and calculating. »

Therefore, Aristotle had to act in one way when composing physics for the Greeks, and Seneca in another when writing for the Romans, to whom, consequently, the omission of mathematical proofs cannot in the least be blamed.

But it was by no means foreign to this study of his—especially for his fellow citizens—to prove his points by bringing forward the opinions and the very passages of the authors whose authority, experiments, and testimonies he might use, and by lingering over either proving or refuting them. For it was in this way that he won credibility for his statements among his readers and testified to his doctrine more richly and clearly to everyone, since there is hardly any writer of antiquity worth mentioning who was famous in this discipline, I believe, without Seneca knowing him and drawing him to his side. For he read and presented the inventions of Thales along with the books of his disciples and successors who committed those things to memory—since it is agreed that he himself wrote nothing—as well as the dogmas of the Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, Democritus, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, etc., preserved in books, so skillfully that, although we wish he had left us a richer epitome of them, he still ought to be seen to have satisfied both his own plan and his contemporaries. Regarding the Stoics in particular, no one would doubt who knows that our author was himself a Stoic and also a most acute and learned one, but not so slavishly addicted to this sect that he thought he had to swear by every word of the masters. While he used the studies and observations committed to memory by the other supporters of the Stoa in polishing and explaining this doctrine, he especially and often called to his aid the precepts of later ones, such as Posidonius and others, since he knew that they did not depend solely on the teaching of Heraclitus, in the manner of the authors of the Stoa, but that they had examined with an accurate scale both the dogmas and experiments of others gathered from everywhere, and had observed the nature of things by their own study.

For those earlier ones were still unaware of the commentaries of Aristotle composed with care on this whole doctrine, whence—to mention it in passing, as I do not know whether it has been observed or sufficiently explained by anyone—it seems to have come about that while all philosophers after him constructing systems, and especially the Stoics and Epicureans, are found to be claiming and amending nothing but older dogmas, the former insisted upon and adhered to the footprints of Heraclitus, the latter to those of Democritus. In which matter it is certain they did not labor poorly. Therefore, it is so far from the case that we should recognize a decline in the waning genius of the Greeks in their studies of cultivating philosophy, or excuse it with Tiedemann, that we must rather praise the diligence and sagacity of the ingenuity of those who left off from Aristotle. Wherefore it seems to have happened that the older authors and professors of the Stoa, having mostly followed Heraclitus, appear to have discovered little themselves in physics, although the acumen of Chrysippus stood out more than the rest, as his opinion on motion, on atoms, etc., is mentioned not without honor. But the more recent Stoa had many excellent authors who treated physics and deserved very well of it, especially Posidonius, whose commentaries Seneca often used and made his own. These and others whom he used employed the books of Aristotle, which had been transferred to Rome not long before, after the capture of Athens by Sulla, and made public a short time later by the diligence and study of Tyrannion of Amisus.

Now, indeed, he converted these and other authors on physical matters—who it is agreed were almost all Greeks—to his own use in such a way that, having exposed their opinions and thoughts, he brings his own judgment to bear, with his own observations mixed in, and either refutes or affirms them, either wholly or in part. And he is accustomed to do this with such experience and modesty that he seems not only to assume the role of a learned man, but in truth to show himself and commend himself as a learned and humane person. This, if in any place of philosophy, in this one certainly, which is about the nature of things, it was fitting for anyone dedicated to this inquiry to observe and exercise the more, the more thorny and uncertain the questions were that were thrown at students of this doctrine—especially in that time, which was destitute of our instruments and aids—which prohibit all boldness and rashness in solving them. But above all, one must admire the acumen and learning of Seneca, as well as his modesty, both in very many other places of the Questions and especially in Book VII, which is about Comets, where his excellence of judgment will prove itself to everyone. Therefore, it is no wonder that the Natural Questions of Seneca are found to have been read and transcribed with such zeal throughout almost all the centuries of our era.

In which, however, in the ardor of celebrating them, a not insignificant source of the errors with which both the manuscript codices and the older editions of the Natural Questions abound is to be sought: forasmuch as interpolations of various kinds, dittographies, glosses, etc., first written in the margin and then inserted into the text by scribes, have defiled the Natural Questions more than can be said. Nor would we have the opportunity to treat them so corrected now, if excellent men of earlier times, most outstanding in both genius and critical virtue, and in learning, diligence, and assiduity, had not repeatedly directed all their efforts so that, by collating codices and judging readings, they might detect the interpolations of scribes and others, and free the text, as we call it, from errors. Among these, Matthæus Fortunatus the Pannonian (entirely omitted by Jöcher) stands out, who best assisted Aldus in correcting these books of Natural Questions at Venice in the year 1522, in quarto, as do Ferdinand Pincianus, M. Ant. Muretus, Janus Gruterus, and Joh. Fred. Gronovius: for Justus Lipsius, with age and illness weighing upon him, having completed the first chapter of the first book, was forced to desist from his work, which up to that point he had dedicated with the greatest honor to the promotion of good letters. Nevertheless, his begun edition of the Questions was continued and brought to an end by Libertus Fromondus, professor of philosophy at the University of Louvain (d. 1653), an excellent man who properly joined the study and knowledge of antiquity with philosophy and mathematics, and dared more than once to depart from the teachers of physics of the Peripatetics of his time, and indeed in the first place. Now, indeed, the merits of these men, greater than my praise, regarding Seneca’s Natural Questions are outstanding, whether you look at the critical part or the exegetical. But that they cultivated the former more than the latter, if you except Lib. Fromondus...