Philosophical Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Vol. 4

evils happen? This would be rendered more conveniently in the context of the work, since we were proving that Providence presides over all things.

1. Why it is, if Providence... evils happen. That this complaint is both most ancient and perpetual, from Homer and Job down to our own times, is agreed upon by all. Led into grave error by this observation, the heathens, who lacked a sufficiently firm notion of another life, either denied the gods entirely (as in these Anapaests about Jupiter the thunderer, Aristoph. Clouds, Act I, sc. IV: "And how, you fool, and smelling of Cronus, and moon-child, if he strikes the perjured, why did he not burn Simon, nor Cleonymus, nor Theorus? And yet they are very much perjured"), or they imagined the gods to be, if not entirely ignorant of human affairs, at least indifferent, as Lucretius sings, De Rer. Nat. lib. I, vs. 57, ff.:

"For the nature of the gods by itself must necessarily
Enjoy an immortal life in supreme peace,
Far removed and separated from our affairs:
For, devoid of all pain, devoid of dangers,
Strong in its own resources, needing nothing of ours,
It is neither won by good deeds, nor touched by anger."

Upon this rests the defense of injustice, instituted by Glaucon in Plato, Rep. II, p. 209, ff. Bip. T. VI. By this [defense] is the most celebrated passage of Claudian, the beginning of which is: "Often the judgment has drawn my mind into doubt, Whether the Gods cared for the earth, etc." (in Rufin. lib. I, vss. 1, 2, ff.). These are better known than what it would be worth the effort to append here. But these things of a certain ancient author in Plutarch's book, "On the Opinions of the Philosophers," will be read with pleasure: "How then, if God exists, and by his care human affairs are managed, does the base man prosper, while the noble one suffers the opposite? For Agamemnon, both a good king and a strong warrior, was defeated by an adulterer and an adulteress; he was murdered; and his kinsman Heracles, having cleared human life of many of those who infest it, was poisoned by Deianira and murdered." Soon, most vividly and elegantly, accusing Jupiter and Providence: "Shall I not ask this, both of you and of Providence, and of Fate? Why, pray, did Phocion the good man die in such poverty and lack of necessities, and Aristides before him? While Callias and Alcibiades, those wanton youths, were exceedingly rich, and Meidias the insolent, and Charops of Aegina, an effeminate man, killed his mother in a famine? And again, Socrates was handed over to the Eleven, but Meletus was not handed over. And Sardanapalus ruled, being a womanly man, while so many good and noble men of the Persians were impaled by him... Not to mention to you even present things, going through one by one the wicked prospering and the greedy, while the good are dragged and carried away, pressed by poverty and diseases and myriad evils."

2. In the context of the work. They will not be rendered. It seems, therefore, that Annaeus wrote this specific and singular book about one of those questions which can arise in multiple ways concerning Providence; nor does he indeed explicitly hint that an entire work has been written by him, or is to be written, about which these things are discussed, unless the text is corrupted, as Pincianus attempted (see note 1, p. 7): Therefore, it does not please me that this is a fragment (μόριον, ἀποσπασμάτιον) of a larger book, as many have determined: they were able to suspect it with their own right, [but] they decided it with rashness. I do not deny, however, that something of the sort was composed by Seneca, indeed I admit that in Lactantius frequently, and in Seneca's own letters, mention of an Annaean work on Providence is made.