Dialogues by Seneca (smallest ebook reader .txt) 📕
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Seneca the Younger was a statesman and philosopher who lived in Rome around the dawn of the Common Era. Though he wrote a large amount of tragedies and other works, today he’s perhaps best known for his writing on Stoic philosophy and principles.
Seneca didn’t write books about Stoicism; rather, he composed essays and sent letters over the course of his lifetime that addressed that philosophy. Since these essays and letters are addressed to his friends and contemporaries, they’re written in a conversational style, and thus referred to as his “Dialogues.” Some were written to friends on the death of their loved ones, in an effort to console and comfort them. Others were written to help friends with their personality flaws, like anger. One, “On Clemency,” was addressed to the emperor Nero as an effort to guide him on the path of good statesmanship.
This collection contains all of his dialogues, including the longer “On Benefits.”
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- Author: Seneca
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The conquered princes who were led through Rome in triumphs were as a rule put to death when the procession was over. ↩
The “civic” crown of oak-leaves was bestowed on him who had saved the life of a fellow-citizen in war. It was bestowed upon Augustus, and after him upon the other emperors, as preservers of the State. ↩
A king of Egypt, who sacrificed strangers, and was himself slain by Hercules. ↩
“Three or four wenches where I stood, cried ‘Alas, good soul!’ and forgave him with all their hearts: but there’s no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less.”
—Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2↩
See “On Clemency,” Book II, Chapter 5. ↩
I.e. not vowed to chastity. ↩
That is, he never comes up to his benefactor unless he leaves him behind: he can only make a dead heat of it by getting a start. ↩
Alluding to the practice of gilding the horns of the victims. ↩
The “discharge” alluded to is that which was granted to the beaten one of a pair of gladiators, when their duel was not to the death. ↩
Sinus, the fold of the toga over the breast, used as a pocket by the Romans. The great French actor Talma, when dressed for the first time in correct classical costume, indignantly asked where he was to put his snuffbox. ↩
Nothing is wanted to make a benefit, conferred from good motives, perfect: if it is returned, the gratitude is to be counted as net profit. ↩
See Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities, s.v. ↩
400,000 sesterces. ↩
There is an allusion to the surname of both the father and the son, “Imperiosus,” given them on account of their severity. ↩
See “On Clemency,” Book I, Chapter IX. ↩
Gertz, “Stud. Crit.,” p. 159, note. ↩
Gertz very reasonably conjectures that he shaved his own head which reading would require a very trifling alteration of the text. ↩
See Book IV, Chapter XXXVI. ↩
“The original word is pyx, which means a box made of boxwood.” ↩
I believe, in spite of Gertz, that this is part of the speech of the Roman general, and that the conjecture of Muretus, “without the command of the senate,” gives better sense. ↩
Crassus. ↩
Pompey was married to Caesar’s daughter. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 831, sq., and Lucan’s beautiful verses, Pharsalia, I, 114. ↩
Seneca is careful to avoid the mention of Caesar’s name, which might have given offence to the emperors under whom he lived, who used the name as a title. ↩
The allusion is to Antonius’s connection with Cleopatra. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, VIII, 688. ↩
Xucar. ↩
The Iliad, I, 39 sqq. ↩
Hesiod, Opera et Dies, 291. ↩
See Viollet-le-Duc’s Dictionnaire d’Architecture, articles “Architecture Militaire” and “Hourds,” for the probable meaning of propugnacula. ↩
I read “Non tamquam amicus videt sed tamquam imperator.” ↩
The “nomenclator” was a slave who attended his master in canvassing and on similar occasions, for the purpose of telling him the names of whom he met in the street. ↩
The old saying, “Truth lurks deep in a well (or abyss).” ↩
I.e. in the game of ball. ↩
ColophonDialogues
is compiled from letters and essays written between 40 and 63 AD by
Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
It was translated from Latin between 1887 and 1898 by
Aubrey Stewart.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal,
and is based on transcriptions produced between 2007 and 2011 for
Wikisource,
on transcriptions of footnotes produced in 2016 by
Alex Cabal,
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
The Roman Ruins in Schönbrunn,
a painting completed in 1832 by
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
August 3, 2016, 2:07 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/seneca/dialogues/aubrey-stewart.
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